I like what I get at Starbucks where I am. I've tried multiple locations, they differ from each other plenty, I hated some places (Buffalo NY for example had a very bad one), the three that I visit in Toronto are great.
For the masses that don't care to opt-out, they don't care
- possibly you are correct. It is also possible that you are wrong and that most people don't understand what is being done to them. They may not understand that it is even possible for a company, which is only supposed to provide them with a service for a fee, can also make more money on creating a nuisance for the customer by selling customers' private information that will be used for unsolicited advertisement.
If Verizon actually expected most customers to be able to understand what was offered, they would explain it plainly in bold and would make it an opt IN, not an opt out.
Clearly, what Verizon is doing is not ethical at the least.
I don't like ads. I don't watch ads, I don't watch anything with ads. I can honestly say that I don't see any ads when I watch programming that I chose to watch. I like it this way much better and I don't have to pay more.
Re:You Got Your Blinders On
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 1
The problem here is that we are the technical elete
- but we are definitely not the grammatical elite, if you know what I mean.
I've never tried British system, but I have tried Soviet, Canadian, US and German systems. I really wish I could get German system here, in Canada, because our national system is broken to hell and I have to pay cash in the States to do things that I cannot do in reasonable time or at all here.
Not in one country with national health care would the citizens want to go to a U.S. style system.
- I can't say about other nations, but here, in Canada, I really wish I had a choice to be in private system rather than being subjected to the humiliation of not getting the care/treatment I need from the public system that has no competition inside the country. Thus I pay to the US clinics, I cross the border and pay cash to get immediate care. I fly to other countries to do it, not only to US.
No, I don't want US insurance/care system, I want German style system, where there mix of both private/public provides much better results than what Canada or US has.
Unfortunately for the US what they have is not democracy + capitalism.
Democracy can only work well if the elected officials continued to work in the best interest of the public that they are supposedly representing. However politicians are the most important target of large corporations who want to control the government process.
From point of view of capitalism, everything should be done that makes the capital growth better, more efficient, everything should be done that will make more money. This includes attempting to control the political process. In a democracy that does not implement safeguards against subversion of itself by these corporate interests rise of fascism is inevitable.
The problem is that the current democratic process is insufficient to prevent corporate control of the government. While in a dictatorship there would be no problem, the dictator does not wish to share power (One Ring to Rule Them All), in a democracy without proper safeguards the power will be shared with corporations in the worst ways possible, as long as the politicians can get away with it.
I am a firm believer in democracy and capitalism, a libertarian actually, but I believe that the democracy of today is insufficient to fight onset of fascism through corporate control, which buys its way into the political system and cannot be stopped without a revolt.
The current economic crisis is firmly connected to this problem of corporate power over democratic politics. The creation of the US Federal Reserve itself is the problem, but it was profitable for large oil companies and banks to allow cheap money to be borrowed, money to be printed, money to be disconnected from any standard (such as the gold standard). Government fixing 'interest rates', having preferential treatment of corporations, buying/selling bonds, setting taxes and distributing wealth (to corporations as now or as before through contracts), 'insuring' credit (removing moral hazard), starting wars... all of the above and much much more than that - this is where the economic crisis originates.
This is not a failure of capitalism, this is not the failure of government regulation, this is too much government that is too controlled by its real owners - corporations, not working for the people but really working for a very select group of people with real money.
I believe that it is fascism now, not democracy + capitalism. Is the hold of fascism too strong now? Maybe it is, maybe it can only be removed by force. On the other hand we'll see. The balance is no longer there, it is too shifted to one side and probably a total economic collapse is not really a bad thing anymore. Given that people are not really interested in taking the power away by force (people are too comfortable, to scared for their lives/lifestyles, are not desperate enough) maybe the economic crisis will have a similar effect that a revolt could have? I wonder.
what are those other things that are coming out of Iran nowadays (you do realize, TODAY?) What, that satellite? Isn't that related to nukes somehow and WMDs? Iran USED to be an oasis of ideas and science about a thousand years ago, today it's all about oil, stoning women who were raped, nukes, killing jews and whatnot. So go into your corner and cry me a river. These are the best news from Iran yet.
what we are seeing here, my friends, is the government gone wild. Government with its federal reserve pushing interest rates down, printing money, selling/buying bonds, doing bidding of the largest corporate sponsors, that's what we are seeing here.
Capitalism gone wild causes middle class to appear. Government gone wild causes everyone to be poor.
There ain't no such thing as good regulation. What's good for one is bad for another, however I mentioned earlier the real cause of this economic destruction is government that meddles with economy. Government printing money, fixing interest rates, selling/buying bonds, setting fractional reserve minimums... Government is creating the problem - setting interest rates low, printing money, and then government is blaming the companies, who attempt to take advantage of these things as they should to make profit.
If the government did not set low interest rates there would be no crazy schemes cooked up by banks to sell crazy mortgages at crazy low rates. The credit bubble is created by the government and by its regulation and you are honestly expecting government to do some magic 'good regulations' and that would fix it all?
Unstable currency is what is created by the government that does not use correct currency equivalent (does not back up its fiat currency by any standard, such as gold.) Government takes private money and in return creates federal reserve to push interest rates down - that's all that government is good for - whore itself out to the highest bidder.
Deregulation is fine if you are willing to accept a very unstable economy.
- except that it is not the reason for an unstable economy.
The economy that is unstable is due to regulation that works against the people, who vote or that tricks the people who vote to vote in a way that is detrimental to them.
Example to this is the cycles of creation/abolishment of a Federal Reserve, which is given powers to control private banks, to set interest rates, to print cash, to remove equivalence standards behind cash (such as gold standard), to dictate what is the acceptable rate of fractional reserve banking.
The real problem with economy is that it is controlled by the government in ways, that make it profitable to private money to attempt and rig the game. They do rig the game by giving cash/favours to the politicians. If a politician receives cash from a private interest then he will rather represent that interest, not the public he is elected to represent.
That's the real root of the evil - government consisting of people who are fallible. Government that meddles in the businesses, in economy is worse for the stability of economy than the government that does not get itself into economic regulations.
Government must not be allowed to print money, it should not be allowed to set interest rates, it should not be allowed to sell/buy bonds, it should not be allowed to show preference to any business. How can such government exist? Should corruption be punishable by death? I believe that, of-course this opens doors to other problems: what if accusations are false, people are framed etc. etc.? Government should not consist of professional politicians, government should not consist of uneducated, of stupid, it should not consist of academics. But who the hell should government consist of? Obviously a benevolent dictator sounds good, but what looks like 'benevolent' to some will look like 'despotic' to others.
I believe that government is the problem that can be solved correctly by market forces. There must be competition for government. In theory that's what parties are supposed to do, but this does not seem to work well in practice.
Maybe there should be multiple competing governments simultaneously: more than one 'White House', more than one 'CIA', etc. competing. Who would ensure that they do not conspire and cooperate creating an illegal monopoly? Even if they don't, is it possible to have 3 presidents at the same time with different regulations?
Wouldn't it be better to make people chose their government and have multiple different government running at the same time and laws of a government would apply to people who chose to be ruled by it. Let's say there is blue government, green government, red government, yellow government, black government, brown government, purple government, white government etc. (no, you fucking racists, it's not color of skin I am talking about, it's just nomenclature). So you have to be with the 'blue' if you don't want laws of 'red' to apply to you.
Sounds sort of like gangs, doesn't it? But wouldn't it be a better democracy with more competition. Especially if people were allowed to switch from one government to another in elections time? How would such thing could possibly exist? Would they have their own border lines? States then? Would there have to be a body of government that would get these separated governments to work together coherently? The federation?
I don't know, I don't like any of it, it stinks to hell. One thing is certain though - the government is getting larger and larger and larger and is printing more and more money and is giving out contracts to preferred people and is raising taxes.
One thing should still be possible - remove all government and reset the system for a while. Thus you must be armed and you must be ready to do it too, not just talk about it. When the government stops being your government, whose government is it then? It's not helpin
Please explain to me how capitalism (using capital to make things and to sell things) actually creates poor as opposed to pushing up everyone's standard of living due to improving efficiency in order to gain a better profit margin?
no, the real problem is that an average American has in fact become nothing else but a consumer. That's the problem, and it causes all kinds of other issues, like a believe that the government can somehow magically fix anything, especially economy.
I know, the rare skill-sets better include working for about half a price.
Now that was sarcasm, the following sentence is not:
bank clerks learn their job at work, the skills required are math, patience, ability to pay attention to detail, pedantry.
Other skills are harder to get, but I believe they are sort of American in their nature: ability to come up with schemes to make it seems as if good business is taking place while in reality Enronesque money laundering is inflating the credit bubble. Yeah, those people who can do that are worth their weight in gold. The rest of the jobs are trained in the place of work.
Certainly we know that fewer Americans today are proficient in math than before, but there bound still to be some that can be hired and I am sure it's more than 85000 work visas that are allowed by the gov't in a year.
Slashdot Mirror
But it's not the case, from my experiences. Some people are better than others.
I like what I get at Starbucks where I am. I've tried multiple locations, they differ from each other plenty, I hated some places (Buffalo NY for example had a very bad one), the three that I visit in Toronto are great.
I like Starbucks, spent about $650 last year there, I would like it to continue.
For the masses that don't care to opt-out, they don't care
- possibly you are correct. It is also possible that you are wrong and that most people don't understand what is being done to them. They may not understand that it is even possible for a company, which is only supposed to provide them with a service for a fee, can also make more money on creating a nuisance for the customer by selling customers' private information that will be used for unsolicited advertisement.
If Verizon actually expected most customers to be able to understand what was offered, they would explain it plainly in bold and would make it an opt IN, not an opt out.
Clearly, what Verizon is doing is not ethical at the least.
I don't like ads. I don't watch ads, I don't watch anything with ads. I can honestly say that I don't see any ads when I watch programming that I chose to watch. I like it this way much better and I don't have to pay more.
The problem here is that we are the technical elete
- but we are definitely not the grammatical elite, if you know what I mean.
and I declare Illinois a corn field.
the same time you throw your politicians who sold you out to corporations to jail or shoot them and make them pay for the bullets.
I've never tried British system, but I have tried Soviet, Canadian, US and German systems. I really wish I could get German system here, in Canada, because our national system is broken to hell and I have to pay cash in the States to do things that I cannot do in reasonable time or at all here.
Not in one country with national health care would the citizens want to go to a U.S. style system.
- I can't say about other nations, but here, in Canada, I really wish I had a choice to be in private system rather than being subjected to the humiliation of not getting the care/treatment I need from the public system that has no competition inside the country. Thus I pay to the US clinics, I cross the border and pay cash to get immediate care. I fly to other countries to do it, not only to US.
No, I don't want US insurance/care system, I want German style system, where there mix of both private/public provides much better results than what Canada or US has.
Unfortunately for the US what they have is not democracy + capitalism.
Democracy can only work well if the elected officials continued to work in the best interest of the public that they are supposedly representing. However politicians are the most important target of large corporations who want to control the government process.
From point of view of capitalism, everything should be done that makes the capital growth better, more efficient, everything should be done that will make more money. This includes attempting to control the political process. In a democracy that does not implement safeguards against subversion of itself by these corporate interests rise of fascism is inevitable.
The problem is that the current democratic process is insufficient to prevent corporate control of the government. While in a dictatorship there would be no problem, the dictator does not wish to share power (One Ring to Rule Them All), in a democracy without proper safeguards the power will be shared with corporations in the worst ways possible, as long as the politicians can get away with it.
I am a firm believer in democracy and capitalism, a libertarian actually, but I believe that the democracy of today is insufficient to fight onset of fascism through corporate control, which buys its way into the political system and cannot be stopped without a revolt.
The current economic crisis is firmly connected to this problem of corporate power over democratic politics. The creation of the US Federal Reserve itself is the problem, but it was profitable for large oil companies and banks to allow cheap money to be borrowed, money to be printed, money to be disconnected from any standard (such as the gold standard). Government fixing 'interest rates', having preferential treatment of corporations, buying/selling bonds, setting taxes and distributing wealth (to corporations as now or as before through contracts), 'insuring' credit (removing moral hazard), starting wars... all of the above and much much more than that - this is where the economic crisis originates.
This is not a failure of capitalism, this is not the failure of government regulation, this is too much government that is too controlled by its real owners - corporations, not working for the people but really working for a very select group of people with real money.
I believe that it is fascism now, not democracy + capitalism. Is the hold of fascism too strong now? Maybe it is, maybe it can only be removed by force. On the other hand we'll see. The balance is no longer there, it is too shifted to one side and probably a total economic collapse is not really a bad thing anymore. Given that people are not really interested in taking the power away by force (people are too comfortable, to scared for their lives/lifestyles, are not desperate enough) maybe the economic crisis will have a similar effect that a revolt could have? I wonder.
what are those other things that are coming out of Iran nowadays (you do realize, TODAY?) What, that satellite? Isn't that related to nukes somehow and WMDs? Iran USED to be an oasis of ideas and science about a thousand years ago, today it's all about oil, stoning women who were raped, nukes, killing jews and whatnot. So go into your corner and cry me a river. These are the best news from Iran yet.
just another retarded idiot who can't read. Nowadays = today or close to today, not 'ever'.
The worlds smallest washing machine should be able to wash worlds smallest g-string.
You are a fucking retard with no understanding of what you are reading.
Nowadays != Never
Suck a duck.
Nice to see at least something coming out of that region of the world nowadays that has no relation to terrorists or nukes.
As for the actual story: this can be used to build the world's smallest washing machine.
what we are seeing here, my friends, is the government gone wild. Government with its federal reserve pushing interest rates down, printing money, selling/buying bonds, doing bidding of the largest corporate sponsors, that's what we are seeing here.
Capitalism gone wild causes middle class to appear. Government gone wild causes everyone to be poor.
There ain't no such thing as good regulation. What's good for one is bad for another, however I mentioned earlier the real cause of this economic destruction is government that meddles with economy. Government printing money, fixing interest rates, selling/buying bonds, setting fractional reserve minimums... Government is creating the problem - setting interest rates low, printing money, and then government is blaming the companies, who attempt to take advantage of these things as they should to make profit.
If the government did not set low interest rates there would be no crazy schemes cooked up by banks to sell crazy mortgages at crazy low rates. The credit bubble is created by the government and by its regulation and you are honestly expecting government to do some magic 'good regulations' and that would fix it all?
Unstable currency is what is created by the government that does not use correct currency equivalent (does not back up its fiat currency by any standard, such as gold.) Government takes private money and in return creates federal reserve to push interest rates down - that's all that government is good for - whore itself out to the highest bidder.
Deregulation is fine if you are willing to accept a very unstable economy.
- except that it is not the reason for an unstable economy.
The economy that is unstable is due to regulation that works against the people, who vote or that tricks the people who vote to vote in a way that is detrimental to them.
Example to this is the cycles of creation/abolishment of a Federal Reserve, which is given powers to control private banks, to set interest rates, to print cash, to remove equivalence standards behind cash (such as gold standard), to dictate what is the acceptable rate of fractional reserve banking.
The real problem with economy is that it is controlled by the government in ways, that make it profitable to private money to attempt and rig the game. They do rig the game by giving cash/favours to the politicians. If a politician receives cash from a private interest then he will rather represent that interest, not the public he is elected to represent.
That's the real root of the evil - government consisting of people who are fallible. Government that meddles in the businesses, in economy is worse for the stability of economy than the government that does not get itself into economic regulations.
Government must not be allowed to print money, it should not be allowed to set interest rates, it should not be allowed to sell/buy bonds, it should not be allowed to show preference to any business. How can such government exist? Should corruption be punishable by death? I believe that, of-course this opens doors to other problems: what if accusations are false, people are framed etc. etc.? Government should not consist of professional politicians, government should not consist of uneducated, of stupid, it should not consist of academics. But who the hell should government consist of? Obviously a benevolent dictator sounds good, but what looks like 'benevolent' to some will look like 'despotic' to others.
I believe that government is the problem that can be solved correctly by market forces. There must be competition for government. In theory that's what parties are supposed to do, but this does not seem to work well in practice.
Maybe there should be multiple competing governments simultaneously: more than one 'White House', more than one 'CIA', etc. competing. Who would ensure that they do not conspire and cooperate creating an illegal monopoly? Even if they don't, is it possible to have 3 presidents at the same time with different regulations?
Wouldn't it be better to make people chose their government and have multiple different government running at the same time and laws of a government would apply to people who chose to be ruled by it. Let's say there is blue government, green government, red government, yellow government, black government, brown government, purple government, white government etc. (no, you fucking racists, it's not color of skin I am talking about, it's just nomenclature). So you have to be with the 'blue' if you don't want laws of 'red' to apply to you.
Sounds sort of like gangs, doesn't it? But wouldn't it be a better democracy with more competition. Especially if people were allowed to switch from one government to another in elections time? How would such thing could possibly exist? Would they have their own border lines? States then? Would there have to be a body of government that would get these separated governments to work together coherently? The federation?
I don't know, I don't like any of it, it stinks to hell. One thing is certain though - the government is getting larger and larger and larger and is printing more and more money and is giving out contracts to preferred people and is raising taxes.
One thing should still be possible - remove all government and reset the system for a while. Thus you must be armed and you must be ready to do it too, not just talk about it. When the government stops being your government, whose government is it then? It's not helpin
Please explain to me how capitalism (using capital to make things and to sell things) actually creates poor as opposed to pushing up everyone's standard of living due to improving efficiency in order to gain a better profit margin?
You mean as opposed to the Americans who wouldn't do just about anything for a buck including invading other countries, murder and torture?
But the Russians or Ukrainians would probably not refuse as long as the money is right.
I can't tell if that's binary or decimal or what.
- there is an FF extension for that ;]
no, the real problem is that an average American has in fact become nothing else but a consumer. That's the problem, and it causes all kinds of other issues, like a believe that the government can somehow magically fix anything, especially economy.
I know, the rare skill-sets better include working for about half a price.
Now that was sarcasm, the following sentence is not:
bank clerks learn their job at work, the skills required are math, patience, ability to pay attention to detail, pedantry.
Other skills are harder to get, but I believe they are sort of American in their nature: ability to come up with schemes to make it seems as if good business is taking place while in reality Enronesque money laundering is inflating the credit bubble. Yeah, those people who can do that are worth their weight in gold. The rest of the jobs are trained in the place of work.
Certainly we know that fewer Americans today are proficient in math than before, but there bound still to be some that can be hired and I am sure it's more than 85000 work visas that are allowed by the gov't in a year.