Fascism was generally capitalist, in a Corporatist sort of way. Capital was still owned by individuals, not the state, even if the state did direct its use to a large degree. The system the west uses is a capitalist free market with state regulation but not oversight. Much the best, in my opinion.
Any form of transportation that CAN move people and things from A to B should do so with optimal speed and cost. Or if you like it better that way - it saves time. Time is money.
But time is not arbitrarily valuable. Say it took $100 billion dollars to upgrade the Acela express to TGV standard (basically the European definition of what high speed is) and the Acela takes a billion passenger journeys a year. Doing this upgrade may shave half an hour or less from the journey time. So you'd be spending $30billion (capital cost annualised, a la Douglas, Conceptual Design of Chemical Processes, 1988) to save 500 million hours a year; a valuation of $600 per hour. How many people have time that valuable? Would this really be a good allocation of capital use in society?
I know those numbers are bullshit, and the capital cost is a little high (High Speed One cost £5.2bn, but was mostly rural and shorter), as are the annual journeys, I reckon. On balance I over-estimated the cost-per-time, but I'm just trying to illustrate the decisions that have to be made in the west regarding whether something is a valid use of capital.
If the cost per passenger hour comes out at $6 an hour it might be worth doing, but it would be hard to capture a bigger market (it's already faster than its competitors and how many people sit there and say "Two and a half hours to New York? That's far too long! Now, it it were two hours...")
Yeah, but you still missed the point. It's not how absolutely fast you go, it's whether you go fast enough. When you take into account anti-terrorism paranoia time, transfer time and flight time, the train is the fastest route. It doesn't *need* to be any faster.
Regarding the quote marks; you could have been a socialist. I didn't know which bit was sarcastic, I thought it was the 'evil'. There was evidence; you were advocating building what you think people need instead of what they want.
I have to say, I've just caught the train from Torquay to Reading with the legendary WorstGroup* and I would never take the car again. The train was smooth, comfortable, spacious and faster.
*"Employment for Scotland, Pain for Everyone Else" (TM)
It is kinda scary to think that while "Oh_so_EVIL_communist_China" builds an express line between its capitol and its financial center, US is building what is essentially a carnival ride between the Pleasure Island [wikipedia.org] and Sin City.
Firstly, China hasn't been communist for a while. It's closest now to Italian Fascism out of anything, only with a bit more competition.
Secondly, Acela Express. It might not be as shiny as a 380kmph white elephant, but it was cheaper to build and it functions well enough (in that it beats flying).
Because in the US one cannot destroy the environment, move cities, take people's homes without compensation and suppress any dissent with jail terms as can and has been done in China.
In addition, these things would be expected to be done privately, States-side, which will only happen if the investors think there's money in it. Which there may or may not be. Consider the lack of high-speed rail in the UK. It would be used, there would be demand, but land costs and other capital prove suffocating.
High speed rail generally has massive state subsidy. This is fine, if a society decides it's worth investing in for one reason or another. But it's not a panacea for society's ills, and one has to look at the costs in land and infrastructure maintenance compared to air travel, just as one has to consider carbon advantages for trains.
Er. Why is it ok for industrial zones to be wiped out? Remember what happened to petrol prices after Katrina? Not to mention billions of dollars of investment wiped off the map; what makes you think any sensible business would invest in those zones if they were deemed unfit for people?
OK, so we get to blow people up in the name of "democracy," but once somebody tries to hold us to democratic standards, we get to fall back and say "Oh, we don't really vote?" How convenient!
I don't understand your point. I never said that the Bush administration wasn't hypocritical or miusguided, I was merely pointing out that it is unfair to blame the average American. Which means the government can go on moronic crusades in the name of democracy and still face massive disapproval at home. There's not much the average citizen can do. One in sixty Brits turned up *in person* in central London to try and stop the invasion of Iraq but it still went ahead. This is why voter turnout is so poor; people know that their elected representatives, when push comes to shove, will obey the whips, not their constituents (your third point). Its a flawed system, it's just still better than the alternatives.
If the rotten boroughs are really such a big deal, why haven't they been fixed yet?
There are Boundary Commissions, but the problem is that it's not been politically possible to do much since Maggie got in, because in her term Liverpool and the North-west were almost in open revolt; try removing constituencies then. The Labour party are quite happy as it gives them a boost, so nothing has moved since 1997. Actually, the Boundaries may change in the next couple of years (first time since 1997 in England) and solve the problem, as happened just before 2005 in Scotland (where many constituencies were merged). But they have traditionally had an interesting definition of "fair" whereby proximity to parliament makes you less worthy of representation.
Heh. You can't be from an anglophone country if you think we vote for our government. For example, in Britain more people didn't vote than voted for Tony Blair's 'new' Labour in 2005.[1] That in itself is a farce before you look into allegations of postal vote fraud and more fundamental issues, like the fact that a northerner (typically left-Labour) is worth 1.5 southerners (often right-Tory or centre-Lib Dem) in parliament or that the Scots can vote for unpopular policies knowing they can kick them out at Holyrood [2]
Even regarding the hated Dubya in 2004, electorate turnout was 60.7% and he won just over 50% of the popular vote in 2004[3]. This means that only 1/3 Americans *eligible to vote* voted for Dubya. The actual figure will be lower due to people not registered to vote, excluded due to being a felon or criminally young.
Not only for the reasons you think. America used the second world war to turn Britain at least into a client state (see Andrew Marr's excellent History of Modern Britain for the US' less-than-noble immediate* post-war behaviour).
Finnish is not an Indo-European language, which makes it a bit more distinct (considering that all of the languages from the Gaeltachtai of Donegal through to Bangladesh are Indo-European, except Arabic, Turkish and Hungarian).
Actually, behind this joke there is a serious point. Europe is shockingly anti-American at the moment, even pro-American stalwarts like the UK are pretty rough for Americans at times. A few years ago it was bordering on racism, now it's much better.
Of course, if Obama gets elected between now and when you move, America will suddenly become the best thing since sliced bread again.
America's biggest image problem is that people around the world can't distinguish between an American and the Federal Government of the United States of America.
I love it when people talk about taking us out of Europe. Some sort of giant laser and a lot of heavy duty tugs would seem to be in order? Or perhaps just a huge wall...
If a COMPANY is being prosecuted criminally, you obviously cannot have jail time, because it's a non-person.
Wrong, in the US and UK company directors can be jailed for corporate manslaughter and fraud. IN other words, if the company releases too much toxin into a water supply and kills someone, the CEO goes to jail.
But this way is far more sensible as it automatically weights it for cost and affordability (hell, if you had the cash you could pay for fibre from you to your isp, but that's not exactly a reasonable demand to answer a test).
Besides, those who are on "cheapass" connections won't be as interested in answering this survey anyway.
I think it's more interesting and relevant to see what real people are experiencing as a service from their ISP as opposed to some theoretical maximum.
The most reasonable justification I can see in this context is that the games were out of production, so the games are not actually available any other way, except via ebay, perhaps.
Er, no, because fixing a car wasn't illegal, last time I checked. Your neighbour is free to pay for your help any way he wishes.
The grand-parent has a valid point, but there remains a big difference between turning piracy from a private activity (downloading games) into a commercial venture (selling games from a stall in the mall).
The Smith Institute investigation is sort of ongoing and sort of not, in that they've already been told that they've acted inappropriately, but the ombudsman wants further information to see if there's still more inappropriate behaviour undiscovered.
The question remains; is this appropriate for a non-profit organisation? I know the non-profits in the US can get away with bloody murder, more or less, but this is special-interest lobbying thinly disguised as 'education' and inaccuracies (rather than lies) render its educational value questionable.
In the UK non-profits are much more closely watched if they apply for tax-exempt status. They can't act as a lobbyist for business or political interests. See the case of the Smith Institute, on paper an educational charity think tank, in reality an organ of the Labour party.
Batteries are absolutely fucking awful at storing energy.
However, there are plenty of natural 'batteries' you can use. Here in the UK we have massive reservoirs on top of mountains. We pump water up in a glut, and generate in a demand surge. Plus you get free energy from all the rain we have.
It makes sense because investing in stocks is putting capital to good use (i.e. allowing your money to be used to achieve something) while putting it in to a lottery is not, really, so you can't expect good returns.
Also, in the UK people sometimes use "it supports charity" as a reason to play the lottery, which makes no sense at all. Charities would be better off if you just gave them the money directly.
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Fascism was generally capitalist, in a Corporatist sort of way. Capital was still owned by individuals, not the state, even if the state did direct its use to a large degree. The system the west uses is a capitalist free market with state regulation but not oversight. Much the best, in my opinion.
Which is not to say that fascist systems can't be free-market too...
Any form of transportation that CAN move people and things from A to B should do so with optimal speed and cost.
Or if you like it better that way - it saves time. Time is money.
But time is not arbitrarily valuable. Say it took $100 billion dollars to upgrade the Acela express to TGV standard (basically the European definition of what high speed is) and the Acela takes a billion passenger journeys a year. Doing this upgrade may shave half an hour or less from the journey time. So you'd be spending $30billion (capital cost annualised, a la Douglas, Conceptual Design of Chemical Processes, 1988) to save 500 million hours a year; a valuation of $600 per hour. How many people have time that valuable? Would this really be a good allocation of capital use in society?
I know those numbers are bullshit, and the capital cost is a little high (High Speed One cost £5.2bn, but was mostly rural and shorter), as are the annual journeys, I reckon. On balance I over-estimated the cost-per-time, but I'm just trying to illustrate the decisions that have to be made in the west regarding whether something is a valid use of capital.
If the cost per passenger hour comes out at $6 an hour it might be worth doing, but it would be hard to capture a bigger market (it's already faster than its competitors and how many people sit there and say "Two and a half hours to New York? That's far too long! Now, it it were two hours...")
Yeah, but you still missed the point. It's not how absolutely fast you go, it's whether you go fast enough. When you take into account anti-terrorism paranoia time, transfer time and flight time, the train is the fastest route. It doesn't *need* to be any faster.
Regarding the quote marks; you could have been a socialist. I didn't know which bit was sarcastic, I thought it was the 'evil'. There was evidence; you were advocating building what you think people need instead of what they want.
I have to say, I've just caught the train from Torquay to Reading with the legendary WorstGroup* and I would never take the car again. The train was smooth, comfortable, spacious and faster.
*"Employment for Scotland, Pain for Everyone Else" (TM)
It is kinda scary to think that while "Oh_so_EVIL_communist_China" builds an express line between its capitol and its financial center, US is building what is essentially a carnival ride between the Pleasure Island [wikipedia.org] and Sin City.
Firstly, China hasn't been communist for a while. It's closest now to Italian Fascism out of anything, only with a bit more competition.
Secondly, Acela Express. It might not be as shiny as a 380kmph white elephant, but it was cheaper to build and it functions well enough (in that it beats flying).
Because in the US one cannot destroy the environment, move cities, take people's homes without compensation and suppress any dissent with jail terms as can and has been done in China.
In addition, these things would be expected to be done privately, States-side, which will only happen if the investors think there's money in it. Which there may or may not be. Consider the lack of high-speed rail in the UK. It would be used, there would be demand, but land costs and other capital prove suffocating.
High speed rail generally has massive state subsidy. This is fine, if a society decides it's worth investing in for one reason or another. But it's not a panacea for society's ills, and one has to look at the costs in land and infrastructure maintenance compared to air travel, just as one has to consider carbon advantages for trains.
Er. Why is it ok for industrial zones to be wiped out? Remember what happened to petrol prices after Katrina? Not to mention billions of dollars of investment wiped off the map; what makes you think any sensible business would invest in those zones if they were deemed unfit for people?
OK, so we get to blow people up in the name of "democracy," but once somebody tries to hold us to democratic standards, we get to fall back and say "Oh, we don't really vote?" How convenient!
I don't understand your point. I never said that the Bush administration wasn't hypocritical or miusguided, I was merely pointing out that it is unfair to blame the average American. Which means the government can go on moronic crusades in the name of democracy and still face massive disapproval at home. There's not much the average citizen can do. One in sixty Brits turned up *in person* in central London to try and stop the invasion of Iraq but it still went ahead. This is why voter turnout is so poor; people know that their elected representatives, when push comes to shove, will obey the whips, not their constituents (your third point). Its a flawed system, it's just still better than the alternatives.
If the rotten boroughs are really such a big deal, why haven't they been fixed yet?
There are Boundary Commissions, but the problem is that it's not been politically possible to do much since Maggie got in, because in her term Liverpool and the North-west were almost in open revolt; try removing constituencies then. The Labour party are quite happy as it gives them a boost, so nothing has moved since 1997. Actually, the Boundaries may change in the next couple of years (first time since 1997 in England) and solve the problem, as happened just before 2005 in Scotland (where many constituencies were merged). But they have traditionally had an interesting definition of "fair" whereby proximity to parliament makes you less worthy of representation.
Heh. You can't be from an anglophone country if you think we vote for our government. For example, in Britain more people didn't vote than voted for Tony Blair's 'new' Labour in 2005.[1] That in itself is a farce before you look into allegations of postal vote fraud and more fundamental issues, like the fact that a northerner (typically left-Labour) is worth 1.5 southerners (often right-Tory or centre-Lib Dem) in parliament or that the Scots can vote for unpopular policies knowing they can kick them out at Holyrood [2]
Even regarding the hated Dubya in 2004, electorate turnout was 60.7% and he won just over 50% of the popular vote in 2004[3]. This means that only 1/3 Americans *eligible to vote* voted for Dubya. The actual figure will be lower due to people not registered to vote, excluded due to being a felon or criminally young.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2005
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-up_fees#Controversy
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004
Not only for the reasons you think. America used the second world war to turn Britain at least into a client state (see Andrew Marr's excellent History of Modern Britain for the US' less-than-noble immediate* post-war behaviour).
*i.e. before the Marshall Plan kicked in.
Finnish is not an Indo-European language, which makes it a bit more distinct (considering that all of the languages from the Gaeltachtai of Donegal through to Bangladesh are Indo-European, except Arabic, Turkish and Hungarian).
Actually, behind this joke there is a serious point. Europe is shockingly anti-American at the moment, even pro-American stalwarts like the UK are pretty rough for Americans at times. A few years ago it was bordering on racism, now it's much better.
Of course, if Obama gets elected between now and when you move, America will suddenly become the best thing since sliced bread again.
America's biggest image problem is that people around the world can't distinguish between an American and the Federal Government of the United States of America.
I love it when people talk about taking us out of Europe. Some sort of giant laser and a lot of heavy duty tugs would seem to be in order? Or perhaps just a huge wall...
The thing is, the corporations are deemed too valuable to be punished. THIS is what should change.
Seriously, what the hell? Consider the HSWA (1974), the Environmental Protection Act (1990) and the Data Protection Act (1998), all of which carry the possibility of fines and a jail term if breached?
If a COMPANY is being prosecuted criminally, you obviously cannot have jail time, because it's a non-person.
Wrong, in the US and UK company directors can be jailed for corporate manslaughter and fraud. IN other words, if the company releases too much toxin into a water supply and kills someone, the CEO goes to jail.
You could say the same about Linux, especially if you have an ati card, or have the audacity to try a 64bit distro.
*patiently awaits troll mods for criticising linux*
But this way is far more sensible as it automatically weights it for cost and affordability (hell, if you had the cash you could pay for fibre from you to your isp, but that's not exactly a reasonable demand to answer a test).
Besides, those who are on "cheapass" connections won't be as interested in answering this survey anyway.
I think it's more interesting and relevant to see what real people are experiencing as a service from their ISP as opposed to some theoretical maximum.
More or less the same here in London, at £18 a month, unlimited and unshaped. (www.bethere.co.uk)
The most reasonable justification I can see in this context is that the games were out of production, so the games are not actually available any other way, except via ebay, perhaps.
Er, no, because fixing a car wasn't illegal, last time I checked. Your neighbour is free to pay for your help any way he wishes.
The grand-parent has a valid point, but there remains a big difference between turning piracy from a private activity (downloading games) into a commercial venture (selling games from a stall in the mall).
The Smith Institute investigation is sort of ongoing and sort of not, in that they've already been told that they've acted inappropriately, but the ombudsman wants further information to see if there's still more inappropriate behaviour undiscovered.
And, no matter what Fred Brook's sacred book says, there really is a magic bullet for software development.
It's called doing software properly...
Translation: The best way to develop software well is to develop software well.
Yeah, probably. Most people could agree with that.
The rest of your post is pretty insightful though. Having lots of employees does not make a company good.
The question remains; is this appropriate for a non-profit organisation? I know the non-profits in the US can get away with bloody murder, more or less, but this is special-interest lobbying thinly disguised as 'education' and inaccuracies (rather than lies) render its educational value questionable.
In the UK non-profits are much more closely watched if they apply for tax-exempt status. They can't act as a lobbyist for business or political interests. See the case of the Smith Institute, on paper an educational charity think tank, in reality an organ of the Labour party.
Batteries are absolutely fucking awful at storing energy.
However, there are plenty of natural 'batteries' you can use. Here in the UK we have massive reservoirs on top of mountains. We pump water up in a glut, and generate in a demand surge. Plus you get free energy from all the rain we have.
Insightful.
It makes sense because investing in stocks is putting capital to good use (i.e. allowing your money to be used to achieve something) while putting it in to a lottery is not, really, so you can't expect good returns.
Also, in the UK people sometimes use "it supports charity" as a reason to play the lottery, which makes no sense at all. Charities would be better off if you just gave them the money directly.