No, he's clearly paying his employees based on the market value of the coins, not the face value.
Imagine I paid my employees with one dollar bills signed by Jesus, Buddha, and Abe Lincoln. Clearly these would fetch a high price on the autograph market, significantly above $1 (yeah, I know, you're not supposed to mutilate currency). I think the IRS would be perfectly justified in treating these as having a worth above their face value, since any reasonable person would recognize that they are not just an ordinary dollar bill.
He's being prosecuted not for paying his employees in gold, which is perfectly fine (if dumb), but for lying about its value, which is against the law.
Is Russia the last country where engineers are not (yet) forced by corporations to intentionally produce designs that fail two days after warranty expires?
Mars rovers? Voyager? NASA seems to be doing okay with that.
If the opening of the bottle, removal of the sample, and reclosure with an unduplicatable seal is filmed and witnessed, then it doesn't destroy the subject and the contents are still original. It's not that hard, an no quantum physics are involved.
And of course, in the case of a batch of more than one bottle, testing a randomly chosen bottle will be a reasonable proxy.
Is that really that hard a problem? With a combination of road sensors and the ability to distinguish between a known background and other colors, that should be pretty easy. The problem is what to do with that information. The only time traffic lights are annoying in a way that could be easily remedied is a 3 am, when it's a pain to get stuck at a red when there are no cars visible in any direction. But that's not an important case; what really matters is making traffic flow smoothly when volume is heavy. And the problem there is not knowing where the cars are but understanding their behavior under different conditions and finding an optimum pattern of lights to maximize flow (or safety, or whatever else it is you want to affect).
Name one price set in the economy, outside the price that government charges for it's "services", that isn't ultimately 'take it or leave it'?
There are several. The price of mobbed-up waste disposal is one: take it or we break your kneecaps. It's not a question of monopoly so much as the cost of protection being built into the price. More importantly, the cost of medical services are not really negotiable. Sure, I can shop around for a dentist to do my bridgework, but if I have a heart attack I'm not going to ask the EMTs for the cheapest ER--if I'm even conscious. In either situation, there is no meaningful "leave it" option.
Yes, the fear of government and of Government regulation can be quite misplaced.
It is well known that in some markets regulation is the only thing that keeps the market even remotely resembling a free market, rather than an oligarchy.
Well said. One of the core contradictions in many defenses of the supposedly magical free market is that all property rights exist in a socially meaningful way (as opposed to a philosophical ideal) only because the state defines and protects them. People who claim to want government out of their lives are still quick to call the police or to sue if they feel as though their property is threatened or their contracts aren't being enforced.
It might be argued that our government does well at national defense, but if you are talking about a per-dollar value, then most of this list is absolutely pathetic.
By what standard? Are you measuring against some absolute ideal of perfection, or a real alternative?
For example, in the US government-supplied health care does a better job per dollar than private insurance. It's just more efficient. Its administrative costs are much lower.
What alternatives do you propose for some of these things on the list that seem clearly to be government responsibilities, like allocation of radio spectrum? The FCC isn't perfect, but how could a non-governmental agency take charge of something like that?
First-class postage in the US was never exactly 7 cents. It went straight from 6 (1968) to 8 cents (1971). It's very difficult to compare prices over time meaningfully, but in inflation-adjusted terms postage rates have actually held pretty constant since about the 70s. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_Postal_Service_rates> Wikipedia. Given that the two main costs of the USPS are fuel and labor, which have gone up faster than consumer prices as a whole, that's not bad.
As for "often as not, takes six times as long," that's not been my experience. I've lived all over the country, and had mail take anything from one day to a week, but never -- unless there was something like mail forwarding involved -- had domestic mail take 12 days. Heck, international mail from Europe often gets to me in rural upstate NY in 4-5 days.
Where are your power settings in Windows vs Linux? My Thinkpad's Intel wifi driver defaults to an energy-saving power mode, which results in lower performance at long distances (but is fine in my small apartment). This might not be a fair fight.
That's why I said, "acceptable enough." The people who run those corporations might find it distasteful but do it anyhow, that's pretty much the definition of "acceptable enough." If that same equipment was being used to track down and assassinate the family members of the board of directors of the company, they probably would not find it acceptable.
I don't disagree with your view about the inalienability of rights (though I disagree that it exists as an "ineffable quality of being human": it results from that quality, but is logically distinct from it). But none of that changes whether other people agree with us. Some don't.
And the same applies when you enter into China, but I'm not aware of anyone who thinks China's Internet Firewall censorship is acceptable practice.
A significant number of people think the Great Firewall is acceptable, even a good thing. If they didn't it wouldn't exist. Many such people are in the Chinese state, and probably a significant number of ordinary Chinese citizens. I disagree with them, but they exist. And the foreign and Chinese companies who provide the equipment that runs the Firewall find it acceptable enough to sell to the people who run it.
The first step toward defeating something like this is recognizing the existence of your adversary, and the fact that it has support, even if only from a (powerful) minority. Simply asserting that no one thinks it's okay will not get you anywhere.
Oh wait, I noticed your sig. You get your news from Fox. Carry on.
I see nothing that doctors do that needs to be stored in the client side.
Medevac helicopters? Other work in remote locations? There could probably be less data client-side than now, but I doubt it could be completely eliminated.
Yeah, moral hazard. It exists in any insurance scheme, and it's a problem, but it's not likely to be as bad as you imagine. Almost everyone's time is worth more than the "value" of a frivolous doctor's visit. The question is always whether the moral hazard will outweigh the increased benefit of universal coverage. For example, pretty much everywhere in the developed world we've agreed that universal, free firefighting is a good thing, even though it slightly increases the moral hazard around fire safety (if I know that someone is going to put out a house fire, I'm slightly more likely to do unsafe things and less likely to do things that increase safety). The experience of countries with universal, single-payer health coverage seems to be that the moral hazard is not so great that it outweighs the benefit.
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No, he's clearly paying his employees based on the market value of the coins, not the face value.
Imagine I paid my employees with one dollar bills signed by Jesus, Buddha, and Abe Lincoln. Clearly these would fetch a high price on the autograph market, significantly above $1 (yeah, I know, you're not supposed to mutilate currency). I think the IRS would be perfectly justified in treating these as having a worth above their face value, since any reasonable person would recognize that they are not just an ordinary dollar bill.
He's being prosecuted not for paying his employees in gold, which is perfectly fine (if dumb), but for lying about its value, which is against the law.
Mars rovers? Voyager? NASA seems to be doing okay with that.
Actually if you just stuck to sprites you wouldn't have to worry about failing a breathalyzer test.
Sure it does--what about security camera footage, which might depend on timestamps and whether they are verifiable?
The latter. Pirates are better.
If the opening of the bottle, removal of the sample, and reclosure with an unduplicatable seal is filmed and witnessed, then it doesn't destroy the subject and the contents are still original. It's not that hard, an no quantum physics are involved.
And of course, in the case of a batch of more than one bottle, testing a randomly chosen bottle will be a reasonable proxy.
Are they going out with you?
Is that really that hard a problem? With a combination of road sensors and the ability to distinguish between a known background and other colors, that should be pretty easy. The problem is what to do with that information. The only time traffic lights are annoying in a way that could be easily remedied is a 3 am, when it's a pain to get stuck at a red when there are no cars visible in any direction. But that's not an important case; what really matters is making traffic flow smoothly when volume is heavy. And the problem there is not knowing where the cars are but understanding their behavior under different conditions and finding an optimum pattern of lights to maximize flow (or safety, or whatever else it is you want to affect).
Name one price set in the economy, outside the price that government charges for it's "services", that isn't ultimately 'take it or leave it'?
There are several. The price of mobbed-up waste disposal is one: take it or we break your kneecaps. It's not a question of monopoly so much as the cost of protection being built into the price. More importantly, the cost of medical services are not really negotiable. Sure, I can shop around for a dentist to do my bridgework, but if I have a heart attack I'm not going to ask the EMTs for the cheapest ER--if I'm even conscious. In either situation, there is no meaningful "leave it" option.
Yes, the fear of government and of Government regulation can be quite misplaced.
It is well known that in some markets regulation is the only thing that keeps the market even remotely resembling a free market, rather than an oligarchy.
Well said. One of the core contradictions in many defenses of the supposedly magical free market is that all property rights exist in a socially meaningful way (as opposed to a philosophical ideal) only because the state defines and protects them. People who claim to want government out of their lives are still quick to call the police or to sue if they feel as though their property is threatened or their contracts aren't being enforced.
It might be argued that our government does well at national defense, but if you are talking about a per-dollar value, then most of this list is absolutely pathetic.
By what standard? Are you measuring against some absolute ideal of perfection, or a real alternative? For example, in the US government-supplied health care does a better job per dollar than private insurance. It's just more efficient. Its administrative costs are much lower.
What alternatives do you propose for some of these things on the list that seem clearly to be government responsibilities, like allocation of radio spectrum? The FCC isn't perfect, but how could a non-governmental agency take charge of something like that?
That being said, one problem of socialism is that it can hide the true costs.
This is a huge problem under capitalism too. They're called externalities (environmental pollution is the stock example).
Your father lied to you.
First-class postage in the US was never exactly 7 cents. It went straight from 6 (1968) to 8 cents (1971). It's very difficult to compare prices over time meaningfully, but in inflation-adjusted terms postage rates have actually held pretty constant since about the 70s. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_Postal_Service_rates> Wikipedia. Given that the two main costs of the USPS are fuel and labor, which have gone up faster than consumer prices as a whole, that's not bad.
As for "often as not, takes six times as long," that's not been my experience. I've lived all over the country, and had mail take anything from one day to a week, but never -- unless there was something like mail forwarding involved -- had domestic mail take 12 days. Heck, international mail from Europe often gets to me in rural upstate NY in 4-5 days.
Where are your power settings in Windows vs Linux? My Thinkpad's Intel wifi driver defaults to an energy-saving power mode, which results in lower performance at long distances (but is fine in my small apartment). This might not be a fair fight.
Strictly speaking it's a rectangular measure.
Actually space in residential housing is often measured in tatami mats (jou).
Damn, "ou" should be "o-macron" -- how do you use Unicode escape sequences on /.?
The poster fell into a comma.
You don't need to use the mouse. Ctrl-up/down arrow while focus is in the search box scrolls through search targets in FF.
That's why I said, "acceptable enough." The people who run those corporations might find it distasteful but do it anyhow, that's pretty much the definition of "acceptable enough." If that same equipment was being used to track down and assassinate the family members of the board of directors of the company, they probably would not find it acceptable.
I don't disagree with your view about the inalienability of rights (though I disagree that it exists as an "ineffable quality of being human": it results from that quality, but is logically distinct from it). But none of that changes whether other people agree with us. Some don't.
Sure, and McDonalds is the most well known and available restaurant in the world. Does that say anything about the quality of it?
Yes it does. It suggests that McDonalds doesn't poison its customers most of the time (or they wouldn't come back). Beyond that, no, not really.
And the same applies when you enter into China, but I'm not aware of anyone who thinks China's Internet Firewall censorship is acceptable practice.
A significant number of people think the Great Firewall is acceptable, even a good thing. If they didn't it wouldn't exist. Many such people are in the Chinese state, and probably a significant number of ordinary Chinese citizens. I disagree with them, but they exist. And the foreign and Chinese companies who provide the equipment that runs the Firewall find it acceptable enough to sell to the people who run it.
The first step toward defeating something like this is recognizing the existence of your adversary, and the fact that it has support, even if only from a (powerful) minority. Simply asserting that no one thinks it's okay will not get you anywhere.
Oh wait, I noticed your sig. You get your news from Fox. Carry on.
I see nothing that doctors do that needs to be stored in the client side.
Medevac helicopters? Other work in remote locations? There could probably be less data client-side than now, but I doubt it could be completely eliminated.
Yeah, moral hazard. It exists in any insurance scheme, and it's a problem, but it's not likely to be as bad as you imagine. Almost everyone's time is worth more than the "value" of a frivolous doctor's visit. The question is always whether the moral hazard will outweigh the increased benefit of universal coverage. For example, pretty much everywhere in the developed world we've agreed that universal, free firefighting is a good thing, even though it slightly increases the moral hazard around fire safety (if I know that someone is going to put out a house fire, I'm slightly more likely to do unsafe things and less likely to do things that increase safety). The experience of countries with universal, single-payer health coverage seems to be that the moral hazard is not so great that it outweighs the benefit.
"They people." is a perfectly grammatical sentence.