Aw heck, you don't have to be a graybeard to be stuck working on a VAX:) I'm 23!
Stuck?
Think of yourself as the curator of a museum. Besides, you'll find VMS ideas in several modern operating systems, under the hood.
But I guess I'm learning a lot
Yup, there is value knowing how things were done when memory was measured in kilobytes, disk space in megabytes (if you were lucky), and connectivity was via serial terminals at 300, 1200, 2400 (rare), 480 (rare), or 9600 bps (19.2, 38.4, or 57.6 kb/s eventually).
You will learn how to *think*, and deal with time/space tradeoffs, and know far more about operating systems in general than any pointy/clicky dude. The sad thing is that most HR departments don't know that they should value such a skill set. The flip side is that it makes it easy to filter out companies that don't have a clue.
But watching the VMS newbs do it one... file... at... a... time was always fun (much more fun than using EDT on other than a VT52 or VT100) until we put them out of their misery.
You realize that we've dated ourselves with our understanding of now-obscure operating systems, don't you?
I remember when it took three of us to lift a 10 Mb hard disk drive. (But, man! the geek factor of a CDC hawk in one's bedroom in one's parent's house was enormous).
why woudl a company run a credit check on an applicant? i believe that's an invasion of privacy. what does my financial situation have to do with my job performace for the company?
For very good reasons, if the nature of your work will mean that you will have access to data that you could use to your financial benefit and you're in financial trouble.
A low credit score is a good predictor of that.
No, it's not fair, but then, no employer "owes" you a job.
What were you expecting? In fact, if they did not immediately disable your access and release you on the spot, you should have been surprised.
You are a risk, you wanted to terminate the employment relationship, and your employer wanted to terminate the risk you pose.
You acted professionally and so did they.
What would have been unprofessional would have been if you had not given two weeks notice, or if they "locked you out" and didn't pay you for the notice period you gave.
What you've described is a corporation, not a business.
Corporations are a legal fiction providing, among other things, for limited liability for their shareholders for the actions of the venture so incorporated.
Some would argue that the creation of such a legal fiction is a bad thing, since it divorces civil responsibility for the business' actions from those that control them.
I'd have to check the invoice and post back. I vaguely remember getting it from a U.S. distributer that specialised in Car PC computers, of all things. They had two left in stock when I ordered mine (though they claimed to be able to get as many as required to fill demand). It was around US$400. 512 MB of RAM were extra ($80 or so), as were a slimline CDRW/DVDROM drive (around $150).
As for the LC08 case (around $150), word from Silverstone is that they plan to retool, but don't have an ETA.
I am half-tempted to cut a new backplate for the case that I have.
I really wanted to use the nano-ITX because of the CN400 HD resolution MPEG2 decoder and VT1625 component out chip, but it looks like the new LC08 case will not be fanless (the old one had a heatblock to case solution) -- Via is, supposedly, not permitting a fanless design.
An alternative is a more traditional PC, with S/W MPEG2 decoding, in a HUSH PC case, but now we're looking at hundreds of dollars for the case alone.
A silent, flash-basd, nano-ITX solution, with a heatpipe for thermal management sounds like it would be a killer MythTV client.
I have a 1.0 GHz nano-ITX board with VT1625 and CN400 as well as a Silverstone LC08 case.
Buggers at Via changed the board layout at the last minute and it no longer fits in the case (rotation of the power connector meant that the back panel no longer lines up). Silverstone has no ETA on updated cases.
Does anyone have a nano-ITX case for the modern nano-ITX boards?
On the other hand there was, by your own admission, a group of actual cardiologists, who having had some experience in the matter, decided that odds were so slim as to make the whole attempt unjustified.
Having not done anything about it, because care was denied, it eventually ruptured two years later, at which point nothing could be done. (Well the survival rates in the U.S. at that point are between 5% and 10%, but travel was quite impossible).
What my father did not do was press for a transfer to a U.S. hospital for a repair when it would have been effective. It wasn't his style (and shouldn'tve been necessary). He trusted that if his doctors told him they could do nothing, that nothing could be done.
I'm told that one has to be forceful in these situations, but again, that should not be required.
Many cardiac arrest patients die because it is physically impossible to get to them within the critical first 10 minutes since the time of their heart failure.
25% die before a specialist sees them before diagnosis. In the U.S. a specialist can see you the day you are referred to him or her, or at most, the next day. The fraction that die between being referred to a specialist and seeing one is vanishingly small because of this because they do not wait months.
No, he "lost" because nothing useful could be done for him at the time. You again keep on insisting that some hypothetical procedure, performed under hypothetical circumstances, applicability of which is entirely of your own, amateurish making, would have, with near 100% certainty saved him, never you mind the opinion of the many doctors with direct access do diagnostic data.
Let's see, "You have an abdominal aortic aneurysm. It will grow until it rupture, killing you. It is almost impossible to operate in time once it ruptures. There is no procedure performed in Canada to correct this. This is a routine surgery in the U.S., costing between $12,000 to $20,000, with a five year survival rate of 75%. The risk of intervention vs. the risk of doing nothing makes it a standard practice to operate when it reaches 5 cm in size. Do you have $12,000?" [Nothing 'experimental' here].
- Sigh - "No, I paid my taxes for health care, among other things. The rest went for food, clothing, and shelter for myself any my family, so I do not have $12,000 to spare."
"I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do."
Things have improved since 1999, somewhat: the surgery is now performed in Canada, but the survival rate is only 25% instead of 75%. No doubt due to the shoddy techniques: likely invasive, involving a heart-lung machine, instead of via an endoscope (where a reinforcement is introduced into the body and stitched around the aorta while the heart is beating, rather cool, actually).
From the news alone which I can remember, off the top of my head, there is the case of a child given $17,000 a week US experimental drugs for what might be years on end
Must be nice to win the lottery (er, get to the top of the waiting list before dying -- what was that about 25% of cardiac patients dying before seeing a specialist?)
Reminds me of a government lottery ad in the window of a depanneur (convenience store) in Quebec: it showed a happy face with the caption, "Moi, je gagne!" (Me, I won!).
Well, Dad lost. Even that would be fine, except he had no choice but to gamble his health care on the state.
...which make you comparing yourself to their plight a complete...
I made no such comparison. Are you so dense that you can't see a reducto ad absurdum disproof of your assertion that unpopularity implies stupidity? Namely, by providing an example where the popular was wrong?
It was unpopular to oppose Nazi persecution of Jews. It was also dead right. It many be sensationalist to use such an extreme exampe, but reducto ad absurdum (dis)proofs are just that: showing that the logical consequences of the claim are absurd.
Therefore, you can not denounce as stupid, or incorrect, a view solely on the basis of it's unpopularity.
This is precisely the reason for the libertarian stance aginst the initiation of force: there no moral right to tax me if, left alone, I do not consume what those taxes fund. You might be popular, but you may be very wrong, and I should have the choice to participate in your scheme, or not.
There may very well be pragmatic reasons to agree to some degree of community funding for some purpose that *looks* like a tax, and may very well be implemented as one, the telling bits being whether it is inconvenient to opt out (which generally means leaving). In fact, you could argue that a libertarian who voluntarily moves to a community with a tax structure has accepted it, though the question of whether they had any real choice in the matter comes up.
I have no opposition to the formation of a cooperative providing health care for it's members out of all their resources. This is how mutual insurance companies work, and the idea is sound. However, I do not wish to be part of that cooperative, if it does not provide good value to me. In fact, it is possible for such cooperatives to support a small fraction of free riders and still be good value to me by virtue of economies of scale. But, this does not happen in any planned economy: mice, men and all that.
But the pros and cons of the Charter of Rights and the related laws are really no longer of any personal interest to you.
They are, actually: As long as communists like yourself live, they are a threat to steal what I earn. You don't get it, do you? I believe that you, and people like you, are guilty of crimes against humanity: supporting the taxation of people to the point that they no longer have the resources to purchase necessary life-saving surgery for themselves is murder. You support murder.
You embelish prosperity to the point of believing that bankrupcy is a temporary year of negative revenue, instead of complete financial ruin: If I sold a $100,000 car to pay my employees a little bit longer, before closing my business, you would deny me what my taxes funded, because I had the $100,000 car at some point.
I see now your problem: you envy success. You hate people who have succeeded, whether or not they currently are succesful. But, this is no surprise: it is the affliction of the socialist.
I have friends who are millionaires as well as friends who are paupers. I consider myself in good company, on both counts. I am neither. I have enjoyed success, and I have suffered failure. You, you, would comdemn me for merely having tried.
I hope you do realize how pathetically stupid that statement makes you look. Poor oppressed you.
So, those who oppose the majority, particularly a large majority are stupid?
Hmm, Jews opposing their persecution are stupid
Nope, I don't buy that. History is full of examples of majorities, whole nations even, being dead wrong.
Furthermore, there are quite a larger number of people who agree with me, than you might think -- you think the Cato Institute is funded by air? Fortunately, they are rather plentiful where I am.
But, what is really telling about your character (or lack thereof), is your insistance that any wealth I might have must be "shared", yet any claim I might have had to the benefits of this "sharing" is to be denied based on a simple distrust that I might be impoverished at a particular point in time.
I've seen this in Canada: when good times go bad, the good times are denounced (even though the requisite "sharing" was performed), and one finds the "sharing" does not include those who had previously contributed the most.
Something fishy about that:
"Help the poor!".
"Mmm, O.K."
"Damn, I'm poor now! Help me?"
"No, don't believe you're poor".
Clearly, the only ones who can ever derive any benefits under this system are those who were always poor. Thus, poverty, or at least relative poverty, becomes desirable and self-improvement is discouraged.
treets running in blood until a stable equilibrum is reached of walled-in and heavily defended compounds surrounded by a sea of chaos and poverty.
*Looks around*
Hmm. No blood in the streets here, or anywhere else in the U.S. where I've lived.
OTOH, Markham, Ontario was a pure hell for the four months I lived there, when it came to crime. Whitby was not much better. We got used to the Metro Toronto "murder of the day" being announced on the news, but certainly didn't like it.
I remember checking violent crime stats, and learned that the rate of violent crimes against women in Canada was double that in the U.S. Of course, in Dallas, women kill their would-be rapists.
You certainly have a sensationalist view of the U.S. Have you ever lived here for any length of time? Where? Or, do you just belive the socialist propaganda fed you?
I used to be afraid of life in the U.S. before I moved here. I quickly learned that my fears were quite unfounded if I make an effort to work for a living and not mooch off the fat of the land.
Indeed, I have gone through periods of unemployment, having to purchase private health insurance at rather high rates (around $800 a month). But, the savings I made while working made that livable (and was a damn good incentive to find work as soon as possible).
In Canada, I'd be utterly at the mercy of what fraction of my taxes the government sees fit to let me have back when I'm down on my luck. I've found that people who do well, pay sh*tloads of tax, and then "fall hard" end up getting told, "You made $$$$$$ last year -- no help for you!" (Generally businessmen who's businesses failed due to competition, and who once employed dozens of people).
Doesn't matter if one takes big risks, and creates jobs: "You were well off, so nothing for you, and how dare you fire those people when you couldn't afford to pay them!"
Canada is a land of crooked politicials prostituting the vote of the poor to enslave the working: "Vote for me! I'll tax him more to give you a better life!"
Not me. No more.
And that "Notwithstanding Clause"... Geez: "These are your rights unless we say otherwise." That is just so messed up.
Last I heard places like the Netherlands and Sweden had the highest standards of living and were being nearly universally recognised as best places to live in
Last time I checked, those were rankings by decidely socialist organizations.
Like Canada, they used to be good places to live, but the economic chickens have come home to roost.
Soviet Union, Canada, Cuba, etc. -- they'll all end up in the toilet.
(And China may oWn the U.S., what with the trade and fiscal deficits, but that's another issue.)
Additionally, and this the crucial point, even if it is possible for some poeple to do so, lack of taxation, and the insitutions thus paid for, is severely destructive for the society as a whole.
Then why do societies with less burdonsome taxation fare better in the long term than those with more burdonsome taxation in terms of stagnation of the quality of such institutions, when compared to their private counterparts?
You dismissed an AAA repair denied my father as an "experimental" procedure. Experimental in Canada, perhaps, but not in the U.S. at the time, where the cost is a mere $12k or $20k, depending on whether one opts on the invasive or endoscopic repair.
Today, I'm told this surger is performed in Canada, but the survival rate there is 25%, whereas it is 75% in the U.S. Why?
If you were to argue for modest income redistribution as a practical matter, with basic health care subsidized for the poor, for example, I could accept that. (Even the U.S. has Medicare, and hospitals can not turn away people in need of urgent care for lack of funds). But, that would imply a two-tier health care system which Canada soundly rejects (and is the only nation in the world to do so). The end result is that it is a crime to spend one's own money, whatever might be left after taxes, to save one's own life!
But, the Canadian "Social Contract" is a horrible ripoff to the married middle class wage earner supporting a family.
Ah yes, Chechoslovakian is now Canada's second language...
1. There is no such language. The major languages are Czech and Slovak.
2. The reference is to those, and all other recent refugees who came as freeloaders, happily accepting welfare on the backs of those who came before them and had to struggle. Prague Springers are merely a reference to the type of immigrant.
And he wonders why this could be a problem when taking money out....
I didn't say withdraw, I said trade, as in buy and sell stock. RRSPs are effectively on autopilot when one is a non-resident, though this is improving, depending on the state in which one lives (basically, one's Canadian broker has to be licensed in the relevent U.S. State). Lost $35,000 not being able to sell a stock when I wanted. (I could've returned to Canada for the day to do that, but that would, at the time, make me a retro-active tax resident, and the taxes owing would exceed the $35,000, so...)
to their financial status upon entry to Canada, it is your own claim of membership in aristocracy...
Where did I claim this? I noted that my family was, at one time, well off, but hardly aristocrats (I won't mention Castle Jiljov).
But, suppose they were. Suppose they were plunderers, rapists, and thieves. Losing such ill-gotten booty inherited from their ancesters, to the Austro-Hungarian empire first, Nazis second, and Soviet communists second, and starting from zero would seam to be fair "punishment", No. (Don't answer that -- I know you will say "No! Make the son pay for the alleged crimes of the forefathers! Axe and pitchfork, ho!")
It is clear that you can not conceive that someone, unfettered by the chains of oppressive taxation, relying only on their own labour, wits, and good character, could earn sufficient capital through voluntary exchange to live a life comfortable enough so that they could support their consort and projeny, and support their own retirement.
I guess that's what they feed young minds in Canadian schools today. Mussollini was right. (Google for Mussollini and School.)
Slashdot Mirror
Stuck?
Think of yourself as the curator of a museum. Besides, you'll find VMS ideas in several modern operating systems, under the hood.
But I guess I'm learning a lot
Yup, there is value knowing how things were done when memory was measured in kilobytes, disk space in megabytes (if you were lucky), and connectivity was via serial terminals at 300, 1200, 2400 (rare), 480 (rare), or 9600 bps (19.2, 38.4, or 57.6 kb/s eventually).
You will learn how to *think*, and deal with time/space tradeoffs, and know far more about operating systems in general than any pointy/clicky dude. The sad thing is that most HR departments don't know that they should value such a skill set. The flip side is that it makes it easy to filter out companies that don't have a clue.
But watching the VMS newbs do it one ... file ... at ... a ... time was always fun (much more fun than using EDT on other than a VT52 or VT100) until we put them out of their misery.
I remember when it took three of us to lift a 10 Mb hard disk drive. (But, man! the geek factor of a CDC hawk in one's bedroom in one's parent's house was enormous).
For very good reasons, if the nature of your work will mean that you will have access to data that you could use to your financial benefit and you're in financial trouble.
A low credit score is a good predictor of that.
No, it's not fair, but then, no employer "owes" you a job.
Shades of VAX/VMS with foo.txt;1 foo.txt;2 foo.txt;3 ... foo.txt;954
Make it stop!
Exactly.
What were you expecting? In fact, if they did not immediately disable your access and release you on the spot, you should have been surprised.
You are a risk, you wanted to terminate the employment relationship, and your employer wanted to terminate the risk you pose.
You acted professionally and so did they.
What would have been unprofessional would have been if you had not given two weeks notice, or if they "locked you out" and didn't pay you for the notice period you gave.
Consider the two weeks you got paid a vacation.
Why try to single out the web publishers?
Corporations are a legal fiction providing, among other things, for limited liability for their shareholders for the actions of the venture so incorporated.
Some would argue that the creation of such a legal fiction is a bad thing, since it divorces civil responsibility for the business' actions from those that control them.
As for the LC08 case (around $150), word from Silverstone is that they plan to retool, but don't have an ETA.
I am half-tempted to cut a new backplate for the case that I have.
I really wanted to use the nano-ITX because of the CN400 HD resolution MPEG2 decoder and VT1625 component out chip, but it looks like the new LC08 case will not be fanless (the old one had a heatblock to case solution) -- Via is, supposedly, not permitting a fanless design.
An alternative is a more traditional PC, with S/W MPEG2 decoding, in a HUSH PC case, but now we're looking at hundreds of dollars for the case alone.
A silent, flash-basd, nano-ITX solution, with a heatpipe for thermal management sounds like it would be a killer MythTV client.
I have a 1.0 GHz nano-ITX board with VT1625 and CN400 as well as a Silverstone LC08 case.
Buggers at Via changed the board layout at the last minute and it no longer fits in the case (rotation of the power connector meant that the back panel no longer lines up). Silverstone has no ETA on updated cases.
Does anyone have a nano-ITX case for the modern nano-ITX boards?
My father had the misfortune to be born in France, and the officious French required that his surname be listed as Hollan on his birth certificate.
This caused some degree of embarassment when he had to explain why his surname differed from that of his parents.
I have thought, at various times, to legally change my surname back to the original spelling.
Having not done anything about it, because care was denied, it eventually ruptured two years later, at which point nothing could be done. (Well the survival rates in the U.S. at that point are between 5% and 10%, but travel was quite impossible).
What my father did not do was press for a transfer to a U.S. hospital for a repair when it would have been effective. It wasn't his style (and shouldn'tve been necessary). He trusted that if his doctors told him they could do nothing, that nothing could be done.
I'm told that one has to be forceful in these situations, but again, that should not be required.
25% die before a specialist sees them before diagnosis. In the U.S. a specialist can see you the day you are referred to him or her, or at most, the next day. The fraction that die between being referred to a specialist and seeing one is vanishingly small because of this because they do not wait months.
No, he "lost" because nothing useful could be done for him at the time. You again keep on insisting that some hypothetical procedure, performed under hypothetical circumstances, applicability of which is entirely of your own, amateurish making, would have, with near 100% certainty saved him, never you mind the opinion of the many doctors with direct access do diagnostic data.
Let's see, "You have an abdominal aortic aneurysm. It will grow until it rupture, killing you. It is almost impossible to operate in time once it ruptures. There is no procedure performed in Canada to correct this. This is a routine surgery in the U.S., costing between $12,000 to $20,000, with a five year survival rate of 75%. The risk of intervention vs. the risk of doing nothing makes it a standard practice to operate when it reaches 5 cm in size. Do you have $12,000?" [Nothing 'experimental' here].
- Sigh - "No, I paid my taxes for health care, among other things. The rest went for food, clothing, and shelter for myself any my family, so I do not have $12,000 to spare."
"I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do."
Things have improved since 1999, somewhat: the surgery is now performed in Canada, but the survival rate is only 25% instead of 75%. No doubt due to the shoddy techniques: likely invasive, involving a heart-lung machine, instead of via an endoscope (where a reinforcement is introduced into the body and stitched around the aorta while the heart is beating, rather cool, actually).
Must be nice to win the lottery (er, get to the top of the waiting list before dying -- what was that about 25% of cardiac patients dying before seeing a specialist?)
Reminds me of a government lottery ad in the window of a depanneur (convenience store) in Quebec: it showed a happy face with the caption, "Moi, je gagne!" (Me, I won!).
Well, Dad lost. Even that would be fine, except he had no choice but to gamble his health care on the state.
I made no such comparison. Are you so dense that you can't see a reducto ad absurdum disproof of your assertion that unpopularity implies stupidity? Namely, by providing an example where the popular was wrong?
It was unpopular to oppose Nazi persecution of Jews. It was also dead right. It many be sensationalist to use such an extreme exampe, but reducto ad absurdum (dis)proofs are just that: showing that the logical consequences of the claim are absurd.
Therefore, you can not denounce as stupid, or incorrect, a view solely on the basis of it's unpopularity.
This is precisely the reason for the libertarian stance aginst the initiation of force: there no moral right to tax me if, left alone, I do not consume what those taxes fund. You might be popular, but you may be very wrong, and I should have the choice to participate in your scheme, or not.
There may very well be pragmatic reasons to agree to some degree of community funding for some purpose that *looks* like a tax, and may very well be implemented as one, the telling bits being whether it is inconvenient to opt out (which generally means leaving). In fact, you could argue that a libertarian who voluntarily moves to a community with a tax structure has accepted it, though the question of whether they had any real choice in the matter comes up.
I have no opposition to the formation of a cooperative providing health care for it's members out of all their resources. This is how mutual insurance companies work, and the idea is sound. However, I do not wish to be part of that cooperative, if it does not provide good value to me. In fact, it is possible for such cooperatives to support a small fraction of free riders and still be good value to me by virtue of economies of scale. But, this does not happen in any planned economy: mice, men and all that.
They are, actually: As long as communists like yourself live, they are a threat to steal what I earn. You don't get it, do you? I believe that you, and people like you, are guilty of crimes against humanity: supporting the taxation of people to the point that they no longer have the resources to purchase necessary life-saving surgery for themselves is murder. You support murder.
You embelish prosperity to the point of believing that bankrupcy is a temporary year of negative revenue, instead of complete financial ruin: If I sold a $100,000 car to pay my employees a little bit longer, before closing my business, you would deny me what my taxes funded, because I had the $100,000 car at some point.
I see now your problem: you envy success. You hate people who have succeeded, whether or not they currently are succesful. But, this is no surprise: it is the affliction of the socialist.
I have friends who are millionaires as well as friends who are paupers. I consider myself in good company, on both counts. I am neither. I have enjoyed success, and I have suffered failure. You, you, would comdemn me for merely having tried.
So, those who oppose the majority, particularly a large majority are stupid?
Hmm, Jews opposing their persecution are stupid
Nope, I don't buy that. History is full of examples of majorities, whole nations even, being dead wrong.
Furthermore, there are quite a larger number of people who agree with me, than you might think -- you think the Cato Institute is funded by air? Fortunately, they are rather plentiful where I am.
But, what is really telling about your character (or lack thereof), is your insistance that any wealth I might have must be "shared", yet any claim I might have had to the benefits of this "sharing" is to be denied based on a simple distrust that I might be impoverished at a particular point in time.
I've seen this in Canada: when good times go bad, the good times are denounced (even though the requisite "sharing" was performed), and one finds the "sharing" does not include those who had previously contributed the most.
Something fishy about that:
"Help the poor!".
"Mmm, O.K."
"Damn, I'm poor now! Help me?"
"No, don't believe you're poor".
Clearly, the only ones who can ever derive any benefits under this system are those who were always poor. Thus, poverty, or at least relative poverty, becomes desirable and self-improvement is discouraged.
Well, I would't say everybody, but, in general, yes.
*Looks around*
Hmm. No blood in the streets here, or anywhere else in the U.S. where I've lived.
OTOH, Markham, Ontario was a pure hell for the four months I lived there, when it came to crime. Whitby was not much better. We got used to the Metro Toronto "murder of the day" being announced on the news, but certainly didn't like it.
I remember checking violent crime stats, and learned that the rate of violent crimes against women in Canada was double that in the U.S. Of course, in Dallas, women kill their would-be rapists.
You certainly have a sensationalist view of the U.S. Have you ever lived here for any length of time? Where? Or, do you just belive the socialist propaganda fed you?
I used to be afraid of life in the U.S. before I moved here. I quickly learned that my fears were quite unfounded if I make an effort to work for a living and not mooch off the fat of the land.
Indeed, I have gone through periods of unemployment, having to purchase private health insurance at rather high rates (around $800 a month). But, the savings I made while working made that livable (and was a damn good incentive to find work as soon as possible).
In Canada, I'd be utterly at the mercy of what fraction of my taxes the government sees fit to let me have back when I'm down on my luck. I've found that people who do well, pay sh*tloads of tax, and then "fall hard" end up getting told, "You made $$$$$$ last year -- no help for you!" (Generally businessmen who's businesses failed due to competition, and who once employed dozens of people).
Doesn't matter if one takes big risks, and creates jobs: "You were well off, so nothing for you, and how dare you fire those people when you couldn't afford to pay them!"
Canada is a land of crooked politicials prostituting the vote of the poor to enslave the working: "Vote for me! I'll tax him more to give you a better life!"
Not me. No more.
And that "Notwithstanding Clause"... Geez: "These are your rights unless we say otherwise." That is just so messed up.
Last time I checked, those were rankings by decidely socialist organizations.
Like Canada, they used to be good places to live, but the economic chickens have come home to roost.
Soviet Union, Canada, Cuba, etc. -- they'll all end up in the toilet.
(And China may oWn the U.S., what with the trade and fiscal deficits, but that's another issue.)
Then why do societies with less burdonsome taxation fare better in the long term than those with more burdonsome taxation in terms of stagnation of the quality of such institutions, when compared to their private counterparts?
You dismissed an AAA repair denied my father as an "experimental" procedure. Experimental in Canada, perhaps, but not in the U.S. at the time, where the cost is a mere $12k or $20k, depending on whether one opts on the invasive or endoscopic repair.
Today, I'm told this surger is performed in Canada, but the survival rate there is 25%, whereas it is 75% in the U.S. Why?
If you were to argue for modest income redistribution as a practical matter, with basic health care subsidized for the poor, for example, I could accept that. (Even the U.S. has Medicare, and hospitals can not turn away people in need of urgent care for lack of funds). But, that would imply a two-tier health care system which Canada soundly rejects (and is the only nation in the world to do so). The end result is that it is a crime to spend one's own money, whatever might be left after taxes, to save one's own life!
But, the Canadian "Social Contract" is a horrible ripoff to the married middle class wage earner supporting a family.
1. There is no such language. The major languages are Czech and Slovak.
2. The reference is to those, and all other recent refugees who came as freeloaders, happily accepting welfare on the backs of those who came before them and had to struggle. Prague Springers are merely a reference to the type of immigrant.
Eh? What prevents them from turning into one now? The government? The largest mob of them all?
Nothing "stops them", but then, nothing stops them now. Though the second ammendment is a rather nice deterrent, in extremis.
A Black Panther with a shot gun is a rather convincing counterparty to a biggoted white sherrif.
I didn't say withdraw, I said trade, as in buy and sell stock. RRSPs are effectively on autopilot when one is a non-resident, though this is improving, depending on the state in which one lives (basically, one's Canadian broker has to be licensed in the relevent U.S. State). Lost $35,000 not being able to sell a stock when I wanted. (I could've returned to Canada for the day to do that, but that would, at the time, make me a retro-active tax resident, and the taxes owing would exceed the $35,000, so...)
Where did I claim this? I noted that my family was, at one time, well off, but hardly aristocrats (I won't mention Castle Jiljov).
But, suppose they were. Suppose they were plunderers, rapists, and thieves. Losing such ill-gotten booty inherited from their ancesters, to the Austro-Hungarian empire first, Nazis second, and Soviet communists second, and starting from zero would seam to be fair "punishment", No. (Don't answer that -- I know you will say "No! Make the son pay for the alleged crimes of the forefathers! Axe and pitchfork, ho!")
It is clear that you can not conceive that someone, unfettered by the chains of oppressive taxation, relying only on their own labour, wits, and good character, could earn sufficient capital through voluntary exchange to live a life comfortable enough so that they could support their consort and projeny, and support their own retirement.
I guess that's what they feed young minds in Canadian schools today. Mussollini was right. (Google for Mussollini and School.)