Mod up 1000. The real question is why does what appears to be around 20% of the population live in a state of being so easily duped by praying on emotions? It's clearly some kind of genetic thing, as they exist in every generation. Reading comments on the Internet they are all out there for everyone to see, and then tend to rally together saying "You're so right" to each other. And then there is the 1% that control the 20%, who are pure evil themselves, taking advantage of people that way. They are always the ones who scream loudest about the "injustice" that needs to be righted, when they, themselves are a walking injustice of unbridled greed, avarice, and a deep seated hatred of their fellow man....
It's a fascinating story. Microsoft had a workforce made up almost entirely of contractors - because it was cheaper for them, and because so many developers wanted to work for Microsoft the developers happily paid the self-employment penalty (Schedule C FICA contribution which is normally split between you and your employer, self employed folks have to pick up the other half.
Over the years we have made it really difficult for companies to fire people who don't perform... and big companies, that have big money, are huge targets for lawyers, who tell clients "Microsoft? They have huge piles of money! I can SUE them, and if I win, we'll split the money and you'll be set for life!! They didn't fire you because you sucked as a developer, no, it was because you were black/white/christian/muslim/gay/whatever!! But a "contract employee" hired from a contracting house can be let go in a heartbeat with no reason given. Saves HR having to "build a case" to prevent a lawsuit.
I believe it was the Bush Sr. administration that got the law changed - not sure - Essentially it says "You aren't an independent contractor IF you have a single client, and are expected to go to the same place to work each day. It was a good idea by well intentioned people... Microsoft should pay their fair share of taxes - and it should give these folks good benefits, because as everyone knows Microsoft works people really hard for insane hours. As does Google, Apple, Facebook, etc.
But as almost always happens when well intentioned nice people decide that passing laws is going to solve a problem, that nasty law of UN-intended consequences came into play...
So guess what happened? Everybody got fucked except the very entity that the law was targeted towards. Overnight the contract house industry got a HUGE boost, all these people became contract house employees. The contract houses operate under the laws that affect temp agencies, they don't have to offer a pension, can give you the bare minimum health insurance benefits, etc. Microsoft didn't have to pay any more taxes... You, the developer, now works for sleazy Joe headhunter, who is a legalized pimp. Turnover went up - because Joe is going to place you where he makes the most profit. Quality went down. An entire layer of administrative crap was created - that now has a vested interest in self perpetuating itself.
So you hire a guy in another country, where they haven't spent 200 years building a mountain of crap regulations... He costs what the developer used to cost, before we built all these roadblocks into the system... and if he sucks you can fire him on the spot. And you don't have to pay ANY taxes on this guy, or give him benefits, or a pension.
There is a very important lesson here. Trying to micromanage behavior through legislation fails most of the time because there is this fallacy on the part of the legislators that people as a herd are stupid.... But the truth is that people are actually damn smart, and you pass some law that involves taking something away (e.g. paying more taxes) people will work really hard to avoid paying them, and you'll get some completely unexpected result. And the "fix" is ALWAYS another micromanagement attempt, that causes yet another set of unintended consequences, and after many years you end up with exactly what we have now, a completely crazy stupid system that is a big fucking mess....
So let's pass a law that you can't hire the offshore guy, and add another layer of insanity. This is why everything the government touches turns to shit eventually. Politicians have to "do something" and most of the time, it's wrong...
The solution is to start over. Start by abolishing the IRS and implementing a flat tax. It's not the best system, it has many faults, but it's simple... Then you wipe out whole agencies and the associated CFR sections, and start over, one by one. The alternative is that we go the way of all other empires that came before us...
Then this certainly applies to the Tesla and Hybrid driver, who paid extra for smugness. What about the mini-van with one woman in it? The Cadillac with the V8, same as a pickup?
What about the weekend warrior who wants to haul his dirt bike? Also has small p*nis?
IF we had the infrastructure in place, sure. But we don't except in the NE corridor. And if you've used it, it's pretty sucky compared to sitting in your car listening to music. Building that infrastructure is a 20 year project. And you just know the environmentalists will raise a huge stink about the environmental impact of the new light rail system, and the horrible damage done to the forests where the trains between cities have to run, and how some frog can't reproduce because of the noise of the train, so no trains during morning commute... And then the unions will need to be paid off, because the infrastructure will have to be built with union only labor, and as their dues generally go to Democratic party politicians the blue states will get the best infrastructure and the red states will be screwed. Then we'll need more power to run the light rail, and the trains, and as we have torn down all the coal plants, that means more nuke plants, and we'll have GreenPeace destroying more of the environment to protest that.
Walking doesn't work for most folks who can't walk 30 miles a day in Winter to work- and back. So they will form a PAC, and sue for equal rights. If they are a big enough voting block, some political party will court them, and we'll need to accommodate them. Same for people on bicycles. And then the over 50 crowd, and the obese crowd, they can now sue for discrimination - and get special tax credits for driving.
This is how the real world works. Yeah, it's easy to armchair quarterback this crap isn't it?
Well said. But fairness and equal handedness goes along with something called Common Sense. And when you see it, you immediately recognize it for what it is.
With an ideology, it's bullshit if it's filled with contradictions that the supporters refuse to discuss. That does not mean one ideology triumphs another. But if I say "Well look here, on one hand you say THIS, and then you say THAT" and you scream RACIST at me....
I am not so sure that Obama is protecting the CIA - because it's hard for me to differentiate between what Obama says, and what he actually does. What he says is easy to discover, what he does, not so much. You could be absolutely right. I just don't know for sure.
I don't know what a "Fox Republican" is. I get FOX, MSNBC, and CNN. None of these are really "news" outlets' The show at 6 - Special Report I think it's called - seems to give pretty equal weight to both sides, they have intelligent liberals and conservatives being nice to each other. The roundtable at 6:45 is some of the best 15 minutes on TV. Greta is endless commercials and a single topic, that she beats the crap out of. boring as hell. Bill O'Reilly's talking points are usually well thought out, and I usually agree with him. But then he gets three loudmouthed idiots yelling at each other - and he always picks the looney liberal - I tune out. Kelly File seems really well done, balanced, fair, honest. It's a really good show unless we are in a media blitz (single topic all channels) The next guy - Hannity - is pure conservative drivel, repeats the talking points over and over, can't stand it. MSNBC has a somewhat newsy show with Matthews, the guy that's on next is to the left of Karl Marx, nothing he says is remotely true and it's the most incredible over the top lying thing I have ever seen. Does anyone actually believe that crap? It's hard to believe. Rachel Maddow is not that bad, but that smug arrogant attitude of hers is a big turn off, and she never, ever has a real conservative on there, it's a bunch of liberals going "Oh you're so right!" and the Rethugnicans are always pure evil rat bastards who eat raw baby livers for breakfast, hate women, hate grandma, want poor people to starve, blah blah blah. CNN has turned to trash. Erin Burnett, she's a good news reader, but like Greta she picks a single topic and beats it to death. I used to really like Anderson Cooper, but the editors have turned his show into a left leaning one sided diatribe, unless there is a news event, and then he beats it to death just like Erin. Peirs Morgan... he was horrible. So it's no wonder FOX has the highest ratings - it has the highest quality. It's no wonder MSNBC has so few viewers it's hemorrhaging cash. CNN might find a voice. I wish they would! But honestly I have seen nothing on FOX that says they are in favor of the CIA and torture. Maybe you should actually WATCH IT instead of consuming sound bites on web sites? I find a lot of people that tell me this about FOX haven't actually watched it. FOX LIES! Have you ever watched it? NO, BUT FOX LIES! C'mon...
I agree, Terrorists should be tried, and processed. While we are it, rip the NDAA to shreds. The NDAA allows indefinite detention. Obama did this as an executive order so no Democrat would be required to vote on it. If he really cared about any of this beyond the politics he'd repeal it. Anyway... in previous wars, we tried these kinds of people by military tribunals.
And believe it or not, I am not a Republican. I am an ex-Democrat registered independent. I left the Democrats when they decided that the ends justify the means, no insult was too small, and lying is something you are proud of. The Cliintonistas drove me away. I was no fan of Bush Jr. But you know, whether you agreed with him or not, he actually believed the words that came out of his mouth. Unlike Obama, who would tell anyone anything at any time if he thought it would get him a single vote.... and then say the exact opposite the next day.
It seems we agree on many things - and I understand that you aren't going to agree that this is a big political show and has nothing at all to do with our being moral, or just, or civilized. It's just political theater by a party that's about to be out of power, nothing more.
Terrorists should be tried. But not using the U.S. legal system. Doing this would create a perfect political opportunity they would not get a fair trial at all. Enemy combatants have never been tried in U.S. courts.
All those countries torture their own citizens, and if you traveled there and they didn't like you, they would torture you too.
I am sorry if you took this all personally. My response is directed at the group. IMHO it's a big fat doublespeak, that's my opinion, it has nothing to do with left/right and everything to do with plain old common sense. If you don't torture people, but kill them from afar in countries you are not at war with you're still a barbarian no matter how much you try to not dirty your own hands. If you scream about due process and then order such killings, you're a hypocrite. It's simple.
I respectfully disagree. You can't say out of one side of your mouth that we are noble and don't torture while ordering killings of people in countries we are not at war with, from afar, with no legal process in place. It's complete and utter double speak bullshit.
And then we walk around wondering why so many people hate us. The drone killings have doubled down under Mr. Nobel Peace Prize and they get little coverage. Nothing to see here, we're just killing anybody we have a possible shred of evidence for. But the terrorists in Gitmo, they deserve trials! Bullshit....
Every civilized society? What about Russia? China? Spain? South American Countries? Are they not "civilized"? The whole argument has more holes in it than a cheese grater. Typical doublespeak. All pigs are equal, but some pigs, well, you see, they are more equal than others.
Yes, absolutely. But the use of drones to kill people from afar without any due process is also a rather large crime that this administration has increased not decreased. But you don't see any outcry about that. No, just whipping up of the base so they remember how excited they were hating Bush.
Naw, kill 'em with drones when no one is looking, and kill their wives and children too. THAT IS WHAT WE ARE DOING. But mum's the word, because Democrats are doing it.
Actually he has doubled down on all the really bad stuff, and done less good stuff. Look up the NDAA and read it. Look at the votes on renewing the Patriot Act - when Democrats had control of both houses. Look at all the women and children killed by drones. Obama isn't Bush Light he is Bush squared.
While we're at it here, let's give Obama an attaboy for saying "fuck no" to the whole disgusting mess. He surely isn't perfect, but he got this exactly right.
But an executive - without any oversight - without any due process - ordering drone strikes - on people's homes - killing an untold number of innocent women, and children... That's OK, right? But waterboarding some dude, well that was wrong and had to be stopped. Did we attach electrodes to people balls like our enemies do? Behead people and post the video on You Tube? Throw thousands of people in mass graves? Well, nooooo.... We don't TORTURE people we just KILL THEM WITHOUT WARNING, so yeah, we are the "Good" and "Noble" guys, those nasty Republican terrorist tea-baggers, they are the bad guys.
A summary - written by Democrats - for pure propaganda purposes... Rushed to release before they lose the majority, in a desperate attempt to make one more attack on the evil, horrible, ignorant hayseed Retugnican George Bush, that's worth an atta-boy!! But only because it proves that when it comes to attack, the Democrats never, ever give up. You can be assured that the 480 page "summary" is the most out of context attack document ever conceived, a masterpiece of red meat for the far left loons to howl and wail about for years to come. Why? Because these are the same people that enraged the base with tales of the "Illegal War" being waged by Bush - A war that they were all in favor of until election season - who are now using the same authorization they voted for to invade Iraq YET AGAIN and bomb Syria (something not covered by the use of force authorization). There are no words for such hypocrisy.
So an "atta-boy"? I don't think so. A sigh and a facial expression of disgust at how low people go in the lust for power and money is what I am feeling right now.
Agreed on all. What happened in my business is that the rate I could charge my clients per developer hour went from $70, $80 to $50 -- Because that's what my competition (who went offshore first) was charging. That's a blended rate for a U.S. based PM and a developer. Digital PM's cost me $90-$110K a year, plus burden so that's $130-$140, and of course Healthcare costs went up 30% with Obamacare. So at $50 an hour, four developer hours for 1 PM hour, I'm looking at paying a 5-7 year developer $55K with burden $70K. And guess what? NOBODY WILL TAKE THAT JOB. So if I can get offshore guy with same experience and English for $30 an hour, that's $60K a year total and I stay in business.
That's reality. I can't change it. Now there was a time when you could get slicers in India and South America for $15 to $20 and hour. But it just caused problems, because the developers ended up having to rework the HTML/JS as it wasn't very good.
Reasonable taxes, absolutely! But as one who worked 80 hour weeks for three years to build this business, putting all of my income, savings at risk.. and then being told I should be taxed at 90% of my income.... Sorry, it really makes me angry. I still work some 60 hours a week, every week, have taken 1 week off in four years. This is what business owners DO. Rich people... 99.9% of them.... are working their asses off.
The Middle Class is being gutted because we're killing the small business owner with paperwork, regulations, one size fits all, mandates for benefits, lawyers, the whole lot of it. You wouldn't believe the hoops we have to jump through today.vs. 20 years ago. The cost of insurance - not just health - has skyrocketed. I'm really fortunate, I'm going to retire in six years, but the poor people today who dream of starting a business I really feel sorry for... As a country we're anti-entrepreneur, anti-small business... which is exactly why all the specialty stores are gone, and we have Wal-Mart. And why we have Mega-Corp instead of mid-corp. It's not that Mega-Corp is evil, it's that all large organizations are evil compared to smaller ones.
Missed a point. Business operates to return the maximum value to the people who took the risk. This is either the owners, or the shareholders.
The greater the risk, the greater the reward. If you put your life savings at risk to start a business, you get a higher reward than the guy who just has a job.
Of course some people believe if you do this, and are successful, you need to be punished and your wealth confiscated. To them, I say "Go start a business and get back to me"... You'll discover that treating customers like gold, and watching costs is how you get rich - not ripping people off and screwing employees. This is the big surprise....
And yes. the bigger the organization, be it business or government, the more fucked up it is. Which is why the Federal Government is the most fucked up entity on planet earth!
Your reply is a bright spot in an otherwise crazy busy day. Thank You. I do see "The company OWES me" from a few people, mostly younger folks who have never been managers. These are the guys who get promoted to management and think that by barking orders things get done... and then they inevitably crash and burn, blaming everyone else for their failure as a leader. And then they write bitter postings on slash dot about evil corporations LOL
Good developers - really good ones - are in short supply the world over. Just because they don't live in the U.S. doesn't mean the distribution of exceptionally good, exceptionally bad, and mediocre is any different. I've got some awesome guys here in the states, and some awesome guys in Ukraine, and they all love each other. Which is why the "We hired a bunch of guys from ______________ and they all sucked" hits a nerve.
Truth is, the days of the $12 an hour offshore programmer disappeared about ten years ago. Try $30 - $70. MOST web sites are built using global teams, because web site production has become an assembly line operation. A creative guy builds a layered PSD, an IA builds a wire frame, a front end guy slices the art and codes the HTML/CS/JS and a programmer marries it to a framework. Each of these people can be in a different country, it doesn't matter for 70, 80 percent of the sites out there. This happened years ago, and one either followed the herd... or starved. That's why we went offshore. Fortunately I had friends in the Ukraine. I need to eat and pay bills, all my competitors did it, and I couldn't compete using all U.S. guys. It's not personal. it's not Anti-American it's just the way things are. If you're in Digital Interactive, you're managing a global team or you're unemployed. Yeah, some small agencies have in house developers. But none of the major accounts do, and in this business the big brands are what make your portfolio.
And the reason they get away with this? Because they BUY THE POLITICIANS, that's why. And that's the real problem my friend. I'm running a 20 person dev house, I can't afford to bribe a Senator, I get screwed... But the big boys, they do this all the time. It's not a left/right issue at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod up 1000. The real question is why does what appears to be around 20% of the population live in a state of being so easily duped by praying on emotions? It's clearly some kind of genetic thing, as they exist in every generation. Reading comments on the Internet they are all out there for everyone to see, and then tend to rally together saying "You're so right" to each other. And then there is the 1% that control the 20%, who are pure evil themselves, taking advantage of people that way. They are always the ones who scream loudest about the "injustice" that needs to be righted, when they, themselves are a walking injustice of unbridled greed, avarice, and a deep seated hatred of their fellow man....
Mod up 1000. But sadly you'll get flame for making this jewel of common sense observation...
It's a fascinating story. Microsoft had a workforce made up almost entirely of contractors - because it was cheaper for them, and because so many developers wanted to work for Microsoft the developers happily paid the self-employment penalty (Schedule C FICA contribution which is normally split between you and your employer, self employed folks have to pick up the other half.
Over the years we have made it really difficult for companies to fire people who don't perform... and big companies, that have big money, are huge targets for lawyers, who tell clients "Microsoft? They have huge piles of money! I can SUE them, and if I win, we'll split the money and you'll be set for life!! They didn't fire you because you sucked as a developer, no, it was because you were black/white/christian/muslim/gay/whatever!! But a "contract employee" hired from a contracting house can be let go in a heartbeat with no reason given. Saves HR having to "build a case" to prevent a lawsuit.
I believe it was the Bush Sr. administration that got the law changed - not sure - Essentially it says "You aren't an independent contractor IF you have a single client, and are expected to go to the same place to work each day. It was a good idea by well intentioned people... Microsoft should pay their fair share of taxes - and it should give these folks good benefits, because as everyone knows Microsoft works people really hard for insane hours. As does Google, Apple, Facebook, etc.
But as almost always happens when well intentioned nice people decide that passing laws is going to solve a problem, that nasty law of UN-intended consequences came into play...
So guess what happened? Everybody got fucked except the very entity that the law was targeted towards. Overnight the contract house industry got a HUGE boost, all these people became contract house employees. The contract houses operate under the laws that affect temp agencies, they don't have to offer a pension, can give you the bare minimum health insurance benefits, etc. Microsoft didn't have to pay any more taxes... You, the developer, now works for sleazy Joe headhunter, who is a legalized pimp. Turnover went up - because Joe is going to place you where he makes the most profit. Quality went down. An entire layer of administrative crap was created - that now has a vested interest in self perpetuating itself.
So you hire a guy in another country, where they haven't spent 200 years building a mountain of crap regulations... He costs what the developer used to cost, before we built all these roadblocks into the system... and if he sucks you can fire him on the spot. And you don't have to pay ANY taxes on this guy, or give him benefits, or a pension.
There is a very important lesson here. Trying to micromanage behavior through legislation fails most of the time because there is this fallacy on the part of the legislators that people as a herd are stupid.... But the truth is that people are actually damn smart, and you pass some law that involves taking something away (e.g. paying more taxes) people will work really hard to avoid paying them, and you'll get some completely unexpected result. And the "fix" is ALWAYS another micromanagement attempt, that causes yet another set of unintended consequences, and after many years you end up with exactly what we have now, a completely crazy stupid system that is a big fucking mess....
So let's pass a law that you can't hire the offshore guy, and add another layer of insanity. This is why everything the government touches turns to shit eventually. Politicians have to "do something" and most of the time, it's wrong...
The solution is to start over. Start by abolishing the IRS and implementing a flat tax. It's not the best system, it has many faults, but it's simple... Then you wipe out whole agencies and the associated CFR sections, and start over, one by one. The alternative is that we go the way of all other empires that came before us...
Absolutely mod up 1000.
Then this certainly applies to the Tesla and Hybrid driver, who paid extra for smugness. What about the mini-van with one woman in it? The Cadillac with the V8, same as a pickup?
What about the weekend warrior who wants to haul his dirt bike? Also has small p*nis?
IF we had the infrastructure in place, sure. But we don't except in the NE corridor. And if you've used it, it's pretty sucky compared to sitting in your car listening to music. Building that infrastructure is a 20 year project. And you just know the environmentalists will raise a huge stink about the environmental impact of the new light rail system, and the horrible damage done to the forests where the trains between cities have to run, and how some frog can't reproduce because of the noise of the train, so no trains during morning commute... And then the unions will need to be paid off, because the infrastructure will have to be built with union only labor, and as their dues generally go to Democratic party politicians the blue states will get the best infrastructure and the red states will be screwed. Then we'll need more power to run the light rail, and the trains, and as we have torn down all the coal plants, that means more nuke plants, and we'll have GreenPeace destroying more of the environment to protest that.
Walking doesn't work for most folks who can't walk 30 miles a day in Winter to work- and back. So they will form a PAC, and sue for equal rights. If they are a big enough voting block, some political party will court them, and we'll need to accommodate them. Same for people on bicycles. And then the over 50 crowd, and the obese crowd, they can now sue for discrimination - and get special tax credits for driving.
This is how the real world works. Yeah, it's easy to armchair quarterback this crap isn't it?
Rule#2: If you're an environmentalist, don't take a limo to your corporate jet to attend the "Environmentalists Conference"
Rule#3: Don't make wild eyed claims about imminent disaster that won't come true
Rule#4: Once you have achieved your goal, don't create a new goalpost and go on yet another rabid rant about the same thing
Rule #5: Accept reality and quit living in a fantasy world where everybody else needs to do what you say while you continue to do the same thing...
Well said. But fairness and equal handedness goes along with something called Common Sense. And when you see it, you immediately recognize it for what it is.
With an ideology, it's bullshit if it's filled with contradictions that the supporters refuse to discuss. That does not mean one ideology triumphs another. But if I say "Well look here, on one hand you say THIS, and then you say THAT" and you scream RACIST at me....
I am not so sure that Obama is protecting the CIA - because it's hard for me to differentiate between what Obama says, and what he actually does. What he says is easy to discover, what he does, not so much. You could be absolutely right. I just don't know for sure.
I don't know what a "Fox Republican" is. I get FOX, MSNBC, and CNN. None of these are really "news" outlets' The show at 6 - Special Report I think it's called - seems to give pretty equal weight to both sides, they have intelligent liberals and conservatives being nice to each other. The roundtable at 6:45 is some of the best 15 minutes on TV. Greta is endless commercials and a single topic, that she beats the crap out of. boring as hell. Bill O'Reilly's talking points are usually well thought out, and I usually agree with him. But then he gets three loudmouthed idiots yelling at each other - and he always picks the looney liberal - I tune out. Kelly File seems really well done, balanced, fair, honest. It's a really good show unless we are in a media blitz (single topic all channels) The next guy - Hannity - is pure conservative drivel, repeats the talking points over and over, can't stand it. MSNBC has a somewhat newsy show with Matthews, the guy that's on next is to the left of Karl Marx, nothing he says is remotely true and it's the most incredible over the top lying thing I have ever seen. Does anyone actually believe that crap? It's hard to believe. Rachel Maddow is not that bad, but that smug arrogant attitude of hers is a big turn off, and she never, ever has a real conservative on there, it's a bunch of liberals going "Oh you're so right!" and the Rethugnicans are always pure evil rat bastards who eat raw baby livers for breakfast, hate women, hate grandma, want poor people to starve, blah blah blah. CNN has turned to trash. Erin Burnett, she's a good news reader, but like Greta she picks a single topic and beats it to death. I used to really like Anderson Cooper, but the editors have turned his show into a left leaning one sided diatribe, unless there is a news event, and then he beats it to death just like Erin. Peirs Morgan... he was horrible. So it's no wonder FOX has the highest ratings - it has the highest quality. It's no wonder MSNBC has so few viewers it's hemorrhaging cash. CNN might find a voice. I wish they would! But honestly I have seen nothing on FOX that says they are in favor of the CIA and torture. Maybe you should actually WATCH IT instead of consuming sound bites on web sites? I find a lot of people that tell me this about FOX haven't actually watched it. FOX LIES! Have you ever watched it? NO, BUT FOX LIES! C'mon...
I agree, Terrorists should be tried, and processed. While we are it, rip the NDAA to shreds. The NDAA allows indefinite detention. Obama did this as an executive order so no Democrat would be required to vote on it. If he really cared about any of this beyond the politics he'd repeal it. Anyway... in previous wars, we tried these kinds of people by military tribunals.
And believe it or not, I am not a Republican. I am an ex-Democrat registered independent. I left the Democrats when they decided that the ends justify the means, no insult was too small, and lying is something you are proud of. The Cliintonistas drove me away. I was no fan of Bush Jr. But you know, whether you agreed with him or not, he actually believed the words that came out of his mouth. Unlike Obama, who would tell anyone anything at any time if he thought it would get him a single vote.... and then say the exact opposite the next day.
It seems we agree on many things - and I understand that you aren't going to agree that this is a big political show and has nothing at all to do with our being moral, or just, or civilized. It's just political theater by a party that's about to be out of power, nothing more.
Terrorists should be tried. But not using the U.S. legal system. Doing this would create a perfect political opportunity they would not get a fair trial at all. Enemy combatants have never been tried in U.S. courts.
All those countries torture their own citizens, and if you traveled there and they didn't like you, they would torture you too.
I am sorry if you took this all personally. My response is directed at the group. IMHO it's a big fat doublespeak, that's my opinion, it has nothing to do with left/right and everything to do with plain old common sense. If you don't torture people, but kill them from afar in countries you are not at war with you're still a barbarian no matter how much you try to not dirty your own hands. If you scream about due process and then order such killings, you're a hypocrite. It's simple.
I respectfully disagree. You can't say out of one side of your mouth that we are noble and don't torture while ordering killings of people in countries we are not at war with, from afar, with no legal process in place. It's complete and utter double speak bullshit.
And then we walk around wondering why so many people hate us. The drone killings have doubled down under Mr. Nobel Peace Prize and they get little coverage. Nothing to see here, we're just killing anybody we have a possible shred of evidence for. But the terrorists in Gitmo, they deserve trials! Bullshit....
Every civilized society? What about Russia? China? Spain? South American Countries? Are they not "civilized"? The whole argument has more holes in it than a cheese grater. Typical doublespeak. All pigs are equal, but some pigs, well, you see, they are more equal than others.
Yes, absolutely. But the use of drones to kill people from afar without any due process is also a rather large crime that this administration has increased not decreased. But you don't see any outcry about that. No, just whipping up of the base so they remember how excited they were hating Bush.
Naw, kill 'em with drones when no one is looking, and kill their wives and children too. THAT IS WHAT WE ARE DOING. But mum's the word, because Democrats are doing it.
Beauty. Sadly the parroting of "The Narrative" seems to occur equally from both sides.
Actually he has doubled down on all the really bad stuff, and done less good stuff. Look up the NDAA and read it. Look at the votes on renewing the Patriot Act - when Democrats had control of both houses. Look at all the women and children killed by drones. Obama isn't Bush Light he is Bush squared.
But killing people and their families using drones and bombs dropped from 40,000 feet, that proves how compassionate Democrats are FOR SURE!
While we're at it here, let's give Obama an attaboy for saying "fuck no" to the whole disgusting mess. He surely isn't perfect, but he got this exactly right.
But an executive - without any oversight - without any due process - ordering drone strikes - on people's homes - killing an untold number of innocent women, and children... That's OK, right? But waterboarding some dude, well that was wrong and had to be stopped. Did we attach electrodes to people balls like our enemies do? Behead people and post the video on You Tube? Throw thousands of people in mass graves? Well, nooooo.... We don't TORTURE people we just KILL THEM WITHOUT WARNING, so yeah, we are the "Good" and "Noble" guys, those nasty Republican terrorist tea-baggers, they are the bad guys.
A summary - written by Democrats - for pure propaganda purposes... Rushed to release before they lose the majority, in a desperate attempt to make one more attack on the evil, horrible, ignorant hayseed Retugnican George Bush, that's worth an atta-boy!! But only because it proves that when it comes to attack, the Democrats never, ever give up. You can be assured that the 480 page "summary" is the most out of context attack document ever conceived, a masterpiece of red meat for the far left loons to howl and wail about for years to come. Why? Because these are the same people that enraged the base with tales of the "Illegal War" being waged by Bush - A war that they were all in favor of until election season - who are now using the same authorization they voted for to invade Iraq YET AGAIN and bomb Syria (something not covered by the use of force authorization). There are no words for such hypocrisy.
So an "atta-boy"? I don't think so. A sigh and a facial expression of disgust at how low people go in the lust for power and money is what I am feeling right now.
Agreed but such an understanding is certainly beyond the scope/purview of most of the discussion here :-) Thanks for an interesting discussion.
Agreed on all. What happened in my business is that the rate I could charge my clients per developer hour went from $70, $80 to $50 -- Because that's what my competition (who went offshore first) was charging. That's a blended rate for a U.S. based PM and a developer. Digital PM's cost me $90-$110K a year, plus burden so that's $130-$140, and of course Healthcare costs went up 30% with Obamacare. So at $50 an hour, four developer hours for 1 PM hour, I'm looking at paying a 5-7 year developer $55K with burden $70K. And guess what? NOBODY WILL TAKE THAT JOB. So if I can get offshore guy with same experience and English for $30 an hour, that's $60K a year total and I stay in business.
.vs. 20 years ago. The cost of insurance - not just health - has skyrocketed. I'm really fortunate, I'm going to retire in six years, but the poor people today who dream of starting a business I really feel sorry for... As a country we're anti-entrepreneur, anti-small business... which is exactly why all the specialty stores are gone, and we have Wal-Mart. And why we have Mega-Corp instead of mid-corp. It's not that Mega-Corp is evil, it's that all large organizations are evil compared to smaller ones.
That's reality. I can't change it. Now there was a time when you could get slicers in India and South America for $15 to $20 and hour. But it just caused problems, because the developers ended up having to rework the HTML/JS as it wasn't very good.
Reasonable taxes, absolutely! But as one who worked 80 hour weeks for three years to build this business, putting all of my income, savings at risk.. and then being told I should be taxed at 90% of my income.... Sorry, it really makes me angry. I still work some 60 hours a week, every week, have taken 1 week off in four years. This is what business owners DO. Rich people... 99.9% of them.... are working their asses off.
The Middle Class is being gutted because we're killing the small business owner with paperwork, regulations, one size fits all, mandates for benefits, lawyers, the whole lot of it. You wouldn't believe the hoops we have to jump through today
Thanks and I am so not surprised. It's been an enjoyable conversation, thanks.
Missed a point. Business operates to return the maximum value to the people who took the risk. This is either the owners, or the shareholders.
The greater the risk, the greater the reward. If you put your life savings at risk to start a business, you get a higher reward than the guy who just has a job.
Of course some people believe if you do this, and are successful, you need to be punished and your wealth confiscated. To them, I say "Go start a business and get back to me"... You'll discover that treating customers like gold, and watching costs is how you get rich - not ripping people off and screwing employees. This is the big surprise....
And yes. the bigger the organization, be it business or government, the more fucked up it is. Which is why the Federal Government is the most fucked up entity on planet earth!
Your reply is a bright spot in an otherwise crazy busy day. Thank You. I do see "The company OWES me" from a few people, mostly younger folks who have never been managers. These are the guys who get promoted to management and think that by barking orders things get done... and then they inevitably crash and burn, blaming everyone else for their failure as a leader. And then they write bitter postings on slash dot about evil corporations LOL
Good developers - really good ones - are in short supply the world over. Just because they don't live in the U.S. doesn't mean the distribution of exceptionally good, exceptionally bad, and mediocre is any different. I've got some awesome guys here in the states, and some awesome guys in Ukraine, and they all love each other. Which is why the "We hired a bunch of guys from ______________ and they all sucked" hits a nerve.
Truth is, the days of the $12 an hour offshore programmer disappeared about ten years ago. Try $30 - $70. MOST web sites are built using global teams, because web site production has become an assembly line operation. A creative guy builds a layered PSD, an IA builds a wire frame, a front end guy slices the art and codes the HTML/CS/JS and a programmer marries it to a framework. Each of these people can be in a different country, it doesn't matter for 70, 80 percent of the sites out there. This happened years ago, and one either followed the herd... or starved. That's why we went offshore. Fortunately I had friends in the Ukraine. I need to eat and pay bills, all my competitors did it, and I couldn't compete using all U.S. guys. It's not personal. it's not Anti-American it's just the way things are. If you're in Digital Interactive, you're managing a global team or you're unemployed. Yeah, some small agencies have in house developers. But none of the major accounts do, and in this business the big brands are what make your portfolio.
So let me get this straight. I pay the acquisition cost for a fully qualified lead. And I introduce you to that lead. And you steal it from me.
And in your world, I am the bad person?
Let me guess. You're a liberal, right? Society owes you? The company owes you? HILARIOUS YOU ARE.
And the reason they get away with this? Because they BUY THE POLITICIANS, that's why. And that's the real problem my friend. I'm running a 20 person dev house, I can't afford to bribe a Senator, I get screwed... But the big boys, they do this all the time. It's not a left/right issue at all.