It's a better idea than letting all the doctors move out of Texas because their malpractice has gone through the roof and no one's willing to pass a law limiting awards to actual damages.
I find it fascinating that there is an entire side to this equation that is never discussed: the insurance companies. Don't misunderstand me, I'm sure that there are some frivilous lawsuits out there. However, I find it quite difficult to believe that the judges and juries are stupid enough to award someone millions for no reason. Simply put a great number of the malpractice suits must be valid. We do have a court system you know, every doctor who lost a malpractice case was found gulty by 12 rational people.
I personally can't help but wonder how much of the soaring cost of malpractice insurance is due to simple profiteering on the part of the insuring companies. Historically laws putting caps on malpractice claims have *not* reduced the cost of malpractice insurance. California, for example, passed an award cap in 1976, over the next 12 years malpractice insurance rates increased by 190%. Hardly the result promised, no?
More significantly other evidence indicates that the insurance companies are simply indulging in price gouging. During the period from 1995-1999 medical malpractic insurance rates increased by around 1.2% During that same period overall health care costs increased by around 13.6 percent. The doctors aren't taking home that extra 13.6 percent, ask any doctors you know. The doctors are getting screwed by the insurance industry as much as their patients are. The HMO's and other insurance companies are getting filthy rich off this scam.
Offtopic here, but I want to reply to your sig. Specifically the article referenced by your sig. The author of the article has made one of the classic "mistakes" in tax analysis (I put "mistakes" in quotation marks becuase usually the people who write about taxes have enough knowledge on the topic that it cannot be a mistake but rather deliberate attempt to decieve their audience).
Income tax is not the sum total of all taxes. His statistics are valid enough for income tax, but that's hardly the whole story. The average working stiff pays almost nothing in income taxes; perfecly true. However this does *not* mean that the average working stiff pays no taxes. Most people pay the vast majority of their taxes in the form of payroll taxes. Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, FICA, etc. Those are only the Federal taxes, of course. Local taxes (sales tax, property tax, telephone tax, electricity tax, gas (both methane and petrol) taxes, etc) are a hefty bite as well. Social Security alone accounts for a huge bite out of the average person's paycheck and is also one of the most regressive taxes in existance. Only the first $86,000 a person makes are subject to Social Security tax, which means that 100% of my income gets hit with Social Security tax, but less than.001% of Bill Gates' income is subject to SS tax. A politician who proposed leveling SS taxes would get my vote immediately and without reservation.
The upper 1% of the population pays around 33% of all tax money that goes to Washington. Yup, absolutely true. The thing is that the upper 1% has around 33% of the money. On a dollar for dollar basis they actually pay slightly less than the lower 50% do. Far from being overtaxed, the upper 1% are (assuming that everyone should pay an equal percentage of their wealth) slightly under taxed.
As for the writer's conclusion that we ought to consider limiting the franchise to people who pay X dollars in (watch his language here) *income*taxes* it sounds like he's just dying to establish a classic plutocracy. Those in power, now possessing exclusive voting franchise could quite easily define "income tax" to exclude incredibly large portions of society while increasing the various non-"income taxes" with impunity. Taxation without representation anyone?
On a practical note, I will point out that every single member of the elected Federal government, as well as every single member of the past 5 president's Cabinets, falls into the upper 1%. Most fall into the upper 1/10th of 1%. The economic elite are hardly underrepresented in government; quite the opposite really (side note: I refer to their income prior to becoming a member of government here). I personally would like to see just *one* person in the Federal government who falls into the "lower" 70%. I will observe that the Federal government (under past administrations as well as the current administration) seems quite content to emplace policies that primarially benefit the economic elite, while occasionally tossing a bone to the rest of the nation. What baffles me is that people keep voting for government by, of, and for millionares...
History has shown us that while voting requirements often sound good on paper they never really work in practice. Just like Communism, or lassie-faire capitalism, its an idea that simply does not work in the real world. Inevitably the best intentioned voter requirements become nothing more than a tool of oppression. In my own ideal fantasy world you couldn't vote unless you displayed a knowledge of the *facts* in current affairs. The difference between me and the person who wrote the article you reference is that I'm mature enough to know that my fantasy won't work in reality; he doesn't seem to have reached that point yet.
Damn... I modded "overrated" instead of "underrated" to the parent. Curse Slashdot's "You can't un-mod any post without posting yourself and unmodding all posts" policy.
You must remember, free speech does not come "free".
While true, it ain't right. Our legal system is seriously broken when person foo can say something truthful about megacorp bar and because he doesn't have money for a fancy gang of lawyers he gets taken to the cleaners. That's the way it is, but that doesn't mean that's the way it should be.
When I say they should have kept things quiet and let things slide, I meant a compromise reached by both sides.
HardOCP offered compromise early in the game, they received a threat and politely offered to correct any (imaginary as it turns out) factual errors. I have a more hardline view: when any person or corp has a legal threat as their first resort I think that compromise has already gone out the window. The person threatening legal action has already discarded compromise as an option. More to the point that sort of oppressive nastyness should not be met with any toleration at all. Anyone who's thought process goes: "I don't like what this person is saying so I'll get my high power legal team to threaten his entire livelyhood" deserves no sympathy. The only appropriate action is to do whatever is in your power to ruin them because they've already decided to try and ruin you.
Had Infinitum Labs sent a non-legally threatening letter politely noting factual errors and requesting that they be corrected things would be different. But from what I can tell the thought of trying a non-litigous solution never crossed their minds. So screw 'em.
What exactly led you to equate "businessmen who used unscrupulous tactics" with "all successful businessmen"? Again, give me a break.
Because, during the period referenced, the most successful businessmen were the Robber Barons. Look at the list of ultra-wealthy people from the referenced period and you will find that every single one of them was a criminal. JP Morgan, Rockerfeller, etc, were all criminals (the phrase "unscrupulous tactics" strikes me as being far too gentle on these lionized crooks).
And, today it seems that the situation is not really different. The "Top 100" companies are all guilty of using offshore incorporation to comit tax evasion, leaving you and me stuck with the bill. Bill Gates is as rich as he is because he used his near monopoly power to illegally crush any competition. Amway rented a few politicians long enough to get the tax code specifically changed to exempt them. Success, in the financial sense at least, is limited to those who break the law, apparently. As Leona Helmsley once said "Taxes are for the little people" (that would be you and me).
Or take the great success story of Sam Walton. Everyone knows he's a good guy. The little fact that his stores use illegal tactics to crush unions, fire people who don't work overtime for free, and shave hours off their employee's time sheets, shouldn't mean he's a criminal, right?
I'm not going to claim that all successful corporations and people are criminal. But, I will admit that I can't think of any non-criminal Fortune 500 companies off the top of my head. Proove I'm wrong instead of demanding breaks (which Wal-Mart employees are routinely denied), show me examples of ultra rich companies and individuals which *aren't* criminal.
More profitable, sure. Less ethical? Give me a break. Are you actually claiming that a business operating by the principle of voluntary association (a law-abiding one) is less ethical than a business operating by the principle of force (the mafia)? How is that logically possible?
There are very few law abiding megacorporations. A startling number of them have been found to be in violation of law on several counts. Most got a slap on the wrist fine followed by huge government contracts (curtosy of their rented politicians). A Clinton era recomendation that the government preferentially give contracts to non-criminal corporations has been smashed down. Thus my first question is: What law abiding corporations? [note: megacorporations that is, mom and pop companies are usually less criminal] Given the evidence it appears that the only difference, in terms of law abiding-ness, between the Mafia and a typical megacorporation is that the typical megacorp has a much lower chance of even getting a slap on the wrist. This includes incidents where the megacorporation's violation of law leads to the death of an actual human.
As for force, I will argue that the typical megacorporation uses force quite frequently. Take SCO, for example, offering no proof they are demanding money from users of Linux. They are using their superior lawyers to force people with inferior lawyers (or no lawyers at all) to give them money. How, exactly, is it different for a corporation to say "If you don't give us $699 Jones, Smith, Brown & Jones will sue you until you bleed from the eyeballs" than it is for a mobster to say "If you don't give us $699, Vinnie here is going to break your kneecaps"?
I have no more chance of standing off SCO's lawyers than I would have a chance of stopping Vinnie. In terms of legal power I'm completely helpless and they exploit that helplessness ruthlessly. Force is force, getting your life broken in court is really no different from getting your kneecaps broken in a back alley somewhere. Our US legal system offers very little help to the victim in either case... Again, thanks to rented politicians carefully removing all the legal protection they can from the average (non-billionare) citizen.
I would like you to expand on the "voluntary association" point you made earlier, I'm afraid I can't follow your meaning there.
Are MBAs like Darl McBride the new organized crime figures?
New?? Business has always been more profitable and less ethical than the Mafia. There's a reason why the "successfull businessmen" of the 1880s-1920s were called Robber Barrons. Smaller corporations can't get away with this sort of thing, but as a corporation merges and eleminates competition it tends to get the idea that its invulnerable. Renting several Senators, Representatives, and/or a President can give people that idea pretty easily (remember, politicians aren't for sale, but they can be rented quite easily! Just like prostitutes, but with fewer ethics and more harm to society.) Then they start using tactics that would make a Mafia Don blush. There's no need to actually hire Vito to break people's fingers, instead you hire a few expensive lawyers to break people's bank accounts. They are completely insulated from any contact with people affected by their policies, and surrounded by hoards of yes men who will do *anything* except tell them that they've had a bad idea.
Eventually this does so much damage to capitalism that the economy collapses ( Black Monday anyone?) and the government finally has to break up a few of the bigger Oligarchies (technically they aren't monopolies, but financial oligarchies). Theodore Rosevelt and (of all people) William Howard Taft are the big "trust busters" from the last time this happened. Its set to happen again, doubtless in just a few more decades. Gad, history makes you depressing...
More to the point, management at EV1 did not inform its customers if this decision. Instead it kept everything nice and secret so its customers operated on the assumption that their money wasn't being used to destroy Linux. If EV1's intent was to "protect its customers" than they should have been touting this as a fantastic new feature: "Now when you rent a Linux server from EV1 you can be secure in the knowledge that we've paid for SCO's IP in the Linux immunizing *you* our valued customer from any potential lawsuits for IP theft! Just one more reason to use EV1, the best possible choice for your hosting needs!!" Instead they hid their decision, made no anouncements, and willfully lied (through the omission of information) to their customers.
We can only assume they did this because they knew their customers wouldn't like the idea of their money being used against Linux. That their customers wouldn't like the idea of EV1 lending credibility to SCO's case. That their customers would recognize this for the cheap scam it is and doubt the sanity of EV1's management.
Robert Marsh is either an idiot, a tool for SCO/MS, or insane, there is no other rational explination. His "explination" of his action omits several important facts (including, but not limited to, the reason why he lied to his customers by not informing them of his decision) and the rest has a null semantic value. In other words his explanation is pure, government grade, BS.
I know this is unlikely to get me anything other than slated on slashdot, but if you take the time to learn to use it, Word is actually very powerful.
Actually, I'm quite proficient with both Word and Word Perfect, its necessary for my job. Word is a decent program and it can do many things more easily than WP can, however it has its drawbacks as well; as does any program. You're hardly dealing with an ignorant anti-Word zealot here.
For the record, I'm actually opposed to the widespread use of either program due to the closed nature of both of their formats, which is intended to lock the user in. Couple that with the complete absence of a batch convert command for either (and frankly, macros to do the converting require a farily good knowledge of VB (for Word), which is something *I* have, but not most people).
More importantly though...
Tools -> options -> "view" tab -> reveal codes
Its fairly obvious that you a) don't know what the reveal codes command in Word Perfect does, and b) you don't actually understand the purpose of the command you just mentioned.
The people at MS, and the various "Word is perfect" people are in denial about the utility of WP's reveal codes command. While it is true that Word doesn't actually use tags in the sense that WP does, this doesn't excuse the fact that other than the visual appearance of the text there is no way to tell what formatting is taking place. Word 2002 has a "Reveal Formatting Task Pane", and if anyone who knows what they're talking about can tell me if its comperable to reveal codes I'd appreciate it, I don't have 2002.
Where? It has the "reveal hidden characters" command, which will show paragraph marks, spaces, tabs, etc, but that is not the same as WP's reveal codes command. If that's what you were thinking of, please say so. If it isn't, do please tell me where the Word reveal codes command is.
It slows my compile down quite a bit. Not that its a huge problem, but I can get around 30% more speed by not running a windowing system while I compile. Like I said, with small packages it isn't a big deal, but with huge packages that extra 30% adds up to a significant amount.
No stability problems during compile, just slow compiles.
(don't tell anybody, but Linux is a multitasking operating system, so when I do compiles I can actually be accomplishing other work on that very same computer at the very same time.)
Heh. But on a practical note if you are compiling a big package you really don't want to be running even X, much less KDE or Gnome. For the piddily stuff, sure I'll do that while I check the news, but for any sizable package I vastly prefer to stay away from windowing systems (I do realize I can use multiple consoles in the CLI, but Lynx isn't my fave browser).
Gentoo is a distro that is designed to be fully customizable. With binaries compiled on your own computer, you'll get better performance.
I use Gentoo on my computer, but for none of the reasons you listed:)
Frankly, the performance gains I've gotten from compiling locally aren't particularly noticable; and the compile times are a pain in the ass. I use Gentoo for two reasons, first and foremost I wanted to learn more about Linux. So I got a distro that forces you to learn without being quite as death-defyingly l33t as Linux From Scratch. And it has excelled in that purpose, I've learned more in the 4 months I've used Gentoo than I did in the 8 months I used other distros. Bloody well had to, which is why I got it.
The second reason I got Gentoo was as a way out of dependancy hell. I find the gentoo ebuilds to be a bit more up to date than the Debian packages usually are. I don't like the compile times, but the days of conflicting RPM's are gone. As are the days of being told to get RPM foo, then being told by foo that I also need bar, then being told by bar that I need quux. I'm quite willing to sacrifice the time needed to compile to get the convenience of not messing with the whole RPM dependancy scene.
Getting modded +4 Insightful: free
Letting the/. world know you didn't exactly win any spelling bees: priceless
I long ago accepted the fact that I'm never winning any spelling bees. I'm about good enough that if my spellchecker gives me the wrong word I can recognize it, but spelling on my own? Not one of my talents I'm afraid.
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On a side note, re: your sig. Since you can't mod and post in the same story, I assume you are trying to lure the gullible folks who mod down into nullifying their modding, right?
But as a CUSTOMER of EV1, I am pissed that my box is now a "legally licensed SCO product". How can I possibly live this down???
By immediately severing your business ties with them, and letting them know why. The only way they'll learn is if they loose money because of this. After all, the bottom line is the only thing a corp listens to, effect it and you in turn get listened to.
Since the company did it without your knowledge or consent its hardly your fault, but it is your fault if you keep giving them money to give to SCO.
Stallman started the GPL with the idea that ALL SOFTWARE should be free, and the idea that all non-free software is evil.
Did I ever say that he didn't? He started the GPL for the reasons I cited, then I did not mention Stallman, or his motives, for the rest of my post. Stallmann is a hacker, and as such has the weaknesses of our kind as well as our strengths. One of the primary weaknesses (and strengths) of hackers is our belief in the Right Thing. RMS sees that the GPL is the Right Thing, if he carries that belief too far and believes that it is the Right Thing for all circumstances it is due to the strength of his belief, not due to malice. Most hackers have a tendancy to mistake the Right Thing for a particular circumstance with a universal Right Thing (which I don't believe exists, personally). Thus the holy wars of vi VS emacs, perl vs python, etc. However when a thing is as young and untested as the GPL and the whole FOSS movement it often requires the fire of a true believer to push it to success. The newer and more unusual a thing is the more pushing and more fire the pushers need.
Its only after something is obviously successful and widespread that such true believers become more of a liability than a benefit (see Capitalism (a good thing with obvious success) and Any Rynd (a true believer who hurts capitalism *because*of* the passion of her beliefs)). But RMS, while a brilliant person, is not the FOSS movement, he's merely a large part of it. My post was about the flaws of the anti-FOSS arguments, not RMS' own flaws of belief, conviction, and dedication.
Pah, both of the parties to this letter seem to have completely missed the point of FOSS. I suppose some idealistic idiots might have a vision of all software everywhere being free, but that's hardly the goal of FOSS. Its about freedom, not cost.
I really doubt that we will ever see too many professional level games (for example) released under the GPL (though I have no doubt that older games will continue to release their code, as ID software did with Doom). HOWEVER that isn't really the point of the GPL. Stallman started it because he was prevented from improving his printer's performance by a combination of closed OS software, closed drivers, and NDA's. Operating Systems are a natural place for GPLed software, as are drivers (if anyone can add more value to a particular piece of hardware by improving its drivers it will help the hardware manufacturer sell more units; hardly something they'd be opposed to).
OF COURSE people need to be able to put food on the table somehow, its not mentioned in the GPL because its assumed to be a given. Only the very foolish believe that somehow the GPL and propriatary software are in a titnaic battle from which only one will survive. The world needs both. As a programmer/hacker I want access to as much code as I can get. Code I can learn from, code I can use (why reinvent the wheel?), code I can modify. By releasing some of my code under the GPL I enrich myself by producing an environment where more code is available to me. By releasing some of my code propriatary I enrich my self with cash. I see no problem doing both.
Will some propriatary software outfits either go out of business or shrink? Sure; that's hardly a catastrophy though. I personally suspect that the era of closed operating systems is drawing to an end, open source simply makes too much sense in that area. MS will probably be out of the operating system business in ten years (or at least severely weakened in the OS business). However I don't think MS will do belly up. Frankly their office package is quite nice, and were they to focus on that rather than wasting billions on their OS it'd be even better. Balance is the key here, as it is in so many areas.
I just think that calling it a dictatorship is a little strong. Yes, there is one party, and it is becoming very corrupt, but when I see the outcome of our system with theirs...the outcome of decisions is about the same. Better in the US, but I think there is a better word than dictatorship...
As I mentioned, technically the Chinese government is becoming more of a Fascism than a dictatorship; but somehow I doubt that word would make you feel any better...
I'm not sure what you mean by "outcome of decision", actions have consiquences no matter what your political system is. There are some very simple facts about the Chinese government that your fiancee may be uncomfortable about and want to deny, but facts are facts.
There is no freedom of speech in China
There is no freedom of religion in China
There is no freedom of assembly in China
There is no guarantee of a trial of any sort, much less a public trial by a jury of your peers
There *are* harsh penalties for openly disagreeing with government decisions
There *are* harsh penalties for being a member of an unapproved religion
I'm not by any means claiming that the US is an earthly paradise where everything is just perfect, but I will say that the average US citizen enjoys much greater freedom than the average Chinese citizen. What worries me is that the "public trials by a jury of your peers" right here in the US seems to be slowly eroding. Other rights are also under attack. But, still and all, I'd much rather live here.
My fiance is a Chinese Communist Party Member and she has lots of say. Tell her she's in a dictatorship and she will roll her eyes. Enlighten yourself.
Communism is one of those systems that sounds really good on paper and doesn't work in the real world at all. To an idealistic person who is caught and educated early on the ideals of Communism I'm quite sure that it sounds good and that any criticism of the Party will result in eye rolling. However as a person who has a non-Party Approved knowledge of history and knows quite a bit about the history of the PRC and its horrors, I'm afraid that I cannot agree with your brainwashed girlfriend. Tell the victims of Tian'anmen Square that China's government is not evil. Tell the murdered, tortured, and falsely imprisoned members of Falun Gong about the wonderful nature of the Chinese government. Tell the millions murdered by Mao's insanity that China is not a dictatorship.
I saw what China's government stood for when I saw the footage of the pro-democracy protesters at Tian'anmen Square being shot in the back of the head. I need no "enlightenment" to recognize a government dedicated to the opposite of freedom. I use the term "dictatorship" even though it is not perfectly accurate for China. Wen Jiabao is not actually a true autocrat. Currently it appears that the Chinese government is changing from a dictatorship to a Facism. I said "dictatorship" in a rather broad sense because there is no better term that I'm aware of.
You are forgetting that Chinese laborers are grossly more inefficient than American ones. It can take 10 times as many third world laborers to accomplish what 1 American can.
*I'm* hardly the one forgetting that, it seems to be the executives at Nike (who seem in turn to have a religious opposition to anything that smacks of decent treatment of workers) who have forgotten. In every study it has been proven, over and over again, that the better working conditions are, and the better the pay is, the more efficient the workers are. So you tell me why Nike et-al are so eager to cut worker efficiency by paying them zilch and working them in awful conditions?
And if you don't think an increase of $0.25 is a big increase just ask a grocery store, who make pennies per profit on each sale, even on higher priced items.
False argument, a "worker salary price increase" will not impact the profit margins of anyone in the entire chain of supply. Additionally, I do have to wonder why the retailers are content to keep a profit margin of pennies while allowing the manufacturer to have a profit margin much higher. Considering that the labor cost on a T-Shirt (for the sake of argument let's say it retails at $10) is *at*most* $.25, and on average around $.07 it stands to reason that if the retailer is making a profit of, say $.25 per shirt sold then the rest of the $9.50 must be largely profit for the manufacturer (less shipping costs and material of course). Being vastly over generous if we assume that shipping and material costs are $1.50 (impossibly high, but for the sake of argument here) then the manufacturer is making a profit of $8.00 per shirt. Why are the retailers settling for "pennies"? Gee, you don't suppose its because they have no choice because laissez-faire idiocy has killed off competition between manufacturers do you? Naah, that couldn't be...
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Regarding your aside: I'm quite well aware of Milton Friedman's odd religion, and the direct influence of the followers of that religion on me. I chose the quote because of the hoards of Michael "the market is my religion" Powell like drones who seem to assume that the "magic of the marketplace" will fix any and all problems. If history has shown us anything it is that capitalism (a very good system, BTW) does not survive long in the presence of its natural enemies: capitalists. The ultimate desire of any for profit corporation is the eradication of competition (and the subsequent death of capitalism which can no more survive without competition than we can survive without air). By definition corporations are anti-capitalist and in a laissez-faire environment there is absolutely nothing to stop them from realizing this desire through merger.
In order to preserve capitalism, and since no better economic system has yet been developed I'm most definately a capitalist, we must keep competition alive and cutthroat. Breaking up all mergers that have taken place in the past decade is a good start. Outlawing corporate ownership of other corporations is a good followup. Competition, and thus capitalism, cannot survive in our current climate of merger mania and chains of corporate ownership. When it says "Nabisco" on a box of cookies it bloody well needs to mean that a single (owned by non-corporate stockholders) corporation named "Nabisco" actually made the cookies. Today, since Nabisco is owned by Philip Morris (though you'd never know it looking at a theoretically "Nabisco" product) there is complete disconnect between what we see (the Nabisco brand name) and what actually exists (Philip Morris). Capitalism is not served by allowing corporations to do whatever they want.
The quote was one of Friedman's more lucid moments before he decended yet again into his delusional fantasies of an Any Rynd, laissez-faire, paradise. Like all utopian thinkers both Rynd and Friendman decieved millions, but they decieved themselves first and worst.
The US should play no part in this overthrow. At best, it draws massive international scrutiny. At worst, it results in horrific warfare and thousdans of deaths, which will no doubt happen if the US went to war with China.
I was not proposing a US/China war. Not only would it be incredibly bloody, but it would also have the perverse effect of increasing the average Chinese citizen's toleration of the dictators (nationalism is weird that way, and Iraq is a good example of this currently). However there are non-war actions that the US government can take to attempt to expand freedom worldwide; beginning with not supporting dictatorships (and shutting down the so-called "School of the Americas" (official site), and the main anti-SOAW site). More pro-actively we can and should instutute an absolute arms embargo against all non-free countries. If a dictator can't use US made weapons he has to try and make them himself or import from a different nation. At the very least this increases his costs and decreases his efficency. Providing asylum to those fleeing the dictator is also a useful tactic. The CIA, which in the past has been quite successfull at overthrowing democratic governments, could provide training and assistance to the pro-democracy movements in the dictatorships.
On the economic side, I'm really not in favor of embargoing the dictatorships. As you noted above, improved prosparity among the victims of dictators is a very good thing. Maslow's pyramid of needs strikes again. This, along with simple reasons of human decency, is why the US should have a policy of requiring its corporations to provide at least a living wage to its employees in dictatorships (and none of that "we don't do it, its the subcontractors fault" BS either). If we doubled the wages of the average Chinese employee of, say, Nike then they would be better able to satisfy their low end needs which leads naturally to a desire to satisfy higher level needs. As Maslow points out, a person who is worried about starving doesn't care too much about politics.
Requiring items manufactured in dictatorships to bear a "Made by Victims of a Dictator" label would assist the US citizens in allowing the magic of the market to do its job. The market, as you may recall from the non-religious economics classes you may have taken, can't function in an informational vacuum. It requires *INFORMED* consumers to function properly.
I wonder if MS actually got paid for the operating systems that comprise their "monopoly" in China...
Some of them, sure. There have to be a few legitimate sales otherwise they wouldn't have masters to copy from. Actually, right now Iraq is a pretty huge source of pirated software (and movies, and music). Since it has no official government yet it isn't part of any of the international copyright agreements. In theory Bejing is signatory to various copyright treaties so its technically illegal to pirate software; in Iraq its currently perfectly legal.
The greater the deficit the less that future taxes will go for bullshit.
Possibly (though I doubt it), but I'll guarantee that the taxes will be higher. Eventually *someone* has to pay for the deficit; and under current policy it seems likely that you and me will pay a lot more (as a percentage of our wealth) than Bill Gates and John Kerry. Personally I'd rather have more bullshit and lower taxes than higher taxes and less bullshit. But, I'll tell you what, since you're so gung-ho about paying higher taxes to avoid a little BS, you can pay my share of the Deficit Taxes.
Crying about a bad situation won't make the situation any better, nor will implementing some government policy.
I would say that as free people we have an ethical obligation to help those oppressed by dictators escape that oppression.
From a more practical standpoint dictatorships are simply incompatiable with free nations. The free nation may be willing to suffer the existance of a dictatorship; but the existance of any free nation anywhere is a threat to the dictatorship. If a free nation exists the dictator's people can hope to escape there, can see that there really is an alternative. Simply by existing freedom is a threat to dictators. Naturally they will do whatever is in their power to destroy the free nation(s) if they can.
Additionally it is a historic fact that dictatorships are inherently unstable forms of government. The "funeral games" immediately following the death of the dictator can easily turn into war against neighboring nations. From a standpoint of simple self preservation free nations should do whatever they can to help pro-democracy movements in dictatorships overthrow the dictator. The fact that US policy (under presidents and congresses of all parties since around 1860) has been one of encouraging dictatorships is one of the most amazing examples of stupidity that I have seen in a very long time.
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I personally can't help but wonder how much of the soaring cost of malpractice insurance is due to simple profiteering on the part of the insuring companies. Historically laws putting caps on malpractice claims have *not* reduced the cost of malpractice insurance. California, for example, passed an award cap in 1976, over the next 12 years malpractice insurance rates increased by 190%. Hardly the result promised, no?
More significantly other evidence indicates that the insurance companies are simply indulging in price gouging. During the period from 1995-1999 medical malpractic insurance rates increased by around 1.2% During that same period overall health care costs increased by around 13.6 percent. The doctors aren't taking home that extra 13.6 percent, ask any doctors you know. The doctors are getting screwed by the insurance industry as much as their patients are. The HMO's and other insurance companies are getting filthy rich off this scam.
Income tax is not the sum total of all taxes. His statistics are valid enough for income tax, but that's hardly the whole story. The average working stiff pays almost nothing in income taxes; perfecly true. However this does *not* mean that the average working stiff pays no taxes. Most people pay the vast majority of their taxes in the form of payroll taxes. Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, FICA, etc. Those are only the Federal taxes, of course. Local taxes (sales tax, property tax, telephone tax, electricity tax, gas (both methane and petrol) taxes, etc) are a hefty bite as well. Social Security alone accounts for a huge bite out of the average person's paycheck and is also one of the most regressive taxes in existance. Only the first $86,000 a person makes are subject to Social Security tax, which means that 100% of my income gets hit with Social Security tax, but less than .001% of Bill Gates' income is subject to SS tax. A politician who proposed leveling SS taxes would get my vote immediately and without reservation.
The upper 1% of the population pays around 33% of all tax money that goes to Washington. Yup, absolutely true. The thing is that the upper 1% has around 33% of the money. On a dollar for dollar basis they actually pay slightly less than the lower 50% do. Far from being overtaxed, the upper 1% are (assuming that everyone should pay an equal percentage of their wealth) slightly under taxed.
As for the writer's conclusion that we ought to consider limiting the franchise to people who pay X dollars in (watch his language here) *income*taxes* it sounds like he's just dying to establish a classic plutocracy. Those in power, now possessing exclusive voting franchise could quite easily define "income tax" to exclude incredibly large portions of society while increasing the various non-"income taxes" with impunity. Taxation without representation anyone?
On a practical note, I will point out that every single member of the elected Federal government, as well as every single member of the past 5 president's Cabinets, falls into the upper 1%. Most fall into the upper 1/10th of 1%. The economic elite are hardly underrepresented in government; quite the opposite really (side note: I refer to their income prior to becoming a member of government here). I personally would like to see just *one* person in the Federal government who falls into the "lower" 70%. I will observe that the Federal government (under past administrations as well as the current administration) seems quite content to emplace policies that primarially benefit the economic elite, while occasionally tossing a bone to the rest of the nation. What baffles me is that people keep voting for government by, of, and for millionares...
History has shown us that while voting requirements often sound good on paper they never really work in practice. Just like Communism, or lassie-faire capitalism, its an idea that simply does not work in the real world. Inevitably the best intentioned voter requirements become nothing more than a tool of oppression. In my own ideal fantasy world you couldn't vote unless you displayed a knowledge of the *facts* in current affairs. The difference between me and the person who wrote the article you reference is that I'm mature enough to know that my fantasy won't work in reality; he doesn't seem to have reached that point yet.
HardOCP offered compromise early in the game, they received a threat and politely offered to correct any (imaginary as it turns out) factual errors. I have a more hardline view: when any person or corp has a legal threat as their first resort I think that compromise has already gone out the window. The person threatening legal action has already discarded compromise as an option. More to the point that sort of oppressive nastyness should not be met with any toleration at all. Anyone who's thought process goes: "I don't like what this person is saying so I'll get my high power legal team to threaten his entire livelyhood" deserves no sympathy. The only appropriate action is to do whatever is in your power to ruin them because they've already decided to try and ruin you.
Had Infinitum Labs sent a non-legally threatening letter politely noting factual errors and requesting that they be corrected things would be different. But from what I can tell the thought of trying a non-litigous solution never crossed their minds. So screw 'em.
And, today it seems that the situation is not really different. The "Top 100" companies are all guilty of using offshore incorporation to comit tax evasion, leaving you and me stuck with the bill. Bill Gates is as rich as he is because he used his near monopoly power to illegally crush any competition. Amway rented a few politicians long enough to get the tax code specifically changed to exempt them. Success, in the financial sense at least, is limited to those who break the law, apparently. As Leona Helmsley once said "Taxes are for the little people" (that would be you and me).
Or take the great success story of Sam Walton. Everyone knows he's a good guy. The little fact that his stores use illegal tactics to crush unions, fire people who don't work overtime for free, and shave hours off their employee's time sheets, shouldn't mean he's a criminal, right?
I'm not going to claim that all successful corporations and people are criminal. But, I will admit that I can't think of any non-criminal Fortune 500 companies off the top of my head. Proove I'm wrong instead of demanding breaks (which Wal-Mart employees are routinely denied), show me examples of ultra rich companies and individuals which *aren't* criminal.
As for force, I will argue that the typical megacorporation uses force quite frequently. Take SCO, for example, offering no proof they are demanding money from users of Linux. They are using their superior lawyers to force people with inferior lawyers (or no lawyers at all) to give them money. How, exactly, is it different for a corporation to say "If you don't give us $699 Jones, Smith, Brown & Jones will sue you until you bleed from the eyeballs" than it is for a mobster to say "If you don't give us $699, Vinnie here is going to break your kneecaps"?
I have no more chance of standing off SCO's lawyers than I would have a chance of stopping Vinnie. In terms of legal power I'm completely helpless and they exploit that helplessness ruthlessly. Force is force, getting your life broken in court is really no different from getting your kneecaps broken in a back alley somewhere. Our US legal system offers very little help to the victim in either case... Again, thanks to rented politicians carefully removing all the legal protection they can from the average (non-billionare) citizen.
I would like you to expand on the "voluntary association" point you made earlier, I'm afraid I can't follow your meaning there.
Thanks for the information.
Eventually this does so much damage to capitalism that the economy collapses ( Black Monday anyone?) and the government finally has to break up a few of the bigger Oligarchies (technically they aren't monopolies, but financial oligarchies). Theodore Rosevelt and (of all people) William Howard Taft are the big "trust busters" from the last time this happened. Its set to happen again, doubtless in just a few more decades. Gad, history makes you depressing...
We can only assume they did this because they knew their customers wouldn't like the idea of their money being used against Linux. That their customers wouldn't like the idea of EV1 lending credibility to SCO's case. That their customers would recognize this for the cheap scam it is and doubt the sanity of EV1's management.
Robert Marsh is either an idiot, a tool for SCO/MS, or insane, there is no other rational explination. His "explination" of his action omits several important facts (including, but not limited to, the reason why he lied to his customers by not informing them of his decision) and the rest has a null semantic value. In other words his explanation is pure, government grade, BS.
For the record, I'm actually opposed to the widespread use of either program due to the closed nature of both of their formats, which is intended to lock the user in. Couple that with the complete absence of a batch convert command for either (and frankly, macros to do the converting require a farily good knowledge of VB (for Word), which is something *I* have, but not most people).
More importantly though...
Its fairly obvious that you a) don't know what the reveal codes command in Word Perfect does, and b) you don't actually understand the purpose of the command you just mentioned.The people at MS, and the various "Word is perfect" people are in denial about the utility of WP's reveal codes command. While it is true that Word doesn't actually use tags in the sense that WP does, this doesn't excuse the fact that other than the visual appearance of the text there is no way to tell what formatting is taking place. Word 2002 has a "Reveal Formatting Task Pane", and if anyone who knows what they're talking about can tell me if its comperable to reveal codes I'd appreciate it, I don't have 2002.
No stability problems during compile, just slow compiles.
Frankly, the performance gains I've gotten from compiling locally aren't particularly noticable; and the compile times are a pain in the ass. I use Gentoo for two reasons, first and foremost I wanted to learn more about Linux. So I got a distro that forces you to learn without being quite as death-defyingly l33t as Linux From Scratch. And it has excelled in that purpose, I've learned more in the 4 months I've used Gentoo than I did in the 8 months I used other distros. Bloody well had to, which is why I got it.
The second reason I got Gentoo was as a way out of dependancy hell. I find the gentoo ebuilds to be a bit more up to date than the Debian packages usually are. I don't like the compile times, but the days of conflicting RPM's are gone. As are the days of being told to get RPM foo, then being told by foo that I also need bar, then being told by bar that I need quux. I'm quite willing to sacrifice the time needed to compile to get the convenience of not messing with the whole RPM dependancy scene.
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On a side note, re: your sig. Since you can't mod and post in the same story, I assume you are trying to lure the gullible folks who mod down into nullifying their modding, right?
Since the company did it without your knowledge or consent its hardly your fault, but it is your fault if you keep giving them money to give to SCO.
Its only after something is obviously successful and widespread that such true believers become more of a liability than a benefit (see Capitalism (a good thing with obvious success) and Any Rynd (a true believer who hurts capitalism *because*of* the passion of her beliefs)). But RMS, while a brilliant person, is not the FOSS movement, he's merely a large part of it. My post was about the flaws of the anti-FOSS arguments, not RMS' own flaws of belief, conviction, and dedication.
I really doubt that we will ever see too many professional level games (for example) released under the GPL (though I have no doubt that older games will continue to release their code, as ID software did with Doom). HOWEVER that isn't really the point of the GPL. Stallman started it because he was prevented from improving his printer's performance by a combination of closed OS software, closed drivers, and NDA's. Operating Systems are a natural place for GPLed software, as are drivers (if anyone can add more value to a particular piece of hardware by improving its drivers it will help the hardware manufacturer sell more units; hardly something they'd be opposed to).
OF COURSE people need to be able to put food on the table somehow, its not mentioned in the GPL because its assumed to be a given. Only the very foolish believe that somehow the GPL and propriatary software are in a titnaic battle from which only one will survive. The world needs both. As a programmer/hacker I want access to as much code as I can get. Code I can learn from, code I can use (why reinvent the wheel?), code I can modify. By releasing some of my code under the GPL I enrich myself by producing an environment where more code is available to me. By releasing some of my code propriatary I enrich my self with cash. I see no problem doing both.
Will some propriatary software outfits either go out of business or shrink? Sure; that's hardly a catastrophy though. I personally suspect that the era of closed operating systems is drawing to an end, open source simply makes too much sense in that area. MS will probably be out of the operating system business in ten years (or at least severely weakened in the OS business). However I don't think MS will do belly up. Frankly their office package is quite nice, and were they to focus on that rather than wasting billions on their OS it'd be even better. Balance is the key here, as it is in so many areas.
I'm not sure what you mean by "outcome of decision", actions have consiquences no matter what your political system is. There are some very simple facts about the Chinese government that your fiancee may be uncomfortable about and want to deny, but facts are facts.
I'm not by any means claiming that the US is an earthly paradise where everything is just perfect, but I will say that the average US citizen enjoys much greater freedom than the average Chinese citizen. What worries me is that the "public trials by a jury of your peers" right here in the US seems to be slowly eroding. Other rights are also under attack. But, still and all, I'd much rather live here.
I saw what China's government stood for when I saw the footage of the pro-democracy protesters at Tian'anmen Square being shot in the back of the head. I need no "enlightenment" to recognize a government dedicated to the opposite of freedom. I use the term "dictatorship" even though it is not perfectly accurate for China. Wen Jiabao is not actually a true autocrat. Currently it appears that the Chinese government is changing from a dictatorship to a Facism. I said "dictatorship" in a rather broad sense because there is no better term that I'm aware of.
False argument, a "worker salary price increase" will not impact the profit margins of anyone in the entire chain of supply. Additionally, I do have to wonder why the retailers are content to keep a profit margin of pennies while allowing the manufacturer to have a profit margin much higher. Considering that the labor cost on a T-Shirt (for the sake of argument let's say it retails at $10) is *at*most* $.25, and on average around $.07 it stands to reason that if the retailer is making a profit of, say $.25 per shirt sold then the rest of the $9.50 must be largely profit for the manufacturer (less shipping costs and material of course). Being vastly over generous if we assume that shipping and material costs are $1.50 (impossibly high, but for the sake of argument here) then the manufacturer is making a profit of $8.00 per shirt. Why are the retailers settling for "pennies"? Gee, you don't suppose its because they have no choice because laissez-faire idiocy has killed off competition between manufacturers do you? Naah, that couldn't be...
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Regarding your aside: I'm quite well aware of Milton Friedman's odd religion, and the direct influence of the followers of that religion on me. I chose the quote because of the hoards of Michael "the market is my religion" Powell like drones who seem to assume that the "magic of the marketplace" will fix any and all problems. If history has shown us anything it is that capitalism (a very good system, BTW) does not survive long in the presence of its natural enemies: capitalists. The ultimate desire of any for profit corporation is the eradication of competition (and the subsequent death of capitalism which can no more survive without competition than we can survive without air). By definition corporations are anti-capitalist and in a laissez-faire environment there is absolutely nothing to stop them from realizing this desire through merger.
In order to preserve capitalism, and since no better economic system has yet been developed I'm most definately a capitalist, we must keep competition alive and cutthroat. Breaking up all mergers that have taken place in the past decade is a good start. Outlawing corporate ownership of other corporations is a good followup. Competition, and thus capitalism, cannot survive in our current climate of merger mania and chains of corporate ownership. When it says "Nabisco" on a box of cookies it bloody well needs to mean that a single (owned by non-corporate stockholders) corporation named "Nabisco" actually made the cookies. Today, since Nabisco is owned by Philip Morris (though you'd never know it looking at a theoretically "Nabisco" product) there is complete disconnect between what we see (the Nabisco brand name) and what actually exists (Philip Morris). Capitalism is not served by allowing corporations to do whatever they want.
The quote was one of Friedman's more lucid moments before he decended yet again into his delusional fantasies of an Any Rynd, laissez-faire, paradise. Like all utopian thinkers both Rynd and Friendman decieved millions, but they decieved themselves first and worst.
On the economic side, I'm really not in favor of embargoing the dictatorships. As you noted above, improved prosparity among the victims of dictators is a very good thing. Maslow's pyramid of needs strikes again. This, along with simple reasons of human decency, is why the US should have a policy of requiring its corporations to provide at least a living wage to its employees in dictatorships (and none of that "we don't do it, its the subcontractors fault" BS either). If we doubled the wages of the average Chinese employee of, say, Nike then they would be better able to satisfy their low end needs which leads naturally to a desire to satisfy higher level needs. As Maslow points out, a person who is worried about starving doesn't care too much about politics.
Requiring items manufactured in dictatorships to bear a "Made by Victims of a Dictator" label would assist the US citizens in allowing the magic of the market to do its job. The market, as you may recall from the non-religious economics classes you may have taken, can't function in an informational vacuum. It requires *INFORMED* consumers to function properly.
From a more practical standpoint dictatorships are simply incompatiable with free nations. The free nation may be willing to suffer the existance of a dictatorship; but the existance of any free nation anywhere is a threat to the dictatorship. If a free nation exists the dictator's people can hope to escape there, can see that there really is an alternative. Simply by existing freedom is a threat to dictators. Naturally they will do whatever is in their power to destroy the free nation(s) if they can.
Additionally it is a historic fact that dictatorships are inherently unstable forms of government. The "funeral games" immediately following the death of the dictator can easily turn into war against neighboring nations. From a standpoint of simple self preservation free nations should do whatever they can to help pro-democracy movements in dictatorships overthrow the dictator. The fact that US policy (under presidents and congresses of all parties since around 1860) has been one of encouraging dictatorships is one of the most amazing examples of stupidity that I have seen in a very long time.