Depending on the nature of your business, some "remote access" requirements can be satisfied instead by moving to something like Google Apps. You can do e-mail, and basic documents and spreadsheets over the web from anywhere.
I think you're misunderstanding something rather fundamental. Google is responsible for Android. Android is 100% open-source, and Google wants to do everything it can to make (keep) Android an open platform.
T-Mobile is responsible for the G1. The G1 has a proprietary hardware design, and is locked down just as well as any other T-Mobile phone. Google has nothing to do with that. Google isn't locking the phone down, or waging a war against those that want to unlock it. It's trivial to get a root shell on the Android platform. But it's up to T-Mobile to decide what features and applications it wants on their own phone, and if they don't want to make it easy to get root, that's their decision, not Google's.
Re:Different, minimal cards for different purposes
on
U-Turn On UK ID Cards
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· Score: 1
With a sufficiently capable card, you could make your select on the card itself. But we're straying too far into the realm of science fiction, unfortunately. Maybe in another 50 years.
Did an executive really just say, "I think we should have a formal policy"? Don't create bureaucracy and policy just for the sake of having bureaucracy and policy (making management look busy). Build your policy on the demands of your organization, and formalize it when it's necessary to do so.
That being said, if your business doesn't deal much with sensitive data, you could get by with allowing personal computers, with up-to-date anti-virus software (maybe the company can pay for AV software for home computers). If you do deal with sensitive data, I would recommend issuing laptops to employees that need to work from home, and only allow VPN from those systems. Use certificates.
Re:Why does nobody ask Google anything today?
on
Googling Security
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· Score: 1
why does nobody - no regulatory body that is - demand that Google explain exactly what data they collect and what the heck they do with it?
Re:Different, minimal cards for different purposes
on
U-Turn On UK ID Cards
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· Score: 1
On the other hand, there are people who really are looking forward to just being able to carry around one piece of plastic that serves as an all-purpose ID card.
You could still do this, and stay within the spirit of compartmentalization, by digitizing all of the data on the card, and using a card+reader that allows you to (securely) decide which bits of information you want to share.
We shared our preliminary results with the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the Influenza Division at CDC throughout the 2007-2008 flu season, and together we saw that our search-based flu estimates had a consistently strong correlation with real CDC surveillance data.
So either you're wrong, or you're right, and some yet undiscovered mechanism is allowing Google's search results to have such a consistently strong correlation that allows it to be predictive. Either way, it seems to work, and seems useful.
Personally, I don't use Google apps, as a JavaScript implementation of notepad.exe doesn't come close to satisfying my document management needs
It's a little more than notepad.exe, but I can forgive the gross generalization since you admit you've never used it.
I can't for the life of me figure out how there's even a discussion around it's potential use in business.
Doesn't that sort of depend on the business, though? If you have good Internet connectivity, or don't mind using Gears, and your needs are for internal, or basic documents, something like Google Apps should meet all of your needs. If you're a more conservative company that still needs to do a lot of communication using polished, flashy, printed documents, then the producers of those documents will need something more advanced than Google Apps. Use the best tool for the task.
That being said, desktop office tools should be able to push and pull content from Google Apps. Then you could get the best of both worlds: remote collaboration, high availability, with the option of working in a more advanced application as needed.
Different, minimal cards for different purposes?
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U-Turn On UK ID Cards
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· Score: 3, Insightful
It seems to me that much of the problems with any form of national ID card could be mitigated if you had different cards for different purposes. If I need to be able to assert that I'm old enough to buy something, all I need is a difficult-to-forge card that asserts that fact, and ties that fact to me (with my photograph perhaps). Such a card has no need for my name, my address, or any other facts about my identity. If you wanted to get fancy, you could digitize all of this information and have nothing appearing on the card at all.
Similarly, a license to drive should be based on my ability to drive. My identity doesn't matter, at least beyond what's needed to prove that I'm the rightful holder of the license. I might need to present some identification to the government when I obtain the license, but that doesn't need to remain with it. So you could have a separate card (or set of digital credentials) for that.
It's the concentration of all of this into one card that makes that one card so valuable to thieves and a police state. But for most of the uses of the various identity/license/payment/shopper cards, they need to know very little about me. Usually just an account number of some kind, a way to ensure authenticity (digital signature, watermark) and a way for people I present the card to to verify that I'm the rightful holder, if that even matters (like a photograph, or a hash of any kind of biometric data). Why must everything be tied to a government identity?
(in fact, I even shown you a study which proves that)
I disagree that the study proves what you assert it proves (see previous discussion).
In the book I pointed out it is also shown that the good educated citizens are result of direct democracy, and not the other way around, as you seem to think.
I skimmed the book, and while I think it's entirely plausible that a generation raised in a direct democracy could conceivably make, on average, good, perhaps even rational decisions within it, I have strong reservations about the generations in the transition period.
I have to look at my personal experiences here in California. In the last election, we had several propositions voted on by the public, which include new laws and constitutional amendments. With few exceptions, most people I asked who supported these propositions were completely unable to justify their support rationally. And a few (such as the ban on gay marriage) evoked entirely religious arguments. California is also notable for 1978's Proposition 13, which drastically cut property taxes. People voting for this were voting for it because it lowered their taxes. After it passed, it became clear that the same people couldn't accept cutting services, so the legislatures had to pick up the pieces by raising sales tax, and creating numerous "special" taxes to restore most of the lost funding for police and schools (including "fees" on new home construction). And despite those measures, they still had to cut funding for schools, dropping California's public school system from among the best in the nation, to among the worst.
But maybe all of these are just learning exercises? Maybe this form of semi-direct democracy isn't direct enough yet for the people to snap out of their selfish, irrational ways? Who knows?
No system of government has been shown to be perfect. I would go on a limb here and say that Bush's criminal actions here are an unusual failure of the system. I don't think it's appropriate to use one example to suggest that every representative democracy is a poor alternative to a pure, direct democracy.
I think the heart of our disagreement here is that you seem to believe a government should do nothing but reflect the will of its people, which is what a direct democracy is good at. I think a government should make reasoned, rationally defensible, public policy. In an ideal world, these are the same, and both goals are possible, but the US is far from an idealized country. We have a huge polarization of views, and our most heated disagreements are about issues that center around faith and religion, not reason. (The US also has 40 times the number of people of Switzerland.)
I'd absolutely be in favor of an increasingly direct-democratic approach at local levels, but I'm already nervous enough at what my home state (California) has done and continues to do with its referendum process, that I'd be scared to death if we took that to the federal level.
If they fuck up, they'll fuck up. And they will also bear the consequences of such fuck up.
I think you're being naive here. You seem to be under the delusion that (a) everyone researches all of the issues, or has the capability of identifying a non-biased, non-partisan expert that they can use to guide their opinion; (b) that everyone is capable of acting rationally instead of emotionally; and (c) people won't be selfish when it comes to public policy. What do you think a direct democracy would have done after 9/11? What do you think people would do in a direct democracy when gas prices become unbearably high? Once people realize they can loot the treasury, it's all over.
People ask experts about their opinion, but the ultimate decision is in people's hands.
No, people don't ask experts. They consume what they watch on TV, or they allow their social circle to define their own beliefs. It's "truthiness" that matters, not reason. If you have enough influence (cash), and can spin things the right way, you will convince people to vote with your side. Talk to enough random people about some issue, and, with a few exceptions, they will do nothing but regurgitate biased propaganda, or they will say they plan on voting a certain way, but will be unable to justify that decision rationally. This is not the way to effect public policy.
Yes, they will fuck up, and you're right: they deserve what they get when they do. But the effects of those fuck-ups will be absolutely catastrophic. The people would be far worse off in the end, and ultimately, that should be the metric by which we judge any system of government/society. (IMO.)
Consider that in the US, we had an elite craft some restrictions and guarantees in the US constitution. Time and time again, the majority has attempted to pass laws, frequently on an emotional basis, that conflict with those guarantees. Our system of government can prevent these things from doing any damage, but only because we have another elite (a judiciary) keeping things consistent. The "tyranny of the majority" is a very real threat.
The other things you are talking about have been empirically proved as false.
Care to elaborate on that? What things?
Don't get me wrong here; I am not advocating for an elimination of democracy. I just think that any vote posed to the public should be about a subjective issue (or a vote to change the government itself). Some questions are simply value issues, and could easily be posed to the people. Some require careful study to understand the risks and costs. These are better left to people qualified and hired/elected to do that job (with as much input from those with rational arguments as they can stand). Others don't require value judgments at all and can be answered scientifically, or have clear best practices (medicine), which shouldn't even be decided by politicians or the general public at all.
Sometimes the right decision is the unpopular one, and with a direct democracy, you will rarely get people to vote for something that's unpopular, especially if you have someone else that's selfish and well-funded capable of spreading misinformation. A qualified representative should be able to see through that and make the right move anyway. (In fairness, elected officials have an incentive to side with the majority anyway if they want reelection, but fortunately, it doesn't always come to that.)
Who should run the country then? Surely not the people who are feeding other people with incorrect information?
In the US at least, and in theory, the ability of one branch to totally fuck up is limited by the other two branches. In a direct democracy, however, you have one branch (the people) with seemingly absolute power.
And of course, the basic question remains - why would you allow such stupid people to vote at all - when they cannot decide the issue, how can they decide who decides correctly?
It's all about balance, right? On one extreme, you have mob rule. On the other, you have an oligarchy. An oligarchy of qualified, benevolent elite wouldn't be such a bad thing, IMO, but you have no way of guaranteeing that this elite won't become less qualified or tyranical over time. So, it seems prudent to give people the power to oust a tyranny, while keeping the decision-making that requires rational thought and study in the hands of an elite. That's effectively what we have today, but the balance seems to be shifting toward a direct democracy (mob rule).
Also, this poses another interesting problem. There are people who are critical thinking in one area and not in another. What would you do with them, can they decide or not?
IMO, decisions should be made by those qualified to make them, and input from the public into those decisions should be weighted on qualifications as well. Imagine environmental policy being made by an order of environmentalists? Or economic policy being made by economists? Put one guy in charge, but put the weight of the professionals behind them. This introduces tremendous complexity, though, and it's not clear that it would work (eliminate politics). So letting the general public provide input seems best, so long as those listening to that input can weed out the poor arguments from the good ones. The mob can't do that.
Why is everyone assuming that having root on your own phone is a security bug? I mean it's odd that it's exposed there, but it's your phone. A bug, sure, but a big security issue? Not really. So someone with physical access to the phone can theoretically hack into it. But that's always the case.
I've been a proponent for blogs for our elected offices for a while now. I don't think forums would work this term, though. Given how racist and irrational a large percentage of our population is, it will take about 2 seconds for such a forum for Obama to devolve into uselessness, even with heavy moderation. (And then, once you throw moderation into things, you have to deal with charges that you're biasing the comments.)
I'm curious for the details as well, but my impression is that McCain supported nearly every decision and action made by Bush. Right away, this suggests he has poor judgment. When this Bush link became a liability, he decided to reinvent himself by denouncing the policies he previously supported and attitudes he previously held. This suggests his convictions and his politics revolve around his desire for the presidency, and not the other way around. I am deeply suspicious of anyone willing to "reinvent himself" (or deceive others into thinking that's what he's doing) to get elected. This is someone that's in it for the power.
The reduction of, e.g., cabbage farmers, as a result of decreased demand due to increased price, does not imply that all cabbage farmers will go out of business and that all cabbage will be imported. The supply would shrink until it became cost-effective again.
I rather suspect that if costs for local produce started rising, people would either pay it and just absorb the costs, as they would inflation, or they might whine to the government, which would divert tax dollars to subsidies, to lower the apparent price.
Do you really think it's likely that a small increase in labor costs due to a crackdown on illegal workers would result in the collapse of US agriculture and force us to import all of our food?
(Please bear in mind that I am NOT a proponent of such a crackdown. I just think these arguments are a bit illogical and unfounded.)
I'm not actually asking for this regulation. I'm not opposing your position, just the logic you're using to justify it. I agree that if we were to eliminate these barriers to migrant workers (allow migrant visas or whatever), these workers would be able to compete "fairly" for these jobs, and I wouldn't be surprised if they got those jobs, because their living expenses are lower and they can afford a lower salary. Yes, absolutely, that's the market at work. Everything I was saying earlier should be taken in the context of a regulated market, as you point out.
Why are they filled by illegals? Because unemployed Americans don't.
...at the wages the illegals find to be fair.
It's the same reason McDonald's is always hiring and unemployment doesn't go down.
Um, is there a chronic shortage of McDonald's workers, or are they just hiring because of the standard turnover rate at a company like that? If McDonalds had job openings that they couldn't fill, McDonalds would either be going out of business, or, again, they'd have to raise wages. I think you're mistaking a job opening for a worker shortage. McDonalds creates jobs when a new restaurant is built, not when they have an employee leave. That departing employee adds to the unemployed pool, and when an employee replaces them, the unemployment rate goes back down to what it was.
or you admit that illegals are doing it for a fair price (three times what the government says you need to make in order to live)
The price is fair to the illegals. The ability to live off of it is not the only factor that makes a wage "fair". If you could choose a living wage flipping burgers at McDonalds, or the same wage standing out in the hot sun picking cabbage all day, which would you choose? If people flock to McDonalds, and let the cabbage rot, it's clear that the wages paid to cabbage workers must simply go up. Do you really not understand how the market works?
If it were worth it to them, people would do it. No job is "beneath" a person if the price is right. Do you think the town of Buttfuck Alaska has to import migrant workers to be garbage men? Do you think they just don't have garbage men at all, because everyone would think it "beneath" them? Of course not. People do undesirable work because it pays well. If it doesn't pay well, nobody takes the job.
With our unemployment levels rising, the fact that more Americans (who in your words are "available and willing to do the work") won't take those jobs say you are mistaken.
You're taking what I said out of context. They're available and willing to do the work if the wage were right. But you're mixing the hypothetical (people would do the work) with the actual (these jobs are currently filled by illegal workers). The job openings don't exist, so it's not going to affect unemployment. If illegal workers were eliminated, farms would be forced to raise wages to fill the positions (or go out of the cabbage business, which would happen anyway for many cabbage farmers if the price for cabbage were to go up), which would lower unemployment rates.
Some people can afford a 3x increase in the price of produce. But beyond that, lots of US produce is imported. I would think that imports would go up and local US producers would simply be squeezed out of the market.
(Note that Slashdot screwed up the formatting of my post; that third bullet wasn't intended to be a bullet, sorry.)
So how much are you prepared to pay for your cabbage? Farmers aren't going to let themselves make a loss on it...
By keeping costs (thus prices) artificially low by hiring illegal migrant workers, consumption of cabbage is high. If you cut down on illegal migrant workers, price for cabbage will go up. One of two things will happen:
People will realize that there are alternatives to cabbage and switch. Demand for cabbage will fall. Cabbage farmers will have to cut back on production or lower prices below their costs, which means many will be unable to sustain themselves, and will switch to farm something else instead. This is the market at work.
Alternatively, people will decide that cabbage is a necessity, and pay any price for it. The cost of living will rise. These people may in turn demand higher salaries, and those that can't get higher salaries may decide to move someplace else that has a lower cost of living. The higher cost of cabbage is therefore spread throughout the market. Again, this is the market at work.
Civilization will not collapse because the costs of farming cabbage go up.
(That being said, I'm not necessarily in favor of cracking down on migrant workers, just pointing these things out.)
There simply aren't enough Americans that are willing to do the work
Wrong.
The great majority of Americans simply won't do that kind of work unless the salary was so high that we would have to pay double to quadruple the price on produce.
Correct. Americans are willing to do the work. They are not willing to do the work at the price illegal immigrants are willing to do the work at. So farms have an economic incentive to hire illegal workers, and Americans, who are available and willing to do the work, don't get the jobs.
Yes, doing the "right" thing and hiring only legal labor means produce will be expensive. That is the price you pay for having strict immigration rules.
Don't get me wrong, I sort of agree with the point you're trying to make here, but you're wrong when you keep saying that Americans won't do the work. That's really the point the parent poster was trying to make.
Like you say, if you want cheap produce, make it easier for foreign migrant workers to come here and work. American workers will not be able to compete for these jobs, so unemployment will go up. But our food will be cheaper. If you think having Americans employed here is worth the expense of higher produce costs, then crack down on illegal workers.
Slashdot Mirror
Depending on the nature of your business, some "remote access" requirements can be satisfied instead by moving to something like Google Apps. You can do e-mail, and basic documents and spreadsheets over the web from anywhere.
I think you're misunderstanding something rather fundamental. Google is responsible for Android. Android is 100% open-source, and Google wants to do everything it can to make (keep) Android an open platform.
T-Mobile is responsible for the G1. The G1 has a proprietary hardware design, and is locked down just as well as any other T-Mobile phone. Google has nothing to do with that. Google isn't locking the phone down, or waging a war against those that want to unlock it. It's trivial to get a root shell on the Android platform. But it's up to T-Mobile to decide what features and applications it wants on their own phone, and if they don't want to make it easy to get root, that's their decision, not Google's.
With a sufficiently capable card, you could make your select on the card itself. But we're straying too far into the realm of science fiction, unfortunately. Maybe in another 50 years.
Did an executive really just say, "I think we should have a formal policy"? Don't create bureaucracy and policy just for the sake of having bureaucracy and policy (making management look busy). Build your policy on the demands of your organization, and formalize it when it's necessary to do so.
That being said, if your business doesn't deal much with sensitive data, you could get by with allowing personal computers, with up-to-date anti-virus software (maybe the company can pay for AV software for home computers). If you do deal with sensitive data, I would recommend issuing laptops to employees that need to work from home, and only allow VPN from those systems. Use certificates.
They did. And here is Google's response.
You could still do this, and stay within the spirit of compartmentalization, by digitizing all of the data on the card, and using a card+reader that allows you to (securely) decide which bits of information you want to share.
Except Google says they anonymize after 9 months, so this should be impossible, unless Google is lying.
From the Google.org announcement:
So either you're wrong, or you're right, and some yet undiscovered mechanism is allowing Google's search results to have such a consistently strong correlation that allows it to be predictive. Either way, it seems to work, and seems useful.
It's a little more than notepad.exe, but I can forgive the gross generalization since you admit you've never used it.
Doesn't that sort of depend on the business, though? If you have good Internet connectivity, or don't mind using Gears, and your needs are for internal, or basic documents, something like Google Apps should meet all of your needs. If you're a more conservative company that still needs to do a lot of communication using polished, flashy, printed documents, then the producers of those documents will need something more advanced than Google Apps. Use the best tool for the task.
That being said, desktop office tools should be able to push and pull content from Google Apps. Then you could get the best of both worlds: remote collaboration, high availability, with the option of working in a more advanced application as needed.
It seems to me that much of the problems with any form of national ID card could be mitigated if you had different cards for different purposes. If I need to be able to assert that I'm old enough to buy something, all I need is a difficult-to-forge card that asserts that fact, and ties that fact to me (with my photograph perhaps). Such a card has no need for my name, my address, or any other facts about my identity. If you wanted to get fancy, you could digitize all of this information and have nothing appearing on the card at all.
Similarly, a license to drive should be based on my ability to drive. My identity doesn't matter, at least beyond what's needed to prove that I'm the rightful holder of the license. I might need to present some identification to the government when I obtain the license, but that doesn't need to remain with it. So you could have a separate card (or set of digital credentials) for that.
It's the concentration of all of this into one card that makes that one card so valuable to thieves and a police state. But for most of the uses of the various identity/license/payment/shopper cards, they need to know very little about me. Usually just an account number of some kind, a way to ensure authenticity (digital signature, watermark) and a way for people I present the card to to verify that I'm the rightful holder, if that even matters (like a photograph, or a hash of any kind of biometric data). Why must everything be tied to a government identity?
I disagree that the study proves what you assert it proves (see previous discussion).
I skimmed the book, and while I think it's entirely plausible that a generation raised in a direct democracy could conceivably make, on average, good, perhaps even rational decisions within it, I have strong reservations about the generations in the transition period.
I have to look at my personal experiences here in California. In the last election, we had several propositions voted on by the public, which include new laws and constitutional amendments. With few exceptions, most people I asked who supported these propositions were completely unable to justify their support rationally. And a few (such as the ban on gay marriage) evoked entirely religious arguments. California is also notable for 1978's Proposition 13, which drastically cut property taxes. People voting for this were voting for it because it lowered their taxes. After it passed, it became clear that the same people couldn't accept cutting services, so the legislatures had to pick up the pieces by raising sales tax, and creating numerous "special" taxes to restore most of the lost funding for police and schools (including "fees" on new home construction). And despite those measures, they still had to cut funding for schools, dropping California's public school system from among the best in the nation, to among the worst.
But maybe all of these are just learning exercises? Maybe this form of semi-direct democracy isn't direct enough yet for the people to snap out of their selfish, irrational ways? Who knows?
No system of government has been shown to be perfect. I would go on a limb here and say that Bush's criminal actions here are an unusual failure of the system. I don't think it's appropriate to use one example to suggest that every representative democracy is a poor alternative to a pure, direct democracy.
I think the heart of our disagreement here is that you seem to believe a government should do nothing but reflect the will of its people, which is what a direct democracy is good at. I think a government should make reasoned, rationally defensible, public policy. In an ideal world, these are the same, and both goals are possible, but the US is far from an idealized country. We have a huge polarization of views, and our most heated disagreements are about issues that center around faith and religion, not reason. (The US also has 40 times the number of people of Switzerland.)
I'd absolutely be in favor of an increasingly direct-democratic approach at local levels, but I'm already nervous enough at what my home state (California) has done and continues to do with its referendum process, that I'd be scared to death if we took that to the federal level.
I think you're being naive here. You seem to be under the delusion that (a) everyone researches all of the issues, or has the capability of identifying a non-biased, non-partisan expert that they can use to guide their opinion; (b) that everyone is capable of acting rationally instead of emotionally; and (c) people won't be selfish when it comes to public policy. What do you think a direct democracy would have done after 9/11? What do you think people would do in a direct democracy when gas prices become unbearably high? Once people realize they can loot the treasury, it's all over.
No, people don't ask experts. They consume what they watch on TV, or they allow their social circle to define their own beliefs. It's "truthiness" that matters, not reason. If you have enough influence (cash), and can spin things the right way, you will convince people to vote with your side. Talk to enough random people about some issue, and, with a few exceptions, they will do nothing but regurgitate biased propaganda, or they will say they plan on voting a certain way, but will be unable to justify that decision rationally. This is not the way to effect public policy.
Yes, they will fuck up, and you're right: they deserve what they get when they do. But the effects of those fuck-ups will be absolutely catastrophic. The people would be far worse off in the end, and ultimately, that should be the metric by which we judge any system of government/society. (IMO.)
Consider that in the US, we had an elite craft some restrictions and guarantees in the US constitution. Time and time again, the majority has attempted to pass laws, frequently on an emotional basis, that conflict with those guarantees. Our system of government can prevent these things from doing any damage, but only because we have another elite (a judiciary) keeping things consistent. The "tyranny of the majority" is a very real threat.
Care to elaborate on that? What things?
Don't get me wrong here; I am not advocating for an elimination of democracy. I just think that any vote posed to the public should be about a subjective issue (or a vote to change the government itself). Some questions are simply value issues, and could easily be posed to the people. Some require careful study to understand the risks and costs. These are better left to people qualified and hired/elected to do that job (with as much input from those with rational arguments as they can stand). Others don't require value judgments at all and can be answered scientifically, or have clear best practices (medicine), which shouldn't even be decided by politicians or the general public at all. Sometimes the right decision is the unpopular one, and with a direct democracy, you will rarely get people to vote for something that's unpopular, especially if you have someone else that's selfish and well-funded capable of spreading misinformation. A qualified representative should be able to see through that and make the right move anyway. (In fairness, elected officials have an incentive to side with the majority anyway if they want reelection, but fortunately, it doesn't always come to that.)
In the US at least, and in theory, the ability of one branch to totally fuck up is limited by the other two branches. In a direct democracy, however, you have one branch (the people) with seemingly absolute power.
It's all about balance, right? On one extreme, you have mob rule. On the other, you have an oligarchy. An oligarchy of qualified, benevolent elite wouldn't be such a bad thing, IMO, but you have no way of guaranteeing that this elite won't become less qualified or tyranical over time. So, it seems prudent to give people the power to oust a tyranny, while keeping the decision-making that requires rational thought and study in the hands of an elite. That's effectively what we have today, but the balance seems to be shifting toward a direct democracy (mob rule).
IMO, decisions should be made by those qualified to make them, and input from the public into those decisions should be weighted on qualifications as well. Imagine environmental policy being made by an order of environmentalists? Or economic policy being made by economists? Put one guy in charge, but put the weight of the professionals behind them. This introduces tremendous complexity, though, and it's not clear that it would work (eliminate politics). So letting the general public provide input seems best, so long as those listening to that input can weed out the poor arguments from the good ones. The mob can't do that.
Except this console doesn't recognize Alt, so you can't type slashes.
Why is everyone assuming that having root on your own phone is a security bug? I mean it's odd that it's exposed there, but it's your phone. A bug, sure, but a big security issue? Not really. So someone with physical access to the phone can theoretically hack into it. But that's always the case.
I've been a proponent for blogs for our elected offices for a while now. I don't think forums would work this term, though. Given how racist and irrational a large percentage of our population is, it will take about 2 seconds for such a forum for Obama to devolve into uselessness, even with heavy moderation. (And then, once you throw moderation into things, you have to deal with charges that you're biasing the comments.)
I'm curious for the details as well, but my impression is that McCain supported nearly every decision and action made by Bush. Right away, this suggests he has poor judgment. When this Bush link became a liability, he decided to reinvent himself by denouncing the policies he previously supported and attitudes he previously held. This suggests his convictions and his politics revolve around his desire for the presidency, and not the other way around. I am deeply suspicious of anyone willing to "reinvent himself" (or deceive others into thinking that's what he's doing) to get elected. This is someone that's in it for the power.
The reduction of, e.g., cabbage farmers, as a result of decreased demand due to increased price, does not imply that all cabbage farmers will go out of business and that all cabbage will be imported. The supply would shrink until it became cost-effective again.
I rather suspect that if costs for local produce started rising, people would either pay it and just absorb the costs, as they would inflation, or they might whine to the government, which would divert tax dollars to subsidies, to lower the apparent price.
Do you really think it's likely that a small increase in labor costs due to a crackdown on illegal workers would result in the collapse of US agriculture and force us to import all of our food?
(Please bear in mind that I am NOT a proponent of such a crackdown. I just think these arguments are a bit illogical and unfounded.)
I'm not actually asking for this regulation. I'm not opposing your position, just the logic you're using to justify it. I agree that if we were to eliminate these barriers to migrant workers (allow migrant visas or whatever), these workers would be able to compete "fairly" for these jobs, and I wouldn't be surprised if they got those jobs, because their living expenses are lower and they can afford a lower salary. Yes, absolutely, that's the market at work. Everything I was saying earlier should be taken in the context of a regulated market, as you point out.
...at the wages the illegals find to be fair.
Um, is there a chronic shortage of McDonald's workers, or are they just hiring because of the standard turnover rate at a company like that? If McDonalds had job openings that they couldn't fill, McDonalds would either be going out of business, or, again, they'd have to raise wages. I think you're mistaking a job opening for a worker shortage. McDonalds creates jobs when a new restaurant is built, not when they have an employee leave. That departing employee adds to the unemployed pool, and when an employee replaces them, the unemployment rate goes back down to what it was.
The price is fair to the illegals. The ability to live off of it is not the only factor that makes a wage "fair". If you could choose a living wage flipping burgers at McDonalds, or the same wage standing out in the hot sun picking cabbage all day, which would you choose? If people flock to McDonalds, and let the cabbage rot, it's clear that the wages paid to cabbage workers must simply go up. Do you really not understand how the market works?
If it were worth it to them, people would do it. No job is "beneath" a person if the price is right. Do you think the town of Buttfuck Alaska has to import migrant workers to be garbage men? Do you think they just don't have garbage men at all, because everyone would think it "beneath" them? Of course not. People do undesirable work because it pays well. If it doesn't pay well, nobody takes the job.
You're taking what I said out of context. They're available and willing to do the work if the wage were right. But you're mixing the hypothetical (people would do the work) with the actual (these jobs are currently filled by illegal workers). The job openings don't exist, so it's not going to affect unemployment. If illegal workers were eliminated, farms would be forced to raise wages to fill the positions (or go out of the cabbage business, which would happen anyway for many cabbage farmers if the price for cabbage were to go up), which would lower unemployment rates.
Some people can afford a 3x increase in the price of produce. But beyond that, lots of US produce is imported. I would think that imports would go up and local US producers would simply be squeezed out of the market.
(Note that Slashdot screwed up the formatting of my post; that third bullet wasn't intended to be a bullet, sorry.)
By keeping costs (thus prices) artificially low by hiring illegal migrant workers, consumption of cabbage is high. If you cut down on illegal migrant workers, price for cabbage will go up. One of two things will happen:
Civilization will not collapse because the costs of farming cabbage go up.
(That being said, I'm not necessarily in favor of cracking down on migrant workers, just pointing these things out.)
Wrong.
Correct. Americans are willing to do the work. They are not willing to do the work at the price illegal immigrants are willing to do the work at. So farms have an economic incentive to hire illegal workers, and Americans, who are available and willing to do the work, don't get the jobs.
Yes, doing the "right" thing and hiring only legal labor means produce will be expensive. That is the price you pay for having strict immigration rules.
Don't get me wrong, I sort of agree with the point you're trying to make here, but you're wrong when you keep saying that Americans won't do the work. That's really the point the parent poster was trying to make.
Like you say, if you want cheap produce, make it easier for foreign migrant workers to come here and work. American workers will not be able to compete for these jobs, so unemployment will go up. But our food will be cheaper. If you think having Americans employed here is worth the expense of higher produce costs, then crack down on illegal workers.