When my old Sony VAIO died, I cried. It had no CD-rom, no floppy, and was so thin and tiny that it went everywhere. It barely had any ports. When I needed to burn a CD or connect a peripheral, the network or USB gave me the option, which I rarely used. Now that Sony is on my hit list, I couldn't find a decent replacement, so I bought a reasonbly tiny Compaq (yes, shudder, but it works great) until someone releases a real "on the go" laptop that works well.
I always get aggravated the the market for desktop replacements is to totally replace everything you'd do on a desktop. For me, I prefer a memory stick over a CD-R. I don't need video outputs, and the need to shove every port into a portable machine doesn't seem cost or space or energy efficient.
How many of you with desktop replacements are really using all the options built into it? Hasn't the Internet mostly reduced the need for all these external connection points? For me, I set up a private WiFi AP at every location I visit, and I never have to worry about anything but battery life (I hate plugging my laptop in even to the AC outlet).
So move elsewhere. Or work to get someone else elected.
This country (the U.S.) was built around personal responsibility and freedom. Neither of your "answers" there cover either. Why should I move when I live in a country that is based on freedom? I'd rather see solutions to downsize the federal government and let the states adapt. I don't believe in democracy, so voting is counter-intuitive and against my morals, although I do vote.
I never drive, I only use the trains.
The trains by me are funded by force -- the average rider pays a few dollars, and the taxpayer pays almost $10 more to cover the bureaucracy of the trains. Many trains originally were privately run, but the cronies found ways to get government to foot the bill. I believe cars are way more efficient and cheaper once you factor in the true costs of the train system.
It doesn't tie in so well with government debt, you are conflating the NASA budget with Social Security, etc.
They both tie in together. People live beyond their means, so they don't want to save for the future. The government welfare programs are overbudget, so the government inflates the currency, pushing the costs onto future generations while robbing the current citizens of the value of their savings and investments.
One of NASA's roles is to create new markets -- for example, without NASA, there wouldn't be a market for commerical satellites.
I don't believe that at all. We went from the telegraph to the telephone, and I do believe that satellites would have naturally evolved in a competitive market. Of cousre, we'll never know, but I see most human invention coming out of a profit motive. NASA has a profit motive as well -- for the cronies who provide overpriced and inefficient contract work.
You and I tend to never agree, but I appreciate your opinion, FWIW.
You _are_ aware, are you not, that things like highways, fire brigades, the CDC or indeed a standing army are not covered by that constitution of yours?
You _are_ aware that our 9th and 10th Amendments allow for the States and the People to perform these powers themselves? Why should someone in California pay for a highway in Illinois? Why should someone in Miami pay for a fire in Denver?
The Federal government has no ability to perform efficiently, which was why we had the Constitution in the first place. Give the states the ability to provide competitive service with one another, and they'll compete to attract the best citizens.
National Healthcare is not acceptable to me -- there is no mandate or power to Congress to provide it. I would rather cut government spending (and the defense budget) 90%, and give U.S. citizens the power to trade with everyone. The most loved countries in the world are those that openly trade without tariffs, embargoes or warmongering.
weather monitoring to try and help avoid natural disasters, studying global warming and suchlike.
Yet I haven't seen proof that any of these things are avoidable or even a problem. You're saying it is ok to rob from me to pay others to do research that I'm not interested in. If you think these issues are so important, why won't people voluntarily pay to research them, as we do in other sciences?
You also say that public research brings advances to society, but I don't believe that, either. The greatest advances in society happen in competitive marketplaces when businesses see a consumer need to be filled. NASA doesn't have consumers, and it creates needs out of thin air.
I know that NASA is a romantic lover of most slashdot readers, but I welcome any and all cuts that happen. I wish these cuts weren't performed so that the U.S. can finance its imperialism, but it is a start.
NASA has a 50+ year history of boondoggles including a recent billion dollar launch of a golf cart to the moon. I'm not sure I could find where in the U.S. Constitution Congress is allotted the money or power to launch golf carts for a billion dollars. All I really see is a slow moving, red-tape laden bureaucracy that gets little done with the massive amount of money it is given. Look at the $60b ISS for more of your money lost to cronyism.
Half of NASA's US$15b budget goes to these scientific satellites. The common response from slashdot readers is to the need for these satellites in advancing commercial applications, but no commercial application is really advanced efficiently without there being a commercial need to be filled. With Burt Rutan and Paul Allen's drive to create commercial viability in space, I'm seeing almost no need for NASA anymore. In fact, I believe NASA and the federal regulations on space flight are both keeping private competitive markets from blossoming.
The U.S. is bankrupt -- more bankrupt than any country in history. A great majority of the citizens of the State are so far in debt that there is no likelihood of escaping it in their lifetimes, so the citizens push the debt off to the next two generations. Your parents are destroying our futures, and we're destroying the futures of our children, because of outrageous and unconstitutional programs such as NASA.
Let's look at NASA for what it is and ignore the science fiction fantasy: NASA is a theft program where our elected officials rob money from citizens to pay for a boondoggle program that none of you would likely pay voluntarily. I don't see any public interest achievements in NASA, and I definitely don't see why NASA or the U.S. government needs to be handling any scientific research.
If you're afraid for the climate or the environment, donate your money voluntarily to commercial or not-for-profit businesses to create research wings. Asking me to pick up the tab for your toys, against my will, is really not acceptible anymore to me. I've looked at the budget, and it seems to be one big cash cow for Boeing and other corporate cronies that have received billions over the decades.
It is time to just end the program entirely and leave it up to a competitive marketplace. There are enough billionaires with money to spend, let them finance these toys strictly for ego.
I think the best way to solve the problem is the opposite -- remove ALL restrictions to campaign finance.
I've said it before and I'll say it again -- campaign finance is not the problem, the power of government is the problem. Campaign finance today has prevented anyone but the 2 big parties from raising money. The current campaign finance laws are set up so that only the 2 big parties have any ability to raise money.
For me, the way I spend my money is the equivalent to a form of expression. I believe that no government has any right to restrict how I spend my money. If the Commies want to finance a candidate, let them. If Al-Qaeda wants to, let them. How do you prevent money from corrupting the candidate? You SEVERELY restrain their power when elected.
The original intent of the U.S. was to have a severely limited and restricted government federally, with more power at the local level. Since Lincoln's tyrannical war and changes in 1913, we've headed in the direction of empire and socialism -- directly from government that is too powerful, not because of campaign finance.
Let me give my money to whoever I want, without having to report it. But make sure that those in office have no power to abuse.
This is the problem with any structure of checks and balances -- there is no penalty for violating the oath to uphold a given constitution.
How about an amendment to all the Constitutions with a 3 strikes and you're out law? If a law-maker votes for 3 bills that are later found to be unconstitutional, they're booted.
It amazes me how much junk makes it past the various Supreme Courts, though. Sure, this law might get tossed, but how many more make it to the books?
My fear about unenforceable laws such as this one is the true power behind the law. Sure, it will be hard to enforce, but the powers the State will request to try to enforce it will play directly into the hands of those willing to finance the system.
Anonymous posting is harmless, yet un criminalizing it I can easily see how it can play into the hands of the RIAA and the MPAA -- giving them (and others) greater power in their cartels.
Your questions are important in formulating my response in future articles and posts.
In a free market, would we see competing business enterprises in movie making? Of course. Would each production company own its own theaters and even have their own disc playback standard? Maybe.
Yet movie making is a very complicated beast. Is it possible that content creators would be better suited to earning profits from value added items such as gourmet food or even popcorn? Who knows.
If copyright was destroyed, you'd still see content created and protected. I don't have the answers, but I do know that most content is not made with profit in mind -- look at the billions of websites out there for proof of that. Even in video most content is not made with profit in mind -- look at home movies and videos for proof there. Even in the porn industry they accept the high amount of piracy and know where the money is -- live performances, interactive video, and other value added services above and beyond basic footage.
Sgt. Jake -- Good question. I made a response to a similar question here.
My anarcho-capitalism blog ( http://anarcap.blogspot.com/ ) will be covering the No Copyright topic in upcoming weeks, along with some debate at my forum. If you're interested in putting in your two cents, please check in there if interested.
If copyright'd be gone, how *would* content creators actually protect their work?
Hey Ulrich. Good question.
If an architect designs a building, does he have the right to charge each visitor a fee for the rest of his life? If a guy invents a new sandwich design, does he have the right to charge each person who makes the same sandwich a fee?
Copyright to me makes no sense. I create content (music, writings, public speaking, etc) that is merely marketing fodder -- my blogs, my private newsletters, my e-mails, and everything I give freely. I use this free marketing tool to grab peoples' attentions and try to sell myself to them directly. I have way more information to give on a one-on-one basis (or one-with-many conference) than I would want to give away to be freely copied.
That said, if someone loves making music, nothing prevents them from getting a salaried job making music as part of a bigger package to sell -- movies, TV shows, whatever. Copyright doesn't help create content, it just moves control of the final product to someone else (usually those in cahoots with the copyright enforcers). I create without a profit motive for the information I put on paper or CD or the web -- but I do charge MORE to those who hire me directly. Considering I charge what I charge right now and people pay for it, it leads me to believe that my anti-copyright position works.
What do I get out of releasing "free" information? I get the results of people debating me or asking me questions or pointing out flaws in my thinking. I give the information out freely, they give me back input to make my private information worth more. In the long run, I am worth more because of that free trade of debate.
A musician can make money by becoming a studio musician or a house musician at a club/bar. A print artist can make money by entering the graphics design world (or doing faux finishes in people's homes). A poet can make money by offering their talents to slogan writers or other commercial enterprises. They can also work on one-offs.
In the upcoming weeks I'll be talking more about the No Copyright mentality at my blog, link provided above:)
How, exactly, is union chicanery and thugishenss "Copyright at its finest"?
Good point, sorry for the confusion.
Hollywood's "union" is unlike your typical worker union. I should have put quotes around the word union.
My point was that monopoly power (such as copyright) brings favoritism (and nepotism) to the monopolist -- the cartel in this case. Instead of giving content creators the ability to protect their work, it gives those with the distribution mechanisms the true power.
When the distributors are in control, favoritism generally takes control, too. This favoritism comes in the form of the "union" -- which is composed of both workers and people who get preferential treatment.
I believe that people just want to have much more stuff than they did before.
This is one of the 3 important rules of the Austrian economist "time preference" theories -- we all want more rather than less.
The great thing about what we have is that the free market has provided growth every step of the way. The bad thing about what we have is that it is mostly owned by foreigners that have loaned us the dollars we needed over the past 10 years.
Americans have much less real money now than any time in US history. Our ability to keep buying and overspending will likely be greatly reduced in coming years, much to the surprise of the average citizen who never realized they really own nothing but debt.
years, if almost everyone has a decent home theatre and a lot of internet bandwidth, these guys will have become irrelevant.
While a succinct and true response, your reply is more important than many might realize.
Copyright has given monopoly cartel power to a group of people who are now ready to fight to keep it. In 20 years there is a bigger chance of the Internet being controlled by DRM and the cartels than the chance of true freedom. I can only hope that the geeks and hackers find new ways to work around any regulations that we will likely see in the coming years.
My big fear in the BBS days was copy controls, but they were always worked around. Now I still have those fears, and when the hardware supports the controls, we have to work extra hard to make sure we have work arounds. It's funny how many pro-government geeks are on slashdot who support the work arounds that give us power over the cartel monopolies who get their power from the government.
1. More effects than plot/storyline 2. Hollywood unions controlling costs 3. Acting unions keeping the status quo too long 4. Economic pressures keeping people in their homes 5. New distribution mechanisms breaking down the cartels
In terms of plot, the average Hollywood movie is regurgitated from previous stories -- they even keep the title nowadays! I've seen great low budget movies with new twists and turns, but with lower production quality. My recent trip to Asia and Europe for the past 3 weeks showed me 3 foreign flick that were surprisingly good -- I even suspended disbelief for 2 of them.
The unions in Hollywood are notorious for continuing their blacklist and favoritism controls -- keeping costs high and quality low. In order to distribute a movie in the States, you have to be part of the union's preferred cartels. If you attempt to make a movie outside of their control, you'll generally not see wide distribution. Copyright at its finest, here.
For those who are familiar with my typical rants and raves on Slashdot, this post isn't much different. I'm the sole anti-copyright activist in most threads, and it doesn't hurt me to see copyright failing Hollywood after decades of them abusing their power. The Internet will slowly (or quickly) bring the distribution cartels down, and I can't wait to see what powers come to the artists willing to give up control of their work once it leaves their hands. Money is still there to be made, we just need to find new ways to sell our art without using the force of government to back our profits up.
On the economic pressure side, the usual enemy to movie theatres is gas pricing. I disagree -- gas prices in my home are not up much once you factor in inflation over the past 15 years. Greenspan did this country a huge disservice with his inflationary system -- making the cost of living go up much faster than our wages did. I believe the average home is poorer today than it was 10 and 20 years ago -- when you look at the cost of entertainment versus the available disposable income, you can see why entertainment is failing. Pile on huge consumer debt levels, and most families can't just Charge It! any longer.
In the long run, I see great benefit in the Internet is bringing the average consumer a new level of selection. The victor in this is the consumer -- and those who find new ways to bring art from the artist to the purveyor. I'm looking at all the options myself, as I don't really see much reason to support those (ie, Hollywood) who stole from me over the decades I've lived. I'd rather go see a local theatre production (where the actors and support staff get paid through real ongoing work) than make a millionaire out of someone who acted once and believes they have the right to continue to make an income without making actual repeated work.
George Lucas might be right that Big Budget Movies are dying -- but I think he needs to check his premises. It isn't the consumer that doesn't want to spend money, it is those who have controlled and manipulated the market that have lost the ability to continue their deceit and their monopoly. Information doesn't want to be free, the law of supply and demand just dictates that it will eventually be free in a digital world. There are still billions of people on this planet who will pay for good content, and I'd love to be one of the guys who finds a way to connect the supply with the demand in a profitable way.
For examples see: Ma Bell, Standard Oil, railroad companies during the robber baron era. Once an organization gets to a certain size, a bureaucracy develops to manage it. That lets management get disconnected from the core business and allows incompetents and self-interested empire-builders to find niches.
That might be true, but I debate the idea that Standard Oil was a problem. The only times they manipulated the consumer is when they had the backing of government to do so. Other than that, the "robber baron" mumbo jumbo is false -- Standard Oil angered their competitors by making their product cheaper for the consumer. I have to say that most high school history books have the wrong idea behind the company.
In private enterprise, the primary motivation is to separate the customer from his money (without necessarily providing adequate value if anti-competitive activities can be used to limit the customer's options).
No, that isn't true at all. In the competitive free market, every party entering a trade is doing so out of self-interest. The person trading currency for product/service is getting a product or service that is worth more to them than the currency. The person providing the product/service is giving up something that is worth less than the currency they are getting. Neither side of the trade is losing -- they're both profiting. Only in government interactive do we see this trade truth fail.
The people who work as civil servants usually don't do it for the money; motivation instead usually consists of work/financial security or a desire "to serve the public".
I have never met one civil servant who does anything but for the money. I also have never met anyone who does anything truly altruistically -- even Mother Theresa gained a profit in her good works (blessings of God and happiness from helping). We're all selfish, why hide it?
Government is the great corrupter. When government regulated the media (copyright, FCC, etc) they destroyed it. When government regulated security, they destroyed it. Government stayed mostly away from the PC industry and it is still flourishing. Government got involved with automakers, and look what happened.
The most recent transcripts are from 1999. That's modern government?
Also, the FOMC is not the Federal Reserve but a unit under the Fed. The FOMC is the most visible policy-making part of the Fed, but they are not the only thing the Fed does. Much of the Fed's operations are shrouded in secrecy, and the Fed has no legal mandate to tell the citizen anything.
As for changing interest rates on a whim, it is whimsical as the modern macroeconomic theory seems to be modified every few months in order to update every place that it failed. I believe the Austrian theory is more concrete AND more accurate -- and that hasn't been modified or updated in 50+ years.
The Austrians see the boom/bust cycle as directly related to the pressure of having a coerced currency, backed by nothing, and manipulated in such ways as to encourage or discourage savings and investing rather than letting the free market prompt what is truly needed.
Actually, when currency was gold, all the currencies were just bank receipts for that gold. One dollar was a receipt for 1/20th of an ounce of gold at the bank. The same was true of the Deustchmark, the Sterling, the Franc, and all the other currencies.
Central banks didn't like the fact that they couldn't print money out of thin air, so they found ways to destroy the gold standard by cheating the system. That's why we're living in a time where your money is worth less tomorrow than it was worth today, instead of what tends to happen in a free market: slow but good deflation. We're told deflation is bad, but once you realize what true free market slow deflation is, you'd likely love it.
I think this is the least important control we have. In the government market, we can make a decision only once every 4 or so years. In the free market, we can make decisions to vote (with our dollar, with our time, with our ability to tell friends and family) every minute of every day. What you buy combines with the choices of billions of others in the world to set the standard for today, tomorrow and the future. Government moves too slowly to react to the needs of the people -- see the law books for proof there.
Voting doesn't change the system -- it merely changes the cronies in the system. The policies of government have never changed, the old ones are kept and new ones are tacked on. Everything Clinton did is mostly still in the books -- instead of removing them, Bush just added a few of his own cronies to the system. Sure, he replaced a few higher ups, but the grunts are mostly the same.
What, exactly, are you suggesting we do with the information you provide? Overthrow the government and replace everything it does with private for-profit corporations? Or elect every single little position paid for with tax dollars? Do shareholders typically vote on every janitor who gets hired?
I'd prefer to see for-gain companies that I know are out to gain something from dealing with me than government that uses "for the children" and "for your safety" as a front to their cronyism. Do shareholders vote for every janitor? No, but the customers of the janitor do (the customers, by the way, are the ones who also work for the corporation and judge if the janitor isn't doing their job).
Corporations are nothing but large groups of people voluntarily supplying one-another in a group moving in the same direction. Corporations are 100% voluntary. Try getting a job at the local DMV and see how little it has to do with the reality of business.
It sounds like the company has to go bankrupt or otherwise catastrophically fail for the correction to take place; is that what we would have to look forward to if we adopted that model for government? Isn't that kind of what we already have?
From bankruptcies in the business market we get better businesses that run more efficiently and provide better services. Bankruptcies in government misdecisions don't hurt that business -- they hurt We the People.
Sounds suspiciously market-like to me, and it happens regularly every 2-4-6 years.
The market is built out of billions of decisions made every minute. Get a bad burger? Don't shop there anymore. In a week a restaurant can go broke if it sells bad food. Get great service at a dry cleaner? Tell your friends. I like to make decisions every minute of every day based on the current level of service. 2-4-6 years means I have to keep track of my good and bad experiences and figure out how to affect them. Most of the time, voting for the other party means returning to the bad agency and seeing the same idiots working there.
This is a (free e-) book written by Murray Rothbard. He discusses why we don't need the Fed and why the boom/bust cycle is tied directly to fiat currency managed by the Fed. It is a simple, easy 1 day read. Check it out:)
I'm anti-Fed entirely. I truly believe that the Federal Reserve is the worst pseudo-organization in government. There is absolutely no transparency, they meet in secret meetings with no access by the public, they don't publish their meeting minutes for 5 years and when they do they're completely indecipherable.
I blame the Fed 100% for every bubble since 1913, and I blame the Fed 100% for the current stock market bubble, the housing bubble, and the out of control inflation we've experienced in the past 20 years.
Everyone thinks they're richer because they feel richer, but once you factor in debt -- private and public -- that wealth is merely a figment of our imagination. The market doesn't need guidance by anyone, interest rates set themselves and currency is better fixed rather than floating. How do you know if you should spend or save if rates change on a whim with no real back up?
Blogger liking Bernanke are like analysts loving Greenspan. These guys create money out of thin air, raising prices, and people believe they're richer because those raised prices bring them more money -- but almost never enough to counter the rising prices.
I generally laugh when an appointee fails. They aren't a good example of the success of representative democracy, and no matter which side is in power, there are people crying foul about whoever is appointed.
They lie? Don't all politicians? They're too white? They're too left? They're too right? They're unqualified? They're qualified but they don't have real life experience? They're cronies?
Let's look at how this works in a free market:
John Johnson hires his son John Johnson, Jr, to help run his company. Nepotism. John I dies. John Jr takes over, and the general history of business shows us the John Jr has never felt pain, so he doesn't work as hard as he should. Business fails. The market solution is to give the person with the best output and lowest price the work. John Jr rarely will be that person.
In the market of government, we don't really have much to control. We can't vote with our dollars OR vote with our ballot. We can't directly affect the actions of the appointee, and some appointees are so powerful it amazes me that the country doesn't cry foul more often (see Ben Bernanke).
Positions of power are better suited to be competitive rather than elected, and better elected rather than appointed. Do you feel better when "your man" is the appointee? Do you forget all the damage that occurs when it isn't "your guy?"
Slashdot Mirror
Its a bigger question than can be answered on slashdot, but here's a good start:
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1704
When my old Sony VAIO died, I cried. It had no CD-rom, no floppy, and was so thin and tiny that it went everywhere. It barely had any ports. When I needed to burn a CD or connect a peripheral, the network or USB gave me the option, which I rarely used. Now that Sony is on my hit list, I couldn't find a decent replacement, so I bought a reasonbly tiny Compaq (yes, shudder, but it works great) until someone releases a real "on the go" laptop that works well.
I always get aggravated the the market for desktop replacements is to totally replace everything you'd do on a desktop. For me, I prefer a memory stick over a CD-R. I don't need video outputs, and the need to shove every port into a portable machine doesn't seem cost or space or energy efficient.
How many of you with desktop replacements are really using all the options built into it? Hasn't the Internet mostly reduced the need for all these external connection points? For me, I set up a private WiFi AP at every location I visit, and I never have to worry about anything but battery life (I hate plugging my laptop in even to the AC outlet).
So move elsewhere. Or work to get someone else elected.
This country (the U.S.) was built around personal responsibility and freedom. Neither of your "answers" there cover either. Why should I move when I live in a country that is based on freedom? I'd rather see solutions to downsize the federal government and let the states adapt. I don't believe in democracy, so voting is counter-intuitive and against my morals, although I do vote.
I never drive, I only use the trains.
The trains by me are funded by force -- the average rider pays a few dollars, and the taxpayer pays almost $10 more to cover the bureaucracy of the trains. Many trains originally were privately run, but the cronies found ways to get government to foot the bill. I believe cars are way more efficient and cheaper once you factor in the true costs of the train system.
It doesn't tie in so well with government debt, you are conflating the NASA budget with Social Security, etc.
They both tie in together. People live beyond their means, so they don't want to save for the future. The government welfare programs are overbudget, so the government inflates the currency, pushing the costs onto future generations while robbing the current citizens of the value of their savings and investments.
One of NASA's roles is to create new markets -- for example, without NASA, there wouldn't be a market for commerical satellites.
I don't believe that at all. We went from the telegraph to the telephone, and I do believe that satellites would have naturally evolved in a competitive market. Of cousre, we'll never know, but I see most human invention coming out of a profit motive. NASA has a profit motive as well -- for the cronies who provide overpriced and inefficient contract work.
You and I tend to never agree, but I appreciate your opinion, FWIW.
You _are_ aware, are you not, that things like highways, fire brigades, the CDC or indeed a standing army are not covered by that constitution of yours?
You _are_ aware that our 9th and 10th Amendments allow for the States and the People to perform these powers themselves? Why should someone in California pay for a highway in Illinois? Why should someone in Miami pay for a fire in Denver?
The Federal government has no ability to perform efficiently, which was why we had the Constitution in the first place. Give the states the ability to provide competitive service with one another, and they'll compete to attract the best citizens.
National Healthcare is not acceptable to me -- there is no mandate or power to Congress to provide it. I would rather cut government spending (and the defense budget) 90%, and give U.S. citizens the power to trade with everyone. The most loved countries in the world are those that openly trade without tariffs, embargoes or warmongering.
weather monitoring to try and help avoid natural disasters, studying global warming and suchlike.
Yet I haven't seen proof that any of these things are avoidable or even a problem. You're saying it is ok to rob from me to pay others to do research that I'm not interested in. If you think these issues are so important, why won't people voluntarily pay to research them, as we do in other sciences?
You also say that public research brings advances to society, but I don't believe that, either. The greatest advances in society happen in competitive marketplaces when businesses see a consumer need to be filled. NASA doesn't have consumers, and it creates needs out of thin air.
I know that NASA is a romantic lover of most slashdot readers, but I welcome any and all cuts that happen. I wish these cuts weren't performed so that the U.S. can finance its imperialism, but it is a start.
NASA has a 50+ year history of boondoggles including a recent billion dollar launch of a golf cart to the moon. I'm not sure I could find where in the U.S. Constitution Congress is allotted the money or power to launch golf carts for a billion dollars. All I really see is a slow moving, red-tape laden bureaucracy that gets little done with the massive amount of money it is given. Look at the $60b ISS for more of your money lost to cronyism.
Half of NASA's US$15b budget goes to these scientific satellites. The common response from slashdot readers is to the need for these satellites in advancing commercial applications, but no commercial application is really advanced efficiently without there being a commercial need to be filled. With Burt Rutan and Paul Allen's drive to create commercial viability in space, I'm seeing almost no need for NASA anymore. In fact, I believe NASA and the federal regulations on space flight are both keeping private competitive markets from blossoming.
The U.S. is bankrupt -- more bankrupt than any country in history. A great majority of the citizens of the State are so far in debt that there is no likelihood of escaping it in their lifetimes, so the citizens push the debt off to the next two generations. Your parents are destroying our futures, and we're destroying the futures of our children, because of outrageous and unconstitutional programs such as NASA.
Let's look at NASA for what it is and ignore the science fiction fantasy: NASA is a theft program where our elected officials rob money from citizens to pay for a boondoggle program that none of you would likely pay voluntarily. I don't see any public interest achievements in NASA, and I definitely don't see why NASA or the U.S. government needs to be handling any scientific research.
If you're afraid for the climate or the environment, donate your money voluntarily to commercial or not-for-profit businesses to create research wings. Asking me to pick up the tab for your toys, against my will, is really not acceptible anymore to me. I've looked at the budget, and it seems to be one big cash cow for Boeing and other corporate cronies that have received billions over the decades.
It is time to just end the program entirely and leave it up to a competitive marketplace. There are enough billionaires with money to spend, let them finance these toys strictly for ego.
I think the best way to solve the problem is the opposite -- remove ALL restrictions to campaign finance.
I've said it before and I'll say it again -- campaign finance is not the problem, the power of government is the problem. Campaign finance today has prevented anyone but the 2 big parties from raising money. The current campaign finance laws are set up so that only the 2 big parties have any ability to raise money.
For me, the way I spend my money is the equivalent to a form of expression. I believe that no government has any right to restrict how I spend my money. If the Commies want to finance a candidate, let them. If Al-Qaeda wants to, let them. How do you prevent money from corrupting the candidate? You SEVERELY restrain their power when elected.
The original intent of the U.S. was to have a severely limited and restricted government federally, with more power at the local level. Since Lincoln's tyrannical war and changes in 1913, we've headed in the direction of empire and socialism -- directly from government that is too powerful, not because of campaign finance.
Let me give my money to whoever I want, without having to report it. But make sure that those in office have no power to abuse.
This is the problem with any structure of checks and balances -- there is no penalty for violating the oath to uphold a given constitution.
How about an amendment to all the Constitutions with a 3 strikes and you're out law? If a law-maker votes for 3 bills that are later found to be unconstitutional, they're booted.
It amazes me how much junk makes it past the various Supreme Courts, though. Sure, this law might get tossed, but how many more make it to the books?
...unless it can be enforced.
My fear about unenforceable laws such as this one is the true power behind the law. Sure, it will be hard to enforce, but the powers the State will request to try to enforce it will play directly into the hands of those willing to finance the system.
Anonymous posting is harmless, yet un criminalizing it I can easily see how it can play into the hands of the RIAA and the MPAA -- giving them (and others) greater power in their cartels.
Your questions are important in formulating my response in future articles and posts.
In a free market, would we see competing business enterprises in movie making? Of course. Would each production company own its own theaters and even have their own disc playback standard? Maybe.
Yet movie making is a very complicated beast. Is it possible that content creators would be better suited to earning profits from value added items such as gourmet food or even popcorn? Who knows.
If copyright was destroyed, you'd still see content created and protected. I don't have the answers, but I do know that most content is not made with profit in mind -- look at the billions of websites out there for proof of that. Even in video most content is not made with profit in mind -- look at home movies and videos for proof there. Even in the porn industry they accept the high amount of piracy and know where the money is -- live performances, interactive video, and other value added services above and beyond basic footage.
Sgt. Jake -- Good question. I made a response to a similar question here.
My anarcho-capitalism blog ( http://anarcap.blogspot.com/ ) will be covering the No Copyright topic in upcoming weeks, along with some debate at my forum. If you're interested in putting in your two cents, please check in there if interested.
If copyright'd be gone, how *would* content creators actually protect their work?
:)
Hey Ulrich. Good question.
If an architect designs a building, does he have the right to charge each visitor a fee for the rest of his life? If a guy invents a new sandwich design, does he have the right to charge each person who makes the same sandwich a fee?
Copyright to me makes no sense. I create content (music, writings, public speaking, etc) that is merely marketing fodder -- my blogs, my private newsletters, my e-mails, and everything I give freely. I use this free marketing tool to grab peoples' attentions and try to sell myself to them directly. I have way more information to give on a one-on-one basis (or one-with-many conference) than I would want to give away to be freely copied.
That said, if someone loves making music, nothing prevents them from getting a salaried job making music as part of a bigger package to sell -- movies, TV shows, whatever. Copyright doesn't help create content, it just moves control of the final product to someone else (usually those in cahoots with the copyright enforcers). I create without a profit motive for the information I put on paper or CD or the web -- but I do charge MORE to those who hire me directly. Considering I charge what I charge right now and people pay for it, it leads me to believe that my anti-copyright position works.
What do I get out of releasing "free" information? I get the results of people debating me or asking me questions or pointing out flaws in my thinking. I give the information out freely, they give me back input to make my private information worth more. In the long run, I am worth more because of that free trade of debate.
A musician can make money by becoming a studio musician or a house musician at a club/bar. A print artist can make money by entering the graphics design world (or doing faux finishes in people's homes). A poet can make money by offering their talents to slogan writers or other commercial enterprises. They can also work on one-offs.
In the upcoming weeks I'll be talking more about the No Copyright mentality at my blog, link provided above
How, exactly, is union chicanery and thugishenss "Copyright at its finest"?
Good point, sorry for the confusion.
Hollywood's "union" is unlike your typical worker union. I should have put quotes around the word union.
My point was that monopoly power (such as copyright) brings favoritism (and nepotism) to the monopolist -- the cartel in this case. Instead of giving content creators the ability to protect their work, it gives those with the distribution mechanisms the true power.
When the distributors are in control, favoritism generally takes control, too. This favoritism comes in the form of the "union" -- which is composed of both workers and people who get preferential treatment.
I believe that people just want to have much more stuff than they did before.
This is one of the 3 important rules of the Austrian economist "time preference" theories -- we all want more rather than less.
The great thing about what we have is that the free market has provided growth every step of the way. The bad thing about what we have is that it is mostly owned by foreigners that have loaned us the dollars we needed over the past 10 years.
Americans have much less real money now than any time in US history. Our ability to keep buying and overspending will likely be greatly reduced in coming years, much to the surprise of the average citizen who never realized they really own nothing but debt.
years, if almost everyone has a decent home theatre and a lot of internet bandwidth, these guys will have become irrelevant.
While a succinct and true response, your reply is more important than many might realize.
Copyright has given monopoly cartel power to a group of people who are now ready to fight to keep it. In 20 years there is a bigger chance of the Internet being controlled by DRM and the cartels than the chance of true freedom. I can only hope that the geeks and hackers find new ways to work around any regulations that we will likely see in the coming years.
My big fear in the BBS days was copy controls, but they were always worked around. Now I still have those fears, and when the hardware supports the controls, we have to work extra hard to make sure we have work arounds. It's funny how many pro-government geeks are on slashdot who support the work arounds that give us power over the cartel monopolies who get their power from the government.
The problems I have with today's movies are:
1. More effects than plot/storyline
2. Hollywood unions controlling costs
3. Acting unions keeping the status quo too long
4. Economic pressures keeping people in their homes
5. New distribution mechanisms breaking down the cartels
In terms of plot, the average Hollywood movie is regurgitated from previous stories -- they even keep the title nowadays! I've seen great low budget movies with new twists and turns, but with lower production quality. My recent trip to Asia and Europe for the past 3 weeks showed me 3 foreign flick that were surprisingly good -- I even suspended disbelief for 2 of them.
The unions in Hollywood are notorious for continuing their blacklist and favoritism controls -- keeping costs high and quality low. In order to distribute a movie in the States, you have to be part of the union's preferred cartels. If you attempt to make a movie outside of their control, you'll generally not see wide distribution. Copyright at its finest, here.
For those who are familiar with my typical rants and raves on Slashdot, this post isn't much different. I'm the sole anti-copyright activist in most threads, and it doesn't hurt me to see copyright failing Hollywood after decades of them abusing their power. The Internet will slowly (or quickly) bring the distribution cartels down, and I can't wait to see what powers come to the artists willing to give up control of their work once it leaves their hands. Money is still there to be made, we just need to find new ways to sell our art without using the force of government to back our profits up.
On the economic pressure side, the usual enemy to movie theatres is gas pricing. I disagree -- gas prices in my home are not up much once you factor in inflation over the past 15 years. Greenspan did this country a huge disservice with his inflationary system -- making the cost of living go up much faster than our wages did. I believe the average home is poorer today than it was 10 and 20 years ago -- when you look at the cost of entertainment versus the available disposable income, you can see why entertainment is failing. Pile on huge consumer debt levels, and most families can't just Charge It! any longer.
In the long run, I see great benefit in the Internet is bringing the average consumer a new level of selection. The victor in this is the consumer -- and those who find new ways to bring art from the artist to the purveyor. I'm looking at all the options myself, as I don't really see much reason to support those (ie, Hollywood) who stole from me over the decades I've lived. I'd rather go see a local theatre production (where the actors and support staff get paid through real ongoing work) than make a millionaire out of someone who acted once and believes they have the right to continue to make an income without making actual repeated work.
George Lucas might be right that Big Budget Movies are dying -- but I think he needs to check his premises. It isn't the consumer that doesn't want to spend money, it is those who have controlled and manipulated the market that have lost the ability to continue their deceit and their monopoly. Information doesn't want to be free, the law of supply and demand just dictates that it will eventually be free in a digital world. There are still billions of people on this planet who will pay for good content, and I'd love to be one of the guys who finds a way to connect the supply with the demand in a profitable way.
For examples see: Ma Bell, Standard Oil, railroad companies during the robber baron era. Once an organization gets to a certain size, a bureaucracy develops to manage it. That lets management get disconnected from the core business and allows incompetents and self-interested empire-builders to find niches.
That might be true, but I debate the idea that Standard Oil was a problem. The only times they manipulated the consumer is when they had the backing of government to do so. Other than that, the "robber baron" mumbo jumbo is false -- Standard Oil angered their competitors by making their product cheaper for the consumer. I have to say that most high school history books have the wrong idea behind the company.
In private enterprise, the primary motivation is to separate the customer from his money (without necessarily providing adequate value if anti-competitive activities can be used to limit the customer's options).
No, that isn't true at all. In the competitive free market, every party entering a trade is doing so out of self-interest. The person trading currency for product/service is getting a product or service that is worth more to them than the currency. The person providing the product/service is giving up something that is worth less than the currency they are getting. Neither side of the trade is losing -- they're both profiting. Only in government interactive do we see this trade truth fail.
The people who work as civil servants usually don't do it for the money; motivation instead usually consists of work/financial security or a desire "to serve the public".
I have never met one civil servant who does anything but for the money. I also have never met anyone who does anything truly altruistically -- even Mother Theresa gained a profit in her good works (blessings of God and happiness from helping). We're all selfish, why hide it?
Government is the great corrupter. When government regulated the media (copyright, FCC, etc) they destroyed it. When government regulated security, they destroyed it. Government stayed mostly away from the PC industry and it is still flourishing. Government got involved with automakers, and look what happened.
Sorry, the minutes are released 3 weeks, but the transcripts have a 5 year lag.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/transcripts/
The most recent transcripts are from 1999. That's modern government?
Also, the FOMC is not the Federal Reserve but a unit under the Fed. The FOMC is the most visible policy-making part of the Fed, but they are not the only thing the Fed does. Much of the Fed's operations are shrouded in secrecy, and the Fed has no legal mandate to tell the citizen anything.
As for changing interest rates on a whim, it is whimsical as the modern macroeconomic theory seems to be modified every few months in order to update every place that it failed. I believe the Austrian theory is more concrete AND more accurate -- and that hasn't been modified or updated in 50+ years.
The Austrians see the boom/bust cycle as directly related to the pressure of having a coerced currency, backed by nothing, and manipulated in such ways as to encourage or discourage savings and investing rather than letting the free market prompt what is truly needed.
Actually, when currency was gold, all the currencies were just bank receipts for that gold. One dollar was a receipt for 1/20th of an ounce of gold at the bank. The same was true of the Deustchmark, the Sterling, the Franc, and all the other currencies.
Central banks didn't like the fact that they couldn't print money out of thin air, so they found ways to destroy the gold standard by cheating the system. That's why we're living in a time where your money is worth less tomorrow than it was worth today, instead of what tends to happen in a free market: slow but good deflation. We're told deflation is bad, but once you realize what true free market slow deflation is, you'd likely love it.
The most important control we have is our vote.
I think this is the least important control we have. In the government market, we can make a decision only once every 4 or so years. In the free market, we can make decisions to vote (with our dollar, with our time, with our ability to tell friends and family) every minute of every day. What you buy combines with the choices of billions of others in the world to set the standard for today, tomorrow and the future. Government moves too slowly to react to the needs of the people -- see the law books for proof there.
Voting doesn't change the system -- it merely changes the cronies in the system. The policies of government have never changed, the old ones are kept and new ones are tacked on. Everything Clinton did is mostly still in the books -- instead of removing them, Bush just added a few of his own cronies to the system. Sure, he replaced a few higher ups, but the grunts are mostly the same.
What, exactly, are you suggesting we do with the information you provide? Overthrow the government and replace everything it does with private for-profit corporations? Or elect every single little position paid for with tax dollars? Do shareholders typically vote on every janitor who gets hired?
I'd prefer to see for-gain companies that I know are out to gain something from dealing with me than government that uses "for the children" and "for your safety" as a front to their cronyism. Do shareholders vote for every janitor? No, but the customers of the janitor do (the customers, by the way, are the ones who also work for the corporation and judge if the janitor isn't doing their job).
Corporations are nothing but large groups of people voluntarily supplying one-another in a group moving in the same direction. Corporations are 100% voluntary. Try getting a job at the local DMV and see how little it has to do with the reality of business.
It sounds like the company has to go bankrupt or otherwise catastrophically fail for the correction to take place; is that what we would have to look forward to if we adopted that model for government? Isn't that kind of what we already have?
From bankruptcies in the business market we get better businesses that run more efficiently and provide better services. Bankruptcies in government misdecisions don't hurt that business -- they hurt We the People.
Sounds suspiciously market-like to me, and it happens regularly every 2-4-6 years.
The market is built out of billions of decisions made every minute. Get a bad burger? Don't shop there anymore. In a week a restaurant can go broke if it sells bad food. Get great service at a dry cleaner? Tell your friends. I like to make decisions every minute of every day based on the current level of service. 2-4-6 years means I have to keep track of my good and bad experiences and figure out how to affect them. Most of the time, voting for the other party means returning to the bad agency and seeing the same idiots working there.
Thanks for the link, I'll throw one back at you!
:)
http://www.mises.org/money.asp
This is a (free e-) book written by Murray Rothbard. He discusses why we don't need the Fed and why the boom/bust cycle is tied directly to fiat currency managed by the Fed. It is a simple, easy 1 day read. Check it out
I'm anti-Fed entirely. I truly believe that the Federal Reserve is the worst pseudo-organization in government. There is absolutely no transparency, they meet in secret meetings with no access by the public, they don't publish their meeting minutes for 5 years and when they do they're completely indecipherable.
I blame the Fed 100% for every bubble since 1913, and I blame the Fed 100% for the current stock market bubble, the housing bubble, and the out of control inflation we've experienced in the past 20 years.
Everyone thinks they're richer because they feel richer, but once you factor in debt -- private and public -- that wealth is merely a figment of our imagination. The market doesn't need guidance by anyone, interest rates set themselves and currency is better fixed rather than floating. How do you know if you should spend or save if rates change on a whim with no real back up?
Blogger liking Bernanke are like analysts loving Greenspan. These guys create money out of thin air, raising prices, and people believe they're richer because those raised prices bring them more money -- but almost never enough to counter the rising prices.
I generally laugh when an appointee fails. They aren't a good example of the success of representative democracy, and no matter which side is in power, there are people crying foul about whoever is appointed.
They lie? Don't all politicians? They're too white? They're too left? They're too right? They're unqualified? They're qualified but they don't have real life experience? They're cronies?
Let's look at how this works in a free market:
John Johnson hires his son John Johnson, Jr, to help run his company. Nepotism. John I dies. John Jr takes over, and the general history of business shows us the John Jr has never felt pain, so he doesn't work as hard as he should. Business fails. The market solution is to give the person with the best output and lowest price the work. John Jr rarely will be that person.
In the market of government, we don't really have much to control. We can't vote with our dollars OR vote with our ballot. We can't directly affect the actions of the appointee, and some appointees are so powerful it amazes me that the country doesn't cry foul more often (see Ben Bernanke).
Positions of power are better suited to be competitive rather than elected, and better elected rather than appointed. Do you feel better when "your man" is the appointee? Do you forget all the damage that occurs when it isn't "your guy?"