While you are right about the public pressure a draft would bring, I am wondering what country you are thinking of where a politican's kids would be subject to the draft. Looking at all the children of the politicians and the rich, I don't see a lot of them going to combat positions if they didn't want to, and for most the most severe possibility was a cushy stateside guard position.
I would try to exercise my voice in government to oppose some of these little national adventures, but I'm afraid that I don't have enough disposable income to make my voice count.
I guess the main problem is that, in this economy, very few of us have enough money to influence the government in any meaningful way. You can write all the letters you want, but with the exception of a handful of office holders, it won't get much notice without a check attached.
I'll have to second this. I use mine constantly, it is really nice to be able to communicate with any method, anywhere. You get AIM, SMS, email, web, etc, all unlimited use for $20 + your cell plan (I have unlimited internet + 1000 minutes for $60/month). The phone itself cost me $175 at Circuit City. You can get it cheaper at Amazon, but I usually want a warranty plan on anything with an LCD screen.
The nice side effect is that now people use IM or email to contact me instead of calling. That way they get the advantage of a response even when I'm out, and I can respond when convenient instead of having to answer a phone call right away. Also, it has an SSH client, which is pretty usable with the thumb keyboard. It is pretty cool to get a trouble report on IM, SSH into the server and fix it, all without having to rush back to the office, or even get out of bed.
Nothing new there, most large companies have enough market clout that they force their suppliers into Net 90 contracts. Of course, if you buy from them, it's at Net 30.
Hmm, destroying an entire sector of industry and attempting to extort money as well as appropriating the work of others as his own in the persuit of short term profits...I'd guess Milton Friedman or Robert Novak myself.
Unfortunately, while economics teachers may teach about a theoretical Capitalism where consumers can easily influence companies through the market, reality with its mega-conglomerates tends to strongly disagree with theory.
Even without dealing with inflation, $24,000 is pathetic. At the time in your life when you are most likely to have increasing perscription costs, medical bills, etc? Again, ignoring inflation, you would need to put away at least $750,000 and pray fervently that there isn't another tobacco settlement that destroys your entire investment.
It should be so easy to save that though, I mean it's only around _HALF_ of the average lifetime income (average of high school and bachelor's degree). Gee, I could easily live on half of what I do now, yeah, no problem.
Let's see, people can either live with a system where you "only" have to save $750,000 over your lifetime to have any chance of actually becoming a capitalist and benefiting from "free trade", or they can try for a system that benefits people beyond the tiny ownership class.
Well, the problem is that we aren't under constant attack by anyone. In rough numbers, over the past 10 years, you are more than 6 times more likely to die by drowning in a swimming pool than in a terrorist attack. I simply don't see how such a tiny risk justifies the expenditure of billions of dollars and curtailing any rights, big or small, to have a microscopic change in the incidence of an incredibly uncommon event.
Balanced against what? I don't see the need to give up a single right in the face of a threat that, in it's deadliest year, hardly killed more people in the US than died in swimming pool drownings.
So you're suggesting that I should be able to cart my rifle down to the county fair and start firing into the crowd, but until I actually hit someone I'm not guilty of anything? How about dropping bricks off the local tall buildings during the morning commute?
Just because you happen to get lucky and not kill someone that time does not mean that you have not committed a crime. Drunk driving is just a cross between reckless endangerment and attempted vehicular manslaughter.
Actually, it is the other way around. Preferred stock does not have voting rights, but pays dividends before common stock. It also has a higher priority claim on company assets in case of bankruptcy, less than creditors and bond holders, but higher than common stock holders.
Preferred stock is a funny beast. It's price tends to move with the bond market, not the stock market. The main advantage is for retired people who like to have the income from the dividends, but the conversion option gives them a way to at least somewhat cash in if the company stock flies.
No, a laptop is merely the tool of a laborer. Real capital consists of things that go beyond the use of an individual artisan, usually factories and land. This is why it is so difficult to try to do economic philosopy in a nutshell. The main difference is that if you have productive means used by a large number of workers, the capital must be owned by the workers, not an owner who collects the lions share of the profits due to a government backed piece of paper asserting ownership.
Also, groups advocating the means of production being owned by the state are not particularly common, except when used as a thin veil to try to obscure their desire to establish a dictatorship. Under anarchism, for example, you can freely buy and sell the product of your labor, individual tools are owned by individuals, and large capital-intensive productive means are owned by the workers, who recieve all the profits of their own labor. It really comes down to the choice of whether workers are owners or serfs.
Ahh, you might want to read up a bit on that. Exchange through money is not even a major point of capitalism. Exchange through money is called currency, and is the same in systems whether Capitalist, Socialist, or Communist. The defining feature of capitalism is a peculiar notion of property based on government enforcement of paper instead of posession and allowing the private ownership of capital/the means of production.
I find it odd that you consider people fighting to keep a decent lifestyle, and devoting significant time and resources to that fight, to be whiners. I would be inclined to look down on those that "just deal with it," usually by bending over and pretending they like it.
It takes a lot more work and courage to fight the political power of entrenched wealth than to say "yes massah, I'll just retrain for the third time incurring even more student loans and debt, and thank you for the possiblity of a lower paying job after I do all that."
Some people would rather fight for a better world for all than to just "deal with it" by sticking their heads in the sand and accepting whatever they're given.
I think that the point is to have the first few months not generate a profit. If every dollar made is counter balanced by expenses, there is no taxable profit. A good accountant could even turn it into losses if you have enough expenses. You only have to turn a profit 3 out of 5 years to be OK with the IRS, and previous losses can even be carried over to avoid taxes in profitable years.
This money is not all just taxed, it is either taxed as corporate profits if it stays in the company, or as income or dividends if you pay yourself. If you are an LLC, SP, or partnership, then it shows up on your taxes as income. A corporation is legally a new person, all reported separately. If all profits are reinvested in the company, paid out as expenses, or even held in a corporate checking account, you have not made any income personally. This will be reported in your corporate taxes, not personal.
You are not making any money, the company is. Depending on how the state laws are written, this may be enough of a distinction to avoid losing unemployment.
He was not a Syrian citizen by any meaningful definition of the term. The only reason he still has Syrian citizenship at all is that Syria does not allow anyone to renounce citizenship. If you were ever a Syrian citizen, you still are whether you want to be or not.
This would be more similar to someone who leaves their country with public declarations that he renounces his citizenship, and then attains citizenship in another country that he lives, works, and raises his family in for 30 years.
That would be relevant, except these aren't search warrants. The judge _must_ rubber stamp the request. Of course the process is swifter, it doesn't require such difficult technicalities like probable cause or evidence.
Facism is a governmental system where the state nationalizes all industry.
Funny, I thought facism was primarily the system of an authoritarian state with rabid nationalism and militarism, usually with strict controls on the media as well as personal social and economic behavior. It often includes a cozy relationship between the state and the primary religious heirarchy, as well as between the state and corporations, who are often accorded greater freedoms than individuals within facist societies. Facism also often contains anti-art and anti-intellectual elements.
I was not aware that nationalization of industry has been a major characteristic of facism, at most some featured state mandated cartels with the freedom to run their cartel and determine profits as they pleased due to rampant cronyism and corruption. Many would favor this, as it is far simpler to be handed a place in a cartel than to have to deal with the messiness of the market. Looking at the actions of most businesses, and how much they spend on advertising vs improving their products, they don't seem to much like market competetion either.
The religious right would be quite happy with a nice partnership with a facist government, and any industrialist wanting a monopoly without having to work for it wouldn't mind much either.
Or, to put it in geek terms, tax-funded prior art searches don't scale.
Then I guess we can be thankful that prior art searches are not funded by taxpayers at all. The USPTO is fully self supporting through fees and, unfortunately, much of that funding is then sucked away by congress to the general fund. It scales just fine, more applicants, more searches, more fees.
Companies like that are painful! The worst I worked at had, at its high point, 2 people of Director level or above for every regular employee. I swear the Exec VP hired every person he ever liked as senior management. This doesn't even include the European office with 5 VP's and 2 employees...
No, I really don't think there would be even the slightest problem with finding CEO's with better experience and a _far_ better track record than Carly for a lot less. Look how much CEO's with a far better record get paid in other countries, often ones with a higher cost of living I might add. There are plenty of people with better skills willing to do the job for far less, but they aren't members of the old boys club.
Remember, the board of directors is typically made up of other CEO's. Do they really want to set the example of cutting CEO salaries? It is a nice cozy you scratch my back I'll scratch yours arrangement. Now, if cutting worker wages can be done they're all for it, but they won't cut wages on their own kind.
No, nil is just the number because most of the people on slashdot don't have a spare $10,000 to even get their voice heard, let alone afford some influence.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, clairvoyance, great idea...as if the requirements in job postings these days weren't hard enough :)
While you are right about the public pressure a draft would bring, I am wondering what country you are thinking of where a politican's kids would be subject to the draft. Looking at all the children of the politicians and the rich, I don't see a lot of them going to combat positions if they didn't want to, and for most the most severe possibility was a cushy stateside guard position.
I would try to exercise my voice in government to oppose some of these little national adventures, but I'm afraid that I don't have enough disposable income to make my voice count.
I guess the main problem is that, in this economy, very few of us have enough money to influence the government in any meaningful way. You can write all the letters you want, but with the exception of a handful of office holders, it won't get much notice without a check attached.
I'll have to second this. I use mine constantly, it is really nice to be able to communicate with any method, anywhere. You get AIM, SMS, email, web, etc, all unlimited use for $20 + your cell plan (I have unlimited internet + 1000 minutes for $60/month). The phone itself cost me $175 at Circuit City. You can get it cheaper at Amazon, but I usually want a warranty plan on anything with an LCD screen.
The nice side effect is that now people use IM or email to contact me instead of calling. That way they get the advantage of a response even when I'm out, and I can respond when convenient instead of having to answer a phone call right away. Also, it has an SSH client, which is pretty usable with the thumb keyboard. It is pretty cool to get a trouble report on IM, SSH into the server and fix it, all without having to rush back to the office, or even get out of bed.
Nothing new there, most large companies have enough market clout that they force their suppliers into Net 90 contracts. Of course, if you buy from them, it's at Net 30.
Hmm, destroying an entire sector of industry and attempting to extort money as well as appropriating the work of others as his own in the persuit of short term profits...I'd guess Milton Friedman or Robert Novak myself.
Unfortunately, while economics teachers may teach about a theoretical Capitalism where consumers can easily influence companies through the market, reality with its mega-conglomerates tends to strongly disagree with theory.
Even without dealing with inflation, $24,000 is pathetic. At the time in your life when you are most likely to have increasing perscription costs, medical bills, etc? Again, ignoring inflation, you would need to put away at least $750,000 and pray fervently that there isn't another tobacco settlement that destroys your entire investment.
It should be so easy to save that though, I mean it's only around _HALF_ of the average lifetime income (average of high school and bachelor's degree). Gee, I could easily live on half of what I do now, yeah, no problem.
Let's see, people can either live with a system where you "only" have to save $750,000 over your lifetime to have any chance of actually becoming a capitalist and benefiting from "free trade", or they can try for a system that benefits people beyond the tiny ownership class.
Well, the problem is that we aren't under constant attack by anyone. In rough numbers, over the past 10 years, you are more than 6 times more likely to die by drowning in a swimming pool than in a terrorist attack. I simply don't see how such a tiny risk justifies the expenditure of billions of dollars and curtailing any rights, big or small, to have a microscopic change in the incidence of an incredibly uncommon event.
Balanced against what? I don't see the need to give up a single right in the face of a threat that, in it's deadliest year, hardly killed more people in the US than died in swimming pool drownings.
So you're suggesting that I should be able to cart my rifle down to the county fair and start firing into the crowd, but until I actually hit someone I'm not guilty of anything? How about dropping bricks off the local tall buildings during the morning commute?
Just because you happen to get lucky and not kill someone that time does not mean that you have not committed a crime. Drunk driving is just a cross between reckless endangerment and attempted vehicular manslaughter.
Actually, it is the other way around. Preferred stock does not have voting rights, but pays dividends before common stock. It also has a higher priority claim on company assets in case of bankruptcy, less than creditors and bond holders, but higher than common stock holders.
Preferred stock is a funny beast. It's price tends to move with the bond market, not the stock market. The main advantage is for retired people who like to have the income from the dividends, but the conversion option gives them a way to at least somewhat cash in if the company stock flies.
No, a laptop is merely the tool of a laborer. Real capital consists of things that go beyond the use of an individual artisan, usually factories and land. This is why it is so difficult to try to do economic philosopy in a nutshell. The main difference is that if you have productive means used by a large number of workers, the capital must be owned by the workers, not an owner who collects the lions share of the profits due to a government backed piece of paper asserting ownership.
Also, groups advocating the means of production being owned by the state are not particularly common, except when used as a thin veil to try to obscure their desire to establish a dictatorship. Under anarchism, for example, you can freely buy and sell the product of your labor, individual tools are owned by individuals, and large capital-intensive productive means are owned by the workers, who recieve all the profits of their own labor. It really comes down to the choice of whether workers are owners or serfs.
Capitalism is nothing but exchange through money.
Ahh, you might want to read up a bit on that. Exchange through money is not even a major point of capitalism. Exchange through money is called currency, and is the same in systems whether Capitalist, Socialist, or Communist. The defining feature of capitalism is a peculiar notion of property based on government enforcement of paper instead of posession and allowing the private ownership of capital/the means of production.
I find it odd that you consider people fighting to keep a decent lifestyle, and devoting significant time and resources to that fight, to be whiners. I would be inclined to look down on those that "just deal with it," usually by bending over and pretending they like it.
It takes a lot more work and courage to fight the political power of entrenched wealth than to say "yes massah, I'll just retrain for the third time incurring even more student loans and debt, and thank you for the possiblity of a lower paying job after I do all that."
Some people would rather fight for a better world for all than to just "deal with it" by sticking their heads in the sand and accepting whatever they're given.
I think that the point is to have the first few months not generate a profit. If every dollar made is counter balanced by expenses, there is no taxable profit. A good accountant could even turn it into losses if you have enough expenses. You only have to turn a profit 3 out of 5 years to be OK with the IRS, and previous losses can even be carried over to avoid taxes in profitable years.
This money is not all just taxed, it is either taxed as corporate profits if it stays in the company, or as income or dividends if you pay yourself. If you are an LLC, SP, or partnership, then it shows up on your taxes as income. A corporation is legally a new person, all reported separately. If all profits are reinvested in the company, paid out as expenses, or even held in a corporate checking account, you have not made any income personally. This will be reported in your corporate taxes, not personal.
You are not making any money, the company is. Depending on how the state laws are written, this may be enough of a distinction to avoid losing unemployment.
He was not a Syrian citizen by any meaningful definition of the term. The only reason he still has Syrian citizenship at all is that Syria does not allow anyone to renounce citizenship. If you were ever a Syrian citizen, you still are whether you want to be or not.
This would be more similar to someone who leaves their country with public declarations that he renounces his citizenship, and then attains citizenship in another country that he lives, works, and raises his family in for 30 years.
That would be relevant, except these aren't search warrants. The judge _must_ rubber stamp the request. Of course the process is swifter, it doesn't require such difficult technicalities like probable cause or evidence.
I don't know, how about freedom of association in the 1st? Also, some of the giving advice would probably fall under freedom of speech, also the 1st.
So this is the 9th that gave permission to "rogue organizations" like, say, almanac publishers and state web sites?
Or have I just been trolled?
Facism is a governmental system where the state nationalizes all industry.
Funny, I thought facism was primarily the system of an authoritarian state with rabid nationalism and militarism, usually with strict controls on the media as well as personal social and economic behavior. It often includes a cozy relationship between the state and the primary religious heirarchy, as well as between the state and corporations, who are often accorded greater freedoms than individuals within facist societies. Facism also often contains anti-art and anti-intellectual elements.
I was not aware that nationalization of industry has been a major characteristic of facism, at most some featured state mandated cartels with the freedom to run their cartel and determine profits as they pleased due to rampant cronyism and corruption. Many would favor this, as it is far simpler to be handed a place in a cartel than to have to deal with the messiness of the market. Looking at the actions of most businesses, and how much they spend on advertising vs improving their products, they don't seem to much like market competetion either.
The religious right would be quite happy with a nice partnership with a facist government, and any industrialist wanting a monopoly without having to work for it wouldn't mind much either.
Or, to put it in geek terms, tax-funded prior art searches don't scale.
Then I guess we can be thankful that prior art searches are not funded by taxpayers at all. The USPTO is fully self supporting through fees and, unfortunately, much of that funding is then sucked away by congress to the general fund. It scales just fine, more applicants, more searches, more fees.
Companies like that are painful! The worst I worked at had, at its high point, 2 people of Director level or above for every regular employee. I swear the Exec VP hired every person he ever liked as senior management. This doesn't even include the European office with 5 VP's and 2 employees...
No, I really don't think there would be even the slightest problem with finding CEO's with better experience and a _far_ better track record than Carly for a lot less. Look how much CEO's with a far better record get paid in other countries, often ones with a higher cost of living I might add. There are plenty of people with better skills willing to do the job for far less, but they aren't members of the old boys club.
Remember, the board of directors is typically made up of other CEO's. Do they really want to set the example of cutting CEO salaries? It is a nice cozy you scratch my back I'll scratch yours arrangement. Now, if cutting worker wages can be done they're all for it, but they won't cut wages on their own kind.
No, nil is just the number because most of the people on slashdot don't have a spare $10,000 to even get their voice heard, let alone afford some influence.
Don't you see, it just can't work. They may run SCO Open Server...after that experience, what could you possibly do that could hurt them any further?
Man, that's just kicking a guy when he's down...