In Brazil, proofs produced by illegal means cannot be used (Federal Constitution, Art. 5, Inc. LVI).
Which is conveniently and apparently easily circumvented by the government redefining the specific act of coercion to not be torture and hence not illegal.
Furthermore the FBI is not under the jurisdiction of the Brazilian government.
In IT, employees often pay 1/3 to 1/2 of their income in taxes.
No they don't. The highest tax bracket in the US is 35%. To be in the 33% or 35% tax brackets you have to make over $100,000 per year. Over $200K if married and filing jointly. No one pays 50% of their income in taxes even in the highest tax brackets. Some but not most IT employees do not make six figure incomes.
Taxes aren't the biggest expense, but you can't ignore them either because they figure into labor costs.
Of course not. But companies don't generally move operations because of tax which was my original point. It might tip them between two otherwise equal options but total cost of labor and logistics are far bigger considerations most of the time. Tax is only an issue if they are profitable and hence a second order concern.
Secondly, income taxes of employees have nothing to do with tax burden of the company. Company simply pays the employee's salary and that's a simple expense.
Not true. FICA taxes are shared between the employee and employer. Furthermore the only type of company that pays tax as a company is a C corporation. All other types of corporate tax are actually passed through to the shareholders and are paid as personal income tax. Also don't forget about the administrative cost of withholding and reporting all those taxes. That is a significant cost to the company as well.
Companies pay taxes on *profits*. If they have profits, they pay taxes. If they have loses, they get their taxes back from previous years.
Again, not correct. If a company can declare a capital loss in some cases they get a deferred tax credit which they can use to offset future tax obligations. They do not get a refund of any kind.
Only people that complain about corporate taxes are people that never actually run anything.
I can't begin to tell you how much complaining I've heard about corporate tax by management of corporations. It starts with the fact that owners of C corporations are effectively taxed twice on company profits - once at the corporate level and again at the personal level.
This would presume that what the bean counters are measuring correlates usefully to accurate and holistic measures of customer service.
If it is a financial measure, chances are the accountants already are measuring it and it's merely a matter of reporting. If it is a NON-financial measure, the operations people (ideally industrial engineers) are the ones tasked with tracking and reporting those measures.
You are quite correct that choosing appropriate measurements is key and it is much more difficult than many people think. Most measures are flawed in some way and it's important to know what they tell you and just as importantly what they don't tell you.
In my experience, the typical bean counter instead is measuring the things which are easy to measure.
Some accountants are good at what they do. Others not so much. Many are quite mediocre. Not really any different than any other profession.
Bear in mind however that accountants typically are not the ones deciding what to measure. The good ones recommendations about what to measure but ultimately they take their marching orders and provide whatever information management asks for.
Yeah, you have lower quality work, but in many cases it is easily offset by taxes.
Taxes are a big deal but I've worked pretty closely with a lot of global sourcing and taxes are usually pretty far down the list of why companies outsource. Labor cost is by FAR the biggest reason in most cases. Labor for most companies greatly outweighs any tax burden no matter how profitable the company becomes. Some companies locate their headquarters outside the US for tax reasons (Tyco for example) but this is getting harder.
The main thing about taxes is it punishes you for being successful. The more successful you are the higher you have to pay in taxes.
The "main thing"? Taxes are nothing more than a punishment for success? Seriously? I don't think you've ever tried to start or run a company because the REAL punishment is a company that loses money. Having to pay tax because my company is successful is a problem I welcome with open arms.
The foreign workforce is usually decently educated, cheap and willing to work long hours because the standard of living is lower.
Educated? Generally yes. Cheap? Sometimes if it can be managed efficiently (not always possible) from a long distance. Long hours? Not in the top 20 and apparently not as long as those in the US.
Someone being paid US minimum wage in the US can hardly even afford rent, the same pay gives a person "middle class" status in third-world or developing countries.
Technically true but you need to learn about purchasing price parity. Goods don't cost the same everywhere. Also there are people who are equivalently poor in any country you care to name.
A mature, reasoned response if there ever was one. Let's make our choice to either continue to be ripped off or cease using a useful technology without considering whether there might be a better solution.
On a smart phone there is email.
Not everyone has a smart phone. In fact MOST phones are not smart phones. Email is a heavyweight protocol, not available to everyone with a mobile phone. Text messaging a lightweight protocol available to essentially everyone with a mobile phone and hence is more useful in many cases.
If everyone stopped texting, and parents stopped paying for it, then the prices would drop.
The prices should already be dropping. Text messages should be dropping in price at least as fast as voice minutes. It is an undifferentiated product with no patent protection. The most common reason something doesn't fall in price when it should be is collusion.
Clearly, most people do not see in terms of megabytes
Clearly. To me that indicates they aren't very bright. Data is data and the cost per megabyte is unreasonable for text messaging.
As if all the wrongs of mankind can be layed at the feet of religion.
All? Certainly not. A great multitude of wrongs certainly can be traced to religion without any question on the matter. Numerous past and ongoing examples of wars, torture, terrorism, bigotry, genocide, and more are so frequent as to cause despair.
As if, if there were godless people, they wouldn't just find another belief system or philosophy to justify doing the same things.
Perhaps but at least it wouldn't be because of mythology.
Everyone offers unlimited texting at very reasonable costs. On verizon unlimited text and voice is $150.
You have a very curious definition of "reasonable". The messages are tiny but if you extrapolate the cost on a per megabyte basis the wireless telecoms are charging $1310 per megabyte to use spare bandwidth. That is not even remotely "reasonable" in my opinion.
If the family can' afford it, then don't have cell phones.
The fact that I am able to pay several dollars a month for text messaging does not make it any less of a rip off. Texting costs the telecoms essentially nothing. It uses spare bandwidth that would otherwise be wasted. It literally costs the telecoms close to nothing. I am actually quite disappointed there hasn't been a collusion investigation over this. It's not as if text messages are a differentiated product. The telecoms should be competing strictly on price with text messaging services and yet somehow they aren't.
I am a certified accountant. The fault, if there is any, lies at the feet of management. The bean counters simply track the data and report it. Presuming the data provided is accurate it is up to management make decisions with that data and to see the big picture. It is also management's job to understand the Blaming badly chosen metrics on the accountants is shooting the messenger.
Revenue losses from service blocks and credits are really easy to measure.
Not always as easy as you are implying. Lost revenue generally requires a bit of guesswork even for predictable revenue streams. It's always inexact to measure something that is not there. You have to be careful to avoid the same logic that presumes that someone pirating a music CD would have bought it anyway.
Profits from customers made happy by good customer service are really hard to measure.
Actually it's not as hard as you seem to think. The problem isn't that it can't be measured but rather that the bottom line effects of customer service do not appear immediately on the balance sheet. There are plenty of metric available to track success attributable to customer service. Indirect measures usually but effective ones. The problem is that when times are tough customer service a relatively easy thing to cut because customer service doesn't immediately impact the bottom line in most cases. R&D and marketing have the same problem. Their effects are measurable but only appear over time and with consistent cumulative expenditures.
So, as is frequently the case when organizations become hyper-focused on metrics, decisions get made that maximize metrics but don't make good business sense.
You are making a logical fallacy and I don't think you really understand how metrics are used. EVERY business has to choose metrics to judge their success and ignoring the metrics is a sure route to failure. You cannot improve anything that you cannot measure and you have to measure the right things (which isn't as easy as it sounds). Metrics need to be carefully chosen because they will drive behavior but choosing bad metrics does not mean metrics are bad.
Shaft your customers enough and they'll switch to a different company.
True but only if they are actually able to switch. Where I live there is one gas company and one electric company. If I want those services I do not have any other realistic options. The only thing stopping them from treating me really badly is that they are heavily regulated and as a result I've actually gotten decent service most of the time. It's only been recently that I've had more than one option for internet/phone service and both are huge former monopolies with deservedly bad reputations for customer service. Switching from one to the other really doesn't improve my situation any because both of them pretty much suck. I'm about to move and my options for internet service are Comcast and Verizon. Not exactly a pair that I'm thrilled to do business with but there simply are no other options.
Both my father and grandfather used to work for AT&T before and after the big split. They explained the attitude of AT&T by the running cynical joke among the employees of "my phone still works". The company simply didn't have to care because you had no other options and they knew it.
Looking out for the customer's best interest in terms of the services that the business offers is in the best interest of the business.
Quite. Bean counters don't see this. They don't see the customers walking away...
I happen to be a Certified bean counter and you couldn't possibly be more wrong. If you ever want to understand what is going on in a company, ask the accountants. They know exactly how many customers have walked away, how much money those customers were worth, how expensive those customers were to service, etc. Most of the time they even know exactly why those customers left. If you want to know where the bodies are buried (so to speak) in a company, ask the accountants. But knowledge is not control and blaming the "bean counters" really is a case of shooting the messenger. The finance and accounting geeks just provide analysis and reporting in most cases. They don't control the purse strings.
Accountants are perfectly well aware of the value of good customer service. Accountants however (usually) don't control what gets funding and what doesn't and they certainly don't control how customer service is managed. An accountant's job is to present accurate financial information to management. Ultimately it is management's choice to provide (or not provide) good quality customer service. If you want to blame anyone for bad customer service, the blame starts right at the top where it belongs.
Why not just spin it, and while it's spinning, lower the ambient temperature so that it freezes?
I don't know for sure (chemistry isn't my field) but several potential issues occur to me immediately:
How does one accomplish this and keep the frozen mirror open to the sky? Got to take it out of the "fridge" at some point and I can't think of a way to do this.
Not clear to me if the physical properties of mercury remain useful for optics in a solid state. Maybe they do but a chemist would have to elaborate.
I suspect freezing the mirror simultaneously and consistently would prove very challenging. Deformations would seem likely as some parts freeze first without some very clever way to control the process.
Your question isn't a dumb one but it might be very challenging to accomplish if it is even possible.
1. Social Security Intention: Provide seniors with material security Result: It makes things worse. By any calculation, if the working people right now were allowed to put the same money they pay into social security (12.5% including employer portion) into an interest bearing retirement account they would receive a much higher payout once they retire, but we are not allowed to opt out.
Umm, Social Security DOES provide seniors with material security. Have you given a moment's thought to why participation is mandatory? A significant percentage of the population will elect to not save any money at all. This is not supposition on my part, it would (and did) happen if Social Security were optional. The fact that they make this poor choice unfortunately does not relieve the rest of us of the burden of supporting them once they hit retirement age or even earlier if they become disabled. Another significant percentage of the population will suffer ill fortune on their investments and be largely wiped out, sometimes through no fault of their own. (think low level Enron employees) How exactly do you propose to deal with these individuals once they are past productive working age? "Screw them" is not an acceptable answer.
Social Security is EXACTLY what the name says it is. It's a humane safety net. Granted it could be managed better but it is mandatory for a good reason. I'm not a fan of the program either but I think the alternative of letting people opt out would have worse consequences. Social Security isn't and shouldn't be about making the most money for those who participate. The purpose is and should be to ensure that all our citizens have at least a small income. The purpose is to prevent homelessness and starvation. Since we can't predict who will need help the most I have yet to hear a better plan than to make everyone participate.
3. United Nations Funding Intention: "To maintain international peace and security...blah blah" Result: It does nothing of the sort. The most it can be said about it is that it provides a discussion forum where countries with dismal human rights record can rant against the USA and western democracies in general.
The real purpose of the UN is to prevent World War 3. So far it has succeeded in that mission. Anything else it accomplishes is really just icing on the cake. Furthermore there is significant evidence that the UN is often successful in peacekeeping roles. Not always but often. The UN has plenty of flaws but it you are going to say it accomplishes nothing without providing any evidence to support that claim I'm going to go ahead and say you haven't actually looked.
4. National Endowment for the Arts Intention: To promote arts etc Result: Frivolously pays taxpayer money to "selected" artists with connections, while majority of artists get nothing. How would you like to be a struggling artist who pays taxes while knowing that the portion of your money goes to other, more "special", artists based on subjective and vague criteria.
Have you actually read what the stated purpose of the NEA is? Apparently not. No one has ever claimed the NEA was intended to support every or even most artists. The NEA attempts to bring art to all Americans, not bring money to all artists. I pay money to support all kinds of government programs that I'll never see a direct financial benefit and I'm fine with that. I pay for roads I'll never use, parks I'll never visit, weapons I dearly hope we never use, medical care for others and plenty of other worthy goals. The NEA has a budget of about $155 million. It is a teeny-tiny little piece of the federal budget that arguably succeeds in its mission. It brings art to Americans. Do you really have nothing better to criticize? Are you seriously arguing that all artists deserve federal grants?
Can I go on?
Please don't unless you improve your arguments significantly.
- Government School/Dept of Education (indoctrinates rather than educates - also very money-inefficient compared to private alternatives that d a better job with half as much cash, or an equal job with one-quarter as much cash)
There is precious little evidence that private schools can do the job cheaper AND better. Seriously. I defy you to find credible evidence to support your claim. I've looked and it simply does not exist. There are little successes here and there but there is no evidence that schools can be privatized on a mass scale and still succeed. It's a worthy idea but no one has figured out a way to make it work.
Taxpayer funded public schools have to take every child, not just the ones they want. I went to a private school and it was academically better than my local public school (which wasn't a bad one) but it was no where close to being cheaper. The teachers at my private school were paid less but worked there because most of the kids were high achievers and it was a nice place to work. The environment of my private school would have been impossible to replicate without the ability to select the student bod and kick out those who seriously misbehave. (plagiarism was an offense that would get you expelled for example)
There are lots of attempts at for-profit and not-for profit private and charter schools but the holy grail of simultaneously being better AND cheaper remains elusive, at least on a large scale.
Yeah, sure, you can argue all taste is completely subjective, that nothing is better or worse, that it's all subjective. Poop tastes as good as ice cream, maybe? Whatever.
Don't be a moron. We're talking about coffee here, not some deep philosophical relativism. Pointing out that taste in coffee and the places that sell coffee is subjective is not remotely the same thing as claiming all tastes are good or equivalent or that there is no such thing as bad coffee. You don't have to care about Starbucks one way or the other to understand how it is that they succeed.
Uh, if water tastes something, you may want to check into getting a different source of water.
Virtually all water (except distilled) has taste. Trace amounts of various impurities can actually be desirable. If it tastes BAD you might want to get a different source.
Every independent coffee shop I've gone into in the past 5 years has had free WiFi. It's often better coffee, cheaper, nicer atmosphere, and free WiFi.
I have little interest in Starbucks coffee myself but "better" and "nicer" are subjective in this case and I've rarely found any coffee shop in the last 10 years that was actually much cheaper. They won't stay in business long selling just $1.00 cups of black coffee. Not enough profit and not enough differentiation to do that.
You're right about the free wifi though.
I don't know how Starbucks expects to compete.
Starbucks competes the same way McDonalds and Coke compete. A familiar product that enough people like that is consistent no matter where you go and available everywhere. They don't have to make YOUR favorite product to succeed. Face it, Starbucks makes a product that a lot of people like. Maybe its not for you personally but they sell billions of dollars of coffee a year so they clearly are doing something that appeals.
The primary reason why reverse-engineering is almost never done is that you can't use the result anyway. Copyright prevents that.
Nonsense. If that were true IBM would still be the only maker of PCs. Compaq reverse engineered the BIOS and the rest is history. Just because you reverse engineer something doesn't automatically mean a copyright violation. Reverse engineering happens legally every day. Patents can provide some protection against reverse engineering but copyright provides little in most cases.
With copyright gone, reverse engineering tools would become much much better.
Even if that were true (and I'm not conceding that it is - reverse engineering is and always will be hard) with copyright and patents there is no need for them. Why create an arms race those who want to hide code and those who want to reverse engineer it when with copyright and patents there is (generally) no need to do so? Your proposal would create additional incentives for people to hide their work instead of sharing it and we have enough problems with that already.
You incorrectly presume that there is a something else, that they can move to that in a short enough time, and that they want to do so.
You incorrectly presume that the job will necessarily remain available in the face of competition with lower labor costs and/or greater automation. Whether they want to go elsewhere is often, in the end, irrelevant so the only important question is whether they can move. You are correct that sometimes it is very difficult in the short run but that is not an argument against automation.
Jobs that can be automated such that the total cost is lower will be automated. Competition will force the hand of the companies sooner or later. The ones that wait too long will go out of business. Note that sometimes it is cheaper/better to do a job without automation, particularly for high complexity low volume jobs. Your typical job shop has relatively low amounts of automation.
Well, the Android phones have been having quite an impact in the market recently.
True.
The big benefit of "being able to run the software you want rather than what Steve Jobs says you can run" seems to speak to people, since that's the major thing Android has going for it that the iPhone doesn't.
Whether that is a "big" benefit or not is a matter of opinion. Your argument is one that speaks to a segment of the geek crowd here on slashdot but hardly anyone else actually cares. Very few people actually feel constrained by the software available on the iPhone. You might be one who does but if so you are in a VERY small minority. Doesn't mean you are wrong to care but most people simply don't feel your pain. In short, if you want to explain the success of Android you'll have to look for a different argument.
Really the success of Android probably lies mostly in the fact that the iPhone is only available through AT&T and the other carriers and handset manufacturers needed a product to compete. Verizon wasn't about to sit around and not compete with the iPhone and the other alternatives (Blackberry and Nokia) simply weren't getting the job done. Most of the competitors prior to the iPhone competed on feature lists (and arguably still do) but not so much on actual usability. The Nokia I have have sitting on my desk can technically do everything an iPhone 3G can do but it has an interface only a geek could love. Android has provided a way to reach the segment of consumers attracted to the iPhone in a way the alternatives didn't.
Sadly, even those who try to escape Steve's clutches...
"Steve's clutches"? What is he some cartoon villain now? I'm sure he's cackling in his lair right now plotting the next way he can make your life worse by forcing yet another industry to make better and more useful products.
...are affected by the iPhone, as evidenced by the fact that nearly every mobile platform is copying the App Store model, some of them with exactly the same kind of draconian lock-in policies.
Draconian? Let's take the WABAC machine back to the 1960s when AT&T was the only telecom company in town - LITERALLY. Back then you didn't even own the large and primitive phone in your house. It was leased to you by the phone company which was a government sanctioned monopoly and wired directly into the wall. If you didn't pay they came and took the phone from your house. Oh and you paid handsomely for the privilege of having this level of "service". The phone was robust but not remotely innovative and if you think Apple is being "draconian" you really have no idea what draconian is. You have more options now than you ever have had.
Really the enemy here isn't the phone manufacturers. The enemy is the telecom companies. The handset manufacturers main customers aren't you and me. Their customers are the telecom companies (AT&T etc) and the interests of the telecoms differ significantly from yours and mine. That's why most of them historically have paid little attention to the user experience. They didn't have to to sell products to their customers. Apple, despite their flaws, has forced the telecoms and handset manufacturers to pay more attention to the end users. Yes they are being restrictive but most of the worst restrictions come from the telecoms, not the handset makers.
I've met and spoken with Ed Whitacre when he was CEO of AT&T. I've never met a CEO who so bluntly held his customers in lower regard than he did and I've met quite a few Fortune 500 CEOs. My father and grandfather worked for AT&T and its successor companies for a combined 50 years between them. I know these companies well and they are not your friend.
So this is not something we can just sit by and watch, it is an industry wide phenomenon that we must fight on every front that opens up, or one day we will get out of bed and there will be no platforms left where we have the legal right to run our own software any more.
Excellent. Fight the good fight. I support you fighting for open platforms completely. But let's keep the hyperbole out of it shall we? Steve Jobs by all accounts can be a real ass but the phones we have today are better products because of his efforts. There are at least 3 other major phone platforms (Blackberry, Android and Nokia/Symbian) competing with Apple and the more they compete the better off you and I will be.
How arrogant of me to feel entitled to use something I paid for any perfectly legal way that I please.
You clearly want to criticize Apple for not supporting what you want to do. Go ahead and hack on your iPhone. Nothing is stopping you. You CAN use GPL software an iPhone - just not with Apple's blessing. If it is so important to you, why the hell do you care what Apple thinks? Make your actions support your words.
If you read the OP, then you'd know that he was defending Apple's draconian policies, which set the tone for my response.
And your response was complete nonsense. I thought I'd made that clear enough. There are advantages and disadvantages to Apple's approach. Since you so clearly don't like what Apple is doing, buy a competing product from a different company. In fact doing so will probably force Apple to have a better and possibly more open product. Competition is good.
You'd also know that he directly compared shopping at the App Store with shopping at any other of these "curated experiences" like Wal-mart or Target, hence the direct reference to his own metaphor.
And he was right. Walmart doesn't sell the porn you seem so eager to get but you certainly can get it elsewhere. Likewise Apple doesn't sell it but that doesn't prevent you from getting it elsewhere. Walmart even sells products under its own labels just like Apple and you can't get them elsewhere. However that doesn't mean you can't get perfectly adequate substitutes elsewhere. In other words stop whining that Apple isn't making exactly what you want and find someone who is.
Now, that I've read his posting back to you, feel free to STFU and RTFOP for yourself, lazybones.
Interesting how your lack of a coherent and logical argument means I'm lazy. Curious.
Is Windows purchased because it is technically the best, or because it has the best marketing team aimed at the target market?
How about neither. Windows is purchased because the majority of other people/companies also purchased Windows. It's called network effects and there is a lot of value in using software that is maximally compatible with what everyone else uses.
Of course one could make the heretical argument that for many people Windows might actually have been the best choice for their needs and budget at the time of purchase. I know, crazy world in which we live.
How are we not affected by the dictatorship of Steve Jobs?
Because you don't have to buy an iPhone. Seriously. I like the iPhone well enough but it's hardly the only usable smartphone out there. Presently I use a Nokia smartphone and it works well enough for my purposes that I'm in no hurry to trade it in. Don't like Apple's policies? Don't buy from Apple. I'm sure the makers of Android, Blackberry and other smart phones will be happy to take your money.
We're not allowed to use GPL'd software;
If that bothers you buy one of the other phones that permits the use of GPL software. They certainly exist.
we're not allowed to use applications that replicate included functionality; we're not allowed to modify the UI to our liking; we're not allowed to watch porn;...
Again, there are other products that permit all of this. You realize you don't have to like the iPhone right? It's completely ok if you buy something else. Furthermore if you don't care about Apple's blessing you can even do all this on a jailbroken iPhone.
This is different from shopping at Wal-Mart, Target, etc. because those companies might not sell what you're interested in, but they aren't going to stop you from buying the products you want from another source.
You can buy competing phones that are functionally equivalent to an iPhone. No they aren't identical but that's ok - Mac's and PCs aren't identical but you can do most of the same things on each. Economists even have a term for that. Apple isn't stopping you from buying products you want from another source either. My Nokia phone does essentially everything the iPhone 3G does, albeit with a fair bit less panache. Your analogy is quite simply wrong because you are defining the product too narrowly. If your definition of the product is "something that works on an iPhone" then yes, you will be frustrated. But if your definition is "useful smartphone software", there are vast options available to you. Don't paint yourself into a corner and you won't have a problem.
Please, stop glossing over the fact that this "walled garden" blows; it's insulting to my intelligence.
So buy somewhere else and stop whining. Plenty of very intelligent people have looked at the facts and come to a different conclusion. They obviously are not bothered by the same things that bother you. Speaking for myself, if the built in apps suit my needs I don't care if I can't replace them. I want a device that is well enough designed that I don't need to alter the interface. I don't remotely care if porn is available on the iPhone because I'll never use it for that purpose. Despite my being a big fan of the GPL, I don't even care if the iPhone has any GPL software because if I want GPL software I can get it elsewhere. The iPhone is there if I want it and I can buy some very good competing products if they suit my needs better. You are free to do the same.
I suppose if I embraced the lack of freedom, I'd be happy. Not unlike the Patriot Act, I might add.
That's a profoundly stupid argument. Comparing the federal government taking away civil liberties to a manufacturer of a technology product not producing exactly the product you rather arrogantly feel entitled to? That is amazingly lacking in perspective.
Slashdot Mirror
In Brazil, proofs produced by illegal means cannot be used (Federal Constitution, Art. 5, Inc. LVI).
Which is conveniently and apparently easily circumvented by the government redefining the specific act of coercion to not be torture and hence not illegal.
Furthermore the FBI is not under the jurisdiction of the Brazilian government.
In IT, employees often pay 1/3 to 1/2 of their income in taxes.
No they don't. The highest tax bracket in the US is 35%. To be in the 33% or 35% tax brackets you have to make over $100,000 per year. Over $200K if married and filing jointly. No one pays 50% of their income in taxes even in the highest tax brackets. Some but not most IT employees do not make six figure incomes.
Taxes aren't the biggest expense, but you can't ignore them either because they figure into labor costs.
Of course not. But companies don't generally move operations because of tax which was my original point. It might tip them between two otherwise equal options but total cost of labor and logistics are far bigger considerations most of the time. Tax is only an issue if they are profitable and hence a second order concern.
Disclosure: I'm a certified accountant.
Secondly, income taxes of employees have nothing to do with tax burden of the company. Company simply pays the employee's salary and that's a simple expense.
Not true. FICA taxes are shared between the employee and employer. Furthermore the only type of company that pays tax as a company is a C corporation. All other types of corporate tax are actually passed through to the shareholders and are paid as personal income tax. Also don't forget about the administrative cost of withholding and reporting all those taxes. That is a significant cost to the company as well.
Companies pay taxes on *profits*. If they have profits, they pay taxes. If they have loses, they get their taxes back from previous years.
Again, not correct. If a company can declare a capital loss in some cases they get a deferred tax credit which they can use to offset future tax obligations. They do not get a refund of any kind.
Only people that complain about corporate taxes are people that never actually run anything.
I can't begin to tell you how much complaining I've heard about corporate tax by management of corporations. It starts with the fact that owners of C corporations are effectively taxed twice on company profits - once at the corporate level and again at the personal level.
This would presume that what the bean counters are measuring correlates usefully to accurate and holistic measures of customer service.
If it is a financial measure, chances are the accountants already are measuring it and it's merely a matter of reporting. If it is a NON-financial measure, the operations people (ideally industrial engineers) are the ones tasked with tracking and reporting those measures.
You are quite correct that choosing appropriate measurements is key and it is much more difficult than many people think. Most measures are flawed in some way and it's important to know what they tell you and just as importantly what they don't tell you.
In my experience, the typical bean counter instead is measuring the things which are easy to measure.
Some accountants are good at what they do. Others not so much. Many are quite mediocre. Not really any different than any other profession.
Bear in mind however that accountants typically are not the ones deciding what to measure. The good ones recommendations about what to measure but ultimately they take their marching orders and provide whatever information management asks for.
Yeah, you have lower quality work, but in many cases it is easily offset by taxes.
Taxes are a big deal but I've worked pretty closely with a lot of global sourcing and taxes are usually pretty far down the list of why companies outsource. Labor cost is by FAR the biggest reason in most cases. Labor for most companies greatly outweighs any tax burden no matter how profitable the company becomes. Some companies locate their headquarters outside the US for tax reasons (Tyco for example) but this is getting harder.
The main thing about taxes is it punishes you for being successful. The more successful you are the higher you have to pay in taxes.
The "main thing"? Taxes are nothing more than a punishment for success? Seriously? I don't think you've ever tried to start or run a company because the REAL punishment is a company that loses money. Having to pay tax because my company is successful is a problem I welcome with open arms.
The foreign workforce is usually decently educated, cheap and willing to work long hours because the standard of living is lower.
Educated? Generally yes. Cheap? Sometimes if it can be managed efficiently (not always possible) from a long distance. Long hours? Not in the top 20 and apparently not as long as those in the US.
Someone being paid US minimum wage in the US can hardly even afford rent, the same pay gives a person "middle class" status in third-world or developing countries.
Technically true but you need to learn about purchasing price parity. Goods don't cost the same everywhere. Also there are people who are equivalently poor in any country you care to name.
So don't text.
A mature, reasoned response if there ever was one. Let's make our choice to either continue to be ripped off or cease using a useful technology without considering whether there might be a better solution.
On a smart phone there is email.
Not everyone has a smart phone. In fact MOST phones are not smart phones. Email is a heavyweight protocol, not available to everyone with a mobile phone. Text messaging a lightweight protocol available to essentially everyone with a mobile phone and hence is more useful in many cases.
If everyone stopped texting, and parents stopped paying for it, then the prices would drop.
The prices should already be dropping. Text messages should be dropping in price at least as fast as voice minutes. It is an undifferentiated product with no patent protection. The most common reason something doesn't fall in price when it should be is collusion.
Clearly, most people do not see in terms of megabytes
Clearly. To me that indicates they aren't very bright. Data is data and the cost per megabyte is unreasonable for text messaging.
As if all the wrongs of mankind can be layed at the feet of religion.
All? Certainly not. A great multitude of wrongs certainly can be traced to religion without any question on the matter. Numerous past and ongoing examples of wars, torture, terrorism, bigotry, genocide, and more are so frequent as to cause despair.
As if, if there were godless people, they wouldn't just find another belief system or philosophy to justify doing the same things.
Perhaps but at least it wouldn't be because of mythology.
Everyone offers unlimited texting at very reasonable costs. On verizon unlimited text and voice is $150.
You have a very curious definition of "reasonable". The messages are tiny but if you extrapolate the cost on a per megabyte basis the wireless telecoms are charging $1310 per megabyte to use spare bandwidth. That is not even remotely "reasonable" in my opinion.
If the family can' afford it, then don't have cell phones.
The fact that I am able to pay several dollars a month for text messaging does not make it any less of a rip off. Texting costs the telecoms essentially nothing. It uses spare bandwidth that would otherwise be wasted. It literally costs the telecoms close to nothing. I am actually quite disappointed there hasn't been a collusion investigation over this. It's not as if text messages are a differentiated product. The telecoms should be competing strictly on price with text messaging services and yet somehow they aren't.
Its the bean-counters' fault.
I am a certified accountant. The fault, if there is any, lies at the feet of management. The bean counters simply track the data and report it. Presuming the data provided is accurate it is up to management make decisions with that data and to see the big picture. It is also management's job to understand the Blaming badly chosen metrics on the accountants is shooting the messenger.
Revenue losses from service blocks and credits are really easy to measure.
Not always as easy as you are implying. Lost revenue generally requires a bit of guesswork even for predictable revenue streams. It's always inexact to measure something that is not there. You have to be careful to avoid the same logic that presumes that someone pirating a music CD would have bought it anyway.
Profits from customers made happy by good customer service are really hard to measure.
Actually it's not as hard as you seem to think. The problem isn't that it can't be measured but rather that the bottom line effects of customer service do not appear immediately on the balance sheet. There are plenty of metric available to track success attributable to customer service. Indirect measures usually but effective ones. The problem is that when times are tough customer service a relatively easy thing to cut because customer service doesn't immediately impact the bottom line in most cases. R&D and marketing have the same problem. Their effects are measurable but only appear over time and with consistent cumulative expenditures.
So, as is frequently the case when organizations become hyper-focused on metrics, decisions get made that maximize metrics but don't make good business sense.
You are making a logical fallacy and I don't think you really understand how metrics are used. EVERY business has to choose metrics to judge their success and ignoring the metrics is a sure route to failure. You cannot improve anything that you cannot measure and you have to measure the right things (which isn't as easy as it sounds). Metrics need to be carefully chosen because they will drive behavior but choosing bad metrics does not mean metrics are bad.
Shaft your customers enough and they'll switch to a different company.
True but only if they are actually able to switch. Where I live there is one gas company and one electric company. If I want those services I do not have any other realistic options. The only thing stopping them from treating me really badly is that they are heavily regulated and as a result I've actually gotten decent service most of the time. It's only been recently that I've had more than one option for internet/phone service and both are huge former monopolies with deservedly bad reputations for customer service. Switching from one to the other really doesn't improve my situation any because both of them pretty much suck. I'm about to move and my options for internet service are Comcast and Verizon. Not exactly a pair that I'm thrilled to do business with but there simply are no other options.
Both my father and grandfather used to work for AT&T before and after the big split. They explained the attitude of AT&T by the running cynical joke among the employees of "my phone still works". The company simply didn't have to care because you had no other options and they knew it.
Looking out for the customer's best interest in terms of the services that the business offers is in the best interest of the business.
Quite. Bean counters don't see this. They don't see the customers walking away...
I happen to be a Certified bean counter and you couldn't possibly be more wrong. If you ever want to understand what is going on in a company, ask the accountants. They know exactly how many customers have walked away, how much money those customers were worth, how expensive those customers were to service, etc. Most of the time they even know exactly why those customers left. If you want to know where the bodies are buried (so to speak) in a company, ask the accountants. But knowledge is not control and blaming the "bean counters" really is a case of shooting the messenger. The finance and accounting geeks just provide analysis and reporting in most cases. They don't control the purse strings.
Accountants are perfectly well aware of the value of good customer service. Accountants however (usually) don't control what gets funding and what doesn't and they certainly don't control how customer service is managed. An accountant's job is to present accurate financial information to management. Ultimately it is management's choice to provide (or not provide) good quality customer service. If you want to blame anyone for bad customer service, the blame starts right at the top where it belongs.
Why not just spin it, and while it's spinning, lower the ambient temperature so that it freezes?
I don't know for sure (chemistry isn't my field) but several potential issues occur to me immediately:
Your question isn't a dumb one but it might be very challenging to accomplish if it is even possible.
1. Social Security Intention: Provide seniors with material security Result: It makes things worse. By any calculation, if the working people right now were allowed to put the same money they pay into social security (12.5% including employer portion) into an interest bearing retirement account they would receive a much higher payout once they retire, but we are not allowed to opt out.
Umm, Social Security DOES provide seniors with material security. Have you given a moment's thought to why participation is mandatory? A significant percentage of the population will elect to not save any money at all. This is not supposition on my part, it would (and did) happen if Social Security were optional. The fact that they make this poor choice unfortunately does not relieve the rest of us of the burden of supporting them once they hit retirement age or even earlier if they become disabled. Another significant percentage of the population will suffer ill fortune on their investments and be largely wiped out, sometimes through no fault of their own. (think low level Enron employees) How exactly do you propose to deal with these individuals once they are past productive working age? "Screw them" is not an acceptable answer.
Social Security is EXACTLY what the name says it is. It's a humane safety net. Granted it could be managed better but it is mandatory for a good reason. I'm not a fan of the program either but I think the alternative of letting people opt out would have worse consequences. Social Security isn't and shouldn't be about making the most money for those who participate. The purpose is and should be to ensure that all our citizens have at least a small income. The purpose is to prevent homelessness and starvation. Since we can't predict who will need help the most I have yet to hear a better plan than to make everyone participate.
3. United Nations Funding
Intention: "To maintain international peace and security...blah blah"
Result: It does nothing of the sort. The most it can be said about it is that it provides a discussion forum where countries with dismal human rights record can rant against the USA and western democracies in general.
The real purpose of the UN is to prevent World War 3. So far it has succeeded in that mission. Anything else it accomplishes is really just icing on the cake. Furthermore there is significant evidence that the UN is often successful in peacekeeping roles. Not always but often. The UN has plenty of flaws but it you are going to say it accomplishes nothing without providing any evidence to support that claim I'm going to go ahead and say you haven't actually looked.
4. National Endowment for the Arts
Intention: To promote arts etc
Result: Frivolously pays taxpayer money to "selected" artists with connections, while majority of artists get nothing. How would you like to be a struggling artist who pays taxes while knowing that the portion of your money goes to other, more "special", artists based on subjective and vague criteria.
Have you actually read what the stated purpose of the NEA is? Apparently not. No one has ever claimed the NEA was intended to support every or even most artists. The NEA attempts to bring art to all Americans, not bring money to all artists. I pay money to support all kinds of government programs that I'll never see a direct financial benefit and I'm fine with that. I pay for roads I'll never use, parks I'll never visit, weapons I dearly hope we never use, medical care for others and plenty of other worthy goals. The NEA has a budget of about $155 million. It is a teeny-tiny little piece of the federal budget that arguably succeeds in its mission. It brings art to Americans. Do you really have nothing better to criticize? Are you seriously arguing that all artists deserve federal grants?
Can I go on?
Please don't unless you improve your arguments significantly.
- Government School/Dept of Education (indoctrinates rather than educates - also very money-inefficient compared to private alternatives that d a better job with half as much cash, or an equal job with one-quarter as much cash)
There is precious little evidence that private schools can do the job cheaper AND better. Seriously. I defy you to find credible evidence to support your claim. I've looked and it simply does not exist. There are little successes here and there but there is no evidence that schools can be privatized on a mass scale and still succeed. It's a worthy idea but no one has figured out a way to make it work.
Taxpayer funded public schools have to take every child, not just the ones they want. I went to a private school and it was academically better than my local public school (which wasn't a bad one) but it was no where close to being cheaper. The teachers at my private school were paid less but worked there because most of the kids were high achievers and it was a nice place to work. The environment of my private school would have been impossible to replicate without the ability to select the student bod and kick out those who seriously misbehave. (plagiarism was an offense that would get you expelled for example)
There are lots of attempts at for-profit and not-for profit private and charter schools but the holy grail of simultaneously being better AND cheaper remains elusive, at least on a large scale.
Yeah, sure, you can argue all taste is completely subjective, that nothing is better or worse, that it's all subjective. Poop tastes as good as ice cream, maybe? Whatever.
Don't be a moron. We're talking about coffee here, not some deep philosophical relativism. Pointing out that taste in coffee and the places that sell coffee is subjective is not remotely the same thing as claiming all tastes are good or equivalent or that there is no such thing as bad coffee. You don't have to care about Starbucks one way or the other to understand how it is that they succeed.
Uh, if water tastes something, you may want to check into getting a different source of water.
Virtually all water (except distilled) has taste. Trace amounts of various impurities can actually be desirable. If it tastes BAD you might want to get a different source.
Sugar in tea? Seriously? That ruins it.
You clearly are not from the southern US.
So drink it strong...and it won't taste like water.
Strong does not automatically mean tasty. In fact bad tea that is strong is worse than bad tea that is weak.
Every independent coffee shop I've gone into in the past 5 years has had free WiFi. It's often better coffee, cheaper, nicer atmosphere, and free WiFi.
I have little interest in Starbucks coffee myself but "better" and "nicer" are subjective in this case and I've rarely found any coffee shop in the last 10 years that was actually much cheaper. They won't stay in business long selling just $1.00 cups of black coffee. Not enough profit and not enough differentiation to do that.
You're right about the free wifi though.
I don't know how Starbucks expects to compete.
Starbucks competes the same way McDonalds and Coke compete. A familiar product that enough people like that is consistent no matter where you go and available everywhere. They don't have to make YOUR favorite product to succeed. Face it, Starbucks makes a product that a lot of people like. Maybe its not for you personally but they sell billions of dollars of coffee a year so they clearly are doing something that appeals.
The primary reason why reverse-engineering is almost never done is that you can't use the result anyway. Copyright prevents that.
Nonsense. If that were true IBM would still be the only maker of PCs. Compaq reverse engineered the BIOS and the rest is history. Just because you reverse engineer something doesn't automatically mean a copyright violation. Reverse engineering happens legally every day. Patents can provide some protection against reverse engineering but copyright provides little in most cases.
With copyright gone, reverse engineering tools would become much much better.
Even if that were true (and I'm not conceding that it is - reverse engineering is and always will be hard) with copyright and patents there is no need for them. Why create an arms race those who want to hide code and those who want to reverse engineer it when with copyright and patents there is (generally) no need to do so? Your proposal would create additional incentives for people to hide their work instead of sharing it and we have enough problems with that already.
You incorrectly presume that there is a something else, that they can move to that in a short enough time, and that they want to do so.
You incorrectly presume that the job will necessarily remain available in the face of competition with lower labor costs and/or greater automation. Whether they want to go elsewhere is often, in the end, irrelevant so the only important question is whether they can move. You are correct that sometimes it is very difficult in the short run but that is not an argument against automation.
Jobs that can be automated such that the total cost is lower will be automated. Competition will force the hand of the companies sooner or later. The ones that wait too long will go out of business. Note that sometimes it is cheaper/better to do a job without automation, particularly for high complexity low volume jobs. Your typical job shop has relatively low amounts of automation.
Well, the Android phones have been having quite an impact in the market recently.
True.
The big benefit of "being able to run the software you want rather than what Steve Jobs says you can run" seems to speak to people, since that's the major thing Android has going for it that the iPhone doesn't.
Whether that is a "big" benefit or not is a matter of opinion. Your argument is one that speaks to a segment of the geek crowd here on slashdot but hardly anyone else actually cares. Very few people actually feel constrained by the software available on the iPhone. You might be one who does but if so you are in a VERY small minority. Doesn't mean you are wrong to care but most people simply don't feel your pain. In short, if you want to explain the success of Android you'll have to look for a different argument.
Really the success of Android probably lies mostly in the fact that the iPhone is only available through AT&T and the other carriers and handset manufacturers needed a product to compete. Verizon wasn't about to sit around and not compete with the iPhone and the other alternatives (Blackberry and Nokia) simply weren't getting the job done. Most of the competitors prior to the iPhone competed on feature lists (and arguably still do) but not so much on actual usability. The Nokia I have have sitting on my desk can technically do everything an iPhone 3G can do but it has an interface only a geek could love. Android has provided a way to reach the segment of consumers attracted to the iPhone in a way the alternatives didn't.
Sadly, even those who try to escape Steve's clutches ...
"Steve's clutches"? What is he some cartoon villain now? I'm sure he's cackling in his lair right now plotting the next way he can make your life worse by forcing yet another industry to make better and more useful products.
...are affected by the iPhone, as evidenced by the fact that nearly every mobile platform is copying the App Store model, some of them with exactly the same kind of draconian lock-in policies.
Draconian? Let's take the WABAC machine back to the 1960s when AT&T was the only telecom company in town - LITERALLY. Back then you didn't even own the large and primitive phone in your house. It was leased to you by the phone company which was a government sanctioned monopoly and wired directly into the wall. If you didn't pay they came and took the phone from your house. Oh and you paid handsomely for the privilege of having this level of "service". The phone was robust but not remotely innovative and if you think Apple is being "draconian" you really have no idea what draconian is. You have more options now than you ever have had.
Really the enemy here isn't the phone manufacturers. The enemy is the telecom companies. The handset manufacturers main customers aren't you and me. Their customers are the telecom companies (AT&T etc) and the interests of the telecoms differ significantly from yours and mine. That's why most of them historically have paid little attention to the user experience. They didn't have to to sell products to their customers. Apple, despite their flaws, has forced the telecoms and handset manufacturers to pay more attention to the end users. Yes they are being restrictive but most of the worst restrictions come from the telecoms, not the handset makers.
I've met and spoken with Ed Whitacre when he was CEO of AT&T. I've never met a CEO who so bluntly held his customers in lower regard than he did and I've met quite a few Fortune 500 CEOs. My father and grandfather worked for AT&T and its successor companies for a combined 50 years between them. I know these companies well and they are not your friend.
So this is not something we can just sit by and watch, it is an industry wide phenomenon that we must fight on every front that opens up, or one day we will get out of bed and there will be no platforms left where we have the legal right to run our own software any more.
Excellent. Fight the good fight. I support you fighting for open platforms completely. But let's keep the hyperbole out of it shall we? Steve Jobs by all accounts can be a real ass but the phones we have today are better products because of his efforts. There are at least 3 other major phone platforms (Blackberry, Android and Nokia/Symbian) competing with Apple and the more they compete the better off you and I will be.
How arrogant of me to feel entitled to use something I paid for any perfectly legal way that I please.
You clearly want to criticize Apple for not supporting what you want to do. Go ahead and hack on your iPhone. Nothing is stopping you. You CAN use GPL software an iPhone - just not with Apple's blessing. If it is so important to you, why the hell do you care what Apple thinks? Make your actions support your words.
If you read the OP, then you'd know that he was defending Apple's draconian policies, which set the tone for my response.
And your response was complete nonsense. I thought I'd made that clear enough. There are advantages and disadvantages to Apple's approach. Since you so clearly don't like what Apple is doing, buy a competing product from a different company. In fact doing so will probably force Apple to have a better and possibly more open product. Competition is good.
You'd also know that he directly compared shopping at the App Store with shopping at any other of these "curated experiences" like Wal-mart or Target, hence the direct reference to his own metaphor.
And he was right. Walmart doesn't sell the porn you seem so eager to get but you certainly can get it elsewhere. Likewise Apple doesn't sell it but that doesn't prevent you from getting it elsewhere. Walmart even sells products under its own labels just like Apple and you can't get them elsewhere. However that doesn't mean you can't get perfectly adequate substitutes elsewhere. In other words stop whining that Apple isn't making exactly what you want and find someone who is.
Now, that I've read his posting back to you, feel free to STFU and RTFOP for yourself, lazybones.
Interesting how your lack of a coherent and logical argument means I'm lazy. Curious.
Is Windows purchased because it is technically the best, or because it has the best marketing team aimed at the target market?
How about neither. Windows is purchased because the majority of other people/companies also purchased Windows. It's called network effects and there is a lot of value in using software that is maximally compatible with what everyone else uses.
Of course one could make the heretical argument that for many people Windows might actually have been the best choice for their needs and budget at the time of purchase. I know, crazy world in which we live.
How are we not affected by the dictatorship of Steve Jobs?
Because you don't have to buy an iPhone. Seriously. I like the iPhone well enough but it's hardly the only usable smartphone out there. Presently I use a Nokia smartphone and it works well enough for my purposes that I'm in no hurry to trade it in. Don't like Apple's policies? Don't buy from Apple. I'm sure the makers of Android, Blackberry and other smart phones will be happy to take your money.
We're not allowed to use GPL'd software;
If that bothers you buy one of the other phones that permits the use of GPL software. They certainly exist.
we're not allowed to use applications that replicate included functionality; we're not allowed to modify the UI to our liking; we're not allowed to watch porn;...
Again, there are other products that permit all of this. You realize you don't have to like the iPhone right? It's completely ok if you buy something else. Furthermore if you don't care about Apple's blessing you can even do all this on a jailbroken iPhone.
This is different from shopping at Wal-Mart, Target, etc. because those companies might not sell what you're interested in, but they aren't going to stop you from buying the products you want from another source.
You can buy competing phones that are functionally equivalent to an iPhone. No they aren't identical but that's ok - Mac's and PCs aren't identical but you can do most of the same things on each. Economists even have a term for that. Apple isn't stopping you from buying products you want from another source either. My Nokia phone does essentially everything the iPhone 3G does, albeit with a fair bit less panache. Your analogy is quite simply wrong because you are defining the product too narrowly. If your definition of the product is "something that works on an iPhone" then yes, you will be frustrated. But if your definition is "useful smartphone software", there are vast options available to you. Don't paint yourself into a corner and you won't have a problem.
Please, stop glossing over the fact that this "walled garden" blows; it's insulting to my intelligence.
So buy somewhere else and stop whining. Plenty of very intelligent people have looked at the facts and come to a different conclusion. They obviously are not bothered by the same things that bother you. Speaking for myself, if the built in apps suit my needs I don't care if I can't replace them. I want a device that is well enough designed that I don't need to alter the interface. I don't remotely care if porn is available on the iPhone because I'll never use it for that purpose. Despite my being a big fan of the GPL, I don't even care if the iPhone has any GPL software because if I want GPL software I can get it elsewhere. The iPhone is there if I want it and I can buy some very good competing products if they suit my needs better. You are free to do the same.
I suppose if I embraced the lack of freedom, I'd be happy. Not unlike the Patriot Act, I might add.
That's a profoundly stupid argument. Comparing the federal government taking away civil liberties to a manufacturer of a technology product not producing exactly the product you rather arrogantly feel entitled to? That is amazingly lacking in perspective.