Nonsense. Class action lawsuits are the only way to stop companies from fleecing millions of consumers in amounts too small to make litigation worthwhile for a single individual. Case in point: the price fixing of cd's by the RIAA. Even if you hired an attorney to get redress for the price fixing, you'd have to have hundreds of cd's to make this worthwhile. And for every person who would sue, there would be thousands who wouldn't bother. So it would be simple business sense for the RIAA to continue to continue the status quo because the cost would be insignificant next to the reward. Class action lawsuit enters stage right. A few consumers getting back a few hundred bucks wouldn't even attract their notice. A few million consumers getting back $20-$30, they'll notice.
But you pay me 4 million dollars- I'll do my best to find something wrong with every company. This does nothing but make everything we want to do more expensive, and drive any kind of risky product off the market even if I want to buy it knowing it is risky.
Okay, if you want to be stupid. But meritless class action lawsuits will be dismissed like any other.
My honda element got some sort of stupid class about the windshield-- well hell, it's got a nearly flat windshield- of course it's going to take rock hits harder. I knew that going in. Any damn fool who looks at the slope of the windshield vs a four door is going to know it's going to take more dings. What do they have to do- put a big red sign that says "THIS WINDSHIELD IS FAIRLY VERTICAL AND WILL GET DINGED BY ROCKS MORE"?
Problem: two seconds of Googling reveals that you are full of crap. The windshields aren't cracking because they are flat, they are cracking because Honda used shitty windshields.
A monopoly created by consumer choice is no monopoly at all.
Microsoft didn't gain a monopoly with consumer choice. They gained a monopoly by giving OEM's a discount if they would ship all of their computers with a version of Windows. Ship a different OS, and say goodbye to that discount - a kiss of death with the razor thin profit margins in the cutthroat PC industry. Consumers had a choice alright - Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT. Want to by a Dell with BeOS or OS/2? You're SOL, buddy. Want to get an HP with no operating system installed so you can install Linux? Still SOL. Try using the clause in the Windows EULA that stated that you could return the copy of Windows that came with your machine for a refund if you disagreed with the terms of the license? Microsoft would ignore you.
Trillion dollar deficit? Whatever are you talking about?
I should have said "Reagan invented the trillion dollar national debt", sorry.
But I only place half the blame at Reagan's feet. The other half I place at the feet of congress, you kept sending him massive appropriations bills to sign.
You mean the ones Reagan asked for? There was only about a 4% difference between the budgets he asked for and the budgets he signed. Lets see - Reagan asked for it, Reagan signed it. Yup, that makes it his. Doesn't mean Congress was blameless, anymore than Congress is blameless in the Iraq clusterfuck - but in both cases more than the lions share of the blame lies with the Executive.
A lot of fiscal conservatives were terribly pissed at Reagan for signing those appropriations bills.
Like who. And were they pissed at Reagan's piss poor fiscal management, or pissed that he didn't eliminate social spending?
On the other hand, Clinton had to settle for the bills he did sign, because Congress wouldn't pass the ones he really wanted.
Yes, and we would have been so much better off with nationalized health care. No, I'm not being sarcastic. What made Clinton great for the budget was his refusal to let Republicans in Congress slash social spending in order to make big tax cuts.
Reagan also got some tax cuts through, which increased revenues in the long run, which meant there was more money to spend.
Voodoo economics indeed. Yes, tax and interest rate cuts do indeed stimulate the economy - if they primarily benefit the middle class. But that's not what Voodoo economics was about: it was putting money in the hands of the wealthy with the idea that they would take the cash and create more jobs with it. Which as we all know turned out to be hogwash.
If a business owner will make more money from expanding his business, then he will go ahead and expand it, and write off the costs as a business expense. The size of his tax return is completely irrelevant to this equation, because if he over-expands his business will become less efficient and can even lose money - as anyone who has taken an economics class in high school can tell you.
I'll rephrase. There are three types of red light runners: those that stop and drive through a red at 3 am when there isn't another car for miles, those who don't stop for a yellow light, and those that zoom through an intersection no matter how long the light has been red. The first isn't a problem because there are no other cars around. The second will never be a problem as long as the lights are set up the way they should be (light will stay red a couple of seconds before the cross traffic gets a green). It's the last group that causes accidents. But if a driver is callous or negligent enough to disregard other peoples lives to race through a red in a busy intersection, they're hardly going to be swayed at the prospect of a $100 - $300 fine.
Spitzer's got integrity - something in EXTREMELY short supply among politicians of either party.
It is short on one side but virtually non-existent on the other. If the GOP had any clue what integrity was, they would have called on Bush to resign years ago. Instead, we can't get the Senate past a debate on whether to debate a non-binding resolution that wont do a thing to change the war in Iraq. Our media and the whole political system in this country needs a complete enema.
Working at a video store and telling a customer that no one ever rents these movies implies that the customer is an oddity and has very crappy tastes. Yeah, I'd say it's rude.
Or, they're letting the customer know that those movies aren't any good, thus saving the customer money and being a Good Person in the process.
it can't really be proven. because it's impossible to gauge how many lives are saved by speed/red light cameras.
Sure you can: zero. These cameras are invariably placed not at the deadliest intersections, but at busy ones with low yellow light times. These cameras, like a lot of enforcement, isn't about improving safety, it's about generating revenue.
In the dentists case, it looks like the county routinely uses SWAT teams for search warrants. In any case, the officer that shot Mr. Culosi was a 17 year veteran, so his carelessness should get him charged with negligent homicide rather than manslaughter.
I'm a grown-up man who has watched action movies all my life, and I am getting pretty sick of the violence. I
See above. I think chick flicks suck, but you wont see me trying to ban the Lifetime channel. I deal with my dislike of chick flicks by.....drumroll.....not watching them. So why don't YOU try it sometime, and keep YOUR jerking knee in check.
Have you actually watched 24 lately? This season, there's been quite a bit of veiled (and not-so-veiled) criticism about the administration taking away more and more rights of the people in the name of fighting terrorism. In fact, it seems like almost every episode they have some sort of commentary on this.
Call me when Jack tortures and/or kills someone who turns out to be innocent. Until then I wont be very impressed.
...just imagine how much it would cost for Apple to ship 100% problem free hardware. Seriously, anytime you ship millions of units you will occasionally have problems, more so if the product is updated every year. Plus, Apple is held to a much higher standard - problems like the iPod Nano screens scratching will get a fair amount of press time, even if the problem affects less than 1% of the units. Whereas with PC's, it takes something on the order of exploding batteries to really get noticed.
You're right that Nintendo passed the class but I'd say Sony passed that class as well.
The problem with the Sony approach is that you take a BIG risk when you sell at a loss, hoping sales are strong enough to bring down costs. But if you have a flop, you are screwed.
WTF ? do you think these companies absorb the cost of the settlement ? hell no , they pass the cost off to the consumer.
No, they were already passing off the cost to consumers in the form of faulty products, and without accountability enforced from lawsuits, would keep right on doing it. People would still be having heart attacks from Vioxx and Ephedra. Ford would still be making Explorers that would roll over at the drop of a hat with exploding Firestone tires. Record companies would keep price fixing their cds. McDonalds would still be making coffee that would burn you to the bone. And so on. And on. And on.
I see I ruffled some feathers. But I don't see how true small government, fiscal conservatives can disagree with the fact that many Republicans in Congress that have claimed to be for small government were rolling in pork, and who claimed to be for small government were constantly pushing crap like this "Truth in Ratings Act".
Case in point: Phil Gramm. He constantly harped on cutting social spending to reduce the deficit, yet bragged that
"I'm carrying so much pork [home to Texas] I'm beginning to get trichinosis."
Say that the price was 13.00 but the checkout said 130.00 and you just clicked "okay" since prices are normally always correct. According to all these morally bankrupt folks, the business owes you nothing. From all my dealings with Amazon and all the other positive posts here on the board, it's clear Amazon would immediately address this.
If if exchanges were the only things that matter, you'd be right. But we do have false advertising and bait and switch laws to prevent sellers from advertising one price and then charging another at checkout.
No, there are several requirements for a contract - an agreement, between two or more people, (in this case) for goods, with consideration. Consideration is what each contracting partty gets from the deal (and no, shipping wouldn't count as "genuine consideration").
Wonderful. Still doesn't change the fact that Amazon doesn't have any business charging credit cards in this manner. But hey, the parent covered this already:
If the customer is legally in the wrong, then Amazon are free to pursue compensation in court. Trying to obtain it directly by themselves, however, is not a legally justifiable action.
Wow, what a little basis reading comprehension will accomplish. Maybe you should try it some time - bucko.
Fiscally conservative, small government Republicans I mean. Those who like call themselves "fiscally conservative" typically like to make big tax cuts, regaurdless of what it does to the national debt. Small government conservatives generally like to cut spending on social issues but increase it on everything else. Oh, and cut industry oversight, which frequently leads to nasty consequences.
At the end of the day, strident "liberals" and "conservatives" have exactly the same political philosophy: the government should get its nose out of the business of people who are doing things I approve of, but spare no expense stopping people from doing things that make me feel uneasy.
Yup. But at least liberals aren't two-faced hypocrites about it.
To me Reagan's cleverest stroke was to turn the Republicans into the party of strong military defense
Let me make a slight modification: "To me Reagan's cleverest stroke was to turn the Republicans into the party that talks about strong military defense"
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You missed my point entirely.
No, I didn't.
It's not about me getting more.
No, it's about you being a good little elitist.
These cases should not even take place.
Nonsense. Class action lawsuits are the only way to stop companies from fleecing millions of consumers in amounts too small to make litigation worthwhile for a single individual. Case in point: the price fixing of cd's by the RIAA. Even if you hired an attorney to get redress for the price fixing, you'd have to have hundreds of cd's to make this worthwhile. And for every person who would sue, there would be thousands who wouldn't bother. So it would be simple business sense for the RIAA to continue to continue the status quo because the cost would be insignificant next to the reward. Class action lawsuit enters stage right. A few consumers getting back a few hundred bucks wouldn't even attract their notice. A few million consumers getting back $20-$30, they'll notice.
But you pay me 4 million dollars- I'll do my best to find something wrong with every company. This does nothing but make everything we want to do more expensive, and drive any kind of risky product off the market even if I want to buy it knowing it is risky.
Okay, if you want to be stupid. But meritless class action lawsuits will be dismissed like any other.
My honda element got some sort of stupid class about the windshield-- well hell, it's got a nearly flat windshield- of course it's going to take rock hits harder. I knew that going in. Any damn fool who looks at the slope of the windshield vs a four door is going to know it's going to take more dings. What do they have to do- put a big red sign that says "THIS WINDSHIELD IS FAIRLY VERTICAL AND WILL GET DINGED BY ROCKS MORE"?
Problem: two seconds of Googling reveals that you are full of crap. The windshields aren't cracking because they are flat, they are cracking because Honda used shitty windshields.
This is false.
No, it's not false. You just have no idea what you are talking about, as evidenced by the fact that Microsoft is already a convicted monopolist . Try reading up on the subject.
A monopoly created by consumer choice is no monopoly at all.
Microsoft didn't gain a monopoly with consumer choice. They gained a monopoly by giving OEM's a discount if they would ship all of their computers with a version of Windows. Ship a different OS, and say goodbye to that discount - a kiss of death with the razor thin profit margins in the cutthroat PC industry. Consumers had a choice alright - Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT. Want to by a Dell with BeOS or OS/2? You're SOL, buddy. Want to get an HP with no operating system installed so you can install Linux? Still SOL. Try using the clause in the Windows EULA that stated that you could return the copy of Windows that came with your machine for a refund if you disagreed with the terms of the license? Microsoft would ignore you.
Trillion dollar deficit? Whatever are you talking about?
I should have said "Reagan invented the trillion dollar national debt", sorry.
But I only place half the blame at Reagan's feet. The other half I place at the feet of congress, you kept sending him massive appropriations bills to sign.
You mean the ones Reagan asked for? There was only about a 4% difference between the budgets he asked for and the budgets he signed. Lets see - Reagan asked for it, Reagan signed it. Yup, that makes it his. Doesn't mean Congress was blameless, anymore than Congress is blameless in the Iraq clusterfuck - but in both cases more than the lions share of the blame lies with the Executive.
A lot of fiscal conservatives were terribly pissed at Reagan for signing those appropriations bills.
Like who. And were they pissed at Reagan's piss poor fiscal management, or pissed that he didn't eliminate social spending?
On the other hand, Clinton had to settle for the bills he did sign, because Congress wouldn't pass the ones he really wanted.
Yes, and we would have been so much better off with nationalized health care. No, I'm not being sarcastic. What made Clinton great for the budget was his refusal to let Republicans in Congress slash social spending in order to make big tax cuts.
Reagan also got some tax cuts through, which increased revenues in the long run, which meant there was more money to spend.
Voodoo economics indeed. Yes, tax and interest rate cuts do indeed stimulate the economy - if they primarily benefit the middle class. But that's not what Voodoo economics was about: it was putting money in the hands of the wealthy with the idea that they would take the cash and create more jobs with it. Which as we all know turned out to be hogwash.
If a business owner will make more money from expanding his business, then he will go ahead and expand it, and write off the costs as a business expense. The size of his tax return is completely irrelevant to this equation, because if he over-expands his business will become less efficient and can even lose money - as anyone who has taken an economics class in high school can tell you.
I'll rephrase. There are three types of red light runners: those that stop and drive through a red at 3 am when there isn't another car for miles, those who don't stop for a yellow light, and those that zoom through an intersection no matter how long the light has been red. The first isn't a problem because there are no other cars around. The second will never be a problem as long as the lights are set up the way they should be (light will stay red a couple of seconds before the cross traffic gets a green). It's the last group that causes accidents. But if a driver is callous or negligent enough to disregard other peoples lives to race through a red in a busy intersection, they're hardly going to be swayed at the prospect of a $100 - $300 fine.
Spitzer's got integrity - something in EXTREMELY short supply among politicians of either party.
It is short on one side but virtually non-existent on the other. If the GOP had any clue what integrity was, they would have called on Bush to resign years ago. Instead, we can't get the Senate past a debate on whether to debate a non-binding resolution that wont do a thing to change the war in Iraq. Our media and the whole political system in this country needs a complete enema.
The entertainment industry is very generous in helping to provide money and celebrity support to politicians.
So is Wall Street, and that didn't stop Spitzer from going after them.
Working at a video store and telling a customer that no one ever rents these movies implies that the customer is an oddity and has very crappy tastes. Yeah, I'd say it's rude.
Or, they're letting the customer know that those movies aren't any good, thus saving the customer money and being a Good Person in the process.
it can't really be proven. because it's impossible to gauge how many lives are saved by speed/red light cameras.
Sure you can: zero. These cameras are invariably placed not at the deadliest intersections, but at busy ones with low yellow light times. These cameras, like a lot of enforcement, isn't about improving safety, it's about generating revenue.
Oh yeah. Nothing pisses me off like people who hit the brakes coming up to a light that's green.
In the dentists case, it looks like the county routinely uses SWAT teams for search warrants. In any case, the officer that shot Mr. Culosi was a 17 year veteran, so his carelessness should get him charged with negligent homicide rather than manslaughter.
As for Islamic theocracies, there is a difference between not allowing homosexuals to marry and collapsing a wall on them.
We put a man on the moon and you're happy that we aren't as bad as a theocracy on human rights?
Europe - a society SO advanced they had to wait for a new country to bring them a better form of government.
You talking about Democracy? Which came from Greece? Do you think Greece is a new country or something?
Let's not get to far up the high horse, ok?
Says you.
I'm a grown-up man who has watched action movies all my life, and I am getting pretty sick of the violence. I
See above. I think chick flicks suck, but you wont see me trying to ban the Lifetime channel. I deal with my dislike of chick flicks by.....drumroll.....not watching them. So why don't YOU try it sometime, and keep YOUR jerking knee in check.
Have you actually watched 24 lately? This season, there's been quite a bit of veiled (and not-so-veiled) criticism about the administration taking away more and more rights of the people in the name of fighting terrorism. In fact, it seems like almost every episode they have some sort of commentary on this.
Call me when Jack tortures and/or kills someone who turns out to be innocent. Until then I wont be very impressed.
...Warren Chisum, chair of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, doesn't believe the Earth orbits the sun!.
...just imagine how much it would cost for Apple to ship 100% problem free hardware. Seriously, anytime you ship millions of units you will occasionally have problems, more so if the product is updated every year. Plus, Apple is held to a much higher standard - problems like the iPod Nano screens scratching will get a fair amount of press time, even if the problem affects less than 1% of the units. Whereas with PC's, it takes something on the order of exploding batteries to really get noticed.
You're right that Nintendo passed the class but I'd say Sony passed that class as well.
The problem with the Sony approach is that you take a BIG risk when you sell at a loss, hoping sales are strong enough to bring down costs. But if you have a flop, you are screwed.
WTF ? do you think these companies absorb the cost of the settlement ? hell no , they pass the cost off to the consumer.
No, they were already passing off the cost to consumers in the form of faulty products, and without accountability enforced from lawsuits, would keep right on doing it. People would still be having heart attacks from Vioxx and Ephedra. Ford would still be making Explorers that would roll over at the drop of a hat with exploding Firestone tires. Record companies would keep price fixing their cds. McDonalds would still be making coffee that would burn you to the bone. And so on. And on. And on.
Case in point: Phil Gramm. He constantly harped on cutting social spending to reduce the deficit, yet bragged that
Say that the price was 13.00 but the checkout said 130.00 and you just clicked "okay" since prices are normally always correct. According to all these morally bankrupt folks, the business owes you nothing. From all my dealings with Amazon and all the other positive posts here on the board, it's clear Amazon would immediately address this.
If if exchanges were the only things that matter, you'd be right. But we do have false advertising and bait and switch laws to prevent sellers from advertising one price and then charging another at checkout.
Wonderful. Still doesn't change the fact that Amazon doesn't have any business charging credit cards in this manner. But hey, the parent covered this already:
Wow, what a little basis reading comprehension will accomplish. Maybe you should try it some time - bucko.
Fiscally conservative, small government Republicans I mean. Those who like call themselves "fiscally conservative" typically like to make big tax cuts, regaurdless of what it does to the national debt. Small government conservatives generally like to cut spending on social issues but increase it on everything else. Oh, and cut industry oversight, which frequently leads to nasty consequences.
At the end of the day, strident "liberals" and "conservatives" have exactly the same political philosophy: the government should get its nose out of the business of people who are doing things I approve of, but spare no expense stopping people from doing things that make me feel uneasy.
Yup. But at least liberals aren't two-faced hypocrites about it.
To me Reagan's cleverest stroke was to turn the Republicans into the party of strong military defense
Let me make a slight modification: "To me Reagan's cleverest stroke was to turn the Republicans into the party that talks about strong military defense"
Fiscal conservatives and small government types have always been the black sheep in the Republican party. Reagan was not typical of the party.
What is "small government" doing in the same paragraph as Reagan? This was the man that invented trillion dollar deficits!