...considering that even if it were published, and passed judicial review, the House passed an amendment to a spending bill that would bar any funding to enforcement.
What part of the new testament tries to explain the origin of rain again, or states that the point is to live well with your neighbor?
Why does it have to be limited to the New Testament?
Origin of rain:
Genesis 1: 6-8 - "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
Of course, if you strictly want to stick to the New Testament, how about John 1:3 - "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." It doesn't specifically say rain, but it doesn't specifically say life, either.
Live well with your neighbor
Leviticus 19:18 - "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD."
(This is actually repeated a bunch of times in the New Testament, if you were curious. Matthew 22:37-40, Mark 12:30-31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:8-10, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8-9)
True that there are limits on market sizes, which is exactly why you diversify your product line (like you said), not to mention that the market you have could disappear when tastes change. You start with new products you can make with existing manufacturing lines, and then when you max out with that, you become a conglomeration of unrelated businesses. When that becomes unmanageable or a monopoly, you split up again. (Look at GE, Nabisco, et al.) So true that. But even if you do split up, your shareholders get a piece of the company that splits off. It's not like the resulting companies start without owners.
Companies are not legally required to maximize profits to shareholders. They are legally required to maximize shareholder value, which I think is too often mistaken for profit by people in management. When times are good, companies' balance sheet are full of cash, and it does little good to the shareholders if its not being used to grow the business. That's why companies do things like dividends, special dividends, M&A etc. They have so much cash they don't know what to do with it all with the business as it is. Then they do bone-headed things like stock buybacks (when times are good and they're flush with cash, coincidentally when the stock is likely overpriced) on the theory that a booming market will reward the new scarcity of stock.
One trick is that the increased supply of labor has been outside of the US.
In the scope of my previous argument, that's incorrect. The tables I was referencing were limited to the US, so if that labor is from off-shore, it was imported. (But then also, Gen Z kids are coming of age and people are working longer, too.)
As you no doubt know, if profitability increases, in a free-ish market, there will be more competition, hence keeping profitability down.
Provided that there are few or no barriers to entry, yes, ultimately economic profit is unsustainable. However, economic profit includes a subtraction for opportunity cost. In other words, with an economic profit at zero, you're no better off choosing activity 'x' than activity 'y' to make money. With economic profits, you can still make monetary profit (i.e. you make more in revenue than you spend in expenses), but that monetary profit is offset by the chance you pass up to do something else.
Given the in depth answer you gave, I should probably give a similar reply, but I can't be bothered, as the overall theme is correct, even if a few details are weak..
I didn't say the difference between the concepts is pointless, I said it doesn't matter what word he used if you think you know what he meant. What you did was in effect saying: "What you (other guy) meant was right, but your word choice was wrong, so now *I'll* say it with the right word, thus making me right in a pointless technical sense, and I'll attempt to prevent you from pointing out what I just did by being arrogant." Contrast that with starting out by saying "I'll assume you meant X because that makes sense."
First, he made a specific claim, which is that "productivity has been increasing for years but people who actually work for a living are seeing their _real_ wages fall" which is factually incorrect. He follows it up with the explanation "After all one way you get better productivity is to pay people less for the same work." It may very well be one method, but it's supported neither by theory nor fact, which I demonstrated.
Second, whether or not he meant one thing and said another, it doesn't change the fact that he spouted his mouth without understanding what he was talking about. He either meant 'real wages' and was incorrect, or he meant 'real prices' and didn't know there was a difference, or even more likely, meant 'the disparity between wage inflation and price inflation' but would not have been able to state it if he can't distinguish between the two. In any of those cases, he benefits from taking a microecon course.
Third, I've had enough discussions on/., with enough people who don't know what they're talking about, to have suspected that a claim might be coming to have misspoken as an attempt to reframe the argument. That isn't arrogance, nor is letting him know in advance that he'll have to do better than that. That's a pragmatic choice I made to weed out the poseurs and have a serious discussion.
Fourth, your use of the phrase 'pointless technical sense' belies your previous claim that you're not claiming the difference between the concepts is pointless. Rather than assume to know what you're talking about, could you please clarify?
Now you are attempting the argument from arrogance on me too.
I fail to see how. I'm confident that I know what I'm talking about. As I know both the upper and lower bounds of my knowledge, I'm open to the possibility that you might actually be better informed that I am, which is why I offered you the chance to rebut.
You could at least have grasped for another fallacy than the same one NoSig claims you've already been outed on.
Is my use of the correction acceptable, or is that arrogant too? To me it seems arrogant to presume what a stranger means outside of the meaning of the words they use, but that's exactly the sort of correction you suggest I should have used with cats-paw. Since this is the question we're actually debating, you would otherwise be employing circular reasoning.
I know you mixed a straw man in there too
Where? Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you're going to make a claim as fact, back it up with evidence. It is not apparent to me which argument you mean.
but it simply gets too obvious when you in effect say: "I'm not arguing from arrogance, and if only you'd appreciate how stupid you are compared to me, you'd see that." Does your guitar really have only 1 string?
I never once said that, nor was that ever my intent, and any implication otherwise is simply your inference. What I said, and whole-heartedly mean in exactly these words is "cats-paw is ill-informed on the subject of which he speaks, and if he wishes to continue speaking on the subject, he should correct that by taking a class. If you believe cats-paw is correct despite the evidence presented, and fail to present evidence to support your position, you too are just as ill-informed and furthermore, are willfully taking up the banner of ignorance. In regards to the rest of the conversation we've been having, it is my belief that you have displayed a level of arrogance at least as bad as what you accuse me of and your criticism is therefore, to borrow a phrase, pointless."
No, it's argument from education. The 'pointless technicality of word choice' represents the difference between two distinct, though related, ideas. That neither he nor you are able to recognize that distinction is evidence of your lack of education in the matter. Arrogance is writing off that distinction as 'pointless' without knowing why they are separate concepts to begin with.
So, Mr. NoSig, perhaps you would care to demonstrate for the class why you think this distinction is pointless, in the context of the actual meanings of the concepts 'real wages' and 'real prices.' I am willing to hear you out.
yeah well, productivity has been increasing for years but people who actually work for a living are seeing their _real_ wages fall. After all one way you get better productivity is to pay people less for the same work.
Wow - you especially need to take a microeconomics class. In said class you would learn:
a) As productivity increases, profitability increases. Increased profitability leads to greater incentive to provide supply of product and thus, higher demand for labor.
b) Holding supply of labor constant, increased demand for labor will raise real wages.
c) Holding demand for labor constant, increased supply of labor will decrease real wages.
Now look at the increase in real wages (constant 1982 dollars) over the past ten years: $270.61 real weekly wages in Jan 2001 compared to $297.21 in Jan 2011. That's an annualized rate of increase in real wages of about 0.94% - covering two major recessions, mind you.
And that's not even taking the increase in the labor supply into account! Number of labor force in Jan 2001: about 118.3 million. In Jan 2011: about 153.2 million
(that's an annualized increase in workers of about 2.6%) So not only did real wages go up, but they did so despite a significant increase in the supply of available labor. (All statistics gathered from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
That's what increased productivity does.
Now - before you start in with an argument about what those real wages can actually buy, consider this: Am I more or less likely to argue you need to take an economics class if you can't distinguish between real wages and real prices of products?
Seconded. Rephrasing the OPs comment to this conclusion:
"I may not agree with what Apple does, but I defend their right to do it, as long as they're consistent."
Slashdot Mirror
...considering that even if it were published, and passed judicial review, the House passed an amendment to a spending bill that would bar any funding to enforcement.
They probably have more physical storage space than e-storage. They could pile it in the corner and review it at their leisure.
"P.S.: Please forgive the lateness of my reply." - Ringo Starr
Wow, FYAD on /. - the implications are horrifying.
So...the /. eds are finally reading "Ambient" by Jack Womack?
Right? And I'm pretty sure my productivity would increase only if by 'productivity' you mean 'Cheeto consumption.'
I'm pretty sure I would get fired for running a grow house in my office.
What part of the new testament tries to explain the origin of rain again, or states that the point is to live well with your neighbor?
Why does it have to be limited to the New Testament?
Origin of rain:
Genesis 1: 6-8 - "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
Of course, if you strictly want to stick to the New Testament, how about John 1:3 - "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." It doesn't specifically say rain, but it doesn't specifically say life, either.
Live well with your neighbor
Leviticus 19:18 - "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD."
(This is actually repeated a bunch of times in the New Testament, if you were curious. Matthew 22:37-40, Mark 12:30-31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:8-10, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8-9)
As a guide, you will get better reactions if avoid changing the topic of discussion to be about your superiority over the other person.
Noted, but as I stated previously, it was never about that.
True that there are limits on market sizes, which is exactly why you diversify your product line (like you said), not to mention that the market you have could disappear when tastes change. You start with new products you can make with existing manufacturing lines, and then when you max out with that, you become a conglomeration of unrelated businesses. When that becomes unmanageable or a monopoly, you split up again. (Look at GE, Nabisco, et al.) So true that. But even if you do split up, your shareholders get a piece of the company that splits off. It's not like the resulting companies start without owners.
Companies are not legally required to maximize profits to shareholders. They are legally required to maximize shareholder value, which I think is too often mistaken for profit by people in management. When times are good, companies' balance sheet are full of cash, and it does little good to the shareholders if its not being used to grow the business. That's why companies do things like dividends, special dividends, M&A etc. They have so much cash they don't know what to do with it all with the business as it is. Then they do bone-headed things like stock buybacks (when times are good and they're flush with cash, coincidentally when the stock is likely overpriced) on the theory that a booming market will reward the new scarcity of stock.
One trick is that the increased supply of labor has been outside of the US.
In the scope of my previous argument, that's incorrect. The tables I was referencing were limited to the US, so if that labor is from off-shore, it was imported. (But then also, Gen Z kids are coming of age and people are working longer, too.)
As you no doubt know, if profitability increases, in a free-ish market, there will be more competition, hence keeping profitability down.
Provided that there are few or no barriers to entry, yes, ultimately economic profit is unsustainable. However, economic profit includes a subtraction for opportunity cost. In other words, with an economic profit at zero, you're no better off choosing activity 'x' than activity 'y' to make money. With economic profits, you can still make monetary profit (i.e. you make more in revenue than you spend in expenses), but that monetary profit is offset by the chance you pass up to do something else.
Given the in depth answer you gave, I should probably give a similar reply, but I can't be bothered, as the overall theme is correct, even if a few details are weak..
Thanks. =)
I didn't say the difference between the concepts is pointless, I said it doesn't matter what word he used if you think you know what he meant. What you did was in effect saying: "What you (other guy) meant was right, but your word choice was wrong, so now *I'll* say it with the right word, thus making me right in a pointless technical sense, and I'll attempt to prevent you from pointing out what I just did by being arrogant." Contrast that with starting out by saying "I'll assume you meant X because that makes sense."
First, he made a specific claim, which is that "productivity has been increasing for years but people who actually work for a living are seeing their _real_ wages fall" which is factually incorrect. He follows it up with the explanation "After all one way you get better productivity is to pay people less for the same work." It may very well be one method, but it's supported neither by theory nor fact, which I demonstrated.
/., with enough people who don't know what they're talking about, to have suspected that a claim might be coming to have misspoken as an attempt to reframe the argument. That isn't arrogance, nor is letting him know in advance that he'll have to do better than that. That's a pragmatic choice I made to weed out the poseurs and have a serious discussion.
Second, whether or not he meant one thing and said another, it doesn't change the fact that he spouted his mouth without understanding what he was talking about. He either meant 'real wages' and was incorrect, or he meant 'real prices' and didn't know there was a difference, or even more likely, meant 'the disparity between wage inflation and price inflation' but would not have been able to state it if he can't distinguish between the two. In any of those cases, he benefits from taking a microecon course.
Third, I've had enough discussions on
Fourth, your use of the phrase 'pointless technical sense' belies your previous claim that you're not claiming the difference between the concepts is pointless. Rather than assume to know what you're talking about, could you please clarify?
Now you are attempting the argument from arrogance on me too.
I fail to see how. I'm confident that I know what I'm talking about. As I know both the upper and lower bounds of my knowledge, I'm open to the possibility that you might actually be better informed that I am, which is why I offered you the chance to rebut.
You could at least have grasped for another fallacy than the same one NoSig claims you've already been outed on.
Is my use of the correction acceptable, or is that arrogant too? To me it seems arrogant to presume what a stranger means outside of the meaning of the words they use, but that's exactly the sort of correction you suggest I should have used with cats-paw. Since this is the question we're actually debating, you would otherwise be employing circular reasoning.
I know you mixed a straw man in there too
Where? Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you're going to make a claim as fact, back it up with evidence. It is not apparent to me which argument you mean.
but it simply gets too obvious when you in effect say: "I'm not arguing from arrogance, and if only you'd appreciate how stupid you are compared to me, you'd see that." Does your guitar really have only 1 string?
I never once said that, nor was that ever my intent, and any implication otherwise is simply your inference. What I said, and whole-heartedly mean in exactly these words is "cats-paw is ill-informed on the subject of which he speaks, and if he wishes to continue speaking on the subject, he should correct that by taking a class. If you believe cats-paw is correct despite the evidence presented, and fail to present evidence to support your position, you too are just as ill-informed and furthermore, are willfully taking up the banner of ignorance. In regards to the rest of the conversation we've been having, it is my belief that you have displayed a level of arrogance at least as bad as what you accuse me of and your criticism is therefore, to borrow a phrase, pointless."
No, it's argument from education. The 'pointless technicality of word choice' represents the difference between two distinct, though related, ideas. That neither he nor you are able to recognize that distinction is evidence of your lack of education in the matter. Arrogance is writing off that distinction as 'pointless' without knowing why they are separate concepts to begin with.
So, Mr. NoSig, perhaps you would care to demonstrate for the class why you think this distinction is pointless, in the context of the actual meanings of the concepts 'real wages' and 'real prices.' I am willing to hear you out.
No, I was pointing out that he doesn't know enough about the subject to comment intelligently on it.
Nice argument from arrogance, there, admitting you are wrong yet still looking down on the guy who was right.
You should probably read it again. I clearly wasn't saying I was wrong; I was merely cutting him off at the pass on the obvious back-pedal.
yeah well, productivity has been increasing for years but people who actually work for a living are seeing their _real_ wages fall. After all one way you get better productivity is to pay people less for the same work.
Wow - you especially need to take a microeconomics class. In said class you would learn:
a) As productivity increases, profitability increases. Increased profitability leads to greater incentive to provide supply of product and thus, higher demand for labor.
b) Holding supply of labor constant, increased demand for labor will raise real wages.
c) Holding demand for labor constant, increased supply of labor will decrease real wages.
Now look at the increase in real wages (constant 1982 dollars) over the past ten years: $270.61 real weekly wages in Jan 2001 compared to $297.21 in Jan 2011. That's an annualized rate of increase in real wages of about 0.94% - covering two major recessions, mind you.
And that's not even taking the increase in the labor supply into account! Number of labor force in Jan 2001: about 118.3 million. In Jan 2011: about 153.2 million (that's an annualized increase in workers of about 2.6%) So not only did real wages go up, but they did so despite a significant increase in the supply of available labor. (All statistics gathered from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
That's what increased productivity does.
Now - before you start in with an argument about what those real wages can actually buy, consider this: Am I more or less likely to argue you need to take an economics class if you can't distinguish between real wages and real prices of products?
Seconded. Rephrasing the OPs comment to this conclusion: "I may not agree with what Apple does, but I defend their right to do it, as long as they're consistent."
...and why couldn't I go back and not screw up my first-ever first post?
So, when it did already cause matter to have appeared?
Biodegradable since when? They're just weaning themselves off petroleum; the end product is exactly the same.
Using the 'current' version (10.0.648.133),and can verify the history is craptastic. Try hitting Ctrl+H.
Does it include support? Might be an easier sell than installing OpenOffice.
Why do I get the feeling HBGary is just filling the void left by SCO as Slashdot's "villain to post about in the absence of real news"?
(Is that process lossy? Sure! But the market will only reward it if it provides a net benefit or focuses supply to a few producers, so it's all good.
Fixed that for you. No need to even yield net benefit if you can choke supply. Ask OPEC.
Or we implement IPv6 at a cost of billions in a down economy
Because investing in infrastructure is certainly no way to get the economy moving again?
My printer knows where my hand has been? That's just asking for trouble.