I just told you that the SSA is much more efficient than its corporate counterpart, and you respond by manufacturing your on little corporate-loving reality.
joel writes: Most people aren't so lucky. The very idea that you can "love your job" is a modern concept. Work is supposed to be something unpleasant you do to get money to do the things you actually like doing, when you're 65 and can finally retire, if you can afford it,
It is a "modern concept" only because in the past most people were not as exposed to mass media manipulation that essentially brainwashes them into this sort of plantation culture, where instead of the slavedriving foreman lashing us with whips, we get hit with mass media propaganda, which speads the "love your work" nonsense.
I guess all the programmers over in Europe with their 1500 work years, and the 25-40 hr week and 5 weeks vacation, they must just love their work less. How unfortunate for them. To miss out on all that "love".....
It wouldn;t have anything to do with the fact that their welfare state takes care of them much better than ours, would it?
Corporations are only efficient at the bottom of the hierarchy. THe workers are forced to be efficient or be fired. But all the surpluse gets eaten up by the vampires at the top--CEO's etc.
For example, look at the Social Securiy Administration, which provides medical care administration. It's administration costs are only ONE PERCENT of its total budget. Now, your typical HMO also provides medical care administration, but it has 15% admin costs. It's true that the the HMO is more efficient at the botton, where we workers have to watch ourselves more, or get fired. But the HMO managers make the 15% admin costs with all their perks and bonuses.
The problem is that you and most of AMerica have bought into a bunch of corporate propaganda.
Don't you know that American free enterprise capitalism as exemplified by the Telcos is the best of all possible worlds? What you did in Oregon is COMMUNISM! Traitor!
Excuse me now, I have to pray at my Ayn Rand shrine..../sarcasm (hey, it's Slashdot!)
I have to wonder if this is a part of the telco astroturfing campaign to hurt BPL by citing tsunami ham radio involvement. The telcos will lose billions in windfall profits if they cannot contain competition.
Sorry, but I cannot advocate anything that might hurt the advent of lower priced broadband. Low priced broadband may be the only thing that can rein in rampant neoliberalism and turn the tide towards left anarchism. I see p2p video as the only way to break the de facto monopoly of the establishment media. Yes, of course Ham can help with relief efforts. Ham radio may have saved hundreds of lives during tsunami relief. But so what? There are billions of people on this planet who are losing years of their lives because of lack of idea-communication. Broadband p2p is likely the only way I see to attain grassroots video distribution. Our future is at stake. For that, I would fuck over ham radio in a New York microsecond.
the top tax brackets were as high as 70-90% on all income for much of the mid 20th century. THen the rich started paying off our politicians to cut their top tax rates, and started shifting the burden back onto the bottom of the taxpayers, the working people.
I propose shifting the burden back onto the rich. The working poor should pay tax of no sort. Interest and investment income should be heavily taxed, and the proceeds should be used to pay for healthcare for all. This is more or less what is done in many countries in Europe. Also, all that tax money goes to paying the bills for university and childcare. So we working people can ease our minds. Less stress == higher quality of life.
BTW, just to preempt the rightwingbots, all this has nothing to do with communism. THat is where all property is state owned. There are no taxes in that sort of set up.
Huh? You do know that the word "rich" by definition, by DEFINTION applies only to a small percentage of the population. If that percentage were not small, then they cannot be "rich".
But your attitude is common among most Americans, and maybe even most humans. We seem to throw logic out the window when it comes to our personal chances. But it is also rather peculiar that most of us Americans do not have a firm grasp of the basic definition of "rich". It is strictly a relative thing....
yeah, that's right. We are all living the High Life on your dime. Life is SWEET when you're mooching offa some dumbass Cajun!
Look, ya idjit, no one is mooching off of you. Well, maybe sometimes people do mooch, but the natural state of the human creature is to want to work and have a family. Yes, people do go through phases in life when they do not want to work. And I think that everyone should be able to live off of the state for some time period. This is a good thing that greatly enhanced quality of life, as long as drug or alcohol dependence does not get out of hand. It also lets people be more creative and that helps society in many ways. Maybe in 20 years you will be mooching off of someone who is mooching off of you now.
Look, ya idjit, the vast majority of the tax money comes from the rich investor. But they and the corporations organized together decades ago to create mass media propaganda to make YOU think that everyone is mooching off of you. Well, it's not YOU that is getting taken for most of those taxes, it is the rich investors and multinationals that pay most of it. You may indeed pay high taxes in countries like Germany, Sweden, France, etc., but if you are like the VAST majority of people, you get it back from the state in form of services , etc.
So in order our mass media system has been groomed and evolved to be an outlet for corporate/neoliberal propaganda. This started way back, around World War I and was evolved and bred like an organic organism for decades. You can read about it in some of these links:
....know what is good for you, but take the advice of an older person (who was once just as young and stupid as you), and think about what you are saying. Maybe someday you will need some help from your government, and they will be able to help you because of the money they received from the Dog Tax (or some other tax).
we should have had a national ID long ago,but no doubt business lobbies have impeded its development. The longer they can keep importing and exploiting cheap illegal labor, the more money for them, and the more wages are driven down for citizens.
It's criminal, IMHO.
Re:Neoliberal Tyranny of Enforced Competition
on
Life Interrupted
·
· Score: 1
Does Sweden et al allow H1b type programmers etc to come into their country to work like they are allowed here in America? Yes or No?
while the slaves were working in the fields, with the foreman or the Master used to spy on them via telescope. The slacker slaves would get no supper at end of day.
We have come so far here in America.
Re:Neoliberal Tyranny of Enforced Competition
on
Life Interrupted
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Look, I know where you are coming from. I had much the same ideas 10 years ago. I hardly know where to start with my reply to you, as it took me 10 years to unlearn all that crap I ingested.
One viewpoint might be to try and see govt as a machine. There are many types of machines, and in my life I have studied, operated and designed many types of machines,from nuclear power plant, to cars, to analog and digital circuits to software systems. Sometimes machines need to be complicated if we want to be able to accomplish a goal.
Another perspective might be to understand that culture may be evolved and formed through outside forces, and that there are forces in this world which may in general gain if you and I lose.
Neoliberal Tyranny of Enforced Competition
on
Life Interrupted
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
This article is yet another apologist for neoliberalism. See these quotes from the story:
"It's hard to take time off. Competition on a global level -- the company's bottom line and your job -- is fierce.
But WHY is competition so fierce? Why not MAKE our government dampen and control the leverage that competitive forces have on us? Why not adopt some of the lush welfare state facets of the Scandanavian social democracies? If your govt provides a solid welfare state to back you up if you fail, then you do not feel as harsh a grip when it comes to fear of competition. Hey, it works in Europe. France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, etc., they mostly all work an average of 1500 hours a year (mandatory 35 hours weeks and 5-6 week vacations in most of those countries), and if you get fired/laid off, you can get years of unemployment. Competition is less of a threat, also because their trade law are not so....ahem..."free". They do not have the threat of third world IT workers coming at them. Like we do, right?
Why is that? Why do their protect them from the harshest competition, and ours exposes us to as much competition as possible?
Shelly Lundberg, a labor economist who teaches at the University of Washington, studies how families behave. The economy is about time, she says, not money. And as an economist, she takes a dispassionate view.
In other words, she is an apologist for neoliberalism and globalization!
"If you're feeling pressed for time and too busy, well, that's your choice," Lundberg says. "This isn't a poverty-stricken country; there is freedom of action. Time is of the essence . . . And what you spend your time on reflects your values."
I wonder if this could somehow be a case where it is not cost effective for RIAA/MPAA to track down the sharer of a particular file? I mean, they could do track down at least ONE file-sharer and then sue that person. But is just one person being sued serve as a sufficient deterrent to stop many filesharers?
Right now, there are hundreds or even thousands of file sharers being sued (or being threatened, or getting letters etc). That threat serves as a real deterrent. But if it were too costly for them to detect hundreds of file sharers, the threat posed may not deter many people from sharing files. So, if so, then Tor could be a real plus for file sharers.
you wrote: "Why does the person who sits on his ass all day doing nothing deserve as much money as this man? Why does the college drop out pot head deserve as much?
Furthermore, why does anyone *deserve* money? How is it someones 'fair cut' of the juice?"
What about if you own a house; you bought it for $100K in a big city in 1995. You buy it and then the price of homes and of your house go up a lot. Happens a lot a lately.
Or perhaps you inherited it from your parents, who bought it for $100K.
So now, in 2004, it is worth $250K. And you decide to move to a small town outside the big city. You buy some 50 year old run down looking 2 bedroom cottage there for $20K. ANd then you turn around and rent out your big city house for $1000 a month. You go live in your rural cottage and live off of the $1000/month. You decide not to work. You just grow your own weed and smoke it and brew you own beer and drink it. And tend your garden. Nice life, right?
So, now I turn around your own scenario, and your own questions, and ask them of you: "Why does the person who sits on his ass all day doing nothing deserve as much money as this man? Why does the college drop out pot head deserve as much?"
Well, I will tell you why: because you earned it. You worked for it. You own the house. And that is the same reason why each American citizens deserve a nice fat chunk of the wealth of the rich: because they own America. They worked for it, or their ancestors worked for it. They--and we--BUILT America.
In the preamble of the Constitution, it says that America is "for the people and by the people", and that America is to be run in a manner so as to "promote the GENERAL welfare." Now, the Constitution is a document that BY LAW is to be INTERPRETED. That includes the preamble. THe preamble is legally a PART of the Constitution. By law.
My personal interpretation is that the wealthy are RENTING from "we the people," and that they are not paying a fair price on the rent. A lot of other Americans feel the same way.
If my property pays me enough to sit around and smoke and drink beer, then I think that is great. I think EVERY American should be able to sit around for a few years in the prime of their lives and smoke weed and drink beer and tend to the garden. I say that "life is short." If some Americans want to work hard and make money, they can do that, too. Just make sure you pay the landlord. THe more you make, the more of a percentage you pay. It's called progressive taxation. If you get superrich, then your wealth itself should be taxed. We the people OWN America. We make the rules.
Blogs, websites, yeah. Not much tv news for me, though. I don't have cable, so no jon stewart for me. Anyway, he is pretty much a hack himself. He never talks about populist or leftist economics, from what I can tell. He is a "social liberal", not an "economics liberal." He looks at things from a social leftist perspective, i.e., a politically correct perspective.
THat is what is wrong with the democratic party today--they cater to the socially leftist latte-sipping yuppies and yuppie wannabes. Social leftists are all about gay rights, women's rights, affirmative action, abortion rights, tree hugging, war from a social leftist perspective, as opposed to a economics leftist perspective. Yeah, some of the democratic party activists like you see online are both, but the media hardly ever shows that side of it. It is almost all social leftism.
Does Jon Stewart ever mention a wealth tax or progressive taxation? OK, he has a comedy show. not an academic show. But I know that he works socially leftist thought into his show. So why not economic leftist thought? Because he is fairly rich, and economic leftism would take away some of his money?
Anyway, here is the best blog: Zblog! of Znet. Good stuff there!:-)
No, you are the one who is wrong, not me. America is not nearly as much of a "democratic capitalist" regime as you claim. The countries of NW Europe and Canada are far more "democratic capitalist," in that the wealth is more evenly spread around. Neoliberalism is a system that has as its goal the concentration of increasing amounts of wealth dispersed into the hands of a decreasing number of people and corporations. Not too democratic a system, if you ask me....
Slashdot Mirror
I just told you that the SSA is much more efficient than its corporate counterpart, and you respond by manufacturing your on little corporate-loving reality.
joel writes:
Most people aren't so lucky. The very idea that you can "love your job" is a modern concept. Work is supposed to be something unpleasant you do to get money to do the things you actually like doing, when you're 65 and can finally retire, if you can afford it,
It is a "modern concept" only because in the past most people were not as exposed to mass media manipulation that essentially brainwashes them into this sort of plantation culture, where instead of the slavedriving foreman lashing us with whips, we get hit with mass media propaganda, which speads the "love your work" nonsense.
I guess all the programmers over in Europe with their 1500 work years, and the 25-40 hr week and 5 weeks vacation, they must just love their work less. How unfortunate for them. To miss out on all that "love".....
It wouldn;t have anything to do with the fact that their welfare state takes care of them much better than ours, would it?
Corporations are only efficient at the bottom of the hierarchy. THe workers are forced to be efficient or be fired. But all the surpluse gets eaten up by the vampires at the top--CEO's etc.
For example, look at the Social Securiy Administration, which provides medical care administration. It's administration costs are only ONE PERCENT of its total budget. Now, your typical HMO also provides medical care administration, but it has 15% admin costs. It's true that the the HMO is more efficient at the botton, where we workers have to watch ourselves more, or get fired. But the HMO managers make the 15% admin costs with all their perks and bonuses.
The problem is that you and most of AMerica have bought into a bunch of corporate propaganda.
Don't you know that American free enterprise capitalism as exemplified by the Telcos is the best of all possible worlds?
/sarcasm (hey, it's Slashdot!)
What you did in Oregon is COMMUNISM! Traitor!
Excuse me now, I have to pray at my Ayn Rand shrine....
Aint it a thing of beauty?
Yep, that is the way to go. The problem was that the oil industry demonized nuke power back in the 70s. What we need is pro-nuke counter-propaganda.
I have to wonder if this is a part of the telco astroturfing campaign to hurt BPL by citing tsunami ham radio involvement. The telcos will lose billions in windfall profits if they cannot contain competition.
Sorry, but I cannot advocate anything that might hurt the advent of lower priced broadband. Low priced broadband may be the only thing that can rein in rampant neoliberalism and turn the tide towards left anarchism. I see p2p video as the only way to break the de facto monopoly of the establishment media. Yes, of course Ham can help with relief efforts. Ham radio may have saved hundreds of lives during tsunami relief. But so what? There are billions of people on this planet who are losing years of their lives because of lack of idea-communication. Broadband p2p is likely the only way I see to attain grassroots video distribution. Our future is at stake. For that, I would fuck over ham radio in a New York microsecond.
the top tax brackets were as high as 70-90% on all income for much of the mid 20th century. THen the rich started paying off our politicians to cut their top tax rates, and started shifting the burden back onto the bottom of the taxpayers, the working people.
I propose shifting the burden back onto the rich. The working poor should pay tax of no sort. Interest and investment income should be heavily taxed, and the proceeds should be used to pay for healthcare for all. This is more or less what is done in many countries in Europe. Also, all that tax money goes to paying the bills for university and childcare. So we working people can ease our minds. Less stress == higher quality of life.
BTW, just to preempt the rightwingbots, all this has nothing to do with communism. THat is where all property is state owned. There are no taxes in that sort of set up.
Huh? You do know that the word "rich" by definition, by DEFINTION applies only to a small percentage of the population. If that percentage were not small, then they cannot be "rich".
But your attitude is common among most Americans, and maybe even most humans. We seem to throw logic out the window when it comes to our personal chances. But it is also rather peculiar that most of us Americans do not have a firm grasp of the basic definition of "rich". It is strictly a relative thing....
spoken with all the thoughtless and reactionary zeal of one who has been well programmed with all the proper slogans!
Look, ya idjit, no one is mooching off of you. Well, maybe sometimes people do mooch, but the natural state of the human creature is to want to work and have a family. Yes, people do go through phases in life when they do not want to work. And I think that everyone should be able to live off of the state for some time period. This is a good thing that greatly enhanced quality of life, as long as drug or alcohol dependence does not get out of hand. It also lets people be more creative and that helps society in many ways. Maybe in 20 years you will be mooching off of someone who is mooching off of you now.
Look, ya idjit, the vast majority of the tax money comes from the rich investor. But they and the corporations organized together decades ago to create mass media propaganda to make YOU think that everyone is mooching off of you. Well, it's not YOU that is getting taken for most of those taxes, it is the rich investors and multinationals that pay most of it. You may indeed pay high taxes in countries like Germany, Sweden, France, etc., but if you are like the VAST majority of people, you get it back from the state in form of services , etc.
So in order our mass media system has been groomed and evolved to be an outlet for corporate/neoliberal propaganda. This started way back, around World War I and was evolved and bred like an organic organism for decades. You can read about it in some of these links:
Read about the origins of Corporate propaganda and PR
Take the Red Pill to "Escape the Matrix" of neoliberal propaganda!
A book from Stuart Ewen about the origins of corporate propaganda
This one is a little bit "out there"
More about Escaping the Matrix of neoliberal propaganda
More about propaganda and how our society was molded by money around the idea of corporate and govt propaganda
How they do fight back against the forces of money in Denmark
A short history of the struggle between the rich and the rest of us
Same reason I love the hacked version of kazaa!
....know what is good for you, but take the advice of an older person (who was once just as young and stupid as you), and think about what you are saying. Maybe someday you will need some help from your government, and they will be able to help you because of the money they received from the Dog Tax (or some other tax).
Think about it!
we should have had a national ID long ago,but no doubt business lobbies have impeded its development. The longer they can keep importing and exploiting cheap illegal labor, the more money for them, and the more wages are driven down for citizens.
It's criminal, IMHO.
Does Sweden et al allow H1b type programmers etc to come into their country to work like they are allowed here in America? Yes or No?
The best politician in the world right now.....
while the slaves were working in the fields, with the foreman or the Master used to spy on them via telescope. The slacker slaves would get no supper at end of day.
We have come so far here in America.
Look, I know where you are coming from. I had much the same ideas 10 years ago. I hardly know where to start with my reply to you, as it took me 10 years to unlearn all that crap I ingested.
One viewpoint might be to try and see govt as a machine. There are many types of machines, and in my life I have studied, operated and designed many types of machines,from nuclear power plant, to cars, to analog and digital circuits to software systems. Sometimes machines need to be complicated if we want to be able to accomplish a goal.
Another perspective might be to understand that culture may be evolved and formed through outside forces, and that there are forces in this world which may in general gain if you and I lose.
Here ya go. Read these:
one
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
This article is yet another apologist for neoliberalism. See these quotes from the story:
"It's hard to take time off. Competition on a global level -- the company's bottom line and your job -- is fierce.
But WHY is competition so fierce? Why not MAKE our government dampen and control the leverage that competitive forces have on us? Why not adopt some of the lush welfare state facets of the Scandanavian social democracies? If your govt provides a solid welfare state to back you up if you fail, then you do not feel as harsh a grip when it comes to fear of competition. Hey, it works in Europe. France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, etc., they mostly all work an average of 1500 hours a year (mandatory 35 hours weeks and 5-6 week vacations in most of those countries), and if you get fired/laid off, you can get years of unemployment. Competition is less of a threat, also because their trade law are not so....ahem..."free". They do not have the threat of third world IT workers coming at them. Like we do, right?
Why is that? Why do their protect them from the harshest competition, and ours exposes us to as much competition as possible?
Shelly Lundberg, a labor economist who teaches at the University of Washington, studies how families behave. The economy is about time, she says, not money. And as an economist, she takes a dispassionate view.
In other words, she is an apologist for neoliberalism and globalization!
"If you're feeling pressed for time and too busy, well, that's your choice," Lundberg says. "This isn't a poverty-stricken country; there is freedom of action. Time is of the essence . . . And what you spend your time on reflects your values."
In other words, TOUGH IT OUT, slave!
I wonder if this could somehow be a case where it is not cost effective for RIAA/MPAA to track down the sharer of a particular file? I mean, they could do track down at least ONE file-sharer and then sue that person. But is just one person being sued serve as a sufficient deterrent to stop many filesharers?
Right now, there are hundreds or even thousands of file sharers being sued (or being threatened, or getting letters etc). That threat serves as a real deterrent. But if it were too costly for them to detect hundreds of file sharers, the threat posed may not deter many people from sharing files. So, if so, then Tor could be a real plus for file sharers.
heh heh....I think that was the sound of a jet plance whooshing over the heads of most of these slashdotters....
you wrote:
"Why does the person who sits on his ass all day doing nothing deserve as much money as this man? Why does the college drop out pot head deserve as much?
Furthermore, why does anyone *deserve* money? How is it someones 'fair cut' of the juice?"
What about if you own a house; you bought it for $100K in a big city in 1995. You buy it and then the price of homes and of your house go up a lot. Happens a lot a lately.
Or perhaps you inherited it from your parents, who bought it for $100K.
So now, in 2004, it is worth $250K. And you decide to move to a small town outside the big city. You buy some 50 year old run down looking 2 bedroom cottage there for $20K. ANd then you turn around and rent out your big city house for $1000 a month. You go live in your rural cottage and live off of the $1000/month. You decide not to work. You just grow your own weed and smoke it and brew you own beer and drink it. And tend your garden. Nice life, right?
So, now I turn around your own scenario, and your own questions, and ask them of you:
"Why does the person who sits on his ass all day doing nothing deserve as much money as this man? Why does the college drop out pot head deserve as much?"
Well, I will tell you why: because you earned it. You worked for it. You own the house. And that is the same reason why each American citizens deserve a nice fat chunk of the wealth of the rich: because they own America. They worked for it, or their ancestors worked for it. They--and we--BUILT America.
In the preamble of the Constitution, it says that America is "for the people and by the people", and that America is to be run in a manner so as to "promote the GENERAL welfare." Now, the Constitution is a document that BY LAW is to be INTERPRETED. That includes the preamble. THe preamble is legally a PART of the Constitution. By law.
My personal interpretation is that the wealthy are RENTING from "we the people," and that they are not paying a fair price on the rent. A lot of other Americans feel the same way.
If my property pays me enough to sit around and smoke and drink beer, then I think that is great. I think EVERY American should be able to sit around for a few years in the prime of their lives and smoke weed and drink beer and tend to the garden. I say that "life is short." If some Americans want to work hard and make money, they can do that, too. Just make sure you pay the landlord. THe more you make, the more of a percentage you pay. It's called progressive taxation. If you get superrich, then your wealth itself should be taxed. We the people OWN America. We make the rules.
That was the url for zmag itself. Here is the ZBLOG url
Blogs, websites, yeah. Not much tv news for me, though. I don't have cable, so no jon stewart for me. Anyway, he is pretty much a hack himself. He never talks about populist or leftist economics, from what I can tell. He is a "social liberal", not an "economics liberal." He looks at things from a social leftist perspective, i.e., a politically correct perspective.
:-)
THat is what is wrong with the democratic party today--they cater to the socially leftist latte-sipping yuppies and yuppie wannabes. Social leftists are all about gay rights, women's rights, affirmative action, abortion rights, tree hugging, war from a social leftist perspective, as opposed to a economics leftist perspective. Yeah, some of the democratic party activists like you see online are both, but the media hardly ever shows that side of it. It is almost all social leftism.
Does Jon Stewart ever mention a wealth tax or progressive taxation? OK, he has a comedy show. not an academic show. But I know that he works socially leftist thought into his show. So why not economic leftist thought? Because he is fairly rich, and economic leftism would take away some of his money?
Anyway, here is the best blog: Zblog! of Znet. Good stuff there!
No, you are the one who is wrong, not me. America is not nearly as much of a "democratic capitalist" regime as you claim. The countries of NW Europe and Canada are far more "democratic capitalist," in that the wealth is more evenly spread around. Neoliberalism is a system that has as its goal the concentration of increasing amounts of wealth dispersed into the hands of a decreasing number of people and corporations. Not too democratic a system, if you ask me....