In particular, Carbon apps start noticeably faster than Cocoa apps, period.
This, and other comments like it are convincing me that there's an axiom:
"Anyone who ends a sentence with the word "period" doesn't know what they are talking about, and the sentence in question is absolutely false, period."
Really. In my experience, all my carbon apps are slow to launch and Cocoa apps are sometimes slow to launch and sometimes fast to launch.
MY cocoa apps are very fast to launch because I designed them correctly. If you lump everything into one nib file your cocoa app can be slow to launch, but that is a problem with the programmer, not with the design of the app.
I'm not sure what causes Carbon apps to be so slow to launch, but then, I'm not claiming an absolute truth- just what I've observed. Period.
Just get any of the good Cocoa books like "Building Cocoa Applications or the Hilgress book.
They will teach you Objective-C in the early chapters.
Apple puts out a free learning Objective-C book with their development platform.
You don't need to waste time with C becuase you already know java and Objective-C is more like Java than C in use.
Learning C means learning a lot of useless pointer crap that you don't ever use in Objective-C.
I'd say, it will take you no time learning it, and the compiler will catch all the mistakes you're likely to make. (I came from Java, though I'd used C a lot in the past.)
Java is enough like C that you should have an easy time-- just get a cocoa book.
IF you already know C then learning Objective-C will take a week or two. If you know C++ or Java, then learning Objective-C will take a day or two.
Cocoa is, bar none, the best environment to develop applications under, on any platform. Therefore, if you've already chosen the Mac platform for your App, then use Cocoa.
Carbon is there fore backwards compatibility. Some parts of the OS are still carbon, and carbon and cocoa have been "toll free bridged" in places so you can use data structures interchangably. but it is much slower to build an app with carbon than cocoa.
So here's the simple way to answer your question: 1) IF you simply must use Java, or want to eventually run on multiple platforms, use Cocoa-Java (Which is well documented. Get Cocoa Browser to get easy access to the docs.) Use any Cocoa book to learn how to write in cocoa-java, just use the Java APIS instead of the Objective-C ones. Though Java isn't perfectly supported and Objective-C is recommended if you don't HAVE to use Java.
2) IF you have a large application ( greater than 10,000 lines) then it may be better to use carbon. A huge app, like photosohop, it definately makes sense. but any small application would be better off with rewriting the UI using the Appkit and Objective-C and just bringing over the calculation and graphics stuff from the previous version as-is. After all, Objective-C and C code (and even C++ code and Java) can be intermixed.
3) You should never start a new application using Carbon. Carbon is for backwards compatibility. IF you're starting a new application, use Cocoa and you'll save so much time with the superior cocoa apis that the time it took to learn them will be more than made up for.
I had a Java application that I wanted to bring to Mac OS X. I started down the path of Cocoa-Java and quickly realized that objective-c was recommended, so I checked it out and discovered even the fact that I was learning a new language, as well as a bunch of new frameworks, I was getting a lot more work done faster using Objective-C and Cocoa than I have in the past with Java.
Carbon is there for backwards compatibility when it doesn't make sense to rewrite the app. Cocoa-Java is there when you have a JAva app you want to migrate. But Cocoa with Objective-C is the clear, definite, best way to go under Mac OS X.
And anyone who's taken the time to learn it will tell you that it is far superior to the alternatives.
I dread dealing with Carbon APIs now as they invariably turn into time sinks where it seems to tkae 4-8 times as much effort to get something done as it would if there were a cocoa api for the area in question.
The simple fact of the matter is that the school can only afford to support one platform
That is not a fact. That is a cop out from people who are too stupid to do things in a general way-- people who don't know the subject matter, and only know the PRODUCTS.
There's nothing MS specific about programming languages, mathematics, or even office Apps. Colleges that require you to get a PC (instead of a Mac) are not going to teach you anything. They are a waste of money.
There's nothing that they could need to teach taht couldn't be taught on any platform the student chooses.
Which partially explains why business school graudates the country over are idiots. They may not have been born idiots, but they are clearly taught to be.
"Thou shalt not think for thyself".
That sums up the entirety of the US educational system-- with the exception of maybe 6 colleges and 3 high schools in the country.
In my 400 level 'intro to graphics' the professor REQUIRED that we use MS Products for developement.
This person clearly is not competent enough to teach an intro to computers class, let alone a programming class, and certainly not an advanced programming class.
Its unfortunate that you actually paid good money for that class. And you'll realize just how much of a waste it was if you ever go do graphics work in the real world and have to start over from scratch.
Am I omniscient? No, its just that colleges that taught computer science (Except for a very select few) were worthless 10 years ago and they have only been getting worse.
This kind of talk just reaffirms my belief that college is a waste of money in this country.
What you really need to be an engineer is a mode of thinking-- something that colleges don't bother to teach. And what they do teach is a waste of time.
A class that provides VC++ examples is fine. But one that requires you to write "VC++" code rather than C++ code, is a waste of time.
Nothing makes me think an prof is someone who is teaching because he's totally incompetant at the art but not being able to seperate an environment from a language.
This is the kind of idiocy we've grown to expect from airhead bimbo recruiters who think Oracle 8.15 and 0racle 8.14 are totally different products.
Any programming class that requires a specific compiler is a waste of money. Demand your money back and transfer to a better school.
I don't think you're taking into account the full cost of the house. And I'm still pretty certain that rents will not go up %10 a year, and I'm even more positive that you won't see %8.8 appreciation again for a long while-- unless you're in an exceptional situation where there's a sea change in the housing market.
But I was speaking in general. I can believe that the situation is not the same everywhere. It certainly is the case in LA, SF and Seattle, though.
I take it that it is a safe assumption that you are happy with Ford (and GM and Toyota, et al) building the cars we drive, and that you would hate the situation where the federal government had a monopoly on car manufacture, right?
And that the reason that this is the case is that they would not make very good vehicles. Even now they don't even try- they contract with outside entities to make the cars the government uses.
So, why then, should the government have a monopoly on education? One where everyone has to pay, whether the schools are good or they even have children?
Why not let the schools compete on quality and price?
Just like the better cars and better car prices we get with private car manufacture, we'd get better schools and better school costs-- and if anyone didn't like it, they could educate their kids at home, or form a local collective of parents to educate their kids-- both of which is illegal right now. (Homeschoolers have to jump thru lots of hoops and essentially, the schools still get funded for educating their kids even though the kids are homeschooled!)
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You are clearly confused. My parents are not pissing away money, they are managing it wisely. They helped me with college, but they didn't give me a free ride. That was the right thing to do. and I will be there when they need me in retirement, though somehow they probably won't need me for a long time.
That you have 401ks and mutual funds is not justification for claiming enron has damaged you, unless you owned enron stocks. Enron didn't bring down the market, and over the long term the market is doing great, and will continue to do so.
I think enron is an excuse to exercise the bigotry against corporations that many of todays neo-marxists exercise. Ignorant of economics they point to one criminal and exclaim this justifies and oppressive, fascist political ideology, ignoring the hundred million people killed by this ideology and the wholesale fraud that Social Security is. You and I both are being forced to contribute to social security and that fraud DOES affect us directly yet I hear democrats whining about enron while they ignore the fact that their party has raided the social security trust.
If you don't like your income, go work somewhere else. Its a free country. Take care of your kids, great. Don't whine that your parents didn't take care of you as you would like-- you have the choice to rectify that situation with your kids.
But to claim that everyone has some claim on their parents money is absurd.
Where did this sense of entitlement come from? You think life is supposed to be easy? You thin the world owes you something?
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t is far better we begin to address the crux of the problem, which is the impunity with which corporations, governments, and other groups can use indoctrination and conditioning techniques via our media and brainwash the public, with little restraint and no accountability for the direct and measurable consiquences of that behavior,
Here's part of the problem. You are making conclusive statements without providing any reason or evidence to believe them.
In the face of this you will have trouble overcoming the objective fact of free will.
If you want to succeed in making your argument, I think you need to provide the facts evidence and reason behind it-- taking as an assumption that this theory of yours is fact and then proceeding to tell us to open our eyes is not going to work.
After all, we're not easily brainwashed.
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You're correct that you are not responsible for actions you take by force-- whether it is the gun to your head that makes you pay taxes, or the fraud of someone who deceives you.
But I think you cannot make the argument that advertising forces you to buy products. Or that people who buy products that deliver on their promises, but weren't the wisest choice for that person, are somehow not responsible for the purchase because the product was advertised.
I think that's kinda silly, and reflective of the attitude of irresponsibility that is behind the socialism that much of our society has embraced.
In short, I think it is a cop-out. I've made bad financial decisions in my life, but I think it would be stupid to say that I did so because I was brainwashed-- I did so either out of ignorance or poor thinking, or poor prioritizing. But I bear the full responsibility for them because I was not defrauded, nor was I forced to do so-- I merely erred. And my errors are my responsibility. Not some guy on madison avenue who thought up a clever advertisement.
You have a high bar to reach to show brainwashing-- a term you chose-- and if you are going to claim your position is based on science, you need to provide some science that shows that this advertising removes free will. A very difficult proposition indeed.
Yes, it is the monopoly of unions that I oppose. I didn't realize you were not in the US, I apologize.
Here they have collective bargaining agreements which are state enforced laws preventing people from working outside the agreement. This violates human rights.
Nobody has a "right" to be employed-- the way I see it, any company that wants to have as a policy that women who become pregnant loose their jobs has the right to have that policy. There is a fundamental human right involved- and that is fredom of association, which says that you can employ who you want when you want. There is no fundamental human right to have a kid and still get paid for it.
If people- and I mean companies and employees-- want to support women having kids, they can have alternative employment terms. but any country that enacts that as a law (As yours has and as the US has) is an oppressive, anti-human rights country in that regard.
These things you talk about as good things, I will concede are good things, but they are not human rights-- one simple test is that anything that violates a human right is not a human right.
The "cannot fire" rule that you advocate IS symmetric with a "cannot quit" rule. There are two parties and asking one to give up rights should require the other to give up a comperable right.
Your thinking is biased by the perception that companies are "Rich" and therefore owe people something (I'm assuming)... and that is why you think they are not symmetric, but what if your employer is just a guy-- say you're a mechanic and he has a garage. Does he not have the right to fire you, but you can leave him in the lurch (Say you're starting your own garage)?
I completely reject the idea (that I think you were making) that there's some societal need or requirement that forces companies to have a certain employment policy. All employement is at will, unless mutually agreed upon otherwise.
3months pay for a car? Hell, 6 months is probably fine.
Its just most people spend an absurd amount on their car. buying well, and keeping what you buy for 20 years may be worth the investment, rather than spending $500 every 2 years to replace the $500 care you bought.
I think you're wrong on the house. I've had this argument a lot with people, and I don't think you've fully calculated the cost of owning the house (gotta buy furniture now!) and until you sell the house, we can't know how long you'll keep it (Thgouh I think my calculation was based on keeping it 15 years.).
Remember, housing has had a boom. ITs appreciated value is probably not its real fair market value. There are people in this town who thought they'd come into $100,000 windfalls when their houses got appraised that high. They got mortgages on that money and spent it on fun stuff in the boom times, then lost their jobs and LOST THEIR HOUSES when they sold them for $100,000 less than they financed them for when they couldn't make thier payments-- and so not only do they not have a house or a job, but they still owe the bank $100,000.
There's been a mini epidemic of this scenario here.
Don't count those appreciation chickens... wait a few years and see what the appreciation really is. It will probably be %3-5. THAT is what makes the house not as good a deal-- you get the tax break, plus you get that appreciation on the total value of the house (Rather than the ammount you have "invested" with your mortgage payment) but houses beat inflation by a bit, and the stock market beats it by quite a lot.
You've already bought a house- so my goal isn't to convince you not to buy one, but to NOT SELL the one you have, untill you've been there over 10 years, and preferably well over 10 years.
Most of your payment right now goes to the interest and not your equity.
Sometimes I wish I had a house, but I have an alternative- similar to the mobile home, but I'm actually 45 minutes CLOSER to the jobs than I was with the apartments-- I'm living for less than half the average apartment rent in an area where I own the "mobile home" but rent the space its stored on and my commute went down by 45 minutes compared to the apartment I used to live in. Creative thinking can save you a LOT of money.
Odds are, that is not the case. Comparing like properties are we?
Anyway, yes, you should. You should get a smaller apartment and invest the difference.
After all, your mortgage payments are going down a rathole as well-- you'll receive no return on that money if you stay in the house the average length of time and were to buy today (Because real estate prices are in the process of crashing.)
Well given that the article you pointed to does not know what libertarianism is, I find it questionable the assertion that you used to be one.
The truth is, if you want to elimiante poverty, the best way to do it is to create jobs. India has done more by selecting a free market in the last 20 years than any other event in human history to eliminate poverty. Doubling the average income of a billion people-- and most of the worlds poor- is an amazing feat.
So, who screwed up your thinking when you turned 15?
Let me put it to you this way: Can you name a single government program that returns a good service or solution to a given problem? Cost effective and of high quality as well? Can you name one.
I think I can name one if I work on it, but given the tens of thousands of government programs at all levels -from state colleges and local kindergartens to the US Military- its amazing how low the percentage of them there is that get anything decent done at a reasonable cost.
I love Wall Street- one of my favorite Stone movies. And I love Stone. I loved him when I was a liberal, and I love him still now that I'm a classical liberal and have rejected most of his politics. He's still a good director.
But Gordon Gekko was correct.
Greed, for lack of a better word is good. Greed works. It clarifies the mind and focuses you on what is truly important.
Gekko and the corporate villians right now both suffered from the problem of fraud.
Fraud is, and always has been, illegal and immoral.
Do not confuse Greed and the profit motive with fraud.
That is the liberal propaganda I find so repugnant. That just because there are criminals who used accounting tricks to steal money, all of us should give up human rights and join hands in a collective workers paradise? Please. Its typical illogic.
I find just as much repugnant about republicans, but they are a lot more honest about it. They just say "we hate gays cause god tells us to". I can respect that position as stupid as it is. At least they aren't seriously spreading lies about gays and trying to drum up hatred that way.
Liberalism, in this day and age, has become the party of bigotry. Only since its bigotry against the rich, its politically correct and therefore its ok to lie. (Look at the claim that the Bush tax cut was "for the rich" despite the fact that it cut the taxes on the poor by %33 and on the rich by %5.)
Oh, and the only way parents can take an active role in education is by paying for, and thus demanding, good educational service. By putting their kids in the school of their choice, and by choosing themselves how thier kids will be educated. Not be a state run monopoly on schools designed to reward mediocrity and conformity and punish excellence.
Somehow I suspect that the argument boils down to "Anyone who sells a hamburger for more than it cost to make it is stealing the difference" or "Anyone who makes more form your labor than they pay you is stealing the difference".
Interesting that these two equally held marxist beliefs are directly contradictory.
No, I haven't worked at McDs. However, I find it very difficult to believe that they are paying less than minimum wage.
That said, even using YOUR numbers (and not the higher minimum wage in this state) I have lived at that income level (actually $20 a month more, but then, at that time I was traveling around the country eating out most nights and paying for hotel rooms occasionally, etc.)
Hell, I could live on that an SAVE $200 a month towards retirement, and I live in one of the most expensive cities on the west coast. (And I'm not even using the real number here- given that our minimum wage set by the state is higher and that managers at the local McDs make even more.)
Had a girlfriend who was making $11 an hour managing a Texaco and she was saving money every month...even after paying our really high cost of living expenses.
I'm not saying its easy-- I've already spent the money on my car, and have engineered a very low cost of living lifestyle by comparison to my peers... but then, if you aren't making the money,you shouldn't be living a high lifestyle anyway.
And $9,360 is better than $0, and will slow down the drain on your savings. IF you only get 30 hours a week that leaves at least 20 to be looking for a better job.
Slashdot Mirror
While a OS is more than a kernel (as RMS will gladly point out)
But an "Operating System" without a kernel is NOT an operating system, and that's why RMS doesn't get any respect anymore.
In particular, Carbon apps start noticeably faster than Cocoa apps, period.
This, and other comments like it are convincing me that there's an axiom:
"Anyone who ends a sentence with the word "period" doesn't know what they are talking about, and the sentence in question is absolutely false, period."
Really. In my experience, all my carbon apps are slow to launch and Cocoa apps are sometimes slow to launch and sometimes fast to launch.
MY cocoa apps are very fast to launch because I designed them correctly. If you lump everything into one nib file your cocoa app can be slow to launch, but that is a problem with the programmer, not with the design of the app.
I'm not sure what causes Carbon apps to be so slow to launch, but then, I'm not claiming an absolute truth- just what I've observed. Period.
Just get any of the good Cocoa books like "Building Cocoa Applications or the Hilgress book.
They will teach you Objective-C in the early chapters.
Apple puts out a free learning Objective-C book with their development platform.
You don't need to waste time with C becuase you already know java and Objective-C is more like Java than C in use.
Learning C means learning a lot of useless pointer crap that you don't ever use in Objective-C.
I'd say, it will take you no time learning it, and the compiler will catch all the mistakes you're likely to make. (I came from Java, though I'd used C a lot in the past.)
Java is enough like C that you should have an easy time-- just get a cocoa book.
IF you already know C then learning Objective-C will take a week or two. If you know C++ or Java, then learning Objective-C will take a day or two.
Cocoa is, bar none, the best environment to develop applications under, on any platform. Therefore, if you've already chosen the Mac platform for your App, then use Cocoa.
Carbon is there fore backwards compatibility. Some parts of the OS are still carbon, and carbon and cocoa have been "toll free bridged" in places so you can use data structures interchangably. but it is much slower to build an app with carbon than cocoa.
So here's the simple way to answer your question:
1) IF you simply must use Java, or want to eventually run on multiple platforms, use Cocoa-Java (Which is well documented. Get Cocoa Browser to get easy access to the docs.) Use any Cocoa book to learn how to write in cocoa-java, just use the Java APIS instead of the Objective-C ones. Though Java isn't perfectly supported and Objective-C is recommended if you don't HAVE to use Java.
2) IF you have a large application ( greater than 10,000 lines) then it may be better to use carbon. A huge app, like photosohop, it definately makes sense. but any small application would be better off with rewriting the UI using the Appkit and Objective-C and just bringing over the calculation and graphics stuff from the previous version as-is. After all, Objective-C and C code (and even C++ code and Java) can be intermixed.
3) You should never start a new application using Carbon. Carbon is for backwards compatibility. IF you're starting a new application, use Cocoa and you'll save so much time with the superior cocoa apis that the time it took to learn them will be more than made up for.
I had a Java application that I wanted to bring to Mac OS X. I started down the path of Cocoa-Java and quickly realized that objective-c was recommended, so I checked it out and discovered even the fact that I was learning a new language, as well as a bunch of new frameworks, I was getting a lot more work done faster using Objective-C and Cocoa than I have in the past with Java.
Carbon is there for backwards compatibility when it doesn't make sense to rewrite the app. Cocoa-Java is there when you have a JAva app you want to migrate. But Cocoa with Objective-C is the clear, definite, best way to go under Mac OS X.
And anyone who's taken the time to learn it will tell you that it is far superior to the alternatives.
I dread dealing with Carbon APIs now as they invariably turn into time sinks where it seems to tkae 4-8 times as much effort to get something done as it would if there were a cocoa api for the area in question.
Go Cocoa/Objective-C.
The simple fact of the matter is that the school can only afford to support one platform
That is not a fact. That is a cop out from people who are too stupid to do things in a general way-- people who don't know the subject matter, and only know the PRODUCTS.
There's nothing MS specific about programming languages, mathematics, or even office Apps. Colleges that require you to get a PC (instead of a Mac) are not going to teach you anything. They are a waste of money.
There's nothing that they could need to teach taht couldn't be taught on any platform the student chooses.
He defines "Free software" as "nobody should be allowed to make any money on any software, ever".
Free as in totalitarian.
Fortunately, most developers have enough self esteem to not fall for this totalitarianism wrapping itself in the word freedom.
No, its just a good rule of thumb:
Any "Educator" who teaches a programming classes and requires a specific compiler is an incompetent idiot and you should not believe a word he says.
Anyone who was competent would teach the LANGUAGE and not the PRODUCT.
Which partially explains why business school graudates the country over are idiots. They may not have been born idiots, but they are clearly taught to be.
"Thou shalt not think for thyself".
That sums up the entirety of the US educational system-- with the exception of maybe 6 colleges and 3 high schools in the country.
$6
How many copies can you buy? If you're not limited, I'd buy 100.
These will certainly sell for $20 on ebay.
In my 400 level 'intro to graphics' the professor REQUIRED that we use MS Products for developement.
This person clearly is not competent enough to teach an intro to computers class, let alone a programming class, and certainly not an advanced programming class.
Its unfortunate that you actually paid good money for that class. And you'll realize just how much of a waste it was if you ever go do graphics work in the real world and have to start over from scratch.
Am I omniscient? No, its just that colleges that taught computer science (Except for a very select few) were worthless 10 years ago and they have only been getting worse.
My CS 171 course is taught using solely VC++
This kind of talk just reaffirms my belief that college is a waste of money in this country.
What you really need to be an engineer is a mode of thinking-- something that colleges don't bother to teach. And what they do teach is a waste of time.
A class that provides VC++ examples is fine. But one that requires you to write "VC++" code rather than C++ code, is a waste of time.
Nothing makes me think an prof is someone who is teaching because he's totally incompetant at the art but not being able to seperate an environment from a language.
This is the kind of idiocy we've grown to expect from airhead bimbo recruiters who think Oracle 8.15 and 0racle 8.14 are totally different products.
Any programming class that requires a specific compiler is a waste of money. Demand your money back and transfer to a better school.
I don't think you're taking into account the full cost of the house. And I'm still pretty certain that rents will not go up %10 a year, and I'm even more positive that you won't see %8.8 appreciation again for a long while-- unless you're in an exceptional situation where there's a sea change in the housing market.
But I was speaking in general. I can believe that the situation is not the same everywhere. It certainly is the case in LA, SF and Seattle, though.
And in fact, those that sold power were forbidden from generating it themselves.
Which means if they didn't like the market prices, they couldn't generate their own power.
Talk about a regulated industry!
That anti-free market people always trot this out shows to me that their entire ideology is built on a set of lies.
I take it that it is a safe assumption that you are happy with Ford (and GM and Toyota, et al) building the cars we drive, and that you would hate the situation where the federal government had a monopoly on car manufacture, right?
And that the reason that this is the case is that they would not make very good vehicles. Even now they don't even try- they contract with outside entities to make the cars the government uses.
So, why then, should the government have a monopoly on education? One where everyone has to pay, whether the schools are good or they even have children?
Why not let the schools compete on quality and price?
Just like the better cars and better car prices we get with private car manufacture, we'd get better schools and better school costs-- and if anyone didn't like it, they could educate their kids at home, or form a local collective of parents to educate their kids-- both of which is illegal right now. (Homeschoolers have to jump thru lots of hoops and essentially, the schools still get funded for educating their kids even though the kids are homeschooled!)
You are clearly confused. My parents are not pissing away money, they are managing it wisely. They helped me with college, but they didn't give me a free ride. That was the right thing to do. and I will be there when they need me in retirement, though somehow they probably won't need me for a long time.
That you have 401ks and mutual funds is not justification for claiming enron has damaged you, unless you owned enron stocks. Enron didn't bring down the market, and over the long term the market is doing great, and will continue to do so.
I think enron is an excuse to exercise the bigotry against corporations that many of todays neo-marxists exercise. Ignorant of economics they point to one criminal and exclaim this justifies and oppressive, fascist political ideology, ignoring the hundred million people killed by this ideology and the wholesale fraud that Social Security is. You and I both are being forced to contribute to social security and that fraud DOES affect us directly yet I hear democrats whining about enron while they ignore the fact that their party has raided the social security trust.
If you don't like your income, go work somewhere else. Its a free country. Take care of your kids, great. Don't whine that your parents didn't take care of you as you would like-- you have the choice to rectify that situation with your kids.
But to claim that everyone has some claim on their parents money is absurd.
Where did this sense of entitlement come from? You think life is supposed to be easy? You thin the world owes you something?
t is far better we begin to address the crux of the problem, which is the impunity with which corporations, governments, and other groups can use indoctrination and conditioning techniques via our media and brainwash the public, with little restraint and no accountability for the direct and measurable consiquences of that behavior,
Here's part of the problem. You are making conclusive statements without providing any reason or evidence to believe them.
In the face of this you will have trouble overcoming the objective fact of free will.
If you want to succeed in making your argument, I think you need to provide the facts evidence and reason behind it-- taking as an assumption that this theory of yours is fact and then proceeding to tell us to open our eyes is not going to work.
After all, we're not easily brainwashed.
You're correct that you are not responsible for actions you take by force-- whether it is the gun to your head that makes you pay taxes, or the fraud of someone who deceives you.
But I think you cannot make the argument that advertising forces you to buy products. Or that people who buy products that deliver on their promises, but weren't the wisest choice for that person, are somehow not responsible for the purchase because the product was advertised.
I think that's kinda silly, and reflective of the attitude of irresponsibility that is behind the socialism that much of our society has embraced.
In short, I think it is a cop-out. I've made bad financial decisions in my life, but I think it would be stupid to say that I did so because I was brainwashed-- I did so either out of ignorance or poor thinking, or poor prioritizing. But I bear the full responsibility for them because I was not defrauded, nor was I forced to do so-- I merely erred. And my errors are my responsibility. Not some guy on madison avenue who thought up a clever advertisement.
You have a high bar to reach to show brainwashing-- a term you chose-- and if you are going to claim your position is based on science, you need to provide some science that shows that this advertising removes free will. A very difficult proposition indeed.
Yes, it is the monopoly of unions that I oppose. I didn't realize you were not in the US, I apologize.
Here they have collective bargaining agreements which are state enforced laws preventing people from working outside the agreement. This violates human rights.
Nobody has a "right" to be employed-- the way I see it, any company that wants to have as a policy that women who become pregnant loose their jobs has the right to have that policy. There is a fundamental human right involved- and that is fredom of association, which says that you can employ who you want when you want. There is no fundamental human right to have a kid and still get paid for it.
If people- and I mean companies and employees-- want to support women having kids, they can have alternative employment terms. but any country that enacts that as a law (As yours has and as the US has) is an oppressive, anti-human rights country in that regard.
These things you talk about as good things, I will concede are good things, but they are not human rights-- one simple test is that anything that violates a human right is not a human right.
The "cannot fire" rule that you advocate IS symmetric with a "cannot quit" rule. There are two parties and asking one to give up rights should require the other to give up a comperable right.
Your thinking is biased by the perception that companies are "Rich" and therefore owe people something (I'm assuming)... and that is why you think they are not symmetric, but what if your employer is just a guy-- say you're a mechanic and he has a garage. Does he not have the right to fire you, but you can leave him in the lurch (Say you're starting your own garage)?
I completely reject the idea (that I think you were making) that there's some societal need or requirement that forces companies to have a certain employment policy. All employement is at will, unless mutually agreed upon otherwise.
3months pay for a car? Hell, 6 months is probably fine.
Its just most people spend an absurd amount on their car. buying well, and keeping what you buy for 20 years may be worth the investment, rather than spending $500 every 2 years to replace the $500 care you bought.
I think you're wrong on the house. I've had this argument a lot with people, and I don't think you've fully calculated the cost of owning the house (gotta buy furniture now!) and until you sell the house, we can't know how long you'll keep it (Thgouh I think my calculation was based on keeping it 15 years.).
Remember, housing has had a boom. ITs appreciated value is probably not its real fair market value. There are people in this town who thought they'd come into $100,000 windfalls when their houses got appraised that high. They got mortgages on that money and spent it on fun stuff in the boom times, then lost their jobs and LOST THEIR HOUSES when they sold them for $100,000 less than they financed them for when they couldn't make thier payments-- and so not only do they not have a house or a job, but they still owe the bank $100,000.
There's been a mini epidemic of this scenario here.
Don't count those appreciation chickens... wait a few years and see what the appreciation really is. It will probably be %3-5. THAT is what makes the house not as good a deal-- you get the tax break, plus you get that appreciation on the total value of the house (Rather than the ammount you have "invested" with your mortgage payment) but houses beat inflation by a bit, and the stock market beats it by quite a lot.
You've already bought a house- so my goal isn't to convince you not to buy one, but to NOT SELL the one you have, untill you've been there over 10 years, and preferably well over 10 years.
Most of your payment right now goes to the interest and not your equity.
Sometimes I wish I had a house, but I have an alternative- similar to the mobile home, but I'm actually 45 minutes CLOSER to the jobs than I was with the apartments-- I'm living for less than half the average apartment rent in an area where I own the "mobile home" but rent the space its stored on and my commute went down by 45 minutes compared to the apartment I used to live in. Creative thinking can save you a LOT of money.
That's funny, I don't consider $400 a month to be "nothing". I could live on that.
You are employed. Please send $400 a month to me, since you won't miss it, right?
Odds are, that is not the case. Comparing like properties are we?
Anyway, yes, you should. You should get a smaller apartment and invest the difference.
After all, your mortgage payments are going down a rathole as well-- you'll receive no return on that money if you stay in the house the average length of time and were to buy today (Because real estate prices are in the process of crashing.)
Well given that the article you pointed to does not know what libertarianism is, I find it questionable the assertion that you used to be one.
The truth is, if you want to elimiante poverty, the best way to do it is to create jobs. India has done more by selecting a free market in the last 20 years than any other event in human history to eliminate poverty. Doubling the average income of a billion people-- and most of the worlds poor- is an amazing feat.
So, who screwed up your thinking when you turned 15?
Best post I've seen from you ever.
Let me put it to you this way: Can you name a single government program that returns a good service or solution to a given problem? Cost effective and of high quality as well? Can you name one.
I think I can name one if I work on it, but given the tens of thousands of government programs at all levels -from state colleges and local kindergartens to the US Military- its amazing how low the percentage of them there is that get anything decent done at a reasonable cost.
I love Wall Street- one of my favorite Stone movies. And I love Stone. I loved him when I was a liberal, and I love him still now that I'm a classical liberal and have rejected most of his politics. He's still a good director.
But Gordon Gekko was correct.
Greed, for lack of a better word is good.
Greed works.
It clarifies the mind and focuses you on what is truly important.
Gekko and the corporate villians right now both suffered from the problem of fraud.
Fraud is, and always has been, illegal and immoral.
Do not confuse Greed and the profit motive with fraud.
That is the liberal propaganda I find so repugnant. That just because there are criminals who used accounting tricks to steal money, all of us should give up human rights and join hands in a collective workers paradise? Please. Its typical illogic.
I find just as much repugnant about republicans, but they are a lot more honest about it. They just say "we hate gays cause god tells us to". I can respect that position as stupid as it is. At least they aren't seriously spreading lies about gays and trying to drum up hatred that way.
Liberalism, in this day and age, has become the party of bigotry. Only since its bigotry against the rich, its politically correct and therefore its ok to lie. (Look at the claim that the Bush tax cut was "for the rich" despite the fact that it cut the taxes on the poor by %33 and on the rich by %5.)
Oh, and the only way parents can take an active role in education is by paying for, and thus demanding, good educational service. By putting their kids in the school of their choice, and by choosing themselves how thier kids will be educated. Not be a state run monopoly on schools designed to reward mediocrity and conformity and punish excellence.
Somehow I suspect that the argument boils down to "Anyone who sells a hamburger for more than it cost to make it is stealing the difference" or "Anyone who makes more form your labor than they pay you is stealing the difference".
Interesting that these two equally held marxist beliefs are directly contradictory.
No, I haven't worked at McDs. However, I find it very difficult to believe that they are paying less than minimum wage.
That said, even using YOUR numbers (and not the higher minimum wage in this state) I have lived at that income level (actually $20 a month more, but then, at that time I was traveling around the country eating out most nights and paying for hotel rooms occasionally, etc.)
Hell, I could live on that an SAVE $200 a month towards retirement, and I live in one of the most expensive cities on the west coast. (And I'm not even using the real number here- given that our minimum wage set by the state is higher and that managers at the local McDs make even more.)
Had a girlfriend who was making $11 an hour managing a Texaco and she was saving money every month...even after paying our really high cost of living expenses.
I'm not saying its easy-- I've already spent the money on my car, and have engineered a very low cost of living lifestyle by comparison to my peers... but then, if you aren't making the money
And $9,360 is better than $0, and will slow down the drain on your savings. IF you only get 30 hours a week that leaves at least 20 to be looking for a better job.
My point stands.