"..the second largest sport.."?!? Clearly, you've never been to Canada!
The popularity of lacrosse is many, many orders of magnitude below the popularity of hockey. When was the last time 100,000 people gathered in any Canadian downtown to watch the lacrosse finals? When did a Canadian city put up giant screens all over the city to broadcast the lacrosse playoffs? I can't even name a single lacrosse team, or tell you where they play or when their season runs. I think they used to have a team in Vancouver years ago. They used to have an NBA team too (the Grizzlies) but they couldn't compete for the entertainment dollars with hockey - not even close, in fact. They do not show lacrosse highlights on sports shows. I suppose there may be people in Toronto who are familiar with it, given they don't have a hockey, baseball or basketball team (well, none that win, anyway)...
Other than tax value, your comment applies equally to most currencies I'm aware of, including the US dollar and the Euro: no intrinsic value (they are, after all, fiat currencies) and no guaranteed exchange rate (the rate fluctuates and isn't "guaranteed" in any way). Exceptions would be currencies pegged to other currencies, but that's by far a minority of all currencies.
"Utah just became the first US state to recognize gold as legal tender. Its Legal Tender Act of 2011 allows U.S. minted gold and silver coins to be recognized as legal tender in the value that reflects the market price for gold and silver.
“If the federal government isn’t going to do it, then we here in Utah ought to be able to establish a monetary system that would survive a crash if and when that happens,” Lowell Nelson, interim coordinator for the Campaign for Liberty in Utah, told NYTimes.
Craig Franco, a coin dealer south of Salt Lake City, said he’s preparing to create a Visa credit card based on gold depositories that would allow people to more conveniently use gold as tender."
All anti-immigration laws are nothing but protectionist policy to restrict the free trade of labor for the purpose of artificially inflating the standard of living in the particular country. If everyone was permitted to sell their labor anywhere at a price of their free choosing, the standard of living would go down in the short and possibly medium term (but not the long term).
What, precisely, is "unhealthy" about moderate caffeine intake? Last I saw, humans who consume caffeine perform better on memory tests, have better athletic performance and may have less incidence of prostate cancer...
Well, a consequence of simplifying the tax code significantly is that you'll then have the multi-billion dollar tax preparation/tax accountants/tax lawyers complaining about all the unemployment that will cause and the harm it will do to their livelihood. The whole thing is firmly entrenched at this point. I too find it utterly bizarre that it is damn near impossible for many people with anything but the simplest of investments and income streams to prepare their own taxes! There are far, far too many people with a deep interest in keeping the complexity for it to ever get simpler. Scrapping the whole thing and instituting a single consumption tax would be the simplest (and arguably fairest) way to go.
Yup - that's exactly correct: prices rise as a consequence of these subsidies. I remember analyzing apartment rental costs by cost per square foot and comparing the most lavish apartments with small, 10' X 10' rooms in welfare rooming houses. The owner of the rooming house makes one hell of a lot more money per square foot than the highest of upscale apartment building owners - the price is set by the government and the rooming house owners jack up the price accordingly, while the tenants don't care because they're not paying anyway, and the housing part of their welfare is only payable to the landlord, so they do not benefit from any competition in the housing-for-poor-people space in any case. It is difficult to find a single subsidy of any sort which actually serves to benefit the people for which it ostensibly was created (altho in the example above, it makes a lot of slum lords very wealthy, and they needn't bother with minor inconveniences like maintenance or upgrades or pest control).
Every single item in a tax return outside the box where one's gross income is entered is simply an attempt to skew things in favor of one pet group or another, and it has become so complicated and overlapping that it's damn near irreversible: no matter what you do now, a ton of people with state-supplied senses of entitlement, finely honed over decades of dependence such that it seems normal to get a break to which your neighbor is not entitled, will protest loudly.
There really is no such thing as "corporate tax", in that it simply flows thru the corporations and gets built into the price. So really it's just another consumption tax (altho consumption taxes are arguably the fairest of all taxes). Those who push for "corporate taxes" seem to think it acts as a tax on the profit margins of the corporations, however it all just gets passed along, just like any other expense.
Really, corporations are just funnels for money: revenue comes in and is spent on salaries and overhead and cost of production etc., and whatever is left is typically either invested in the business (creating more wealth and jobs) or paid as dividends to shareholders (read: primarily your pension fund or mutual fund or your union's pension, etc). Very few corporations hoard cash, because it is decidedly inefficient (there's an exception to this currently, when corporations can borrow money extremely cheaply (effectively at zero percent real interest - maybe even negative real interest) and either invest it or wait for better rates - if the government really wants to stimulate the economy (and if that's what a government should be in the business of, which is certainly arguable), they need to raise the interest rates - that will get a ton of money off the sidelines (but that's another topic entirely)).
I'll agree with your first point: there are plenty of places where $137K isn't much at all. I've lived in several.
On the matter of it being "fair" to tax the "wealthy" at a higher rate (bearing in mind that, were they taxed at the same rate, a person making ten times more would already pay ten times more tax), if you consider the matter of income disparity a reflection of productivity (I'm open to debate on the point, altho I lean more toward that indeed being the case: we "vote" with our dollars every time we purchase a good or service (except when we purchase government, which is an involuntary monopoly, of which failure to purchase results in jail)), then you are disproportionately penalizing the most productive for the benefit of the least productive. Just because you say it is "easier" for the person in your example who makes $1M to pay a crazy proportion of that in taxes, doesn't mean it is fair.
Good point. In fact, every time the capital gains tax has been reduced, revenue has increased.
Also, the top 2% of earners in the US pay 43.6% of all federal income tax (while earning 24.1% of all income) while the bottom 50% pay 3.3% (while earning 13.4% of all income). The top 5% of earners (which equates to an average income of $137,056) pay a whopping 57.1% of all federal income taxes. Think of that next time you come across the "rich don't pay their fair share" folks preaching to the sheeple.
Thanks, sincerely, for the laugh - I needed that this morning!
In case you aren't aware (which quite apparently you aren't), the entire population of the earth could fit into the state of Texas with plenty of elbow room. There are more than enough resources, too (including food) to go around. Now distribution, that's another matter: the fiction of borders and the lack of free trade certainly means that not everyone has access to what they need. But there's plenty to go around.
I'm always surprised by the use of the term "net neutrality" as a synonym for "net regulation", which is what we're really talking about here.
I appreciate that bandwidth throttling, or the prospect of a "two-tiered" net, are disturbing propositions (or in the case of bandwidth throttling, a reality). I'm simply not convinced that governmental involvement will make things better rather than worse. Having things rest in the hands of regulators and politicians, who actively support such things as MPAA/RIAA/DMCA without generally understanding the implications and unintended consequences, and making "net neutrality" subject to the effects of lobbying, etc. doesn't seem like a superior outcome vs letting the market (ie freedom) decide things.
There are plenty of things which are objectionable or inconvenient or sub-optimal to particular groups of people. That does not necessarily mean that such things must be regulated or legislated, because regulation and legislation are utterly blunt instruments best left in the toolbox except for otherwise profoundly unsolvable problems.
I lived in Vancouver until 6 months ago, in the Coal Harbour area that is shown in the pictures (neither picture shows Olympic Village, which is on the other side of the peninsula and which they are having a very tough time selling). The vast majority of people in downtown Vancouver/West End rent. I used to have all the data, but if I recall, in the West End, about 85% of people rent. In Coal Harbour, which is just off the West End (and a stunning neighbourhood), that percentage is lower (maybe 50%). Rent for a one bedroom apartment (~550 sq ft - all the apartments are tiny in Vancouver) on the 12th floor with a view of Stanley Park, the marina and the North Shore mountains was $1,200/mo., $50 of which was for my parking spot, which is really quite reasonable.
But the point is valid: Vancouver is a _very_ expensive place to live. Average percentage of take home pay spent on housing in Vancouver is 76%, if I recall, compared to 36% in Toronto. Condos in Toronto, right in the heart of the city, are available at a price equivalent to the down payment on a condo in Vancouver.
I saw that crackshackormansion site some time ago - it shows single detached houses, one at a time, and asks the viewer to decide whether each was a crack house or a million dollar house in Vancouver. It was an extremely difficult challenge, because a million doesn't get one much in the city. It's all just supply and demand: the city is breathtakingly beautiful, and it sits on a peninsula, so the only way to build is up or east, thus constricting supply. It's made worse by the fact the city has not permitted buildings taller than 35 storeys until very recently, when Wall Centre (42 storeys) and the Shangri-La (60 storeys) went up.
Your comment about 2 acres of green space seems ill-informed: ever heard of Stanley Park? It's 1,001 acres in the heart of the city.
Well, for one, I don't want stacks and stacks of CDs. Secondly, it seems ridiculous to me to buy some physical thing when its virtual counterpart is available (and is so much more convenient). Thirdly, the labor involved in buying the CD, getting it home, inserting the disc, then ripping the particular songs I want represents time I can better spend doing something else (like productively reading/.) Fourthly, as someone else has pointed out, it's pretty rare that I want every single song on a CD, and it's often a deep track I like, which isn't available as a CD single (I've never bought a CD single). CDs (and cassettes before them and records before that and 8-tracks before that...) work like cable TV: you are forced to buy a bunch of shit to get the small bit of non-shit you actually want. The digital individual song model has punched a hole through that.
I suspect the real reason music distributors don't use FLAC or other open source formats is one of liability: rather than concern themselves with possible patent violations, they would much rather distribute a format for which a license has been paid, which thereby serves to transfer the risk of a patent violation to the company collecting the licensing fees.
If you sell your labor/knowledge/etc, then you are aiming to make a profit. That's no different than a company (which, like soylent green, is made of people). So I presume by your (goofily-worded) logic, you don't trust yourself?
The replacement of human toil with more efficient methods has been going on for no little time now - see the Industrial Revolution et al. In all that time, many people, indeed many entire groups of people, have been displaced from their livelihood. However that is precisely what drives innovation. It isn't as tho all those displaced people never found work again - if that was the case, the unemployment rate would continuously move in only one direction: up, until no one was working at all.
Further, it's funny to me that there seems to be a distinction made here between displaced blue-collar workers and so-called "intellectual" workers. It's one and the same: labor being replaced by more efficient methods. In some cases, that labor is physical; in others, mental. So what?
If you are seriously arguing (and I strongly suspect you're not) that people should, by force via taxation, give up significant chunks of their economic output ("ridiculous amounts of money", as you put it) such that government organizations such as the military can spend money absent any accountability for return, all in the hopes of coming up with "some neat stuff", I'd appreciate it if you limit your comment to yourself, ie feel free to voluntarily give up as much of your income as you see fit on this bankrupting notion.
Humans thus far have a near monopoly on creativity, be that the arts or architecture; business ideas or novel solutions to medical problems. As long as this is the case, there will be room for us yet.
As for the five day work week, is there some reason you are precluded from working a different number of days a week? It isn't the law that you need to work five days a week. Nor is it the law that you must work eight hours a day. Get a paper route. Maybe wash some neighborhood cars. Take a four hour shift at the Subway sandwich store. Start your own business that only operates 2.4 hours per week. It's all wide open for you, my man!
I'm on a 37" 1920 X 1080 monitor and I tend to maximize about 80% of programs (I also sit a fair distance from the screen - about 4.5 feet - and have scaled up the font sizes significantly to compensate).
Off topic, but I think one of the things not being considered in attempts to include browsing etc on TVs is how web sites scale when default font size is increased by more than about 20%. Many sites simply do not handle this well, and I suggest about 15% of the time I need to disable minimum font size and zoom the screen because the text and/or graphics start getting superimposed upon each other or essential buttons disappear entirely.
"The incorporation of the Bill of Rights (or incorporation for short) is the process by which American courts have applied portions of the U.S. Bill of Rights to the states. Prior to the 1890s, the Bill of Rights was held only to apply to the federal government. Under the incorporation doctrine, most provisions of the Bill of Rights now also apply to the state and local governments, by virtue of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
Prior to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the development of the incorporation doctrine, in 1833 the Supreme Court held in Barron v. Baltimore that the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal, but not any state governments. Even years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment the Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank, still held that the First and Second Amendment did not apply to state governments. However, beginning in the 1890s, a series of United States Supreme Court decisions interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to "incorporate" most portions of the Bill of Rights, making these portions, for the first time, enforceable against the state governments."
Note: whether a state is subject to the 3rd Amendment (quartering of soldiers) depends on the state; states are not subject to that part of the 5th Amendment regarding the right to indictment by a grand jury (the rest of the 5th Amendment is applicable to states); states are not subject to the 7th Amendment (right to trial by jury in civil matters); states are not subject to that part of the 8th Amendment concerning protection against excessive fines or bail (but are subject to the rest of the Amendment);
In 1985, OPEC tied member countries' production quotas to "proven" reserves. In response, several countries immediately declared substantial increases in their "proven" reserves, including Saudi Arabia. For example: in 1985, Kuwait boosted their declared reserves from 63.90 to 90.00 billion barrels of oil (a 40.85% increase). In 1988 alone, Iran claimed to find an additional 44.05 billion barrels in declaring 92.85 billion barrels against 1984s 48.80 billion barrels (+90.27%), Iraq jumped from 47.10 to a nice, round 100.00 billion barrels (+112.31%, where it stayed, consistently (and regardless of production), for another four years, before increasing to 115), while Venezuela suddenly got lucky and declared 56.30 vs. 1984s 25 billion barrels (+125.20%). In 1990, Saudi Arabia suddenly declared an increase of 51.79% in oil reserves (from 169.97 to an even 258 billion barrels), while in 1988, Abu Dhabi went from 31.00 to 92.21 billion barrels (+194%). Even little old Dubai got into the act, in 1988 nearly tripling their reserves to 4 billion barrels from 1.35 previously. 1988 was one hell of a busy year in the world of oil discoveries: the five countries which increased their declared reserves went from a combined 153.25 billion barrels to a whopping 345.36 billion barrels!
It is highly likely Canada has the world's largest (as opposed to second largest, after Saudi Arabia) supply of oil. It is also highly likely there is not anywhere near as much oil under Saudi Arabia as the Saudis claim.
By arguing that Canadian content would dry up absent forcible exposure and subsidies, you are arguing that there is no inherent demand for Canadian content, and there I will agree with you.
For a very small minority it is important that Canadians perceive themselves in a way that the same minority deems in their interests. But "culture" is never made by government edict. "Culture" arises organically, and either sticks around or changes or disappears. Now, I certainly don't begrudge you your views, and if you wish to support said views voluntarily out of your own pocket, then please, by all means, go ahead! But when you insist that your neighbours be forced to contribute to your pet projects, that's where you lose me. I certainly don't think you should be forced to go to work for a part of your day for my pet projects. Please do me the courtesy of reciprocating.
I'm sorry, but I honestly think you are missing my point (and confirming it in the process): you are lamenting the lack of attention Canada gets in relation to other countries on US media and by implication arguing national identity is created by media. It's not. If anything, media reflects national identity. And really, why worry that other people should be unable to isolate their national identity? What is it that you think constitutes "Canadian culture" in the first place? The usual answers tend to be hockey, maple syrup, the Mounties and socialized health care. I'm pretty sure all those would continue to exist without the CRTC or the CBC.
I just don't understand the anxiety some people experience about "cultural trade", as you refer to it. I'm willing to bet a sizable majority of Canadians never go see a "Canadian" movie (as you define it) or watch anything on CBC other than HNIC or the Simpson's, or particularly care about foisting "Canadian culture" on other nations. People tend to like a good movie, a catchy tune, or a good book, all without ever giving thought to where it was produced or which "culture" it is peddling.
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"..the second largest sport.."?!? Clearly, you've never been to Canada!
The popularity of lacrosse is many, many orders of magnitude below the popularity of hockey. When was the last time 100,000 people gathered in any Canadian downtown to watch the lacrosse finals? When did a Canadian city put up giant screens all over the city to broadcast the lacrosse playoffs? I can't even name a single lacrosse team, or tell you where they play or when their season runs. I think they used to have a team in Vancouver years ago. They used to have an NBA team too (the Grizzlies) but they couldn't compete for the entertainment dollars with hockey - not even close, in fact. They do not show lacrosse highlights on sports shows. I suppose there may be people in Toronto who are familiar with it, given they don't have a hockey, baseball or basketball team (well, none that win, anyway)...
Other than tax value, your comment applies equally to most currencies I'm aware of, including the US dollar and the Euro: no intrinsic value (they are, after all, fiat currencies) and no guaranteed exchange rate (the rate fluctuates and isn't "guaranteed" in any way). Exceptions would be currencies pegged to other currencies, but that's by far a minority of all currencies.
Interestingly, Utah passed the Legal Tender Act of 2011, which recognizes gold as legal tender http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/154459/20110530/utah-gold-legal-tender-gold-standard.htm
"Utah just became the first US state to recognize gold as legal tender. Its Legal Tender Act of 2011 allows U.S. minted gold and silver coins to be recognized as legal tender in the value that reflects the market price for gold and silver.
“If the federal government isn’t going to do it, then we here in Utah ought to be able to establish a monetary system that would survive a crash if and when that happens,” Lowell Nelson, interim coordinator for the Campaign for Liberty in Utah, told NYTimes.
Craig Franco, a coin dealer south of Salt Lake City, said he’s preparing to create a Visa credit card based on gold depositories that would allow people to more conveniently use gold as tender."
All anti-immigration laws are nothing but protectionist policy to restrict the free trade of labor for the purpose of artificially inflating the standard of living in the particular country. If everyone was permitted to sell their labor anywhere at a price of their free choosing, the standard of living would go down in the short and possibly medium term (but not the long term).
What, precisely, is "unhealthy" about moderate caffeine intake? Last I saw, humans who consume caffeine perform better on memory tests, have better athletic performance and may have less incidence of prostate cancer...
Well, a consequence of simplifying the tax code significantly is that you'll then have the multi-billion dollar tax preparation/tax accountants/tax lawyers complaining about all the unemployment that will cause and the harm it will do to their livelihood. The whole thing is firmly entrenched at this point. I too find it utterly bizarre that it is damn near impossible for many people with anything but the simplest of investments and income streams to prepare their own taxes! There are far, far too many people with a deep interest in keeping the complexity for it to ever get simpler. Scrapping the whole thing and instituting a single consumption tax would be the simplest (and arguably fairest) way to go.
Yup - that's exactly correct: prices rise as a consequence of these subsidies. I remember analyzing apartment rental costs by cost per square foot and comparing the most lavish apartments with small, 10' X 10' rooms in welfare rooming houses. The owner of the rooming house makes one hell of a lot more money per square foot than the highest of upscale apartment building owners - the price is set by the government and the rooming house owners jack up the price accordingly, while the tenants don't care because they're not paying anyway, and the housing part of their welfare is only payable to the landlord, so they do not benefit from any competition in the housing-for-poor-people space in any case. It is difficult to find a single subsidy of any sort which actually serves to benefit the people for which it ostensibly was created (altho in the example above, it makes a lot of slum lords very wealthy, and they needn't bother with minor inconveniences like maintenance or upgrades or pest control).
Every single item in a tax return outside the box where one's gross income is entered is simply an attempt to skew things in favor of one pet group or another, and it has become so complicated and overlapping that it's damn near irreversible: no matter what you do now, a ton of people with state-supplied senses of entitlement, finely honed over decades of dependence such that it seems normal to get a break to which your neighbor is not entitled, will protest loudly.
+1 That's spot-on re: cartoon view of economics.
There really is no such thing as "corporate tax", in that it simply flows thru the corporations and gets built into the price. So really it's just another consumption tax (altho consumption taxes are arguably the fairest of all taxes). Those who push for "corporate taxes" seem to think it acts as a tax on the profit margins of the corporations, however it all just gets passed along, just like any other expense.
Really, corporations are just funnels for money: revenue comes in and is spent on salaries and overhead and cost of production etc., and whatever is left is typically either invested in the business (creating more wealth and jobs) or paid as dividends to shareholders (read: primarily your pension fund or mutual fund or your union's pension, etc). Very few corporations hoard cash, because it is decidedly inefficient (there's an exception to this currently, when corporations can borrow money extremely cheaply (effectively at zero percent real interest - maybe even negative real interest) and either invest it or wait for better rates - if the government really wants to stimulate the economy (and if that's what a government should be in the business of, which is certainly arguable), they need to raise the interest rates - that will get a ton of money off the sidelines (but that's another topic entirely)).
I'll agree with your first point: there are plenty of places where $137K isn't much at all. I've lived in several.
On the matter of it being "fair" to tax the "wealthy" at a higher rate (bearing in mind that, were they taxed at the same rate, a person making ten times more would already pay ten times more tax), if you consider the matter of income disparity a reflection of productivity (I'm open to debate on the point, altho I lean more toward that indeed being the case: we "vote" with our dollars every time we purchase a good or service (except when we purchase government, which is an involuntary monopoly, of which failure to purchase results in jail)), then you are disproportionately penalizing the most productive for the benefit of the least productive. Just because you say it is "easier" for the person in your example who makes $1M to pay a crazy proportion of that in taxes, doesn't mean it is fair.
Good point. In fact, every time the capital gains tax has been reduced, revenue has increased .
Also, the top 2% of earners in the US pay 43.6% of all federal income tax (while earning 24.1% of all income) while the bottom 50% pay 3.3% (while earning 13.4% of all income). The top 5% of earners (which equates to an average income of $137,056) pay a whopping 57.1% of all federal income taxes. Think of that next time you come across the "rich don't pay their fair share" folks preaching to the sheeple.
Thanks, sincerely, for the laugh - I needed that this morning!
In case you aren't aware (which quite apparently you aren't), the entire population of the earth could fit into the state of Texas with plenty of elbow room. There are more than enough resources, too (including food) to go around. Now distribution, that's another matter: the fiction of borders and the lack of free trade certainly means that not everyone has access to what they need. But there's plenty to go around.
I'm always surprised by the use of the term "net neutrality" as a synonym for "net regulation", which is what we're really talking about here.
I appreciate that bandwidth throttling, or the prospect of a "two-tiered" net, are disturbing propositions (or in the case of bandwidth throttling, a reality). I'm simply not convinced that governmental involvement will make things better rather than worse. Having things rest in the hands of regulators and politicians, who actively support such things as MPAA/RIAA/DMCA without generally understanding the implications and unintended consequences, and making "net neutrality" subject to the effects of lobbying, etc. doesn't seem like a superior outcome vs letting the market (ie freedom) decide things.
There are plenty of things which are objectionable or inconvenient or sub-optimal to particular groups of people. That does not necessarily mean that such things must be regulated or legislated, because regulation and legislation are utterly blunt instruments best left in the toolbox except for otherwise profoundly unsolvable problems.
Those who drive more are already paying a "vehicle miles traveled' tax by virtue of the tax on gasoline.
I lived in Vancouver until 6 months ago, in the Coal Harbour area that is shown in the pictures (neither picture shows Olympic Village, which is on the other side of the peninsula and which they are having a very tough time selling). The vast majority of people in downtown Vancouver/West End rent. I used to have all the data, but if I recall, in the West End, about 85% of people rent. In Coal Harbour, which is just off the West End (and a stunning neighbourhood), that percentage is lower (maybe 50%). Rent for a one bedroom apartment (~550 sq ft - all the apartments are tiny in Vancouver) on the 12th floor with a view of Stanley Park, the marina and the North Shore mountains was $1,200/mo., $50 of which was for my parking spot, which is really quite reasonable.
But the point is valid: Vancouver is a _very_ expensive place to live. Average percentage of take home pay spent on housing in Vancouver is 76%, if I recall, compared to 36% in Toronto. Condos in Toronto, right in the heart of the city, are available at a price equivalent to the down payment on a condo in Vancouver.
I saw that crackshackormansion site some time ago - it shows single detached houses, one at a time, and asks the viewer to decide whether each was a crack house or a million dollar house in Vancouver. It was an extremely difficult challenge, because a million doesn't get one much in the city. It's all just supply and demand: the city is breathtakingly beautiful, and it sits on a peninsula, so the only way to build is up or east, thus constricting supply. It's made worse by the fact the city has not permitted buildings taller than 35 storeys until very recently, when Wall Centre (42 storeys) and the Shangri-La (60 storeys) went up.
Your comment about 2 acres of green space seems ill-informed: ever heard of Stanley Park? It's 1,001 acres in the heart of the city.
I don't understand: how is this a threat to "homeland security"? Are the terrorists now threatening us with low-quality US television programming?
Well, for one, I don't want stacks and stacks of CDs. Secondly, it seems ridiculous to me to buy some physical thing when its virtual counterpart is available (and is so much more convenient). Thirdly, the labor involved in buying the CD, getting it home, inserting the disc, then ripping the particular songs I want represents time I can better spend doing something else (like productively reading /.) Fourthly, as someone else has pointed out, it's pretty rare that I want every single song on a CD, and it's often a deep track I like, which isn't available as a CD single (I've never bought a CD single). CDs (and cassettes before them and records before that and 8-tracks before that...) work like cable TV: you are forced to buy a bunch of shit to get the small bit of non-shit you actually want. The digital individual song model has punched a hole through that.
I suspect the real reason music distributors don't use FLAC or other open source formats is one of liability: rather than concern themselves with possible patent violations, they would much rather distribute a format for which a license has been paid, which thereby serves to transfer the risk of a patent violation to the company collecting the licensing fees.
If you sell your labor/knowledge/etc, then you are aiming to make a profit. That's no different than a company (which, like soylent green, is made of people). So I presume by your (goofily-worded) logic, you don't trust yourself?
The replacement of human toil with more efficient methods has been going on for no little time now - see the Industrial Revolution et al. In all that time, many people, indeed many entire groups of people, have been displaced from their livelihood. However that is precisely what drives innovation. It isn't as tho all those displaced people never found work again - if that was the case, the unemployment rate would continuously move in only one direction: up, until no one was working at all.
Further, it's funny to me that there seems to be a distinction made here between displaced blue-collar workers and so-called "intellectual" workers. It's one and the same: labor being replaced by more efficient methods. In some cases, that labor is physical; in others, mental. So what?
If you are seriously arguing (and I strongly suspect you're not) that people should, by force via taxation, give up significant chunks of their economic output ("ridiculous amounts of money", as you put it) such that government organizations such as the military can spend money absent any accountability for return, all in the hopes of coming up with "some neat stuff", I'd appreciate it if you limit your comment to yourself, ie feel free to voluntarily give up as much of your income as you see fit on this bankrupting notion.
Humans thus far have a near monopoly on creativity, be that the arts or architecture; business ideas or novel solutions to medical problems. As long as this is the case, there will be room for us yet.
As for the five day work week, is there some reason you are precluded from working a different number of days a week? It isn't the law that you need to work five days a week. Nor is it the law that you must work eight hours a day. Get a paper route. Maybe wash some neighborhood cars. Take a four hour shift at the Subway sandwich store. Start your own business that only operates 2.4 hours per week. It's all wide open for you, my man!
I'm on a 37" 1920 X 1080 monitor and I tend to maximize about 80% of programs (I also sit a fair distance from the screen - about 4.5 feet - and have scaled up the font sizes significantly to compensate).
Off topic, but I think one of the things not being considered in attempts to include browsing etc on TVs is how web sites scale when default font size is increased by more than about 20%. Many sites simply do not handle this well, and I suggest about 15% of the time I need to disable minimum font size and zoom the screen because the text and/or graphics start getting superimposed upon each other or essential buttons disappear entirely.
Courtesy Wiki:
"The incorporation of the Bill of Rights (or incorporation for short) is the process by which American courts have applied portions of the U.S. Bill of Rights to the states. Prior to the 1890s, the Bill of Rights was held only to apply to the federal government. Under the incorporation doctrine, most provisions of the Bill of Rights now also apply to the state and local governments, by virtue of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
Prior to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the development of the incorporation doctrine, in 1833 the Supreme Court held in Barron v. Baltimore that the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal, but not any state governments. Even years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment the Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank, still held that the First and Second Amendment did not apply to state governments. However, beginning in the 1890s, a series of United States Supreme Court decisions interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to "incorporate" most portions of the Bill of Rights, making these portions, for the first time, enforceable against the state governments."
Note: whether a state is subject to the 3rd Amendment (quartering of soldiers) depends on the state; states are not subject to that part of the 5th Amendment regarding the right to indictment by a grand jury (the rest of the 5th Amendment is applicable to states); states are not subject to the 7th Amendment (right to trial by jury in civil matters); states are not subject to that part of the 8th Amendment concerning protection against excessive fines or bail (but are subject to the rest of the Amendment);
That's why fiat currency is so great. It's exactly as rare as an unelected secret committee decides it should be.
FTFY
In 1985, OPEC tied member countries' production quotas to "proven" reserves. In response, several countries immediately declared substantial increases in their "proven" reserves, including Saudi Arabia. For example: in 1985, Kuwait boosted their declared reserves from 63.90 to 90.00 billion barrels of oil (a 40.85% increase). In 1988 alone, Iran claimed to find an additional 44.05 billion barrels in declaring 92.85 billion barrels against 1984s 48.80 billion barrels (+90.27%), Iraq jumped from 47.10 to a nice, round 100.00 billion barrels (+112.31%, where it stayed, consistently (and regardless of production), for another four years, before increasing to 115), while Venezuela suddenly got lucky and declared 56.30 vs. 1984s 25 billion barrels (+125.20%). In 1990, Saudi Arabia suddenly declared an increase of 51.79% in oil reserves (from 169.97 to an even 258 billion barrels), while in 1988, Abu Dhabi went from 31.00 to 92.21 billion barrels (+194%). Even little old Dubai got into the act, in 1988 nearly tripling their reserves to 4 billion barrels from 1.35 previously. 1988 was one hell of a busy year in the world of oil discoveries: the five countries which increased their declared reserves went from a combined 153.25 billion barrels to a whopping 345.36 billion barrels!
It is highly likely Canada has the world's largest (as opposed to second largest, after Saudi Arabia) supply of oil. It is also highly likely there is not anywhere near as much oil under Saudi Arabia as the Saudis claim.
By arguing that Canadian content would dry up absent forcible exposure and subsidies, you are arguing that there is no inherent demand for Canadian content, and there I will agree with you.
For a very small minority it is important that Canadians perceive themselves in a way that the same minority deems in their interests. But "culture" is never made by government edict. "Culture" arises organically, and either sticks around or changes or disappears. Now, I certainly don't begrudge you your views, and if you wish to support said views voluntarily out of your own pocket, then please, by all means, go ahead! But when you insist that your neighbours be forced to contribute to your pet projects, that's where you lose me. I certainly don't think you should be forced to go to work for a part of your day for my pet projects. Please do me the courtesy of reciprocating.
I'm sorry, but I honestly think you are missing my point (and confirming it in the process): you are lamenting the lack of attention Canada gets in relation to other countries on US media and by implication arguing national identity is created by media. It's not. If anything, media reflects national identity. And really, why worry that other people should be unable to isolate their national identity? What is it that you think constitutes "Canadian culture" in the first place? The usual answers tend to be hockey, maple syrup, the Mounties and socialized health care. I'm pretty sure all those would continue to exist without the CRTC or the CBC.
I just don't understand the anxiety some people experience about "cultural trade", as you refer to it. I'm willing to bet a sizable majority of Canadians never go see a "Canadian" movie (as you define it) or watch anything on CBC other than HNIC or the Simpson's, or particularly care about foisting "Canadian culture" on other nations. People tend to like a good movie, a catchy tune, or a good book, all without ever giving thought to where it was produced or which "culture" it is peddling.