I think people just get tired seeing large businesses and rich individuals receiving special treatment, loopholes, etc... especially considering that income inequality in the US has been growing since 1970, and is currently one of the highest among all developed countries in the world.
"Whether it's popular or not, a lot of wealthy people feel that they are paying their own fair share plus someone else's. "
Since they have the vast majority of the nations wealth, it is entirely appropriate for them to pay the vast majority of the nations taxes. (Not that they really do, as other posters above have pointed out).
And yes, I do agree with you that the loopholes are out of control. The rich are the only ones taking advantage of them.
To say that "we've been doing this "progressive taxation" thing for quite a while now" is blatantly false, precisely because of all the loopholes. Capital gains taxed at 10%, the very loopholes as shown in this very article we are discussing, and a horde of other ways that the rich pay lower taxes.
I won't get into the Fair Tax much, save to say, any sort of sales tax is regressive. Even with that little tidbit of "Oh, we won't tax you for necessities...".
We need to first close the loopholes. Yes, its complex, but no, the government hasn't really been trying. Occasionally during an election cycle you'll see 1 or 2 closed, but there are hundreds more. The easiest way to do this would be to look at a company/person's income, and see if they actually payed 36%. If they didn't, figure out why, and close it. Every year, until every rich person is paying the actual 36%.
If that happens to conflict with some rebate that the government wants, too bad. Of course, I'm dreaming. Too many special interests and corporate money involved in politics for that to take place, which is why the only thing I really support in politics is meaningful campaign finance reform. Things like the SCOTUS ruling in Citizens United are a nightmare.
How does calling for less taxes overall in your opinion translate to "wanting to keep poor people as the only ones who pay taxes"? It doesn't make any sense at all.
Most of those households paying no tax have incomes that are too small. That isn't exactly an good endorsement for the current system, which has seen a massive growth in income inequality since 1950.
Some tea party folks may be calling for lower taxes overall, but the candidates that will end up getting elected by them will continue with Bush and company tax policies, which are easily shown to greatly benefit the rich vs the middle class.
It isn't really surprising when you look at who is funding the 'tea party' events, providing free buses to events, etc.. that they turn out to be millionaires and billionaires. For example, the Koch brothers.
The tea party may represent real frustration, but that frustration is being manipulated by the wealthy for their own advantage.
1. Unions add value to industry by keeping the middle class strong. Any individual business can argue that their workers cost them more, but across society, a middle class with money to spend means all businesses sell more.
Just as food stamps are the most stimulating thing to an economy (per the CBO), money in the pockets of people that are going to spend it is the most effective way to keep an economy growing.
Demand-side economics.
2. Loop holes alone won't be enough. Things like capital gains are often used by the wealthy to generate income without being taxed. Under bush it was 10%, Obama may bump that to 20%. Its still a lot lower than the 25-30% that some in the middle class pay.
And I'm not exactly sure what you find progressive about our tax system. Many states still have sales tax, which is not progressive at all, and given that from 1950-until Reagan we had taxes on the rich from 70-90 percent, I don't see the justification for a 36-39% tax on the rich.
3. "I see a return of the corporate personhood hysteria. If we "return" (given that the US never really was there in the first place) to this scheme, then we're trampling the rights of groups of people to make business."
You don't find citizens united SCOTUS ruling alarming? Nor the fact that corporations have steadily gained various rights over the years, rights that in many cases exceed those of an individual, yet have no additional responsibilities?
This is similar to copyright. The purpose was to grant a person additional rights, rights beyond what a free market would normally allow, to promote creativity by providing incentive to create. And after a certain period, those works return to the public that granted that monopoly on that work.
So we aren't trampling any rights if we returned to some system that reviewed corporate charters. We gave them MORE rights than the market would normally permit, and society needs something in return for that gift.
p.s. Thanks for the Ford tip. I looked into that worker payment issue and you were right. I had heard "so workers could buy his cars" so many times, I naively assumed it to be true.
You probably won't, but I think you might learn a lot by reading http://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Protection-Corporations-Became-People/dp/1605095591/ref=nosim/thomhartmann
Specifically the notion of "the commons". When there are finite, public resources, like tv frequencies, or a river that flows through many people's property, it is entirely within the rights of the federal and/or state government to regulate that resource to ensure it is being used in the best interests, the general welfare, of the country.
Regulating campaign financing helps to let the individual, who the constitution really intended to have free speech, be heard. (Although now with citizens united SCOTUS ruling.... that is pretty much destroyed).
And the Fairness Doctrine was a regulation on a limited public resource, broadcast frequencies, to help ensure that they are being used to best serve the public, who owns them.
How fair would it be if MSNBC or some set of all 'liberal' broadcast sources licensed all available air waves, and there was only 100% liberal news in the country? Likewise, all conservative? What if Bill Gates bought Fox News and turned it into a liberal news show?
Since airwaves are a public resources, the Fairness Doctrine was attempting to enforce a balanced use of those airwaves. That is NOT limiting speech. In fact, it attempted to make sure that a diverse set of voices was heard.
Well, and there's the fact that "they" (the nebulous "they" who control from the shadows of course;)) do not really need to rig any elections. The SCOTUS citizens united case alone means that those with the money are going to be controlling the votes of low information voters. Who, unfortunately, make up the majority of American's voters.
The amount of half truths, misinformation, and flat out lies that are believed by a pretty large number of citizens is evidence of this. For instance, 25% believe Barack Obama was not elected legally.
I've replied with this response to a few different people, hoping for a response. I'm curious what might be missing in my voting idea, because it seems to me that technology can provide a means of much more fraud proof voting.
You cast a vote, which is recorded electronically. The machine prints 2 papers with a random ID with your vote. One paper you keep, one is put in a box. You can then go to a web site that has all the votes listed, and search for your ID code to verify that the vote alongside it is valid.
If enough people checked their vote on the site, it would provide a fairly good amount of fraud protection. Anyone could add up all the votes on the site to count it themselves. And if a some amount (5%?) people complained that their vote was wrong, the election could be investigated by recounting the paper, verifying that the number of votes matches the number of people signed up to vote, and re-posting the results on the web for people to once again verify.
I just though of something else I didn't post earlier. You'd need a way to know how many actually people voted in order to really match up the web site's list to confirm that no ghost votes were added under people's names who are registered to vote, but who really didn't vote....grr. I can't think of a way to do that.
Maybe another list that actually lists peoples real names, but does not list who they voted for? Slight violation of privacy, but I bet most people would be OK with that. It would allow reporters or investigators to actually call a real person and ask if they really did vote.
Between a published list of votes, identified by a random ID number known only to the voter, the list being countable by anyone, and a second list to verify that the number of votes matches the number of actual voters, I can't think of a way that that system could be fooled.
Well, there's a way to link a vote to a voter without violating privacy, with the caveat that no third party will be able to establish the link.
You cast a vote, which is recorded electronically. The machine prints 2 papers with a random ID with your vote. One paper you keep, one is put in a box. You can then go to a web site that has all the votes listed, and search for your ID code to verify that the vote alongside it is valid.
If enough people checked their vote on the site, it would provide a fairly good amount of fraud protection. Anyone could add up all the votes on the site to count it themselves. And if a some amount (5%?) people complained that their vote was wrong, the election could be investigated by recounting the paper, verifying that the number of votes matches the number of people signed up to vote, and re-posting the results on the web for people to once again verify.
How do you know that your electronic vote was really for candidate X? The screen might say so, the paper might say so, but how do you verify it was counted?
I'd like to see a system that records electronically, and then prints out a random ID code with your vote. You could then go to a web site and search for your ID number and see your vote. Likewise, someone could look at all the votes and count them up on the web site.
An outright ban on Chinese goods would be horrible, for both our economies, and likely lead to war.
But it does make sense to me to start slowly increasing our tariffs on Chinese imports until they at least match China's tariffs on our exports to them, and perhaps even more to makeup for the hidden costs in China's goods (government subsidized businesses, pollution control, worker conditions, etc..).
I completely agree with what you say. It is pretty baffling to me that people can't understand this when the data is out there. We've had 1980-Now to realize that trickle down does work, and we had 1950-until Reagan to realize that a progressive tax system and strong unions does work.
I wish I heard this term more often in debates about what type of economic/political system is best (trickle down vs trickle up, etc etc ):
Demand-side economics.
The USA is the number one consumer of goods in the world. But if our people can't afford to buy those goods, the corporations response is to try to make those goods cheaper.
Thanks for perfectly illustrating why we are in this situation. "This is America!" is a meaningless phrase. You didn't do shit when they busted the unions. You didn't do shit when the easier jobs were shipped over there. You didn't do shit while the Congress continued to cut taxes for corporations so they could sell us out. You just sat there, with that smug look on your face, saying "Yeah boy! This is America! We believe in the Market, not in that damn Government interference. Why pay more for TV set? That's stupid, when we can all just put it on a credit card for half the price."
And how does your whiny little rant help? Half the things you mention actually helped US keep manufacturing. For example, busting the unions, shipping out the easier jobs, and cutting corporate taxes. The problem fundamentally is that the US is much more expensive than China for manufacturing. Some of that premium is just because we're a wealthier country (especially per capita and in property values) and want a cleaner environment and safer working conditions and some of it is nonsense like the Social Security pyramid scam (that's 15% added to the cost of every US worker right there, folks) or NIMBYism (anti-industry hysteria which doesn't take into account the actual potential harm of a potential industrial operation).
Henry Ford was once asked why he paid his workers much more than the average factor worker. "So they can afford to buy my cars". Busting unions destroys demand-side economics. A term not often used, I know, but very much a driving force in our economy.
Tax cuts for corporations rarely results in any sort of economic stimulus. Feel free to look up what the CBO has to say about economic stimulus. For instance, did you know that the stimulus with the most bang for the buck is food stamps? For every dollar you put into food stamps, it generates 1.79 dollars of activity in the economy. Tax breaks for the top earners results in 0.30 dollars of activity, a negative multiplier. So unless the CBO is wrong, trickle down (tax cuts for corporations) DOES NOT WORK. It hasn't worked in 10 years, it didn't work during Reagan's terms, its proven, get over it. The average American income fell by 2000 dollars during the last 10 years, while the top earners wages rose considerably. Trick.Down.Does.Not.Work.
Shipping jobs overseas is the exact same thing: destruction of demand-side economics. The US is the number one consumer of goods in the world. We used to have plenty of demand for American made products, and American workers could afford them.
What happened you say? Busting unions, cutting taxes down on the rich from the 70-904% that it used to be from 1950 until Reagan took office, additional tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas (which Obama is trying to stop), and.... one of the largest factors: unfair tariffs. China levies a tariff on US goods, I forget exactly how much on average, but its high, 30%'ish. Do you know what our import tariffs are on China's goods? Zero.
So to summarize, here's what we need to do to bolster American production: 1. Support union growth and power. Like Germany, adopt measures that would give unions partial to full executive control of their business. 2. Strengthen the middle class by returning to a progressive tax system. Return the tax system to pre-Reagan tax levels, increase spending on education, social programs, tax breaks for the middle class, expand and fund infrastructure projects similar to what FDR did. 3. Return to the days of corporate charter review: If a corporation is not benefiting society, pull its charter. A corporation is granted additional rights, and it used to have a trade off. Over time, corporations were given those additional rights with no additional responsibility required. This needs to end. 4. Recognize that the world-wide free market is not making anyone pay for external costs, like pollution. If China manufactures goods without pollution control,
It has only been two years, and he started with a metric ton of shit to deal with. Yes, you listed a a handful of things he hasn't done, but look at the list of things he has done. He's done more good for the average person than anything the republicans have done, or proposed, in 10 years.
I agree that both parties were to blame for the economic recession (although I'd weight the republican guilt higher than the dems), but you must have had your eyes and ears shut the last two years if you don't think Obama is moving the country in a better direction than the other party did.
"Hypothesis: The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose mandatory health care insurance on every citizen."
Sigh.... congress did not impose mandatory health care insurance. They used their ability to tax (taxing to promote or demote a policy, as they do with many other things) people who do not have health care insurance. If you have health care insurance, you get a tax rebate equal to the tax increase.
People have described this as a fine for not having insurance. Which basically is true. But again, even if you consider it a fine, that doesn't mean health insurance is mandatory. Feel free to pay the fine every year if you really hate having insurance.
Tax incentives, tax rebates, etc.. are certainly not unconstitutional.
My business is just me (technically) plus a few contractors. At what point are we and our interests no longer individuals?
This is an older slashdot article, so nobody will likely read this, but....
The business is no longer an individual interest when you incorporate (LTD, etc..). If you have limited liability, you share no personal risk with the outcome of the business. Which leads to the company doing dumb things, like for short term profit, something that an individual would not do. A corporation is granted rights that exceed individual rights, and used to be reviewed by the government to ensure that it was providing a benefit for society. If the corporation was found to be detrimental to society as a whole, its charter was revoked. This is entirely within the realm of what government should be doing, and has done since the founding of our country. Except that now, the concept of ever revoking a corporate charter is pretty much off the table. All the rights and then some more, none of the responsibility or risks.
I would like to add another case where a business no longer pursues individual interests or can be said to be just a conglomerate of individuals: natural or artificial monopolies. Those businesses far exceed the power to influence that any other similar collection of individuals would have, and are largely immune to many market factors. In this case, like corporate regulation, it is entirely appropriate for government to create rules and frameworks in which those monopolies exist.
And yet another case: use of the commons. The commons being natural resources that are a shared resource of our country. Government land with oil, gold, etc.. on it. Or national forests, rivers, etc.. Businesses using those common resources should rightly be regulated by government, to ensure that those resources are not completely ruined (river pollution, etc..) or completely exhausted (forests) for future generations. The free market is not suited to self-managing common resources.
So despite being run by individuals, corporations, monopolies, and businesses that use common resources, all deserve regulation by our government, and should not be considered enterprise by individuals.
My point was that the middle east basically controls what OPEC does (pricing, etc..).
If we chose to stop importing oil from the middle east alone, Nigeria and Venezuela and the other "non-middle eastern" OPEC members wouldn't sit by and allow us to do so without consequence.
The only way to escape our oil imports from the middle east is to wean ourselves off oil all together.
Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
Those countries make up a little thing called OPEC. Stop importing from OPEC and the US economy will fall apart.
Side note: Do you consider yourself a conservative? I keep seeing this theme coming from Tea Party/Conservative/Fox News'ish folks that we should (as if we can) aggressively move away from foreign oil.
The bottom line is that we can't move away from OPEC imports until our economy is at least 40% off its oil addiction.
Accountants, those in finance, etc.. generally do not have any computer skills outside of Excel. They routinely work with large data sets. I remember finance dept. folks working around the 65k limit by having 65k rows per tab, and then combining calculations on the rows on a final tab.
The amount of excel equations, nesting, and loops was actually pretty impressive for having no programming experience. When I supported those types of workers, I remember having some success moving certain parts of their work into real databases, making web front ends, etc.. for their data, but quite a bit of it stayed in spreadsheets.
Financial folks often need to do pretty complex calculations, and excel provides a fairly intuitive way to start with small step calculations, and combine those many small steps into something that resembles a full blown program.
Outlook? There are tons of email programs, and Outlook is the very worst email client I've ever used
IAWTP. Thing is, people don't care so much about that. They like outlook for its calendar and meeting functionality.
And those (been a while, might be the wrong term) shared folders that make outlook basically act as a network drive. A place I worked 10 years ago had so many of those shared folders in Outlook that it was basically the company's file server.
Outlook+Exchange alone fulfills 90% of an average corporate/medium-to-large business' needs.
Well, it's pretty simple for most places that don't focus on tech, and where the cost of the product is a drop in the bucket compared to downtime fighting something new.
1. history. 2. compatibility. 3. variable collaboration.
I recently tried to get a lawyer to use a combination of openoffice and google docs as a means of collaboration and storage. On 1) they were only familiar with office, and had no desire to learn something new, 2) because all people they collaborate with are basically of the same thinking, compatibility would be an issue if this person did things differently than other lawyers, and 3) collaboration happens with totally new firms all the time, depending on cases. That means that a real collaboration infrastructure is not feasible. Emailing word documents back and forth is basically the easiest way to handle things.
I know in theory Java isn't supposed to be that much noticeably slower, but it sure seems like there is a higher percentage of crappy slow java code than there is crappy slow c/c++ code.
I'm not sure why you mention Eclipse. At least my install of it, with tons of plugins, seems to take a very very long time to load up compared with other full featured editors.
I'm not a java guy, so I've never really understood why it often 'feels slower' to startup. Hundreds of jar files being read into memory? It would have been faster if they were consolidated?
I think it's a bit too early to say that Microsoft is dying. http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=microsoft+quarterly+profit
Their quarterly profits are still huge, 17+ billion, and it isn't going down (on average, considering recession, etc etc..).
IE doesn't make them any profit. It wouldn't hurt Microsoft one bit if they lost all share in that area.
Office is still the standard for the vast majority of businesses, especially non-computer literate ones (law, medicine, etc..) and for many universities who have site licenses, office is "free".
How many folks use bing? Who cares, its not a core MS product. It is something they tacked on to an existing successful monopoly to suck just a bit of revenue from google.. All new computer buyers will have Bing pre-selected and probably not care. Over time, its numbers might grow.
IIS: IIS isn't a product. It is a sub-feature of a Microsoft Server, which, quite a few places use for things like Active Directory. You forgot about tons of their other server products: SQL Server, Sharepoint, etc... that while they don't dominate, do make money and are deeply entrenched in many businesses.
Exchange server: Outlook is still the most robust, feature filled email client, that many places use as a full blown collaboration tool. None of those extra features work without exchange. I haven't looked at the numbers recently, but I'd be surprised if exchange use was down at all. Once the management/average users of a place get used to exchange, there is no going back.
For the record, I use nearly 100% open source in my work and at home, and greatly prefer it to Windows products. Except for gaming of course:), which reminds me: That MS is dying is something I've heard for so many years and yet it hasn't happened. Pretty much the same claim that PC gaming is dying. I've heard that since the first Nintendo came out. Still hasn't happened.
Slashdot Mirror
I think people just get tired seeing large businesses and rich individuals receiving special treatment, loopholes, etc... especially considering that income inequality in the US has been growing since 1970, and is currently one of the highest among all developed countries in the world.
"Whether it's popular or not, a lot of wealthy people feel that they are paying their own fair share plus someone else's. "
Since they have the vast majority of the nations wealth, it is entirely appropriate for them to pay the vast majority of the nations taxes. (Not that they really do, as other posters above have pointed out).
And yes, I do agree with you that the loopholes are out of control. The rich are the only ones taking advantage of them.
To say that "we've been doing this "progressive taxation" thing for quite a while now" is blatantly false, precisely because of all the loopholes. Capital gains taxed at 10%, the very loopholes as shown in this very article we are discussing, and a horde of other ways that the rich pay lower taxes.
I won't get into the Fair Tax much, save to say, any sort of sales tax is regressive. Even with that little tidbit of "Oh, we won't tax you for necessities...".
We need to first close the loopholes. Yes, its complex, but no, the government hasn't really been trying. Occasionally during an election cycle you'll see 1 or 2 closed, but there are hundreds more. The easiest way to do this would be to look at a company/person's income, and see if they actually payed 36%. If they didn't, figure out why, and close it. Every year, until every rich person is paying the actual 36%.
If that happens to conflict with some rebate that the government wants, too bad. Of course, I'm dreaming. Too many special interests and corporate money involved in politics for that to take place, which is why the only thing I really support in politics is meaningful campaign finance reform. Things like the SCOTUS ruling in Citizens United are a nightmare.
And it has been getting steadily worse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
How does calling for less taxes overall in your opinion translate to "wanting to keep poor people as the only ones who pay taxes"? It doesn't make any sense at all.
Most of those households paying no tax have incomes that are too small. That isn't exactly an good endorsement for the current system, which has seen a massive growth in income inequality since 1950.
Some tea party folks may be calling for lower taxes overall, but the candidates that will end up getting elected by them will continue with Bush and company tax policies, which are easily shown to greatly benefit the rich vs the middle class.
It isn't really surprising when you look at who is funding the 'tea party' events, providing free buses to events, etc.. that they turn out to be millionaires and billionaires. For example, the Koch brothers.
The tea party may represent real frustration, but that frustration is being manipulated by the wealthy for their own advantage.
1. Unions add value to industry by keeping the middle class strong. Any individual business can argue that their workers cost them more, but across society, a middle class with money to spend means all businesses sell more.
Just as food stamps are the most stimulating thing to an economy (per the CBO), money in the pockets of people that are going to spend it is the most effective way to keep an economy growing.
Demand-side economics.
2. Loop holes alone won't be enough. Things like capital gains are often used by the wealthy to generate income without being taxed. Under bush it was 10%, Obama may bump that to 20%. Its still a lot lower than the 25-30% that some in the middle class pay.
And I'm not exactly sure what you find progressive about our tax system. Many states still have sales tax, which is not progressive at all, and given that from 1950-until Reagan we had taxes on the rich from 70-90 percent, I don't see the justification for a 36-39% tax on the rich.
3. "I see a return of the corporate personhood hysteria. If we "return" (given that the US never really was there in the first place) to this scheme, then we're trampling the rights of groups of people to make business."
You don't find citizens united SCOTUS ruling alarming? Nor the fact that corporations have steadily gained various rights over the years, rights that in many cases exceed those of an individual, yet have no additional responsibilities?
This is similar to copyright. The purpose was to grant a person additional rights, rights beyond what a free market would normally allow, to promote creativity by providing incentive to create. And after a certain period, those works return to the public that granted that monopoly on that work.
So we aren't trampling any rights if we returned to some system that reviewed corporate charters. We gave them MORE rights than the market would normally permit, and society needs something in return for that gift.
p.s. Thanks for the Ford tip. I looked into that worker payment issue and you were right. I had heard "so workers could buy his cars" so many times, I naively assumed it to be true.
You probably won't, but I think you might learn a lot by reading http://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Protection-Corporations-Became-People/dp/1605095591/ref=nosim/thomhartmann
Specifically the notion of "the commons". When there are finite, public resources, like tv frequencies, or a river that flows through many people's property, it is entirely within the rights of the federal and/or state government to regulate that resource to ensure it is being used in the best interests, the general welfare, of the country.
Regulating campaign financing helps to let the individual, who the constitution really intended to have free speech, be heard. (Although now with citizens united SCOTUS ruling.... that is pretty much destroyed).
And the Fairness Doctrine was a regulation on a limited public resource, broadcast frequencies, to help ensure that they are being used to best serve the public, who owns them.
How fair would it be if MSNBC or some set of all 'liberal' broadcast sources licensed all available air waves, and there was only 100% liberal news in the country? Likewise, all conservative? What if Bill Gates bought Fox News and turned it into a liberal news show?
Since airwaves are a public resources, the Fairness Doctrine was attempting to enforce a balanced use of those airwaves. That is NOT limiting speech. In fact, it attempted to make sure that a diverse set of voices was heard.
There seems to be a few programs ready to go. This appears to be one of the more well known ones.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/open-source/
Well, and there's the fact that "they" (the nebulous "they" who control from the shadows of course;)) do not really need to rig any elections. The SCOTUS citizens united case alone means that those with the money are going to be controlling the votes of low information voters. Who, unfortunately, make up the majority of American's voters.
The amount of half truths, misinformation, and flat out lies that are believed by a pretty large number of citizens is evidence of this. For instance, 25% believe Barack Obama was not elected legally.
I've replied with this response to a few different people, hoping for a response. I'm curious what might be missing in my voting idea, because it seems to me that technology can provide a means of much more fraud proof voting.
You cast a vote, which is recorded electronically. The machine prints 2 papers with a random ID with your vote. One paper you keep, one is put in a box. You can then go to a web site that has all the votes listed, and search for your ID code to verify that the vote alongside it is valid.
If enough people checked their vote on the site, it would provide a fairly good amount of fraud protection. Anyone could add up all the votes on the site to count it themselves. And if a some amount (5%?) people complained that their vote was wrong, the election could be investigated by recounting the paper, verifying that the number of votes matches the number of people signed up to vote, and re-posting the results on the web for people to once again verify.
I just though of something else I didn't post earlier. You'd need a way to know how many actually people voted in order to really match up the web site's list to confirm that no ghost votes were added under people's names who are registered to vote, but who really didn't vote....grr. I can't think of a way to do that.
Maybe another list that actually lists peoples real names, but does not list who they voted for? Slight violation of privacy, but I bet most people would be OK with that. It would allow reporters or investigators to actually call a real person and ask if they really did vote.
Between a published list of votes, identified by a random ID number known only to the voter, the list being countable by anyone, and a second list to verify that the number of votes matches the number of actual voters, I can't think of a way that that system could be fooled.
Well, there's a way to link a vote to a voter without violating privacy, with the caveat that no third party will be able to establish the link.
You cast a vote, which is recorded electronically. The machine prints 2 papers with a random ID with your vote. One paper you keep, one is put in a box. You can then go to a web site that has all the votes listed, and search for your ID code to verify that the vote alongside it is valid.
If enough people checked their vote on the site, it would provide a fairly good amount of fraud protection. Anyone could add up all the votes on the site to count it themselves. And if a some amount (5%?) people complained that their vote was wrong, the election could be investigated by recounting the paper, verifying that the number of votes matches the number of people signed up to vote, and re-posting the results on the web for people to once again verify.
How do you know that your electronic vote was really for candidate X? The screen might say so, the paper might say so, but how do you verify it was counted?
I'd like to see a system that records electronically, and then prints out a random ID code with your vote. You could then go to a web site and search for your ID number and see your vote. Likewise, someone could look at all the votes and count them up on the web site.
An outright ban on Chinese goods would be horrible, for both our economies, and likely lead to war.
But it does make sense to me to start slowly increasing our tariffs on Chinese imports until they at least match China's tariffs on our exports to them, and perhaps even more to makeup for the hidden costs in China's goods (government subsidized businesses, pollution control, worker conditions, etc..).
I completely agree with what you say. It is pretty baffling to me that people can't understand this when the data is out there. We've had 1980-Now to realize that trickle down does work, and we had 1950-until Reagan to realize that a progressive tax system and strong unions does work.
I wish I heard this term more often in debates about what type of economic/political system is best (trickle down vs trickle up, etc etc ):
Demand-side economics.
The USA is the number one consumer of goods in the world. But if our people can't afford to buy those goods, the corporations response is to try to make those goods cheaper.
Thanks for perfectly illustrating why we are in this situation. "This is America!" is a meaningless phrase. You didn't do shit when they busted the unions. You didn't do shit when the easier jobs were shipped over there. You didn't do shit while the Congress continued to cut taxes for corporations so they could sell us out. You just sat there, with that smug look on your face, saying "Yeah boy! This is America! We believe in the Market, not in that damn Government interference. Why pay more for TV set? That's stupid, when we can all just put it on a credit card for half the price."
And how does your whiny little rant help? Half the things you mention actually helped US keep manufacturing. For example, busting the unions, shipping out the easier jobs, and cutting corporate taxes. The problem fundamentally is that the US is much more expensive than China for manufacturing. Some of that premium is just because we're a wealthier country (especially per capita and in property values) and want a cleaner environment and safer working conditions and some of it is nonsense like the Social Security pyramid scam (that's 15% added to the cost of every US worker right there, folks) or NIMBYism (anti-industry hysteria which doesn't take into account the actual potential harm of a potential industrial operation).
Henry Ford was once asked why he paid his workers much more than the average factor worker. "So they can afford to buy my cars". Busting unions destroys demand-side economics. A term not often used, I know, but very much a driving force in our economy.
Tax cuts for corporations rarely results in any sort of economic stimulus. Feel free to look up what the CBO has to say about economic stimulus. For instance, did you know that the stimulus with the most bang for the buck is food stamps? For every dollar you put into food stamps, it generates 1.79 dollars of activity in the economy. Tax breaks for the top earners results in 0.30 dollars of activity, a negative multiplier. So unless the CBO is wrong, trickle down (tax cuts for corporations) DOES NOT WORK. It hasn't worked in 10 years, it didn't work during Reagan's terms, its proven, get over it. The average American income fell by 2000 dollars during the last 10 years, while the top earners wages rose considerably. Trick.Down.Does.Not.Work.
Shipping jobs overseas is the exact same thing: destruction of demand-side economics. The US is the number one consumer of goods in the world. We used to have plenty of demand for American made products, and American workers could afford them.
What happened you say? Busting unions, cutting taxes down on the rich from the 70-904% that it used to be from 1950 until Reagan took office, additional tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas (which Obama is trying to stop), and.... one of the largest factors: unfair tariffs. China levies a tariff on US goods, I forget exactly how much on average, but its high, 30%'ish. Do you know what our import tariffs are on China's goods? Zero.
So to summarize, here's what we need to do to bolster American production:
1. Support union growth and power. Like Germany, adopt measures that would give unions partial to full executive control of their business.
2. Strengthen the middle class by returning to a progressive tax system. Return the tax system to pre-Reagan tax levels, increase spending on education, social programs, tax breaks for the middle class, expand and fund infrastructure projects similar to what FDR did.
3. Return to the days of corporate charter review: If a corporation is not benefiting society, pull its charter. A corporation is granted additional rights, and it used to have a trade off. Over time, corporations were given those additional rights with no additional responsibility required. This needs to end.
4. Recognize that the world-wide free market is not making anyone pay for external costs, like pollution. If China manufactures goods without pollution control,
I'm posting this a day late, so its likely that no one will read this, but oh well:)
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/rulings/promise-kept/
It has only been two years, and he started with a metric ton of shit to deal with. Yes, you listed a a handful of things he hasn't done, but look at the list of things he has done. He's done more good for the average person than anything the republicans have done, or proposed, in 10 years.
I agree that both parties were to blame for the economic recession (although I'd weight the republican guilt higher than the dems), but you must have had your eyes and ears shut the last two years if you don't think Obama is moving the country in a better direction than the other party did.
"Hypothesis: The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose mandatory health care insurance on every citizen."
Sigh.... congress did not impose mandatory health care insurance. They used their ability to tax (taxing to promote or demote a policy, as they do with many other things) people who do not have health care insurance. If you have health care insurance, you get a tax rebate equal to the tax increase.
People have described this as a fine for not having insurance. Which basically is true. But again, even if you consider it a fine, that doesn't mean health insurance is mandatory. Feel free to pay the fine every year if you really hate having insurance.
Tax incentives, tax rebates, etc.. are certainly not unconstitutional.
My business is just me (technically) plus a few contractors. At what point are we and our interests no longer individuals?
This is an older slashdot article, so nobody will likely read this, but....
The business is no longer an individual interest when you incorporate (LTD, etc..). If you have limited liability, you share no personal risk with the outcome of the business. Which leads to the company doing dumb things, like for short term profit, something that an individual would not do. A corporation is granted rights that exceed individual rights, and used to be reviewed by the government to ensure that it was providing a benefit for society. If the corporation was found to be detrimental to society as a whole, its charter was revoked. This is entirely within the realm of what government should be doing, and has done since the founding of our country. Except that now, the concept of ever revoking a corporate charter is pretty much off the table. All the rights and then some more, none of the responsibility or risks.
I would like to add another case where a business no longer pursues individual interests or can be said to be just a conglomerate of individuals: natural or artificial monopolies. Those businesses far exceed the power to influence that any other similar collection of individuals would have, and are largely immune to many market factors. In this case, like corporate regulation, it is entirely appropriate for government to create rules and frameworks in which those monopolies exist.
And yet another case: use of the commons. The commons being natural resources that are a shared resource of our country. Government land with oil, gold, etc.. on it. Or national forests, rivers, etc.. Businesses using those common resources should rightly be regulated by government, to ensure that those resources are not completely ruined (river pollution, etc..) or completely exhausted (forests) for future generations. The free market is not suited to self-managing common resources.
So despite being run by individuals, corporations, monopolies, and businesses that use common resources, all deserve regulation by our government, and should not be considered enterprise by individuals.
My point was that the middle east basically controls what OPEC does (pricing, etc..).
If we chose to stop importing oil from the middle east alone, Nigeria and Venezuela and the other "non-middle eastern" OPEC members wouldn't sit by and allow us to do so without consequence.
The only way to escape our oil imports from the middle east is to wean ourselves off oil all together.
Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
Those countries make up a little thing called OPEC. Stop importing from OPEC and the US economy will fall apart.
Side note: Do you consider yourself a conservative? I keep seeing this theme coming from Tea Party/Conservative/Fox News'ish folks that we should (as if we can) aggressively move away from foreign oil.
The bottom line is that we can't move away from OPEC imports until our economy is at least 40% off its oil addiction.
Even discounting that control of 20% of a country's energy isn't massive control over that country, OPEC is comprised of the following countries:
Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
The sum of those oil exports is a lot more than 20%. And we all know where the major influence about OPEC pricing come from: the middle east.
I'm not sure what *far* better way you envision.
Accountants, those in finance, etc.. generally do not have any computer skills outside of Excel. They routinely work with large data sets. I remember finance dept. folks working around the 65k limit by having 65k rows per tab, and then combining calculations on the rows on a final tab.
The amount of excel equations, nesting, and loops was actually pretty impressive for having no programming experience. When I supported those types of workers, I remember having some success moving certain parts of their work into real databases, making web front ends, etc.. for their data, but quite a bit of it stayed in spreadsheets.
Financial folks often need to do pretty complex calculations, and excel provides a fairly intuitive way to start with small step calculations, and combine those many small steps into something that resembles a full blown program.
Outlook? There are tons of email programs, and Outlook is the very worst email client I've ever used
IAWTP. Thing is, people don't care so much about that. They like outlook for its calendar and meeting functionality.
And those (been a while, might be the wrong term) shared folders that make outlook basically act as a network drive. A place I worked 10 years ago had so many of those shared folders in Outlook that it was basically the company's file server.
Outlook+Exchange alone fulfills 90% of an average corporate/medium-to-large business' needs.
Well, it's pretty simple for most places that don't focus on tech, and where the cost of the product is a drop in the bucket compared to downtime fighting something new.
1. history.
2. compatibility.
3. variable collaboration.
I recently tried to get a lawyer to use a combination of openoffice and google docs as a means of collaboration and storage. On 1) they were only familiar with office, and had no desire to learn something new, 2) because all people they collaborate with are basically of the same thinking, compatibility would be an issue if this person did things differently than other lawyers, and 3) collaboration happens with totally new firms all the time, depending on cases. That means that a real collaboration infrastructure is not feasible. Emailing word documents back and forth is basically the easiest way to handle things.
I know in theory Java isn't supposed to be that much noticeably slower, but it sure seems like there is a higher percentage of crappy slow java code than there is crappy slow c/c++ code.
I'm not sure why you mention Eclipse. At least my install of it, with tons of plugins, seems to take a very very long time to load up compared with other full featured editors.
I'm not a java guy, so I've never really understood why it often 'feels slower' to startup. Hundreds of jar files being read into memory? It would have been faster if they were consolidated?
I think it's a bit too early to say that Microsoft is dying.
http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=microsoft+quarterly+profit
Their quarterly profits are still huge, 17+ billion, and it isn't going down (on average, considering recession, etc etc..).
IE doesn't make them any profit. It wouldn't hurt Microsoft one bit if they lost all share in that area.
Office is still the standard for the vast majority of businesses, especially non-computer literate ones (law, medicine, etc..) and for many universities who have site licenses, office is "free".
How many folks use bing? Who cares, its not a core MS product. It is something they tacked on to an existing successful monopoly to suck just a bit of revenue from google.. All new computer buyers will have Bing pre-selected and probably not care. Over time, its numbers might grow.
IIS: IIS isn't a product. It is a sub-feature of a Microsoft Server, which, quite a few places use for things like Active Directory. You forgot about tons of their other server products: SQL Server, Sharepoint, etc... that while they don't dominate, do make money and are deeply entrenched in many businesses.
Exchange server: Outlook is still the most robust, feature filled email client, that many places use as a full blown collaboration tool. None of those extra features work without exchange. I haven't looked at the numbers recently, but I'd be surprised if exchange use was down at all. Once the management/average users of a place get used to exchange, there is no going back.
For the record, I use nearly 100% open source in my work and at home, and greatly prefer it to Windows products. Except for gaming of course:), which reminds me: That MS is dying is something I've heard for so many years and yet it hasn't happened. Pretty much the same claim that PC gaming is dying. I've heard that since the first Nintendo came out. Still hasn't happened.