Two environments can be "harsh", yet have orthogonal dimensions of "harsh."
Some animals live in your intestines. Pretty harsh environment, but they do. It doesn't mean they can survive in the ground, nor that ground living bacteria can live in your intestines.
You were the subject to a problem that confronts all of us in the United States. The way it works is the least common denominator is found, rules constructed, and those rules apply uniformly to all.
Little old ladies are asked to remove their shoes at the airports because they might be hiding bombs there.
A pile of sand has to be labeled as a hazardous material, including its melting point, etc, because silica particles have been shown to cause cancer, and so it is treated just like any other toxic material.
Try building a house some time, and find out all the strange little arbitrary rules in place that have the effect of drastically increasing the cost of the house.
Anyway, don't take it personally. Use the time for some personal development, or just to have some fun.
Not necessarily true. The price of animal innards may go up, which would spur the production of more animal innards. Grain and other things use lots of petroleum to produce.
The idea is that innards are just waste, which I don't believe. Everything is used.
"Unix is such a better operating system than Windows hands down." The article doesn't include UnixWare, which was released at about the same time.
Here is why Unix failed. Novell decided to make UnixWare, and make it useable by the average person.
I was at Novell, and I put a floppy disk into the system. It didn't work. So I called up the developer, and he said "Oh, you have to mount the device to use it," and you have to specify the file system, blocks, etc. Now I ask you, What typical user is going to want to do this? It is completely unreasonable. If your answer is, like a friend of mines, that it is desirable, then you are building an OS for experts who believe that power is critical to their job.
Compare this to the little arrow that shows up on Windows and bounces on the start button and proclaims "Click here to start a program." This little feature helps a bunch of people to get going with Windows, and makes it a little easier for them. Also, it isn't much of an annoyance to me. I've forgotten about it 'till now.
My mother will *never* want or need to mount a floppy. She just wants to stick the floppy in and get at her information on the disk. OS nuances are completely irrelevent to her: she is a scientist, not a hack. She might need to know that her programs are stored under the "start" button, though.
The reason uSoft is successful with windows, and why they were able to extend to the server side and crush Novell and other Unix companies is Unix has an enormous learning curve. But one reason is that it is incredibly easy to get started. GUIs are easy to use for the first time. Sure, the data center will always want command line control and such, but when you are first trying something out it must be simple. Windows was always that. Unix has never been that, and I include Linux even today.
Now, the economics of Linux are great, its free! But even still as I understand things uSoft has been able to cut other deals with some of the big monopolies in order to *sell* windows, which I demonstrates the value of it to the purchasers.
Personally, I see no reason for a bunch of people interested in OSs and the like to build user friendly interfaces. Why would an OS person really care? The only reason I can think to go down this path for no compensation is out of hatred of uSoft. Well, it will be a sad day if all this hatred ends up beating down uSoft, not because I like uSoft, but just because I hate religious zealotry.
If Bill really believed there was such a huge amount of innovation left on the PC, then why did he give back $9,000,000,000 dollars to investors? That could have been used for all the innovation he believes is left to do.
Really I don't give a damn what is happening inside North Korea. It's a domestic issue that no other country has the right to interfere with.
You are saying the dictators are legitimate? Kim Jong "owns" his people or something? From where did he get his legitimacy? God? Inherited a nation of slaves?
What? He keeps his power by force? Well, then I say there is nothing wrong with taking it away, either.
. What are some innate differences? People keep mentioning the vagina, but let's remember a couple of other things that women have that men do not: ovaries and a uterus. While a baby is in the oven, the father can continue working, a mother often cannot.
Come on, if you went that far in college then you know there simply aren't that many women in the sciences (if that is where you are), and these decisions usually predate having children.
Perhaps it does have something to do with that uteris. I mean, do you think it is possible that some traits were selected for in women, such as nurturing and socialism., whereas they weren't as important to men, perhaps even might be detrimental to men?
If you are scientifically minded, which you don't say, you will grasp the possibility immediately.
Are the concerns I have due to innate, physical differences? Or our society's inability to cope with a workforce that is actively involved in reproduction?
Well, what's innate. I guess that means "Genes" or their activation. To some extent, men and women have been evolving separately for a long time now. There are a bunch of mechanisms to activate male or female traits, right? (I understand they are trying to use testosterone to activate women's libido, for instance. So perhaps you could get your doctor to prescribe you some and you could get a tiny sense of what it's like to be a man. Actually, I will say there is one thing my wife and I have in common: we both like beautiful women. They are plastered all over that rag, People magazine, and all the makeup commercials have beautiful women in them. On the other hand, I've never been able to figure out what women view as handsome.)
Do you think it is possible that in all of these billions of years of evolution, different roles came about, and men and women do have intrinsic differences? If you think of evolution as constantly optimizing species, you would think there would be some differences that would make a difference to the survival outcome.
Maybe society has grown up around the traits of its members, you know. And one other thing to consider. Wait until you have kids. If the deep instincts are completely activated, you will want to spend all that time with your kids. Wait until you see how helpless they are. How will you be able to abandon them? You will probably have to lie to yourself and say the nanny/daycare is good enough.
Anyway, I'm not drawing any conclusions, just pointing out that there are underlying reasons such differences could exist. And congratulations on your PHD.
I'm glad to see though, that the taboo on these discussions is coming to a close. I hate anti-free speech things.
Saddam had the capability to either make them, or get them from someone else
There is a proof by existence here. Saddam did have chemical WMD at one point. It is referenced here
http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/cwbw/Ch14.pd f
Not that it matters that much, you are just wrong.
- yes, we did, but that wasn't the justification given for war, so it's a topic for a different discussion).
Why? This sound like it is just your way of eliminating the good things that will come of this from your reasoning, and I find it highly duplicitous. You should be jumping for joy that hundreds of thousands will no longer be murdered, and the millions who fled Iraq can go home. Unless you just hate bush and want to "dethrone" him.
of an Iraq-backed attack spready doom across the continental United States and saying he knew something we didn't about all this. Well, he was wrong.
Wrong about what? That terrorists could use weapons supplied by Saddam to attack the US? I guess we will never find out if this scenario could come to be.
The reasoning for war with Iraq was approved of by both parties, so the idea that its because of something only bush knew is bogus. Your elected democrats also voted to give Bush the power to go to war on the same intelligence.
If the democrats were complicitous, then you have to ask the deeper question, which is "why did we do this?" You don't bother to think deeper than "Oh look, there were no WMD, so the whole thing was wrong." I'll offer you a reason: we had to prevent Saddam Hussein or the terrorists from controlling the middle east, because the entire world runs off of oil, and if they control the oil supply it isn't in the world's best interest (unless you are France and have a bunch of deals lined up with the victor).
If the democrats were not complicitous then they are fools, and should be voted out of office.
Imagine, if you can, trying to convince an entire country that is divided by a bunch of crazy ideas, and that the entire country was convinced by a person. That's a pretty daunting task. The person chose and emphasized a reason that resonated with the people, because it is too difficult to have a dialogue on international affiars with the American people.
If you don't like that things weren't discussed more deeply, then I suggest you take it up with the press, that willingly pursued the one dimensional arguments of George Bush.
Well, when the state owns all of the property, then you will have very few rights. Like, there is the girl arreseted for chewing bubble gum at the state owned trolley station.
Personally, I find these kinds of arguments very distrubing.
The problem I have with this whole thing is that the election is in the noise. There is no real way of telling who won.
If you take a noisy source, and sample it a bunch of times, you will get a different answer each time.
It seems that the loser in an election in the noise will win. Hold the "ace" in the rear until the process of recounts win, then play the ace, and voila, you winl
It means that people and unnatural corporations didn't do it.
Good:
Tigers that kill prey, thereby maintaining the natural balance Bad:
Hunters that kill prey and change the natural balance to an unnatural man made one
Good:
Mountain lions Bad:
People that make homes in the mountain lion's territory
Good:
Yohimbe (sometimes deadly, but naturally cultivated) Bad:
Tobacco (sometimes deadly, but unnaturally cultivated)
Good:
Naturalists that don't turn the turtle over in the hot baking sand Bad:
Hunters that kill their prey with unfair rifles.
Good:
Wind Power, Solar power (except hydro power, which is really a form of solar) Bad:
Gasoline, Coal, Nuclear power
Good:
Naturalists who leave "natural man" alone in the wild, to study their natural cultures Bad:
Civilizing the natural man, thereby bringing him out of his misery
Good:
Being a vegetarian Bad:
Eating cows.
Good:
Living in high density apartments, leaving the swamp land for your favorite toad Bad:
People draining the swamp land and enjoying elbow space
Good: Almost anything but republican, including communist, totalitarian, etc. Bad: Republican
Good: The billions in India and Africa Bad: the 300 million people in the US
Then of course all of the chemical stuff, etc.
By and large, Natural means that man doesn't do what is natural to the rest of the animal kingdom, and replicate and take over territory. Also, it is highly unnatural to change things, so, for example things like mining are highly unnatural, and are really a crime against nature.
It sounds like the author admits there are cultural differences between indians and americans. Obviously, these aren't genetic differences, but cultural ones.
In general, I've never met a more pleasant set of people, but there is this problem I have with the class structure of Indians.
One Indian told me "You know, the untouchables are inferior because otherwise they would no longer be untouchable." Now, I'm sure there are a lot of Americans that feel that way to their favorite racial group too, but I've noticed a lot of class structure in Indians.
A lot of the so called elite class, such as Brahmans, feel they are vastly more capable than they really are. One Brahman I know told me when he was twelve he was giving religious ceremonies to people 5 times his age. If that won't give you an inflated self-confidence, I don't know what will.
In addition, I've seen a lot of Indians "roll over," agreeing to things they never should. Now, I know a lot of Americans that do these things too, so it isn't unusual, but the number that are willing to is so high that it changes the workplace. Bosses that listen to a bunch of people always agreeing with them, when they are wrong, actually weakens the work environment and removes individuality, freedom, and to some extent the ability to compete. True, it has the advantage of getting the wood behind one arrow, but I can't stand anyone cleaning up anyone else's shit.
That having been said, I can't really generate anything but a great respect for almost all of these people. I can sense what a wonderful place it must be to live in India, where you can walk into your neighbor's home not being concerned about intruding, but just to sit down and have a cup of coffee or something. These people are certainly more socially adept and understanding than I am, and I respect them for it.
I said the per capita income is 37K per year. Go look it up. That 37K per year includes everyone, you know, including your infant son, and your elderly grandmother. If the mean household size is 3, which it is about, then the mean household income is 111K/year.
So don't tell me "The actual," as if you are making some great contradictory point, when you aren't.
Oh, and I agree with your assessment: the wealthy should pay for their services. The primary purpose of government is to protect its people. I'm tired of paying to protect the wealthy people's property, be it with welfare or whatever.
You've got 5% of people paying 50%+ of the taxes. That means a person making $200,000 a year pays 10x his share of the taxes, yet he doesn get 10x as much service.
Taxation on the rich is way too low. The top 1% of the country owns 38% of the wealth of the nation, but pay only 37% in income tax. You may say "Well, that's close," but it does *not* include social security.
Social security has been used for general fund purposes for years, and the amount of money collected is enormous, 15% of a person's income for lower income people.
Social security is almost on par with income tax as a revenue source for the federal government, and the cost of social security even recently was far less than it brought in. Of course, it was all spent by the federal government.
The truth is the wealthiest are paying far less than their fare share of taxes. If social security had been saved for what it should have been, then I would say the tax burden is correct, but it has not. I estimate the rich are 50% undertaxed.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm willing to bet most of the game is in the knowing. Like, if you let out your court strategy, or if there is real information in the messages, then there may create other ways to prove things in court.
Jobs such as construction, defense, service, and agriculture (for defense reasons) will stay in the US. I think that we as taxpayers have a huge burden to pull around from the crazy spending that Ronald Reagan accelerated, along with a high regulatory tax on everything we produce, so there is little chance of making our wages competitive with India and China. I think that those with the money will invest heavily in the emerging technologically elite countries: China, India, and Israel and Russia if they becomes stable in every new technology that comes about. Opportunity is lost in the United states. It eventually loses its military edge as commercial enterprises in India and China propell their technology and their own institutions of learning and research supercede the US's technology for key militarily applications. They build their own advanced military. Japan rebuilds its military as it can no longer rely on the United States. The United States, like Spain at it's height becomes weak as it actually produces nothing of value. The new techno elite countries nationalize their US businesses, or structure things in such a way that they eventually die. They use their strong governments to bring a new order to the world, based on weakened human rights and pre-eminant power of the state.
Meanwhile, internally the Democrats cheer they have an issue left. They take up the banner of protectionism in a contradiction of the humanism they espouse that is written in the history books. They embrace so called tech-libertarians, and get caught in a tempest of self contradiction that keeps them innefective against the massive market forces at play.
The US becomes an economic backwater, much the same as modern day Spain. The people that brought us to this place have collected significant portions of the value of the US, so they implement a social structure much the same as is in England, with elites and servants. The republican party pushes theocracy to keep the disgruntled workers in line.
Given the forces at work today, it's hard to see how the US maintains its leadership position.
Slashdot Mirror
Two environments can be "harsh", yet have orthogonal dimensions of "harsh."
Some animals live in your intestines. Pretty harsh environment, but they do. It doesn't mean they can survive in the ground, nor that ground living bacteria can live in your intestines.
You were the subject to a problem that confronts all of us in the United States. The way it works is the least common denominator is found, rules constructed, and those rules apply uniformly to all.
Little old ladies are asked to remove their shoes at the airports because they might be hiding bombs there.
A pile of sand has to be labeled as a hazardous material, including its melting point, etc, because silica particles have been shown to cause cancer, and so it is treated just like any other toxic material.
Try building a house some time, and find out all the strange little arbitrary rules in place that have the effect of drastically increasing the cost of the house.
Anyway, don't take it personally. Use the time for some personal development, or just to have some fun.
Not necessarily true. The price of animal innards may go up, which would spur the production of more animal innards. Grain and other things use lots of petroleum to produce.
The idea is that innards are just waste, which I don't believe. Everything is used.
"Unix is such a better operating system than Windows hands down." The article doesn't include UnixWare, which was released at about the same time.
Here is why Unix failed. Novell decided to make UnixWare, and make it useable by the average person.
I was at Novell, and I put a floppy disk into the system. It didn't work. So I called up the developer, and he said "Oh, you have to mount the device to use it," and you have to specify the file system, blocks, etc. Now I ask you, What typical user is going to want to do this? It is completely unreasonable. If your answer is, like a friend of mines, that it is desirable, then you are building an OS for experts who believe that power is critical to their job.
Compare this to the little arrow that shows up on Windows and bounces on the start button and proclaims "Click here to start a program." This little feature helps a bunch of people to get going with Windows, and makes it a little easier for them. Also, it isn't much of an annoyance to me. I've forgotten about it 'till now.
My mother will *never* want or need to mount a floppy. She just wants to stick the floppy in and get at her information on the disk. OS nuances are completely irrelevent to her: she is a scientist, not a hack. She might need to know that her programs are stored under the "start" button, though.
The reason uSoft is successful with windows, and why they were able to extend to the server side and crush Novell and other Unix companies is Unix has an enormous learning curve. But one reason is that it is incredibly easy to get started. GUIs are easy to use for the first time. Sure, the data center will always want command line control and such, but when you are first trying something out it must be simple. Windows was always that. Unix has never been that, and I include Linux even today.
Now, the economics of Linux are great, its free! But even still as I understand things uSoft has been able to cut other deals with some of the big monopolies in order to *sell* windows, which I demonstrates the value of it to the purchasers.
Personally, I see no reason for a bunch of people interested in OSs and the like to build user friendly interfaces. Why would an OS person really care? The only reason I can think to go down this path for no compensation is out of hatred of uSoft. Well, it will be a sad day if all this hatred ends up beating down uSoft, not because I like uSoft, but just because I hate religious zealotry.
I read somewhere that NASA intentionally understates the mission life for marketing purposes.
Hopefully there is some tangible value in this whole effort.
I wonder if you could use this as a huge batterey? Store up enough photons in a circle, then tap into them as needed.
If Bill really believed there was such a huge amount of innovation left on the PC, then why did he give back $9,000,000,000 dollars to investors? That could have been used for all the innovation he believes is left to do.
I'm just wondering, how many of the people that find the government's keeping DNA is "ominous" also feel that gun control is a good thing?
I also wonder how many people who have a gun feel that the government keeping DNA is ominous?
I recently read a report from the CIA that research isn't as important as it was once thought to be because communications links ideas more quickly.
It said that the emphasis on research in the neo-tech countries, India, China, etc., might not pay off for them because they can't retain their IP.
Really I don't give a damn what is happening inside North Korea. It's a domestic issue that no other country has the right to interfere with.
You are saying the dictators are legitimate? Kim Jong "owns" his people or something? From where did he get his legitimacy? God? Inherited a nation of slaves?
What? He keeps his power by force? Well, then I say there is nothing wrong with taking it away, either.
Today with essentially zero competition, it's [word] $299.
l
Word 2002 for $39.99.
http://www.softwareoutlet.com/static/item3377.htm
. What are some innate differences? People keep mentioning the vagina, but let's remember a couple of other things that women have that men do not: ovaries and a uterus. While a baby is in the oven, the father can continue working, a mother often cannot.
Come on, if you went that far in college then you know there simply aren't that many women in the sciences (if that is where you are), and these decisions usually predate having children.
Perhaps it does have something to do with that uteris. I mean, do you think it is possible that some traits were selected for in women, such as nurturing and socialism., whereas they weren't as important to men, perhaps even might be detrimental to men?
If you are scientifically minded, which you don't say, you will grasp the possibility immediately.
Are the concerns I have due to innate, physical differences? Or our society's inability to cope with a workforce that is actively involved in reproduction?
Well, what's innate. I guess that means "Genes" or their activation. To some extent, men and women have been evolving separately for a long time now. There are a bunch of mechanisms to activate male or female traits, right? (I understand they are trying to use testosterone to activate women's libido, for instance. So perhaps you could get your doctor to prescribe you some and you could get a tiny sense of what it's like to be a man. Actually, I will say there is one thing my wife and I have in common: we both like beautiful women. They are plastered all over that rag, People magazine, and all the makeup commercials have beautiful women in them. On the other hand, I've never been able to figure out what women view as handsome.)
Do you think it is possible that in all of these billions of years of evolution, different roles came about, and men and women do have intrinsic differences? If you think of evolution as constantly optimizing species, you would think there would be some differences that would make a difference to the survival outcome.
Maybe society has grown up around the traits of its members, you know. And one other thing to consider. Wait until you have kids. If the deep instincts are completely activated, you will want to spend all that time with your kids. Wait until you see how helpless they are. How will you be able to abandon them? You will probably have to lie to yourself and say the nanny/daycare is good enough.
Anyway, I'm not drawing any conclusions, just pointing out that there are underlying reasons such differences could exist. And congratulations on your PHD.
I'm glad to see though, that the taboo on these discussions is coming to a close. I hate anti-free speech things.
Saddam had the capability to either make them, or get them from someone else
There is a proof by existence here. Saddam did have chemical WMD at one point. It is referenced here
Not that it matters that much, you are just wrong.
- yes, we did, but that wasn't the justification given for war, so it's a topic for a different discussion).
Why? This sound like it is just your way of eliminating the good things that will come of this from your reasoning, and I find it highly duplicitous. You should be jumping for joy that hundreds of thousands will no longer be murdered, and the millions who fled Iraq can go home. Unless you just hate bush and want to "dethrone" him.
of an Iraq-backed attack spready doom across the continental United States and saying he knew something we didn't about all this. Well, he was wrong.
Wrong about what? That terrorists could use weapons supplied by Saddam to attack the US? I guess we will never find out if this scenario could come to be.
The reasoning for war with Iraq was approved of by both parties, so the idea that its because of something only bush knew is bogus. Your elected democrats also voted to give Bush the power to go to war on the same intelligence.
If the democrats were complicitous, then you have to ask the deeper question, which is "why did we do this?" You don't bother to think deeper than "Oh look, there were no WMD, so the whole thing was wrong." I'll offer you a reason: we had to prevent Saddam Hussein or the terrorists from controlling the middle east, because the entire world runs off of oil, and if they control the oil supply it isn't in the world's best interest (unless you are France and have a bunch of deals lined up with the victor).
If the democrats were not complicitous then they are fools, and should be voted out of office.
Imagine, if you can, trying to convince an entire country that is divided by a bunch of crazy ideas, and that the entire country was convinced by a person. That's a pretty daunting task. The person chose and emphasized a reason that resonated with the people, because it is too difficult to have a dialogue on international affiars with the American people.
If you don't like that things weren't discussed more deeply, then I suggest you take it up with the press, that willingly pursued the one dimensional arguments of George Bush.
No self interest here. They get free software to add value to their proprietary VHDL code.
Meanwhile, this approach continues to devalue software, though I suspect they are aiming at a very specific company.
Well, when the state owns all of the property, then you will have very few rights. Like, there is the girl arreseted for chewing bubble gum at the state owned trolley station.
Personally, I find these kinds of arguments very distrubing.
The problem I have with this whole thing is that the election is in the noise. There is no real way of telling who won.
If you take a noisy source, and sample it a bunch of times, you will get a different answer each time.
It seems that the loser in an election in the noise will win. Hold the "ace" in the rear until the process of recounts win, then play the ace, and voila, you winl
Come on! Even I know what "Natural" means.
It means that people and unnatural corporations didn't do it.
Good:
Tigers that kill prey, thereby maintaining the natural balance
Bad:
Hunters that kill prey and change the natural balance to an unnatural man made one
Good:
Mountain lions
Bad:
People that make homes in the mountain lion's territory
Good:
Yohimbe (sometimes deadly, but naturally cultivated)
Bad:
Tobacco (sometimes deadly, but unnaturally cultivated)
Good:
Naturalists that don't turn the turtle over in the hot baking sand
Bad:
Hunters that kill their prey with unfair rifles.
Good:
Wind Power, Solar power (except hydro power, which is really a form of solar)
Bad:
Gasoline, Coal, Nuclear power
Good:
Naturalists who leave "natural man" alone in the wild, to study their natural cultures
Bad:
Civilizing the natural man, thereby bringing him out of his misery
Good:
Being a vegetarian
Bad:
Eating cows.
Good:
Living in high density apartments, leaving the swamp land for your favorite toad
Bad:
People draining the swamp land and enjoying elbow space
Good: Almost anything but republican, including communist, totalitarian, etc.
Bad: Republican
Good: The billions in India and Africa
Bad: the 300 million people in the US
Then of course all of the chemical stuff, etc.
By and large, Natural means that man doesn't do what is natural to the rest of the animal kingdom, and replicate and take over territory. Also, it is highly unnatural to change things, so, for example things like mining are highly unnatural, and are really a crime against nature.
It sounds like the author admits there are cultural differences between indians and americans. Obviously, these aren't genetic differences, but cultural ones.
In general, I've never met a more pleasant set of people, but there is this problem I have with the class structure of Indians.
One Indian told me "You know, the untouchables are inferior because otherwise they would no longer be untouchable." Now, I'm sure there are a lot of Americans that feel that way to their favorite racial group too, but I've noticed a lot of class structure in Indians.
A lot of the so called elite class, such as Brahmans, feel they are vastly more capable than they really are. One Brahman I know told me when he was twelve he was giving religious ceremonies to people 5 times his age. If that won't give you an inflated self-confidence, I don't know what will.
In addition, I've seen a lot of Indians "roll over," agreeing to things they never should. Now, I know a lot of Americans that do these things too, so it isn't unusual, but the number that are willing to is so high that it changes the workplace. Bosses that listen to a bunch of people always agreeing with them, when they are wrong, actually weakens the work environment and removes individuality, freedom, and to some extent the ability to compete. True, it has the advantage of getting the wood behind one arrow, but I can't stand anyone cleaning up anyone else's shit.
That having been said, I can't really generate anything but a great respect for almost all of these people. I can sense what a wonderful place it must be to live in India, where you can walk into your neighbor's home not being concerned about intruding, but just to sit down and have a cup of coffee or something. These people are certainly more socially adept and understanding than I am, and I respect them for it.
I said the per capita income is 37K per year. Go look it up. That 37K per year includes everyone, you know, including your infant son, and your elderly grandmother. If the mean household size is 3, which it is about, then the mean household income is 111K/year.
So don't tell me "The actual," as if you are making some great contradictory point, when you aren't.
Oh, and I agree with your assessment: the wealthy should pay for their services. The primary purpose of government is to protect its people. I'm tired of paying to protect the wealthy people's property, be it with welfare or whatever.
You've got 5% of people paying 50%+ of the taxes. That means a person making $200,000 a year pays 10x his share of the taxes, yet he doesn get 10x as much service.
Taxation on the rich is way too low. The top 1% of the country owns 38% of the wealth of the nation, but pay only 37% in income tax. You may say "Well, that's close," but it does *not* include social security.
Social security has been used for general fund purposes for years, and the amount of money collected is enormous, 15% of a person's income for lower income people.
Social security is almost on par with income tax as a revenue source for the federal government, and the cost of social security even recently was far less than it brought in. Of course, it was all spent by the federal government.
The truth is the wealthiest are paying far less than their fare share of taxes. If social security had been saved for what it should have been, then I would say the tax burden is correct, but it has not. I estimate the rich are 50% undertaxed.
The GDP per capita in the US is 37K. That means the mean income for an average household of about 3 people is over 100K/yr.
Per capita also includes your retired grandmother, living alone with a very modest income, by the way.
127K/yr is too low, by a long shot.
I've been thinking along similar lines. I can't think of why I would use it in the US, but I might want to use it if I were in China.
Unfortunately in China, I don't think the deniability part of it would work to well.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm willing to bet most of the game is in the knowing. Like, if you let out your court strategy, or if there is real information in the messages, then there may create other ways to prove things in court.
Jobs such as construction, defense, service, and agriculture (for defense reasons) will stay in the US. I think that we as taxpayers have a huge burden to pull around from the crazy spending that Ronald Reagan accelerated, along with a high regulatory tax on everything we produce, so there is little chance of making our wages competitive with India and China. I think that those with the money will invest heavily in the emerging technologically elite countries: China, India, and Israel and Russia if they becomes stable in every new technology that comes about. Opportunity is lost in the United states. It eventually loses its military edge as commercial enterprises in India and China propell their technology and their own institutions of learning and research supercede the US's technology for key militarily applications. They build their own advanced military. Japan rebuilds its military as it can no longer rely on the United States. The United States, like Spain at it's height becomes weak as it actually produces nothing of value. The new techno elite countries nationalize their US businesses, or structure things in such a way that they eventually die. They use their strong governments to bring a new order to the world, based on weakened human rights and pre-eminant power of the state.
Meanwhile, internally the Democrats cheer they have an issue left. They take up the banner of protectionism in a contradiction of the humanism they espouse that is written in the history books. They embrace so called tech-libertarians, and get caught in a tempest of self contradiction that keeps them innefective against the massive market forces at play.
The US becomes an economic backwater, much the same as modern day Spain. The people that brought us to this place have collected significant portions of the value of the US, so they implement a social structure much the same as is in England, with elites and servants. The republican party pushes theocracy to keep the disgruntled workers in line.
Given the forces at work today, it's hard to see how the US maintains its leadership position.