I want an open and fearless look at the integrity of our voting system. I want surprise audits, investigations, and tests along the lines of AT LEAST what we do to test the effectiveness of the TSA. If the FBI can get bombs through a TSA check point... I think some fbi agents can probably get a bag of illicit votes through all the checks.
Germany has gotten a lot of its productivity as the expense of the rest of Europe. Consider Italy, Spain, Greece, etc.
Do you know there are quotas for different industries and commodities throughout Europe that basically proscribe given countries in Europe to be producers of given things and not other things?
Look at the rest of Europe. What happened to English manufacturing?
Everyone is so very impressed with Germany but they forget that the way it is set up. Look at countries throughout Europe where labor prices are much lower than they are in Germany... and yet manufacturing doesn't occur there. Why?
The EU is a major distorting factor in this case which you have to appreciate if you're going to talk about Germany. Look at the rest of the EU. Why is it practically only Germany that seems to be doing well? And consider the distinct ways Germany is regarded within the EU. Do you really think its a coincidence that the country that basically controls the EU tends to benefit from the EU?
Look, this is like any purchase on the market. You have a commodity that you want to sell at a certain price. If your ask is above market rate, it won't sell, and you make ZERO dollars.
Your time... which you sell when you sell labor is gone every minute. It was there and then it is gone. Its like selling oranges or anything else perishable. If you don't sell it then it rots in the warehouse. You can't stockpile your time and sell it later. You must take the current market rate and sell now so that you at least get something.
What has increasingly happened is that people have sought prices and benefits that push the price of employment above market rates. And that has always lead to high unemployment... or many of your oranges unsold rotting in the warehouse.
Now how clever would you think a businessman was that was so insistent to get the high price that he ultimately sold very few oranges and made less money than he would have made if he had simply accepted the lower price and made more sales?
You'd think he was incompetent. And that's what these labor policies are... Incompetent. Your concept will get higher wages for some. But that comes at the price of high unemployment for many more. And when you measure the higher wages for those some against the many many more that get ZERO... these polices are bad for people, bad for communities, and bad for industries. It is literally what has destroyed places like Detroit and much of the rust belt.
Hard working union workers were sold a line of bullshit that they could get better pay and a better standard of living for their families by listening to stupid policies like this... Instead what they got was an industry that closed factories and steel mills... towns that went from being some of the most prosperous places in America to resembling post apocalyptic hell holes. Union halls full of men that could not get work. Rampant drug abuse... hopelessness... Entire towns utterly dependent hand to mouth on welfare.
Sell at the market rate or there will be no sale. If your next idea is intensive socialism or communism... consider consequences there by looking at other countries that have done that. Possibly you're interested in Germany there or something. But also consider Italy, Greece, Spain, etc. Which of those two do you honestly think you're going to get in the US if you push that scheme. Remember Flint Michigan. This concept you're running on is a suicide pact.
People were told that the labor rules were dumb and would have undesired consequences. People didn't listen. Predicted consequences occured... and somehow the People that made bad mistakes with bad consequences retained their credibility.
That generally doesn't happen in any mission critical environment because it is counter productive to have stupid people make choices. But that's not how politics works. If people believe in doing dumb things it doesn't matter how many times it fails... they get to keep voting for the same dumb thing. Its like communism... fails every time... idiot communists still want to try it again. The radical labor policies of the last 100 years have directly lead to the collapse of the manufacturing competitiveness of pretty much everywhere they were applied... no, the collapse doesn't happen instant... it takes decades in some cases for the policies to break an industry. But it happens.
its all paper work that comes from the government. The private practices can't afford to do it and the government is ultimately mandating the paper work. Even if it is the insurance company requiring it, consider why they are requiring it... same reason... regulations. For them to comply with regulations and liability they need the care provider to do a lot of paper work or else the insurance company would risk not being in compliance.
There was a test hospital in Texas that was able to drop the prices for care by something like a factor of six or eight. It did it by literally just going back to the old format. From all indications the quality of care didn't decline.
We're seeing this with all the things that have out of control costs.
What percentage of our healthcare bill actually goes to doctors? A tiny fraction when all is said and done. And what portion of our college tuitions goes to professors... also very little. Just as with the medical industry, most of the cost increases in education have gone to administrators which are not actually required... and even if you need SOME administrators, you certainly don't need more now per capita than we had in the 1950s. If anything, because of automation, we should need less. That administration has increased as the ability to automate administration has increased... and as institutions become existentially affordable is interesting.
Its very hard to look at this as anything but corruption, mismanagement, and stupidity. Both healthcare and education could be made very affordable simply by reverting the regulations and allowing competition.
If I'm happy enough to go to a doctor, wave the paper work and whatever protections its alleged to afford me... who's business is that besides mine and the doctor's?
That the government even thinks it has a right to tell me who I can and cannot see for medical treatment is offensive.
The vast majority of medical procedures aren't even that complicated or require a proper medical degree.
Here someone will make the argument that you want to have the full 8 year doctor in every little thing or you'll die of some rare and highly unlikely thing that the less educated practitioner will miss. But we have to do a cost benefit here. The vast majority of cases involve simple repetitive procedures that are neither hard nor require an extensive background to administer. Having a cadre of technicians just performing those procedures would take enormous weight off the rest of the industry. Those people handled, you'd only be dealing with more serious cases that do require that sort of expertise. And even there, most of the expertise is in diagnosis. They could guide the techs which would be much more efficient than having the doctor personally do it.
Western medicine developed in the triage tents of the Legion. It was all about practicality... division of labor... This man cannot be saved so prioritize this other man that can be saved. The long and the short is that the US healthcare industry can be saved... the cancer has to be cut out of it.
Ah but then you'd have to cut regulations which ultimately made our healthcare this expensive in the first place.;)
Adjust the cost of what people paid for a broken arm 50 years ago to today's money... and you'll find that people were paying about 1/4th of what we're paying now for the same procedures. Why?
Mixture of regulations which have dramatically inflated medical costs.
Doubtless you're dubious... did you know we recently had a shortage of medical grade baking soda. Sodium bicarbonate. The drug industry in the US is so screwed up because of the FDA that we have a shortage of baking soda. Any company that produces baking soda could have produced the medical grade version of it but they are not allowed to without going through some FDA hoops that are frankly absurdly expensive and prohibitive.
The notion of Single Payer is that you're going to lower costs. And the only way you're going to be able to do that is by making less silly most of the dumb regulations that have made medical care so expensive in the US.
50 years ago, the top 3 floors of most hospitals were not taken up with people doing paper work. It wasn't needed. Shift nurses ran wards. Administration was much lighter. And as we have seen recently, private practice medical care is getting hammered.
If we what we had was such a bastion of free market healthcare, then why are private practices dying? Its all big hospitals sucking on federal money. And this we conflate with free market healthcare.
The hypocrisy on the issue is astounding. My body my choice we are told... except when it doesn't involve abortion or recreational drugs... then suddenly even though it is our bodies we don't have a choice.
By all means, allow these organizations to monitor things and inform people. But if I don't give a flying fuck what the FDA says or I don't give a flying fuck what Washington DC says about how I should get healthcare... kindly either get out of my way... or I can only judge you a detriment to my health and well being.
Our healthcare system used to be affordable. It was the meddling in the system which made it unaffordable. And it is no coincidence that the more you meddle the worse it gets. Every failure and disaster is used as an excuse to get more money and more power.
Remember how the ACA was supposed to lower costs? It didn't. At some point failing to predict the outcomes of your programs should compel some humility about how well you understand what you are talking about.
People TALK about cutting spending, but it never seems to happen. And as a result taxation must increase to compensate... and that has limits and damages the economy at some point leading to lower economic growth etc which over time actually leads to lower tax revenue because there is less revenue to tax. Then there is the printing money idea which if done slowly simply rips off lenders and bond holders... which is the whole idea. Oh, I owe you a trillion dollars? PRINT... never said on the bond what the dollar had to be worth, eh?
So far the printing money idea has worked well for the US. We've lost about 96 percent of the value of the dollar over the last 90 or so years. It hurts workers that don't negotiate wages or have their wages pegged to inflation and it hurts bond holders. But its what we're been doing.
I suspect taxes will go up for a bit then get cut then go up then get cut... and all the while spending will increase and the difference will be paid with money snapped into existence with the press of a button.
I personally don't believe in the money tree... that you can just create value out of nothing. But that appears to be what we're doing and it seems to have worked this far... let us hope America's Wily E Coyote moment doesn't come at the wrong moment... and gravity reasserts itself when we're over a fatal cliff. It would be unfortunate.
You don't see it until you see it... we could probably go over the last 10 years of WaPo and you'd see something you didn't see before.
I've got a bunch of English friends that say the same thing you're saying about the BBC... "It used to be balanced but now its just so biased."...
These sources have been like this for a long long time. LA Times I think you were citing as balanced? They've been absurd for decades.
---- From Los Angeles.
LA Times is generally good if they stick to data but even then they are often accurate in some highly literal sense that is misleading.
These media outlets are made up of "people"... not monks that worship the truth or something. People. And just like people they have opinions and views and are inclined to see things the way they see them. Sometimes they're biased without intending to be biased and sometimes they are being intentionally manipulative. Sometimes they bury stories to manipulate an issue by simply not talking about it. Sometimes they pull the "hey look over there" game by talking about something else. Sometimes they use very selective sources to only get the perspective they want. Sometimes they look for someone saying what they want to say so they can report an editorial as if it is the news. "Well this guy I found called Bob says you're a jerk for the same reasons I happen to think you're a jerk, how do you respond to that?" Its endless.
Its how the game is played and the only way forward is to stop lionizing the media. They're just people.
Random man on the street tells you something... that's the media. Take them exactly that seriously. Random guy on the street is sometimes right or wrong for lots of reasons. Large grains of salt etc.
I want to believe too... but then I see everyone hanging out on facebook and twitter... and I rather think we're going to have more people influenced by a smaller set of interests going forward rather than the decentralized dream.
I base this entirely on what I'm seeing people do... these sites censor people, they filter information, they shadow ban... and everyone stays there locked into their echo chambers.
All points addressed already... I could quote myself but I think you'd probably take that as condescension. Since I think I've said all I had to say on the matter and I suspect this is going to become unproductive beyond this point... I'll just leave it here. Good day.
If they can't afford to live in it and won't get assistance then they'll die. Since they are not dying, your premise is erroneous. Recalculate and try again.
I could go through the many problems with this argument but none of it really matters beyond the economic imperative. The area has a cost of living in excess of the value of labor that can be provided by many of its residents. Its like living on the moon. You're not going to pay janitors on the moon. The cost of the janitors living up there exceeds the value provided by their labor. Thus you can't have them unless they're simply existentially essential and you have to do whatever you're doing on the moon.
What Facebook does... does not have to be done in SV. And this is especially true in terms of the totality of their labor force. Most of their work force would probably be happier in a cheaper community where their paychecks would go farther. And I apply that to the vast majority of their labor force. The sanitation workers are simply an extreme example of the same thing.
Keep in mind, my initial point was not in regards to the sanitation workers but to the corporation itself. Facebook etc would be well advised to start relocating out of SV. And indifferent to whether they do or not, many of their peer corporations already are doing it and that trend will have the effect of lowering real estate prices and cost of living eventually.
Things are imbalanced right now... but it won't last. The janitors can unionize or not... the Auto workers had the same notion... the companies just moved.
Travel welfare then? I'd be fine that actually... a lot of bad economic situations are caused by people staying in areas that are economically bad for them. So offering people some free money to move might ultimately be cheaper than not offering them that money and then having them collect welfare for a million other things anyway.
I was referring to the facebook actually... the whole area in SV has gone politically toxic... Every outfit is getting pushed around for political correctness reasons... this with women... that with whatever... and now the unions are setting in. On top of that, the real estate is so expensive that you have to pay your employees more than they're worth. Lots of places run into this problem and the solution is to relocate.
Its already started... we're seeing a mass exodus out of SV to lots of other places.
As to the poor people that can't afford to live in the Bay Area... This entire country was peopled by people that left somewhere else with far less going for them and far more risk.
And beyond that, your sympathy does nothing. It is utterly without meaningful value because it helps no one. The hard truth is that the economics don't work. They must relocate. And I include facebook etc in that list. The whole area is uneconomical... and not helping that is the toxic politics largely fueled by greed. People see their rents going up and they see these businesses making lots of money. So naturally they conclude that money most be moved from that pocket to their pocket. How is that in the corporation's interest? It isn't. They are already relocating.
In 10 years the whole thing will have resolved itself. There is a massive capital flight out of California that has been ongoing for about 10 years. And it shall continue because none of the circumstances that triggered it have stopped.
Feel what you like... Scrunch your face up in sympathy or disgust... Feelings don't put food on the table. Feelings don't move a balance sheet back into the black. What do you want companies to do? Pay people 60k a year to be flour sweepers?
If for whatever reason these industries stay in cali and the real estate doesn't crash... all that will happen is these jobs are going to be replaced with robots. Either way... no one is paying that.
So real estate can come down thus allowing people to be paid less, the organizations can relocate to cheaper places and pay less, or they can replace these workers with robots and thus pay less.
But they're not paying these people 60k a year to empty office trash cans.
Labor unions and the AMA are not the same thing. You know that. Your argument fails on that basis alone.
The AMA sets medical practice standards. The context of the labor union thing out of SV is of a different nature.
Look, you want to deny the Sun? Super. Do it. A union won't happen here. You think I'm wrong? Great... Time will tell leaving one of us right and one of us wrong.
The AMA is not a labor union which works to set, support, or negotiate wages paid to doctors or nurses so far as I know. As such, conflating them with other "unions" of that type does not appear to be logically or empirically supportable.
When you asked if I knew that, did you know that the AMA was not conflatible with other labor unions which work primarily to set, support, or negotiate wages?
Please don't attempt to high hat me unless you actually have something. It inclines me via quid pro quo to high hat you.
Its why doctors don't need unions. If you have skills that are in limited supply that is all you need.
The people that tend to profit from unions are people without unique or valuable skills. And unions won't actually do that anymore given global economics.
Thus the union as a concept is obsolete. Those with skills can't be so easily replaced and those without will be outsourced or something if they cause problems.
So I've changed my comment notification thresholds to suppress anons. As I've said many times to you before, you're boring. You're like spam mail if it were a temper tantruming child.
You realize that you've never done anything besides prove me correct on the anon feature and demonstrate that I got to "you" as evidenced by this pervasive trolling which has gone on for how long at this point? I think you've been following me around on this site for a couple years now. Well done.
In any case, your autistic screeching is probably one of the things I'm personally proudest of on this server. I mean, look at how triggered you are? Amazing.
Why is this here? Paris "agreement" and "trump". The problem with the paris agreement is that it did not go through the senate. Expecting something to stick simply because the president enacted it by fiat is not reasonable. Whatever you feel about the "agreement", it is understood that treaties of this significance must go through the senate. That did not happen.
Executive agreements are not binding on subsequent administrations. Treaties ratified by the Senate are binding until broken by the legislature.
Whatever you feel about the Paris "agreement" it was merely an agreement between Obama and some other heads of state. At no point did the US agree to hold to the agreement beyond the Obama administration. Everyone that knew anything already knew that. If you want the US government to enter into a long term agreement, then get the US Senate to ratify it or you don't have actual agreement.
For the highest level security you can physically deliver new codes. Thus meaning the code will only be compromised if intercepted. And if it is intercepted... physically... you just invalidate the new code and deploy another one.
Again this is used for the highest level security already. Nuclear launch codes work this way. You can't crack them. If I told you what all the past launch codes were, you'd have no idea what the new launch codes are. The codes don't repeat. Once and never again.
Slashdot Mirror
I want an open and fearless look at the integrity of our voting system. I want surprise audits, investigations, and tests along the lines of AT LEAST what we do to test the effectiveness of the TSA. If the FBI can get bombs through a TSA check point... I think some fbi agents can probably get a bag of illicit votes through all the checks.
Germany has gotten a lot of its productivity as the expense of the rest of Europe. Consider Italy, Spain, Greece, etc.
Do you know there are quotas for different industries and commodities throughout Europe that basically proscribe given countries in Europe to be producers of given things and not other things?
Look at the rest of Europe. What happened to English manufacturing?
Everyone is so very impressed with Germany but they forget that the way it is set up. Look at countries throughout Europe where labor prices are much lower than they are in Germany... and yet manufacturing doesn't occur there. Why?
The EU is a major distorting factor in this case which you have to appreciate if you're going to talk about Germany. Look at the rest of the EU. Why is it practically only Germany that seems to be doing well? And consider the distinct ways Germany is regarded within the EU. Do you really think its a coincidence that the country that basically controls the EU tends to benefit from the EU?
High pay with no job = 0 pay.
Look, this is like any purchase on the market. You have a commodity that you want to sell at a certain price. If your ask is above market rate, it won't sell, and you make ZERO dollars.
Your time... which you sell when you sell labor is gone every minute. It was there and then it is gone. Its like selling oranges or anything else perishable. If you don't sell it then it rots in the warehouse. You can't stockpile your time and sell it later. You must take the current market rate and sell now so that you at least get something.
What has increasingly happened is that people have sought prices and benefits that push the price of employment above market rates. And that has always lead to high unemployment... or many of your oranges unsold rotting in the warehouse.
Now how clever would you think a businessman was that was so insistent to get the high price that he ultimately sold very few oranges and made less money than he would have made if he had simply accepted the lower price and made more sales?
You'd think he was incompetent. And that's what these labor policies are... Incompetent. Your concept will get higher wages for some. But that comes at the price of high unemployment for many more. And when you measure the higher wages for those some against the many many more that get ZERO... these polices are bad for people, bad for communities, and bad for industries. It is literally what has destroyed places like Detroit and much of the rust belt.
Hard working union workers were sold a line of bullshit that they could get better pay and a better standard of living for their families by listening to stupid policies like this... Instead what they got was an industry that closed factories and steel mills... towns that went from being some of the most prosperous places in America to resembling post apocalyptic hell holes. Union halls full of men that could not get work. Rampant drug abuse... hopelessness... Entire towns utterly dependent hand to mouth on welfare.
Sell at the market rate or there will be no sale. If your next idea is intensive socialism or communism... consider consequences there by looking at other countries that have done that. Possibly you're interested in Germany there or something. But also consider Italy, Greece, Spain, etc. Which of those two do you honestly think you're going to get in the US if you push that scheme. Remember Flint Michigan. This concept you're running on is a suicide pact.
People were told that the labor rules were dumb and would have undesired consequences. People didn't listen. Predicted consequences occured... and somehow the People that made bad mistakes with bad consequences retained their credibility.
That generally doesn't happen in any mission critical environment because it is counter productive to have stupid people make choices. But that's not how politics works. If people believe in doing dumb things it doesn't matter how many times it fails... they get to keep voting for the same dumb thing. Its like communism... fails every time... idiot communists still want to try it again. The radical labor policies of the last 100 years have directly lead to the collapse of the manufacturing competitiveness of pretty much everywhere they were applied... no, the collapse doesn't happen instant... it takes decades in some cases for the policies to break an industry. But it happens.
its all paper work that comes from the government. The private practices can't afford to do it and the government is ultimately mandating the paper work. Even if it is the insurance company requiring it, consider why they are requiring it... same reason... regulations. For them to comply with regulations and liability they need the care provider to do a lot of paper work or else the insurance company would risk not being in compliance.
There was a test hospital in Texas that was able to drop the prices for care by something like a factor of six or eight. It did it by literally just going back to the old format. From all indications the quality of care didn't decline.
We're seeing this with all the things that have out of control costs.
What percentage of our healthcare bill actually goes to doctors? A tiny fraction when all is said and done. And what portion of our college tuitions goes to professors... also very little. Just as with the medical industry, most of the cost increases in education have gone to administrators which are not actually required... and even if you need SOME administrators, you certainly don't need more now per capita than we had in the 1950s. If anything, because of automation, we should need less. That administration has increased as the ability to automate administration has increased... and as institutions become existentially affordable is interesting.
Its very hard to look at this as anything but corruption, mismanagement, and stupidity. Both healthcare and education could be made very affordable simply by reverting the regulations and allowing competition.
If I'm happy enough to go to a doctor, wave the paper work and whatever protections its alleged to afford me... who's business is that besides mine and the doctor's?
That the government even thinks it has a right to tell me who I can and cannot see for medical treatment is offensive.
The vast majority of medical procedures aren't even that complicated or require a proper medical degree.
Here someone will make the argument that you want to have the full 8 year doctor in every little thing or you'll die of some rare and highly unlikely thing that the less educated practitioner will miss. But we have to do a cost benefit here. The vast majority of cases involve simple repetitive procedures that are neither hard nor require an extensive background to administer. Having a cadre of technicians just performing those procedures would take enormous weight off the rest of the industry. Those people handled, you'd only be dealing with more serious cases that do require that sort of expertise. And even there, most of the expertise is in diagnosis. They could guide the techs which would be much more efficient than having the doctor personally do it.
Western medicine developed in the triage tents of the Legion. It was all about practicality... division of labor... This man cannot be saved so prioritize this other man that can be saved. The long and the short is that the US healthcare industry can be saved... the cancer has to be cut out of it.
Ah but then you'd have to cut regulations which ultimately made our healthcare this expensive in the first place. ;)
Adjust the cost of what people paid for a broken arm 50 years ago to today's money... and you'll find that people were paying about 1/4th of what we're paying now for the same procedures. Why?
Mixture of regulations which have dramatically inflated medical costs.
Doubtless you're dubious... did you know we recently had a shortage of medical grade baking soda. Sodium bicarbonate. The drug industry in the US is so screwed up because of the FDA that we have a shortage of baking soda. Any company that produces baking soda could have produced the medical grade version of it but they are not allowed to without going through some FDA hoops that are frankly absurdly expensive and prohibitive.
The notion of Single Payer is that you're going to lower costs. And the only way you're going to be able to do that is by making less silly most of the dumb regulations that have made medical care so expensive in the US.
50 years ago, the top 3 floors of most hospitals were not taken up with people doing paper work. It wasn't needed. Shift nurses ran wards. Administration was much lighter. And as we have seen recently, private practice medical care is getting hammered.
If we what we had was such a bastion of free market healthcare, then why are private practices dying? Its all big hospitals sucking on federal money. And this we conflate with free market healthcare.
The hypocrisy on the issue is astounding. My body my choice we are told... except when it doesn't involve abortion or recreational drugs... then suddenly even though it is our bodies we don't have a choice.
By all means, allow these organizations to monitor things and inform people. But if I don't give a flying fuck what the FDA says or I don't give a flying fuck what Washington DC says about how I should get healthcare... kindly either get out of my way... or I can only judge you a detriment to my health and well being.
Our healthcare system used to be affordable. It was the meddling in the system which made it unaffordable. And it is no coincidence that the more you meddle the worse it gets. Every failure and disaster is used as an excuse to get more money and more power.
Remember how the ACA was supposed to lower costs? It didn't. At some point failing to predict the outcomes of your programs should compel some humility about how well you understand what you are talking about.
People TALK about cutting spending, but it never seems to happen. And as a result taxation must increase to compensate... and that has limits and damages the economy at some point leading to lower economic growth etc which over time actually leads to lower tax revenue because there is less revenue to tax. Then there is the printing money idea which if done slowly simply rips off lenders and bond holders... which is the whole idea. Oh, I owe you a trillion dollars? PRINT... never said on the bond what the dollar had to be worth, eh?
So far the printing money idea has worked well for the US. We've lost about 96 percent of the value of the dollar over the last 90 or so years. It hurts workers that don't negotiate wages or have their wages pegged to inflation and it hurts bond holders. But its what we're been doing.
I suspect taxes will go up for a bit then get cut then go up then get cut... and all the while spending will increase and the difference will be paid with money snapped into existence with the press of a button.
I personally don't believe in the money tree... that you can just create value out of nothing. But that appears to be what we're doing and it seems to have worked this far... let us hope America's Wily E Coyote moment doesn't come at the wrong moment... and gravity reasserts itself when we're over a fatal cliff. It would be unfortunate.
You don't see it until you see it... we could probably go over the last 10 years of WaPo and you'd see something you didn't see before.
I've got a bunch of English friends that say the same thing you're saying about the BBC... "It used to be balanced but now its just so biased."...
These sources have been like this for a long long time. LA Times I think you were citing as balanced? They've been absurd for decades.
---- From Los Angeles.
LA Times is generally good if they stick to data but even then they are often accurate in some highly literal sense that is misleading.
These media outlets are made up of "people"... not monks that worship the truth or something. People. And just like people they have opinions and views and are inclined to see things the way they see them. Sometimes they're biased without intending to be biased and sometimes they are being intentionally manipulative. Sometimes they bury stories to manipulate an issue by simply not talking about it. Sometimes they pull the "hey look over there" game by talking about something else. Sometimes they use very selective sources to only get the perspective they want. Sometimes they look for someone saying what they want to say so they can report an editorial as if it is the news. "Well this guy I found called Bob says you're a jerk for the same reasons I happen to think you're a jerk, how do you respond to that?" Its endless.
Its how the game is played and the only way forward is to stop lionizing the media. They're just people.
Random man on the street tells you something... that's the media. Take them exactly that seriously. Random guy on the street is sometimes right or wrong for lots of reasons. Large grains of salt etc.
I want to believe too... but then I see everyone hanging out on facebook and twitter... and I rather think we're going to have more people influenced by a smaller set of interests going forward rather than the decentralized dream.
I base this entirely on what I'm seeing people do... these sites censor people, they filter information, they shadow ban... and everyone stays there locked into their echo chambers.
NY Times got bailed out, Washington Post got bailed out, most of the big networks are kept around as loss leaders by major corps...
Whether anyone finds them valuable is irrelevant... they don't have to make money, they don't have to sell issues, they don't need subscribers...
They're mouth pieces for billionaires.
Which is nothing new really, these things were always owned or controlled by some old family or other of the city or town.
All points addressed already... I could quote myself but I think you'd probably take that as condescension. Since I think I've said all I had to say on the matter and I suspect this is going to become unproductive beyond this point... I'll just leave it here. Good day.
If they can't afford to live in it and won't get assistance then they'll die. Since they are not dying, your premise is erroneous. Recalculate and try again.
I could go through the many problems with this argument but none of it really matters beyond the economic imperative. The area has a cost of living in excess of the value of labor that can be provided by many of its residents. Its like living on the moon. You're not going to pay janitors on the moon. The cost of the janitors living up there exceeds the value provided by their labor. Thus you can't have them unless they're simply existentially essential and you have to do whatever you're doing on the moon.
What Facebook does... does not have to be done in SV. And this is especially true in terms of the totality of their labor force. Most of their work force would probably be happier in a cheaper community where their paychecks would go farther. And I apply that to the vast majority of their labor force. The sanitation workers are simply an extreme example of the same thing.
Keep in mind, my initial point was not in regards to the sanitation workers but to the corporation itself. Facebook etc would be well advised to start relocating out of SV. And indifferent to whether they do or not, many of their peer corporations already are doing it and that trend will have the effect of lowering real estate prices and cost of living eventually.
Things are imbalanced right now... but it won't last. The janitors can unionize or not... the Auto workers had the same notion... the companies just moved.
Travel welfare then? I'd be fine that actually... a lot of bad economic situations are caused by people staying in areas that are economically bad for them. So offering people some free money to move might ultimately be cheaper than not offering them that money and then having them collect welfare for a million other things anyway.
I was referring to the facebook actually... the whole area in SV has gone politically toxic... Every outfit is getting pushed around for political correctness reasons... this with women... that with whatever... and now the unions are setting in. On top of that, the real estate is so expensive that you have to pay your employees more than they're worth. Lots of places run into this problem and the solution is to relocate.
Its already started... we're seeing a mass exodus out of SV to lots of other places.
As to the poor people that can't afford to live in the Bay Area... This entire country was peopled by people that left somewhere else with far less going for them and far more risk.
And beyond that, your sympathy does nothing. It is utterly without meaningful value because it helps no one. The hard truth is that the economics don't work. They must relocate. And I include facebook etc in that list. The whole area is uneconomical... and not helping that is the toxic politics largely fueled by greed. People see their rents going up and they see these businesses making lots of money. So naturally they conclude that money most be moved from that pocket to their pocket. How is that in the corporation's interest? It isn't. They are already relocating.
In 10 years the whole thing will have resolved itself. There is a massive capital flight out of California that has been ongoing for about 10 years. And it shall continue because none of the circumstances that triggered it have stopped.
Feel what you like... Scrunch your face up in sympathy or disgust... Feelings don't put food on the table. Feelings don't move a balance sheet back into the black. What do you want companies to do? Pay people 60k a year to be flour sweepers?
If for whatever reason these industries stay in cali and the real estate doesn't crash ... all that will happen is these jobs are going to be replaced with robots. Either way... no one is paying that.
So real estate can come down thus allowing people to be paid less, the organizations can relocate to cheaper places and pay less, or they can replace these workers with robots and thus pay less.
But they're not paying these people 60k a year to empty office trash cans.
Relocate and prosper.
Labor unions and the AMA are not the same thing. You know that. Your argument fails on that basis alone.
The AMA sets medical practice standards. The context of the labor union thing out of SV is of a different nature.
Look, you want to deny the Sun? Super. Do it. A union won't happen here. You think I'm wrong? Great... Time will tell leaving one of us right and one of us wrong.
I'm happy to leave it there.
The AMA is not a labor union which works to set, support, or negotiate wages paid to doctors or nurses so far as I know. As such, conflating them with other "unions" of that type does not appear to be logically or empirically supportable.
When you asked if I knew that, did you know that the AMA was not conflatible with other labor unions which work primarily to set, support, or negotiate wages?
Please don't attempt to high hat me unless you actually have something. It inclines me via quid pro quo to high hat you.
Its why doctors don't need unions. If you have skills that are in limited supply that is all you need.
The people that tend to profit from unions are people without unique or valuable skills. And unions won't actually do that anymore given global economics.
Thus the union as a concept is obsolete. Those with skills can't be so easily replaced and those without will be outsourced or something if they cause problems.
So... do as thou wilt.
... So we never entered into it in the first place.
Presidential agreements are not binding on future administrations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
So I've changed my comment notification thresholds to suppress anons. As I've said many times to you before, you're boring. You're like spam mail if it were a temper tantruming child.
You realize that you've never done anything besides prove me correct on the anon feature and demonstrate that I got to "you" as evidenced by this pervasive trolling which has gone on for how long at this point? I think you've been following me around on this site for a couple years now. Well done.
In any case, your autistic screeching is probably one of the things I'm personally proudest of on this server. I mean, look at how triggered you are? Amazing.
Why is this here? Paris "agreement" and "trump". The problem with the paris agreement is that it did not go through the senate. Expecting something to stick simply because the president enacted it by fiat is not reasonable. Whatever you feel about the "agreement", it is understood that treaties of this significance must go through the senate. That did not happen.
Example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Executive agreements are not binding on subsequent administrations. Treaties ratified by the Senate are binding until broken by the legislature.
Whatever you feel about the Paris "agreement" it was merely an agreement between Obama and some other heads of state. At no point did the US agree to hold to the agreement beyond the Obama administration. Everyone that knew anything already knew that. If you want the US government to enter into a long term agreement, then get the US Senate to ratify it or you don't have actual agreement.
Still no response to the quantum bit that made you run away like a kicked dog. Pretension... I call you out on it and you claim a PhD... Irony.
The air is let out of your pretensions and this is all you're left with...
Sad.
You update the code as you exhaust it.
For the highest level security you can physically deliver new codes. Thus meaning the code will only be compromised if intercepted. And if it is intercepted... physically... you just invalidate the new code and deploy another one.
Again this is used for the highest level security already. Nuclear launch codes work this way. You can't crack them. If I told you what all the past launch codes were, you'd have no idea what the new launch codes are. The codes don't repeat. Once and never again.