The underlying flaw in this sort of thing is that it relies on soaking a prosperous, well educated, well connected, and very intelligent minority to subsidize a subsistance culture of ignorant, personally powerless... who are mostly given anything because they are seen as useful fodder in political games played by political elites.
Under such a system you can't really tap that minority. They're smarter then you. Smarter then me. They'll out maneuver you. And even if they didn't while they have a lot of money personally as a class it isn't enough to fund the entitlement culture. So you have to hit the next best thing which is the middle class.
The problem with soaking the middle class is that it strongly disincentivizes work, increasing income, increasing productivity, innovation, business starts (especially small business), and lots of other things that lead to economic death.
The result is that in attempting to increase revenue through these sorts of policies you tend to poison the economy and encourage a siege mentality in tax payers. What is more, your tax code will get thousands of loopholes bored into it by politicians, interest groups, etc... leading to the whole thing mostly impacting people that aren't well connected or aren't very sophisticated with their taxes.
That is what you create by treating your own people like live stock to be milked rather then citizens to be respected.
This is not an argument against all taxes. It is rather an argument against redistribution of wealth through government policy. When you do that, you make politics more important then little things like productivity, competence, work ethic, or "reality".
No. They should pay for what they use just like they do when they go to the store or hire a plumber or do anything else in society.
Why should you get free healthcare but not free food? Why Free healthcare and not free housing? Why free healthcare and not free shoes and socks?
As to military spending and raising taxes on those evil rich people... where to start?
1. Even if we stripped the military budget to zero it wouldn't pay for your entitlements. it would give them time. They might be solvant for another generation or so... but they'd eventually eat it all and then what would you cut after that? Have you ever considered what you would do if the budget were 100 percent entitlements? What would you cut? What poor collection of kittens or old shivering women would you leave without a home? Your mindless guilt trips only work on the naive and callow. I am neither.
2. As to eating the rich, there are several problems with this little idea of yours. For one, even if you took all their money it still wouldn't pay for your entitlements. There isn't enough. What is more, you confuse wealth with income. If you confiscate their wealth you'll be eating the goose that lays the golden eggs. You'll eat well for a day. And starve there after. Look at all the governments that went after their wealthy. What happened? They got their factories, their mansions, their cars, took their bank accounts... and then their countries fell into desperate poverty there after. But wait it gets better, not only would doing this not help you, not only would it be self destructive, but you'd also likely fail to get many of the rich. See, the rich tend to be good with their money and tend to be a bit wiser then the average peon your ilk prey upon. When your raise your rabble the rich tend to vanish. Their money slips away and they sail away in their yachts. You see it already. All these tax increases hit them less hard then anyone else. And no, that isn't the fault of the evil republicans. The democrats make these loopholes and protect them as well. How many Wall street tycoons has Obama rolled? None.
So... in short, your childish grasp of the concept saddens me but it doesn't surprise me. That isn't an insult. I wish you well... truly. I just wish you weren't such an ignorant jackass. No offense.
The NHS is a product of WW2. The british hunkered down to survive a siege by the Nazi empire. They slept in converted subway tunnels, sent their children to live with strangers in rural farms, and ate spam for years.
So when it was all said and done... the NHS made sense and seemed reasonable.
In peacetime however... not so much. The reasons for this are complicated and mathematical. Its not particularly debatable though there will always be those that will point at the sun in the sky and claim it isn't there. Such is life.
I hope the 21st century offers better. We're in the age of TOR, 3d printers, and bitcoins... hopefully we can escape these overly centralized enslaving super institutions that rob us of our individuallity, privacy, and choice.
The statists are making that hard. But the math isn't on their side. At best they'll trap people into failed systems spotted with Potemkin fakeries to preseve the illusion of competence. All it will do is run the clock out until the money is gone.
These systems don't produce anything. They don't innovate. They don't grow.
They consume. The take. They rot. And the time it takes to eat through everything depends entirely on how much there is for them to eat. Give them everything and it might take them a long time to exhaust it all. But eventually... there will be nothing and it will collapse. These sorts of systems historically have gone to war to put off the eventual collapse. Which does work... it buys you a couple more generations if you can gobble the wealth of a couple other civilizations to feed it. But in the end it is never enough.
Rome had grain ships... the super tankers of the ancient world delivering "free" wheat to rome... free entertainment... and slavery.
In the end, its all about power. Those that do not value their own power deserve to be peons. I merely wish I didn't rely upon the pathetic clowns to guard what little power I do have. Ideally justice is about consequences falling upon those that cause them. These troubles were not of my making. I do not deserve them.
How do you think books are published and maintained?
There are factories that pump them out.
How long do you think books last unless you maintain their environment very carefully? Not long. Perhaps a few decades if you keep the area dry and the temperature moderate.
Furthermore, I am not saying we should do away with all books everywhere. I am merely saying they serve no purpose in small branches. If you want to keep some dead tree archives in major branches then that is fine. Its logistically irrelevant so if it makes you happy then whatever. That will serve as your hedge against the zombie apocalypse.
However, the small branch libraries are not well served by that system and have finite resources. They're much better served by switching to a fully digital system where users will have a vastly greater selection of books to choose from and the costs of maintaining the system will be within the reach of the modest budgets of small communities.
Furthermore, there are many forms of digital media that are if anything more robust then anything you'll find out of the dead tree books. Many forms of media will last centuries with very little maintenance.
That said... if you really want something to last then you have to look to the ancients... clay tablets. Those can last millions of years.
Legal only requires the paper because the rules on maintaining electronic records are unreasonable. So many legal institutions tend to go pure paper. I've seen a few that won't use email and instead communicate by fax. Only way to protect their clients. The rules are different. And its in their client's interests often for records to sunset after a couple years.
As to accounting... try a major corporation. Its all electronic. You can print out what you like but the accounting firms that audit the books are not going through paper.
You can already get most books on your kindle THROUGH your library. You enter your library card ID into amazon and you can get access to thousands of books for free. Works the same way as a normal library. You can only have X books at a time and you can only have them checked out for Y days. Same basic principle.
That's fine. I don't have a problem with them existing. My issue is with them maintaining large numbers of paper books. That's fine if you're a university or a major metropolitan branch. But for the vast majority of branches it is no longer sustainable or practical or even useful.
I didn't say the institution would go away or that they'd not exist. I said they need to take their inventory digital.
Keep the building. Keep the staff. Get rid of the books. Do all the things you're talking about but more so.
The only books that should be kept are donated books that members give to the library and a few very general reference tomes... And yes some local archival material such as the minutes to the local city council or whatever. Everything else... digital.
To sustain their collection, libraries must acquire fresh copies as their existing inventory reaches its end of life. The correct policy in this matter would be to replace books with a digital copy either provided by the publisher or recorded from the expiring edition.
The wrong policy would be to buy yet another paper book.
The existing system is neither economical nor rational in the current environment. Prior to ebooks people went to these institutions to get information. Mostly reference and research as well as inexpensive recreational material. They are no longer the primary source for this information. People instead task the internet which means that they're sort of going the way of Blockbuster Video.
I've seen a lot of people in here say "but I love the library"... and some people love blockbuster video. It. Does. Not. Matter.
These institutions are expensive and were totally reasonable when they were vital and used. Today they're neither.
The compromise is to transitioning their inventory to digital copies which radically lowers their cost. What is more, it makes their collection available to more users since most users will increasingly want a digital copy in the first place. Set this up properly and small towns can get access to major metropolitan research at the touch of a button. This is in everyone's interest.
Obviously we can keep a few large libraries running. Universities, some of the larger branches. But the small town branch? Keep a section for used paper backs, a few racks of reference books, possibly some local paper records of local trivia... and digitize the rest.
Its that or die. Choose. This or death. And that isn't me threatening the death. That's irrelevance gripping its icy indifferent hands around the issue. You can respect it or it will kill them.
We know very little about what went on at that time.
what they found here was that most of the hand prints were women... probably... that is all that means. We can infer more beyond that but it is merely an inference.
The only thing I find somewhat compelling about the anti technology stuff is that it moves people farther away from the "means of production"... which isn't a reference to marx etc. For example, if I know how to make my own tools out of raw materials and can make from those tools everything I need then it gives me economic and logistical options. I don't need to buy some things in the store. And if the quality/cost of things in the store rise above some threshold, I can decide to opt for my own production.
Look at food as a really good example of this... how many of you make you prepare your own food? Sure, you're just buying fruits, veggies, meat, etc and combining them to make a meal. But what if you couldn't? What if your only option was to buy prepared food at the store.
One thing which bothers me about the industrialized world is that the factories do things in a way that cannot be scaled down to the individual level. I can't have a personal assembly line etc.
We're starting to see something that might one day turn into that with 3d printers but its not ready at any price to do things like build cars or washing machines or even tooth brushes. They couldn't make a pencil if you wanted one... If you want a pencil, you have to buy one in the store.
So that is the only issue that I find somewhat compelling about the anti technology position. That every industrialization centralizes economic, logistical, and productive capacity puts all of that in the hands of someone that is never you. You are never in charge of it. It is always someone else.
As a counter point, look at the Amish. Okay, they're living like people did 200 years ago. But they're able to produce pretty much everything they need and use entirely on their own. They can sustain their society entirely on their own production and possibly some raw materials that if they had to... they could extract/mine on their own.
I find that independence valuable and I wish the average consumer had that ability all be it without sacrificing the last 200 years of technology to obtain it.
We need shake and back auto factories that can build just about anything. Possibly not personal machines but something every community could own a few of that just turn out high quality goods from raw materials. Then the big factories can compete with that... the big factories will be cheaper. But they'll know then that if quality slips or price goes up even on the local market much less the international one... they'll lose business and no because people will be deferring the purchase but because people will be buying elsewhere.
I was looking at this... the robot fighting etc... I don't think its actually spurring innovation because there are too many rules. The format etc is too constrained.
Innovation is essentially about thinking outside the box. If your competition includes a box you have to stay inside of then its inherently not testing for innovation.
What if I want to fight their robot with my genetically engineered cyborg spiders? That's way more innovative but probably not allowed.
I don't know... the whole thing just looks a little too kiche.
1. Heating and cooling is less of an issue. The earth holds a pretty consistent temperature and you can regulate your home by exploiting it.
2. Winds, hurricanes, etc are less of an issue because you're either flush with the ground or nearly so.
3. The roof can more easily be used as a garden or expansion to your property. All natural light comes in through skylights.
4. The major problem will be flooding. There are a variety of ways to deal with that from simply building on high ground to building some sort of double wall into the foundation so that water can collect there and drain away without entering the home. Pumps... etc.
I don't know... maybe its a dumb idea but I'd like to see some people try it. Imagine if your full property foot print could be turned into a backyard while your home rested below the ground. Every room with a skylight. Cool in the summer. Warm in the winter.
The war is winding down and Lockheed isn't getting as much of the defense pie as they were expecting. The whole drone thing isn't something they were ready to exploit.
Lots of defense contractors are laying people off. So many of them reported this to the government in fact, that hte government asked them to delay the firings because it would show up in the unemployment stats.
I can only cynically assume that the contractors assumed that now would be an okay time to terminate excess labor.
They've been talking about doing this for over a year.
You stated previously that the time horizon was relevant which infers that it was not indefinitely sustainable. So that's something of a contradiction.
As to my my dislike for it, I said already captain strawman, that my reason for not liking it was that we don't own our payout.
I think was was actually very clear on that point. Your interest in lying about that is one of the reasons I don't want to continue that line of discussion. You're so biased that you can't be trusted to talk about this honestly. So what is the point? You don't argue in good faith.
Talking with people like you bores me at a certain point. You have nothing to offer and can't even be convinced because if I start to paint you into a corner you'll just start lying. So why bother?
the charge business extra for this privilege. If they give it away to consumers then business... especially small business will ask... "why are we paying more"... and that is why comcast etc have a hissy fit about this sort of thing.
So if I ever get bored with an issue that we won't find agreement upon it means that I concede the point to you?
Really?
So if I wanted to talk about how your grand mother was really a jelly fish space alien... would you be conceding to my logic if you lost interest in the discussion or changed the subject?
Don't try rhetoric with me.
I am profoundly analytical.
We can agree that social security is not indefinitely sustainable. The time horizon depends largely how high you set the retirement age, how high you set the taxes, and how low you set the payouts.
Suffice to say you do not own your SS payments. You have no right to them. What you get is what you get. You can't take the government to court to sue them for your share. You have no share.
And that is my problem with it. If I contribute money to an involuntary retirement fund, then I demand to own my share. Own. It has to be in account with my name on it just like a REAL retirement account. As opposed to a bullshit retirement account.
So no expansion on this "you missed the point" issue? Can I then assume I didn't actually miss anything and you're just banging on your keyboard and coincidentally forming words that apparently have no substantive meaning?
Kay thanks for playing. Either have a point or don't presume to contradict me.
Slashdot Mirror
Can a pyramid stand on its point?
The underlying flaw in this sort of thing is that it relies on soaking a prosperous, well educated, well connected, and very intelligent minority to subsidize a subsistance culture of ignorant, personally powerless... who are mostly given anything because they are seen as useful fodder in political games played by political elites.
Under such a system you can't really tap that minority. They're smarter then you. Smarter then me. They'll out maneuver you. And even if they didn't while they have a lot of money personally as a class it isn't enough to fund the entitlement culture. So you have to hit the next best thing which is the middle class.
The problem with soaking the middle class is that it strongly disincentivizes work, increasing income, increasing productivity, innovation, business starts (especially small business), and lots of other things that lead to economic death.
The result is that in attempting to increase revenue through these sorts of policies you tend to poison the economy and encourage a siege mentality in tax payers. What is more, your tax code will get thousands of loopholes bored into it by politicians, interest groups, etc... leading to the whole thing mostly impacting people that aren't well connected or aren't very sophisticated with their taxes.
That is what you create by treating your own people like live stock to be milked rather then citizens to be respected.
This is not an argument against all taxes. It is rather an argument against redistribution of wealth through government policy. When you do that, you make politics more important then little things like productivity, competence, work ethic, or "reality".
And the system ultimately kills itself.
Why? Because a pyramid cannot stand on its head.
No.
They should pay for what they use just like they do when they go to the store or hire a plumber or do anything else in society.
Why should you get free healthcare but not free food? Why Free healthcare and not free housing? Why free healthcare and not free shoes and socks?
As to military spending and raising taxes on those evil rich people... where to start?
1. Even if we stripped the military budget to zero it wouldn't pay for your entitlements. it would give them time. They might be solvant for another generation or so... but they'd eventually eat it all and then what would you cut after that? Have you ever considered what you would do if the budget were 100 percent entitlements? What would you cut? What poor collection of kittens or old shivering women would you leave without a home? Your mindless guilt trips only work on the naive and callow. I am neither.
2. As to eating the rich, there are several problems with this little idea of yours. For one, even if you took all their money it still wouldn't pay for your entitlements. There isn't enough. What is more, you confuse wealth with income. If you confiscate their wealth you'll be eating the goose that lays the golden eggs. You'll eat well for a day. And starve there after. Look at all the governments that went after their wealthy. What happened? They got their factories, their mansions, their cars, took their bank accounts... and then their countries fell into desperate poverty there after. But wait it gets better, not only would doing this not help you, not only would it be self destructive, but you'd also likely fail to get many of the rich. See, the rich tend to be good with their money and tend to be a bit wiser then the average peon your ilk prey upon. When your raise your rabble the rich tend to vanish. Their money slips away and they sail away in their yachts. You see it already. All these tax increases hit them less hard then anyone else. And no, that isn't the fault of the evil republicans. The democrats make these loopholes and protect them as well. How many Wall street tycoons has Obama rolled? None.
So... in short, your childish grasp of the concept saddens me but it doesn't surprise me. That isn't an insult. I wish you well... truly. I just wish you weren't such an ignorant jackass. No offense.
The NHS is a product of WW2. The british hunkered down to survive a siege by the Nazi empire. They slept in converted subway tunnels, sent their children to live with strangers in rural farms, and ate spam for years.
So when it was all said and done... the NHS made sense and seemed reasonable.
In peacetime however... not so much. The reasons for this are complicated and mathematical. Its not particularly debatable though there will always be those that will point at the sun in the sky and claim it isn't there. Such is life.
I hope the 21st century offers better. We're in the age of TOR, 3d printers, and bitcoins... hopefully we can escape these overly centralized enslaving super institutions that rob us of our individuallity, privacy, and choice.
The statists are making that hard. But the math isn't on their side. At best they'll trap people into failed systems spotted with Potemkin fakeries to preseve the illusion of competence. All it will do is run the clock out until the money is gone.
These systems don't produce anything. They don't innovate. They don't grow.
They consume. The take. They rot. And the time it takes to eat through everything depends entirely on how much there is for them to eat. Give them everything and it might take them a long time to exhaust it all. But eventually... there will be nothing and it will collapse. These sorts of systems historically have gone to war to put off the eventual collapse. Which does work... it buys you a couple more generations if you can gobble the wealth of a couple other civilizations to feed it. But in the end it is never enough.
Rome had grain ships... the super tankers of the ancient world delivering "free" wheat to rome... free entertainment... and slavery.
In the end, its all about power. Those that do not value their own power deserve to be peons. I merely wish I didn't rely upon the pathetic clowns to guard what little power I do have. Ideally justice is about consequences falling upon those that cause them. These troubles were not of my making. I do not deserve them.
How do you think books are published and maintained?
There are factories that pump them out.
How long do you think books last unless you maintain their environment very carefully? Not long. Perhaps a few decades if you keep the area dry and the temperature moderate.
Furthermore, I am not saying we should do away with all books everywhere. I am merely saying they serve no purpose in small branches. If you want to keep some dead tree archives in major branches then that is fine. Its logistically irrelevant so if it makes you happy then whatever. That will serve as your hedge against the zombie apocalypse.
However, the small branch libraries are not well served by that system and have finite resources. They're much better served by switching to a fully digital system where users will have a vastly greater selection of books to choose from and the costs of maintaining the system will be within the reach of the modest budgets of small communities.
Furthermore, there are many forms of digital media that are if anything more robust then anything you'll find out of the dead tree books. Many forms of media will last centuries with very little maintenance.
That said... if you really want something to last then you have to look to the ancients... clay tablets. Those can last millions of years.
Legal only requires the paper because the rules on maintaining electronic records are unreasonable. So many legal institutions tend to go pure paper. I've seen a few that won't use email and instead communicate by fax. Only way to protect their clients. The rules are different. And its in their client's interests often for records to sunset after a couple years.
As to accounting... try a major corporation. Its all electronic. You can print out what you like but the accounting firms that audit the books are not going through paper.
You can already get most books on your kindle THROUGH your library. You enter your library card ID into amazon and you can get access to thousands of books for free. Works the same way as a normal library. You can only have X books at a time and you can only have them checked out for Y days. Same basic principle.
That's fine. I don't have a problem with them existing. My issue is with them maintaining large numbers of paper books. That's fine if you're a university or a major metropolitan branch. But for the vast majority of branches it is no longer sustainable or practical or even useful.
I didn't say the institution would go away or that they'd not exist. I said they need to take their inventory digital.
Keep the building. Keep the staff. Get rid of the books. Do all the things you're talking about but more so.
The only books that should be kept are donated books that members give to the library and a few very general reference tomes... And yes some local archival material such as the minutes to the local city council or whatever. Everything else... digital.
Books age and must be replaced.
To sustain their collection, libraries must acquire fresh copies as their existing inventory reaches its end of life. The correct policy in this matter would be to replace books with a digital copy either provided by the publisher or recorded from the expiring edition.
The wrong policy would be to buy yet another paper book.
The existing system is neither economical nor rational in the current environment. Prior to ebooks people went to these institutions to get information. Mostly reference and research as well as inexpensive recreational material. They are no longer the primary source for this information. People instead task the internet which means that they're sort of going the way of Blockbuster Video.
I've seen a lot of people in here say "but I love the library"... and some people love blockbuster video. It. Does. Not. Matter.
These institutions are expensive and were totally reasonable when they were vital and used. Today they're neither.
The compromise is to transitioning their inventory to digital copies which radically lowers their cost. What is more, it makes their collection available to more users since most users will increasingly want a digital copy in the first place. Set this up properly and small towns can get access to major metropolitan research at the touch of a button. This is in everyone's interest.
Obviously we can keep a few large libraries running. Universities, some of the larger branches. But the small town branch? Keep a section for used paper backs, a few racks of reference books, possibly some local paper records of local trivia... and digitize the rest.
Its that or die. Choose. This or death. And that isn't me threatening the death. That's irrelevance gripping its icy indifferent hands around the issue. You can respect it or it will kill them.
Traditional libraries are not the future. The dead tree archives will here after be a curiosity.
That said, repositories of books and stories etc will remain very important. They will however be increasingly a digital experience.
My comment wasn't racist.
I'd say the same thing if Germany, Finland, or the UK tried the same thing.
It won' be effective.
If anything your reaction was racist because you assumed inferiority. You sensitivity is itself racist.
If Amazon etc aren't willing to host this content then we need a distributors that are willing.
Some sort of self publishing publisher where anyone can host a book for almost nothing. It has to be kindle compatible etc.
Who thinks the NSA can't breach Brazilian security?
And what is more... who thinks the Brazilians won't peek into the email of users?
So what does this actually accomplish? Stupidity.
Yeah, tablets and apps are not as impressive as people think. That said, google has given birth to some absolute duds.
We know very little about what went on at that time.
what they found here was that most of the hand prints were women... probably... that is all that means. We can infer more beyond that but it is merely an inference.
The only thing I find somewhat compelling about the anti technology stuff is that it moves people farther away from the "means of production"... which isn't a reference to marx etc. For example, if I know how to make my own tools out of raw materials and can make from those tools everything I need then it gives me economic and logistical options. I don't need to buy some things in the store. And if the quality/cost of things in the store rise above some threshold, I can decide to opt for my own production.
Look at food as a really good example of this... how many of you make you prepare your own food? Sure, you're just buying fruits, veggies, meat, etc and combining them to make a meal. But what if you couldn't? What if your only option was to buy prepared food at the store.
One thing which bothers me about the industrialized world is that the factories do things in a way that cannot be scaled down to the individual level. I can't have a personal assembly line etc.
We're starting to see something that might one day turn into that with 3d printers but its not ready at any price to do things like build cars or washing machines or even tooth brushes. They couldn't make a pencil if you wanted one... If you want a pencil, you have to buy one in the store.
So that is the only issue that I find somewhat compelling about the anti technology position. That every industrialization centralizes economic, logistical, and productive capacity puts all of that in the hands of someone that is never you. You are never in charge of it. It is always someone else.
As a counter point, look at the Amish. Okay, they're living like people did 200 years ago. But they're able to produce pretty much everything they need and use entirely on their own. They can sustain their society entirely on their own production and possibly some raw materials that if they had to... they could extract/mine on their own.
I find that independence valuable and I wish the average consumer had that ability all be it without sacrificing the last 200 years of technology to obtain it.
We need shake and back auto factories that can build just about anything. Possibly not personal machines but something every community could own a few of that just turn out high quality goods from raw materials. Then the big factories can compete with that... the big factories will be cheaper. But they'll know then that if quality slips or price goes up even on the local market much less the international one... they'll lose business and no because people will be deferring the purchase but because people will be buying elsewhere.
I was looking at this... the robot fighting etc... I don't think its actually spurring innovation because there are too many rules. The format etc is too constrained.
Innovation is essentially about thinking outside the box. If your competition includes a box you have to stay inside of then its inherently not testing for innovation.
What if I want to fight their robot with my genetically engineered cyborg spiders? That's way more innovative but probably not allowed.
I don't know... the whole thing just looks a little too kiche.
It sounds crazy but they make a lot of sense.
1. Heating and cooling is less of an issue. The earth holds a pretty consistent temperature and you can regulate your home by exploiting it.
2. Winds, hurricanes, etc are less of an issue because you're either flush with the ground or nearly so.
3. The roof can more easily be used as a garden or expansion to your property. All natural light comes in through skylights.
4. The major problem will be flooding. There are a variety of ways to deal with that from simply building on high ground to building some sort of double wall into the foundation so that water can collect there and drain away without entering the home. Pumps... etc.
I don't know... maybe its a dumb idea but I'd like to see some people try it. Imagine if your full property foot print could be turned into a backyard while your home rested below the ground. Every room with a skylight. Cool in the summer. Warm in the winter.
I just think its a nice idea.
The war is winding down and Lockheed isn't getting as much of the defense pie as they were expecting. The whole drone thing isn't something they were ready to exploit.
Lots of defense contractors are laying people off. So many of them reported this to the government in fact, that hte government asked them to delay the firings because it would show up in the unemployment stats.
I can only cynically assume that the contractors assumed that now would be an okay time to terminate excess labor.
They've been talking about doing this for over a year.
You stated previously that the time horizon was relevant which infers that it was not indefinitely sustainable. So that's something of a contradiction.
As to my my dislike for it, I said already captain strawman, that my reason for not liking it was that we don't own our payout.
I think was was actually very clear on that point. Your interest in lying about that is one of the reasons I don't want to continue that line of discussion. You're so biased that you can't be trusted to talk about this honestly. So what is the point? You don't argue in good faith.
Talking with people like you bores me at a certain point. You have nothing to offer and can't even be convinced because if I start to paint you into a corner you'll just start lying. So why bother?
the charge business extra for this privilege. If they give it away to consumers then business... especially small business will ask... "why are we paying more"... and that is why comcast etc have a hissy fit about this sort of thing.
So if I ever get bored with an issue that we won't find agreement upon it means that I concede the point to you?
Really?
So if I wanted to talk about how your grand mother was really a jelly fish space alien... would you be conceding to my logic if you lost interest in the discussion or changed the subject?
Don't try rhetoric with me.
I am profoundly analytical.
We can agree that social security is not indefinitely sustainable. The time horizon depends largely how high you set the retirement age, how high you set the taxes, and how low you set the payouts.
Suffice to say you do not own your SS payments. You have no right to them. What you get is what you get. You can't take the government to court to sue them for your share. You have no share.
And that is my problem with it. If I contribute money to an involuntary retirement fund, then I demand to own my share. Own. It has to be in account with my name on it just like a REAL retirement account. As opposed to a bullshit retirement account.
I agree, which is why we should legalize drugs. Then you can buy them over the internet legally.
My issue is the illegality of the silk road. It couldn't be tolerated.
But that doesn't mean the DEA is right.
So no expansion on this "you missed the point" issue? Can I then assume I didn't actually miss anything and you're just banging on your keyboard and coincidentally forming words that apparently have no substantive meaning?
Kay thanks for playing. Either have a point or don't presume to contradict me.
... oh well.