We're currently making it work with a mix of downgrading OS's to XP, putting a compatible terminal server on the network, and some VMs.
But its entirely stupid. MS could have provided proper backward compatibility for their later OS's. Especially dos emulation is pretty terrible in windows 7 when compared to windows XP.
MS really needs to understand that compatibility and STANDARDS are their real market draw for established and loyal customer base.
MS keeps pissing away opportunities. For example, they could have made their new windows phones competely compatible with windows desktop software. some will say impossible, but I saw someone install windows XP on an android phone so clearly it's possible. I'm not saying those things should literally run windows. But if the android can emulate it well enough to play fallout 2 then MS should have been able to build in some sort of emulation into those phones.
Who wants an MS phone? No one. They have no niche. Imagine if they could run desktop windows software natively though? Bam... instant niche.
MS is stupid. Stop f'ing over your current customers to curry favor with segments of the market that don't even like you. It offends those that actually pay actual money to intentionally buy your productions by choice.
In regards to IBM or other corporations building debt to foster growth, that ignores the fact that you're not spending the money on growth or profit making entities. You're spending it on welfare. Nearly all of it goes to social security, medicare, medicaid, unemployment insurance, and a near endless host of various NON-profit making entities.
Now you can argue those are good things and things we need to have. Fine. But you can't turn around and say we need to fund them to sustain growth when they have zero potential of actually doing that. It's either ignorant or dishonest.
Which are you? Because you either just told me that the US government is incurring this debt because you think welfare is profitable or you were ignorant of what we were spending it on, or you're just lying to me.
Pick one... or if you'd like, propose another option. I'm unaware of any other alternative here and I'm frankly being generous by presuming you're ignorant. I don't think you are... I think you know better.
As to french infrastructure, the french are as bankrupt if not more so then we are so that is a silly counter argument. Do you honestly think the US economy would be thriving right now if we had bullet trains all over the place? How naive can you possibly be... I take back what I said above... you might well just be ignorant. And I regret if that offends you but your arguments are offensively stupid. They literally offend me by being uttering my presence. They are that dumb.
As to our debt, you assume that tax cuts have no link to economic growth and thus tax revenue based on that growth. You forget that the tax cuts came after a financial collapse and that they were put into place to stimulate growth. Which unlike your policies, they did. Didn't they? Did the economy grow after the tax cuts? Yes. Did it grow after the stimulus? No.
As to Afghanistan and Iraq, what would have you response been to 9/11. I love that you people seem to forget that we were attacked not the other way around. And as to Saddam and Iraq, that was clearly a mistake. But at the same time, nearly all evidence that would argue it a mistake is hindsight with no ability for us to know that prior to that point.
I have no interest in defending Bush... The man was absurd. But if he's your standard of an idiot then Obama is a foaming moron.
As to the placeholder that is money, it is also something one owns. It signifies value that you've earned. When you devalue my money to pay for your mistakes you steal from me. You're a thief that believes everything everyone else has belongs to him if he can take it. It's disgusting and if you're allowed to keep running rampant in our society you will destroy not only us but yourselves. You've done it before. It's happened many times.
I've had an issue with people skimming and they skim typically reading the first sentence in a paragraph and then moving on.
So for important points, I like to break up a bit so they actually read it.
Here, I'm obviously just giving you a hard time.
But I felt I needed to make my point.
On to the topic, discretionary spending is a weasel word. The entire budget is discretionary. We need across the board cut if people aren't willing to go through the non-discretionary budget and cut waste.
You want more money for a program? Fine. Who needs it less? Make it so that any program that wants money has to take it from another program. Then we'll see who really needs it and who really just "wants" it. Because we're no longer able to provide wants. That is gone. We're now in the realm of need. What do we NEED. A great many programs some of which are quite good will suffer for that. But then the alternative is eventual hyperinflation.
First, you want to compare the US government, an organization that has bee around for hundreds of years to a start up? If you want to compare us to something, then compare us to an old blue chip. And guess how much debt those old corps run up? Oh that's right, they tend to run massive cash reserves because they're not stupid.
Second, comparing the US government to a start up, assumes that the US is about to explode in growth. You pour money into a start up on the assumption that the capital investment will be returned in the near future many times over. It is an investment. So what massive money making scheme are we pouring our money into? Oh that's right, nothing. So if I were a venture capitalist would I loan you the money in this case? No.
Third, I love that you think the problem in the US is a lack of infrustructure. You honestly think that if we had a few more bridges or roads or a couple extra solar power planets all our problems would be solved. You think that somehow the economy would be good. Because in your mind, the reason US businesses are failing is because they don't have enough roads. Really? Wake up. It isn't a lack of infrastructure that is killing us. Infrastructure is merely sold to us because it's something the politicians can build and their various political allies can profit from. Infrastructure is not what is holding the US economy back. It's labor policy, social policy, and out of control spending.
Fourth, I love how you think we're in debt because there were some tax breaks. Yes there were tax breaks and it caused US tax revenue to decrease by what percentage? Okay... and by what percentage did US spending go up? Exactly. I'll admit that if we didn't lower taxes our debt would be better but not by much. It is the spending that went up by the most and continues to go up by the most. That isn't an opinion. It's a mathematical fact. You agree or be wrong.
Fifth, debt isn't scary unless its out of control and you can't stop yourself. Imagine the poor fool that tries to live off his credit card and runs up absurd debts on it but can't stop himself. That is scary. And that is what you've done. Yes you. Because people like you through your ignorance enable it. If there were fewer people like you and more like me we would not be in this position. When the debt comes due I'll be able to say "I told you so"... for what little that is worth.
Sixth, as to FDR etc, basing your whole economic theory on one moment in american history where we could get away with behaving like idiots is not a good idea. For one thing FDR made the depression longer and deeper through his price controls and labor regulations. It was actually WW2 that got us out of the depression. And that was because most of the laws were relaxed or removed to allow for war production. FDR literally cut back on business regulation because if he didn't war production wouldn't have been possible. The weapons contractors etc all said if you want us to meet these production goals you need to get your f'ing boot off our throats. Add to that, we blew up our competition. Who survived that war as an industrial competitor to the US? The British empire was in tatters. Germany was a wasteland. Japan was a smoking crater. So shockingly the US had great industrial demand. Tell you what sport, if you want to count on the post WW2 economic boom for the US this is how you do it. Nuke the planet. Win WW3... make sure you nuke china, japan, south korea, Brazil, Germany, and any other place with a reasonable industrial base. Then enjoy the economic boom in the US if we've somehow survived it.
Seventh, as to the nut shell, what is it that allows you to think you can treat the federal reserve like a Milton Price monopoly money factory and just pump out infinite dollars without consequence? You do realize the money represents something right? You do realize that every time you tell the federal reserve to give you an extra magnitude of money it devalues all money in circulation by the ratio of that addition to the whole? You're not creating money. You're devaluing every one else's money and putting the difference in your pocket. It's theft. And the only people that don't get it are the complacent and the ignorant.
If you're spending more on average then your people are making median... AND the money you're spending is a percentage of their income then it becomes a problem.
Lets assume for a second that the US tax rate was 100%. If the US tax rate were 100% then what you said would make some sense. After all. the difference between median and mean would give you some wiggle room.
But it's not 100 percent.
Lets assume it's 50 percent which it isn't but I'm making this simple for you. Condescension deserved... Sorry.
That would as a rough little thought experiment the US government would be getting about 25k in revenue per household and then spending 50k per household.
Do you honestly think you're going to make up the difference there in the difference between median and mean?
Of course not.
My point was that we're spending MUCH more money then can be reasonably raised from our economy. You can't raise taxes high enough to cover this level of spending. It is beyond our means. Mathematically.
And an important thing about the difference between median and mean is that if you rely on the fringes of the economy to pay for everything it means you've based everything on a very small portion of the total population. If you've also based it on the most affluent, able, and motivated portion of the population what is the likelihood that they're going to let you milk them for all they're worth? Zero.
They've never allowed that. Watch what is happening in France. They formally declared a policy of eating the rich. And what happened? The rich left. And worse, even if the rich hadn't left it wouldn't have been enough to cover the spending.
I don't need to make the moral argument unless I choose to... the math is on my side and anyone can see it if they take their heads out of the sand... or their asses.
It means less flexibility. More liability. Less freedom. More waste.
Say what you will about this study, the governments of the western world are living beyond their means.
The US government for example is spending about 50k per US household.
The median income of US households is about 49k.
That alone should tell you there is a problem.
To paraphrase Emperor Augustus: "things that can't go on forever - don't."
These governments are spending well beyond their means and the only way they can presume to maintain it even for a time is through massive inflation. Which will harm the economy, raise interest rates, and generally transition any country that chooses this path into a second world country.
And even this won't be enough because having destroyed your credit and dealing with increasingly higher interest rates it will only be a matter of time before you can't inflate the currency fast enough to paper over your debt.
And when that happens... anarchy... blood... social collapse.
People need to stop deluding themselves that they can magic the debt away as if it won't exist if you don't believe in it.
It isn't a six year old's imaginary monster. It's our civilization's very real debt. And it will bring us low if we don't bring it under control.
I also love that they're whining about these austarity measures when many of these countries are still increasing the amount of debt they owe. In many cases, they're simply slowing down... not reversing course.
If a country can at least tread water without building additional net debt then it's got the situation under control.
But many do not. The US does not. We spend more every year and the tax recipes and economic growth are not remotely keeping up.
I know I'm going to get hate mail for this... It's what comes of having an open forum.
But you can't wish the numbers away through denial. It's like arguing with the Sun.
Windows 98 was okay. Windows ME (Mistake Edition) was terrible. Windows XP was okay.... Many years pass... Windows Vista was terrible. Windows 7 was okay. Windows 8 is a joke.
Basically I think MS only pays attention when they're afraid AND listening to the people that ACTUALLY "BUY" their software.
People that buy new computers and get MS windows thrown in effectively buy the OS through some licensing fees. But who actually picks ups up at a store/pays to download a microsoft product and intentionally installs it into a machine?
THOSE people are the first people you need to satisfy.
It's the old 80/20 rule. That is, about 80 percent of your business is coming from about 20 percent of your customers. Every effective business makes sure they make that group happy first. THEN focus on the remaining 20 percent of their income stream which might well be 80 percent or more of their customers.
Who am I talking about? Corporate clients that buy site licenses and install your software on all their workstations. Small businesses that have been buying and installing MS software for decades. And the legions of power users that make up the core MS's ACTUAL biggest fans.
Take away these groups and MS has NOTHING. Windows 8 gives nothing to their core market and it was all sacrificed in an idiotic ploy to lure Apple owners in... Why? Apple in the desktop world remains a market share irrelevance especially in MS's core markets. Leave it alone. Enjoy what you have and stop reinventing yourself to no purpose.
I would argue that all the theories proposing this time reversal have also stated that you can't send the information faster then light. So... assuming we are sending the information faster then light, why would we think the rules that say we can't still apply?
The only way you get FTL communication is if we find some loophole in the laws that lets us slip information IGNORING the very law that supposedly would cause things to time travel.
That being the case, we can't really assume how the information will travel. Possibly it would be instantaneous communication. That is, information arriving WHEN it is sent not before or after.. but precisely WHEN it is sent.
That said, so far as I understand we have no means of FTL anything. Apparently even gravity moves at the speed of light which is sort of depressing. I read a fair amount of science fiction and it was assumed in much of it that gravity "waves" could be used to communicate FTL... well, according to some scientific publications I skim they go at the speed of light. What goes faster then light? I don't know... tachyons? Again, I think I've learned everything I know about tachyons from "fiction"... so I don't really know anything about them besides that they're supposedly unable to travel slower then light and time travel and possibly some other fun stuff.
Whatever... have fun with any of the above systems because they all look equally fruitless.
I'd love FTL communication. We do need it or something like it especially as we try to manage our legions of drones exploring the solar system. But until we have such a system I see no point in theory crafting the protocol it would use. You might as well pick out the sofa coffee table arrangement for your working model of the starship enterprise... complete with teleporter and holodeck... which will be used exclusively for naked orgies with holo-porn... because that's what you do with holodecks.
Anyway, I have no idea what I'm talking about but I suspect everyone is talking out of their asses on this one so at least I'm not alone on it.
I can't watch either MSNBC or Fox. They're insipid sniping at each other is beyond tiresome. Get a room and make out. No one cares which of you has a more turgid member.
Do I like CNN? I "can" watch it but I generally choose not to watch any of them because this is the 21st century and I have the interwebs. Why would I waste my time watching cable news when I can snap up twice the information in half the time on a webpage? No talking heads. No commercials you have to wait through. No endlessly repeated stories that must be patiently waited through linearly.
If I don't like a story on a website, I skip it. Bam... next story. I can skip to the section I want and avoid the ones I don't.
There's no competition.
This whole fight over who is better at cable news is just a contest between two dinosaurs that mostly serve people in nursing homes. And that's for fox, msnbc, and cnn. Who watches them? It's all crap.
The eco-taxes are out of control in general and really it needs to stop. It's not helping the environment and it's making the economy worse.
Seriously... we can all come up with ways to f' each other over. Can we just stop it? Because every time one group comes up with a nasty way to hurt another group the second group just responds in kind.
And then what do we have?
Moral of the story? Stop acting like children and play nice.
Actually it's more due to regional monopolies we have in the US.
You see this any place the government gives control of something to a company.
Understand, if you wanted to compete with these companies in the US, you would not be allowed to do it. It would be illegal. You cannot compete with Time Warner Cable or AT&T or Verizon.
They have regional monopolies on their cable. And you can't run your own to compete against them. So they set the prices and they have no incentive to improve service or lower prices since customers have no alternative.
THAT is what happened.
In cell phones for example it is different and there are no regional monopolies. Any cell phone company can compete against any other cell phone company so long as they have a license to the spectrum their cell network uses in that region. As a result, we have many more cell phone companies then land line phone companies. And the prices for cell phones are generally much cheaper then land line phone service.
You can get very cheap pay as you go cellphone service in the US. But it is completely impossible to get that for land line service.
The reasons for why the system works the way it does go back to some deals made between industry and the government. Basically the government wanted these big companies to do certain things like build phone lines out to places they didn't want to provide service. And in return, the government granted them monopolies.
All the companies have to do to keep their monopolies is provide high quality enough service at low enough prices that there is no political backlash. So long as they don't cause that they can keep their monopolies forever.
And THAT is why we have a problem. They need to lose their monopolies. Government sponsored monopolies are immoral and economically stupid.
People in other countries are bragging about paying as much or less for much faster internet.
Have we shown little interest in the top tiers TWC is offering? Yes... because they're even more expensive and really not that much faster.
Part of the issue is that cable internet really doesn't give you fixed bandwidth. It's shared. Which means even if you only are supposed to get X bandwidth, one often gets more during off peak hours. And during peak hours you typically get less. If you pay more for the better service, you generally don't ACTUALLY get significantly different bandwidth. You get a little more during peak hours and about the same bandwidth during off peak hours. For the bump in price, it's just not worth it.
Rather then trying to sue the government they should have raised a constitutional objection to the law itself citing that it violated our right to due process as regards searches and seizure.
Had they done that, the courts likely would have sided with them.
It's important to remember that the courts are VERY concerned with protocol. Everything has to be worded and argued in a specific way or it will be dismissed like a syntax error into a compiler. Wrong wording or angle and they'll just say "wrong next case".
Make it a forth amendment challenge however and you've got a different story.
Typically instate subsidized rates that assume the student's family pays state and federal taxes which they often do not.
That's part of becoming a US citizen... you pay US federal and state taxes.
There have been efforts to get illegal immigrants to pay taxes but most of them have backfired.
For example, one such effort resulted in illegals being able to claim dependents in mexico on tax forms ultimately letting them get as much as 30-100k in government assistance... that is, rather then get some revenue, the government instead started paying the illegals welfare subsidies.
So no, the programs are not working. The system is profoundly broken and the only people that haven't figured that our are the stupid or the willfully ignorant.
That's all that's left at this point. Those with any curiosity and an open mind have already reached the obvious conclusion.
Furthermore, the US's problem is not a lack of education or a too small labor pool. To the contrary, our high unemployment suggests we have too much labor for the current economy to sustain. And what that means is that you need business stimumius and not more hand outs and welfare.
But you know what... I'm over it. If the socialist want to destroy everything they touch go for it. I won't stop them. Have a party. But the price of that is that they lose my loyality.
That much maligned patriotism they like to demean is gone. Because of this... I won't die for you. I won't lift a finger to protect you. And you won't get any more obedience from me then you can compel at gun point.
In short, the price of your victory is the destruction of the republic itself. More and more realize that they're being abused by this system and your ability to project power over the people is dramatically reduced without the cooperation of the people.
This isn't to say I'm for or against metric. I really don't care. The only point I'm making is that its a unit of measure and the system you use for measuring units doesn't make you more or less advanced.
The US designs autonomous space probes in imperial units that are superior to anything any other country could produce in metric.
I have nothing against metric. It's fine. But neither do I have a problem with pounds, inches, horsepower, or fahrenheit. It's just units of measure and one is generally as good as another so long as they communicate the needed information.
I had a room mate once ask if I had a tape measure. He needed to know if something was roughly the same size as something else. I handed him a bit of string. He didn't understand. I put the string against one side of the first object and then measured it against with that same piece of string against the second object. How big was each object? I'm not exactly sure but it didn't matter. What mattered was their relation. And that bit of string showed us exactly how the two items related to each other.
You have to understand that that is all units of measure are really. It's not important where you divide them into units. How big an inch or how heavy the pound. How they divide or how many makes another. It's just not important. You can make it simpler but it's not better if it isn't actually more useful. And it isn't. It's the same.
As someone that deals with metric and imperial units all the time... let me tell you... I don't care. I've got it down. You could honestly add a dozen more measurement systems and it still wouldn't matter to me. Get a conversion table and use it. It's not a big deal. No one is suffering technologically or scientifically for lack of a conversion table.
If THAT is what is holding you back you're either stupid or lazy.... and you'd fail in science and engineering regardless.
The uptick in commodity prices is evident and not due to shortages of those commodities. Furthermore, the appreciation of rival currencies against the Dollar is also telling. One must of course exclude economies with poorer fiscal management then the US. But the US dollar has taken a pounding over the last few years and every time there is a major "easing" by the Federal Reserve there is a corresponding fall in the US dollar.
Nothing is free. The money the Federal Reserve is giving the Federal government does not come without cost. Value is being taken from one place and being given to another.
It is a tax. A stealth tax. It isn't voted on by congress. It isn't acknowledged on balance sheets. It is ignored by practically everyone while at the same time it's effects touch everything.
This sort of disruption is not helpful. And emulating OSX is foolish. Windows sells to a totally different market with totally different needs. I can't tell you how disruptive Windows Vista and Windows 7 were in some corporate networks. The loss of backward compatibility is a serious deal breaker. If MS is going to start messing around with the whole operating system on a fundamental level continuously then why stay with MS at all? It's not in our interest as corporate customers to roll out workstations in this operating system if they have such high maintenance issues. In some cases, we might have to totally recode proprietary company software every year just to keep compatibility with the OS. That is an additional expense we don't need.
Seriously MS... What we wanted from you was Windows XP with fewer bugs, a slightly more polished UI, a couple extra features, and not a lot else. That is our corporate need. These are WORK computers. People do spread sheets on them, modify databases, and check email.
We've resisted moving to linux for a variaty of issues but this sort of behavior makes us think that we're actively not wanted. Fine. Have fun trying to sell your stupid operating system when most of your customers don't use it at work anymore.
As as to the residential user... you'll never compete with Apple at being Apple. If people want macs they'll get macs. A "me-too" strategy is only for marginal buyers. And even the gaming community is turning on you.
This whole thing is a massive mistake. Radical redesigns of the OS are a bad idea. And cutting backward compatibility is lethal.
US bonds are selling well because the Federal Reserve is buying them. Not because the free market is snapping them up.
And where does the Federal Reserve get the money to pay for these bonds? They devalue the money in your pocket.
That is what is keeping this going. The US dollar is devaluing at about the rate at which the Federal government is spending more then gathers in revenue.
This process starts out fairly slowly at first because the currency has more value.
But like a turd circling the drain it spins faster and faster as it nears the vortex.
The US Senate has not even voted on a budget in the last four years. Understand, this isn't a question of one side or the other voting it down. It hasn't even been voted on or proposed. The Senate outright refuses to even look at a budget proposal.
This is probably the most important thing the US senate does. It is one of the few things they're constitutionally required to do... and they won't do it.
What is the US budget? They keep passing patch work spending proposals to keep the ball rolling backed on debt from the Federal Reserve.
Do you know where that money comes from? They devalue the US currency every time they "create" more money. They do it by dividing the pie into smaller and smaller slices. And that pie is anyone that owns US dollars.
Why won't the Senate pass a budget? The House has passed several budgets even though they're technically not allowed to start budgets. Budgets must originate in the Senate. And they won't even look at a budget.
Why? That is why the fiscal cliff is there. It's a dead line.
Time to stop stalling and compromise. That is going to mean cuts. You want Clinton level taxes? Fine. Give me Clinton level spending and you have a deal. That will balance the budget quickly. And guess what wasn't cut during the clinton years... science spending. What was cut? I won't say it... I don't have to say it.
Do you honestly think this is why the US is in debt? Honestly?
I won't say what is causing the debt because I assume you know already and can't handle it... but this isn't what is bankrupting the US.
Furthermore, most of these religious organizations are technically charities... so if you nuked their exemption you'd nuke the exemption for charities... which includes Green Peace, PETA, The Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc... Seriously... think. No really. Stop and give it a good five minute think. This is not what is killing us.
I don't know if it's even possible for most people to be rational on this issue but I'll make a stab at it.
Is it scientific spending that is bankrupting the US government?
No it is not.
This is NOT where the cut should come. The cut should be everything else.
I won't state what should be cut because things are so ideological and people are so irrational on the subject that their eyes will roll back into their heads and start foaming at the mouth. But I think we can all agree that it isn't scientific spending that is generating the US debt.
Generating power on the plane is dumb even with perfect technology. The laws of physics just aren't your friend on this issue. That said, laws of physics have no problem with high density batteries storing enough power to take a plane from point A to point B. The only issue then is generating enough power ground side to power them up between stops. And that's not a big deal.
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They're stuck with XP.
We're currently making it work with a mix of downgrading OS's to XP, putting a compatible terminal server on the network, and some VMs.
But its entirely stupid. MS could have provided proper backward compatibility for their later OS's. Especially dos emulation is pretty terrible in windows 7 when compared to windows XP.
MS really needs to understand that compatibility and STANDARDS are their real market draw for established and loyal customer base.
MS keeps pissing away opportunities. For example, they could have made their new windows phones competely compatible with windows desktop software. some will say impossible, but I saw someone install windows XP on an android phone so clearly it's possible. I'm not saying those things should literally run windows. But if the android can emulate it well enough to play fallout 2 then MS should have been able to build in some sort of emulation into those phones.
Who wants an MS phone? No one. They have no niche. Imagine if they could run desktop windows software natively though? Bam... instant niche.
MS is stupid. Stop f'ing over your current customers to curry favor with segments of the market that don't even like you. It offends those that actually pay actual money to intentionally buy your productions by choice.
In regards to IBM or other corporations building debt to foster growth, that ignores the fact that you're not spending the money on growth or profit making entities. You're spending it on welfare. Nearly all of it goes to social security, medicare, medicaid, unemployment insurance, and a near endless host of various NON-profit making entities.
Now you can argue those are good things and things we need to have. Fine. But you can't turn around and say we need to fund them to sustain growth when they have zero potential of actually doing that. It's either ignorant or dishonest.
Which are you? Because you either just told me that the US government is incurring this debt because you think welfare is profitable or you were ignorant of what we were spending it on, or you're just lying to me.
Pick one... or if you'd like, propose another option. I'm unaware of any other alternative here and I'm frankly being generous by presuming you're ignorant. I don't think you are... I think you know better.
As to french infrastructure, the french are as bankrupt if not more so then we are so that is a silly counter argument. Do you honestly think the US economy would be thriving right now if we had bullet trains all over the place? How naive can you possibly be... I take back what I said above... you might well just be ignorant. And I regret if that offends you but your arguments are offensively stupid. They literally offend me by being uttering my presence. They are that dumb.
As to our debt, you assume that tax cuts have no link to economic growth and thus tax revenue based on that growth. You forget that the tax cuts came after a financial collapse and that they were put into place to stimulate growth. Which unlike your policies, they did. Didn't they? Did the economy grow after the tax cuts? Yes. Did it grow after the stimulus? No.
As to Afghanistan and Iraq, what would have you response been to 9/11. I love that you people seem to forget that we were attacked not the other way around. And as to Saddam and Iraq, that was clearly a mistake. But at the same time, nearly all evidence that would argue it a mistake is hindsight with no ability for us to know that prior to that point.
I have no interest in defending Bush... The man was absurd. But if he's your standard of an idiot then Obama is a foaming moron.
As to the placeholder that is money, it is also something one owns. It signifies value that you've earned. When you devalue my money to pay for your mistakes you steal from me. You're a thief that believes everything everyone else has belongs to him if he can take it. It's disgusting and if you're allowed to keep running rampant in our society you will destroy not only us but yourselves. You've done it before. It's happened many times.
This might also help explain what is going on:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/90/Revenue_and_Expense_to_GDP_Chart_1993_-_2008.png
The spending has to come down radically.
Either it comes down or the dollar collapses.
Median US house hold income 49k
Average US spending per house hold 50k
Yes, I am aware of the difference between median and mean.
Are you aware that the tax rate isn't 100%?
Those two numbers prove to anyone thinking that I'm right.
It forces people to read my points though.
I've had an issue with people skimming and they skim typically reading the first sentence in a paragraph and then moving on.
So for important points, I like to break up a bit so they actually read it.
Here, I'm obviously just giving you a hard time.
But I felt I needed to make my point.
On to the topic, discretionary spending is a weasel word. The entire budget is discretionary. We need across the board cut if people aren't willing to go through the non-discretionary budget and cut waste.
You want more money for a program? Fine. Who needs it less? Make it so that any program that wants money has to take it from another program. Then we'll see who really needs it and who really just "wants" it. Because we're no longer able to provide wants. That is gone. We're now in the realm of need. What do we NEED. A great many programs some of which are quite good will suffer for that. But then the alternative is eventual hyperinflation.
First, you want to compare the US government, an organization that has bee around for hundreds of years to a start up? If you want to compare us to something, then compare us to an old blue chip. And guess how much debt those old corps run up? Oh that's right, they tend to run massive cash reserves because they're not stupid.
Second, comparing the US government to a start up, assumes that the US is about to explode in growth. You pour money into a start up on the assumption that the capital investment will be returned in the near future many times over. It is an investment. So what massive money making scheme are we pouring our money into? Oh that's right, nothing. So if I were a venture capitalist would I loan you the money in this case? No.
Third, I love that you think the problem in the US is a lack of infrustructure. You honestly think that if we had a few more bridges or roads or a couple extra solar power planets all our problems would be solved. You think that somehow the economy would be good. Because in your mind, the reason US businesses are failing is because they don't have enough roads. Really? Wake up. It isn't a lack of infrastructure that is killing us. Infrastructure is merely sold to us because it's something the politicians can build and their various political allies can profit from. Infrastructure is not what is holding the US economy back. It's labor policy, social policy, and out of control spending.
Fourth, I love how you think we're in debt because there were some tax breaks. Yes there were tax breaks and it caused US tax revenue to decrease by what percentage? Okay... and by what percentage did US spending go up? Exactly. I'll admit that if we didn't lower taxes our debt would be better but not by much. It is the spending that went up by the most and continues to go up by the most. That isn't an opinion. It's a mathematical fact. You agree or be wrong.
Fifth, debt isn't scary unless its out of control and you can't stop yourself. Imagine the poor fool that tries to live off his credit card and runs up absurd debts on it but can't stop himself. That is scary. And that is what you've done. Yes you. Because people like you through your ignorance enable it. If there were fewer people like you and more like me we would not be in this position. When the debt comes due I'll be able to say "I told you so"... for what little that is worth.
Sixth, as to FDR etc, basing your whole economic theory on one moment in american history where we could get away with behaving like idiots is not a good idea. For one thing FDR made the depression longer and deeper through his price controls and labor regulations. It was actually WW2 that got us out of the depression. And that was because most of the laws were relaxed or removed to allow for war production. FDR literally cut back on business regulation because if he didn't war production wouldn't have been possible. The weapons contractors etc all said if you want us to meet these production goals you need to get your f'ing boot off our throats. Add to that, we blew up our competition. Who survived that war as an industrial competitor to the US? The British empire was in tatters. Germany was a wasteland. Japan was a smoking crater. So shockingly the US had great industrial demand. Tell you what sport, if you want to count on the post WW2 economic boom for the US this is how you do it. Nuke the planet. Win WW3... make sure you nuke china, japan, south korea, Brazil, Germany, and any other place with a reasonable industrial base. Then enjoy the economic boom in the US if we've somehow survived it.
Seventh, as to the nut shell, what is it that allows you to think you can treat the federal reserve like a Milton Price monopoly money factory and just pump out infinite dollars without consequence? You do realize the money represents something right? You do realize that every time you tell the federal reserve to give you an extra magnitude of money it devalues all money in circulation by the ratio of that addition to the whole? You're not creating money. You're devaluing every one else's money and putting the difference in your pocket. It's theft. And the only people that don't get it are the complacent and the ignorant.
If you're spending more on average then your people are making median... AND the money you're spending is a percentage of their income then it becomes a problem.
Lets assume for a second that the US tax rate was 100%. If the US tax rate were 100% then what you said would make some sense. After all. the difference between median and mean would give you some wiggle room.
But it's not 100 percent.
Lets assume it's 50 percent which it isn't but I'm making this simple for you. Condescension deserved... Sorry.
That would as a rough little thought experiment the US government would be getting about 25k in revenue per household and then spending 50k per household.
Do you honestly think you're going to make up the difference there in the difference between median and mean?
Of course not.
My point was that we're spending MUCH more money then can be reasonably raised from our economy. You can't raise taxes high enough to cover this level of spending. It is beyond our means. Mathematically.
And an important thing about the difference between median and mean is that if you rely on the fringes of the economy to pay for everything it means you've based everything on a very small portion of the total population. If you've also based it on the most affluent, able, and motivated portion of the population what is the likelihood that they're going to let you milk them for all they're worth? Zero.
They've never allowed that. Watch what is happening in France. They formally declared a policy of eating the rich. And what happened? The rich left. And worse, even if the rich hadn't left it wouldn't have been enough to cover the spending.
I don't need to make the moral argument unless I choose to... the math is on my side and anyone can see it if they take their heads out of the sand... or their asses.
It means less flexibility.
More liability.
Less freedom.
More waste.
Say what you will about this study, the governments of the western world are living beyond their means.
The US government for example is spending about 50k per US household.
The median income of US households is about 49k.
That alone should tell you there is a problem.
To paraphrase Emperor Augustus: "things that can't go on forever - don't."
These governments are spending well beyond their means and the only way they can presume to maintain it even for a time is through massive inflation. Which will harm the economy, raise interest rates, and generally transition any country that chooses this path into a second world country.
And even this won't be enough because having destroyed your credit and dealing with increasingly higher interest rates it will only be a matter of time before you can't inflate the currency fast enough to paper over your debt.
And when that happens... anarchy... blood... social collapse.
People need to stop deluding themselves that they can magic the debt away as if it won't exist if you don't believe in it.
It isn't a six year old's imaginary monster. It's our civilization's very real debt. And it will bring us low if we don't bring it under control.
I also love that they're whining about these austarity measures when many of these countries are still increasing the amount of debt they owe. In many cases, they're simply slowing down... not reversing course.
If a country can at least tread water without building additional net debt then it's got the situation under control.
But many do not. The US does not. We spend more every year and the tax recipes and economic growth are not remotely keeping up.
I know I'm going to get hate mail for this... It's what comes of having an open forum.
But you can't wish the numbers away through denial. It's like arguing with the Sun.
Windows 98 was okay. ... Many years pass...
Windows ME (Mistake Edition) was terrible.
Windows XP was okay.
Windows Vista was terrible.
Windows 7 was okay.
Windows 8 is a joke.
Basically I think MS only pays attention when they're afraid AND listening to the people that ACTUALLY "BUY" their software.
People that buy new computers and get MS windows thrown in effectively buy the OS through some licensing fees. But who actually picks ups up at a store/pays to download a microsoft product and intentionally installs it into a machine?
THOSE people are the first people you need to satisfy.
It's the old 80/20 rule. That is, about 80 percent of your business is coming from about 20 percent of your customers. Every effective business makes sure they make that group happy first. THEN focus on the remaining 20 percent of their income stream which might well be 80 percent or more of their customers.
Who am I talking about? Corporate clients that buy site licenses and install your software on all their workstations. Small businesses that have been buying and installing MS software for decades. And the legions of power users that make up the core MS's ACTUAL biggest fans.
Take away these groups and MS has NOTHING. Windows 8 gives nothing to their core market and it was all sacrificed in an idiotic ploy to lure Apple owners in... Why? Apple in the desktop world remains a market share irrelevance especially in MS's core markets. Leave it alone. Enjoy what you have and stop reinventing yourself to no purpose.
It also says you can't really do it... So it's not likely to be useful in dealing with something it effectively says is impossible.
Ignorance admitted to...
I would argue that all the theories proposing this time reversal have also stated that you can't send the information faster then light. So... assuming we are sending the information faster then light, why would we think the rules that say we can't still apply?
The only way you get FTL communication is if we find some loophole in the laws that lets us slip information IGNORING the very law that supposedly would cause things to time travel.
That being the case, we can't really assume how the information will travel. Possibly it would be instantaneous communication. That is, information arriving WHEN it is sent not before or after.. but precisely WHEN it is sent.
That said, so far as I understand we have no means of FTL anything. Apparently even gravity moves at the speed of light which is sort of depressing. I read a fair amount of science fiction and it was assumed in much of it that gravity "waves" could be used to communicate FTL... well, according to some scientific publications I skim they go at the speed of light. What goes faster then light? I don't know... tachyons? Again, I think I've learned everything I know about tachyons from "fiction"... so I don't really know anything about them besides that they're supposedly unable to travel slower then light and time travel and possibly some other fun stuff.
Whatever... have fun with any of the above systems because they all look equally fruitless.
I'd love FTL communication. We do need it or something like it especially as we try to manage our legions of drones exploring the solar system. But until we have such a system I see no point in theory crafting the protocol it would use. You might as well pick out the sofa coffee table arrangement for your working model of the starship enterprise... complete with teleporter and holodeck... which will be used exclusively for naked orgies with holo-porn... because that's what you do with holodecks.
Anyway, I have no idea what I'm talking about but I suspect everyone is talking out of their asses on this one so at least I'm not alone on it.
I can't watch either MSNBC or Fox. They're insipid sniping at each other is beyond tiresome. Get a room and make out. No one cares which of you has a more turgid member.
Do I like CNN? I "can" watch it but I generally choose not to watch any of them because this is the 21st century and I have the interwebs. Why would I waste my time watching cable news when I can snap up twice the information in half the time on a webpage? No talking heads. No commercials you have to wait through. No endlessly repeated stories that must be patiently waited through linearly.
If I don't like a story on a website, I skip it. Bam... next story. I can skip to the section I want and avoid the ones I don't.
There's no competition.
This whole fight over who is better at cable news is just a contest between two dinosaurs that mostly serve people in nursing homes. And that's for fox, msnbc, and cnn. Who watches them? It's all crap.
The eco-taxes are out of control in general and really it needs to stop. It's not helping the environment and it's making the economy worse.
Seriously... we can all come up with ways to f' each other over. Can we just stop it? Because every time one group comes up with a nasty way to hurt another group the second group just responds in kind.
And then what do we have?
Moral of the story? Stop acting like children and play nice.
Actually it's more due to regional monopolies we have in the US.
You see this any place the government gives control of something to a company.
Understand, if you wanted to compete with these companies in the US, you would not be allowed to do it. It would be illegal. You cannot compete with Time Warner Cable or AT&T or Verizon.
They have regional monopolies on their cable. And you can't run your own to compete against them. So they set the prices and they have no incentive to improve service or lower prices since customers have no alternative.
THAT is what happened.
In cell phones for example it is different and there are no regional monopolies. Any cell phone company can compete against any other cell phone company so long as they have a license to the spectrum their cell network uses in that region. As a result, we have many more cell phone companies then land line phone companies. And the prices for cell phones are generally much cheaper then land line phone service.
You can get very cheap pay as you go cellphone service in the US. But it is completely impossible to get that for land line service.
The reasons for why the system works the way it does go back to some deals made between industry and the government. Basically the government wanted these big companies to do certain things like build phone lines out to places they didn't want to provide service. And in return, the government granted them monopolies.
All the companies have to do to keep their monopolies is provide high quality enough service at low enough prices that there is no political backlash. So long as they don't cause that they can keep their monopolies forever.
And THAT is why we have a problem. They need to lose their monopolies. Government sponsored monopolies are immoral and economically stupid.
People in other countries are bragging about paying as much or less for much faster internet.
Have we shown little interest in the top tiers TWC is offering? Yes... because they're even more expensive and really not that much faster.
Part of the issue is that cable internet really doesn't give you fixed bandwidth. It's shared. Which means even if you only are supposed to get X bandwidth, one often gets more during off peak hours. And during peak hours you typically get less. If you pay more for the better service, you generally don't ACTUALLY get significantly different bandwidth. You get a little more during peak hours and about the same bandwidth during off peak hours. For the bump in price, it's just not worth it.
Rather then trying to sue the government they should have raised a constitutional objection to the law itself citing that it violated our right to due process as regards searches and seizure.
Had they done that, the courts likely would have sided with them.
It's important to remember that the courts are VERY concerned with protocol. Everything has to be worded and argued in a specific way or it will be dismissed like a syntax error into a compiler. Wrong wording or angle and they'll just say "wrong next case".
Make it a forth amendment challenge however and you've got a different story.
Typically instate subsidized rates that assume the student's family pays state and federal taxes which they often do not.
That's part of becoming a US citizen... you pay US federal and state taxes.
There have been efforts to get illegal immigrants to pay taxes but most of them have backfired.
For example, one such effort resulted in illegals being able to claim dependents in mexico on tax forms ultimately letting them get as much as 30-100k in government assistance... that is, rather then get some revenue, the government instead started paying the illegals welfare subsidies.
So no, the programs are not working. The system is profoundly broken and the only people that haven't figured that our are the stupid or the willfully ignorant.
That's all that's left at this point. Those with any curiosity and an open mind have already reached the obvious conclusion.
Furthermore, the US's problem is not a lack of education or a too small labor pool. To the contrary, our high unemployment suggests we have too much labor for the current economy to sustain. And what that means is that you need business stimumius and not more hand outs and welfare.
But you know what... I'm over it. If the socialist want to destroy everything they touch go for it. I won't stop them. Have a party. But the price of that is that they lose my loyality.
That much maligned patriotism they like to demean is gone. Because of this... I won't die for you. I won't lift a finger to protect you. And you won't get any more obedience from me then you can compel at gun point.
In short, the price of your victory is the destruction of the republic itself. More and more realize that they're being abused by this system and your ability to project power over the people is dramatically reduced without the cooperation of the people.
This isn't to say I'm for or against metric. I really don't care. The only point I'm making is that its a unit of measure and the system you use for measuring units doesn't make you more or less advanced.
The US designs autonomous space probes in imperial units that are superior to anything any other country could produce in metric.
I have nothing against metric. It's fine. But neither do I have a problem with pounds, inches, horsepower, or fahrenheit. It's just units of measure and one is generally as good as another so long as they communicate the needed information.
I had a room mate once ask if I had a tape measure. He needed to know if something was roughly the same size as something else. I handed him a bit of string. He didn't understand. I put the string against one side of the first object and then measured it against with that same piece of string against the second object. How big was each object? I'm not exactly sure but it didn't matter. What mattered was their relation. And that bit of string showed us exactly how the two items related to each other.
You have to understand that that is all units of measure are really. It's not important where you divide them into units. How big an inch or how heavy the pound. How they divide or how many makes another. It's just not important. You can make it simpler but it's not better if it isn't actually more useful. And it isn't. It's the same.
As someone that deals with metric and imperial units all the time... let me tell you... I don't care. I've got it down. You could honestly add a dozen more measurement systems and it still wouldn't matter to me. Get a conversion table and use it. It's not a big deal. No one is suffering technologically or scientifically for lack of a conversion table.
If THAT is what is holding you back you're either stupid or lazy.... and you'd fail in science and engineering regardless.
The uptick in commodity prices is evident and not due to shortages of those commodities. Furthermore, the appreciation of rival currencies against the Dollar is also telling. One must of course exclude economies with poorer fiscal management then the US. But the US dollar has taken a pounding over the last few years and every time there is a major "easing" by the Federal Reserve there is a corresponding fall in the US dollar.
Nothing is free. The money the Federal Reserve is giving the Federal government does not come without cost. Value is being taken from one place and being given to another.
It is a tax. A stealth tax. It isn't voted on by congress. It isn't acknowledged on balance sheets. It is ignored by practically everyone while at the same time it's effects touch everything.
It is not something you can dismiss.
This sort of disruption is not helpful. And emulating OSX is foolish. Windows sells to a totally different market with totally different needs. I can't tell you how disruptive Windows Vista and Windows 7 were in some corporate networks. The loss of backward compatibility is a serious deal breaker. If MS is going to start messing around with the whole operating system on a fundamental level continuously then why stay with MS at all? It's not in our interest as corporate customers to roll out workstations in this operating system if they have such high maintenance issues. In some cases, we might have to totally recode proprietary company software every year just to keep compatibility with the OS. That is an additional expense we don't need.
Seriously MS... What we wanted from you was Windows XP with fewer bugs, a slightly more polished UI, a couple extra features, and not a lot else. That is our corporate need. These are WORK computers. People do spread sheets on them, modify databases, and check email.
We've resisted moving to linux for a variaty of issues but this sort of behavior makes us think that we're actively not wanted. Fine. Have fun trying to sell your stupid operating system when most of your customers don't use it at work anymore.
As as to the residential user... you'll never compete with Apple at being Apple. If people want macs they'll get macs. A "me-too" strategy is only for marginal buyers. And even the gaming community is turning on you.
This whole thing is a massive mistake. Radical redesigns of the OS are a bad idea. And cutting backward compatibility is lethal.
US bonds are selling well because the Federal Reserve is buying them. Not because the free market is snapping them up.
And where does the Federal Reserve get the money to pay for these bonds? They devalue the money in your pocket.
That is what is keeping this going. The US dollar is devaluing at about the rate at which the Federal government is spending more then gathers in revenue.
This process starts out fairly slowly at first because the currency has more value.
But like a turd circling the drain it spins faster and faster as it nears the vortex.
The US Senate has not even voted on a budget in the last four years. Understand, this isn't a question of one side or the other voting it down. It hasn't even been voted on or proposed. The Senate outright refuses to even look at a budget proposal.
This is probably the most important thing the US senate does. It is one of the few things they're constitutionally required to do... and they won't do it.
What is the US budget? They keep passing patch work spending proposals to keep the ball rolling backed on debt from the Federal Reserve.
Do you know where that money comes from? They devalue the US currency every time they "create" more money. They do it by dividing the pie into smaller and smaller slices. And that pie is anyone that owns US dollars.
Why won't the Senate pass a budget? The House has passed several budgets even though they're technically not allowed to start budgets. Budgets must originate in the Senate. And they won't even look at a budget.
Why? That is why the fiscal cliff is there. It's a dead line.
Time to stop stalling and compromise. That is going to mean cuts. You want Clinton level taxes? Fine. Give me Clinton level spending and you have a deal. That will balance the budget quickly. And guess what wasn't cut during the clinton years... science spending. What was cut? I won't say it... I don't have to say it.
Do you honestly think this is why the US is in debt? Honestly?
I won't say what is causing the debt because I assume you know already and can't handle it... but this isn't what is bankrupting the US.
Furthermore, most of these religious organizations are technically charities... so if you nuked their exemption you'd nuke the exemption for charities... which includes Green Peace, PETA, The Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc... Seriously... think. No really. Stop and give it a good five minute think. This is not what is killing us.
What is bankrupting us? Okay. Stop doing that.
I don't know if it's even possible for most people to be rational on this issue but I'll make a stab at it.
Is it scientific spending that is bankrupting the US government?
No it is not.
This is NOT where the cut should come. The cut should be everything else.
I won't state what should be cut because things are so ideological and people are so irrational on the subject that their eyes will roll back into their heads and start foaming at the mouth. But I think we can all agree that it isn't scientific spending that is generating the US debt.
Very well. Cut what is driving spending up.
Generating power on the plane is dumb even with perfect technology. The laws of physics just aren't your friend on this issue. That said, laws of physics have no problem with high density batteries storing enough power to take a plane from point A to point B. The only issue then is generating enough power ground side to power them up between stops. And that's not a big deal.
So... batteries.