There's some truth to the premise of the movie "Brewster's Millions". After a certain point, spending money is not easy to do. If Zuckerberg is keeping half a billion to support his family, the other $45 billion won't make any difference to him. He can still live more extravagantly than most other multi-millionaires.
By giving away what is basically his surplus, he gains positive publicity and maybe a bit of personal satisfaction. That's probably worth more to him than keeping the money in the bank. It wouldn't even affect his Forbes ranking since he has already said that he will still effectively control the donated Facebook stock.
But I don't begrudge him his notion of philanthropy anymore than I begrudge the NBA stars their philanthropic foundations. They all get their publicity, tax benefits, etc. It's their money, so they get to decide what to do with it. The one criticism that I have is that I don't think much of Zuckerberg's priorities. Curing a widespread third-world disease like malaria a la Bill Gates is an impactful thing. Increasing internet access is not even a first-world problem and will do not much for people who worry about basic necessities. The one philanthropist that I really admire is Andrew Carnegie, who used his gifts to build over 2500 libraries in the world, many of which are still operating after a hundred years.
He's not giving anything away. This is a 'donation' to his family 'charity'. In other words a way to get around the inheritance tax. It's not by accident that this decision comes just after having a child.
"Free" always means that you're somehow getting someone else to pay the bill. The difference is simply that you think others should be forced to pay for the things you think they should value, whereas I think it's better to look for ways to persuade people to pay voluntarily by offering something they actually do value in exchange.
Your system is not 'free' in that the students themselves (or their families) are to pay the bill. That is not free and can in no way be construed as free.
With regard to who pays the bill in my system, 'others' in this case includes me, as I pay taxes. I consider this to be an investment in the infrastructure of society even if it isn't roads or warships.
I am curious - do you think that no education, secondary and primary included, should be free?
As well, it is not realistic for poor or even middle class families who are already struggling to 'take out a loan to cover the up-front expenses'. Certainly it was impossible for me when I tried. And tried. And tried.
I don't know your specific situation, but certainly my experience with student loans was very different from what you described. My family was well enough off to not qualify for income-based financial aid, but not so well off that we could afford to pay for everything ourselves. I received some merit-based scholarships; to cover the rest I took out student loans. If anything, they were probably too easy to get; that's part of the reason why the base tuition is so high. In the end they even reduced the interest rates down to something like 0.5%—low enough that there was little incentive to repay the loan early, even compared to the low yield available from a typical savings account (at the time; yields are lower now).
My family was on welfare and was not able to contribute. Your family situation was above the line where this system breaks down - good for you (I am not being ironic). There are many where this is not the case. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
You automatically rank in the highest tax category as a freelancer. Of every buck you make, 60 cents go to the state.
If that happened to you, without you suddenly making the income that would justify it, for the love of heaven seek out a tax professional. You do have to pay both your half and the employer half of FICA. But, almost certainly your tax bracket should go down*. Or you FUBARed your taxes.
Well let's hope that he's not a freelance accountant or tax planner...
Whatever education is required for those things necessary for society, whatever those things are, should be free to the best students who are interested in it, whatever it is.
That's how it works already; we just have a more roundabout reimbursement program. To get your free education, just select a degree which will be useful to society and take out a loan to cover the up-front expenses. Once you graduate and start putting that education to use you'll receive periodic reimbursements from society in the form of a paycheck.
You and I have very different ideas on what 'free' means.
As well, it is not realistic for poor or even middle class families who are already struggling to 'take out a loan to cover the up-front expenses'. Certainly it was impossible for me when I tried. And tried. And tried. Instead i was obliged to work two and sometimes three shit jobs to pay my bills - the result being a lack of focus on my schoolwork.
And at what point can we reevaluate this and say "six jobs at one time is not a job, it's being taken advantage of".
It's not being taken advantage of. It's called being a freelancer. There is lots of work in the world that does not require being in a single place for 40+ hours each week. Just because it is different doesn't mean it is worse or that you are being taken advantage of. I've held as many as 3-4 "jobs" at a given time. It's normal if you are a freelancer.
I don't pretend to know what the future will look like but the one thing I'm certain of is that it won't look like today. The job market your parents had isn't the one you will have and the one your kids will have will be different still. Get used to it.
In the US at least, it looks more to be headed back in time to where people got whatever jobs they could, had no benefits and if they complained about things were easily and quickly replaced. Such is the race to the bottom.
He isn't saying Russian Literature is not necessary for society. He's saying people taking it shouldn't expect it to be free.
I know what he's saying - but do you understand what I am saying?
Whatever education is required for those things necessary for society, whatever those things are, should be free to the best students who are interested in it, whatever it is. This makes for a strong society and heads away from the 'education is for those who can afford it' situation, which ends up killing the middle class in the long run.
"better repayment terms than those studying to become nurses or teachers..."
and yet you immediately make a comparison to "PhD in Russian Literature".
News for you bud - nurses and teachers, and even the occassional PhD in Russian Lit are necessary in a society and if you don't make education available to people who want to be nurses and teachers, eventually you will find that at some point you won't have enough of them. And while your market forces are making it more interesting to students, the salaries having gone up with the shortage - you will still have a weakness in your society because for awhile there just won't be enough.
Where I live, University is free. There are a certain number of seats available for each degree, nationwide, depending on the current and estimated future needs of the society. The students who do the best in the competitive exams for those seats get their choice of school and program. The less well you do, the less of a choice you have. Once the seats are full those who didn't make the grade can choose to study more and try again or to move on to something else.
In the US any of these programs would be considered racist since they require you to qualify in high school. It's also being paid for by insane income (averaging 55%) and sales taxes (averaging 20% for regular goods and up to 150% for fuel). The EU model is great for poor people but those that emerge victorious from the poor house after lots of effort and pain (eg. yours truly) will still want to immigrate to the US so as not to piss away their hard earned money into hollowed out funds (they've all been used up to pay for other things and all of them are deeply in debt).
I live in France and live what you're describing. Let me take your points one at a time.
In the US any of these programs would be considered racist since they require you to qualify in high school.
You'll have to explain the racist aspect as school is free to everyone in the US, right through high school. On top of that, to get into secondary education in the US you also have to qualify at the end of high school so I really don't get the point you're trying to make here.
It's also being paid for by insane income (averaging 55%) and sales taxes (averaging 20% for regular goods and up to 150% for fuel)
Not untrue and I'd like to see those taxes cut...and yet I choose to live here instead of the US not least because my kids are getting absolutely top notch education for free and neither they nor I will have to go into debt for them to be able to take that education as far as they want to. Additionally, we get almost free world class medical care where you get shafted by insurance agencies and health care providers alike in the US. I consider the taxes that I pay to be an investment not only for the immediate return (free medical, free school) but the longer term return of a strong society with a well educated middle class that isn't buried to their eyebrows in debt - unlike where the US is heading which is a return to the 'only the wealthy can afford education' model.
The EU model is great for poor people but those that emerge victorious from the poor house after lots of effort and pain (eg. yours truly) will still want to immigrate to the US so as not to piss away their hard earned money into hollowed out funds (they've all been used up to pay for other things and all of them are deeply in debt).
I come from a welfare family and have earned everything that I have, having lived on my own and worked my way through life since the age of 17. I have made six digits a year since shortly after that and yet, contrary to your assumptions, I emigrated from the US to France because I believe that the social systems here are better, in the long run, for both my family and the society that I will raise them in and that they, in turn will raise their children in.
With regard to hollowed out funds and national debt I think you need to have a second look at where the US stands before making such a statement as the US is hardly in solid financial shape.
I'm reminded of the food products created by 'famine' in Pratchett & Gaimens' 'Good Omens' which one could eat as much as one wanted and yet starve to death -
"Nouvelle cuisine (the sort that consists of “a string bean, a pea, and a sliver of chicken breast, aesthetically arranged on a square china plate,” invented “the last time he’d been in Paris,”; diet fads (“D-Plan Dieting: Slim Yourself Beautiful, the book was called; The Diet Book of the Century!”; and new foods (“indistinguishable from any other [food] except for [] the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walkman. It didn’t matter how much you ate, you lost weight. [] And hair. And skin tone. And, if you ate enough of it long enough, vital signs”
In addition Beazley point out that the piracy lawsuit was filed November last year, several days before the December 1, 2014 date the insurance policy began.
Normally there should be some other insurance policy that covered the period before, one might think...
Punchy lows. Solid mids. But where it really excels is highs. They're crisp and clear all the way to 200GHz and beyond. Of course you'll have to use our superflex cable with gold plated oxygen free copper conductors to really hear the difference!
>> (engineers) are seven times as likely to be both religious and conservative as social scientists
The Paris terrorists didn't seem that "religious" or "conservative". From AFA: "She loved partying and going to clubs. She drank alcohol and smoked and went around with lots of different guys." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3325180/Two-fingers-world-Pictured-Europe-s-female-suicide-bomber-booze-loving-extrovert-nicknamed-Cowgirl-love-big-hats.html)
I find it hard to believe anyone would give up on a $400 speaker that quickly, unless they are rich and $400 is nothing to them.
I find it hard to believe a damned speaker needs firmware upgrades.
Oh, but wait, it's controllable by an app, has Bluetooth and wifi, and connects to the internet, right?
Yeah... me, I don't want speakers which do that stuff. Precisely because time and time again companies demonstrate they're terrible at it, and you end up with a product with a MUCH shorter lifecycle -- because it's focused on 10 things besides being a good speaker.
My guess, if it needs firmware updates, it's really a $100 speaker with a bunch of extra crap slapped onto it.
These days, digital pretty much means disposable.
My B&W M1s don't connect to the Internet. They do, however, benefit from a factory update that I recently installed that dropped their standby power consumption down considerably.
Incidentally it is quite literally the best sounding pair of little speakers that I have ever heard and with regard to life-cycle, I've already had them for several years and I have no reason to expect them to die any time soon.
A simple reset button like the one I described would have saved me a ton of pain and saved JBL money on shipping the speaker both ways. WHY isn't this sort of thing universal?
Not sure how much help a reset to factory settings button would be for either a corrupted firmware update but yes, it might help against ransomware that installed as an application and didn't infest the firmware.
The Friedman Doctrine is relatively recent in the grand scheme of things. The idea that a corporation has no responsibility other than to shareholders is not universally believed.
'Not universally believed' is hardly strong opposition to my statements.
The reality is that the vast majority of corporations exist solely for profit, the exceptions being few and far between relative to the majority.
Slashdot Mirror
There's some truth to the premise of the movie "Brewster's Millions". After a certain point, spending money is not easy to do. If Zuckerberg is keeping half a billion to support his family, the other $45 billion won't make any difference to him. He can still live more extravagantly than most other multi-millionaires.
By giving away what is basically his surplus, he gains positive publicity and maybe a bit of personal satisfaction. That's probably worth more to him than keeping the money in the bank. It wouldn't even affect his Forbes ranking since he has already said that he will still effectively control the donated Facebook stock.
But I don't begrudge him his notion of philanthropy anymore than I begrudge the NBA stars their philanthropic foundations. They all get their publicity, tax benefits, etc. It's their money, so they get to decide what to do with it. The one criticism that I have is that I don't think much of Zuckerberg's priorities. Curing a widespread third-world disease like malaria a la Bill Gates is an impactful thing. Increasing internet access is not even a first-world problem and will do not much for people who worry about basic necessities. The one philanthropist that I really admire is Andrew Carnegie, who used his gifts to build over 2500 libraries in the world, many of which are still operating after a hundred years.
He's not giving anything away. This is a 'donation' to his family 'charity'. In other words a way to get around the inheritance tax. It's not by accident that this decision comes just after having a child.
"Free" always means that you're somehow getting someone else to pay the bill. The difference is simply that you think others should be forced to pay for the things you think they should value, whereas I think it's better to look for ways to persuade people to pay voluntarily by offering something they actually do value in exchange.
Your system is not 'free' in that the students themselves (or their families) are to pay the bill. That is not free and can in no way be construed as free.
With regard to who pays the bill in my system, 'others' in this case includes me, as I pay taxes. I consider this to be an investment in the infrastructure of society even if it isn't roads or warships.
I am curious - do you think that no education, secondary and primary included, should be free?
As well, it is not realistic for poor or even middle class families who are already struggling to 'take out a loan to cover the up-front expenses'. Certainly it was impossible for me when I tried. And tried. And tried.
I don't know your specific situation, but certainly my experience with student loans was very different from what you described. My family was well enough off to not qualify for income-based financial aid, but not so well off that we could afford to pay for everything ourselves. I received some merit-based scholarships; to cover the rest I took out student loans. If anything, they were probably too easy to get; that's part of the reason why the base tuition is so high. In the end they even reduced the interest rates down to something like 0.5%—low enough that there was little incentive to repay the loan early, even compared to the low yield available from a typical savings account (at the time; yields are lower now).
My family was on welfare and was not able to contribute. Your family situation was above the line where this system breaks down - good for you (I am not being ironic). There are many where this is not the case.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
If that happened to you, without you suddenly making the income that would justify it, for the love of heaven seek out a tax professional. You do have to pay both your half and the employer half of FICA. But, almost certainly your tax bracket should go down*. Or you FUBARed your taxes.
Well let's hope that he's not a freelance accountant or tax planner...
Whatever education is required for those things necessary for society, whatever those things are, should be free to the best students who are interested in it, whatever it is.
That's how it works already; we just have a more roundabout reimbursement program. To get your free education, just select a degree which will be useful to society and take out a loan to cover the up-front expenses. Once you graduate and start putting that education to use you'll receive periodic reimbursements from society in the form of a paycheck.
You and I have very different ideas on what 'free' means.
As well, it is not realistic for poor or even middle class families who are already struggling to 'take out a loan to cover the up-front expenses'. Certainly it was impossible for me when I tried. And tried. And tried. Instead i was obliged to work two and sometimes three shit jobs to pay my bills - the result being a lack of focus on my schoolwork.
And at what point can we reevaluate this and say "six jobs at one time is not a job, it's being taken advantage of".
It's not being taken advantage of. It's called being a freelancer. There is lots of work in the world that does not require being in a single place for 40+ hours each week. Just because it is different doesn't mean it is worse or that you are being taken advantage of. I've held as many as 3-4 "jobs" at a given time. It's normal if you are a freelancer.
I don't pretend to know what the future will look like but the one thing I'm certain of is that it won't look like today. The job market your parents had isn't the one you will have and the one your kids will have will be different still. Get used to it.
In the US at least, it looks more to be headed back in time to where people got whatever jobs they could, had no benefits and if they complained about things were easily and quickly replaced. Such is the race to the bottom.
Put up large but with the troll's name and other identifying information blurred out. How useful is this actually going to be?
He isn't saying Russian Literature is not necessary for society. He's saying people taking it shouldn't expect it to be free.
I know what he's saying - but do you understand what I am saying?
Whatever education is required for those things necessary for society, whatever those things are, should be free to the best students who are interested in it, whatever it is. This makes for a strong society and heads away from the 'education is for those who can afford it' situation, which ends up killing the middle class in the long run.
Sounds like Zuck made a mistake talking about his own leave, and caused some complaints in the company.
His own 2 months of leave when his US based employees already got 4 ?
No. I think that FB got good publicity from this and decided that more of a good thing is, in fact, a good thing.
"better repayment terms than those studying to become nurses or teachers..."
and yet you immediately make a comparison to "PhD in Russian Literature".
News for you bud - nurses and teachers, and even the occassional PhD in Russian Lit are necessary in a society and if you don't make education available to people who want to be nurses and teachers, eventually you will find that at some point you won't have enough of them. And while your market forces are making it more interesting to students, the salaries having gone up with the shortage - you will still have a weakness in your society because for awhile there just won't be enough.
Where I live, University is free. There are a certain number of seats available for each degree, nationwide, depending on the current and estimated future needs of the society. The students who do the best in the competitive exams for those seats get their choice of school and program. The less well you do, the less of a choice you have. Once the seats are full those who didn't make the grade can choose to study more and try again or to move on to something else.
In the US any of these programs would be considered racist since they require you to qualify in high school. It's also being paid for by insane income (averaging 55%) and sales taxes (averaging 20% for regular goods and up to 150% for fuel). The EU model is great for poor people but those that emerge victorious from the poor house after lots of effort and pain (eg. yours truly) will still want to immigrate to the US so as not to piss away their hard earned money into hollowed out funds (they've all been used up to pay for other things and all of them are deeply in debt).
I live in France and live what you're describing. Let me take your points one at a time.
In the US any of these programs would be considered racist since they require you to qualify in high school.
You'll have to explain the racist aspect as school is free to everyone in the US, right through high school. On top of that, to get into secondary education in the US you also have to qualify at the end of high school so I really don't get the point you're trying to make here.
It's also being paid for by insane income (averaging 55%) and sales taxes (averaging 20% for regular goods and up to 150% for fuel)
Not untrue and I'd like to see those taxes cut...and yet I choose to live here instead of the US not least because my kids are getting absolutely top notch education for free and neither they nor I will have to go into debt for them to be able to take that education as far as they want to. Additionally, we get almost free world class medical care where you get shafted by insurance agencies and health care providers alike in the US. I consider the taxes that I pay to be an investment not only for the immediate return (free medical, free school) but the longer term return of a strong society with a well educated middle class that isn't buried to their eyebrows in debt - unlike where the US is heading which is a return to the 'only the wealthy can afford education' model.
The EU model is great for poor people but those that emerge victorious from the poor house after lots of effort and pain (eg. yours truly) will still want to immigrate to the US so as not to piss away their hard earned money into hollowed out funds (they've all been used up to pay for other things and all of them are deeply in debt).
I come from a welfare family and have earned everything that I have, having lived on my own and worked my way through life since the age of 17. I have made six digits a year since shortly after that and yet, contrary to your assumptions, I emigrated from the US to France because I believe that the social systems here are better, in the long run, for both my family and the society that I will raise them in and that they, in turn will raise their children in.
With regard to hollowed out funds and national debt I think you need to have a second look at where the US stands before making such a statement as the US is hardly in solid financial shape.
"This is true "debt-free" college."
Bullshit spin. If it didn't have to be paid back then it would be debt free.
"promises to be better (paywalled) "
Virtually smacks samzenpus upside their head.
simple problem, simple fix.
Why would you tip someone that is going out of their way to give you bad service?
The tip is the tax money they don't pay on your fare.
I'm reminded of the food products created by 'famine' in Pratchett & Gaimens' 'Good Omens' which one could eat as much as one wanted and yet starve to death -
"Nouvelle cuisine (the sort that consists of “a string bean, a pea, and a sliver of chicken breast, aesthetically arranged on a square china plate,” invented “the last time he’d been in Paris,”; diet fads (“D-Plan Dieting: Slim Yourself Beautiful, the book was called; The Diet Book of the Century!”; and new foods (“indistinguishable from any other [food] except for [] the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walkman. It didn’t matter how much you ate, you lost weight. [] And hair. And skin tone. And, if you ate enough of it long enough, vital signs”
I strongly recommend the book, incidentally - a great read -
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Ome...
It could be said that at least they're trying. I doubt any system that has to make such judgement calls will ever be perfect.
FTFA:
Normally there should be some other insurance policy that covered the period before, one might think...
Punchy lows. Solid mids. But where it really excels is highs. They're crisp and clear all the way to 200GHz and beyond. Of course you'll have to use our superflex cable with gold plated oxygen free copper conductors to really hear the difference!
This one? http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AK...
Like the Australian state that just criminalized possession of CAD files?
Or the one that criminalizes video games?
Or the one that criminalizes porn actresses with A cups?
Australia is not the first country that comes to mind when "sane lawmaking" is the topic of discussion.
Just for info, the A cup thing is debunked here: http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/...
Maybe the engineers just tend to be the most "successful" at terrorism.
Or got pissed off at H1Bs and outsourcing in general and decided to do something about it.
I know...we can call it 'Going Engineer'
Doesn't quite have the same 'bang for the buck' as Going Postal but it'll have to do.
>> (engineers) are seven times as likely to be both religious and conservative as social scientists
The Paris terrorists didn't seem that "religious" or "conservative". From AFA: "She loved partying and going to clubs. She drank alcohol and smoked and went around with lots of different guys." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3325180/Two-fingers-world-Pictured-Europe-s-female-suicide-bomber-booze-loving-extrovert-nicknamed-Cowgirl-love-big-hats.html)
She also wasn't a suicide bomber.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
The people blowing themselves up are most certainly extreme believers or they wouldn't be doing it.
I find it hard to believe a damned speaker needs firmware upgrades.
Oh, but wait, it's controllable by an app, has Bluetooth and wifi, and connects to the internet, right?
Yeah ... me, I don't want speakers which do that stuff. Precisely because time and time again companies demonstrate they're terrible at it, and you end up with a product with a MUCH shorter lifecycle -- because it's focused on 10 things besides being a good speaker.
My guess, if it needs firmware updates, it's really a $100 speaker with a bunch of extra crap slapped onto it.
These days, digital pretty much means disposable.
My B&W M1s don't connect to the Internet. They do, however, benefit from a factory update that I recently installed that dropped their standby power consumption down considerably.
Incidentally it is quite literally the best sounding pair of little speakers that I have ever heard and with regard to life-cycle, I've already had them for several years and I have no reason to expect them to die any time soon.
A simple reset button like the one I described would have saved me a ton of pain and saved JBL money on shipping the speaker both ways. WHY isn't this sort of thing universal?
Not sure how much help a reset to factory settings button would be for either a corrupted firmware update but yes, it might help against ransomware that installed as an application and didn't infest the firmware.
I can hear Trump already: Build a wall and keep those engineers out! Close all the engineering schools!
The Friedman Doctrine is relatively recent in the grand scheme of things. The idea that a corporation has no responsibility other than to shareholders is not universally believed.
'Not universally believed' is hardly strong opposition to my statements.
The reality is that the vast majority of corporations exist solely for profit, the exceptions being few and far between relative to the majority.