Which leaves me facing the next election to choose between the candidate who says he'll do things I care about, but won't, and the candidate who says he'll do things I hate, and will.
Or you could pull up stakes and move to New Hampshire. Desperate times call for desperate measures...
I sometimes hire people to work in my programming group. If you have a PhD, you have to work EXTRA hard in the interview to prove to me you can do useful work. Over the nearly two decades I've hired programmers, I've generally been most impressed by the work of former auto mechanics who taught themselves to program, and had a passion for it, rather than people with advanced degrees from Ivy-league schools.
I cannot tell you how many times I have had a tricky problem to delegate, one that I have some ideas how to implement. Invariably, the PhD will tell me it can't be done, can't be done well, or will offer to write up a whitepaper explaining why it's a bad idea to try(!)... while the mechanic rolls up his sleeves, pulls an allnighter or three, and in the end has something ugly and fragile -- but that basically works, and buys time for the next iteration.
Who decides what is a "legitimate" cure -- the person who would consume it, or an all-wise beneficent dictator? Or a bunch of politically-appointed bureaucrats?
Freedom means letting people make choices for themselves that YOU might not agree with.
The regulatory environment created by regulation virtually guaranteed that unscrupulous individuals on Wall Street would take chances they otherwise would never have done.
What makes you think the laws are always -- of even usually -- good?
Especially in the area of regulation, where there's big money involved, laws are, more often than not, political favoritism encoded with the force of violence.
Want concrete proposals? Okay: * eliminate the FDA, TSA, NEA, SEC, and DEA * tell congress to go home, no new laws for the next 12 months (gasp! how will we live?!?!?!) * That's enough for day one.
I think I have a cursory understanding of the cause of the Great Recession, and it started with government deciding more people should be be able to afford mortgages.
Freddie and Fannie destroyed so much wealth... and everyone who pays taxes are paying for it.
Do not believe for a second that the crisis is over. Just wait till US sovereign debt matures over the next 5 years. The US dollar is going to tank, bigtime. No amount of legislation can fix that.
At the end of the day, we can be free to disagree -- but anyone calling for a government solution needs to understand, they're willing to send men with guns to enforce their vision of how things should work.
I suggest more freedom, less government. Where there is competition, and the freedom not to do business with entities with whom you disagree, there is the maximum accountability.
Governments -- even democratically-elected ones -- are a pale shade of the accountability that comes from true capitalism. If I disagree with Walmart, I withold my business from them, I shop elsewhere. If I disagree with my government, I'm allowed to say all I want, and in 4 years I cast one in a few tens of millions of votes, and all the while I better keep paying -- else they send guys with guns to lock me up.
As bad as Walmart or pick-your-antifavorite company might be, they just aren't going to send men with guns to make you give them money even when you want no part of their product or service.
Where is this "unregulated private industry" of which you speak? Not in the Unites States, surely.
And if you think government "brings us" a better environment, let's compare the track record of governments that have total control over industry, versus those with relatively less controls.
To all the people who hope that some new legislation with "better regulation" will prevent system failure in the future: 1) Read your history. This is not the first time this exact same drama has played out. Ever hear of Bretton Woods? 2) Look around you. Pick any company that fucked up bad. Would a big re-org have fixed the root of the problem?
Why people continue to believe they need government to save them is beyond me.
It depends on what, precisely, the "miracle cure" peddler is saying. Is he saying, "this tonic cures cancer", or is he saying, "in our studies, this stuff prevents cancer spreading in rats" ?
The patient may be a fool, but he is attempting to transact business on a voluntary basis. So long as the drug manufacturer is not making fraudulent misrepresentations, these are two people voluntarily interacting with each other, believing the interaction to be mutually beneficial.
Then a third party, the FDA, steps in between the two, points a gun around, and tells them to stop.
The solution to the problem is not the guns of government.
Your argument misses the point that the FDA is authorized to send in men with guns strapped to their hips to prevent the "miracle cure" from being sold.
Which more moral: allowing a panicked terminally-ill patient to part with his money in a fool's errand, or stopping him from doing so -- with armed force, if necessary?
We all agree: you own your body, ou own your life, the nimrods who call themselves "your" government do not. Yet, they continue making new laws every year.
What are you doing about it? I'm doing the only think I think has a shot at working....
PS., you are not invited to live in any of the apartment units that I own. You would pass neither the tenant screening process, nor the minimum-.38-caliber house rule.
Large, multinational corporate conglomerate, with fingers in far-ranging businesses that have less and less to do with its core competency.
Sounds to me like a good time to get out of GOOG, before everyone realizes that a single company making nylons and nuclear weapons can't be world-class in both.
I trust every government on Earth.... to be a government. Which means, they will do business at the point of a gun. No number of well-intentioned folks in government changes the fact that it's fundamentally no different from any other armed mob who are willing to use the threat of violence to achieve their social and political ends.
Slashdot Mirror
Which leaves me facing the next election to choose between the candidate who says he'll do things I care about, but won't, and the candidate who says he'll do things I hate, and will.
Or you could pull up stakes and move to New Hampshire.
Desperate times call for desperate measures...
I did some pretty good coding in college while high on LSD.
I sometimes hire people to work in my programming group. If you have a PhD, you have to work EXTRA hard in the interview to prove to me you can do useful work. Over the nearly two decades I've hired programmers, I've generally been most impressed by the work of former auto mechanics who taught themselves to program, and had a passion for it, rather than people with advanced degrees from Ivy-league schools.
I cannot tell you how many times I have had a tricky problem to delegate, one that I have some ideas how to implement. Invariably, the PhD will tell me it can't be done, can't be done well, or will offer to write up a whitepaper explaining why it's a bad idea to try(!) ... while the mechanic rolls up his sleeves, pulls an allnighter or three, and in the end has something ugly and fragile -- but that basically works, and buys time for the next iteration.
Who decides what is a "legitimate" cure -- the person who would consume it, or an all-wise beneficent dictator? Or a bunch of politically-appointed bureaucrats?
Freedom means letting people make choices for themselves that YOU might not agree with.
The regulatory environment created by regulation virtually guaranteed that unscrupulous individuals on Wall Street would take chances they otherwise would never have done.
What makes you think the laws are always -- of even usually -- good?
Especially in the area of regulation, where there's big money involved, laws are, more often than not, political favoritism encoded with the force of violence.
Want concrete proposals? Okay:
* eliminate the FDA, TSA, NEA, SEC, and DEA
* tell congress to go home, no new laws for the next 12 months (gasp! how will we live?!?!?!)
* That's enough for day one.
The SEC kept the economy going?
I think I have a cursory understanding of the cause of the Great Recession, and it started with government deciding more people should be be able to afford mortgages.
Freddie and Fannie destroyed so much wealth... and everyone who pays taxes are paying for it.
Do not believe for a second that the crisis is over. Just wait till US sovereign debt matures over the next 5 years. The US dollar is going to tank, bigtime. No amount of legislation can fix that.
At the end of the day, we can be free to disagree -- but anyone calling for a government solution needs to understand, they're willing to send men with guns to enforce their vision of how things should work.
I suggest more freedom, less government. Where there is competition, and the freedom not to do business with entities with whom you disagree, there is the maximum accountability.
Governments -- even democratically-elected ones -- are a pale shade of the accountability that comes from true capitalism. If I disagree with Walmart, I withold my business from them, I shop elsewhere. If I disagree with my government, I'm allowed to say all I want, and in 4 years I cast one in a few tens of millions of votes, and all the while I better keep paying -- else they send guys with guns to lock me up.
As bad as Walmart or pick-your-antifavorite company might be, they just aren't going to send men with guns to make you give them money even when you want no part of their product or service.
Where is this "unregulated private industry" of which you speak? Not in the Unites States, surely.
And if you think government "brings us" a better environment, let's compare the track record of governments that have total control over industry, versus those with relatively less controls.
To all the people who hope that some new legislation with "better regulation" will prevent system failure in the future:
1) Read your history. This is not the first time this exact same drama has played out. Ever hear of Bretton Woods?
2) Look around you. Pick any company that fucked up bad. Would a big re-org have fixed the root of the problem?
Why people continue to believe they need government to save them is beyond me.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree.
Except -- you're willing to send in armed men to enforce your vision of how things should work. Nice.
It depends on what, precisely, the "miracle cure" peddler is saying. Is he saying, "this tonic cures cancer", or is he saying, "in our studies, this stuff prevents cancer spreading in rats" ?
The patient may be a fool, but he is attempting to transact business on a voluntary basis. So long as the drug manufacturer is not making fraudulent misrepresentations, these are two people voluntarily interacting with each other, believing the interaction to be mutually beneficial.
Then a third party, the FDA, steps in between the two, points a gun around, and tells them to stop.
The solution to the problem is not the guns of government.
Your argument misses the point that the FDA is authorized to send in men with guns strapped to their hips to prevent the "miracle cure" from being sold.
Which more moral: allowing a panicked terminally-ill patient to part with his money in a fool's errand, or stopping him from doing so -- with armed force, if necessary?
We all agree: you own your body, ou own your life, the nimrods who call themselves "your" government do not.
Yet, they continue making new laws every year.
What are you doing about it? I'm doing the only think I think has a shot at working....
... to get a judge to sign a warrant. If they had to do that, that would totally stop abuses of power.
not.
No problem, AC.
PS., you are not invited to live in any of the apartment units that I own. You would pass neither the tenant screening process, nor the minimum-.38-caliber house rule.
Large, multinational corporate conglomerate, with fingers in far-ranging businesses that have less and less to do with its core competency.
Sounds to me like a good time to get out of GOOG, before everyone realizes that a single company making nylons and nuclear weapons can't be world-class in both.
With this Supreme Court any Constitutional Law you may have learned is useless.
Ha!!! That's funny.
As if any Americans that attended the 12-year Government Indoctrination Camps would have studied any constitutional law...
You could say we're workin' on it.
http://www.youtube.com/v/5FWXnK5UyRI
No, I'm not in Nevada, but if you know Mark Warden (who used to be active in the LPNV), I'm good friends with him.
You should check the link in my sig
Aha! Now I know why we're debating minutia... you're a libertarian, too! ;)
Government is a monopoly on the legitimized use of force. I trust competition more than I trust mobocracy. Any day.
The Market for Liberty is a good place to start.
I trust every government on Earth.... to be a government. Which means, they will do business at the point of a gun. No number of well-intentioned folks in government changes the fact that it's fundamentally no different from any other armed mob who are willing to use the threat of violence to achieve their social and political ends.
WITCH SPACE!!!