I've been watching TNG on Netflix and it looks absolutely awful. Certainly no better than a VHS tape. I've also been watching the original Mission: Impossible, and it looks about 3x better, even though it aired in the 60's and certainly isn't popular enough of a show to get any special treatment whatsoever.
Amazon complaining about being so confused as to which taxes apply where is silly. Amazon has provided the e-commerce front-end for Target for many years, and they don't have any problem figuring it out for them... Now, for BillyBob's Discount Pez Dispensers, yeah, it's a real problem, and the reason Federal legislation is desperately needed, instead of these constant battles, legal patchwork, and lost state revenue. I imagine the way it will end up working is there will be a single rate for each state and the business will have to fill out a form with one blank for each state. Some central processor, or maybe the IRS, will divy up the single check to the appropriate states. An alternative would be a rate lookup by ZIP code which is rather trivial to automate for any business with a computer (or access to one.) Of course that would involve electronic submission too...
About the CC processing question: No. That does not constitute a substantial presence, unless we are talking some capital equipment and/or employees in that state. As long as it's the bank's equipment that is doing the processing, the merchant is off the hook. The big question with Amazon is if affiliates count. Many states have decided they do.
OTOH, Amazon has been doing some scummy stuff too... they have Distribution Centers in some states that levy sales tax, yet STILL don't pay it. They make the DC an "independent company" (e.g. something like "Texas AM Distribution") and then tell the state that they have no presence, despite the huge warehouse and workforce in the hundreds.
I know of no state that has even thought about levying use tax in any state but the one the order is mailed to. (either through a self-reported use tax or a sales tax.) Where on earth are you getting the idea this is a problem?
If tax was levied this way, virtually any credit card transaction or any transaction involving a business with locations in multiple states would have had issues for decades, internet or not.
Every single state with a sales tax would say that sale was made in LA, and any sales taxes levied (or self-reported) are going to be paid at LA rates. Period. End of story.
The debate is on what constitutes a "substantial presence" requiring the collection of tax for orders shipped to that state. Nobody has even thought of collecting a "chain" of sales taxes on a single order. Your "$19.25" scenario is a complete fiction.
If your receiver, amp, DAC, whatever, doesn't have HDMI, then use your TV as the decoder and output S/PDIF that way. Problem solved.
And if a puny HDMI cable is causing analog interference in your componetry and/or cables, you have some serious issues. And your S/PDIF optical connection has to be connected to an optical -> electrical converter in your box, a signal-generating part that would otherwise be silent.
This is what diplomats DO all day. They try to influence policy in foreign countries to promote the interests of the government of their own country. (Which is separate from consular services, the other part of an embassy that handles visas, citizen services, etc.) Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. The country they are operating in is more than welcome to tell them to go jump in a metaphorical lake.
I managed to bypass the otherwise-mandatory-for-computer-class typing class by virtue of my parents picking up a copy of version 1.0 of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. EGA graphics on an Epson-branded XT clone... ah, those were the days. The software came with a real manual, most of which consisted of the history of the typewriter and typing, and business correspondence templates.
I got up to about 50WPM. Not great, and probably not as fast as if I signed up for a real typing class, but good enough to get by.
Just about any halfway decent receiver these days with a S/PDIF jack also has HDMI decode ability.
Barring that, most TV's with HDMI also have S/PDIF audio out that you can use to feed the audio into your older receiver. (I just went to the Vizio website and looked at a crap 20" model, and even it had S/PDIF out.)
"Anonymous" and "LulzSec" - launched DDoS attacks and data thefts are about as useful a form of internet activism as the ubiquitous "Post this as your status if you want to support stopping [insert random evil here]."
One government making a request of another is illegal in some places? Where exactly is this the case? What do non-consular diplomats DO all day in those countries?
This sort of thing is exactly what diplomats do. They lobby other countries to take actions perceived as favorable for their own country. There is no evidence here of threats, extortion, or arm twisting. Just diplomacy.
There is a big difference. Prior to the Lenovo divesture, IBM was already a huge software and services company. They were the largest player in the services market, and for quite a long time, a much larger software company than Microsoft. (They practically printed money with OS/390, AIX, DB/2, CICS, and mainframe utility software) The Lenovo divesture simply dumped a division that was a time, money, and resource sink of marginal to no profitability.
Tylenol IS NOT TO PREVENT THE FEELING OF PAIN. YOU STILL HURT EVEN WHEN TAKING TYLENOL.
You hurt FAR less, but you still hurt. Tylenol also doesn't always work.
Again, say it with me this time TYLENOL IS NOT TO PREVENT THE FEELING OF PAIN, it isn't all that effective at it....... or: SEAT BELTS ARE NOT TO PREVENT DYING IN A CAR ACCIDENT
or: QUITTING SMOKING IS NOT TO PREVENT LUNG CANCER
or: CPR IS NOT FOR THE PREVENTION OF DEATH DUE TO CARDIAC ARREST
etc...........
If you are going to go for a proverbial Roll in the Hay anyway (and history has shown that this is usually the case), using a condom is approx. infinity more effective in preventing STDs than crossing your fingers.
You can already do that, no cumbersome floating city necessary. The Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and I think the Isle of Man, all act as very well-developed, civilized places to register shell corporations for tax avoidance purposes. As an added bonus, you can stash your money there too, and be able to get money into and out of it with ease. No bank is likely to set up any kind of money transfer arrangements with Libertopia.
You can also do the same thing (set up a whole web of impenetrable shell companies) in the U.S. (Wyoming, Delaware, and I think South Dakota) all provide reasonably priced corporate registration services with little documentation required. Unless you are doing something really large and.or evil, that'll do when trying to avoid government scrutiny.
Assets (i.e. shares of stock) have real, useful, "stuff" usually behind them.
But currency? Not even gold has that much worth outside of it's value as a medium of trade. It has certain useful properties, but those properties are all out of proportion to its currency value. (i.e. I can light fires with $100 bills, but that isn't what gives $100 bills value.) A currency is used as a medium of convenient trade in place of actual useful items.
We use currency (Gold, BitCoins, Dollars, Euros, Silver, seashells, shiny rocks, whatever) because barter of actual useful goods and services is cumbersome and is no way to run an economy.
BitCoins are a limitless source of Fail through all sorts of technical and economic problems, but "not being backed by anything" isn't one of them.
P.S. You aren't the only person to confuse assets and currency. A great number if BitCoin backers think BtC's are the Greatest Currency Ever because the value of their stash (in relation to Dollars) has jumped so much. (Hint: You don't want a currency to change in value at all, or at the least you want it to be predictable. BitCoins are neither stable nor predictable when compared to any "real" currency.)
I didn't say that Libertarianism was anarchy. What I DID say is that if a bunch of Libertarians are more than welcome to establish an enclave in Somalia. There is no overrarching formal authority that is going to prevent Libertopia from setting up whatever sort of government they choose within whatever territory they choose to claim. They can set up anything from RichDictatorTopia, to the African Socialist Republic, to everything in between and carry out whatever social experiments they wish.
(Although, I admit that a society with "99%" of it's laws and courts removed, no law enforcement agencies, no paid defense, no tax collection, no regulatory bodies, no government facilities, etc. looks strangely similar to anarchy to me. I get these ideas from the post I replied to elsewhere.)
WRT to government supplied services, you don't need "home inspectors", you don't need parks and "park services", you don't need "monuments", you don't need a "capital building", you don't need a "mint", you don't need a police force, you don't need 99% of the courts or laws, you don't need lawyers, you don't need fish and wildlife police, you don't need a border patrol, you don't need an FAA, a department of education, an IRS, a DEA, an FBI, a CIA, an NSA, or an FCC.
"Home Inspectors": I assume you are referring to building code inspectors - Err.., you absolutely will have ironclad (and I hope enforced) standards for construction aboard a floating ship for which fire has been the enemy for hundreds of years. I could predict the swift demise of such a floating city without such enforced standards. While a lot of the building code has nothing to do with the safety of others, much of it does, as it is very costly to your neighbors if your jury-rigged gas plumbing system explodes and sets the whole neighborhood on fire.
Ok, Parks, Park Services will go. But you will have a capitol of some sort, as you need to put government functions somewhere. Maybe you'll need a mint, maybe not; depends on if you use metallic or electronic currency. Without a mint, and with metallic currency, everybody needs to start hauling metal assay gear and a jewelers scale around.
99% of courts, laws, and lawyers would go? I could see a large reduction in statutes, but I think 99% of courts, laws, and lawyers is a bit of a stretch. Most legal disputes are criminal violations or the sorts of civil suits that any society would have to deal with. (Theft, violence, family law, estate law, contract disputes, liability, etc.)
I could see Libertopia dumping Fish and Wildlife, the DOEd, and DEA.
IRS: Libertopia manages to prevent undefended anarchy without taxes? That's a neat trick. FBI, CIA, NSA: Most nations have a need for some sort of intelligence operations, both internal and external. Unless you want it to be a big surprise when your fine nation is attacked, spied on, etc. FAA and FCC: If you get a lot of air traffic, you'll want an FAA. Unless you want an unregistered, poorly maintained plane flown by a drunk teenager to crash into the side of your floating paradise. You'll want an FCC if you start running into issues with radio interference.
I could go on, but surely you see my point. Even if you think one or two of those *will* be needed (I doubt it), most of them are superfluous at best. If you want to know why I think these wouldn't be needed, just ask.
Look at the US budget: ~1/4 is social services (unlikely in a libertarian context), ~1/4 is public military (unlikely in a libertarian context.) Even if nothing else changed, just those two cut the tax load in half. but a lot more would change.
And of course, feel free to disagree -- I find the idea fascinating. Aside from the physical problems (I don't think such an artificial floating community is feasible in the assembly cost / structural integrity sense), the idea of a place where you're actually responsible for what you do and the consequences of what you do... that's very appealing to me. There are downsides, but cost of government isn't one of them. And considering how much we pay here, that should help accelerate the economy.
First, you have your budget proportions all wrong. Social Security and Medicare consume far more than 25% of the Federal Budget. (Did you seriously think that discretionary non-defense spending and interest was half the budget?!?!?! Haven't you been paying attention at all to the news for the past couple of months?) SSA and Medicare are about half of current federal spending. If those were cut entirely you are correct that taxes would drop quite a bit. All those regulatory agencies you think cost so much money? All together (Education, Law Enforcement, Transportation, and General Government) are a measly 9% of the budget. Ho
Why would they not "[have] to support a ridiculous number of government services?" Somebody is going to have to pay for fuel, maintenance, staffing, ongoing capital costs, etc.
And why would I, enlightened Libertarian individual, go to all the expense to purchase, maintain, and man, a full missile emplacement all by my lonesome if the whole vessel is going to benefit? I'm just going to give away all that collective defense for free? Or do I threaten to blow off the parts of the platform that don't agree to pay for the missiles I spent to protect the facility from a previous attack?
Yeah, THAT's going to end well.
You can live this way today if you want. Move to Somalia, and you can do whatever you like, including establishing Libertopia, unfettered by any sort of recognized authority, once you leave the tiny bit of territory "controlled" by the "central government." Let me know how you like it.
If you declare your floating object to be an independent nation, then it isn't actually part of international waters any more. You now have "territory" surrounded by territorial waters. Which it then becomes your sole responsibility to defend, or make arrangements to have somebody else defend. Just like the U.S. has no obligation under international law (or custom) to prevent a land invasion of Joe Random Country, the Navy would be perfectly justified in sitting back and eating popcorn while somebody in an armed vessel decides they want to take over your shiny floating "Nation."
I expect that Sealand would meet such a fate if it had anything worth stealing (it was actually invaded and taken over for a little while, and the British pointedly didn't lift a finger.)
Firstly, Sealand is now within the territorial waters of the U.K. So technically they aren't independent the moment the U.K. decides to bother with declaring jurisdiction over this loon. (They gave it up when territorial waters only extended out three miles, but there is nothing preventing them from changing their minds.)
His "protection" from the U.K. government is about as complete as if I declare myself king of SirWiredia while sitting here at my desk. If fact, I do so right now! Does that count as a "success"? The U.S. really won't care up until the point where I do something that changes their mind, like trying to state that my counterfeit Benjamins are in fact the Legal Tender of SirWiredia. I will then learn very quickly how tenuous sovereignty can be in the presence of a more powerful foe. No nation has forcefully brought him into their fold because there is no point in doing so. He isn't currently causing trouble for anyone, so why bother?
He's probably avoiding U.K. taxes, but there is little danger of legions of people following his example. If this were the case, the U.K. would probably swiftly point out that he has likely failed to renounce his U.K. citizenship in the proper fashion. (In the U.S. anyway, you must do so in front of a U.S. consul while in foreign territory, and the U.S. doesn't have to accept; which they likely wouldn't if you were behind on your taxes.)
You are correct that navies are unlikely to enforce tax laws of random landlocked nations. However, any money that would be subject to tax laws is going to have to flow through somewhere if you want to actually spend it, and the tax laws can be enforced then through the regular methods.
For a paltry $1.25M, a random Rich Guy bought his name in the press, which he will use to stay in the limelight for a little bit. He will then trade on this temporary fame during the launch of his next business venture and keep his Wikipedia entry from being deleted.
Come on... $1.25M? Nobody's building any kind of large-ish sea-worthy vessel for that kind of money, much less a floating office building, data center, residences, etc.
Also, unless he builds it in international waters too (using money he has yet to allocate), how is he going to manage to get it through territorial waters into international waters to begin with? No national authority is going to let a vessel of any size sail out of the dock without registration with an actual country. It doesn't have to be registered in the country it's built in, but it's got to be registered somewhere.
The preliminary reviews of this product report it as extremely unpolished for something supposedly shipping in just a few weeks. Given their previous track record, I'm shocked these guys still have any money left to waste.
I stated that there was NO SINGLE CORRECT ANSWER. If you measure standard of living by "market basket" (or many other measurements) you come up with a better living standard. If you measure standard of living by examining a different set of factors, you get a different answer. He didn't ask about "market basket", he just asked the responder to judge the unacceptably vague "standard of living." How is the survey responder supposed to know which one Prof. Klein had in mind?
Yes, the answer a particular person chooses can demonstrate political leanings and/or information sources. But to decide that one set of perfectly correct answers is "enlightened" and the other "unenlightened" is disingenuous in the extreme.
By the way, I would have answered using the Market Basket measurement, meaning I would have been considered "enlightened" under this test for that question.
And yes, my Macroeconomics class in college covered almost all of these topics and covered them from both sides.
3) The question does not state what degree of rent control it is referring to. There are no U.S. communities with universal rent control. The poster child for rent controls, NYC, has under 2% of the market under rent control, making the effect on the larger housing market quite minimal. (A larger portion is covered under "rent stabilization" which is a different topic. The question is not clear if it refers to rent stabilization also.)
5) "Exploitation" suffers from the same vagueness (actually, much more so) than "standard of living."
6) The employment effects of Free Trade Agreements are hotly debated amongst economists. The classic (somewhat old) view is that they do not cause unemployment in either the country of the net importer or net exporter. However, that view relies on the assumption that displaced workers in each country will be able to find jobs in the industries in which their country is more efficient. In the case of NAFTA and Mexico, much of our textiles manufacturing moved there, while much of their agricultural production moved here. (i.e. we are much better at growing one of the primary Mexican staples, field corn, than they are.) Labor productivity went up, but that does not necessarily correlate with lower unemployment in either nation. As labor specialization increases, the ability to reallocate labor resource towards the industries that each country is comparatively better at reduces. In addition, of the labor required for the various specializations is unequal, net employment decreases in one country. (i.e. Increasing grain production for export by a dollar amount equal to the increase in textile imports requires FAR less U.S. ag labor than the U.S. textile labor that was lost, as grain production is natural resource and land intensive, not labor intensive.)
You might want to review Poll and Survey Construction basics. (Hint: Those questions are not the correct way to create an unbiased survey.) He even admitted in his story that none of the questions were designed to "trick" uninfomred economic conservatives into giving "unenlightened" answers. (Which also vaguely implies that this survey was designed to do so in the other direction.) If the survey had included question such as: "Tax increases lead to net employment decreases" (false or true, depending on the nature of the increase), or "Perpetual defecit spending eventually results in currency deflation" (false or true depending on if annual deficit outpaces growth in GDP.)
2, 3, 5 and 6 were all highly conditional questions for which there is no single correct answer. It was merely designed to promote the ideological bent of the author.
2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). - I can see what he's getting at here (the "market basket" of goods a median household income can buy today is far better than it was 30 years ago) but this is demonstrably untrue by many other measures. (Labor required to attain the median household income, unemployment, retirement age, leisure time, income inequality, poverty, etc.
3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). - Universal rent controls, yes. "spot" mandatory affordable housing, not necessarily.
5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). - I'd call factory conditions that would shame a 1900s factory boss exploitation, no matter that the wage is otherwise "fair."
6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). - What a joke. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of late middle age unemployed manufacturing workers that can only find McJobs that that is the case.
Gee, if only there was a way to work BitCoins into the mix,/. could milk this thing for another month!
"Oracle pays bug bounty to Apache in cash instead of BitCoins; (one-man) controversy ensues." "Java bug slows down BitCoin mining by 0.0000045%" "BitCoin user discusses latest Java Bug on worthless blog."
Any other story ideas for our fine Slashdot "editors"?
Slashdot Mirror
I've been watching TNG on Netflix and it looks absolutely awful. Certainly no better than a VHS tape. I've also been watching the original Mission: Impossible, and it looks about 3x better, even though it aired in the 60's and certainly isn't popular enough of a show to get any special treatment whatsoever.
Amazon complaining about being so confused as to which taxes apply where is silly. Amazon has provided the e-commerce front-end for Target for many years, and they don't have any problem figuring it out for them... Now, for BillyBob's Discount Pez Dispensers, yeah, it's a real problem, and the reason Federal legislation is desperately needed, instead of these constant battles, legal patchwork, and lost state revenue. I imagine the way it will end up working is there will be a single rate for each state and the business will have to fill out a form with one blank for each state. Some central processor, or maybe the IRS, will divy up the single check to the appropriate states. An alternative would be a rate lookup by ZIP code which is rather trivial to automate for any business with a computer (or access to one.) Of course that would involve electronic submission too...
About the CC processing question: No. That does not constitute a substantial presence, unless we are talking some capital equipment and/or employees in that state. As long as it's the bank's equipment that is doing the processing, the merchant is off the hook. The big question with Amazon is if affiliates count. Many states have decided they do.
OTOH, Amazon has been doing some scummy stuff too... they have Distribution Centers in some states that levy sales tax, yet STILL don't pay it. They make the DC an "independent company" (e.g. something like "Texas AM Distribution") and then tell the state that they have no presence, despite the huge warehouse and workforce in the hundreds.
I know of no state that has even thought about levying use tax in any state but the one the order is mailed to. (either through a self-reported use tax or a sales tax.) Where on earth are you getting the idea this is a problem?
If tax was levied this way, virtually any credit card transaction or any transaction involving a business with locations in multiple states would have had issues for decades, internet or not.
Every single state with a sales tax would say that sale was made in LA, and any sales taxes levied (or self-reported) are going to be paid at LA rates. Period. End of story.
The debate is on what constitutes a "substantial presence" requiring the collection of tax for orders shipped to that state. Nobody has even thought of collecting a "chain" of sales taxes on a single order. Your "$19.25" scenario is a complete fiction.
If your receiver, amp, DAC, whatever, doesn't have HDMI, then use your TV as the decoder and output S/PDIF that way. Problem solved.
And if a puny HDMI cable is causing analog interference in your componetry and/or cables, you have some serious issues. And your S/PDIF optical connection has to be connected to an optical -> electrical converter in your box, a signal-generating part that would otherwise be silent.
This is what diplomats DO all day. They try to influence policy in foreign countries to promote the interests of the government of their own country. (Which is separate from consular services, the other part of an embassy that handles visas, citizen services, etc.) Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. The country they are operating in is more than welcome to tell them to go jump in a metaphorical lake.
I managed to bypass the otherwise-mandatory-for-computer-class typing class by virtue of my parents picking up a copy of version 1.0 of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. EGA graphics on an Epson-branded XT clone... ah, those were the days. The software came with a real manual, most of which consisted of the history of the typewriter and typing, and business correspondence templates.
I got up to about 50WPM. Not great, and probably not as fast as if I signed up for a real typing class, but good enough to get by.
Just about any halfway decent receiver these days with a S/PDIF jack also has HDMI decode ability.
Barring that, most TV's with HDMI also have S/PDIF audio out that you can use to feed the audio into your older receiver. (I just went to the Vizio website and looked at a crap 20" model, and even it had S/PDIF out.)
"Anonymous" and "LulzSec" - launched DDoS attacks and data thefts are about as useful a form of internet activism as the ubiquitous "Post this as your status if you want to support stopping [insert random evil here]."
One government making a request of another is illegal in some places? Where exactly is this the case? What do non-consular diplomats DO all day in those countries?
This sort of thing is exactly what diplomats do. They lobby other countries to take actions perceived as favorable for their own country. There is no evidence here of threats, extortion, or arm twisting. Just diplomacy.
Nothing to see here, move along.
There is a big difference. Prior to the Lenovo divesture, IBM was already a huge software and services company. They were the largest player in the services market, and for quite a long time, a much larger software company than Microsoft. (They practically printed money with OS/390, AIX, DB/2, CICS, and mainframe utility software) The Lenovo divesture simply dumped a division that was a time, money, and resource sink of marginal to no profitability.
Tylenol IS NOT TO PREVENT THE FEELING OF PAIN. YOU STILL HURT EVEN WHEN TAKING TYLENOL.
You hurt FAR less, but you still hurt. Tylenol also doesn't always work.
Again, say it with me this time TYLENOL IS NOT TO PREVENT THE FEELING OF PAIN, it isn't all that effective at it. ......
or: SEAT BELTS ARE NOT TO PREVENT DYING IN A CAR ACCIDENT
or: QUITTING SMOKING IS NOT TO PREVENT LUNG CANCER
or: CPR IS NOT FOR THE PREVENTION OF DEATH DUE TO CARDIAC ARREST
etc. ..........
If you are going to go for a proverbial Roll in the Hay anyway (and history has shown that this is usually the case), using a condom is approx. infinity more effective in preventing STDs than crossing your fingers.
You can already do that, no cumbersome floating city necessary. The Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and I think the Isle of Man, all act as very well-developed, civilized places to register shell corporations for tax avoidance purposes. As an added bonus, you can stash your money there too, and be able to get money into and out of it with ease. No bank is likely to set up any kind of money transfer arrangements with Libertopia.
You can also do the same thing (set up a whole web of impenetrable shell companies) in the U.S. (Wyoming, Delaware, and I think South Dakota) all provide reasonably priced corporate registration services with little documentation required. Unless you are doing something really large and.or evil, that'll do when trying to avoid government scrutiny.
Assets (i.e. shares of stock) have real, useful, "stuff" usually behind them.
But currency? Not even gold has that much worth outside of it's value as a medium of trade. It has certain useful properties, but those properties are all out of proportion to its currency value. (i.e. I can light fires with $100 bills, but that isn't what gives $100 bills value.) A currency is used as a medium of convenient trade in place of actual useful items.
We use currency (Gold, BitCoins, Dollars, Euros, Silver, seashells, shiny rocks, whatever) because barter of actual useful goods and services is cumbersome and is no way to run an economy.
BitCoins are a limitless source of Fail through all sorts of technical and economic problems, but "not being backed by anything" isn't one of them.
P.S. You aren't the only person to confuse assets and currency. A great number if BitCoin backers think BtC's are the Greatest Currency Ever because the value of their stash (in relation to Dollars) has jumped so much. (Hint: You don't want a currency to change in value at all, or at the least you want it to be predictable. BitCoins are neither stable nor predictable when compared to any "real" currency.)
I didn't say that Libertarianism was anarchy. What I DID say is that if a bunch of Libertarians are more than welcome to establish an enclave in Somalia. There is no overrarching formal authority that is going to prevent Libertopia from setting up whatever sort of government they choose within whatever territory they choose to claim. They can set up anything from RichDictatorTopia, to the African Socialist Republic, to everything in between and carry out whatever social experiments they wish.
(Although, I admit that a society with "99%" of it's laws and courts removed, no law enforcement agencies, no paid defense, no tax collection, no regulatory bodies, no government facilities, etc. looks strangely similar to anarchy to me. I get these ideas from the post I replied to elsewhere.)
WRT to government supplied services, you don't need "home inspectors", you don't need parks and "park services", you don't need "monuments", you don't need a "capital building", you don't need a "mint", you don't need a police force, you don't need 99% of the courts or laws, you don't need lawyers, you don't need fish and wildlife police, you don't need a border patrol, you don't need an FAA, a department of education, an IRS, a DEA, an FBI, a CIA, an NSA, or an FCC.
"Home Inspectors": I assume you are referring to building code inspectors - Err.., you absolutely will have ironclad (and I hope enforced) standards for construction aboard a floating ship for which fire has been the enemy for hundreds of years. I could predict the swift demise of such a floating city without such enforced standards. While a lot of the building code has nothing to do with the safety of others, much of it does, as it is very costly to your neighbors if your jury-rigged gas plumbing system explodes and sets the whole neighborhood on fire.
Ok, Parks, Park Services will go. But you will have a capitol of some sort, as you need to put government functions somewhere. Maybe you'll need a mint, maybe not; depends on if you use metallic or electronic currency. Without a mint, and with metallic currency, everybody needs to start hauling metal assay gear and a jewelers scale around.
99% of courts, laws, and lawyers would go? I could see a large reduction in statutes, but I think 99% of courts, laws, and lawyers is a bit of a stretch. Most legal disputes are criminal violations or the sorts of civil suits that any society would have to deal with. (Theft, violence, family law, estate law, contract disputes, liability, etc.)
I could see Libertopia dumping Fish and Wildlife, the DOEd, and DEA.
IRS: Libertopia manages to prevent undefended anarchy without taxes? That's a neat trick.
FBI, CIA, NSA: Most nations have a need for some sort of intelligence operations, both internal and external. Unless you want it to be a big surprise when your fine nation is attacked, spied on, etc.
FAA and FCC: If you get a lot of air traffic, you'll want an FAA. Unless you want an unregistered, poorly maintained plane flown by a drunk teenager to crash into the side of your floating paradise. You'll want an FCC if you start running into issues with radio interference.
I could go on, but surely you see my point. Even if you think one or two of those *will* be needed (I doubt it), most of them are superfluous at best. If you want to know why I think these wouldn't be needed, just ask.
Look at the US budget: ~1/4 is social services (unlikely in a libertarian context), ~1/4 is public military (unlikely in a libertarian context.) Even if nothing else changed, just those two cut the tax load in half. but a lot more would change.
And of course, feel free to disagree -- I find the idea fascinating. Aside from the physical problems (I don't think such an artificial floating community is feasible in the assembly cost / structural integrity sense), the idea of a place where you're actually responsible for what you do and the consequences of what you do... that's very appealing to me. There are downsides, but cost of government isn't one of them. And considering how much we pay here, that should help accelerate the economy.
First, you have your budget proportions all wrong. Social Security and Medicare consume far more than 25% of the Federal Budget. (Did you seriously think that discretionary non-defense spending and interest was half the budget?!?!?! Haven't you been paying attention at all to the news for the past couple of months?) SSA and Medicare are about half of current federal spending. If those were cut entirely you are correct that taxes would drop quite a bit. All those regulatory agencies you think cost so much money? All together (Education, Law Enforcement, Transportation, and General Government) are a measly 9% of the budget. Ho
Why would they not "[have] to support a ridiculous number of government services?" Somebody is going to have to pay for fuel, maintenance, staffing, ongoing capital costs, etc.
And why would I, enlightened Libertarian individual, go to all the expense to purchase, maintain, and man, a full missile emplacement all by my lonesome if the whole vessel is going to benefit? I'm just going to give away all that collective defense for free? Or do I threaten to blow off the parts of the platform that don't agree to pay for the missiles I spent to protect the facility from a previous attack?
Yeah, THAT's going to end well.
You can live this way today if you want. Move to Somalia, and you can do whatever you like, including establishing Libertopia, unfettered by any sort of recognized authority, once you leave the tiny bit of territory "controlled" by the "central government." Let me know how you like it.
If you declare your floating object to be an independent nation, then it isn't actually part of international waters any more. You now have "territory" surrounded by territorial waters. Which it then becomes your sole responsibility to defend, or make arrangements to have somebody else defend. Just like the U.S. has no obligation under international law (or custom) to prevent a land invasion of Joe Random Country, the Navy would be perfectly justified in sitting back and eating popcorn while somebody in an armed vessel decides they want to take over your shiny floating "Nation."
I expect that Sealand would meet such a fate if it had anything worth stealing (it was actually invaded and taken over for a little while, and the British pointedly didn't lift a finger.)
Firstly, Sealand is now within the territorial waters of the U.K. So technically they aren't independent the moment the U.K. decides to bother with declaring jurisdiction over this loon. (They gave it up when territorial waters only extended out three miles, but there is nothing preventing them from changing their minds.)
His "protection" from the U.K. government is about as complete as if I declare myself king of SirWiredia while sitting here at my desk. If fact, I do so right now! Does that count as a "success"? The U.S. really won't care up until the point where I do something that changes their mind, like trying to state that my counterfeit Benjamins are in fact the Legal Tender of SirWiredia. I will then learn very quickly how tenuous sovereignty can be in the presence of a more powerful foe. No nation has forcefully brought him into their fold because there is no point in doing so. He isn't currently causing trouble for anyone, so why bother?
He's probably avoiding U.K. taxes, but there is little danger of legions of people following his example. If this were the case, the U.K. would probably swiftly point out that he has likely failed to renounce his U.K. citizenship in the proper fashion. (In the U.S. anyway, you must do so in front of a U.S. consul while in foreign territory, and the U.S. doesn't have to accept; which they likely wouldn't if you were behind on your taxes.)
You are correct that navies are unlikely to enforce tax laws of random landlocked nations. However, any money that would be subject to tax laws is going to have to flow through somewhere if you want to actually spend it, and the tax laws can be enforced then through the regular methods.
For a paltry $1.25M, a random Rich Guy bought his name in the press, which he will use to stay in the limelight for a little bit. He will then trade on this temporary fame during the launch of his next business venture and keep his Wikipedia entry from being deleted.
Come on... $1.25M? Nobody's building any kind of large-ish sea-worthy vessel for that kind of money, much less a floating office building, data center, residences, etc.
Also, unless he builds it in international waters too (using money he has yet to allocate), how is he going to manage to get it through territorial waters into international waters to begin with? No national authority is going to let a vessel of any size sail out of the dock without registration with an actual country. It doesn't have to be registered in the country it's built in, but it's got to be registered somewhere.
The preliminary reviews of this product report it as extremely unpolished for something supposedly shipping in just a few weeks. Given their previous track record, I'm shocked these guys still have any money left to waste.
Whoops... that last sentence was supposed to read "inflation" not "deflation."
I stated that there was NO SINGLE CORRECT ANSWER. If you measure standard of living by "market basket" (or many other measurements) you come up with a better living standard. If you measure standard of living by examining a different set of factors, you get a different answer. He didn't ask about "market basket", he just asked the responder to judge the unacceptably vague "standard of living." How is the survey responder supposed to know which one Prof. Klein had in mind?
Yes, the answer a particular person chooses can demonstrate political leanings and/or information sources. But to decide that one set of perfectly correct answers is "enlightened" and the other "unenlightened" is disingenuous in the extreme.
By the way, I would have answered using the Market Basket measurement, meaning I would have been considered "enlightened" under this test for that question.
And yes, my Macroeconomics class in college covered almost all of these topics and covered them from both sides.
3) The question does not state what degree of rent control it is referring to. There are no U.S. communities with universal rent control. The poster child for rent controls, NYC, has under 2% of the market under rent control, making the effect on the larger housing market quite minimal. (A larger portion is covered under "rent stabilization" which is a different topic. The question is not clear if it refers to rent stabilization also.)
5) "Exploitation" suffers from the same vagueness (actually, much more so) than "standard of living."
6) The employment effects of Free Trade Agreements are hotly debated amongst economists. The classic (somewhat old) view is that they do not cause unemployment in either the country of the net importer or net exporter. However, that view relies on the assumption that displaced workers in each country will be able to find jobs in the industries in which their country is more efficient. In the case of NAFTA and Mexico, much of our textiles manufacturing moved there, while much of their agricultural production moved here. (i.e. we are much better at growing one of the primary Mexican staples, field corn, than they are.) Labor productivity went up, but that does not necessarily correlate with lower unemployment in either nation. As labor specialization increases, the ability to reallocate labor resource towards the industries that each country is comparatively better at reduces. In addition, of the labor required for the various specializations is unequal, net employment decreases in one country. (i.e. Increasing grain production for export by a dollar amount equal to the increase in textile imports requires FAR less U.S. ag labor than the U.S. textile labor that was lost, as grain production is natural resource and land intensive, not labor intensive.)
You might want to review Poll and Survey Construction basics. (Hint: Those questions are not the correct way to create an unbiased survey.) He even admitted in his story that none of the questions were designed to "trick" uninfomred economic conservatives into giving "unenlightened" answers. (Which also vaguely implies that this survey was designed to do so in the other direction.) If the survey had included question such as: "Tax increases lead to net employment decreases" (false or true, depending on the nature of the increase), or "Perpetual defecit spending eventually results in currency deflation" (false or true depending on if annual deficit outpaces growth in GDP.)
2, 3, 5 and 6 were all highly conditional questions for which there is no single correct answer. It was merely designed to promote the ideological bent of the author.
2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). - I can see what he's getting at here (the "market basket" of goods a median household income can buy today is far better than it was 30 years ago) but this is demonstrably untrue by many other measures. (Labor required to attain the median household income, unemployment, retirement age, leisure time, income inequality, poverty, etc.
3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). - Universal rent controls, yes. "spot" mandatory affordable housing, not necessarily.
5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). - I'd call factory conditions that would shame a 1900s factory boss exploitation, no matter that the wage is otherwise "fair."
6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). - What a joke. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of late middle age unemployed manufacturing workers that can only find McJobs that that is the case.
Gee, if only there was a way to work BitCoins into the mix, /. could milk this thing for another month!
"Oracle pays bug bounty to Apache in cash instead of BitCoins; (one-man) controversy ensues."
"Java bug slows down BitCoin mining by 0.0000045%"
"BitCoin user discusses latest Java Bug on worthless blog."
Any other story ideas for our fine Slashdot "editors"?
SirWired