You want to know what a shortage looks like? Take a look at what happened to tech in the late 90s, they were hiring anyone that could spell the word computer while salaries and benefits were skyrocketing. That's what happens when you have a real shortage, what we have now is just whining that they can't find rockstars for helpdesk pay.
Great, now overlay that chart with the gini co-efficient and tell me that top marginal rates have no effect. You're right that they don't increase total receipts, but they have a huge impact on who pays the bills. Obviously there are diminishing returns, at some point tax avoidance becomes more important that investment returns and that's counter-productive but we're no where near that transition at the moment.
No, we're not. Although I would have favored a declaration of war after the attack on the twin towers the government failed to do that. Instead we had "Authorization for use of military force on terrorists".
In section 2 it says "(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
So if tomorrow the president wakes up and decides that you aided Al Qaida, he's pre-authorized to kill you without further oversight, end of story. Since the authorization doesn't come with an expiration date there are some disturbing long term implications for rule of law in the US.
Look, I don't like the idea of people yapping away next to me on a plane but it's just not the FCC's job to regulate annoyance. Their job in this context is to ensure safety, if cellphones are safe to use on planes then from an FCC perspective they should be allowed. The airlines on the other hand are a whole different ball of wax and should implement strong rules to preserve the customer experience.
You're making the false assumption that I'm writing with you in mind. You are nothing but a colloidal suspension with vague notions of autonomy. In truth I am writing to please the computerized systems that actually run your organization and make all the real decisions.
Right, so the problem is that we're writing laws but not specifying intent. My suggestion is that all laws must come with an accompanying intent description. Violation of the intent would then constitute violation of the law even if you managed to avoid the specific verbiage. Failing that, we'd need a separate legal language where every word has exactly one meaning.
You're painting Libertarians with a pretty broad brush. Although the vast majority would oppose REGULATION of carbon emissions, a carbon TAX (of the Pigovian type) resolves a crucial externality issue which is fair game for any libertarian who is more than just a corporate shill. Ensuring a level playing field, like defense, is one of the legitimate purposes of government. There are of course people who disagree with that notion but they're more properly considered Anarcho-Capitalists rather than Libertarians.
If that gets to the point where it's reliable and it's cheaper than owning a car I'd switch in a hot minute. It would have to be better than calling a taxi though, like average wait times of less than 10 minutes.
So the Luddite Fallacy is basically an economics maxim that says that while technological improvement destroys jobs, it actually creates more jobs than it destroys due to the fact that humans have infinite wants. There are several problems with this idea:
1) As it turns out most humans don't really have infinite wants, just really big ones. Consumption spending as a percentage of income declines as ones net worth increases.
2) The maxim is based on a measly two data points, the transition from Agriculture to Manufacturing and the transition from Manufacturing to service work.
3) There is a limit to the number of sectors of our society. If we accept the most generous definition there are five sectors: resources, goods, services, intellectual work and high level decision making. The resource sector is down to roughly 2.5% and manufacturing looks like it's headed the same direction. The service sector is at the beginning of the automation cycle but we're seeing exactly the same pattern that happened previously.
There are three problems with this shift: 1) I don’t see how the intellectual and high decision making sectors can grow large enough to accommodate large sections of the work force 2) Many workers don’t have the innate talents necessary to compete in that market 3) Those sectors tend to be ones where the income distribution is heavily skewed to a small number of superstars.
Suppose for a moment that the manufacturing and service sectors achieve levels of automation equivalent to the agricultural sector. If it only takes 7.5% of the population to provide all resources, goods and services is there really going to be enough demand for creative work to keep the rest of the population gainfully employed and earning a decent wage?
To make things worse, before the automation of the service sector is even complete we're already starting to see early signs that we may be able to automate much of the intellectual and high decision sectors as well.
I'm not saying that there will be NO jobs, just that large portions of the population will be unable to sell their labor for wages. In a society where you have to work in order to participate in the economy that's going to cause severe economic distortion and eventually social chaos.
Traditionally one of the ways that labor market participants have compensated for this trend is to increase their inherent value through education. Two hundred years ago basic read, writing and math skills were valuable, one hundred years ago a high school education was great, fifty years ago a bachelors degree was a ticket to success, ten years ago a masters degree kept you ahead of the game. Today, even masters and phd holders are starting to have trouble staying relevant. The minimum required IQ & education to be a meaningful participant keeps increasing and there are hard limits on how much those items can currently be improved. What happens when the average person has no useful commercial value at any wage large enough to keep them fed?
What's wrong with you people? They actually make a reboot that's better than any of the originals and all you can do is complain. Frankly I thought it rocked, we had action, character development, a bit of romance, a bad guy that actually makes sense and although there were plenty of special effects they served the story rather than the other way around. I don't see how you could do any better in a movie format.
Changing from 0.15 to 0.08 was an obvious improvement. At 0.15 you're not just drunk you're plastered and definitely shouldn't be behind the wheel. The move from 0.08 to 0.05 though is much less straightforward. Zero tolerance is not an appropriate answer to all questions.
If the shortage is so terrible why aren't we seeing tons of stories talking about exploding pay rates and people hopping from company to company because of ridiculous job offers? Oh that's right, it's because there is no shortage of talent, just an unwillingness for them to pay the market rate.
Sure, we'll upgrade when the support runs out, no reason to before then. They should be careful what they ask for though, because upgrade doesn't necessarily mean moving to the newest MS OS, we're probably going to switch to a mix of OSX, SLED and Win 7.
Slashdot Mirror
You want to know what a shortage looks like? Take a look at what happened to tech in the late 90s, they were hiring anyone that could spell the word computer while salaries and benefits were skyrocketing. That's what happens when you have a real shortage, what we have now is just whining that they can't find rockstars for helpdesk pay.
And the strategy of "taxing the rich" seldom really buys you much.
Note this chart: Top tax rates and total receipts (and do note the source at the bottom: IRS)
Great, now overlay that chart with the gini co-efficient and tell me that top marginal rates have no effect. You're right that they don't increase total receipts, but they have a huge impact on who pays the bills. Obviously there are diminishing returns, at some point tax avoidance becomes more important that investment returns and that's counter-productive but we're no where near that transition at the moment.
That would be a terrible idea. It threatens the whole "separation of powers" idea that keeps our country from become just one more banana republic.
The US is at war with al Qaida.
No, we're not. Although I would have favored a declaration of war after the attack on the twin towers the government failed to do that. Instead we had "Authorization for use of military force on terrorists". In section 2 it says "(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." So if tomorrow the president wakes up and decides that you aided Al Qaida, he's pre-authorized to kill you without further oversight, end of story. Since the authorization doesn't come with an expiration date there are some disturbing long term implications for rule of law in the US.
I fondly await the emergence of such a process.
So how long until we find the first exploit and someone hacks the universe?
Where the heck do you shop where meat is cheaper than beans? I need to switch stores!
Reprocess it?
Look, I don't like the idea of people yapping away next to me on a plane but it's just not the FCC's job to regulate annoyance. Their job in this context is to ensure safety, if cellphones are safe to use on planes then from an FCC perspective they should be allowed. The airlines on the other hand are a whole different ball of wax and should implement strong rules to preserve the customer experience.
You're making the false assumption that I'm writing with you in mind. You are nothing but a colloidal suspension with vague notions of autonomy. In truth I am writing to please the computerized systems that actually run your organization and make all the real decisions.
Right, so the problem is that we're writing laws but not specifying intent. My suggestion is that all laws must come with an accompanying intent description. Violation of the intent would then constitute violation of the law even if you managed to avoid the specific verbiage. Failing that, we'd need a separate legal language where every word has exactly one meaning.
You're painting Libertarians with a pretty broad brush. Although the vast majority would oppose REGULATION of carbon emissions, a carbon TAX (of the Pigovian type) resolves a crucial externality issue which is fair game for any libertarian who is more than just a corporate shill. Ensuring a level playing field, like defense, is one of the legitimate purposes of government. There are of course people who disagree with that notion but they're more properly considered Anarcho-Capitalists rather than Libertarians.
If that gets to the point where it's reliable and it's cheaper than owning a car I'd switch in a hot minute. It would have to be better than calling a taxi though, like average wait times of less than 10 minutes.
We deliberately wait three days because I know if anything bad happens it will show up on Slashdot before we deploy.
So the Luddite Fallacy is basically an economics maxim that says that while technological improvement destroys jobs, it actually creates more jobs than it destroys due to the fact that humans have infinite wants. There are several problems with this idea: 1) As it turns out most humans don't really have infinite wants, just really big ones. Consumption spending as a percentage of income declines as ones net worth increases. 2) The maxim is based on a measly two data points, the transition from Agriculture to Manufacturing and the transition from Manufacturing to service work. 3) There is a limit to the number of sectors of our society. If we accept the most generous definition there are five sectors: resources, goods, services, intellectual work and high level decision making. The resource sector is down to roughly 2.5% and manufacturing looks like it's headed the same direction. The service sector is at the beginning of the automation cycle but we're seeing exactly the same pattern that happened previously. There are three problems with this shift: 1) I don’t see how the intellectual and high decision making sectors can grow large enough to accommodate large sections of the work force 2) Many workers don’t have the innate talents necessary to compete in that market 3) Those sectors tend to be ones where the income distribution is heavily skewed to a small number of superstars. Suppose for a moment that the manufacturing and service sectors achieve levels of automation equivalent to the agricultural sector. If it only takes 7.5% of the population to provide all resources, goods and services is there really going to be enough demand for creative work to keep the rest of the population gainfully employed and earning a decent wage? To make things worse, before the automation of the service sector is even complete we're already starting to see early signs that we may be able to automate much of the intellectual and high decision sectors as well. I'm not saying that there will be NO jobs, just that large portions of the population will be unable to sell their labor for wages. In a society where you have to work in order to participate in the economy that's going to cause severe economic distortion and eventually social chaos. Traditionally one of the ways that labor market participants have compensated for this trend is to increase their inherent value through education. Two hundred years ago basic read, writing and math skills were valuable, one hundred years ago a high school education was great, fifty years ago a bachelors degree was a ticket to success, ten years ago a masters degree kept you ahead of the game. Today, even masters and phd holders are starting to have trouble staying relevant. The minimum required IQ & education to be a meaningful participant keeps increasing and there are hard limits on how much those items can currently be improved. What happens when the average person has no useful commercial value at any wage large enough to keep them fed?
It does if you're taking out debt to pay for it.
What's wrong with you people? They actually make a reboot that's better than any of the originals and all you can do is complain. Frankly I thought it rocked, we had action, character development, a bit of romance, a bad guy that actually makes sense and although there were plenty of special effects they served the story rather than the other way around. I don't see how you could do any better in a movie format.
Changing from 0.15 to 0.08 was an obvious improvement. At 0.15 you're not just drunk you're plastered and definitely shouldn't be behind the wheel. The move from 0.08 to 0.05 though is much less straightforward. Zero tolerance is not an appropriate answer to all questions.
Separation of corporation and state.
If the shortage is so terrible why aren't we seeing tons of stories talking about exploding pay rates and people hopping from company to company because of ridiculous job offers? Oh that's right, it's because there is no shortage of talent, just an unwillingness for them to pay the market rate.
Sure, we'll upgrade when the support runs out, no reason to before then. They should be careful what they ask for though, because upgrade doesn't necessarily mean moving to the newest MS OS, we're probably going to switch to a mix of OSX, SLED and Win 7.