Notions of property and a "right to deny use" assume a free market. The problem here is that in public education systems, the use of specific textbooks is mandated, and school attendance is mandatory as well. So, these publishers get handed a monopoly courtesy of the government and you are effectively forced by law to hand over your money to them. Perhaps you can cook up some reason to justify this, but don't justify it with property rights, because those are clearly being violated hered: by the publishers.
All my life I've learned with "pirated" material: throughout school, my teachers copied all kinds of materials regardless of whether or not it was copyrighted
In the US, copying excerpts is generally fine, so your teachers probably didn't violate copyright law. In Europe, there are various other mechanisms.
Sure I shafted Borland, AutoDesk and all the others, but then I bet they made a whole lot of money afterwards, when I and all the others like me hit the job market and started using their products professionally
And in the process, you established software empires that sucked the industry dry. If you don't like someone's software license terms, don't use their product. "Respecting" their copyright is not about being nice to them, it's about telling them that their product isn't worth what they are asking you. In different words, you have been a jerk to everybody else.
They can write all they want, it probably won't help. Good and cheap materials have been available for long time, but they can't be used in school.
Public school curricula are chosen by committees and government bodies who make sure that people are taught "properly", in conformance with government-approved ideology and content. This choice includes awarding textbook to a small cadre of publishers who produce government-conforming materials and are guaranteed monopolies. It works that way in the US and much of Western Europe.
Interesting. On paper, it satisfies many of my requirements, but I just hated the last Blackberry device I had... I think I'm going to wait for Ubuntu, MeeGo, and Firefox OS.
You're stating the obvious. But we're not talking about an all-or-nothing thing here, we're talking about a small improvement to a generally unreliable prediction.
By analogy, I we could build a personal scale that measures my weight precisely down to the milligram, provably beating all the other personal scales on the market. But that would be a waste of money because such precise measurements just aren't useful for most uses of personal scales.
Thanks, but that really doesn't answer my question about cost/benefit. Even if the European model weren't available and even if an improved model would show such improvements every time, the economic benefit could still be negligible.
The accuracy measurements in the article are meaningless by themselves. Does anybody know how those slight differences in accuracy translate into dollars saved? Furthermore, why can't we piggy-back on the European system? They run world-simulations after all and share the data.
Does Tumblr pinkie-swear they are not going to bankrupt Yahoo? I mean, they cost a lot of money, how are they going to deliver a return on that investment?
Seems to me the IRS already gets that data in many cases: since medical expenses are deductible, you need to prove that you actually incurred them. And insurance companies and doctors likely need to provide detailed information about services as well for audits: what medical procedure was performed on whom and how much was charged for it.
Ah, love that passive voice and shifting of responsibility. As Stewart said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if President Obama learned Osama bin Laden had been killed when he saw himself announcing it on television”
In kitchens, you use wall-mounted power strips. In living rooms, you use extension cords and (if really necessary) outlets concealed in the floor. If you really want it attached to the furniture, mount a power strip under the sofa/chair/table.
another, more accurate way is that if the government doesn't prevent them evading taxes, they are subsidising the price of their products... why is it that people who are all in favour of user-pays ideology when it comes to essential services provided by governments, get so upset about users paying the full, unsubsidised cost of the products they buy
Claiming that corporate taxes pay for "externalities" associated with these products is a bald faced lie. Most of the actual externalities are paid for by taxes on gas, land, payroll, sales, and other sources, Most of the federal budget is used for people enriching themselves in various ways: from bank bailouts to military contractors and public sector union handouts. Just look a the budget.
and why do they get so upset about the relatively minor effect that tax has on the retail price
What makes you think it's a "minor effect"? Every dollar you raise in corporate taxes is paid for by either customers or investors, i.e., real people. And "investors" aren't some nebulous Dr. Evil-style people, they are your and my retirement accounts.
, yet are perfectly happy with all the middle-men in the distribution chain taking their markup at every step along the way (typically 30-40% at each stage, sometimes hundreds of percent for some products)
I don't know about you, but I aggressively try to minimize those costs. And companies cut out those middlemen whenever they can. That's why B2B and internet shopping are so hot.
I'm not "getting upset", I'm explaining to you why raising taxes just won't work. You have companies moving their profits overseas because they don't want to pay US or UK taxes. Your solution? Raise taxes further. How is that going to encourage those companies to bring their profits back to the US? If you run a store and your product doesn't sell, how is raising prices going to bring people back?
You have a factory full of computers? Well we the government are protecting that factory with our military, so you should pay a tax based on the value of that factory.
Unfortunately, the US military isn't just used for protecting our nation, it is used for foreign adventures.
Utilizing our public road system means customers can come to your store and buy things? Maybe we'll have some sort of utility sales tax.
Customers are paying for roads through their payroll tax and gas tax, corporations are paying for it through real estate taxes and sales tax.
The problem is that taxes are justified by people like you as payment for specific services, but then misappropriated for completely different services, like bailouts, fixing the economy, invading Iraq, or whatever.
You are hiring workers? Well we the government educated them at our schools, so you should pay a per worker tax.
To you, workers and citizens seem to be mere pawns to be moved around between government and corporations; that view is fascist. The idea that the nation is primarily composed of citizens who can make their own decisions and pay for what they want and need simply doesn't seem to enter your totalitarian mind.
Look, I really don't like Apple as a company and I think their profit margins are outrageous. But you can't fix problems with (legal or illegal) tax evasion by raising taxes even more; that will just lead to more tax evasion and screw law abiding citizens even more. If you want companies to comply more and evade less, the only way to do it is to lower taxes, not increase them.
The point is that they don't. They find ways to avoid it, so we have to pay for it instead.
You're right that companies always find ways to avoid paying taxes, as do many individual tax payers. The higher you raise taxes, the more non-compliance you get and the more unfair the system gets for people who actually pay there taxes... mostly middle class employees.
Your observation isn't relevant either; if you increase corporate taxes, you just accomplish two things: they'll have to raise prices, so you end up paying for those taxes, and they'll come up with ways of moving out of the country.
Ultimately, no matter "who" you tax, real people end up paying the price. And with corporations, the people ending up paying the price are the people buying their products (and potentially their employees).
And if you think along those lines a little further, you'll see that you will never get a fair taxation system. What you can do is reduce the damage that the current system does by reducing its impact to the necessary minimum. If income, corporate, and capital gains taxes were all set at a flat 15% with no deductions, this would matter much less. Of course, government expenditures would have to be reduced and currently free services replaced with fee-for-service institutions.
In the US, Apple pays for police protection through their real estate taxes (and other local and state taxes), not corporate income tax. They also have their own private security. I suspect Cupertino, Mountain View, and Palo Alto would come out ahead even if they didn't get any direct revenue from Apple and Google.
In the UK, since money just disappears into a big bucket, it's of course much easier to play political bait-and-switch with taxes.
Apple and Google enjoy the general public services just like the rest of us. This includes public roads, utilities, postal services.
They pay for those directly through property taxes, and indirectly through payroll taxes, proportional to what they use. Corporate income tax is not used for any of that. And they mostly use private shipping companies for their products.
Taxes are the price of civilization
Just because some taxes are reasonable and necessary doesn't mean that any/all of them are.
Because the working portion of a person's life is bookended by nonworking portions?
Yup. You save for your retirement and pay for your kids. It's not the government's responsibility.
Because we don't want to take the people who can't work out behind the barn and shoot them?
Covered by insurance too; not a government function.
Aside from those reasons, a lot of government spending, the majority of it, goes to people who are working. The government employs quite a few people, most of whose jobs we'd all agree need to be done.
Really? We all agree? My guess is that there are plenty of reductions possible, starting with the military, the DEA, and the DHS.
Because the Fed intentional manipulates the market to maintain unemployment?
Oh, take of your tinfoil hat. The Fed is a bunch of bumbling idiots; they couldn't "maintain unemployment" if they tried.
Congress sets tax policy, and representatives are all over the map politically. You can make a difference, once representative at a time. And you have to get started during the primaries, not once it comes down to a binary choice.
Why don't you think this through yourself for a moment. Hansen knows how the DailyMail and other newspapers are going to sensationalize his statements. That's why he is talking about Venus-like runaway warming: he knows that all the nuance is going to get stripped away, and he's counting on it. After all, the DailyMail and other such papers are what most voters actually read.
AGW activists are talking about the end of civilization, the end of humanity, and occasionally even the end of higher life on earth knowing exactly how this will play out in the press; they are just qualifying this FUD with weasel words to cover their butts when people challenge them.
Furthermore, burning all fossil fuel is not a "nuanced qualification" anyway, given that that's something many scenarios for the future of humanity actually assume.
(And even the paper you cite is still largely speculation and misrepresents scientific facts and consensus.)
Slashdot Mirror
Notions of property and a "right to deny use" assume a free market. The problem here is that in public education systems, the use of specific textbooks is mandated, and school attendance is mandatory as well. So, these publishers get handed a monopoly courtesy of the government and you are effectively forced by law to hand over your money to them. Perhaps you can cook up some reason to justify this, but don't justify it with property rights, because those are clearly being violated hered: by the publishers.
In the US, copying excerpts is generally fine, so your teachers probably didn't violate copyright law. In Europe, there are various other mechanisms.
And in the process, you established software empires that sucked the industry dry. If you don't like someone's software license terms, don't use their product. "Respecting" their copyright is not about being nice to them, it's about telling them that their product isn't worth what they are asking you. In different words, you have been a jerk to everybody else.
Yes, unfortunately, primary and secondary education in the US are also dominated by government-imposed monopolies and government-mandated curricula.
They can write all they want, it probably won't help. Good and cheap materials have been available for long time, but they can't be used in school.
Public school curricula are chosen by committees and government bodies who make sure that people are taught "properly", in conformance with government-approved ideology and content. This choice includes awarding textbook to a small cadre of publishers who produce government-conforming materials and are guaranteed monopolies. It works that way in the US and much of Western Europe.
Interesting. On paper, it satisfies many of my requirements, but I just hated the last Blackberry device I had... I think I'm going to wait for Ubuntu, MeeGo, and Firefox OS.
You're stating the obvious. But we're not talking about an all-or-nothing thing here, we're talking about a small improvement to a generally unreliable prediction.
By analogy, I we could build a personal scale that measures my weight precisely down to the milligram, provably beating all the other personal scales on the market. But that would be a waste of money because such precise measurements just aren't useful for most uses of personal scales.
Thanks, but that really doesn't answer my question about cost/benefit. Even if the European model weren't available and even if an improved model would show such improvements every time, the economic benefit could still be negligible.
The accuracy measurements in the article are meaningless by themselves. Does anybody know how those slight differences in accuracy translate into dollars saved? Furthermore, why can't we piggy-back on the European system? They run world-simulations after all and share the data.
As a developer, I'd find an alternative to Java/Dalvik and Objective-C/iOS pretty appealing.
Does Tumblr pinkie-swear they are not going to bankrupt Yahoo? I mean, they cost a lot of money, how are they going to deliver a return on that investment?
Seems to me the IRS already gets that data in many cases: since medical expenses are deductible, you need to prove that you actually incurred them. And insurance companies and doctors likely need to provide detailed information about services as well for audits: what medical procedure was performed on whom and how much was charged for it.
Voting for the right presidential candidate in the primaries might make it better; that's where we really decide the direction of the country.
You're more likely to find small government primary candidates among Republicans, although we haven't had one win the primaries in many years, sadly.
Ah, love that passive voice and shifting of responsibility. As Stewart said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if President Obama learned Osama bin Laden had been killed when he saw himself announcing it on television”
In kitchens, you use wall-mounted power strips. In living rooms, you use extension cords and (if really necessary) outlets concealed in the floor. If you really want it attached to the furniture, mount a power strip under the sofa/chair/table.
Claiming that corporate taxes pay for "externalities" associated with these products is a bald faced lie. Most of the actual externalities are paid for by taxes on gas, land, payroll, sales, and other sources, Most of the federal budget is used for people enriching themselves in various ways: from bank bailouts to military contractors and public sector union handouts. Just look a the budget.
What makes you think it's a "minor effect"? Every dollar you raise in corporate taxes is paid for by either customers or investors, i.e., real people. And "investors" aren't some nebulous Dr. Evil-style people, they are your and my retirement accounts.
I don't know about you, but I aggressively try to minimize those costs. And companies cut out those middlemen whenever they can. That's why B2B and internet shopping are so hot.
I'm not "getting upset", I'm explaining to you why raising taxes just won't work. You have companies moving their profits overseas because they don't want to pay US or UK taxes. Your solution? Raise taxes further. How is that going to encourage those companies to bring their profits back to the US? If you run a store and your product doesn't sell, how is raising prices going to bring people back?
Unfortunately, the US military isn't just used for protecting our nation, it is used for foreign adventures.
Customers are paying for roads through their payroll tax and gas tax, corporations are paying for it through real estate taxes and sales tax.
The problem is that taxes are justified by people like you as payment for specific services, but then misappropriated for completely different services, like bailouts, fixing the economy, invading Iraq, or whatever.
To you, workers and citizens seem to be mere pawns to be moved around between government and corporations; that view is fascist. The idea that the nation is primarily composed of citizens who can make their own decisions and pay for what they want and need simply doesn't seem to enter your totalitarian mind.
Look, I really don't like Apple as a company and I think their profit margins are outrageous. But you can't fix problems with (legal or illegal) tax evasion by raising taxes even more; that will just lead to more tax evasion and screw law abiding citizens even more. If you want companies to comply more and evade less, the only way to do it is to lower taxes, not increase them.
You're right that companies always find ways to avoid paying taxes, as do many individual tax payers. The higher you raise taxes, the more non-compliance you get and the more unfair the system gets for people who actually pay there taxes... mostly middle class employees.
Your observation isn't relevant either; if you increase corporate taxes, you just accomplish two things: they'll have to raise prices, so you end up paying for those taxes, and they'll come up with ways of moving out of the country.
Ultimately, no matter "who" you tax, real people end up paying the price. And with corporations, the people ending up paying the price are the people buying their products (and potentially their employees).
And if you think along those lines a little further, you'll see that you will never get a fair taxation system. What you can do is reduce the damage that the current system does by reducing its impact to the necessary minimum. If income, corporate, and capital gains taxes were all set at a flat 15% with no deductions, this would matter much less. Of course, government expenditures would have to be reduced and currently free services replaced with fee-for-service institutions.
In the US, Apple pays for police protection through their real estate taxes (and other local and state taxes), not corporate income tax. They also have their own private security. I suspect Cupertino, Mountain View, and Palo Alto would come out ahead even if they didn't get any direct revenue from Apple and Google.
In the UK, since money just disappears into a big bucket, it's of course much easier to play political bait-and-switch with taxes.
They pay for those directly through property taxes, and indirectly through payroll taxes, proportional to what they use. Corporate income tax is not used for any of that. And they mostly use private shipping companies for their products.
Just because some taxes are reasonable and necessary doesn't mean that any/all of them are.
Yup. You save for your retirement and pay for your kids. It's not the government's responsibility.
Covered by insurance too; not a government function.
Really? We all agree? My guess is that there are plenty of reductions possible, starting with the military, the DEA, and the DHS.
Oh, take of your tinfoil hat. The Fed is a bunch of bumbling idiots; they couldn't "maintain unemployment" if they tried.
Congress sets tax policy, and representatives are all over the map politically. You can make a difference, once representative at a time. And you have to get started during the primaries, not once it comes down to a binary choice.
Why don't you think this through yourself for a moment. Hansen knows how the DailyMail and other newspapers are going to sensationalize his statements. That's why he is talking about Venus-like runaway warming: he knows that all the nuance is going to get stripped away, and he's counting on it. After all, the DailyMail and other such papers are what most voters actually read.
AGW activists are talking about the end of civilization, the end of humanity, and occasionally even the end of higher life on earth knowing exactly how this will play out in the press; they are just qualifying this FUD with weasel words to cover their butts when people challenge them.
Furthermore, burning all fossil fuel is not a "nuanced qualification" anyway, given that that's something many scenarios for the future of humanity actually assume.
(And even the paper you cite is still largely speculation and misrepresents scientific facts and consensus.)