Wow, what a bizarre chain of arguments. Because in totalitarian nations like Saudi Arabia, oil companies are taxed 90% the US fails to be a democracy by not taxing them the same way? And your proposed solution is to restrict the ability of people to form political associations and engage in political speech.
Well, you're right to a certain degree: imposing the restrictions on free speech that Wolf-PAC proposes would probably give is similar government and similar tax rates to Saudi Arabia. Thankfully, that's not going to happen.
While privately financed elections have lots of problems, publicly financed elections are far worse, because they essentially put government in charge of determining who may engage in significant political speech. That's a total train wreck.
Whether you like Google or not, it's "noteworthy" because this sort of thing means that "system manager" and "IT staff" may more and more become a thing of the past; you know, the kind of job a significant percentage of Slashdot readers actually hold.
Same for "typical". Anybody near the center of the income distribution or above, i.e., the great majority of Americans, has no reason to live month-to-month. If they do, it's because of poor financial planning.
The AVERAGE person lives paycheck to paycheck and can't pay every bill every month, the AVERAGE person knows how far behind you have to be with company x before they shut off service.
Nonsense. The "average person" in the US makes more than enough money to save plenty every month. If they are living paycheck-to-paycheck, it's their own fault.
Well, paid-vacation with the chance of not being able to pay your bills and maybe losing your apartment or home or car or other things which will seriously mess with their lives and well-being, if their full paychecks are delayed long enough.
I'll take a paid vacation with a delay in my paycheck over being laid off any day, and that's what most people have to deal with.
Everybody needs to save up enough money to live on for 6-12 months. And if you're a government worker, you certainly can do that easily.
Sure it is. When did you ever get to choose who was covered by your insurance company or not?
I have always been able to pick that, by picking the plan and the insurance company that I want.
You just don't give a fuck if people live or die, so long as you get to keep a few extra bucks,
I care a great deal about whether people live or die, and that is exactly the reason why people need to have the liberty to make their own choices and face the consequences.
It's people like you and the policies you advocate that are responsible for the epidemics of obesity and heart disease in this country, and no health care system in the world is capable of fixing this.
If you haven't saved a few months worth of income, it's your own fault. You can do that no matter what your income may be.
And it's something every one of us has to deal with; a government furlough certainly beats bankruptcy or job loss, something all of us have to face.
As for what the Republicans want, they use whatever means they have of pressuring the president. I think they are playing this wrong, but their political ineptitude doesn't make Obama's failures any less significant.
You're delusional; of course you cited the rates as support that Obamacare reduced (i.e. not increased) costs.
Furthermore, it isn't the "normal risk sharing" because I am now forced to share risks with people who I don't want to share risk with. That's the same as a subsidy. I'm sorry if you're too economically illiterate to understand that.
No. I owned a Palm Pilot. It was a very different device from an iPhone. There was nothing like the app store either
Palm had third party app stores. The Danger Hiptop had a built-in app store just like the iPhone. Some of those people went on to do Android.
Still, as stated above, they're fundamentally similar to the original iPhone in many ways.
That's because the iPhone was fundamentally similar to their common ancestors. And since Android has come out, Apple has clearly directly copied many features from Android.
If this plays out like I think it will, you will devoutly wish for a day when the Affordable Care Act, Obama, or partisan politics was something you might be concerned about. We are headed for a time when such concerns were the good old days.
Oh, you are so right, because the way I think it will play out is that the Democrats win and keep raising taxes and spending more and more on useless federal programs benefiting Obama's donors. And the result will be to bankrupt our nation and destroy our economy. And we will all wish for the good old days then.
(And before you accuse me of partisanship, Republicans had their own serious problems, but even Bush wasn't this dysfunctional and stupid.)
By the Constitution, all bills appropriating money from the treasury of the United States MUST originate in the House
Yes, but the president needs to let the house know what the executive branch needs. That's how the process starts. And the president knows it because when he was a senator, he was complaining bitterly about a lack of leadership.
Holy crap - are you truly that ignorant? The president can never originate a budget. It HAS to come from the House. Yes, he can suggest budgets, but he can't actually submit them.
Holy crap, how stupid can you be? The budget process begins with the president submitting a budget request to Congress:
This is not about approving budgets because there are no budgets. Obama has failed to submit them, Congress has failed to pass them. This is about Obama demanding money willy-nilly and Congress refusing to pay it for equally chaotic reasons.
Citing low rates as evidence that Obamacare is reducing costs is circular. In fact, we know that costs haven't gone down significantly. Instead, Obamacare is redistributing costs relative to an efficient and risk-based market, so either someone is subsidizing you or you are getting less coverage relative to what you had before. Either way, your numbers are meaningless.
However, I think you're just confused. You say "actually they start at $100, which would be cheaper than any insurance copay I've ever had working at a corporation." Those $100 plans have been around since long before Obamacare. There's a reason they are cheaper than corporate insurance "co-pay": they have high co-pay for services and a huge deductible. In my zip code, where I can get $100 plans, the cheapest Health Exchange plan is around $330, and it's not a very good deal.
Obama is choosing what to close and what not to close. Closing these facilities, national parks, monuments, etc. is pure politics on his part. There are plenty of other things he could cut, and he could have cut a long time ago.
The innovation of the iPhone was in the overall design, the vertical integration of the touch screen with the new "physical" touch UI and the sensors, the unified co-design of hardware and software and applications and later the app store model and so on
Palm did the same thing before Apple and was very successful with it. Apple did not invent or was the first to succeed with the app store either. The iPhone was simply an evolution from previous platforms.
and they have since totally disrupted and recreated the entire smartphone market.
Apple has always remained a small player in the smartphone market, so they neither "disrupted" nor "recreated" it.
Look, I think Apple is a good company with good engineers and designers making good products. Why taint that with all these questionable and exaggerated claims about innovation?
What are the incentives that make e.g. Amazon, Google and Facebook software deliver a better user experience
Management knows they go out of business if they don't. But more importantly, it's not just a question of incentives, it's that the many companies that have tried to compete with Amazon, Google, and Facebook and provided a worse user experience have actually gone out of business. We're left with the better experiences because those are the only ones that survived.
and how can they be incorporated into the contract?
They can't, because the organization paying for the services (the US government) can't go out of business, has no competition, and can spend unlimited amounts of money.
Government can't draw on that expertise because the people making the choices have no big stake in the outcome of those choices.
The people running Amazon, Google, and Intuit figure out how to keep their web sites running and who to hire/outsource to because their own money depends on it. The people running the US government may have the best of intentions, but ultimately, it's not their own money that they are spending.
Note that Intuit does provide a service that could have been provided by the IRS: online tax returns. But for some reason, Obama chose to go with a heavy-handed, government run system instead.
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody is keeping you from using "clean energy" if you like.
Most people use the other kind for the simple reason that it's cheaper to produce.
Wow, what a bizarre chain of arguments. Because in totalitarian nations like Saudi Arabia, oil companies are taxed 90% the US fails to be a democracy by not taxing them the same way? And your proposed solution is to restrict the ability of people to form political associations and engage in political speech.
Well, you're right to a certain degree: imposing the restrictions on free speech that Wolf-PAC proposes would probably give is similar government and similar tax rates to Saudi Arabia. Thankfully, that's not going to happen.
While privately financed elections have lots of problems, publicly financed elections are far worse, because they essentially put government in charge of determining who may engage in significant political speech. That's a total train wreck.
Can we please get out of the MIddle East and Europe now? I mean withdraw our troops and let those people deal with their own problems themselves?
Whether you like Google or not, it's "noteworthy" because this sort of thing means that "system manager" and "IT staff" may more and more become a thing of the past; you know, the kind of job a significant percentage of Slashdot readers actually hold.
Same for "typical". Anybody near the center of the income distribution or above, i.e., the great majority of Americans, has no reason to live month-to-month. If they do, it's because of poor financial planning.
No, not "anyone, ever", just the AVERAGE person.
Nonsense. The "average person" in the US makes more than enough money to save plenty every month. If they are living paycheck-to-paycheck, it's their own fault.
I'll take a paid vacation with a delay in my paycheck over being laid off any day, and that's what most people have to deal with.
Everybody needs to save up enough money to live on for 6-12 months. And if you're a government worker, you certainly can do that easily.
I have always been able to pick that, by picking the plan and the insurance company that I want.
I care a great deal about whether people live or die, and that is exactly the reason why people need to have the liberty to make their own choices and face the consequences.
It's people like you and the policies you advocate that are responsible for the epidemics of obesity and heart disease in this country, and no health care system in the world is capable of fixing this.
If you haven't saved a few months worth of income, it's your own fault. You can do that no matter what your income may be.
And it's something every one of us has to deal with; a government furlough certainly beats bankruptcy or job loss, something all of us have to face.
As for what the Republicans want, they use whatever means they have of pressuring the president. I think they are playing this wrong, but their political ineptitude doesn't make Obama's failures any less significant.
You're delusional; of course you cited the rates as support that Obamacare reduced (i.e. not increased) costs.
Furthermore, it isn't the "normal risk sharing" because I am now forced to share risks with people who I don't want to share risk with. That's the same as a subsidy. I'm sorry if you're too economically illiterate to understand that.
No, Obama should have shown some presidential leadership and ability to compromise to prevent this mess altogether. That's his job.
But they are getting paid; they will receive back pay when the shutdown ends.
Right now, the shutdown means a paid vacation for government workers, and these are non-essential government workers to begin with.
Would I take a few weeks of extra paid vacation for a comparable delay in receiving my paycheck? You bet!
Palm had third party app stores. The Danger Hiptop had a built-in app store just like the iPhone. Some of those people went on to do Android.
That's because the iPhone was fundamentally similar to their common ancestors. And since Android has come out, Apple has clearly directly copied many features from Android.
Oh, you are so right, because the way I think it will play out is that the Democrats win and keep raising taxes and spending more and more on useless federal programs benefiting Obama's donors. And the result will be to bankrupt our nation and destroy our economy. And we will all wish for the good old days then.
(And before you accuse me of partisanship, Republicans had their own serious problems, but even Bush wasn't this dysfunctional and stupid.)
Yes, but the president needs to let the house know what the executive branch needs. That's how the process starts. And the president knows it because when he was a senator, he was complaining bitterly about a lack of leadership.
Holy crap, how stupid can you be? The budget process begins with the president submitting a budget request to Congress:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process
(1) By avoiding the problem altogether and negotiating with Republicans well ahead of time.
(2) By setting different priorities; after all, most federal employees are still working, he simply sent those home that had the biggest PR impact.
This is not about approving budgets because there are no budgets. Obama has failed to submit them, Congress has failed to pass them. This is about Obama demanding money willy-nilly and Congress refusing to pay it for equally chaotic reasons.
Citing low rates as evidence that Obamacare is reducing costs is circular. In fact, we know that costs haven't gone down significantly. Instead, Obamacare is redistributing costs relative to an efficient and risk-based market, so either someone is subsidizing you or you are getting less coverage relative to what you had before. Either way, your numbers are meaningless.
However, I think you're just confused. You say "actually they start at $100, which would be cheaper than any insurance copay I've ever had working at a corporation." Those $100 plans have been around since long before Obamacare. There's a reason they are cheaper than corporate insurance "co-pay": they have high co-pay for services and a huge deductible. In my zip code, where I can get $100 plans, the cheapest Health Exchange plan is around $330, and it's not a very good deal.
Obama is choosing what to close and what not to close. Closing these facilities, national parks, monuments, etc. is pure politics on his part. There are plenty of other things he could cut, and he could have cut a long time ago.
Palm did the same thing before Apple and was very successful with it. Apple did not invent or was the first to succeed with the app store either. The iPhone was simply an evolution from previous platforms.
Apple has always remained a small player in the smartphone market, so they neither "disrupted" nor "recreated" it.
Look, I think Apple is a good company with good engineers and designers making good products. Why taint that with all these questionable and exaggerated claims about innovation?
Dynabook. PenPoint.
(And Newton was a failure because it didn't do what Palm or later iPhone did.)
Management knows they go out of business if they don't. But more importantly, it's not just a question of incentives, it's that the many companies that have tried to compete with Amazon, Google, and Facebook and provided a worse user experience have actually gone out of business. We're left with the better experiences because those are the only ones that survived.
They can't, because the organization paying for the services (the US government) can't go out of business, has no competition, and can spend unlimited amounts of money.
Government can't draw on that expertise because the people making the choices have no big stake in the outcome of those choices.
The people running Amazon, Google, and Intuit figure out how to keep their web sites running and who to hire/outsource to because their own money depends on it. The people running the US government may have the best of intentions, but ultimately, it's not their own money that they are spending.
Note that Intuit does provide a service that could have been provided by the IRS: online tax returns. But for some reason, Obama chose to go with a heavy-handed, government run system instead.
The people who actually created those technologies may feel better at least.