I don't know why she doesn't just go find another job, instead of this silly lawsuit... oh wait, greed, that's it... a $17,000 award, nice. Guess who coughs up for that... people like us who don't abuse the system:/
"I am a single woman with a mortgage, and I had to re-mortgage my home and borrow money from my sister to make it through," she said. "They nearly ruined my life."
Oh please, it's her employer's fault that she has zero savings, yet still bought a house that she couldn't afford without living literally having to live paycheck to paycheck? That makes the employer "responsible" for owing her a living?
And contrary to popular opinion, demand curve pricing isn't necessarily "evil"; in fact, many businesses (software and otherwise) wouldn't be able to afford to produce the product you buy at all if they didn't do it.. i.e. it's not just about "maximizing profit" per se - the very business model often depends on it. And it's better to have a product than none at all.
Not only that but I have to call FUD, as there is a REASON why 32bit XP and Vista don't support more than 3.25 and it AIN'T about licensing. You want to know why? One word-drivers. I have found that there are plenty of seriously flaky drivers that act buggy as hell if PAE is used, and that is with the standard 3.25Gb limit. Capture cards, some of the older Sata and IDE cards, and those are just the ones off the top of my head that I have run into personally.
You didn't RTA - the author does point this out. However, he also makes the valid point that if you're a hardware manufacturer, e.g. say you make notebooks, then you can provide tested drivers with proper support, and hence why shouldn't hardware manufacturers at least have the choice to enable it on their own hardware lines? It's a valid question.
But this guy is saying that Microsoft is doing something "illegal" because he was able to hack his system and enable PAE
I RTA and I missed the part where he says it's illegal. Regardless of whether or not it is legal, he is more than welcome to (a) complain if he doesn't like it and (b) inform other consumers via articles like this of the facts (i.e. that it's less of a technical limitation, as is often claimed, and more of an arbitrary licensing one). I don't see what your problem is, frankly.
Poverty is not a disease. Disease is just a common false metaphor for poverty - an insidious metaphor that leads people to try "treat" poverty as if it were a disease, which invariably doesn't work.
Actually, unless DNA shows you have Native American blood, you're all bleedin' immigrants
Wrong, wrong, flat-out wrong. A descendant of an immigrant is not an immigrant.
immigrant n. A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another.
You're confusing individuals with their offspring, which is a pretty stupid mistake: I am not my grandfather, you are not your grandfather - understand?
Um, you neglect to mention that Britain has also historically managed to use its strong Pound to recruit thousands of the top, educated doctors from other countries in the world (like South Africa), making good doctors affordable for Brits. Average UK wages = excellent wages for foreigners. America doesn't have that luxury in the same way. The UK probably won't have it for much longer either, as emerging major global economies start to balance out against sloth-ing Western economies.
In order to lure the best people into becoming doctors, you need to pay them well and allow them to charge market rates for their services, and having a socialized system doesn't allow for that.
But as long as they do exist, I can think of nothing better to happen than for their biggest proponents to get shafted by one of the patents.
The problem is that even when companies like MS get "shafted" by the patent system, they still overall come out ahead by using and abusing that system - and as long as they overall come out ahead (and they will - like I said, I'm sure both MS and i4i will make truckloads of money in the coming years), then they remain satisfied with the system, and the public continues to lose.
In fact, it's nothing new for big companies like MS to get "shafted" by this system --- consider, for example, the reason that Microsoft invested and played an important part in the revival of Apple after Jobs re-joined --- why would Microsoft help boost their own competition, to their detriment? Patents... Apple held a bunch of patents that MS infringed, and they made a deal with MS. And i4i is small fry compared to Apple.
So even after worse "shaftings", they still support the system, because the system still helps them overall.
No, the only winners here are MS and i4i, the losers are us, the public, and this case will do absolutely nothing to help get the system fixed.
Again (presuming you're the same person), I made absolutely no such claim. In fact, I made no value judgments about anything at all. I don't know enough about the Europe MS ruling to do so. I only commented on the structure of the argument made by jmac_the_man, and the argumentally structural incorrectness of the reply by MrNaz. Read again, you'll see.
I don't think he was really saying that. Being subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign market is fine in principle, but is totally independent of whether or not that jurisdiction is ethical and valid. Sure a foreign market can impose conditions, but not just any old conditions they like - nor should such conditions be above criticism if they are unethical themselves. As an extreme example, just to demonstrate the point, they might stipulate that the CEO must sacrifice his first-born child --- if someone attempted to criticise such a stipulation, would you remain equally inclined to slam them for thinking they should not have to abide by such stipulations? No --- the validity of particular stipulations is separate to the issue of whether or not stipulations may be imposed at all.
i4i may have 'a product', but really isn't anything particularly incredible... it's basically just XML authoring via parsed-back transformed output. Whoopty-do - this is something quite basic and that could and should become commonplace in many, many different applications in future. A 'product' does not make a patent-able invention. Microsoft may be abusing the system, but i4i is worse, they're still behaving like a blatant patent troll, probably because their 'product' just isn't special anymore. We're just talking about a fight between two unethical companies... much as I can't stand Microsoft, i4i is even worse here - they're actually *doing* what Microsoft so far has only had the veiled threat of doing via their patents.
Now the real problem with all this (as well as MS's own patents on XML-based word processing) is that it has destroyed the entire purpose of XML. XML was adopted by industry as a counter-measure to the many proprietary binary "lock-in" formats of the 80s and 90s. Initially it seemed like it was going to serve this purpose, but XML is now so ridiculously over-encumbered with bogus, obvious patents that it's impossible to create any "serious" useful new XML-based applications without infringing patents. In other words, industry has succeeded in making XML the "new" proprietary lock-in format.
MS and i4i will both continue to make reams of money relative to their sizes. The real losers here are the general public, customers of the IT industry, and potential small-business competitors/entrepreneurs.
Time for a new "XML"? This time, with a stipulation in the licensing that no patents may be made over the format.
The child will still be a victim, just not of molestation - they'd still be a victim of the degradation from spreading those images. If I create a fake image on my computer and immediately delete it, no crime thus took place, because there is no victim at all.
Just to clarify, I'm not contradicting myself here: When you say "if you were to see your child as the face on whoever's imposed porn" it implies somebody *spread* the fake pictures. Spreading fake pictures does *not* mean your child is just as bad off as if he/she had really been abused to produce those pictures - that would be a ricidulous assertion. BUT the child has still suffered from the fake pictures that were spread. So there should still be a crime.
These thus cannot be considered the same crime. But the problem is that society conflates "creation of child porn" and "possession of child porn", two vastly different acts. Mere possession has no victim at all (only at creation time in the case of non-fakes); however, spreading fake images may have a victim, just not of abusive acts.
More rational laws would make more clear, specific distinctions between all of:
- Creating actual child porn (victim = child, crime = abuse: worst-case) - Possessing actual child porn (victim = nobody) - Spreading actual child porn (victim = child, crime = harm of spreading porno images of actual person)
- Creating fake child porn of actual child (victim = nobody) - Possessing fake child porn of actual child (victim = nobody) - Spreading fake child porn of actual child (victim = child, crime = harm of spreading porno images of actual person)
There certainly is a conflict. Absolutely we should have the freedom to do what we want behind closed doors, so long as no one is harmed. This should hold true, no matter how twisted it is. However, if you were to see your child as the face on whoever's imposed porn, even absolute truths can become blurred.
When asking yourself what's OK and what's not in these situations, the best way to approach these things is to simply ask yourself the following questions: (1) Who is the victim? (2) If there's a victim, what are they a victim of?
In the case of "real" child porn, there is an obvious victim, the child, and what they're a victim of, is molestation (and subsequent degradation and reputational etc. damage by spreading the pictures). It does not follow from this that it should be OK to create a fake photo of a child involved in child porn just because no molestation took place. The child will still be a victim, just not of molestation - they'd still be a victim of the degradation from spreading those images. If I create a fake image on my computer and immediately delete it, no crime thus took place, because there is no victim at all.
Thus you are wrong, there is no blurring at all, just not for the reason you thought - you are confusing "blurring" for underlying instinct in your mind that realized it would still be wrong but didn't quite understand why.
"But bicycles have just as much right to the road "
Why?
Because that's the law. IOW it just happens to be what the majority of people have commonly agreed on historically. Traffic law defines the "common system" that, if followed by everyone, allows the road traffic system to function without degenerating into chaos. If you don't like that law, by all means petition to change it to allow horses and dirt bikes and whatever other drivel you feel like concocting up, but until you manage to change the law, you have to follow it, just like everyone else. You don't have to like it, but you do have to realize that people die if you don't follow our laws or we'll put you in jail.
Similarly, entertainment expenditure such as video games does not create any new wealth
(To be clear, whether or not something directly "creates jobs" is different to whether or not it "creates wealth". The entertainment industry *provides* jobs, but doesn't *create* jobs - crucial but subtle distinction. Likewise for the window repair business - it *provides* jobs, not *creates* new jobs - only true *wealth production* can *create* jobs. Likewise also for 'obamasocialistwelfarejobs'.)
In the case of the broken window fallacy, you are deliberately destroying property in an effort to spur spending.
Wow, I don't think I've ever seen the broken window fallacy so badly misinterpreted. Well done. The broken window fallacy actually just refers to the incorrect thinking whereby people think the overall economy benefits from the work required to repair damage (because it 'gives jobs to the people who do the repairs'). It's incorrect because - the point is - repairing damage doesn't generate any new wealth, it just costs money/time/labour/resources that could otherwise have been been spent producing new wealth (e.g. paying somebody to create a new window that wasn't there before). Similarly, entertainment expenditure such as video games does not create any new wealth - it's just pure consumption of previously acquired wealth.
Note by 'wealth' we basically mean 'stuff', not 'money'; the currency in circulation is basically supposed to correspond to the amount of 'stuff out there'.
It's an important point, because the general lack of understanding between economic activity that actually produces new wealth, and economic activity that doesn't, lies at the heart of many of today's global economic problems, and the steady gutting of the manufacturing centers of the US.
Sorry, made a mistake in the quoting: The bit ""God" or whoever must have forgotten to include that in the package and I'm sure he's very sorry Randians." was NOT written by me, but by GP.
"Some individuals found their support of libertarianism upon ideological elements derived from the philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand, which she called Objectivism.[1] The fiction of Ayn Rand is popular among even libertarians who do not consider themselves to be Objectivists. Therefore, it is perhaps surprising that some Objectivists are hostile to the libertarian movement."
"Ayn Rand condemned libertarianism as being a greater threat to freedom and capitalism than both liberalism and conservativism"
Is that enough yet to make you think twice about just how well you actually understand the topic you're prolifically parading against?
Seriously, for your own sake (you are genuinely embarrassing yourself as you keep using the terms completely incorrectly), I strongly suggest you "pause" on the anti-Libertarian and anti-Rand comments, calm down, go read up in detail on the huge difference between "Anarchism" and "Libertarianism", and then come back again. Somalia is not a libertarian system, it's an anarchy. If you understood what you were criticizing, you might also be shocked to realise how embarrassingly wrong it is to keep equating Libertarianism with Rand's Objectivism - Rand herself did not support Libertarianism (yup!).
Most open source, by the way, is developed, funded and organised by and by means of corporations or similar entities, not as a collection of "sole traders"; I'd be interested if you could point out a few major open source projects produced entirely with the organisational scheme of a looseknit connection of hundreds of people registered as sole traders (and I suggest you first look up the definition of "sole trader" - it doesn't mean what you think it means).
From Wikipedia: "Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation.[12] In 1999, both companies went public and Torvalds' net worth shot up to roughly $20 million"
Since you don't seem to be able to follow what the conversation is about, I'll clarify: GP was talking about not having corporations as an entity (purportedly as an argument against libertarians, although that makes no sense). That means instead of employees or owners, everyone who works for any company, or owns a company, will all just be "sole traders", and there will be no company. Follow?
It has nothing to do with producing software, as you said, and I don't even know how you managed to make that connection.
Or it might be because 30 years of supply-side greedfest has destroyed our economy...
"Destroyed" your economy? WTF? The US economy is still the largest and most powerful in the entire world. I wish my country's economy was that badly "destroyed"!
I'm genuinely befuddled as to how people can say such absurd things with a straight face... do you really believe your economy has been "destroyed"? What's that based on, a media-hype frenzy? Or is government spreading propaganda that the economy is in tatters in order to justify grabbing ever more taxes for themselves in order to "fix" it?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know why she doesn't just go find another job, instead of this silly lawsuit ... oh wait, greed, that's it ... a $17,000 award, nice. Guess who coughs up for that ... people like us who don't abuse the system :/
"I am a single woman with a mortgage, and I had to re-mortgage my home and borrow money from my sister to make it through," she said. "They nearly ruined my life."
Oh please, it's her employer's fault that she has zero savings, yet still bought a house that she couldn't afford without living literally having to live paycheck to paycheck? That makes the employer "responsible" for owing her a living?
And contrary to popular opinion, demand curve pricing isn't necessarily "evil"; in fact, many businesses (software and otherwise) wouldn't be able to afford to produce the product you buy at all if they didn't do it .. i.e. it's not just about "maximizing profit" per se - the very business model often depends on it. And it's better to have a product than none at all.
Not only that but I have to call FUD, as there is a REASON why 32bit XP and Vista don't support more than 3.25 and it AIN'T about licensing. You want to know why? One word-drivers. I have found that there are plenty of seriously flaky drivers that act buggy as hell if PAE is used, and that is with the standard 3.25Gb limit. Capture cards, some of the older Sata and IDE cards, and those are just the ones off the top of my head that I have run into personally.
You didn't RTA - the author does point this out. However, he also makes the valid point that if you're a hardware manufacturer, e.g. say you make notebooks, then you can provide tested drivers with proper support, and hence why shouldn't hardware manufacturers at least have the choice to enable it on their own hardware lines? It's a valid question.
But this guy is saying that Microsoft is doing something "illegal" because he was able to hack his system and enable PAE
I RTA and I missed the part where he says it's illegal. Regardless of whether or not it is legal, he is more than welcome to (a) complain if he doesn't like it and (b) inform other consumers via articles like this of the facts (i.e. that it's less of a technical limitation, as is often claimed, and more of an arbitrary licensing one). I don't see what your problem is, frankly.
Uh, you're the one who said it. "The only thing that has changed is there is now more poor. How about treating that disease"
Actually illegal imigration is a problem in many countries, especially most developed countries.
Poverty is not a disease. Disease is just a common false metaphor for poverty - an insidious metaphor that leads people to try "treat" poverty as if it were a disease, which invariably doesn't work.
Actually, unless DNA shows you have Native American blood, you're all bleedin' immigrants
Wrong, wrong, flat-out wrong. A descendant of an immigrant is not an immigrant.
immigrant n. A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another.
You're confusing individuals with their offspring, which is a pretty stupid mistake: I am not my grandfather, you are not your grandfather - understand?
Um, you neglect to mention that Britain has also historically managed to use its strong Pound to recruit thousands of the top, educated doctors from other countries in the world (like South Africa), making good doctors affordable for Brits. Average UK wages = excellent wages for foreigners. America doesn't have that luxury in the same way. The UK probably won't have it for much longer either, as emerging major global economies start to balance out against sloth-ing Western economies.
In order to lure the best people into becoming doctors, you need to pay them well and allow them to charge market rates for their services, and having a socialized system doesn't allow for that.
But as long as they do exist, I can think of nothing better to happen than for their biggest proponents to get shafted by one of the patents.
The problem is that even when companies like MS get "shafted" by the patent system, they still overall come out ahead by using and abusing that system - and as long as they overall come out ahead (and they will - like I said, I'm sure both MS and i4i will make truckloads of money in the coming years), then they remain satisfied with the system, and the public continues to lose.
In fact, it's nothing new for big companies like MS to get "shafted" by this system --- consider, for example, the reason that Microsoft invested and played an important part in the revival of Apple after Jobs re-joined --- why would Microsoft help boost their own competition, to their detriment? Patents ... Apple held a bunch of patents that MS infringed, and they made a deal with MS. And i4i is small fry compared to Apple.
So even after worse "shaftings", they still support the system, because the system still helps them overall.
No, the only winners here are MS and i4i, the losers are us, the public, and this case will do absolutely nothing to help get the system fixed.
Again (presuming you're the same person), I made absolutely no such claim. In fact, I made no value judgments about anything at all. I don't know enough about the Europe MS ruling to do so. I only commented on the structure of the argument made by jmac_the_man, and the argumentally structural incorrectness of the reply by MrNaz. Read again, you'll see.
I don't think he was really saying that. Being subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign market is fine in principle, but is totally independent of whether or not that jurisdiction is ethical and valid. Sure a foreign market can impose conditions, but not just any old conditions they like - nor should such conditions be above criticism if they are unethical themselves. As an extreme example, just to demonstrate the point, they might stipulate that the CEO must sacrifice his first-born child --- if someone attempted to criticise such a stipulation, would you remain equally inclined to slam them for thinking they should not have to abide by such stipulations? No --- the validity of particular stipulations is separate to the issue of whether or not stipulations may be imposed at all.
i4i may have 'a product', but really isn't anything particularly incredible ... it's basically just XML authoring via parsed-back transformed output. Whoopty-do - this is something quite basic and that could and should become commonplace in many, many different applications in future. A 'product' does not make a patent-able invention. Microsoft may be abusing the system, but i4i is worse, they're still behaving like a blatant patent troll, probably because their 'product' just isn't special anymore. We're just talking about a fight between two unethical companies ... much as I can't stand Microsoft, i4i is even worse here - they're actually *doing* what Microsoft so far has only had the veiled threat of doing via their patents.
Now the real problem with all this (as well as MS's own patents on XML-based word processing) is that it has destroyed the entire purpose of XML. XML was adopted by industry as a counter-measure to the many proprietary binary "lock-in" formats of the 80s and 90s. Initially it seemed like it was going to serve this purpose, but XML is now so ridiculously over-encumbered with bogus, obvious patents that it's impossible to create any "serious" useful new XML-based applications without infringing patents. In other words, industry has succeeded in making XML the "new" proprietary lock-in format.
MS and i4i will both continue to make reams of money relative to their sizes. The real losers here are the general public, customers of the IT industry, and potential small-business competitors/entrepreneurs.
Time for a new "XML"? This time, with a stipulation in the licensing that no patents may be made over the format.
The child will still be a victim, just not of molestation - they'd still be a victim of the degradation from spreading those images. If I create a fake image on my computer and immediately delete it, no crime thus took place, because there is no victim at all.
Just to clarify, I'm not contradicting myself here: When you say "if you were to see your child as the face on whoever's imposed porn" it implies somebody *spread* the fake pictures. Spreading fake pictures does *not* mean your child is just as bad off as if he/she had really been abused to produce those pictures - that would be a ricidulous assertion. BUT the child has still suffered from the fake pictures that were spread. So there should still be a crime.
These thus cannot be considered the same crime. But the problem is that society conflates "creation of child porn" and "possession of child porn", two vastly different acts. Mere possession has no victim at all (only at creation time in the case of non-fakes); however, spreading fake images may have a victim, just not of abusive acts.
More rational laws would make more clear, specific distinctions between all of:
- Creating actual child porn (victim = child, crime = abuse: worst-case)
- Possessing actual child porn (victim = nobody)
- Spreading actual child porn (victim = child, crime = harm of spreading porno images of actual person)
- Creating fake child porn of fictional characters (victim = nobody)
- Possessing fake child porn of fictional characters (victim = nobody)
- Spreading fake child porn of fictional characters (victim = nobody)
- Creating fake child porn of actual child (victim = nobody)
- Possessing fake child porn of actual child (victim = nobody)
- Spreading fake child porn of actual child (victim = child, crime = harm of spreading porno images of actual person)
Simple logic.
There certainly is a conflict. Absolutely we should have the freedom to do what we want behind closed doors, so long as no one is harmed. This should hold true, no matter how twisted it is. However, if you were to see your child as the face on whoever's imposed porn, even absolute truths can become blurred.
When asking yourself what's OK and what's not in these situations, the best way to approach these things is to simply ask yourself the following questions: (1) Who is the victim? (2) If there's a victim, what are they a victim of?
In the case of "real" child porn, there is an obvious victim, the child, and what they're a victim of, is molestation (and subsequent degradation and reputational etc. damage by spreading the pictures). It does not follow from this that it should be OK to create a fake photo of a child involved in child porn just because no molestation took place. The child will still be a victim, just not of molestation - they'd still be a victim of the degradation from spreading those images. If I create a fake image on my computer and immediately delete it, no crime thus took place, because there is no victim at all.
Thus you are wrong, there is no blurring at all, just not for the reason you thought - you are confusing "blurring" for underlying instinct in your mind that realized it would still be wrong but didn't quite understand why.
Crime should have a victim.
"But bicycles have just as much right to the road "
Why?
Because that's the law. IOW it just happens to be what the majority of people have commonly agreed on historically. Traffic law defines the "common system" that, if followed by everyone, allows the road traffic system to function without degenerating into chaos. If you don't like that law, by all means petition to change it to allow horses and dirt bikes and whatever other drivel you feel like concocting up, but until you manage to change the law, you have to follow it, just like everyone else. You don't have to like it, but you do have to realize that people die if you don't follow our laws or we'll put you in jail.
Similarly, entertainment expenditure such as video games does not create any new wealth
(To be clear, whether or not something directly "creates jobs" is different to whether or not it "creates wealth". The entertainment industry *provides* jobs, but doesn't *create* jobs - crucial but subtle distinction. Likewise for the window repair business - it *provides* jobs, not *creates* new jobs - only true *wealth production* can *create* jobs. Likewise also for 'obamasocialistwelfarejobs'.)
In the case of the broken window fallacy, you are deliberately destroying property in an effort to spur spending.
Wow, I don't think I've ever seen the broken window fallacy so badly misinterpreted. Well done. The broken window fallacy actually just refers to the incorrect thinking whereby people think the overall economy benefits from the work required to repair damage (because it 'gives jobs to the people who do the repairs'). It's incorrect because - the point is - repairing damage doesn't generate any new wealth, it just costs money/time/labour/resources that could otherwise have been been spent producing new wealth (e.g. paying somebody to create a new window that wasn't there before). Similarly, entertainment expenditure such as video games does not create any new wealth - it's just pure consumption of previously acquired wealth.
Note by 'wealth' we basically mean 'stuff', not 'money'; the currency in circulation is basically supposed to correspond to the amount of 'stuff out there'.
It's an important point, because the general lack of understanding between economic activity that actually produces new wealth, and economic activity that doesn't, lies at the heart of many of today's global economic problems, and the steady gutting of the manufacturing centers of the US.
Sorry, made a mistake in the quoting: The bit ""God" or whoever must have forgotten to include that in the package and I'm sure he's very sorry Randians." was NOT written by me, but by GP.
Here's some food for thought for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism
"Some individuals found their support of libertarianism upon ideological elements derived from the philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand, which she called Objectivism.[1] The fiction of Ayn Rand is popular among even libertarians who do not consider themselves to be Objectivists. Therefore, it is perhaps surprising that some Objectivists are hostile to the libertarian movement."
"Ayn Rand condemned libertarianism as being a greater threat to freedom and capitalism than both liberalism and conservativism"
Is that enough yet to make you think twice about just how well you actually understand the topic you're prolifically parading against?
Seriously, for your own sake (you are genuinely embarrassing yourself as you keep using the terms completely incorrectly), I strongly suggest you "pause" on the anti-Libertarian and anti-Rand comments, calm down, go read up in detail on the huge difference between "Anarchism" and "Libertarianism", and then come back again. Somalia is not a libertarian system, it's an anarchy. If you understood what you were criticizing, you might also be shocked to realise how embarrassingly wrong it is to keep equating Libertarianism with Rand's Objectivism - Rand herself did not support Libertarianism (yup!).
Most open source, by the way, is developed, funded and organised by and by means of corporations or similar entities, not as a collection of "sole traders"; I'd be interested if you could point out a few major open source projects produced entirely with the organisational scheme of a looseknit connection of hundreds of people registered as sole traders (and I suggest you first look up the definition of "sole trader" - it doesn't mean what you think it means).
Huh? What's that got to do with what I wrote?
From Wikipedia: "Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation.[12] In 1999, both companies went public and Torvalds' net worth shot up to roughly $20 million"
Since you don't seem to be able to follow what the conversation is about, I'll clarify: GP was talking about not having corporations as an entity (purportedly as an argument against libertarians, although that makes no sense). That means instead of employees or owners, everyone who works for any company, or owns a company, will all just be "sole traders", and there will be no company. Follow?
It has nothing to do with producing software, as you said, and I don't even know how you managed to make that connection.
Why does this ridiculous soundbite keep getting regurgitated *every single time* this topic comes up?
Because it's true.
Or it might be because 30 years of supply-side greedfest has destroyed our economy...
"Destroyed" your economy? WTF? The US economy is still the largest and most powerful in the entire world. I wish my country's economy was that badly "destroyed"!
I'm genuinely befuddled as to how people can say such absurd things with a straight face ... do you really believe your economy has been "destroyed"? What's that based on, a media-hype frenzy? Or is government spreading propaganda that the economy is in tatters in order to justify grabbing ever more taxes for themselves in order to "fix" it?