Yes that's the flaw with this "try before you buy" model:
(1) Under the old paradigm I had to buy the CD to discover I didn't like it. So record company gets + $12. (2) Under the new paradigm the record company has a loss of 0.1 cent (approximate cost of bandwidth I used).
It seems like you're assuming that you'll buy one copy of every CD with good cover art (or by a name you recognize). You won't & don't, though -- if you can listen to album A before purchasing it, and you know you like it... vs. album B which you *might* like but can't preview... which will you buy?
That's the choice they're betting on. It's like buying clothes from catalogs -- you're much more likely to buy from the store (after trying it on) than the catalog, where it had better look pretty damned good before you'll lay out the money and take the risk.
Obviously buying clothes & digital music isn't a completely parallel experience -- but that's how this aspect works.
You can listen to the last Metallica album in whole, on their website (http://www.metallica.com/index.asp?item=601231). They also sell all their live shows as drm-free mp3...
I will readily confess I do not keep up with Metallica developments.
But that reinforces my point. Metallica got burned for screaming about things their paying fans were doing & taking an approach to threats to their income which alienated a lot of fans.
Now they're rethinking their approach from a marketing perspective.
I don't think either they or McCartney are "the good guys" or "the bad guys"... they're highly successful in their business, and these are calculated steps.
I highly doubt that either of them is going to intentionally do something that damages their money flow.
If it makes money, more albums will be released DRM-free ('cause it works) and *we* the consumers won't have to be constantly pissed-off with horrible DRM that tries to screw with our computers and interferes with perfectly legal use.
If it doesn't make money, they blame it on the pirates... and they focus back on the DRM. We lose.
Paul McCartney was one of the biggest proponents of that attempt to get retroactive copyright extension of sound recordings a few years back. Maybe he's changed his attitude towards copyright since then.. or maybe he's just interested in making a buck (or a bob) any way he can.
Yeah, I don't think he's doing it because he's suddenly anti-copyright.
This is a particularly good time in the history of the recording industry to be one of the "good guys" who drops the DRM and gets press for doing it.
Notice the huge free ad he just got on Slashdot?
And think about it -- if you're choosing between paying for a Metallica vs. paying for this one, what goes through your head? * I hate that @#$%in' DRM... * Metallica! Those DRM-loving pricks. @#$% 'em, I'm just getting this one off the internets. * McCartney! He removed the DRM... Maybe I shouldn't rip him off.
It's a marketing experiment. There'll probably be more freeloaders, since the people who *wanted* to get their music for free but couldn't figure it out will have an easier time of it. But if sales are boosted enough by the good press and goodwill, the experiment will have succeeded.
...if this album is ripped, lobbed on bit-torrent and limewire then Macca is unlikely to be out on the streets through lost revenue.
It's another test, in the eyes of the music industry & other artists. Naturally they're all watching to see how this goes.
And obviously everyone knows he's filthy rich, and doesn't need their money... so you won't have people buying the album (vs. snagging elsewhere for free) simply because they feel he needs the money. That could be a factor for less well-known artists.
So, yeah, let's see how the test goes. For all the people who argue that *this* is the more profitable way to release an album -- this is where we see if they're right, or if they're just BSing because defeating DRM is annoying.
I'm not saying this because I like DRM -- I just think it's funny how the *same* people who shout about how DRM will kill the music industry are also the first ones to put instructions online explaining how to rip the new DRM-FREE album without paying for it, just to help out the people who are too stupid to do even that.
Uh -- let the stupid people buy the album. That's how you support more DRM-free music.
I'm impressed that he lets you try the album before you buy it, and that it's in flash. Of course, nobody would ever download the file and convert it to an mpeg because that wouldn't be honest.
Meh, some obviously will. But what's the quality on that MP3? And of course the obvious realization: you can bet a lot of people in the music industry watch these experiments very carefully.
If more people just find a way to get the album without paying for it (because that's obviously easier without the DRM... though still not completely trivial for the average fan)...then they will be forced back into DRM-based approaches.
It's a money experiment. Dunno how they'll measure exactly... I suppose they can at least monitor in some way how widespread the album becomes on the various p2p networks & torrent trackers; if it explodes, you may not see this approach again.
The world population is increasing exponentially. Nothing increases exponentially in a limited environment, so the most likely scenario is that we will simply continue growing our consumption until we run out of the resources which allow the growth. oil, water, energy etc. Then the carrying capacity of the earth will be drastically reduced and with that goes the number of living things. In the final stages of growth humans will displace most other lifeforms which compete for resources.
No. Human beings are not yeast (nor are we reproducing exponentially, for that matter). This is a "slippery slope" kind of argument that's simply silly if you break it down.
Picture a world even halfway down the future path to disaster you're imagining. It's already hard to feed yourself and your spouse, because food is ridiculously expensive. Time to start a big family? Uh, no. There are also governmental controls if needed (google "one child policy").
There's also simple education and women's rights, which hopefully will continue to improve in the world. It's funny how when women are actually *allowed* to do something with their lives beyond just cranking out babies, many of them do... so much so that many European populations are in danger of collapse, for example. Google "italy low birth rate"... they're one of the worst off; even with immigration I believe their population is currently at negative growth, and birth rate is something like 1.2 babies per woman (pretty obviously not enough to maintain the population).
Well, an easter egg is a feature, and it's more or less guaranteed that the feature you code at the last second in great haste is the one that will contain a bug capable of making the whole damned thing unusable if the user performs the right (wrong) action.
It might turn out that the obscure key combination you chose for your easter egg happens to be *right* near a commonly used key combination in some other part of the app (which you didn't work on... so you won't know).
And when that bug from hell is finally tracked down, and the code was checked in by you, and you have to explain to your CEO that it was an *easter egg*....
On the other hand, the idea has appeal... we're stupid that way, aren't way? Assuming the product still has some solid testing ahead of it (that will protect you a bit, though of course they won't likely test your secret feature), make sure your easter egg is easily debugged and difficult to trigger, make sure its implementation doesn't involve changing any important or delicate code, and make sure it's easy to remove cleanly and simply (and if you find it's not going to be complete enough to be amusing in time, you can pull the plug easily).
Investing $40 per week for 40 years at 10% interest would result in nearly $1,000,000.
Where exactly can I deposit $40 and get a 10% return? Seriously, that would be fantastic. If you had a really good credit card, that would even make it worth it to take money off the *credit card* and invest it.
Come on now, talk real numbers. If you have debt at all (how many Americans have debt?) and your investment will pay lower interest than you pay on your debt, you cannot logically invest anything.
The key is to begin investing *early* and delaying gratification.
I absolutely agree with this; delaying gratification is the key to almost all of the good things in life. This is part of the "unfairness" aspect that I was getting at -- the "delayed gratification" requirements are enormously, impossibly different between children of different classes in America. The gap from the lowest to the highest is almost impossible to bridge. You can't earn enough to save anything on minimum wage jobs; higher education is quite expensive even with piecemeal financial aid programs and often unfeasible loans. So you have: * some people who are poor and not really trying to do anything different -- that's fine; I think they should have reliable access to health care and quality education (they don't currently) but they will stay poor. * some people who are constantly denying gratification but (particularly if they aren't over-average clever) don't get anywhere (this is the group I'm focusing on, and the next one) * some people who never have to deny themselves anything, because their excellent private education, money earning interest from the start, valuable business connections, etc. come as a birthright. And it takes actual work to throw away that free ride -- you have to be fairly actively stupid to burn through it.
I think it would be a disaster to "even the playing field" *completely* -- what's the point of working hard if it doesn't earn you anymore than the slob who just phones it in? Why work hard to give your children a better life than you had if you can't actually pass on anything to them? -- but the current situation in the US is not good.
There's an idea of fairness that is violated when the simple fact that you have worked hard, been thrifty and delayed gratification means that the government can mandate what you can and cannot do with the money you earned.
Those opportunities you mentioned "taking advantage of" are not free. If you want to drive on public roads, be protected by the police/fire dept/military, get a public education and govt loans for higher education, use *currency* and so on, you have to give at least some of your hard-earned money to the government.
Then it's a question of how much money, how you want them to use it, and *how* you will pay it. E.g., sales tax, income tax, estate tax, import tax, and so on (and it's worth some study to sort out how all of the different options affect different people, and how taxes shape behavior).
My mother and brother and I came to this country penniless in the 1960s. We accessed the opportunities that are available to everyone, worked hard, saved and sacrificed. My wife (who also came from a similar background) and I work a lot, save a lot and donate a lot. Even though we have the means to drive new cars and live in a big house, we drive older, less prestigious models and live in the same modest home we bought years ago. We have never asked, nor wanted anyone to "even the playing field" for us.
Kudos to you for not falling into the "beating the Joneses" race to the bigger house & newer car... which then require security systems ('cause the more stuff people collect, the more could be taken away...), expensive upkeep, and paranoia about the first scratch on the car, etc. etc..
But again, those "opportunities that are available to everyone" are not free,
I think a simpler solution would taxing the recipients, and using a calculation that will make sure the government isn't snatching away someone's college education, etc.. If the recipients already have a ton of money, they don't need a ton more.
I believe the current estate tax in the US won't touch anything under friggin' $2 million, anyway... and if you can't finish your education for that amount of money, you've got other problems. I personally think that floor could be lower, and/or the tax percentage could be much higher over that floor. (90% seems overkill, though).
Or have a short mace. I was taught in the SCA how to deliver a wrap-around blow with one while standing nose-to-nose with an opponent so that it catches him in the back of the head.
Except if he manages to duck or pull off to the side at the last second, you'll look really, really stupid...
There is more than one way to look at it. A few things: * What does "equal opportunity" mean? How hard should the government work to support it? * Do you think the money people earn should correspond with how hard they work and how intelligent they are? I.e., merit-based reward.
To answer a few things directly:
Contrary to popular belief, a great deal of the wealthy have gotten that way by saving money and taking advantage of the principle of compound interest.
That *is* popular belief: "it takes money to make money". If you have a lot of money already and aren't stupid, you pay clever financial advisers to make *more* money with it. The key here is *having* the money in the first place. If you don't have disposable income to invest, you won't get richer this way. If you gift this money to your offspring, they can invest it per your instructions, BTW.
In any event, I guess that I don't see why it matters to you, the government, or anyone else if I give my children $30,000 per year every year or just give them a lump sum when I die.
It forces a limit on the amount you can give them to something reasonable. You probably won't successfully transfer tens of millions of dollars this way. I believe the current estate tax in the US won't affect them anyway if your estate is worth less than $2 million.
Oftentimes one's offspring is not in the correct frame-of-mind to receive large amounts of money when they are still young, once again limiting the number of years to gift the money.
There are lots of options other than "your allowance today is 30K in small bills".
I can't see the advantage to that, other than it seems to satisfy some urge that people have to punish the people who have more than themselves.
1) There's an idea of fairness that is violated when the simple fact of your parentage means your life is utterly different; the idea of America as the land of rugged individualism and opportunity doesn't line up very well with the vast difference of opportunity available to two randomly selected infants. 2) It's not about punishing the "over-privileged" so the "under-privileged" can gloat; it's about trying to partially even the playing field.
If you find yourself in that group, it might interest you to know that households how have a total wealth of more 1 million dollars (about 7% of the population of the US) give about half of all of the money donated to charities.
That makes me wonder: what percentage of their disposable income (outside of basic living expenses) do people pay on average at different income levels? I.e, people in debt who still give to charity are spending 100% or more on charity. Obviously there's a range on charitable giving, and people who don't have much disposable income won't give much. How does that range match up with the enormous income gap?
It seems rather more impressive when someone actually sacrifices something significant for charitable reasons, as opposed to simply moving some money around ('cause there's still plenty left over for that 4th car they've had their eye on).
Right, and when 30-year old Mom and Dad are killed by a drunk driver while coming home from the annual Christmas party, of course the government should take 90% of the money that they have, instead of it going to fund their two kids' housing, care, food, education etc, just because they didn't have the foresight to know exactly when they would die so that they could give all their money away first. Dumkopf.
I'm not sure I'd argue for a 90% inheritance tax in the first place, but this isn't an argument against it. Laws are never as simple as "90%, any inheritance", obviously. There are exclusions, exceptions, varying rates, etc. etc. all to address issues like that.
That's why so many tax lawyers & accountants stay in business, in a way, but all of that complexity had *some* problem it was trying to fix at the outset.
Ah, sweet jebus, I got the most important one wrong. Okay; let's roll this whole sucker again for extra special bonus points:
You would of fixed it if you could of! But, I wouldn't loose to much sleep over it. Most people here don't know how its suppose to be written anyways, and the ones who do could care less.
You would of fixed it if you could of! But, I wouldn't loose any sleep over it. Most people here don't know how it's supposed to be written anyways, and the ones who do could care less.
When I went to college, I thought I might major in creative writing (I'd written some short stories and a bunch of poems, and enjoyed English classes) or maybe music (I played a couple of instruments and sang in the choir).
I settled on the music major, because I was still basically adrift as a sophomore... but then I ran across compsci, in an elective class, and found it intriguingly useful -- I don't think I'd had any exposure whatsoever to programming before that intro class. It caught my attention in a way that math & science never had, and I seemed to pick it up a lot faster than the other kids in the class. So I took a bunch of compsci classes in my last 2 years, dove into a few relatively ambitious solo projects, and now I've been a software developer for 10 years.
I'm glad I didn't go to a conservatory or something like that.... I figured out in the process of completing the music major (and doing an internship in a studio one summer) that I like my music better as a hobby.
The tough thing for high schoolers trying to choose a college, major, FUTURE, etc. is that they usually have no *clue* what they'd like to do in the real world, because they haven't had much contact with it.
The vast majority of science and math education for a high schooler is learning how to jump through mental hoops and regurgitate information to pass exams. There's a big gap between studying a subject in school and *using* the skills related to a subject in a job somewhere.
A lot of job satisfaction lies in working with people you respect, who respect you for playing an important role in fulfilling whatever goal the company has. The tasks you perform should also ideally fall into a comfort zone where you're using your talents without being in way over your head.
I tend to think most kids will do best with a broad education with as many internships, etc. as possible, so they can try out different kinds of work environments.
The highschooler in question might end up using math in her job -- if she's good at it, that part will go easily -- and may well be extremely interested if she's interested in the goal she's actually accomplishing. Why would she need to be interested in jumping through hoops?
If you're going to use the "wives submit to your husbands" line, I'll ask that you continue reading from there. The statement is given in the reverse as well. I don't see how anyone can make much of an issue that wives and husbands should submit to and serve one another in marriage.
That's simply wrong. There's no bible verse that says "husbands, submit to your wives", or that describes the husband and wife as equals.
Here's the quote you were talking about, for reference:
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. âoeTherefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.â This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
So, yeah -- wives must obey their husbands, and husbands should "nourish and cherish" their wives as they lead & command them. Sorry, but that's a far cry from the modern concept of equal partners in a marriage.
Seemed the logical next step. There's a whole marketplace out there looking for unethical developers, of course -- might as well get started out right!
Though who knows... it depends on the boss, but here's a closely-related approach that *could* make the point, depending on the boss, etc:
"So listen, boss -- if I implement this the way you suggested, I'd have to violate legal contracts with these various companies, which puts me personally at risk for legal trouble at the very least, if not losing my job and possibly ruining my reputation in the industry -- and my current salary doesn't cover that kind of risk. Which brings us into the world of under-the-table bribes and bonuses, and I'm quite sure none of us want to go *there*... so do you have a plan B?"
Your employer doesn't have the right to ask you to place yourself in legal jeopardy in this way, and if the sh1t hits the fan do you really think that someone that came up with this scheme will balk at placing all the blame on you.
Absolutely. That's why you should agree to do the work, but because of the increased risk to yourself, you should ask for a "little something extra" under the table, just between you and him. A wad of hundred dollar bills passed discretely in a handshake, for example. "I help you, boss, you help me?" is a good phrase to clue him in on the situation and what's required for the project to continue....or perhaps he may rethink how he wants his workplace to operate?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes that's the flaw with this "try before you buy" model:
(1) Under the old paradigm I had to buy the CD to discover I didn't like it. So record company gets + $12.
(2) Under the new paradigm the record company has a loss of 0.1 cent (approximate cost of bandwidth I used).
It seems like you're assuming that you'll buy one copy of every CD with good cover art (or by a name you recognize). You won't & don't, though -- if you can listen to album A before purchasing it, and you know you like it... vs. album B which you *might* like but can't preview... which will you buy?
That's the choice they're betting on. It's like buying clothes from catalogs -- you're much more likely to buy from the store (after trying it on) than the catalog, where it had better look pretty damned good before you'll lay out the money and take the risk.
Obviously buying clothes & digital music isn't a completely parallel experience -- but that's how this aspect works.
You can listen to the last Metallica album in whole, on their website (http://www.metallica.com/index.asp?item=601231). They also sell all their live shows as drm-free mp3...
I will readily confess I do not keep up with Metallica developments.
But that reinforces my point. Metallica got burned for screaming about things their paying fans were doing & taking an approach to threats to their income which alienated a lot of fans.
Now they're rethinking their approach from a marketing perspective.
I don't think either they or McCartney are "the good guys" or "the bad guys"... they're highly successful in their business, and these are calculated steps.
I highly doubt that either of them is going to intentionally do something that damages their money flow.
You don't honestly think Paul McCartney is bothered about getting free publicity on Slashdot?
I think you misunderstood me. It's EXACTLY what he wants. That's the whole point: it's a huge free ad, one of many.
"Win-win" from whose perspective?
If it makes money, more albums will be released DRM-free ('cause it works) and *we* the consumers won't have to be constantly pissed-off with horrible DRM that tries to screw with our computers and interferes with perfectly legal use.
If it doesn't make money, they blame it on the pirates... and they focus back on the DRM. We lose.
Paul McCartney was one of the biggest proponents of that attempt to get retroactive copyright extension of sound recordings a few years back. Maybe he's changed his attitude towards copyright since then.. or maybe he's just interested in making a buck (or a bob) any way he can.
Yeah, I don't think he's doing it because he's suddenly anti-copyright.
This is a particularly good time in the history of the recording industry to be one of the "good guys" who drops the DRM and gets press for doing it.
Notice the huge free ad he just got on Slashdot?
And think about it -- if you're choosing between paying for a Metallica vs. paying for this one, what goes through your head?
* I hate that @#$%in' DRM...
* Metallica! Those DRM-loving pricks. @#$% 'em, I'm just getting this one off the internets.
* McCartney! He removed the DRM... Maybe I shouldn't rip him off.
It's a marketing experiment. There'll probably be more freeloaders, since the people who *wanted* to get their music for free but couldn't figure it out will have an easier time of it. But if sales are boosted enough by the good press and goodwill, the experiment will have succeeded.
...if this album is ripped, lobbed on bit-torrent and limewire then Macca is unlikely to be out on the streets through lost revenue.
It's another test, in the eyes of the music industry & other artists. Naturally they're all watching to see how this goes.
And obviously everyone knows he's filthy rich, and doesn't need their money... so you won't have people buying the album (vs. snagging elsewhere for free) simply because they feel he needs the money. That could be a factor for less well-known artists.
So, yeah, let's see how the test goes. For all the people who argue that *this* is the more profitable way to release an album -- this is where we see if they're right, or if they're just BSing because defeating DRM is annoying.
I'm not saying this because I like DRM -- I just think it's funny how the *same* people who shout about how DRM will kill the music industry are also the first ones to put instructions online explaining how to rip the new DRM-FREE album without paying for it, just to help out the people who are too stupid to do even that.
Uh -- let the stupid people buy the album. That's how you support more DRM-free music.
I'm impressed that he lets you try the album before you buy it, and that it's in flash. Of course, nobody would ever download the file and convert it to an mpeg because that wouldn't be honest.
Meh, some obviously will. But what's the quality on that MP3? And of course the obvious realization: you can bet a lot of people in the music industry watch these experiments very carefully.
If more people just find a way to get the album without paying for it (because that's obviously easier without the DRM... though still not completely trivial for the average fan) ...then they will be forced back into DRM-based approaches.
It's a money experiment. Dunno how they'll measure exactly... I suppose they can at least monitor in some way how widespread the album becomes on the various p2p networks & torrent trackers; if it explodes, you may not see this approach again.
The world population is increasing exponentially. Nothing increases exponentially in a limited environment, so the most likely scenario is that we will simply continue growing our consumption until we run out of the resources which allow the growth. oil, water, energy etc. Then the carrying capacity of the earth will be drastically reduced and with that goes the number of living things. In the final stages of growth humans will displace most other lifeforms which compete for resources.
No. Human beings are not yeast (nor are we reproducing exponentially, for that matter). This is a "slippery slope" kind of argument that's simply silly if you break it down.
Picture a world even halfway down the future path to disaster you're imagining. It's already hard to feed yourself and your spouse, because food is ridiculously expensive. Time to start a big family? Uh, no. There are also governmental controls if needed (google "one child policy").
There's also simple education and women's rights, which hopefully will continue to improve in the world. It's funny how when women are actually *allowed* to do something with their lives beyond just cranking out babies, many of them do... so much so that many European populations are in danger of collapse, for example. Google "italy low birth rate"... they're one of the worst off; even with immigration I believe their population is currently at negative growth, and birth rate is something like 1.2 babies per woman (pretty obviously not enough to maintain the population).
Well, an easter egg is a feature, and it's more or less guaranteed that the feature you code at the last second in great haste is the one that will contain a bug capable of making the whole damned thing unusable if the user performs the right (wrong) action.
It might turn out that the obscure key combination you chose for your easter egg happens to be *right* near a commonly used key combination in some other part of the app (which you didn't work on... so you won't know).
And when that bug from hell is finally tracked down, and the code was checked in by you, and you have to explain to your CEO that it was an *easter egg*....
On the other hand, the idea has appeal... we're stupid that way, aren't way? Assuming the product still has some solid testing ahead of it (that will protect you a bit, though of course they won't likely test your secret feature), make sure your easter egg is easily debugged and difficult to trigger, make sure its implementation doesn't involve changing any important or delicate code, and make sure it's easy to remove cleanly and simply (and if you find it's not going to be complete enough to be amusing in time, you can pull the plug easily).
Have fun!
Investing $40 per week for 40 years at
10% interest would result in nearly $1,000,000.
Where exactly can I deposit $40 and get a 10% return? Seriously, that would be fantastic. If you had a really good credit card, that would even make it worth it to take money off the *credit card* and invest it.
Come on now, talk real numbers. If you have debt at all (how many Americans have debt?) and your investment will pay lower interest than you pay on your debt, you cannot logically invest anything.
The key is to begin investing *early* and delaying gratification.
I absolutely agree with this; delaying gratification is the key to almost all of the good things in life. This is part of the "unfairness" aspect that I was getting at -- the "delayed gratification" requirements are enormously, impossibly different between children of different classes in America. The gap from the lowest to the highest is almost impossible to bridge. You can't earn enough to save anything on minimum wage jobs; higher education is quite expensive even with piecemeal financial aid programs and often unfeasible loans. So you have:
* some people who are poor and not really trying to do anything different -- that's fine; I think they should have reliable access to health care and quality education (they don't currently) but they will stay poor.
* some people who are constantly denying gratification but (particularly if they aren't over-average clever) don't get anywhere (this is the group I'm focusing on, and the next one)
* some people who never have to deny themselves anything, because their excellent private education, money earning interest from the start, valuable business connections, etc. come as a birthright. And it takes actual work to throw away that free ride -- you have to be fairly actively stupid to burn through it.
I think it would be a disaster to "even the playing field" *completely* -- what's the point of working hard if it doesn't earn you anymore than the slob who just phones it in? Why work hard to give your children a better life than you had if you can't actually pass on anything to them? -- but the current situation in the US is not good.
There's an idea of fairness that is violated when the simple fact that you have
worked hard, been thrifty and delayed gratification means that the government
can mandate what you can and cannot do with the money you earned.
Those opportunities you mentioned "taking advantage of" are not free. If you want to drive on public roads, be protected by the police/fire dept/military, get a public education and govt loans for higher education, use *currency* and so on, you have to give at least some of your hard-earned money to the government.
Then it's a question of how much money, how you want them to use it, and *how* you will pay it. E.g., sales tax, income tax, estate tax, import tax, and so on (and it's worth some study to sort out how all of the different options affect different people, and how taxes shape behavior).
My mother and brother and I came to this country penniless in the 1960s. We accessed the opportunities that are available to everyone, worked hard, saved and sacrificed. My wife (who also came from a similar background) and I
work a lot, save a lot and donate a lot. Even though we have the means to drive new cars and live in a big house, we drive older, less prestigious models and live in the same modest home we bought years ago. We have never asked,
nor wanted anyone to "even the playing field" for us.
Kudos to you for not falling into the "beating the Joneses" race to the bigger house & newer car... which then require security systems ('cause the more stuff people collect, the more could be taken away...), expensive upkeep, and paranoia about the first scratch on the car, etc. etc..
But again, those "opportunities that are available to everyone" are not free,
I think a simpler solution would taxing the recipients, and using a calculation that will make sure the government isn't snatching away someone's college education, etc.. If the recipients already have a ton of money, they don't need a ton more.
I believe the current estate tax in the US won't touch anything under friggin' $2 million, anyway... and if you can't finish your education for that amount of money, you've got other problems. I personally think that floor could be lower, and/or the tax percentage could be much higher over that floor. (90% seems overkill, though).
Or have a short mace. I was taught in the SCA how to deliver a wrap-around blow with one while standing nose-to-nose with an opponent so that it catches him in the back of the head.
Except if he manages to duck or pull off to the side at the last second, you'll look really, really stupid...
There is more than one way to look at it.
A few things:
* What does "equal opportunity" mean? How hard should the government work to support it?
* Do you think the money people earn should correspond with how hard they work and how intelligent they are? I.e., merit-based reward.
To answer a few things directly:
Contrary to popular belief, a great deal of the wealthy have gotten that way by saving money and taking advantage of the principle of compound interest.
That *is* popular belief: "it takes money to make money". If you have a lot of money already and aren't stupid, you pay clever financial advisers to make *more* money with it. The key here is *having* the money in the first place. If you don't have disposable income to invest, you won't get richer this way. If you gift this money to your offspring, they can invest it per your instructions, BTW.
In any event, I guess that I don't see why it matters to you, the government, or
anyone else if I give my children $30,000 per year every year or just give them
a lump sum when I die.
It forces a limit on the amount you can give them to something reasonable. You probably won't successfully transfer tens of millions of dollars this way. I believe the current estate tax in the US won't affect them anyway if your estate is worth less than $2 million.
Oftentimes one's offspring is not in the correct frame-of-mind to receive large amounts of money when they are still young, once again limiting the number of years to gift the money.
There are lots of options other than "your allowance today is 30K in small bills".
I can't see the advantage to that, other than it seems to satisfy some urge that people have to punish the people who have more than themselves.
1) There's an idea of fairness that is violated when the simple fact of your parentage means your life is utterly different; the idea of America as the land of rugged individualism and opportunity doesn't line up very well with the vast difference of opportunity available to two randomly selected infants.
2) It's not about punishing the "over-privileged" so the "under-privileged" can gloat; it's about trying to partially even the playing field.
If you find yourself in that group, it might interest you to know that households how have a total wealth of more 1 million dollars (about 7% of the population of the US) give about half of all of the money donated to charities.
That makes me wonder: what percentage of their disposable income (outside of basic living expenses) do people pay on average at different income levels? I.e, people in debt who still give to charity are spending 100% or more on charity. Obviously there's a range on charitable giving, and people who don't have much disposable income won't give much. How does that range match up with the enormous income gap?
It seems rather more impressive when someone actually sacrifices something significant for charitable reasons, as opposed to simply moving some money around ('cause there's still plenty left over for that 4th car they've had their eye on).
Right, and when 30-year old Mom and Dad are killed by a drunk driver while coming home from the annual Christmas party, of course the government should take 90% of the money that they have, instead of it going to fund their two kids' housing, care, food, education etc, just because they didn't have the foresight to know exactly when they would die so that they could give all their money away first. Dumkopf.
I'm not sure I'd argue for a 90% inheritance tax in the first place, but this isn't an argument against it. Laws are never as simple as "90%, any inheritance", obviously. There are exclusions, exceptions, varying rates, etc. etc. all to address issues like that.
That's why so many tax lawyers & accountants stay in business, in a way, but all of that complexity had *some* problem it was trying to fix at the outset.
Ah, sweet jebus, I got the most important one wrong. Okay; let's roll this whole sucker again for extra special bonus points:
Ah... glistening and perfect.
Come on now; you just make yourself look foolish if you see only two errors in that entire post. I promise you, there are more than half a dozen.
And now that I review it, I wish I'd written "I wouldn't loose to much sleep over it".... That's another favorite that deserved to be included.
You would of fixed it if you could of! But, I wouldn't loose any sleep over it. Most people here don't know how it's supposed to be written anyways, and the ones who do could care less.
[heh; take that]
I recalled seeing this article at least a few years back, so I clicked the "citation" button on the site to check:
Ah.
When I went to college, I thought I might major in creative writing (I'd written some short stories and a bunch of poems, and enjoyed English classes) or maybe music (I played a couple of instruments and sang in the choir).
I settled on the music major, because I was still basically adrift as a sophomore... but then I ran across compsci, in an elective class, and found it intriguingly useful -- I don't think I'd had any exposure whatsoever to programming before that intro class. It caught my attention in a way that math & science never had, and I seemed to pick it up a lot faster than the other kids in the class. So I took a bunch of compsci classes in my last 2 years, dove into a few relatively ambitious solo projects, and now I've been a software developer for 10 years.
I'm glad I didn't go to a conservatory or something like that.... I figured out in the process of completing the music major (and doing an internship in a studio one summer) that I like my music better as a hobby.
The tough thing for high schoolers trying to choose a college, major, FUTURE, etc. is that they usually have no *clue* what they'd like to do in the real world, because they haven't had much contact with it.
The vast majority of science and math education for a high schooler is learning how to jump through mental hoops and regurgitate information to pass exams. There's a big gap between studying a subject in school and *using* the skills related to a subject in a job somewhere.
A lot of job satisfaction lies in working with people you respect, who respect you for playing an important role in fulfilling whatever goal the company has. The tasks you perform should also ideally fall into a comfort zone where you're using your talents without being in way over your head.
I tend to think most kids will do best with a broad education with as many internships, etc. as possible, so they can try out different kinds of work environments.
The highschooler in question might end up using math in her job -- if she's good at it, that part will go easily -- and may well be extremely interested if she's interested in the goal she's actually accomplishing. Why would she need to be interested in jumping through hoops?
Isn't that just "mind over mind"?
If you're going to use the "wives submit to your husbands" line, I'll ask that you continue reading from there. The statement is given in the reverse as well. I don't see how anyone can make much of an issue that wives and husbands should submit to and serve one another in marriage.
That's simply wrong. There's no bible verse that says "husbands, submit to your wives", or that describes the husband and wife as equals.
Here's the quote you were talking about, for reference:
So, yeah -- wives must obey their husbands, and husbands should "nourish and cherish" their wives as they lead & command them. Sorry, but that's a far cry from the modern concept of equal partners in a marriage.
Seemed the logical next step. There's a whole marketplace out there looking for unethical developers, of course -- might as well get started out right!
The suggestion is, er, not completely serious.
Though who knows... it depends on the boss, but here's a closely-related approach that *could* make the point, depending on the boss, etc:
"So listen, boss -- if I implement this the way you suggested, I'd have to violate legal contracts with these various companies, which puts me personally at risk for legal trouble at the very least, if not losing my job and possibly ruining my reputation in the industry -- and my current salary doesn't cover that kind of risk. Which brings us into the world of under-the-table bribes and bonuses, and I'm quite sure none of us want to go *there*... so do you have a plan B?"
Your employer doesn't have the right to ask you to place yourself in legal jeopardy in this way, and if the sh1t hits the fan do you really think that someone that came up with this scheme will balk at placing all the blame on you.
Absolutely. That's why you should agree to do the work, but because of the increased risk to yourself, you should ask for a "little something extra" under the table, just between you and him. A wad of hundred dollar bills passed discretely in a handshake, for example. "I help you, boss, you help me?" is a good phrase to clue him in on the situation and what's required for the project to continue. ...or perhaps he may rethink how he wants his workplace to operate?