More likely the debt will be $1.2 million lower. Big tax cuts tend to have the effect of increasing actual money coming into the treasury. It worked under JFK and Reagan. The fact that it works is the reason the Democrats oppose it.
Maybe. But people said that tax increases would decrease our revenue when Clinton proposed them. Our understanding of the economics of deficits is obviously a little... incomplete.
Of course, you wouldn't get that from the sort of statement you just made. Or from the kind of things that are coming out of the White House. No, sir. Nothing but certainty. And lots of it. Enough to justify some of the largest tax cuts in history.
Quite frankly it sounds a lot like gambling. And given that our tax rates have been so slashed that even a huge boom wouldn't balance the budget, it sounds like we're betting against the house.
Tax cuts aren't spending. Missile Defense? Hard to argue with this one, defense is one of the few legitimate things the feds are supposed to spend money on.
Missile defense != defense. Missile defense is one of the worst examples of Federal money wastage, next to Reagan's SDI. Not only is the technology considered easily defeated, none of the tests having been completely successful, but the budget for NMD is almost completely undocumented. We're essentially handing over huge sums of money to the Defense Department and its contractors, without asking exactly how it's being spent.
I guess that doesn't trouble you, though, because it's "defense". And "defense" is one of the "few legitimate things" that our government can spend money on with absolutely no oversight. Correct?
Tax cuts aren't spending
I never said it was. All I did was miss a comma. George Bush has no problem spending money on pork programs, or with issuing massive tax cuts.
But even this point is silly. George Bush and Congress are spending, and the President isn't using one iota of his political power to get it under control. Instead of reducing expenditures, he's using his approval ratings to reduce our tax income. The net effect is a huge deficit, with additional deficits stretching away as far as the eye can see.
Of course, this is good economic policy, right? We're going to see a huge economic recovery that will bring the budget back into wack, correct?
Unfortunately, even if we had another 1990s-style boom, we probably stillcouldn't balance the budget now. Why? Mostly because tax rates have been reduced so much. In order to see the President's prediction of tax cuts->recovery->balanced budget come true, we'd need to see an economic boom like none in the history of the United States. And it would apparently have to last forever, otherwise we would quickly undo any surpluses produced.
Nice alternate history. Clinton, before the Republicans came along, passed wildly unbalanced defecit spending budgets. After 1984, the red ink started flow slower as the Newties balked Clinton's budgets. Clinton, of course, opposed the balanced budget amendment.
You're right. It was a joint effort. Unfortunately, it was a joint effort that never would have been possible without a Democrat leading the way with a set of cuts, tax increases and debt paydowns that began the reduction which ultimately resulted in a balanced budget.
The Republicans opposed all of those actions. Told the world that it would devastate the economy. And were wrong.
As for the balanced budget amendment, what ever happened to it? The only amendment proposals I see coming out of the hill are self-serving "foreigners can be president" or "gays can't marry" twaddle. With the House, Senate and so many state governors, you'd think the BBA would be right at the top of the Republican agenda. Hell, they could almost certainly garner Democratic support.
Or could it be that the BBA was only a political fiction with which to bludgeon the Democrats? Ultimately you have to believe your eyes and not your ideology, and my eyes tell me that Republicans aren't so opposed to deficits-- as long as they have a few semi-reasonable-sounding excuses.
No, it is not. Enact Bush's full tax cuts, and give him the line-item veto, and the debt will start to go down.
Yeah, sure. Just like he's kept control of government spending. For god's sake, the guy can't even get control of Congressional pork spending shen with his own party controlling Congress. Do you really think he gives a crap about controlling Congressional spending? Of course not. He needs his loyal allies happy so he can periodically ask them for favors, like tax cuts or support for the war in Iraq.
What are you saying? Do you want cut Social Security? What happened to the fiction that it was a "trust fund"? Time to rip a page out of the Democrat play book?
I want Social Security funds placed into a trust fund, instead of "borrowed" by so-called "fiscal conservatives" like George W. Bush. I want the burden of paying Social Security distributed across all income brackets, because Social Security isn't a retirement program, it's a social program that benefits us all by improving national health and reducing crime.
You are forgetting to put in the family-related deductions that the average $70,000 gets that impacts little on the rich guy.
My taxable amount was a bit more than that last year and I didn't collect a dime in "family related deductions". And like I said, we're not factoring in the sort of deductions that the very wealthy can take advantage of that, unfortunately, most of us cannot (and even if we could, the accounting fees alone would equal a significant percentage of our income.) Nor are we considering consumption taxes, fees or state taxes, all of which are regressive.
And even if we did worry about it, we'd still be ignoring the fact that the impact of the taxes is much greater on the middle-class than on the wealthy. Weight the taxes too much on the middle class and working class, and you greatly harm their ability to educate their children and move upward. Do the same to the wealthy, and the actual effect is minimal.
Ever see how rich Corazine is?
Yeah, and he'll be a $1 million dollars better off next year thanks to Bush's tax cuts. Our Federal deficit will, in turn, by $1 million higher. But at least he was honest enough to admit that $1 million isn't a matter of life or death when you're that wealthy; he voted against the cuts.
The wealthy make themselves wealthier through their own work and investment.
Some of them do. And this sort of growth is fantastic. Unfortunately, some people make themselves wealthier by exploiting inefficiencies in our system, at the expense of everyone else. And surprisingly, sometimes hard work just doesn't make you wealthy, unless you're fortunate enough to have familial/racial/class advantages... or politicians protecting you.
It certainly is not fair in comparison to a much lower, fairer flat tax
I'm willing to experiment with a flat tax. I'm just not willing to do it here, until someone can demonstrate that it is actually possible to run a society with one... Without starving the poor, or allowing moneyed interests to simply buy more handouts and thus produce a regressive tax code. Or, as seems likely, squashing consumer spending like a bug.
Why don't you flat taxers go and do this basic research somewhere, and if you're successful we'll all talk about betting the US's future on it.
In fact, a recent study showed that on average, Republican Senators command several times as much pork as their Democrat brethren. This is a reversal from the days of Democratic Congress, but it's not just a change of party, but an enormous change of degree. The amounts are starggering. How does this happen to such a viruous party? Because they control the House and Senate, of course. But that's not the only reason.
See, since even before our little tragedy in 2001, George Bush has not seen fit to keep his promise to avoid massive government deficits. September 11th, the bad economy, these are all excuses. Naturally, they haven't stopped him from spending on things near and dear to his heart, like Missile Defense or issuing massive tax cuts.
But what most people don't realize is that these programs have a price. Congresscritters, in this case, particularly Republican Congresscritters, who chafed under Clinton-- a Democrat who actually dared Congress into balancing the budget-- have found that they can now use that excuse to their heart's content. All of the taps are open, and without a pesky balanced budget to guilt them into fiscal responsibility, they can spend, spend, spend. On garbage.
Even better, with Bush periodically coming to Congress to ask some huge favor, like support for the war in Iraq, or his tax cuts, or Missile Defense, the Republicans can get a lot of quid pro quo fom the White House. It's a neat little deal. Essentially, Bush will talk tough about government spending, but he won't actually do anything to reign it in (at least not when it comes to his loyal Republican senators.)
So we all pay the price for this foolishness. And still, many people are so completely out of their minds that they still try to blame the Democrats as though this were 1985 and Madonna was in style. Get over it and be a goddamn patriot. Give a shit about your country.
Do the math, buddy
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Who is not paying their share? Certainly not any taxpayer in the United States
I don't know where you've been, but we currently have a $450bn projected deficit for the year 2003, and that number may grow to $500bn by the end of the year. This number, along with the trillions of debt that Reagan and Bush created, are essentially a loan taken out in your name, and in the name of every taxpayer in the USA.
After the Bush tax cut, the rich still pay a much higher percentage and actual amount than the non-rich.
Ah yes. Because you're one of the millions of people who don't actually look at your paycheck before you cash it. Maybe I can help you, by pointing out the 7.5% Social Security tax that the government withdraws from your check, along with the additional 7.5% that the government demands from your employer (money that you could be getting paid, otherwise.) And even though this isn't "income tax", it's being used to fund the war in Iraq, Congressional Pork, and who knows what else. If it looks like a tax, smells like a tax... Then it's a tax.
But the great thing about Social Security tax is that you only pay that 15% on the first $88,000 of your income. So under Bush's new tax cuts someone who declares $70,000 of income pays 35.03% of their income to the Federal Government, while someone who makes $1,000,000 pays only 33.81%. So much for fair.
And that's without any fancy deductions, which the wealthier earner will almost certainly be better able to take advantage of. Ask George Bush, who only paid 29% in 1999, on $900,000 worth of income. It's without counting the dividend and capital gains tax cuts which are likely to disproportionately benefit the wealthier person (I don't ever make more than a few hundred per year in dividends.)
Basically, anyone who believes this shit is pulling out their wallet and handing it over to someone who makes more than 10 times what they do. They're doing this, while our budget bleeds, because they think it's "fair"-- though they obviously haven't done the math. They're doing this because they feel that making the wealthy wealthier will somehow help our economy, when the problem currently on the demand side, eg it's people like the middle class and working class that we need to have extra cash to burn.
And somehow, the Republican Party is able to raise ever larger amounts of money. Hmm. I wonder where it's coming from. Basically, if you believe any of this is right, just or fair, then you're a sucker.
Lest we forget, it is actually the Democratic Party that is more in the pocket of Hollywood
Yes and no. You'll note that in the recent FCC decision that sought to allow expanded ownership of TV stations, it was the Democrats who voted No.
You'll notice that not a single Republican voted against the DMCA, and precious view against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
I believe the Democrats have advanced some corrupt decisions regarding Copyright law, and they may not be entirely trustworthy on other issues having to do with the media. However, I see with my own two eyes that the current Republican President and Congress are actively trying to tear apart the last regulations that keep the media diverse and free.
Furthermore, it's hard to ignore the present makeup of our government. When a guy like Searls tears into Conservatives, he's simply being realistic. These are the people running the show right now, and whatever happens has to be explained in the context of their ideology.
Equal criticism
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Senator Hollings is a Democrat. DMCA was signed by a Democrat into law. Mary Bono may be a Republican but only in name.
Searls seemed quite honest in his article that Democrats are to blame for creating the sick regulatory environment that brought about this mess.
His point, however, has to do with the here-and-now of a Republican controlled government. What he's saying is that in trying to "dismantle" media regulation in an inept fashion *, Republicans are only allowing its unhealthy spawn to metastasize.
* Though I would suggest that big-money campaign contributions have as much to do with the flawed deregulation plan as ineptitude.
I think that coveting other people's money is what is greedy.
Greedy is being unwilling to pay your share, while voting for politicians who are spending more than this country can afford.
Greedy is lobbying for a tax cut on your multi-million dollar income and trust fund dividends at the expense of hard-working people who struggle to make ends meet.
Does this include all Republicans? Of course not. Just the ones who actually influence government policy-- and they pay for this privilege by buying the TV commercials and funding the "think tanks" that do so much to get your vote.
it's no use building advanced security features into an OS, because joe public won't use them, or just login as admin/root to do everything:/
As others have pointed out, people use Admin not just because it's easier, but because so many windows apps require Admin access.
Give people the encouragement to use other password-- like, say, an enormous, annoying Flash warning that pops up whenever they log in as Admin, and they'll use their own usernames.
It's great that all of these people are coming out with new Micropayment "technology", but let's face it. The problem has never been the technology, it's simply one of marketing.
Until you can convince consumers and possibly their service providers to accept micropayments, you might as well employ trained chimpanzees to do the actual processing.
They obviously believe that they can defeat the GPL in court.
I doubt that victory in court is part of their plan. SCO believes that IBM or some other company will step in and buy them out, rather than having to endure the multi-year legal war that threatens to ensue.
The GPL battle is only one front in that war. Should IBM choose to take this to court, they will almost certainly break out their patent arsenal, which will add years and millions of dollars to the process. SCO and its newfound stockholders are hoping to cut a deal and make some money from this turkey.
The Honda Element has an AUX IN jack. What's so strange is that this is actually being advertised as a major "feature" of the car.
Think about how strange that sales pitch must sound. Anti-lock brakes, moonroof, airbags, of yeah, and a 25 cent piece of hardware on the stereo that lets you use your MP3 player.
I don't recall ever hearing anyone actually say "all government regulations are bad for you". However, I do think it's pretty obvious that we've tipped far to the side of too many reg's. Very much too far.
Perhaps you're right. The problem occurs, however, when people begin to generalize about regulations, as though they're some interchangable irritant to society. From this exasperated point of view, simply throwing any damned regulation out appears as though it will somehow make their lives better.
The unfortunate truth, however, is that some regulations exist for very good reasons; they protect you from people who would benefit immensely at your expense. These include the folks who want to save a few bucks by dumping hazardous waste into your drinking water, and the folks who want to increase their profit margins (and political clout) by buying up every media outlet in the country.
Sadly, it's the latter types of deregulation campaign that get the big-money support and airplay, while the regulations that really do inconvenience us citizens mysteriously fail to garner much serious attention. Hence millions of Americans mistakenly thinking that by eliminating some very sensible protections, they're fighting the good fight... when what they're actually doing is opening themselves up to people (corporations) who have no interest in anything other than their bottom line.
This actually seems like a very slight devolving of federal power, a minute reduction in overall regulation. Which is always a good thing. Why not try it, see what happens. It's not as if anything they allow now can't be changed later, if it turns out badly!
No, it is sometimes a terrible thing. We've been down this road before. Massive monopolies are bad. Massive monopolies that control the media and thus the public's perception are very bad. It's even led us to war, at least once.
And once you let companies accumulate massive numbers of TV stations, it's very difficult to go back. You have to undertake draconian measures to force corporations to sell off vast numbers of their stations. This is politically almost impossible to acheive, and very harmful for the corporations and their stockholders.
Some people have bought into the "all government regulations are bad for you" rhetoric, which though it has a kernel of truth is basically the biggest untruth ever foisted upon the American people.
It amazes me. After the 2000 elections, every expert in the world pretty much agreed that electronic voting technology should not be deployed unless safeguards were added, and they went to great lengths to enumerate those safeguards.
Three years later, and it seems that equipment manufacturers have managed to blithely ignore every bit of it. And apparently, so have the people purchasing the stuff.
Actually, the GPL only obligates Linksys to mail out a copy of the code on written request. Technically, that's the least they could have done.
I agree that we shouldn't be lauding them for merely deciding to obey the law. But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt this time, and assume that it was an oversight on their part. A big, stinky oversight.
For the sake of discussion, let's assume the case has merit. The Linux community will rewrite the improperly used code, redesigning it if need be, craft tools to migrate everyone over to it, and go on.
Well, SCO is claiming that even a re-written Linux that removes the offending code will still be a derivative work, because it's based off of their copyrights. If their case has that much merit (and hopefully no judge agrees with this), then it's not simply a matter or rewriting the improperly used code.
On the other hand, if SCO loses, it will send a strong message to the world: "Stay away from anything GPL, or you'll find your proprietary code taken away from you."
And if SCO wins, it'll send a message to the world that you can't trust any GPLed product, because a contributor might suddenly determine that, oops, some of the code in it was "unintentionally" released-- and therefore, you never really had a license to use/distribute it in the first place.
Of course, you really have to break this case into four separate decisions:
1) Did IBM steal proprietary code from SCO in violation of an NDA, and include that code in their Linux release?
2) Does SCO even own the copyrights to that code, or do they still belong to Novell, in which case the determination in (1) may or may not be important.
3) Assuming (1) and (2) break in favor of SCO, does SCO have the right to sue Linux end-users for posessing/distributing Linux code, even if the end-users didn't know they were breaking the law? This turns on...
4) Does SCO's distributing their own version of Linux (under the GPL) invalidate any copyright claims they might have made on code that was (without their knowledge) included in the Linux codebase? In other words, if you steal my code and hide it in a corner of the Linux kernel, can I legally be deprived of my rights to it just because I distributed a copy of Linux?
Quite frankly, the best outcome is for SCO just to drop this nonsense.
International inbalance in supply and demand is mostly solved through exchange rate fluctuations. When jobs and investment are move out of the US, the American exchange rate is drops.
Problem is, many countries now peg their currencies to the dollar. This includes China, as well as a number of other export/labor-export nations. So when the US dollar drops in value, we don't get a damn bit of help when it comes to exports or salaries.
Of course, if the US dollar really goes into free-fall, those nations might de-couple their currencies and go with something more reliable, like the Euro. Of course, there will be major economic consequences for the US should such a currency crash occur; consequences that could more than wipe out any advantage we get. Think about our government deficit for a second when you contemplate this.
I've noticed that lots of people who were highly paid during the dotcom boom are not recovering well, despite the existence of jobs
This isn't just about dot-commers. They can generally land on their feet, or at least survive-- frequently they don't have families. The problem I've seen is that 50 yr. old, experienced engineers are being laid off left and right.
I don't have to publish something for it to be copyrighted. Say I write a short story that I intend only for my children's enjoyment. I have the right to distribute it only to my children. I shouldn't have to 'publish' it to have that right.
Under the proposed system, all you would have to do is prove that you wrote it first, and then the other person's registration would be invalid (and fraudulent.)
How is this any different from the way the current system works? If AOL claims that it has a copyright on one of my writings, my only option is to prove (to a judge) that I wrote it first. The problem with the current system is that in order to resolve this dispute I have to hire a lawyer and sue in open court. A functional copyright office would at least provide a first-level administrative solution that would be a lot cheaper and easier than having to take every damned thing to court.
You apparently like solutions where there's a big complicated bureacracy involved in registering and enforcing people's rights.
You apparently like solutions where your ass can get sued for millions of dollars and there ain't a damned way to know you're violating someone's copyright. Furthermore, you appear to like solutions where vast numbers of copyrights disappear into copyright limbo-- ie, still copyrighted, but nobody knows by whom or how to contact them.
In any case, I'm content with a comrpomise where copyrights are granted automatically, but you have to register them after a period of years, or when you transfer them to another owner. Just like a car, a house, or any other major piece of "property" under our legal system (and yes, I know that copyrights aren't really property, but they still involve a lot of the same major financial and legal ownership issues.)
This would save us millions of dollars in court costs, not to mention unlocking huge amounts of rotting IP for digitization, without actually compromising anyone's rights compared to the current system.
If everything copyrighted had to be registered with the copyright office, it would represent a huge rights-grab by whatever corporate/government interest set up a systematic method of claiming all the everything that we all produce.
Nonsense. If you could demonstrate that you published something before another person, it wouldn't matter a damn that they registered the copyright first. Their copyright would be invalid-- and ideally there would be penalties for such false representation.
I like the solution where extensions and transfers have to be registered.
Require that everyone file for copyright status for everything they create. Personally, I'd rather not file for copyright status on every post I make to a webboard (technically copyrighted, not that I care), every bit of code I create for my company (yeah, they'd be doing the filing, but you think that would exempt me from filling out the paperwork?), any code I put under license (be it GPL, LGPL, BSD, MIT, or anything but unfettered public domain status), or anything else. It'd be utterly absurd.
Actually, I think it'd be pretty reasonable. Copyrights should be granted automatically on creation, but registration should be required after a) some specified period of time, or b) on transferring the copyright to a new copyright holder.
I don't think either of those requirements would prove fatal for Open Source, or even harm your claims on your message-board postings. They would damn well solve a lot of the problems with dead copyrights and crap like this Novell/SCO dispute.
And as for the Berne Convention, while... I think these international copyright conventions are a major part of the problem with US copyright law today. Both the courts and Congress are willing to consider international copyright "harmony" over what's best for the country, or even what's written in the Constitution.
Idiots at Novell
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What kind of idiots are running Novell? If I were a shareholder, I'd be damn concerned that company management doesn't even know what IP belongs to it, and that it's willing to give away a huge number of copyrights and not even keep a copy of the damned agreement. And for SCO's part, not getting the copyrights properly registered sounds like a pretty boneheaded maneuver, if they really did buy that IP. Watch both companies wind up in court over this.
Of course, this is also a problem with US copyright law. Copyrights are so nebulous and easily transferred that it's almost impossible for end-users to keep track of whose IP they may be using. Registration with the US copyright office should be a requirement, not an option.
I know this is Slashdot but the fact that OSS may have to go through a regular selection process instead of being mandated as defacto standard, to the detriment of all others is proper procedure in You'd better tell that to the Navy.
In any case, I find it hard to believe that any relatively modern MS product can be reliably "certified" as fulfilling any rigorous set of security guidelines. Especially as I see at least one "critical security update" every week on my Win2k box. How much testing does every MS product go through before being deployed? How about every patch or service pack?
On the flipside, forcing OSS to jump through these hoops will result in a stronger, more competitive product. Why should you trust essentially unverifiable MS software when you have a rigorously tested and code-audited product. Sure, OSS will probably have to go through a lot more certification, but they'll benefit from it.
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Maybe. But people said that tax increases would decrease our revenue when Clinton proposed them. Our understanding of the economics of deficits is obviously a little... incomplete.
Of course, you wouldn't get that from the sort of statement you just made. Or from the kind of things that are coming out of the White House. No, sir. Nothing but certainty. And lots of it. Enough to justify some of the largest tax cuts in history.
Quite frankly it sounds a lot like gambling. And given that our tax rates have been so slashed that even a huge boom wouldn't balance the budget, it sounds like we're betting against the house.
Missile defense != defense. Missile defense is one of the worst examples of Federal money wastage, next to Reagan's SDI. Not only is the technology considered easily defeated, none of the tests having been completely successful, but the budget for NMD is almost completely undocumented. We're essentially handing over huge sums of money to the Defense Department and its contractors, without asking exactly how it's being spent.
I guess that doesn't trouble you, though, because it's "defense". And "defense" is one of the "few legitimate things" that our government can spend money on with absolutely no oversight. Correct?
Tax cuts aren't spending
I never said it was. All I did was miss a comma. George Bush has no problem spending money on pork programs, or with issuing massive tax cuts.
But even this point is silly. George Bush and Congress are spending, and the President isn't using one iota of his political power to get it under control. Instead of reducing expenditures, he's using his approval ratings to reduce our tax income. The net effect is a huge deficit, with additional deficits stretching away as far as the eye can see.
Of course, this is good economic policy, right? We're going to see a huge economic recovery that will bring the budget back into wack, correct?
Unfortunately, even if we had another 1990s-style boom, we probably still couldn't balance the budget now. Why? Mostly because tax rates have been reduced so much. In order to see the President's prediction of tax cuts->recovery->balanced budget come true, we'd need to see an economic boom like none in the history of the United States. And it would apparently have to last forever, otherwise we would quickly undo any surpluses produced.
Nice alternate history. Clinton, before the Republicans came along, passed wildly unbalanced defecit spending budgets. After 1984, the red ink started flow slower as the Newties balked Clinton's budgets. Clinton, of course, opposed the balanced budget amendment.
You're right. It was a joint effort. Unfortunately, it was a joint effort that never would have been possible without a Democrat leading the way with a set of cuts, tax increases and debt paydowns that began the reduction which ultimately resulted in a balanced budget.
The Republicans opposed all of those actions. Told the world that it would devastate the economy. And were wrong.
As for the balanced budget amendment, what ever happened to it? The only amendment proposals I see coming out of the hill are self-serving "foreigners can be president" or "gays can't marry" twaddle. With the House, Senate and so many state governors, you'd think the BBA would be right at the top of the Republican agenda. Hell, they could almost certainly garner Democratic support.
Or could it be that the BBA was only a political fiction with which to bludgeon the Democrats? Ultimately you have to believe your eyes and not your ideology, and my eyes tell me that Republicans aren't so opposed to deficits-- as long as they have a few semi-reasonable-sounding excuses.
Yeah, sure. Just like he's kept control of government spending. For god's sake, the guy can't even get control of Congressional pork spending shen with his own party controlling Congress. Do you really think he gives a crap about controlling Congressional spending? Of course not. He needs his loyal allies happy so he can periodically ask them for favors, like tax cuts or support for the war in Iraq.
What are you saying? Do you want cut Social Security? What happened to the fiction that it was a "trust fund"? Time to rip a page out of the Democrat play book?
I want Social Security funds placed into a trust fund, instead of "borrowed" by so-called "fiscal conservatives" like George W. Bush. I want the burden of paying Social Security distributed across all income brackets, because Social Security isn't a retirement program, it's a social program that benefits us all by improving national health and reducing crime.
You are forgetting to put in the family-related deductions that the average $70,000 gets that impacts little on the rich guy.
My taxable amount was a bit more than that last year and I didn't collect a dime in "family related deductions". And like I said, we're not factoring in the sort of deductions that the very wealthy can take advantage of that, unfortunately, most of us cannot (and even if we could, the accounting fees alone would equal a significant percentage of our income.) Nor are we considering consumption taxes, fees or state taxes, all of which are regressive.
And even if we did worry about it, we'd still be ignoring the fact that the impact of the taxes is much greater on the middle-class than on the wealthy. Weight the taxes too much on the middle class and working class, and you greatly harm their ability to educate their children and move upward. Do the same to the wealthy, and the actual effect is minimal.
Ever see how rich Corazine is?
Yeah, and he'll be a $1 million dollars better off next year thanks to Bush's tax cuts. Our Federal deficit will, in turn, by $1 million higher. But at least he was honest enough to admit that $1 million isn't a matter of life or death when you're that wealthy; he voted against the cuts.
The wealthy make themselves wealthier through their own work and investment.
Some of them do. And this sort of growth is fantastic. Unfortunately, some people make themselves wealthier by exploiting inefficiencies in our system, at the expense of everyone else. And surprisingly, sometimes hard work just doesn't make you wealthy, unless you're fortunate enough to have familial/racial/class advantages... or politicians protecting you.
It certainly is not fair in comparison to a much lower, fairer flat tax
I'm willing to experiment with a flat tax. I'm just not willing to do it here, until someone can demonstrate that it is actually possible to run a society with one... Without starving the poor, or allowing moneyed interests to simply buy more handouts and thus produce a regressive tax code. Or, as seems likely, squashing consumer spending like a bug.
Why don't you flat taxers go and do this basic research somewhere, and if you're successful we'll all talk about betting the US's future on it.
In our reality, the share of Congressional pork has swung wildly towards the Republican side:
Fiscal conservatives grab for pork projects behind scenes
Democrat pork gets the chop
In fact, a recent study showed that on average, Republican Senators command several times as much pork as their Democrat brethren. This is a reversal from the days of Democratic Congress, but it's not just a change of party, but an enormous change of degree. The amounts are starggering. How does this happen to such a viruous party? Because they control the House and Senate, of course. But that's not the only reason.
See, since even before our little tragedy in 2001, George Bush has not seen fit to keep his promise to avoid massive government deficits. September 11th, the bad economy, these are all excuses. Naturally, they haven't stopped him from spending on things near and dear to his heart, like Missile Defense or issuing massive tax cuts.
But what most people don't realize is that these programs have a price. Congresscritters, in this case, particularly Republican Congresscritters, who chafed under Clinton-- a Democrat who actually dared Congress into balancing the budget-- have found that they can now use that excuse to their heart's content. All of the taps are open, and without a pesky balanced budget to guilt them into fiscal responsibility, they can spend, spend, spend. On garbage.
Even better, with Bush periodically coming to Congress to ask some huge favor, like support for the war in Iraq, or his tax cuts, or Missile Defense, the Republicans can get a lot of quid pro quo fom the White House. It's a neat little deal. Essentially, Bush will talk tough about government spending, but he won't actually do anything to reign it in (at least not when it comes to his loyal Republican senators.)
So we all pay the price for this foolishness. And still, many people are so completely out of their minds that they still try to blame the Democrats as though this were 1985 and Madonna was in style. Get over it and be a goddamn patriot. Give a shit about your country.
I don't know where you've been, but we currently have a $450bn projected deficit for the year 2003, and that number may grow to $500bn by the end of the year. This number, along with the trillions of debt that Reagan and Bush created, are essentially a loan taken out in your name, and in the name of every taxpayer in the USA.
After the Bush tax cut, the rich still pay a much higher percentage and actual amount than the non-rich.
Ah yes. Because you're one of the millions of people who don't actually look at your paycheck before you cash it. Maybe I can help you, by pointing out the 7.5% Social Security tax that the government withdraws from your check, along with the additional 7.5% that the government demands from your employer (money that you could be getting paid, otherwise.) And even though this isn't "income tax", it's being used to fund the war in Iraq, Congressional Pork, and who knows what else. If it looks like a tax, smells like a tax... Then it's a tax.
But the great thing about Social Security tax is that you only pay that 15% on the first $88,000 of your income. So under Bush's new tax cuts someone who declares $70,000 of income pays 35.03% of their income to the Federal Government, while someone who makes $1,000,000 pays only 33.81%. So much for fair.
And that's without any fancy deductions, which the wealthier earner will almost certainly be better able to take advantage of. Ask George Bush, who only paid 29% in 1999, on $900,000 worth of income. It's without counting the dividend and capital gains tax cuts which are likely to disproportionately benefit the wealthier person (I don't ever make more than a few hundred per year in dividends.)
Basically, anyone who believes this shit is pulling out their wallet and handing it over to someone who makes more than 10 times what they do. They're doing this, while our budget bleeds, because they think it's "fair"-- though they obviously haven't done the math. They're doing this because they feel that making the wealthy wealthier will somehow help our economy, when the problem currently on the demand side, eg it's people like the middle class and working class that we need to have extra cash to burn.
And somehow, the Republican Party is able to raise ever larger amounts of money. Hmm. I wonder where it's coming from. Basically, if you believe any of this is right, just or fair, then you're a sucker.
Yes and no. You'll note that in the recent FCC decision that sought to allow expanded ownership of TV stations, it was the Democrats who voted No.
You'll notice that not a single Republican voted against the DMCA, and precious view against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
I believe the Democrats have advanced some corrupt decisions regarding Copyright law, and they may not be entirely trustworthy on other issues having to do with the media. However, I see with my own two eyes that the current Republican President and Congress are actively trying to tear apart the last regulations that keep the media diverse and free.
Furthermore, it's hard to ignore the present makeup of our government. When a guy like Searls tears into Conservatives, he's simply being realistic. These are the people running the show right now, and whatever happens has to be explained in the context of their ideology.
Searls seemed quite honest in his article that Democrats are to blame for creating the sick regulatory environment that brought about this mess.
His point, however, has to do with the here-and-now of a Republican controlled government. What he's saying is that in trying to "dismantle" media regulation in an inept fashion *, Republicans are only allowing its unhealthy spawn to metastasize.
* Though I would suggest that big-money campaign contributions have as much to do with the flawed deregulation plan as ineptitude.
Greedy is being unwilling to pay your share, while voting for politicians who are spending more than this country can afford.
Greedy is lobbying for a tax cut on your multi-million dollar income and trust fund dividends at the expense of hard-working people who struggle to make ends meet.
Does this include all Republicans? Of course not. Just the ones who actually influence government policy-- and they pay for this privilege by buying the TV commercials and funding the "think tanks" that do so much to get your vote.
As others have pointed out, people use Admin not just because it's easier, but because so many windows apps require Admin access.
Give people the encouragement to use other password-- like, say, an enormous, annoying Flash warning that pops up whenever they log in as Admin, and they'll use their own usernames.
Until you can convince consumers and possibly their service providers to accept micropayments, you might as well employ trained chimpanzees to do the actual processing.
I doubt that victory in court is part of their plan. SCO believes that IBM or some other company will step in and buy them out, rather than having to endure the multi-year legal war that threatens to ensue.
The GPL battle is only one front in that war. Should IBM choose to take this to court, they will almost certainly break out their patent arsenal, which will add years and millions of dollars to the process. SCO and its newfound stockholders are hoping to cut a deal and make some money from this turkey.
Think about how strange that sales pitch must sound. Anti-lock brakes, moonroof, airbags, of yeah, and a 25 cent piece of hardware on the stereo that lets you use your MP3 player.
Perhaps you're right. The problem occurs, however, when people begin to generalize about regulations, as though they're some interchangable irritant to society. From this exasperated point of view, simply throwing any damned regulation out appears as though it will somehow make their lives better.
The unfortunate truth, however, is that some regulations exist for very good reasons; they protect you from people who would benefit immensely at your expense. These include the folks who want to save a few bucks by dumping hazardous waste into your drinking water, and the folks who want to increase their profit margins (and political clout) by buying up every media outlet in the country.
Sadly, it's the latter types of deregulation campaign that get the big-money support and airplay, while the regulations that really do inconvenience us citizens mysteriously fail to garner much serious attention. Hence millions of Americans mistakenly thinking that by eliminating some very sensible protections, they're fighting the good fight... when what they're actually doing is opening themselves up to people (corporations) who have no interest in anything other than their bottom line.
No, it is sometimes a terrible thing. We've been down this road before. Massive monopolies are bad. Massive monopolies that control the media and thus the public's perception are very bad. It's even led us to war, at least once.
And once you let companies accumulate massive numbers of TV stations, it's very difficult to go back. You have to undertake draconian measures to force corporations to sell off vast numbers of their stations. This is politically almost impossible to acheive, and very harmful for the corporations and their stockholders.
Some people have bought into the "all government regulations are bad for you" rhetoric, which though it has a kernel of truth is basically the biggest untruth ever foisted upon the American people.
Three years later, and it seems that equipment manufacturers have managed to blithely ignore every bit of it. And apparently, so have the people purchasing the stuff.
Actually, the GPL only obligates Linksys to mail out a copy of the code on written request. Technically, that's the least they could have done.
I agree that we shouldn't be lauding them for merely deciding to obey the law. But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt this time, and assume that it was an oversight on their part. A big, stinky oversight.
Well, SCO is claiming that even a re-written Linux that removes the offending code will still be a derivative work, because it's based off of their copyrights. If their case has that much merit (and hopefully no judge agrees with this), then it's not simply a matter or rewriting the improperly used code.
And if SCO wins, it'll send a message to the world that you can't trust any GPLed product, because a contributor might suddenly determine that, oops, some of the code in it was "unintentionally" released-- and therefore, you never really had a license to use/distribute it in the first place.
Of course, you really have to break this case into four separate decisions:
1) Did IBM steal proprietary code from SCO in violation of an NDA, and include that code in their Linux release?
2) Does SCO even own the copyrights to that code, or do they still belong to Novell, in which case the determination in (1) may or may not be important.
3) Assuming (1) and (2) break in favor of SCO, does SCO have the right to sue Linux end-users for posessing/distributing Linux code, even if the end-users didn't know they were breaking the law? This turns on...
4) Does SCO's distributing their own version of Linux (under the GPL) invalidate any copyright claims they might have made on code that was (without their knowledge) included in the Linux codebase? In other words, if you steal my code and hide it in a corner of the Linux kernel, can I legally be deprived of my rights to it just because I distributed a copy of Linux?
Quite frankly, the best outcome is for SCO just to drop this nonsense.
Problem is, many countries now peg their currencies to the dollar. This includes China, as well as a number of other export/labor-export nations. So when the US dollar drops in value, we don't get a damn bit of help when it comes to exports or salaries.
Of course, if the US dollar really goes into free-fall, those nations might de-couple their currencies and go with something more reliable, like the Euro. Of course, there will be major economic consequences for the US should such a currency crash occur; consequences that could more than wipe out any advantage we get. Think about our government deficit for a second when you contemplate this.
This isn't just about dot-commers. They can generally land on their feet, or at least survive-- frequently they don't have families. The problem I've seen is that 50 yr. old, experienced engineers are being laid off left and right.
Under the proposed system, all you would have to do is prove that you wrote it first, and then the other person's registration would be invalid (and fraudulent.)
How is this any different from the way the current system works? If AOL claims that it has a copyright on one of my writings, my only option is to prove (to a judge) that I wrote it first. The problem with the current system is that in order to resolve this dispute I have to hire a lawyer and sue in open court. A functional copyright office would at least provide a first-level administrative solution that would be a lot cheaper and easier than having to take every damned thing to court.
You apparently like solutions where there's a big complicated bureacracy involved in registering and enforcing people's rights.
You apparently like solutions where your ass can get sued for millions of dollars and there ain't a damned way to know you're violating someone's copyright. Furthermore, you appear to like solutions where vast numbers of copyrights disappear into copyright limbo-- ie, still copyrighted, but nobody knows by whom or how to contact them.
In any case, I'm content with a comrpomise where copyrights are granted automatically, but you have to register them after a period of years, or when you transfer them to another owner. Just like a car, a house, or any other major piece of "property" under our legal system (and yes, I know that copyrights aren't really property, but they still involve a lot of the same major financial and legal ownership issues.)
This would save us millions of dollars in court costs, not to mention unlocking huge amounts of rotting IP for digitization, without actually compromising anyone's rights compared to the current system.
Nonsense. If you could demonstrate that you published something before another person, it wouldn't matter a damn that they registered the copyright first. Their copyright would be invalid-- and ideally there would be penalties for such false representation.
I like the solution where extensions and transfers have to be registered.
Actually, I think it'd be pretty reasonable. Copyrights should be granted automatically on creation, but registration should be required after a) some specified period of time, or b) on transferring the copyright to a new copyright holder.
I don't think either of those requirements would prove fatal for Open Source, or even harm your claims on your message-board postings. They would damn well solve a lot of the problems with dead copyrights and crap like this Novell/SCO dispute.
And as for the Berne Convention, while... I think these international copyright conventions are a major part of the problem with US copyright law today. Both the courts and Congress are willing to consider international copyright "harmony" over what's best for the country, or even what's written in the Constitution.
Of course, this is also a problem with US copyright law. Copyrights are so nebulous and easily transferred that it's almost impossible for end-users to keep track of whose IP they may be using. Registration with the US copyright office should be a requirement, not an option.
In any case, I find it hard to believe that any relatively modern MS product can be reliably "certified" as fulfilling any rigorous set of security guidelines. Especially as I see at least one "critical security update" every week on my Win2k box. How much testing does every MS product go through before being deployed? How about every patch or service pack?
On the flipside, forcing OSS to jump through these hoops will result in a stronger, more competitive product. Why should you trust essentially unverifiable MS software when you have a rigorously tested and code-audited product. Sure, OSS will probably have to go through a lot more certification, but they'll benefit from it.