If I were a CEO I sure wouldn't worry about cybersecurity because the general public doesn't seem to care. Large, outrageous breaches have become the norm. I'm not even remotely surprised anymore.
Stock prices certainly fall in recessions too, but so does the stock price of their competitors. If things get too dire they always have their golden parachutes to save them.
In a recession at least all of their competitors are feeling the pinch too. Sustaining competitive advantage is far more important than the temporary pain of a recession. A data breach and new competitors are much bigger concerns for any CEO with his/her head on straight.
There were practically no crickets or katydids in Kingston in September and October. It was wierd. The zombies living around me scarcely noticed. People are oblivious or in deep denial.
In rise with inflation, or give me something more for the money.
Netflix is giving users far more for their money than they have in the past from a pure cost perspective, since they are spending far more on new content now than they ever had on licensing agreements.
But just because they are spending more money doesn't mean they are spending it on things you care about. Netflix is bound to get more expensive in the near future because of their move into original content. All of the major streaming competitors, like Amazon and Hulu, are doing the same. The big players in the market have apparently determined there isn't enough money in just streaming licensed content, and/or there is inherently too much risk in relying on the content of others (like Disney).
Cancelling your account because they no longer meet your needs is a personal decision, but Netflix is clearly providing more overall value today than they have in the past. Still doesn't mean they provide more value to you personally.
Netflix is getting more "expensive" dramatically slower than inflation. Increasing at the rate of inflation is not an increase. Netflix is objectively getting cheaper every year, even if the number increases. My cable bill was getting more expensive about 2x inflation.
To be fair, Netflix has increased from $7.99 in 2011 to $12.99 today, so that is far faster than inflation. If Netflix streaming was increasing with inflation it would cost about $9.25 today.
I doubt much great media content is made without a profit motive somewhere. Maybe a few actors or directors are taking a small paycheck, the people funding it are still looking for profit.
Whether or not content is good may be based on passion, but whether or not the content exists at all is based on profit.
So your ability to obey the posted speed limit is somehow tied to your wealth?
Who ever said it was? Speed limit fines are regressive because they are a flat amount, unlike progressive taxes which are based on either income or wealth. A progressive traffic fine would charge a poor person $10 and a wealthy person $10k.
Any country with government paid post-secondary education, and progressive taxation, also does essentially the same thing this article proposes. With progressive taxation, members of society who are most benefiting from their own education and/or the education of their fellow citizens (and employees) pay more of the cost of government. So in affect, they are paying a larger proportion of everyone's "free" post-secondary education.
You should tell the republicans that passed sweeping ridiculous tax rates for businesses under that premise then. When a multi-billion dollar company and multi-million/billionaires have effective tax rates lower than mine, something is broken.
The politicians know it is bullshit, as most of them are at least reasonably educated. It's the voters they pander to to get elected who need to learn this.
Yes, your pedantic argument that there was some wall funding in probably all budgets for decades is correct. While I was implicitly referring to trump's request for significant increases to wall funding, I didn't explicitly state that. I should have been more clear for those who couldn't understand the context.
Obamacare wasn't part of the status quo whats your point?
Obamacare had been passed over 3 years earlier, and was certainly the status quo. It was passed legislation.
Its basically President vs Congress each time thats all that matters.
That is a very shallow way of looking at it. If you think every time a President and Congress dispute each other the nuance of their disagreement doesn't matter, it is impossible for you to have an intelligent discussion about this.
Actually, it was. The last budget passed was FY2012 - it's been continuing resolutions since then. And FY2012's budget had funding for "Border Security Fencing, Infrastructure, and Technology". Pulling that spending out of the CR is actually not allowed - as it is a change to the budget. In this case, Pelosi and Schumer are trying to do an end-run around the laws relating to continuing resolutions.
That budget had $800 million for "Border Security, Fencing, Infrastructure, and Technology"; no where near $5 billion. The proposed budget passed by the Senate had $1.3 billion for border security, a significant increase. But there was certainly nothing in the budget bill you link to anywhere near $5 billion. The bill instead shows a decreasing level of border security construction over a three year period.
Congress is free to keep the border wall in the legislation.
The border wall was not in the last budget, so adding it is not the status quo. Shutting down the government because it won't fund your pet project is not the same thing as vetoing bills trying to affect previously passed legislation by de-funding it. This isn't rocket science here.
Trump WAS the lesser evil. Until you get that, you will continue to be perplexed.
Until you understand that is nowhere close to being true, you will continue to be perplexed by nearly any complex topic.
That is not technically true. Plenty of smart people can still be affected by tribal mentality. Most of the time it is hard to know which tribe is being more ridiculous, but in this case the US literally elected someone who doesn't even know what the President does, other than it is a powerful position. He is a buffoon whose only skill is public relations (and the benefit of a complete lack of moral character) and it is a sad indictment of our country that good PR plus being born into a wealthy family is all it takes to be President.
Where was your outrage when Obama did the EXACT SAME THING over ObamaCare? Hypocritical clowns.
Considering that never happened, it's hard to see any hypocrisy here. Assuming you mean the 2013 shutdown, Obama was using the veto threat only to prevent new legislation to de-fund Obamacare from being passed. Congress was free to strip new legislation from the bills and get them passed. In this case both the House and Senate have shown willingness to pass bills without new wall related legislation (the 115th Senate was literally unanimous) to keep the government funded.
Both scenarios may have resulted in a shutdown, but no meaningful details are similar.
Trump and McConnell are the ONLY problem actors here. Trump for threatening veto and McConnell for refusing to bring a bill to vote. Any somewhat functional Senate would just override Trump's veto.
Yea, it will only cost you 5 Billion and the next national election..... Don't be fooled, this isn't about money... it's about votes.... For BOTH sides.
This is the type of thought which allows people like Trump to get elected. Once you convince yourself no politicians actually care about the electorate at any level, who cares who gets voted in?
Things would be better if we had 5 or 6. Then none could have a majority whereby they could force their agenda through without at least working with other groups.
A 2 party system and 5-6 party system are not much different. You still have coalitions of different groups combining to get 50% of votes. It isn't like every Republican agrees with every other Republican (and the same goes for Democrats). What you do get out of a 2 party system is you see how the coalition looks before voting, as opposed to waiting until after votes are cast for the leaders to form those coalitions.
The problem as I see from today's US politics (which is also a significant reason I switched parties in my 20's) is the Republicans took a hard line stance against any form of compromise after Bush lost his second term and Gingrich took over as the de-facto party leader. Bush raising in his first term was a shining example of how politics can work. He actually compromised.
I really want to go back to having two worthy of voting for, but Republicans are fundamentally unfit for leadership under their current form. The gridlock from their inability to compromise makes it look like a 2-party system cannot work, but it my opinion that is only a illusion created by the Republicans in part so they can claim government doesn't work.
I foresee myself switching back over to the Republican party at some point in my life if they get their act together, but considering they are having success pandering to the lowest common denominator of our electorate I think it will be a while.
There's no longer anything particularly innovative, that's the problem. You can't just jack up the price, add mediocre upgrades and expect people to pay for it.
The one area I don't see Apple being innovative, and even Samsung drops the ball a bit, is creating more differentiated phones to meet the needs of more consumers. Why not have a thicker phone with a bigger battery and phone jack for those who care about that? Why not have a 7" screen for people who still want a larger screen, and why not have a 3.5" phone for those who like the original form factor? The innovation here would have more to do with how to manufacture and market more form factors at a smaller scale for each SKU, but it would give many smart phone users a reason to buy new phones.
This is either too hard to do, not seen to be profitable, or just something Apple doesn't have the strategic vision to pursue. But there are certainly people who would buy phones that finally meet their more personal needs instead of just having to pick between a few SKUs that are all deficient in some way.
If you bought even 1% of the things you could afford you would go broke in days.
If you can 'afford' something and you're broke in days, you can't really afford it can you? You know, by direct definition of the word.
Being able to afford a single purchase of an item you can afford will never make you broke (by definition). But buying millions of things you can afford in a single day will likely drain your available money instantly. For instance, you can probably afford everything in your local dollar store, but perhaps could not buy everything they have in inventory right now (even though you can afford each item individually).
This is why asking yourself if you can afford something is almost never a useful question. It is quite clear when you cannot afford something, like a $3500 monthly car payment when you make $50k per year. Anyone who thinks asking "can I afford this?" is a useful question runs the risk of seriously overspending because they are rarely going to look at any individual purchase and say they don't have the money for it.
Asking something like "how will this purchase affect my budget?" is a far more useful question.
Well technically a lot of people could afford a lot of things if they put all their disposable income towards it.
This basically just illustrates why asking if you can "afford" something is almost never a good question. Almost every time someone asks that question the answer is yes, because if they really cannot afford it they generally don't even ask the question (they know they cannot afford a Lamborghini or $2 million mansion for instance).
If you have to literally put all of your disposal income towards a single item, you could arguably say you cannot afford it. But there is an arbitrary point where any purchase which can fit within your disposable income - and doesn't make it hard to buy anything else with that disposable income - is something you can afford.
So, there, right-there, is the lie of "UBI". What part of "Universal" do you not understand?
It is not a "lie" of UBI. Universal simply means universal income, not a universal net income increase. How is that hard to understand?
It is just welfare. UBI is welfare; it's just a better way to provide welfare as the need for welfare increases. Public welfare should not be some dirty word, but instead one of the most crucial reasons to have government.
So, because people can afford cable TV, they can afford a $1,000 phone?
Yes.
If someone can afford a $100+ monthly cable bill, or $150+ cable+internet bill, they can afford a $50 monthly cell phone payment along with a $50-$100 cellular plan. Having cable is not like housing or food, it is a luxury item. So everyone you can afford $2000 per year to spend on cable can afford to spend $2000 on any luxury purchase. They may have to cancel their cable bill in order to afford it, but that is still a choice they are capable of making.
Being able to afford something does not mean you should buy it. If you bought even 1% of the things you could afford you would go broke in days. Being able to afford something simply means you have enough disposable money to pay for it, not that it is a sound financial decision.
I don’t know if brand really factors into it if the prices are too high. No matter how much someone wants something, you can’t sell it to them if they can’t afford it. I wouldn’t think to claim that Lamborghini’s brand is suffering just because I haven’t purchased any of their cars.
The difference between $1k+ Apple phones and Lamborghini's is that most people can afford Apple phones. Too expensive doesn't mean they cannot afford it, it means they would rather spend the money on something else. Buying a $1500 phone every other year is about $60 per month. That is far less than a standard cable bill. Compare that to a $3500 monthly Lamborghini car payment and it's clear why they are fundamentally different. I'd guess about two thirds of the US population can afford a $1k+ iPhone, considering about 70% of them can afford cable TV. Whether or not that is a good idea is another matter.
I showed my math in another post targeted at the GP, but by my guess a $10k UBI would cost less than $500 billion in extra taxes per year. Probably somewhere between a 10-20% federal income tax increase after considering the stimulus effect of UBI payments to the poor and working class.
It's not like UBI gives a net income increase to everyone, since the money has to come from somewhere. More likely only a third to half of households would actually see a net increase to their income (after factoring in increased progressive taxes), which is why the total spending is not as ridiculous as the GP post suggested.
Slashdot Mirror
If I were a CEO I sure wouldn't worry about cybersecurity because the general public doesn't seem to care. Large, outrageous breaches have become the norm. I'm not even remotely surprised anymore.
Whether or not you care isn't their primary concern. It is the affect on stock price as compared to economic indexes. Research I have seen does show these breaches are having significant negative affects on stock price. It isn't as obvious while overall stock prices are rising, but when you compare them to similar companies their stock price is not keeping up with the market.
Stock prices certainly fall in recessions too, but so does the stock price of their competitors. If things get too dire they always have their golden parachutes to save them.
In a recession at least all of their competitors are feeling the pinch too. Sustaining competitive advantage is far more important than the temporary pain of a recession. A data breach and new competitors are much bigger concerns for any CEO with his/her head on straight.
There were practically no crickets or katydids in Kingston in September and October. It was wierd. The zombies living around me scarcely noticed. People are oblivious or in deep denial.
Or they were happy there were less noisy insects.
In rise with inflation, or give me something more for the money.
Netflix is giving users far more for their money than they have in the past from a pure cost perspective, since they are spending far more on new content now than they ever had on licensing agreements.
But just because they are spending more money doesn't mean they are spending it on things you care about. Netflix is bound to get more expensive in the near future because of their move into original content. All of the major streaming competitors, like Amazon and Hulu, are doing the same. The big players in the market have apparently determined there isn't enough money in just streaming licensed content, and/or there is inherently too much risk in relying on the content of others (like Disney).
Cancelling your account because they no longer meet your needs is a personal decision, but Netflix is clearly providing more overall value today than they have in the past. Still doesn't mean they provide more value to you personally.
Netflix is getting more "expensive" dramatically slower than inflation. Increasing at the rate of inflation is not an increase. Netflix is objectively getting cheaper every year, even if the number increases. My cable bill was getting more expensive about 2x inflation.
To be fair, Netflix has increased from $7.99 in 2011 to $12.99 today, so that is far faster than inflation. If Netflix streaming was increasing with inflation it would cost about $9.25 today.
This summary does a very good job at making a $2 per month price increase appear very dramatic.
I doubt much great media content is made without a profit motive somewhere. Maybe a few actors or directors are taking a small paycheck, the people funding it are still looking for profit.
Whether or not content is good may be based on passion, but whether or not the content exists at all is based on profit.
So your ability to obey the posted speed limit is somehow tied to your wealth?
Who ever said it was? Speed limit fines are regressive because they are a flat amount, unlike progressive taxes which are based on either income or wealth. A progressive traffic fine would charge a poor person $10 and a wealthy person $10k.
Any country with government paid post-secondary education, and progressive taxation, also does essentially the same thing this article proposes. With progressive taxation, members of society who are most benefiting from their own education and/or the education of their fellow citizens (and employees) pay more of the cost of government. So in affect, they are paying a larger proportion of everyone's "free" post-secondary education.
You should tell the republicans that passed sweeping ridiculous tax rates for businesses under that premise then. When a multi-billion dollar company and multi-million/billionaires have effective tax rates lower than mine, something is broken.
The politicians know it is bullshit, as most of them are at least reasonably educated. It's the voters they pander to to get elected who need to learn this.
Yes, your pedantic argument that there was some wall funding in probably all budgets for decades is correct. While I was implicitly referring to trump's request for significant increases to wall funding, I didn't explicitly state that. I should have been more clear for those who couldn't understand the context.
Obamacare wasn't part of the status quo whats your point?
Obamacare had been passed over 3 years earlier, and was certainly the status quo. It was passed legislation.
Its basically President vs Congress each time thats all that matters.
That is a very shallow way of looking at it. If you think every time a President and Congress dispute each other the nuance of their disagreement doesn't matter, it is impossible for you to have an intelligent discussion about this.
Actually, it was. The last budget passed was FY2012 - it's been continuing resolutions since then. And FY2012's budget had funding for "Border Security Fencing, Infrastructure, and Technology". Pulling that spending out of the CR is actually not allowed - as it is a change to the budget. In this case, Pelosi and Schumer are trying to do an end-run around the laws relating to continuing resolutions.
That budget had $800 million for "Border Security, Fencing, Infrastructure, and Technology"; no where near $5 billion. The proposed budget passed by the Senate had $1.3 billion for border security, a significant increase. But there was certainly nothing in the budget bill you link to anywhere near $5 billion. The bill instead shows a decreasing level of border security construction over a three year period.
Congress is free to keep the border wall in the legislation.
The border wall was not in the last budget, so adding it is not the status quo. Shutting down the government because it won't fund your pet project is not the same thing as vetoing bills trying to affect previously passed legislation by de-funding it. This isn't rocket science here.
Trump WAS the lesser evil. Until you get that, you will continue to be perplexed.
Until you understand that is nowhere close to being true, you will continue to be perplexed by nearly any complex topic.
That is not technically true. Plenty of smart people can still be affected by tribal mentality. Most of the time it is hard to know which tribe is being more ridiculous, but in this case the US literally elected someone who doesn't even know what the President does, other than it is a powerful position. He is a buffoon whose only skill is public relations (and the benefit of a complete lack of moral character) and it is a sad indictment of our country that good PR plus being born into a wealthy family is all it takes to be President.
Where was your outrage when Obama did the EXACT SAME THING over ObamaCare? Hypocritical clowns.
Considering that never happened, it's hard to see any hypocrisy here. Assuming you mean the 2013 shutdown, Obama was using the veto threat only to prevent new legislation to de-fund Obamacare from being passed. Congress was free to strip new legislation from the bills and get them passed. In this case both the House and Senate have shown willingness to pass bills without new wall related legislation (the 115th Senate was literally unanimous) to keep the government funded.
Both scenarios may have resulted in a shutdown, but no meaningful details are similar.
Trump and McConnell are the ONLY problem actors here. Trump for threatening veto and McConnell for refusing to bring a bill to vote. Any somewhat functional Senate would just override Trump's veto.
Yea, it will only cost you 5 Billion and the next national election..... Don't be fooled, this isn't about money... it's about votes.... For BOTH sides.
This is the type of thought which allows people like Trump to get elected. Once you convince yourself no politicians actually care about the electorate at any level, who cares who gets voted in?
Things would be better if we had 5 or 6. Then none could have a majority whereby they could force their agenda through without at least working with other groups.
A 2 party system and 5-6 party system are not much different. You still have coalitions of different groups combining to get 50% of votes. It isn't like every Republican agrees with every other Republican (and the same goes for Democrats). What you do get out of a 2 party system is you see how the coalition looks before voting, as opposed to waiting until after votes are cast for the leaders to form those coalitions.
The problem as I see from today's US politics (which is also a significant reason I switched parties in my 20's) is the Republicans took a hard line stance against any form of compromise after Bush lost his second term and Gingrich took over as the de-facto party leader. Bush raising in his first term was a shining example of how politics can work. He actually compromised.
I really want to go back to having two worthy of voting for, but Republicans are fundamentally unfit for leadership under their current form. The gridlock from their inability to compromise makes it look like a 2-party system cannot work, but it my opinion that is only a illusion created by the Republicans in part so they can claim government doesn't work.
I foresee myself switching back over to the Republican party at some point in my life if they get their act together, but considering they are having success pandering to the lowest common denominator of our electorate I think it will be a while.
There's no longer anything particularly innovative, that's the problem. You can't just jack up the price, add mediocre upgrades and expect people to pay for it.
The one area I don't see Apple being innovative, and even Samsung drops the ball a bit, is creating more differentiated phones to meet the needs of more consumers. Why not have a thicker phone with a bigger battery and phone jack for those who care about that? Why not have a 7" screen for people who still want a larger screen, and why not have a 3.5" phone for those who like the original form factor? The innovation here would have more to do with how to manufacture and market more form factors at a smaller scale for each SKU, but it would give many smart phone users a reason to buy new phones.
This is either too hard to do, not seen to be profitable, or just something Apple doesn't have the strategic vision to pursue. But there are certainly people who would buy phones that finally meet their more personal needs instead of just having to pick between a few SKUs that are all deficient in some way.
If you bought even 1% of the things you could afford you would go broke in days.
If you can 'afford' something and you're broke in days, you can't really afford it can you? You know, by direct definition of the word.
Being able to afford a single purchase of an item you can afford will never make you broke (by definition). But buying millions of things you can afford in a single day will likely drain your available money instantly. For instance, you can probably afford everything in your local dollar store, but perhaps could not buy everything they have in inventory right now (even though you can afford each item individually).
This is why asking yourself if you can afford something is almost never a useful question. It is quite clear when you cannot afford something, like a $3500 monthly car payment when you make $50k per year. Anyone who thinks asking "can I afford this?" is a useful question runs the risk of seriously overspending because they are rarely going to look at any individual purchase and say they don't have the money for it.
Asking something like "how will this purchase affect my budget?" is a far more useful question.
Well technically a lot of people could afford a lot of things if they put all their disposable income towards it.
This basically just illustrates why asking if you can "afford" something is almost never a good question. Almost every time someone asks that question the answer is yes, because if they really cannot afford it they generally don't even ask the question (they know they cannot afford a Lamborghini or $2 million mansion for instance).
If you have to literally put all of your disposal income towards a single item, you could arguably say you cannot afford it. But there is an arbitrary point where any purchase which can fit within your disposable income - and doesn't make it hard to buy anything else with that disposable income - is something you can afford.
So, there, right-there, is the lie of "UBI". What part of "Universal" do you not understand?
It is not a "lie" of UBI. Universal simply means universal income, not a universal net income increase. How is that hard to understand?
It is just welfare. UBI is welfare; it's just a better way to provide welfare as the need for welfare increases. Public welfare should not be some dirty word, but instead one of the most crucial reasons to have government.
So, because people can afford cable TV, they can afford a $1,000 phone?
Yes.
If someone can afford a $100+ monthly cable bill, or $150+ cable+internet bill, they can afford a $50 monthly cell phone payment along with a $50-$100 cellular plan. Having cable is not like housing or food, it is a luxury item. So everyone you can afford $2000 per year to spend on cable can afford to spend $2000 on any luxury purchase. They may have to cancel their cable bill in order to afford it, but that is still a choice they are capable of making.
Being able to afford something does not mean you should buy it. If you bought even 1% of the things you could afford you would go broke in days. Being able to afford something simply means you have enough disposable money to pay for it, not that it is a sound financial decision.
I don’t know if brand really factors into it if the prices are too high. No matter how much someone wants something, you can’t sell it to them if they can’t afford it. I wouldn’t think to claim that Lamborghini’s brand is suffering just because I haven’t purchased any of their cars.
The difference between $1k+ Apple phones and Lamborghini's is that most people can afford Apple phones. Too expensive doesn't mean they cannot afford it, it means they would rather spend the money on something else. Buying a $1500 phone every other year is about $60 per month. That is far less than a standard cable bill. Compare that to a $3500 monthly Lamborghini car payment and it's clear why they are fundamentally different. I'd guess about two thirds of the US population can afford a $1k+ iPhone, considering about 70% of them can afford cable TV. Whether or not that is a good idea is another matter.
I showed my math in another post targeted at the GP, but by my guess a $10k UBI would cost less than $500 billion in extra taxes per year. Probably somewhere between a 10-20% federal income tax increase after considering the stimulus effect of UBI payments to the poor and working class.
It's not like UBI gives a net income increase to everyone, since the money has to come from somewhere. More likely only a third to half of households would actually see a net increase to their income (after factoring in increased progressive taxes), which is why the total spending is not as ridiculous as the GP post suggested.