No, that sounds like an *unregulated* market, which isn't quite the same as a free market, although sadly a lot of people - including those who are ostensibly pro-free market - conflate the two.
In any case, I'm not arguing that monopolies or oligopolies are good - in most cases, they aren't.
Bernie has plans (to spend more) which will arguably not stimulate the economy, given that the most reliable studies show that GDP grows by less than one dollar per dollar spent on non-infrastructure, at least in the ways the US spends it.
I mean, unemployment in the US is pretty much back to pre-recession levels. I agree that we should cut back on handouts, but I think we should lower the tax rate and remove loopholes rather than raise the tax rate more.
The difference is that a price war often involves repeatedly cutting prices, sometimes to marginal production price.
In the medium to long term, price wars can be good for the dominant firms in the industry. Typically, the smaller, more marginal, firms cannot compete and must close. The remaining firms absorb the market share of those that have closed.
Price wars, if they go on long enough, can lead to or reinforce oligopolies. Larger firms can sometimes afford to lose money for a while to drive out competition, which is arguably what OPEC is doing to fracking.
(3) at least one study indicates that placing commonly used keys far apart, as with the QWERTY, actually speeds typing, since you frequently alternate hands; and (4) the QWERTY keyboard did not become a standard overnight but beat out several competing keyboards over a period of years.
Yes, it was intended to prevent jams, but by moving frequently used letters far apart for mechanical reasons. Using alternating hands speeds typing. It wasn't intended to slow down typists, but move keys around so mechanical jams were less frequent.
Well that's simply not true. On the list of most dangerous cities, the top 5 are: #5 Wilmington, DE, #4 Alexandria, LA, #3 Detroit, MI, #2 Camden, NJ, and #1 East St. Louis, IL. Of those, IL has relatively strict gun control laws, although they have loosened up a little bit in the last few years. New Jersey has very strict gun laws. Both Michigan and Detroit require someone to jump through a lot of hoops to legally get a gun. Louisiana is pretty lax, so you're correct there. Delaware is fairly middle of the pack in terms of gun control.
That may be how the government sees it, but they're wrong. I don't see why the telcos would go along with it; they don't get anything out of it, and it'll probably cause extra work for them.
Not if you follow the procedures outlined in the Constitution to add the amendment. Depending on the text of said amendment, it could be said that it displays blatant disregard for the spirit of the Constitution, but amending it in and of itself isn't contempt. You can recognize that something isn't perfect - and propose an improvement - while still respecting it.
You are correct in that the Internet is not a right; however, that doesn't mean the government gets to do what it likes with you. Private websites shouldn't have to de-anonymize you if they don't want to.
You only have to display a license plate on public roads. If I'm on private property (like the vast majority of websites out there), I'm under no obligation to do so. You could argue that any time you're on a.gov website, you shouldn't be anonymous, but on private ones? No, if they're okay with me being anonymous, you don't get to tell them otherwise.
Well, the President has legal authority to send the military to places for police actions (with the goal being to assist local police or try to calm things down - admittedly, this isn't usually effective). He can't send actual police officers though. And counting minor deployments of troops as "being at war" is silly; a lot of times troops are deployed to send disaster aid or are only there briefly.
Doing a quick Google search, I found some idiot claiming that America has been at war for 93% of its existence. Of course, this included every single year of the Cold War and a number of "quasi-wars" which aren't really explained, as well as "wars on pirates". If you include all the Chinese uprisings and civil wars, repeated Mongol invasions, expansions into Mongolia/Tibet/Vietnam/etc., I would say the two are probably comparable.
You mean the public education system? Or the many literacy programs that public libraries offer?
on mental illness, on unwanted pregnancies, on homelessness
How would a "war on mental illness" be fought? Should there be taxpayer-funded clinics for people to get lithium, etc.? As for unwanted pregnancies - ever hear of Planned Parenthood? Sex Ed could be a lot better in many US states, true, but the Feds don't have the authority to force that issue. Homelessness is tough to deal with, true, and we should be doing more.
While I agree that drone strikes aren't as surgical as the administration is making them out to be - and should be far better - both articles you cited are misleading. The CNN article, for instance, says that only 1 in 50 people killed is a "high-level" target. That means the ratio of enemy combatants to civilians is probably much better, seeing as high-level targets are often accompanied by lower-level targets. The Mic article references a NYT article that makes the same mistake.
That isn't to say I support the drone strikes - I do think there's still an unacceptable level of off-target kills. I also think that it's an easy choice for the US to make, as it's much cheaper and easier to stop if they want to, but I think ultimately it hurts both innocent civilians and US interests in the long term.
It really depends on who has mod points at the time, I think. I find that a lot of those controversial articles see everyone get modded down, with maybe a few exceptions. People seem to like modding opposing opinions down more than supporting opinions up.
I also think most Democrats don't get modded down a lot, unless they're really far left. Moderate left seems to fair better than moderate right here, although YMMV.
Oh, they definitely spend the money with the intent of convincing people to vote one way or another, sure. But that is, and should be, entirely legal. Convincing people via speech to vote for or against something is fine; the money they spend gets them a larger audience. They do probably benefit from it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
A lot of advocacy groups are corporations, albeit nonprofit ones. Hell, the ACLU is a nonprofit corporation.
If you got a hundred thousand people to write to one Senator or Representative? Assuming they are constituents (or at least voters) they'd probably listen to you, unless they are spectacularly corrupt and about to retire. Of course, with 100,000 people you might be able to force a recall vote, depending on your local laws. One of the main problems is that a lot of the time, people don't actually tell their representatives anything. They don't write letters or even send emails. Many of the laws you referenced got attention, sure, but not very many people in Congress actually heard from a substantial number of their constituents. Most of them got re-elected despite voting against the interests of their constituents, because people don't care and just look at the (R) or (D) by the name. Yes, banks (not most companies, but banks) got relief, and I was opposed to that. People got relief with extensions of tax cuts that were supposed to have ended by then.
I think specifically the problem with education is that some parents - often mothers, but not always - fear that a male teacher is a pedophile or otherwise unsavory. Obviously, this is a stigma that should be removed, but I disagree that much of it is from other men, at least in education. In fields like nursing I could see men being the source of more of the stigma.
Using money to get a desired outcome isn't buying if the person who is doing what you want doesn't get the money. If I buy groceries, I have to pay money to the people who own them now - I'm not paying someone else and waiting to see if someone decides to give me groceries. As it stands, companies buy ad time, which may or may not convince someone to vote a certain way. "Buying" would require that they pay people to vote how the company wants them to. Currently, they don't buy votes (amongst the general populace, anyway - buying elected officials does, sadly, occur, and that should be - and is - prohibited).
If we go with your definition of "buying votes", then advocacy groups and political parties and candidates are guilty of it too.
No, your ability to tell them isn't impaired. You just don't represent enough people to get them to *listen*. Depending on what country you're from, this may not be surprising; in America, for instance, each Senator represents a pretty large number of people, so listening to each one is implausible. If you are really passionate about something, organize a group of people and write letters. Tell them what you want, and if they don't listen, vote them out later.
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No, that sounds like an *unregulated* market, which isn't quite the same as a free market, although sadly a lot of people - including those who are ostensibly pro-free market - conflate the two.
In any case, I'm not arguing that monopolies or oligopolies are good - in most cases, they aren't.
Bernie has plans (to spend more) which will arguably not stimulate the economy, given that the most reliable studies show that GDP grows by less than one dollar per dollar spent on non-infrastructure, at least in the ways the US spends it.
I mean, unemployment in the US is pretty much back to pre-recession levels. I agree that we should cut back on handouts, but I think we should lower the tax rate and remove loopholes rather than raise the tax rate more.
That's the first time I've seen anyone say "either Sanders or Trump would fix this". You don't often see those two put on the same level.
It's kind of important to link to the rebuttal as well.
I'm quite sure you can find those people in any country in the world.
In the medium to long term, price wars can be good for the dominant firms in the industry. Typically, the smaller, more marginal, firms cannot compete and must close. The remaining firms absorb the market share of those that have closed.
Price wars, if they go on long enough, can lead to or reinforce oligopolies. Larger firms can sometimes afford to lose money for a while to drive out competition, which is arguably what OPEC is doing to fracking.
And people who don't live in the place where food is grown should starve.
No, they just have to pay more to get food, which is exactly how it works today.
(3) at least one study indicates that placing commonly used keys far apart, as with the QWERTY, actually speeds typing, since you frequently alternate hands; and (4) the QWERTY keyboard did not become a standard overnight but beat out several competing keyboards over a period of years.
Yes, it was intended to prevent jams, but by moving frequently used letters far apart for mechanical reasons. Using alternating hands speeds typing. It wasn't intended to slow down typists, but move keys around so mechanical jams were less frequent.
Well that's simply not true. On the list of most dangerous cities, the top 5 are: #5 Wilmington, DE, #4 Alexandria, LA, #3 Detroit, MI, #2 Camden, NJ, and #1 East St. Louis, IL. Of those, IL has relatively strict gun control laws, although they have loosened up a little bit in the last few years. New Jersey has very strict gun laws. Both Michigan and Detroit require someone to jump through a lot of hoops to legally get a gun. Louisiana is pretty lax, so you're correct there. Delaware is fairly middle of the pack in terms of gun control.
So much for your BS.
That's a good way of putting it, yep!
That may be how the government sees it, but they're wrong. I don't see why the telcos would go along with it; they don't get anything out of it, and it'll probably cause extra work for them.
Is anonymous speech not allowed in Sweden? I knew most European countries had more restrictive laws on speech, but I didn't know it was that bad.
Not if you follow the procedures outlined in the Constitution to add the amendment. Depending on the text of said amendment, it could be said that it displays blatant disregard for the spirit of the Constitution, but amending it in and of itself isn't contempt. You can recognize that something isn't perfect - and propose an improvement - while still respecting it.
You are correct in that the Internet is not a right; however, that doesn't mean the government gets to do what it likes with you. Private websites shouldn't have to de-anonymize you if they don't want to.
You only have to display a license plate on public roads. If I'm on private property (like the vast majority of websites out there), I'm under no obligation to do so. You could argue that any time you're on a .gov website, you shouldn't be anonymous, but on private ones? No, if they're okay with me being anonymous, you don't get to tell them otherwise.
Well, the President has legal authority to send the military to places for police actions (with the goal being to assist local police or try to calm things down - admittedly, this isn't usually effective). He can't send actual police officers though. And counting minor deployments of troops as "being at war" is silly; a lot of times troops are deployed to send disaster aid or are only there briefly.
Doing a quick Google search, I found some idiot claiming that America has been at war for 93% of its existence. Of course, this included every single year of the Cold War and a number of "quasi-wars" which aren't really explained, as well as "wars on pirates". If you include all the Chinese uprisings and civil wars, repeated Mongol invasions, expansions into Mongolia/Tibet/Vietnam/etc., I would say the two are probably comparable.
Might as well, right? It's pretty much free energy.
The carriers will still be nuclear, but many of the support ships aren't. Those are the ones they're switching over.
Where's the war on illiteracy
You mean the public education system? Or the many literacy programs that public libraries offer?
on mental illness, on unwanted pregnancies, on homelessness
How would a "war on mental illness" be fought? Should there be taxpayer-funded clinics for people to get lithium, etc.? As for unwanted pregnancies - ever hear of Planned Parenthood? Sex Ed could be a lot better in many US states, true, but the Feds don't have the authority to force that issue. Homelessness is tough to deal with, true, and we should be doing more.
While I agree that drone strikes aren't as surgical as the administration is making them out to be - and should be far better - both articles you cited are misleading. The CNN article, for instance, says that only 1 in 50 people killed is a "high-level" target. That means the ratio of enemy combatants to civilians is probably much better, seeing as high-level targets are often accompanied by lower-level targets. The Mic article references a NYT article that makes the same mistake.
That isn't to say I support the drone strikes - I do think there's still an unacceptable level of off-target kills. I also think that it's an easy choice for the US to make, as it's much cheaper and easier to stop if they want to, but I think ultimately it hurts both innocent civilians and US interests in the long term.
It really depends on who has mod points at the time, I think. I find that a lot of those controversial articles see everyone get modded down, with maybe a few exceptions. People seem to like modding opposing opinions down more than supporting opinions up.
I also think most Democrats don't get modded down a lot, unless they're really far left. Moderate left seems to fair better than moderate right here, although YMMV.
Oh, they definitely spend the money with the intent of convincing people to vote one way or another, sure. But that is, and should be, entirely legal. Convincing people via speech to vote for or against something is fine; the money they spend gets them a larger audience. They do probably benefit from it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
A lot of advocacy groups are corporations, albeit nonprofit ones. Hell, the ACLU is a nonprofit corporation.
If you got a hundred thousand people to write to one Senator or Representative? Assuming they are constituents (or at least voters) they'd probably listen to you, unless they are spectacularly corrupt and about to retire. Of course, with 100,000 people you might be able to force a recall vote, depending on your local laws. One of the main problems is that a lot of the time, people don't actually tell their representatives anything. They don't write letters or even send emails. Many of the laws you referenced got attention, sure, but not very many people in Congress actually heard from a substantial number of their constituents. Most of them got re-elected despite voting against the interests of their constituents, because people don't care and just look at the (R) or (D) by the name. Yes, banks (not most companies, but banks) got relief, and I was opposed to that. People got relief with extensions of tax cuts that were supposed to have ended by then.
I think specifically the problem with education is that some parents - often mothers, but not always - fear that a male teacher is a pedophile or otherwise unsavory. Obviously, this is a stigma that should be removed, but I disagree that much of it is from other men, at least in education. In fields like nursing I could see men being the source of more of the stigma.
Using money to get a desired outcome isn't buying if the person who is doing what you want doesn't get the money. If I buy groceries, I have to pay money to the people who own them now - I'm not paying someone else and waiting to see if someone decides to give me groceries. As it stands, companies buy ad time, which may or may not convince someone to vote a certain way. "Buying" would require that they pay people to vote how the company wants them to. Currently, they don't buy votes (amongst the general populace, anyway - buying elected officials does, sadly, occur, and that should be - and is - prohibited).
If we go with your definition of "buying votes", then advocacy groups and political parties and candidates are guilty of it too.
No, your ability to tell them isn't impaired. You just don't represent enough people to get them to *listen*. Depending on what country you're from, this may not be surprising; in America, for instance, each Senator represents a pretty large number of people, so listening to each one is implausible. If you are really passionate about something, organize a group of people and write letters. Tell them what you want, and if they don't listen, vote them out later.