We (in the US) would have more money for healthcare and education subsidies
We don't need more money for healthcare or education in the US; we are already paying several times as much as countries that are doing better than we are.
if we stopped mass-incarceration, enforcement of victimless crimes, and military thuggery in countries we have no business intervening in
I'm all for ending that. Unfortunately, last time I voted for a guy that promised to end some of these government abuses and move money from crony capitalist schemes and military spending to social and infrastructure spending, I ended up with a president that created kill lists of Americans, followed the advice of Keynesians, engaged in even more unwise military adventures, massively increased the cost of my medical insurance, created moral hazards all over the place, and for good measure accused me of having white privilege and not having built my business. So, not doing that again. (I left the Democratic party after being a lifelong Democrat.)
But there is also concern that widespread use of electrocardiograms without an equally broad education initiative could burden an already taxed health-care system. Heart rhythms naturally vary, meaning that it's likely that Apple Watch or any heart monitor could signal a problem when there isn't one -- and send someone running to the doctor for no reason.
Well, and that's a problem when you mandate coverage, set insurance rates, socialize costs, and have third-party payer systems: people don't apply good judgment and go to the doctor whenever they feel like it because they end up not having to pay for it.
Progressivism was found to some degree across all parties, but from its start, it was primarily a Progressive and Democratic party position, and has remained so ever since. And the worst aspects of progressivism, namely its racial policies, were always found primarily in the Democratic party.
No it isn't. Your own link shows the fact that you are trying to deny - it shows a decrease in debt (both inflation-adjusted and unadjusted) after WWII. If it went back farther, it would also show debt being paid down earlier in the nation's history.
A blip paying back war bonds after WWII does not amount to "What Keynesians give you is a responsible adult model of economic behavior - pay off your debts when things are good, so you've got some room to borrow when things are bad".
If you want even more unequivocal evidence that the U.S. economy was once managed by responsible adults: When the US Paid Off the Entire National Debt
Indeed it was. As your article shows, that was when the people managing the US economy believed in gold-backed currency and borrowed money to fight wars. That's responsible. I'm for it.
What Keynesians advocate is using monetary policy, fiat money, and borrowing to stimulate the economy and then paying it back when the economy does well (except that they know full well that the political will to do that never exists). That's irresponsible. I'm against it.
I'm sure we will when the effects of our history stop affecting modern life. Racism is still a very real thing and so is slavery.
Racism is a real thing, exists between any perceptibly different group of humans, and it's never going to go away because it's part of human nature.
Slavery in the US ended 150 years ago and does not affect anybody alive today. The horrendous social problems among black Americans are not related to slavery, they are the result of progressive policies starting in the early 20th century.
The why. There is a dark history where the United States Held onto Slavery longer then the other industrial nations
Unlike other "industrial nations", the US didn't create the institution of slavery, it inherited it and worked towards abolishing slavery since its founding. Saying that the US "held onto slavery longer than the other industrialized nations" is misleading at best.
the looser of the war still had enough political power to impart laws and regulations that made it nearly impossible for such people to move up in society.
The loser in the civil war was the South and it couldn't impart a lot of laws on anybody. The people making it difficult for blacks to move up in society were eugenicists and segregationists--largely progressives and Democrats (including, of course, Southern Democrats).
Before that the US had bilateral agreements with individual countries.
You said "[The Berne convention] was a way to let the US aknowledge that European creators have copyrights, too!". Obviously not if the US only joined it in 1989.
As soon as it comes to music or books the US is close to insignificant.
The US and China are the top two book publishers in the world, and US books get exported around the globe.
What books or music of international significance has continental Europe produced recently? As far as I'm concerned, continental Europe has become a cultural wasteland. It's not even worth going to Europe for theater or opera anymore because even the performances are bad.
What Keynesians give you is a responsible adult model of economic behavior - pay off your debts when things are good, so you've got some room to borrow when things are bad.
This is clearly a bald faced lie, as a simple look at the national debt over time shows you. And to compound your lie, you are trying to pretend that looking at debt as percentage of GDP or in constant dollars amounts to "paying off debt".
Thanks for illustrating again what a bunch of dishonest crooks Keynesians and progressives are. You almost rise to the level of idiocy and dishonesty of Krugman. Almost.
Congress has essentially granted more power because they don't push back against the executive when they could. For instance, they allow the president to essentially start military actions without a formal declaration of war. and those inevitably end up being full blown wars as the escalate.
So then Congress actually holds the power, they just choose not to exercise it. That's why we say that Congress delegates these powers, it doesn't (and cannot) "grant" them.
Congress seems to forget that there's a revolving door in the White House, so that they love giving a president from their own party more power but then are dismayed when someone they disagree with inevitably gets into office.
That explanation doesn't make sense, since Congress could easily limit presidential power if someone they don't like is president.
Equal power is fine. Right now the executive holds more than congress. I didn't mean congress should have all the power but it should be at least equal the presidency.
I have no idea why you believe that the executive holds more power than Congress. The abuses of executive power we have seen with the last half dozen or so presidents have been silently tolerated by Congress; Congress could have stopped them any time they liked with a simple vote.
In fact, since Congress has the power to impeach, it really has the ultimate power over the president.
Mountains make all the difference. satellite behind a mountain, most cell towers behind mountains and households spread out enough that running wires is not profitable and even the phone wires aren't much better then rusty barbed wire.
Well, you have a choice where you live. I certainly checked Internet availability every time before I have rented or bought a house. With 90% of American households having two or more providers at >10 Mbps, it also doesn't seem to be a widespread problem.
It's a flaw with capitalism, businesses grow by absorbing the competition and competition is part of what makes a market work.
That's no flaw with capitalism, it's a benefit (economies of scale). And it's a myth that you need more than one provider for a competitive market.
there are only a few ISP's and they keep merging
You get many providers only if there is a possibility for product differentiation. In particular, if we were to impose net neutrality, there would be no product differentiation and you'd be pretty much guaranteed that there would fewer and fewer ISPs in every market.
I think that ISP's being free to block any site they feel like is not going to work out for the best. Everyone talks about fast lanes and ISP's double dipping but the real danger is the ISP's just not allowing connectivity to any sites they don't like.
Just like supermarkets not carrying products they don't like, bookstores carrying books they don't like, etc. This tends to be self-limiting.
Myself, I have exactly one choice to get on the internet, its a scary bottleneck.
In most of the US you have at least cable and DSL, a couple of wireless providers, and satellite. If you have substantially less than that, you must have chosen to live very far out. Furthermore, the small number of local wired providers is usually the result of local government restrictions; your local government can certainly make unrestricted, unfiltered access a condition of letting companies put cables in the ground. None of that should require FCC control over the Internet to address.
Wealthy people pick the candidates and finance their campaigns.
More importantly, they also finance the newspapers and TV stations that promote these candidates. But those old mechanisms are breaking down. Hillary didn't manage to get elected despite her massive funding and massive support from billionaires and corporations.
and the internet is getting more locked down (lack of network neutrality
You seriously think that the internet being controlled by the FCC and regulated as a public utility would have removed it from government and political control?
In reality, net neutrality was a convenient alliance between big corporations (Google, Netflix, etc.) who wanted to keep their operating costs down, and an FCC and federal government that has been chomping at the bit to impose content and other controls on the Internet just like they did for other FCC-regulated media. Net neutrality is a nice example in which the enemies of liberty and small government pretend that their policies serve to safeguard liberty.
No it was not. It was a way to let the US aknowledge that European creators have copyrights, too!
Given that the US didn't join the Berne convention until 1988, until 100 years after it was created, that makes no sense.
So the US copyright pirates could no longer exploit the creations of other countries citizens!
What profound irony then that by the time the US joined the Berne convention, most of the valuable copyrighted works come out of the US, with very little of international relevance being created in continental Europe.
I must be hallucinating about all these minor parties which are very influential on the lower levels that we have here...
You aren't hallucinating at all: European parliaments are full of socialist, fascist, communist, and nationalist splinter parties, and they indeed have a disproportionate influence on politics.
One of the most prominent ones historically was the NSDAP, which managed to come to power as a minority party, because the more moderate voters were split amongst half a dozen other parties.
In a US-like two party system, moderate voters in the Weimar Republic would have been forced to switch between the Christian Conservatives and the Social Democrats, the NSDAP would have remained a footnote in history, and tens of millions of people would not have lost their lives.
Is that why the EU has given consumers and workers much better rights than anywhere else in the world? And is that also why the EU slaps hefty fines on domestic and foreign corporations left and right all the time?
Oh, you are so cute believing that EU regulations on the curvature of bananas, laws that keep people from getting fired, or massive fines against Google make your life better.
Politicians should put the people's interests first (and perhaps it should be the only interests they take into considerations)... the interests of the public at large.
Yup, that's the fascist view of the world. As you demonstrate, Europeans are so steeped in fascist and authoritarian thinking that the only workable alternative, an actual liberal government, doesn't even occur to them as a possibility.
How do you keep limited government? There's always wealthy people who want big government to do whatever agenda they have, usually making more money by tilting the playing field.
Wealthy people don't elect our president or representatives, the middle class does because only the middle class has the votes. So, we get smaller government when the middle class decides that it is in their interest. For the last half century, the American middle class has been propagandized and manipulated into believing that big government is in their interest, but more and more people are realizing that the American dream they were sold by government was a fraud, and new technologies makes it easy to undermine the old institutions and corrupt arrangements. That's why corporations like the NYT, institutions like public schools, and politicians like Clinton and McCain are bitching and whining.
activists and members of European Parliament say there's still a chance of keeping the EU from fully implementing the worst parts of the troubling proposal
The real power should lie with congress to which we vote for our representatives
I disagree. The power of the federal government should be strictly limited, and what little there is should be split between the three branches of government.
The two most populous states actually have a lesser effect on choosing the president than many small states
Yes, as intended.
If you want to change this situation however, you need to start paying attention to voting for good congress members rather than only showing up to vote for president and leaving everything else blank.
I'm certainly voting for representatives who stand for shrinking the federal government and devolving power back to the states. If they strip the president of some powers along the way, all the better, although I don't see that as the primary problem.
SCOTUS has been a tool of encroaching executive power under presidents of BOTH parties
Really? Care to put some meat behind that statement? It seems to have been primarily progressive jurists and progressive presidents who have tried to expand executive power.
top being partisan and believing that your particular team is more righteous than the other team.
My "team" is classical liberals, and the other "team" is progressives and democratic socialists. Yes, I certainly do believe that my team is more righteous than the other team.
What is crappy there? You create something, you have the "copyright", why the funk would you want me to register my creation somewhere?
Because the purpose of copyright is to help society and create works that eventually go into the public domain. Registering creates legal certainty and ensures that works actually go into the public domain when their copyright expires. Registering was very simple: you just sent your works to the Library of Congress with a tiny fee.
The Berne convention was largely a power grab by European publishers and privileged elites.
Slashdot Mirror
Just make it illegal! That always fixes every problem!
We don't need more money for healthcare or education in the US; we are already paying several times as much as countries that are doing better than we are.
I'm all for ending that. Unfortunately, last time I voted for a guy that promised to end some of these government abuses and move money from crony capitalist schemes and military spending to social and infrastructure spending, I ended up with a president that created kill lists of Americans, followed the advice of Keynesians, engaged in even more unwise military adventures, massively increased the cost of my medical insurance, created moral hazards all over the place, and for good measure accused me of having white privilege and not having built my business. So, not doing that again. (I left the Democratic party after being a lifelong Democrat.)
Well, and that's a problem when you mandate coverage, set insurance rates, socialize costs, and have third-party payer systems: people don't apply good judgment and go to the doctor whenever they feel like it because they end up not having to pay for it.
Progressivism was found to some degree across all parties, but from its start, it was primarily a Progressive and Democratic party position, and has remained so ever since. And the worst aspects of progressivism, namely its racial policies, were always found primarily in the Democratic party.
A blip paying back war bonds after WWII does not amount to "What Keynesians give you is a responsible adult model of economic behavior - pay off your debts when things are good, so you've got some room to borrow when things are bad".
Indeed it was. As your article shows, that was when the people managing the US economy believed in gold-backed currency and borrowed money to fight wars. That's responsible. I'm for it.
What Keynesians advocate is using monetary policy, fiat money, and borrowing to stimulate the economy and then paying it back when the economy does well (except that they know full well that the political will to do that never exists). That's irresponsible. I'm against it.
Racism is a real thing, exists between any perceptibly different group of humans, and it's never going to go away because it's part of human nature.
Slavery in the US ended 150 years ago and does not affect anybody alive today. The horrendous social problems among black Americans are not related to slavery, they are the result of progressive policies starting in the early 20th century.
Unlike other "industrial nations", the US didn't create the institution of slavery, it inherited it and worked towards abolishing slavery since its founding. Saying that the US "held onto slavery longer than the other industrialized nations" is misleading at best.
The loser in the civil war was the South and it couldn't impart a lot of laws on anybody. The people making it difficult for blacks to move up in society were eugenicists and segregationists--largely progressives and Democrats (including, of course, Southern Democrats).
You said "[The Berne convention] was a way to let the US aknowledge that European creators have copyrights, too!". Obviously not if the US only joined it in 1989.
The US and China are the top two book publishers in the world, and US books get exported around the globe.
What books or music of international significance has continental Europe produced recently? As far as I'm concerned, continental Europe has become a cultural wasteland. It's not even worth going to Europe for theater or opera anymore because even the performances are bad.
What we are talking about is your claim:
This is clearly a bald faced lie, as a simple look at the national debt over time shows you. And to compound your lie, you are trying to pretend that looking at debt as percentage of GDP or in constant dollars amounts to "paying off debt".
Thanks for illustrating again what a bunch of dishonest crooks Keynesians and progressives are. You almost rise to the level of idiocy and dishonesty of Krugman. Almost.
So then Congress actually holds the power, they just choose not to exercise it. That's why we say that Congress delegates these powers, it doesn't (and cannot) "grant" them.
That explanation doesn't make sense, since Congress could easily limit presidential power if someone they don't like is president.
I have no idea why you believe that the executive holds more power than Congress. The abuses of executive power we have seen with the last half dozen or so presidents have been silently tolerated by Congress; Congress could have stopped them any time they liked with a simple vote.
In fact, since Congress has the power to impeach, it really has the ultimate power over the president.
Well, you have a choice where you live. I certainly checked Internet availability every time before I have rented or bought a house. With 90% of American households having two or more providers at >10 Mbps, it also doesn't seem to be a widespread problem.
That's no flaw with capitalism, it's a benefit (economies of scale). And it's a myth that you need more than one provider for a competitive market.
You get many providers only if there is a possibility for product differentiation. In particular, if we were to impose net neutrality, there would be no product differentiation and you'd be pretty much guaranteed that there would fewer and fewer ISPs in every market.
Just like supermarkets not carrying products they don't like, bookstores carrying books they don't like, etc. This tends to be self-limiting.
In most of the US you have at least cable and DSL, a couple of wireless providers, and satellite. If you have substantially less than that, you must have chosen to live very far out. Furthermore, the small number of local wired providers is usually the result of local government restrictions; your local government can certainly make unrestricted, unfiltered access a condition of letting companies put cables in the ground. None of that should require FCC control over the Internet to address.
More importantly, they also finance the newspapers and TV stations that promote these candidates. But those old mechanisms are breaking down. Hillary didn't manage to get elected despite her massive funding and massive support from billionaires and corporations.
You seriously think that the internet being controlled by the FCC and regulated as a public utility would have removed it from government and political control?
In reality, net neutrality was a convenient alliance between big corporations (Google, Netflix, etc.) who wanted to keep their operating costs down, and an FCC and federal government that has been chomping at the bit to impose content and other controls on the Internet just like they did for other FCC-regulated media. Net neutrality is a nice example in which the enemies of liberty and small government pretend that their policies serve to safeguard liberty.
Given that the US didn't join the Berne convention until 1988, until 100 years after it was created, that makes no sense.
What profound irony then that by the time the US joined the Berne convention, most of the valuable copyrighted works come out of the US, with very little of international relevance being created in continental Europe.
You aren't hallucinating at all: European parliaments are full of socialist, fascist, communist, and nationalist splinter parties, and they indeed have a disproportionate influence on politics.
One of the most prominent ones historically was the NSDAP, which managed to come to power as a minority party, because the more moderate voters were split amongst half a dozen other parties.
In a US-like two party system, moderate voters in the Weimar Republic would have been forced to switch between the Christian Conservatives and the Social Democrats, the NSDAP would have remained a footnote in history, and tens of millions of people would not have lost their lives.
Oh, you are so cute believing that EU regulations on the curvature of bananas, laws that keep people from getting fired, or massive fines against Google make your life better.
Yup, that's the fascist view of the world. As you demonstrate, Europeans are so steeped in fascist and authoritarian thinking that the only workable alternative, an actual liberal government, doesn't even occur to them as a possibility.
Wealthy people don't elect our president or representatives, the middle class does because only the middle class has the votes. So, we get smaller government when the middle class decides that it is in their interest. For the last half century, the American middle class has been propagandized and manipulated into believing that big government is in their interest, but more and more people are realizing that the American dream they were sold by government was a fraud, and new technologies makes it easy to undermine the old institutions and corrupt arrangements. That's why corporations like the NYT, institutions like public schools, and politicians like Clinton and McCain are bitching and whining.
Absolutely true: you look at the graph and you still deny what's right in front of your eyes.
Why stop when the EU is having so much fun?
I disagree. The power of the federal government should be strictly limited, and what little there is should be split between the three branches of government.
Yes, as intended.
I'm certainly voting for representatives who stand for shrinking the federal government and devolving power back to the states. If they strip the president of some powers along the way, all the better, although I don't see that as the primary problem.
Really? Care to put some meat behind that statement? It seems to have been primarily progressive jurists and progressive presidents who have tried to expand executive power.
My "team" is classical liberals, and the other "team" is progressives and democratic socialists. Yes, I certainly do believe that my team is more righteous than the other team.
Because the purpose of copyright is to help society and create works that eventually go into the public domain. Registering creates legal certainty and ensures that works actually go into the public domain when their copyright expires. Registering was very simple: you just sent your works to the Library of Congress with a tiny fee.
The Berne convention was largely a power grab by European publishers and privileged elites.
As I pointed out, it shouldn't have any trouble, even with these new laws.