By the end of Reagan's term, rates had dropped to 6% - 7%.
Treasury rates are the cost of the government borrowing money. They fall when confidence in the government increases. So calling Reagan's policies a complete failure is a complete exaggeration. Plenty of people with money seem to think it made the government stronger and most financially sound.
This sounds like the greatest delivery system for recycling ever conceived. I can dump my trash into a river and it will eventually end up being recycled on an island in the middle of the Pacific. All transportation taken care of by Mother Nature.
I think it's clear that there are multiple forces working within the government. There is certainly a part of it that saw a profit opportunity and exploited it as much as possible. Another part saw a liberal crisis and wanted to save the poor workers. I don't think the forces are coordinated.
Here, Obama is an extremist liberal. In your country, who knows what he is. Here, Republicans are right wing. In your country, Republicans are crazy fascist dictators or whatever. Who cares? We think your politicians are crazy too. What's the point of people labeling other country's politicians as right or left wing when the countries are so different? It's not like Republicans here are going to be like "Oh, shit, some guy told us Obama is actually right wing, now we support him."
It doesn't discriminate based on sexual orientation. It's determined by whether or not you pay a tax that the company thinks is unfair.
But if there's a strong correlation, that's pretty much the same thing. What percentage of people who benefit from this will be gay or lesbian? If it *just happens* that most of them are, that's pretty clear evidence that Google made this decision for their benefit. There are plenty of things people pay with after-tax income in this world, and for Google to pick and choose which ones to "correct" is unfair if it benefits one group significantly more than others.
The fact is that married heterosexual couples get a tax credit that homosexual domestic partners do not because the state has decided not to recognize homosexual marriages.
Yes, and it's just as much a fact that men are more likely to be the sole bread winners than women. And that as heads of households, they have more expenses than single people and dual income people.
Externalities at home, whether family or government related, should not affect your salary at work. For Google to attempt to correct imbalances imposed by those external forces is discriminatory, because it's down to their biased judgment what gets corrected and what doesn't.
Well, your salary should be decided on your work, not on what you do at home. What you're saying is the same argument used by people to pay men more than women ("they're more likely to be the sole bread winners" etc).
I think these kinds of decisions need to be made just looking at consequences, not trying to divine the motivation of everybody involved. Do you really want to get into the business of deciding what is choice and what isn't? In a discussion about homosexuality?
"70 percent of Pakistanis want permanent ban on Facebook: Poll"
That's for a *permanent* ban, not just for the draw mohammed day, which of course had even more support. Now of course these people aren't as bad as Osama Bin Laden but that's a stupidly high bar to set for calling someone an extremist.
The basic problem is that Muslims who self-identify as moderate have a very different idea of what moderate means than Westerners who are looking for moderate Muslims.
Yep, just like Texas, where the Internet has been blocked because it's offensive, and where blasphemers are thrown into prison for life -- with their property often conveniently being taken over by their accusers.
Of course they are. You think people who don't use the Internet would even know about the issue?
This was done by the Lahore High Court at the behest of a group of concerned lawyers, as was the Facebook ban. It's not some mullahs in a cave screaming about the Internet and demanding it be blocked for everyone.
That's nothing. Find somebody who is of an islamic background and opposes the idiocy of the radicals, and they might as well have a target on their head.
On the Internet? I don't think so. Fact is they're just fairly rare, they're not a "silent majority" or anything like that.
The thing is most Muslims who self-identify as moderate are not moderate by our standards. They will oppose the ban on Facebook, but still say things like Westerners don't understand the "rage" this behavior induces. Insulting Mohammed is like publishing pictures of your mother being raped, etc (I've seen that written by a journalist!). They think they're being moderate just because they don't want to block the entire Internet -- and often they say, plus if it's unblocked we can go there and massively protest it. So not really moderate.
1. In both cases, the people aren't terrified. If anything they're angry. 2. Talk about a false equivalence. Some Texan Christians want to revise school books to be more pro-Christian -- and that's just like a country of 180+ million Muslims banning massive segments of the Internet with broad popular support. Right.
These companies -- Google, Yahoo, etc -- aren't doing that, so how is anybody going to find a notable person saying that half?
As for the other half -- that Pakistan has a right to ban these sites for being offensive -- consider the aftermath of the Facebook ban. I'm not sure who you consider notable, but plenty of Muslim journalists wrote articles supporting the ban and called for a "Muslim Facebook" to be made, etc.
The US State Department issued a very confusing press release they agreed that Pakistan should protect its people from offensive speech but at the same time that it shouldn't restrict millions of people from using the sites. So kind of stupid and poorly thought out. That's our State Department.
If you slip up one month, but pay it off fully when you realize it, you'll pay around 1.5% to 2% of the balance in interest. My rewards card gives 1% on everything and up to 3% on some things. So a slip up would only eat 1-2 months of rewards. But with automatic payments it's almost impossible to slip up anyway.
Shahzad, on the other hand, is basically an unkown nobody, who could easily have evaded everyone's radar, if he were world-wise. No commission, no military background at all,
Except his father was the Vice Air Marshall of the Pakistan Air Force, and Pakistan's establishment (military and political) has a long history of supporting terrorism and Islamic extremism.
I think the problem is people aren't scared of terrorism in general. You'll always have your Timothy McVeighs and your unabombers. People are scared of the Islamic jihad, which is far larger than any other terrorism threat today. The problem is we can no longer pass laws that target a group of people. Instead of saying "we're going to have warrantless wiretaps on anybody who goes to a mosque, or anybody dealing with this list of countries" we have to say "we're going to have warrantless wiretaps on everybody, because anybody *could* be a terrorist."
In the past, the US has done things like declare the KKK to be a terrorist organization and make simple membership a crime. And things like the internment of Japanese nationals in WWII.
My point isn't whether that approach is better or worse, but it explains why we have this "fox in the henhouse" issue to begin with. In order to be more fair, everybody is subjected to the fox.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget healthcare and gay marriage. Individual states are pushing on many fronts these days, it almost makes me optimistic.
National debt is a way for people to invest in the government. It's not necessarily bad.
If you look at treasury rates in the 1980s you see that in 1981 rates were from 13% to 18%.
http://www.fms.treas.gov/cvfr/index.html
By the end of Reagan's term, rates had dropped to 6% - 7%.
Treasury rates are the cost of the government borrowing money. They fall when confidence in the government increases. So calling Reagan's policies a complete failure is a complete exaggeration. Plenty of people with money seem to think it made the government stronger and most financially sound.
This sounds like the greatest delivery system for recycling ever conceived. I can dump my trash into a river and it will eventually end up being recycled on an island in the middle of the Pacific. All transportation taken care of by Mother Nature.
I think it's clear that there are multiple forces working within the government. There is certainly a part of it that saw a profit opportunity and exploited it as much as possible. Another part saw a liberal crisis and wanted to save the poor workers. I don't think the forces are coordinated.
The reason it matters is that the banks were a profitable investment for the government. The car companies are a pure welfare bailout.
Protectionist? Not for the corporations! It was protectionist for the unions and workers. That's the core principle of social/liberal politics.
Here, Obama is an extremist liberal. In your country, who knows what he is. Here, Republicans are right wing. In your country, Republicans are crazy fascist dictators or whatever. Who cares? We think your politicians are crazy too. What's the point of people labeling other country's politicians as right or left wing when the countries are so different? It's not like Republicans here are going to be like "Oh, shit, some guy told us Obama is actually right wing, now we support him."
It doesn't discriminate based on sexual orientation. It's determined by whether or not you pay a tax that the company thinks is unfair.
But if there's a strong correlation, that's pretty much the same thing. What percentage of people who benefit from this will be gay or lesbian? If it *just happens* that most of them are, that's pretty clear evidence that Google made this decision for their benefit. There are plenty of things people pay with after-tax income in this world, and for Google to pick and choose which ones to "correct" is unfair if it benefits one group significantly more than others.
The fact is that married heterosexual couples get a tax credit that homosexual domestic partners do not because the state has decided not to recognize homosexual marriages.
Yes, and it's just as much a fact that men are more likely to be the sole bread winners than women. And that as heads of households, they have more expenses than single people and dual income people.
Externalities at home, whether family or government related, should not affect your salary at work. For Google to attempt to correct imbalances imposed by those external forces is discriminatory, because it's down to their biased judgment what gets corrected and what doesn't.
It's also banned it in areas where *everybody* wants to smoke.
Well, your salary should be decided on your work, not on what you do at home. What you're saying is the same argument used by people to pay men more than women ("they're more likely to be the sole bread winners" etc).
I think these kinds of decisions need to be made just looking at consequences, not trying to divine the motivation of everybody involved. Do you really want to get into the business of deciding what is choice and what isn't? In a discussion about homosexuality?
Google is free to compensate any way they want.
Not in a way that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.
They didn't cut anyone's salary, it's not discrimination, it's a benefit.
"We pay men more because they have families to support. It's not discrimination, it's a benefit of being a man."
Islam != the sexually repressed extremist wahabist nutjobs that get excited about this sort of thing. You can't judge all Muslims by Osama Bin Laden.
The ban of Facebook in Pakistan had massive popular support. Just google it. Here's one example: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/70-percent-of-Pakistanis-want-permanent-ban-on-Facebook-Poll/articleshow/5972793.cms
"70 percent of Pakistanis want permanent ban on Facebook: Poll"
That's for a *permanent* ban, not just for the draw mohammed day, which of course had even more support. Now of course these people aren't as bad as Osama Bin Laden but that's a stupidly high bar to set for calling someone an extremist.
The basic problem is that Muslims who self-identify as moderate have a very different idea of what moderate means than Westerners who are looking for moderate Muslims.
No there are loopholes in the Koran for temporarily violating Islamic rules for the furthering of Islam.
Yep, just like Texas, where the Internet has been blocked because it's offensive, and where blasphemers are thrown into prison for life -- with their property often conveniently being taken over by their accusers.
Oh, you meant not at all like Texas.
Of course they are. You think people who don't use the Internet would even know about the issue?
This was done by the Lahore High Court at the behest of a group of concerned lawyers, as was the Facebook ban. It's not some mullahs in a cave screaming about the Internet and demanding it be blocked for everyone.
I'm not threatened by spam either, but I still like to get rid of it.
That's nothing. Find somebody who is of an islamic background and opposes the idiocy of the radicals, and they might as well have a target on their head.
On the Internet? I don't think so. Fact is they're just fairly rare, they're not a "silent majority" or anything like that.
The thing is most Muslims who self-identify as moderate are not moderate by our standards. They will oppose the ban on Facebook, but still say things like Westerners don't understand the "rage" this behavior induces. Insulting Mohammed is like publishing pictures of your mother being raped, etc (I've seen that written by a journalist!). They think they're being moderate just because they don't want to block the entire Internet -- and often they say, plus if it's unblocked we can go there and massively protest it. So not really moderate.
Your argument is like saying "Think of the Children" has nothing to do with any real societal beliefs, just because it's abused by politicians.
That makes no sense. If it has broad appeal and support among Muslims, then it is certainly "about Islam."
Couple problems here.
1. In both cases, the people aren't terrified. If anything they're angry.
2. Talk about a false equivalence. Some Texan Christians want to revise school books to be more pro-Christian -- and that's just like a country of 180+ million Muslims banning massive segments of the Internet with broad popular support. Right.
These companies -- Google, Yahoo, etc -- aren't doing that, so how is anybody going to find a notable person saying that half?
As for the other half -- that Pakistan has a right to ban these sites for being offensive -- consider the aftermath of the Facebook ban. I'm not sure who you consider notable, but plenty of Muslim journalists wrote articles supporting the ban and called for a "Muslim Facebook" to be made, etc.
The US State Department issued a very confusing press release they agreed that Pakistan should protect its people from offensive speech but at the same time that it shouldn't restrict millions of people from using the sites. So kind of stupid and poorly thought out. That's our State Department.
If you slip up one month, but pay it off fully when you realize it, you'll pay around 1.5% to 2% of the balance in interest. My rewards card gives 1% on everything and up to 3% on some things. So a slip up would only eat 1-2 months of rewards. But with automatic payments it's almost impossible to slip up anyway.
Shahzad, on the other hand, is basically an unkown nobody, who could easily have evaded everyone's radar, if he were world-wise. No commission, no military background at all,
Except his father was the Vice Air Marshall of the Pakistan Air Force, and Pakistan's establishment (military and political) has a long history of supporting terrorism and Islamic extremism.
I think the problem is people aren't scared of terrorism in general. You'll always have your Timothy McVeighs and your unabombers. People are scared of the Islamic jihad, which is far larger than any other terrorism threat today. The problem is we can no longer pass laws that target a group of people. Instead of saying "we're going to have warrantless wiretaps on anybody who goes to a mosque, or anybody dealing with this list of countries" we have to say "we're going to have warrantless wiretaps on everybody, because anybody *could* be a terrorist."
In the past, the US has done things like declare the KKK to be a terrorist organization and make simple membership a crime. And things like the internment of Japanese nationals in WWII.
My point isn't whether that approach is better or worse, but it explains why we have this "fox in the henhouse" issue to begin with. In order to be more fair, everybody is subjected to the fox.