You'd better not step on my pumas, or I'll get the Juggernaught to kill everyone you have ever loved and destroy every piece of property you have even a tangental right to.
I have a complete, inexpensive system to sell the games industry. It's already widely in use in commerce, but for a fee, I can give them complete plans.
I call it, "Put the goddamn things behind glass like any other 60 dollar doodad".
Compared to a complicated technological system, my "put the goddamn things behind glass" system doesn't require expensive new systems, nor complicated server arrangements.
It has a nearly 100% success rate at stopping shoplifting! Awesome, eh?
As for SecuROM: that single-handedly, I believe, has done more to prevent me from buying any new games in the last year than anything else. I'm not afraid of the obviously malicious software, but I'm not paying $50 for a game that may or may not work because a completely unrelated virus on the disc has a hissy fit because I'm running optical disc emulation (which, AFAIK, still just has one of my PlaneScape: Torment ISOs loaded so I don't have to swap discs) or some other irrelevant piece of software.
Amen. I had actually gone to the video store, put money down on a new copy of mass effect, left the store, and by the time I reached the supermarket I realised it was made by EA so I drove back and returned it because I didn't feel like dealing with DRM. Mass effect may or may not have the worst of the draconian EA DRM, but why would I risk it when I can give money to stardock or even Valve, and not have to deal with that crap?
Let EA pretend they didn't directly lose a sale there because of their shitty attitude towards customers.
I switched from my main PC to my new netbook for most tasks. For the one game I've got on DVD, I haven't played it yet because I can't be arsed to dig out the DVD. By contrast, I entered "steam" into google, downloaded the (tiny) client, and was playing Half-life within an hour, and I've got access to all my games. Same with Impulse. If I want to play any of the games I've got, I download the client. Big deal. It's even like that with my gametap account. I say "Hey, I want to download gametap", I enter my username and password, and I'm playing within an hour.
That's a major benefit in my eyes. I've lost thousands of dollars of software because I move around a lot and CDs tend not to last the trip. Some of them are classic games I never even had a chance to play, like the last 2 Monkey Island games. There are times when I've bought the same disk like three or four times but always lost the disk before having a chance to enjoy it -- Deus Ex, I'm looking at you! Being able to instantly log into the service and get all the games I bought ages ago is a major advantage.
The government cannot create wealth. It's impossible. The government doesn't actually do anything productive, thus can't create wealth.
All they can do is appropriate money from one part of the economy and give it to another. They either do that through taxation, appropriating from income sources; through inflation, appropriating by reducing the value of all money; through debt, appropriating by taking money from future generations; or through excise taxes, appropriating an amount of items sold.
In recent times, the debt has been increasing at such an insane rate that it is an inflationary measure. Why do you think the US dollar has been hit so hard against all other currencies?
It's a proud propaganda machine that makes an army of invasion into an army of liberation, and "conservatives" into idiots who shout "EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT!" at the top of their lungs.
What's pork? The war in Iraq comes immediately to mind. No-bid contracts, anyone?
Yeah, which means, more of the status quo -- My generation will be paying for the last generations retirement, but it's unlikely we'll be able to retire ourselves unless we invest in inflation-proof commodities.
When it's so easy to game the numbers, why not redefine the numbers?
It's like looking at the people with $500k sub-prime mortgages and concluding they must be rich.
They're not rich at all. The sort of house you live in was once a good indicator of wealth, but then the metrics changed and you could get a massive mortgage by lying about your income, and suddenly the indicator become meaningless.
Similarly, the US government in the past 8 years has spent at a greater (inflation adjusted) rate than any time since WWII. That's a significant portion of the economy dominated by the federal Government borrowing money. It may not be the intended effect, but this has the effect of "gaming" the system in that increases in federal spending and borrowing offset a private-sector recession. Since this isn't Soviet Russia, the public sector can't simply offset the private sector like that.
Per person it's 2884.48. For a family of 4, that works out to $11.5k, almost half the poverty line in the USA. For a lot of families, that sort of money would be enough to get high interest debts out of the way, increasing available income, and digging a lot of people out of the hole they've dug themselves into.
Just that the GDP growth was entirely funded by federal debt. We're in a time of nearly unprecedented (inflation adjusted)debt growth. Nixon managed to shrink the inflation adjusted size of the debt. Ford let it go nuts. Carter managed to shrink it. Reagan let it explode. Bush let it explode. Clinton tried to reduce the hemmoraging, but George W. Bush and the two congresses have spent more than any president since World War II.
Real GDP growth ceases to be a meaningful number when such a large part of it is just the congress throwing money they borrowed from China around.
I personally don't like the idea of metrics you can substantially alter by simply borrowing a few hundred billion dollars from China.
There are some people who think you can replace economic growth in the private sector with economic growth in the public sector and it's the same thing. That may be true in Soviet Russia, but in the free world, pork financed with debt is an inflationary measure that doesn't increase the actual size of the economy.
My personal metrics don't really change. In my personal finances I don't pretend debt = income, I'm not about to let the federal government pretend the same.
What's good for a person and what's "good for the economy" are often completely at odds.
According to politicians, the patriot will be completely overextended with debt, barely making all his or her payments, one paycheque away from oblivion.
According to common sense, the non-idiot will try to have as little debt as possible, using it only for major capital expenses rather than trying to live off of it.
According to politicians, the patriot will spend every penny, so the money he or she makes will have maximum exposure to the economy.
According to common sense, the non-idiot will try to have savings, so if something happens they can just coast on savings until the crisis is averted.(Politicians hate that idea. How can they pander to people who aren't on the verge of collapse?)
According to politicians, the patriot will buy a new laptop, car, and house TODAY using credit. They don't have to pay until 2011 anyway, so DO IT! DO IT NOW!
According to common sense, buying things with cash will save considerable amounts of money. First, the interest accrued on debt never takes place. Second, the fees involved with taking out debt never take place. Third, it's easier to get deals and bargain with cash in hand resulting in lower prices.
The rational actor is unpatriotic. Their actions are contrary to maximizing economic growth in the short term.
On the other hand, my personal belief and experience is that debt works differently than economists think. It increases the volatility in the economy. Individual actors add massive amounts of money to the economy, but are suddenly extremely limited in their ability to participate in the economy.
Consider two people: A person with debt, and a person without debt.
The person with debt adds 10k to the economy by buying a new Toyota Yaris. The economy recieves his 10k. For the next year, as he pays back the debt, his ability to participate in the economy is reduced by $900/month, and he is effectively locked out of making any further contribution to the economy. The economy spikes in Q1, but is minimal in Q2, Q3, Q4.
The person without debt doesn't buy that car, but is capable of spending $900/month on the economy. Economic output is constant in Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4.
Now think about this: Many people have 50 year, $500,000 mortgages as a result of the housing bubble. With the economic spike done and over with, what remains?
Slashdot Mirror
Of course the government wants to oppress happy people. Why do you think marijuana is illegal?
You'd better not step on my pumas, or I'll get the Juggernaught to kill everyone you have ever loved and destroy every piece of property you have even a tangental right to.
I have a complete, inexpensive system to sell the games industry. It's already widely in use in commerce, but for a fee, I can give them complete plans.
I call it, "Put the goddamn things behind glass like any other 60 dollar doodad".
Compared to a complicated technological system, my "put the goddamn things behind glass" system doesn't require expensive new systems, nor complicated server arrangements.
It has a nearly 100% success rate at stopping shoplifting! Awesome, eh?
As for SecuROM: that single-handedly, I believe, has done more to prevent me from buying any new games in the last year than anything else. I'm not afraid of the obviously malicious software, but I'm not paying $50 for a game that may or may not work because a completely unrelated virus on the disc has a hissy fit because I'm running optical disc emulation (which, AFAIK, still just has one of my PlaneScape: Torment ISOs loaded so I don't have to swap discs) or some other irrelevant piece of software.
Amen. I had actually gone to the video store, put money down on a new copy of mass effect, left the store, and by the time I reached the supermarket I realised it was made by EA so I drove back and returned it because I didn't feel like dealing with DRM. Mass effect may or may not have the worst of the draconian EA DRM, but why would I risk it when I can give money to stardock or even Valve, and not have to deal with that crap?
Let EA pretend they didn't directly lose a sale there because of their shitty attitude towards customers.
I'm going to agree here.
I switched from my main PC to my new netbook for most tasks. For the one game I've got on DVD, I haven't played it yet because I can't be arsed to dig out the DVD. By contrast, I entered "steam" into google, downloaded the (tiny) client, and was playing Half-life within an hour, and I've got access to all my games. Same with Impulse. If I want to play any of the games I've got, I download the client. Big deal. It's even like that with my gametap account. I say "Hey, I want to download gametap", I enter my username and password, and I'm playing within an hour.
That's a major benefit in my eyes. I've lost thousands of dollars of software because I move around a lot and CDs tend not to last the trip. Some of them are classic games I never even had a chance to play, like the last 2 Monkey Island games. There are times when I've bought the same disk like three or four times but always lost the disk before having a chance to enjoy it -- Deus Ex, I'm looking at you! Being able to instantly log into the service and get all the games I bought ages ago is a major advantage.
I think you're way off-base.
The games I buy off of xbox live have exactly ONE install, and god help you if you delete the game.
This is better than a PC?
If you can get into the account, why not just gift your main account with the games?
If you can't get into your account, doesn't it make sense that they wouldn't remove games from an account you can't really prove is yours?
Actually, person 2 is a better date than person 1. They can afford to take a limo, and they can afford to actually pay for dinner.
Consistency is missing from politics, but in the real world, it's a good measure of how much bullshit you're trying to pull.
The conflicts in Iraq and Afganistan were placed "off the books". They aren't budgeted for, they're funded with bills from the congress.
The government cannot create wealth. It's impossible. The government doesn't actually do anything productive, thus can't create wealth.
All they can do is appropriate money from one part of the economy and give it to another. They either do that through taxation, appropriating from income sources; through inflation, appropriating by reducing the value of all money; through debt, appropriating by taking money from future generations; or through excise taxes, appropriating an amount of items sold.
In recent times, the debt has been increasing at such an insane rate that it is an inflationary measure. Why do you think the US dollar has been hit so hard against all other currencies?
Geessh, hyperbole much do you?
It's a proud propaganda machine that makes an army of invasion into an army of liberation, and "conservatives" into idiots who shout "EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT!" at the top of their lungs.
What's pork?
The war in Iraq comes immediately to mind. No-bid contracts, anyone?
You're right. The US government should stop doing it.
CPI, GDP, and unemployment are all bashed in this story by various people because they've been changed to conveniently be higher.
It's not that huge a factor. Assuming the entire 300,000,000 population of the US, we're looking at $2333.33/person, or $9333.32 for a family of four.
I agree completely. I'm just saying that 700 billion WOULD stave off the inevitable for a while.
So the fact that a dollar will buy way more than it did a month ago doesn't mean "the increase in value of an individual unit of currency"?
Voodoo economists, indeed.
We had deflation across the board recently in my country because we buy goods from the US and they brutalised their dollar.
It was awesome. Everyone liked it.
Yeah, which means, more of the status quo -- My generation will be paying for the last generations retirement, but it's unlikely we'll be able to retire ourselves unless we invest in inflation-proof commodities.
When it's so easy to game the numbers, why not redefine the numbers?
It's like looking at the people with $500k sub-prime mortgages and concluding they must be rich.
They're not rich at all. The sort of house you live in was once a good indicator of wealth, but then the metrics changed and you could get a massive mortgage by lying about your income, and suddenly the indicator become meaningless.
Similarly, the US government in the past 8 years has spent at a greater (inflation adjusted) rate than any time since WWII. That's a significant portion of the economy dominated by the federal Government borrowing money. It may not be the intended effect, but this has the effect of "gaming" the system in that increases in federal spending and borrowing offset a private-sector recession. Since this isn't Soviet Russia, the public sector can't simply offset the private sector like that.
Per person it's 2884.48. For a family of 4, that works out to $11.5k, almost half the poverty line in the USA. For a lot of families, that sort of money would be enough to get high interest debts out of the way, increasing available income, and digging a lot of people out of the hole they've dug themselves into.
Go ahead. Keep telling yourself that borrowing billions from China so we can send crates of money to Iraq creates jobs in America.
Hey, I took out a 500k loan for a house, look at how much money I spent! I must be rich!
Just that the GDP growth was entirely funded by federal debt. We're in a time of nearly unprecedented (inflation adjusted)debt growth. Nixon managed to shrink the inflation adjusted size of the debt. Ford let it go nuts. Carter managed to shrink it. Reagan let it explode. Bush let it explode. Clinton tried to reduce the hemmoraging, but George W. Bush and the two congresses have spent more than any president since World War II.
Real GDP growth ceases to be a meaningful number when such a large part of it is just the congress throwing money they borrowed from China around.
I personally don't like the idea of metrics you can substantially alter by simply borrowing a few hundred billion dollars from China.
There are some people who think you can replace economic growth in the private sector with economic growth in the public sector and it's the same thing. That may be true in Soviet Russia, but in the free world, pork financed with debt is an inflationary measure that doesn't increase the actual size of the economy.
My personal metrics don't really change. In my personal finances I don't pretend debt = income, I'm not about to let the federal government pretend the same.
What's good for a person and what's "good for the economy" are often completely at odds.
According to politicians, the patriot will be completely overextended with debt, barely making all his or her payments, one paycheque away from oblivion.
According to common sense, the non-idiot will try to have as little debt as possible, using it only for major capital expenses rather than trying to live off of it.
According to politicians, the patriot will spend every penny, so the money he or she makes will have maximum exposure to the economy.
According to common sense, the non-idiot will try to have savings, so if something happens they can just coast on savings until the crisis is averted.(Politicians hate that idea. How can they pander to people who aren't on the verge of collapse?)
According to politicians, the patriot will buy a new laptop, car, and house TODAY using credit. They don't have to pay until 2011 anyway, so DO IT! DO IT NOW!
According to common sense, buying things with cash will save considerable amounts of money. First, the interest accrued on debt never takes place. Second, the fees involved with taking out debt never take place. Third, it's easier to get deals and bargain with cash in hand resulting in lower prices.
The rational actor is unpatriotic. Their actions are contrary to maximizing economic growth in the short term.
On the other hand, my personal belief and experience is that debt works differently than economists think. It increases the volatility in the economy. Individual actors add massive amounts of money to the economy, but are suddenly extremely limited in their ability to participate in the economy.
Consider two people: A person with debt, and a person without debt.
The person with debt adds 10k to the economy by buying a new Toyota Yaris. The economy recieves his 10k. For the next year, as he pays back the debt, his ability to participate in the economy is reduced by $900/month, and he is effectively locked out of making any further contribution to the economy. The economy spikes in Q1, but is minimal in Q2, Q3, Q4.
The person without debt doesn't buy that car, but is capable of spending $900/month on the economy. Economic output is constant in Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4.
Now think about this: Many people have 50 year, $500,000 mortgages as a result of the housing bubble. With the economic spike done and over with, what remains?
You know, that h4rm0ny is a real dick.
Now to click AC. Oh shi-