> Therefore, I can generate personal wealth by my creation of goods and services that people want to purchase. Nader's view of the world is that if I am successfull at this, I will have to give up most of my earnings. Why should I bother? Why should anyone?
Um, because you'll still be way richer than most other people? If you make $100k annually and I make $20k, and I'm taxed 10% while you're taxed 50% (an extreme example), you're still left with well over twice of what I am. Does that mean that your work is twice as important as mine? Is a lawyer twice as important as a teacher?
Secondly, you have to take into account the fact that the very rich aren't making wealth. None of them. They aren't sitting in a factory sewing buttons onto shirts. What they are doing is arranging for other people to make wealth. Is the ability to do that (itself usually granted by previous posession of wealth) arrangement a hundred or a thousand times more important than the actual sewing of a button onto a shirt? What if everyone felt that way? You'd have a lot of managers and not very many shirts. A lot of green pieces of paper moving around and not very much happiness.
> There are alternatives to using Microsoft products. Many many viable alternatives.
Sure, but people don't see it that way, and they have the same perception of the government. It's "the OS we're given" and "the gov't we're given." Nobody thinks about "the OS we made," (ie Linux), or "the gov't we made."
New governments aren't handed down from on high with all the rules defined and enumerated, they're constructed from the ground up by dedicated individuals. People who want it to be different need to fight for it no matter what the existing regime is like.
When people complain that the government is too paternalistic, I wonder who it is that is being most childish - the people who are organizing to protect their interests through the government, or the people who are organizing to destroy that tool.
> if an employer's private security forces are shooting union organizers that is a failure of government, not capitalism.
Right. Capitalism doesn't condone or prohibit people shooting each other or otherwise being jerks. Which is why a capitalist economy is incompatable with a weak government.
> The only sane vote is for Harry Browne, who consistently and constitutionally guarantees that government size, cost and intrusiveness will shrink under his administration.
But he doesn't make guarantees about holding corporations accountable for being too large, too expensive, or too intrusive. No, I'm sorry - actually, he guarantees that he won't ever hold them accountable.
Funnily enough, Nader and Browne seem to be as much alike politically as Nader and Gore, or Browne and Bush. They both want to end the war on drugs and equalize civil rights (albiet in a glass half-empty/glass half-full way, Greens by lifting EVERYONE up, Libertarians by lifting NOBODY up).
The major difference between them is that Nader is targeting the corporations for abuses of power, not quite at the SMASH ALL CAPITALISTS!! level, but Browne is pretty bald-facedly against the federal government.
The thing that scares me about Browne is that he'd turn everything over to the corps, who can't be easily held accountable without consolidated power in the federal government. Without regulation or revolution, AT&T would rule the world by now.
> To me, capitalism is as obvious a force for societal improvement as "survival of the fittest" has been for genetic improvement.
Okay, this obviously ignores several things.
#1: popular (you can sell it) != right (helps people) - this isn't very important, because
#2: capitalism is not necessarially an evolutionary system, because it only fits one of the two criteria (variation and selection). it does have strong selection, namely for money management skills, but it only has optional variation in the form of venture capital, and the very rich don't need to invest that much, so it's not really a destabilizing factor.
You might be pleased to note that a very strong socialism is not an evolutionary system either, because it lacks selection. The difference is that giving individuals the power to select, and assuming variation, is freedom ("do what you like, and we'll make sure the rest is done too"), but giving individuals the power to vary, assuming selection, is oppression. ("sure, you can go off on your own, but we retain the right to hunt you down if we don't like you")
#3: Isn't there anything more important that you can think of than money management skills? like merit? corporations have no real limits; they can change products without blinking, abuse their employees (who often don't have anywhere else to go), use low-quality parts or ingredients, etc etc all in the name of driving down costs. And a corporation doesn't have a conscience. It exists as a profit-making entity.
The only way to resist this power is with other power; if need be, the poor will engage in violent revolution. But imo it be nicer if they didn't have to.
Taking away the products of other peoples' labor is exactly what capitalism (to the extent that capitalism is the economic structure used by the very rich in the US) is all about, and it is what unions exist to prevent. A factory union, or a trade union, whatever, is basically a microcosm of socialism: a bunch of normal, hardworking people getting together and telling The MAN that they're not going to pay some kind of tribute (read: work for less than their labor is worth) just because he ended up in charge somehow. Gee, doesn't that sound like the libertarians telling the federal government that they don't want to pay income tax?
All of these political parties are just different voices for the ongoing conversation between the ruling class and the rest of us.
> The government is effectively saying to the poor that, by being poor, they have demonstrated a lack of money management skills. Therefore, the government must take their money away in taxes and manage it for them.
But that goes exactly against the Libertarian principle of governmental noninterference.
> I think the basic point of his statement is that people live better with less government interference.
Yet he wants to pretend that corporations do not provide their own form of government - their own ruling class (shareholders), laws (contracts), taxes (prices, fees, etc), conquering armies (lawyers), immigration (HR or marketing/sales), and serfs (employees or customers).
I appreciate that the Libertarians want to cut off the Hydra's head - but I don't want to pay the price when a hundred more sprout out of the stump.
The pro-choice movement is misnamed, anyway, a choice will be made sooner or later.
I'd rather call it the pro-death movement, since I am for death, within limits, and not as dictated by the state (not capital punishment, for example), but that would never happen, for obvious reasons.
IMO, the mother should be allowed to make the choice... but she should also know in advance what her choice would be, and have the conviction to make it as soon as she learns she's pregnant. I also think that this asks too much of many women, particularly impoverished ones, but the sorry state of our medical and educational systems is another two rants.
> And I could care less about Nader either way. He's a crank. I'd definitely actively vote against him if it seemed like he had a chance, but let's face it, nuts like him don't have a chance.
And people wonder why anti-Nader comments get moderated down.
Calling any of the candidates a "crank" or a "nut" is unnecessary and immature, but you don't even provide your reasoning for the thought. How arrogant are you that you assume we have any idea of what you're talking about?
Or is it just that you don't care about the thoughts of anyone who doesn't already agree with you? Perhaps it's because you believe, as those who are wrong frequently do, that any differing opinion must be flawed in some way, and moreover that even taking the time to effectively point out those flaws is already a waste of time.
Btw, anyone who doesn't already think Maggie here is a few ants shy of a picnic might want to check out that url of his. Ad hominem attacks, anyone?
> He does not, on the other hand, know anything about how to protect the interests of the United States on the world stage.
That's a very interesting criticism. Could you be more specific? Are you referring to his intent to move the government toward a peacetime economy? Do people think he isn't sufficiently charismatic? Hasn't visited China enough times? What is it?
He seems to have a strong stance on corporate globalization, which certainly qualifies as protecting MY interests on the world stage, and we have tons and tons of internal problems he's proposed realistic solutions to that would go a long way, I think, toward making it easier for future candidates to handle international affairs productively.
> I can't understand how this community full of geeks and nerds refuses to recognize basic economic principles. It burns me up when I hear Algore say "How will we pay for these tax cuts?" and people nod their heads in agreement.
Yep. Me too. Because the answer is right under their noses, but they refuse to see it.
> Second, there is no need to pay for a tax cut, as it doesn't cost anything!
Of course it does. In the absence of a tax cut, that money would eventually be spent on something, so in order to have a tax cut, some kind of program or service needs to be cancelled. IANAEconomist, but I've often heard this concept referred to as the opportunity cost.
The question isn't "will it cost us something" because obviously it will. The question is "what will it cost," which is not only more appropriate, but highly interesting, imo.
> You never hear ISP's saying that they found some way to pay for your reduced cost unlimited dial-up accounts, yet the fees get lower all the time
What a disturbing analogy. Every ISP I've ever heard of or used existed for exactly one purpose: to make a profit. If it stops making a profit, it stops existing (at least stops existing as an autonomous entity). The U.S. Government ostensibly exists to maintain the quality of living of U.S. citizens, NOT to make a profit.
To address your analogy more directly, let me point out that when a business makes a profit, it goes into the pocket of the owners, so an ISP will charge whatever it CAN. The government (should) have no use for excess funds, so it (should) tax only what it NEEDS. In actuality, the government probably wastes a great deal of money, mainly on the military - in particular, on military contractors who turn around and pad their buddies in the legislature with the profit from fat military contracts for extravagant killing machines that we didn't need in the first place, but that's another rant.
The irony is that the programs that benefit people the most, like welfare, medica(id|re), the NSF, and so on, are going to be the first ones to have their funding cut. Social Security seems to be getting some attention, which is good, because it isn't sustainable but why don't Gore or Bush talk about moving to a peacetime economy?
> In business, competition drives costs down, and improves efficiancy.
Actually, waste hardly ever decreases as a result of decreased revenue. More often, it is quality that takes the hit. Waste will always cut into the profits, so there is always incentive for corporations to target it. When revenue actually decreases, quality is the next likely candidate for slimming down.
You may have a point here wrt government (NASA seems to have shaped up in terms of budgeting after getting hit pretty hard), but unless the budget cuts reach the pentagon, I don't really see the point.
> From this comment, I'm to assume that Timothy thinks that this statement is untrue? (and, please, literalist fools go away. "Absolutely no" means "too little to be relevent to anything").
Why should "absolutely no" mean anything other than "absolutely no"? Thurrott isn't God, we shouldn't have to hem and haw over what he really meant. You're basically arguing against a position that you yourself invented.
(.0000001% > 0%, btw)
I predict that a working linux distribution will be included on the AOL CDs by the end of 2005.
Or that someone else will adopt the tactic. Eazel comes to mind.
Funny how all this business of porting to Solaris and HP-UX breaks out just as the Gnome foundation gets established, with Sun and HP promising to use Gnome by default. By the time Mainsoft gets finished with their ports of IE and Outlook, maybe Mozilla and Evolution will be ready... they're looking pretty good on my box right now.
Microsoft's marketing engine vs Sun's and HP's default setups, to say nothing of the actual technologies. Should be a fun race to watch.
Slashdot Mirror
> Therefore, I can generate personal wealth by my creation of goods and services that people want to purchase. Nader's view of the world is that if I am successfull at this, I will have to give up most of my earnings. Why should I bother? Why should anyone?
Um, because you'll still be way richer than most other people? If you make $100k annually and I make $20k, and I'm taxed 10% while you're taxed 50% (an extreme example), you're still left with well over twice of what I am. Does that mean that your work is twice as important as mine? Is a lawyer twice as important as a teacher?
Secondly, you have to take into account the fact that the very rich aren't making wealth. None of them. They aren't sitting in a factory sewing buttons onto shirts. What they are doing is arranging for other people to make wealth. Is the ability to do that (itself usually granted by previous posession of wealth) arrangement a hundred or a thousand times more important than the actual sewing of a button onto a shirt? What if everyone felt that way? You'd have a lot of managers and not very many shirts. A lot of green pieces of paper moving around and not very much happiness.
So maybe you shouldn't bother.
> There are alternatives to using Microsoft products. Many many viable alternatives.
Sure, but people don't see it that way, and they have the same perception of the government. It's "the OS we're given" and "the gov't we're given." Nobody thinks about "the OS we made," (ie Linux), or "the gov't we made."
New governments aren't handed down from on high with all the rules defined and enumerated, they're constructed from the ground up by dedicated individuals. People who want it to be different need to fight for it no matter what the existing regime is like.
When people complain that the government is too paternalistic, I wonder who it is that is being most childish - the people who are organizing to protect their interests through the government, or the people who are organizing to destroy that tool.
> if an employer's private security forces are shooting union organizers that is a failure of government, not capitalism.
Right. Capitalism doesn't condone or prohibit people shooting each other or otherwise being jerks. Which is why a capitalist economy is incompatable with a weak government.
> Imagine how much more companies could spend on research if they didn't pay taxes.
Actually, many corporations already do get tax breaks for doing research. This is how GM avoids paying taxes - they paid $0 tax last year.
> The only sane vote is for Harry Browne, who consistently and constitutionally guarantees that government size, cost and intrusiveness will shrink under his administration.
But he doesn't make guarantees about holding corporations accountable for being too large, too expensive, or too intrusive. No, I'm sorry - actually, he guarantees that he won't ever hold them accountable.
> Democrat/Republican/Socialist/Green Party ---->Totalitarian regimes who decide how much you can earn, own, do, and finally what you think.
Sounds an awful lot like the WTO to me.
Funnily enough, Nader and Browne seem to be as much alike politically as Nader and Gore, or Browne and Bush. They both want to end the war on drugs and equalize civil rights (albiet in a glass half-empty/glass half-full way, Greens by lifting EVERYONE up, Libertarians by lifting NOBODY up).
The major difference between them is that Nader is targeting the corporations for abuses of power, not quite at the SMASH ALL CAPITALISTS!! level, but Browne is pretty bald-facedly against the federal government.
The thing that scares me about Browne is that he'd turn everything over to the corps, who can't be easily held accountable without consolidated power in the federal government. Without regulation or revolution, AT&T would rule the world by now.
Say I'm wrong. Go ahead. I dare ya.
> To me, capitalism is as obvious a force for societal improvement as "survival of the fittest" has been for genetic improvement.
Okay, this obviously ignores several things.
#1: popular (you can sell it) != right (helps people) - this isn't very important, because
#2: capitalism is not necessarially an evolutionary system, because it only fits one of the two criteria (variation and selection). it does have strong selection, namely for money management skills, but it only has optional variation in the form of venture capital, and the very rich don't need to invest that much, so it's not really a destabilizing factor.
You might be pleased to note that a very strong socialism is not an evolutionary system either, because it lacks selection. The difference is that giving individuals the power to select, and assuming variation, is freedom ("do what you like, and we'll make sure the rest is done too"), but giving individuals the power to vary, assuming selection, is oppression. ("sure, you can go off on your own, but we retain the right to hunt you down if we don't like you")
#3: Isn't there anything more important that you can think of than money management skills? like merit? corporations have no real limits; they can change products without blinking, abuse their employees (who often don't have anywhere else to go), use low-quality parts or ingredients, etc etc all in the name of driving down costs. And a corporation doesn't have a conscience. It exists as a profit-making entity.
The only way to resist this power is with other power; if need be, the poor will engage in violent revolution. But imo it be nicer if they didn't have to.
Microsoft charges whatever they want, too.
Taking away the products of other peoples' labor is exactly what capitalism (to the extent that capitalism is the economic structure used by the very rich in the US) is all about, and it is what unions exist to prevent. A factory union, or a trade union, whatever, is basically a microcosm of socialism: a bunch of normal, hardworking people getting together and telling The MAN that they're not going to pay some kind of tribute (read: work for less than their labor is worth) just because he ended up in charge somehow. Gee, doesn't that sound like the libertarians telling the federal government that they don't want to pay income tax?
All of these political parties are just different voices for the ongoing conversation between the ruling class and the rest of us.
> has anyone noticed that people become socialists after they realize that they will never make any money?
All valuable contribution to society isn't rewarded with lots of money. Success isn't the same as merit.
Right, because private charities have so much more money and can always outbid the rich.
> The government is effectively saying to the poor that, by being poor, they have demonstrated a lack of money management skills. Therefore, the government must take their money away in taxes and manage it for them.
But that goes exactly against the Libertarian principle of governmental noninterference.
> I think the basic point of his statement is that people live better with less government interference.
Yet he wants to pretend that corporations do not provide their own form of government - their own ruling class (shareholders), laws (contracts), taxes (prices, fees, etc), conquering armies (lawyers), immigration (HR or marketing/sales), and serfs (employees or customers).
I appreciate that the Libertarians want to cut off the Hydra's head - but I don't want to pay the price when a hundred more sprout out of the stump.
Which of the running candidates do you think would reduce income tax or social security tax?
penguinmon, digivolve to ... penguindeerfrogmon!
Yep,Windows NT (broken), Windows 95 (broken as well), Windows 2000 (also broken) and Windows ME (still broken).
And while I'm at it:
New Computer: $1000
O'Reilly Book: $35
Distro CD: $2
The Look on the Face of Your MCSE Buddy When He Notices Your Uptime Monitor: priceless.
There are some things money can't buy. Things like Linux.
The pro-choice movement is misnamed, anyway, a choice will be made sooner or later.
... but she should also know in advance what her choice would be, and have the conviction to make it as soon as she learns she's pregnant. I also think that this asks too much of many women, particularly impoverished ones, but the sorry state of our medical and educational systems is another two rants.
I'd rather call it the pro-death movement, since I am for death, within limits, and not as dictated by the state (not capital punishment, for example), but that would never happen, for obvious reasons.
IMO, the mother should be allowed to make the choice
> And I could care less about Nader either way. He's a crank. I'd definitely actively vote against him if it seemed like he had a chance, but let's face it, nuts like him don't have a chance.
And people wonder why anti-Nader comments get moderated down.
Calling any of the candidates a "crank" or a "nut" is unnecessary and immature, but you don't even provide your reasoning for the thought. How arrogant are you that you assume we have any idea of what you're talking about?
Or is it just that you don't care about the thoughts of anyone who doesn't already agree with you? Perhaps it's because you believe, as those who are wrong frequently do, that any differing opinion must be flawed in some way, and moreover that even taking the time to effectively point out those flaws is already a waste of time.
Btw, anyone who doesn't already think Maggie here is a few ants shy of a picnic might want to check out that url of his. Ad hominem attacks, anyone?
> He does not, on the other hand, know anything about how to protect the interests of the United States on the world stage.
That's a very interesting criticism. Could you be more specific? Are you referring to his intent to move the government toward a peacetime economy? Do people think he isn't sufficiently charismatic? Hasn't visited China enough times? What is it?
He seems to have a strong stance on corporate globalization, which certainly qualifies as protecting MY interests on the world stage, and we have tons and tons of internal problems he's proposed realistic solutions to that would go a long way, I think, toward making it easier for future candidates to handle international affairs productively.
> I can't understand how this community full of geeks and nerds refuses to recognize basic economic principles. It burns me up when I hear Algore say "How will we pay for these tax cuts?" and people nod their heads in agreement.
Yep. Me too. Because the answer is right under their noses, but they refuse to see it.
> Second, there is no need to pay for a tax cut, as it doesn't cost anything!
Of course it does. In the absence of a tax cut, that money would eventually be spent on something, so in order to have a tax cut, some kind of program or service needs to be cancelled. IANAEconomist, but I've often heard this concept referred to as the opportunity cost.
The question isn't "will it cost us something" because obviously it will. The question is "what will it cost," which is not only more appropriate, but highly interesting, imo.
> You never hear ISP's saying that they found some way to pay for your reduced cost unlimited dial-up accounts, yet the fees get lower all the time
What a disturbing analogy. Every ISP I've ever heard of or used existed for exactly one purpose: to make a profit. If it stops making a profit, it stops existing (at least stops existing as an autonomous entity). The U.S. Government ostensibly exists to maintain the quality of living of U.S. citizens, NOT to make a profit.
To address your analogy more directly, let me point out that when a business makes a profit, it goes into the pocket of the owners, so an ISP will charge whatever it CAN. The government (should) have no use for excess funds, so it (should) tax only what it NEEDS. In actuality, the government probably wastes a great deal of money, mainly on the military - in particular, on military contractors who turn around and pad their buddies in the legislature with the profit from fat military contracts for extravagant killing machines that we didn't need in the first place, but that's another rant.
The irony is that the programs that benefit people the most, like welfare, medica(id|re), the NSF, and so on, are going to be the first ones to have their funding cut. Social Security seems to be getting some attention, which is good, because it isn't sustainable but why don't Gore or Bush talk about moving to a peacetime economy?
> In business, competition drives costs down, and improves efficiancy.
Actually, waste hardly ever decreases as a result of decreased revenue. More often, it is quality that takes the hit. Waste will always cut into the profits, so there is always incentive for corporations to target it. When revenue actually decreases, quality is the next likely candidate for slimming down.
You may have a point here wrt government (NASA seems to have shaped up in terms of budgeting after getting hit pretty hard), but unless the budget cuts reach the pentagon, I don't really see the point.
is that they don't let CS majors get credit for classes like "HTML Design."
> From this comment, I'm to assume that Timothy thinks that this statement is untrue? (and, please, literalist fools go away. "Absolutely no" means "too little to be relevent to anything"). Why should "absolutely no" mean anything other than "absolutely no"? Thurrott isn't God, we shouldn't have to hem and haw over what he really meant. You're basically arguing against a position that you yourself invented. (.0000001% > 0%, btw)
I predict that a working linux distribution will be included on the AOL CDs by the end of 2005.
Or that someone else will adopt the tactic. Eazel comes to mind.
Funny how all this business of porting to Solaris and HP-UX breaks out just as the Gnome foundation gets established, with Sun and HP promising to use Gnome by default. By the time Mainsoft gets finished with their ports of IE and Outlook, maybe Mozilla and Evolution will be ready ... they're looking pretty good on my box right now.
Microsoft's marketing engine vs Sun's and HP's default setups, to say nothing of the actual technologies. Should be a fun race to watch.