But he didn't give up his life, he opted to create a new one. He went the same way as Assange did by seeking asylum in an unfriendly country. If he really wanted to make a point, he should come back and argue his case in court. Plenty of lawyers would be happy to work for him due to the high-profile nature of the case.
Even if he were convicted, is that any worse than being confined in his current situation? Conversely, it may lend much greater credence to his cause. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years and his incarceration was one of the things that kept support for the anti-apartheid movement strong.
Actually Europe has a much higher population than the US. The population of the EU countries is now over 500 million. If Europe is more unified politically, it will be the single biggest geopolitical force in the world.
HK cannot enter a defence treaty with Taiwan. As you said it is not a separate autonomous state - it doesn't have any power in defence. It does have limited foreign policy power, but only related to trade.
The real test is the plan to allow for the election of the Chief Executive in HK by the popular vote. Right now all of the candidates have to be first vetted by BJ through a selection committee of 800 BJ loyalists (out of a population of nearly 8 million). The plan for the popular vote of the entire Legislative Council and for the Chief Executive is something that BJ is actively trying to undermine.
I don't buy this argument at all. The extent of Chinese censorship and the fact that they have clones of all of the major internet services inside the great firewall of China is evidence enough to disprove it.
They are marketed as cheap but respectable smartphones for people that do not need that much from their phones. So from a strategy point of view, this announcement is a bit of a question mark.
I don't dispute this. The Chinese government doesn't seem to hide it well as well.
However, having the rights on paper and on the statue books is better than not. It curbs the most excessive abuses and raises the bar in the amount of effort needed to short-change the People.
Taiwan's political institutions are not tied to the People's Republic of China. They are remnants of the Nationalist government (KMT) after their defeat in the Civil War.
Hong Kong and Macau were both colonial outposts of Britain and Portugal respectively. These have been handled back to China and are government under a "One Country, Two Systems" approach, classifying them as Special Administrative Regions (SARs) each with a mini-constitution called the "Basic Law". In theory, a high degree of autonomy is guaranteed, but in practise, there is always political pressure being applied to intervene in all kinds of matters. A resident of the SAR has about the same rights as a person in North America or in Europe, and at least until now, the appearance normality has been maintained after the handover back to China.
This is not good for Hong Kong as it is the only place in China (apart from maybe Macau) that has a free press and significant protection on civil liberties. It's not like HK has any leverage on the decision process in Mainland China.
You lose all credibility and also lose the debate when you refers to the Nazi party as left wing. There is a reason why fascism and communism never got along.
/If I had mod points I would mod your post up. //But I don't so replying instead
And speculation. Chinese property markets (such as Beijing and Shanghai) has seen multiple booms and busts in the past decade due to rampant speculation.
Then maybe your neighbor should have had fewer kids? Or maybe he should do something worth as much as it costs to feed his family?
On my! What assumptions! How about if my neighbour needed to take care of her live-in father, who has Parkinson's? Where does that leave your argument? Can I choose whether a loved one is sick or not, or whether you have someone close that you have to care for?
You seem to think naively that humans are rational economic actors and we have complete control over our situations in life. I'm not so sure.
Find a company with a large low-paid workforce. Now look at how much they pay in taxes. Now look at how much their employees receive in government benefits. You may notice that the former quantity is greater than the latter, typically much greater. What value is the government adding to this transaction, exactly?
The same companies that avoids tax by funnelling funds to overseas subsidiaries and by making complicated financial transactions to shelter income from the tax authorities? The same companies that get millions of dollars of tax breaks from the state so that they can open up a massive distribution center that brings one or two hundred minimum wage jobs?
You don't care that there are more poor people, as long as they're all equally poor?
That's the opposite of what I said. Companies should pay for workers, not the taxpayer. Not in million dollar tax breaks in exchange for low-paid jobs. Definitely not for companies that rake in huge profit while their typical front-line worker barely scraps by, with no health insurance coverage, and relying on food stamps to get by. .
British, France, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and other advanced economies doesn't seem to have any problems coming up with new treatments and drugs. Just as an example, Kings College and Guys' & St. Thomas', an NHS hospital, just developed a new and affordable test to predict pre-eclampsia on pregnant women before it develops. This is really important work, done on the public purse, which most tax payers (me included) couldn't be happier to fund.
Because it doesn't make sense for us to subsidize low wages as a society.
I don't want my neighbor to be working and still not be able to feed his family. What's more, I don't want to subsize the company that is making millions off of low-paid staff which then claims benefits. I'd rather employers pay their fair share. If that mean the unemployment rate is a little bit higher, so be it. I'd rather my tax dollars be used to help people that truly need it than some company's bottom line.
All I needed to know about Obamacare was that it is a form of price control.
Well well.. so you've made up your mind and just looking for facts to support your case. However, I'm afraid to say, you are wrong.
First of all, the ACA is not what is understood in economics as price controls. It is not a price floor, nor a price ceiling.
Secondly, not all price controls are bad. Some are necessary as the market is not always optimal. Most of the time they are enacted to even out bargaining power discrepancies, and it generally makes the economy more efficient when done correctly. For example, there is a reason for the minimum wage - otherwise you have more and more working poor that rely on benefits (however, this didn't stop Wal-Mart due to deficiencies in the minimum wage), or alternatively you can cut all benefits and bring back poor laws and workhouses. There's a reason why we dumped that system.
The system right now is skewed towards those with the mean necessary to drown out reasonable voices. Instead of the government arbitrarily deciding who gets to run in an election, you have rich individuals and corporations that decide. It this situation any better than the alternative? Unlike government, we the people, have no oversight of these private parties because it's all done in the shadows with money being moved all over the place to obscure who the benefactors are.
The whole idea of the US constitution is to create a system of government which can be controlled by the people. In order to do this, we need to decide upon a fair way to set the ground rules for campaign funding. That's all that's required.
The big difference between your POV and mine is that you feel government, and government alone, is not to be trusted. Whereas I feel that power is no to be trusted. Government is not to be trusted, but only because it has power. However, government is not the only source of power and we need to use our system of government to keep the sources of power (ie. individuals and organizations that have wealth and influence) in check within our society in order to keep it falling corrupt and tyrannical.
You talk of "buying influence" but theres no way around it; unless you want to make it illegal to be paid to state your opinion (which would kill commercials and would also seem to be a serious compromise), any attempt I can think of to control campaign advertising would be a dangerous attack on political speech.
Dangerous? to whom? The only danger is that we end up with a fairer system.
There's no slippery slope argument here at all, so why are people insisting that there is. We have always had limits on free speech, for a variety of mainly very good reasons. Political speech is already relatively deregulated - which is causing the problems we are seeing now.
Most of the wealth in the US is owned by a relatively small number of people. A great majority of these people want this situation to remain.
If enough people recognize this and vote for their own interests and the interests of the community (and the country), then we have a jab at making it happen. It's a lot easier to flight for a new system than to fight to improve the existing system, but it's rather reckless to overthrow a established, relatively stable, relatively well-designed political system for something that can be fixed with a Act of Congress isn't it?
Slashdot Mirror
But he didn't give up his life, he opted to create a new one. He went the same way as Assange did by seeking asylum in an unfriendly country. If he really wanted to make a point, he should come back and argue his case in court. Plenty of lawyers would be happy to work for him due to the high-profile nature of the case.
Even if he were convicted, is that any worse than being confined in his current situation? Conversely, it may lend much greater credence to his cause. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years and his incarceration was one of the things that kept support for the anti-apartheid movement strong.
There's nothing wrong with monarchy as long as it is constitutional. Much of Europe are still monarchies.
Usually 2) is solved by forcing a break up of the company after it has recovered. In this case, it's probably the best course of action.
Actually Europe has a much higher population than the US. The population of the EU countries is now over 500 million. If Europe is more unified politically, it will be the single biggest geopolitical force in the world.
Royal Mail in the UK ships parcels for many big online retailers. They offer competitive rates and good service.
HK cannot enter a defence treaty with Taiwan. As you said it is not a separate autonomous state - it doesn't have any power in defence. It does have limited foreign policy power, but only related to trade.
The real test is the plan to allow for the election of the Chief Executive in HK by the popular vote. Right now all of the candidates have to be first vetted by BJ through a selection committee of 800 BJ loyalists (out of a population of nearly 8 million). The plan for the popular vote of the entire Legislative Council and for the Chief Executive is something that BJ is actively trying to undermine.
I don't buy this argument at all. The extent of Chinese censorship and the fact that they have clones of all of the major internet services inside the great firewall of China is evidence enough to disprove it.
They are marketed as cheap but respectable smartphones for people that do not need that much from their phones. So from a strategy point of view, this announcement is a bit of a question mark.
I don't dispute this. The Chinese government doesn't seem to hide it well as well.
However, having the rights on paper and on the statue books is better than not. It curbs the most excessive abuses and raises the bar in the amount of effort needed to short-change the People.
Taiwan's political institutions are not tied to the People's Republic of China. They are remnants of the Nationalist government (KMT) after their defeat in the Civil War.
Hong Kong and Macau were both colonial outposts of Britain and Portugal respectively. These have been handled back to China and are government under a "One Country, Two Systems" approach, classifying them as Special Administrative Regions (SARs) each with a mini-constitution called the "Basic Law". In theory, a high degree of autonomy is guaranteed, but in practise, there is always political pressure being applied to intervene in all kinds of matters. A resident of the SAR has about the same rights as a person in North America or in Europe, and at least until now, the appearance normality has been maintained after the handover back to China.
This is not good for Hong Kong as it is the only place in China (apart from maybe Macau) that has a free press and significant protection on civil liberties. It's not like HK has any leverage on the decision process in Mainland China.
The left-right spectrum has nothing to do with what you said and has everything to do with ownership of the mean of production.
Seriously, has /. devolved into 4chan?
You lose all credibility and also lose the debate when you refers to the Nazi party as left wing. There is a reason why fascism and communism never got along.
And speculation. Chinese property markets (such as Beijing and Shanghai) has seen multiple booms and busts in the past decade due to rampant speculation.
Hum... /Looks at a map of the mid-west, poverty rates and descent.
capitalism is extremely efficient at profiting from human misery
humans are extremely efficient at creating human misery
/FIFY
Then maybe your neighbor should have had fewer kids? Or maybe he should do something worth as much as it costs to feed his family?
On my! What assumptions! How about if my neighbour needed to take care of her live-in father, who has Parkinson's? Where does that leave your argument? Can I choose whether a loved one is sick or not, or whether you have someone close that you have to care for?
You seem to think naively that humans are rational economic actors and we have complete control over our situations in life. I'm not so sure.
Find a company with a large low-paid workforce. Now look at how much they pay in taxes. Now look at how much their employees receive in government benefits. You may notice that the former quantity is greater than the latter, typically much greater. What value is the government adding to this transaction, exactly?
The same companies that avoids tax by funnelling funds to overseas subsidiaries and by making complicated financial transactions to shelter income from the tax authorities? The same companies that get millions of dollars of tax breaks from the state so that they can open up a massive distribution center that brings one or two hundred minimum wage jobs?
You don't care that there are more poor people, as long as they're all equally poor?
That's the opposite of what I said. Companies should pay for workers, not the taxpayer. Not in million dollar tax breaks in exchange for low-paid jobs. Definitely not for companies that rake in huge profit while their typical front-line worker barely scraps by, with no health insurance coverage, and relying on food stamps to get by.
.
British, France, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and other advanced economies doesn't seem to have any problems coming up with new treatments and drugs. Just as an example, Kings College and Guys' & St. Thomas', an NHS hospital, just developed a new and affordable test to predict pre-eclampsia on pregnant women before it develops. This is really important work, done on the public purse, which most tax payers (me included) couldn't be happier to fund.
Because it doesn't make sense for us to subsidize low wages as a society.
I don't want my neighbor to be working and still not be able to feed his family. What's more, I don't want to subsize the company that is making millions off of low-paid staff which then claims benefits. I'd rather employers pay their fair share. If that mean the unemployment rate is a little bit higher, so be it. I'd rather my tax dollars be used to help people that truly need it than some company's bottom line.
All I needed to know about Obamacare was that it is a form of price control.
Well well.. so you've made up your mind and just looking for facts to support your case. However, I'm afraid to say, you are wrong.
First of all, the ACA is not what is understood in economics as price controls. It is not a price floor, nor a price ceiling.
Secondly, not all price controls are bad. Some are necessary as the market is not always optimal. Most of the time they are enacted to even out bargaining power discrepancies, and it generally makes the economy more efficient when done correctly. For example, there is a reason for the minimum wage - otherwise you have more and more working poor that rely on benefits (however, this didn't stop Wal-Mart due to deficiencies in the minimum wage), or alternatively you can cut all benefits and bring back poor laws and workhouses. There's a reason why we dumped that system.
The difference is that George Washington didn't appoint his wife Vice-President.
Socializing costs, privatizing profits. That's how money is made in science (and banking and almost everything else) these days.
The system right now is skewed towards those with the mean necessary to drown out reasonable voices. Instead of the government arbitrarily deciding who gets to run in an election, you have rich individuals and corporations that decide. It this situation any better than the alternative? Unlike government, we the people, have no oversight of these private parties because it's all done in the shadows with money being moved all over the place to obscure who the benefactors are.
The whole idea of the US constitution is to create a system of government which can be controlled by the people. In order to do this, we need to decide upon a fair way to set the ground rules for campaign funding. That's all that's required.
The big difference between your POV and mine is that you feel government, and government alone, is not to be trusted. Whereas I feel that power is no to be trusted. Government is not to be trusted, but only because it has power. However, government is not the only source of power and we need to use our system of government to keep the sources of power (ie. individuals and organizations that have wealth and influence) in check within our society in order to keep it falling corrupt and tyrannical.
You talk of "buying influence" but theres no way around it; unless you want to make it illegal to be paid to state your opinion (which would kill commercials and would also seem to be a serious compromise), any attempt I can think of to control campaign advertising would be a dangerous attack on political speech.
Dangerous? to whom? The only danger is that we end up with a fairer system.
There's no slippery slope argument here at all, so why are people insisting that there is. We have always had limits on free speech, for a variety of mainly very good reasons. Political speech is already relatively deregulated - which is causing the problems we are seeing now.
Most of the wealth in the US is owned by a relatively small number of people. A great majority of these people want this situation to remain.
If enough people recognize this and vote for their own interests and the interests of the community (and the country), then we have a jab at making it happen. It's a lot easier to flight for a new system than to fight to improve the existing system, but it's rather reckless to overthrow a established, relatively stable, relatively well-designed political system for something that can be fixed with a Act of Congress isn't it?