Country B: Health insurance is mandatory. So everyone pays premiums. The premiums are low, because only a small percentage of the insured population actually use the insurance.
You should not forget that also most non-US countries have lower total medical costs per capita. This is mainly because doctor pay is limited directly (UK NHS) or indirectly ("negotiations" between the government and physician unions like in France). Non-US OECD doctors make half as much as American doctors on average.
US insurance profits are a very small part of the medical cost pie compared with doctor pay and hospital fees.
And the US is stuck with employer-linked health insurance because of WWII-era tax laws meant to get around wartime wage controls, thus making employer-paid health benefits untaxed, but personal-paid health costs come from taxed income.
Indeed, but they could get a donor Y chromosome from someone - there aren't too many genes on it (only 86).
Or the Y chromosome could possibly be synthesized. It has 58 million base pairs, Venter's group has synthesized a chromosome of 1 million base pairs, so perhaps more work would be needed.
The goal of ATSC A/85 is to maintain "long term loudness" levels.
Generally, it is to keep the "anchor element" (typically speech, but might be the entire audio track for musical production) at a certain LKFS loudness measure as per long-term ITU-R BS. 1770 analysis.
Quiet periods might be "gated" out of the long-term loudness measurement.
The CALM Act references ATSC RP A/85, which in turn references ITU-R BS.1770, which is a loudness measure based on integrating audio power multiplied by a frequency weighting curve that weights higher frequencies more and lower frequencies less.
"Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service must treat lawful content, applications, and services in a nondiscriminatory manner."
Where:
"We understand the term "nondiscriminatory" to mean that a broadband Internet access service provider may not charge a content, application, or service provider for enhanced or prioritized access to the subscribers of the broadband Internet access service provider...We propose that this rule would not prevent a broadband Internet access service provider from charging subscribers different prices for different services."
Which still leaves a lot of holes - can an Internet access provider have both free peering and then ask CDN's for money?
"Net Neutrality" will unleash all kinds of government controls on the Internet. I work in TV (previously in the ISP space), and I can assure you that you don't want your every business or technical decision made based on FCC rules (or what they are threatening to do but are unwilling to finalize rulemaking.)
I am saying that this situation is complicated enough that it is not at all clear that Comcast is in the wrong and that we should wait for more information before we reach a conclusion.
How about, "We don't own either company, they should be free to work out whatever deal they want to, and of course as consumers we may respond with purchasing something else".
This is like the fifteenth population density excuse I've seen in this thread alone, and *every* thread about internet speeds is filled with population density arguments.
Indeed, the issue is US local loop lengths being on average twice that of other countries. DSL is slower because loops are longer.
I suspect the long US local loop issue is split between 1) non-urban areas and 2) in urban areas, the infrastructure is older or Central Offices have been consolidated for efficient audio operation before data operation became a business factor.
I worked at an ISP in the 1990's where we had copper loop pairs from the 1930's. About half of them were good enough for 9600 bps. Eventually, after much effort, we got fiber from the iLEC into the building, but customers in town were still on 1930's copper on their side.
The Sevmorput is a Russian nuclear-powered cargo ship, the only one still operating under nuclear power, with the others having been retired or been converted to diesel propulsion.
So you would like to continue the tradition of mining other country's best people for your own selfish benefit, while those other countries remain 3rd world because all their resource, including human, gets stripped?
It's called competition. No one is stopping foreign governments from having policies that encourage smart and entrepreneurial people to earn money.
For example, China now has 825,000 individuals possessing wealth of more than 10 million yuan ($1.5 million), including 51,000 people with more than 100 million yuan ($15 million).
In Zimbabwe, there are fewer...and generally those are friends of Mr. Mugabe.
US manufacturing output reached an all-time high of ~$3.1 trillion in 2008.
It is also true that as of 2008, US manufacturing productivity per employee was also at a high point up to that date.
The recent recession has dropped US manufacturing output to ~$2.7 trillion in 2009, returning it to levels of 1998. We'll have to see how 2010 does. As of Sept. 2010, US manufacturing output is running 6% higher than Sept. 2009, suggesting that 2010 might end up around $2.8 trillion, the level of manufacturing output in 2000.
If you don't realize that what businesses go for, as far as labor, is the cheapest they can find... always.
My workplace seeks the best qualified candidates, and we've hired many foreign nationals as well as US nationals. I've never seen a hiring decision come down to price, on either side. A reasonable company will research provide a competitive salary for a position so that they won't lose the employee later to a higher bidder (a waste of time and effort).
It is far more expensive to hire a "cheap" person who does not measure up and waste time/effort or see projects fail. But you also don't hire an over qualified person because they will eventually leave to a higher bidder who can use all of their talents.
I'm sure there stupid companies out there. I would suggest avoiding working for them, because they will fail.
Then why have real wages been stagnant for over a decade
Average real wages have been stagnant because average real total compensation has been rising. Benefit costs, especially health insurance, is where most compensation has been going. Because many benefits are pre-tax, it costs less for a business to provide more non-wage compensation than wages.
Between the end of WWII and the start of this outsourcing nonsense, spending by the middle class was the engine that drove our economy
Between 1860 and 1930, immigration was the engine that drove out economy...perhaps we should go back to allowing easier immigration so we can attract the best workers of the world again.
After WWII, the destruction of Europe's industries was what drove the US industrial economy. Once Europe recovered, we had little manufacturing advantage, only a slightly better sense of selling consumerism to a global marketplace.
how about starting by moving the manufacturing sector back to the USA, it will definitely create millions of more jobs
US manufacturing output reached an all-time high in 2008, despite having a very small number of employees. US manufacturing is highly automated and productive, it will never employ very many people any more.
This happened to agriculture in the early 1900's as well when it became mechanized - US agricultural employment went from 80% of all workers to 3% of all workers in around 75 years, despite increasing total amount of food grown.
(Unless you lower the US minimum wage to the point where you can afford to have people and not robots doing the work, but it would have to be extremely low pay).
The full body scans are silly because Al Qaeda has ALREADY used suicide bombers with explosives in their BODY CAVITIES. These are not exposed by full-body scanners that stop at the skin surface.
From the linked article "Asieri had a pound of high explosives, plus a detonator inserted in his rectum." That was 2009.
The early 2000s models still get the best fuel economy, with many people seeing over 50 MPG combined highway/city.
Diesel can't be compared with gasoline MPG. One barrel of crude oil, when refined, produces about 19 gallons of finished motor gasoline, but only 10 gallons of diesel.
Numerous federal and state officials began arguing quite openly that the telephone industry would function most efficiently if unified as one system. Legislators began referring to competition in the same terms as Vail--"duplicative," "destructive," and "wasteful." A Senate Commerce Committee hearing in 1921 stated that "telephoning is a natural monopoly." And a House of Representative committee report noted, "There is nothing to be gained by local competition in the telephone business" (quoted in Loeb 1978: 14). A Michigan Public Utilities Commission report (1921: 315) from that same year also illustrates this prevailing sentiment, "Competition resulted in duplication of investment. . . . The policy of the state was to eliminate this by eliminating as far as possible, duplication." Many state regulatory agencies began refusing requests by telephone companies to construct new lines in areas already served by another carrier and continued to encourage monopoly swapping and consolidation in the name of "efficient service" (Lavey 1987: 184-85). Kellogg, Thorne, and Huber (1992: 17)
AT&T's monopoly happened because of government action.
Slashdot Mirror
Country B: Health insurance is mandatory. So everyone pays premiums. The premiums are low, because only a small percentage of the insured population actually use the insurance.
You should not forget that also most non-US countries have lower total medical costs per capita. This is mainly because doctor pay is limited directly (UK NHS) or indirectly ("negotiations" between the government and physician unions like in France). Non-US OECD doctors make half as much as American doctors on average.
US insurance profits are a very small part of the medical cost pie compared with doctor pay and hospital fees.
And the US is stuck with employer-linked health insurance because of WWII-era tax laws meant to get around wartime wage controls, thus making employer-paid health benefits untaxed, but personal-paid health costs come from taxed income.
but a gay female couple can only have daughters
Indeed, but they could get a donor Y chromosome from someone - there aren't too many genes on it (only 86).
Or the Y chromosome could possibly be synthesized. It has 58 million base pairs, Venter's group has synthesized a chromosome of 1 million base pairs, so perhaps more work would be needed.
The goal of ATSC A/85 is to maintain "long term loudness" levels.
Generally, it is to keep the "anchor element" (typically speech, but might be the entire audio track for musical production) at a certain LKFS loudness measure as per long-term ITU-R BS. 1770 analysis.
Quiet periods might be "gated" out of the long-term loudness measurement.
The CALM Act references ATSC RP A/85, which in turn references ITU-R BS.1770, which is a loudness measure based on integrating audio power multiplied by a frequency weighting curve that weights higher frequencies more and lower frequencies less.
You've been seriously misinformed about what "net neutrality" actually means.
This is what the FCC thinks it is:
The key point being:
"Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access
service must treat lawful content, applications, and services in a nondiscriminatory
manner."
Where:
"We understand the term "nondiscriminatory" to mean that a broadband Internet access service provider may not charge a content, application, or service provider for enhanced or prioritized access to the subscribers of the broadband Internet access service provider...We propose that this rule would not prevent a broadband Internet access service provider from charging subscribers different prices for different services."
Which still leaves a lot of holes - can an Internet access provider have both free peering and then ask CDN's for money?
Except that Slashdot overreacted to that story, in typical Slashdot style - the Comcast-Level3 issue was not net neutrality related
That's fine for you to say, but the FCC is investigating the L3/Comcast issue.
"Net Neutrality" will unleash all kinds of government controls on the Internet. I work in TV (previously in the ISP space), and I can assure you that you don't want your every business or technical decision made based on FCC rules (or what they are threatening to do but are unwilling to finalize rulemaking.)
I am saying that this situation is complicated enough that it is not at all clear that Comcast is in the wrong and that we should wait for more information before we reach a conclusion.
How about, "We don't own either company, they should be free to work out whatever deal they want to, and of course as consumers we may respond with purchasing something else".
This is like the fifteenth population density excuse I've seen in this thread alone, and *every* thread about internet speeds is filled with population density arguments.
Indeed, the issue is US local loop lengths being on average twice that of other countries. DSL is slower because loops are longer.
I suspect the long US local loop issue is split between 1) non-urban areas and 2) in urban areas, the infrastructure is older or Central Offices have been consolidated for efficient audio operation before data operation became a business factor.
I worked at an ISP in the 1990's where we had copper loop pairs from the 1930's. About half of them were good enough for 9600 bps. Eventually, after much effort, we got fiber from the iLEC into the building, but customers in town were still on 1930's copper on their side.
The Sevmorput is a Russian nuclear-powered cargo ship, the only one still operating under nuclear power, with the others having been retired or been converted to diesel propulsion.
So you would like to continue the tradition of mining other country's best people for your own selfish benefit, while those other countries remain 3rd world because all their resource, including human, gets stripped?
It's called competition. No one is stopping foreign governments from having policies that encourage smart and entrepreneurial people to earn money.
For example, China now has 825,000 individuals possessing wealth of more than 10 million yuan ($1.5 million), including 51,000 people with more than 100 million yuan ($15 million).
In Zimbabwe, there are fewer...and generally those are friends of Mr. Mugabe.
You own link says otherwise; it states that output PER WORKER reached an all-time high, not US manufacturing output.
You may want to look at the second graph.
US manufacturing output reached an all-time high of ~$3.1 trillion in 2008.
It is also true that as of 2008, US manufacturing productivity per employee was also at a high point up to that date.
The recent recession has dropped US manufacturing output to ~$2.7 trillion in 2009, returning it to levels of 1998. We'll have to see how 2010 does. As of Sept. 2010, US manufacturing output is running 6% higher than Sept. 2009, suggesting that 2010 might end up around $2.8 trillion, the level of manufacturing output in 2000.
If you don't realize that what businesses go for, as far as labor, is the cheapest they can find... always.
My workplace seeks the best qualified candidates, and we've hired many foreign nationals as well as US nationals. I've never seen a hiring decision come down to price, on either side. A reasonable company will research provide a competitive salary for a position so that they won't lose the employee later to a higher bidder (a waste of time and effort).
It is far more expensive to hire a "cheap" person who does not measure up and waste time/effort or see projects fail. But you also don't hire an over qualified person because they will eventually leave to a higher bidder who can use all of their talents.
I'm sure there stupid companies out there. I would suggest avoiding working for them, because they will fail.
And yes, I'm an executive.
Nothing new - the Manhattan Project had plenty of spies.
Then why have real wages been stagnant for over a decade
Average real wages have been stagnant because average real total compensation has been rising. Benefit costs, especially health insurance, is where most compensation has been going. Because many benefits are pre-tax, it costs less for a business to provide more non-wage compensation than wages.
"nuclear weapons were largely developed by foreign scientists in America."
Meaning people like Enrico Fermi.
Not to mention Leó Szilárd, Edward Teller (Hungary); Hans Bethe, Albert Einstein (Germany).
Between the end of WWII and the start of this outsourcing nonsense, spending by the middle class was the engine that drove our economy
Between 1860 and 1930, immigration was the engine that drove out economy...perhaps we should go back to allowing easier immigration so we can attract the best workers of the world again.
After WWII, the destruction of Europe's industries was what drove the US industrial economy. Once Europe recovered, we had little manufacturing advantage, only a slightly better sense of selling consumerism to a global marketplace.
how about starting by moving the manufacturing sector back to the USA, it will definitely create millions of more jobs
US manufacturing output reached an all-time high in 2008, despite having a very small number of employees. US manufacturing is highly automated and productive, it will never employ very many people any more.
This happened to agriculture in the early 1900's as well when it became mechanized - US agricultural employment went from 80% of all workers to 3% of all workers in around 75 years, despite increasing total amount of food grown.
(Unless you lower the US minimum wage to the point where you can afford to have people and not robots doing the work, but it would have to be extremely low pay).
We have all the people we need
I'd kind of prefer if the US had more smart people, even if we have to import them...
The full body scans are silly because Al Qaeda has ALREADY used suicide bombers with explosives in their BODY CAVITIES. These are not exposed by full-body scanners that stop at the skin surface.
From the linked article "Asieri had a pound of high explosives, plus a detonator inserted in his rectum." That was 2009.
The early 2000s models still get the best fuel economy, with many people seeing over 50 MPG combined highway/city.
Diesel can't be compared with gasoline MPG. One barrel of crude oil, when refined, produces about 19 gallons of finished motor gasoline, but only 10 gallons of diesel.
MSSQL...Oracle....
Because a ban on Verizon would make front page news and seriously damage their reputation.
I think it more seriously damages Wikipedia's reputation to block Verizon than the other way around...
Just like South America benefited from US prosperity, right?
GDP (PPP) per capita in 1990 International Dollars
Latin America average $2,503 (1950) $4,513 (1973) $5,786 (2003)
GDP per capita (current US dollars)
Chile $551 (1960) $938 (1970) $2,467 (1980) $2,394 (1990) $4,880 (2000) $8,864 (2006)
Venezuela $1,135 (1960) $1,211 (1970) $4,448 (1980) $2,381 (1990) $4,818 (2000) $6,730 (2006)
Uruguay $490 (1960) $754 (1970) $3,477 (1980) $2,990 (1990) $6,262 (2000) $5,827 (2006)
Looks like plenty of growth to me...
Regarding the AT&T "monopoly", I suggest reading UNNATURAL MONOPOLY: CRITICAL MOMENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BELL SYSTEM MONOPOLY.
Numerous federal and state officials began arguing quite openly that the telephone industry would function most efficiently if unified as one system. Legislators began referring to competition in the same terms as Vail--"duplicative," "destructive," and "wasteful." A Senate Commerce Committee hearing in 1921 stated that "telephoning is a natural monopoly." And a House of Representative committee report noted, "There is nothing to be gained by local competition in the telephone business" (quoted in Loeb 1978: 14). A Michigan Public Utilities Commission report (1921: 315) from that same year also illustrates this prevailing sentiment, "Competition resulted in duplication of investment. . . . The policy of the state was to eliminate this by eliminating as far as possible, duplication." Many state regulatory agencies began refusing requests by telephone companies to construct new lines in areas already served by another carrier and continued to encourage monopoly swapping and consolidation in the name of "efficient service" (Lavey 1987: 184-85). Kellogg, Thorne, and Huber (1992: 17)
AT&T's monopoly happened because of government action.
No. 1 danger to net freedom is the increasing amount of its users that don't understand its nature and thus fall into the lock-in trap of corporations
Corporate competitors could come along if people wanted out.
On the other hand, there is no escaping the hand of government (including local government monopoly charters).