You'll find that shops in poor areas don't stock chicken or vegetables, they just stock junk. And when you're working three jobs just to pay the rent, you don't exactly have time to cook meals. Junk food also lasts, you can buy a bag of cheetohs and it's good for months, those vegetables will be rotten before you've even had time to eat them, especially when you don't have a fridge.
ATMs aren't secret ballots. You know what money comes out, and you see your bank statement afterwards. With any electronic device, you have no idea what happens to your vote. Even a small alteration in the chip or a couple of characters in the code could change everything, and no-one would know about it.
Paper ballots placed into clear boxes is the simplest and best way.
Unions aren't part of the market because they require a lot of legal backing to support their effectively artificial existence. In a free market Royal Mail would not have to pay £20million a year to support a union that does not benefit it as a company.
Corporations aren't part of the market because they require a lot of legal backing to support their effectively artificial existence.
And why are you talking about the free market in relation to a public service owned by the state? The point of the union isn't to benefit the company, it's to benefit the workers. Removing the union will be to the detriment of the workers, but not to the benefit of the company.
The £20 million saved will just be spent on management bonuses or more 'consignia' rebranding exercises. Or profits for the investors who buy in when the company is privatised, which is what this is all about. Dismantle the union and the company is worth more to TNT or whatever vultures pick up the pieces. No doubt for engineering all of this, Mandy will get a nice paid directorship at the end of it.
whilst 2.5million are sat jobless only able to dream of having the job, the pay and the benefits those workers have in the Royal Mail right now.
I think you over-estimate the pay, conditions and benefits of postmen.
This is all well and good -- but unfortunately the real world is not so idealistic. You see, most people have these things called 'jobs', and often these so-called 'jobs' require people to work on very tight schedules. To comply with these schedules some people must do some crazy things some times, like take their cup of coffee to go on the way to work.
Why don't you have one at work, or before you set off? If you're schedule's that tight, you must be working 20 hour days or something. At any rate, driving with a cup in your hand sounds pretty dangerous, what happens when you go round a corner or down a hill, or have to brake suddenly?
Slippery slope arguments are the last refuge of the scoundrel.
By your logic, we shouldn't have any safety legislation at all. I should be allowed to drive drunk, 50mph above the speed limit, the risks are no worse than being attacked by badgers whilst sitting at a computer.
You see, these slopes slide both ways. Regulations against dangerous driving are sensible. Laws banning mobile phones and fucking with the radio are sensible. Driving is a priviledge, not a right*. If you're controlling a several tonne projectile whereby a single error could kill innocent people, you'll control it in a matter prescribed by government. Libertarians can fuck right off.
*This at least is the case in the UK where we have much lower fatality rates. Maybe drinking coffee whilst driving an SUV is protected in your constitution, I don't know, I don't really follow foreign politics.
As someone who has worked public sector, was a union member, and even striked with the union I can say that this is not entirely the case, unions are dangerous and I would rather see them severely weakened in the UK.
You're twenty years too late, Thatcher already destroyed the unions. This is why we have the longest working hours and most inequality in Europe. Maybe if we'd kept the unions around we wouldn't be scrapping for minimum wage agency work whilst the bankers and executives walk off with all the cash.
Unison is still pushing for pay rises, even though basic IT technicians are still getting paid £29k in some local authorities where their true market worth in private sector for the low levels of ability would be around £16k to £18k.
So workers who would otherwise make fuck-all, now get an income which may well help them pay a mortgage and raise a family. No doubt if these same workers were making £16k, you'd be whining about having to pay taxes for the services which they can no longer afford themselves.
We also have them acting as a strongly political tool, they mail out regularly to their 2 million members telling them who to vote for and who not to vote for, in my opinion this type of political lobbying is far beyond the remit of a union, particularly one with 2 million members who have distinctly varied political views.
On the other hand, we have newspapers regularly telling millions of people who to vote for. Considering your anti-union views, I'd imagine the Times is the paper which tells you how to think.
Britain has the weakest and smallest unions in Europe, according to right-wing dogma this should make us extremely prosperous. Instead, we're actually worse off, still in recession when everyone else is recovering.
The Royal Mail staff might not be on strike if the management hadn't reneged on the deal. But as your only information on the strike comes from right-wing sources, it's no wonder you're so ill-informed. They can't be struggling that much for cash if they can afford to pay Crozier several million a year.
If six weeks vacation (not even two months) will drive a company into bankrupcy, maybe we need to rethink this whole capitalism thing.
I don't see the problem with a docker making $80 an hour. Would it be better if everyone made minimum wage? I thought the whole point of economic growth was that everyone got richer. But then I never bought into trickle-down economics.
Problem is, the perp can then argue they were driving with due care and attention, even when changing the radio, touching up their makeup, and drinking a coffee simultaneously. New laws like this take away the ambiguity and make it simpler for everyone.
State run TV Stations. There is at least one person thinks this is a good idea?? Yikes!
Yeah, on this side of the Atlantic we haven't been subjected to decades of right-wing brainwashing about the evils of socialism so we can actually enjoy public services.
But that changed in 2008 when LCD HDTVs with a VGA input displaced CRT SDTVs in electronics stores. At the start of the 2008 holiday shopping season, HDTV had already entered one-third of U.S. households
Most HDTVs have HDMI and Scart inputs, no VGA. And even if they did, the cable would never reach unless your computer is right next to the TV. For most people, the PC is in another room altogether, or at least at the opposite side.
Then you have controllers to worry about. There's no standard, wireless PC controller, so you need to fuck about getting all the buttons to actually line up with functions in the game. It's a niche that no sane developer is going to touch with a bargepole.
When people grow up, they realise that their personal circumstances and success depend upon other people, and that by looking after each other we'll be more prosperous than everyone trying to screw each other over in order to enrich themselves.
When people grow up, they realise that all that Ayn Rand crap is just a fantasy, and that even the most ardently free-market capitalist relies on government as much as anyone, maybe even more so.
Let's see five weeks on vacation, either abroad of spending time with your family, or just relaxing or engaging in hobbies, versus sat on an expensive couch in a McMansion watching a big TV after a long commute in an air-conditioned SUV. Maybe you'd prefer the latter, but I'd say that's just Stockholm Syndrome: you've endured so much misery so be able to afford that TV, you're convinced it makes you happy. Even when it's obsolete in a year's time and you need another one because a guy at work just got one bigger than yours. Same goes for the house you bought at the peak of a bubble which is an hour's drive away from anything at all. It's in a nice neighbourhood, but you wouldn't notice as you have to make that TV worth the money so you never actually go for a walk or meet the neighbours.
The reason Americans don't have much time off is they have a 'live to work' mentality, much like the Japanese, who also have a fetish for spending their little spare time around expensive electronics. It's not that Americans voluntarily give up their spare time for more money, I'm not sure that average incomes are even that higher.
The thing is, a huge TV isn't any more entertaining than a small one, the content is the same. But one costs a week's wages more. Personally I'd rather have a week off and do something other than watch TV, but then I'm not into the consumerist mentality whereby success is measured by how far you can run up the credit card to out-consume the neighbours.
and there's going to be 8 equivalently intelligent foreign-born individuals for every American
That's not strictly true. Only a small percentage of Chinese and Indian kids actually get to go to school at all, so in absolute terms there are fewer of them than in the US.
But then in Asia, education is seen as a massive priviledge to be taken advantage of, rather than a burden to be endured.
Until our grant money starts going to the people who pay for them
How do students pay for those grants? They've never had a job to pay taxes on.
If I were an American tax payer, I'd want American universities to be as good as possible, so I'd want the grants to go to the best students. Passports are irrelevant, if a Chinese student is better, then he is better. You only devalue education by giving a grant to an inferior American who spent his spare time playing World of Warcraft rather than studying at evening school.
When you already speak the world language, what other language is there any benefit to learning? You can speak English all over the world, learn French and you might use it once in your life.
There are plenty of MUDs that require eating and drinking, and probably some in a dark corner of the Internet that require pissing and shitting. It just becomes a chore in the end, interrupting killing goblins to hunt a rabbit and eat it, having to constantly find water sources etc.
I'm fairly confident that the US will be first in line for 2018.
Why? The US bids are pretty boring and underfunded compared to other efforts. The Atlanta and LA games were cheap and nasty compared to Beijing or Australia.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't that the standard for the US military?
Why don't they stop making cars?
You'll find that shops in poor areas don't stock chicken or vegetables, they just stock junk. And when you're working three jobs just to pay the rent, you don't exactly have time to cook meals. Junk food also lasts, you can buy a bag of cheetohs and it's good for months, those vegetables will be rotten before you've even had time to eat them, especially when you don't have a fridge.
ATMs aren't secret ballots. You know what money comes out, and you see your bank statement afterwards. With any electronic device, you have no idea what happens to your vote. Even a small alteration in the chip or a couple of characters in the code could change everything, and no-one would know about it.
Paper ballots placed into clear boxes is the simplest and best way.
Nothing, now we just have to identify which side are the bad guys. Will Modern Warfare 3 involve bombing Afghan weddings?
Corporations aren't part of the market because they require a lot of legal backing to support their effectively artificial existence.
And why are you talking about the free market in relation to a public service owned by the state? The point of the union isn't to benefit the company, it's to benefit the workers. Removing the union will be to the detriment of the workers, but not to the benefit of the company.
The £20 million saved will just be spent on management bonuses or more 'consignia' rebranding exercises. Or profits for the investors who buy in when the company is privatised, which is what this is all about. Dismantle the union and the company is worth more to TNT or whatever vultures pick up the pieces. No doubt for engineering all of this, Mandy will get a nice paid directorship at the end of it.
I think you over-estimate the pay, conditions and benefits of postmen.
Why don't you have one at work, or before you set off? If you're schedule's that tight, you must be working 20 hour days or something. At any rate, driving with a cup in your hand sounds pretty dangerous, what happens when you go round a corner or down a hill, or have to brake suddenly?
Slippery slope arguments are the last refuge of the scoundrel.
By your logic, we shouldn't have any safety legislation at all. I should be allowed to drive drunk, 50mph above the speed limit, the risks are no worse than being attacked by badgers whilst sitting at a computer.
You see, these slopes slide both ways. Regulations against dangerous driving are sensible. Laws banning mobile phones and fucking with the radio are sensible. Driving is a priviledge, not a right*. If you're controlling a several tonne projectile whereby a single error could kill innocent people, you'll control it in a matter prescribed by government. Libertarians can fuck right off.
*This at least is the case in the UK where we have much lower fatality rates. Maybe drinking coffee whilst driving an SUV is protected in your constitution, I don't know, I don't really follow foreign politics.
You're twenty years too late, Thatcher already destroyed the unions. This is why we have the longest working hours and most inequality in Europe. Maybe if we'd kept the unions around we wouldn't be scrapping for minimum wage agency work whilst the bankers and executives walk off with all the cash.
So workers who would otherwise make fuck-all, now get an income which may well help them pay a mortgage and raise a family. No doubt if these same workers were making £16k, you'd be whining about having to pay taxes for the services which they can no longer afford themselves.
On the other hand, we have newspapers regularly telling millions of people who to vote for. Considering your anti-union views, I'd imagine the Times is the paper which tells you how to think.
Britain has the weakest and smallest unions in Europe, according to right-wing dogma this should make us extremely prosperous. Instead, we're actually worse off, still in recession when everyone else is recovering.
The Royal Mail staff might not be on strike if the management hadn't reneged on the deal. But as your only information on the strike comes from right-wing sources, it's no wonder you're so ill-informed. They can't be struggling that much for cash if they can afford to pay Crozier several million a year.
If six weeks vacation (not even two months) will drive a company into bankrupcy, maybe we need to rethink this whole capitalism thing.
I don't see the problem with a docker making $80 an hour. Would it be better if everyone made minimum wage? I thought the whole point of economic growth was that everyone got richer. But then I never bought into trickle-down economics.
Problem is, the perp can then argue they were driving with due care and attention, even when changing the radio, touching up their makeup, and drinking a coffee simultaneously. New laws like this take away the ambiguity and make it simpler for everyone.
Yeah, on this side of the Atlantic we haven't been subjected to decades of right-wing brainwashing about the evils of socialism so we can actually enjoy public services.
That's great until they all start cheating on each other.
Most HDTVs have HDMI and Scart inputs, no VGA. And even if they did, the cable would never reach unless your computer is right next to the TV. For most people, the PC is in another room altogether, or at least at the opposite side.
Then you have controllers to worry about. There's no standard, wireless PC controller, so you need to fuck about getting all the buttons to actually line up with functions in the game. It's a niche that no sane developer is going to touch with a bargepole.
When people grow up, they realise that their personal circumstances and success depend upon other people, and that by looking after each other we'll be more prosperous than everyone trying to screw each other over in order to enrich themselves.
When people grow up, they realise that all that Ayn Rand crap is just a fantasy, and that even the most ardently free-market capitalist relies on government as much as anyone, maybe even more so.
That might be an issue when the private operators bother to do anything other than cherry pick the most profitable deliveries.
Let's see five weeks on vacation, either abroad of spending time with your family, or just relaxing or engaging in hobbies, versus sat on an expensive couch in a McMansion watching a big TV after a long commute in an air-conditioned SUV. Maybe you'd prefer the latter, but I'd say that's just Stockholm Syndrome: you've endured so much misery so be able to afford that TV, you're convinced it makes you happy. Even when it's obsolete in a year's time and you need another one because a guy at work just got one bigger than yours. Same goes for the house you bought at the peak of a bubble which is an hour's drive away from anything at all. It's in a nice neighbourhood, but you wouldn't notice as you have to make that TV worth the money so you never actually go for a walk or meet the neighbours.
The reason Americans don't have much time off is they have a 'live to work' mentality, much like the Japanese, who also have a fetish for spending their little spare time around expensive electronics. It's not that Americans voluntarily give up their spare time for more money, I'm not sure that average incomes are even that higher.
The thing is, a huge TV isn't any more entertaining than a small one, the content is the same. But one costs a week's wages more. Personally I'd rather have a week off and do something other than watch TV, but then I'm not into the consumerist mentality whereby success is measured by how far you can run up the credit card to out-consume the neighbours.
That's not strictly true. Only a small percentage of Chinese and Indian kids actually get to go to school at all, so in absolute terms there are fewer of them than in the US.
But then in Asia, education is seen as a massive priviledge to be taken advantage of, rather than a burden to be endured.
How do students pay for those grants? They've never had a job to pay taxes on.
If I were an American tax payer, I'd want American universities to be as good as possible, so I'd want the grants to go to the best students. Passports are irrelevant, if a Chinese student is better, then he is better. You only devalue education by giving a grant to an inferior American who spent his spare time playing World of Warcraft rather than studying at evening school.
Depends on how fun they are. An hour in a hotel casino, drinking and playing cards in a social environment vs. sat at home eating cheetos.
Liquidity, meaning investors have no interest in a company other than how much money they can suck out as quickly as possible?
Cut out the liquidity and we might not see so many bubbles.
Even though it has nothing to do with the EU whatsoever?
When you already speak the world language, what other language is there any benefit to learning? You can speak English all over the world, learn French and you might use it once in your life.
But most MMOs' business models revolve around selling as many copies as possible before people realise the game is shit.
There are plenty of MUDs that require eating and drinking, and probably some in a dark corner of the Internet that require pissing and shitting. It just becomes a chore in the end, interrupting killing goblins to hunt a rabbit and eat it, having to constantly find water sources etc.
Why? The US bids are pretty boring and underfunded compared to other efforts. The Atlanta and LA games were cheap and nasty compared to Beijing or Australia.