You're assuming that there'd be some large public outcry to get the speeding laws repealled. I'd like to believe that as well, but my faith in "the public" to protest unjust, incorrect laws has waned quite a bit in the past couple of decades. People seem willing to swallow anything that doesn't involve being beheaded. And I have no doubt the "safety first" crowd would be out in force, claiming the speed limits must stay low "to protect the children". They've done it before, they'll do it again.
Given how hard it was to get the 55MPH limit dropped, I don't have any faith whatsoever that the public will be motivated by more vigorous enforcement. They'd more than likely just slow down, which would only further the absurdity that is our national highway infrastructure.
Quite simply, any jurisdiction that even has a fraction of a brain will not use an electronic toll system to issue tickets.
Which means ALL of them WILL use it, since you'd be hard pressed to name any jurisdiction that has anything close a fraction of a brain. Not when travel taxes^H^H^H^H "speeding fines" are being levied.
It's my vehicle to do with as I please, unless my Constitutional rights to property have been abridged in some manner. If I loan my brother-in-law my car and he robs a bank and uses my car as the getaway vehicle, should I go to jail for robbing the bank? OF COURSE NOT, YOU FOOL. THE CAR is not responsible for the crime, I AM not responsible for the crime (not even an accessory), MY BROTHER-IN-LAW would be responsible and should be punished. If you support this idiocy of ticketing the owner of the vehicle then I'd love to borrow your car some time.
If you'd stop and consider that speed limits exist NOT for safety's sake but instead as revenue generators then you'll figure out that very few motorists agree with these laws, and even fewer actually obey them.
The highway system in the United States was engineered with curve radii and banking to support 70MPH speeds, which oddly enough is roughly what most people drive at. The Imperial Federal Government decided to scale things back to 55MPH, not to save lives but to save gas back in the Gas Crunch of the early 70's!!! Prior to that, the limit was 70MPH and was largely obeyed by the motoring public.
When the Gas Crunch was over, the wonderful Federal, State, and Local goverments all noted how much money they were making from all these speedy Americans, many of whom were just driving in the same manner they had prior to the Gas Crunch when it was perfectly safe and legal according to our Imperial Federal Government. Politicians LOVE money, in case you haven't noticed, and they weren't about to kill the goose that laid this golden speed trap egg. We were stuck with the double-nickel for almost 20 years before it was finally abolished on a Federal scale.
I have no problem with the authorities enforcing all the laws on the books in an equitable, reliable manner. I do have a problem with laws designed not with the public's best interests in mind but instead put politicians and their wallets first, and you should too.
Good point, but under California law this kind of speed enforcement is labeled a 'Speed Trap' and is expressley outlawed in Cali.
I suppose it'd be silly of me to state the obvious, but I'll do it anyway: laws can be changed, quietly, quickly, and without you knowing much about it. Today the law can call it a speed trap. There's nothing to stop "the powers that be" from changing that law -- nothing except the public. Unfortunately, "the public" these days is disenchanted with government and pays it little mind. Society has devolved into a bunch of sheeple (sheep+people) that do whatever government wants so long as it doesn't intefere with them watching WWF or The Weakest Link re-runs.
No, that law would get changed in short order when the city/state governments figured out that they could use this data to issue speeding tickets, automatically and irrefutably, using a simple mathematical formula in their computers. Voila! Instant revenue generator. They've already done it with photo radar, what makes you think they'll restrict this new stuff?
And to put it in a perspective that the average liberal-minded Slashdotter can grasp, consider this:
Suppose Google said that they were going to start tracking your web surfing habits anytime you go to their page. They'll record your IP address, what you searched for, what you linked to from their search engine, and place a cookie on your machine identifying you uniquely for all future visits, all without you pressing a button. These statistics would ONLY be used to better the search engine, so they say, but would YOU feel comfortable knowing your online "movements" were trackable?
I read through Janis's article and found it quite well written and extremely introspective. The idea of an out-of-print archive is a stupendous idea, one that I have frequently wished for. His arguments for it are quite good, and such an archive would make a tremendous amount of sense.
That's why it'll never happen.
Consider for a moment just how much music the average person listens to, or more specifically how many minutes/hours per day the average Joe spends listening to music. You can only listen to one thing at a time, so your ears and time are both finite resources. The RIAA wants you to pay them $20/CD for the latest, greatest boy bands, Britney belly-button songs, and clones-of-clones-of-clones bands. If they suddenly gave you the ability to listen to (God forbid) some of the classics, two things would immediately happen:
1. You'd realize how crappy their current, major offerings really are. I mean, if Britney Spears looked like Shelly Duvall, do you really think she'd be as rich as she is today? She's got a great ass, great tits (real or otherwise), and an overall tight little body. Can she sing or write songs? "WHO CARES?" say the music execs, and folks throng to buy her latest stuff.
2. God forbid, some of your money would be spent on buying the good, classic stuff that actually sounds good as opposed to today's trash. Unless the RIAA charged you the same cost to get at a classic that they would normally charge for one of their current releases, they'd (in theory) lose money.
So, it'll never, ever happen. At least, not officially. UNofficially, there's already a site where you can get just about any song ever made, out of print or not, anytime, anywhere. It's called Gnutella, and it's filling the void that the RIAA has created. They will not be able to put this genie back in the bottle, no matter what they try.
With sufficiently narrow definitions of those terms you *may* be correct - some others (myself) feel America is a failure. Pollution, Poverty, Violence, Ignorance, Selfishness, Greed, Consumerism, Disenfranchisment, Inhuman would be some of the (off the top of my head) descriptions I would make of Today's USA.
While I would agree with you that there are plenty of things in America that need fixing, declaring the entire system a failure is a bit premature. I prefer to believe that Capitalism will succeed primarily because it is most in line with typical human behavior. Allow me to digress for a moment.
Socialism depends on a human being working for the good of a group instead of for him/herself. While this is a neat idea and would seem to result in a harmonious society, it does not work well because people do not like to work for goals that do not benefit themselves in some way. We are just not that altruistic by nature. It would be nice if we were, but we're not, and the larger the group of people involved, the less likely it is to work. Sure, some nations have tried to MAKE it work, and you even mention Canada, but you will note that Canadians do not enjoy all the freedoms we have in the U.S. Their government has significant rights to crack down on individuals and actions that the government finds -- ahem -- not to their liking. Note one of their more recent decisions to ban viewing American television channels so that they can prop up their own ailing entertainment industry. Shades of Cuba, banning listening to Radio Free America...
Of course, here we don't, or shouldn't, have to put up with such things. Capitalism requires that the government by and large stay out of things and let us peons run things, but the system frequently gets sidetracked. Politicians are largely to blame. Don't blame the corporations, as they're just doing what comes naturally! Blame the politicians for being so money and power hungry that they will sell their vote. THIS is what is wrong with America, our loss of honor, that is causing our current ills. It's become quite socially acceptable to stab someone in the back as long as you can legally get away with it. In some cases, it's even been glorified. I blame our drifting sense of morals (whichever set, I'm not partial) and mass media for pushing a "just do it" kind of lifestyle.
The downside of Capitalism, as you have pointed out, is that it is not necessarily kind to everyone. That's fine with me. Nature herself is not kind to a species that cannot find a way to make itself propserous (in the natural sense of the word, not financial), why should our system of government be any different? Those who strive and succeed should be rewarded, those who languish and fail should not be compensated. To do the opposite would lessen the desire to excel and reward laziness and failure, just as it happened in the former Soviet Union. And if you want to talk about "Pollution, Poverty, Violence, Ignorance, Selfishness, Greed, Consumerism, Disenfranchisment, Inhuman", then you have only to look to some of the (formerly) largest Socialist nations on the planet. You'll find all of the above with the possible exception of "Consumerism", with a heavy emphasis on "Pollution" and "Inhuman" as well.
What do you think a corporation IS?! It is an invention of government (the people) that is supposed to benefit us (the people). We, the people, through our government, allow people to organize a business in a certain way TO SERVE THE COMMUNITY INTEREST.
You see, that's where you're wrong, snarfer -- in that last UPPERCASE comment. This whole "COMMUNITY INTEREST" thing sounds a great deal like something that Marx and Lenin would've loved. It's called Socialism, it's been tried, and it doesn't work.
There is no such thing as the community interest! Unless you have a community where all inhabitants are of the same mind, same tastes, same EVERYTHING, someone will ALWAYS see something as "not in the community interest". Mob rule (sometimes referred to as "Democracy) dictates that the minority will be squelched, their desires subsumed "for the greater good". Trouble is, who gets to determine what's for the greater good? You? Me? My aunt? The homeless guy on the street?
You can't play human nature that way. The one thing you CAN count on is that people will generally do what is in THEIR best interests so long as it isn't illegal and there aren't any social stigmas against it. This predictable behavior is the result of CAPITALISM, which may not be pretty all the time but does work and has created more wealth, enlightenment, and prosperity in this nation faster and better than anywhere else on Earth in all of history. It has happened WITHOUT the express involvement of government because it is REQUIRED to be so according to the principles of a free market economy. To propose otherwise would be to undermine the very system that has made you, me, and millions of others around the world prosperous.
You may wish to re-read the post I was responding to, specifically their calling for governmental regulation in the areas of accounting practices and stock market oversight. Interpreting the Commerce Clause, which I am well aware of, in such a manner is a gross exaggeration of what was intended. The intention of the Commerce Clause was the negotiation of treaties and trade agreements between foreign nations, "the several states" which at that time were much more regional than our current monolithic governmental structure, and the Indian tribes which were more or less treated as foreign nationals.
You will note, as have many Constitutional scholars, that the Constitution seems to have been crafted at every possible turn to keep massive power OUT of the hands of the federal government, and wherever possible concentrate that power at the state, local, and individual levels. The framers were AFRAID of a large, centrally organized government, given that they'd recently thrown off the shackles of England.
Oversight such as that being discussed is already available through private organizations, and to a much greater extent by the private investor him/herself. Problems such as Enron and WorldCom are simply extreme examples, not commonly found and easily exposed once the hunt begins. These two companies are heralds of an increasing amount of introspection by investors into the companies they are investing in. No doubt every CEO of every Fortune 500 firm has been on the phone or in a meeting with their respective CFO's in the last few months, getting assurances that no funny business is going on. Those that haven't been doing so will eventually be found and burned at the stake...all without the government lifting a finger because private investors will DEMAND it.
Have faith that people and organizations can function, even thrive, without government playing nursemaid to every bump and bruise.
I'm surprised that you would disagree with my original statement. There are lots of examples of the government protecting us. The EPA was created to make sure corporations do not pollute. In other words, the government protecting us and our land from people that would do us and it harm. The SEC, DOJ, police and numerous other government instituions and agencies are there to protect us. Sure, these organizations and agencies sometimes harm us, but the intent of their creation was to protect us.
Just because such organizations exist does not mean that they are valid uses of government. In fact, the framers of the Constitution gave the federal government very limited sets of powers specifically BECAUSE they wanted to protect people from something similar to the Monarchy they had recently escaped. Quite specifically, all powers not expressly given to the federal government were to be reserved for the States. This concept has been thrown on the trash bin by the big government types. While the EPA and other organizations MAY exists and MAY do an adequate job, they are not what the framers had in mind. What they had in mind was smaller, more local, less bureacratic organizations that were more "in tune" with their constituents, namely people living in that state. The federal government is just one example of how faceless and impersonal our government has become -- wasteful, too. If the Founding Fathers could speak today, they would be against it.
The government's role, among other things, is to protect the public from corporations.
Shockingly enough, I don't see that function enumerated ANYWHERE in the Constitution. I, of course, must be in error. Please, by all means, educate me as to where you found it stated that one of the government's roles is to "protect" us from corporations?
Fact is, anyone who cared to dig deeply enough could've found out that two and two don't usually equal five at WorldCom. The problem is, people are far too willing to give the corporate accountants the benefit of the doubt as long as the stock keeps performing. I'm quite sure -- no, DAMN sure -- that questionable accounting practices are the NORM, not the exception. Why? Don't try the tired old line that only the executives profit, because it's not always true. MILLIONS of people profited from Worldcom a few years ago, and I'm quite sure things were shady then as these things don't just develop overnight. Stockholders DEMAND meteoric, exponential, improbable growth from companies or they dump the stock and flee to someone else that will promise them the moon.
What I'm getting at is that every person who invests money anywhere is taking a risk. There are no guarantees in this world, and the stock market is worse than most. If you want guarantees, stick your money in a 2% checking account. Stocks are for folks who KNOW there's a risk involved. If you don't know it, or don't think about it, you have no business in securities and deserve to lose your shirt every now and then. I hope those responsible at Worldcom burn at the stake, but the last thing we need here is MORE government intervention. The market will naturally weed these companies out just as it is now doing.
Oh come on. That is just rubbish. Methinks you wouldn't make a great strategist.
Really? Why? Because I choose a practical, realistic view of things instead of an incredibly overblown, hyped-up, Linux-will-rule-the-world view of things? Try being a pragmatist sometime. You'll find you're disappointed much less often.
You see? You've said it yourself. Linux is having outstanding success in server space, and part of the reason is because it does not play be MS's rules. It is developed and supported by multiple companies/individuals which makes it a nightmare for MS. Strategically it's fantastic because not only is it successful but there is no effective strategic response for MS to counter the attack.
If your enemy starts using weapons you haven't got which are more effective than yours, then the normal response is to try to develop equivalent or better weapons. With the GLP, it's next to impossible for MS to do that. Now that's what I call good strategy.
Rubbish? Methinks not. Linux may be having "outstanding success" by YOUR standards, and perhaps even by the standards of peer competitors, but not by MS, and certainly not in the mass corporate workspace.
Sure, polls indicate that Linux/Apache is the most popular OS/webserver combo there is -- how many of those are business sites versus personal sites? Quite a lot, actually. If you check Linux penetration into the Fortune 500 market you'd find it good, but absolutely steamrollered by MS and/or Sun no matter what yardstick you use. Linux is gaining, but to call it a success means you must qualify your statements. Apple thinks THEY'RE a success because they have 4% of the market. While they may call that a success, I call it a niche. Linux occupies a very good, very successful, somewhat-large-for-the-definition niche right now, but they are not a runaway success. Linux MAY become a runaway success, and I think it has good chances of becoming MS's only successful competitor, but not quite yet.
As to Linux not fighting on MS's turf, you're right, they're not fighting on MS's turf -- yet. But in order to enjoy the success level that MS currently resides at, Linux will have to change. It will consolidate, it will unify, and it will become less technical, more GUI, and more standardized. It will, in short, almost have to BECOME Windows to take over the server room AND the desktop. I will argue that perhaps Linux SHOULDN'T try to do this, that it should be happy with the server market and concentrate there. Unfortunately large swaths of the Linux population (especially here) seem to want to own the world, why I can't imagine.
MS owns the I.T. world right now and look what they've had to do in order to get there -- bloatware, bugs, holes, etc. Do not fool yourself into thinking Linux can somehow transcend these pitfalls because it's open source. There is nothing magical about open source that exempts it from these failings. If anything, the discontinous nature of open source development can even work against it by preventing close collaboration (yes, I know, it CAN also work the other way, but it depends on disparate parties working together for the common good, and that doesn't always work either). And don't throw the old "you've got the source so you can fix it yourself" ploy out there. Programmers, as a percentage of users, are small in number. Most of them have other jobs to do besides delving into SOMEONE ELSE'S poorly documented, poorly written, poorly understood code, trying to fix a bug somewhere. It may be neat now, but it's anything but neat when you've got a project to finish and a deadline to meet.
I'll counter your point by saying that Quicken was an established brand with a dedicated, loyal following in an emerging market. MS had to fight an uphill battle to try and take over Quicken, and it failed.
One could argue that Netscape was also an established brand, which they were, and MS fought an uphill battle. You will recall that they were LOSING that battle as well until IE started coming bundled with the OS. A browser is not something as "critical" as a personal finance app. So long as it works, most people are happy with whatever they're given. If it's free, so much the better.
I'll go out on a limb and say that if MS offered Windows XP and Office XP for free, Linux would be having a MUCH harder time being accepted, and may not have ever gotten to where it is today. Yes, yes, I know, I'm preaching blasphemy in the church of Linux here, but one must consider how non-interested the vast majority of consumers are in technological superiority. Unlike us tech-head, they just don't seem to give two damns. How else can you explain the existence of AOL?
What has IE "introduced"? Not much of worth, that's for sure, but they DID introduce the concept of integrating the browser with the damned operating system. For better or worse it resulted in the practical death of Netscape.
Get it through your head that product A does NOT have to be demonstrably better than product B, so long as product A is provided in a more convenient manner, or product B is more of a pain to obtain. While this may chafe our sense of technological "rightness", it is reality.
Ah, but there IS fine print on the CD, my friend. It's a COPYRIGHT SYMBOL! Yessiree, mister, that means you're subject to copyright laws when you purchase the product. A quick trip to any legal library or lawyer's office will point out that you are INCORRECT here. Sorry, it was a good try, but you're wrong.
How so? Opera's market share of the total browser market is pitifully tiny compared to the IE juggernaut. It may be "huge" in the sense of it being a very popular alternative to IE, but since IE has about 95% of the market, even if Opera were THE ONLY alternative, they'd only have 5% of the market. That's TINY, practically INSIGNIFICANT in the grand scheme of things.
Please note I'm no IE flag waiver, nor am I an Opera defender/accuser, I'm just making an observation here.
web developers would LOVE to code to a standard and not to a browser
The problem with this comment is that a sufficiently entrenched browser BECOMES a standard, RFC's and "the community's opinion" notwithstanding. Remember when IE was the pitiful underling and Netscape ruled all? Netscape advanced the neat idea of "frames" -- nonstandard, but it BECAME a standard overnight as people rushed to take advantage of it. Same thing with IE: after IE won the browser wars you saw everyone rushing to make damn sure their sites were "IE compliant". Nobody gave much thought to whether it was standards compliant. Why? Folks don't view web pages with a "standard", they view it with a browser. If one browser owns 95% of the market, it IS a standard, like it or not.
Andreesen is wrong about a few things. MS can be combated successfully. The trick is to not play their game of proprietary software on a platform they control. No one can succeed in that territory. The trick is not to succumb to their tactics, and to stay agile and ahead of them.
This has been tried, and it failed. You're assuming that the average consumer/user out there actually CARES about technological superiority. They don't. IE is "good enough", and it already comes installed on everything known to man, including damned internet-ready refrigerators. For your AVERAGE consumer something has to be exponentially better before they will eschew it in favor of the bundled item. Netscape fought against this and look what happened to them. I'm not going to debate the legality of what MS did to Netscape because that's not the topic here, but suffice to say that I don't think there's ANYTHING Mozilla could possibly bring to the table that would reverse the current trend, unless they found a way to have it read minds and present holographic interactive representations of supermodels for your pleasure.
"Don't fight with MS on their turf/by their rules" has been tried before, and it just does not work. MS either has their turf too well covered or they change the rules (FUD, vaporware, strongarm) to destroy the competition. With but few exceptions no one has stood up to MS and won (for long). Linux is a relative exception, but only (IMHO) because there is no corporate entity behind Linux that MS can attack. Unfortunately, that very lack is what's keeping Linux from making inroads beyond the server room, at least in the minds of the executives, VP's, and Director's who sign the big checks for software purchases.
The RIAA/MPAA's argument isn't based on the physical media. On the contrary, they've gone out of their way to make sure that folks know they don't give a damn about that polycarbonate disc you've got there, they're talking about what's encoded on it.
According to their argument, they're not selling you the song or movie. They're quite right. You do not OWN the song or the movie. THEY own it. They own the rights to it, and the rights to distribute it. What they have sold you is a LICENSE to LISTEN/VIEW it, nothing more, nothing less. Note that this is THEIR argument, not mine.
In many ways it is very similar to software licenses. If I OWN a copy of Photoshop, I don't OWN Photoshop. I have purchased the right to use the software from Adobe. I have the right to use it however I see fit, but I cannot legally copy it and give it to someone else. This is how it SHOULD BE. If I copy something with the intent of depriving the rights holder of a legitimate sale then I am stealing. No matter how folks may equivocate about The Man keeping all the buck and the artist getting pennies, it is still STEALING, and it is not right. There are many, many legal precedents showing this to be the case.
Now the RIAA is trying to modify that agreement to extend beyond the first sale. What they're trying to say is "I know we sold you this license to listen/view our works, and heretofore that has meant you can transfer that license however you see fit [Note: see how it's like software?], but now we're going to say you can't transfer the license without paying us a royalty." Legally, they can do this if they want, but not retroactively. Much like a shrinkwrap EULA, they can put damn near anything they want into it, and as long as it's disclosed they can get away with it.
The potential downside for them is alienation of a huge consumer base by such draconian measures, but that sure as hell hasn't stopped them thus far. They appear to have learned nothing from the introduction of the cassette tape and the VCR, both of which caused sales to skyrocket instead of causing piracy to skyrocket. But old ideas have a way of getting steamrollered, and if the Big Media Boys don't wake up they're going to find themselves hammered into oblivion by consumers who are just damn tired enough of their shennanigans that they WILL go an pirate some stuff.
Your bridge vs. ferry analogy is a great one, I'll have to remember that one.
I've said it before: The RIAA and MPAA are sitting on a GOLD MINE of works that they could make even MORE billions off of if they'd just LET GO of their ridiculous ties to the past and take a step into the future.
How much would any of you pay per month for the ability to download any song or movie ever made and watch it at your convenience with NO strings attached? I don't know about many of you, but I'd pay anywhere from $9.95 to $29.95 for such a service, especially if the downloadable stuff was of high quality. A few million people paying that every month would keep Sony Music and the rest in deep cash for a long time to come, especially since they could absolutely junk any and all manufacturing and distribution fees. After all, we all know that the artist only gets a few pennies for each CD sold. The rest goes to distribution, manufacturing, etc. etc. Rip that out and profits can be maintained, while at the same time giving customers WHAT THEY WANT.
The overwhelming popularity of Napster was NOT totally due to it being free. I would've PAID for such a service had one actually been available. I wanted the convenience of getting EXACTLY the song I wanted with no extraneous fluff. Who actually WANTS all the songs on a common CD these days? Even "Greatest Hits" CD's invariably include a few duds. Why pay for songs you don't want to listen to? And singles are a horrendous idea, being that they're only marginally cheaper than full albums but only contain one song. Better to get the album with at least two songs you like than to purchase two singles.
The music industry must adapt to the new distribution models available to them. This means letting go of their obsession with control, control, control over everything. The very LACK of control is a GOOD THING when it comes to the new distribution model. All they have to do is make it somewhat affordable AND extremely convenient and people WILL use it. Of course, some piracy will always exist, but if you make it easy to stay legal, folks will do that just because it's easier than stealing.
Actually you don't seem to know much about it. It is NOT financed by current taxpayers. It is financed by the money we set aside - OUR money pays for our RETIREMENT. Social Security has a multi-trillion dollar surplus built up.
Your level of ignorance on this subject is absolute amazing, nothing short of a collossal poke in the eye of logic. YOUR money today DOES NOT go into some special account JUST FOR YOUR RETIREMENT! It goes into a general fund that has lately been referred to as the "trust fund". The dollars you are paying in today are being paid out to those who are retired or retiring today. YOUR money is going TO SOMEONE ELSE. You, assuming that you're of college age, will not be able to draw upon SS for at least another 35-40 years, at which time SOMEONE ELSE'S dollars will be paying for your retirement. The figures are there, the process is available to anyone who cares to go to www.omb.gov and look up where the government's money goes and where it comes from. Given your striking level of misunderstanding of this system, I can only assume that you've never, ever, EVER bothered to research any of this, and you are going on pure, unadulterated hatred of the wealthy. Typical. Pitiful, but typical.
If you stopped listening to Rush Limbaugh and did your own research you would know that there was a big recession in 1991. That eneded the Reagan expansion (which started after the Deficit Reduction Act tax increases in 1984 by the way.)
Ah, yes, the tactic of "The Big Lie". Big recession, heh? Go check www.omb.gov, the organization that keeps the books for the entire nation. Facts of GDP growth, income levels, and tax revenues are available for at least thirty years. If you have the balls to do it, check the site. You'll note that during 1991 we had two consecutive quarters of economic shrinkage. Just two. It meets the technical definition of a recession, but only barely (the tech. def. is two consecutive quarters of negative growth). You'll also note that the economy started growing again BEFORE Clinton actually took office. You've gotta hand it to Clinton, he's so damn good he can turn the whole U.S. economy around BEFORE he even set foot in the Oval Office.
Of course, that's pure tripe. Clinton did NOT turn the economy around. He just happened to be "on watch" when it happened. Democrats love to capitalize on this, and you've obviously swallowed it all like a cheap whore in heat. As I said, you probably don't have the guts to actually check the figures. If you did, you'd see you were wrong. Of course, you don't care about facts, logic, figures, or any of that other crap, you just want to hate Bush and rich folks, and nothing is going to stop you, is it?
BTW, I don't listen to Limbaugh. Unlike you, I'm capable of arriving at an opinion without being told what to think by someone else. Unlike you, I actually have researched the subject and drawn my own conclusion. Unlike you, I've engaged my brain instead of my emotions. I don't know why I waste my breath -- you won't check the figures, and if you do you'll just dismiss them as propaganda (never mind that Clinton's OMB came up with the very figures that I'm quoting...must be more of that vast right wing conspiracy, eh?).
If you'll check the figures, you'll see you're wrong. But you won't check, will you? It's easier to believe your fantasy. Go on doing that. Perhaps you'll grow up soon and discover that sometimes the truth is ugly, but it won't go away just because you refuse to see it.
This shows how little you really know about the tax system. With my income and stock assets put together I reside in the absolute highest tax bracket there is. As a percentage of my income I'm paying about double what the lowest bracket is, and let's not EVEN get started on the actual dollar amount (around $50K per year) that I pay in just federal taxes.
You're absolutely right I'm not getting the tax breaks. Neither are those much, much richer than I am. We're all those nasty, eeeeeeeevil, awful, dirty, mean, terrible, run-over-old-ladies-and-children-just-for-fun rich folks that are keeping everyone else down. Never mind that we pay around 40% of all federal income taxes in existence while we constitute around 1% of the population....we're not paying (weeping, whining voice -- ALL TOGETHER NOW) OUR FAIR SHARE!
Bullshit. Total, indescribable bullshit. I'm paying far more into the system than I can ever hope to reap. In fact, I'm only paying to subsidize those are in the lowest income bracket, as many of them pay no federal taxes at all due to Earned Income tax credits (a Clinton invention). So you just go right on blaming us horrible rich folks for being one notch below baby killers...we're used to it. I, for one, refuse to feel guilty because I'm well off. I work hard for it, and damn it I deserve what I've got. I will begrudge NO ONE their right to enjoy what is theirs, and if you weren't so damn green with envy you'd see the illogical fallacies that you keep on spouting.
Slashdot Mirror
You're assuming that there'd be some large public outcry to get the speeding laws repealled. I'd like to believe that as well, but my faith in "the public" to protest unjust, incorrect laws has waned quite a bit in the past couple of decades. People seem willing to swallow anything that doesn't involve being beheaded. And I have no doubt the "safety first" crowd would be out in force, claiming the speed limits must stay low "to protect the children". They've done it before, they'll do it again.
Given how hard it was to get the 55MPH limit dropped, I don't have any faith whatsoever that the public will be motivated by more vigorous enforcement. They'd more than likely just slow down, which would only further the absurdity that is our national highway infrastructure.
Quite simply, any jurisdiction that even has a fraction of a brain will not use an electronic toll system to issue tickets.
Which means ALL of them WILL use it, since you'd be hard pressed to name any jurisdiction that has anything close a fraction of a brain. Not when travel taxes^H^H^H^H "speeding fines" are being levied.
It's my vehicle to do with as I please, unless my Constitutional rights to property have been abridged in some manner. If I loan my brother-in-law my car and he robs a bank and uses my car as the getaway vehicle, should I go to jail for robbing the bank? OF COURSE NOT, YOU FOOL. THE CAR is not responsible for the crime, I AM not responsible for the crime (not even an accessory), MY BROTHER-IN-LAW would be responsible and should be punished. If you support this idiocy of ticketing the owner of the vehicle then I'd love to borrow your car some time.
If you'd stop and consider that speed limits exist NOT for safety's sake but instead as revenue generators then you'll figure out that very few motorists agree with these laws, and even fewer actually obey them.
The highway system in the United States was engineered with curve radii and banking to support 70MPH speeds, which oddly enough is roughly what most people drive at. The Imperial Federal Government decided to scale things back to 55MPH, not to save lives but to save gas back in the Gas Crunch of the early 70's!!! Prior to that, the limit was 70MPH and was largely obeyed by the motoring public.
When the Gas Crunch was over, the wonderful Federal, State, and Local goverments all noted how much money they were making from all these speedy Americans, many of whom were just driving in the same manner they had prior to the Gas Crunch when it was perfectly safe and legal according to our Imperial Federal Government. Politicians LOVE money, in case you haven't noticed, and they weren't about to kill the goose that laid this golden speed trap egg. We were stuck with the double-nickel for almost 20 years before it was finally abolished on a Federal scale.
I have no problem with the authorities enforcing all the laws on the books in an equitable, reliable manner. I do have a problem with laws designed not with the public's best interests in mind but instead put politicians and their wallets first, and you should too.
Good point, but under California law this kind of speed enforcement is labeled a 'Speed Trap' and is expressley outlawed in Cali.
I suppose it'd be silly of me to state the obvious, but I'll do it anyway: laws can be changed, quietly, quickly, and without you knowing much about it. Today the law can call it a speed trap. There's nothing to stop "the powers that be" from changing that law -- nothing except the public. Unfortunately, "the public" these days is disenchanted with government and pays it little mind. Society has devolved into a bunch of sheeple (sheep+people) that do whatever government wants so long as it doesn't intefere with them watching WWF or The Weakest Link re-runs.
No, that law would get changed in short order when the city/state governments figured out that they could use this data to issue speeding tickets, automatically and irrefutably, using a simple mathematical formula in their computers. Voila! Instant revenue generator. They've already done it with photo radar, what makes you think they'll restrict this new stuff?
And to put it in a perspective that the average liberal-minded Slashdotter can grasp, consider this:
Suppose Google said that they were going to start tracking your web surfing habits anytime you go to their page. They'll record your IP address, what you searched for, what you linked to from their search engine, and place a cookie on your machine identifying you uniquely for all future visits, all without you pressing a button. These statistics would ONLY be used to better the search engine, so they say, but would YOU feel comfortable knowing your online "movements" were trackable?
I know I wouldn't.
Apologies! In my haste of typing I lapsed into the male pronoun for some inexplicable, stupid reason. Must've been the coffee.
I read through Janis's article and found it quite well written and extremely introspective. The idea of an out-of-print archive is a stupendous idea, one that I have frequently wished for. His arguments for it are quite good, and such an archive would make a tremendous amount of sense.
That's why it'll never happen.
Consider for a moment just how much music the average person listens to, or more specifically how many minutes/hours per day the average Joe spends listening to music. You can only listen to one thing at a time, so your ears and time are both finite resources. The RIAA wants you to pay them $20/CD for the latest, greatest boy bands, Britney belly-button songs, and clones-of-clones-of-clones bands. If they suddenly gave you the ability to listen to (God forbid) some of the classics, two things would immediately happen:
1. You'd realize how crappy their current, major offerings really are. I mean, if Britney Spears looked like Shelly Duvall, do you really think she'd be as rich as she is today? She's got a great ass, great tits (real or otherwise), and an overall tight little body. Can she sing or write songs? "WHO CARES?" say the music execs, and folks throng to buy her latest stuff.
2. God forbid, some of your money would be spent on buying the good, classic stuff that actually sounds good as opposed to today's trash. Unless the RIAA charged you the same cost to get at a classic that they would normally charge for one of their current releases, they'd (in theory) lose money.
So, it'll never, ever happen. At least, not officially. UNofficially, there's already a site where you can get just about any song ever made, out of print or not, anytime, anywhere. It's called Gnutella, and it's filling the void that the RIAA has created. They will not be able to put this genie back in the bottle, no matter what they try.
Sorry, the spaces got overlooked. I'm running at 1600x1200 and the fonts are a bit small. Cool sig, though!
I'm clueless, I guess. In morse it's "73DEN0NB". What the hell is that?
With sufficiently narrow definitions of those terms you *may* be correct - some others (myself) feel America is a failure. Pollution, Poverty, Violence, Ignorance, Selfishness, Greed, Consumerism, Disenfranchisment, Inhuman would be some of the (off the top of my head) descriptions I would make of Today's USA.
While I would agree with you that there are plenty of things in America that need fixing, declaring the entire system a failure is a bit premature. I prefer to believe that Capitalism will succeed primarily because it is most in line with typical human behavior. Allow me to digress for a moment.
Socialism depends on a human being working for the good of a group instead of for him/herself. While this is a neat idea and would seem to result in a harmonious society, it does not work well because people do not like to work for goals that do not benefit themselves in some way. We are just not that altruistic by nature. It would be nice if we were, but we're not, and the larger the group of people involved, the less likely it is to work. Sure, some nations have tried to MAKE it work, and you even mention Canada, but you will note that Canadians do not enjoy all the freedoms we have in the U.S. Their government has significant rights to crack down on individuals and actions that the government finds -- ahem -- not to their liking. Note one of their more recent decisions to ban viewing American television channels so that they can prop up their own ailing entertainment industry. Shades of Cuba, banning listening to Radio Free America...
Of course, here we don't, or shouldn't, have to put up with such things. Capitalism requires that the government by and large stay out of things and let us peons run things, but the system frequently gets sidetracked. Politicians are largely to blame. Don't blame the corporations, as they're just doing what comes naturally! Blame the politicians for being so money and power hungry that they will sell their vote. THIS is what is wrong with America, our loss of honor, that is causing our current ills. It's become quite socially acceptable to stab someone in the back as long as you can legally get away with it. In some cases, it's even been glorified. I blame our drifting sense of morals (whichever set, I'm not partial) and mass media for pushing a "just do it" kind of lifestyle.
The downside of Capitalism, as you have pointed out, is that it is not necessarily kind to everyone. That's fine with me. Nature herself is not kind to a species that cannot find a way to make itself propserous (in the natural sense of the word, not financial), why should our system of government be any different? Those who strive and succeed should be rewarded, those who languish and fail should not be compensated. To do the opposite would lessen the desire to excel and reward laziness and failure, just as it happened in the former Soviet Union. And if you want to talk about "Pollution, Poverty, Violence, Ignorance, Selfishness, Greed, Consumerism, Disenfranchisment, Inhuman", then you have only to look to some of the (formerly) largest Socialist nations on the planet. You'll find all of the above with the possible exception of "Consumerism", with a heavy emphasis on "Pollution" and "Inhuman" as well.
What do you think a corporation IS?! It is an invention of government (the people) that is supposed to benefit us (the people). We, the people, through our government, allow people to organize a business in a certain way TO SERVE THE COMMUNITY INTEREST.
You see, that's where you're wrong, snarfer -- in that last UPPERCASE comment. This whole "COMMUNITY INTEREST" thing sounds a great deal like something that Marx and Lenin would've loved. It's called Socialism, it's been tried, and it doesn't work.
There is no such thing as the community interest! Unless you have a community where all inhabitants are of the same mind, same tastes, same EVERYTHING, someone will ALWAYS see something as "not in the community interest". Mob rule (sometimes referred to as "Democracy) dictates that the minority will be squelched, their desires subsumed "for the greater good". Trouble is, who gets to determine what's for the greater good? You? Me? My aunt? The homeless guy on the street?
You can't play human nature that way. The one thing you CAN count on is that people will generally do what is in THEIR best interests so long as it isn't illegal and there aren't any social stigmas against it. This predictable behavior is the result of CAPITALISM, which may not be pretty all the time but does work and has created more wealth, enlightenment, and prosperity in this nation faster and better than anywhere else on Earth in all of history. It has happened WITHOUT the express involvement of government because it is REQUIRED to be so according to the principles of a free market economy. To propose otherwise would be to undermine the very system that has made you, me, and millions of others around the world prosperous.
You may wish to re-read the post I was responding to, specifically their calling for governmental regulation in the areas of accounting practices and stock market oversight. Interpreting the Commerce Clause, which I am well aware of, in such a manner is a gross exaggeration of what was intended. The intention of the Commerce Clause was the negotiation of treaties and trade agreements between foreign nations, "the several states" which at that time were much more regional than our current monolithic governmental structure, and the Indian tribes which were more or less treated as foreign nationals.
You will note, as have many Constitutional scholars, that the Constitution seems to have been crafted at every possible turn to keep massive power OUT of the hands of the federal government, and wherever possible concentrate that power at the state, local, and individual levels. The framers were AFRAID of a large, centrally organized government, given that they'd recently thrown off the shackles of England.
Oversight such as that being discussed is already available through private organizations, and to a much greater extent by the private investor him/herself. Problems such as Enron and WorldCom are simply extreme examples, not commonly found and easily exposed once the hunt begins. These two companies are heralds of an increasing amount of introspection by investors into the companies they are investing in. No doubt every CEO of every Fortune 500 firm has been on the phone or in a meeting with their respective CFO's in the last few months, getting assurances that no funny business is going on. Those that haven't been doing so will eventually be found and burned at the stake...all without the government lifting a finger because private investors will DEMAND it.
Have faith that people and organizations can function, even thrive, without government playing nursemaid to every bump and bruise.
I'm surprised that you would disagree with my original statement. There are lots of examples of the government protecting us. The EPA was created to make sure corporations do not pollute. In other words, the government protecting us and our land from people that would do us and it harm. The SEC, DOJ, police and numerous other government instituions and agencies are there to protect us. Sure, these organizations and agencies sometimes harm us, but the intent of their creation was to protect us.
Just because such organizations exist does not mean that they are valid uses of government. In fact, the framers of the Constitution gave the federal government very limited sets of powers specifically BECAUSE they wanted to protect people from something similar to the Monarchy they had recently escaped. Quite specifically, all powers not expressly given to the federal government were to be reserved for the States. This concept has been thrown on the trash bin by the big government types. While the EPA and other organizations MAY exists and MAY do an adequate job, they are not what the framers had in mind. What they had in mind was smaller, more local, less bureacratic organizations that were more "in tune" with their constituents, namely people living in that state. The federal government is just one example of how faceless and impersonal our government has become -- wasteful, too. If the Founding Fathers could speak today, they would be against it.
The government's role, among other things, is to protect the public from corporations.
Shockingly enough, I don't see that function enumerated ANYWHERE in the Constitution. I, of course, must be in error. Please, by all means, educate me as to where you found it stated that one of the government's roles is to "protect" us from corporations?
Fact is, anyone who cared to dig deeply enough could've found out that two and two don't usually equal five at WorldCom. The problem is, people are far too willing to give the corporate accountants the benefit of the doubt as long as the stock keeps performing. I'm quite sure -- no, DAMN sure -- that questionable accounting practices are the NORM, not the exception. Why? Don't try the tired old line that only the executives profit, because it's not always true. MILLIONS of people profited from Worldcom a few years ago, and I'm quite sure things were shady then as these things don't just develop overnight. Stockholders DEMAND meteoric, exponential, improbable growth from companies or they dump the stock and flee to someone else that will promise them the moon.
What I'm getting at is that every person who invests money anywhere is taking a risk. There are no guarantees in this world, and the stock market is worse than most. If you want guarantees, stick your money in a 2% checking account. Stocks are for folks who KNOW there's a risk involved. If you don't know it, or don't think about it, you have no business in securities and deserve to lose your shirt every now and then. I hope those responsible at Worldcom burn at the stake, but the last thing we need here is MORE government intervention. The market will naturally weed these companies out just as it is now doing.
Oh come on. That is just rubbish. Methinks you wouldn't make a great strategist.
Really? Why? Because I choose a practical, realistic view of things instead of an incredibly overblown, hyped-up, Linux-will-rule-the-world view of things? Try being a pragmatist sometime. You'll find you're disappointed much less often.
You see? You've said it yourself. Linux is having outstanding success in server space, and part of the reason is because it does not play be MS's rules. It is developed and supported by multiple companies/individuals which makes it a nightmare for MS. Strategically it's fantastic because not only is it successful but there is no effective strategic response for MS to counter the attack.
If your enemy starts using weapons you haven't got which are more effective than yours, then the normal response is to try to develop equivalent or better weapons. With the GLP, it's next to impossible for MS to do that. Now that's what I call good strategy.
Rubbish? Methinks not. Linux may be having "outstanding success" by YOUR standards, and perhaps even by the standards of peer competitors, but not by MS, and certainly not in the mass corporate workspace.
Sure, polls indicate that Linux/Apache is the most popular OS/webserver combo there is -- how many of those are business sites versus personal sites? Quite a lot, actually. If you check Linux penetration into the Fortune 500 market you'd find it good, but absolutely steamrollered by MS and/or Sun no matter what yardstick you use. Linux is gaining, but to call it a success means you must qualify your statements. Apple thinks THEY'RE a success because they have 4% of the market. While they may call that a success, I call it a niche. Linux occupies a very good, very successful, somewhat-large-for-the-definition niche right now, but they are not a runaway success. Linux MAY become a runaway success, and I think it has good chances of becoming MS's only successful competitor, but not quite yet.
As to Linux not fighting on MS's turf, you're right, they're not fighting on MS's turf -- yet. But in order to enjoy the success level that MS currently resides at, Linux will have to change. It will consolidate, it will unify, and it will become less technical, more GUI, and more standardized. It will, in short, almost have to BECOME Windows to take over the server room AND the desktop. I will argue that perhaps Linux SHOULDN'T try to do this, that it should be happy with the server market and concentrate there. Unfortunately large swaths of the Linux population (especially here) seem to want to own the world, why I can't imagine.
MS owns the I.T. world right now and look what they've had to do in order to get there -- bloatware, bugs, holes, etc. Do not fool yourself into thinking Linux can somehow transcend these pitfalls because it's open source. There is nothing magical about open source that exempts it from these failings. If anything, the discontinous nature of open source development can even work against it by preventing close collaboration (yes, I know, it CAN also work the other way, but it depends on disparate parties working together for the common good, and that doesn't always work either). And don't throw the old "you've got the source so you can fix it yourself" ploy out there. Programmers, as a percentage of users, are small in number. Most of them have other jobs to do besides delving into SOMEONE ELSE'S poorly documented, poorly written, poorly understood code, trying to fix a bug somewhere. It may be neat now, but it's anything but neat when you've got a project to finish and a deadline to meet.
The truth is not pretty, but it is reality.
I'll counter your point by saying that Quicken was an established brand with a dedicated, loyal following in an emerging market. MS had to fight an uphill battle to try and take over Quicken, and it failed.
One could argue that Netscape was also an established brand, which they were, and MS fought an uphill battle. You will recall that they were LOSING that battle as well until IE started coming bundled with the OS. A browser is not something as "critical" as a personal finance app. So long as it works, most people are happy with whatever they're given. If it's free, so much the better.
I'll go out on a limb and say that if MS offered Windows XP and Office XP for free, Linux would be having a MUCH harder time being accepted, and may not have ever gotten to where it is today. Yes, yes, I know, I'm preaching blasphemy in the church of Linux here, but one must consider how non-interested the vast majority of consumers are in technological superiority. Unlike us tech-head, they just don't seem to give two damns. How else can you explain the existence of AOL?
What has IE "introduced"? Not much of worth, that's for sure, but they DID introduce the concept of integrating the browser with the damned operating system. For better or worse it resulted in the practical death of Netscape.
Get it through your head that product A does NOT have to be demonstrably better than product B, so long as product A is provided in a more convenient manner, or product B is more of a pain to obtain. While this may chafe our sense of technological "rightness", it is reality.
Ah, but there IS fine print on the CD, my friend. It's a COPYRIGHT SYMBOL! Yessiree, mister, that means you're subject to copyright laws when you purchase the product. A quick trip to any legal library or lawyer's office will point out that you are INCORRECT here. Sorry, it was a good try, but you're wrong.
How so? Opera's market share of the total browser market is pitifully tiny compared to the IE juggernaut. It may be "huge" in the sense of it being a very popular alternative to IE, but since IE has about 95% of the market, even if Opera were THE ONLY alternative, they'd only have 5% of the market. That's TINY, practically INSIGNIFICANT in the grand scheme of things.
Please note I'm no IE flag waiver, nor am I an Opera defender/accuser, I'm just making an observation here.
web developers would LOVE to code to a standard and not to a browser
The problem with this comment is that a sufficiently entrenched browser BECOMES a standard, RFC's and "the community's opinion" notwithstanding. Remember when IE was the pitiful underling and Netscape ruled all? Netscape advanced the neat idea of "frames" -- nonstandard, but it BECAME a standard overnight as people rushed to take advantage of it. Same thing with IE: after IE won the browser wars you saw everyone rushing to make damn sure their sites were "IE compliant". Nobody gave much thought to whether it was standards compliant. Why? Folks don't view web pages with a "standard", they view it with a browser. If one browser owns 95% of the market, it IS a standard, like it or not.
Andreesen is wrong about a few things. MS can be combated successfully. The trick is to not play their game of proprietary software on a platform they control. No one can succeed in that territory. The trick is not to succumb to their tactics, and to stay agile and ahead of them.
This has been tried, and it failed. You're assuming that the average consumer/user out there actually CARES about technological superiority. They don't. IE is "good enough", and it already comes installed on everything known to man, including damned internet-ready refrigerators. For your AVERAGE consumer something has to be exponentially better before they will eschew it in favor of the bundled item. Netscape fought against this and look what happened to them. I'm not going to debate the legality of what MS did to Netscape because that's not the topic here, but suffice to say that I don't think there's ANYTHING Mozilla could possibly bring to the table that would reverse the current trend, unless they found a way to have it read minds and present holographic interactive representations of supermodels for your pleasure.
"Don't fight with MS on their turf/by their rules" has been tried before, and it just does not work. MS either has their turf too well covered or they change the rules (FUD, vaporware, strongarm) to destroy the competition. With but few exceptions no one has stood up to MS and won (for long). Linux is a relative exception, but only (IMHO) because there is no corporate entity behind Linux that MS can attack. Unfortunately, that very lack is what's keeping Linux from making inroads beyond the server room, at least in the minds of the executives, VP's, and Director's who sign the big checks for software purchases.
The RIAA/MPAA's argument isn't based on the physical media. On the contrary, they've gone out of their way to make sure that folks know they don't give a damn about that polycarbonate disc you've got there, they're talking about what's encoded on it.
According to their argument, they're not selling you the song or movie. They're quite right. You do not OWN the song or the movie. THEY own it. They own the rights to it, and the rights to distribute it. What they have sold you is a LICENSE to LISTEN/VIEW it, nothing more, nothing less. Note that this is THEIR argument, not mine.
In many ways it is very similar to software licenses. If I OWN a copy of Photoshop, I don't OWN Photoshop. I have purchased the right to use the software from Adobe. I have the right to use it however I see fit, but I cannot legally copy it and give it to someone else. This is how it SHOULD BE. If I copy something with the intent of depriving the rights holder of a legitimate sale then I am stealing. No matter how folks may equivocate about The Man keeping all the buck and the artist getting pennies, it is still STEALING, and it is not right. There are many, many legal precedents showing this to be the case.
Now the RIAA is trying to modify that agreement to extend beyond the first sale. What they're trying to say is "I know we sold you this license to listen/view our works, and heretofore that has meant you can transfer that license however you see fit [Note: see how it's like software?], but now we're going to say you can't transfer the license without paying us a royalty." Legally, they can do this if they want, but not retroactively. Much like a shrinkwrap EULA, they can put damn near anything they want into it, and as long as it's disclosed they can get away with it.
The potential downside for them is alienation of a huge consumer base by such draconian measures, but that sure as hell hasn't stopped them thus far. They appear to have learned nothing from the introduction of the cassette tape and the VCR, both of which caused sales to skyrocket instead of causing piracy to skyrocket. But old ideas have a way of getting steamrollered, and if the Big Media Boys don't wake up they're going to find themselves hammered into oblivion by consumers who are just damn tired enough of their shennanigans that they WILL go an pirate some stuff.
Your bridge vs. ferry analogy is a great one, I'll have to remember that one.
I've said it before: The RIAA and MPAA are sitting on a GOLD MINE of works that they could make even MORE billions off of if they'd just LET GO of their ridiculous ties to the past and take a step into the future.
How much would any of you pay per month for the ability to download any song or movie ever made and watch it at your convenience with NO strings attached? I don't know about many of you, but I'd pay anywhere from $9.95 to $29.95 for such a service, especially if the downloadable stuff was of high quality. A few million people paying that every month would keep Sony Music and the rest in deep cash for a long time to come, especially since they could absolutely junk any and all manufacturing and distribution fees. After all, we all know that the artist only gets a few pennies for each CD sold. The rest goes to distribution, manufacturing, etc. etc. Rip that out and profits can be maintained, while at the same time giving customers WHAT THEY WANT.
The overwhelming popularity of Napster was NOT totally due to it being free. I would've PAID for such a service had one actually been available. I wanted the convenience of getting EXACTLY the song I wanted with no extraneous fluff. Who actually WANTS all the songs on a common CD these days? Even "Greatest Hits" CD's invariably include a few duds. Why pay for songs you don't want to listen to? And singles are a horrendous idea, being that they're only marginally cheaper than full albums but only contain one song. Better to get the album with at least two songs you like than to purchase two singles.
The music industry must adapt to the new distribution models available to them. This means letting go of their obsession with control, control, control over everything. The very LACK of control is a GOOD THING when it comes to the new distribution model. All they have to do is make it somewhat affordable AND extremely convenient and people WILL use it. Of course, some piracy will always exist, but if you make it easy to stay legal, folks will do that just because it's easier than stealing.
Actually you don't seem to know much about it. It is NOT financed by current taxpayers. It is financed by the money we set aside - OUR money pays for our RETIREMENT. Social Security has a multi-trillion dollar surplus built up.
Your level of ignorance on this subject is absolute amazing, nothing short of a collossal poke in the eye of logic. YOUR money today DOES NOT go into some special account JUST FOR YOUR RETIREMENT! It goes into a general fund that has lately been referred to as the "trust fund". The dollars you are paying in today are being paid out to those who are retired or retiring today. YOUR money is going TO SOMEONE ELSE. You, assuming that you're of college age, will not be able to draw upon SS for at least another 35-40 years, at which time SOMEONE ELSE'S dollars will be paying for your retirement. The figures are there, the process is available to anyone who cares to go to www.omb.gov and look up where the government's money goes and where it comes from. Given your striking level of misunderstanding of this system, I can only assume that you've never, ever, EVER bothered to research any of this, and you are going on pure, unadulterated hatred of the wealthy. Typical. Pitiful, but typical.
If you stopped listening to Rush Limbaugh and did your own research you would know that there was a big recession in 1991. That eneded the Reagan expansion (which started after the Deficit Reduction Act tax increases in 1984 by the way.)
Ah, yes, the tactic of "The Big Lie". Big recession, heh? Go check www.omb.gov, the organization that keeps the books for the entire nation. Facts of GDP growth, income levels, and tax revenues are available for at least thirty years. If you have the balls to do it, check the site. You'll note that during 1991 we had two consecutive quarters of economic shrinkage. Just two. It meets the technical definition of a recession, but only barely (the tech. def. is two consecutive quarters of negative growth). You'll also note that the economy started growing again BEFORE Clinton actually took office. You've gotta hand it to Clinton, he's so damn good he can turn the whole U.S. economy around BEFORE he even set foot in the Oval Office.
Of course, that's pure tripe. Clinton did NOT turn the economy around. He just happened to be "on watch" when it happened. Democrats love to capitalize on this, and you've obviously swallowed it all like a cheap whore in heat. As I said, you probably don't have the guts to actually check the figures. If you did, you'd see you were wrong. Of course, you don't care about facts, logic, figures, or any of that other crap, you just want to hate Bush and rich folks, and nothing is going to stop you, is it?
BTW, I don't listen to Limbaugh. Unlike you, I'm capable of arriving at an opinion without being told what to think by someone else. Unlike you, I actually have researched the subject and drawn my own conclusion. Unlike you, I've engaged my brain instead of my emotions. I don't know why I waste my breath -- you won't check the figures, and if you do you'll just dismiss them as propaganda (never mind that Clinton's OMB came up with the very figures that I'm quoting...must be more of that vast right wing conspiracy, eh?).
If you'll check the figures, you'll see you're wrong. But you won't check, will you? It's easier to believe your fantasy. Go on doing that. Perhaps you'll grow up soon and discover that sometimes the truth is ugly, but it won't go away just because you refuse to see it.
This shows how little you really know about the tax system. With my income and stock assets put together I reside in the absolute highest tax bracket there is. As a percentage of my income I'm paying about double what the lowest bracket is, and let's not EVEN get started on the actual dollar amount (around $50K per year) that I pay in just federal taxes.
You're absolutely right I'm not getting the tax breaks. Neither are those much, much richer than I am. We're all those nasty, eeeeeeeevil, awful, dirty, mean, terrible, run-over-old-ladies-and-children-just-for-fun rich folks that are keeping everyone else down. Never mind that we pay around 40% of all federal income taxes in existence while we constitute around 1% of the population....we're not paying (weeping, whining voice -- ALL TOGETHER NOW) OUR FAIR SHARE!
Bullshit. Total, indescribable bullshit. I'm paying far more into the system than I can ever hope to reap. In fact, I'm only paying to subsidize those are in the lowest income bracket, as many of them pay no federal taxes at all due to Earned Income tax credits (a Clinton invention). So you just go right on blaming us horrible rich folks for being one notch below baby killers...we're used to it. I, for one, refuse to feel guilty because I'm well off. I work hard for it, and damn it I deserve what I've got. I will begrudge NO ONE their right to enjoy what is theirs, and if you weren't so damn green with envy you'd see the illogical fallacies that you keep on spouting.