80R SB378 (Texas)
The actor's belief that the force was
immediately necessary as described by this subsection is presumed
to be reasonable if the actor:
(1) knew or had reason to believe that the person
against whom the force was used:
(A) unlawfully and with force entered, or was
attempting to enter unlawfully and with force, the actor's occupied
habitation, vehicle, or place of business or employment;
(B) unlawfully and with force removed, or was
attempting to remove unlawfully and with force, the actor from the
actor's habitation, vehicle, or place of business or employment; or
(C) was committing or attempting to commit
aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual
assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery;
If the cop is doing something to your car or truck that is legal, then that's ok. You can't shoot them when they show up to execute a search warrant either.
there is no need for a technical solution..assuming this is for a business, fire anyone who decides to infect a company-owned PC with malware. (make sure your AUP/HR Policies *clearly* state this).
Great! So all someone needs to do to get his boss fired is to get his machine infected? What about the CFO? CEO? How long would that policy be in place with a little targeted mischief?
What about the case of the user that gets infected because he visited a legitimate website that was serving up malware because they got hacked by a SQL injection attack last night? What if visiting the (now malicious) website was part of her job (reviewing press releases, whatever).
Not sure if your "Just set the AUP right in the first place" suggestion was a joke or a legitimate suggestion.
I swear that's me in the striped izod with the scowl on my face because the girls are typing something wrong. The kid is the right age too.
Has it really been 30 years?
I don't remember being anywhere near Mass. 30 years ago, though...
The video shows a criminal court hearing in which a deputy assigned to court security walks over to the defense attorney’s papers on the counsel table and starts to look at the papers. Eventually he reaches down and pulls out a document from the stack of papers, passes it off to another deputy, and then the other deputy walks away with it.
Excellent examples, and kinda proves the point I was trying to make. If you can't trust them with root then you can't trust their code. He's lucky if getting fired is as far as it went.
The examples you point out are kind of exceptions to the rule (purposeful security policies, production systems, dev teams different than build teams, etc). The grandparent post was talking about "local admin" so I wasn't really trying to address the production system example but rather the local desktop/dev server type restrictions.
The requirement for local admin for most Windows code is one of my peeve issues with Windows.
Agreed and ditto. Security isn't a setting but an end-to-end process.
Sorry for being snarky before, the "forgmarch" line set off my BS meter, especially in a "local admin" context.
And oops on my part for posting the reply initially as AC
All hail you! The mighty sysadmin. I'd love to know details, especially since it got him "frogmarched", but it sounds like so much bravado.
As I said, there are HIDS packages that will track this, as would a competent sysadmin. In my unix example some admins would check permissions on files they put in your sudo list, most don't, especially if they have to do it all the time. The cool thing about social engineering is that you usually aren't even breaking corporate policy, your getting someone ELSE to break corporate policy for you!
In my experience most admin's aren't worth their salt. I say this as an admin myself but with a developer background. I've been on both sides of the issue.
There are other ways. Keyloggers,for example. "Hey Mr. admin, it says I need admin authority to do xyzzy, can you enter your credentials on my keyboard here? Thanks very much.
I don't bring up these examples as ways around security, but rather to bring up the issue of trust. If you can't trust your developer with local admin, you probably can't trust his code, especially compiled code.
Personally, with vmware and cheap hardware it's easy enough to run your own non-corporate image than it is to get around the security, but there are ways. YMMV.
It's trivial to get admin priveleges. You are a developer after all. Just develop/package your own backdoor trojan/etc that gets installed with root priveleges. Then get those fancy administrators to install it for you with their admin rights.
If they ask what it is, tell them its some libraries for a development project. The number of times you'll be asked will be next to nil though. Voila, you can do what you want after that.
Not that I've done it, but on the unix side, you could ask for a sudo exception for a program that's in a directory that's writable to you. Boom you have root any time you need it.
You're a developer! Use your skills!
Yeah yeah, there are some HIDS systems that will catch this sort of thing, but there are ways around that too. After all your root/admin at some point.
If you don't trust your developers with root, then you shouldn't trust their code!
Spending more on public housing with free utilities will just waste more money and is exactly the wrong approach. That doesn't fix the problem, it just applies a bandaid to make you feel better about it. By giving people free housing, or free utilities, or free anything it just leads to people: a) wasting it (public housing projects are notorious for being rundown because the tenants just don't care) and b) it increases the dependence of the poor, keeping them in the cycle of poverty.
Social workers in schools don't increase the ability of a kid to learn, and in my impression of the public school system there are plenty of social workers already. Most of whom are giving excuses to the kids, instead of disciplining them.
The real problem is that a lot of kids don't have any kind of parenting or home life. I don't know how to solve that any more than you do, but it's certainly not the kids' fault, and they're not going anywhere so long as it's true, and the problem is self-perpetuating.
Agreed. But the reason they dont' have any parenting at home is because the parents dont' NEED to be parents and haven't ever been expected to. If they don't find a job, its no problem, they can go on welfare. If a man gets a woman pregnant, its no problem because its "her choice", and he certainly shouldn't need to marry the woman or become a part of the parenting process. The breakdown of the family has been going on since the War on Poverty began, and its just making the poverty situation worse. Because people are not held accountable for their actions. They are given handouts and excuses instead, instead of forcing them to deal with the real situation their life is in and take proactive steps to get out of poverty.
but these kids effectively have no other parents, so if the government isn't going to do it, I sure don't know who will (or who else should.)
The same people who did it 400 years ago. Charities, religious institutions, aid societies and the like. Typically these organizations (The Salvation Army is a perfect example) require that individuals receiving anything must also submit to training and education (spiritual in the case of the SA). This training changes their outlook on life, to get them out of the cycle of dependence. Your correct its not 100%, and some people are going to be left out, or refuse to change their lives. But no program (certainly not government programs) are going to be 100% and at some point you have to say, tough luck. Some people cannot be helped, since at the basic level we have to be receptive to help. If nobody is pushed out of the nest, they won't learn to fly.
It's too easy to have an artificially rosy view of free-market systems;
Granted, however, the reverse can make the problem worse and not better. One issue I have with the current approach is that there is no feedback loop, and its assumed that because your heart is in the right place, its got to be better than the heartless approach of requiring accountability.
If the problem gets worse it has to be the fault of external factors.
We either have to look full in the face of the systemic inequalities -- without copping out by blaming the victims -- and say "Yes, people will starve and die, but that's the price you pay, there but for the grace go I," or else roll up our sleeves and try to address systemic inequalities.
I disagree with your choices. Its not an either or situation. Addressing inequalities is not going to stop people from starving and dying, although it may make people think that the only thing keeping them from starving is a government handout. And that outlook on life will certainly imprison them into a life of poverty. I'd love more details on the "systemic" inequalities you reference though. There is no system that can remove the inequalities present in every human being. We are each born different. Even siblings (where we can assume a similar genetic makeup and start in life) will have d
To paraphrase Woody Guthrie, "some chains you with iron, and some with a fountain pen".
LOL, while Woody could write some interesting songs to listen to when your stoned, he's full of shit with that statement. You haven't refuted my statement, there isn't a corporation that chains anybody. Anybody is free to walk out the front door and not come back. Government on the other hand, they use real iron in their chains.
I'm not free to do that, because to start any industrial work a capitalist system I have to go to the capitalists and either get investors, or get a loan and pay interest, and we're right back where we started.
Your perfectly free to do that. Oh you don't have the $20 for the parts, or the $5 to pay the employees? Well guess what, that corporation didn't have it either when they started, they got the money through investors or loans, and took the risks and built a business. Now you want them to give you all or a portion of the $5 they make on the product because you "deserve" it? Because your the "means of production"? Got news for you, THEY are the means of the production. They hired you, they bought the parts. They are the reason the product is being built in the first place.
That's why I'll soon be setting up my own bodywork business; total investment in training and materials
Congratulations! Thats great! Another small business is created. You just did the same as that hypothetical large corporation that you used in your earlier example. You invested some capital ($6500), hired some labor (you), and developed a product (bodywork), from which you will profit (capitalist). Welcome to the capitalist system.
You may even have employees one day, although I'm sure someone as socially conscious as you wouldn't "exploit" them. In fact businesses don't exploit their workers (and at least stay in business) because if they did, employees would leave.
As to not having a boss, you're right, however you will now get to find out how the government exploits businesses (especially small ones). And the government is truly exploiting you, cause if you don't do what they say, you end up without a business, or in those chains we talked about before.
If someone's pointing a gun at your employees, you don't wait until there's conclusive evidence that it's real, working, loaded, and the holder is going to shoot before you sound a warning.
Agreed, which is why there was a trial, and the jury found that IBM didn't know there was a gun pointed at their employees head and as such wasn't liable.
So your solution is what exactly? Just complain? Tell these kids of "parents [who] work sixteen hours day every day of the week in a futile effort to make ends meet" that they are just sh** out of luck?
We all start life with advantages and disadvantages. Looks (or lack thereof), money (or lack thereof), parenting (or lack thereof), and yes even luck. Using the word futile about a given persons future only esures that it won't get any better.
As i mentioned earlier in the thread, every day since the US was founded, people have come from all over the globe, some who don't even speak the native language, and some are able to make it work through hard work. Not all of this is luck.
The best luck is the kind you make yourself through hard work. A message of defeatism only gets you sheep that will vote for the next government handout.
The free market dictates "cheap", though what a customer might really want is "cheap, but Evil-free".
If that were the case, why does an organization like "Consumer Reports" exist? Surely if the market really only dictated cheap, then there would be no market for an organization to help the consumer with determining "value".
What is the incentive for the free market to test the things that OSHA tests? Who would pay for that service? The employees? Yeah, right... Their needs to be a third party that is disinterested in the proceedings of the company.
Well if there wasn't an OSHA then IBM's argument in the parent post would fall through wouldn't it? And IBM would have sued the manufacturer of the chemical, since IBM didn't know the chemical was a problem.
Which of course means, the chemical manufacturer would have paid the 3rd party to test it, since with their seal of approval, if anything went wrong, the could pass the buck on to 3rd party. The 3rd party would want to ensure it does a great test, since their testing methodologies could be tested in court later.
Thats how UL works after all. It was created because in the early days of electricity, things tended to catch fire and burn down buildings and the things inside, including people. As a way to limit a manufacturers liability, they submitted their products to a laboratory to do the testing. By submitting it, they could get insurance.
And in my observation its much easier to pay off the government employee than the inspectors from the insurance agency. After all, the governments liability isn't on the line.
To your point 1 I can only say: Hmm, I must have missed the point where $corporation grabbed some workers off the street and chained them in their plant to work for them. Last I remember, everybody who was HIRED for a job applied for it in the first place.
Second, it is the nature of capitalism that, under the usual owner/employee arrangement, the employee cannot profit. His wage must be less than the value he adds, because the investor has to get his dividend.
I call bullshit. Actually BOTH sides profit. If they didn't, then neither would engage in the transaction. The employee is free to leave at any time. In fact most companies (large ones especially) hire people at a net loss initially. Once hired an employee has to learn the job, learn the company, learn the people. The employer gives them valuable information, how they do business etc. Employers take risks on employees every time they hire them. They may be small risks per employee, especially for larger companies, but then larger companies have to take more of these small risks. Small companies take large risks per employee, but only have to do it a few times.
In your assembly line example, you're paid out of the $5.... If you weren't, (now take this slowly), the employer wouldn't make the product! Your free to take the same $20 worth of parts and hire your own $5 worth of labor and make your own $30 part and get the full $5 at any time. Feel free. I'll wait.
Everyone has the right to balance risk and reward, but everyone also has the legal right to expect a safe workplace unless explicitly told otherwise.
I would only make one change. Everyone is entitled to a reasonably safe workplace. Potentially unsafe workplaces are a fact of life. But every reasonable precaution should be taken. More on this later
It sounds like IBM is getting off on this only because the evidence of harm from these chemicals is not conclusive. The problem is it can take a long time before evidence that "X contributes to cancer risk" is conclusive, but people exposed during that time are still getting cancer.
So, if the evidence is not conclusive.... what good is it in the analysis of creating a reasonable work environment? If companies were required to evaluate every potential risk as an absolute danger, they wouldn't have employees, because they wouldn't be able to allow you to get out of your bed in the morning. Too risky.
That's very nice in theory. However not everyone can spend his evenings studying. Many people have children to take care of and cleaning to do and many have a second job, just to be able to pay for the rent or an ex-wife.
I think your making his point. Unless they were raped, they didn't have those children without making some decision that ended up with a child. Same with an ex-wife.
Second "big bills" are relative. If your income is a minimum wage, then rent will be a big portion of your pay check.
If your only making minimum wage then you should be looking for the smallest rent you can. I.e. the boarding house, the spare room above the garage, the efficiency apartment, the sublet of the extra bedroom of somebody elses apartment, the campground outside of town, the homeless shelter, etc.
And you too might end up with financial problems. No matter how well educated and smart you are, there's no escape from simple bad luck.
So true.. and at that time the parent poster would probably CUT his expenses. See the fix to the problem is not to cultivate this attitude that one cannot improve their lives through hard work.
It never ceases to amaze me to read arguments such as yours, and then hear about immigrants coming to the US from other countries who have no skills, can't speak or read the language, and yet they survive and thrive. Build businesses, learn the language, raise and educate families, etc. But to hear your arguments, if your poor its not your fault, and you'll never not be poor. Your just stuck.
Are you sure? I doubt it. Sure its logged, but "red flagged for further investigation"? In a company the size of WF, there are likely large numbers of legitimate users attempting to connect to internal IP's (assuming that internal ip's are even routed to a WF internet premise firewall).
They are just doing it by accident, by trying their application that works just fine in the office from home. "You mean I have to use VPN software to get into the office network? Whats VPN?". Repeat for thousands of users.
Red flagging for reporting to security is likely deemed overkill. Tracing the stolen laptops this way just isnt' cost effective. A single blocked SYN packet doesn't represent a threat.
I remember the UN not condoning the US actions, so basically in your utter moron logic you are pretty much claiming that the US had to ignore the UN to go against Iraq because Iraq was ignoring the UN?
The UN didn't forbid action in Iraq either. The Iraqi's were violating the terms of their cease fire with the United States however.
I'm sure you were complaining about Clinton's war in Bosnia as well, since that wasn't condoned by the UN either.
In actuality, the prices we pay on any given gallon of gas are based on a future cost of extracting and refining the raw materials to make that gallon of gas. This is evidenced, during such events as a refinery fire, where gas prices shoot up over a few days. Its not that the evil "oil companies" are gouging their customers, rather that they know that it will cost them more to produce the next gallon of gas, since they have to replace the refinery.
But just cause you start out with a lot of money beforehand doesn't mean your gauranteed to have even more money. It all comes down to decision making.
Just cause you have a lot of money doesn't mean you'll get to keep it, or that it will grow into billions, or anything. And just cause you don't have any money, doesn't mean that you can't make millions or billions.
The defeatist attitudes displayed on slashdot sometimes just amaze me. Life isn't easy, for people with or without money, for people with or without good looks, for people with or without athletic speed.
Thinking that the reason somebody else has a lot of money is that they "stole" it from someone else or that because they were just "lucky" and started out with a lot, is just defeatist bullshit.
The best thing anybody can start out with is a positive outlook on life, the self-confidence that they can achieve success, and the knowledge that achieving anything of true value takes hard work.
He owned the company. 100% It was his. He was letting us investors buy into a part of his company. Why shouldnt' he keep a part of it himself? I'm happy he offered at least some of it to the rest of us peons. He could have been like UPS and just kept it in the family.
As to irrational demand. For every BUYER of a share of stock there was another shareholder that was a SELLER, and it wasn't Bezos. People wanted the Amazon vision, so they paid the price they felt was justified. If they didn't think it was justified they shouldn't have bought. Nobody put a gun to a buyers head and said "buy".
And nobody is alleging fraud with regard to AMZN. I remember in the heydey of "irrational exuberance" Bezos saying that Amazon was a long way away from profitability. It wasn't like Bezos was saying buy AMZN so that my shares will be worth even more!
There is no wealth transfer here. There is wealth creation.
Re:which taxes? Income taxes? Social Security tax?
on
Tech Rich Get Richer
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· Score: 1
Well, I think that you are only partly responsible for your success. Not all of your success is due to your own efforts; some part of everyone's success consists of luck, of genetics, of parents, of just being in the right place at the right time.
Except you can't control that stuff, so why worry about it? I'm not a model, I'm not very athletic, so I didn't go into modeling or become an athlete. Surely Jennifer Lopez was blessed with some genetic features that I don't have, and she's used what she has to get where she is. That should affect how I feel about myself, my chances, or my life. If it does, I'm just handicapping myself out of the gate. And that doesn't help anything.
I think that as a rough average, it is easier for rich people to make money than poor people; and therefore that the rich can spare it more easily, and should pay a bigger share
Its also easier for rich people to lose it all. They have to watch their money, make sure its working for them, make sure people aren't stealing from them, etc. The more money you have the harder it is to keep it, and the more likely you are to lose it.
just think that some sort of progressive tax system does a better job of compensating people for their bad luck by taxing people that have had good luck. There is no way you can measure something like that, but don't think a flat tax system is as fair.
We've already discussed that its not all luck though. Some of it is wise decision making. By taxing wise decision making your going to get LESS of it. And by subsidizing bad decision making your going to get MORE of it. Is that good for society as a whole?
I wasn't necessarily advocating a flat tax system, however I'm for such a system over progressive based ones. Mainly because progressive based taxation schemes do more harm than good.
Just one example, the sheer cost of complying with a progressive based tax system is higher than with a flat tax system, because the progressive based system is by definition more complex. This results in inefficiency of the system, requiring more beaurocrats(sp?) to monitor, to legislate, leading to more attempts to "fine-tune" the "fair share", which leads to even more enforcement mechanisms, which leads us to a tax code with millions of lines of code. And any attempts to change the system (up or down) result in cries of "unfair" and further class warfare.
Im not bitter. Very happy with my life, because I don't think some "rich person" is keeping me down, like some of the people on this thread.
I can survive without becoming a corporate zealot obsessed with competition. I'm not asking for free stuff, but I'll accept free stuff.
Never suggested that one must be obsessed with competition, just said don't be pissed off if those who do compete have more than you do. It doesn't mean they were stealing it, it doesn't mean they don't deserve it, it doesn't mean that they are somehow automatically unethical, or stupid, or got it "the easy way", etc, etc. And as to accepting "free" stuff, there is no such thing, you get what you pay for.
Exactly, Death happens in the USA just like it happens in China, so why should we pretend the USA is better?
Oh but the USA is better, because its much easier to die in China than here. In some cases all you have to do is be born without a penis.
Also your Global competiton is going to come back to haunt you when you lose your job to the more competitive third world who will work longer, harder and cheaper than you.
You forgot more skilled. I'm always looking at my value proposition to my company and ensuring that they are getting value for what I do. If they aren't, then I don't expect them to keep me around. And if my skill sets are better gotten at a price lower than I will accept for my services, then I'll offer new skills. Either to my current employer or a new one. I wouldn't want to be kept around simply out of pity. That doesn't do anyone any good.
There is always going to be someone willing to do your job for less, so this is a competition you cannot truely win.
My job as well or better than I do it, you mean.
So whats the point? I should jsut roll over and die then huh? Why fight the treadmill, why push the rock up the hill, in the end only the rich people will have anything, and I'll just be the galley slave tied to the oars when the ship is on fire. Doomed.
You take your view of life, I'll take mine. I certainly fret less, and will enjoy my life more. Knowing I'm in control of my life. Also won't have to beg for anything.
Thats the issue you realize. Universal health care, confiscatory taxes from the government paying for social "justice" programs, means that we will become slaves not to "corporate masters" but to government masters. Begging for table scraps of health care, social security payments, prescription drug coverage, welfare payments, etc. The difference is that the government has guns and can imprison you and can really tie your wrists to the galley oars.
You trust the government to provide those things for you, and hence you will end up begging.
But you did want "free" healthcare right? So you want something without having to work for it. Same issue. You'd rather think that working for something wouldn't help, so that you can blame your lack of healthcare on rich people instead of not wanting to work.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep
80R SB378 (Texas) The actor's belief that the force was immediately necessary as described by this subsection is presumed to be reasonable if the actor: (1) knew or had reason to believe that the person against whom the force was used: (A) unlawfully and with force entered, or was attempting to enter unlawfully and with force, the actor's occupied habitation, vehicle, or place of business or employment; (B) unlawfully and with force removed, or was attempting to remove unlawfully and with force, the actor from the actor's habitation, vehicle, or place of business or employment; or (C) was committing or attempting to commit aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery;
If the cop is doing something to your car or truck that is legal, then that's ok. You can't shoot them when they show up to execute a search warrant either.
Sadly that's really not the case anymore.
Great! So all someone needs to do to get his boss fired is to get his machine infected? What about the CFO? CEO? How long would that policy be in place with a little targeted mischief?
What about the case of the user that gets infected because he visited a legitimate website that was serving up malware because they got hacked by a SQL injection attack last night? What if visiting the (now malicious) website was part of her job (reviewing press releases, whatever).
Not sure if your "Just set the AUP right in the first place" suggestion was a joke or a legitimate suggestion.
I swear that's me in the striped izod with the scowl on my face because the girls are typing something wrong. The kid is the right age too.
Has it really been 30 years? I don't remember being anywhere near Mass. 30 years ago, though...
Oooh, it's a sunny day, I think I'll make 6 glasses of lemonade today
http://volokh.com/2009/11/04/the-deputy-who-helped-himself-to-the-defense-attorneys-casefile
At least in some jurisdictions....
The examples you point out are kind of exceptions to the rule (purposeful security policies, production systems, dev teams different than build teams, etc). The grandparent post was talking about "local admin" so I wasn't really trying to address the production system example but rather the local desktop/dev server type restrictions.
The requirement for local admin for most Windows code is one of my peeve issues with Windows.
Agreed and ditto. Security isn't a setting but an end-to-end process.
Sorry for being snarky before, the "forgmarch" line set off my BS meter, especially in a "local admin" context.
And oops on my part for posting the reply initially as AC
As I said, there are HIDS packages that will track this, as would a competent sysadmin. In my unix example some admins would check permissions on files they put in your sudo list, most don't, especially if they have to do it all the time. The cool thing about social engineering is that you usually aren't even breaking corporate policy, your getting someone ELSE to break corporate policy for you!
In my experience most admin's aren't worth their salt. I say this as an admin myself but with a developer background. I've been on both sides of the issue.
There are other ways. Keyloggers,for example. "Hey Mr. admin, it says I need admin authority to do xyzzy, can you enter your credentials on my keyboard here? Thanks very much.
I don't bring up these examples as ways around security, but rather to bring up the issue of trust. If you can't trust your developer with local admin, you probably can't trust his code, especially compiled code.
For an excellent example see Ken Thompson's paper.
Personally, with vmware and cheap hardware it's easy enough to run your own non-corporate image than it is to get around the security, but there are ways. YMMV.
It's trivial to get admin priveleges. You are a developer after all. Just develop/package your own backdoor trojan/etc that gets installed with root priveleges. Then get those fancy administrators to install it for you with their admin rights. If they ask what it is, tell them its some libraries for a development project. The number of times you'll be asked will be next to nil though. Voila, you can do what you want after that. Not that I've done it, but on the unix side, you could ask for a sudo exception for a program that's in a directory that's writable to you. Boom you have root any time you need it. You're a developer! Use your skills! Yeah yeah, there are some HIDS systems that will catch this sort of thing, but there are ways around that too. After all your root/admin at some point. If you don't trust your developers with root, then you shouldn't trust their code!
You may be able to hack a card to change its mac address, but MAC address filtering will stop all but the most serious wardrivers and hackers.
Aren't those the ones you REALLY want to keep out of a government agency?
If MAC filtering is your security layer, then your network is accessibly by anybody willing to spend relatively little money to access it.
Social workers in schools don't increase the ability of a kid to learn, and in my impression of the public school system there are plenty of social workers already. Most of whom are giving excuses to the kids, instead of disciplining them.
The real problem is that a lot of kids don't have any kind of parenting or home life. I don't know how to solve that any more than you do, but it's certainly not the kids' fault, and they're not going anywhere so long as it's true, and the problem is self-perpetuating.
Agreed. But the reason they dont' have any parenting at home is because the parents dont' NEED to be parents and haven't ever been expected to. If they don't find a job, its no problem, they can go on welfare. If a man gets a woman pregnant, its no problem because its "her choice", and he certainly shouldn't need to marry the woman or become a part of the parenting process. The breakdown of the family has been going on since the War on Poverty began, and its just making the poverty situation worse. Because people are not held accountable for their actions. They are given handouts and excuses instead, instead of forcing them to deal with the real situation their life is in and take proactive steps to get out of poverty.
but these kids effectively have no other parents, so if the government isn't going to do it, I sure don't know who will (or who else should.)
The same people who did it 400 years ago. Charities, religious institutions, aid societies and the like. Typically these organizations (The Salvation Army is a perfect example) require that individuals receiving anything must also submit to training and education (spiritual in the case of the SA). This training changes their outlook on life, to get them out of the cycle of dependence. Your correct its not 100%, and some people are going to be left out, or refuse to change their lives. But no program (certainly not government programs) are going to be 100% and at some point you have to say, tough luck. Some people cannot be helped, since at the basic level we have to be receptive to help. If nobody is pushed out of the nest, they won't learn to fly.
It's too easy to have an artificially rosy view of free-market systems;
Granted, however, the reverse can make the problem worse and not better. One issue I have with the current approach is that there is no feedback loop, and its assumed that because your heart is in the right place, its got to be better than the heartless approach of requiring accountability. If the problem gets worse it has to be the fault of external factors.
We either have to look full in the face of the systemic inequalities -- without copping out by blaming the victims -- and say "Yes, people will starve and die, but that's the price you pay, there but for the grace go I," or else roll up our sleeves and try to address systemic inequalities.
I disagree with your choices. Its not an either or situation. Addressing inequalities is not going to stop people from starving and dying, although it may make people think that the only thing keeping them from starving is a government handout. And that outlook on life will certainly imprison them into a life of poverty. I'd love more details on the "systemic" inequalities you reference though. There is no system that can remove the inequalities present in every human being. We are each born different. Even siblings (where we can assume a similar genetic makeup and start in life) will have d
LOL, while Woody could write some interesting songs to listen to when your stoned, he's full of shit with that statement. You haven't refuted my statement, there isn't a corporation that chains anybody. Anybody is free to walk out the front door and not come back. Government on the other hand, they use real iron in their chains.
I'm not free to do that, because to start any industrial work a capitalist system I have to go to the capitalists and either get investors, or get a loan and pay interest, and we're right back where we started.
Your perfectly free to do that. Oh you don't have the $20 for the parts, or the $5 to pay the employees? Well guess what, that corporation didn't have it either when they started, they got the money through investors or loans, and took the risks and built a business. Now you want them to give you all or a portion of the $5 they make on the product because you "deserve" it? Because your the "means of production"? Got news for you, THEY are the means of the production. They hired you, they bought the parts. They are the reason the product is being built in the first place.
That's why I'll soon be setting up my own bodywork business; total investment in training and materials
Congratulations! Thats great! Another small business is created. You just did the same as that hypothetical large corporation that you used in your earlier example. You invested some capital ($6500), hired some labor (you), and developed a product (bodywork), from which you will profit (capitalist). Welcome to the capitalist system.
You may even have employees one day, although I'm sure someone as socially conscious as you wouldn't "exploit" them. In fact businesses don't exploit their workers (and at least stay in business) because if they did, employees would leave.
As to not having a boss, you're right, however you will now get to find out how the government exploits businesses (especially small ones). And the government is truly exploiting you, cause if you don't do what they say, you end up without a business, or in those chains we talked about before.
If someone's pointing a gun at your employees, you don't wait until there's conclusive evidence that it's real, working, loaded, and the holder is going to shoot before you sound a warning.
Agreed, which is why there was a trial, and the jury found that IBM didn't know there was a gun pointed at their employees head and as such wasn't liable.
We all start life with advantages and disadvantages. Looks (or lack thereof), money (or lack thereof), parenting (or lack thereof), and yes even luck. Using the word futile about a given persons future only esures that it won't get any better.
As i mentioned earlier in the thread, every day since the US was founded, people have come from all over the globe, some who don't even speak the native language, and some are able to make it work through hard work. Not all of this is luck.
The best luck is the kind you make yourself through hard work. A message of defeatism only gets you sheep that will vote for the next government handout.
If that were the case, why does an organization like "Consumer Reports" exist? Surely if the market really only dictated cheap, then there would be no market for an organization to help the consumer with determining "value".
The free market dictates value, not cheap.
Well if there wasn't an OSHA then IBM's argument in the parent post would fall through wouldn't it? And IBM would have sued the manufacturer of the chemical, since IBM didn't know the chemical was a problem.
Which of course means, the chemical manufacturer would have paid the 3rd party to test it, since with their seal of approval, if anything went wrong, the could pass the buck on to 3rd party. The 3rd party would want to ensure it does a great test, since their testing methodologies could be tested in court later.
Thats how UL works after all. It was created because in the early days of electricity, things tended to catch fire and burn down buildings and the things inside, including people. As a way to limit a manufacturers liability, they submitted their products to a laboratory to do the testing. By submitting it, they could get insurance.
And in my observation its much easier to pay off the government employee than the inspectors from the insurance agency. After all, the governments liability isn't on the line.
Second, it is the nature of capitalism that, under the usual owner/employee arrangement, the employee cannot profit. His wage must be less than the value he adds, because the investor has to get his dividend.
I call bullshit. Actually BOTH sides profit. If they didn't, then neither would engage in the transaction. The employee is free to leave at any time. In fact most companies (large ones especially) hire people at a net loss initially. Once hired an employee has to learn the job, learn the company, learn the people. The employer gives them valuable information, how they do business etc. Employers take risks on employees every time they hire them. They may be small risks per employee, especially for larger companies, but then larger companies have to take more of these small risks. Small companies take large risks per employee, but only have to do it a few times.
In your assembly line example, you're paid out of the $5.... If you weren't, (now take this slowly), the employer wouldn't make the product! Your free to take the same $20 worth of parts and hire your own $5 worth of labor and make your own $30 part and get the full $5 at any time. Feel free. I'll wait.
Everyone has the right to balance risk and reward, but everyone also has the legal right to expect a safe workplace unless explicitly told otherwise.
I would only make one change. Everyone is entitled to a reasonably safe workplace. Potentially unsafe workplaces are a fact of life. But every reasonable precaution should be taken. More on this later
It sounds like IBM is getting off on this only because the evidence of harm from these chemicals is not conclusive. The problem is it can take a long time before evidence that "X contributes to cancer risk" is conclusive, but people exposed during that time are still getting cancer.
So, if the evidence is not conclusive.... what good is it in the analysis of creating a reasonable work environment? If companies were required to evaluate every potential risk as an absolute danger, they wouldn't have employees, because they wouldn't be able to allow you to get out of your bed in the morning. Too risky.
I think your making his point. Unless they were raped, they didn't have those children without making some decision that ended up with a child. Same with an ex-wife.
Second "big bills" are relative. If your income is a minimum wage, then rent will be a big portion of your pay check.
If your only making minimum wage then you should be looking for the smallest rent you can. I.e. the boarding house, the spare room above the garage, the efficiency apartment, the sublet of the extra bedroom of somebody elses apartment, the campground outside of town, the homeless shelter, etc.
And you too might end up with financial problems. No matter how well educated and smart you are, there's no escape from simple bad luck.
So true.. and at that time the parent poster would probably CUT his expenses. See the fix to the problem is not to cultivate this attitude that one cannot improve their lives through hard work.
It never ceases to amaze me to read arguments such as yours, and then hear about immigrants coming to the US from other countries who have no skills, can't speak or read the language, and yet they survive and thrive. Build businesses, learn the language, raise and educate families, etc. But to hear your arguments, if your poor its not your fault, and you'll never not be poor. Your just stuck.
Its pathetic really.
Are you sure? I doubt it. Sure its logged, but "red flagged for further investigation"? In a company the size of WF, there are likely large numbers of legitimate users attempting to connect to internal IP's (assuming that internal ip's are even routed to a WF internet premise firewall).
They are just doing it by accident, by trying their application that works just fine in the office from home. "You mean I have to use VPN software to get into the office network? Whats VPN?". Repeat for thousands of users.
Red flagging for reporting to security is likely deemed overkill. Tracing the stolen laptops this way just isnt' cost effective. A single blocked SYN packet doesn't represent a threat.
The UN didn't forbid action in Iraq either. The Iraqi's were violating the terms of their cease fire with the United States however.
I'm sure you were complaining about Clinton's war in Bosnia as well, since that wasn't condoned by the UN either.
In actuality, the prices we pay on any given gallon of gas are based on a future cost of extracting and refining the raw materials to make that gallon of gas. This is evidenced, during such events as a refinery fire, where gas prices shoot up over a few days. Its not that the evil "oil companies" are gouging their customers, rather that they know that it will cost them more to produce the next gallon of gas, since they have to replace the refinery.
Just cause you have a lot of money doesn't mean you'll get to keep it, or that it will grow into billions, or anything. And just cause you don't have any money, doesn't mean that you can't make millions or billions.
The defeatist attitudes displayed on slashdot sometimes just amaze me. Life isn't easy, for people with or without money, for people with or without good looks, for people with or without athletic speed.
Thinking that the reason somebody else has a lot of money is that they "stole" it from someone else or that because they were just "lucky" and started out with a lot, is just defeatist bullshit.
The best thing anybody can start out with is a positive outlook on life, the self-confidence that they can achieve success, and the knowledge that achieving anything of true value takes hard work.
As to irrational demand. For every BUYER of a share of stock there was another shareholder that was a SELLER, and it wasn't Bezos. People wanted the Amazon vision, so they paid the price they felt was justified. If they didn't think it was justified they shouldn't have bought. Nobody put a gun to a buyers head and said "buy".
And nobody is alleging fraud with regard to AMZN. I remember in the heydey of "irrational exuberance" Bezos saying that Amazon was a long way away from profitability. It wasn't like Bezos was saying buy AMZN so that my shares will be worth even more!
There is no wealth transfer here. There is wealth creation.
Except you can't control that stuff, so why worry about it? I'm not a model, I'm not very athletic, so I didn't go into modeling or become an athlete. Surely Jennifer Lopez was blessed with some genetic features that I don't have, and she's used what she has to get where she is. That should affect how I feel about myself, my chances, or my life. If it does, I'm just handicapping myself out of the gate. And that doesn't help anything.
I think that as a rough average, it is easier for rich people to make money than poor people; and therefore that the rich can spare it more easily, and should pay a bigger share
Its also easier for rich people to lose it all. They have to watch their money, make sure its working for them, make sure people aren't stealing from them, etc. The more money you have the harder it is to keep it, and the more likely you are to lose it.
just think that some sort of progressive tax system does a better job of compensating people for their bad luck by taxing people that have had good luck. There is no way you can measure something like that, but don't think a flat tax system is as fair.
We've already discussed that its not all luck though. Some of it is wise decision making. By taxing wise decision making your going to get LESS of it. And by subsidizing bad decision making your going to get MORE of it. Is that good for society as a whole?
I wasn't necessarily advocating a flat tax system, however I'm for such a system over progressive based ones. Mainly because progressive based taxation schemes do more harm than good.
Just one example, the sheer cost of complying with a progressive based tax system is higher than with a flat tax system, because the progressive based system is by definition more complex. This results in inefficiency of the system, requiring more beaurocrats(sp?) to monitor, to legislate, leading to more attempts to "fine-tune" the "fair share", which leads to even more enforcement mechanisms, which leads us to a tax code with millions of lines of code. And any attempts to change the system (up or down) result in cries of "unfair" and further class warfare.
Im not bitter. Very happy with my life, because I don't think some "rich person" is keeping me down, like some of the people on this thread.
I can survive without becoming a corporate zealot obsessed with competition. I'm not asking for free stuff, but I'll accept free stuff.
Never suggested that one must be obsessed with competition, just said don't be pissed off if those who do compete have more than you do. It doesn't mean they were stealing it, it doesn't mean they don't deserve it, it doesn't mean that they are somehow automatically unethical, or stupid, or got it "the easy way", etc, etc. And as to accepting "free" stuff, there is no such thing, you get what you pay for.
Exactly, Death happens in the USA just like it happens in China, so why should we pretend the USA is better?
Oh but the USA is better, because its much easier to die in China than here. In some cases all you have to do is be born without a penis.
Also your Global competiton is going to come back to haunt you when you lose your job to the more competitive third world who will work longer, harder and cheaper than you.
You forgot more skilled. I'm always looking at my value proposition to my company and ensuring that they are getting value for what I do. If they aren't, then I don't expect them to keep me around. And if my skill sets are better gotten at a price lower than I will accept for my services, then I'll offer new skills. Either to my current employer or a new one. I wouldn't want to be kept around simply out of pity. That doesn't do anyone any good.
There is always going to be someone willing to do your job for less, so this is a competition you cannot truely win.
My job as well or better than I do it, you mean.
So whats the point? I should jsut roll over and die then huh? Why fight the treadmill, why push the rock up the hill, in the end only the rich people will have anything, and I'll just be the galley slave tied to the oars when the ship is on fire. Doomed.
You take your view of life, I'll take mine. I certainly fret less, and will enjoy my life more. Knowing I'm in control of my life. Also won't have to beg for anything.
Thats the issue you realize. Universal health care, confiscatory taxes from the government paying for social "justice" programs, means that we will become slaves not to "corporate masters" but to government masters. Begging for table scraps of health care, social security payments, prescription drug coverage, welfare payments, etc. The difference is that the government has guns and can imprison you and can really tie your wrists to the galley oars.
You trust the government to provide those things for you, and hence you will end up begging.
TANSTAAFL