More likely you had problems configuring XvMC in general for X - it was fiddly on Ubuntu 7.10 and previous.
Given that I made no effort to configure this - nor even knew I needed to - outside what I included in my saga documented above, that seems likely.
However with the last mythbuntu install I did (8.04 + updates) it worked out of the box, no config needed at all with a 7200GS
Good to hear it's improving. When it can do everything my ViP 722 can do and more, I'll consider it again. Now that I have an HD DVR that works with both satellite and OTA signals, it would be difficult to go back to one limited to just OTA. (Our cable company doesn't offer HD.)
The brakes on the Semi-Truck behind you go out... 'Quick! The invisibility cloak will save us!'
I thought we were supposed to consider that lorry to be a uniform sphere? Now you're saying we should treat it as a wave, too? I didn't realize light shared wave-particle duality with semi trucks.
I replied to the person above, but my reply works well for you, too. How did you get it to run on your crap hardware without XVMC support enabled in the precompiled Ubuntu binary? If the hardware you were using really was crap you should have needed that for glitch-free playback, right?
Summary: Nine hours to try to get MythTV working on my desktop machine as a test, before investing in a dedicated system, and it didn't work. The problem I had culd probably be overcome with faster, more expensive hardware, but then I keep hearing on Slashdot about how MythTV can be run on any old junk lying around, so I wasn't going to risk investing money in a system when it clearly didn't work with my existing hardware. I ended up buying a Dish Network ViP 722 and have been very happy with it.
I'll reproduce it below for the non-link followers:
My biggest problem is that the MythTV distribution for Ubuntu is not built with XvMC support. My computer (Athlon 64 3000+, 1 GB, GeForce FX 5200) is perfectly suited to run as a dual back/front-end box if XvMC is enabled (according to many guides I've read). If it isn't enabled, the CPU is pegged at 100% and the signal skips - exactly what I see.
I (having nothing better to do) decided to try and build MythTV from source tonight. I'm following the "Install MythTV" section of this page: www.pchdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1938 Note that I'm using Ubuntu Feisty Fawn instead of SuSe. I have also already installed some development tools to compile the utilities that came with my pchdtv 5500. Problems: 1. Path to frontend.h is wrong. Quick file search is easy to fix.
2. Configure complains about lack of LAME MP3 library. Installing liblame...
3. Configure complains about lack of qmake. Installing libqt4...
4. Make errors out regarding lack of XvMClib.h (as the first of many errors). Installing libxvmc, then using "make distclean" and starting over...
5. Make errors out regarding lack of qdom.h (as the first of many errors). It should have been installed as part of libqt4-dev - I even see it on the list of installed files on that package in Synaptic - but even searching doesn't pull it up. I browse to where it's supposed to be... and it's there! If I search in the usr folder or deeper I find it, but searching from root and it's gone. Ok, from reading a web page, perhaps I need to set an environment variable? "export QTDIR=/usr/include/qt4", run "make distclean" and start over. Note this step took 45 minutes...
6. Hey, guess what, that didn't work. Make still can't find a stupid file installed on my computer. Genius. Let's try "export QTDIR=/usr/include/qt4/Qt" since I see qdom in both that folder and in the QtXml folder. Maybe it's not complaining that it can't find the file, but instead that it finds two copies of the file...
7. Nope, didn't work. Ok, that's two hours, all I can take of this tonight.
(next day)
k, I think I found it in the MythTV.org howto. My google searches failed me, but I found it while looking for MythTV forums to post the question... The sections on Shared-Library Requirements for MythTV and Environment Variables for MythTV seem to be what I was looking for, except that the instructions don't match what I see in Ubuntu, and it doesn't say at all how to permanently change these variables. At least I know from previous research that "export" will set them temporarily during a console session. I use QTDIR=/usr/share/qt4, and add/usr/include/qt4/Qt to the path along with anything else different between mine and what the page says, substituting/usr/share for/usr/lib...
8. Ok, I take that back. It still can't find qdom.h, even though the directory it's in is in my path... Maybe I should have qt3 installed, not qt4? The second file it can't find, qptrlist.h, is only in libqt3-headers according to packages.ubuntu.com. I switch from qt4 to qt3 using Synaptic, and redo all the PATH and QTDIR stuff to point to qt3 instea
Why are we beholden to evil, unless someone pays us to not be?
Why are you calling shareholders evil? I think a better term is "short-sighted".
These companies might implement cost-saving energy-conservation measures if they were handed over for free. But if anyone tries to sell them cost-saving measures, the immediate cost is a large deterrent despite the long-term results, because most companies can't seem to afford a view longer than the next quarterly financials. However, show a tax savings on that report because of government rebates and the company can implement changes.
Is this the way it should be? Probably not. But that's how it is.
Given how touchy satellite service is in even the slightest amount of rain, I can only imagine just how touchy some the local stuff will become to any form of interference.
That's a very improper comparison to make. Satellite signals are at higher frequencies and cannot go through walls. OTA broadcasts can.
Real world example: We had a tornado go over our neighborhood this spring. At the heart of it we lost power for about 10 minutes, but our Dish Network ViP 722 receiver and television are on UPS backup.
1. Satellite broadcasts were intermittent for about 45 minutes during that time, yeah. Incidentally our cable reception used to go out in the rain as well, since apparently one of the boxes somewhere leaks.
2. OTA broadcasts picked up by the little antenna sitting in our living room were uninterrupted.
We're about 20 miles from the broadcast towers, and a teeny tiny indoor antenna works great to get all the local channels in crystal clear. We get locals over the satellite, too, but since the ViP 722 has two satellite tuners plus an OTA tuner and can record three shows at once, it makes sense to keep the antenna there and use the third tuner during prime time.
Does it even have anything to do with improving quality at all, or is it about getting all forms of broadcast into a digital form so that it can be controlled, monitored and classified by external means?
It has to do with making better use of the frequency range that can go through walls. Broadcasters can keep sending standard definition television over the new digital transmission if they way too; there's no mandate for a quality improvement. It will make it easier to reuse the same channels in smaller spaces, since the attenuation is sharper. It also frees part of the old spectrum up for government use and for sale.
Are these "converters" going to phoning homing in some manner to tell some authority figure what exactly we're watching and when as a means of monitoring our interests and assess us as potential threats?
Not if you put a little tinfoil hat on top of the receiver.
I read it and replied to it. You didn't read it but clicked the link and replied to it anyway?
Man, I only have enough free time to read and comment on the things that interest me. Can I borrow some of your free time to have the luxury of not reading but commenting on boring, uninteresting things?
Because "false advertising" depends on the definition of "false". In this case, true or false depends on the definition of "PC".
The common definition may be (lifted from Wikipedia): "A personal computer (PC) is any computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator."
But here's another definition, from Business Dictionary: "A computer designed for use by a single user. Although other Microcomputers preceded it, the IBM PC was the first to use the name specifically. As a result, the term PC now applies to an IBM-compatible computer as contrasted to the Apple Macintosh, these being the two standards that emerged from an abundance of competitors in the early 1980s."
This definition has certainly ignored the transition of Apple to Intel processors, but it's not a long stretch to consider the definition of "PC" in some circles to strictly mean a computer in the IBM legacy chain, meaning something running DOS or a DOS derivative or successor, including Windows.
I do find it disingenuous, though, that neither Apple nor Microsoft distinguish between "PCs" running Windows and those running Linux, and I've never seen a definition of PC that contrasted or excluded Linux systems (since of course the have always run on IBM-legacy hardware).
I'm not an expert, but when a story says that "current PV cells are about 10% efficient", doesn't that mean they convert 10% of the light in their usable bandwidth to energy? Then could you not improve the energy output by either improving the efficiency in the existing bandwidth or widening the bandwidth? Or both? Or the efficiency in the usable bandwidth could even go down 50% if you could quadruple that bandwidth, and you'd still get more net energy.
Does the test ask for the names of the different rock types and how they are formed, and for the names and descriptions of all the major cloud types?
Because I know I learned that in grade school, but I really couldn't pass a test about it now. Sorry; it's been too long and I don't use most of the general science I learned in grade school in my specialized science profession.
(If you really think social security today provides for luxuries, then we could debate reducing the percentages and payments.)
I'm all for cutting the social security payments to high-income earners. I certainly don't need my social security payments to retire, but as is clear from my other posts, I understand that my mandatory contributions are a vital part of the system.
Completely untrue. If someone attempts to use my likeness in advertising, then I'm a model. It's not like I have to join the secret model sect and learn the blood oath before I can start claiming ownership of my own image.
They are also "cheap" in terms of start-up cost. I can drop $1k on a hobby car's batteries and meet my needs. It's a much larger barrier to entry to drop $10k on a hobby car.
Free markets work because of competition, the high prices of text messages indicate that there's no competition in that market.
I think it's wrong to assume that in a free market the price for any good or service will be driven down to the cost of that good or service + a tiny profit. Sometimes, even without collusion, the market sets the price based on what the consumers are willing to pay, regardless of the cost.
Do you really think people are happy with overpaying? Or is it that they have no choice?
I pay $90 per year for pre-paid time with Virgin Mobile. I pay per minute and per text (and technically it's expensive - $0.15 per text and $0.18 per minute). However, and this is important, I don't use the full $90 each year. So for me it's an unlimited plan at a very reasonable price.
Obviously for someone with a different definition of unlimited, the cost of their unlimited plan might be higher. And if that person used enough minutes, a regular monthly plan would make more sense. And if that person used even more minutes, a real unlimited monthly plan would make more sense. In that regard, there are three tiers of service, each at their own price point set by the market.
It's hard to complain that you (not YOU, but the general you) pay too much for a luxury* when you chose to use a higher-tier of luxury service.
*Any cell phone can dial 911 for free with or without a plan. $90 prepaid annually is sufficient to contact family members in an emergency unless you are Mr. Klutz.
I have an old Miata that I will retire soon in favor of a car with a back seat. I plan to keep the car, and I've been seriously thinking about trying to convert it to electric. If I leave the transmission in place and just replace the engine, and use lead-acid batteries, I should be able to get a 25-mile range with overnight recharges.
More importantly, it would give me a chance to feel things that aren't plastic, something that bothers me about modern life. I missed the opportunity to learn car work when my grandfather died young, and I've always regretted that. I already garden and have made a choice to devote more time to the acquisition and preparation of the foods I eat. Mechanical work is just an extension of that.
----------
All that said, for $10,000 I could get a kit to build this car as electric only (lead-acid), and add the diesel engine later? Or I could get the car with a diesel engine and 125 MPG and add the electric system later when lithium ion batteries become cheaper? Both of those sound like pretty good deals to me.
I was a big fan of OpenText's search engine in the late 1990s. It was far better than any of the others I'd used before. (They still exist but left that market.)
After being introduced to Google in fall of 1999, I had a string of "I'm feeling lucky" attempts resulting in exactly what I wanted. I was hooked. It's only in the last few years that I've found some specialty search engines give better results, as too many Google results are ad trolls or tangentially-related forum posts or obscure PDFs (and in those cases I still resort to Google if the specialty search engines fail, since those forum posts or PDFs may be all there is).
I've never been to facebook.com. My wife has, though, and I've seen over her shoulder that one of our mutual friends has posted a picture that includes me.
Were facebook to use that picture in advertising, I'd have them by the balls; I've never agreed to their terms in any way, and I certainly haven't signed a model release.
Social security is supposed to be the bare minimum income to subsist post retirement. By definition, anything less than that means you're can't survive. (If you really think social security today provides for luxuries, then we could debate reducing the percentages and payments.)
If you make social security optional, many people will chose to opt out (like you). Of those, some will invest on their own and earn more than social security would get them. Some though will earn less. By definition, the people who earn less can't survive.
What happens to all those people who lost their self-invested social security money and can't afford to survive? Simple. Government handouts. Just look at what's been happening recently with mortgages or the financial industry. You'd be foolish to think that the government wouldn't rescue any large group of destitute Americans whether those Americans did it to themselves or not.
Let me summarize then: Optional social security costs taxpayers no less than mandatory social security, because the government will have to pay for it all one way or another.
Oh, and producing large groups of destitute Americans is bad for social stability - and unstable societies protect its wealthy citizens far less than stable ones. It's sound planning to keep the masses subsisting regardless of your wealth.
Slashdot Mirror
You jest, but this is again appropriately hilarious:
http://fury.com/google-circa-1960.php
More likely you had problems configuring XvMC in general for X - it was fiddly on Ubuntu 7.10 and previous.
Given that I made no effort to configure this - nor even knew I needed to - outside what I included in my saga documented above, that seems likely.
However with the last mythbuntu install I did (8.04 + updates) it worked out of the box, no config needed at all with a 7200GS
Good to hear it's improving. When it can do everything my ViP 722 can do and more, I'll consider it again. Now that I have an HD DVR that works with both satellite and OTA signals, it would be difficult to go back to one limited to just OTA. (Our cable company doesn't offer HD.)
The brakes on the Semi-Truck behind you go out... 'Quick! The invisibility cloak will save us!'
I thought we were supposed to consider that lorry to be a uniform sphere? Now you're saying we should treat it as a wave, too? I didn't realize light shared wave-particle duality with semi trucks.
I replied to the person above, but my reply works well for you, too. How did you get it to run on your crap hardware without XVMC support enabled in the precompiled Ubuntu binary? If the hardware you were using really was crap you should have needed that for glitch-free playback, right?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=979763&cid=25197831
Since you have one example (your own experience), let me provide you with mine. As it happens I saved it as a series of Slashdot posts. Start here:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=281759&cid=20390565
Summary: Nine hours to try to get MythTV working on my desktop machine as a test, before investing in a dedicated system, and it didn't work. The problem I had culd probably be overcome with faster, more expensive hardware, but then I keep hearing on Slashdot about how MythTV can be run on any old junk lying around, so I wasn't going to risk investing money in a system when it clearly didn't work with my existing hardware. I ended up buying a Dish Network ViP 722 and have been very happy with it.
I'll reproduce it below for the non-link followers:
My biggest problem is that the MythTV distribution for Ubuntu is not built with XvMC support. My computer (Athlon 64 3000+, 1 GB, GeForce FX 5200) is perfectly suited to run as a dual back/front-end box if XvMC is enabled (according to many guides I've read). If it isn't enabled, the CPU is pegged at 100% and the signal skips - exactly what I see.
I (having nothing better to do) decided to try and build MythTV from source tonight.
I'm following the "Install MythTV" section of this page:
www.pchdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1938
Note that I'm using Ubuntu Feisty Fawn instead of SuSe. I have also already installed some development tools to compile the utilities that came with my pchdtv 5500.
Problems:
1. Path to frontend.h is wrong. Quick file search is easy to fix.
2. Configure complains about lack of LAME MP3 library. Installing liblame...
3. Configure complains about lack of qmake. Installing libqt4...
4. Make errors out regarding lack of XvMClib.h (as the first of many errors). Installing libxvmc, then using "make distclean" and starting over...
5. Make errors out regarding lack of qdom.h (as the first of many errors). It should have been installed as part of libqt4-dev - I even see it on the list of installed files on that package in Synaptic - but even searching doesn't pull it up. I browse to where it's supposed to be... and it's there! If I search in the usr folder or deeper I find it, but searching from root and it's gone. Ok, from reading a web page, perhaps I need to set an environment variable? "export QTDIR=/usr/include/qt4", run "make distclean" and start over. Note this step took 45 minutes...
6. Hey, guess what, that didn't work. Make still can't find a stupid file installed on my computer. Genius. Let's try "export QTDIR=/usr/include/qt4/Qt" since I see qdom in both that folder and in the QtXml folder. Maybe it's not complaining that it can't find the file, but instead that it finds two copies of the file...
7. Nope, didn't work. Ok, that's two hours, all I can take of this tonight.
(next day)
k, I think I found it in the MythTV.org howto. My google searches failed me, but I found it while looking for MythTV forums to post the question... /usr/include/qt4/Qt to the path along with anything else different between mine and what the page says, substituting /usr/share for /usr/lib...
The sections on Shared-Library Requirements for MythTV and Environment Variables for MythTV seem to be what I was looking for, except that the instructions don't match what I see in Ubuntu, and it doesn't say at all how to permanently change these variables. At least I know from previous research that "export" will set them temporarily during a console session. I use QTDIR=/usr/share/qt4, and add
8. Ok, I take that back. It still can't find qdom.h, even though the directory it's in is in my path... Maybe I should have qt3 installed, not qt4? The second file it can't find, qptrlist.h, is only in libqt3-headers according to packages.ubuntu.com. I switch from qt4 to qt3 using Synaptic, and redo all the PATH and QTDIR stuff to point to qt3 instea
Why are we beholden to evil, unless someone pays us to not be?
Why are you calling shareholders evil? I think a better term is "short-sighted".
These companies might implement cost-saving energy-conservation measures if they were handed over for free. But if anyone tries to sell them cost-saving measures, the immediate cost is a large deterrent despite the long-term results, because most companies can't seem to afford a view longer than the next quarterly financials. However, show a tax savings on that report because of government rebates and the company can implement changes.
Is this the way it should be? Probably not. But that's how it is.
Given how touchy satellite service is in even the slightest amount of rain, I can only imagine just how touchy some the local stuff will become to any form of interference.
That's a very improper comparison to make. Satellite signals are at higher frequencies and cannot go through walls. OTA broadcasts can.
Real world example:
We had a tornado go over our neighborhood this spring. At the heart of it we lost power for about 10 minutes, but our Dish Network ViP 722 receiver and television are on UPS backup.
1. Satellite broadcasts were intermittent for about 45 minutes during that time, yeah. Incidentally our cable reception used to go out in the rain as well, since apparently one of the boxes somewhere leaks.
2. OTA broadcasts picked up by the little antenna sitting in our living room were uninterrupted.
We're about 20 miles from the broadcast towers, and a teeny tiny indoor antenna works great to get all the local channels in crystal clear. We get locals over the satellite, too, but since the ViP 722 has two satellite tuners plus an OTA tuner and can record three shows at once, it makes sense to keep the antenna there and use the third tuner during prime time.
Does it even have anything to do with improving quality at all, or is it about getting all forms of broadcast into a digital form so that it can be controlled, monitored and classified by external means?
It has to do with making better use of the frequency range that can go through walls. Broadcasters can keep sending standard definition television over the new digital transmission if they way too; there's no mandate for a quality improvement. It will make it easier to reuse the same channels in smaller spaces, since the attenuation is sharper. It also frees part of the old spectrum up for government use and for sale.
Are these "converters" going to phoning homing in some manner to tell some authority figure what exactly we're watching and when as a means of monitoring our interests and assess us as potential threats?
Not if you put a little tinfoil hat on top of the receiver.
You just need to wait until spring then pick one up.
I read it and replied to it. You didn't read it but clicked the link and replied to it anyway?
Man, I only have enough free time to read and comment on the things that interest me. Can I borrow some of your free time to have the luxury of not reading but commenting on boring, uninteresting things?
Because "false advertising" depends on the definition of "false". In this case, true or false depends on the definition of "PC".
The common definition may be (lifted from Wikipedia): "A personal computer (PC) is any computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator."
But here's another definition, from Business Dictionary: "A computer designed for use by a single user. Although other Microcomputers preceded it, the IBM PC was the first to use the name specifically. As a result, the term PC now applies to an IBM-compatible computer as contrasted to the Apple Macintosh, these being the two standards that emerged from an abundance of competitors in the early 1980s."
This definition has certainly ignored the transition of Apple to Intel processors, but it's not a long stretch to consider the definition of "PC" in some circles to strictly mean a computer in the IBM legacy chain, meaning something running DOS or a DOS derivative or successor, including Windows.
I do find it disingenuous, though, that neither Apple nor Microsoft distinguish between "PCs" running Windows and those running Linux, and I've never seen a definition of PC that contrasted or excluded Linux systems (since of course the have always run on IBM-legacy hardware).
I'm not an expert, but when a story says that "current PV cells are about 10% efficient", doesn't that mean they convert 10% of the light in their usable bandwidth to energy? Then could you not improve the energy output by either improving the efficiency in the existing bandwidth or widening the bandwidth? Or both? Or the efficiency in the usable bandwidth could even go down 50% if you could quadruple that bandwidth, and you'd still get more net energy.
Does the test ask for the names of the different rock types and how they are formed, and for the names and descriptions of all the major cloud types?
Because I know I learned that in grade school, but I really couldn't pass a test about it now. Sorry; it's been too long and I don't use most of the general science I learned in grade school in my specialized science profession.
That's rather naive. The ISO voting process shows that you can buy enough peers to rubberstamp anything.
Perhaps you missed this bit of my post:
(If you really think social security today provides for luxuries, then we could debate reducing the percentages and payments.)
I'm all for cutting the social security payments to high-income earners. I certainly don't need my social security payments to retire, but as is clear from my other posts, I understand that my mandatory contributions are a vital part of the system.
Perhaps you missed this bit of my post:
(If you really think social security today provides for luxuries, then we could debate reducing the percentages and payments.)
Completely untrue. If someone attempts to use my likeness in advertising, then I'm a model. It's not like I have to join the secret model sect and learn the blood oath before I can start claiming ownership of my own image.
They are also "cheap" in terms of start-up cost. I can drop $1k on a hobby car's batteries and meet my needs. It's a much larger barrier to entry to drop $10k on a hobby car.
Free markets work because of competition, the high prices of text messages indicate that there's no competition in that market.
I think it's wrong to assume that in a free market the price for any good or service will be driven down to the cost of that good or service + a tiny profit. Sometimes, even without collusion, the market sets the price based on what the consumers are willing to pay, regardless of the cost.
Do you really think people are happy with overpaying? Or is it that they have no choice?
I pay $90 per year for pre-paid time with Virgin Mobile. I pay per minute and per text (and technically it's expensive - $0.15 per text and $0.18 per minute). However, and this is important, I don't use the full $90 each year. So for me it's an unlimited plan at a very reasonable price.
Obviously for someone with a different definition of unlimited, the cost of their unlimited plan might be higher. And if that person used enough minutes, a regular monthly plan would make more sense. And if that person used even more minutes, a real unlimited monthly plan would make more sense. In that regard, there are three tiers of service, each at their own price point set by the market.
It's hard to complain that you (not YOU, but the general you) pay too much for a luxury* when you chose to use a higher-tier of luxury service.
*Any cell phone can dial 911 for free with or without a plan. $90 prepaid annually is sufficient to contact family members in an emergency unless you are Mr. Klutz.
That's my 2 cents.
Good thing you didn't post this by text message on your phone. It would have cost five times that much.
I have an old Miata that I will retire soon in favor of a car with a back seat. I plan to keep the car, and I've been seriously thinking about trying to convert it to electric. If I leave the transmission in place and just replace the engine, and use lead-acid batteries, I should be able to get a 25-mile range with overnight recharges.
More importantly, it would give me a chance to feel things that aren't plastic, something that bothers me about modern life. I missed the opportunity to learn car work when my grandfather died young, and I've always regretted that. I already garden and have made a choice to devote more time to the acquisition and preparation of the foods I eat. Mechanical work is just an extension of that.
----------
All that said, for $10,000 I could get a kit to build this car as electric only (lead-acid), and add the diesel engine later? Or I could get the car with a diesel engine and 125 MPG and add the electric system later when lithium ion batteries become cheaper? Both of those sound like pretty good deals to me.
I was a big fan of OpenText's search engine in the late 1990s. It was far better than any of the others I'd used before. (They still exist but left that market.)
After being introduced to Google in fall of 1999, I had a string of "I'm feeling lucky" attempts resulting in exactly what I wanted. I was hooked. It's only in the last few years that I've found some specialty search engines give better results, as too many Google results are ad trolls or tangentially-related forum posts or obscure PDFs (and in those cases I still resort to Google if the specialty search engines fail, since those forum posts or PDFs may be all there is).
I've never been to facebook.com. My wife has, though, and I've seen over her shoulder that one of our mutual friends has posted a picture that includes me.
Were facebook to use that picture in advertising, I'd have them by the balls; I've never agreed to their terms in any way, and I certainly haven't signed a model release.
Make it optional.
Bad, bad, bad idea.
Social security is supposed to be the bare minimum income to subsist post retirement. By definition, anything less than that means you're can't survive. (If you really think social security today provides for luxuries, then we could debate reducing the percentages and payments.)
If you make social security optional, many people will chose to opt out (like you). Of those, some will invest on their own and earn more than social security would get them. Some though will earn less. By definition, the people who earn less can't survive.
What happens to all those people who lost their self-invested social security money and can't afford to survive? Simple. Government handouts . Just look at what's been happening recently with mortgages or the financial industry. You'd be foolish to think that the government wouldn't rescue any large group of destitute Americans whether those Americans did it to themselves or not.
Let me summarize then: Optional social security costs taxpayers no less than mandatory social security, because the government will have to pay for it all one way or another.
Oh, and producing large groups of destitute Americans is bad for social stability - and unstable societies protect its wealthy citizens far less than stable ones. It's sound planning to keep the masses subsisting regardless of your wealth.
I'm not sure why you can't delete your own post
DO WHATS RIGHT AND GET RID OF ME!!!
http://idle.slashdot.org/idle/08/08/28/0517235.shtml