It is The People that should have received the cash from that, no one else
You fool. The money the government raises through spectrum auctions offsets what it would otherwise have to raise by taxing people and selling securities. The government is the people.
Look: if you want to live in a place without a government, go to Somalia. Me, I'll welcome government programs that do good. And the DTV switchover is without question a good thing in the long run because it makes better use a finite natural resources, the EM spectrum.
More specifically, the problem with intangible goods is that they only have the value because the law creates an artificial scarcity. The only incentive for a foreign nation to respect the legal framework that makes our intangible goods scarce is the threat of reprisal. This reprisal can come in the form of a trade barrier, but when we're left with only intangible exports, the threat of a trade barrier really has no teeth.
The other reprisal, of course, is military. I'm deeply afraid that we'll end up using force to bully other nations into giving our intangible goods value. We all know how that game ends.
Sort-of. Europeans were the ones who could build infrastructure 100 years ago. However, the climate of Africa is inhospitable for Europeans, so they build the bare minimum infrastructure for resource extraction and with the exception of South Africa, didn't settle. The lack of decent infrastructure is one of the leading causes of sub-Saharan Africa's slow development.
Well, first of all, I haven't read "Carnage and Culture". But I just looked at the Amazon summary, and I don't think it refutes "Guns, Germs, and Steel" at all.
First of all, Europeans got their asses handed to them from about 300CE to the 1480s. The Germans sacked Rome again and again, so viciously that our word "Vandal" comes from the name of one of the Germanic tribes involved. A few hundred years after the Western Empire finally collapsed, the Muslims handily conquered the Iberian Peninsula (on which Spain and Portugal reside today) and reduced the Byzantine Empire to a remnant centered on Constantinople (tellingly, Istanbul today). The only two things that stopped Muslims overrunning Europe were:
Charles Martel barely eeking out a victory in France at the Battle of Tours
The Byzantines holding the line for a while with Greek Fire
This bare survival doesn't indicate European military superiority. Instead, it reveal a fundamental weakness that nearly led to the end of our civilization.
Europeans armies weren't anything special until the Renaissance. Don't forget how we were utterly defeated time and again in the Crusades, or how Western European armies decided to sack Constantinople (greatly weakening the only thing between the Islamic world and Western Europe) because the holy land was too tough. The Chinese had a great professional military as well, and don't forget where Sun Tzu hails from.
And how can we discuss European military weakness without invoking Ghengis Khan, the barbarian who nearly destroyed Europe again. He overran Russia and penetrated all the way to Vienna before being stopped. The idea mentioned in the summary that European armies were particularly ruthless is obviously bunk: Genghis Khan had entire cities impaled. There just wasn't anything particularly exceptional about European armies.
Yes, the Europeans armies later become practically invincible, but only due to cultural changes and competition among martial nation-states. Europe's later military superiority was not an inherent property of Europeans, but instead was a result of the same forces that Diamond details in "Guns, Germs, and Steel".
"I'll lend you a few billion dollars so you don't have to declare bankruptcy, but with strings A, B, and C" is very different from "I'm seizing your company".
The government has relied upon the former in this crisis, though, honestly, many companies deserved the latter.
I see nothing in your post that contradicts mine. Texas sets certain speeds that are illegal to exceed. Speed in excess of these numbers is illegal simply because of the speed itself. The same principle applies in nearly every state.
The trade imbalance, however large, is not even close to our total economic output. The multiplier effect is still in play. The poor still buy American-made food, get their hair cut by Americans, and so on. Your argument is essentially that the poor disproportionately contribute to the trade imbalance, and even if that were true, the money supplied in the actual trade mechanics (and industrial design) would be significant.
Second, it's quite rich to claim the poor would just subsidize China when, really, the reason places like Wal-Mart exist is that middle class incomes haven't increased in 30 years. With a robust middle class, our trade wouldn't be in such dire straits.
You know, money given to the poor doesn't just disappear. The poor spend it, and actually spend more of their income than any other demographic. In fact, giving money to the poor is one of the best ways for a government to boost economic activity and help everyone.
Not true. While speeds below the speed limit may still be considered unsafe and attract a summons, any speed over the posted limit is prima facie evidence of unreasonable speed and is illegal on that basis alone.
Of course not. The silly case name is a reflection of the silly nature of the case: in rem cases against property with a known owner is a pernicious legal fiction used as an end-run around our civil liberties; that this jurisdiction leads to ridiculous case names is a somewhat amusing side effect.
Seizing illegally obtained property is not unreasonable
You don't know the property is illegally obtained until a proper trial has been conducted. Part of any sane interpretation of the presumption of innocence is that the current possessor of an item is its rightful owner. Forfeiture is literally a de jure presumption of guilt with regard to certain kinds of property, and flies in the face of a thousand years of tradition.
You're factually correct, but we both know that in rem jurisdiction runs counter to every principle held by the authors of the constitution. If they had any idea how pernicious civil forfeiture, it would have been explicitly forbidden. While forfeiture may be constitutional under the stare decisis interpretation of the fifth, sixth, and seventh amendments, I think any disinterested party would understand forfeiture to be blatantly in violation of the intent of the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as the implied Ninth Amendment right to personal property (not that the Ninth Amendment has any teeth these days...)
Just like the 1880s, right? Sure, you can live free if you're the upper crust. Otherwise, your life will be nasty, brutish, and short, and spent toiling away and never seeing more of your proceeds than you need to stay alive, barely. This isn't a nightmare scenario. It actually happened. It was called the Gilded Age, and we should be glad it ended. Why do extreme libertarians like you consistently deny the logical implications of your policies?
Just look at the internet
I can't eat a Youtube video. How do you think all the thousands of people who are paid to create internet content get paid? With currency only good on the internet? The Internet isn't some isolated bubble divorced from the real economy. It's enmeshed quite heavily: people order real, hard goods through it, put real capital derived from conventional industry into it, and spend the real money generated from it on tangible products.
there is no recession in the internet
I suppose I'm dealing with a true believer here. Of course there's a recession "in the internet": it makes as much sense to say "no recession in the internet" as it does to say "no recession on the telephone network".
Regardless of your opinion of online gambling, you must acknowledge that there's a lot of skill in poker. Any idiot can get a full house on a particular hand, of course, but over several rounds, a good player will do much better than a poor one.
I'm no great poker player, but I'd rather play in person than online. In person, there's an element of learning your opponents, seeing when they're bluffing, and controlling how much information you release. It's subtle.
On the other hand, online poker is pure mathematics. It's easy to play poker perfectly: given the contents of your hand and the cards already played, an algorithm can make the statistically most likely decision every time. It's boring.
Agreed, for the most part. "This law is on the books and therefore it is our moral duty to obey it" is a a dangerous sentiment, but any well-functioning government should try to consistently enforce all its laws. Anything less is basically an invitation for corruption.
In fact, we'd have huge problems if the government selectively chose which laws to enforce.
Ah, but they do. Speed limits are particularly egregious examples of selectively-enforced laws. Really, selective enforcement creates contempt for all laws.
Yes, in rem jurisdiction leads to ridiculous cases like United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola. If I had it my way, there would be legislation (or better yet, a constitutional amendment) barring in rem cases in which the owner of the property is known.
Slashdot Mirror
You fool. The money the government raises through spectrum auctions offsets what it would otherwise have to raise by taxing people and selling securities. The government is the people.
Look: if you want to live in a place without a government, go to Somalia. Me, I'll welcome government programs that do good. And the DTV switchover is without question a good thing in the long run because it makes better use a finite natural resources, the EM spectrum.
I have nothing against Africa, but your post is full of lies.
The earliest beer comes from Mesopotamia and Egypt (which doesn't count, as it's culturally part of the Middle East).
Egypt doesn't count.
Dubious at best. The truth is that we have no idea what music sounded like before accurate musical notation came into widespread use during the Middle Ages.
The use of homing pigeons for communication was invented by several civilizations independently.
The Chinese were the first to employ the pendulum, and Galileo Galilei was the first to study their properties mathematically.
Have a source for this one? It's rather difficult to create a tunnel boring machine without at least a steam engine.
The Nile doesn't count.
Again, Egypt doesn't count. Alexandria counts even less, given its Hellenic character.
Everyone knows Gutenberg invented movable type.
You mean bellows? Invented independently by every civilization that discovered metallurgy.
Err, no.. The closest you could get would be the early use of firearms against the Byzantines, but the people involved were not African.
Post-colonial South Africa doesn't count either, as it's culturally mostly European.
Are you kidding? If anything, Slashdot has become increasingly like Redstate over the past few months.
More specifically, the problem with intangible goods is that they only have the value because the law creates an artificial scarcity. The only incentive for a foreign nation to respect the legal framework that makes our intangible goods scarce is the threat of reprisal. This reprisal can come in the form of a trade barrier, but when we're left with only intangible exports, the threat of a trade barrier really has no teeth.
The other reprisal, of course, is military. I'm deeply afraid that we'll end up using force to bully other nations into giving our intangible goods value. We all know how that game ends.
Sort-of. Europeans were the ones who could build infrastructure 100 years ago. However, the climate of Africa is inhospitable for Europeans, so they build the bare minimum infrastructure for resource extraction and with the exception of South Africa, didn't settle. The lack of decent infrastructure is one of the leading causes of sub-Saharan Africa's slow development.
Or Elixir Sulfanilamide.
Well, first of all, I haven't read "Carnage and Culture". But I just looked at the Amazon summary, and I don't think it refutes "Guns, Germs, and Steel" at all.
First of all, Europeans got their asses handed to them from about 300CE to the 1480s. The Germans sacked Rome again and again, so viciously that our word "Vandal" comes from the name of one of the Germanic tribes involved. A few hundred years after the Western Empire finally collapsed, the Muslims handily conquered the Iberian Peninsula (on which Spain and Portugal reside today) and reduced the Byzantine Empire to a remnant centered on Constantinople (tellingly, Istanbul today). The only two things that stopped Muslims overrunning Europe were:
This bare survival doesn't indicate European military superiority. Instead, it reveal a fundamental weakness that nearly led to the end of our civilization.
Europeans armies weren't anything special until the Renaissance. Don't forget how we were utterly defeated time and again in the Crusades, or how Western European armies decided to sack Constantinople (greatly weakening the only thing between the Islamic world and Western Europe) because the holy land was too tough. The Chinese had a great professional military as well, and don't forget where Sun Tzu hails from.
And how can we discuss European military weakness without invoking Ghengis Khan, the barbarian who nearly destroyed Europe again. He overran Russia and penetrated all the way to Vienna before being stopped. The idea mentioned in the summary that European armies were particularly ruthless is obviously bunk: Genghis Khan had entire cities impaled. There just wasn't anything particularly exceptional about European armies.
Yes, the Europeans armies later become practically invincible, but only due to cultural changes and competition among martial nation-states. Europe's later military superiority was not an inherent property of Europeans, but instead was a result of the same forces that Diamond details in "Guns, Germs, and Steel".
And going by all the hagiographies of Reagan floating around, the events of 20 years ago are unknown by most Americans.
"I'll lend you a few billion dollars so you don't have to declare bankruptcy, but with strings A, B, and C" is very different from "I'm seizing your company".
The government has relied upon the former in this crisis, though, honestly, many companies deserved the latter.
I see nothing in your post that contradicts mine. Texas sets certain speeds that are illegal to exceed. Speed in excess of these numbers is illegal simply because of the speed itself. The same principle applies in nearly every state.
The trade imbalance, however large, is not even close to our total economic output. The multiplier effect is still in play. The poor still buy American-made food, get their hair cut by Americans, and so on. Your argument is essentially that the poor disproportionately contribute to the trade imbalance, and even if that were true, the money supplied in the actual trade mechanics (and industrial design) would be significant.
Second, it's quite rich to claim the poor would just subsidize China when, really, the reason places like Wal-Mart exist is that middle class incomes haven't increased in 30 years. With a robust middle class, our trade wouldn't be in such dire straits.
You know, money given to the poor doesn't just disappear. The poor spend it, and actually spend more of their income than any other demographic. In fact, giving money to the poor is one of the best ways for a government to boost economic activity and help everyone.
Not true. While speeds below the speed limit may still be considered unsafe and attract a summons, any speed over the posted limit is prima facie evidence of unreasonable speed and is illegal on that basis alone.
Of course not. The silly case name is a reflection of the silly nature of the case: in rem cases against property with a known owner is a pernicious legal fiction used as an end-run around our civil liberties; that this jurisdiction leads to ridiculous case names is a somewhat amusing side effect.
Also,
You don't know the property is illegally obtained until a proper trial has been conducted. Part of any sane interpretation of the presumption of innocence is that the current possessor of an item is its rightful owner. Forfeiture is literally a de jure presumption of guilt with regard to certain kinds of property, and flies in the face of a thousand years of tradition.
You're factually correct, but we both know that in rem jurisdiction runs counter to every principle held by the authors of the constitution. If they had any idea how pernicious civil forfeiture, it would have been explicitly forbidden. While forfeiture may be constitutional under the stare decisis interpretation of the fifth, sixth, and seventh amendments, I think any disinterested party would understand forfeiture to be blatantly in violation of the intent of the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as the implied Ninth Amendment right to personal property (not that the Ninth Amendment has any teeth these days...)
Just like the 1880s, right? Sure, you can live free if you're the upper crust. Otherwise, your life will be nasty, brutish, and short, and spent toiling away and never seeing more of your proceeds than you need to stay alive, barely. This isn't a nightmare scenario. It actually happened. It was called the Gilded Age, and we should be glad it ended. Why do extreme libertarians like you consistently deny the logical implications of your policies?
I can't eat a Youtube video. How do you think all the thousands of people who are paid to create internet content get paid? With currency only good on the internet? The Internet isn't some isolated bubble divorced from the real economy. It's enmeshed quite heavily: people order real, hard goods through it, put real capital derived from conventional industry into it, and spend the real money generated from it on tangible products.
I suppose I'm dealing with a true believer here. Of course there's a recession "in the internet": it makes as much sense to say "no recession in the internet" as it does to say "no recession on the telephone network".
Regardless of your opinion of online gambling, you must acknowledge that there's a lot of skill in poker. Any idiot can get a full house on a particular hand, of course, but over several rounds, a good player will do much better than a poor one.
I'm no great poker player, but I'd rather play in person than online. In person, there's an element of learning your opponents, seeing when they're bluffing, and controlling how much information you release. It's subtle.
On the other hand, online poker is pure mathematics. It's easy to play poker perfectly: given the contents of your hand and the cards already played, an algorithm can make the statistically most likely decision every time. It's boring.
Agreed, for the most part. "This law is on the books and therefore it is our moral duty to obey it" is a a dangerous sentiment, but any well-functioning government should try to consistently enforce all its laws. Anything less is basically an invitation for corruption.
Ah, but they do. Speed limits are particularly egregious examples of selectively-enforced laws. Really, selective enforcement creates contempt for all laws.
Yes, in rem jurisdiction leads to ridiculous cases like United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola. If I had it my way, there would be legislation (or better yet, a constitutional amendment) barring in rem cases in which the owner of the property is known.
So in your world, nothing not urgent should be worked on? I take it you're not a fan of preventative maintenance then.
Err, no. The point is that the angle of impact would be shallow enough that the bird wouldn't be diced, but instead tossed aside.
That's why the cone would be made of a grid of rigid wires that would let quite a lot of air through, of course.
So what if the cone continued up to the edge of the engine cowling?