Much of the blame for the mortgage lending meltdown has been placed on the "failure of the free market." But is there really any truth to this? The financial industry is the single most regulated industry in the economy. The failing institutions are precisely the ones that New Deal policies were meant to protect us from: the FDIC was supposed to prevent bank runs, the SEC was supposed to be stop shady investments, Fannie May and Freddie Mac were supposed to make sure that loans went to people who deserved them.
Opportunistic politicians are quick to blame the capture of regulatory institutions on lobbyists and "special interests." They promise to fix the problem by giving yet more money and power to corrupt government agencies, much like a mob boss who blames his enforcers for his protection schemes, and then promises his victims to lay off them if they just give him more guns and money.
The only reason that special interests are so involved in government is that the government has ingrained itself so deeply in our lives. Giving more power to the state to regulate markets and redistribute wealth and privileges from one group to another only increases the incentive to strengthen one's political connections.
Genetic screening via sexual selection has been practiced since the dawn of life itself. No one suggests that we should pick a mate entirely at random, so the objection to genetic screening and engineering is due to the element of technology. Their objections are not to "designer babies" as such, but to the use of technology to improve the lives of human beings. They apply equally to a child whose genes are altered after birth, or to an adult. The logical conclusion of this neo-luddism is the opposition of all man-made improvements to human life as "unnatural."
Genetic screening via sexual selection has been practiced since the dawn of life itself. No one suggests that we should pick a mate entirely at random, so the objection to genetic screening and engineering is due to the element of technology. Their objections are not to "designer babies" as such, but to the use of technology to improve the lives of human beings. They apply equally to a child whose genes are altered after birth, or to an adult. The logical conclusion of this neo-luddism is the opposition of all man-made improvements to human life as âoeunnatural.â
That is an interesting interpretation of "law" - any action a business takes must not go against the decision of some future court which rules that said action violated some non-specified standard of "anti-competitive" behavior. Such a standard is not "law" but arbitrary, dictatorial whim.
The real story is that the U.S. government is so interventionist that people are desperately seeking a means to live their lives and do business without being regulated and taxed to death - and bureaucrats will destroy any successful attempt at doing so.
If the government artificially limit the supply of medical products, the market would ensure much better quality control and eliminate the need for this kind of underground "marketing."
When was the last time you read about botnet being used to sell cheese or shoes? It's government coercion that funds these kinds of "criminal organizations."
Exactly.
If individuals are concerned with keeping the results of their genetic screenings private, they should ensure that screeners like 23andMe are contractually obligated to keep their test results private, and prosecute them for the full damages resulting from an intentional or accidental disclosure. While the supposed purpose of genetic anti-discrimination laws is to "protect genetic privacy," the actual effect is to remove the ability of insurers to provide financial incentives for people to get screened for potentially fatal genetic risk factors. This will only lead to unnecessary deaths from treatable genetic disorders and higher health insurance costs.
Taxation *with* representation isn't much better. I don't know about you, but having 1/300 millionth of a say in picking which bunch of lawyers decides how badly to rob me and restrict my freedom does not seem very comforting or "voluntary" to me.
Why only 1956 articles? I get that they want to show off the best, but Encarta 2007 has 42,000+ articles and includes tons of multimedia. There's no way a volunteer team can review anywhere near that number of articles, so I think they should scrap the "good articles only" policy and just stuff as much as possible onto the DVD.
The difference is that "legal tender" laws force you to accept dollars for "all debts, public and private," so the government is free to devalue dollars relative to a more sound currency (such as gold) and you are still forced to accept it. State issued fiat currencies like the dollar are 100% secured by the govt - but this can only be done at the expense of sound currencies backed by real value.
Emotions are simply a rapid, subconscious form of thinking. They stem from our explicitly and implicitly held values, and do not represent any "instinctive" sense of right or wrong.
"Morality" is a framework of principles and standards regarding proper and improper behavior. The issue of morality only arises for human beings, because for most other animals, the proper course of action is automatically determined by instinct. A set of ethical principles is neither possible nor necessary for a non-rational being.
The story equates morality with self-sacrificial behavior, or altruism. In fact, that is a particular moral theory - the other major theory being egoism. The key question in ethics is "who is the proper recipient of values?" Religious theories hold that to be a supreme being, collectivists hold it to be the society or ethnic group, altruists believe that it is anyone by you, and egoists hold it to be themselves.
To arrive at the proper beneficiary of your action, you should begin by asking - why do humans need a morality? Does something about human condition make a set of principles for our behavior necessary, or can we survive by acting on the whim of the moment?
"This technology is patented to the hilt & the licensing terms for the HD Photo Device Porting Kit 1.0 licensing terms specifically exclude copyleft (GPL style) licenses."
"HD Photo, the specification is made available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise, which asserts that Microsoft offers the specification for free, and will not file suit on the patented technology, and that open-source software can therefore make use of the format"
"So a corporation is practically indistinguishable from a person under our laws."
No.
The foundation of a corporation are the rights of its members: specifically, the right to state that one is entering trade agreements under the presumption of limited liability (for the shareholders), and under a "fictional" corporate "assumed" name. All the rights of a corporation are derived from those of its individual members; as such an individual neither gains nor loses rights in their capacity as members of a corporation.
The limits of liability are to not hold shareholders (who have no control over the actions of the company) liable for acts of company employees -- other then for what they invested into the company. Limited liability means that only the assets of the corporation are held up as "collateral" for its liabilities.
It would be ludicrous to hold all the savings of an 80 year grand mother who invested $100 in a badly run corporation-which would be the case if she were in a partnership. Limited liability means that only that $100 of the grandmother is liable; and all her other assets not invested in that corporation qua shareholder are not held liable.
Limited liability means that the shareholders are not responsible for the decisions that they do not make -- only corporate officers, managers, and employees are liable to the extent that they make them.
You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? A corporation is just a way for people to pool their assets together and make common investments without putting property they did not invest at risk. If you do business with a corporation, you acknowledge that you can't seize an employee's house if his company goes bankrupt. If an employee of a corporation commits a criminal offense, he's still personally liable. He just doesn't have to put his personal property at risk if he commits a civil offense. Furthermore, if corporations are "people" then our government is guild of serfdom. Their every dollar must be tracked so politicians can seize the loot, they are subject to more regulations than any other organization, they have no right to free speech, they are taxes double (personal + corporate taxes), they are not allowed to sell stock, split, or buy without permission, and their executive can be arbitrarily jailed for unethical, but non-criminal behavior (see insider trading). Even their right to defend themselves from looters in Congress and the electorate is being taken away. Businessmen are America's most persecuted minority.
The problem is that drug approval costs so much. The major drug companies are happy with this - a billion dollars is too much for any innovative new startups to get to market. This is not the fault of capitalism, but the opposite - of government interventionism. If a free market, competing private organizations would decide when products are safe, and consumer would be free to choose what risks to take.
In the meantime, the FDA creates giant monopolies that exclude competition by lobbying the govt for more regulations and "safety controls" while millions of people die because innovative new medicines and treatments never had a chance.
You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? A corporation is just a way for people to pool their assets together and make common investments without putting property they did not invest at risk. If you do business with a corporation, you acknowledge that you can't seize an employee's house if his company goes bankrupt. If an employee of a corporation commits a criminal offense, he's still personally liable. He just doesn't have to put his personal property at risk if he commits a civil offense.
Furthermore, if corporations are "people" then our government is guild of serfdom. Their every dollar must be tracked so politicians can seize the loot, they are subject to more regulations than any other organization, they have no right to free speech, they are taxes double (personal + corporate taxes), they are not allowed to sell stock, split, or buy without permission, and their executive can be arbitrarily jailed for unethical, but non-criminal behavior (see insider trading).
Even their right to defend themselves from looters in Congress and the electorate is being taken away, as this story shows.
Businessmen are America's most persecuted minority.
Slashdot Mirror
Much of the blame for the mortgage lending meltdown has been placed on the "failure of the free market." But is there really any truth to this? The financial industry is the single most regulated industry in the economy. The failing institutions are precisely the ones that New Deal policies were meant to protect us from: the FDIC was supposed to prevent bank runs, the SEC was supposed to be stop shady investments, Fannie May and Freddie Mac were supposed to make sure that loans went to people who deserved them.
Opportunistic politicians are quick to blame the capture of regulatory institutions on lobbyists and "special interests." They promise to fix the problem by giving yet more money and power to corrupt government agencies, much like a mob boss who blames his enforcers for his protection schemes, and then promises his victims to lay off them if they just give him more guns and money.
The only reason that special interests are so involved in government is that the government has ingrained itself so deeply in our lives. Giving more power to the state to regulate markets and redistribute wealth and privileges from one group to another only increases the incentive to strengthen one's political connections.
From http://oneminute.rationalmind.net/designer%20babies/
Genetic screening via sexual selection has been practiced since the dawn of life itself. No one suggests that we should pick a mate entirely at random, so the objection to genetic screening and engineering is due to the element of technology. Their objections are not to "designer babies" as such, but to the use of technology to improve the lives of human beings. They apply equally to a child whose genes are altered after birth, or to an adult. The logical conclusion of this neo-luddism is the opposition of all man-made improvements to human life as "unnatural."
Ooops, I got my Slashdot threads mixed up. I blame Firefox.
From http://oneminute.rationalmind.net/designer%20babies/
Genetic screening via sexual selection has been practiced since the dawn of life itself. No one suggests that we should pick a mate entirely at random, so the objection to genetic screening and engineering is due to the element of technology. Their objections are not to "designer babies" as such, but to the use of technology to improve the lives of human beings. They apply equally to a child whose genes are altered after birth, or to an adult. The logical conclusion of this neo-luddism is the opposition of all man-made improvements to human life as âoeunnatural.â
That is an interesting interpretation of "law" - any action a business takes must not go against the decision of some future court which rules that said action violated some non-specified standard of "anti-competitive" behavior. Such a standard is not "law" but arbitrary, dictatorial whim.
Actually, most tropical forests create more CO2 than they consume by releasing it when the biomass rots.
"(i think HPC is limited to 4)" Do you have a source for that? Why would HPC support less cores than a version like Datacenter, which supports 64? http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/compare-specs.aspx
Why do "net neutrality" advocates ridicule politicians for comparing the Internet to a "series of tubes," and then trust them to regulate it?
The real story is that the U.S. government is so interventionist that people are desperately seeking a means to live their lives and do business without being regulated and taxed to death - and bureaucrats will destroy any successful attempt at doing so.
Oops, meant to say "If the government *did not* artificially limit"
If the government artificially limit the supply of medical products, the market would ensure much better quality control and eliminate the need for this kind of underground "marketing." When was the last time you read about botnet being used to sell cheese or shoes? It's government coercion that funds these kinds of "criminal organizations."
Exactly. If individuals are concerned with keeping the results of their genetic screenings private, they should ensure that screeners like 23andMe are contractually obligated to keep their test results private, and prosecute them for the full damages resulting from an intentional or accidental disclosure. While the supposed purpose of genetic anti-discrimination laws is to "protect genetic privacy," the actual effect is to remove the ability of insurers to provide financial incentives for people to get screened for potentially fatal genetic risk factors. This will only lead to unnecessary deaths from treatable genetic disorders and higher health insurance costs.
The main consequence of this law will be more uninsured people and needless deaths. See "Genetic Discrimination Saves Lives
Why do "net neutrality" advocates ridicule politicians for comparing the Internet to a âoeseries of tubes,â and then trust them to regulate it?
The One Minute Case Against Net Neutrality
If you don't like Google's data retention policy, there are search engines (Ask.com?) that advertise their privacy features.
Why do so many people feel the need to get the State's guns involved in people's voluntary transactions
Genetic Discrimination Saves Lives.
Taxation *with* representation isn't much better. I don't know about you, but having 1/300 millionth of a say in picking which bunch of lawyers decides how badly to rob me and restrict my freedom does not seem very comforting or "voluntary" to me.
Why only 1956 articles? I get that they want to show off the best, but Encarta 2007 has 42,000+ articles and includes tons of multimedia. There's no way a volunteer team can review anywhere near that number of articles, so I think they should scrap the "good articles only" policy and just stuff as much as possible onto the DVD.
The difference is that "legal tender" laws force you to accept dollars for "all debts, public and private," so the government is free to devalue dollars relative to a more sound currency (such as gold) and you are still forced to accept it.
State issued fiat currencies like the dollar are 100% secured by the govt - but this can only be done at the expense of sound currencies backed by real value.
Emotions are simply a rapid, subconscious form of thinking. They stem from our explicitly and implicitly held values, and do not represent any "instinctive" sense of right or wrong.
"Morality" is a framework of principles and standards regarding proper and improper behavior. The issue of morality only arises for human beings, because for most other animals, the proper course of action is automatically determined by instinct. A set of ethical principles is neither possible nor necessary for a non-rational being.
The story equates morality with self-sacrificial behavior, or altruism. In fact, that is a particular moral theory - the other major theory being egoism. The key question in ethics is "who is the proper recipient of values?" Religious theories hold that to be a supreme being, collectivists hold it to be the society or ethnic group, altruists believe that it is anyone by you, and egoists hold it to be themselves.
To arrive at the proper beneficiary of your action, you should begin by asking - why do humans need a morality? Does something about human condition make a set of principles for our behavior necessary, or can we survive by acting on the whim of the moment?
"This technology is patented to the hilt & the licensing terms for the HD Photo Device Porting Kit 1.0 licensing terms specifically exclude copyleft (GPL style) licenses."
This applies to the code in the kit, not the HD photo standard itself:
"HD Photo, the specification is made available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise, which asserts that Microsoft offers the specification for free, and will not file suit on the patented technology, and that open-source software can therefore make use of the format"
"So a corporation is practically indistinguishable from a person under our laws." No. The foundation of a corporation are the rights of its members: specifically, the right to state that one is entering trade agreements under the presumption of limited liability (for the shareholders), and under a "fictional" corporate "assumed" name. All the rights of a corporation are derived from those of its individual members; as such an individual neither gains nor loses rights in their capacity as members of a corporation. The limits of liability are to not hold shareholders (who have no control over the actions of the company) liable for acts of company employees -- other then for what they invested into the company. Limited liability means that only the assets of the corporation are held up as "collateral" for its liabilities. It would be ludicrous to hold all the savings of an 80 year grand mother who invested $100 in a badly run corporation-which would be the case if she were in a partnership. Limited liability means that only that $100 of the grandmother is liable; and all her other assets not invested in that corporation qua shareholder are not held liable. Limited liability means that the shareholders are not responsible for the decisions that they do not make -- only corporate officers, managers, and employees are liable to the extent that they make them.
You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? A corporation is just a way for people to pool their assets together and make common investments without putting property they did not invest at risk. If you do business with a corporation, you acknowledge that you can't seize an employee's house if his company goes bankrupt. If an employee of a corporation commits a criminal offense, he's still personally liable. He just doesn't have to put his personal property at risk if he commits a civil offense. Furthermore, if corporations are "people" then our government is guild of serfdom. Their every dollar must be tracked so politicians can seize the loot, they are subject to more regulations than any other organization, they have no right to free speech, they are taxes double (personal + corporate taxes), they are not allowed to sell stock, split, or buy without permission, and their executive can be arbitrarily jailed for unethical, but non-criminal behavior (see insider trading). Even their right to defend themselves from looters in Congress and the electorate is being taken away. Businessmen are America's most persecuted minority.
The problem is that drug approval costs so much. The major drug companies are happy with this - a billion dollars is too much for any innovative new startups to get to market. This is not the fault of capitalism, but the opposite - of government interventionism. If a free market, competing private organizations would decide when products are safe, and consumer would be free to choose what risks to take. In the meantime, the FDA creates giant monopolies that exclude competition by lobbying the govt for more regulations and "safety controls" while millions of people die because innovative new medicines and treatments never had a chance.
You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? A corporation is just a way for people to pool their assets together and make common investments without putting property they did not invest at risk. If you do business with a corporation, you acknowledge that you can't seize an employee's house if his company goes bankrupt. If an employee of a corporation commits a criminal offense, he's still personally liable. He just doesn't have to put his personal property at risk if he commits a civil offense. Furthermore, if corporations are "people" then our government is guild of serfdom. Their every dollar must be tracked so politicians can seize the loot, they are subject to more regulations than any other organization, they have no right to free speech, they are taxes double (personal + corporate taxes), they are not allowed to sell stock, split, or buy without permission, and their executive can be arbitrarily jailed for unethical, but non-criminal behavior (see insider trading). Even their right to defend themselves from looters in Congress and the electorate is being taken away, as this story shows. Businessmen are America's most persecuted minority.