All wars after World War II are completely offensive in nature. The US was not under any sort of immediate national security threat.
Just because you think something isn't an immediate national security threat, doesn't mean the rest of us share your peculiar delusion. The Korean War started because an ally of the US was invaded by another state. That was an immediate national security threat even though the North Koreans weren't invading California. The same was true of the Persian Gulf War with the added bit of spice that the US was preventing a potential oligopoly on oil from being formed. The invasion of Afghanistan happened because of a pretty destructive terrorist attack on US soil by Al Qaeda. The government of Afghanistan at the time was providing considerable material support to Al Qaeda.
I can't imagine why one thinks active paramilitary operations on US soil, which kills thousands of people and disrupt major transportation and financial systems, are somehow not "immediate national security threats".
But given your definitions and your ridiculously high threshold for a "defensive" war, I think a large number of "offensive" wars are wholly justified just to prevent even the possibility of a single "defensive" war.
I fail to see the entertainment value in going up in an uncontrollable firecracker to go float around a cramped tin can for a few minutes.
Since that value exists despite your failure to see it, maybe you ought to educate yourself first before commenting further. It's got to be one of the top five annoying Slashdotter traits, that if I can't see how to do something, then it must not be possible.
"capitalism is neither good nor evil." says the capitalist who wishes to keep sleeping at night without having to even think about the effect of his/her way of life on his fellow man and the planet as a whole.
And that capitalist is right. Let us not forget that the bullshit about holistic thinking is another pseudo-moralistic gimmick. It's an easy way to introduce fairly unprovable statements into an argument.
But it's worth noting that when one actually attempts the exercise, one sees that the rest of the world has seen a remarkable rise in standard of living and wealth, not just for their wealth, but for the rest as well. Capitalism and global trade are far more likely to be responsible for that.
Everything from the consumption of resources to the concentration of wealth is both inequitable and distorting of politics and world trade to the detriment of every country and individual in those countries that happen to not be at the top of the chain.
To the contrary. A lot of those effects from those who claim to be "fixing" capitalism. If there's a lot of regulation, then the big company that can navigate the regulation (say by have a huge legal staff for doing so) and bribe the right people, is going to fare better than the small company that can't.
Distorting politics and world trade? There's a ton of single issue voters out there doing a far better job of political distortion than any bribe. Distorting world trade? That's a traditionally anti-free market job.
You view the capitalism as it stands is not evil either means you are at the top or the crumbs that fall from the table of those that are have left you smug and contented and intentionally blinkered, (just like me.)
And the traditional whining about crumbs from tables. Until you can make those "crumbs" yourself, you'll always be subservient to those who can. It doesn't help your case that all those attempts to regulate and constrain businesses also make it harder to make your own "crumb".
Frankly, I think this is a disease that is mostly a result of the attempted cure rather than of capitalism.
Promises to his base would count more because they're the people who would get him re-elected.
The people that vote for him would be the ones who get him elected. It's not going to be just his base.
Why promises instead of actions? Because he's doing his part to move the country even further to the right than moving us to compromises with his dialogue, which is all he's capable of at this point.
Well, while I can understand your desire for compromise, even though I don't agree with it, it still remains that talk is a hell of a lot cheaper, less revealing, and less binding than action. Putting so much weight on someone's words just doesn't make sense.
Even though it's Sci-Fi, I almost like to believe that human beings move from planet to planet, using up local resources and destroying them.
While some repliers have noted the lack of realism, I find the psychological aspect interesting. Why do you want such a story? Wouldn't a story where humanity was a constructive influence on the universe be better even if a tad boring?
2) It currently costs tens of thousands of dollars to put a single kilogram of mass into space. If you're going to get any kind of industry up there, it's going to cost trillions of dollars.
It's currently around $5,000 per kg for the Russian launch vehicles. SpaceX threatens to halve that cost.
So what else is there about corporate personhood which is of significant concern?
The creation of technical rights which empower agents of the corporation in ways that some people don't desire. This can occur even with the elimination of limited liability, hence, why it is a different issue.
Eh? From a system PoV, it's faulty for the same reason that limited liability shareholding is faulty: investors are not being rewarded for choosing a portfolio of net profitable investments. Instead they can invest stupidly knowing that they're not fully responsible for what they own.
Eh? The counterexample is faulty because it's not a counterexample. Limited liability by your point of view is faulty because shareholders aren't completely responsible for the actions of the company. There's no relation between the two.
Armchair investors don't care because they're not the ones doing the work, and they're not the ones suffering when businessmen have to close businesses and workers lose their jobs because people who owe them money don't have to pay.
And where is the capital going to come from when only the deeply involved are able to contribute capital?
ultra-conservative groups have been arguing against corporate personhood since forever. The question is sufficiently unsettled that it's a fairly standard question for law students.
Look at your links. Concerned about the effects of limited liability is not the same as concern about corporate personhood.
So does my holding a gun to rich people's heads and forcing them to give over money for my business ventures - except that it doesn't, because investments are supposed to be wise, not based on arbitrary whim.
What's the point of bringing up a counterexample that you know is wrong and readily admit in the very same sentence?
That's stupid. The US did not develop in a vacuum.
Well, name that other country which has people protesting about corporate personhood. As far as I can tell, this is strictly a US affair even though the US is not unusual in how it treats corporations.
I don't want shitty corporations getting investment because investors don't "want" responsibility for what they own. It helps no-one. Stop socialising your debt, moochers!
It helps lots of people. It helps the people who create or grow businesses. It helps the people who are employed by these businesses. It helps everyone who depends on one of the above or who trades with them. They pay taxes which helps people dependent on those taxes.
This is why I love competing governments. If one government gets a bad idea (say like supporting your "thought" above), then we can always move ourselves and our assets to other countries which haven't gone so insane.
I'm sure you'll be sorely missed. The West is doing just so well since bigger businessmen began to almost entirely rely on the fact that they would not be ruined by the destruction of their companies. And China is doing just awfully for regulating larger businesses against that sort of behaviour.
A country doesn't usually destroy itself in an afternoon. The US has been slowly declining for many decades due in large part to its suicidal attitude concerning business. Just because you don't "miss" it doesn't mean it's not happening.
It is my opinion that any Republicans who might have been willing to think, rejecting the edicts from above in their party, were threatened with removal. If that didn't work, they were removed; the last is/was Olympia Snowe.
Such tricks wouldn't work without a very sympathetic electorate to back them up.
I don't see how either party will get much done from here on out, without a filibuster-proof majority.
And what makes you think that? There is some historical support for this sort of division, such as the the last years of the Third Republic of France which saw vicious conflict between leftist and rightist elements of France's political community.
But it's worth remembering that we had unusual circumstances, a really bad president along with very strong allies in Congress. It is only through good fortune and the resilient structures of the US's representative democracy (like the Senate filibuster) that opponents were able to resist so much of his agenda.
One only needs to look at the elections of 2010 to see that this agenda was wildly unpopular. That alone explains a good portion of why Obama and his allies never got much done. There simply was too much resistance from Democrats alone, much less Republicans.
I agree with this, said by President Clinton: "Democracy does not have to be a bloodsport. It can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interest."
Of course, it's interesting who speaks of honor here. While Clinton is right in principle, he is an example of why it's not an honorable enterprise. Not only did he cheat on his wife numerous times, he did so in a way that humiliated and insulted a considerable body of his supporters, namely, the feminists. Yet Clinton received their votes just the same.
If one wants honor in politics, then one must choose it.
I think you are cognitively incapable of processing the information previously given.
And you make pathetic excuses. You misplace the accusation above and really should take a hard look at your own beliefs on the matter. It's interesting how often people should but don't follow their own advice.
In which country? Or are we about to argue that America invented the corporation ("public company")?
Given that the whining is only about the status of US corporations, it's pretty obvious that we're only speaking of US corporations.
Sigh. Everything in America is about abuse from the gubmint, isn't it? Can you think of less severe responses to the concern that corporations were being disadvantaged?
The argument is sufficient. No need to go any further.
And the whole problem with modern shareholding is that the shareholders are typically neither experts in the corporations' interests nor deeply involved.
So wave that magic education wand so that investors are no longer ignorant. Capital rarely starts in the hands of the people who best understand the business.
"So it doesn't make sense to put such an investor on the hook when they typically don't want to be responsible enough to justify that level of responsibility."
That is the point. Investors don't want to be at that level of responsibility. Corporations provide a way to give capital to a business without assuming a high level of responsibility.
Yes, yes, this argument's been used to justify everything from censorship to slavery. "If you make the capitalists fully responsible for their losses then... uh... think about your jobs!" OK, I've thought about them, and I've decided that there would be greater employment if people couldn't hoard wealth with the protection of the law.
This is why I love competing governments. If one government gets a bad idea (say like supporting your "thought" above), then we can always move ourselves and our assets to other countries which haven't gone so insane.
The obvious solution is to make the identification via someone who you can sue. For example, if you get contacted by someone claiming to be a corporate executive and a bank executive acting in their capacity confirms the identity, that's a lot more rock solid than a bunch of bureaucrats who won't do that or take responsibility for anything. You might not be able to get recovery of your full assets through such a lawsuit, but it's significant pain just the same.
Are you sure? When I formed a corporation, there was a requirement that there be 3 or more shareholders. Otherwise it's an LLC for a one-man show, or a limited partnership for a 2-man show.
There is the S corporation. It can have one owner.
Sorry, I thought I was replying to a rational person. There's nothing in restrictions against a corporation that restricts a person. You can take your salary and donate it to a candidate or advertise with it. You can't direct a corporation to spend its money in a manner that violates law. Just because you, as a director, can't make your corporation do certain things doesn't mean you, as a person have the same restrctions, thus laws restricting a corporation do not restrict people at all (just the pool of money they use to fund their speech).
The concern over corporate rights isn't to provide an opportunity to do things that would be illegal as a person. But instead to do things that would otherwise be legal for a person to do. Such laws would restrict your personal actions as a agent of the corporation and would restrict the personal actions and interests of the people who own shares in the corporation.
This is useful, but legal personhood is a disproportionate response to the need.
You claim to have "took law". Surely, you read up on the history of corporate personhood. Basically, it came about due to abuses of government power. Without such protection, governments from local on up to federal level could seize or tax corporation property in a way that they couldn't do for personally owned property. In other words, it came about as a legitimate reaction to existing threats. I think that makes it a proportionate response.
No. A corporation exists based on the "rights" (lol@religious capitalisation) of contemporary shareholders not to be fully responsible for what they do. They get full enjoyment of profits but can, when shit and fan are in alignment, socialise their losses.
It's worth noting here that shareholders in such situations typically lose their entire investment. That's not even remotely "socializing the losses". And the whole point behind limited liability is that shareholders are typically neither experts in the corporations' interests nor deeply involved. So it doesn't make sense to put such an investor on the hook when they typically don't supervise it closely enough to justify that level of responsibility.
Loans are subject to the same reasoning. The bank or other lender (say a bunch of former shareholders duplicating the old corporate structure via loans) is profiting from the business without taking responsibility for the business's actions.
This is just a way to starve the businesses of your country out of capital. All the foreign competitors will appreciate your efforts. But not so much the people who just lost their jobs.
That observation would interesting if it were at least correct. I bet the quote is mangled solely because it's too long for a sig otherwise. The full quote is:
The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment
compared to mangled quote:
"THE [fundamental principle of science]: that the sole test of validity for any idea is experiment."
We see that while things have been moved around slightly, no change in actual meaning has occurred.
Imagine that corporations would send money to politicians, hiding it by claiming "privacy". Obviously, privacy is a right intended for natural persons (some formulations of human rights include a definition of privacy). Corporations do not need a right to privacy*. And it is easily exploited for blatant corruption.
It's worth noting that corporations and businesses in general can have and can protect "trade secrets". But many actions such as the above campaign contributions/bribes aren't considered trade secrets and hence, aren't protected by this limited right.
Well, if you make the cabs more expensive, more people take public transport, so the roads are less congested.
Or they take their own cars.
And of course, we have this massive conflict of interest where it is in the interests of government to continue rigging the cab market (driving up costs for people who live in NYC) in order to generate revenue for public transport.
My view is that taxis are public transportation just as much as buses or subways. They just aren't publicly owned public transportation.
With 60 votes, the GOP just filibustered. More time then ever. A lot more. I suppose that is the Dems fault too, right?
I see you haven't been paying attention. Yes, it is the Democrats's fault.
Don't get me wrong. I appreciate that the Republicans have been so successful at thwarting remarkably bad Democrat legislation. I merely have pointed out that competent Senate leadership would have overcome these filibusters.
There are a number of Republicans who are naturally sympathetic to Democrat legislation, being from pretty liberal states. Pulling in a few of those votes would have easily overcome filibusters. Needless to say, it didn't happen for a lot of crucial legislation.
Further, competent Democrat leadership in Congress overall wouldn't have lost so many seats in the 2010 elections. No offense, but the attitude was clearly, "We have a majority. Let's pass what we want before Daddy takes the keys away." There was no strategy for keeping much less growing that majority. So keep in mind that not only were they unable to bribe a couple of Republican votes for two years, they lost badly when 2010 came around.
You can complain all you want about how the Republicans stole victory from the Democrats. But the rest of us won't take you seriously. The Democrats were for the span of two years within three votes of overcoming the only serious obstruction that their opponents could muster in either branch of Congress. This sort of opportunity happens only once a generation or so and they squandered it. That's what actually happened.
Well, I suppose you haven't. I just point out that the people supposedly most adversely affected would be the ones to benefit the most.
Your implication that removing the minimum wage would eliminate unemployment is baseless.
No. Just because you don't choose to recognize the basis, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Ultimately, employment is a trade: my labor for your money. Minimum wage prevents a certain range of trading. That means some people are less well off than they would be with the opportunity to sell their labor.
The US has a lot of ways to hide unemployment, via prisons, schools, retirement, and just ignoring people who aren't employed for long enough. For example, labor force participation is now somewhere around 63.5%. While that's not far off its high of around 68%, it hasn't been this low since the early 80s.
And the figures mask a huge decline in labor participation rate among men who have steadily declined in labor participation over the past 60 years.
There's also huge unemployment among youth and certain minorities which can easily be predicted due to the relatively low value of these groups' labor.
I don't think that minimum wage is solely to blame for these trends, but it is a big factor.
Look into the claim. Try and find which specific dates the democrats had 60 seats in congress.
As I noted earlier, this is a mendacious claim. Sure, it's slightly harder to get 60 votes, when you have to reach outside your normal voting blocfor that extra couple of votes. A competent politician such as LBJ could easily have done it like clockwork. Rank incompetents such as Obama and the senate leadership? Well, they didn't get much done even when they had those 60 votes.
The question is, is an increase in average wealth really what we're looking for? Neither you nor I, with our fancy computers and internet connections, would likely suffer if the minimum wage were removed. We would probably be slightly wealthier as a result, as would the majority of people. There are a small number however, quite poor right now, who would be in a very bad situation indeed if they could no longer make even minimum wage.
Before this self-parody gets worse, I should remind you that even in a society with minimum wage law, the minimum wage is zero. Those people that would be in a very bad situation are currently in an even worse situation. I find it remarkable that one can admit that society would collectively be better off without minimum wages and then rationalize the minimum wage on the basis that it'd somehow help the people it hurts the most.
he had a democrat congress for at least a year or more.
You should really check this oft repeated mendacious claim.
Yes, it was two solid years with a Democrat congress. If Obama had been someone competent like Lyndon B. Johnson, we'd have seen a repeat of the mid 60s terms where the Democrats got everything they wanted (for example, Great Society, Apollo, and a war in Vietnam).
The real mendacious claim here is that the Democrats weren't given and fumbled a huge opportunity on a silver platter.
That's mind-boggling stupid on two levels. First, Romney made promises to a whole bunch of people. Why do the promises to the right wing count more than the rest? Second, why promises instead of actions?
Slashdot Mirror
All wars after World War II are completely offensive in nature. The US was not under any sort of immediate national security threat.
Just because you think something isn't an immediate national security threat, doesn't mean the rest of us share your peculiar delusion. The Korean War started because an ally of the US was invaded by another state. That was an immediate national security threat even though the North Koreans weren't invading California. The same was true of the Persian Gulf War with the added bit of spice that the US was preventing a potential oligopoly on oil from being formed. The invasion of Afghanistan happened because of a pretty destructive terrorist attack on US soil by Al Qaeda. The government of Afghanistan at the time was providing considerable material support to Al Qaeda.
I can't imagine why one thinks active paramilitary operations on US soil, which kills thousands of people and disrupt major transportation and financial systems, are somehow not "immediate national security threats".
But given your definitions and your ridiculously high threshold for a "defensive" war, I think a large number of "offensive" wars are wholly justified just to prevent even the possibility of a single "defensive" war.
I fail to see the entertainment value in going up in an uncontrollable firecracker to go float around a cramped tin can for a few minutes.
Since that value exists despite your failure to see it, maybe you ought to educate yourself first before commenting further. It's got to be one of the top five annoying Slashdotter traits, that if I can't see how to do something, then it must not be possible.
"capitalism is neither good nor evil." says the capitalist who wishes to keep sleeping at night without having to even think about the effect of his/her way of life on his fellow man and the planet as a whole.
And that capitalist is right. Let us not forget that the bullshit about holistic thinking is another pseudo-moralistic gimmick. It's an easy way to introduce fairly unprovable statements into an argument.
But it's worth noting that when one actually attempts the exercise, one sees that the rest of the world has seen a remarkable rise in standard of living and wealth, not just for their wealth, but for the rest as well. Capitalism and global trade are far more likely to be responsible for that.
Everything from the consumption of resources to the concentration of wealth is both inequitable and distorting of politics and world trade to the detriment of every country and individual in those countries that happen to not be at the top of the chain.
To the contrary. A lot of those effects from those who claim to be "fixing" capitalism. If there's a lot of regulation, then the big company that can navigate the regulation (say by have a huge legal staff for doing so) and bribe the right people, is going to fare better than the small company that can't.
Distorting politics and world trade? There's a ton of single issue voters out there doing a far better job of political distortion than any bribe. Distorting world trade? That's a traditionally anti-free market job.
You view the capitalism as it stands is not evil either means you are at the top or the crumbs that fall from the table of those that are have left you smug and contented and intentionally blinkered, (just like me.)
And the traditional whining about crumbs from tables. Until you can make those "crumbs" yourself, you'll always be subservient to those who can. It doesn't help your case that all those attempts to regulate and constrain businesses also make it harder to make your own "crumb".
Frankly, I think this is a disease that is mostly a result of the attempted cure rather than of capitalism.
Promises to his base would count more because they're the people who would get him re-elected.
The people that vote for him would be the ones who get him elected. It's not going to be just his base.
Why promises instead of actions? Because he's doing his part to move the country even further to the right than moving us to compromises with his dialogue, which is all he's capable of at this point.
Well, while I can understand your desire for compromise, even though I don't agree with it, it still remains that talk is a hell of a lot cheaper, less revealing, and less binding than action. Putting so much weight on someone's words just doesn't make sense.
Even though it's Sci-Fi, I almost like to believe that human beings move from planet to planet, using up local resources and destroying them.
While some repliers have noted the lack of realism, I find the psychological aspect interesting. Why do you want such a story? Wouldn't a story where humanity was a constructive influence on the universe be better even if a tad boring?
2) It currently costs tens of thousands of dollars to put a single kilogram of mass into space. If you're going to get any kind of industry up there, it's going to cost trillions of dollars.
It's currently around $5,000 per kg for the Russian launch vehicles. SpaceX threatens to halve that cost.
So what else is there about corporate personhood which is of significant concern?
The creation of technical rights which empower agents of the corporation in ways that some people don't desire. This can occur even with the elimination of limited liability, hence, why it is a different issue.
Eh? From a system PoV, it's faulty for the same reason that limited liability shareholding is faulty: investors are not being rewarded for choosing a portfolio of net profitable investments. Instead they can invest stupidly knowing that they're not fully responsible for what they own.
Eh? The counterexample is faulty because it's not a counterexample. Limited liability by your point of view is faulty because shareholders aren't completely responsible for the actions of the company. There's no relation between the two.
Armchair investors don't care because they're not the ones doing the work, and they're not the ones suffering when businessmen have to close businesses and workers lose their jobs because people who owe them money don't have to pay.
And where is the capital going to come from when only the deeply involved are able to contribute capital?
ultra-conservative groups have been arguing against corporate personhood since forever. The question is sufficiently unsettled that it's a fairly standard question for law students.
Look at your links. Concerned about the effects of limited liability is not the same as concern about corporate personhood.
So does my holding a gun to rich people's heads and forcing them to give over money for my business ventures - except that it doesn't, because investments are supposed to be wise, not based on arbitrary whim.
What's the point of bringing up a counterexample that you know is wrong and readily admit in the very same sentence?
That's stupid. The US did not develop in a vacuum.
Well, name that other country which has people protesting about corporate personhood. As far as I can tell, this is strictly a US affair even though the US is not unusual in how it treats corporations.
I don't want shitty corporations getting investment because investors don't "want" responsibility for what they own. It helps no-one. Stop socialising your debt, moochers!
It helps lots of people. It helps the people who create or grow businesses. It helps the people who are employed by these businesses. It helps everyone who depends on one of the above or who trades with them. They pay taxes which helps people dependent on those taxes.
This is why I love competing governments. If one government gets a bad idea (say like supporting your "thought" above), then we can always move ourselves and our assets to other countries which haven't gone so insane.
I'm sure you'll be sorely missed. The West is doing just so well since bigger businessmen began to almost entirely rely on the fact that they would not be ruined by the destruction of their companies. And China is doing just awfully for regulating larger businesses against that sort of behaviour.
A country doesn't usually destroy itself in an afternoon. The US has been slowly declining for many decades due in large part to its suicidal attitude concerning business. Just because you don't "miss" it doesn't mean it's not happening.
It is my opinion that any Republicans who might have been willing to think, rejecting the edicts from above in their party, were threatened with removal. If that didn't work, they were removed; the last is/was Olympia Snowe.
Such tricks wouldn't work without a very sympathetic electorate to back them up.
I don't see how either party will get much done from here on out, without a filibuster-proof majority.
And what makes you think that? There is some historical support for this sort of division, such as the the last years of the Third Republic of France which saw vicious conflict between leftist and rightist elements of France's political community.
But it's worth remembering that we had unusual circumstances, a really bad president along with very strong allies in Congress. It is only through good fortune and the resilient structures of the US's representative democracy (like the Senate filibuster) that opponents were able to resist so much of his agenda.
One only needs to look at the elections of 2010 to see that this agenda was wildly unpopular. That alone explains a good portion of why Obama and his allies never got much done. There simply was too much resistance from Democrats alone, much less Republicans.
I agree with this, said by President Clinton: "Democracy does not have to be a bloodsport. It can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interest."
Of course, it's interesting who speaks of honor here. While Clinton is right in principle, he is an example of why it's not an honorable enterprise. Not only did he cheat on his wife numerous times, he did so in a way that humiliated and insulted a considerable body of his supporters, namely, the feminists. Yet Clinton received their votes just the same.
If one wants honor in politics, then one must choose it.
I think you are cognitively incapable of processing the information previously given.
And you make pathetic excuses. You misplace the accusation above and really should take a hard look at your own beliefs on the matter. It's interesting how often people should but don't follow their own advice.
In which country? Or are we about to argue that America invented the corporation ("public company")?
Given that the whining is only about the status of US corporations, it's pretty obvious that we're only speaking of US corporations.
Sigh. Everything in America is about abuse from the gubmint, isn't it? Can you think of less severe responses to the concern that corporations were being disadvantaged?
The argument is sufficient. No need to go any further.
And the whole problem with modern shareholding is that the shareholders are typically neither experts in the corporations' interests nor deeply involved.
So wave that magic education wand so that investors are no longer ignorant. Capital rarely starts in the hands of the people who best understand the business.
"So it doesn't make sense to put such an investor on the hook when they typically don't want to be responsible enough to justify that level of responsibility."
That is the point. Investors don't want to be at that level of responsibility. Corporations provide a way to give capital to a business without assuming a high level of responsibility.
Yes, yes, this argument's been used to justify everything from censorship to slavery. "If you make the capitalists fully responsible for their losses then... uh... think about your jobs!" OK, I've thought about them, and I've decided that there would be greater employment if people couldn't hoard wealth with the protection of the law.
This is why I love competing governments. If one government gets a bad idea (say like supporting your "thought" above), then we can always move ourselves and our assets to other countries which haven't gone so insane.
The obvious solution is to make the identification via someone who you can sue. For example, if you get contacted by someone claiming to be a corporate executive and a bank executive acting in their capacity confirms the identity, that's a lot more rock solid than a bunch of bureaucrats who won't do that or take responsibility for anything. You might not be able to get recovery of your full assets through such a lawsuit, but it's significant pain just the same.
Are you sure? When I formed a corporation, there was a requirement that there be 3 or more shareholders. Otherwise it's an LLC for a one-man show, or a limited partnership for a 2-man show.
There is the S corporation. It can have one owner.
Sorry, I thought I was replying to a rational person. There's nothing in restrictions against a corporation that restricts a person. You can take your salary and donate it to a candidate or advertise with it. You can't direct a corporation to spend its money in a manner that violates law. Just because you, as a director, can't make your corporation do certain things doesn't mean you, as a person have the same restrctions, thus laws restricting a corporation do not restrict people at all (just the pool of money they use to fund their speech).
The concern over corporate rights isn't to provide an opportunity to do things that would be illegal as a person. But instead to do things that would otherwise be legal for a person to do. Such laws would restrict your personal actions as a agent of the corporation and would restrict the personal actions and interests of the people who own shares in the corporation.
This is useful, but legal personhood is a disproportionate response to the need.
You claim to have "took law". Surely, you read up on the history of corporate personhood. Basically, it came about due to abuses of government power. Without such protection, governments from local on up to federal level could seize or tax corporation property in a way that they couldn't do for personally owned property. In other words, it came about as a legitimate reaction to existing threats. I think that makes it a proportionate response.
No. A corporation exists based on the "rights" (lol@religious capitalisation) of contemporary shareholders not to be fully responsible for what they do. They get full enjoyment of profits but can, when shit and fan are in alignment, socialise their losses.
It's worth noting here that shareholders in such situations typically lose their entire investment. That's not even remotely "socializing the losses". And the whole point behind limited liability is that shareholders are typically neither experts in the corporations' interests nor deeply involved. So it doesn't make sense to put such an investor on the hook when they typically don't supervise it closely enough to justify that level of responsibility.
Loans are subject to the same reasoning. The bank or other lender (say a bunch of former shareholders duplicating the old corporate structure via loans) is profiting from the business without taking responsibility for the business's actions.
This is just a way to starve the businesses of your country out of capital. All the foreign competitors will appreciate your efforts. But not so much the people who just lost their jobs.
The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment
compared to mangled quote:
"THE [fundamental principle of science]: that the sole test of validity for any idea is experiment."
We see that while things have been moved around slightly, no change in actual meaning has occurred.
Imagine that corporations would send money to politicians, hiding it by claiming "privacy". Obviously, privacy is a right intended for natural persons (some formulations of human rights include a definition of privacy). Corporations do not need a right to privacy*. And it is easily exploited for blatant corruption.
It's worth noting that corporations and businesses in general can have and can protect "trade secrets". But many actions such as the above campaign contributions/bribes aren't considered trade secrets and hence, aren't protected by this limited right.
That is not recognized by Wikipedia.
Well, if you make the cabs more expensive, more people take public transport, so the roads are less congested.
Or they take their own cars.
And of course, we have this massive conflict of interest where it is in the interests of government to continue rigging the cab market (driving up costs for people who live in NYC) in order to generate revenue for public transport.
My view is that taxis are public transportation just as much as buses or subways. They just aren't publicly owned public transportation.
With 60 votes, the GOP just filibustered. More time then ever. A lot more. I suppose that is the Dems fault too, right?
I see you haven't been paying attention. Yes, it is the Democrats's fault.
Don't get me wrong. I appreciate that the Republicans have been so successful at thwarting remarkably bad Democrat legislation. I merely have pointed out that competent Senate leadership would have overcome these filibusters.
There are a number of Republicans who are naturally sympathetic to Democrat legislation, being from pretty liberal states. Pulling in a few of those votes would have easily overcome filibusters. Needless to say, it didn't happen for a lot of crucial legislation.
Further, competent Democrat leadership in Congress overall wouldn't have lost so many seats in the 2010 elections. No offense, but the attitude was clearly, "We have a majority. Let's pass what we want before Daddy takes the keys away." There was no strategy for keeping much less growing that majority. So keep in mind that not only were they unable to bribe a couple of Republican votes for two years, they lost badly when 2010 came around.
You can complain all you want about how the Republicans stole victory from the Democrats. But the rest of us won't take you seriously. The Democrats were for the span of two years within three votes of overcoming the only serious obstruction that their opponents could muster in either branch of Congress. This sort of opportunity happens only once a generation or so and they squandered it. That's what actually happened.
Your implication that removing the minimum wage would eliminate unemployment is baseless.
No. Just because you don't choose to recognize the basis, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Ultimately, employment is a trade: my labor for your money. Minimum wage prevents a certain range of trading. That means some people are less well off than they would be with the opportunity to sell their labor.
The US has a lot of ways to hide unemployment, via prisons, schools, retirement, and just ignoring people who aren't employed for long enough. For example, labor force participation is now somewhere around 63.5%. While that's not far off its high of around 68%, it hasn't been this low since the early 80s.
And the figures mask a huge decline in labor participation rate among men who have steadily declined in labor participation over the past 60 years.
There's also huge unemployment among youth and certain minorities which can easily be predicted due to the relatively low value of these groups' labor.
I don't think that minimum wage is solely to blame for these trends, but it is a big factor.
Look into the claim. Try and find which specific dates the democrats had 60 seats in congress.
As I noted earlier, this is a mendacious claim. Sure, it's slightly harder to get 60 votes, when you have to reach outside your normal voting blocfor that extra couple of votes. A competent politician such as LBJ could easily have done it like clockwork. Rank incompetents such as Obama and the senate leadership? Well, they didn't get much done even when they had those 60 votes.
The question is, is an increase in average wealth really what we're looking for? Neither you nor I, with our fancy computers and internet connections, would likely suffer if the minimum wage were removed. We would probably be slightly wealthier as a result, as would the majority of people. There are a small number however, quite poor right now, who would be in a very bad situation indeed if they could no longer make even minimum wage.
Before this self-parody gets worse, I should remind you that even in a society with minimum wage law, the minimum wage is zero. Those people that would be in a very bad situation are currently in an even worse situation. I find it remarkable that one can admit that society would collectively be better off without minimum wages and then rationalize the minimum wage on the basis that it'd somehow help the people it hurts the most.
he had a democrat congress for at least a year or more.
You should really check this oft repeated mendacious claim.
Yes, it was two solid years with a Democrat congress. If Obama had been someone competent like Lyndon B. Johnson, we'd have seen a repeat of the mid 60s terms where the Democrats got everything they wanted (for example, Great Society, Apollo, and a war in Vietnam).
The real mendacious claim here is that the Democrats weren't given and fumbled a huge opportunity on a silver platter.
He promises to do things for the right wing base?
That's mind-boggling stupid on two levels. First, Romney made promises to a whole bunch of people. Why do the promises to the right wing count more than the rest? Second, why promises instead of actions?