I'm outta mod points anyway so I'll just clear up this lie right here. It was _not_ a 90% tax rate. It was a graduating rate where you paid the same tax on the first $50k as someone making only $50k, then you paid the same tax on the _next_ $50k as someone making $100k, and so on so forth. When you got to $1 mil/yr+ you paid 90% on the amount between $900k and $1 mil. I'm simplifying it so my numbers might be off, but that's the gist of it.
Basically at one point in time we said there ought to be limits on how much of societies limited resources we dedicate to 1 person.
you're laboring under the misconception that anyone who matters still competes and still takes risks. The 1% own 40% of everything, and they're working on the other 60%. So what if Company A steals from Company B if the Koch Brothers own both of them?
The difference now is that the 'cloud' lets you hire the cheapest labor to manage it the world offers. As an IT support rep you compete on the global market for your job, but the Capital that owns the infrastructure is global. They're not competing the way Wage Slaves are. Meanwhile the top 1% of the 1% is gunning for those CIO's salaries. Finally Big Data makes all that waste stand out, and cheap offshore accountants crunch the numbers to track it down and eliminate it. IT is being made cheap & disposable, just like IT workers.
and it works _very_ well there. So much so that an $8/hr "IT" rep can admin it just fine. Especially when his wages have been plummeting for 30 years. AD & LDAP are 1000x more reliable than in the WinNT days and most companies don't need a full time tech anymore. Those large scale racks mean economies of scale and fewer employees needed to manage it all.
Basically, IT's changing a lot. As the hardware/software gets better It's going away.
Programmer time is getting cheaper than maintaining the expensive mainframes those apps run on. Meanwhile remote assistance tools work. Best Buy used to have 30 guys on staff per store for geek squad. Now it's 3. 2 guys to plug computers in so the offshore guys can fix it and one guy to drive around picking up and dropping off fixed computers in his snazzy Geek Squad VW beetle. I know so many techs who always told themselves: If all else fails I can work at Geek Squad. Well... you can't.
It's expensive to make drugs. Most of the basic research is done by the government, and then the drug companies swooped in, ran a few study groups and patent the thing. We've been in 'Austerity' mode for about 10 years now. Slashing gov't left and right so we could slash taxes. Didn't anyone realize there would be consequences?
what are CEOs actually 'responsible' for? Responsible implies consequences. Last I heard the penalty for wreaking a company's net worth was a multimillion dollar bonus.
but the huge increases in efficiency will put lots of people out of work, and the money saved will look lovely in some 1%ers bank account. Plus as there are fewer and fewer jobs we'll fight harder and harder amongst ourselves for them. Sure, the world needs ditch diggers. Well, one guy to fix the 20,000+ robot ditch diggers anyway...
is good enough. I think it was the Netscape guy who said software would eat the world. There's little or no tech left in photography. Sure, you can do a whole bunch of stuff to make the photos look nicer to a pro, but to a guy like me? I can't tell the difference. It's like your 4k displays. My eyes aren't good enough to tell.
Basically, scratch one more profession off the list of what little Johnny can grow up to do some day.
speaking of/vertisements, I've been thinking of adding this sort of thing to my Firefox extension. It's not too hard to do, but I haven't had many people express interest in it per se. And doesn't youtube already have a video editor?
I love the way registrars & ICANN encourages people to park and sell domains and then if a big guy comes along they just hand 'em over. You suppose He's going to get a refund of all his various fees (with interest)?
or is there something seriously wrong with our entire economy when one guy can threaten to destroy an entire (very profitable) industry, and the threat is credible? Seriously, why do we tolerate individuals having this much power/wealth? Hell, what the *bleep* is wrong with the world when the mayor of a city can amass 27 Billion (with a 'B') dollars?
I keep hearing how there's all this free money from the gov't. Show me where to get it. I got a buddy that fell on hard times. He found out real fast it's not there. Turns out it's damn hard to get all that free gov't cheese if you're not bribing a congressman. Most states fight tooth and nail to stop you from getting health care, housing and food, let alone cash.
But go ahead. Keep on believing there's this magical gov't safety net waiting there if you stumble. And if you ever do trip up, have fun finding out there's no net to catch you...
he's up against a hostile senate, and he needed almost a billion dollars to beat the worst challenger I think I've ever seen (Rhomney). Don't like it? Vote left. Vote for the most left wing candidate you can find, and keep doing that until the country moves left. You can't do it overnight.
Seriously. I've read several articles and all I could find was it (probably) is running the same AMD hardware the PS3 has. The Kinect is super cheap to make, so that's not adding much cost either.
Just not for you and me.:P. For a small project like mine it's just myself really, but it does give me a sense of what goes into keeping a software project running. In small companies a few net negative guys will wreak the company, but in larger companies it's just sunk costs. You absorb it from the profits on other projects. In most things (like building bridges) you can't do that, but software's got such a low cost to begin with you can have a lot of failure before it matters. Look at the XBox 1. 4 billion down the hole, but they made it back on the 360 when Sony stumbled a bit.
Sunday afternoon. Just after a few major Whitehouse scandals and some general nastiness in the form of an armature terrorist attack and a kidnapper. This won't even slow down the call for more H1-Bs, despite the fact that we're told over and over that a worker shortage should _raise_ wages.
We've always been at war with Eastasia. As long as the news media keeps telling Americans there's a 'recession' we won't start asking why we're not getting anywhere. I swear, Americans have the opposite of an entitlement complex. We don't believe we deserve anything.
The only thing we're 100% sure of is that somewhere is a minimum wage welfare queen that's the reason why we're broke all the time. Buddy of mine put it best after he was down on his luck and tried to get some help from the gov't: "If it's so easy to get on welfare and cheat the system why don't you do it?"
winning the day. Didn't work our so well for Corel did it? Or Novel? Or Sun?
Good enough is always good enough. Yeah, you're few good programmers will make better code, but my 100 code monkeys will make more of it. I'll have 10 products to market in the time you have 1, and I'll do it for less $. I'll take those savings and spend them winning bids in backroom deals. Eventually I'll buy up your company just to shut it down. Well, not unless Microsoft beats me to it.
Also, What's with this thing in America where we always, always blame the worker? Did it ever occur to you that you really can't compete in a global race to the bottom? Like clean air & water? Like health care? A steady food supply? Too bad. Somewhere in the world is a worker willing to live without it. You'll have to give up those 'luxuries' to compete.
As the saying goes: If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?
took 'em by more surprise. Even if their support sucks it's still there and it still costs money. It's a simple equation: we made X more sales to pirates and it cost Y in support and server maintenance. Which is bigger?
I can't get too worked up by google tracking me. It's like saying EA is the worst company in the world when there's Monsato and Goldman Sachs out there. Seriously, from where I'm standing there are far bigger troubles out there. It just doesn't resonate with me. I'd rather people focus on declining wages, increased food, housing and health care costs. Basically the entire 'Middle Class Eroding' thing that's been going on for 50+ years.
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I'm outta mod points anyway so I'll just clear up this lie right here. It was _not_ a 90% tax rate. It was a graduating rate where you paid the same tax on the first $50k as someone making only $50k, then you paid the same tax on the _next_ $50k as someone making $100k, and so on so forth. When you got to $1 mil/yr+ you paid 90% on the amount between $900k and $1 mil. I'm simplifying it so my numbers might be off, but that's the gist of it.
Basically at one point in time we said there ought to be limits on how much of societies limited resources we dedicate to 1 person.
you're laboring under the misconception that anyone who matters still competes and still takes risks. The 1% own 40% of everything, and they're working on the other 60%. So what if Company A steals from Company B if the Koch Brothers own both of them?
The difference now is that the 'cloud' lets you hire the cheapest labor to manage it the world offers. As an IT support rep you compete on the global market for your job, but the Capital that owns the infrastructure is global. They're not competing the way Wage Slaves are. Meanwhile the top 1% of the 1% is gunning for those CIO's salaries. Finally Big Data makes all that waste stand out, and cheap offshore accountants crunch the numbers to track it down and eliminate it. IT is being made cheap & disposable, just like IT workers.
and it works _very_ well there. So much so that an $8/hr "IT" rep can admin it just fine. Especially when his wages have been plummeting for 30 years. AD & LDAP are 1000x more reliable than in the WinNT days and most companies don't need a full time tech anymore. Those large scale racks mean economies of scale and fewer employees needed to manage it all.
Basically, IT's changing a lot. As the hardware/software gets better It's going away.
Programmer time is getting cheaper than maintaining the expensive mainframes those apps run on. Meanwhile remote assistance tools work. Best Buy used to have 30 guys on staff per store for geek squad. Now it's 3. 2 guys to plug computers in so the offshore guys can fix it and one guy to drive around picking up and dropping off fixed computers in his snazzy Geek Squad VW beetle. I know so many techs who always told themselves: If all else fails I can work at Geek Squad. Well... you can't.
It's expensive to make drugs. Most of the basic research is done by the government, and then the drug companies swooped in, ran a few study groups and patent the thing. We've been in 'Austerity' mode for about 10 years now. Slashing gov't left and right so we could slash taxes. Didn't anyone realize there would be consequences?
what are CEOs actually 'responsible' for? Responsible implies consequences. Last I heard the penalty for wreaking a company's net worth was a multimillion dollar bonus.
but the huge increases in efficiency will put lots of people out of work, and the money saved will look lovely in some 1%ers bank account. Plus as there are fewer and fewer jobs we'll fight harder and harder amongst ourselves for them. Sure, the world needs ditch diggers. Well, one guy to fix the 20,000+ robot ditch diggers anyway...
is good enough. I think it was the Netscape guy who said software would eat the world. There's little or no tech left in photography. Sure, you can do a whole bunch of stuff to make the photos look nicer to a pro, but to a guy like me? I can't tell the difference. It's like your 4k displays. My eyes aren't good enough to tell.
Basically, scratch one more profession off the list of what little Johnny can grow up to do some day.
Starcraft 2 isn't very good. Not bad, but you can't approach each level in new and exciting ways. It's more a multiplayer trainer.
speaking of /vertisements, I've been thinking of adding this sort of thing to my Firefox extension. It's not too hard to do, but I haven't had many people express interest in it per se. And doesn't youtube already have a video editor?
I love the way registrars & ICANN encourages people to park and sell domains and then if a big guy comes along they just hand 'em over. You suppose He's going to get a refund of all his various fees (with interest)?
or is there something seriously wrong with our entire economy when one guy can threaten to destroy an entire (very profitable) industry, and the threat is credible? Seriously, why do we tolerate individuals having this much power/wealth? Hell, what the *bleep* is wrong with the world when the mayor of a city can amass 27 Billion (with a 'B') dollars?
ok... done venting.
declining wages and wealth inequality is. You're working that extra day to make up the pay you've lost over the last 30 years.
I keep hearing how there's all this free money from the gov't. Show me where to get it. I got a buddy that fell on hard times. He found out real fast it's not there. Turns out it's damn hard to get all that free gov't cheese if you're not bribing a congressman. Most states fight tooth and nail to stop you from getting health care, housing and food, let alone cash.
But go ahead. Keep on believing there's this magical gov't safety net waiting there if you stumble. And if you ever do trip up, have fun finding out there's no net to catch you...
he's up against a hostile senate, and he needed almost a billion dollars to beat the worst challenger I think I've ever seen (Rhomney). Don't like it? Vote left. Vote for the most left wing candidate you can find, and keep doing that until the country moves left. You can't do it overnight.
Seriously. I've read several articles and all I could find was it (probably) is running the same AMD hardware the PS3 has. The Kinect is super cheap to make, so that's not adding much cost either.
Just not for you and me. :P. For a small project like mine it's just myself really, but it does give me a sense of what goes into keeping a software project running. In small companies a few net negative guys will wreak the company, but in larger companies it's just sunk costs. You absorb it from the profits on other projects. In most things (like building bridges) you can't do that, but software's got such a low cost to begin with you can have a lot of failure before it matters. Look at the XBox 1. 4 billion down the hole, but they made it back on the 360 when Sony stumbled a bit.
For what it's worth read my sig :P. Moreover, I my point still stands. I can afford 10, maybe 20 failures for the 1 project that succeeds :).
Sunday afternoon. Just after a few major Whitehouse scandals and some general nastiness in the form of an armature terrorist attack and a kidnapper. This won't even slow down the call for more H1-Bs, despite the fact that we're told over and over that a worker shortage should _raise_ wages.
We've always been at war with Eastasia. As long as the news media keeps telling Americans there's a 'recession' we won't start asking why we're not getting anywhere. I swear, Americans have the opposite of an entitlement complex. We don't believe we deserve anything.
The only thing we're 100% sure of is that somewhere is a minimum wage welfare queen that's the reason why we're broke all the time. Buddy of mine put it best after he was down on his luck and tried to get some help from the gov't: "If it's so easy to get on welfare and cheat the system why don't you do it?"
winning the day. Didn't work our so well for Corel did it? Or Novel? Or Sun?
Good enough is always good enough. Yeah, you're few good programmers will make better code, but my 100 code monkeys will make more of it. I'll have 10 products to market in the time you have 1, and I'll do it for less $. I'll take those savings and spend them winning bids in backroom deals. Eventually I'll buy up your company just to shut it down. Well, not unless Microsoft beats me to it.
Also, What's with this thing in America where we always, always blame the worker? Did it ever occur to you that you really can't compete in a global race to the bottom? Like clean air & water? Like health care? A steady food supply? Too bad. Somewhere in the world is a worker willing to live without it. You'll have to give up those 'luxuries' to compete.
As the saying goes: If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?
took 'em by more surprise. Even if their support sucks it's still there and it still costs money. It's a simple equation: we made X more sales to pirates and it cost Y in support and server maintenance. Which is bigger?
this is the other reason I don't care. Without that as context it looks like I'm just complaining :P.
I can't get too worked up by google tracking me. It's like saying EA is the worst company in the world when there's Monsato and Goldman Sachs out there. Seriously, from where I'm standing there are far bigger troubles out there. It just doesn't resonate with me. I'd rather people focus on declining wages, increased food, housing and health care costs. Basically the entire 'Middle Class Eroding' thing that's been going on for 50+ years.