Meanwhile:
Madoff is in Jail for life
2 Generals and two different cabinet officials have been forced to resign
Seattle PD is under Justice Department microscope
Book publishers forced to repay customers for price fixing
BP pays huge fine and has Executives indicted
Entire trading firms under indictment
Its a mixed bag. It always is.
1. Madoff ripped off rich people, nobody cared until he then.
2. Sex scandals don't count. They make such great news that everyone gets taken down by them.
3. It's a gov't agency. The rest of us are busy complaining about how private companies get away with murder (HSBC anyone?)
4. And the fine was still significantly less than the profits from the price fixing.
5. See above.
6. See above.
There's a phrase I don't hear often enough: Corporate Death Penalty.
If they're spending their all their time covering their asses instead of doing their jobs there's a reason, and it's because someone's out to get them. At least in the States the powers that be are doing a major push to put working class Americans at the throats of gov't workers that happen to still make a living wage. It's classic divide and conquer tactics. They do the same thing with race baiting.
The key to keeping the poor down is to keep pointing at someone else as the problem. The problem isn't that the rich have 80% of everything, it's those darn Bureaucrats/Unions/Negroes holdin' you back.
Put another way: A Bureaucrat, a Union guy and a Rich man are setting at a table with 10 apples. The Rich Man pulls 8 apples off the table, turns to the Union guy and says "Hey, that guy's gonna steal your apple".
The 3000HD and 4000HD integrated chips are about as good as what you get on a modern console (e.g. on par with a GT 240 with DDR5). That more or less solves the 'I bought a computer and can't play games' problem.
my Droid runs any app I want after checking 1 box, works with any bluetooth device I throw at it (gamepads, mice, keyboard) and has an SD card slot for storage. My only complaint is app devs that are too lazy to give me the option to install to SD (come on guys, it's 1 frickin' line in your manifest)!
the USSR was not, was never, and probably never will be a socialist country. It was and is a dictatorship that happens to use socialist rhetoric. China also falls into this. I think the best description for both is 'Kleptocracy', government run by thieves stealing for themselves. For a real socialist country see Canada and Germany.
While I'm on the subject, if socialism means nobody will work if they don't have to how come Mitt Romney still has a job?
after a lifetime of getting my ass kicked here I don't have enough to offer true socialist country (they do still have immigration standards). My education was pretty low quality (meant to keep me off the streets while I was young and potentially violent), my falling wages have left me in debt up to my ears with virtually no assets. The one asset I had (a house) is now worthless since I'm stuck moving every few years to go where the work is.
If you look at where creativity and innovation is coming from it's almost exclusively socialist countries. In reality You need a strong safe net to take those risks. The Mitt Romney's of the world never take risks. They're fathers and mothers and buddies shield them from all that.
at any rate I second the sentiment. It's not a War if there is no organized opposition. A few terrorists / Bunch 'o guys with guns != an armed force / Military.
and point out that right up until about 1950 there was regular terrorism and atrocities perpetrated against minorities (not just blacks, we did the Irish until there was too many of them to be a minority). Basically, there used to be a socially acceptable whipping boy for this sort of thing, and we kinda don't like to talk about that...
that's not how it works. You go to a good school (Harvard, Yale, etc), make connections, and use those connections to become a CEO and get on the Board of Directors at companies. Seriously. That's the way it works. You're middle manager boss does not, in fact, run the world. No matter how much you hate him. It's an elite group of old money asshats.
they don't need you to buy their goods. If the top 1% already claim ownership over or most property in the world (which they're gradually doing, they're somewhere between 50% and 80% in the states) then why do they need you? They don't even have to bother selling you anything, because you don't have anything they want. They don't need your labor (there's already too much of that going around), you own nothing (because they own everything in this scenario). They don't need you.
Moreover, the quality of their lives is enriched by your poverty. People worship and idolize the rich. How does this make them feel? Good? Really good? What would it be like to live a life where you never have a conflict that isn't instantly and effortlessly resolved because you have so much wealth people fall over themselves to do as you say? That's what people mean when they say they want power. The want the ability to do as they please without consequences. For themselves anyway.
just another sign of it. Why should we outrace robots to survive just because we lost the vagina lottery? I keep hearing these conservatives spout off about how it'll never get that bad because they rich need us to buy their crap. That's the stupidest thing I've seen since the guy with the 'Keep the govmmit out of my medicare!' sign. Jeez, it's right there in you're economics -> Over supply of labor + shortage of Goods means the goods get more profitable to sell and cheaper to make. Notice how Apple computer is the most profitable company in history?
if you're at the low end (R4850, GT240, etc) AMD's stuff is pretty useless. They just crash a lot on everything except the biggest titles. It drive me nuts, because the grandparent is right, AMD has much, much better image quality. I've heard their high end ($300+) doesn't have this issue, but I'm old and broke (family and such) so that ain't happening.
just tax the hell out of them. Believe it or not people aren't just going to leave this country. At least not if we don't send our Military to help them when they get in a bind in a foreign country. If they want to go home that's fine, but they don't get to take the ball. It's ours.
to get money out of the hands of the top and into the bottom? The top right now are using their wealth and privilege to gut companies' pensions and equity. Hostess is the current example, but remember Sci-Fi monthly and quarterlies? Every wonder what happened to Asimov's monthly magazine? The suits will tell you Americans just got dumber and stopped reading. Fact is somebody noticed that the company that distributed those monthly reading periodicals was stilling on a tonne of real estate that had appreciated in value over the years. They got bought up and liquidated for the short term profits. Every mag instantly lost their distribution network, and those guys run pay check to paycheck (real Americans there), so they went under.
How are you planning on dealing with those guys? The Bain capitals of the world? They completely break Capitalism, unless you're OK with the 'winner-take-all' approach.
there was a huge run on them in the early 2ghz processor era, which is probably when most of your PCs were from. Go get yourself an 800mhz pentium and watch how long it lasts. I'm sitting here typing on a 3 ghz Athlon 64 that's well over 5 because I bought a board that fixes the bad caps problem.
we just keep moving more and more of the wealth to the top, and let the rest of the world go to hell. If you're in the top 1% that's still 60 million people living like gods among men. The US middle class was really a fluke. First time in history. Before that a miniscule group of people took everything and the rest died of starvation and/or elements. I think the phrase is 'winner take all' economics...
Anyway, I guess my point is, people keep asking what's gonna happen when nobody can afford to buy stuff, ignoring the fact that the folks that own everything don't really care, because, well, they already own it all.
start socializing these profits and productivity gains. I'm just saying... otoh if somebody's got a better idea (that doesn't involve 90% of us dying of starvation) I'm all ears....
when you're a poor ass rust belt or New Orleans worker you live where you're born and you stay there because moving is expensive. I 140 miles for a job and it ended up costing me $2k. You are correct that it's awful that we bail out the rich while ignoring the poor though. Socialize the loses, privatize the profits.
Also, $60 Billion dollars really isn't a lot of money. It just seems like a lot because to one person it is. And I think my main point is that under Democratic leadership most of that $60 billion won't go to rebuilding $5+ million dollar homes. It'll go to rebuilding $50-$100k homes.
when you've already got a successful business. There's a reason most of Disney's stuff is retreads of old tales. It's much easier to sell something tried, true tested and familiar. Later on when you're established and you've got a steady flow of cash in payin' the bills you can get to real innovation. The thing people like to ignore is that most big innovation is built on past successes. Just about all the big guys in tech got there because their parents were well enough off to support them while they fucked around getting something off the ground. Try doing that around a 40-50 hour work schedule. Doesn't happen.
Disney et. all are monopolizing those stories. Hell, that Harry potter twat has sued people copying the framework of her stories that she herself stole.
Like Bain and the guys that did Hostess in are what's scaring me. Basically guys with money and connections come in, buy a company, and then immediately start raiding the pension funds and paying themselves huge consulting fees from the loans they take out on the business' good name. Then they blame the whole sodding mess on workers making 45k/yr and unions and shut the whole thing down and move it to Mexico where slave labor abounds. br>
These guys are what'll stop innovation. They've got it so good (because they're so damn rich) they don't care about innovation. They become intensely, frighteningly conservative. There what's moved the US so far right these days. They don't want anything to change since they're makin' out like bandits. Hell, they've made progress (as in 'progressive') a bad word...
this was pointed out during the recent storms (Sandy), and there were several pundits that pointed out that Democrats tended to staff FEMA with professional disaster management folks while the Republicans tended to give those positions out to friends, family and donors. That was why the disaster was as well handled as it was and didn't turn into New Orleans II: The Squeal.
The hard part about this is even though it's demonstrably true (it's easy to trace the reasons for the FEMA appointments under the two administrations) it's so outlandish to think that a man would appoint someone to such an important position for political points that people just don't believe you when you point it out. Even if you've got the evidence (google it) to back it up...
Slashdot Mirror
Way to Cherry Pick.
Meanwhile: Madoff is in Jail for life 2 Generals and two different cabinet officials have been forced to resign Seattle PD is under Justice Department microscope Book publishers forced to repay customers for price fixing BP pays huge fine and has Executives indicted Entire trading firms under indictment
Its a mixed bag. It always is.
1. Madoff ripped off rich people, nobody cared until he then.
2. Sex scandals don't count. They make such great news that everyone gets taken down by them.
3. It's a gov't agency. The rest of us are busy complaining about how private companies get away with murder (HSBC anyone?)
4. And the fine was still significantly less than the profits from the price fixing.
5. See above.
6. See above.
There's a phrase I don't hear often enough: Corporate Death Penalty.
If they're spending their all their time covering their asses instead of doing their jobs there's a reason, and it's because someone's out to get them. At least in the States the powers that be are doing a major push to put working class Americans at the throats of gov't workers that happen to still make a living wage. It's classic divide and conquer tactics. They do the same thing with race baiting.
The key to keeping the poor down is to keep pointing at someone else as the problem. The problem isn't that the rich have 80% of everything, it's those darn Bureaucrats/Unions/Negroes holdin' you back.
Put another way: A Bureaucrat, a Union guy and a Rich man are setting at a table with 10 apples. The Rich Man pulls 8 apples off the table, turns to the Union guy and says "Hey, that guy's gonna steal your apple".
The 3000HD and 4000HD integrated chips are about as good as what you get on a modern console (e.g. on par with a GT 240 with DDR5). That more or less solves the 'I bought a computer and can't play games' problem.
my Droid runs any app I want after checking 1 box, works with any bluetooth device I throw at it (gamepads, mice, keyboard) and has an SD card slot for storage. My only complaint is app devs that are too lazy to give me the option to install to SD (come on guys, it's 1 frickin' line in your manifest)!
is to survive Microsoft moving in on their territory. The Windows 8 App store is a scary thing...
the USSR was not, was never, and probably never will be a socialist country. It was and is a dictatorship that happens to use socialist rhetoric. China also falls into this. I think the best description for both is 'Kleptocracy', government run by thieves stealing for themselves. For a real socialist country see Canada and Germany.
While I'm on the subject, if socialism means nobody will work if they don't have to how come Mitt Romney still has a job?
after a lifetime of getting my ass kicked here I don't have enough to offer true socialist country (they do still have immigration standards). My education was pretty low quality (meant to keep me off the streets while I was young and potentially violent), my falling wages have left me in debt up to my ears with virtually no assets. The one asset I had (a house) is now worthless since I'm stuck moving every few years to go where the work is.
If you look at where creativity and innovation is coming from it's almost exclusively socialist countries. In reality You need a strong safe net to take those risks. The Mitt Romney's of the world never take risks. They're fathers and mothers and buddies shield them from all that.
at any rate I second the sentiment. It's not a War if there is no organized opposition. A few terrorists / Bunch 'o guys with guns != an armed force / Military.
a huge portion of the smog in any city is from cars idling in drive thru restaurants. So yeah, ban fast food and we all get cleaner air.
and point out that right up until about 1950 there was regular terrorism and atrocities perpetrated against minorities (not just blacks, we did the Irish until there was too many of them to be a minority). Basically, there used to be a socially acceptable whipping boy for this sort of thing, and we kinda don't like to talk about that...
that's not how it works. You go to a good school (Harvard, Yale, etc), make connections, and use those connections to become a CEO and get on the Board of Directors at companies. Seriously. That's the way it works. You're middle manager boss does not, in fact, run the world. No matter how much you hate him. It's an elite group of old money asshats.
they don't need you to buy their goods. If the top 1% already claim ownership over or most property in the world (which they're gradually doing, they're somewhere between 50% and 80% in the states) then why do they need you? They don't even have to bother selling you anything, because you don't have anything they want. They don't need your labor (there's already too much of that going around), you own nothing (because they own everything in this scenario). They don't need you.
Moreover, the quality of their lives is enriched by your poverty. People worship and idolize the rich. How does this make them feel? Good? Really good? What would it be like to live a life where you never have a conflict that isn't instantly and effortlessly resolved because you have so much wealth people fall over themselves to do as you say? That's what people mean when they say they want power. The want the ability to do as they please without consequences. For themselves anyway.
just another sign of it. Why should we outrace robots to survive just because we lost the vagina lottery? I keep hearing these conservatives spout off about how it'll never get that bad because they rich need us to buy their crap. That's the stupidest thing I've seen since the guy with the 'Keep the govmmit out of my medicare!' sign. Jeez, it's right there in you're economics -> Over supply of labor + shortage of Goods means the goods get more profitable to sell and cheaper to make. Notice how Apple computer is the most profitable company in history?
if you're at the low end (R4850, GT240, etc) AMD's stuff is pretty useless. They just crash a lot on everything except the biggest titles. It drive me nuts, because the grandparent is right, AMD has much, much better image quality. I've heard their high end ($300+) doesn't have this issue, but I'm old and broke (family and such) so that ain't happening.
if it's too good to be true it probably is.
Actually the newest displays are so high density most people's eyes can't resolve the pixels, so an iPad might as well be a vector monitor.
just tax the hell out of them. Believe it or not people aren't just going to leave this country. At least not if we don't send our Military to help them when they get in a bind in a foreign country. If they want to go home that's fine, but they don't get to take the ball. It's ours.
to get money out of the hands of the top and into the bottom? The top right now are using their wealth and privilege to gut companies' pensions and equity. Hostess is the current example, but remember Sci-Fi monthly and quarterlies? Every wonder what happened to Asimov's monthly magazine? The suits will tell you Americans just got dumber and stopped reading. Fact is somebody noticed that the company that distributed those monthly reading periodicals was stilling on a tonne of real estate that had appreciated in value over the years. They got bought up and liquidated for the short term profits. Every mag instantly lost their distribution network, and those guys run pay check to paycheck (real Americans there), so they went under.
How are you planning on dealing with those guys? The Bain capitals of the world? They completely break Capitalism, unless you're OK with the 'winner-take-all' approach.
there was a huge run on them in the early 2ghz processor era, which is probably when most of your PCs were from. Go get yourself an 800mhz pentium and watch how long it lasts. I'm sitting here typing on a 3 ghz Athlon 64 that's well over 5 because I bought a board that fixes the bad caps problem.
we just keep moving more and more of the wealth to the top, and let the rest of the world go to hell. If you're in the top 1% that's still 60 million people living like gods among men. The US middle class was really a fluke. First time in history. Before that a miniscule group of people took everything and the rest died of starvation and/or elements. I think the phrase is 'winner take all' economics...
Anyway, I guess my point is, people keep asking what's gonna happen when nobody can afford to buy stuff, ignoring the fact that the folks that own everything don't really care, because, well, they already own it all.
start socializing these profits and productivity gains. I'm just saying... otoh if somebody's got a better idea (that doesn't involve 90% of us dying of starvation) I'm all ears....
when you're a poor ass rust belt or New Orleans worker you live where you're born and you stay there because moving is expensive. I 140 miles for a job and it ended up costing me $2k. You are correct that it's awful that we bail out the rich while ignoring the poor though. Socialize the loses, privatize the profits.
Also, $60 Billion dollars really isn't a lot of money. It just seems like a lot because to one person it is. And I think my main point is that under Democratic leadership most of that $60 billion won't go to rebuilding $5+ million dollar homes. It'll go to rebuilding $50-$100k homes.
when you've already got a successful business. There's a reason most of Disney's stuff is retreads of old tales. It's much easier to sell something tried, true tested and familiar. Later on when you're established and you've got a steady flow of cash in payin' the bills you can get to real innovation. The thing people like to ignore is that most big innovation is built on past successes. Just about all the big guys in tech got there because their parents were well enough off to support them while they fucked around getting something off the ground. Try doing that around a 40-50 hour work schedule. Doesn't happen.
Disney et. all are monopolizing those stories. Hell, that Harry potter twat has sued people copying the framework of her stories that she herself stole.
Like Bain and the guys that did Hostess in are what's scaring me. Basically guys with money and connections come in, buy a company, and then immediately start raiding the pension funds and paying themselves huge consulting fees from the loans they take out on the business' good name. Then they blame the whole sodding mess on workers making 45k/yr and unions and shut the whole thing down and move it to Mexico where slave labor abounds.
br> These guys are what'll stop innovation. They've got it so good (because they're so damn rich) they don't care about innovation. They become intensely, frighteningly conservative. There what's moved the US so far right these days. They don't want anything to change since they're makin' out like bandits. Hell, they've made progress (as in 'progressive') a bad word...
this was pointed out during the recent storms (Sandy), and there were several pundits that pointed out that Democrats tended to staff FEMA with professional disaster management folks while the Republicans tended to give those positions out to friends, family and donors. That was why the disaster was as well handled as it was and didn't turn into New Orleans II: The Squeal.
The hard part about this is even though it's demonstrably true (it's easy to trace the reasons for the FEMA appointments under the two administrations) it's so outlandish to think that a man would appoint someone to such an important position for political points that people just don't believe you when you point it out. Even if you've got the evidence (google it) to back it up...