It should be obvious to anyone who can add 2+2 that if you have large wage differentials, then the nature of capitlism is to take advantage of those wage differentials and LOWER everyone's living std.
Yes, that certainly explains the perpetual decline in living standards since Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations.
go find the statistics on the change in inflation adjusted take home pay for the bottom two quintiles in the american workforce (e.g., people in the lower 40% of hte workforce by pay) over the last 30 years... you will find that for very large numbers of americans, things are not going the right way
Why don't you find those statistics? When you do, you'll see that even the poor are in fact getting richer, just not at the same rate as the rich. And that doesn't take into account the goods and services available today that weren't available 20, 50, or 100 years ago at *any* price.
Final note: even paul samuleson can learn to add; the "dean" of orthodoxy apparently thinks foreign trade is bad (any one have a link to his article in an academic journal ?)
This is of course false. Samuelson claims to show that if two nations are trading partners, and one of them increases its efficiency in producing a good that it currently imports, that may cause a net harm to the other country relative to the previous free-trade situation. He certainly does not claim that "foreign trade is bad".
Sorry to be so sarcastic, but this seems so obvious...capitilism, by its nature is heartless and vicious, and the intrinsic nature of capitilism is to race to the bottom
Then it appears capitalism has done a quite good job of flinging itself at the ground and missing.
Not true. The manufacturing output of the US and other first world nations has continuously increased, but fewer workers are needed due to greatly increased productivity. This is a good thing.
For example, it may be necessary, for the better of the society, to restrict the free market; capitalism is fine as a driver of economy, but at expense of the society. Many european countries took this road.
Which has resulted in *higher* unemployment. The market is by no means perfect, but it beats central planning almost every time.
You must be trolling. The labor force does not need "one more able body", it already has more than it can absorb.
Sorry, he's right. You've fallen for the lump of labor fallacy.
What will happen to millions of people who -only- are qualified to move boxes and count bills?
They should gain other skills. What happened to secretaries who were only qualified to use typewriters? Give them welfare if they need it, but don't hold back technology to keep them in make-work jobs.
Oni jumps up, wraps her legs around a guy's face and does a back flip
Her name is Konoko. Oni are mythical creatues in Japanese folklore. That may be a reference to Ghost in the Shell, to which the game's plot is very similar.
Not to mention Reason is a big "deregulate everything now!!!" nutcase group.
Um, they're fairly moderate liberatarians, who are not nutcases unless Mao is your idea of a centrist.
deregulation means crap on the radio
If by "crap" you mean "stuff that other people like but I don't", then yes, quite possibly. I don't see why the FCC should be imposing your individual preferences on the public though.
Of course they love Powell.
No, actually, they don't. Deregulation implies opposition to censorship, for example.
The same top-40 droning on and on with media companies buying up all the frequencies and ticket outlets. As long as Joe and Jane Sixpack get their Britney/flavor of the month fix they're happy
So the general public likes things that you don't. What exactly do you expect Powell to do about that?
Still, if the box says you have to agree to the EULA before using the software (lots of software seems to do this now) - you still can't use it.
The box can say that I'm the Prime Minister of Norway, but that doesn't make it true. 17 USC 117 states that it is not copyright infringment to use software that you've purchased, so you don't need anyone's permission.
And yes, the United States may really be one of the most hideous and oppresive societies to exist.
Yes, that would explain why Michael Moore was shipped off to Guantanamo. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you and the radical left look when you make these absurd statements? There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of Bush's policies, but you lose all credibility when spouting bullshit like the above.
Your last statement stands for that, by declaring dissent mentally ill
Which is of course not what he said. Dissent is one thing, claiming that the US is similar to the Third Reich is another. I wouldn't call it mental illness, but it does take a willful blindness to facts and logic, the same sort of thing we see in creationists. And yes, is it your right to believe whatever bizarre theories you like. Stormtroopers will not be coming for you in the middle of the night; sorry if that ruins your persecution fantasies.
It was either a millionaire, white, old, male, blue-blood, east-coast, lying, corrupt, big-government, big business Republicrat, or a millionaire, white, old, male, blue-blood, east-coast, lying, corrupt big government, big business Republicrat. Truly an historic event!
I strongly disagree. Texas is *not* on the east coast.
A few weeks ago Philadelphia City Councilman introduced a bill to ban small children from theaters in the city after 7PM, and (though it doesn't say it in the article) the MPAA is threatening lawsuits over it and screaming about unconstitutionality.
And I have to agree with them. Why shouldn't it be the theatre owner's decision?
In fairness, I sometimes enjoy the movie trailers...but they're still advertisements.
Sure, but they're advertisments done *right*; relevant and usually entertaining. That's why Apple uses them as a way to push Quicktime and iTunes, a double marketing combo. (Note to self: download Elektra trailers tonight).
An action that can hurt a few people vs one that can kill millions and cause untold billions of dollars of damage in one fell swoop. yes, they are about equal, aren't they.
You're right. They're not equal; driving is far more dangerous. Every year, millions of people take the risk of traveling in automobiles, and every year tens of thousands are killed. The economic losses from their lost productivity alone easily reach the billions, and again this is every year. When you rationally look at the exceptionally remote chance of a catastrophic nuclear accident, of which *zero* have occurred in the US or anywhere else with reasonable safety standards, it's not even close.
And I want a carbon tax on Greenhouse polluters, either from governments or their insurance companies, traded in an international pollution credit market, with steadily lowering caps.
Well, now you're starting to make some sense. Reducing externalities with Pigovian taxes, and allowing market forces rather than regulation to determine optimal solutions....that's practically libertarian. Works for me, but I doubt you'll get Greenpeace on board.
All its assets belong to Kim Jong Il, *including their nuclear weapons*. He is threatening South Korea, Japan, the US and thereby the world with nuclear weapons. His people are starving, his partnership with China is eroding, and he has little to lose - the most dangerous kind of madman.
Agreed. There's just one slight problem; as you point out, he has nuclear weapons. We can't invade North Korea like we did Iraq, unless we're willing to let Seoul (and possibly Tokyo and LA) get nuked, and we're not. Instead, Bush is pursuing diplomatic negotiations with NK and surrounding nations. Wasn't multilaterism supposed to be good? I'm curious as to your solution to the situation.
You somehow think the price of oil has gone down, when it's higher than it's ever been
Not when adjusted for inflation.
And swinging the "Conservative" segment of American TV watchers towards our own christian taliban state
Free advice: it's terms like "Christian Taliban" that are why you guys got your asses kicked in the election. (And no, I'm not a Christian, and strongly oppose the religious right on most social issues).
There is nothing paranoid, I understand it's "unlikely" to happen. I've lived less than ten miles from a nuclear plant most of my life. However, it IS a risk, and I don't feel it's one worth taking.
Well, it's certainly your right to irrationally evaluate potential risks. But I'm curious, do you ever get into a car?
I don't have time to deal with your substantial misunderstanding of economics, but as far as this goes:
I'm specifically talking about the local efforts to screw up the public schools, which are apparent. Just today I read that the latest anti-evolution efforts are in Missouri. It's not isolated, it's a pattern. A wedge, if you will. Conservatives take over the school boards and cause havoc.
Apply Hanlon's Razor. The religious right really does believe they're improving education by getting creationist nonsense into the classroom. That's one reason why so many of them send their kids to religious schools.
Understanding arithmetic is important. Being able to do it mentally isn't.
The two are often the same. How do you calculate 15% of $24? Take 10% by moving the decimal point, then add 5% by taking half of that amount: $2.40+$1.20=$3.60. If you understand the theory behind this, doing it mentally is easy and often faster than reaching for the calculator.
The conservatives screw up the schools because educated people want more money for their labor.
Educated people can get more money for their labor because they tend to be more productive. This is good for both the worker and employer.
Conservatives really want cheap labor, so they screw up the schools.
Pure drivel. First, I must have missed the part where conservatives took over the NEA. Second, suppose I'm one of your evil conservative businessmen who cares only for increasing my wealth. The best way to do this is to increase the difference between my workers' salaries and the amount of revenue they produce for my seal-clubbing business. I'd much rather pay somebody $75,000 to produce $100,000 in revenue than pay someone $10,000 to produce $20,000. I'd much rather have educated productive workers than ignorant unskilled ones.
So, they will screw up our schools with their funding cuts, their evolution attacks, their denigration.
RTFA. We're spending boatloads on public schools, with lousy results. Sorry if stating facts like that constitutes "denigration".
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It should be obvious to anyone who can add 2+2 that if you have large wage differentials, then the nature of capitlism is to take advantage of those wage differentials and LOWER everyone's living std.
Yes, that certainly explains the perpetual decline in living standards since Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations.
go find the statistics on the change in inflation adjusted take home pay for the bottom two quintiles in the american workforce (e.g., people in the lower 40% of hte workforce by pay) over the last 30 years... you will find that for very large numbers of americans, things are not going the right way
Why don't you find those statistics? When you do, you'll see that even the poor are in fact getting richer, just not at the same rate as the rich. And that doesn't take into account the goods and services available today that weren't available 20, 50, or 100 years ago at *any* price.
Final note: even paul samuleson can learn to add; the "dean" of orthodoxy apparently thinks foreign trade is bad (any one have a link to his article in an academic journal ?)
This is of course false. Samuelson claims to show that if two nations are trading partners, and one of them increases its efficiency in producing a good that it currently imports, that may cause a net harm to the other country relative to the previous free-trade situation. He certainly does not claim that "foreign trade is bad".
Sorry to be so sarcastic, but this seems so obvious...capitilism, by its nature is heartless and vicious, and the intrinsic nature of capitilism is to race to the bottom
Then it appears capitalism has done a quite good job of flinging itself at the ground and missing.
American manufacturing is in serious decline
Not true. The manufacturing output of the US and other first world nations has continuously increased, but fewer workers are needed due to greatly increased productivity. This is a good thing.
gas/oil has never been cheaper when adjusted for inflation
It's nowhere near the inflation-adjusted high, but it has been much cheaper. See here; as of today it's at around $41/barrel.
For example, it may be necessary, for the better of the society, to restrict the free market; capitalism is fine as a driver of economy, but at expense of the society. Many european countries took this road.
Which has resulted in *higher* unemployment. The market is by no means perfect, but it beats central planning almost every time.
You must be trolling. The labor force does not need "one more able body", it already has more than it can absorb.
Sorry, he's right. You've fallen for the lump of labor fallacy.
What will happen to millions of people who -only- are qualified to move boxes and count bills?
They should gain other skills. What happened to secretaries who were only qualified to use typewriters? Give them welfare if they need it, but don't hold back technology to keep them in make-work jobs.
Oni jumps up, wraps her legs around a guy's face and does a back flip
Her name is Konoko. Oni are mythical creatues in Japanese folklore. That may be a reference to Ghost in the Shell, to which the game's plot is very similar.
And the 'orbital orgy' just replaced Natalie Portman as bedtime fantasy for geeks everywhere...
Not like they're mutually exclusive...
Not to mention Reason is a big "deregulate everything now!!!" nutcase group.
Um, they're fairly moderate liberatarians, who are not nutcases unless Mao is your idea of a centrist.
deregulation means crap on the radio
If by "crap" you mean "stuff that other people like but I don't", then yes, quite possibly. I don't see why the FCC should be imposing your individual preferences on the public though.
Of course they love Powell.
No, actually, they don't. Deregulation implies opposition to censorship, for example.
The same top-40 droning on and on with media companies buying up all the frequencies and ticket outlets. As long as Joe and Jane Sixpack get their Britney/flavor of the month fix they're happy
So the general public likes things that you don't. What exactly do you expect Powell to do about that?
Still, if the box says you have to agree to the EULA before using the software (lots of software seems to do this now) - you still can't use it.
The box can say that I'm the Prime Minister of Norway, but that doesn't make it true. 17 USC 117 states that it is not copyright infringment to use software that you've purchased, so you don't need anyone's permission.
By clicking OK you have accepted the EULA.
Where was that specified? Only in the EULA itself, which I didn't agree too. Bit of a bootstrapping problem there...
And yes, the United States may really be one of the most hideous and oppresive societies to exist.
Yes, that would explain why Michael Moore was shipped off to Guantanamo. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you and the radical left look when you make these absurd statements? There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of Bush's policies, but you lose all credibility when spouting bullshit like the above.
Your last statement stands for that, by declaring dissent mentally ill
Which is of course not what he said. Dissent is one thing, claiming that the US is similar to the Third Reich is another. I wouldn't call it mental illness, but it does take a willful blindness to facts and logic, the same sort of thing we see in creationists. And yes, is it your right to believe whatever bizarre theories you like. Stormtroopers will not be coming for you in the middle of the night; sorry if that ruins your persecution fantasies.
That is what happens with the FCC today. It is used -by- the people who it was originally created to defend -against-.
Exactly. It's called regulatory capture.
Tell me, how long do you have to work to earn a bowl of rice? In China or Cuba the bowl of rice is given freely
Fascinating. And where does this "free" rice come from?
Make a wrapper program to create the playing field, instantiate as many 'agents' as you see fit, and let them loose. Tweak, rinse, repeat.
Better yet, use a simulation environment like breve and you get 3d rendering, collision detection, basic physics, and a lot more for free.
It was either a millionaire, white, old, male, blue-blood, east-coast, lying, corrupt, big-government, big business Republicrat, or a millionaire, white, old, male, blue-blood, east-coast, lying, corrupt big government, big business Republicrat. Truly an historic event!
I strongly disagree. Texas is *not* on the east coast.
A few weeks ago Philadelphia City Councilman introduced a bill to ban small children from theaters in the city after 7PM, and (though it doesn't say it in the article) the MPAA is threatening lawsuits over it and screaming about unconstitutionality.
And I have to agree with them. Why shouldn't it be the theatre owner's decision?
In fairness, I sometimes enjoy the movie trailers...but they're still advertisements.
Sure, but they're advertisments done *right*; relevant and usually entertaining. That's why Apple uses them as a way to push Quicktime and iTunes, a double marketing combo. (Note to self: download Elektra trailers tonight).
An action that can hurt a few people vs one that can kill millions and cause untold billions of dollars of damage in one fell swoop. yes, they are about equal, aren't they.
You're right. They're not equal; driving is far more dangerous. Every year, millions of people take the risk of traveling in automobiles, and every year tens of thousands are killed. The economic losses from their lost productivity alone easily reach the billions, and again this is every year. When you rationally look at the exceptionally remote chance of a catastrophic nuclear accident, of which *zero* have occurred in the US or anywhere else with reasonable safety standards, it's not even close.
And I want a carbon tax on Greenhouse polluters, either from governments or their insurance companies, traded in an international pollution credit market, with steadily lowering caps.
Well, now you're starting to make some sense. Reducing externalities with Pigovian taxes, and allowing market forces rather than regulation to determine optimal solutions....that's practically libertarian. Works for me, but I doubt you'll get Greenpeace on board.
All its assets belong to Kim Jong Il, *including their nuclear weapons*. He is threatening South Korea, Japan, the US and thereby the world with nuclear weapons. His people are starving, his partnership with China is eroding, and he has little to lose - the most dangerous kind of madman.
Agreed. There's just one slight problem; as you point out, he has nuclear weapons. We can't invade North Korea like we did Iraq, unless we're willing to let Seoul (and possibly Tokyo and LA) get nuked, and we're not. Instead, Bush is pursuing diplomatic negotiations with NK and surrounding nations. Wasn't multilaterism supposed to be good? I'm curious as to your solution to the situation.
You somehow think the price of oil has gone down, when it's higher than it's ever been
Not when adjusted for inflation.
And swinging the "Conservative" segment of American TV watchers towards our own christian taliban state
Free advice: it's terms like "Christian Taliban" that are why you guys got your asses kicked in the election. (And no, I'm not a Christian, and strongly oppose the religious right on most social issues).
There is nothing paranoid, I understand it's "unlikely" to happen. I've lived less than ten miles from a nuclear plant most of my life. However, it IS a risk, and I don't feel it's one worth taking.
Well, it's certainly your right to irrationally evaluate potential risks. But I'm curious, do you ever get into a car?
I don't have time to deal with your substantial misunderstanding of economics, but as far as this goes:
I'm specifically talking about the local efforts to screw up the public schools, which are apparent. Just today I read that the latest anti-evolution efforts are in Missouri. It's not isolated, it's a pattern. A wedge, if you will. Conservatives take over the school boards and cause havoc.
Apply Hanlon's Razor. The religious right really does believe they're improving education by getting creationist nonsense into the classroom. That's one reason why so many of them send their kids to religious schools.
Understanding arithmetic is important. Being able to do it mentally isn't.
The two are often the same. How do you calculate 15% of $24? Take 10% by moving the decimal point, then add 5% by taking half of that amount: $2.40+$1.20=$3.60. If you understand the theory behind this, doing it mentally is easy and often faster than reaching for the calculator.
The conservatives screw up the schools because educated people want more money for their labor.
Educated people can get more money for their labor because they tend to be more productive. This is good for both the worker and employer.
Conservatives really want cheap labor, so they screw up the schools.
Pure drivel. First, I must have missed the part where conservatives took over the NEA. Second, suppose I'm one of your evil conservative businessmen who cares only for increasing my wealth. The best way to do this is to increase the difference between my workers' salaries and the amount of revenue they produce for my seal-clubbing business. I'd much rather pay somebody $75,000 to produce $100,000 in revenue than pay someone $10,000 to produce $20,000. I'd much rather have educated productive workers than ignorant unskilled ones.
So, they will screw up our schools with their funding cuts, their evolution attacks, their denigration.
RTFA. We're spending boatloads on public schools, with lousy results. Sorry if stating facts like that constitutes "denigration".