Re:which taxes? Income taxes? Social Security tax?
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Tech Rich Get Richer
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· Score: 1
What's so complicated about a progressive tax system? There are a lot of valid arguments against a progressive system, but complexity isn't one of them. Under a progressive system, you figure out what your taxable income is, then you apply different rules based on what income range you fall in. Sure it is easier to multiply by a constant factor, but I don't see how it is that much harder to do a table lookup to determine which of many factors to apply.
The complexity of the tax system is the loopholes added to it. Governments can't help tinkering with the system, trying to influence how people earn and spend their money. I think a progressive tax system with no deductions would be easier than a system similar to what we have now with a single rate. The problem with the current system is its attempt to favour capital gains or dividend income over interest or employment income. If there were only one type of income, that would remove half the complexity of the system; and eliminating deductions would remove the rest of the complications. Replacing a progressive rate with a single rate would hardly make any difference at all.
Re:which taxes? Income taxes? Social Security tax?
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Tech Rich Get Richer
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· Score: 1
Well, I think that you are only partly responsible for your success. Not all of your success is due to your own efforts; some part of everyone's success consists of luck, of genetics, of parents, of just being in the right place at the right time.
I think most rich people are luckier (to give a name to the collection of all unearned advantages) than most poor people. People ought to contribute to society based on how much of a sacrifice it is to them. I think that as a rough average, it is easier for rich people to make money than poor people; and therefore that the rich can spare it more easily, and should pay a bigger share.
I don't think everyone deserves to have the same income. Even if they did, it is simple common sense to figure that people wouldn't bother working if they got a paycheck either way. I just think that some sort of progressive tax system does a better job of compensating people for their bad luck by taxing people that have had good luck. There is no way you can measure something like that, but don't think a flat tax system is as fair.
I will admit that your position is easier to defend.
Programmers don't give their effort away; they are just bartering for software. I don't see why it is better to program for money so that you can buy software than it is to just program for software directly. There are not that many programmers that work on pure software products; most write custom software to run the company or to run the products the company sells. The only thing that changes with open source software is that you can't make money just selling the software; you have to sell a software-powered device, or sell services.
IT-companies will have to pay western-level salaries if they want western-level results. I think management currently thinks that their efforts are the only important contribution to the success of companies, and think that all those under them are interchangeable cogs. It isn't true, and eventually management will clue in that the little people are valuable. Outsourcing is another bubble that will burst, and management will start "insourcing" again; but you just know they will be getting bonuses for implementing yet another business overhaul.
Re:which taxes? Income taxes? Social Security tax?
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Tech Rich Get Richer
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· Score: 1
Well, since the tax cut is financed by a deficit, it is giving money away; or more correctly, transferring money from future taxpayers to today's taxpayers, with a little extra interest paid to the rich (and foreigners) who are financing the cut.
As far as "reeking" of redistribution, what's wrong with that? Aren't we all part of a society? Aren't the strong supposed to help the weak? Shouldn't the lucky help the unlucky? Why shouldn't the rich help the poor?
Well don't worry too much about your $38,000 working dad. He may not be able to make ends meet; but he can borrow money to keep up his standard of living. Maybe he can refinance his mortgage to take advantage of its increase in value. Borrowing is easy now that rich people have the extra money to invest.
Society should get a cut of the riches that it creates. Bill Gates would have nothing without copyright laws and a police system to enforce them. Bill Gates, being the richest man in the world, has benefited from the rules of American society; why shouldn't he repay a good chunk of that fortune?
Re:which taxes? Income taxes? Social Security tax?
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Tech Rich Get Richer
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I still don't get why rich people would invest their money in expanding businesses if no one can afford to buy anything. Which is better, giving the money to the rich for them to invest in products they think people will buy; or giving the money to people to spend, and thereby directly showing what products they are interested in buying? The dot com bubble was all about people investing in businesses that had no customers; did the Bush administration think this was a good thing?
So why would rich people stop hiring just because they have to pay taxes? So far, given the millions of jobs that have disappeared over the last few years, I'd say cutting taxes for the rich does not create jobs.
I find it very interesting that we're told we must all sacrifice and work extra hard in this tough economic environment. We don't need extra money, we're just happy to have a job. Yet this sort of thing doesn't work with the rich; they need cash for motivation.
The slow decline in salaries is what allowed this to happen! Profits may be getting smaller; but through layoffs, management can grab a larger share and maintain their income.
And why shouldn't they? It's when times are bad like this that management really has to work hard. I'd say CEO's have to work twice as hard these days, and should have double the salary they did when times were easy a few years ago.
It may be a nation of idiots, but they all like faster better than slower. If broadband cost the same as dial-up, that's what everyone would have. Since broadband costs substantially more, why are you surprised that no one is buying it?
To see this in action, consider Canada. I think there are just as many idiots in Canada as the U.S.; but I pay about $40 a month for high speed cable (I could pay $25 a month for 128 kbit cable). Dial-up is typically $15-25 a month. It isn't hard to choose high-speed (and get hooked on it:-).
Fill in those blanks with your local charges; where I bet dial-up is cheaper than in Canada and broadband is more expensive. Are Americans really idiots for comparing the prices and giving broadband as pass?
I read the law and I don't see where it says the source of a copy has to be an original. I think it is legal to make another copy of any copy.
But, I still don't think file sharing is legal. The person making a copy is acting legally, but the person providing the data (by making their hard drive accessible) is probably illegally distributing the work. The copyright law specifically states that copying is not legal if done for "distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade" or for "communicating to the public by telecommunication". I suspect this makes file-sharing illegal, not that the copy on a hard drive is not an original. Even if file sharing is not considered distribution, it might be an unlicensed broadcast, or something else listed in the act.
Now I think this law is rather reasonable. It allows a reasonable amount of file-sharing, but by requiring everyone to pass around physical copies; it puts a limit on how widely music can be shared. I don't think low levels of file sharing hurt the RIAA, in fact I think it boosts sales; the RIAA should look at passing a law like this in the U.S. If the RIAA allowed reasonable copying (like the Canadian law), while cracking down severely on Internet file sharing, I think both sides of this issue would be happy.
As I understand the law, you can make a personal copy for your own use. But that is only one half of the file sharing equation. Making a copy is legal; providing a copy is not necessarily legal, it is probably distribution.
There is another interesting wrinkle to this issue as well. The levy that is collected on blank media is distributed to Canadian artists (only). I suspect this is a rather good money maker for them since I'll bet most copying is from non-Canadian artists.
It also makes me very angry that companies are trying to sell copy-protected CD's in Canada. I have a legal right to copy, which I will not yield by buying crippled CD's. If the RIAA wants to sell CD's to me, they'd better be standard CD's.
The proposed decriminalization bill is just plain stupid. Decriminalizing possession of small amounts helps pot-users, but does nothing to improve the situation for non-users.
Pot prohibition is what creates the illegal profits that keep the Hell's Angels, terrorists, and other organized crime going. It is also the cause of the dangerous home grow operations; people don't gut houses and put in lights to grow tomatoes. If production remains illegal, people that don't use pot will still have to deal with the problems caused by prohibition; which might even get worse if possession is decriminalized.
The Senate Committee had it right; the only logical thing to do is legalize the stuff. Every bit of evidence we have shows that there is no correlation between the severity of drug laws and the amount of drugs used. That means that we can't pass laws to stop it (any more than we could stop the use of alcohol). All we can do is control how it is produced; and we've decided to leave that to criminals!
Possession of fewer than 30 grams of pot is sort of legal right now, with no penalties, not even a fine.
The pot laws were struck down because they were deemed to be unconstitutional. About 3 years ago, a person went to court to get access to marihuana, arguing that he had a constitutional right to use it as medicine. The court agreed, and said the government should pass a new law that allows him legal access to pot. The court ordered that the law be struck down after a year, to give the government time to pass a new law. After 364 days, the government introduced a new regulation outlining how access to medical marihuana would be awarded.
About a year later (about 6 months ago), a 15 year old was arrested for possession of pot, but charges were dismissed because the judge decided that the law against possession had been struck down; introducing a regulation did not replace the law. Since the part of the law that made possession illegal was struck down, it is no longer illegal to possess pot. The police can still arrest you for pot possession; but if the case ever goes to trial, the charges will be dismissed. In most areas, the police have stopped arresting people for pot possession; but some jurisdictions still do, they will defer prosecution until after a new law is passed.
The decriminalization law you mention has not been passed yet, and until it does, you cannot be convicted of pot possession. The "decriminalization" bill is actually a bill to re-criminalize pot. The current political speculation is that it probably won't be passed until after Paul Martin calls an election. Since the bill will "die on the order papers" when parliament is dissolved for the election, it is likely we won't see a new pot law for at least a year. If this particular bill does get passed into law, possession of small amounts will result in a fine. All the other aspects of marihuana prohibition, like production, will remain jail-worthy offenses; in fact the penalties have been increased for most non-possession crimes.
A bit of commentary on all of this: The government has an interesting pattern of delaying changes to the drug law as much as possible; I can only guess this is so the politicians won't have to actually make any decisions. Like the recent gay marriage situation, Parliament has known for years that there is a constitutional problem with the law, yet would rather wait for the courts to strike down the law before acting. It is notable that the new pot law does not address medical marihuana in any way; I'm guessing that is a deliberate error to ensure at least a few more years of Supreme Court trials before the politicians actually have to decide anything.
A few months ago, the Supreme Court heard a few non-medical marihuana cases, and the judgments are due soon. I'm guessing they will add additional fuel to the marihuana issue, and the government will probably be forced to pass a more liberal law than the current decriminalization bill; if only to directly address the issue of medical marihuana.
I still disagree with you about how well off people are now compared to our parent's generation; but you are correct to point out that distribution issues matter too. It doesn't really matter if GDP increases, if the increase is restricted to the rich.
I live in Canada, but like everyone else in the world, I am well exposed to what is happening in America. I think you are all screwed until you get rid of Bush. All he ever talks about is averages; so he talks about an average tax cut of $2000 and lets people misunderstand average to mean typical. If people knew what the median tax cut was (and therefore had some idea of how it was distributed), they'd see that the benefits all go to a few rich people, and maybe complain. I am amazed that under his leadership, rich investors get tax breaks on their dividends and capital gains, who can then invest that money; while poor and middle-class people refinance their mortgages to keep on spending. This system guarantees that inequality will increase over time.
I think a "jackpot" mentality has entered society. All our supposed role models are people who have struck it rich. A few musicians and athletes become rich, and everyone is supposed to think it is fair that the majority of the reward goes to a few at the top of the pyramid and there is next to nothing for those below. A 1% chance for $5,000,000 a year is not the same as a 100% chance for $50,000 a year, even if gamblers would say it is. I can only think that the majority of people don't care if the rich get all the breaks because they figure they'll be able to cash in too, when they strike it rich.
Canada seems to be a little more European in outlook. Canada still has a (shrinking) middle class and most people aspire to be middle class rather than rich. Pro-American commentators usually complain about this as a lack of drive and a sign of mediocrity (a friend's favourite saying is "Good enough for Canada"), compared to a U.S. characterized by ambition and successful risk-taking. I'm not sure which system will work out better in the end; but we are not going to determine that by looking at the average standard of living, which is significantly higher in the U.S.; but by looking at the median standard of living, which is much more equal (but still in America's favour).
I aimed for the middle class, and I even hit the top end of that range by being a programmer. But I am seeing the same things as you. My company was bought, the new management said they recognized that we grunts that knew the business were important and our jobs would be saved. Yet, as you'd expect, only managers were given retention bonuses and fewer than 6 months passed before we were all laid off. At least Canadian law ensured that I was paid a generous severance for my 12+ years with the company (which the new company complained about!). This wouldn't be so aggravating if management ever had to pay for their mistakes; as I am sure the current outsourcing fad will turn out to be. But managers get rewarded for every change they implement; they'll get fat bonuses for outsourcing, then they'll get fat bonuses when they recognized their mistake and hire people again. This is what happens when there is no check on the power of rich people.
Avoiding debt gives you a higher standard of living and really isn't that hard to do. To a first approximation, people spend all the money they make in their life. If you are impatient, and buy everything on credit, then you add an additional 20% (or more) cost to everything because of the interest payments.
On the other hand, if you have a little patience and save before buying things, you'll save all that interest. You don't get very far ahead with credit, since you can only buy stuff until your credit limit is reached. That means that after you are in debt to the hilt, you are in the same boat as the debt-avoiders; you must save before you can buy anything else.
So compare the two cases. The smart alternative is that you suffer a little in the beginning until you save enough to buy stuff the first time; after that, you replace or fix out of money you save. The more common alternative is to buy until your credit is maxed out, then save until you can replace or fix things, all the while wasting money on interest. I think it is clear that if you can avoid debt at the beginning, and suffer a bit for the first few years of your working life, you'll end up with more stuff in the end by avoiding interest payments. After the first few years of sacrifice, you'll be able to buy more stuff and buy it sooner than if you'd resorted to credit.
Unfortunately, the credit trap occurs right at the beginning of your working life, when you have student loan payments, and you are tempted to leave your impoverished student lifestyle now that you're working. If you're lucky, your parents warn you about this trap; but isn't this important enough to teach everyone in high school? I am convinced that "home economics" ought to be the most important subject they can teach you in school. Avoiding debt will probably increase your standard of living more than any other subject they teach.
I had the same sorts of experiences with my friends when I was in University. They'd ask me why I had so much nice stereo equipment, and I'd tell them I didn't have a car. It is amazing how much cars cost to run; and that's for people like me that keep a car until it dies. I pity the fools that lease, thus combining two very expensive habits: buying on credit and constantly buying new cars.
Umm, you said we are the first generation with a lower standard of living, not that we WILL be the first generation with a lower standard of living. I'll bet your current lifestyle is better than what your parents had at the equivalent point in their life.
Old foggy rant: kids these days expect to match what their parents have as soon as they start working. They forget that their parents had to work and save for decades to get what they have now.
At any rate, you shouldn't listen to the fear-mongers. Why do you expect that our generation will have a lower standard of living? Yes, individuals are harmed by changes in the economy, and maybe you'll be harmed by the latest changes; but every other change in history has resulted in a higher average standard of living. I'd hate to give up my chance for a share of a higher standard of living in order to preserve your current standard of living.
You are not correct that jobs always go to the lower wage country. Wages in Canada are generally lower than in the U.S., but during the tech bubble, many Canadian businesses were bought and the jobs were transferred to the U.S. At the time there was a management fad that thought that all your employees had to be together in the same place.
Now we have a fad for outsourcing, and Canada is again bypassed to go to places even cheaper. It is never good to be in the middle:-)
Before Americans get too riled up about the Indians, they should perhaps examine their own history of buying companies and moving them to the U.S. American immigration laws prevented employees of those companies from following "their" jobs too. They might also reflect on where the revenue that pays their wages comes from, maybe foreigners think they are entitled to share some of the wages that their purchases make possible.
As far as I am concerned, Americans are just getting a taste of what other countries have gone through the last few years. Americans disproportionally benefited from the tech bubble and may have a false idea of how much they are really worth.
The industrial revolution was about replacing people with machines. I can assure you that the wages for a machine are much lower than for people. So where did all those jobs go when machines replaced people? Clerks used to copy out documents by hand, now we have photocopiers. In every trade or technological revolution we have had so far, the standard of living increased and everyone still had jobs at the end (and much more interesting ones than before machines). Are you saying that people today have a lower standard of living than before the industrial revolution? Or at any other time in history?
Immigration is no different than having babies; actually immigrants are cheaper because taxpayers in a different country financed their education. An extra person is an extra mouth to feed, so he decreases the standard of living; but he is also an extra worker, so he is an extra set of hands. So far, we've always found a good use for those extra hands.
People who emphasize the loss of jobs just want to keep the system the way it is. We should be suspicious when wealthy company owners (or overpaid workers) try to scare us into shielding them from competition. If we keep things the way they are, our standard of living will stay the same as well. Those benefiting from the system now may be happy, but every other time the economy has changed the overall standard of living has gone up. I'd hate to trade in a chance for things to get better in order to prop up a bunch of people that got rich from exploiting an earlier revolution.
I've even made all my arguments using the current fad of only looking at one side of the business equation. Everyone concentrates on the supply side (or jobs) and ignores the consumption side (or prices). When wages go down, so can prices. Preserving jobs means preserving higher prices, and that sacrifices the likely increase in the standard of living that results from lower prices. Protectionism costs money, either directly through subsidies or indirectly through artificially high prices; we need to look at how much worse we would be from higher prices before we decide to preserve higher wages (and profits) for a few. I doubt protectionism is ever a net benefit to society.
They count hacker attacks, although without knowing the relative numbers of servers we don't know which O/S is better.
But what about vender attacks, like patches that crash the server, or the DoS attacks that happen when a server is taken off-line for patching? And surely a precautionary disconnect when there is a MS virus storm has to count as a successful DoS attack.
I'll quibble a little about personal debt being different than the trade deficit; it isn't.
Define imports = what you buy from others; exports = what you create while doing your job; and debt is debt. International trade just adds a new distinction based on whether you are selling, buying, or borrowing from a foreigner or a local.
If you wanted, you could tally up your own trade balance by tracking which foreigners you do business with. I know my personal exports amount to about 95% of my personal GDP and my imports are much less than that. My debt payments are all domestic, so I'd guess I am running a fairly big trade surplus:-)
The jobs don't go away, they just change. Or more correctly, the jobs never went away in the past, so why would they go away now?
Millions of farming jobs have disappeared; millions of programming jobs have been created. Which are the better jobs? Do we even care that so many fewer people are milking cows?
I'll also point out that globalization creates jobs. Microsoft couldn't employ as many people if they could only sell to the U.S. market. In fact, the entire tech industry has been collecting money from the rest of the world and using it to pay American workers. Maybe those other countries resent the fact that their workers, who are just as good as American workers but are willing to work for less, can't find work because of protectionism in America. Free market principles say the cheapest and best is supposed to win. Just a few short years ago, the U.S. unemployment rate was hitting decade lows, and under pretty much the same system of globalization we have now. Maybe the job losses are not due to globalization, but due to a crummy economy.
Preserving the jobs we have now means shielding companies from competition, which means rewarding the owners of those inefficient businesses. Everyone (but the company owner) is worse off when inefficient businesses are protected; everyone pays more than they should and employees are wasting their time when they could be doing something more valuable.
Re:You have a foul grasp of economics...
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No Americans Need Apply
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· Score: 2, Interesting
When you lend money, you exchange pieces of paper (or more likely, numbers in a database) for real goods that you can use. Debt is a promise to repay; you have the goods, the seller has promises.
Yes, eventually you will have to repay those loans, but in the meantime you can improve your economy by spending the loaned money wisely, or you can use it to pay for bread and circuses until the repayments start. Smart businesses, consumers and governments will not borrow money except to smooth temporary cash flow difficulties or to invest in money-making capital goods. It doesn't matter what you do with the wealth that other countries are lending to you via the trade deficit; the goods you import, and the net investments that you get increase the current wealth of the country. If you invest that wealth wisely, you'll be able to repay those loans and be better off.
And don't be so sure that the debt won't turn into a permanent wealth increase. If the debt is repaid when the exchange rate is lower than when it was invested, there will be a permanent transfer of wealth.
You are wrong, foreign trade is currently increasing the wealth of Americans. America is running a trade deficit of about $500 billion a year with the rest of the world. That means that American is receiving $500 billion more in goods and investments than it is giving back to the rest of the world. It seems to me that globalization is making Americans more wealthy to the tune of $500 billion a year.
Globalism, like all other types of trade, increases wealth. Companies that charge less for goods gain business, companies that are less efficient lose business (and eventually go on to do something they are relatively better at). Everyone gains when they get more for their money when competition drives prices down.
Oddly, everyone focuses on the loss of jobs in uncompetitive industries and ignores the benefits of cheaper, better-quality goods. It is interesting that everyone focuses on the half of the trade equation that hurts rich company owners (loss of business), and ignores the benefits that increased competition brings to everyone else; I wonder why?
If buying goods manufactured outside of my country is bad, when is it good to trade? Should I only purchase goods manufactured in my home Province? Within my home city? Within my family? I guess I can conclude that the best thing for me to do is to grow my own food and manufacture everything I use, then all the benefits of job creation will go to me alone. I don't think you would agree that everyone would be richer if they never traded with anyone, so where do you stop? We accept that competition and specialization within a country is a good thing; why stop at the border?
Let's suppose you are correct and copyright infringement is the same as stealing. Where does that assumption lead us?
Copyright infringement is unauthorized copying that is not "fair use". The fair use description in the law is a little vague, but the important point is that if copying financially harms the copyright holder, it is probably not fair use. So, according to the copyright law, I am likely to be "stealing" if I deprive the copyright holder of revenue by my actions.
So, does this mean that anytime I deprive a company of revenue, I am stealing? Suppose I am willing to pay $20 for a CD, but I buy it on sale for $10; I just deprived the company of $10 it could have made from me, and therefore I stole $10 from the company. If it is stealing to pay $0 for something I would pay $10 for, it is stealing to pay $10 for something I am willing to pay $20 for. Note that this reasoning doesn't extend to paying $0 for something when that thing cost someone else money or effort to create; that is depriving someone of real revenue, not potential revenue.
Now, I think copyright infringement is wrong, but it is breaking the law, which is not the same as stealing. If we accept the RIAA's contention that depriving them of potential revenue is stealing, we are conceding too much. If the RIAA is given the legal and technical power to guarantee that they receive all possible revenue; no one will ever pay less than they are willing for music. At some point, bargaining for a better price changes from a lawful activity into unlawful activity; but surely it shouldn't be considered stealing simply because you deprive a company of potential revenue.
Don't be that cynical. At least the Supreme Court strikes down the occasional law that is unconstitutional; whether the rich or even the majority of people want the law or not. There is one segment of the government that is interested in fairness and places some limits on how much the government can pander to the rich.
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What's so complicated about a progressive tax system? There are a lot of valid arguments against a progressive system, but complexity isn't one of them. Under a progressive system, you figure out what your taxable income is, then you apply different rules based on what income range you fall in. Sure it is easier to multiply by a constant factor, but I don't see how it is that much harder to do a table lookup to determine which of many factors to apply.
The complexity of the tax system is the loopholes added to it. Governments can't help tinkering with the system, trying to influence how people earn and spend their money. I think a progressive tax system with no deductions would be easier than a system similar to what we have now with a single rate. The problem with the current system is its attempt to favour capital gains or dividend income over interest or employment income. If there were only one type of income, that would remove half the complexity of the system; and eliminating deductions would remove the rest of the complications. Replacing a progressive rate with a single rate would hardly make any difference at all.
Well, I think that you are only partly responsible for your success. Not all of your success is due to your own efforts; some part of everyone's success consists of luck, of genetics, of parents, of just being in the right place at the right time.
I think most rich people are luckier (to give a name to the collection of all unearned advantages) than most poor people. People ought to contribute to society based on how much of a sacrifice it is to them. I think that as a rough average, it is easier for rich people to make money than poor people; and therefore that the rich can spare it more easily, and should pay a bigger share.
I don't think everyone deserves to have the same income. Even if they did, it is simple common sense to figure that people wouldn't bother working if they got a paycheck either way. I just think that some sort of progressive tax system does a better job of compensating people for their bad luck by taxing people that have had good luck. There is no way you can measure something like that, but don't think a flat tax system is as fair.
I will admit that your position is easier to defend.
Programmers don't give their effort away; they are just bartering for software. I don't see why it is better to program for money so that you can buy software than it is to just program for software directly. There are not that many programmers that work on pure software products; most write custom software to run the company or to run the products the company sells. The only thing that changes with open source software is that you can't make money just selling the software; you have to sell a software-powered device, or sell services.
IT-companies will have to pay western-level salaries if they want western-level results. I think management currently thinks that their efforts are the only important contribution to the success of companies, and think that all those under them are interchangeable cogs. It isn't true, and eventually management will clue in that the little people are valuable. Outsourcing is another bubble that will burst, and management will start "insourcing" again; but you just know they will be getting bonuses for implementing yet another business overhaul.
Well, since the tax cut is financed by a deficit, it is giving money away; or more correctly, transferring money from future taxpayers to today's taxpayers, with a little extra interest paid to the rich (and foreigners) who are financing the cut.
As far as "reeking" of redistribution, what's wrong with that? Aren't we all part of a society? Aren't the strong supposed to help the weak? Shouldn't the lucky help the unlucky? Why shouldn't the rich help the poor?
Well don't worry too much about your $38,000 working dad. He may not be able to make ends meet; but he can borrow money to keep up his standard of living. Maybe he can refinance his mortgage to take advantage of its increase in value. Borrowing is easy now that rich people have the extra money to invest.
Society should get a cut of the riches that it creates. Bill Gates would have nothing without copyright laws and a police system to enforce them. Bill Gates, being the richest man in the world, has benefited from the rules of American society; why shouldn't he repay a good chunk of that fortune?
I still don't get why rich people would invest their money in expanding businesses if no one can afford to buy anything. Which is better, giving the money to the rich for them to invest in products they think people will buy; or giving the money to people to spend, and thereby directly showing what products they are interested in buying? The dot com bubble was all about people investing in businesses that had no customers; did the Bush administration think this was a good thing?
So why would rich people stop hiring just because they have to pay taxes? So far, given the millions of jobs that have disappeared over the last few years, I'd say cutting taxes for the rich does not create jobs.
I find it very interesting that we're told we must all sacrifice and work extra hard in this tough economic environment. We don't need extra money, we're just happy to have a job. Yet this sort of thing doesn't work with the rich; they need cash for motivation.
The slow decline in salaries is what allowed this to happen! Profits may be getting smaller; but through layoffs, management can grab a larger share and maintain their income.
And why shouldn't they? It's when times are bad like this that management really has to work hard. I'd say CEO's have to work twice as hard these days, and should have double the salary they did when times were easy a few years ago.
It may be a nation of idiots, but they all like faster better than slower. If broadband cost the same as dial-up, that's what everyone would have. Since broadband costs substantially more, why are you surprised that no one is buying it?
:-).
To see this in action, consider Canada. I think there are just as many idiots in Canada as the U.S.; but I pay about $40 a month for high speed cable (I could pay $25 a month for 128 kbit cable). Dial-up is typically $15-25 a month. It isn't hard to choose high-speed (and get hooked on it
Fill in those blanks with your local charges; where I bet dial-up is cheaper than in Canada and broadband is more expensive. Are Americans really idiots for comparing the prices and giving broadband as pass?
IANAL either.
I read the law and I don't see where it says the source of a copy has to be an original. I think it is legal to make another copy of any copy.
But, I still don't think file sharing is legal. The person making a copy is acting legally, but the person providing the data (by making their hard drive accessible) is probably illegally distributing the work. The copyright law specifically states that copying is not legal if done for "distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade" or for "communicating to the public by telecommunication". I suspect this makes file-sharing illegal, not that the copy on a hard drive is not an original. Even if file sharing is not considered distribution, it might be an unlicensed broadcast, or something else listed in the act.
Now I think this law is rather reasonable. It allows a reasonable amount of file-sharing, but by requiring everyone to pass around physical copies; it puts a limit on how widely music can be shared. I don't think low levels of file sharing hurt the RIAA, in fact I think it boosts sales; the RIAA should look at passing a law like this in the U.S. If the RIAA allowed reasonable copying (like the Canadian law), while cracking down severely on Internet file sharing, I think both sides of this issue would be happy.
As I understand the law, you can make a personal copy for your own use. But that is only one half of the file sharing equation. Making a copy is legal; providing a copy is not necessarily legal, it is probably distribution.
There is another interesting wrinkle to this issue as well. The levy that is collected on blank media is distributed to Canadian artists (only). I suspect this is a rather good money maker for them since I'll bet most copying is from non-Canadian artists.
It also makes me very angry that companies are trying to sell copy-protected CD's in Canada. I have a legal right to copy, which I will not yield by buying crippled CD's. If the RIAA wants to sell CD's to me, they'd better be standard CD's.
The proposed decriminalization bill is just plain stupid. Decriminalizing possession of small amounts helps pot-users, but does nothing to improve the situation for non-users.
Pot prohibition is what creates the illegal profits that keep the Hell's Angels, terrorists, and other organized crime going. It is also the cause of the dangerous home grow operations; people don't gut houses and put in lights to grow tomatoes. If production remains illegal, people that don't use pot will still have to deal with the problems caused by prohibition; which might even get worse if possession is decriminalized.
The Senate Committee had it right; the only logical thing to do is legalize the stuff. Every bit of evidence we have shows that there is no correlation between the severity of drug laws and the amount of drugs used. That means that we can't pass laws to stop it (any more than we could stop the use of alcohol). All we can do is control how it is produced; and we've decided to leave that to criminals!
Possession of fewer than 30 grams of pot is sort of legal right now, with no penalties, not even a fine.
The pot laws were struck down because they were deemed to be unconstitutional. About 3 years ago, a person went to court to get access to marihuana, arguing that he had a constitutional right to use it as medicine. The court agreed, and said the government should pass a new law that allows him legal access to pot. The court ordered that the law be struck down after a year, to give the government time to pass a new law. After 364 days, the government introduced a new regulation outlining how access to medical marihuana would be awarded.
About a year later (about 6 months ago), a 15 year old was arrested for possession of pot, but charges were dismissed because the judge decided that the law against possession had been struck down; introducing a regulation did not replace the law. Since the part of the law that made possession illegal was struck down, it is no longer illegal to possess pot. The police can still arrest you for pot possession; but if the case ever goes to trial, the charges will be dismissed. In most areas, the police have stopped arresting people for pot possession; but some jurisdictions still do, they will defer prosecution until after a new law is passed.
The decriminalization law you mention has not been passed yet, and until it does, you cannot be convicted of pot possession. The "decriminalization" bill is actually a bill to re-criminalize pot. The current political speculation is that it probably won't be passed until after Paul Martin calls an election. Since the bill will "die on the order papers" when parliament is dissolved for the election, it is likely we won't see a new pot law for at least a year. If this particular bill does get passed into law, possession of small amounts will result in a fine. All the other aspects of marihuana prohibition, like production, will remain jail-worthy offenses; in fact the penalties have been increased for most non-possession crimes.
A bit of commentary on all of this: The government has an interesting pattern of delaying changes to the drug law as much as possible; I can only guess this is so the politicians won't have to actually make any decisions. Like the recent gay marriage situation, Parliament has known for years that there is a constitutional problem with the law, yet would rather wait for the courts to strike down the law before acting. It is notable that the new pot law does not address medical marihuana in any way; I'm guessing that is a deliberate error to ensure at least a few more years of Supreme Court trials before the politicians actually have to decide anything.
A few months ago, the Supreme Court heard a few non-medical marihuana cases, and the judgments are due soon. I'm guessing they will add additional fuel to the marihuana issue, and the government will probably be forced to pass a more liberal law than the current decriminalization bill; if only to directly address the issue of medical marihuana.
I still disagree with you about how well off people are now compared to our parent's generation; but you are correct to point out that distribution issues matter too. It doesn't really matter if GDP increases, if the increase is restricted to the rich.
I live in Canada, but like everyone else in the world, I am well exposed to what is happening in America. I think you are all screwed until you get rid of Bush. All he ever talks about is averages; so he talks about an average tax cut of $2000 and lets people misunderstand average to mean typical. If people knew what the median tax cut was (and therefore had some idea of how it was distributed), they'd see that the benefits all go to a few rich people, and maybe complain. I am amazed that under his leadership, rich investors get tax breaks on their dividends and capital gains, who can then invest that money; while poor and middle-class people refinance their mortgages to keep on spending. This system guarantees that inequality will increase over time.
I think a "jackpot" mentality has entered society. All our supposed role models are people who have struck it rich. A few musicians and athletes become rich, and everyone is supposed to think it is fair that the majority of the reward goes to a few at the top of the pyramid and there is next to nothing for those below. A 1% chance for $5,000,000 a year is not the same as a 100% chance for $50,000 a year, even if gamblers would say it is. I can only think that the majority of people don't care if the rich get all the breaks because they figure they'll be able to cash in too, when they strike it rich.
Canada seems to be a little more European in outlook. Canada still has a (shrinking) middle class and most people aspire to be middle class rather than rich. Pro-American commentators usually complain about this as a lack of drive and a sign of mediocrity (a friend's favourite saying is "Good enough for Canada"), compared to a U.S. characterized by ambition and successful risk-taking. I'm not sure which system will work out better in the end; but we are not going to determine that by looking at the average standard of living, which is significantly higher in the U.S.; but by looking at the median standard of living, which is much more equal (but still in America's favour).
I aimed for the middle class, and I even hit the top end of that range by being a programmer. But I am seeing the same things as you. My company was bought, the new management said they recognized that we grunts that knew the business were important and our jobs would be saved. Yet, as you'd expect, only managers were given retention bonuses and fewer than 6 months passed before we were all laid off. At least Canadian law ensured that I was paid a generous severance for my 12+ years with the company (which the new company complained about!). This wouldn't be so aggravating if management ever had to pay for their mistakes; as I am sure the current outsourcing fad will turn out to be. But managers get rewarded for every change they implement; they'll get fat bonuses for outsourcing, then they'll get fat bonuses when they recognized their mistake and hire people again. This is what happens when there is no check on the power of rich people.
Avoiding debt gives you a higher standard of living and really isn't that hard to do. To a first approximation, people spend all the money they make in their life. If you are impatient, and buy everything on credit, then you add an additional 20% (or more) cost to everything because of the interest payments.
On the other hand, if you have a little patience and save before buying things, you'll save all that interest. You don't get very far ahead with credit, since you can only buy stuff until your credit limit is reached. That means that after you are in debt to the hilt, you are in the same boat as the debt-avoiders; you must save before you can buy anything else.
So compare the two cases. The smart alternative is that you suffer a little in the beginning until you save enough to buy stuff the first time; after that, you replace or fix out of money you save. The more common alternative is to buy until your credit is maxed out, then save until you can replace or fix things, all the while wasting money on interest. I think it is clear that if you can avoid debt at the beginning, and suffer a bit for the first few years of your working life, you'll end up with more stuff in the end by avoiding interest payments. After the first few years of sacrifice, you'll be able to buy more stuff and buy it sooner than if you'd resorted to credit.
Unfortunately, the credit trap occurs right at the beginning of your working life, when you have student loan payments, and you are tempted to leave your impoverished student lifestyle now that you're working. If you're lucky, your parents warn you about this trap; but isn't this important enough to teach everyone in high school? I am convinced that "home economics" ought to be the most important subject they can teach you in school. Avoiding debt will probably increase your standard of living more than any other subject they teach.
I had the same sorts of experiences with my friends when I was in University. They'd ask me why I had so much nice stereo equipment, and I'd tell them I didn't have a car. It is amazing how much cars cost to run; and that's for people like me that keep a car until it dies. I pity the fools that lease, thus combining two very expensive habits: buying on credit and constantly buying new cars.
Umm, you said we are the first generation with a lower standard of living, not that we WILL be the first generation with a lower standard of living. I'll bet your current lifestyle is better than what your parents had at the equivalent point in their life.
Old foggy rant: kids these days expect to match what their parents have as soon as they start working. They forget that their parents had to work and save for decades to get what they have now.
At any rate, you shouldn't listen to the fear-mongers. Why do you expect that our generation will have a lower standard of living? Yes, individuals are harmed by changes in the economy, and maybe you'll be harmed by the latest changes; but every other change in history has resulted in a higher average standard of living. I'd hate to give up my chance for a share of a higher standard of living in order to preserve your current standard of living.
You are not correct that jobs always go to the lower wage country. Wages in Canada are generally lower than in the U.S., but during the tech bubble, many Canadian businesses were bought and the jobs were transferred to the U.S. At the time there was a management fad that thought that all your employees had to be together in the same place.
:-)
Now we have a fad for outsourcing, and Canada is again bypassed to go to places even cheaper. It is never good to be in the middle
Before Americans get too riled up about the Indians, they should perhaps examine their own history of buying companies and moving them to the U.S. American immigration laws prevented employees of those companies from following "their" jobs too. They might also reflect on where the revenue that pays their wages comes from, maybe foreigners think they are entitled to share some of the wages that their purchases make possible.
As far as I am concerned, Americans are just getting a taste of what other countries have gone through the last few years. Americans disproportionally benefited from the tech bubble and may have a false idea of how much they are really worth.
The industrial revolution was about replacing people with machines. I can assure you that the wages for a machine are much lower than for people. So where did all those jobs go when machines replaced people? Clerks used to copy out documents by hand, now we have photocopiers. In every trade or technological revolution we have had so far, the standard of living increased and everyone still had jobs at the end (and much more interesting ones than before machines). Are you saying that people today have a lower standard of living than before the industrial revolution? Or at any other time in history?
Immigration is no different than having babies; actually immigrants are cheaper because taxpayers in a different country financed their education. An extra person is an extra mouth to feed, so he decreases the standard of living; but he is also an extra worker, so he is an extra set of hands. So far, we've always found a good use for those extra hands.
People who emphasize the loss of jobs just want to keep the system the way it is. We should be suspicious when wealthy company owners (or overpaid workers) try to scare us into shielding them from competition. If we keep things the way they are, our standard of living will stay the same as well. Those benefiting from the system now may be happy, but every other time the economy has changed the overall standard of living has gone up. I'd hate to trade in a chance for things to get better in order to prop up a bunch of people that got rich from exploiting an earlier revolution.
I've even made all my arguments using the current fad of only looking at one side of the business equation. Everyone concentrates on the supply side (or jobs) and ignores the consumption side (or prices). When wages go down, so can prices. Preserving jobs means preserving higher prices, and that sacrifices the likely increase in the standard of living that results from lower prices. Protectionism costs money, either directly through subsidies or indirectly through artificially high prices; we need to look at how much worse we would be from higher prices before we decide to preserve higher wages (and profits) for a few. I doubt protectionism is ever a net benefit to society.
They count hacker attacks, although without knowing the relative numbers of servers we don't know which O/S is better.
But what about vender attacks, like patches that crash the server, or the DoS attacks that happen when a server is taken off-line for patching? And surely a precautionary disconnect when there is a MS virus storm has to count as a successful DoS attack.
I'll quibble a little about personal debt being different than the trade deficit; it isn't.
:-)
Define imports = what you buy from others; exports = what you create while doing your job; and debt is debt. International trade just adds a new distinction based on whether you are selling, buying, or borrowing from a foreigner or a local.
If you wanted, you could tally up your own trade balance by tracking which foreigners you do business with. I know my personal exports amount to about 95% of my personal GDP and my imports are much less than that. My debt payments are all domestic, so I'd guess I am running a fairly big trade surplus
The jobs don't go away, they just change. Or more correctly, the jobs never went away in the past, so why would they go away now?
Millions of farming jobs have disappeared; millions of programming jobs have been created. Which are the better jobs? Do we even care that so many fewer people are milking cows?
I'll also point out that globalization creates jobs. Microsoft couldn't employ as many people if they could only sell to the U.S. market. In fact, the entire tech industry has been collecting money from the rest of the world and using it to pay American workers. Maybe those other countries resent the fact that their workers, who are just as good as American workers but are willing to work for less, can't find work because of protectionism in America. Free market principles say the cheapest and best is supposed to win. Just a few short years ago, the U.S. unemployment rate was hitting decade lows, and under pretty much the same system of globalization we have now. Maybe the job losses are not due to globalization, but due to a crummy economy.
Preserving the jobs we have now means shielding companies from competition, which means rewarding the owners of those inefficient businesses. Everyone (but the company owner) is worse off when inefficient businesses are protected; everyone pays more than they should and employees are wasting their time when they could be doing something more valuable.
When you lend money, you exchange pieces of paper (or more likely, numbers in a database) for real goods that you can use. Debt is a promise to repay; you have the goods, the seller has promises.
Yes, eventually you will have to repay those loans, but in the meantime you can improve your economy by spending the loaned money wisely, or you can use it to pay for bread and circuses until the repayments start. Smart businesses, consumers and governments will not borrow money except to smooth temporary cash flow difficulties or to invest in money-making capital goods. It doesn't matter what you do with the wealth that other countries are lending to you via the trade deficit; the goods you import, and the net investments that you get increase the current wealth of the country. If you invest that wealth wisely, you'll be able to repay those loans and be better off.
And don't be so sure that the debt won't turn into a permanent wealth increase. If the debt is repaid when the exchange rate is lower than when it was invested, there will be a permanent transfer of wealth.
You are wrong, foreign trade is currently increasing the wealth of Americans. America is running a trade deficit of about $500 billion a year with the rest of the world. That means that American is receiving $500 billion more in goods and investments than it is giving back to the rest of the world. It seems to me that globalization is making Americans more wealthy to the tune of $500 billion a year.
Globalism, like all other types of trade, increases wealth. Companies that charge less for goods gain business, companies that are less efficient lose business (and eventually go on to do something they are relatively better at). Everyone gains when they get more for their money when competition drives prices down.
Oddly, everyone focuses on the loss of jobs in uncompetitive industries and ignores the benefits of cheaper, better-quality goods. It is interesting that everyone focuses on the half of the trade equation that hurts rich company owners (loss of business), and ignores the benefits that increased competition brings to everyone else; I wonder why?
If buying goods manufactured outside of my country is bad, when is it good to trade? Should I only purchase goods manufactured in my home Province? Within my home city? Within my family? I guess I can conclude that the best thing for me to do is to grow my own food and manufacture everything I use, then all the benefits of job creation will go to me alone. I don't think you would agree that everyone would be richer if they never traded with anyone, so where do you stop? We accept that competition and specialization within a country is a good thing; why stop at the border?
Let's suppose you are correct and copyright infringement is the same as stealing. Where does that assumption lead us?
Copyright infringement is unauthorized copying that is not "fair use". The fair use description in the law is a little vague, but the important point is that if copying financially harms the copyright holder, it is probably not fair use. So, according to the copyright law, I am likely to be "stealing" if I deprive the copyright holder of revenue by my actions.
So, does this mean that anytime I deprive a company of revenue, I am stealing? Suppose I am willing to pay $20 for a CD, but I buy it on sale for $10; I just deprived the company of $10 it could have made from me, and therefore I stole $10 from the company. If it is stealing to pay $0 for something I would pay $10 for, it is stealing to pay $10 for something I am willing to pay $20 for. Note that this reasoning doesn't extend to paying $0 for something when that thing cost someone else money or effort to create; that is depriving someone of real revenue, not potential revenue.
Now, I think copyright infringement is wrong, but it is breaking the law, which is not the same as stealing. If we accept the RIAA's contention that depriving them of potential revenue is stealing, we are conceding too much. If the RIAA is given the legal and technical power to guarantee that they receive all possible revenue; no one will ever pay less than they are willing for music. At some point, bargaining for a better price changes from a lawful activity into unlawful activity; but surely it shouldn't be considered stealing simply because you deprive a company of potential revenue.
Don't be that cynical. At least the Supreme Court strikes down the occasional law that is unconstitutional; whether the rich or even the majority of people want the law or not. There is one segment of the government that is interested in fairness and places some limits on how much the government can pander to the rich.