In holland there is a 2nd hand bookstore chain "De Sleghte" which has stores in all the major towns. Does the book industry complain about them not making any money from there sales? Well, they might, but nobody cares. 2nd hand books are normal.
Pawn brokers make a living selling 2nd hand goods, any decent sized town in holland got some kind of 2nd hand store for household goods.
What student doesn't get their household goods second hand from family? Does Philips complain that they don't get any money from people using their vacuum cleaners 2nd hand? Well, perhaps they do, but who cares. 2nd hand goods are normal.
How many first time car buyers buy a new car? Or even a 2nd hand car? 3rd and even 4th hand are common. Does anybody care if the car makers complain about this? Of course not, the 2nd hand car industry is triving and a big part of the economy and the only way most of us can afford a car.
Who of you lives in a new house? A 2nd hand house? I have lived in places (actually lived in a castle once) that were hundreds of years old. 30th hand perhaps? Nobody would take an constructor serious who wants a piece of sale price every time a house changes hands again.
Did the US fight against the idea of lesser races? Against rounding up people by their race and placing them in camps or forcing them to re-locate (the face of the "final solution" to the public)? Did the US protest against the forced sterilization of undesirables?
OR did it practice ALL these things since its creation AND long after ww2 ended?
Translate "Lebensraum" and finding it in the east and the way america was founded by claiming land westwards belonging to the natives.
Sorry, the US was NEVER idiologically opposed to the nazi's. It was more a case of two big nasty dogs not wanting to share the same world.
So, how long will it be before the bots develop an Elizia test? Setup, two interactions, one a WoW player, the other a.bat file. See if you can spot the difference!
Come on, I know AI is hard, but do you really need to lower the bar that much you have to dig a hole?
get this and get this once and for all. America has ONE party. The capatalist one. There IS NO CHOICE. At most you can select the flavor of capatalism but to ANYONE who has seen true socialism/captalism/liberlalism etc etc, america clearly has only ONE system. Captalism.
It is how americans work, it is the american dream. Changing that would require all americans to change the very basis of how they see their own lives. Unlikely to happen.
It is for instance important to note that the dutch VVD, a right wing party, would be considered in america to be socialist. But where does that leave the true dutch socialist party the SP?
One example often used to describe the differences between socialism and capatalism is Sweden vs America. The swedes got a system were you CAN sponge of the state to an amazing degree and the swedes on the whole see this as a GOOD thing. They are willing to pay high taxes in exchange for the service that some parts of the population can skip having a job. If you tried to explain their system to an american it would be like trying to explain the color red to a blind person.
BUT at the same time, a swede never really can understand why a system where medical insurance can cost hundreds of dollars per month might be a good idea. Why people on low income but essential jobs should have to choose between food and medicine. A swede just could not understand the mentality that this is supposed to be a good thing.
America and the EU are fundementally different. It comes down to something as simple as the work week. An american working 80 hours think he has done a good honest day work. An european who had to work 60 doing 20 hours overtime considers that something was really screwed up and perhaps he is just to incompetent to do the job in time or more people need to be hired.
Read the change.gov site, most of it sends chills down the spine of europeans. Scary right wing nutter stuff. This guy ain't a socialist, he ain't even a lefty right winger. You would have to go extremely right wing in europe to find his views reflected.
you are saying ignorance about computers means you are low-income? Bush was hardly low-income, and ignorant as hell. And just what did the tubes guy make a year? You sir, are the elitist prick.
They are talking about static stretching, that is the routine of taking a pose to stretch a muscle and then hold it for a while. This is PART of the warm-up routine at time but NOT the same as a warm-up routine. So they say that PART of current warm-up routines is bad NOT that warming-up itself is bad.
Comprehensive reading, a skill sadly lacking in todays population.
Free market. Right, you mean like the financial industry used? Thank you for playing. NEXT!
You would think free market advocates would know better then to spout their crap when the world is facing the biggest economic crisis in decades because of their antics.
Buy a bigger needle. Money solves a LOT of problems.
He played Mario, doesn't that say it all?
on
How Do Games Grow Up?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The claims that games don't provide a challenge, no depth. The game he uses as an example, and the only example? Mario.
This is like saying TV provides no depth, after you spend all time studying the shopping channel.
There are other games. Games that have tried to go beyond a simple platformer. Wether they succeed is up for question but when I see someone talk about the lack of depth of games and his example if a simple platform console game I get visions of a large lumbering stone creature that lives under bridges.
So his mother was never intrested in playing Mario. So what? My mother was never intrested in reading the adventures of "Spot" either.
Somebody give this guy a PC and some decent games. Hell, even consoles have the occasional title that pushes the envelope a bit (so, I am PC snob, sue me) but if he never played more the mario then the problem is not the game industry but his own lousy taste.
Complaing that Mario not anything more then a mindless (if fun) time waster is like saying Popcorn doesn't have enough nutritional benefits, however true it is, it is retarded observation. Mario and Popcorn are light fluf, devoid of meaning or value except. That is their goal.
But we get the post true intentions. Apparently the future of gaming is weight loss gaming. WHEE! Because a program that tracks your weight becomes a game just because it is on a console? If this is the example of growing up, of challenging your mind, taking you new places, then I take Mario any time (and I hate Mario since I suck at platforms ergo platforms are stupid).
Perhaps this developer needs to grow up and realize that not everything has to be liked by everyone. I had a grandfather who never ever had a telephone. Never needed it, never wanted it. Does that mean telephones are without value to those who use them? That the telephone companies needed to worry about this "lost" customer?
Geez, colonize other GALAXIES? Talk about ambitious. How about we first go about colonizing other star systems Einstein.
You see, our solar system is part of a galaxy which is that big swirly thing you select your destination thing on in every space game. A galaxy is a HUGE thing, so huge that even in Star Trek they only explored a part of it and only in a handful of stories make it out. Star Wars similar is restricted to a single galaxy.
Even in less the scientific sci-fi, other galaxies are out of bounds and we are supposed to colonize them?
Geez, you would expect this idiotic mistake in the popular press, but not on slashdot.
As for using the method of using this to colonize other planets. Mmm, you would need to create a system that can not only carry frozen embryoos (no need for cloning, we know how to make babies), carry them to term, then raise them, educate them and... well let them get on with it I suppose.
All this in a place you know nothing about without any communication with earth.
It MIGHT be something to attempt if earth was under direct threath, to preserve the species, but it has no other purpose even if it could be done.
A completely automated nursery/school? Hell of a pipedream.
Economy is complex especially when it involves goverment spending.
For instance, the US has no national healthcare because that is expensive. Therefor the US lets the market run healthcare because market forces will keep prices down. Right?
Well, no. In holland 8-9% of the countries total earnings go to healthcare, in the US it is 15-16%. On the whole the US is considered to provide inferior care, despite twice the cost and despite the fact that effectively medical care is denied to those to poor to pay the high insurance premiums.
The problem, and the US is hardly alone is in this, is that explaining how things that benefit everyone, benefit you, is hard. Saying, you are getting 300 bucks in a tax cut is easy. Never mind that the 300 bucks end up being spend in increased bills, people understand cash, they don't understand long term economic planning.
The simple fact is that taxes matter very little in the long run. That 300 bucks is not going to change your life for longer then the week in which you use it to pay your credit card bill. But no free healthcare for the rest of your life is seriously going to bite you, if not you, then your family members who did NOT make it rich and might be coming to you for help.
Ideally, taxes should be seen as the rent you pay for living in a country. Few people would be so stupid as to simply look at the amount of rent when deciding where to life. What you GET for that rent is what matters. If you were asked to spend 10% of your income on a hole in the road or 20% on a palace, what would you pick?
But sadly, this is hard to get people to understand and the neo-con's have every reason to confuse the issue where ever they can. Joe the Plumber anyone?
Begging for a helping hand with your financial aid. Begging for aid in your wars. Get used to it, even Bush has had to change his tune in the last year as the financial crisis hit harder then the neo-cons ever thought possible.
The brits? The french? The canadians? The icelanders?
Come on, the fast majority of the world does NOT follow the american dream and a fair amount of them do NOT kill millions of their own people. Hell, tens of millions of their own people? Most countries don't even have that many people so how could they ever kill that many?
No my dear friend, it is time you take of the blinders and truly look at the rest of the world and see that there are other methods. perhaps today, with the election of Obama and the end of neo-conservative rule (Clinton was for all purposes a republican) the US seems to have taken a new path. Wether Obama can actually change anything remains to be seen, but the voter has made it clear, the masses are no longer listening to the neo-conservatives. The silent majority has voted for the first time and their voice is clear. Out with the old and lets try something new.
But thanks for not actually refuting it, says it all. Claim bigotry on my part rather the try to disprove my claim. Not that it matters, the same could be said about many "freedom fighters" or "believe institutions". No catholic should question why they live in poverty while the vatican is richer then many nations.
You are forgetting about the american dream. The dream that one day YOU will be elite, the rich, the powerful. Eat dirt today because tomorrow you will be eating cake. And of course, if you are eating cake tomorrow, you hardly want to share that cake or have it turned into bread for all. No, eat dirt today, because tomorrow...
It is the american dream. If you were cynical, you might see it as a near perfect ploy to keep the masses content. Not that dissimilar to how certain religions do it. Suffer life now, the after-life will see you rewarded. Never mind dear suicide bomber that you are pisspoor despite millions in support to the palestines. Your reward awaits you in heaven, never mind that your leaders life in luxury in the west (check were the palestine leadership lives, and for instance how many millions old beard face had and where he houses his wife)
The american dream tells americans that they too can one day have it all, and since one day they will have it all, why should they then share it or ask those who have it now to share?
Make no mistake, the american dream is the ultimate enslavement tool. Because the truth of course is that NOT everyone can make it, no matter how they try because a capatalist system needs its homeless to allow for the superrich. The american dream at best is an lottery, but one where the winners can buy the winning tickets.
They sold close to a million copies and PLENTY of people gave the game a try.
The problem was that they listened to you.
They did release AO2.
They just didn't copy the sci-fi setting but the horrible launch.
AoC for those who been there for AO know they AOC really stand for Anarchy Online Continued.
Dark&Light still holds the #1 spot in bad MMO launches, and Vanguard is a strong number 2, but AoC sure as hell gave both a run for their money. And Funcom sure as hell ain't a SOE who can survive with a dozen games all performing mediocre.
Can you no longer talk about how you fucked that gorgous bitch last night because that might upset someone? Censoring is NEVER ever done to create a mature enviroment, especially game companies and even more especially AMERICAN companies.
Look forward to a future where the only chat allowed is that which would make even Disney puke for its cuteness.
You are forgetting the numbers 1-4 are collecting the carbage the other 6 make, cleaning the roads, doing all those tiny things we are unwilling to pay for, but are rather essential. Number 10, well he is that bank manager that makes his money causing the current economic crisis. We REALLY need him.
The rich and the poor need each other. Who is going to clean your house when you are rich if everybody else is rich?
Here is a story for you.
A very rich man once kept all his money in a BIG building. A freak tycoon came along and sucked ALL the money out and then distributed it across the land. Suddenly the rich men was very poor but everyone else was VERY RICH. So rich that NOBODY wanted to work anymore. No matter how many millions they now had, they couldn't buy anything.
The rich man on the other hand kept working, on his farm and told his doubters things would soon be normal again. And so they did, faced with nobody producing anything, all the new rich people had to buy their food from the former rich guy at the prices he demanded since he was the sole supplier.
End of the story, all the money is back with the rich guy, and the normal people got their normal jobs again, putting the economy back into its normal groove.
Courtesy of the Donald Duck, a story understandable to 6yr olds.
What is missing from your bar story is the analysis that this system of taxation is really one of the few that works. Of course people will complain about their taxes and threathen to leave. It is what people do. You complain about taxes, the weather and the wife. Yet few leave the country with or without their wife for a better (financial) climate.
Furthermore you are forgetting that the truly rich rarely pay all the taxes you would expect them to pay as they can afford the best accountants to find all the loopholes while the poor idiots just pay whatever the IRS bills them for.
No my dear silly little proffesor, I suggest you go back to the school of the street and learn that the economy can't be explained with simple anologies unless you have an agenda to hide the true full complexity of the economy to create a false point.
I am reminded by an episode of Frasier, were Roz dates a garbage man. She is a produced of a program nobody needs for a shrink nobody cares about, but the guy who picks up the garbage is the looser. It is a fairly common attitude, but you can't use it to run your economy.
Tell me the results of the following two scenarios:
There are many things to consider regarding the war on Terror, but whatever your view on how and why it got started, the next US president has really only one thing to do. Deal with it.
The US created the mess, now they got to clean it up. Do you really want Iraq to be the next Korea or Vietnam, where decades later the mess is still making the US look bad?
You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. The real kicker hear is that once you took the egg away from the hen, let it cool, you are committed. The chick is dead. To then return it to the nest or let the egg rot without finishing the omelet is wasteful.
The war in Iraq has happened, you can now not just say "well, we don't want it anymore, bye bye." and pull out.
A really good future leader of the US would two things. A: accept that the situation MUST be resolved and stop playing the blame game or making promises to do things that you can't do because the enemy might not let you and B: turn the blame game into a seperate issue and truly investigate what the hell happened and if there was any wrong doing and take it to court.
A: must be done because if you don't Iraq will be mess and that might easily spill over. And B: must be done because else these things will just happen over and over, just like Vietnam, just like Korea, just like Somalie and countless other conflicts were the US screwed up and ran.
In the meantime, the rest of the world really needs to start shaping up. Stop relying on the US. Europe is richer then the US but doesn't have any real military power. Don't blame the US for being a poor police men if you just sit at home not doing anything.
The rest of the world after all has a intrest to in a peaceful world. Look what happened in africa after the US ran, piracy in that corner of the world is now a serious issue. What will happen in Iraq in 10-20 years if the west withdraws now?
No, the war has happenend, deal with the why and how in the courts, but you can't ignore it and say you are going to withdraw by date X because that doesn't solve anything and give your enemy a clear goal, if only we hold out till date X we have won.
Slashdot Mirror
In holland there is a 2nd hand bookstore chain "De Sleghte" which has stores in all the major towns. Does the book industry complain about them not making any money from there sales? Well, they might, but nobody cares. 2nd hand books are normal.
Pawn brokers make a living selling 2nd hand goods, any decent sized town in holland got some kind of 2nd hand store for household goods.
What student doesn't get their household goods second hand from family? Does Philips complain that they don't get any money from people using their vacuum cleaners 2nd hand? Well, perhaps they do, but who cares. 2nd hand goods are normal.
How many first time car buyers buy a new car? Or even a 2nd hand car? 3rd and even 4th hand are common. Does anybody care if the car makers complain about this? Of course not, the 2nd hand car industry is triving and a big part of the economy and the only way most of us can afford a car.
Who of you lives in a new house? A 2nd hand house? I have lived in places (actually lived in a castle once) that were hundreds of years old. 30th hand perhaps? Nobody would take an constructor serious who wants a piece of sale price every time a house changes hands again.
So why is the game industry different?
OR did it practice ALL these things since its creation AND long after ww2 ended?
Translate "Lebensraum" and finding it in the east and the way america was founded by claiming land westwards belonging to the natives.
Sorry, the US was NEVER idiologically opposed to the nazi's. It was more a case of two big nasty dogs not wanting to share the same world.
So, how long will it be before the bots develop an Elizia test? Setup, two interactions, one a WoW player, the other a .bat file. See if you can spot the difference!
Come on, I know AI is hard, but do you really need to lower the bar that much you have to dig a hole?
Anyway, once they are done with him, we won't have wonder what they are here for. It will be one thing. Revenge.
get this and get this once and for all. America has ONE party. The capatalist one. There IS NO CHOICE. At most you can select the flavor of capatalism but to ANYONE who has seen true socialism/captalism/liberlalism etc etc, america clearly has only ONE system. Captalism.
It is how americans work, it is the american dream. Changing that would require all americans to change the very basis of how they see their own lives. Unlikely to happen.
It is for instance important to note that the dutch VVD, a right wing party, would be considered in america to be socialist. But where does that leave the true dutch socialist party the SP?
One example often used to describe the differences between socialism and capatalism is Sweden vs America. The swedes got a system were you CAN sponge of the state to an amazing degree and the swedes on the whole see this as a GOOD thing. They are willing to pay high taxes in exchange for the service that some parts of the population can skip having a job. If you tried to explain their system to an american it would be like trying to explain the color red to a blind person.
BUT at the same time, a swede never really can understand why a system where medical insurance can cost hundreds of dollars per month might be a good idea. Why people on low income but essential jobs should have to choose between food and medicine. A swede just could not understand the mentality that this is supposed to be a good thing.
America and the EU are fundementally different. It comes down to something as simple as the work week. An american working 80 hours think he has done a good honest day work. An european who had to work 60 doing 20 hours overtime considers that something was really screwed up and perhaps he is just to incompetent to do the job in time or more people need to be hired.
Read the change.gov site, most of it sends chills down the spine of europeans. Scary right wing nutter stuff. This guy ain't a socialist, he ain't even a lefty right winger. You would have to go extremely right wing in europe to find his views reflected.
you are saying ignorance about computers means you are low-income? Bush was hardly low-income, and ignorant as hell. And just what did the tubes guy make a year? You sir, are the elitist prick.
So the british security services have more money to spend then england itself earns? That is fantastic!
They are talking about static stretching, that is the routine of taking a pose to stretch a muscle and then hold it for a while. This is PART of the warm-up routine at time but NOT the same as a warm-up routine. So they say that PART of current warm-up routines is bad NOT that warming-up itself is bad.
Comprehensive reading, a skill sadly lacking in todays population.
Free market. Right, you mean like the financial industry used? Thank you for playing. NEXT!
You would think free market advocates would know better then to spout their crap when the world is facing the biggest economic crisis in decades because of their antics.
How hard can it be if even girls manage it?
Buy a bigger needle. Money solves a LOT of problems.
The claims that games don't provide a challenge, no depth. The game he uses as an example, and the only example? Mario.
This is like saying TV provides no depth, after you spend all time studying the shopping channel.
There are other games. Games that have tried to go beyond a simple platformer. Wether they succeed is up for question but when I see someone talk about the lack of depth of games and his example if a simple platform console game I get visions of a large lumbering stone creature that lives under bridges.
So his mother was never intrested in playing Mario. So what? My mother was never intrested in reading the adventures of "Spot" either.
Somebody give this guy a PC and some decent games. Hell, even consoles have the occasional title that pushes the envelope a bit (so, I am PC snob, sue me) but if he never played more the mario then the problem is not the game industry but his own lousy taste.
Complaing that Mario not anything more then a mindless (if fun) time waster is like saying Popcorn doesn't have enough nutritional benefits, however true it is, it is retarded observation. Mario and Popcorn are light fluf, devoid of meaning or value except. That is their goal.
But we get the post true intentions. Apparently the future of gaming is weight loss gaming. WHEE! Because a program that tracks your weight becomes a game just because it is on a console? If this is the example of growing up, of challenging your mind, taking you new places, then I take Mario any time (and I hate Mario since I suck at platforms ergo platforms are stupid).
Perhaps this developer needs to grow up and realize that not everything has to be liked by everyone. I had a grandfather who never ever had a telephone. Never needed it, never wanted it. Does that mean telephones are without value to those who use them? That the telephone companies needed to worry about this "lost" customer?
Geez, colonize other GALAXIES? Talk about ambitious. How about we first go about colonizing other star systems Einstein.
You see, our solar system is part of a galaxy which is that big swirly thing you select your destination thing on in every space game. A galaxy is a HUGE thing, so huge that even in Star Trek they only explored a part of it and only in a handful of stories make it out. Star Wars similar is restricted to a single galaxy.
Even in less the scientific sci-fi, other galaxies are out of bounds and we are supposed to colonize them?
Geez, you would expect this idiotic mistake in the popular press, but not on slashdot.
As for using the method of using this to colonize other planets. Mmm, you would need to create a system that can not only carry frozen embryoos (no need for cloning, we know how to make babies), carry them to term, then raise them, educate them and... well let them get on with it I suppose.
All this in a place you know nothing about without any communication with earth.
It MIGHT be something to attempt if earth was under direct threath, to preserve the species, but it has no other purpose even if it could be done.
A completely automated nursery/school? Hell of a pipedream.
Economy is complex especially when it involves goverment spending.
For instance, the US has no national healthcare because that is expensive. Therefor the US lets the market run healthcare because market forces will keep prices down. Right?
Well, no. In holland 8-9% of the countries total earnings go to healthcare, in the US it is 15-16%. On the whole the US is considered to provide inferior care, despite twice the cost and despite the fact that effectively medical care is denied to those to poor to pay the high insurance premiums.
The problem, and the US is hardly alone is in this, is that explaining how things that benefit everyone, benefit you, is hard. Saying, you are getting 300 bucks in a tax cut is easy. Never mind that the 300 bucks end up being spend in increased bills, people understand cash, they don't understand long term economic planning.
The simple fact is that taxes matter very little in the long run. That 300 bucks is not going to change your life for longer then the week in which you use it to pay your credit card bill. But no free healthcare for the rest of your life is seriously going to bite you, if not you, then your family members who did NOT make it rich and might be coming to you for help.
Ideally, taxes should be seen as the rent you pay for living in a country. Few people would be so stupid as to simply look at the amount of rent when deciding where to life. What you GET for that rent is what matters. If you were asked to spend 10% of your income on a hole in the road or 20% on a palace, what would you pick?
But sadly, this is hard to get people to understand and the neo-con's have every reason to confuse the issue where ever they can. Joe the Plumber anyone?
Begging for a helping hand with your financial aid. Begging for aid in your wars. Get used to it, even Bush has had to change his tune in the last year as the financial crisis hit harder then the neo-cons ever thought possible.
The brits? The french? The canadians? The icelanders?
Come on, the fast majority of the world does NOT follow the american dream and a fair amount of them do NOT kill millions of their own people. Hell, tens of millions of their own people? Most countries don't even have that many people so how could they ever kill that many?
No my dear friend, it is time you take of the blinders and truly look at the rest of the world and see that there are other methods. perhaps today, with the election of Obama and the end of neo-conservative rule (Clinton was for all purposes a republican) the US seems to have taken a new path. Wether Obama can actually change anything remains to be seen, but the voter has made it clear, the masses are no longer listening to the neo-conservatives. The silent majority has voted for the first time and their voice is clear. Out with the old and lets try something new.
But thanks for not actually refuting it, says it all. Claim bigotry on my part rather the try to disprove my claim. Not that it matters, the same could be said about many "freedom fighters" or "believe institutions". No catholic should question why they live in poverty while the vatican is richer then many nations.
You are forgetting about the american dream. The dream that one day YOU will be elite, the rich, the powerful. Eat dirt today because tomorrow you will be eating cake. And of course, if you are eating cake tomorrow, you hardly want to share that cake or have it turned into bread for all. No, eat dirt today, because tomorrow...
It is the american dream. If you were cynical, you might see it as a near perfect ploy to keep the masses content. Not that dissimilar to how certain religions do it. Suffer life now, the after-life will see you rewarded. Never mind dear suicide bomber that you are pisspoor despite millions in support to the palestines. Your reward awaits you in heaven, never mind that your leaders life in luxury in the west (check were the palestine leadership lives, and for instance how many millions old beard face had and where he houses his wife)
The american dream tells americans that they too can one day have it all, and since one day they will have it all, why should they then share it or ask those who have it now to share?
Make no mistake, the american dream is the ultimate enslavement tool. Because the truth of course is that NOT everyone can make it, no matter how they try because a capatalist system needs its homeless to allow for the superrich. The american dream at best is an lottery, but one where the winners can buy the winning tickets.
They sold close to a million copies and PLENTY of people gave the game a try.
The problem was that they listened to you.
They did release AO2.
They just didn't copy the sci-fi setting but the horrible launch.
AoC for those who been there for AO know they AOC really stand for Anarchy Online Continued.
Dark&Light still holds the #1 spot in bad MMO launches, and Vanguard is a strong number 2, but AoC sure as hell gave both a run for their money. And Funcom sure as hell ain't a SOE who can survive with a dozen games all performing mediocre.
All those of us in orbit and travelling the stars better look out. NASA got an eye on you.
If you paid in advance like say a self-service place, you get your food OR a refund. If they do not, you can take them to court and win easily.
No, it is clear what EA wants to achieve here and its made very plain by the fact they already back-pedalled on it.
Can you no longer talk about how you fucked that gorgous bitch last night because that might upset someone? Censoring is NEVER ever done to create a mature enviroment, especially game companies and even more especially AMERICAN companies.
Look forward to a future where the only chat allowed is that which would make even Disney puke for its cuteness.
You are forgetting the numbers 1-4 are collecting the carbage the other 6 make, cleaning the roads, doing all those tiny things we are unwilling to pay for, but are rather essential. Number 10, well he is that bank manager that makes his money causing the current economic crisis. We REALLY need him.
The rich and the poor need each other. Who is going to clean your house when you are rich if everybody else is rich?
Here is a story for you.
A very rich man once kept all his money in a BIG building. A freak tycoon came along and sucked ALL the money out and then distributed it across the land. Suddenly the rich men was very poor but everyone else was VERY RICH. So rich that NOBODY wanted to work anymore. No matter how many millions they now had, they couldn't buy anything.
The rich man on the other hand kept working, on his farm and told his doubters things would soon be normal again. And so they did, faced with nobody producing anything, all the new rich people had to buy their food from the former rich guy at the prices he demanded since he was the sole supplier.
End of the story, all the money is back with the rich guy, and the normal people got their normal jobs again, putting the economy back into its normal groove.
Courtesy of the Donald Duck, a story understandable to 6yr olds.
What is missing from your bar story is the analysis that this system of taxation is really one of the few that works. Of course people will complain about their taxes and threathen to leave. It is what people do. You complain about taxes, the weather and the wife. Yet few leave the country with or without their wife for a better (financial) climate.
Furthermore you are forgetting that the truly rich rarely pay all the taxes you would expect them to pay as they can afford the best accountants to find all the loopholes while the poor idiots just pay whatever the IRS bills them for.
No my dear silly little proffesor, I suggest you go back to the school of the street and learn that the economy can't be explained with simple anologies unless you have an agenda to hide the true full complexity of the economy to create a false point.
I am reminded by an episode of Frasier, were Roz dates a garbage man. She is a produced of a program nobody needs for a shrink nobody cares about, but the guy who picks up the garbage is the looser. It is a fairly common attitude, but you can't use it to run your economy.
Tell me the results of the following two scenarios:
1: All the garbage men go on strike for a year.
2: Bill Gates goes on strike for a year.
Which one will you notice?
There are many things to consider regarding the war on Terror, but whatever your view on how and why it got started, the next US president has really only one thing to do. Deal with it.
The US created the mess, now they got to clean it up. Do you really want Iraq to be the next Korea or Vietnam, where decades later the mess is still making the US look bad?
You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. The real kicker hear is that once you took the egg away from the hen, let it cool, you are committed. The chick is dead. To then return it to the nest or let the egg rot without finishing the omelet is wasteful.
The war in Iraq has happened, you can now not just say "well, we don't want it anymore, bye bye." and pull out.
A really good future leader of the US would two things. A: accept that the situation MUST be resolved and stop playing the blame game or making promises to do things that you can't do because the enemy might not let you and B: turn the blame game into a seperate issue and truly investigate what the hell happened and if there was any wrong doing and take it to court.
A: must be done because if you don't Iraq will be mess and that might easily spill over. And B: must be done because else these things will just happen over and over, just like Vietnam, just like Korea, just like Somalie and countless other conflicts were the US screwed up and ran.
In the meantime, the rest of the world really needs to start shaping up. Stop relying on the US. Europe is richer then the US but doesn't have any real military power. Don't blame the US for being a poor police men if you just sit at home not doing anything.
The rest of the world after all has a intrest to in a peaceful world. Look what happened in africa after the US ran, piracy in that corner of the world is now a serious issue. What will happen in Iraq in 10-20 years if the west withdraws now?
No, the war has happenend, deal with the why and how in the courts, but you can't ignore it and say you are going to withdraw by date X because that doesn't solve anything and give your enemy a clear goal, if only we hold out till date X we have won.
Oh wow. That is a glowing endorsement of Vista. Running a game exactly HOW MANY YEARS OLD NOW?