If violent games lead to violent kids, then why has there been no upswing of violence in that demographic since the advent of violent games? Violence has actually declined and while that has nothing (provable) to do with video games, it sure as hell puts paid to any notion that violent games create more violent kids. Kids were more violent 20 years ago.
This is the huge problem with sociology. Put 1200 kids through a test where they're reporting their own answers, and then make blanket assertions about the world. If the world doesn't agree, must be a fluke, right? Their numbers, if real, would have to be reflected in actual numbers...The percentages are statistically very significant.
Goes without saying that they got the results that supported their initial hypothesis.
It always amuses me to see someone who really believes that it's just a matter of telling the users to learn new software, and that there is nothing available in closed source that isn't done better in open source.
They almost always call me naive as well. It's almost not worth responding, because you really have to have tried to deploy linux to a thousand new people at once to understand the true horror of the undertaking.
In short: 1) Not all CIOs are morons. If you think that, you're never going to get anywhere. You seem to think everyone but yourself is a moron though, which is even worse. You'll tell the customer what they need without listening to them try to tell you what they need (they're idiots, right?) and the whole project will end up in the shitter.
2) Planning and testing will scratch the surface of your problems, but your customer cannot be relied upon to give you an accurate accounting of the software that they really need, and that stuff will occupy 90% of your time.
3) OSS desktop applications are not as good as Microsoft's. Period. You can teach someone to use a new application, but when that application lacks some stupid function you've never heard of that they use all the time, it'll be your ass swinging in the breeze for providing a crappy solution, not theirs for not being able to make it do something it doesn't do.
4) Irrelevant. I helped deploy a system that pushed EVERYTHING out through netbooting and terminal services, from a handful of blade clusters that had 99.5% uptime, and we still had a full time job dealing with users, because dealing with users is 99% of what an IT staff does. You're thinking about it from an admin point of view, and thats a good way to lose a contract, because if everyone hates it, the project will die.
5) The rollback was because an individual like you under bid the contract (because it's easy, right?), and when the problems I've listed above cropped up, there wasn't money to fix them so the solution ended up half-assed and crappy.
6) Proprietary apps are available on extremely specific OS setups. I dealt with one once that was proprietary to OS 9, and would have cost more than a million dollars to replace. Deciding that it will all be easy to move to linux is moronic. It's never easy.
7) Hey, I don't give a damn about Outlook, but it's a fricking deal breaker to a lot of people. Mock it to your peril; there isn't a single OSS app that does half of what it does, and if you don't at least appreciate that, you're screwed. Same with a lot of other proprietary apps which you seem to scorn.
In conclusion, you're living in a dream world, and you clearly think you're the king shit of the universe. Go work in the real world for a while, and see a few of your rollouts get fucked up because the goddamn secretaries don't like them (and that shit matters, despite the way you think it works), and then talk to me. I have lived this shit, and until you have, you have no room to talk.
Well, of course, it's extremely difficult to say with regards to some machines, and I'm not in charge of administering the Windows junk, so I'm not personally dealing with it at all.
From my perspective though, we seem okay. I monitor the network usage down to individual packets, and it's all heavily audited...our firewalls are the really intrusive kind, that only allow things in and out on a very restricted set of ports, and half of those are proxied through local servers that again, do a lot of monitoring. We have big sexy corporate anti-virus stuff, which is (of course) a weak link in and of itself, but does do a good job of filtering out the lesser stuff. We force out patches as they're released, at least to userland.
Usually when we have any sort of problem, it shows up pretty clearly against our regular traffic, especially in certain departments. Our corporate security requirements are pretty brutal.
Not sure what you mean by that...We're not going to Vista either, so if you mean "Install Vista on his box" it will be installed on his, and mine, and most of the rest of IT before it's installed anywhere else, which could be in the next 2 years, but (judging by the XP upgrade cycle) might not be for 4 or 5 years.
If you mean, "Install linux on his box" that's just flat not going to happen. We don't have the terminal services infrastructure to support remote office/outlook/etc so, no Linux on the desktop here, not for the forseeable future. I don't even have a linux desktop, because everything I use linux for right now, I can get through putty.
Sure, Blizzard proved that with WoW, which runs fine in WINE.
The problem is applications built by people who are Linux hostile...Specifically, Microsoft themselves, and people who are simply unwilling to port their applications, like Adobe, and Macromedia.
If WINE won't cover those, we still need terminal services, which means we still need microsoft.
The one time I tried a full Open Office migration...Well, it cured me of ever trying it again...I was confident it could do everything MS Office could, and it took the old ladies who used office most about a week to prove me utterly wrong. I'm hoping Symphony will prove to be a better Office replacement, until then, I'll run MS Office in a terminal and save myself a world of pain.
The problem with Firebird/Firefox/Opera/whatever is the ie only websites. Half the time it'll be a bank or a payroll company or the IRS or something that they absolutely have to be able to get to. Where I am right now, I use Firefox and Opera for everything...except submitting my time/vacation/expenses. Have to have IE for that.
In the end it comes down to you vs the customer, and you can't tell them they're idiots for wanting to use Photoshop instead of GIMP, because Photoshop has more features.
I guess Microsoft doesn't have anything to worry about then =/
I've been burned by WINE too many times. Unless something miraculous happens and it starts working more or less reliably, I'm holding out for the day when all major software vendors release linux versions of their software...Between those options, I don't really see much difference.
The problem is, we've all spent too much time securing our Windows networks already...I don't remember the last time I had a virus take down more than a couple of machines, and the last time we had one at all was more than a year ago. Everything is isolated, anti-virused, monitored...All our email is filtered through a third party that strips out anything that looks weird.
If you're not having security problems, then saying, "This is more secure" doesn't cut any slack, and it sure as hell doesn't make it worth it to switch to a completely new system.
No CIO will ever think that Linux looks like a good idea just because the latest Windows is still in the "unrunnable crap" phase. They don't get where they are by taking big risks, and jumping from windows to linux is enough to make anyone who has any experience break out in a cold sweat.
A migration from XP to Vista will bring with it a myriad of problems, hosts of issues, hours and hours of work...And that is the tip of the iceberg of what it would take to migrate their userbase from XP to Linux.
I've been involved in a good half-dozen attempts to move an all windows shop to an all Linux environment, and it always comes down to the same stuff. You may pry them off windows, but you won't pry them off their windows software, so either you have to put your trust in WINE (pause for laughter) or you have to invest heavily in windows terminal services so that you can run all the windows apps they need in a terminal session on their linux machines. Doing that will cause whole new levels of stress on your network, and it also throws up some new point of failure issues.
On top of all the technical crap, you're going to have massive training issues, and a lot of user resistance from people who want to be able to install stupid little desktop apps. Most of the IT staff won't be happy with you, because generally most of the staff won't be linux guys.
Even if you get it all running (and every time I've ever done one of these, we got it running, and well), you're still going to get resistance. It stays ugly for long periods of time...I've seen people roll back after two years, writing off a quarter million dollar system as a bad deal.
Until we get native software, it's going to be the deal-breaker. Selling the terminal services stuff to people doesn't fly all that well.
I've been working IT for a long time, and I've NEVER liked a new operating system. New == Problems.
Unless there is a damn compelling reason, I'll stay with what is working and working well until the new thing has been out for a good while...Hell, I know shops that are still migrating to XP and while I think they're behind the times, they're not alone in that.
If you migrate up just because something new is out...That's just foolish. You're adding a fricking ton to your workload, and for no good reason.
The government has problems with efficiency, no question. But it doesn't necessarily follow that all private charities are better at caring for the sick, educating the poor, and nursing the elderly than the government...The government's care is the care the majority would approve of, and when it's not there are generally consequences.
Private care is the care that the private charity would approve of. No oversight. No fixed standard. No fixed curriculum in the case of schools. I think a lot of religions would love to step into that role, and I think in general that would be a bad thing.
Well, in the old days Fire Departments were a private enterprise, so they'd gallop to your house and put it out, then present you with a bill.
What's the logical extension of "I get paid for putting out things that are on fire"? That's right, they set fires to drum up business for themselves. They got in fights with rival firefighters if they happened to meet on the way to a "choice" fire. They engaged in mob-style protectionism (Dis is sum goood stuff! Be a shame if it all went up in smoke, eh Vinny?)
Oh yea, the efficiency of private enterprise. For some services, it is by far better to have the profit motive removed.
As someone with a big mouth and a lot of definite political views, there are a freaking ton of libertarians here, as compared with the actual proportion of society at large that espouses those views.
The fact that they're not a majority here only underlines the fact that they aren't a majority anywhere but on libertarian political sites.
And finally, there are a lot of democrats that would scream bloody murder at some of the things I think are good ideas. The economic realities that persuade me that social services are a good idea also make me union-unfriendly, tariff unfriendly, and a solid proponent of a vastly simplified tax system.
The costs of dealing with the juveniles, elderly, and infirm exist for all societies. If you live in the US, you're going to learn more about that than you ever wanted to as the boomers start retiring. For every person who didn't save enough, there are kids and grandkids who are going to be feeling a financial hit as they try to take care of mom and dad.
Now a hardcore big 'L' Libertarian (neo-liberalism here, like the political party, not the little 'l' libertarianism which is the opposite of fascism) would say, "Good, they should have known better, and it's sure as hell not my fault, and not my responsibility." Sure, they may donate, but only on their own terms, and only to things that make sense to them personally. Assuming that their distaste for large bureaucracy carries over to big charities, they'll be spending their money on targeted charities (e.g. Meals on Wheels, not United Way). Assuming that the amount of money remains the same (which it won't), some charities will experience a glut, and others will experience a shortfall. Some services will be provided, and others, not.
Without any society-sponsored solutions, any shortfall will have to be made up by the families. Some family members may have to quit work, in order to care for loved ones...Another strain on the economy. The family has less money over all, and therefore less disposable income, which means less purchasing, which means less manufacturing, which means less manufacturing jobs, which means less jobs for countless other people up and down the economic food chain. Now imagine the biggest demographic bulge in our countries history, and imagine what that will be like without a full-societal effort, managed by an organization which is capable of directing the money where it is needed. Welcome to the Libertarian paradise.
Yep. Best time to work is when the economy is going well, so get a job, save some money, and when it starts tanking...as it inevitably will, being a cyclical phenomenon, go to school. By that point you may have a better idea of what you want to do for a living, and not end up settling for a placeholder "I dun went to colege" degree.
The problem with the hard core "don't tax me bro" crowd is that they really really believe that there is no cost in letting people starve in the streets/have no education/have no health care.
People don't passively starve in the street. They will try to find food. A large population of people who can't afford food is a serious problem, not because the more fortunate will have to step over them in the gutter, but because the more fortunate will come home to find that they've been robbed. Right now it's a truism that people don't steal to afford food...That's because they don't have to, because the government provides it.
Likewise education. A well educated populace makes a better workforce, military, and tax base. What benefits the economy benefits most the people who have the largest stake in it: the rich.
Health care. What do you think happens when a guy with no insurance walks into the emergency room with a legitimate emergency? Well, in LA, they let 'em die on the floor but in most places they treat them anyway and eat the cost. This person can't get the sort of routine care that would keep them out of the emergency room, but they can get the sort of massively expensive care that you get from the emergency room. That cost gets passed to the hospital, and then down to the first guy who walks through the door who CAN pay.
There are a lot of things in society that have a cost. The hardcore conservative really believes that those costs don't exist...Everything would be just the same if they didn't have to pay for the damn poor people. Hardcore liberals? I don't know what the hell they believe in. Fairies? I don't know. They tend to push the right thing, but for the wrong reasons...Fuzzy relativist ethics rather than simple economics.
The simple truth of it is that it is a lot better for society to shoulder costs like education, care for the disabled, workfare, etc, because if society doesn't shoulder the cost, then individuals have to shoulder the costs and that generally causes problems itself and results in a less effective solution. It's fair to talk reform, but don't try to pretend like the problem is the fact that the government spends money, while ignoring the reality of what would happen if they didn't.
You basically echoed the first guy, just from the other side. I'd have slapped him, but he was just an AC...I apply -3 to all ACs, so I didn't even see him.
Conservative/Liberal...Both sides are drinking the coolaid. There is nothing to be gained by just playing the label game over and over. If I say "I like guns, the death penalty, and free trade" I'm a Bushie who loves the war and eats Iraqi babies for breakfast. If I say, "I believe in social services, universal healthcare, and the right to an abortion" I'm a whiny tree hugger.
It's just ridiculous. Most people really aren't crazy, but when every discussion devolves into flamebait and name calling without there actually having been an argument over something to start it off? That's fucking crazy.
Economics is all about models. They LOVE models, big sexy mathematical models, tying together figures on wildly different things to try to get a sense of the direction of the economy...Economists can pick some really silly stuff to plug into their models, so imaginary widgets isn't out of the realm of possibility.
In this situation, they can actually apply their model, and watch things play out through the actions of real people, even if they're all dealing in imaginary goods. It's really exciting stuff, especially since the changes happen faster than "real world time" so you can get a since of price fluctuations much more quickly than you could out in the real world. It's also a closed system, so you have access to ALL the variables.
Many places do week to week these days, because it's possible, and you may gain some insight. As the above poster pointed out, however, it's always this week last year or the last two, three, or ten years, depending on the type of business.
If you notice trends based on the preceding year, you can maybe identify a causal connection, and then increase your business by catering to it.
Heh. You know what's really sad? I can't tell the difference between a joke and a serious right winger, when I don't have any body language to read. I'm still not sure he's not trying to be serious...
I don't care about his comment. At least he said something. If you had said something, I wouldn't have bothered to respond...I don't get involved in the Liberal/Conservative war. The radicals on both sides are idiots.
All you did though is call him a name. At least you could address his point, since you seem to want to participate.
Wow, what a fallacy. How many were there before we went to war? 2 attempts, a decade apart? Saying that, because we went to war, therefore there were no more attacks is classic Ignoratio Elenchi...the fallacy of the Irrelevant Conclusion because being at war has nothing to do with terrorist attacks. It's also a kind of twisted Denying the Antecedent...
At Peace->Got attacked ~At peace Therefore ~attacked.
You clearly wouldn't know truth if it was sitting on your face.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems that troll was you! Or perhaps you were being ironic?
If violent games lead to violent kids, then why has there been no upswing of violence in that demographic since the advent of violent games? Violence has actually declined and while that has nothing (provable) to do with video games, it sure as hell puts paid to any notion that violent games create more violent kids. Kids were more violent 20 years ago.
This is the huge problem with sociology. Put 1200 kids through a test where they're reporting their own answers, and then make blanket assertions about the world. If the world doesn't agree, must be a fluke, right? Their numbers, if real, would have to be reflected in actual numbers...The percentages are statistically very significant.
Goes without saying that they got the results that supported their initial hypothesis.
It always amuses me to see someone who really believes that it's just a matter of telling the users to learn new software, and that there is nothing available in closed source that isn't done better in open source.
They almost always call me naive as well. It's almost not worth responding, because you really have to have tried to deploy linux to a thousand new people at once to understand the true horror of the undertaking.
In short:
1) Not all CIOs are morons. If you think that, you're never going to get anywhere. You seem to think everyone but yourself is a moron though, which is even worse. You'll tell the customer what they need without listening to them try to tell you what they need (they're idiots, right?) and the whole project will end up in the shitter.
2) Planning and testing will scratch the surface of your problems, but your customer cannot be relied upon to give you an accurate accounting of the software that they really need, and that stuff will occupy 90% of your time.
3) OSS desktop applications are not as good as Microsoft's. Period. You can teach someone to use a new application, but when that application lacks some stupid function you've never heard of that they use all the time, it'll be your ass swinging in the breeze for providing a crappy solution, not theirs for not being able to make it do something it doesn't do.
4) Irrelevant. I helped deploy a system that pushed EVERYTHING out through netbooting and terminal services, from a handful of blade clusters that had 99.5% uptime, and we still had a full time job dealing with users, because dealing with users is 99% of what an IT staff does. You're thinking about it from an admin point of view, and thats a good way to lose a contract, because if everyone hates it, the project will die.
5) The rollback was because an individual like you under bid the contract (because it's easy,
right?), and when the problems I've listed above cropped up, there wasn't money to fix them so the solution ended up half-assed and crappy.
6) Proprietary apps are available on extremely specific OS setups. I dealt with one once that was proprietary to OS 9, and would have cost more than a million dollars to replace. Deciding that it will all be easy to move to linux is moronic. It's never easy.
7) Hey, I don't give a damn about Outlook, but it's a fricking deal breaker to a lot of people. Mock it to your peril; there isn't a single OSS app that does half of what it does, and if you don't at least appreciate that, you're screwed. Same with a lot of other proprietary apps which you seem to scorn.
In conclusion, you're living in a dream world, and you clearly think you're the king shit of the universe. Go work in the real world for a while, and see a few of your rollouts get fucked up because the goddamn secretaries don't like them (and that shit matters, despite the way you think it works), and then talk to me. I have lived this shit, and until you have, you have no room to talk.
Well, of course, it's extremely difficult to say with regards to some machines, and I'm not in charge of administering the Windows junk, so I'm not personally dealing with it at all.
From my perspective though, we seem okay. I monitor the network usage down to individual packets, and it's all heavily audited...our firewalls are the really intrusive kind, that only allow things in and out on a very restricted set of ports, and half of those are proxied through local servers that again, do a lot of monitoring. We have big sexy corporate anti-virus stuff, which is (of course) a weak link in and of itself, but does do a good job of filtering out the lesser stuff. We force out patches as they're released, at least to userland.
Usually when we have any sort of problem, it shows up pretty clearly against our regular traffic, especially in certain departments. Our corporate security requirements are pretty brutal.
Not sure what you mean by that...We're not going to Vista either, so if you mean "Install Vista on his box" it will be installed on his, and mine, and most of the rest of IT before it's installed anywhere else, which could be in the next 2 years, but (judging by the XP upgrade cycle) might not be for 4 or 5 years.
If you mean, "Install linux on his box" that's just flat not going to happen. We don't have the terminal services infrastructure to support remote office/outlook/etc so, no Linux on the desktop here, not for the forseeable future. I don't even have a linux desktop, because everything I use linux for right now, I can get through putty.
Sure, Blizzard proved that with WoW, which runs fine in WINE.
The problem is applications built by people who are Linux hostile...Specifically, Microsoft themselves, and people who are simply unwilling to port their applications, like Adobe, and Macromedia.
If WINE won't cover those, we still need terminal services, which means we still need microsoft.
The one time I tried a full Open Office migration...Well, it cured me of ever trying it again...I was confident it could do everything MS Office could, and it took the old ladies who used office most about a week to prove me utterly wrong. I'm hoping Symphony will prove to be a better Office replacement, until then, I'll run MS Office in a terminal and save myself a world of pain.
The problem with Firebird/Firefox/Opera/whatever is the ie only websites. Half the time it'll be a bank or a payroll company or the IRS or something that they absolutely have to be able to get to. Where I am right now, I use Firefox and Opera for everything...except submitting my time/vacation/expenses. Have to have IE for that.
In the end it comes down to you vs the customer, and you can't tell them they're idiots for wanting to use Photoshop instead of GIMP, because Photoshop has more features.
I guess Microsoft doesn't have anything to worry about then =/
I've been burned by WINE too many times. Unless something miraculous happens and it starts working more or less reliably, I'm holding out for the day when all major software vendors release linux versions of their software...Between those options, I don't really see much difference.
The problem is, we've all spent too much time securing our Windows networks already...I don't remember the last time I had a virus take down more than a couple of machines, and the last time we had one at all was more than a year ago. Everything is isolated, anti-virused, monitored...All our email is filtered through a third party that strips out anything that looks weird.
If you're not having security problems, then saying, "This is more secure" doesn't cut any slack, and it sure as hell doesn't make it worth it to switch to a completely new system.
No CIO will ever think that Linux looks like a good idea just because the latest Windows is still in the "unrunnable crap" phase. They don't get where they are by taking big risks, and jumping from windows to linux is enough to make anyone who has any experience break out in a cold sweat.
A migration from XP to Vista will bring with it a myriad of problems, hosts of issues, hours and hours of work...And that is the tip of the iceberg of what it would take to migrate their userbase from XP to Linux.
I've been involved in a good half-dozen attempts to move an all windows shop to an all Linux environment, and it always comes down to the same stuff. You may pry them off windows, but you won't pry them off their windows software, so either you have to put your trust in WINE (pause for laughter) or you have to invest heavily in windows terminal services so that you can run all the windows apps they need in a terminal session on their linux machines. Doing that will cause whole new levels of stress on your network, and it also throws up some new point of failure issues.
On top of all the technical crap, you're going to have massive training issues, and a lot of user resistance from people who want to be able to install stupid little desktop apps. Most of the IT staff won't be happy with you, because generally most of the staff won't be linux guys.
Even if you get it all running (and every time I've ever done one of these, we got it running, and well), you're still going to get resistance. It stays ugly for long periods of time...I've seen people roll back after two years, writing off a quarter million dollar system as a bad deal.
Until we get native software, it's going to be the deal-breaker. Selling the terminal services stuff to people doesn't fly all that well.
I've been working IT for a long time, and I've NEVER liked a new operating system. New == Problems.
Unless there is a damn compelling reason, I'll stay with what is working and working well until the new thing has been out for a good while...Hell, I know shops that are still migrating to XP and while I think they're behind the times, they're not alone in that.
If you migrate up just because something new is out...That's just foolish. You're adding a fricking ton to your workload, and for no good reason.
The government has problems with efficiency, no question. But it doesn't necessarily follow that all private charities are better at caring for the sick, educating the poor, and nursing the elderly than the government...The government's care is the care the majority would approve of, and when it's not there are generally consequences.
Private care is the care that the private charity would approve of. No oversight. No fixed standard. No fixed curriculum in the case of schools. I think a lot of religions would love to step into that role, and I think in general that would be a bad thing.
Well, in the old days Fire Departments were a private enterprise, so they'd gallop to your house and put it out, then present you with a bill.
What's the logical extension of "I get paid for putting out things that are on fire"? That's right, they set fires to drum up business for themselves. They got in fights with rival firefighters if they happened to meet on the way to a "choice" fire. They engaged in mob-style protectionism (Dis is sum goood stuff! Be a shame if it all went up in smoke, eh Vinny?)
Oh yea, the efficiency of private enterprise. For some services, it is by far better to have the profit motive removed.
As someone with a big mouth and a lot of definite political views, there are a freaking ton of libertarians here, as compared with the actual proportion of society at large that espouses those views.
The fact that they're not a majority here only underlines the fact that they aren't a majority anywhere but on libertarian political sites.
And finally, there are a lot of democrats that would scream bloody murder at some of the things I think are good ideas. The economic realities that persuade me that social services are a good idea also make me union-unfriendly, tariff unfriendly, and a solid proponent of a vastly simplified tax system.
The costs of dealing with the juveniles, elderly, and infirm exist for all societies. If you live in the US, you're going to learn more about that than you ever wanted to as the boomers start retiring. For every person who didn't save enough, there are kids and grandkids who are going to be feeling a financial hit as they try to take care of mom and dad.
Now a hardcore big 'L' Libertarian (neo-liberalism here, like the political party, not the little 'l' libertarianism which is the opposite of fascism) would say, "Good, they should have known better, and it's sure as hell not my fault, and not my responsibility." Sure, they may donate, but only on their own terms, and only to things that make sense to them personally. Assuming that their distaste for large bureaucracy carries over to big charities, they'll be spending their money on targeted charities (e.g. Meals on Wheels, not United Way). Assuming that the amount of money remains the same (which it won't), some charities will experience a glut, and others will experience a shortfall. Some services will be provided, and others, not.
Without any society-sponsored solutions, any shortfall will have to be made up by the families. Some family members may have to quit work, in order to care for loved ones...Another strain on the economy. The family has less money over all, and therefore less disposable income, which means less purchasing, which means less manufacturing, which means less manufacturing jobs, which means less jobs for countless other people up and down the economic food chain. Now imagine the biggest demographic bulge in our countries history, and imagine what that will be like without a full-societal effort, managed by an organization which is capable of directing the money where it is needed. Welcome to the Libertarian paradise.
Well, at 2500W you could probably buy it as a space heater with a home improvement loan, and snip it off your taxes for the year as well.
Yep. Best time to work is when the economy is going well, so get a job, save some money, and when it starts tanking...as it inevitably will, being a cyclical phenomenon, go to school. By that point you may have a better idea of what you want to do for a living, and not end up settling for a placeholder "I dun went to colege" degree.
The problem with the hard core "don't tax me bro" crowd is that they really really believe that there is no cost in letting people starve in the streets/have no education/have no health care.
People don't passively starve in the street. They will try to find food. A large population of people who can't afford food is a serious problem, not because the more fortunate will have to step over them in the gutter, but because the more fortunate will come home to find that they've been robbed. Right now it's a truism that people don't steal to afford food...That's because they don't have to, because the government provides it.
Likewise education. A well educated populace makes a better workforce, military, and tax base. What benefits the economy benefits most the people who have the largest stake in it: the rich.
Health care. What do you think happens when a guy with no insurance walks into the emergency room with a legitimate emergency? Well, in LA, they let 'em die on the floor but in most places they treat them anyway and eat the cost. This person can't get the sort of routine care that would keep them out of the emergency room, but they can get the sort of massively expensive care that you get from the emergency room. That cost gets passed to the hospital, and then down to the first guy who walks through the door who CAN pay.
There are a lot of things in society that have a cost. The hardcore conservative really believes that those costs don't exist...Everything would be just the same if they didn't have to pay for the damn poor people. Hardcore liberals? I don't know what the hell they believe in. Fairies? I don't know. They tend to push the right thing, but for the wrong reasons...Fuzzy relativist ethics rather than simple economics.
The simple truth of it is that it is a lot better for society to shoulder costs like education, care for the disabled, workfare, etc, because if society doesn't shoulder the cost, then individuals have to shoulder the costs and that generally causes problems itself and results in a less effective solution. It's fair to talk reform, but don't try to pretend like the problem is the fact that the government spends money, while ignoring the reality of what would happen if they didn't.
You basically echoed the first guy, just from the other side. I'd have slapped him, but he was just an AC...I apply -3 to all ACs, so I didn't even see him.
Conservative/Liberal...Both sides are drinking the coolaid. There is nothing to be gained by just playing the label game over and over. If I say "I like guns, the death penalty, and free trade" I'm a Bushie who loves the war and eats Iraqi babies for breakfast. If I say, "I believe in social services, universal healthcare, and the right to an abortion" I'm a whiny tree hugger.
It's just ridiculous. Most people really aren't crazy, but when every discussion devolves into flamebait and name calling without there actually having been an argument over something to start it off? That's fucking crazy.
Economics is all about models. They LOVE models, big sexy mathematical models, tying together figures on wildly different things to try to get a sense of the direction of the economy...Economists can pick some really silly stuff to plug into their models, so imaginary widgets isn't out of the realm of possibility.
In this situation, they can actually apply their model, and watch things play out through the actions of real people, even if they're all dealing in imaginary goods. It's really exciting stuff, especially since the changes happen faster than "real world time" so you can get a since of price fluctuations much more quickly than you could out in the real world. It's also a closed system, so you have access to ALL the variables.
Many places do week to week these days, because it's possible, and you may gain some insight. As the above poster pointed out, however, it's always this week last year or the last two, three, or ten years, depending on the type of business.
If you notice trends based on the preceding year, you can maybe identify a causal connection, and then increase your business by catering to it.
Seems like I'm not alone...
Heh. You know what's really sad? I can't tell the difference between a joke and a serious right winger, when I don't have any body language to read. I'm still not sure he's not trying to be serious...
I don't care about his comment. At least he said something. If you had said something, I wouldn't have bothered to respond...I don't get involved in the Liberal/Conservative war. The radicals on both sides are idiots.
All you did though is call him a name. At least you could address his point, since you seem to want to participate.
So because you're a knee jerk right winger, you're right?
Ad hominem is worthless. Come up with something real or shut the hell up.
Wow, what a fallacy. How many were there before we went to war? 2 attempts, a decade apart? Saying that, because we went to war, therefore there were no more attacks is classic Ignoratio Elenchi...the fallacy of the Irrelevant Conclusion because being at war has nothing to do with terrorist attacks. It's also a kind of twisted Denying the Antecedent...
At Peace->Got attacked
~At peace
Therefore ~attacked.
You clearly wouldn't know truth if it was sitting on your face.