I've worked inside and outside of Microsoft as a Software Engineer in the greater Seattle area since 1996. Microsoft has always been on-par or below industry standards for compensation for the area in the Senior Level Engineer arena. Except for the crazy stock back in the 90's it hasn't been a "get rich" kind of job ever.
However, the work environment at Microsoft is so enjoyable, that personally, I would take a slightly lower wage in order to work there.
Well, "main reason for existing" might be a little broad and open to interpretation. I don't know what other distro offers full controlled builds of your entire system other than Gentoo though, so that's a Gentoo advantage (or disadvantage, since portage is sorely lacking in binary packages.. depends on how you look at it).
I wouldn't be surprised with a 10% increase or more in something like ssh or libgmp using march=pentium4 over mcpu=i686, but those are rather specific cases. You're pulling in the proper timing tables AND opening up the newer processor specific instruction sets which are mostly targetted toward math functions. If your playing in KDE all day and surfing the web, you aren't going to see any difference at all because you are user-bound anyway.
I've seen benchmarks where there was as much as a 50% difference over generic libs... the problem though is that they were contrived benchmarks:) On a good note, you aren't ever going to see a decrease in performance with the righ arch specified.
The big advantage *I* see to gentoo is portage. It's slower to install new packages then apt-get, but when something goes awry, I have complete access to the build tree of the entire system. USE flags are very convienient ways to eliminate entire feature sets of some packages, and I have run into many cases where feature sets conflict. Another advantage is in upgrades. Notice that Gentoo doesn't version their distro... that's because any install that is maintained is always the latest version because of the way portage works. The fact that by using Gentoo I get proc specific binaries instead of generic ones is, IMHO a side benefit and not nearly as important.
I have had Gentoo distro tools get in my way though. I'd say, if you want a raw distro without tools getting in your way, Slackware is a better choice. Gentoo DEFINATELY has a philosophy of how a system should fit together and the tools do enforce that.
The whole reason processor specific instructions exist is because they are faster than the stock x86 instructions. The difference will be miniscule however (5-10% is unnoticable for human interaction stuff, and hardly noticible in heavy server apps). In addition, different procs pipeline their instructions differently, and a stock x86 compile is hardly going to take pipelinine into account. There is no -fomgfast gcc compiler flag:) but you can expect a small (5-10%) gain overall for compiling for your proc. Remember that stock x86 builds are using ONLY the instructions from the 386 processor. Most distros are probably compiled with a 586 instruction set, but there are alot of advancements in instructions and pipelining between 586 and todays P4 and Athlons.
I highly doubt you will EVER get 10x (1000%) speed increases from compiling with mmx and friends... you realize that using a quake benchmark that would mean going from 10 FPS to 100 FPS just from a recompile... that's not going to happen. *MAYBE* 50% increase in speed on apps dealing expressly with graphics code, and even then probably not unless you give it permission with -ffast-math.
It's not worth it unless you either really need it (you are doing hardcore scientific work where 10% faster means days or weeks saved), you are doing it anyway for other reasons, so might as well add the optimizations (you use Gentoo and love portage) or you are just a ricer (You wish Gentoo would add support for the -fomgfast flag)
If you want faster, go buy a faster proc.
The only caveat is in the kernal. SMP and timer interupt settings can make a big difference in system performance or responsiveness (if you run a dual core chip and have SMP turned off for instance... that's just silly).
I wasn't recommending compiling everything. Like I said, you can get maybe get another 5-10% that way and it's not worth it for most people. However, compiling a kernel (which is where any real distro differences in speed are going to be) is orders of magnitude simpler than reinstalling the entire OS.
The strengths of the OS's lie not in their speed differences, as Linux is going to run about as fast as Linux runs, and KDE/Gnome is also, no matter what distro you are on. The strengths of the distros lie in their package management, their ease of patching and upgrading, their helper utilities, the community and documentation, corporate support, etc.
Ricing is not choosing Gentoo over Fedora Core. Ricing is willing to switch your OS distribution because you heard that Fedora Core screams compared to Ubuntu, but maybe Slackware will kick it's ass and make it go even faster... when really the only difference in speed is probably in your KDE display settings.
Why is speed of a distro even an issue?? Turn off the crap you don't want if you want to go faster. You aren't going to get significant speed gains by switching distros. If you don't want to lose feature set, the MOST you can expect to gain by switching distros while retaining your current feature set is maybe 5%.
Compile your kernel.. you will get a bigger speed gain here by filtering out what you don't need and it's a WHOLE lot easier than switching distros. If you REALLY want the last 5-10% then compile and strip EVERYTHING yourself custom for YOUR processor. No distro is going to do that for you because they need to remain generic so that they run on "x86" instead of "Dual Proc Pentium 3 Coppermines only". If you want to do that, then get Gentoo, which exactly why Gentoo exists. Switching from one generic binary distro to another is just changing a few details about how certain peices of the OS fit together and what is on or off by default and has nothing to do with speed.
We certainly have the technology for a trusted signature email system. Why we insist on this old open protocol and then bitch when everyone can read our email in plaintext and send emails to anyone they like, when that is implicit in the protocol is beyond me.
I'm not on SQL anymore, but I did have the source at one time, and I have built it completely before, and believe me when I say it's not something you want to try. If you mean, by "how do you do that", how do I build SQL server, given the source, then that is something I'm not going to discuss outside of an MS NDA, and there are better people than I to talk to. And yes, I do use MySQL for some things (Not inside MS though... I know of no MS use of MySQL, nor of any production use whatsoever of any non-MS RDB.)
Honestly, all other things being equal and given the choice, I would take MSSQL over MySQL any day. Things not being equal though, I don't always have a Win2k3 server lying around, I don't always want a Win2k3 server over the other options, and some apps are written to work with MySQL only (drupal being my biggest reason for using MySQL).
There is still a line in a heterogeneous cluster. There comes a point where the overhead cost needed to negotiate a job to the lowest end machine for processing surpasses the cost of a higher end machine doing the job itself. At such a point, adding lower end machines actually slows the cluster down.
Yes I've done this, in production. I had a MySQL server that would bomb out occassionally on a weird query. I found the bug, patched it (It was pretty trivial) and reported the bug and patch to MySQL.
I've also had MSSQL server go balls up when I worked at Microsoft, fired up the debugger, found the problem, reported it... Of course, I'm not going to rebuild SQL Server... that's a 2 week long excersize in pain.
Best is in mid-password... Here I am clacking away, and hit enter, just in time to notice that no password has been entered, and some window just dissapeared on my enter stroke... what was that, a benevolent warning message or did I just IM some random guy from egypt my password? I'll never know.
What?!? Personally I have no ethical beef whatsoever with Microsoft. On the other hand, I don't use any of their products. I can find no reason TO use any of their products. What Microsoft products are you talking about that is so pervasive?? Am I missing out on some great MS product that is as important to society as toilet paper or something??
Seriously... I'm not exagerating here. I have no reason to buy any MS product, nor can I think of any MS product that I would ever be in the market for, nor do I use any MS product that I am aware of ever in my daily life EXCEPT when I happen to be working *for* Microsoft, which I do from time to time.
Well, maybe MS keyboards and mice... those are nice and I might be in the market for those one day, but right now I've got enough.
Windows? WHY on earth would I use Windows? Most of my hardware can't run it, and the precious proc and memory of my high end boxes I would never want to spend on simply running the kernel and pretty interface when I have better things to do with it. Add to that the fact that it would cost me thousands of dollars in software costs to get the functionality of my current boxes if I used windows, and even then I couldn't get all the functionality I need because most software wont run (or runs badly, or is just a nightmare to get working) on windows.
X-Box? Maybe... but I don't have time for alot of games, and I really don't need a dedicated unit to play them.
Money? I lose interest too much when tracking my finances that closely and everything goes out of date so as to be useless.
Tax Software? I use online stuff and have for years. Works just as well and I honestly trust it more because it's more up to date by nature.
Third party software that needs Windows? Can't think of any I need. I don't do any photo editiong or video work or anything that requires a professional proprietary package so hardcore that the alternatives don't work for me.
What am I missing here... seriously. Am I just weird? Ok.. I'll grant you that, but come on, you started with the premise that I can't live without Microsoft and I'm racking my brains to figure out where on Earth I even USE Microsoft stuff. And I don't even avoid it conciously!
(My TV is Sony... but I bought that before the root-kit fiasco)
Yup. I won't buy Sony for a while. I didn't buy Qwest (one of our phone companies) for nearly a decade due to ethics issues.
I don't buy Microsoft... but really that's more because they market absolutely nothing that I want then some decision I've made. I can't think of a single MS product I would use except maybe their mice and keyboards.
The x refers consistantly to "manufacturer or class independent" builds, whereas the number is primarily a shorthand abbreviation for the chip class. Hence microsoft has released 32 bit builds of products under the monikers x86 (built supporting all procs that can handle the standard intel 32bit instruction set), i386 (built with support for intel's 386, but mostly a synonym for x86), i486, i586, i686 (built specifically for such intel chips but often the competition was able to support the instruction sets amply. These weren't used too much because of Microsoft wanting maximum cross portability they tended to stick to i386 and x86. I believe Windows eventually switched from i386 to i686), i64 (itanium), a64 (DEC Alpha), amd64 (athalon 64) and x64 (a common subset of itanium and athalon64 instructions). The only one that doesn't really fit the sequence is a64 not being a specialization of x64, but the chip was dead long before x64 came into being, so it was simply forgotten.
Portage (gentoo mainly, if not exclusively) does this also, by default even.
In all honesty though, it happens on windows too, as an installer for an app bundles all of it's dependancies with itself and installs/reinstalls any that aren't up to par with the "approved" dependancy list, or in the case of less-intelligent installers, just reinstalls all dependancies, sometimes over the top of newer versions. The only difference between the Linux and Windows worlds really being that Linux generally TELLS you it's blowing away old packages, whereas Windows assumes you aren't interested in such information.
The Windows native fusion project with Whidbey is very much targeted at getting more apt-get like in it's upgrade policies because the default behavior is often not what is needed.
I'm not saying that government should abdicate their responsibility, but rather, that using "but corporations can be evil so we need stronger governmental control" is not a useful response. You are simply replacing one abuse of power with another, and the newer power is even more uncontrolled than the original.
As for the "lie", corporations in the US do not have police powers, rather private citizens in those corporations have police powers, just like private citizens outside those corporations. A representative of a corporation could detain you and lock you in a corporate cell under the same authority that I can act as an officer of the law and lock you in my bedroom. The difference is that there is definite personal liability in such a police action, and if I or the corporation am detaining you without just cause there is hell to pay for the person who locked you in their bedroom:) Outside of the US, well, depending on the country, corporations may or may not have power rivaling that of the governments and in history sometimes they have also, and indeed could even be indistinguishable from governments, but I am speaking to the US' definition of corporation, which has none of those powers.
You're final statement, "RIAA does not need police because they have bought the laws" argues my point directly. Governments can be just as corrupt as the companies, and will often work in tandem with them towards corrupt ends. By giving the government MORE power over companies, you don't just allow the government to curb corruption, but you also allow it more power to crush legitimate competion from non-corrupt corporations in favor of their corrupt alliances. The OP's points were arguing that this was such a case, and while I myself do not feel qualified to offer an opinion on this particular case, I do feel qualified to point out that countering his argument by stating that all corporations should have increased government control is invalid.
Better a corporation than a government. Corportations don't have prisons, armies, police and ultimately answer to the higher power of law. The law running amok is MUCH more dangerous.
And I am saying that empirical evidence to that effect is impossible because there are too many variables and too much lag time before the cause and effect in the economy. The best evidence anyone can put forward is the reactions of the people in society to whom the science of "trends" is their livelihood.
And no, I am not cynical enough to believe that there is a grand conspiricy between all Republicans and Democrats to control politics and they are all the same and their philosophies are a facade. SOME of those accusations may hold merit for certain tactical offices, but the parties are MASSIVE organizations and all elected members hold power by their very nature, in State, Local, congressional and other jurisdictions. To claim that all of them are corrupt requires a conspiracy of such a great multitude that I'd have to call anyone crazy who believed it. Yes, there are corrupt ones. Yes, ALL the US presidents may be corrupt from some grand conspiracy, but most Republicans and Democrats are good people following their individual philosophies, and those philosophies have distinct differences.
And no, economics is not junk science. It's INNACURATE science, and sometimes subjective, but there are definite observations of economic trends and principles that can be made. Clearcut economic FACTS:
Inflation above 30% is a bad thing. People have a higher median income when the GDP is up.
etc... Then theories extend from these, and you have science. Science that is wrong much of the time, just like any science.
Slashdot Mirror
I've worked inside and outside of Microsoft as a Software Engineer in the greater Seattle area since 1996. Microsoft has always been on-par or below industry standards for compensation for the area in the Senior Level Engineer arena. Except for the crazy stock back in the 90's it hasn't been a "get rich" kind of job ever.
However, the work environment at Microsoft is so enjoyable, that personally, I would take a slightly lower wage in order to work there.
It depends on how much enterprise you have in them. Enterprise is expensive, but when added liberally you can scale to huge amounts.
I like to add a couple hundred enterprise myself.
Well, "main reason for existing" might be a little broad and open to interpretation. I don't know what other distro offers full controlled builds of your entire system other than Gentoo though, so that's a Gentoo advantage (or disadvantage, since portage is sorely lacking in binary packages.. depends on how you look at it).
:) On a good note, you aren't ever going to see a decrease in performance with the righ arch specified.
I wouldn't be surprised with a 10% increase or more in something like ssh or libgmp using march=pentium4 over mcpu=i686, but those are rather specific cases. You're pulling in the proper timing tables AND opening up the newer processor specific instruction sets which are mostly targetted toward math functions. If your playing in KDE all day and surfing the web, you aren't going to see any difference at all because you are user-bound anyway.
I've seen benchmarks where there was as much as a 50% difference over generic libs... the problem though is that they were contrived benchmarks
The big advantage *I* see to gentoo is portage. It's slower to install new packages then apt-get, but when something goes awry, I have complete access to the build tree of the entire system. USE flags are very convienient ways to eliminate entire feature sets of some packages, and I have run into many cases where feature sets conflict. Another advantage is in upgrades. Notice that Gentoo doesn't version their distro... that's because any install that is maintained is always the latest version because of the way portage works. The fact that by using Gentoo I get proc specific binaries instead of generic ones is, IMHO a side benefit and not nearly as important.
I have had Gentoo distro tools get in my way though. I'd say, if you want a raw distro without tools getting in your way, Slackware is a better choice. Gentoo DEFINATELY has a philosophy of how a system should fit together and the tools do enforce that.
If he provided a patch to ensure that it did work maybe :)
Maybe I should switch to Redhat.. a Jersey speaking computer would be so cool :)
That's rewriting the algorithm to take advantage of the MMX. You aren't going to get that from adding --mmx -ffast-math to the gcc command line :)
The whole reason processor specific instructions exist is because they are faster than the stock x86 instructions. The difference will be miniscule however (5-10% is unnoticable for human interaction stuff, and hardly noticible in heavy server apps). In addition, different procs pipeline their instructions differently, and a stock x86 compile is hardly going to take pipelinine into account. There is no -fomgfast gcc compiler flag :) but you can expect a small (5-10%) gain overall for compiling for your proc. Remember that stock x86 builds are using ONLY the instructions from the 386 processor. Most distros are probably compiled with a 586 instruction set, but there are alot of advancements in instructions and pipelining between 586 and todays P4 and Athlons.
I highly doubt you will EVER get 10x (1000%) speed increases from compiling with mmx and friends... you realize that using a quake benchmark that would mean going from 10 FPS to 100 FPS just from a recompile... that's not going to happen. *MAYBE* 50% increase in speed on apps dealing expressly with graphics code, and even then probably not unless you give it permission with -ffast-math.
It's not worth it unless you either really need it (you are doing hardcore scientific work where 10% faster means days or weeks saved), you are doing it anyway for other reasons, so might as well add the optimizations (you use Gentoo and love portage) or you are just a ricer (You wish Gentoo would add support for the -fomgfast flag)
If you want faster, go buy a faster proc.
The only caveat is in the kernal. SMP and timer interupt settings can make a big difference in system performance or responsiveness (if you run a dual core chip and have SMP turned off for instance... that's just silly).
I wasn't recommending compiling everything. Like I said, you can get maybe get another 5-10% that way and it's not worth it for most people. However, compiling a kernel (which is where any real distro differences in speed are going to be) is orders of magnitude simpler than reinstalling the entire OS.
The strengths of the OS's lie not in their speed differences, as Linux is going to run about as fast as Linux runs, and KDE/Gnome is also, no matter what distro you are on. The strengths of the distros lie in their package management, their ease of patching and upgrading, their helper utilities, the community and documentation, corporate support, etc.
Ricing is not choosing Gentoo over Fedora Core. Ricing is willing to switch your OS distribution because you heard that Fedora Core screams compared to Ubuntu, but maybe Slackware will kick it's ass and make it go even faster... when really the only difference in speed is probably in your KDE display settings.
Why is speed of a distro even an issue?? Turn off the crap you don't want if you want to go faster. You aren't going to get significant speed gains by switching distros. If you don't want to lose feature set, the MOST you can expect to gain by switching distros while retaining your current feature set is maybe 5%.
Compile your kernel.. you will get a bigger speed gain here by filtering out what you don't need and it's a WHOLE lot easier than switching distros. If you REALLY want the last 5-10% then compile and strip EVERYTHING yourself custom for YOUR processor. No distro is going to do that for you because they need to remain generic so that they run on "x86" instead of "Dual Proc Pentium 3 Coppermines only". If you want to do that, then get Gentoo, which exactly why Gentoo exists. Switching from one generic binary distro to another is just changing a few details about how certain peices of the OS fit together and what is on or off by default and has nothing to do with speed.
Then fix the protocol.
We certainly have the technology for a trusted signature email system. Why we insist on this old open protocol and then bitch when everyone can read our email in plaintext and send emails to anyone they like, when that is implicit in the protocol is beyond me.
I'm not on SQL anymore, but I did have the source at one time, and I have built it completely before, and believe me when I say it's not something you want to try. If you mean, by "how do you do that", how do I build SQL server, given the source, then that is something I'm not going to discuss outside of an MS NDA, and there are better people than I to talk to. And yes, I do use MySQL for some things (Not inside MS though... I know of no MS use of MySQL, nor of any production use whatsoever of any non-MS RDB.)
Honestly, all other things being equal and given the choice, I would take MSSQL over MySQL any day. Things not being equal though, I don't always have a Win2k3 server lying around, I don't always want a Win2k3 server over the other options, and some apps are written to work with MySQL only (drupal being my biggest reason for using MySQL).
There is still a line in a heterogeneous cluster. There comes a point where the overhead cost needed to negotiate a job to the lowest end machine for processing surpasses the cost of a higher end machine doing the job itself. At such a point, adding lower end machines actually slows the cluster down.
Yes I've done this, in production. I had a MySQL server that would bomb out occassionally on a weird query. I found the bug, patched it (It was pretty trivial) and reported the bug and patch to MySQL.
I've also had MSSQL server go balls up when I worked at Microsoft, fired up the debugger, found the problem, reported it... Of course, I'm not going to rebuild SQL Server... that's a 2 week long excersize in pain.
Which is exactly why homosexuals can legally marry corporations in all states.
wait...
Best is in mid-password... Here I am clacking away, and hit enter, just in time to notice that no password has been entered, and some window just dissapeared on my enter stroke... what was that, a benevolent warning message or did I just IM some random guy from egypt my password? I'll never know.
What?!? Personally I have no ethical beef whatsoever with Microsoft. On the other hand, I don't use any of their products. I can find no reason TO use any of their products. What Microsoft products are you talking about that is so pervasive?? Am I missing out on some great MS product that is as important to society as toilet paper or something??
Seriously... I'm not exagerating here. I have no reason to buy any MS product, nor can I think of any MS product that I would ever be in the market for, nor do I use any MS product that I am aware of ever in my daily life EXCEPT when I happen to be working *for* Microsoft, which I do from time to time.
Well, maybe MS keyboards and mice... those are nice and I might be in the market for those one day, but right now I've got enough.
Windows? WHY on earth would I use Windows? Most of my hardware can't run it, and the precious proc and memory of my high end boxes I would never want to spend on simply running the kernel and pretty interface when I have better things to do with it. Add to that the fact that it would cost me thousands of dollars in software costs to get the functionality of my current boxes if I used windows, and even then I couldn't get all the functionality I need because most software wont run (or runs badly, or is just a nightmare to get working) on windows.
X-Box? Maybe... but I don't have time for alot of games, and I really don't need a dedicated unit to play them.
Money? I lose interest too much when tracking my finances that closely and everything goes out of date so as to be useless.
Tax Software? I use online stuff and have for years. Works just as well and I honestly trust it more because it's more up to date by nature.
Third party software that needs Windows? Can't think of any I need. I don't do any photo editiong or video work or anything that requires a professional proprietary package so hardcore that the alternatives don't work for me.
What am I missing here... seriously. Am I just weird? Ok.. I'll grant you that, but come on, you started with the premise that I can't live without Microsoft and I'm racking my brains to figure out where on Earth I even USE Microsoft stuff. And I don't even avoid it conciously!
(My TV is Sony... but I bought that before the root-kit fiasco)
Yup. I won't buy Sony for a while.
I didn't buy Qwest (one of our phone companies) for nearly a decade due to ethics issues.
I don't buy Microsoft... but really that's more because they market absolutely nothing that I want then some decision I've made. I can't think of a single MS product I would use except maybe their mice and keyboards.
700 would be high for me on Comcast here in downtown Seattle. Routinely 500K.
The x refers consistantly to "manufacturer or class independent" builds, whereas the number is primarily a shorthand abbreviation for the chip class. Hence microsoft has released 32 bit builds of products under the monikers x86 (built supporting all procs that can handle the standard intel 32bit instruction set), i386 (built with support for intel's 386, but mostly a synonym for x86), i486, i586, i686 (built specifically for such intel chips but often the competition was able to support the instruction sets amply. These weren't used too much because of Microsoft wanting maximum cross portability they tended to stick to i386 and x86. I believe Windows eventually switched from i386 to i686), i64 (itanium), a64 (DEC Alpha), amd64 (athalon 64) and x64 (a common subset of itanium and athalon64 instructions). The only one that doesn't really fit the sequence is a64 not being a specialization of x64, but the chip was dead long before x64 came into being, so it was simply forgotten.
Or use notepad and vbs
*ducks
Portage (gentoo mainly, if not exclusively) does this also, by default even.
In all honesty though, it happens on windows too, as an installer for an app bundles all of it's dependancies with itself and installs/reinstalls any that aren't up to par with the "approved" dependancy list, or in the case of less-intelligent installers, just reinstalls all dependancies, sometimes over the top of newer versions. The only difference between the Linux and Windows worlds really being that Linux generally TELLS you it's blowing away old packages, whereas Windows assumes you aren't interested in such information.
The Windows native fusion project with Whidbey is very much targeted at getting more apt-get like in it's upgrade policies because the default behavior is often not what is needed.
I'm not saying that government should abdicate their responsibility, but rather, that using "but corporations can be evil so we need stronger governmental control" is not a useful response. You are simply replacing one abuse of power with another, and the newer power is even more uncontrolled than the original.
:) Outside of the US, well, depending on the country, corporations may or may not have power rivaling that of the governments and in history sometimes they have also, and indeed could even be indistinguishable from governments, but I am speaking to the US' definition of corporation, which has none of those powers.
As for the "lie", corporations in the US do not have police powers, rather private citizens in those corporations have police powers, just like private citizens outside those corporations. A representative of a corporation could detain you and lock you in a corporate cell under the same authority that I can act as an officer of the law and lock you in my bedroom. The difference is that there is definite personal liability in such a police action, and if I or the corporation am detaining you without just cause there is hell to pay for the person who locked you in their bedroom
You're final statement, "RIAA does not need police because they have bought the laws" argues my point directly. Governments can be just as corrupt as the companies, and will often work in tandem with them towards corrupt ends. By giving the government MORE power over companies, you don't just allow the government to curb corruption, but you also allow it more power to crush legitimate competion from non-corrupt corporations in favor of their corrupt alliances. The OP's points were arguing that this was such a case, and while I myself do not feel qualified to offer an opinion on this particular case, I do feel qualified to point out that countering his argument by stating that all corporations should have increased government control is invalid.
Better a corporation than a government. Corportations don't have prisons, armies, police and ultimately answer to the higher power of law. The law running amok is MUCH more dangerous.
Yes, but you know that already :)
It's irrelevant to the discussion.
And I am saying that empirical evidence to that effect is impossible because there are too many variables and too much lag time before the cause and effect in the economy. The best evidence anyone can put forward is the reactions of the people in society to whom the science of "trends" is their livelihood.
And no, I am not cynical enough to believe that there is a grand conspiricy between all Republicans and Democrats to control politics and they are all the same and their philosophies are a facade. SOME of those accusations may hold merit for certain tactical offices, but the parties are MASSIVE organizations and all elected members hold power by their very nature, in State, Local, congressional and other jurisdictions. To claim that all of them are corrupt requires a conspiracy of such a great multitude that I'd have to call anyone crazy who believed it. Yes, there are corrupt ones. Yes, ALL the US presidents may be corrupt from some grand conspiracy, but most Republicans and Democrats are good people following their individual philosophies, and those philosophies have distinct differences.
And no, economics is not junk science. It's INNACURATE science, and sometimes subjective, but there are definite observations of economic trends and principles that can be made. Clearcut economic FACTS:
Inflation above 30% is a bad thing.
People have a higher median income when the GDP is up.
etc... Then theories extend from these, and you have science. Science that is wrong much of the time, just like any science.