What are the long-term effects of passing coherent light through the aq. and virt. humors of the eye? Our eyes were evolved for the spread spectrum of sunlight.
At least my mother didn't think it was 'satanic' because I showed her the articles on www.trhickman.com debunking that myth.
I wonder how much of the D&D "Satanic" furor would have been snuffed out (like a torch caught in Bigby's Crushing Hand), if parents and children would have met each other over the gaming table to see what the game was capable of.
Mod this man up! He recognizes that a stock market is usually "opened" widely for the purposes of cashing out the names in the investment business. Such an opening is the very definition of an investment bubble.
Anything like OpenIPO is going to be another battering ram against the floodgate of IPO management. I'm not saying don't let people get involved if they want it; I'm just saying that if you do advocate such a thing, don't be all shocked and awed by the crash that MUST follow.
Good points, but don't minimize the effect of having children learn that "drugs are bad" but that "getting embalmed nightly at the bar" is A-freakin'-OK. The cognitive dissonance of treatment of alcohol and drugs is just too much for the rational brain to handle... hence, we lose the attention and respect of most children when we try to make a point about drugs in general.
back in the dim and distant past when I were a lad, it was considered harmful to use brainwashing and coercion in education
I had a friend who went through educator training (for business, then english) in college in the late 80s, and he told me many stories that revolved around the same theme --- that theme being brainwashing. That's what passes for education nowadays. The coercion naturally follows.
Yeah, what a great fuckin' idea, as exampled by America and what happens when you cross her oil charter (you know, the one that says America owns all the world's oil and has a God-given right to consume it all).
Government sucks, and world government will suck the most. You don't put a stop to things like genocide by transforming the killers into policemen by just adding badges.
People keep saying this as if it were true, but it's not.
If said corporate entity was in possession of toxic waste, then dumping it into a river would be the choice that obeyed your alleged purpose. After all, done properly to avoid scrutiny, it avoids the cost of cleanup, keeping money in the company which can be returned to shareholders.
But we know that and many other examples just aren't true. Hence, corporations have many obligations other than "returning value". They are obligated to customers, employees, suppliers, regulators, etc.
In fact, corporations being chartered entities under states, they have all the obligations that follow those charters. And there's the historical gemstone buried deep in all that "stockholder value" mud you're slinging.
The thing that makes your spoken falsehood seem true is public laxity in controlling public mechanisms like corporate chartering. If the public wakes up and assumes control, we can put the lethal drive of "stockholder value" to bed.
we could all work 25 or 30 hour weeks and still live the good life
They were correct. You can work 25-30hr a week and live the good life... defined as the 1940 middle-class standard of living. That wasn't good enough for the yuppie of today... as well as the many, many poor pretenders to the yuppie throne.
Blame must be properly laid. Much as I spit venom at the hypercapitalists, they are more than supported by the hyperconsumer. Like a friend of mine said about 3 years ago: They bought all those SUVs, and then acted surprised when gas prices rose? Fools.
Re-start that old American frugality and independence. Just do ONE fucking thing to adapt to an age of scarcity. Hang up your washing on lines rather than using the clothes dryer. Read a book rather than watching TV. Home cook 95% of your meals instead of eating out every other day.
The reality is that OVERTIME is no good for families, industry or profits!
Unfortunately, the reality also includes a Midwest factory worker getting paid from $60K-$90K for 60-80hr workweeks. He then buys everything under the sun, which he seldom has time to use, but his family sure likes to have: big main home, vacation home, 2 cars plus 1 for each kid, all the tech gadgets, club memberships, boat, eating out at restaurants, and so much throwaway goods that the curbs of these families are weekly shopping counters in their own right.
When overtime drops, he just bankrupts. No big deal.
No. All forms of taxation punish different population sectors variously.
Income taxes force the wealthy, clever or industrious people to hide and camoflauge their income streams.
A National Sales Tax of the same intensity will force the same people to similarly hide or camoflauge their purchases. A NST will surely involve exemptions and exceptions, and billions will flow through those channels solely to escape taxation.
Take this real example; a small meat seller pays himself and family workers near minimum wages. However, they all drive "company" cars, eat food purchased under the company wholesale name, and of course have company money flowing into their homes by various mechanisms.
The end product is that the meat seller patriarch is making $50K/yr while his income tax statement says $16K. And things like company cars are tax deductions, not additions.
A NST will give birth to a slightly different culture of tax evasion. I'm sure you'll see things like "buying clubs" [wink, wink] that will allow people to basically buy stuff without paying taxes through the use of some loophole... like an exemption for charity use, etc. And of course, the poor will be the hardest hit since they don't have the capital to invest in such tax shelters.
This is all to be expected since the average working American ($36K salary) probably faces 35% of his yearly income disappearing into the coffers of government. If everyone was expected to surrender 10% without exception, it may prove to be less trouble to just obey... less margin to fight over, so to speak. It's the high margin of taxes that fuels the exemption economy.
P.S. If you really think the US will implement a NST while ALSO repealing the income tax and ALSO disbanding the IRS, you are in need of some behavior-modification medication. The IRS doesn't just collect taxes; it also functions as the long arm of the law for many financial circumstances. It's also a good way to track people for more criminal concerns. The US government will never get rid of it; hence, it will never get rid of income taxes. It's likely that a NST will be added on top of everything else... after all, they'll probably start it out at 0.1% just to get their foot into the door with the half-asleep and half-retarded American population.
I have to say, despite returning to a salary level that bests my previous best. I'm a changed person. Save, save, save.
Sing the gospel, brother!
The ability to get deeply into debt, IS NOT BEING WEALTHY. It's also not prosperous. Debt is for poor people.
Save your money; to be more general, conserve your resources... noting well that time * is not your greatest resource.
There's nothing wrong with the independent, middle class lifestyle.
* I watch guys working 60hr+ weeks, who have lots of money to pay for stuff they never have time to use. In addition, their kids grow up in an affluence that they have no understanding about the cost of. Daddy will always bring home another check. I shudder to think of encountering this generation in the Real World.
On the 1st applicable day of winter, when the snowfall permits, I make sure I get into a parking lot and start a couple of skids. Skidding is alarming to my body and the shock can freeze my reactions; hence I practice to get myself used to it (after 6 months of calm) so my reactions can govern the skid and not just friction. I suspect few people do this kind of thing.
If you must put it like that, then I think I prefer a set of steel arms which will rust and look nasty in 3 years, but will run structurally for much longer than that, and I can buy them for $75 new or $40 used, and put in myself... as opposed to a set of aluminum ones costing twice that new.
I am suspicious about terms like part life[span]. I used to plate steel with zinc. Longer lifespans for rust resistance were increased (as measured by hours exposed to a salt spray before spot rust appeared) for no discernable reason, except to leave me curious about automakers superqualifying their suppliers in order to weed them out.
Cheap steel parts that get the job done should not be underestimated. They have a place in car construction. We can at least see two basic auto markets: low and high end. The low end cars can be built with no amenities and with plated steels; the high end with many options, and materials like stainless steel, aluminum and composites.
The middle class is being dealt a lethal 2-fisted blow to the gut. The 1st fist is offshoring. The 2nd fist is immigration.
The H1B program is much on the minds of/.ers. And if the Lords of Capital can bring in some schmoe from overseas to do your job at half your wage (or at your wage without benefits), then they can do that to anyone with a high enough wage that merits the investment. Hence, plumbers, electricians, doctors, etc. With the degradation of labor power in America as defined by the downfall of the unions, even unionized labor like plumbers will feel the pinch. Cost-cutting is a disease that's infected all corporate thinking; and I don't see it stopping at any line item except executive compensation.
So, if by 2006 your plumber shows up and doesn't understand much English, recall this posting.
We are arriving at a good interface for a "key", and said key can be changed if it is stolen: USB flash drives. USB is cheap, becoming pervasive, programmable, and relatively easy to connect/disconnect. Admittedly, it would be nice to go up to a computer or door and plug the thing in, giving you access; the door opens, and the computer (note well) lets you do anything on it that's within the scope of your security clearance. Devices like cars and construction equipment already use this system with metal keys, except that theft of a single key compromises all other keys... the lock itself would have to be changed.
This was a pipe dream for years due to the integration problems between hardware and software providers. But with MS-Windows and USB pervading our tech world, we have a good chance of producing in the next ver of Windows a one-stop password scheme. Of course, I'm sure this could be a plug-in to Windows now, as well a port to Linux and Mac OSX. It seems so close, yet still so far for some blasted reason.
Your shirt example is apt, but I think you are missing the point that has been much on my mind for years. The point is that more expensive items are worth maintaining. And maintenance means local support.
Firstly, a quality shirt made in America will probably fetch a good $60, compared to a Chinese version costing $15. With shirt expenses being 4 times higher, you're apt to have less of them, so your shirt expenses won't rise by that factor of 4. But these expensive shirts -- made of good material and buttons which can be maintained -- can be taken to the local seamstress, perhaps invoking $5/shirt/year for maintenance charges.
Note that the Chinese can do the same in their area.
In such a way, many more people can "win" instead of a limited amount of international traders. You -- the American -- would have shirts that would last for decades, and your downtown and suburb tailor shops would exist again. Meanwhile, the Chinese would have a similar economic base.
What you won't have is racks and racks of cheap shirts (like I ended up with). I strongly question how all those shirts are doing me any good. Likewise, I strongly question how much good all those cheap (in cost and quality senses) products are doing us any good. Products with no maintainability are also invoking a landfill cost that has yet to strike us with full force.
Your post is particularly qualitative and I can't do it much justice at the moment. But I can say that I'm not so convinced that Smith's ideas have been invalidated by running into a wall of technology and energy. I am thinking instead that that technology and energy just hasn't been properly harnessed by the citizenry. The First World average citizen commands significant power over a Thrid World person. It's just that the Zeroth World (corporations and assorted global elite) has orders of magnitude more power over FW citizens.
Citizens of all regions should adopt a longer view (sorry for my Ameri-Centrism... for example, I'm sure many Aborigines think in these terms already) of their impact upon the world, and plan accordingly. This means a widespread culture of savings, security and independence. This culture can become a powerhouse of individual authority. And that seems to me to be the answer to America's Imperial fall. To avoid a violent revolt and deadly removal of resources, her citizens have to each adopt a personal independence.
Talk about timing. No, he isn't joking. I just spoke to a friend last night about Wal-Mart, since her sister just got hired in as a cashier. She had never heard of any of the labor abuses that go on as a matter of course in Wal-Mart. For the 1st half of the conversation, she kept exclaiming "but they can't DO that!" when I outlined abuses like lockins, early clockouts, and of course the old erasure of worker timesheets... all to reduce wage costs for the company. She didn't want to understand that Wal-Mart is operating in a culture of the scofflaw; she didn't want to believe that an American corporation would so blatantly wipe its ass with labor law while loudly claming it's all the fault of numerous supervisors and managers acting without explicit direction.
Of course, what news she gets, pretty much comes from TV. People who surf the net for news tend to get a more qualitative view of things. In short, TV is keeping her in willful ignorance. Soooo... these people aren't joking. They not only don't know much, but have long believed in an American mythology that leads them to continue to be ignorant of even widespread abuses.
For further good news, as government budgets shrink, and people tend to work longer hours or live in growing poverty, labor-law enforcement will collapse and America will truly enter Third World status.
Yep, passwords are a pain... so the answer must be BIOMETRICS!
The trouble is, your company will then give up your "password" to the government for much, much less than a bar of chocolate.
Biometrics s*ck d*nk*y b*lls. With a company password, a compromise event limits the scope of the damage. Compromised biometrics will affect many systems for the rest of your life. Somebody gets your thumbprint or voiceprint and can haunt you for decades.
It's 2004. Fraud is a serious problem. Let's not make it more serious by making it easier on companies at the permanent expense of people.
Did you ever get the sense that companies invested heavily in Intellectual Property since it promised to provide "RESIDUAL INCOME!!" (in the parlance of the usual multilevel marketing scams)?
By the essence of IP's very fluidity, it's going overseas one way or another in the new Wild West environment of globalist capital. It seems to me that the overinvestment in IP is biting America in the ass, and will come to a great deal of grief for all of these lazy and scheming corporations.
I knew outsourcing was a problem way back when blue collars were losing their jobs... and millions of them disappeared into prisons and medical welfare. I also knew that the yuppie fuckers wouldn't care how many of their fathers or uncles were crushed up in this meat grinder as long as they had their CD players, cable TV and sexy sporty cars.
I looked forward to the time when a Bachelor's degree didn't mean shit. Now we're here. And it now has an inertia of continental-drift proportions.
The next thing to strike hard will be the loss of tenure in universities. Too many of those who have snubbed the Yuppie Downfall have sought out academia as some sort of shelter from the economic storm. Well, those folks are facing more and more of the same problem; they have no real career, and are being treated like temp workers for years, even decades. Watch out for more wage drops in this area. But also watch out for more squawking... as the ivory tower set finally face the future that they lauded for the rest of us.
In short: Eat it, you fuckers. How do your feet feel inside the blades of the grinder? Now you understand how your father felt when he was 55 years old, working 60hr weeks as a factory electrician, and was called a "lazy American".
Slashdot Mirror
What are the long-term effects of passing coherent light through the aq. and virt. humors of the eye? Our eyes were evolved for the spread spectrum of sunlight.
There were two thin volumes, and yes, "Sex & D&D" was finally covered as Phil had been promising for lo those many years.
Did you ever hear that saying?:
"Fishing is not a matter of life and death. It's more important than that."
D&D was the same way. In fact, I didn't come across anything with such a low worth-to-noise ratio until I saw USENET.
At least my mother didn't think it was 'satanic' because I showed her the articles on www.trhickman.com debunking that myth.
I wonder how much of the D&D "Satanic" furor would have been snuffed out (like a torch caught in Bigby's Crushing Hand), if parents and children would have met each other over the gaming table to see what the game was capable of.
Mod this man up! He recognizes that a stock market is usually "opened" widely for the purposes of cashing out the names in the investment business. Such an opening is the very definition of an investment bubble.
Anything like OpenIPO is going to be another battering ram against the floodgate of IPO management. I'm not saying don't let people get involved if they want it; I'm just saying that if you do advocate such a thing, don't be all shocked and awed by the crash that MUST follow.
No, I do the intellectual equivalent: I read a lot.
But thanks for playing, you fucking Imperialist.
I didn't lie to my parents
They never asked you about masturbation, then.
There's a word that describes you as a teenager: WEENIE.
Obedience is not good behavior. You were born into a world of rules, and that fact alone is tyrannical.
Good points, but don't minimize the effect of having children learn that "drugs are bad" but that "getting embalmed nightly at the bar" is A-freakin'-OK. The cognitive dissonance of treatment of alcohol and drugs is just too much for the rational brain to handle ... hence, we lose the attention and respect of most children when we try to make a point about drugs in general.
back in the dim and distant past when I were a lad, it was considered harmful to use brainwashing and coercion in education
I had a friend who went through educator training (for business, then english) in college in the late 80s, and he told me many stories that revolved around the same theme --- that theme being brainwashing. That's what passes for education nowadays. The coercion naturally follows.
Violate the charter and we'll come after you.
Yeah, what a great fuckin' idea, as exampled by America and what happens when you cross her oil charter (you know, the one that says America owns all the world's oil and has a God-given right to consume it all).
Government sucks, and world government will suck the most. You don't put a stop to things like genocide by transforming the killers into policemen by just adding badges.
People keep saying this as if it were true, but it's not.
If said corporate entity was in possession of toxic waste, then dumping it into a river would be the choice that obeyed your alleged purpose. After all, done properly to avoid scrutiny, it avoids the cost of cleanup, keeping money in the company which can be returned to shareholders.
But we know that and many other examples just aren't true. Hence, corporations have many obligations other than "returning value". They are obligated to customers, employees, suppliers, regulators, etc.
In fact, corporations being chartered entities under states, they have all the obligations that follow those charters. And there's the historical gemstone buried deep in all that "stockholder value" mud you're slinging.
The thing that makes your spoken falsehood seem true is public laxity in controlling public mechanisms like corporate chartering. If the public wakes up and assumes control, we can put the lethal drive of "stockholder value" to bed.
we could all work 25 or 30 hour weeks and still live the good life
... defined as the 1940 middle-class standard of living. That wasn't good enough for the yuppie of today ... as well as the many, many poor pretenders to the yuppie throne.
They were correct. You can work 25-30hr a week and live the good life
Blame must be properly laid. Much as I spit venom at the hypercapitalists, they are more than supported by the hyperconsumer. Like a friend of mine said about 3 years ago: They bought all those SUVs, and then acted surprised when gas prices rose? Fools.
Re-start that old American frugality and independence. Just do ONE fucking thing to adapt to an age of scarcity. Hang up your washing on lines rather than using the clothes dryer. Read a book rather than watching TV. Home cook 95% of your meals instead of eating out every other day.
The reality is that OVERTIME is no good for families, industry or profits!
Unfortunately, the reality also includes a Midwest factory worker getting paid from $60K-$90K for 60-80hr workweeks. He then buys everything under the sun, which he seldom has time to use, but his family sure likes to have: big main home, vacation home, 2 cars plus 1 for each kid, all the tech gadgets, club memberships, boat, eating out at restaurants, and so much throwaway goods that the curbs of these families are weekly shopping counters in their own right.
When overtime drops, he just bankrupts. No big deal.
The Sales Tax taxes everybody the same.
... like an exemption for charity use, etc. And of course, the poor will be the hardest hit since they don't have the capital to invest in such tax shelters.
... less margin to fight over, so to speak. It's the high margin of taxes that fuels the exemption economy.
... after all, they'll probably start it out at 0.1% just to get their foot into the door with the half-asleep and half-retarded American population.
No. All forms of taxation punish different population sectors variously.
Income taxes force the wealthy, clever or industrious people to hide and camoflauge their income streams.
A National Sales Tax of the same intensity will force the same people to similarly hide or camoflauge their purchases. A NST will surely involve exemptions and exceptions, and billions will flow through those channels solely to escape taxation.
Take this real example; a small meat seller pays himself and family workers near minimum wages. However, they all drive "company" cars, eat food purchased under the company wholesale name, and of course have company money flowing into their homes by various mechanisms.
The end product is that the meat seller patriarch is making $50K/yr while his income tax statement says $16K. And things like company cars are tax deductions, not additions.
A NST will give birth to a slightly different culture of tax evasion. I'm sure you'll see things like "buying clubs" [wink, wink] that will allow people to basically buy stuff without paying taxes through the use of some loophole
This is all to be expected since the average working American ($36K salary) probably faces 35% of his yearly income disappearing into the coffers of government. If everyone was expected to surrender 10% without exception, it may prove to be less trouble to just obey
P.S. If you really think the US will implement a NST while ALSO repealing the income tax and ALSO disbanding the IRS, you are in need of some behavior-modification medication. The IRS doesn't just collect taxes; it also functions as the long arm of the law for many financial circumstances. It's also a good way to track people for more criminal concerns. The US government will never get rid of it; hence, it will never get rid of income taxes. It's likely that a NST will be added on top of everything else
I have to say, despite returning to a salary level that bests my previous best. I'm a changed person. Save, save, save.
... noting well that time * is not your greatest resource.
Sing the gospel, brother!
The ability to get deeply into debt, IS NOT BEING WEALTHY. It's also not prosperous. Debt is for poor people.
Save your money; to be more general, conserve your resources
There's nothing wrong with the independent, middle class lifestyle.
* I watch guys working 60hr+ weeks, who have lots of money to pay for stuff they never have time to use. In addition, their kids grow up in an affluence that they have no understanding about the cost of. Daddy will always bring home another check. I shudder to think of encountering this generation in the Real World.
On the 1st applicable day of winter, when the snowfall permits, I make sure I get into a parking lot and start a couple of skids. Skidding is alarming to my body and the shock can freeze my reactions; hence I practice to get myself used to it (after 6 months of calm) so my reactions can govern the skid and not just friction. I suspect few people do this kind of thing.
If you must put it like that, then I think I prefer a set of steel arms which will rust and look nasty in 3 years, but will run structurally for much longer than that, and I can buy them for $75 new or $40 used, and put in myself ... as opposed to a set of aluminum ones costing twice that new.
I am suspicious about terms like part life[span]. I used to plate steel with zinc. Longer lifespans for rust resistance were increased (as measured by hours exposed to a salt spray before spot rust appeared) for no discernable reason, except to leave me curious about automakers superqualifying their suppliers in order to weed them out.
Cheap steel parts that get the job done should not be underestimated. They have a place in car construction. We can at least see two basic auto markets: low and high end. The low end cars can be built with no amenities and with plated steels; the high end with many options, and materials like stainless steel, aluminum and composites.
The middle class is being dealt a lethal 2-fisted blow to the gut. The 1st fist is offshoring. The 2nd fist is immigration.
/.ers. And if the Lords of Capital can bring in some schmoe from overseas to do your job at half your wage (or at your wage without benefits), then they can do that to anyone with a high enough wage that merits the investment. Hence, plumbers, electricians, doctors, etc. With the degradation of labor power in America as defined by the downfall of the unions, even unionized labor like plumbers will feel the pinch. Cost-cutting is a disease that's infected all corporate thinking; and I don't see it stopping at any line item except executive compensation.
The H1B program is much on the minds of
So, if by 2006 your plumber shows up and doesn't understand much English, recall this posting.
We are arriving at a good interface for a "key", and said key can be changed if it is stolen: USB flash drives. USB is cheap, becoming pervasive, programmable, and relatively easy to connect/disconnect. Admittedly, it would be nice to go up to a computer or door and plug the thing in, giving you access; the door opens, and the computer (note well) lets you do anything on it that's within the scope of your security clearance. Devices like cars and construction equipment already use this system with metal keys, except that theft of a single key compromises all other keys ... the lock itself would have to be changed.
This was a pipe dream for years due to the integration problems between hardware and software providers. But with MS-Windows and USB pervading our tech world, we have a good chance of producing in the next ver of Windows a one-stop password scheme. Of course, I'm sure this could be a plug-in to Windows now, as well a port to Linux and Mac OSX. It seems so close, yet still so far for some blasted reason.
Your shirt example is apt, but I think you are missing the point that has been much on my mind for years. The point is that more expensive items are worth maintaining. And maintenance means local support.
Firstly, a quality shirt made in America will probably fetch a good $60, compared to a Chinese version costing $15. With shirt expenses being 4 times higher, you're apt to have less of them, so your shirt expenses won't rise by that factor of 4. But these expensive shirts -- made of good material and buttons which can be maintained -- can be taken to the local seamstress, perhaps invoking $5/shirt/year for maintenance charges.
Note that the Chinese can do the same in their area.
In such a way, many more people can "win" instead of a limited amount of international traders. You -- the American -- would have shirts that would last for decades, and your downtown and suburb tailor shops would exist again. Meanwhile, the Chinese would have a similar economic base.
What you won't have is racks and racks of cheap shirts (like I ended up with). I strongly question how all those shirts are doing me any good. Likewise, I strongly question how much good all those cheap (in cost and quality senses) products are doing us any good. Products with no maintainability are also invoking a landfill cost that has yet to strike us with full force.
Your post is particularly qualitative and I can't do it much justice at the moment. But I can say that I'm not so convinced that Smith's ideas have been invalidated by running into a wall of technology and energy. I am thinking instead that that technology and energy just hasn't been properly harnessed by the citizenry. The First World average citizen commands significant power over a Thrid World person. It's just that the Zeroth World (corporations and assorted global elite) has orders of magnitude more power over FW citizens.
... for example, I'm sure many Aborigines think in these terms already) of their impact upon the world, and plan accordingly. This means a widespread culture of savings, security and independence. This culture can become a powerhouse of individual authority. And that seems to me to be the answer to America's Imperial fall. To avoid a violent revolt and deadly removal of resources, her citizens have to each adopt a personal independence.
Citizens of all regions should adopt a longer view (sorry for my Ameri-Centrism
Talk about timing. No, he isn't joking. I just spoke to a friend last night about Wal-Mart, since her sister just got hired in as a cashier. She had never heard of any of the labor abuses that go on as a matter of course in Wal-Mart. For the 1st half of the conversation, she kept exclaiming "but they can't DO that!" when I outlined abuses like lockins, early clockouts, and of course the old erasure of worker timesheets ... all to reduce wage costs for the company. She didn't want to understand that Wal-Mart is operating in a culture of the scofflaw; she didn't want to believe that an American corporation would so blatantly wipe its ass with labor law while loudly claming it's all the fault of numerous supervisors and managers acting without explicit direction.
... these people aren't joking. They not only don't know much, but have long believed in an American mythology that leads them to continue to be ignorant of even widespread abuses.
Of course, what news she gets, pretty much comes from TV. People who surf the net for news tend to get a more qualitative view of things. In short, TV is keeping her in willful ignorance. Soooo
For further good news, as government budgets shrink, and people tend to work longer hours or live in growing poverty, labor-law enforcement will collapse and America will truly enter Third World status.
Yep, passwords are a pain ... so the answer must be BIOMETRICS!
The trouble is, your company will then give up your "password" to the government for much, much less than a bar of chocolate.
Biometrics s*ck d*nk*y b*lls. With a company password, a compromise event limits the scope of the damage. Compromised biometrics will affect many systems for the rest of your life. Somebody gets your thumbprint or voiceprint and can haunt you for decades.
It's 2004. Fraud is a serious problem. Let's not make it more serious by making it easier on companies at the permanent expense of people.
Did you ever get the sense that companies invested heavily in Intellectual Property since it promised to provide "RESIDUAL INCOME!!" (in the parlance of the usual multilevel marketing scams)?
By the essence of IP's very fluidity, it's going overseas one way or another in the new Wild West environment of globalist capital. It seems to me that the overinvestment in IP is biting America in the ass, and will come to a great deal of grief for all of these lazy and scheming corporations.
I knew outsourcing was a problem way back when blue collars were losing their jobs ... and millions of them disappeared into prisons and medical welfare. I also knew that the yuppie fuckers wouldn't care how many of their fathers or uncles were crushed up in this meat grinder as long as they had their CD players, cable TV and sexy sporty cars.
... as the ivory tower set finally face the future that they lauded for the rest of us.
I looked forward to the time when a Bachelor's degree didn't mean shit. Now we're here. And it now has an inertia of continental-drift proportions.
The next thing to strike hard will be the loss of tenure in universities. Too many of those who have snubbed the Yuppie Downfall have sought out academia as some sort of shelter from the economic storm. Well, those folks are facing more and more of the same problem; they have no real career, and are being treated like temp workers for years, even decades. Watch out for more wage drops in this area. But also watch out for more squawking
In short: Eat it, you fuckers. How do your feet feel inside the blades of the grinder? Now you understand how your father felt when he was 55 years old, working 60hr weeks as a factory electrician, and was called a "lazy American".