Why don't you tell me one non-prosecuted case of someone getting PAID to vote a certain way that is not in harmony with that representatives ideology or constituent interest to begin with?
David Wu claims to protect American Worker's rights as a part of his ideology AND constituent interest, but has a D- score in Numbers USA's website for voting for the interests of immigrants.
Irrelevant. All corporations are made up of citizens. Retard.
Nope- foreign citizens can own US corporations. In addition to that, a corporation at present time can hire everybody on an H-1b or L-1 visa and be entirely made up of foreign nationals. In addition to THAT (as if that wasn't enough) a corporation incorporated in the US may just only have a PO box here, all manufacturing in China, and all bank accounts in the Caimen Islands, and never have to pay a penny of income tax.
Actually, what's being rammed down our throats is a good deal less. And a good deal more dangerous to American Workers because it hasn't been debated and because it IS a good deal less.
What's being crammed down our throats is an extension of NAFTA- basically adding immigration to that already economically disasterous treaty.
Or, you could leave them the hell alone. Nobody's forcing you to buy from them.
They are when they're the only manufacturers allowed in the marketplace.
In fact, by forcing said person to stay in his own country, you're also forcing everyone in your country who actually wants to buy from him to go elsewhere. For spite of a foreigner, you hurt all those who could benefit from trade.
Nobody actually benefits from trade in items that can be made onshore- they're only profiting in the short term to cause higher costs in the long term.
An economic system is the most terrible vehicle imaginable for peddling "human connection." No system of allocating resources can force others to care about each other; to have that "human connnection."
I've got a system of allocating recources that does just that- but to do it you have to keep the units small. Families, tribes, villages at the largest- with no currency across borders. Trade is allowable, but only commodity trade.
To pretend this is possible is "religious claptrap." Besides, I'd wager that most people would rather keep their money and ensure their own wellbeing than trust something that important to anonymous others.
And yet- it worked for the majority of human history, up until fascist agriculturalism began to take over about 10,000 years ago.
Society as a whole is still made up of individuals. If the individuals are allowed to keep that which they need to care for themselves, than society as a whole will be better. In a capitalist society, you're still free to do the opposite - to pay more to someone who can also "pay more to ensure your wellbeing."
Thanks to natural disaster, nobody's figgured out how to allow individuals to keep what they need to care for themselves.
In a capitalistic society, there's nothing preventing you from moving to Bangalore. Sure, you'll get paid less - but you can't expect the entire world to pay you a ridiculous salary at the expense of the Bangalorians, can you?
No, but I can expect my tribe to pay me a ridiculous salary if I pay them a ridiculous salary.
Are you worth that much more as a human being to justify your profit at their expense?
I am if you are. In other words, if a CEO is worth that much, so is a software engineer.
As for your critique of "ownership", I still don't understand why you believe it's such a "bad thing." You can reject texts containing 200 years of science because it "appeals to an authority you cannot accept", so I'll appeal to one you do seem to worhship: There is no "human connection" depriving someone of the result of their toils, because it was never "theirs" to begin with.
Rather, I see your 200 years of fake science, and counter it with 1.5 million years worth of human history.
Nope; can't say that I have. But, even though the poor getting fed horrible food is, well, horrible - at least they have food.
You need to read about what capitalism became in the 1920s. Then maybe you'll have some appreciation for government regulation.
The magic of "profit" is that even with the most selfishly-motivated individual (the rotton meat-seller) fed the poor.
Killed the poor off more like. After all, if it wasn't for capitalism, the poor would be allowed to hunt and grow food on unowned land. Look up the Kalapuya sometime- the "Wealthy People" of the Pacific Northwest, and take a look at what THEIR economic system was.
So, the inefficient retailers suffer when WalMart shows the world how much they're overcharging. Instead of selling things for what they're worth, other retailers such as Target try to make their crap look more "valuable" by wasting money on advertising. It's cases like these where Wal-Mart is a sorely-needed breath of fresh air.
And in the meantime, thanks to Wal-Mart's "efficiency", our health insurance goes up at 10% a year and wages go down 2% a year, thus destroying an unrelated system because they're not willing to pay what work is really worth.
Besides, how much has Wal-Mart done to help the poor, even being motivated only by profit?
Let's see what wal-mart has done to "help" the poor- thrown them out of work due to monopolistic practices, given them new jobs paying 1/3rd what they were paid previously, taken away their health insurance so that they have to go to the emergency room for health care, which hurts the rich as well. Yep, good citizens those waltons are- if being a bunch of traitors is good citizens.
Families can afford much more than their limited incomes could before because Wal-Mart has made everything more affordable for them. The poor have more, even though Wal-Mart was motivated only by profit and not by altruism.
They wouldn't have such limited incomes if it wasn't for Wal-Mart to begin with, sending factory jobs to China. Wal-Mart is just an arm of the Chinese government, out to destroy America.
Nope - and it's not supposed to. You shouldn't have to spend $400/year to get pesticide-free vegetables. The poor won't be able to afford that.
And the farmer can't survive on anything less- so he'll go out of business. Here's a thought- pay the poor what they're worth so that they can afford $400/year subscriptions.
But, if somebody makes "bulk-rate organic" at half the cost, hooray for them. They made food that was formerly affordable only for elitists available to those much poorer. Even though these "bulk-rate" people were motivated only by profit, the poor can now afford better food.
The problem is, the way they create the bulk rate is to pay people less- thus creating more people in poverty. The race for the bottom- a negative feedback loop.
Simply not true. Just because somebody comes up with a "crappy-but-cheap" version doesn't mean anybody will want to buy it.
In a free market, only the stupid will buy anything else- simply because if profit is king it's not short term profitable to buy the more expensive version.
How much it costs to make something is a very different concept from "efficiency." If a new process to ship vegetables costs a tenth of the old, but makes most of the food inedible, it's hadly a more "efficient" way to ship food.
As long as the customer dies somewhere else- what does it matter to the shipper?
Markets reward efficiency - how well you can deliver what consumers actually want and how much of the earth's reasources you consume in doing so (input price). If you don't produce what people actually want, there's no $profit for you, even if it is dirt cheap. Supply and demand.
Markets reward fraud, primarily- because the real story is being hidden from the customer behind a viel of anonymity.
SPR vs SCC gave us the oligarchy by allowing corporations to become citizens with superior rights of petition, due to the fact that corporations have control of more resources than individual human beings.
You don't seem to realise that overreaction to "islamic nationalists" is what brings them attention in the ME and around the world. Bombing those that are paying attention is doing the opposite of what YOU desire as an outcome.
No, you don't understand- I WANT to bring attention to them. I want every future sect of every religion to know "If you decide to make conversion-by-suicide-bomber a part of your theology, then you will pay. Not just the suicide bombers, but the preachers, their parents, their children, their cousins, the entire world will pay for your crime." I want them to be as infamous as the Nazis- and just as dead.
The Nazi's attacked the rest of us with a huge fucking army from the center of Europe, where is the "islamo-facist" army? All I see is a few nut-cases with bomb belts and a whole lot of muslims that want the US to fuck off out of their country.
I see 10 million nut-cases with bomb belts- and a bunch of preachers trying to make more by blaming the US presence in their countries for everything from the cost of bread to whether or not rain will fall tomorrow. You obviously have never read the Koran or paid attention to what their preachers are saying in the mosques. Have you even ever been to a mosque?
Global politics has not "failed", the last time that happened the league of nations was disbanded and WW2 broke out.
And RIGHT NOW we're in the midst of WWIII, with a set of armies 10 million strong swearing to see the rest of the world Islamic or dead. Our one saving grace? None of these armies are more than about 3 million strong individually- and their definition of Islamic does not include the other armies.
Global politics today consists of the winners of WW2 dividing up the planet via the UNSC, they don't directly attack each other but they do use proxy wars, Israel, Iran, Cuba, ect. When/if global politics fails you will know all about it my friend.
I do know all about it- and I know that description of global politics is about 15 years out of date. The main development since then is that certain Islamic sects have discovered Sola Scriptura- and by extention, Sola Jihad (if you don't mind me mixing languages to describe the new idea that bin Laden added to Islamic theology of individuals being allowed to decide for themselves when to declare holy wars depending on their individual reading of the Koran).
I'm fine with the North American Union- but only if we do it in a MUCH smarter way than the European Union has come about. My favorite method- shut down the borders of the United States, then offer protected territory status to anybody who wants to join us- Canada and Mexico first....
I don't think they're doing the three digits showing where you were born part anymore now. 999,999 is far too small for our largest major cities now. And I bet they do get reassigned now- otherwise only 4 generations and we'll run out.
Only 3 out of every 100 American workers currently belongs to a union- and companies like Wal*Mart work very hard to close any retail store that tries to form one. So that is not an adequate answer.
That SSNs are non-unique. They used to be, but thanks to illegal immigrants, ID theft, and a lot of other problems, SSNs simply aren't unique anymore, and thus are not a good identifier.
Parent should be modded up- this is the way things are supposed to work.
However, I don't know how long ago your uncle served in the US House, but the events of the last 15 years, particularily the last 5, have basically proven to me that if anybody is in Congress due to their conscience they made it there because their conscience conviently fits in with the multinational corporate cabal that pays for our campaigns through lobbyists.
As for your "first amendment rights" to bribe congressmen, please show me where in the constitution that corporations are citizens of the country and receive these rights?
An 1876 interpretation of the 14th Ammendment, Southern Pacific Railroad vs Santa Clara County, made corporations citizens of this country with *superior* first ammendment rights to single human beings. I personally consider this the end of democracy as we knew it. It has now been in place so long that neocons who fancy themselves to be promoting *Jewish* values think that it's a basic right to set up a corporation and bribe politicians.
Of course, my point is that as long as money is considered free speech, it doesn't matter who is in power- those who are rich will be able to afford lobbyists, those who are middle class or poor won't; and union dues don't change that. Neither does voting- Democrats and Republicans are purchased just about equally- all choices on the ballot have been bought and paid for.
This is totally Democratic. There are thousands of organizations in DC representing all stripes of citizenry. They work to get people who agree with them elected and then work to help direct that policy after the elections.
Ok, so who is representing the guy who lives paycheck to paycheck and would be homeless (along with his wife and children) if his job got outsourced? I don't know of a single lobbyist who works for free, do you?
How about the Libyan children hacking into each other's laptops?
This being a slightly better answer than the one above deserves a response: I thought that was what we were trying to teach them by giving them laptops in the first place!
Heck, I'm 35- and I think that people posting defamatory information are saying more about themselves than the person they are defaming. To that end, why would I ever sue over my enemy making himself look like a big fat idiot?
Why? If a person wants to sell stuff in China, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to. If a person in China wants to sell stuff here, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to. They're not doing anything wrong - they've made something, they want to sell it.
Then let them sell it to their own country, and leave me the hell alone.
There's no moral difference, whether the "they" is a "nice" stereotype, such as the rural farmer, rustic blacksmith, or other proletarian image, or an "evil" archetype, such as a multinational corporation.
The moral difference is the human connection- the willingness to pay more to ensure the well being of your neighbor, because they too will pay more to ensure your well being.
Ridiculous. I can quite clearly say that something is "mine", and I can claim a right to it. Nothing wrong with the individual ownership of property.
Except the fact that it is a mythical lie- one that means nothing over centuries.
Say that you spent a dollar on the most delicious nectar that is in a 24oz bottle of "Mountain Dew." Whatsay I believe that I can be a better "steward" of your Mountain Dew than you are capable of. Even if this were true, I have no right to take your Mountain Dew because, presumably, you worked for your dolalr, you spent it, and the fruits of your efforts are yours, to do with as you wish.
Religious babble. There's no reason to say that dollar belongs to any individual other than the treasury that printed it.
Just as I can't claim "stewardship" over what others have worked to create and obtain, neither can anyone else. This is the point of private property - you own the products of your labor.
Yes, that's the point- but it's just religious claptrap that makes no sense outside of it's own mythical framework.
By the "capitalist" standards in my macroeconomics text, yes, aflmost everyone on the face of the earth is a consumer of public goods. This type of consumership is different than the soundbytes read by the talking heads on television.
And just like any good fundamentalist, you appeal to an authority that I don't neccessarily accept. Why should I believe a textbook written by the religion of capitalism over my own eyes?
By a purely cold and theory-driven capitalistic standpoint, a person with no money is not "worthless", because it is not personal ownership that gives a person work. The potential labor that a person is capable of producing has value. Nobody's going to tell a software engineer that he's "so much meat to be thrown away" because he missed a rent payment - the landlord's going to be pissed, but the engineer's work is worth a six-figure salary.
We currently have a labor surplus, especially in software engineering- and that's exactly what I was told 5 years ago. I had to carve out a new position in government- because according to private industry, I'm worthless; it's better to give a position to 5 engineers in Bangalore than allow me to be a software engineer.
Even in less glamorous jobs, any individual has value insofar that they are capable of labor. The market for their particular type of labor - what people are willing to work for, and what companies are willing to pay - determines a unit of labor's value in monetary terms.
And right now, that's about $.34/hr. There is nothing that you can't train a Chinese labor camp dissident to do better, and that's what they are paid. That's what the free market gets you.
Those who are infirm and incapable of work, in a theoretical, strictly capitalistic market-driven world, are considered "worthless." That's why America, even though it is a (not truly) "capitalist" country, has social programs.
Yep, social programs that kick you off after six months and tell you that you're not worth supporting anymore- at which point you become disabled or homeless.
Like I said- your textbook answer doesn't match the reality before my eyes.
You forget - what kind of profit is to be made from rotting meat?
Ever read Slaughterhouse 5? LOTS. That which you can't sell to the rich, you sell to the poor. By eliminating waste, you've increased efficiency. And made a profit to boot.
Consumers demand the most value for the lowest price; manufacturers demand the highest price for the lowest cost. At some price in the middle of these extremes, a critical mass of people is willing to sell a product, and a critical mass is willing to buy. This compromise between the consumer's "give me everything for nothing" and the manufacturers "give me everything for nothing" results in a market price.
And neither has anything to do with actual needs of the individuals involved.
In this way, markets are fair to both buyers and sellers, and they are efficient.
Efficient, I'll agree- fair, well, you're using that word in a way I've not been previously aware of.
The same thing works by the hypothetical profit-motive-only-soulless-capitalist archetype. The artistic work will sell for much more than slag. If that price difference justifies the extra effort, you will see only artistic work.
Except, we don't- because the artistry means *nothing* without the human connection. Thus Wal*Mart takes over retail and forces more companies to become profit-motive-only. It's a race for the bottom- destruction of the innovation motive.
It's not just what's cheapest to make - it's what's most profitable. Look at the booming organic food industry - the higher-quality food is much more expensive to grow than traditional, mid-quality "bulk" food. But, people will pay more for the quality.
Until of course Wal*Mart steps in and starts forcing efficiency into the organic food industry, by removing the human component. Look at the most lucrative portion of the organic food industry- the subscription farm. Do you really think $400/year veggies will be able to compete when Wal*Mart comes in with bulk-rate organic at half the cost, shipped thousands of miles?
Markets don't create the cheapest, crappiest goods - they create the most profitable. Since organic food is more profitable than "regular" food, it is made despite the higher production cost and effort.
And it will be destroyed when somebody comes in with a crappier, cheaper version that is marketed as the same. It's the same old story- eventually you're left with only the crappy version in the marketplace.
No "human relationship" is required to keep markets "fair" - prices are functions of supply and demand, which are equitable where free markets and free trade permit adequate competition.
This deserves a separate thread. I contend that supply/demand pricing fails to take into account either need (of both workers and consumers) or cost of manufacture, seeking the lowest quality for the lowest price instead. Would you serve your friend rotting meat if you had filet mingon available? Of course not. But the so called "free markets" and "free trade" will- because there's no actual human relationship, no friendship, only profit. Why should you as a manufacturer give a rip about poisoning your customers, as long as you have the marketing to replace them? That's the logic of the tobacco industry, for instance. But conversely- if you're a blacksmith in town and your customers are your friends and neighbors, you're going to do an excellent artistic job on what you sell- both for the reason that you want the social benefit of doing a job that is appriciated, and to keep your customers comming back to you. Likewise your friends and neighbors will happily pay the greater price- because they know you're using the money not for greed, but to feed, clothe, and house your family. It's a different look at economics from a more Catholic point of view- and it grants rights that every single 13th century peasant had that you don't.
That means understanding his culture, family, religion, language, motivations, past behaviour,... The one thing it does not mean is imitating the enemy, that is covered by the use of spies.
Right now, by and large, Americans don't understand this enemy. They don't understand his culture, the importance of family and religion, those who know his language are few and far between, and everybody seems to want to ignore his motivations and past behavior.
We committed genocide against the Nazis in WWII- to prevent an even larger genocide of millions.
As someone wiser than me once said "war is the failure of politics", now that politics is global the last thing we need is another Roman style failure.
As far as the Islamic nationalists are concerned- you were born a century too late. The failure already happened, globally. Politics is not an adequate solution at this point- it's already failed.
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Why don't you tell me one non-prosecuted case of someone getting PAID to vote a certain way that is not in harmony with that representatives ideology or constituent interest to begin with?
David Wu claims to protect American Worker's rights as a part of his ideology AND constituent interest, but has a D- score in Numbers USA's website for voting for the interests of immigrants.
Irrelevant. All corporations are made up of citizens. Retard.
Nope- foreign citizens can own US corporations. In addition to that, a corporation at present time can hire everybody on an H-1b or L-1 visa and be entirely made up of foreign nationals. In addition to THAT (as if that wasn't enough) a corporation incorporated in the US may just only have a PO box here, all manufacturing in China, and all bank accounts in the Caimen Islands, and never have to pay a penny of income tax.
Now who's the retard?
Actually, what's being rammed down our throats is a good deal less. And a good deal more dangerous to American Workers because it hasn't been debated and because it IS a good deal less.
What's being crammed down our throats is an extension of NAFTA- basically adding immigration to that already economically disasterous treaty.
Or, you could leave them the hell alone. Nobody's forcing you to buy from them.
They are when they're the only manufacturers allowed in the marketplace.
In fact, by forcing said person to stay in his own country, you're also forcing everyone in your country who actually wants to buy from him to go elsewhere. For spite of a foreigner, you hurt all those who could benefit from trade.
Nobody actually benefits from trade in items that can be made onshore- they're only profiting in the short term to cause higher costs in the long term.
An economic system is the most terrible vehicle imaginable for peddling "human connection." No system of allocating resources can force others to care about each other; to have that "human connnection."
I've got a system of allocating recources that does just that- but to do it you have to keep the units small. Families, tribes, villages at the largest- with no currency across borders. Trade is allowable, but only commodity trade.
To pretend this is possible is "religious claptrap." Besides, I'd wager that most people would rather keep their money and ensure their own wellbeing than trust something that important to anonymous others.
And yet- it worked for the majority of human history, up until fascist agriculturalism began to take over about 10,000 years ago.
Society as a whole is still made up of individuals. If the individuals are allowed to keep that which they need to care for themselves, than society as a whole will be better. In a capitalist society, you're still free to do the opposite - to pay more to someone who can also "pay more to ensure your wellbeing."
Thanks to natural disaster, nobody's figgured out how to allow individuals to keep what they need to care for themselves.
In a capitalistic society, there's nothing preventing you from moving to Bangalore. Sure, you'll get paid less - but you can't expect the entire world to pay you a ridiculous salary at the expense of the Bangalorians, can you?
No, but I can expect my tribe to pay me a ridiculous salary if I pay them a ridiculous salary.
Are you worth that much more as a human being to justify your profit at their expense?
I am if you are. In other words, if a CEO is worth that much, so is a software engineer.
As for your critique of "ownership", I still don't understand why you believe it's such a "bad thing." You can reject texts containing 200 years of science because it "appeals to an authority you cannot accept", so I'll appeal to one you do seem to worhship: There is no "human connection" depriving someone of the result of their toils, because it was never "theirs" to begin with.
Rather, I see your 200 years of fake science, and counter it with 1.5 million years worth of human history.
Nope; can't say that I have. But, even though the poor getting fed horrible food is, well, horrible - at least they have food.
You need to read about what capitalism became in the 1920s. Then maybe you'll have some appreciation for government regulation.
The magic of "profit" is that even with the most selfishly-motivated individual (the rotton meat-seller) fed the poor.
Killed the poor off more like. After all, if it wasn't for capitalism, the poor would be allowed to hunt and grow food on unowned land. Look up the Kalapuya sometime- the "Wealthy People" of the Pacific Northwest, and take a look at what THEIR economic system was.
So, the inefficient retailers suffer when WalMart shows the world how much they're overcharging. Instead of selling things for what they're worth, other retailers such as Target try to make their crap look more "valuable" by wasting money on advertising. It's cases like these where Wal-Mart is a sorely-needed breath of fresh air.
And in the meantime, thanks to Wal-Mart's "efficiency", our health insurance goes up at 10% a year and wages go down 2% a year, thus destroying an unrelated system because they're not willing to pay what work is really worth.
Besides, how much has Wal-Mart done to help the poor, even being motivated only by profit?
Let's see what wal-mart has done to "help" the poor- thrown them out of work due to monopolistic practices, given them new jobs paying 1/3rd what they were paid previously, taken away their health insurance so that they have to go to the emergency room for health care, which hurts the rich as well. Yep, good citizens those waltons are- if being a bunch of traitors is good citizens.
Families can afford much more than their limited incomes could before because Wal-Mart has made everything more affordable for them. The poor have more, even though Wal-Mart was motivated only by profit and not by altruism.
They wouldn't have such limited incomes if it wasn't for Wal-Mart to begin with, sending factory jobs to China. Wal-Mart is just an arm of the Chinese government, out to destroy America.
Nope - and it's not supposed to. You shouldn't have to spend $400/year to get pesticide-free vegetables. The poor won't be able to afford that.
And the farmer can't survive on anything less- so he'll go out of business. Here's a thought- pay the poor what they're worth so that they can afford $400/year subscriptions.
But, if somebody makes "bulk-rate organic" at half the cost, hooray for them. They made food that was formerly affordable only for elitists available to those much poorer. Even though these "bulk-rate" people were motivated only by profit, the poor can now afford better food.
The problem is, the way they create the bulk rate is to pay people less- thus creating more people in poverty. The race for the bottom- a negative feedback loop.
Simply not true. Just because somebody comes up with a "crappy-but-cheap" version doesn't mean anybody will want to buy it.
In a free market, only the stupid will buy anything else- simply because if profit is king it's not short term profitable to buy the more expensive version.
How much it costs to make something is a very different concept from "efficiency." If a new process to ship vegetables costs a tenth of the old, but makes most of the food inedible, it's hadly a more "efficient" way to ship food.
As long as the customer dies somewhere else- what does it matter to the shipper?
Markets reward efficiency - how well you can deliver what consumers actually want and how much of the earth's reasources you consume in doing so (input price). If you don't produce what people actually want, there's no $profit for you, even if it is dirt cheap. Supply and demand.
Markets reward fraud, primarily- because the real story is being hidden from the customer behind a viel of anonymity.
SPR vs SCC gave us the oligarchy by allowing corporations to become citizens with superior rights of petition, due to the fact that corporations have control of more resources than individual human beings.
You don't seem to realise that overreaction to "islamic nationalists" is what brings them attention in the ME and around the world. Bombing those that are paying attention is doing the opposite of what YOU desire as an outcome.
No, you don't understand- I WANT to bring attention to them. I want every future sect of every religion to know "If you decide to make conversion-by-suicide-bomber a part of your theology, then you will pay. Not just the suicide bombers, but the preachers, their parents, their children, their cousins, the entire world will pay for your crime." I want them to be as infamous as the Nazis- and just as dead.
The Nazi's attacked the rest of us with a huge fucking army from the center of Europe, where is the "islamo-facist" army? All I see is a few nut-cases with bomb belts and a whole lot of muslims that want the US to fuck off out of their country.
I see 10 million nut-cases with bomb belts- and a bunch of preachers trying to make more by blaming the US presence in their countries for everything from the cost of bread to whether or not rain will fall tomorrow. You obviously have never read the Koran or paid attention to what their preachers are saying in the mosques. Have you even ever been to a mosque?
Global politics has not "failed", the last time that happened the league of nations was disbanded and WW2 broke out.
And RIGHT NOW we're in the midst of WWIII, with a set of armies 10 million strong swearing to see the rest of the world Islamic or dead. Our one saving grace? None of these armies are more than about 3 million strong individually- and their definition of Islamic does not include the other armies.
Global politics today consists of the winners of WW2 dividing up the planet via the UNSC, they don't directly attack each other but they do use proxy wars, Israel, Iran, Cuba, ect. When/if global politics fails you will know all about it my friend.
I do know all about it- and I know that description of global politics is about 15 years out of date. The main development since then is that certain Islamic sects have discovered Sola Scriptura- and by extention, Sola Jihad (if you don't mind me mixing languages to describe the new idea that bin Laden added to Islamic theology of individuals being allowed to decide for themselves when to declare holy wars depending on their individual reading of the Koran).
I'm fine with the North American Union- but only if we do it in a MUCH smarter way than the European Union has come about. My favorite method- shut down the borders of the United States, then offer protected territory status to anybody who wants to join us- Canada and Mexico first....
(and IIRC the ruling merely classified them as people, they'll still need to study and take the oath before becoming a citizen)
If they're incorporated in the US, then the corporation's birth was in the US, and they're automatically a citizen.
Say hello to Chinese communism. They seem to be poised to be the next superpower based on industrial power alone.
I don't think they're doing the three digits showing where you were born part anymore now. 999,999 is far too small for our largest major cities now. And I bet they do get reassigned now- otherwise only 4 generations and we'll run out.
Only 3 out of every 100 American workers currently belongs to a union- and companies like Wal*Mart work very hard to close any retail store that tries to form one. So that is not an adequate answer.
That SSNs are non-unique. They used to be, but thanks to illegal immigrants, ID theft, and a lot of other problems, SSNs simply aren't unique anymore, and thus are not a good identifier.
Parent should be modded up- this is the way things are supposed to work.
However, I don't know how long ago your uncle served in the US House, but the events of the last 15 years, particularily the last 5, have basically proven to me that if anybody is in Congress due to their conscience they made it there because their conscience conviently fits in with the multinational corporate cabal that pays for our campaigns through lobbyists.
As for your "first amendment rights" to bribe congressmen, please show me where in the constitution that corporations are citizens of the country and receive these rights?
An 1876 interpretation of the 14th Ammendment, Southern Pacific Railroad vs Santa Clara County, made corporations citizens of this country with *superior* first ammendment rights to single human beings. I personally consider this the end of democracy as we knew it. It has now been in place so long that neocons who fancy themselves to be promoting *Jewish* values think that it's a basic right to set up a corporation and bribe politicians.
Of course, my point is that as long as money is considered free speech, it doesn't matter who is in power- those who are rich will be able to afford lobbyists, those who are middle class or poor won't; and union dues don't change that. Neither does voting- Democrats and Republicans are purchased just about equally- all choices on the ballot have been bought and paid for.
This is totally Democratic. There are thousands of organizations in DC representing all stripes of citizenry. They work to get people who agree with them elected and then work to help direct that policy after the elections.
Ok, so who is representing the guy who lives paycheck to paycheck and would be homeless (along with his wife and children) if his job got outsourced? I don't know of a single lobbyist who works for free, do you?
How about the Libyan children hacking into each other's laptops?
This being a slightly better answer than the one above deserves a response: I thought that was what we were trying to teach them by giving them laptops in the first place!
Heck, I'm 35- and I think that people posting defamatory information are saying more about themselves than the person they are defaming. To that end, why would I ever sue over my enemy making himself look like a big fat idiot?
At least we know that the DOS attacks will abate at nightfall in Libya....
Well, other than to build a zombie network I guess- but I can't imagine anybody being interested in some Libyan child's schoolwork.
Why? If a person wants to sell stuff in China, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to. If a person in China wants to sell stuff here, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to. They're not doing anything wrong - they've made something, they want to sell it.
Then let them sell it to their own country, and leave me the hell alone.
There's no moral difference, whether the "they" is a "nice" stereotype, such as the rural farmer, rustic blacksmith, or other proletarian image, or an "evil" archetype, such as a multinational corporation.
The moral difference is the human connection- the willingness to pay more to ensure the well being of your neighbor, because they too will pay more to ensure your well being.
Ridiculous. I can quite clearly say that something is "mine", and I can claim a right to it. Nothing wrong with the individual ownership of property.
Except the fact that it is a mythical lie- one that means nothing over centuries.
Say that you spent a dollar on the most delicious nectar that is in a 24oz bottle of "Mountain Dew." Whatsay I believe that I can be a better "steward" of your Mountain Dew than you are capable of. Even if this were true, I have no right to take your Mountain Dew because, presumably, you worked for your dolalr, you spent it, and the fruits of your efforts are yours, to do with as you wish.
Religious babble. There's no reason to say that dollar belongs to any individual other than the treasury that printed it.
Just as I can't claim "stewardship" over what others have worked to create and obtain, neither can anyone else. This is the point of private property - you own the products of your labor.
Yes, that's the point- but it's just religious claptrap that makes no sense outside of it's own mythical framework.
By the "capitalist" standards in my macroeconomics text, yes, aflmost everyone on the face of the earth is a consumer of public goods. This type of consumership is different than the soundbytes read by the talking heads on television.
And just like any good fundamentalist, you appeal to an authority that I don't neccessarily accept. Why should I believe a textbook written by the religion of capitalism over my own eyes?
By a purely cold and theory-driven capitalistic standpoint, a person with no money is not "worthless", because it is not personal ownership that gives a person work. The potential labor that a person is capable of producing has value. Nobody's going to tell a software engineer that he's "so much meat to be thrown away" because he missed a rent payment - the landlord's going to be pissed, but the engineer's work is worth a six-figure salary.
We currently have a labor surplus, especially in software engineering- and that's exactly what I was told 5 years ago. I had to carve out a new position in government- because according to private industry, I'm worthless; it's better to give a position to 5 engineers in Bangalore than allow me to be a software engineer.
Even in less glamorous jobs, any individual has value insofar that they are capable of labor. The market for their particular type of labor - what people are willing to work for, and what companies are willing to pay - determines a unit of labor's value in monetary terms.
And right now, that's about $.34/hr. There is nothing that you can't train a Chinese labor camp dissident to do better, and that's what they are paid. That's what the free market gets you.
Those who are infirm and incapable of work, in a theoretical, strictly capitalistic market-driven world, are considered "worthless." That's why America, even though it is a (not truly) "capitalist" country, has social programs.
Yep, social programs that kick you off after six months and tell you that you're not worth supporting anymore- at which point you become disabled or homeless.
Like I said- your textbook answer doesn't match the reality before my eyes.
You forget - what kind of profit is to be made from rotting meat?
Ever read Slaughterhouse 5? LOTS. That which you can't sell to the rich, you sell to the poor. By eliminating waste, you've increased efficiency. And made a profit to boot.
Consumers demand the most value for the lowest price; manufacturers demand the highest price for the lowest cost. At some price in the middle of these extremes, a critical mass of people is willing to sell a product, and a critical mass is willing to buy. This compromise between the consumer's "give me everything for nothing" and the manufacturers "give me everything for nothing" results in a market price.
And neither has anything to do with actual needs of the individuals involved.
In this way, markets are fair to both buyers and sellers, and they are efficient.
Efficient, I'll agree- fair, well, you're using that word in a way I've not been previously aware of.
The same thing works by the hypothetical profit-motive-only-soulless-capitalist archetype. The artistic work will sell for much more than slag. If that price difference justifies the extra effort, you will see only artistic work.
Except, we don't- because the artistry means *nothing* without the human connection. Thus Wal*Mart takes over retail and forces more companies to become profit-motive-only. It's a race for the bottom- destruction of the innovation motive.
It's not just what's cheapest to make - it's what's most profitable. Look at the booming organic food industry - the higher-quality food is much more expensive to grow than traditional, mid-quality "bulk" food. But, people will pay more for the quality.
Until of course Wal*Mart steps in and starts forcing efficiency into the organic food industry, by removing the human component. Look at the most lucrative portion of the organic food industry- the subscription farm. Do you really think $400/year veggies will be able to compete when Wal*Mart comes in with bulk-rate organic at half the cost, shipped thousands of miles?
Markets don't create the cheapest, crappiest goods - they create the most profitable. Since organic food is more profitable than "regular" food, it is made despite the higher production cost and effort.
And it will be destroyed when somebody comes in with a crappier, cheaper version that is marketed as the same. It's the same old story- eventually you're left with only the crappy version in the marketplace.
No "human relationship" is required to keep markets "fair" - prices are functions of supply and demand, which are equitable where free markets and free trade permit adequate competition.
This deserves a separate thread. I contend that supply/demand pricing fails to take into account either need (of both workers and consumers) or cost of manufacture, seeking the lowest quality for the lowest price instead. Would you serve your friend rotting meat if you had filet mingon available? Of course not. But the so called "free markets" and "free trade" will- because there's no actual human relationship, no friendship, only profit. Why should you as a manufacturer give a rip about poisoning your customers, as long as you have the marketing to replace them? That's the logic of the tobacco industry, for instance. But conversely- if you're a blacksmith in town and your customers are your friends and neighbors, you're going to do an excellent artistic job on what you sell- both for the reason that you want the social benefit of doing a job that is appriciated, and to keep your customers comming back to you. Likewise your friends and neighbors will happily pay the greater price- because they know you're using the money not for greed, but to feed, clothe, and house your family. It's a different look at economics from a more Catholic point of view- and it grants rights that every single 13th century peasant had that you don't.
That means understanding his culture, family, religion, language, motivations, past behaviour,... The one thing it does not mean is imitating the enemy, that is covered by the use of spies.
Right now, by and large, Americans don't understand this enemy. They don't understand his culture, the importance of family and religion, those who know his language are few and far between, and everybody seems to want to ignore his motivations and past behavior.
We committed genocide against the Nazis in WWII- to prevent an even larger genocide of millions.
As someone wiser than me once said "war is the failure of politics", now that politics is global the last thing we need is another Roman style failure.
As far as the Islamic nationalists are concerned- you were born a century too late. The failure already happened, globally. Politics is not an adequate solution at this point- it's already failed.