You will find it hard to convince people here that the taxes already collected for road work isn't enough.
A drive down any rural highway in Oregon makes that argument an easy one actually. Most haven't been maintained due to the lack of road taxes, some to a dangerous extent.
Besides, unless it is nationally mandated, it is a futile effort for a single state to have it. Nothing prevents a citizen in one state from purchasing a car from another that doesn't have the GPS.
At which point, with the way the law is being rewritten, you'll still get charged gas taxes when the pump can't make the bluetooth connection (same goes with wrapping the unit in tin foil) at a rate high enough to discourage such behavior (I hear they're talking $.50/gal).
They would also have to outlaw tampering with the things. No, this type of scheme is too risky to both the state (loss of revenue due malfunction / tampering) as well as the owner (big brother is watching you).
As with any technological solution to charging weight/mile taxes (after all, you could monkey even with a mechanical odometer). And who cares about big brother watching you? Big Father Walton (Wal*Mart) is more dangerous to your life than any government ever will be again.
And to the same point, this must be some strange meaning of the word safe of which I have been previously unaware. Lead-based dye in your hair with 5nm particles is "safe"? Since when? I'm sure it's EFFECTIVE to color one's hair that way- but safe is another matter.
Could be in any number of strange formats from WordPRO to FleetStreetWriter. Maybe in Geoworks, or goodness knows what.
At one time in my life, I specialized in helping people transfer their files from one system to another by making the destination system look like a printer. At that point, it's just a matter of openingup the word processor in question and "printing" the file to a terminal emulator on the other system. And that, is usually ASCII- even if the primary system is PETSCII.
More expensive than cash legislatively stolen from others?
Both ways are cash legislatively stolen from others- bonds do have to be repaid eventually, and bonds include interest.
Sure. Fleecing others is always good for oneself.
We're either all in this together, or we might as well have a war and become 50 separate nations.
And so does the economy, almost always by more than the cost of materials, making it effectively cheaper.
The economy hasn't been going up by more than the cost of materials in the last 5 years or so. What makes you think the economy always expands faster than the cost of materials? That's a ridiculous statement on it's face.
Pure crap of a statement. They pay fed taxes for defense, etc., not for this bridge.
The complaint of the grandparent was that this bridge cost MORE than Alaska pays in taxes TOTAL, not that they paid those taxes for other uses. How are you going to get shore-based Naval guns to that island without the bridge? Even for national defense, it's a pay me now or pay me later situation.
Stop trying to rationalize all this pork BS. Or pay for my driveway resurfacing.
Is your house sticking out a mile from the coastline, where it could reasonably require defense? Plus, didn't we already pay to have your "driveway" paid for in the form of a public road in front of you and your 50 closest neighbors?
The point is still that it has to be a risk-benefit analysis. What's to stop a stalker from cracking the frequency & digital address of your cell phone and tracking you that way? Or better yet, just using the spoof that The Register used with Verizon to turn on web based cell phone tracking (all that is needed is 30 seconds alone with the phone while you're logged in with another phone on the same account)? Nothing- but the benefit of carrying a cell phone outweighs the risk for most people.
Most privacy concerns come down to such transactional costs- and the way to get people to accept the risk is to provide a benefit that far outweighs the risk.
Because in most forensic investigations, they remove the hard-drive from the PC and then perform the investigation using another operating system guaranteed to not have any nasty surprises built in. They're not going to run the risk that buddy has a small script that deletes his entire hard drive if he doesn't hit ctrl-a-s-d-f-enter within seconds of booting up.
This is a Commodore 64- the operating system is in ROM and can't be overwritten. You can't write a small script, because there's no scripting language that runs automatically on this system. And there is no hard drive at all- hard drives for microcomputers was a laughable idea at the time (as the typical hard drive held a mere 128MB on a 24 inch platter, and the drive itself was the size of a washing machine).
There's likely more to it than that as well, but the point is they generally don't want to use the system they've confiscated...
Two words- Null Modem and Hyperterminal will transfer all the files stored on 5.25" floppies for that Commodore 64 (or even stored on cassette tape) to their Windows machines just fine.
It's just ASCII after all, no big problem.
There are emulators available which can make a modern PC capable of running Commodore 64 programmes but Maj Gen Lang said it would be difficult to transmit the data from Priklopil's machine to a modern computer "without loss".
What, have they forgotten how to create a DIN-5 to Sub-D9 cable? I'm sure google has several websites with the schematic of the machine (also available in the original user's manual), it shouldn't be THAT hard to construct an asynchronous serial cable.
Absolutely true- and a point I'm trying to get across to my bosses at Oregon Department of Transportation in their bid to use GPS tech to charge road-mile taxes.
Privacy issues are transactional cost situations. If you're getting more benefit than danger, then the risk will become acceptable. Savings cards give you a return right at the checkout. I say that if we want everybody to use GPS traking for taxes, then we need to give them an equal added benefit, say, adaptive NDGPS based cruise control. Keep the cars separated out with line of sight bluetooth communications of the GPS information of both vehicles, and you've given added value to the driver. Maybe even partner up between a nice mapping software and bluetooth burst communications from http://www.tripcheck.com/ and you can have up-to-the-minute traffic jam avoidance in the Portland area.
Let's consider a person taking notes on an 8-1/2"x11" sheet of paper, with a 0.7mm (0.0028") pen or pencil. This translates to about a resolution of 360 lpi, or an overall resolution for the sheet of 3960x3060 (in the landscape orientation) at 1:1 size. Find me a computer monitor that can do that.
After playing with Microsoft OneNote on a friend's Gateway TabletPC running Windows XP, and Notes on my cellphone running Windows Mobile 5.0- I'd say we're about halfway there. The software is there- the resolution of the touchscreen monitor isn't (my friend's TabletPC, for those about to disagree with that statement, tops out at HDTV-like resolutions of 1920x1200 pixels. Definately even a 1 pixel wide stylus line is fat when you compare it to a.7mm pen or pencil.
Having said that- like I said to the other guy who claimed technology never subplants what came before- give it a decade or so- in which case the kids in school better get used to using these tools NOW, right?
1. Bonds, being borrowing, are always inherantly more expensive than paying cash on the barrelhead up front.
2. While they wait for a bond measure to pass, the cost of steel and concrete and especially asphalt is going up. Tick, Tick, Tick....
3. Alaska pays a hell of a lot more than $3 million in fed taxes- in fact the 8050 people this bridge will directly benefit probably pay more than that (especially the 50, who are all multi-millionaires who have summer homes on the island).
I know lots of people who will ignore an e-mail for hours or days but will respond right away to a sticky note on their monitor
I only have two such Luddites, and they're both due for retirement soon.
What will you do if you're touring in Europe and your phone doesn't work?
It's GSM/GPRS- I stop by a cell phone dealer and get a new SIM card and I'm good to go.
Or if you drop it into a canal in Amsterdam?
Working on that one- thinking about getting one of These cases, especially since in the future I'd like to get into boating and the GPS unit would be very useful in that activity (with a different mapping software, of course, and Bluetooth connection means I don't have to mess with waterproof cable openings).
Being able to write is a handy skill. Technology is great for facilitating things like communication or making it possible when it otherwise was not, but it should not become a requirement in circumstances where it wasn't before.
It will, though- it always has before. A bicycle is a great way to get around, but non-motorized vehicles are banned even on some freeways in Oregon, and all freeways in 26 other states. Now true- there's nobody left alive who can remember a time when non-motorized transport wasn't at least a technological option. But we'll get that way with our all in one PERSONAL digital assitants one day. I figure about the time a mini-SD or micro-SD card hits the 1 Petabyte range (which will easily store 876,000 hours of full motion video and stereo audio- your life record available for playback at any time, indexed to the second) and we have completely wireless charging and sync capabilities in a WPAN configuration, we'll be there. Just give it time. Given how far we've come and how fast we've come, and the new molecular storage system just invented this week, I'd give it about 30 years- by which time everybody who remembers writing out memos longhand will be dead and buried, and everybody who rememers what a typewriter was will be retired.
Details, please? I didn't see prices spiraling out of control in either direction. Unemployment wasn't at record lows and GDP growth weren't at record, highs, but I'm definitely not seeing the economic argument for laying that at the feet of the central banking system.
Overall, not- but in individual counties and sectors, records were being set- and where unemployment was highest- blue won...for good reason I think. But the economy is kind of like Iraq- you want to bind it into one system, you bought it, even if a one size fits all answer doesn't fit.
I'm completely missing your leap from deflation and debt. I think I'm just not following your analogy.
Inflation and deflation are strongly linked to credit. When credit is free and easy- low interest rates- inflation happens. When credit is not easy- high interest rates, foreclosures, and bankruptcies- deflation happens. The reason for this is the same way a family gets out of debt after overspending.
The purpose of the control is mainly to ensure price stability and prevent massive unemployment. If you want to read a deeper social agenda into it, I suppose you can, but it seems like you're advocating bringing the economy to a screeching halt and replacing it with a simpler one that grows more slowly and discourages capital investment. We'll have to agree to disagree there.
Price stability and employement are at odds in the current system- you can either have high inflation, or high unemployment. Deflation would cause unemployment- but be followed by higher inflation, which would encourage employment.
So, how exactly is fiat money "fake" when it's used to buy bonds to control the money supply and "real" when it's used by the government to purchase goods and services?
It isn't. Money is ALWAYS fake, ALWAYS a myth- even when it's commodity rather than fiat. It has no value above that which people give it, no matter what. The problem isn't the myth- the problem is the one-size-fits-all managmment of the myth.
More importantly, given that this system guarantees steady money supply growth regardless of increases in productivity or money demand, how do you keep inflation from spiraling out of control, and how do you handle foreign trade with economies that aren't required to accept your devalued currency?
Well, I should preface this with the fact that I don't buy into the theory of competitive advantage- as far as I'm concerned only ONE type of trade between local economies is valid, and that is direct trade of goods that the other economy physically cannot produce. I disagree with money trading, it's usually in detriment to both economies, or at least has been for the last 40 years or so, because it encourages an imbalance. Having said that, in a very small local economy you WANT inflation to spiral out of control- because that's what is going to create the jobs to support an ever increasing population. But that only works in conjunction with one of the primary tenents of distributism, which is that REALATIONSHIPS are more important than PROFIT. Which implies that goods should be produced as close to the end consumer as possible.
How does your video phone do at leaving a post it on someone's desk?
Pretty good- I just send them an e-mail or an SMS.
Or scribbling down an address and set of directions before leaving the house?
I always ask for the address- type it into the GPS program and it leads me there, with voice turn by turn directions that automatically adjust if I have to ignore them for traffic or construction (been doing that a lot lately- our local version of Ted Steven's bridge, the OTIA III transportation investment act, means an awful lot of seemingly random construction going on in Oregon). The only time it failed me on this score was with the birth of my recent nephew- they told me the birthing center was "Behind the Winco's at 102nd and Glisan in Portland"- I got there and there was no Winco's in sight. As I was scouting around looking for "on a road that starts with a W", they called me and told me she was in such pain that they were going to Adventist Hospital- which was big enough to be in my GPS Database, and I actually beat them there!
Even if that job isn't doing something benficial to society, or when that benefit is far smaller than the cost incurred to purchase it?
Idealy, the job should be either in creation of, or maintenance of, infrastructure. Every job in that category is HIGHLY valuable to local jobs and the local economy. That's how we dug our way (or dammed our way) out of the Depression in the west.
Well, I can see the desire for more locally responsive money supplies. I was fairly well convinced that the Euro wouldn't work as the practical monetary policy for one country would almost certainly be wrong for another country in the worst case. I don't see any evidence that our central bank failing on that account in the US, though.
I see a good deal of evidence for the US central bank failing on that score. Just look at the county-level statistics for the 2004 election to see the failures.
As for deflation, I can't think of any sensible argument to prefer it over inflation of a comparable scale, given that it's nasty to counteract and has a tendency to cause economies to spiral down to a halt.
After a period of irrational materialism, the economy grinding to a halt is what is needed. Think of it as the same as a family- microeconomics always makes more sense. If a family has gotten themselves into debt, which is better? Piling up more debt or paying it off?
As far as history has shown, price stability is not really a reasonable option, and mild inflation is generally associated with a healthier economy, as well as being better understood and easier to control.
Ah, but what is the purpose of the control? If the purpose of the control is to widen the gap between the rich and the poor, I'd agree with you- it's not in the best interest of the rich to allow the poor to stop consuming and pay off their debt from irrational consumption. But if the purpose is the end of capitalism because there's no longer any need for even 60% of your population to work to maintain the status quo- then a period of adjustment will be needed.
Sure, a money supply that grew perfeclty with the needs of the economy would be great, but you can't have that with your money supply tied to an arbitrary resource. You can't even have it with a managed money supply, but you can come a whole lot closer.
Thus returning to my point of DECENTRALIZED banks run by LOCAL governments, and taxes being replaced merely with the profit that comes from being able to print one's own money. Local governments will do local pork projects- and being able to print their own money, will be able to afford to do so- which will create local jobs. Those local jobs produce local consumers- which will want services the government doesn't provide, providing an opportunity for local businessmen, who create even more jobs. By keeping the communities as small and local as possbile, you encourage economic growth LOCALLY. And by limiting the money supply to government spending, you avoid the fake money of banks extending credit, which by ABCT theory is what causes boom/bust cycles.
I personally believe ABCT is true- but I don't see laisez faire as the solution for it (nor do I see central bank interventionism as a solution for it). What I see as a solution is restricted, small scale community economies- run on the concepts of a Just Wage and Fair Price. In other words, Protectionism with a strong sense of Communitas.
My video camera in my phone, combined with downloading to a voice recog program on my desktop, takes better notes than I've ever seen anybody take with mere handwriting. It's a useful skill for now- but one that will be soon as outdated as doing your checkbook with an abacus.
Ok, so who do you think works in the factories building all of this dooms-day equipment that will ruin our livlihoods?
Either illegal aliens or H-1b/L-1/TN visa holders (depending on the country they're from and how they were hired, and what job they are doing). That is if any human beings need to work there at all- I already see checkout counters at my local grocery store that don't need any employees to do the work.
The jobs are displaced, not eliminated in the grand scheme of things.
When you only need one illegal alien to do the work of 8 previous checkout clerks, the jobs have been eliminated. They won't be coming back.
Employment rates and economies fluctuate, and the only thing that never changes is change.
I used to think that way- until I started asking WHY. The answer was not very pretty- and points to a time when we're all just slaves to about 2000 families who are already well on their way to owning the entire planet.
The Great Depression wasn't caused by technology, it was caused by shitty banking practicies and an amalgamation of bad economic factors.
So? Different depressions are caused by different things. The next BIG one will be caused by selling the government to the highest bidder.
Technology can reduce the number of jobs within a certain sector, but that labor is merely displaced. It drives up the value of skilled laborers.
Skilled labor can be imported, thus driving the value back down. And eventually, all skilled labor can be replaced with expert systems and machines.
Menial labor will always be in demand.
Remember my example of the checkout clerk? Menial labor is already being replaced. I no longer need illegal immigrants to mow my lawn, my Robomow has replaced Juan, and I don't need them inside my house either, my Roomba does the same job inside. What makes you think Menial Labor will always be in demand? Always is a long time, and in the next 40 years, I can already forsee most menial labor being replaced.
I realize that you're passionate, but this argument is a little bit of a red herring.
Now that's a good joke, given my name, and an even better one given what I stand for- I'm not anti-tech. I'm in fact looking forward to the day when we can collectively, as a race, tell the entire capitalist system that we don't need it anymore.
Technology can reduce the number of jobs within a certain sector, but that labor is merely displaced. It drives up the value of skilled laborers. Menial labor will always be in demand. It's just that it's easier to notice 'OMG my fries are served by a robot!!11' than to really step back and take a look at where Mr. Fryman went. I can assure you that there are other jobs he is capable of.
The other jobs have already been taken by the illegal aliens. And he's too much of an idiot to become skilled. I'll tell you what happens to him- he spends a couple of years looking for a job, and then the Department of Labor reclassifies him as disabled and gives him $70 a month to live on. It's happened to MILLIONS of people in the last 5 years- it's the only way they were able to keep the unemployment rate so low while importing more illegal aliens each month than they had jobs for.
And I'm entirely the opposite- basing your currency on something entirely imaginary and unmeasurable makes it utterly worthless. You can't create wealth out of thin air- and money does not represent wealth.
So what, you're just suppossed to work until you die?
Why not? If you enjoy what you do, retirement can be far more detrimental to your health than continuing to work. Plus, there's an added bonus for the employer of actually having a workforce with (gasp) experience.
Why can't I put money away so that I can retire and stop working when I get older, and thus open my job up to someone else?
Because at that point, your spending also decreases, cutting 2 jobs for the one you vacate.
So, you're saying that you prefer the deflation that is a necessary consequence of tying the currency of a steadily growing economy to a finite natural resource over the mild inflation that is the result of a properly managed central bank?
I would- if not given a third choice. That third choice would be to admit that the whole thing is mythical, and thus should be managed by DECENTRALIZED, COMMUINITY BASED banks, where the bank managers have to directly suffer from their decisions.
I type. I have a condition called dysgraphia that made handwriting the only subject I ever failed in grade school. Now they test for it and just show kids how to type.
The few times I have to sign my name (usually for stores too stupid to know the difference between a debit and a credit card)- I drive my bank crazy because my signature is never entirely the same twice.
The problem is not teachable- it's a packet loss problem between the brain and the fingers in the network known as the nervous system.
Frankly, something OLPC-ish might be more in order than just giving every kid an iBook or a Dell. Of course, parents would protest, because there seems to be this feeling that the earlier you get Little Johnny started on the MS Word and the PowerPoint, the more successful he'll be -- which is utter tripe. A well-educated person can pick up a book on Word or PowerPoint (or any other software package that they need to use) and figure it out in a weekend.
I'm convinced that my newest cell phone would have been a great tool for school. Instead of always getting behind writing notes on paper, it can take full motion video, and fit 8 hours of it one one little tiny 2GB miniSD chip. It has built in Word and Excel software- as well as running Windows Mobile. For connectivity, it supports Bluetooth, GPRS, and 802.11x. For a serious kid, it would be a wonderful tool. The only complaint I have, is it could give some confustion on typing, as the keyboard is neither full size nor full function.
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You will find it hard to convince people here that the taxes already collected for road work isn't enough.
A drive down any rural highway in Oregon makes that argument an easy one actually. Most haven't been maintained due to the lack of road taxes, some to a dangerous extent.
Besides, unless it is nationally mandated, it is a futile effort for a single state to have it. Nothing prevents a citizen in one state from purchasing a car from another that doesn't have the GPS.
At which point, with the way the law is being rewritten, you'll still get charged gas taxes when the pump can't make the bluetooth connection (same goes with wrapping the unit in tin foil) at a rate high enough to discourage such behavior (I hear they're talking $.50/gal).
They would also have to outlaw tampering with the things. No, this type of scheme is too risky to both the state (loss of revenue due malfunction / tampering) as well as the owner (big brother is watching you).
As with any technological solution to charging weight/mile taxes (after all, you could monkey even with a mechanical odometer). And who cares about big brother watching you? Big Father Walton (Wal*Mart) is more dangerous to your life than any government ever will be again.
And to the same point, this must be some strange meaning of the word safe of which I have been previously unaware. Lead-based dye in your hair with 5nm particles is "safe"? Since when? I'm sure it's EFFECTIVE to color one's hair that way- but safe is another matter.
Could be in any number of strange formats from WordPRO to FleetStreetWriter. Maybe in Geoworks, or goodness knows what.
At one time in my life, I specialized in helping people transfer their files from one system to another by making the destination system look like a printer. At that point, it's just a matter of openingup the word processor in question and "printing" the file to a terminal emulator on the other system. And that, is usually ASCII- even if the primary system is PETSCII.
More expensive than cash legislatively stolen from others?
Both ways are cash legislatively stolen from others- bonds do have to be repaid eventually, and bonds include interest.
Sure. Fleecing others is always good for oneself.
We're either all in this together, or we might as well have a war and become 50 separate nations.
And so does the economy, almost always by more than the cost of materials, making it effectively cheaper.
The economy hasn't been going up by more than the cost of materials in the last 5 years or so. What makes you think the economy always expands faster than the cost of materials? That's a ridiculous statement on it's face.
Pure crap of a statement. They pay fed taxes for defense, etc., not for this bridge.
The complaint of the grandparent was that this bridge cost MORE than Alaska pays in taxes TOTAL, not that they paid those taxes for other uses. How are you going to get shore-based Naval guns to that island without the bridge? Even for national defense, it's a pay me now or pay me later situation.
Stop trying to rationalize all this pork BS. Or pay for my driveway resurfacing.
Is your house sticking out a mile from the coastline, where it could reasonably require defense? Plus, didn't we already pay to have your "driveway" paid for in the form of a public road in front of you and your 50 closest neighbors?
The point is still that it has to be a risk-benefit analysis. What's to stop a stalker from cracking the frequency & digital address of your cell phone and tracking you that way? Or better yet, just using the spoof that The Register used with Verizon to turn on web based cell phone tracking (all that is needed is 30 seconds alone with the phone while you're logged in with another phone on the same account)? Nothing- but the benefit of carrying a cell phone outweighs the risk for most people.
Most privacy concerns come down to such transactional costs- and the way to get people to accept the risk is to provide a benefit that far outweighs the risk.
Do you know how to access a file on a C64 disk?
It's been a while, but as I remember it's got a cut down version of BASIC in ROM that contains Open, Linput, and close statements.....
Because in most forensic investigations, they remove the hard-drive from the PC and then perform the investigation using another operating system guaranteed to not have any nasty surprises built in. They're not going to run the risk that buddy has a small script that deletes his entire hard drive if he doesn't hit ctrl-a-s-d-f-enter within seconds of booting up.
This is a Commodore 64- the operating system is in ROM and can't be overwritten. You can't write a small script, because there's no scripting language that runs automatically on this system. And there is no hard drive at all- hard drives for microcomputers was a laughable idea at the time (as the typical hard drive held a mere 128MB on a 24 inch platter, and the drive itself was the size of a washing machine).
There's likely more to it than that as well, but the point is they generally don't want to use the system they've confiscated...
And their reasons don't apply in this case.
Two words- Null Modem and Hyperterminal will transfer all the files stored on 5.25" floppies for that Commodore 64 (or even stored on cassette tape) to their Windows machines just fine. It's just ASCII after all, no big problem.
From the article:
There are emulators available which can make a modern PC capable of running Commodore 64 programmes but Maj Gen Lang said it would be difficult to transmit the data from Priklopil's machine to a modern computer "without loss".
What, have they forgotten how to create a DIN-5 to Sub-D9 cable? I'm sure google has several websites with the schematic of the machine (also available in the original user's manual), it shouldn't be THAT hard to construct an asynchronous serial cable.
Absolutely true- and a point I'm trying to get across to my bosses at Oregon Department of Transportation in their bid to use GPS tech to charge road-mile taxes.
Privacy issues are transactional cost situations. If you're getting more benefit than danger, then the risk will become acceptable. Savings cards give you a return right at the checkout. I say that if we want everybody to use GPS traking for taxes, then we need to give them an equal added benefit, say, adaptive NDGPS based cruise control. Keep the cars separated out with line of sight bluetooth communications of the GPS information of both vehicles, and you've given added value to the driver. Maybe even partner up between a nice mapping software and bluetooth burst communications from http://www.tripcheck.com/ and you can have up-to-the-minute traffic jam avoidance in the Portland area.
Let's consider a person taking notes on an 8-1/2"x11" sheet of paper, with a 0.7mm (0.0028") pen or pencil. This translates to about a resolution of 360 lpi, or an overall resolution for the sheet of 3960x3060 (in the landscape orientation) at 1:1 size. Find me a computer monitor that can do that.
.7mm pen or pencil.
After playing with Microsoft OneNote on a friend's Gateway TabletPC running Windows XP, and Notes on my cellphone running Windows Mobile 5.0- I'd say we're about halfway there. The software is there- the resolution of the touchscreen monitor isn't (my friend's TabletPC, for those about to disagree with that statement, tops out at HDTV-like resolutions of 1920x1200 pixels. Definately even a 1 pixel wide stylus line is fat when you compare it to a
Having said that- like I said to the other guy who claimed technology never subplants what came before- give it a decade or so- in which case the kids in school better get used to using these tools NOW, right?
1. Bonds, being borrowing, are always inherantly more expensive than paying cash on the barrelhead up front.
2. While they wait for a bond measure to pass, the cost of steel and concrete and especially asphalt is going up. Tick, Tick, Tick....
3. Alaska pays a hell of a lot more than $3 million in fed taxes- in fact the 8050 people this bridge will directly benefit probably pay more than that (especially the 50, who are all multi-millionaires who have summer homes on the island).
I know lots of people who will ignore an e-mail for hours or days but will respond right away to a sticky note on their monitor
I only have two such Luddites, and they're both due for retirement soon.
What will you do if you're touring in Europe and your phone doesn't work?
It's GSM/GPRS- I stop by a cell phone dealer and get a new SIM card and I'm good to go.
Or if you drop it into a canal in Amsterdam?
Working on that one- thinking about getting one of These cases, especially since in the future I'd like to get into boating and the GPS unit would be very useful in that activity (with a different mapping software, of course, and Bluetooth connection means I don't have to mess with waterproof cable openings).
Being able to write is a handy skill. Technology is great for facilitating things like communication or making it possible when it otherwise was not, but it should not become a requirement in circumstances where it wasn't before.
It will, though- it always has before. A bicycle is a great way to get around, but non-motorized vehicles are banned even on some freeways in Oregon, and all freeways in 26 other states. Now true- there's nobody left alive who can remember a time when non-motorized transport wasn't at least a technological option. But we'll get that way with our all in one PERSONAL digital assitants one day. I figure about the time a mini-SD or micro-SD card hits the 1 Petabyte range (which will easily store 876,000 hours of full motion video and stereo audio- your life record available for playback at any time, indexed to the second) and we have completely wireless charging and sync capabilities in a WPAN configuration, we'll be there. Just give it time. Given how far we've come and how fast we've come, and the new molecular storage system just invented this week, I'd give it about 30 years- by which time everybody who remembers writing out memos longhand will be dead and buried, and everybody who rememers what a typewriter was will be retired.
Details, please? I didn't see prices spiraling out of control in either direction. Unemployment wasn't at record lows and GDP growth weren't at record, highs, but I'm definitely not seeing the economic argument for laying that at the feet of the central banking system.
Overall, not- but in individual counties and sectors, records were being set- and where unemployment was highest- blue won...for good reason I think. But the economy is kind of like Iraq- you want to bind it into one system, you bought it, even if a one size fits all answer doesn't fit.
I'm completely missing your leap from deflation and debt. I think I'm just not following your analogy.
Inflation and deflation are strongly linked to credit. When credit is free and easy- low interest rates- inflation happens. When credit is not easy- high interest rates, foreclosures, and bankruptcies- deflation happens. The reason for this is the same way a family gets out of debt after overspending.
The purpose of the control is mainly to ensure price stability and prevent massive unemployment. If you want to read a deeper social agenda into it, I suppose you can, but it seems like you're advocating bringing the economy to a screeching halt and replacing it with a simpler one that grows more slowly and discourages capital investment. We'll have to agree to disagree there.
Price stability and employement are at odds in the current system- you can either have high inflation, or high unemployment. Deflation would cause unemployment- but be followed by higher inflation, which would encourage employment.
So, how exactly is fiat money "fake" when it's used to buy bonds to control the money supply and "real" when it's used by the government to purchase goods and services?
It isn't. Money is ALWAYS fake, ALWAYS a myth- even when it's commodity rather than fiat. It has no value above that which people give it, no matter what. The problem isn't the myth- the problem is the one-size-fits-all managmment of the myth.
More importantly, given that this system guarantees steady money supply growth regardless of increases in productivity or money demand, how do you keep inflation from spiraling out of control, and how do you handle foreign trade with economies that aren't required to accept your devalued currency?
Well, I should preface this with the fact that I don't buy into the theory of competitive advantage- as far as I'm concerned only ONE type of trade between local economies is valid, and that is direct trade of goods that the other economy physically cannot produce. I disagree with money trading, it's usually in detriment to both economies, or at least has been for the last 40 years or so, because it encourages an imbalance. Having said that, in a very small local economy you WANT inflation to spiral out of control- because that's what is going to create the jobs to support an ever increasing population. But that only works in conjunction with one of the primary tenents of distributism, which is that REALATIONSHIPS are more important than PROFIT. Which implies that goods should be produced as close to the end consumer as possible.
How does your video phone do at leaving a post it on someone's desk?
Pretty good- I just send them an e-mail or an SMS.
Or scribbling down an address and set of directions before leaving the house?
I always ask for the address- type it into the GPS program and it leads me there, with voice turn by turn directions that automatically adjust if I have to ignore them for traffic or construction (been doing that a lot lately- our local version of Ted Steven's bridge, the OTIA III transportation investment act, means an awful lot of seemingly random construction going on in Oregon). The only time it failed me on this score was with the birth of my recent nephew- they told me the birthing center was "Behind the Winco's at 102nd and Glisan in Portland"- I got there and there was no Winco's in sight. As I was scouting around looking for "on a road that starts with a W", they called me and told me she was in such pain that they were going to Adventist Hospital- which was big enough to be in my GPS Database, and I actually beat them there!
Even if that job isn't doing something benficial to society, or when that benefit is far smaller than the cost incurred to purchase it?
Idealy, the job should be either in creation of, or maintenance of, infrastructure. Every job in that category is HIGHLY valuable to local jobs and the local economy. That's how we dug our way (or dammed our way) out of the Depression in the west.
Well, I can see the desire for more locally responsive money supplies. I was fairly well convinced that the Euro wouldn't work as the practical monetary policy for one country would almost certainly be wrong for another country in the worst case. I don't see any evidence that our central bank failing on that account in the US, though.
I see a good deal of evidence for the US central bank failing on that score. Just look at the county-level statistics for the 2004 election to see the failures.
As for deflation, I can't think of any sensible argument to prefer it over inflation of a comparable scale, given that it's nasty to counteract and has a tendency to cause economies to spiral down to a halt.
After a period of irrational materialism, the economy grinding to a halt is what is needed. Think of it as the same as a family- microeconomics always makes more sense. If a family has gotten themselves into debt, which is better? Piling up more debt or paying it off?
As far as history has shown, price stability is not really a reasonable option, and mild inflation is generally associated with a healthier economy, as well as being better understood and easier to control.
Ah, but what is the purpose of the control? If the purpose of the control is to widen the gap between the rich and the poor, I'd agree with you- it's not in the best interest of the rich to allow the poor to stop consuming and pay off their debt from irrational consumption. But if the purpose is the end of capitalism because there's no longer any need for even 60% of your population to work to maintain the status quo- then a period of adjustment will be needed.
Sure, a money supply that grew perfeclty with the needs of the economy would be great, but you can't have that with your money supply tied to an arbitrary resource. You can't even have it with a managed money supply, but you can come a whole lot closer.
Thus returning to my point of DECENTRALIZED banks run by LOCAL governments, and taxes being replaced merely with the profit that comes from being able to print one's own money. Local governments will do local pork projects- and being able to print their own money, will be able to afford to do so- which will create local jobs. Those local jobs produce local consumers- which will want services the government doesn't provide, providing an opportunity for local businessmen, who create even more jobs. By keeping the communities as small and local as possbile, you encourage economic growth LOCALLY. And by limiting the money supply to government spending, you avoid the fake money of banks extending credit, which by ABCT theory is what causes boom/bust cycles.
I personally believe ABCT is true- but I don't see laisez faire as the solution for it (nor do I see central bank interventionism as a solution for it). What I see as a solution is restricted, small scale community economies- run on the concepts of a Just Wage and Fair Price. In other words, Protectionism with a strong sense of Communitas.
My video camera in my phone, combined with downloading to a voice recog program on my desktop, takes better notes than I've ever seen anybody take with mere handwriting. It's a useful skill for now- but one that will be soon as outdated as doing your checkbook with an abacus.
Ok, so who do you think works in the factories building all of this dooms-day equipment that will ruin our livlihoods?
Either illegal aliens or H-1b/L-1/TN visa holders (depending on the country they're from and how they were hired, and what job they are doing). That is if any human beings need to work there at all- I already see checkout counters at my local grocery store that don't need any employees to do the work.
The jobs are displaced, not eliminated in the grand scheme of things.
When you only need one illegal alien to do the work of 8 previous checkout clerks, the jobs have been eliminated. They won't be coming back.
Employment rates and economies fluctuate, and the only thing that never changes is change.
I used to think that way- until I started asking WHY. The answer was not very pretty- and points to a time when we're all just slaves to about 2000 families who are already well on their way to owning the entire planet.
The Great Depression wasn't caused by technology, it was caused by shitty banking practicies and an amalgamation of bad economic factors.
So? Different depressions are caused by different things. The next BIG one will be caused by selling the government to the highest bidder.
Technology can reduce the number of jobs within a certain sector, but that labor is merely displaced. It drives up the value of skilled laborers.
Skilled labor can be imported, thus driving the value back down. And eventually, all skilled labor can be replaced with expert systems and machines.
Menial labor will always be in demand.
Remember my example of the checkout clerk? Menial labor is already being replaced. I no longer need illegal immigrants to mow my lawn, my Robomow has replaced Juan, and I don't need them inside my house either, my Roomba does the same job inside. What makes you think Menial Labor will always be in demand? Always is a long time, and in the next 40 years, I can already forsee most menial labor being replaced.
I realize that you're passionate, but this argument is a little bit of a red herring.
Now that's a good joke, given my name, and an even better one given what I stand for- I'm not anti-tech. I'm in fact looking forward to the day when we can collectively, as a race, tell the entire capitalist system that we don't need it anymore.
Technology can reduce the number of jobs within a certain sector, but that labor is merely displaced. It drives up the value of skilled laborers. Menial labor will always be in demand. It's just that it's easier to notice 'OMG my fries are served by a robot!!11' than to really step back and take a look at where Mr. Fryman went. I can assure you that there are other jobs he is capable of.
The other jobs have already been taken by the illegal aliens. And he's too much of an idiot to become skilled. I'll tell you what happens to him- he spends a couple of years looking for a job, and then the Department of Labor reclassifies him as disabled and gives him $70 a month to live on. It's happened to MILLIONS of people in the last 5 years- it's the only way they were able to keep the unemployment rate so low while importing more illegal aliens each month than they had jobs for.
And I'm entirely the opposite- basing your currency on something entirely imaginary and unmeasurable makes it utterly worthless. You can't create wealth out of thin air- and money does not represent wealth.
So what, you're just suppossed to work until you die?
Why not? If you enjoy what you do, retirement can be far more detrimental to your health than continuing to work. Plus, there's an added bonus for the employer of actually having a workforce with (gasp) experience.
Why can't I put money away so that I can retire and stop working when I get older, and thus open my job up to someone else?
Because at that point, your spending also decreases, cutting 2 jobs for the one you vacate.
So, you're saying that you prefer the deflation that is a necessary consequence of tying the currency of a steadily growing economy to a finite natural resource over the mild inflation that is the result of a properly managed central bank?
I would- if not given a third choice. That third choice would be to admit that the whole thing is mythical, and thus should be managed by DECENTRALIZED, COMMUINITY BASED banks, where the bank managers have to directly suffer from their decisions.
I type. I have a condition called dysgraphia that made handwriting the only subject I ever failed in grade school. Now they test for it and just show kids how to type.
The few times I have to sign my name (usually for stores too stupid to know the difference between a debit and a credit card)- I drive my bank crazy because my signature is never entirely the same twice.
The problem is not teachable- it's a packet loss problem between the brain and the fingers in the network known as the nervous system.
Frankly, something OLPC-ish might be more in order than just giving every kid an iBook or a Dell. Of course, parents would protest, because there seems to be this feeling that the earlier you get Little Johnny started on the MS Word and the PowerPoint, the more successful he'll be -- which is utter tripe. A well-educated person can pick up a book on Word or PowerPoint (or any other software package that they need to use) and figure it out in a weekend.
I'm convinced that my newest cell phone would have been a great tool for school. Instead of always getting behind writing notes on paper, it can take full motion video, and fit 8 hours of it one one little tiny 2GB miniSD chip. It has built in Word and Excel software- as well as running Windows Mobile. For connectivity, it supports Bluetooth, GPRS, and 802.11x. For a serious kid, it would be a wonderful tool. The only complaint I have, is it could give some confustion on typing, as the keyboard is neither full size nor full function.