The NSA's network sniffer, recently discovered at an AT&T broadband center, can only sniff up to 622MB. Sounds to me like if you use an InfiniBand switch, that would effectively make the output of the NSA's network sniffers complete gibberish.
Oh, and where is the IRS going to get all the manpower and money to "go after" all these people?
There's an easy answer to that one- allow the IRS to seize and auction 100% of the assets of any business or individual caught cheating on taxes and USE THAT MONEY DIRECTLY TO CATCH MORE TAX CHEATS. In other words, make auditing profitable, and make being a tax cheat so unprofitable as to be a bad business decision.
I support a similar draconian solution to the immigration problem- hire an illegal, lose your business assets and citizenship. Before too long, nobody will hire illegals anymore.
The other method is a rather simple table:
Problem, Risk, Solution, Cost
This is what managers actually care about. A one sentence description of the problem, the risk of missing or stolen data as a percentage risk, a one sentence description of the solution, and the cost of that solution. That gives them what they need to know to work up your budget- and you implement what they want.
But as you point out, that isn't always easy. I'm going to do my best to avoid a situation like the one you were in.
And I think I've finally succeeded in avoiding the situation for quite some time to come: I'm accepting a permanent position, starting June 1, with Oregon Department of Transportation. If we run out of money for roads, we is all in trouble!
And where would you hire all of the competent people to do this?
How competant do you have to be to punch numbers into a computer that has an expert system that compares those numbers to the law? Don't think COMPETANCE, think AUTOMATION!
The whole reason why the IRS doesn't do exactly what you say is because they're very limited (in terms of resources) on whose returns they investigate/audit and which ones they don't.
Which they shouldn't be. 90% of selecting returns to audit should be done by computer these days.
They stay away from the CPA-prepared returns (typically) given that they know they'll have to fight both the filer and the CPA firm if they decide to audit; given that, there's a much higher probability of increased cost to the IRS to conduct the audit and less chance it will be successful (i.e., the filer will have to pay more than the original amount). Because the IRS has limited resources, they have to be very judicious about which returns they audit (a fact that everyone else takes advantage of).
True enough- but that's because they've failed to automate.
If your goal is to reduce fraud and make revenue collection easier, then a sweeping simplification of both the business and personal tax codes is in order... but neither party will do that given they both curry favor with the business sector (which has the money to donate to political campaigns). So in reality the corruption is not with the degreed business people, but rather inherently with the government itself which makes the tax laws in the first place (which is an excellent argument to have less of both government and tax laws).
Who do you think pays the money to donate to the political campaigns? I say a pox on both their houses- yes we need to simplify government and the tax code, but we also need more engineers and fewer business types.
Of course, why would you expect otherwise? Those who file such returns are far less likely to be able to afford tax preparation professionals and/or attorneys so they make easy pickins. That's the IRS just being (as) efficient (as they can be, anyhow). The last thing they want is to audit someone with a lot of professionals standing beside them, spend a lot of money in an audit, have it go to court and then lose (both the case and all the money spent in pursuing it). It's much easier for them to pick the low-hanging fruit. That's big government at it's best though (another good reason to have less of it).
Seems to me that the way out would be to simplify the tax code and then REALLY agressively go after these businesses that send private information offshore (as most of the tax CPAs do).
And none of them require employees, office space, rent, or other "high" expenses. Yes, there is *some* cost involved but if you can't scrape together $5k to start up, then maybe you shouldn't be in business in the first place.
There are millions of people in this country who grew up with parents for which $5k was a year's salary. For most of them, they'll die without ever seeing $5k in one place. That barrier of entry is higher than you would think.
If you don't have money, then it's your responsibility to find someone who does have money and convince that person that your idea, talent, and hard work are worth their investment. This happens all the time. I should know: I've been the money guy for just such a person.
At which point you get the project halfway finished and the money guy yanks any further financing based on the fact that it took longer than 4 months and he could get a better rate of return in the stock market, regardless of how good of an idea it is. BTDT.
Alternatively of course, you could just rob a bank....
In actuality, my experience has shown that having a good CPA firm sign your returns with you pretty much gives you a free pass, given the IRS is made up of typical government people who "need" their jobs. Viva la Accountant!!
I'm just saying that given the recent corruption of degreed business people, from Arthur Anderson CPAs to MBAs like Ken Lay, if I were working for the IRS I'd be looking very closely at ANY return signed by a CPA. But of course, Congress thinks differently- the only returns the IRS EVER audits are ones claiming Earned Income Tax Credits.
It also involves entering a username and password (which the user got from me upon purchase; they can use it to download updates).
And thus, the need for a crack...especially if they lost the e-mail in the last hard drive meltdown. If they need it now at 1:00am and can't wait for you to wake up to check your records:-)
My license is very flexible. People can install it on an unlimited number of computers, as long as the license holder (or someone close to him, like a family member of a close friend) are the only users of the program.
Which makes me wonder why you bother with the username/password at all?
This is why I post on slashdot- to learn new things. I had never heard of putting testing *before* coding before- I'm going to have to look it up. I may finally be comming up on having some say in my job (going from contractor to permanent position) and it may come in handy on my next project.
Are you servercheck?:-). Still, you might also look to non-financial incentives for piracy. Ease of installation, installation onto multiple machines on a home network, that sort of thing.
I'll also take this opportunity to directly acknowlege the message above yours- server check, unlike on their price list page, DOES offer a freeware version.
I'm going to do my best to avoid a situation like the one you were in.
Then to me, this conversation was worth it. If only one person learns to trust a little bit less and plan a little bit more, like I think you said earlier in the thread- our whole community will be better off (if for no other reason than unemployment insurance preiums will be a bit lower).
Have you heard of ETFs? Exchange-Traded Funds are where you can buy index funds just like stocks. If you buy through a discount broker, like ScotTrade, you can buy, say, an even chunk of the S&P500 for $7. After that, your broker charges no additional fees. I'm sure there is some cost involved in making ETFs exist, but I really think it is negligable.
Wasn't available on my 401k...I should check with my private broker though....I wonder what the minimal investment is.
And the main part of by "retire by 40" plan is slightly riskier: a mutual fund that invests in the 30 Dow companies on margin. You/do/ need $5k to get into that, and the fees are high (like 2.5%/year), but after fees, you should get like %18 (on average) per year. Because it is done through a fund, you are insulated from the personal risk usually associated with margin investing, and they get great margin rates because of volume.
See, I feel like after my experience, I need something more like that- but I've never seen a mutual fund quite that high.
Anyway, doing the max ($4k/year) into a roth ira (in that dow fund), and about $3k/year into a S&P500 index 401k (a typical amount with company matching), you wind up with a millioin bucks in 20 years (on average). With that, one has the option of cashing out and buying federal bonds, and living on his own $50k/year trust fund. That is a comfortable life in most of the US.
Sounds like a plan- but what happens when you hit one of those 50 year depressions? For instance- part of what kept us afloat during my layoff was a collection of blue chip stocks my wife inherited in 1997 that was worth $40,000 at that time. By the time we started selling them to survive, they were worth only $18000. Between selling off stock and further price depreciation, all of those so-called "blue chips" ended up so far down in value that I'll be writing off capital loss for the next 10 years.
And I KNOW "americans are lazy" will not keep you from a job in most of the US.
Really? You haven't had the invasion yet elsehere? We've got so many H-1bs and illegal immigrants around that every single new job in private industry barely gets advertised before it is taken.
It sounds to me like you were a victim of some of the worst economic circumstances possible. It does frighten me that a PE can't find employment, though. All the engineering grads I know who graduated post-bubble got decent jobs in the midwest. But you have convinced me never to buy property (on loan) in CA.
CA certainly not, unless you're playing "flip that house". I'm in OR though- OR and Washington- and here property has NEVER been a good investment, more of a place to live and settle down.
I still think you could have retrained for a different job, then gotten back into IT when the tides changed. It happens. And it could be GOOD for your career if you get into IT in the industry you retrained for, because you will understand it better.
It was mainly fear keeping me from doing it- I invested 8 years of my life to get the degrees and certs I do have, and what did I get for my trouble? Overqualified, unable to find anything in private industry. Well, ODOT is different- with this economy that I hate that is so dependant on shipping, if we run out of money for the roads we is all in trouble....
Their hardware price list is in line with what I've seen for this stuff- their software price list is what leaves something to be desired (and after all, who's going to pirate the hardware at those prices anyway? You'd spend more on the components to solder together than the actual cost of buying it prebuilt). Software though is easier to copy- and while their prices are in line with competitors, they need an expanded licensing scheme to take into account academic and hobbyist users. I realize most people think "we don't want those as customers anyway"- but chances are this is where 90% of your piracy is, and also it's good advertising to get into new markets later on.
Either that or you have teenagers, or are running a Personal Telco node, or are simply trying to learn enough to get that job doing enterprise level monitoring... I can think of large numbers of other reasons for wanting this level of monitoring on a personal network.
And that last one is the guy you WANT to learn your software, and should be providing a $23 CD to with a license to monitor under 5 nodes. If he gets used to using it on his home network, he'll come to you for the $1500 license when he gets hired.
$300 for a professional license, and no academic level in the licensing? I'd say that's enough to inspire piracy- and also enough to lose sells to competitors who make sure high school and college students graduate with expertise on their software.
They need something for the schools, and for the under-5 machine-home network if they truly don't want their software pirated (though I'd be more worried about losing sales to competitors in their case).
Every man and his dog can buy and index fund. Such funds have returned about 10% per year (on average) for almost a century.
And they crash about once every 52 years.
That doesn't sound like a scam to me.
It is when you consider that to buy that index fund, you have to pay the broker for it, who takes management costs out of the portfolio.
And, on indexes, brokerage fees are near nothing.
If by "near nothing" you mean "minimum $5000 investment to actually make money".
I think you have your facts wrong on the "stock market is a scam" bit. Speculative investing, when you don't really know what you are doing, can be much like a scam, and a large amount of investing in the 90s was of that type. But I'm not touching that.
Actually, the whole damned stock market was originally a bunch of con artists hanging out in the bad part of New York down by the docks (on Wall St.) trying to take money from passers by. The modern form isn't that different; it's just a collection of marketing gimmicks by parasites who don't actually work for a living.
As for there being no jobs of any type after the bubble: I found one with no trouble, but it was low paying (1/4th what I make now) and I may have been lucky. I can't imagine being told I'm "overqualified" to sell computer parts retail, though. I'll take your word for it that it happens.
I was given that repeatedly- though I think it might have been due to my degree (SET with a PE's license).
But searching through the BLS reports, it seems there are a lot of easy jobs you can do with very little training that make decent money.
And the grand majority of those go to recent immigrants, because Americans have a reputation for being "lazy".
But yeah, I can feel your pain at buying a mortgage that you could never cover on a low-income job. I never had that option during the bubble, and I've seen other's mistakes, so I'm not going to buy a house until I have enough saved toward it that the monthly payments will be reasonable.
There's another big plus in not buying a house- if your industry suddenly moves to say, Singapore- you can move with it quite easily and without taking a loss. As a rule, a house is a structure to live in while throwing money at it (normal wear and tear will keep you busy with repairs and emergency spending above and beyond the mortgage). I just wanted the same standard of living my parents enjoyed- and thought I could do it on what seemed to be an income twice what they ever earned. Stupid thought in retrospect- but hindsight is 20/20. And hard of a time as I've had with Christopher trying to teach him to talk, I wouldn't trade his life for anything and I'm willing to go through the hardship in return. But at this point (bringing this back on topic) that means looking for a union job- because nothing else offers the security I need to keep a kid with CP insured. Private industry unions also seem incapable of this- so I'm going for a state job, not out of choice but out of need. At least it will make my father-in-law proud: I'll be third generation working for this particular department of state government if I get it.
You must have been in a particularly hard-hit part of the country. I just don't think it was that bad everywhere.
More, I was in the Silicon Forest- one of those places on the West Coast that sudddenly had a 25% vacancy rate in housing and a shortage of U-Haul trucks. If I had still been renting at the time, I could have taken advantage of a number of deals in the area- 6 month lease for 4 month's rent and no move-in key money was a common offering. But of course, I had already bought my house at that time.
One word- Darfur. That's what happens to natives when Islam takes over- and while it would be fair to point out that something very similar happens to natives when Christianity takes over, let's face it, there are very few places left in this world that aren't Christian or Islamic or Jewish.
It's also a mistake to take genocide of this form personally- it's not about hate, it's abut a religious edict.
Honestly, you did not have to be out of work for so long.
2001-2004, there wasn't a single job in ANY class that had less than 200 applicants, skilled or non-skilled. They opened a Home Depot in the area and got 5000 applications for 50 jobs.
1) spend a few weeks/months living on savings while search for similar work all day.
Tried that- 100 resumes a month for 26 months.
2) if that failed, get an easy job working on something trivial (like retail or support) to pay the bills while i continue my search for a few months
Tried that too- got the nasty questions about why I was accepting a position paying 1/10th my former salary, tried hiding my former salary and schooling, got caught on the credit check (student loans show up even after they've been paid off). Same story everywhere: Overqualified. Except for fast food retail- the excuse there was that I didn't know spanish, and near as I can tell every kitchen in my area is spanish-only.
3) if i still have no luck, i would either move to a part of the country where my prefered career is in demand, or start training for a new career.
Every area in the United States was depressed at that time, and training for a new career seemed like a REALLY bad idea seeing as how I had just finished paying off my student loans from the previous training. That and there's a good deal of anti-American bigotry out there.
Only a fool thinks he will never have to change careers.
To what? What career will give stability enough to pay off a 30 year mortgage?
Even if you live in hicksville, surely you had some of these options available to you. No person is without work for 26 months except by choice. If demand for your career evaporates, train for something else, don't live in denial.
Well, I'm already trained as a Radio Disc Jockey, computer programmer, short order cook, and manual farm laborer. Guess what? Every time you train for a new career, that closes more doors than it opens.
Personally, I like to play it extremely safe: I live (rent + utils + necessities) on about 1/3rd of my income. I buy toys, party, and travel on another 1/3rd, and I invest the rest in the stock market (I want to have the option of retiring while I'm in my 30's). I drove an old, ugly car until I had enough CASH to buy my spiffy new sports car. I worked through college, and I never took out a loan for anything, ever.
Well, how nice for you. Don't count on that stock market investment- the stock market is just a scam. I've never had cash to buy a sports car, and living on 1/3rd my income is no longer an option because I designed my lifestyle when I was earning 3x my current income. Don't count on retiring in your 30s either- somebody will steal your savings from you long before then, if not in brokerage fees then by outright identity theft. The game is stacked against you and there is no way to win except death.
Yes, indeed. That would work. Just start killing innocent family members and the bin Laden would surrender and other Islamic terrorists would put down their arms. That's what would happen.
That's what would happen in a semitic society where one's duty and honor is to family, religion, and state (in that order). Like I said, you apparently have no appreciation of the culture we're fighting (gee, kind of like our current President).
Not a newly justified hatred of the US.
We've got 100 years of raping the Holy Peninsula for oil- there's plenty of justification to hate us already.
Not worldwide condemnation for an undeniable terrorist act.
So what? What is the world going to do about it?
No sir, instead, the terrorists would see that they cannot win against the US and they would give up and we would live in peace and harmony with our Islamic brothers.
Unlike you, I know that there will never be peace and harmony with Islamics. Their theology prevents them from looking upon unbelievers as human, let alone brothers. This is a war of genocide- originally genocide between Islamic sects, but now it's spilled outside of their borders. The only choice is which sect commits the genocide, not whether the genocide will happen or not. It will.
You seem to be under the impression that Islamic law suffers and unbeliever to live.
Huh? What prophecy is that? You can give a reputable source that says Islam aims for world takeover, can you?
Shariah Law and the Koran. Heck, the existance of the religion to begin with- Mohammed started it because he saw what the Christians and Jews had accomplished (a slave race overthrowing an empire was recent history in 600 A.D.) and saw that his own people needed monotheism and a single universal standard of justice if they were going to have their own chance at building empires. Islam is all about peace- at the point of a sword- and justice where none had previously existed. EVERYTHING the religion has done since then has been about expanding territory and evangelization- and pushing religion into a place of governance. Sure, they've had their splits and sects- what we experience as terrorism is really just spillover from the internal Islamic Reformation and Civil War- and every Islamic country thinks they will be *the one* to take over Mecca and rule the world and get rid of those unjust people who are not Ummah- but yes, world domination has been their aim for 1400 years now.
Destroy holy sites in order to stop Islamic terrorism. Great idea! That has to bring peace!
No, not peace. Just demoralization. You can't claim God is on your side if he allowed the destruction of your holiest site.
Right, no innocents suffer when you attempt to destroy an entire religion by destroying its holy sites. After all, all them muslims are guilty in their hearts, aren't they?
Not just in their hearts, but in their Holy Book and their Laws. There is no such thing as a non-fundamentalist Muslim- they take great pride in being "People of the Book", and would at the very least imprison and tax you for not being of the book under Shariah Law.
In addition to that- has it ever occured to you that the basic theology of Islam (that law comes from God, is spoken by prophets and priests, and only interpreted by the Ummah to rule the unbelievers) is basically antidemocratic to the extent that it makes democracy impossible?
If you had said "IRS", my response would possibly have been different. Regardless of who he was after, what did those children in the building ever do to you? I don't know how to respond to such repulsive thoughts. I would expect that from the warhawks in my freaks list. But I have higher regard for you, if for no other reason that we can disagree and still keep on talking. The others simply shut me down and go on with their killin'. For them there is no hope, unless they have an epiphany...or a good whack on the head with a fire extinguisher(method of training pilots during the war(so I hear), the big one, WW2). If you want me to go away, just let me know, and I will. But I hope you don't.
No, the ATF was clearly his target, being a part of a group (Militias and Cults) that were being targeted by the ATF in previous years (Ruby Ridge and Waco were both reasons given for the Oklahoma City Attack). I personally think he could have made his point with much better timing- hitting the building 90 minutes earlier would have resulted in minimum loss of life (those children bother me too), but still a very powerfull message about the federal government taking over state's rights. In some ways, though, I think that there is a very basic difference between home grown and foreign terrorism- it's the difference between a coup and an invasion.
Slashdot Mirror
The NSA's network sniffer, recently discovered at an AT&T broadband center, can only sniff up to 622MB. Sounds to me like if you use an InfiniBand switch, that would effectively make the output of the NSA's network sniffers complete gibberish.
However, "Angels and Demons" and "The Da Vinci Code" are certainly better pulp fiction, despite the poor writing style.
If you call taking the opposite oppinion of most respected historians on a hoax from the 1950s "considered research", maybe.
Oh, and where is the IRS going to get all the manpower and money to "go after" all these people?
There's an easy answer to that one- allow the IRS to seize and auction 100% of the assets of any business or individual caught cheating on taxes and USE THAT MONEY DIRECTLY TO CATCH MORE TAX CHEATS. In other words, make auditing profitable, and make being a tax cheat so unprofitable as to be a bad business decision.
I support a similar draconian solution to the immigration problem- hire an illegal, lose your business assets and citizenship. Before too long, nobody will hire illegals anymore.
Leave the real wishes in writing with a disinterested party. It's the only way to be sure.
The other method is a rather simple table:
Problem, Risk, Solution, Cost
This is what managers actually care about. A one sentence description of the problem, the risk of missing or stolen data as a percentage risk, a one sentence description of the solution, and the cost of that solution. That gives them what they need to know to work up your budget- and you implement what they want.
But as you point out, that isn't always easy. I'm going to do my best to avoid a situation like the one you were in.
And I think I've finally succeeded in avoiding the situation for quite some time to come: I'm accepting a permanent position, starting June 1, with Oregon Department of Transportation. If we run out of money for roads, we is all in trouble!
And where would you hire all of the competent people to do this?
... but neither party will do that given they both curry favor with the business sector (which has the money to donate to political campaigns). So in reality the corruption is not with the degreed business people, but rather inherently with the government itself which makes the tax laws in the first place (which is an excellent argument to have less of both government and tax laws).
How competant do you have to be to punch numbers into a computer that has an expert system that compares those numbers to the law? Don't think COMPETANCE, think AUTOMATION!
The whole reason why the IRS doesn't do exactly what you say is because they're very limited (in terms of resources) on whose returns they investigate/audit and which ones they don't.
Which they shouldn't be. 90% of selecting returns to audit should be done by computer these days.
They stay away from the CPA-prepared returns (typically) given that they know they'll have to fight both the filer and the CPA firm if they decide to audit; given that, there's a much higher probability of increased cost to the IRS to conduct the audit and less chance it will be successful (i.e., the filer will have to pay more than the original amount). Because the IRS has limited resources, they have to be very judicious about which returns they audit (a fact that everyone else takes advantage of).
True enough- but that's because they've failed to automate.
If your goal is to reduce fraud and make revenue collection easier, then a sweeping simplification of both the business and personal tax codes is in order
Who do you think pays the money to donate to the political campaigns? I say a pox on both their houses- yes we need to simplify government and the tax code, but we also need more engineers and fewer business types.
Of course, why would you expect otherwise? Those who file such returns are far less likely to be able to afford tax preparation professionals and/or attorneys so they make easy pickins. That's the IRS just being (as) efficient (as they can be, anyhow). The last thing they want is to audit someone with a lot of professionals standing beside them, spend a lot of money in an audit, have it go to court and then lose (both the case and all the money spent in pursuing it). It's much easier for them to pick the low-hanging fruit. That's big government at it's best though (another good reason to have less of it).
Seems to me that the way out would be to simplify the tax code and then REALLY agressively go after these businesses that send private information offshore (as most of the tax CPAs do).
And none of them require employees, office space, rent, or other "high" expenses. Yes, there is *some* cost involved but if you can't scrape together $5k to start up, then maybe you shouldn't be in business in the first place.
There are millions of people in this country who grew up with parents for which $5k was a year's salary. For most of them, they'll die without ever seeing $5k in one place. That barrier of entry is higher than you would think.
If you don't have money, then it's your responsibility to find someone who does have money and convince that person that your idea, talent, and hard work are worth their investment. This happens all the time. I should know: I've been the money guy for just such a person.
At which point you get the project halfway finished and the money guy yanks any further financing based on the fact that it took longer than 4 months and he could get a better rate of return in the stock market, regardless of how good of an idea it is. BTDT.
Alternatively of course, you could just rob a bank....
In actuality, my experience has shown that having a good CPA firm sign your returns with you pretty much gives you a free pass, given the IRS is made up of typical government people who "need" their jobs. Viva la Accountant!!
I'm just saying that given the recent corruption of degreed business people, from Arthur Anderson CPAs to MBAs like Ken Lay, if I were working for the IRS I'd be looking very closely at ANY return signed by a CPA. But of course, Congress thinks differently- the only returns the IRS EVER audits are ones claiming Earned Income Tax Credits.
It also involves entering a username and password (which the user got from me upon purchase; they can use it to download updates).
:-)
And thus, the need for a crack...especially if they lost the e-mail in the last hard drive meltdown. If they need it now at 1:00am and can't wait for you to wake up to check your records
My license is very flexible. People can install it on an unlimited number of computers, as long as the license holder (or someone close to him, like a family member of a close friend) are the only users of the program.
Which makes me wonder why you bother with the username/password at all?
This is why I post on slashdot- to learn new things. I had never heard of putting testing *before* coding before- I'm going to have to look it up. I may finally be comming up on having some say in my job (going from contractor to permanent position) and it may come in handy on my next project.
Are you servercheck? :-). Still, you might also look to non-financial incentives for piracy. Ease of installation, installation onto multiple machines on a home network, that sort of thing.
I'll also take this opportunity to directly acknowlege the message above yours- server check, unlike on their price list page, DOES offer a freeware version.
I'm going to do my best to avoid a situation like the one you were in.
Then to me, this conversation was worth it. If only one person learns to trust a little bit less and plan a little bit more, like I think you said earlier in the thread- our whole community will be better off (if for no other reason than unemployment insurance preiums will be a bit lower).
Have you heard of ETFs? Exchange-Traded Funds are where you can buy index funds just like stocks. If you buy through a discount broker, like ScotTrade, you can buy, say, an even chunk of the S&P500 for $7. After that, your broker charges no additional fees. I'm sure there is some cost involved in making ETFs exist, but I really think it is negligable.
/do/ need $5k to get into that, and the fees are high (like 2.5%/year), but after fees, you should get like %18 (on average) per year. Because it is done through a fund, you are insulated from the personal risk usually associated with margin investing, and they get great margin rates because of volume.
Wasn't available on my 401k...I should check with my private broker though....I wonder what the minimal investment is.
And the main part of by "retire by 40" plan is slightly riskier: a mutual fund that invests in the 30 Dow companies on margin. You
See, I feel like after my experience, I need something more like that- but I've never seen a mutual fund quite that high.
Anyway, doing the max ($4k/year) into a roth ira (in that dow fund), and about $3k/year into a S&P500 index 401k (a typical amount with company matching), you wind up with a millioin bucks in 20 years (on average). With that, one has the option of cashing out and buying federal bonds, and living on his own $50k/year trust fund. That is a comfortable life in most of the US.
Sounds like a plan- but what happens when you hit one of those 50 year depressions? For instance- part of what kept us afloat during my layoff was a collection of blue chip stocks my wife inherited in 1997 that was worth $40,000 at that time. By the time we started selling them to survive, they were worth only $18000. Between selling off stock and further price depreciation, all of those so-called "blue chips" ended up so far down in value that I'll be writing off capital loss for the next 10 years.
And I KNOW "americans are lazy" will not keep you from a job in most of the US.
Really? You haven't had the invasion yet elsehere? We've got so many H-1bs and illegal immigrants around that every single new job in private industry barely gets advertised before it is taken.
It sounds to me like you were a victim of some of the worst economic circumstances possible. It does frighten me that a PE can't find employment, though. All the engineering grads I know who graduated post-bubble got decent jobs in the midwest. But you have convinced me never to buy property (on loan) in CA.
CA certainly not, unless you're playing "flip that house". I'm in OR though- OR and Washington- and here property has NEVER been a good investment, more of a place to live and settle down.
I still think you could have retrained for a different job, then gotten back into IT when the tides changed. It happens. And it could be GOOD for your career if you get into IT in the industry you retrained for, because you will understand it better.
It was mainly fear keeping me from doing it- I invested 8 years of my life to get the degrees and certs I do have, and what did I get for my trouble? Overqualified, unable to find anything in private industry. Well, ODOT is different- with this economy that I hate that is so dependant on shipping, if we run out of money for the roads we is all in trouble....
Their hardware price list is in line with what I've seen for this stuff- their software price list is what leaves something to be desired (and after all, who's going to pirate the hardware at those prices anyway? You'd spend more on the components to solder together than the actual cost of buying it prebuilt). Software though is easier to copy- and while their prices are in line with competitors, they need an expanded licensing scheme to take into account academic and hobbyist users. I realize most people think "we don't want those as customers anyway"- but chances are this is where 90% of your piracy is, and also it's good advertising to get into new markets later on.
Either that or you have teenagers, or are running a Personal Telco node, or are simply trying to learn enough to get that job doing enterprise level monitoring... I can think of large numbers of other reasons for wanting this level of monitoring on a personal network.
And that last one is the guy you WANT to learn your software, and should be providing a $23 CD to with a license to monitor under 5 nodes. If he gets used to using it on his home network, he'll come to you for the $1500 license when he gets hired.
$300 for a professional license, and no academic level in the licensing? I'd say that's enough to inspire piracy- and also enough to lose sells to competitors who make sure high school and college students graduate with expertise on their software.
They need something for the schools, and for the under-5 machine-home network if they truly don't want their software pirated (though I'd be more worried about losing sales to competitors in their case).
With your software's name are "crack" and "keygen", you *might* need to take a good long look at your licensing and pricing model.
Every man and his dog can buy and index fund. Such funds have returned about 10% per year (on average) for almost a century.
And they crash about once every 52 years.
That doesn't sound like a scam to me.
It is when you consider that to buy that index fund, you have to pay the broker for it, who takes management costs out of the portfolio.
And, on indexes, brokerage fees are near nothing.
If by "near nothing" you mean "minimum $5000 investment to actually make money".
I think you have your facts wrong on the "stock market is a scam" bit. Speculative investing, when you don't really know what you are doing, can be much like a scam, and a large amount of investing in the 90s was of that type. But I'm not touching that.
Actually, the whole damned stock market was originally a bunch of con artists hanging out in the bad part of New York down by the docks (on Wall St.) trying to take money from passers by. The modern form isn't that different; it's just a collection of marketing gimmicks by parasites who don't actually work for a living.
As for there being no jobs of any type after the bubble: I found one with no trouble, but it was low paying (1/4th what I make now) and I may have been lucky. I can't imagine being told I'm "overqualified" to sell computer parts retail, though. I'll take your word for it that it happens.
I was given that repeatedly- though I think it might have been due to my degree (SET with a PE's license).
But searching through the BLS reports, it seems there are a lot of easy jobs you can do with very little training that make decent money.
And the grand majority of those go to recent immigrants, because Americans have a reputation for being "lazy".
But yeah, I can feel your pain at buying a mortgage that you could never cover on a low-income job. I never had that option during the bubble, and I've seen other's mistakes, so I'm not going to buy a house until I have enough saved toward it that the monthly payments will be reasonable.
There's another big plus in not buying a house- if your industry suddenly moves to say, Singapore- you can move with it quite easily and without taking a loss. As a rule, a house is a structure to live in while throwing money at it (normal wear and tear will keep you busy with repairs and emergency spending above and beyond the mortgage). I just wanted the same standard of living my parents enjoyed- and thought I could do it on what seemed to be an income twice what they ever earned. Stupid thought in retrospect- but hindsight is 20/20. And hard of a time as I've had with Christopher trying to teach him to talk, I wouldn't trade his life for anything and I'm willing to go through the hardship in return. But at this point (bringing this back on topic) that means looking for a union job- because nothing else offers the security I need to keep a kid with CP insured. Private industry unions also seem incapable of this- so I'm going for a state job, not out of choice but out of need. At least it will make my father-in-law proud: I'll be third generation working for this particular department of state government if I get it.
You must have been in a particularly hard-hit part of the country. I just don't think it was that bad everywhere.
More, I was in the Silicon Forest- one of those places on the West Coast that sudddenly had a 25% vacancy rate in housing and a shortage of U-Haul trucks. If I had still been renting at the time, I could have taken advantage of a number of deals in the area- 6 month lease for 4 month's rent and no move-in key money was a common offering. But of course, I had already bought my house at that time.
One word- Darfur. That's what happens to natives when Islam takes over- and while it would be fair to point out that something very similar happens to natives when Christianity takes over, let's face it, there are very few places left in this world that aren't Christian or Islamic or Jewish.
It's also a mistake to take genocide of this form personally- it's not about hate, it's abut a religious edict.
Honestly, you did not have to be out of work for so long.
2001-2004, there wasn't a single job in ANY class that had less than 200 applicants, skilled or non-skilled. They opened a Home Depot in the area and got 5000 applications for 50 jobs.
1) spend a few weeks/months living on savings while search for similar work all day.
Tried that- 100 resumes a month for 26 months.
2) if that failed, get an easy job working on something trivial (like retail or support) to pay the bills while i continue my search for a few months
Tried that too- got the nasty questions about why I was accepting a position paying 1/10th my former salary, tried hiding my former salary and schooling, got caught on the credit check (student loans show up even after they've been paid off). Same story everywhere: Overqualified. Except for fast food retail- the excuse there was that I didn't know spanish, and near as I can tell every kitchen in my area is spanish-only.
3) if i still have no luck, i would either move to a part of the country where my prefered career is in demand, or start training for a new career.
Every area in the United States was depressed at that time, and training for a new career seemed like a REALLY bad idea seeing as how I had just finished paying off my student loans from the previous training. That and there's a good deal of anti-American bigotry out there.
Only a fool thinks he will never have to change careers.
To what? What career will give stability enough to pay off a 30 year mortgage?
Even if you live in hicksville, surely you had some of these options available to you. No person is without work for 26 months except by choice. If demand for your career evaporates, train for something else, don't live in denial.
Well, I'm already trained as a Radio Disc Jockey, computer programmer, short order cook, and manual farm laborer. Guess what? Every time you train for a new career, that closes more doors than it opens.
Personally, I like to play it extremely safe: I live (rent + utils + necessities) on about 1/3rd of my income. I buy toys, party, and travel on another 1/3rd, and I invest the rest in the stock market (I want to have the option of retiring while I'm in my 30's). I drove an old, ugly car until I had enough CASH to buy my spiffy new sports car. I worked through college, and I never took out a loan for anything, ever.
Well, how nice for you. Don't count on that stock market investment- the stock market is just a scam. I've never had cash to buy a sports car, and living on 1/3rd my income is no longer an option because I designed my lifestyle when I was earning 3x my current income. Don't count on retiring in your 30s either- somebody will steal your savings from you long before then, if not in brokerage fees then by outright identity theft. The game is stacked against you and there is no way to win except death.
Yes, indeed. That would work. Just start killing innocent family members and the bin Laden would surrender and other Islamic terrorists would put down their arms. That's what would happen.
That's what would happen in a semitic society where one's duty and honor is to family, religion, and state (in that order). Like I said, you apparently have no appreciation of the culture we're fighting (gee, kind of like our current President).
Not a newly justified hatred of the US.
We've got 100 years of raping the Holy Peninsula for oil- there's plenty of justification to hate us already.
Not worldwide condemnation for an undeniable terrorist act.
So what? What is the world going to do about it?
No sir, instead, the terrorists would see that they cannot win against the US and they would give up and we would live in peace and harmony with our Islamic brothers.
Unlike you, I know that there will never be peace and harmony with Islamics. Their theology prevents them from looking upon unbelievers as human, let alone brothers. This is a war of genocide- originally genocide between Islamic sects, but now it's spilled outside of their borders. The only choice is which sect commits the genocide, not whether the genocide will happen or not. It will.
You seem to be under the impression that Islamic law suffers and unbeliever to live.
Huh? What prophecy is that? You can give a reputable source that says Islam aims for world takeover, can you?
Shariah Law and the Koran. Heck, the existance of the religion to begin with- Mohammed started it because he saw what the Christians and Jews had accomplished (a slave race overthrowing an empire was recent history in 600 A.D.) and saw that his own people needed monotheism and a single universal standard of justice if they were going to have their own chance at building empires. Islam is all about peace- at the point of a sword- and justice where none had previously existed. EVERYTHING the religion has done since then has been about expanding territory and evangelization- and pushing religion into a place of governance. Sure, they've had their splits and sects- what we experience as terrorism is really just spillover from the internal Islamic Reformation and Civil War- and every Islamic country thinks they will be *the one* to take over Mecca and rule the world and get rid of those unjust people who are not Ummah- but yes, world domination has been their aim for 1400 years now.
Destroy holy sites in order to stop Islamic terrorism. Great idea! That has to bring peace!
No, not peace. Just demoralization. You can't claim God is on your side if he allowed the destruction of your holiest site.
Right, no innocents suffer when you attempt to destroy an entire religion by destroying its holy sites. After all, all them muslims are guilty in their hearts, aren't they?
Not just in their hearts, but in their Holy Book and their Laws. There is no such thing as a non-fundamentalist Muslim- they take great pride in being "People of the Book", and would at the very least imprison and tax you for not being of the book under Shariah Law.
In addition to that- has it ever occured to you that the basic theology of Islam (that law comes from God, is spoken by prophets and priests, and only interpreted by the Ummah to rule the unbelievers) is basically antidemocratic to the extent that it makes democracy impossible?
If you had said "IRS", my response would possibly have been different. Regardless of who he was after, what did those children in the building ever do to you? I don't know how to respond to such repulsive thoughts. I would expect that from the warhawks in my freaks list. But I have higher regard for you, if for no other reason that we can disagree and still keep on talking. The others simply shut me down and go on with their killin'. For them there is no hope, unless they have an epiphany...or a good whack on the head with a fire extinguisher(method of training pilots during the war(so I hear), the big one, WW2). If you want me to go away, just let me know, and I will. But I hope you don't.
No, the ATF was clearly his target, being a part of a group (Militias and Cults) that were being targeted by the ATF in previous years (Ruby Ridge and Waco were both reasons given for the Oklahoma City Attack). I personally think he could have made his point with much better timing- hitting the building 90 minutes earlier would have resulted in minimum loss of life (those children bother me too), but still a very powerfull message about the federal government taking over state's rights. In some ways, though, I think that there is a very basic difference between home grown and foreign terrorism- it's the difference between a coup and an invasion.