The final and the homework were equivalent points- and I only needed 29 more points for an A, out of 100 multiple guess questions scored on a scantron machine. So I did the ultimate nerdy thing- brought in a ruler with my #2 pencil, answered the first 29 questions very carefully, then took a ruler and marked "C" for the rest. Final score was 73%.
Providing freebies to the populace doesn't raise the standard of living. It lowers it. The average house in the US is twice the size of the average house in any european country.
And that affects QUALITY of life how, exactly? More material goods does not success make. In fact, I know plenty of bankrupt people that you'd think were rich- based on their material goods bought on credit.
More people (percentage wise) own their own houses in the US versus any country in Europe.
Also not a good thing in today's global economy. Owning your own house means that you're tied to an asset that is fixed in one place- which makes you less mobile, and less able to compete for jobs.
Better health care?
No, CHEAPER health care- the average insurance company only 85% of premiums go to actually providing health care. The average socialized medicine system, 98% of tax money goes to actually providing health care. That's a huge savings when you're a small business.
Nope, health care is far superior in the USA. Just because the owner of the small business doesn't pay for it directly, don't think he's paying any less. If he has to pay for it all via taxes, (remember SOMEONE has to pay for it!) he's probably paying a lot more.
The someone is the large business- but even they win. A recent study in the State of Oregon for an upcoming socialized medicine ballot measure suggests the average difference in premiums between adding health care onto income tax vs paying an insurance company for it is $8000/year per individual employee; that's a huge chunk of change when you're a small business (the savings comes from the difference between paying a state employee to manage the insurance claims vs paying an insurance executive to do the same job).
A) At least taxes go down when profits go down. B) An elected official appointing a bureaucrat to decide my care according to democratically formed laws vs a greedy rich insurance company trying to limit their costs? Give me the first any day.
In the U.S. you can at any moment go to a hospital or doctor for something as little as having a headache or a feeling of frustration.
And spend the next 26 months trying to get the insurance company to pay for it- or worse yet, get charged for it out of pocket at 5x the rate because you don't have insurance.
This is possible because people work, if you give people things for free they have no motiviation to better themselves.
And yet your example of hypochondria shows that in the present system, they have no motivation to better themselves.
Regardless, the government has no place in healthcare, once you've been treated under the U.S. system you realize the difference in quality and treatment.
I have been- and it sucks on any attempt to assess it under a cost/benefits ratio.
The U.S. also tends to have better doctors because there is major profit motive.
And yet, Germany has the highest paid doctors in the world- under socialist medicine!
Being handed everything, as many European governments do, is not a good thing.
Maybe not to you- but to the small businessman trying to control costs and make sure his family is still taken care of while taking on imense risk- well, there's a reason why 49 out of every 50 new businesses started in the United States fail in the first three years.
You speak as though taxes are not themselves an unavoidable drain on the profits of a small business.
They are. But when you compare private health care's profit margin (15%-20%) to public healthcare's overhead (Medicare is a mere 2%) and combine that with the fact that taxed profits aren't taxed if they don't exist (as opposed to a private healthcare plan, whose costs go on even if profits are zero), the small business comes out WAY ahead contributing to the pay of a government bureaucrat at a mere $40,000/year rather than contributing to the pay of a C-level executive team earning $5 million a year.
Provided that the significant other is American, AND has a job that provides the health insurance as a benefit. A growing number of jobs don't- last numbers I saw suggest nearly 1 in 6 working Americans can't get health insurance for various reasons.
Except for of course the lack of guaranteed food, clothing, shelter, clean water, and medical care...all of which are provided by the government if you go bankrupt in Europe. NONE of which are provided by the government if you go bankrupt here.
As a "Marxist Hacker" I'm surprised you'd have such concern for capitalist bourgeoisie scum. Shouldn't his impending bankruptcy be cause for celebration?
No. For one, I have a tendency to follow Das Kapital more than the Communist Manifesto to begin with- it makes more sense and is by far the better work. Secondly- his bankruptcy means yet another homeless illegal alien who can't afford to go home when his visa is up- which is bad for the community at large. Far better he stays home, where governments support failed businesses until they become successful, than come here where the government punishes small businesses until they fail.
Take one communist moniker. Add a health dose of "grass is always greener". Mix well, and serve to an OP who didn't ask if the US is better than everyone else. But is interested in working here with his OP. Sheesh why can't you all answer the damn question without pulling some ideology bullshit?
It's not ideology. Which is why I put in the subject line I did. When it comes to *freelancing*, what the OP wants to do, it's a hell of a lot easier if you don't have to wonder where your next meal is coming from or what happens when your kid gets sick. For small businesses, governments that actively *support* your family are a BIG plus.
My grandchildren will not be taking care of me in my old age. I live in a post-industrialist country where the old are generally richer than the young. If you live in a pre-industrialist country where people don't have IRA's, 401K's, etc., then I could see you wanting to live in the loft above Junior's kid's house someday.
Several million baby boomers in the United States thought that- only to see their IRAs, 401ks, etc disappear in the last shakeup of the so-called "free market". I know- I have one living with me because of it. Generalizations are completly worthless when the brokerage house turns out to be a con game.
Trade deficit is not slavery. It just means that we have a lot of our national currency floating around in other countries, where it can only be used to buy stuff from us. All trade balances in the long run, that's why they call it trade.
And what if those other countries decided to say "Either give us what you owe us in gold today, or we're going to take your children as slaves to work off your debt"?
I would love it if the government gave up on "providing services" to me. The sooner the better. I could use the tax savings to fatten up my retirement account and live like a king.
Spoken like somebody who either doesn't know what services the government provides, or who hates to use roads and thinks his house will never be burglarized or burned down.
Manufacturing!? You mean like working is sweat shops & clean rooms to build hardware? No thanks. We've got poor countries to do that for us. Laborious work is what you do when you don't have better options. By 100 years from now, robotics will likely take all of that shit over, so we might as well get used to having an economy which doesn't depend on making people sit on assembly lines and bolt things together sooner rather than later.
We won't be able to afford those robots- all the money will be elsewhere. At the rate we're going, each one of us already owes $27,000 for the governmental services we use, and on the average, $1,400,000 for the money our government printed to keep the standard of living high that went out in loss to other countries. Do you have $1,427,000 in your IRAs and 401k? If not, then it's highly likely that you will be dependent on your children in your old age.
When it comes to the things important to small businesses, most countries do. Better bankruptcy protection, though that's relatively recent. Better health care coverage by a long shot, in that it's paid for by taxes instead of an unavoidable drain on the profits of a small business. Some even have guaranteed housing, transportation, and help to afford food and fuel. All of which the small businessman in the United States has to either provide out of his meager profits for himself and his employees- or end up doing without.
Ok, it's probably correct, but I don't think it has anything to do with living standard. The most important factors are probably (1) "The American Dream" --- if you dream about being succesfull, you go to USA, (2) Language --- most people already know English, thus it's easier than to move to e.g. Sweden, and (3) Size --- more people have heard of USA than any given european country (and this goes especially for USians)
On your three: 1. The dream stays a dream- very few people percentagewise actually achieve it. 2. In my area of the United States, English is slowly being subplanted by Spanish, and the new immigrants actually *refuse* to learn. 3. This is equivalently true; a Polish immigrant friend of mine surprised me by saying that if I went as far to go to school there as I did here, the equivalent would have been living in Krakow and studying in Rome (I lived in Silverton and studied in Klamath Falls- both in Oregon).
I'm sorry to hear about your kid. For what it's worth, while I'm not a big believer in nationalized health care, I think that there are times that our society should collectively support those who are struggling with major diseases. I think that Social Security Disability is a great thing, but I'm not sure if it covers your situation or is adequate to help. (I found this [item #44] that talks about cerebal palsy but it seems that there's an income test.)
Exactly right- there's an income test. I make WAY too much for most support programs, and way too little to afford good health insurance on my own with our situation. Right now though, we've been lucky- we got the Shriners to say that his club foot was gone, and it was a couple of months before we could get in for the MRI- and during that time we got him private health insurance. But we can NEVER let it lapse- or he'll never have insurance again.
Anyway, thanks for bringing me up to speed on your situation. I now understand your aversion to risk and it makes total sense. I'd like to think that for every case like yours, there are a lot more where risk aversion is just a case of cold feet that can be fixed.
I would too- but the laws in this country are *very* biased against small businesses. Which is a shame, because local small businesses provide the most economic return for a county or a city. I'm a bit more radicalized than you- I'm to the point that I say if we want to actually *compete* with other nations on an equal footing, we need to end reasons for being risk adverse- nationalized health insurance is one of those, but also housing, education, and food insecurity come into play once you have a family. There should be *no* reason for anybody to be homeless, hungry, uneducated, or left alone to go bankrupt because of a disease in a first world nation. If that were the case- if the basics were guaranteed no matter what- you'd see a LOT more than just 2 out of 100 small businesses succeed.
Most of Europe has a *much* higher standard of living than the United States: nationalized health care, various other supports important to a freelancer. 49/50 US freelancers go bankrupt at least once- is that really the future you want?
And exactly why would you ask scientists and engineers in MICHIGAN to test the effect of a DESERT environment? Utah I could understand. Or Nevada. Or Arizona. Or New Mexico. But Michigan?
My 2 year old LOVES that theme song. Maybe because he has Cerebal Palsy, and one of the few words in his vocabulary so far is "Me". We sing together every Friday when it comes on Sci-Fi channel; he shouts "ME" in time with the song.
That's a syllogism that assumes that there's something inherently wrong with profit. Hence overcharging and underpaying.
There are lots of things inherently wrong with profit- too many to count.
Companies can be profitable even when no one is overcharged, and no one is underpaid.
Not really possible- and you explain why in the next sentence.
Unless you start from the assumption that fair prices and wages are described by a lack of profit.
Bingo! That's exactly the assumption I'm starting with- the very one used by guilds in the 13th century. A fair price is the cost of materials + the cost of labor, and the fair cost of labor is defined as a living wage for the area. This leaves NO room for profit.
The labor theory of value should be your conclusion, not a premise.
Or at least, so claim the people who think they're more valuable than other people. The real question is: Is economics something that naturally occurs when people trade, or is it an invention that allows people to be free? What is the purpose of your economic theory? If you are centered on the people, then the labor theory of value is indeed your premise, or as St. Paul wrote 1900 years ago, "The Laborer is worthy of his hire". If you are centered on efficiency, then labor becomes a conclusion because people are nothing more than resources to be used or abused.
You should know from your economics classes how markets set prices, and that "overcharging" is not a useful term in a free market.
I know it- but I reject it as a useful idea, because it does not advance the dignity of the human worker. Supply and demand pricing schemes are nothing more than a con game set up by merchants to grab power from the ruling class.
If prices are too high, demand will go down. If prices are too low, demand will go up.
Which is not correct at all for anything other than luxuries- demand for food and fuel is relatively constant in porportion to population for instance, and most people don't have a choice to simply not buy when prices increase. Instead they go into debt, which is something any economic system should seek to avoid.
The same applies to wages.
And this is not true at all, because if wages get too high, businesses can simply move elsewhere, or bring people in from elsewhere, to depress wages again, without any apparent problem. Here too, applying supply and demand mechanics changes the laborer from somebody to be respected and owed a living, to somebody to be used and thrown out when no longer profitable. Are you begining to see why I see profit as an evil, in all cases?
In a closed economy, it is a zero sum game, but individual companies are certainly not closed economic systems. In today's economy, most countries aren't either.
Which is part of the reason why profit is evil; foreign influence in local economic systems destroys communities- we may gain in profit, but we lose the human connections that used to make the United States a good place to live.
It doesn't matter that you want to call your ideal marxist society democratic. You will still be using force (government or mob, it makes no practical difference) to redistribute status
Which is different from how status is redistributed currently exactly how? Con men and criminals currently are rewarded far in excess of their actual contributions, and are allowed to amass huge fortunes.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, right?
According to Acts Chapter 4, yes. But that can't be done in large numbers- it fails when you destroy local influence. And it also can't be done unless we know each person's need in our own communities.
What if someone wants more than they need?
Then they build it themselves; or go without. Want is a useless boundary condition, since want is effectively unmanageable.
True enough. Mine is based on a study of that definition of miracles, the Roman Catholic Church, and about 2000 years worth of tribunals naming Saints. A good example is the patron saint of children- St. Nicholas himself. While some of the miracles attributed to him have no explaination, one of the two he was named a saint for is doable by anybody with money (saving girls from being sold into slavery by throwing their dowry price through the window at Christmas time).
Miracles are very much in the eye of the beneficiary, just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder; whether the fortuneate coincidence has a natural, scientific, or supernatural explaination OR NOT makes no difference to the beneficiary of the miracle. Hume, not having experienced any miracles he could explain, simply didn't understand this.
Give us a number of workstations and servers currently in operation and we'd give you a better answer. Are you small like Salem, OR? If so the solutions suggested so far are reasonable. But if you're small like Condon, OR (three full time employees, two part time, and about 20 volunteers, all centered in a single building) then I'd suggest something more along the lines of a Linksys or Netgear router is more what you should be looking at; both in terms of stability and ease of remote managment.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, when I went back over the test, some of them WERE- that's part of the reason I only got 73%
The final and the homework were equivalent points- and I only needed 29 more points for an A, out of 100 multiple guess questions scored on a scantron machine. So I did the ultimate nerdy thing- brought in a ruler with my #2 pencil, answered the first 29 questions very carefully, then took a ruler and marked "C" for the rest. Final score was 73%.
Providing freebies to the populace doesn't raise the standard of living. It lowers it. The average house in the US is twice the size of the average house in any european country.
And that affects QUALITY of life how, exactly? More material goods does not success make. In fact, I know plenty of bankrupt people that you'd think were rich- based on their material goods bought on credit.
More people (percentage wise) own their own houses in the US versus any country in Europe.
Also not a good thing in today's global economy. Owning your own house means that you're tied to an asset that is fixed in one place- which makes you less mobile, and less able to compete for jobs.
Better health care?
No, CHEAPER health care- the average insurance company only 85% of premiums go to actually providing health care. The average socialized medicine system, 98% of tax money goes to actually providing health care. That's a huge savings when you're a small business.
Nope, health care is far superior in the USA. Just because the owner of the small business doesn't pay for it directly, don't think he's paying any less. If he has to pay for it all via taxes, (remember SOMEONE has to pay for it!) he's probably paying a lot more.
The someone is the large business- but even they win. A recent study in the State of Oregon for an upcoming socialized medicine ballot measure suggests the average difference in premiums between adding health care onto income tax vs paying an insurance company for it is $8000/year per individual employee; that's a huge chunk of change when you're a small business (the savings comes from the difference between paying a state employee to manage the insurance claims vs paying an insurance executive to do the same job).
A) At least taxes go down when profits go down.
B) An elected official appointing a bureaucrat to decide my care according to democratically formed laws vs a greedy rich insurance company trying to limit their costs? Give me the first any day.
In the U.S. you can at any moment go to a hospital or doctor for something as little as having a headache or a feeling of frustration.
And spend the next 26 months trying to get the insurance company to pay for it- or worse yet, get charged for it out of pocket at 5x the rate because you don't have insurance.
This is possible because people work, if you give people things for free they have no motiviation to better themselves.
And yet your example of hypochondria shows that in the present system, they have no motivation to better themselves.
Regardless, the government has no place in healthcare, once you've been treated under the U.S. system you realize the difference in quality and treatment.
I have been- and it sucks on any attempt to assess it under a cost/benefits ratio.
The U.S. also tends to have better doctors because there is major profit motive.
And yet, Germany has the highest paid doctors in the world- under socialist medicine!
Being handed everything, as many European governments do, is not a good thing.
Maybe not to you- but to the small businessman trying to control costs and make sure his family is still taken care of while taking on imense risk- well, there's a reason why 49 out of every 50 new businesses started in the United States fail in the first three years.
You speak as though taxes are not themselves an unavoidable drain on the profits of a small business.
They are. But when you compare private health care's profit margin (15%-20%) to public healthcare's overhead (Medicare is a mere 2%) and combine that with the fact that taxed profits aren't taxed if they don't exist (as opposed to a private healthcare plan, whose costs go on even if profits are zero), the small business comes out WAY ahead contributing to the pay of a government bureaucrat at a mere $40,000/year rather than contributing to the pay of a C-level executive team earning $5 million a year.
Exactly my point- thus making Michigan a not-so-reasonable test bed for Iraq....
Provided that the significant other is American, AND has a job that provides the health insurance as a benefit. A growing number of jobs don't- last numbers I saw suggest nearly 1 in 6 working Americans can't get health insurance for various reasons.
Except for of course the lack of guaranteed food, clothing, shelter, clean water, and medical care...all of which are provided by the government if you go bankrupt in Europe. NONE of which are provided by the government if you go bankrupt here.
As a "Marxist Hacker" I'm surprised you'd have such concern for capitalist bourgeoisie scum. Shouldn't his impending bankruptcy be cause for celebration?
No. For one, I have a tendency to follow Das Kapital more than the Communist Manifesto to begin with- it makes more sense and is by far the better work. Secondly- his bankruptcy means yet another homeless illegal alien who can't afford to go home when his visa is up- which is bad for the community at large. Far better he stays home, where governments support failed businesses until they become successful, than come here where the government punishes small businesses until they fail.
Take one communist moniker. Add a health dose of "grass is always greener". Mix well, and serve to an OP who didn't ask if the US is better than everyone else. But is interested in working here with his OP. Sheesh why can't you all answer the damn question without pulling some ideology bullshit?
It's not ideology. Which is why I put in the subject line I did. When it comes to *freelancing*, what the OP wants to do, it's a hell of a lot easier if you don't have to wonder where your next meal is coming from or what happens when your kid gets sick. For small businesses, governments that actively *support* your family are a BIG plus.
Wouldn't that humidity alone affect the type of air conditioning, thus throwing an undue bias in the experiments? Deserts are DRY heat, not humid.
My grandchildren will not be taking care of me in my old age. I live in a post-industrialist country where the old are generally richer than the young. If you live in a pre-industrialist country where people don't have IRA's, 401K's, etc., then I could see you wanting to live in the loft above Junior's kid's house someday.
Several million baby boomers in the United States thought that- only to see their IRAs, 401ks, etc disappear in the last shakeup of the so-called "free market". I know- I have one living with me because of it. Generalizations are completly worthless when the brokerage house turns out to be a con game.
Trade deficit is not slavery. It just means that we have a lot of our national currency floating around in other countries, where it can only be used to buy stuff from us. All trade balances in the long run, that's why they call it trade.
And what if those other countries decided to say "Either give us what you owe us in gold today, or we're going to take your children as slaves to work off your debt"?
I would love it if the government gave up on "providing services" to me. The sooner the better. I could use the tax savings to fatten up my retirement account and live like a king.
Spoken like somebody who either doesn't know what services the government provides, or who hates to use roads and thinks his house will never be burglarized or burned down.
Manufacturing!? You mean like working is sweat shops & clean rooms to build hardware? No thanks. We've got poor countries to do that for us. Laborious work is what you do when you don't have better options. By 100 years from now, robotics will likely take all of that shit over, so we might as well get used to having an economy which doesn't depend on making people sit on assembly lines and bolt things together sooner rather than later.
We won't be able to afford those robots- all the money will be elsewhere. At the rate we're going, each one of us already owes $27,000 for the governmental services we use, and on the average, $1,400,000 for the money our government printed to keep the standard of living high that went out in loss to other countries. Do you have $1,427,000 in your IRAs and 401k? If not, then it's highly likely that you will be dependent on your children in your old age.
When it comes to the things important to small businesses, most countries do. Better bankruptcy protection, though that's relatively recent. Better health care coverage by a long shot, in that it's paid for by taxes instead of an unavoidable drain on the profits of a small business. Some even have guaranteed housing, transportation, and help to afford food and fuel. All of which the small businessman in the United States has to either provide out of his meager profits for himself and his employees- or end up doing without.
Ok, it's probably correct, but I don't think it has anything to do with living standard. The most important factors are probably (1) "The American Dream" --- if you dream about being succesfull, you go to USA, (2) Language --- most people already know English, thus it's easier than to move to e.g. Sweden, and (3) Size --- more people have heard of USA than any given european country (and this goes especially for USians)
On your three: 1. The dream stays a dream- very few people percentagewise actually achieve it. 2. In my area of the United States, English is slowly being subplanted by Spanish, and the new immigrants actually *refuse* to learn. 3. This is equivalently true; a Polish immigrant friend of mine surprised me by saying that if I went as far to go to school there as I did here, the equivalent would have been living in Krakow and studying in Rome (I lived in Silverton and studied in Klamath Falls- both in Oregon).
I'm sorry to hear about your kid. For what it's worth, while I'm not a big believer in nationalized health care, I think that there are times that our society should collectively support those who are struggling with major diseases. I think that Social Security Disability is a great thing, but I'm not sure if it covers your situation or is adequate to help. (I found this [item #44] that talks about cerebal palsy but it seems that there's an income test.)
Exactly right- there's an income test. I make WAY too much for most support programs, and way too little to afford good health insurance on my own with our situation. Right now though, we've been lucky- we got the Shriners to say that his club foot was gone, and it was a couple of months before we could get in for the MRI- and during that time we got him private health insurance. But we can NEVER let it lapse- or he'll never have insurance again.
Anyway, thanks for bringing me up to speed on your situation. I now understand your aversion to risk and it makes total sense. I'd like to think that for every case like yours, there are a lot more where risk aversion is just a case of cold feet that can be fixed.
I would too- but the laws in this country are *very* biased against small businesses. Which is a shame, because local small businesses provide the most economic return for a county or a city. I'm a bit more radicalized than you- I'm to the point that I say if we want to actually *compete* with other nations on an equal footing, we need to end reasons for being risk adverse- nationalized health insurance is one of those, but also housing, education, and food insecurity come into play once you have a family. There should be *no* reason for anybody to be homeless, hungry, uneducated, or left alone to go bankrupt because of a disease in a first world nation. If that were the case- if the basics were guaranteed no matter what- you'd see a LOT more than just 2 out of 100 small businesses succeed.
Galactica 1980: the finding of Earth, aka "The Galactica Franchise just Jumped the Shark".
Most of Europe has a *much* higher standard of living than the United States: nationalized health care, various other supports important to a freelancer. 49/50 US freelancers go bankrupt at least once- is that really the future you want?
And exactly why would you ask scientists and engineers in MICHIGAN to test the effect of a DESERT environment? Utah I could understand. Or Nevada. Or Arizona. Or New Mexico. But Michigan?
:-). Yeah, but hey, that name still conjours up flying motorcycles for me, and that was the one series that wasn't named Battlestar.
Battlestar Galactica
As much as I liked the original- you'd better be talking about the "reimagined" version.
My 2 year old LOVES that theme song. Maybe because he has Cerebal Palsy, and one of the few words in his vocabulary so far is "Me". We sing together every Friday when it comes on Sci-Fi channel; he shouts "ME" in time with the song.
That's a syllogism that assumes that there's something inherently wrong with profit. Hence overcharging and underpaying.
There are lots of things inherently wrong with profit- too many to count.
Companies can be profitable even when no one is overcharged, and no one is underpaid.
Not really possible- and you explain why in the next sentence.
Unless you start from the assumption that fair prices and wages are described by a lack of profit.
Bingo! That's exactly the assumption I'm starting with- the very one used by guilds in the 13th century. A fair price is the cost of materials + the cost of labor, and the fair cost of labor is defined as a living wage for the area. This leaves NO room for profit.
The labor theory of value should be your conclusion, not a premise.
Or at least, so claim the people who think they're more valuable than other people. The real question is: Is economics something that naturally occurs when people trade, or is it an invention that allows people to be free? What is the purpose of your economic theory? If you are centered on the people, then the labor theory of value is indeed your premise, or as St. Paul wrote 1900 years ago, "The Laborer is worthy of his hire". If you are centered on efficiency, then labor becomes a conclusion because people are nothing more than resources to be used or abused.
You should know from your economics classes how markets set prices, and that "overcharging" is not a useful term in a free market.
I know it- but I reject it as a useful idea, because it does not advance the dignity of the human worker. Supply and demand pricing schemes are nothing more than a con game set up by merchants to grab power from the ruling class.
If prices are too high, demand will go down. If prices are too low, demand will go up.
Which is not correct at all for anything other than luxuries- demand for food and fuel is relatively constant in porportion to population for instance, and most people don't have a choice to simply not buy when prices increase. Instead they go into debt, which is something any economic system should seek to avoid.
The same applies to wages.
And this is not true at all, because if wages get too high, businesses can simply move elsewhere, or bring people in from elsewhere, to depress wages again, without any apparent problem. Here too, applying supply and demand mechanics changes the laborer from somebody to be respected and owed a living, to somebody to be used and thrown out when no longer profitable. Are you begining to see why I see profit as an evil, in all cases?
In a closed economy, it is a zero sum game, but individual companies are certainly not closed economic systems. In today's economy, most countries aren't either.
Which is part of the reason why profit is evil; foreign influence in local economic systems destroys communities- we may gain in profit, but we lose the human connections that used to make the United States a good place to live.
It doesn't matter that you want to call your ideal marxist society democratic. You will still be using force (government or mob, it makes no practical difference) to redistribute status
Which is different from how status is redistributed currently exactly how? Con men and criminals currently are rewarded far in excess of their actual contributions, and are allowed to amass huge fortunes.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, right?
According to Acts Chapter 4, yes. But that can't be done in large numbers- it fails when you destroy local influence. And it also can't be done unless we know each person's need in our own communities.
What if someone wants more than they need?
Then they build it themselves; or go without. Want is a useless boundary condition, since want is effectively unmanageable.
Can the
That's still rather large, or a hugely overstaffed small town :) (Unless you're counting the fire department in the volunteers).
I am. And the school- in the permanent and part-time employees.
True enough. Mine is based on a study of that definition of miracles, the Roman Catholic Church, and about 2000 years worth of tribunals naming Saints. A good example is the patron saint of children- St. Nicholas himself. While some of the miracles attributed to him have no explaination, one of the two he was named a saint for is doable by anybody with money (saving girls from being sold into slavery by throwing their dowry price through the window at Christmas time).
Miracles are very much in the eye of the beneficiary, just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder; whether the fortuneate coincidence has a natural, scientific, or supernatural explaination OR NOT makes no difference to the beneficiary of the miracle. Hume, not having experienced any miracles he could explain, simply didn't understand this.
Give us a number of workstations and servers currently in operation and we'd give you a better answer. Are you small like Salem, OR? If so the solutions suggested so far are reasonable. But if you're small like Condon, OR (three full time employees, two part time, and about 20 volunteers, all centered in a single building) then I'd suggest something more along the lines of a Linksys or Netgear router is more what you should be looking at; both in terms of stability and ease of remote managment.