Excellent. That should make even less sense than gasohol. If it takes the energy equivalent of three barrels of oil to make a barrel of oil, we're in the position of that guy in the old gag: "I'm losing money on each unit, but I make it up on volume!"
Which would be true if we actually were still in the position of losing energy in the production of gasohol (we haven't been there since gasohol was made with corn instead of the much more energy dense sugar cane). And the article I linked to elsewhere in this discussion about what a small South Pacific nation is doing with coconuts is even less energy intensive.
And what I meant was that sometimes- inevitable consequences can be unfair without anybody intending them to be so. India stayed in one place for almost 50 years- American advanced up the ladder to an unsustainable level. In reality, we're going to have to DECREASE our standard of living until it's comparable, if we want to continue to play globally at all.
Personally, I think continuing to play globally is a mistake- and it's America that is making that mistake.
I'm pretty sure any process up to now for making energy spends way more than the amount produced.
Actually, Argentina and Chile are having good success with sugarcane-based ethanol. And Vanuatu is having good success with coconut oil. So there is some success from the ethanol/biodiesel method....
I know. Hence my last paragraph, which you may want to read with a little care.
My point was that in America today- citizens don't decide anything at all- they're just little worker bees, to be used and thrown away by the corporations whenever convient.
In fact, it's not actually that simple since the country also exports goods.
Actually, America stopped exporting finished goods some time ago. Our current major exports are raw resources, scrap metal, and food. And even that last (and most profitable due to government subsidies) goes out as raw foodstuff, for the most part, and gets processed overseas (there are a few notable exceptions, like Tabasco Sauce, but those are usually even a different recipie designed for the country being exported to specifically).
What the hell are you talking about? You can't MAKE a fuel source without putting more energy in than you'll get out. That's simple thermodynamics.
And with these modern processes you don't. You store up solar energy in the plant by growing it, process it into oil and a still unknown amount of waste, and release it as kenetic energy + heat in the automobile.
It's not running out of oil that's the problem. There are other fuel sources. The problem is that we're using more energy than sunlight is replenishing by far. (Although oil's secondary use for materials such as petrochemicals and plastics is important, we can find a way around that one.)
We are? When did we start doing that then? And why haven't all the other species on the planet died off, since we're utilizing more energy than a fusion generator 500x the size of our planet can possibly put out?
In simple terms: all the energy sources on this planet come from the sun in one form or another. Oil comes from dead stuff (plants and animals) that were once living. The root of all that formerly living biomass was, of course the sun. All that oil took millions of years to form, we're using up all these joules of energy in a matter of 200 or so years.
True- but there's no reason why we can't speed up the process of making oil. All of the elements necessary are right here to begin with- they're just in an unusable form. Grow plants- or even algae and anarobic bacteria. Doesn't matter what the biomater is. Add pressure and heat and decay- millions of years worth. Diamonds and oil aren't that much different- they're both carbon, treated with heat and pressure and time.
About the only solution for this one is to decrease the human population to the point where humanity can live with decent standard only from the energy provided by the sun. Anything less is unsustainable and will result in the end of our species.
Considering the fact that we're currently using less than 1/1000th of the energy provided by the sun, and on this planet alone get 1/365th, I don't think we have that problem quite yet. Depending on whose numbers you believe- we will hit that problem in the future, but not until 15 billion at the least and 80 billion at the most.
Who said that it was India's doing? All they did was subsidise their educational system heavily. The real problem isn't India's- it's that the basic assumptions behind capitalism (really corporatism, the bastard son of capitalism) have become very wrong in recent years. The real problem has NOTHING to do with India- and everything to do with America and what is already wrong here.
There are two people in the country. Over a particular time period, one makes a single widget. The other buys that widget. They exchange one dollar. The person who buys the widget doesn't sell anything over that same time period. In this case, over the arbitrary time period specified, the Gross Domestic Product (i.e. the value of all of the goods sold) is one dollar.
WRONG- the GDP is the cost of making that widgit. Period. Since he sold it for $1, and assuming he's not a fool and made a profit on it, GDP is something LESS than a dollar. Your other two are correct- but the GDP is WRONG.
Lots of people have observed that price does not necessarily reflect actual value. But it's the best estimate we've got. Come up with a better one and you'll with the Nobel Prize.
Oh, gee, I don't know- how about COST of the production? As in, exactly the same thing we used to measure GDP and set prices for 1000 years before Adam Smith came along? That's not worth a Nobel Prize- they shouldn't even GIVE a Nobel Prize in economics because it's basically a sham science to begin with.
The current trend of offshoring is not balanced. This will be ameliorated when the (American) Baby Boomers begin to move out of the workforce en masse.
True, but in the meantime we will have lost three generations worth of manufacturing knowledge and one generation of information technology workers- this solution will come so late that there will be *no* competitive advantage to hiring an American left. Unused skillsets have a tendency to degrade over time. So when this emergency is over- we might be left with a bunch of people who trained on 1990s technology trying to work in 2010.
*Big* difference here- contracts are simply unenforceable internationally- so even if there's a section about resolving disputes, if you contract overseas there isn't word one you can do to actually enforce that contract.
Let me guess, the time when you can't avoid it is when those evil foreigners force you to buy cheap consumer goods?
How about when the evil American MNCs don't make the item anyplace else? As in with clothing, TV Sets, VCRs, DVD players, the computer you're typing on at this very minute...All of these items I'd RATHER buy American after my experiences during the last 4 years, but can't- because nobody did while I was still a kid growing up, and now that I'm 34, nobody makes this stuff in America anymore AT ALL.
That's part of the reason I'm not too worried about offshoring as a long-term trend (as opposed to the fad it is now)
As a fad, it may be bad enough- we've already lost the last three years of CS graduates to other, lower skilled, industries, and it looks like we'll lose three more years, minimum, before seeing a turnaround in employment due to baby boomers retiring. That's almost an entire generation of coders down the drain, in exchange for a slightly higher stock option price.
I see nothing unfair here, if Americans downsized to a smaller house ( or tent perhaps ), sold your cars, didn't go on holidays and ate only rice and some vegetables you could probably compete with the Indians.
No, because the property taxes and sales taxes on the rice, vegetables, and even the smaller house/tent exceeds what an Indian pays for the same area of land- so no, there is no way to live in America for the same price as the Hindus live in India for.
Just to be clear - when you say 'losing side' are you talking about the country's workers - who want to be paid more than the going world rate, or the country's consumers - who want to pay the cheapest price possible?
The thing is they're the same people- this separation is a false dichotomy, for if the consumer's salary goes to zero in favor of cheaper labor elsewhere, they will cease to be a consumer.
If we can make industrial diamonds, we will eventually be able to make industrial oil with close to the same process. In fact, it's very much the same process- the only difference is the purity of carbon required for the diamond, where the carbon formed by living matter is less pure.
Completely correct- but the difference between IP and copyright is getting degraded over time. Originally- copyright was artist only, giving him a set of rights he could license (but retained ownership of) for 24 years, after which the work passed into the public domain. Then it went to 27 years. Then it became inheritable. Then corporations were able to buy ownership of copyright. Then it went to 50 years. Then to 75 years. Now it's 97 years and still being extended...at some point copyright becomes as evil as the idea of permanent patents.....
It is best for the long term, as you are not wasting money.
Money spent locally is never wasted- every $1 spent creates $8 of value in economic movement.
No, you will not. It is entirely unconnected.
Not at all- just think about it. Spend that $1 locally, and you've insured that your neighbor down the street still has a job. Spend $.50 overseas- you get the same immediate value back, but your neighbor loses his job, gets hungry, breaks into your house ans steals what he needs. That's a simplification- but it illustrates the point.
If the work is as good, then cheaper is nothing but better.
A big if- and without the local laws enforcing the contract, there's no way to know that IF for sure.
Then you find a company without such problems.
And after you've been through 10 companies with the same set of problems, you'll return to outsourcing LOCALLY where you can get your hands around the neck of the person who caused the problem.
Your protests regarding production are just a matter of perspective. To calculate Gross Domestic Product, I just have to sum up the value of the goods and services produced for sale during a given time period. I could calculate the amount spent for goods and services produced domestically. Alternatively, I could calculate the amount earned for goods and services produced domestically. Those two numbers have to be the same AND they have to equal GDP. In other words, Gross Domestic Product = Gross Domestic Expenditures = Gross Domestic Income by definition. Go ahead...google it.
They not only don't have to be the same- they can't be the same. If they were the same, there'd be no profit to be earned AT ALL- because profit is the difference between the cost of production and the cost of sale. It doesn't matter how many economists you find who are believing in the myth- it doesn't make that definition any less of a myth.
BTW, an equation to calculate GDP is not invalid because it does not include the term "product" in it's calculation. To believe so is so concrete it's almost child-like. The expenditure method of assessing the GDP is basically like calculating the number of human brainstems in the country to get at the census. You're gonna get one brainstem per person, so the number of living people = the number of functioning brainstems. Consequently, I could say that the living population of the country = the number of functioning human brainstems and be correct without ever putting the term "person" in the equation.
The problem is, price of sale != cost of production != value of goods produced, regardless of what your redefinition of reality is. Concrete is what counts, not some mythical redefinition. But thanks for showing me just how we got from value being a gift from God to value being a calculation of a souless automaton known as a market- and just how incredibly hallucinagenic the calculations around economy really are.
I wouldn't know- I don't buy computers based on what OS they can run except in very rare instances when I'm buying for a monocultural enterprise. My own home network has an old System 7 Mac, a Linux box, an old Commodore, some old TI99/4As, four Wintel systems with varying OS levels from 98 to Advanced Server 2003, four handhelds running PalmOS, WinCE 1.0, and PocketPC 2003. Between them, I can run just about anything so far. If I was to buy a Mac Mini, it would be for it's form factor and hardware features, and I'd most likely NOT use the bundled software hardly at all. The biggest use I can think of for the Mini would be as a central controler in a smart vehicle- especially since it's got just about the same dimensions as a car stereo.
If someone can do the same thing, but cheaper, that is a lot better.
Only in the short term, and for the smallest number of people.
When other considerations are held steady, cheaper is better when it comes to deals (where you need to pay for something).
Not really- because in the long run you'll just spend that money on more taxes to replace the "cheaper" with social services. By spending more up front on the deal, you provide more economic benefit to the society around you- which pays YOU back in a large number of ways. Cheaper is NOT always equal to better in the long term. In addition to that, on the current deal (espeically the one in this article), the extra expense often pays for certain legal rights that you don't get going overseas, including the right to sue the outsourcer when he fails to complete the contract to your specifications.
Because 90% of the time, the worker in India is not "better" but only "cheaper", and due to the strangeness of international law, is less liable for their actions.
Was a slashdot discussion on this Not long ago. But just a google search of "HDTV Editor "Open Source"" found a lot of hits- including one being used by a CBS affiliate called "Broadcast 2000".
Now I'll admit freely that useability seems to fall by the wayside- at least the way lusers think of useability- with Open Source- But the question was an equivalent *machine* not equivalent *software*- software is it's own thing, much as you Mac people don't realize the difference.
You admit it, refinancing is not the same as defaulting. You thus undermine your main argument to date regarding U.S. government debt! The U.S. Treasury is considered a generally safe investment because the U.S. government has NEVER DEFAULTED on a monetary debt obligation. Period.
And where did I do that? I said that even credit reporting agencies consider it the same thing- and will ding you the same in your credit score! Never paying back a loan is never paying back a loan- regardless of the accounting tricks you use to avoid "defaulting".
The Platonic Maximum Salary? I guess that's one way to disguise the arbitrary nature of your choice. You are a Marxist aren't you. You still didn't say why you have more claim on their assets than they do.
Money cannot be owned, it can only be lent. Give to Ceaser that which is ceasers. It's not your picture on the $1 bill. Come on, you know all of this already or else you wouldn't get after me for suggesting that the United States is overextended.
The 13th century economy was based on morality? As in peasants paying arbitrary tax to the nobility while the nobles hung out in the castle eating grapes?
You obviously don't know very much about the middle ages, do you? The courts were the LAST to get food, not the first.
Again, this assertion about an economy being based on "morality" is demonstrably false and hopelessly idealistic. It's the kind of idea that leads to violent ideologically rigid totalitarianism. Whatever you're smoking it's not healthy. Put down the pipe and slowly back away.
I'll give you a hint- Catholicism and Guild Economics lasted far longer than capitalism has- and was far more moral.
Also, you again produce no evidence to back your claim that these peasants could afford good musical instruments and home school their children in anything outside agriculture/homemaking. You just skirt the issue and claim that the economy was based upon "morality" with no support for your position. The entire "wage-slave" idea/test is without historical foundation.
Look into the rest of the site first. If you dare, anyway- personally I think you're such an orthodox capitalist that you can't see what real freedom and liberty is.
Regardless what you "learned" GDP is generally calculated as I outlined.
Then those who are generally calculating GDP are NOT calculating what they say they are- since production doesn't even enter into your caculation. Nice lie though.
Another statement of the formula is GDP = Consumption + Investment + Government Purchase + Net Exports.
Still no PRODUCTION at all I see- thus the P part of your acronym is a lie, isn't it?
These are expenditure based ways to measure GDP.
And since we all know that expenditure since divorcing cost from value is largely imaginary, expenditure is an utterly invalid way to measure production.
There are others, but they all equal eachother (by definition).
Ah, but only if the supply vs demand equation equals cost plus moral profit, which it never does.
And consumption is not a negative because this is an EXPENDITURE based calculation of GDP! If it is consumed and not an import (already accounted for by the formula), it was produced in the U.S. and therefore part of the GDP.
With an inflated cost due to parasitical middle men who take advantage of the fact that the supply/demand price is higher than the moral profit, thus distorting the equation beyond all recognition.
Yes, we import a shitload of stuff, but our GDP is positive and growing. That doesn't mean that I favor increasing the trade imbalance, either. It just doesn't mean what you think it means.
Yep- it just means that your GDP equation has NOTHING to do with real production, just more lies.
Production means creating something of VALUE, not necessarily something you can touch or hold in your
Lower level than that- comparable processing power, comparable memory. All the rest can be duplicated with open source software- heck, the $199 PC comes with a copy of a Linux distribution (you really didn't think I was talking about a WINDOWS machine at that price, did you? Try at least another $159 on top of that for Windows license alone!).
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Excellent. That should make even less sense than gasohol. If it takes the energy equivalent of three barrels of oil to make a barrel of oil, we're in the position of that guy in the old gag: "I'm losing money on each unit, but I make it up on volume!"
Which would be true if we actually were still in the position of losing energy in the production of gasohol (we haven't been there since gasohol was made with corn instead of the much more energy dense sugar cane). And the article I linked to elsewhere in this discussion about what a small South Pacific nation is doing with coconuts is even less energy intensive.
And what I meant was that sometimes- inevitable consequences can be unfair without anybody intending them to be so. India stayed in one place for almost 50 years- American advanced up the ladder to an unsustainable level. In reality, we're going to have to DECREASE our standard of living until it's comparable, if we want to continue to play globally at all.
Personally, I think continuing to play globally is a mistake- and it's America that is making that mistake.
I'm pretty sure any process up to now for making energy spends way more than the amount produced.
Actually, Argentina and Chile are having good success with sugarcane-based ethanol. And Vanuatu is having good success with coconut oil. So there is some success from the ethanol/biodiesel method....
I know. Hence my last paragraph, which you may want to read with a little care.
My point was that in America today- citizens don't decide anything at all- they're just little worker bees, to be used and thrown away by the corporations whenever convient.
In fact, it's not actually that simple since the country also exports goods.
Actually, America stopped exporting finished goods some time ago. Our current major exports are raw resources, scrap metal, and food. And even that last (and most profitable due to government subsidies) goes out as raw foodstuff, for the most part, and gets processed overseas (there are a few notable exceptions, like Tabasco Sauce, but those are usually even a different recipie designed for the country being exported to specifically).
What the hell are you talking about? You can't MAKE a fuel source without putting more energy in than you'll get out. That's simple thermodynamics.
And with these modern processes you don't. You store up solar energy in the plant by growing it, process it into oil and a still unknown amount of waste, and release it as kenetic energy + heat in the automobile.
It's not running out of oil that's the problem. There are other fuel sources. The problem is that we're using more energy than sunlight is replenishing by far. (Although oil's secondary use for materials such as petrochemicals and plastics is important, we can find a way around that one.)
We are? When did we start doing that then? And why haven't all the other species on the planet died off, since we're utilizing more energy than a fusion generator 500x the size of our planet can possibly put out?
In simple terms: all the energy sources on this planet come from the sun in one form or another. Oil comes from dead stuff (plants and animals) that were once living. The root of all that formerly living biomass was, of course the sun. All that oil took millions of years to form, we're using up all these joules of energy in a matter of 200 or so years.
True- but there's no reason why we can't speed up the process of making oil. All of the elements necessary are right here to begin with- they're just in an unusable form. Grow plants- or even algae and anarobic bacteria. Doesn't matter what the biomater is. Add pressure and heat and decay- millions of years worth. Diamonds and oil aren't that much different- they're both carbon, treated with heat and pressure and time.
About the only solution for this one is to decrease the human population to the point where humanity can live with decent standard only from the energy provided by the sun. Anything less is unsustainable and will result in the end of our species.
Considering the fact that we're currently using less than 1/1000th of the energy provided by the sun, and on this planet alone get 1/365th, I don't think we have that problem quite yet. Depending on whose numbers you believe- we will hit that problem in the future, but not until 15 billion at the least and 80 billion at the most.
Who said that it was India's doing? All they did was subsidise their educational system heavily. The real problem isn't India's- it's that the basic assumptions behind capitalism (really corporatism, the bastard son of capitalism) have become very wrong in recent years. The real problem has NOTHING to do with India- and everything to do with America and what is already wrong here.
There are two people in the country. Over a particular time period, one makes a single widget. The other buys that widget. They exchange one dollar. The person who buys the widget doesn't sell anything over that same time period. In this case, over the arbitrary time period specified, the Gross Domestic Product (i.e. the value of all of the goods sold) is one dollar.
WRONG- the GDP is the cost of making that widgit. Period. Since he sold it for $1, and assuming he's not a fool and made a profit on it, GDP is something LESS than a dollar. Your other two are correct- but the GDP is WRONG.
Lots of people have observed that price does not necessarily reflect actual value. But it's the best estimate we've got. Come up with a better one and you'll with the Nobel Prize.
Oh, gee, I don't know- how about COST of the production? As in, exactly the same thing we used to measure GDP and set prices for 1000 years before Adam Smith came along? That's not worth a Nobel Prize- they shouldn't even GIVE a Nobel Prize in economics because it's basically a sham science to begin with.
The current trend of offshoring is not balanced. This will be ameliorated when the (American) Baby Boomers begin to move out of the workforce en masse.
True, but in the meantime we will have lost three generations worth of manufacturing knowledge and one generation of information technology workers- this solution will come so late that there will be *no* competitive advantage to hiring an American left. Unused skillsets have a tendency to degrade over time. So when this emergency is over- we might be left with a bunch of people who trained on 1990s technology trying to work in 2010.
*Big* difference here- contracts are simply unenforceable internationally- so even if there's a section about resolving disputes, if you contract overseas there isn't word one you can do to actually enforce that contract.
http://www.distributism.org/wageslave.htm
Go educate yourself.
Let me guess, the time when you can't avoid it is when those evil foreigners force you to buy cheap consumer goods?
How about when the evil American MNCs don't make the item anyplace else? As in with clothing, TV Sets, VCRs, DVD players, the computer you're typing on at this very minute...All of these items I'd RATHER buy American after my experiences during the last 4 years, but can't- because nobody did while I was still a kid growing up, and now that I'm 34, nobody makes this stuff in America anymore AT ALL.
That's part of the reason I'm not too worried about offshoring as a long-term trend (as opposed to the fad it is now)
As a fad, it may be bad enough- we've already lost the last three years of CS graduates to other, lower skilled, industries, and it looks like we'll lose three more years, minimum, before seeing a turnaround in employment due to baby boomers retiring. That's almost an entire generation of coders down the drain, in exchange for a slightly higher stock option price.
I see nothing unfair here, if Americans downsized to a smaller house ( or tent perhaps ), sold your cars, didn't go on holidays and ate only rice and some vegetables you could probably compete with the Indians.
No, because the property taxes and sales taxes on the rice, vegetables, and even the smaller house/tent exceeds what an Indian pays for the same area of land- so no, there is no way to live in America for the same price as the Hindus live in India for.
Just to be clear - when you say 'losing side' are you talking about the country's workers - who want to be paid more than the going world rate, or the country's consumers - who want to pay the cheapest price possible?
The thing is they're the same people- this separation is a false dichotomy, for if the consumer's salary goes to zero in favor of cheaper labor elsewhere, they will cease to be a consumer.
If we can make industrial diamonds, we will eventually be able to make industrial oil with close to the same process. In fact, it's very much the same process- the only difference is the purity of carbon required for the diamond, where the carbon formed by living matter is less pure.
Completely correct- but the difference between IP and copyright is getting degraded over time. Originally- copyright was artist only, giving him a set of rights he could license (but retained ownership of) for 24 years, after which the work passed into the public domain. Then it went to 27 years. Then it became inheritable. Then corporations were able to buy ownership of copyright. Then it went to 50 years. Then to 75 years. Now it's 97 years and still being extended...at some point copyright becomes as evil as the idea of permanent patents.....
It is best for the long term, as you are not wasting money.
Money spent locally is never wasted- every $1 spent creates $8 of value in economic movement.
No, you will not. It is entirely unconnected.
Not at all- just think about it. Spend that $1 locally, and you've insured that your neighbor down the street still has a job. Spend $.50 overseas- you get the same immediate value back, but your neighbor loses his job, gets hungry, breaks into your house ans steals what he needs. That's a simplification- but it illustrates the point.
If the work is as good, then cheaper is nothing but better.
A big if- and without the local laws enforcing the contract, there's no way to know that IF for sure.
Then you find a company without such problems.
And after you've been through 10 companies with the same set of problems, you'll return to outsourcing LOCALLY where you can get your hands around the neck of the person who caused the problem.
Your protests regarding production are just a matter of perspective. To calculate Gross Domestic Product, I just have to sum up the value of the goods and services produced for sale during a given time period. I could calculate the amount spent for goods and services produced domestically. Alternatively, I could calculate the amount earned for goods and services produced domestically. Those two numbers have to be the same AND they have to equal GDP. In other words, Gross Domestic Product = Gross Domestic Expenditures = Gross Domestic Income by definition. Go ahead...google it.
They not only don't have to be the same- they can't be the same. If they were the same, there'd be no profit to be earned AT ALL- because profit is the difference between the cost of production and the cost of sale. It doesn't matter how many economists you find who are believing in the myth- it doesn't make that definition any less of a myth.
BTW, an equation to calculate GDP is not invalid because it does not include the term "product" in it's calculation. To believe so is so concrete it's almost child-like. The expenditure method of assessing the GDP is basically like calculating the number of human brainstems in the country to get at the census. You're gonna get one brainstem per person, so the number of living people = the number of functioning brainstems. Consequently, I could say that the living population of the country = the number of functioning human brainstems and be correct without ever putting the term "person" in the equation.
The problem is, price of sale != cost of production != value of goods produced, regardless of what your redefinition of reality is. Concrete is what counts, not some mythical redefinition. But thanks for showing me just how we got from value being a gift from God to value being a calculation of a souless automaton known as a market- and just how incredibly hallucinagenic the calculations around economy really are.
I wouldn't know- I don't buy computers based on what OS they can run except in very rare instances when I'm buying for a monocultural enterprise. My own home network has an old System 7 Mac, a Linux box, an old Commodore, some old TI99/4As, four Wintel systems with varying OS levels from 98 to Advanced Server 2003, four handhelds running PalmOS, WinCE 1.0, and PocketPC 2003. Between them, I can run just about anything so far. If I was to buy a Mac Mini, it would be for it's form factor and hardware features, and I'd most likely NOT use the bundled software hardly at all. The biggest use I can think of for the Mini would be as a central controler in a smart vehicle- especially since it's got just about the same dimensions as a car stereo.
If someone can do the same thing, but cheaper, that is a lot better.
Only in the short term, and for the smallest number of people.
When other considerations are held steady, cheaper is better when it comes to deals (where you need to pay for something).
Not really- because in the long run you'll just spend that money on more taxes to replace the "cheaper" with social services. By spending more up front on the deal, you provide more economic benefit to the society around you- which pays YOU back in a large number of ways. Cheaper is NOT always equal to better in the long term. In addition to that, on the current deal (espeically the one in this article), the extra expense often pays for certain legal rights that you don't get going overseas, including the right to sue the outsourcer when he fails to complete the contract to your specifications.
Because 90% of the time, the worker in India is not "better" but only "cheaper", and due to the strangeness of international law, is less liable for their actions.
Was a slashdot discussion on this Not long ago. But just a google search of "HDTV Editor "Open Source"" found a lot of hits- including one being used by a CBS affiliate called "Broadcast 2000".
Now I'll admit freely that useability seems to fall by the wayside- at least the way lusers think of useability- with Open Source- But the question was an equivalent *machine* not equivalent *software*- software is it's own thing, much as you Mac people don't realize the difference.
You admit it, refinancing is not the same as defaulting. You thus undermine your main argument to date regarding U.S. government debt! The U.S. Treasury is considered a generally safe investment because the U.S. government has NEVER DEFAULTED on a monetary debt obligation. Period.
And where did I do that? I said that even credit reporting agencies consider it the same thing- and will ding you the same in your credit score! Never paying back a loan is never paying back a loan- regardless of the accounting tricks you use to avoid "defaulting".
The Platonic Maximum Salary? I guess that's one way to disguise the arbitrary nature of your choice. You are a Marxist aren't you. You still didn't say why you have more claim on their assets than they do.
Money cannot be owned, it can only be lent. Give to Ceaser that which is ceasers. It's not your picture on the $1 bill. Come on, you know all of this already or else you wouldn't get after me for suggesting that the United States is overextended.
The 13th century economy was based on morality? As in peasants paying arbitrary tax to the nobility while the nobles hung out in the castle eating grapes?
You obviously don't know very much about the middle ages, do you? The courts were the LAST to get food, not the first.
Again, this assertion about an economy being based on "morality" is demonstrably false and hopelessly idealistic. It's the kind of idea that leads to violent ideologically rigid totalitarianism. Whatever you're smoking it's not healthy. Put down the pipe and slowly back away.
I'll give you a hint- Catholicism and Guild Economics lasted far longer than capitalism has- and was far more moral.
Also, you again produce no evidence to back your claim that these peasants could afford good musical instruments and home school their children in anything outside agriculture/homemaking. You just skirt the issue and claim that the economy was based upon "morality" with no support for your position. The entire "wage-slave" idea/test is without historical foundation.
Look into the rest of the site first. If you dare, anyway- personally I think you're such an orthodox capitalist that you can't see what real freedom and liberty is.
Regardless what you "learned" GDP is generally calculated as I outlined.
Then those who are generally calculating GDP are NOT calculating what they say they are- since production doesn't even enter into your caculation. Nice lie though.
Another statement of the formula is GDP = Consumption + Investment + Government Purchase + Net Exports.
Still no PRODUCTION at all I see- thus the P part of your acronym is a lie, isn't it?
These are expenditure based ways to measure GDP.
And since we all know that expenditure since divorcing cost from value is largely imaginary, expenditure is an utterly invalid way to measure production.
There are others, but they all equal eachother (by definition).
Ah, but only if the supply vs demand equation equals cost plus moral profit, which it never does.
And consumption is not a negative because this is an EXPENDITURE based calculation of GDP! If it is consumed and not an import (already accounted for by the formula), it was produced in the U.S. and therefore part of the GDP.
With an inflated cost due to parasitical middle men who take advantage of the fact that the supply/demand price is higher than the moral profit, thus distorting the equation beyond all recognition.
Yes, we import a shitload of stuff, but our GDP is positive and growing. That doesn't mean that I favor increasing the trade imbalance, either. It just doesn't mean what you think it means.
Yep- it just means that your GDP equation has NOTHING to do with real production, just more lies.
Production means creating something of VALUE, not necessarily something you can touch or hold in your
Lower level than that- comparable processing power, comparable memory. All the rest can be duplicated with open source software- heck, the $199 PC comes with a copy of a Linux distribution (you really didn't think I was talking about a WINDOWS machine at that price, did you? Try at least another $159 on top of that for Windows license alone!).
Now if we could only do this in the United States--nah, that would just make the DHS jumpy.