If I had mod points I'd give them to you. Instead, I'll just mention that back in '82 when I was just 23 yrs old, with $600 to my name, I made my first stock purchase (60 shares of Detroit Edison), because I knew I could do better there than what I was getting from the banks. I reinvested the dividends, through the company's dividend reinvestment program (DRIP), at 5% off of the market price, and no fees. Somewhere along the way, I sold off the original shares. but what remains is pure profit in the mid $30k range. Not a lot of money these days, but that was a good start. These days, I wouldn't recommend individual stocks to anyone who doesn't have a serious amount of time to do research. Go with an index fund, and dollar cost averaging (put the same amount in every month no matter if the market is up or down). Retire early.
Not sure wtf you mean by "late stage" capitalism. Please provide any evidence of your claim, because by most measures the majority of Americans are better off than they were in any time in history.
I want my country's military to "walk softly, and carry a big stick". In fact, I want them to have the "biggest" stick of all countries. But, I also want them to only swing it when necessary. We shouldn't allow despots and tyrants in other countries to intimate (looking at you Assad). We can't allow other countries to block trade routes (looking at you and your phony islands China). And we shouldn't have allowed Russia to take over Crimea, but we didn't have sufficient leverage to prevent it w/o an much bigger war. It's the "walk softly" part that frequently gets overlooked, often by the military. It's their job to be lethal, and in fact many of us can't handle that truth. But, it's also their job to avoid as much collateral damage as feasible.
If you don't want to support the military, I get it. But don't try to prevent them from having the best tools possible, which is part of what this kind of letter is attempting to do...not that MS has those (just my $.02).
No, it was made a partisan issue by calling out "as overseen by the Trump Administration". It's a blatant attempt to get any anti-Trump person on the bandwagon.
Not so bizarre when you write a letter to your company telling them not to work on it. If Mickysoft won the contract, it doesn't mean they'd require these employees to do so. In fact, it would likely have to be optional since it would require the individuals to obtain a security clearance. I wouldn't call these people traitors either, just ill informed.
The problem with capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
The "agreement" has been hijacked by a few things like "companies are people too", and our resistance to imposing limitations on monopolistic behavior. You can't blame capitalism for that. You can blame lawyers and politicians.
Nice try at hijacking Margaret Thatcher's famous quote on Socialism. Problem with your view is that "other people's money" in Capitalism is constantly increasing...wealth is generated through productivity. You can look at it like people do when the stock market goes up or down, and they ask where all that money went or came from...."money heaven".
Some of the articles I've read on UBI suggest that most of it will be paid for by the elimination of other programs that provide safety nets. Say, for example, you could do away with Social Security, Welfare, food stamps, etc., and put simply replace them all with UBI, and at the same time reduce government expense of managing multiple programs.
UBI is theft, plain and simple. You should not reward people just because they are able to fog a mirror.
Capitalism is theft, plain and simple. Profit is a tax on the labor of others. You should not reward people just because they can fog a mirror while being rich.
As opposed to what Utopian system are you espousing? Please, we're all ears.
Only if you want to be a hermit. You can't avoid taxes if you wish to do many things that people didn't have to just a century ago. You can't even (legally) leave the country without doing so...fees are also a tax.
You're both right and both wrong. There's a spectrum of good/evil in taxation. Clearly, we want government to provide certain services (deliver the mail for example), for which we must pay (postage in that case), Typically national defense, and infrastructure are what could likely be considered the bare minimum, and even with those, it's arguable as to how much is enough, with some people demanding virtually none. Toward the opposite end of the viewpoint spectrum, you have folks who want what some would call the "Nanny State". Obviously, the majority of folks are somewhere in the middle, and disagree on how much taxation and services should be, but in the big scheme of things, very few are ever going to be happy with the status quo...it just doesn't work that way. Fortunately for us Americans, we have ~50 laboratories in which we can experiment, and see results that work or don't.
The groups which "extract" resources from the economy, rather than help create new ones, are bureaucrats and politicians via taxes. They skim off the top and never return more than they take overall
That's... beyond untrue. Lot's of government programs produce values that are many times the amount spent on them.
Saying so doesn't make it true. But I will grant you that there are a few, but they are a distinct minority.
Also, and I'm sure they've improved since my flying days, but back then (87- 1991 when my kid was born and I gave it up), transponders in the Cessnas I flew didn't work so great. Flying in Korea, at ~1800ft on my first solo cross country, with flight following, I had a close call with an A10. I got on the radio and gave ATC hell, and was told, well, you're flying kinda low and hard to see...seriously?!?
That has jack to do with capitalism. The reason they get to do this is because our jackasses decided that companies are people too, so we can't seem to get the financial influence out of government. It will continue to fail until we do.
The "average hobbiest runner" can run much faster than that for the same distance as Bolt does 28mph. At nearly 60 years old, so can I. 8 mph would be a decent 5k pace. As an occasional 5k runner, that's was my pace back in my early 50s.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not arguing with most of your points, and yet they pale in comparison, and you can't seem to see the difference.
If I had mod points I'd give them to you. Instead, I'll just mention that back in '82 when I was just 23 yrs old, with $600 to my name, I made my first stock purchase (60 shares of Detroit Edison), because I knew I could do better there than what I was getting from the banks. I reinvested the dividends, through the company's dividend reinvestment program (DRIP), at 5% off of the market price, and no fees. Somewhere along the way, I sold off the original shares. but what remains is pure profit in the mid $30k range. Not a lot of money these days, but that was a good start. These days, I wouldn't recommend individual stocks to anyone who doesn't have a serious amount of time to do research. Go with an index fund, and dollar cost averaging (put the same amount in every month no matter if the market is up or down). Retire early.
False equivalence. The two have nada to do with each other.
FU and FU to all who modded this revisionist BS up.
The fact that you think Trump wants a theocracy makes you delusional. He's only interested in the Evangelical's votes.
While Evangelicals are a vocal minority of Republicans, they are still a minority. The rest of us on the right wish they would STFU.
Sorry, equating Evangelicals with Taliban is trolling. And I don't even like Evangelicals.
Why would you imagine that? As fair as you can be when judging religious dogma.
Sorry, I stopped reading your hyperbole after the first paragraph.
You're my candidate for insightful AC of the year.
Mine does as well, but I don't think this should be put upon all employers, especially small businesses, that can barely scrape by.
Not sure wtf you mean by "late stage" capitalism. Please provide any evidence of your claim, because by most measures the majority of Americans are better off than they were in any time in history.
I want my country's military to "walk softly, and carry a big stick". In fact, I want them to have the "biggest" stick of all countries. But, I also want them to only swing it when necessary. We shouldn't allow despots and tyrants in other countries to intimate (looking at you Assad). We can't allow other countries to block trade routes (looking at you and your phony islands China). And we shouldn't have allowed Russia to take over Crimea, but we didn't have sufficient leverage to prevent it w/o an much bigger war. It's the "walk softly" part that frequently gets overlooked, often by the military. It's their job to be lethal, and in fact many of us can't handle that truth. But, it's also their job to avoid as much collateral damage as feasible.
If you don't want to support the military, I get it. But don't try to prevent them from having the best tools possible, which is part of what this kind of letter is attempting to do...not that MS has those (just my $.02).
No, it was made a partisan issue by calling out "as overseen by the Trump Administration". It's a blatant attempt to get any anti-Trump person on the bandwagon.
Not so bizarre when you write a letter to your company telling them not to work on it. If Mickysoft won the contract, it doesn't mean they'd require these employees to do so. In fact, it would likely have to be optional since it would require the individuals to obtain a security clearance. I wouldn't call these people traitors either, just ill informed.
The problem with capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
The "agreement" has been hijacked by a few things like "companies are people too", and our resistance to imposing limitations on monopolistic behavior. You can't blame capitalism for that. You can blame lawyers and politicians.
Nice try at hijacking Margaret Thatcher's famous quote on Socialism. Problem with your view is that "other people's money" in Capitalism is constantly increasing...wealth is generated through productivity. You can look at it like people do when the stock market goes up or down, and they ask where all that money went or came from...."money heaven".
Some of the articles I've read on UBI suggest that most of it will be paid for by the elimination of other programs that provide safety nets. Say, for example, you could do away with Social Security, Welfare, food stamps, etc., and put simply replace them all with UBI, and at the same time reduce government expense of managing multiple programs.
Capitalism is theft, plain and simple. Profit is a tax on the labor of others. You should not reward people just because they can fog a mirror while being rich.
As opposed to what Utopian system are you espousing? Please, we're all ears.
Only if you want to be a hermit. You can't avoid taxes if you wish to do many things that people didn't have to just a century ago. You can't even (legally) leave the country without doing so...fees are also a tax.
You're both right and both wrong. There's a spectrum of good/evil in taxation. Clearly, we want government to provide certain services (deliver the mail for example), for which we must pay (postage in that case), Typically national defense, and infrastructure are what could likely be considered the bare minimum, and even with those, it's arguable as to how much is enough, with some people demanding virtually none. Toward the opposite end of the viewpoint spectrum, you have folks who want what some would call the "Nanny State". Obviously, the majority of folks are somewhere in the middle, and disagree on how much taxation and services should be, but in the big scheme of things, very few are ever going to be happy with the status quo...it just doesn't work that way. Fortunately for us Americans, we have ~50 laboratories in which we can experiment, and see results that work or don't.
That's... beyond untrue. Lot's of government programs produce values that are many times the amount spent on them.
Saying so doesn't make it true. But I will grant you that there are a few, but they are a distinct minority.
Also, and I'm sure they've improved since my flying days, but back then (87- 1991 when my kid was born and I gave it up), transponders in the Cessnas I flew didn't work so great. Flying in Korea, at ~1800ft on my first solo cross country, with flight following, I had a close call with an A10. I got on the radio and gave ATC hell, and was told, well, you're flying kinda low and hard to see...seriously?!?
50 times the population? So who is it that has 24 million?
That has jack to do with capitalism. The reason they get to do this is because our jackasses decided that companies are people too, so we can't seem to get the financial influence out of government. It will continue to fail until we do.
The "average hobbiest runner" can run much faster than that for the same distance as Bolt does 28mph. At nearly 60 years old, so can I. 8 mph would be a decent 5k pace. As an occasional 5k runner, that's was my pace back in my early 50s.