Bill Gates. Born to advantage. Thief/stealer of other people's ideas and code. Monopolist. Philanthropist/tax avoider. Wants your last dollar if he can license you out of it. The evil dragon.
Richard Stallman. Visionary. Social/Ethical/Political revolutionary. Dogmatic and single-minded. And if you didn't have him, you'd now be in a world of shit without even the rope to lift you out of it. Exactly what you needed before you needed it; you just may not have figued that part out yet. The sword to slay the dragon.
Linus Torvalds. Pragmatist. Codemaker. What he needed you can use too. Friendly, likable and a natural leader. Dragonslayer.
Knighted? That's nice if you think honors bestowing a title for an outdated, class-based hierarchy are important.
These two other guys deserve the Nobel prize for economics.
"There's no money for real journalism, just play that PR video and we'll slap on one of our local newscasters to bookend the piece. No one will know the difference."
"But Boss, how is this different from a commercial -- this tape is from freaking Pfizer!"
"Do you ever want Rupert Murdoch to even know who you are?"
To overcome the lies you have to read a lot, come to your own conclusions, and THINK!
You know, we're all basically living in the Panopticon suggested by Jeremy Bentham more than 200 hundred years ago. There are cameras everywhere. We are seen, but we know not by whom or when.
So let me get this straight -- from a political perspective you think it is absolutely meaningless that you are surveillanced almost all the time? Dude, you need to read William Burroughs' "Electronic Revolution" pronto. Surveillance and playback are the name of the game in the Information War. They do it to us, we NEED to be doing it right back at them.
Why? Mostly because the leaders and authorities in the world tend to be amongst the lowest, most cynical, greedy, hostile, violent fucks to walk the earth. Amplify some rent-a-cop that gave you a hard time one day a hundred times and you will still not have an asshole as screwed up as the average politician.
Mann is just trying to turn the tables on authority, perhaps even on reality. Frankly, he's small news -- there are bigger issues at work here. He's just one practitioner of freedom. Let's see how far he does and doesn't get -- it's all a lesson in freedom isn't it?
Sorry to interrupt the commercials -- you can go back to living in your hovel, breeding with the corpse you call a wife, and working for the man now...
The most recent customer fuck over was changing several colors in their existing palette to colors that are not compatible with the bricks you might already have. Among the colors changed were the light and dark grays (critical to many users), and the brown.
Somebody mentioned the compatibility of the Jack Stone line with the time-tested minifigure, this color thing is the same problem -- no backwards compatibility is being respected.
I'm a long-time lego user, but I'm in a holding pattern until they figure this shit out. I may never buy another new set again if things continue this way.
That level pay for California qualifies this job for submission to Fuck That Job!. Why do such companies think that people should work for them for near poverty wages? Oh right, it's sooooo cool to be poor...
You said: "I believe, however that that responsibility is fulfilled with the payment of taxes and fulfillment of legal obligations. I do not believe that American companies have a responsibility to only employ Americans."
This is where I think you are missing the very reason that benefits are bestowed upon a corporation -- it's not just corporate taxes, but taxable wages as well that are calculated into the bargain. And let's face it, lot's of corporations are trying to hide income offshore and by otherwise cooking their books too. Hence the accounting fiascos of the last few years.
What I see is that some corporatiosn want their cake and to eat it too, and leave none for anyone else. That's looting!
I see corporations that offshore labor, hide their income offshore, pay few taxes, and are in other instances subsidized out of political pork monies. How then are they fulfilling their end of the bargain with either our nation or its people?
If the american people wake up to this, things may very well change.
Sure Wal-Mart seems like a good deal when you save a few dollars on a item, but you are just paying it back out again in another way because Wal-Mart employees have to live off of food stamps and state funded medical programs. Who makes money? The several family members that own Wal-Mart, IIRC a handful of them are numbered amongst the top 10 wealthiest americans. That money is literally looted right of the pockets of the govt., and hence from the taxpayers.
I can only hope that the game is over. I do see some people waking up to these facts. When things change, it will be change in terms of how people perceive corporations and how they serve the public good. And when they don't serve the public good, the question will absolutely become "Why have some of these corporations at all?"
And the answer is -- we don't have to have some of them at all.
There are hundreds of hidden benefits to being a fictitious person -- which is what corporations happen to be. For example, if a corporation decides to go bankrupt it can do so, dissolve itself as a legal entity, and just walk away from enormous debt -- that's called limited liability for debt, and it doesn't work for you and me quite as easily as it does for a legal fiction. If they now choose to abandon the reciprocity of wealth upon which basis the creation of corporations is predicated, I think it's fair to say that they have no rights whatsoever. If they want to do business in East India -- so be it. Let them go, let the whole corporation go, from CEO to the lowest level laborer. What they can't do is take the labor and wealth offshore and still get the benefit of being a U.S. corporation -- and I don't mean wealth for only the select few at the top, I mean for everyone as intended.
You are seeing a revolution in the offing -- the role of corporations within our society is going to get a lot of scrutiny and soon. It's a long overdue problem the occurence of which was at least partially foreseen by people like Thomas Jefferson. You can't grant the special status of person to a legal and deathless fiction and then claim that we have true capitalism -- not when such an entity is capable of overwhelming any competition presented by a natural person. All you will have succeeded in doing is subsidizing the wealth and abilities of the corporation over that of natural persons. That's like purposely creating hundreds of Goliaths because David's rights just don't matter any more.
Capitalism requires quid pro quo -- something for something. Otherwise it's called looting.
Why should american corporations be subsidized by all of the benefits of being american corporations when they are padding their profits by offshoring their labor force and likewise concealing their profits from taxation by keeping them offshore also? Do you understand that coporations are legal fictions created by laws so that they can operate as persons? They have no natural rights and are intended to provide reciprocal benefits to the countries that allow them to exist within their borders -- that's the economic theory part of it. When american corporations fail to give back again to the U.S., it's not just "Oh well" but rather "you corporations can move offshore entirely now." I say give those corporations the boot in the ass.
And anyway, how long can the white shirts pretend that they can really control what's going on thousands of miles away? Yeah, some people can work from home some days -- but a lot of people have to come into the office pretty frequently just the same. This managment by voice over the internet ain't gonna cut it long-term. Those jobs are going offshore too, and soon if this trend lasts. And this is to ignore the huge legal issues that might yet bite offshoring corporations in the ass -- when everybody is subcontracting the work, where does the legal buck stop? You must have read the Slashdot story about privacy concerns and East Indian labor.
If you don't understand the economic theory, you fail to understand basic civics -- not what they taught you in brainwashing K-12, REAL civics. Not just the 3 branches of government, but the whole deal including the economy.
The main thing is that there are benefits to doing business as a U.S. corporation, those benefits are obtained from the U.S. and its people, reciprocity is expected in terms of job and wealth creation in general. Absent any of those reciprocal benefits being recieved back again, we might as well treat such a corporation as a foreign company trying to import labor.
My fellow americans, do not be fooled by the "Free market" crap or the xenophobia arguments. There is no reason why we should be giving away the wealth of our nation to foreign labor without appropriate measures in place. No other country would be this foolish in our place.
And what makes so many of you think that some of us are not old enough to have objected to the offshoring of manufacturing and textile jobs in previous years? I was there to object and fight it, but too many other americans were busy swallowing the swill served up by the status quo political system. That political system serves big money concerns, and not you and me.
I buy american as often as possible, and proudly too. I spend most of my money very close to home. What's good for my community is good for me!
I defy some fucking Mexican, East Indian, or Asian to tell me that he or she acts differently than I do. It's not prejuidice against others to respect yourself first and foremost. I wish all Mexicans, East Indians, and Asians peace, prosperity, and long life -- but not on my dollar, thank you very fucking much.
Greed. True believers. Those that get stuck with the debt.
Nobody thinks they were scammed. The leaders were just good honest men that were themselves misled. When all other justifications fail, try the old "God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform."
Don't be so quick to point the finger at the imbecile in the story -- look in the mirror first.
Fight control. Question authority. Rebel. Be free.
People have to respect each other's labor. When they don't, everybody loses. I don't shop at Wal-Mart and I don't cross union lines to save a few bucks at the grocery store. Respect for the least of all workers is good for my community -- we all stay solvent together.
And I sure as shit don't care about much of anything beyond my own country. I think locally. If there are homeless and poor people in both the U.S. and India -- all other things being equal -- I care more about the homeless and poor in my own country, in the U.S. Those are my neighbors!
Don't even pretend that the people of any other country feel any differently. I think we americans have to wake up and stop playing the sap. We must stop giving away that which is paid for by americans. We cannot apply an ethic of "brothers keeper" on a global scale. It is enough to do so here at home -- and there's still plenty to be done in that category.
I think that most people fail to understand that the status quo definition of "free trade" has a lot to do with thinking that free trade affects only corporations.
To the status quo suckers:
What if free trade is supposed to include you too? A free and natural person hasn't a chance against the multi-nationals of today. I'd say it was a David and Goliath scenario, but really it's more like the tiny ant versus Goliath. And you will get stomped.
In what way is protectionist legislation favoring corporations a positive move towards "free trade"? Corporation don't by natural law have any rights whatsoever. Why protect them to the point of absurdity? And don't go all ape-shit: "Oh, but there are certain kinds of progress that are only made possible through corporate structures and with corporation type money as backing." I don't buy it, and I think anyone with sufficient horse-sense doesn't buy it either. There are plenty of examples of people moving things forward entirely on their own. There are certainly alternatives to immortal corporations.
You have a choice: [] The Rise of the Corporations. [] Retake your liberties and reclaim your legal heritage as free persons.
You may not believe me now, but you will sooner or later. And your children will suffer the consequences of your missteps.
>The bad: Some boring/slow parts, including the Liv Tyler subplot
It's not really even a subplot in the books, it's in the appendix! That simple fact, absent any other, is proof of Tolkien's bad writing in my opinion. As critical as Arowyn is to Aragorn's story, only an idiot would have made her role in the greater story a part of an appendix. I mean, what other great literary work can you think of that contains a lengthy and tedious appendix that includes information that is critical to an overall understanding of the main work?
And you'd think the job of telling a great story would have been made all the easier by ripping-off so much from northern european mythology.
In my view, there is nothing at all sacred about these texts by Tolkien such that the story cannot be tightened up quite a bit by either a better storyteller or a decent editor. Ultimately, the LOTR is more like an excellent umpteenth draft than an actual finished masterpiece. The result of Tolkien's labors is certainly no better than any of his source materials.
Want the real deal? Read The Mabinogion, the many Arthurian Romances, Celtic and Norse mythology, and the stories of Roland. Dig into the archetypes.
You did not create anything in a cultural vacuum. You have heard music all your life. You have read books. You have seen movies. You have read scientific theories. These works have all informed your precious "act of creation." You are standing on the shoulders of the thousands before you.
The attribution of works to the Greek Muses, the sense of "I don't know where the idea came from..." is all adequately explained by the fact that creative work is an outgrowth of a culture, even if it seems like just one guy/gal with an idea.
We all rightly know that it comes from us all. The lucky "one" that channels it into an "act of creation" gets to claim the temporary prize of copy right. Then it goes back into the pool of culturally shared ideas so that it can benefit others. Just like listening to Mozart was a benefit to you.
"I've got a buddy with a HUGE classic vinyl collection (lots of rare stuff) and the artwork is worth WAY more than the record itself."
Uh, that would be me...
*The "Sticky Fingers" Warhol cover with real zipper *Sordide Sentimental/Throbbing Gristle 7" "We Hate You little Girls" *Sordide Sentimental/Joy Division 7" "Dead Souls" *PIL's "Metal Box" (vinyl and CD versions come in actual tin) *"The Foetus of Excellence" box with bonus t-shirt *Patrick Woodroffe & Dave Greenslade's "The Pentateuch" -- which is more of an artbook than anything else I have seen *Any Sandy Warner posed Martin Denny Exotica cover!
And that's all great stuff! Perfectly do-able with CD's if you wanted to do it. Some of it *IS* on CD! It's also a bunch of gimmicks -- in particular I mean the stuff beyond the interesting pictures. And the pics you can scan to digital.
I am also just as happy to be ripping my enormous CD, vinyl collection to EAC-LAME-"--alt-preset standard"-VBR MP3s to serve as a massive digital jukebox. If the artwork is interesting enough, I also scan it into the computer to serve as my changing desktop artwork. I'm not going to scan in a book's worth of stuff, but I have some neat desktop artwork at this point:
*Die Form's "Ad Infinitum" cover *Casino Royale soundtrack cover *Rush's "Farewell to Kings" cover *ClockDVA's "Final Program" EP cover *Heart's "Little Queen" cover *Henry Mancini's "Mr. Lucky" cover *Nelson Riddle's "Sea of Dreams" cover *The vinyl sleeve lyrics for "Stairway to Heaven" *Eno's ambient music diagram from "Discreet Music" *Neville Brody's cover artwork for the Throbbing Gristle's 5 album boxed set *Cabaret Voltaire's cover for "The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord" (N. Brody again, I think) *Every Kraftwerk cover
I can listen to the music myself to discern the lyrics, what else do I need?
If your screen is big enough, digital bonus content is just fine, thank you very much. Far better than that flatscreen artwork software that is being sold.
Hey, just compress me an archive of decently ripped MP3s, a lyrics text file, and some cool hi-res scans of interesting artwork and I am fine!
...Falls apart when you realize that there is no free market. Many things are protected. Many areas of the economy experience more than favorable treatment -- I mean, we are fighting for oil in Iraq aren't we?
It's just you and your concerns that are treated unfavorably. And you probably voted these assholes into power thinking that they would cut your taxes. As if such a thing could possibly matter to them.
What you have is the wealthy and powerful becoming more wealthy and more powerful at the expense of those that simply do not matter.
And unlike you, these people do not wave the flag or care who is going to win the Superbowl. Borders do not matter. Democracy is the prize in an elaborate shell game to amuse the uneducated.
Mammon alone is their God.
So no, the very rich are not like you and I. And if you were given their power on a silver plate, you would not likely be much different than are they. That observation should not keep you from seeking social or economic justice.
Someone mentioned the lower wages earned elsewhere in the world (beyond the "west") -- yeah, it's funny how little people will work for when soldiers dictate their possible earnings, or when union organizers often face immediate violence or rape as a tool of coercion.
"Can I have a raise?"
"Not tonight, first I thought I'd use you and your family as gangrape fucktoys; and then leave you for dead somewhere where you can be seen thereby serving as an example to others that might have similarly impertinent questions."
"Well in that case, can I just have my job back and we just ignore that this issue ever came up?"
"Sorry, you're just going to have trust me on this -- we need to do it my way. And I'm sorry about not offering you some vaseline, but that won't give us the desired effect..."
So yeah, enjoy those Nikes. There's more to it when you buy products "Made in America."
...it must also have a wacom-type pen screen, the usual laptop stuff like a keyboard, and etc. Such a device will never meet the demands of a desktop user -- there's no point trying to make into one by making it ultra powerful or a sleek little gaming machine. Failure to have near 100% character recognition will relegate the device to the position of an expensive toy without a real use. Interaction between the user and what has been written to the screen must have near zero lag time. Basically, it has to fill the tiny niche between a palm device and a laptop, maybe throwing a fancy art sketching tool into the bargain. The killer applications would tend to be things like writing and drawing on the screen. Absent that, you got dick.
True portability. An etch-a-sketch with which you can read novels, download porno, and watch movies.
Maybe it could cost $500, but any more than that and you might as well drop the portability and just use a desktop.
Hey, we all have to buy from the supplies available. As often as possible I buy American, local to me, and in non-chain stores. I would not knowingly buy products from companies whose business practices are hurting others in the world.
FWIW, I think you don't know what you are talking about...some of us DO make socially responsible decisions with our dollars.
>Michael is once again using slashdot as his personal platform to advance his own pet issues.
Just as you are doing now. I gather you see yourself as the opposition though.
Constantly moving jobs to ever cheaper locations is a no-win scenario. For one thing, there will always be somewhere cheaper -- one day Mexico is the place to manufacture, then it's various parts of Asia. Today software engineering is being done in India -- but wages are already rising and India looks a lot like the U.S. 2-3 years ago; tomorrow China might look cheaper. Eventually, and quite speedily, you burn down every bridge to cheaper labor. The marks have wised up and nobody wants to give the multi-nationals a free ride anymore.
For any economy to make gains workers must be able to afford the goods being sold. For the workers to be able to afford the goods they must make a wage that allows for the purchase of those goods.
Profit!
What we have today is a situation where people have spent time and money to earn degrees to gain employment that the U.S. has allowed to go offshore. People in many other countries do not have to hock their futures the way we americans often do just to make a decent day's pay. Of course, their labor is cheaper!
No I know some jerkweed is going to blather on about free market economics, but you know what? Free markets do not exist. They probably never did. I have no problem instituting laws that regulate corporate activities so that everyone can bring home the bacon.
But hear this well: I don't love corp. execs so much that I think they should be the only ones to profit from the unfair way things are set up.
FWIW, I do think there are real economic and security issues in having everything go offshore with hugely important technologies. The people of the U.S. shouldn't stand for it. Those are important issues that we should look at -- that said, I also don't mind letting my own self-interest speak my cause as above.
The point is - ADJUST, control the situation and when the outsourcing comes you will end up directing and managing them Indians instead of flipping burgers and complaining about social security.
Uh, only if I want to live in India also most likely. But by then, as it is already happening to India in fact, somewhere cheaper still will come along.
I have this funny feeling they can just hire some Indian managers cheap in the meanwhile.
Management, legal, sales, and even regular office staffers will be joining our ranks soon!
What I think is funny is how Management people in particular have seen themselves as invulnerable as they happily gobbled up bonus after bonus for doing the layoff dirty work of the even higher-up than themselves. The thing is, when there's nobody left to manage they too are out the door. Surely, they saw this coming?
I had lunch with my girlfriend's dad the other week where he was in full silverback glory:
"I don't know anything about computers," he said, looking squarely down his nose at me, "I just run the IT department for the whole corporation."
I never shopped at stores where more than $13 was the average price for a domestic CD. That's just ridiculous.
$13 is too little too late. Buh-bye music industry as we know it...
When I was younger music was bought with pocket money -- maybe $6-7. What does it say for the industry that amongst their recent biggest sellers were some albums that except for unfair copyright extensions the material in those albums would have already fallen to the public domain? I'm thinking of that live Led Zeppelin thing...all of the material in it would be public domain now under the original copyright laws of the U.S.
No one is invulnerable -- even most management people could be axed "here" and hired "over there" given the current state of communication technologies. I have seen articles on moving legal departments overseas -- think of the weird logistics for that too! It's getting ridiculous.
Long-term, no one is thinking long-term! We are living in a culture of looting. Don't try to grow a business into something valuable to society -- how much can you get for it today? Sadly, we have given the truly elite the means to loot and keep looting until we are all up to our necks in economic misery. The higher-ups don't just want their $20 million -- first they want a government subsidy for creating jobs and setting up shop in your area, then they want you to train up your cheaper replacement, and then they want a bonus for laying you off and supposedly saving the company money. Of course, soon enough such a business just flops over belly-up anyway -- no one cares enough to make it a viable business, there's no loyalty. Make your bonuses, screw those under you, spread enough lies to protect your position until you sell your stocks and float away on your golden parachute. If your company was publically traded -- well, those investors surely didn't invest the only money they had, right? They risked something for a gain and lost on the bet, too bad for them.
That's the reality.
Quick aside on education: most factory workers do not need elaborate educations (sorry, but it's true). Most foriegn educated people are educated largely by the state (and unlike ourselves here in the U.S. -- where the loans merely go unpaid due to bankruptcy).
No society can survive where everyone is concerned only for "numero uno" -- you have to think about the impact of your actions on those around you. "We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately." - Ben Franklin
Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates. Born to advantage. Thief/stealer of other people's ideas and code. Monopolist. Philanthropist/tax avoider. Wants your last dollar if he can license you out of it. The evil dragon.
Richard Stallman. Visionary. Social/Ethical/Political revolutionary. Dogmatic and single-minded. And if you didn't have him, you'd now be in a world of shit without even the rope to lift you out of it. Exactly what you needed before you needed it; you just may not have figued that part out yet. The sword to slay the dragon.
Linus Torvalds. Pragmatist. Codemaker. What he needed you can use too. Friendly, likable and a natural leader. Dragonslayer.
Knighted? That's nice if you think honors bestowing a title for an outdated, class-based hierarchy are important.
These two other guys deserve the Nobel prize for economics.
Now choose, or what part don't you get?
Wake up, people.
"Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry"
"There's no money for real journalism, just play that PR video and we'll slap on one of our local newscasters to bookend the piece. No one will know the difference."
"But Boss, how is this different from a commercial -- this tape is from freaking Pfizer!"
"Do you ever want Rupert Murdoch to even know who you are?"
To overcome the lies you have to read a lot, come to your own conclusions, and THINK!
You know, we're all basically living in the Panopticon suggested by Jeremy Bentham more than 200 hundred years ago. There are cameras everywhere. We are seen, but we know not by whom or when.
So let me get this straight -- from a political perspective you think it is absolutely meaningless that you are surveillanced almost all the time? Dude, you need to read William Burroughs' "Electronic Revolution" pronto. Surveillance and playback are the name of the game in the Information War. They do it to us, we NEED to be doing it right back at them.
Why? Mostly because the leaders and authorities in the world tend to be amongst the lowest, most cynical, greedy, hostile, violent fucks to walk the earth. Amplify some rent-a-cop that gave you a hard time one day a hundred times and you will still not have an asshole as screwed up as the average politician.
Mann is just trying to turn the tables on authority, perhaps even on reality. Frankly, he's small news -- there are bigger issues at work here. He's just one practitioner of freedom. Let's see how far he does and doesn't get -- it's all a lesson in freedom isn't it?
Sorry to interrupt the commercials -- you can go back to living in your hovel, breeding with the corpse you call a wife, and working for the man now...
It's not just the licenses...
It's not just the specialty parts...
The most recent customer fuck over was changing several colors in their existing palette to colors that are not compatible with the bricks you might already have. Among the colors changed were the light and dark grays (critical to many users), and the brown.
Somebody mentioned the compatibility of the Jack Stone line with the time-tested minifigure, this color thing is the same problem -- no backwards compatibility is being respected.
I'm a long-time lego user, but I'm in a holding pattern until they figure this shit out. I may never buy another new set again if things continue this way.
That level pay for California qualifies this job for submission to Fuck That Job!. Why do such companies think that people should work for them for near poverty wages? Oh right, it's sooooo cool to be poor...
You said:
"I believe, however that that responsibility is fulfilled with the payment of taxes and fulfillment of legal obligations. I do not believe that American companies have a responsibility to only employ Americans."
This is where I think you are missing the very reason that benefits are bestowed upon a corporation -- it's not just corporate taxes, but taxable wages as well that are calculated into the bargain. And let's face it, lot's of corporations are trying to hide income offshore and by otherwise cooking their books too. Hence the accounting fiascos of the last few years.
What I see is that some corporatiosn want their cake and to eat it too, and leave none for anyone else. That's looting!
I see corporations that offshore labor, hide their income offshore, pay few taxes, and are in other instances subsidized out of political pork monies. How then are they fulfilling their end of the bargain with either our nation or its people?
If the american people wake up to this, things may very well change.
Sure Wal-Mart seems like a good deal when you save a few dollars on a item, but you are just paying it back out again in another way because Wal-Mart employees have to live off of food stamps and state funded medical programs. Who makes money? The several family members that own Wal-Mart, IIRC a handful of them are numbered amongst the top 10 wealthiest americans. That money is literally looted right of the pockets of the govt., and hence from the taxpayers.
I can only hope that the game is over. I do see some people waking up to these facts. When things change, it will be change in terms of how people perceive corporations and how they serve the public good. And when they don't serve the public good, the question will absolutely become "Why have some of these corporations at all?"
And the answer is -- we don't have to have some of them at all.
There are hundreds of hidden benefits to being a fictitious person -- which is what corporations happen to be. For example, if a corporation decides to go bankrupt it can do so, dissolve itself as a legal entity, and just walk away from enormous debt -- that's called limited liability for debt, and it doesn't work for you and me quite as easily as it does for a legal fiction. If they now choose to abandon the reciprocity of wealth upon which basis the creation of corporations is predicated, I think it's fair to say that they have no rights whatsoever. If they want to do business in East India -- so be it. Let them go, let the whole corporation go, from CEO to the lowest level laborer. What they can't do is take the labor and wealth offshore and still get the benefit of being a U.S. corporation -- and I don't mean wealth for only the select few at the top, I mean for everyone as intended.
You are seeing a revolution in the offing -- the role of corporations within our society is going to get a lot of scrutiny and soon. It's a long overdue problem the occurence of which was at least partially foreseen by people like Thomas Jefferson. You can't grant the special status of person to a legal and deathless fiction and then claim that we have true capitalism -- not when such an entity is capable of overwhelming any competition presented by a natural person. All you will have succeeded in doing is subsidizing the wealth and abilities of the corporation over that of natural persons. That's like purposely creating hundreds of Goliaths because David's rights just don't matter any more.
Capitalism requires quid pro quo -- something for something. Otherwise it's called looting.
Why should american corporations be subsidized by all of the benefits of being american corporations when they are padding their profits by offshoring their labor force and likewise concealing their profits from taxation by keeping them offshore also? Do you understand that coporations are legal fictions created by laws so that they can operate as persons? They have no natural rights and are intended to provide reciprocal benefits to the countries that allow them to exist within their borders -- that's the economic theory part of it. When american corporations fail to give back again to the U.S., it's not just "Oh well" but rather "you corporations can move offshore entirely now." I say give those corporations the boot in the ass.
And anyway, how long can the white shirts pretend that they can really control what's going on thousands of miles away? Yeah, some people can work from home some days -- but a lot of people have to come into the office pretty frequently just the same. This managment by voice over the internet ain't gonna cut it long-term. Those jobs are going offshore too, and soon if this trend lasts. And this is to ignore the huge legal issues that might yet bite offshoring corporations in the ass -- when everybody is subcontracting the work, where does the legal buck stop? You must have read the Slashdot story about privacy concerns and East Indian labor.
If you don't understand the economic theory, you fail to understand basic civics -- not what they taught you in brainwashing K-12, REAL civics. Not just the 3 branches of government, but the whole deal including the economy.
That's all very well stated.
The main thing is that there are benefits to doing business as a U.S. corporation, those benefits are obtained from the U.S. and its people, reciprocity is expected in terms of job and wealth creation in general. Absent any of those reciprocal benefits being recieved back again, we might as well treat such a corporation as a foreign company trying to import labor.
My fellow americans, do not be fooled by the "Free market" crap or the xenophobia arguments. There is no reason why we should be giving away the wealth of our nation to foreign labor without appropriate measures in place. No other country would be this foolish in our place.
And what makes so many of you think that some of us are not old enough to have objected to the offshoring of manufacturing and textile jobs in previous years? I was there to object and fight it, but too many other americans were busy swallowing the swill served up by the status quo political system. That political system serves big money concerns, and not you and me.
I buy american as often as possible, and proudly too. I spend most of my money very close to home. What's good for my community is good for me!
I defy some fucking Mexican, East Indian, or Asian to tell me that he or she acts differently than I do. It's not prejuidice against others to respect yourself first and foremost. I wish all Mexicans, East Indians, and Asians peace, prosperity, and long life -- but not on my dollar, thank you very fucking much.
Plenty in common there:
Greed.
True believers.
Those that get stuck with the debt.
Nobody thinks they were scammed. The leaders were just good honest men that were themselves misled. When all other justifications fail, try the old "God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform."
Don't be so quick to point the finger at the imbecile in the story -- look in the mirror first.
Fight control. Question authority. Rebel. Be free.
I didn't find it funny then or now.
People have to respect each other's labor. When they don't, everybody loses. I don't shop at Wal-Mart and I don't cross union lines to save a few bucks at the grocery store. Respect for the least of all workers is good for my community -- we all stay solvent together.
And I sure as shit don't care about much of anything beyond my own country. I think locally. If there are homeless and poor people in both the U.S. and India -- all other things being equal -- I care more about the homeless and poor in my own country, in the U.S. Those are my neighbors!
Don't even pretend that the people of any other country feel any differently. I think we americans have to wake up and stop playing the sap. We must stop giving away that which is paid for by americans. We cannot apply an ethic of "brothers keeper" on a global scale. It is enough to do so here at home -- and there's still plenty to be done in that category.
All excellent points!
I think that most people fail to understand that the status quo definition of "free trade" has a lot to do with thinking that free trade affects only corporations.
To the status quo suckers:
What if free trade is supposed to include you too? A free and natural person hasn't a chance against the multi-nationals of today. I'd say it was a David and Goliath scenario, but really it's more like the tiny ant versus Goliath. And you will get stomped.
In what way is protectionist legislation favoring corporations a positive move towards "free trade"? Corporation don't by natural law have any rights whatsoever. Why protect them to the point of absurdity? And don't go all ape-shit: "Oh, but there are certain kinds of progress that are only made possible through corporate structures and with corporation type money as backing." I don't buy it, and I think anyone with sufficient horse-sense doesn't buy it either. There are plenty of examples of people moving things forward entirely on their own. There are certainly alternatives to immortal corporations.
You have a choice:
[] The Rise of the Corporations.
[] Retake your liberties and reclaim your legal heritage as free persons.
You may not believe me now, but you will sooner or later. And your children will suffer the consequences of your missteps.
>The bad: Some boring/slow parts, including the Liv Tyler subplot
It's not really even a subplot in the books, it's in the appendix! That simple fact, absent any other, is proof of Tolkien's bad writing in my opinion. As critical as Arowyn is to Aragorn's story, only an idiot would have made her role in the greater story a part of an appendix. I mean, what other great literary work can you think of that contains a lengthy and tedious appendix that includes information that is critical to an overall understanding of the main work?
And you'd think the job of telling a great story would have been made all the easier by ripping-off so much from northern european mythology.
In my view, there is nothing at all sacred about these texts by Tolkien such that the story cannot be tightened up quite a bit by either a better storyteller or a decent editor. Ultimately, the LOTR is more like an excellent umpteenth draft than an actual finished masterpiece. The result of Tolkien's labors is certainly no better than any of his source materials.
Want the real deal? Read The Mabinogion, the many Arthurian Romances, Celtic and Norse mythology, and the stories of Roland. Dig into the archetypes.
You're missing a big point here...
You did not create anything in a cultural vacuum. You have heard music all your life. You have read books. You have seen movies. You have read scientific theories. These works have all informed your precious "act of creation." You are standing on the shoulders of the thousands before you.
The attribution of works to the Greek Muses, the sense of "I don't know where the idea came from..." is all adequately explained by the fact that creative work is an outgrowth of a culture, even if it seems like just one guy/gal with an idea.
We all rightly know that it comes from us all. The lucky "one" that channels it into an "act of creation" gets to claim the temporary prize of copy right. Then it goes back into the pool of culturally shared ideas so that it can benefit others. Just like listening to Mozart was a benefit to you.
What part don't you get?
"I've got a buddy with a HUGE classic vinyl collection (lots of rare stuff) and the artwork is worth WAY more than the record itself."
Uh, that would be me...
*The "Sticky Fingers" Warhol cover with real zipper
*Sordide Sentimental/Throbbing Gristle 7" "We Hate You little Girls"
*Sordide Sentimental/Joy Division 7" "Dead Souls"
*PIL's "Metal Box" (vinyl and CD versions come in actual tin)
*"The Foetus of Excellence" box with bonus t-shirt
*Patrick Woodroffe & Dave Greenslade's "The Pentateuch" -- which is more of an artbook than anything else I have seen
*Any Sandy Warner posed Martin Denny Exotica cover!
And that's all great stuff! Perfectly do-able with CD's if you wanted to do it. Some of it *IS* on CD! It's also a bunch of gimmicks -- in particular I mean the stuff beyond the interesting pictures. And the pics you can scan to digital.
I am also just as happy to be ripping my enormous CD, vinyl collection to EAC-LAME-"--alt-preset standard"-VBR MP3s to serve as a massive digital jukebox. If the artwork is interesting enough, I also scan it into the computer to serve as my changing desktop artwork. I'm not going to scan in a book's worth of stuff, but I have some neat desktop artwork at this point:
*Die Form's "Ad Infinitum" cover
*Casino Royale soundtrack cover
*Rush's "Farewell to Kings" cover
*ClockDVA's "Final Program" EP cover
*Heart's "Little Queen" cover
*Henry Mancini's "Mr. Lucky" cover
*Nelson Riddle's "Sea of Dreams" cover
*The vinyl sleeve lyrics for "Stairway to Heaven"
*Eno's ambient music diagram from "Discreet Music"
*Neville Brody's cover artwork for the Throbbing Gristle's 5 album boxed set
*Cabaret Voltaire's cover for "The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord" (N. Brody again, I think)
*Every Kraftwerk cover
I can listen to the music myself to discern the lyrics, what else do I need?
If your screen is big enough, digital bonus content is just fine, thank you very much. Far better than that flatscreen artwork software that is being sold.
Hey, just compress me an archive of decently ripped MP3s, a lyrics text file, and some cool hi-res scans of interesting artwork and I am fine!
...Falls apart when you realize that there is no free market. Many things are protected. Many areas of the economy experience more than favorable treatment -- I mean, we are fighting for oil in Iraq aren't we?
It's just you and your concerns that are treated unfavorably. And you probably voted these assholes into power thinking that they would cut your taxes. As if such a thing could possibly matter to them.
What you have is the wealthy and powerful becoming more wealthy and more powerful at the expense of those that simply do not matter.
And unlike you, these people do not wave the flag or care who is going to win the Superbowl. Borders do not matter. Democracy is the prize in an elaborate shell game to amuse the uneducated.
Mammon alone is their God.
So no, the very rich are not like you and I. And if you were given their power on a silver plate, you would not likely be much different than are they. That observation should not keep you from seeking social or economic justice.
Someone mentioned the lower wages earned elsewhere in the world (beyond the "west") -- yeah, it's funny how little people will work for when soldiers dictate their possible earnings, or when union organizers often face immediate violence or rape as a tool of coercion.
"Can I have a raise?"
"Not tonight, first I thought I'd use you and your family as gangrape fucktoys; and then leave you for dead somewhere where you can be seen thereby serving as an example to others that might have similarly impertinent questions."
"Well in that case, can I just have my job back and we just ignore that this issue ever came up?"
"Sorry, you're just going to have trust me on this -- we need to do it my way. And I'm sorry about not offering you some vaseline, but that won't give us the desired effect..."
So yeah, enjoy those Nikes. There's more to it when you buy products "Made in America."
...it must also have a wacom-type pen screen, the usual laptop stuff like a keyboard, and etc. Such a device will never meet the demands of a desktop user -- there's no point trying to make into one by making it ultra powerful or a sleek little gaming machine. Failure to have near 100% character recognition will relegate the device to the position of an expensive toy without a real use. Interaction between the user and what has been written to the screen must have near zero lag time. Basically, it has to fill the tiny niche between a palm device and a laptop, maybe throwing a fancy art sketching tool into the bargain. The killer applications would tend to be things like writing and drawing on the screen. Absent that, you got dick.
True portability. An etch-a-sketch with which you can read novels, download porno, and watch movies.
Maybe it could cost $500, but any more than that and you might as well drop the portability and just use a desktop.
How are rights managed after you rip the song to Mp3 as stated in the article? Can you rip at any bit rate?
Linux for the desktop could be KING in 3 years time. MS is already on the ropes, server-wise. Now is the time to kick some desktop monopoly ass!
Hey, we all have to buy from the supplies available. As often as possible I buy American, local to me, and in non-chain stores. I would not knowingly buy products from companies whose business practices are hurting others in the world.
FWIW, I think you don't know what you are talking about...some of us DO make socially responsible decisions with our dollars.
>Michael is once again using slashdot as his personal platform to advance his own pet issues.
Just as you are doing now. I gather you see yourself as the opposition though.
Constantly moving jobs to ever cheaper locations is a no-win scenario. For one thing, there will always be somewhere cheaper -- one day Mexico is the place to manufacture, then it's various parts of Asia. Today software engineering is being done in India -- but wages are already rising and India looks a lot like the U.S. 2-3 years ago; tomorrow China might look cheaper. Eventually, and quite speedily, you burn down every bridge to cheaper labor. The marks have wised up and nobody wants to give the multi-nationals a free ride anymore.
For any economy to make gains workers must be able to afford the goods being sold. For the workers to be able to afford the goods they must make a wage that allows for the purchase of those goods.
Profit!
What we have today is a situation where people have spent time and money to earn degrees to gain employment that the U.S. has allowed to go offshore. People in many other countries do not have to hock their futures the way we americans often do just to make a decent day's pay. Of course, their labor is cheaper!
No I know some jerkweed is going to blather on about free market economics, but you know what? Free markets do not exist. They probably never did. I have no problem instituting laws that regulate corporate activities so that everyone can bring home the bacon.
But hear this well: I don't love corp. execs so much that I think they should be the only ones to profit from the unfair way things are set up.
FWIW, I do think there are real economic and security issues in having everything go offshore with hugely important technologies. The people of the U.S. shouldn't stand for it. Those are important issues that we should look at -- that said, I also don't mind letting my own self-interest speak my cause as above.
The point is - ADJUST, control the situation and when the outsourcing comes you will end up directing and managing them Indians instead of flipping burgers and complaining about social security.
Uh, only if I want to live in India also most likely. But by then, as it is already happening to India in fact, somewhere cheaper still will come along.
I have this funny feeling they can just hire some Indian managers cheap in the meanwhile.
Hey, we won't be alone for long:
a /P 62115.asp?Printer
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extr
Management, legal, sales, and even regular office staffers will be joining our ranks soon!
What I think is funny is how Management people in particular have seen themselves as invulnerable as they happily gobbled up bonus after bonus for doing the layoff dirty work of the even higher-up than themselves. The thing is, when there's nobody left to manage they too are out the door. Surely, they saw this coming?
I had lunch with my girlfriend's dad the other week where he was in full silverback glory:
"I don't know anything about computers," he said, looking squarely down his nose at me, "I just run the IT department for the whole corporation."
Maybe not for much longer, y'old fart!
I never shopped at stores where more than $13 was the average price for a domestic CD. That's just ridiculous.
$13 is too little too late. Buh-bye music industry as we know it...
When I was younger music was bought with pocket money -- maybe $6-7. What does it say for the industry that amongst their recent biggest sellers were some albums that except for unfair copyright extensions the material in those albums would have already fallen to the public domain? I'm thinking of that live Led Zeppelin thing...all of the material in it would be public domain now under the original copyright laws of the U.S.
100% correct.
People have to earn to spend.
No one is invulnerable -- even most management people could be axed "here" and hired "over there" given the current state of communication technologies. I have seen articles on moving legal departments overseas -- think of the weird logistics for that too! It's getting ridiculous.
Long-term, no one is thinking long-term! We are living in a culture of looting. Don't try to grow a business into something valuable to society -- how much can you get for it today? Sadly, we have given the truly elite the means to loot and keep looting until we are all up to our necks in economic misery. The higher-ups don't just want their $20 million -- first they want a government subsidy for creating jobs and setting up shop in your area, then they want you to train up your cheaper replacement, and then they want a bonus for laying you off and supposedly saving the company money. Of course, soon enough such a business just flops over belly-up anyway -- no one cares enough to make it a viable business, there's no loyalty. Make your bonuses, screw those under you, spread enough lies to protect your position until you sell your stocks and float away on your golden parachute. If your company was publically traded -- well, those investors surely didn't invest the only money they had, right? They risked something for a gain and lost on the bet, too bad for them.
That's the reality.
Quick aside on education: most factory workers do not need elaborate educations (sorry, but it's true). Most foriegn educated people are educated largely by the state (and unlike ourselves here in the U.S. -- where the loans merely go unpaid due to bankruptcy).
No society can survive where everyone is concerned only for "numero uno" -- you have to think about the impact of your actions on those around you. "We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately." - Ben Franklin