They say "real journalism" but in my experience, the "real journalists" never really seem to get most things accurate. Every time I've been aware of the events behind a particular story (in some cases, being involved in the story) the "journalists" always seem to miss important details or flat out have some details wrong (for example, a plane crash one of my classmates was involved in, it was reported that all passengers died when in fact there was a survivor.)
The so called "bloggosphere" tends to be more accurate in my opinion.
Just how much of that can go into equipment and infrastructure when they are also contracting with Akamai? Akamai is setup to scale your operations globally, not just within the US. Just as an example, the NBA uses Akamai to stream their live feeds of their games globally in real-time (and apparently the NBA is rather popular outside of the US, something even I wasn't aware of til recently.) That's for video - this is health care website should mostly be just text and there's no reason to use it outside of the US.
No, there isn't. Apparently they are using Akamai services on a permanent basis, which means that most of their infrastructure is already taken care of. This money is being spent primarily on the web development.
Really that sounds like any crowded city. I personally haven't experienced anything like that myself, and I've lived in the US all of my life.
A friend of mine from England tells me that in Leeds he's seen people fighting whereas that doesn't really happen here. He also mentioned that it can be pretty rough there, as one time he had somebody just randomly punch him in the face. My guess is that it could have been a skinhead wearing a hoodie or something, as he's ethnically Indian and I've heard that is the kind of thing they'll do.
Well let's define affordable for a second. To the government, anything is affordable. Really, if there was a limit they didn't like, all they'd have to do is take it out of a budget that belongs to something else, say education, and then complain that their education budget isn't big enough, so then they raise taxes because think of the children. Now, name one corporation that has pockets as deep as the US government. Name one corporation who, when they don't have enough money, can just change the laws so that more money magically appears.
Indeed there are many examples of wasteful projects in large corporations - nobody will deny that. However the government manages to do waste on a big scale of its own, and when it does so, it doesn't really suffer any consequences. When a corporation has a failed big IT project, heads roll. When the government has a failed IT project, there's maybe a sigh at the worst.
It could indeed be that the tests are flawed. So they're showing that Americans aren't particularly good at math, yet by and large we succeed well beyond everybody else in most respects. Especially given that we design most of the technology that the rest of the world uses (even manufacture most of it as well - though assembly is another matter,) which in itself necessitates mathematics as well as physics. So who are the ones ultimately doing poorly in all of this?
You're assuming that they could just increase the price of everything they sell by 1.1% and everything will be happy go merry.
Not so fast. Odds are you've never run a grocery store before. Some stuff you sell has to be sold at a loss - like bread for example. Bread is such a loser when it comes to money, but if you don't carry it you'll probably lose a bunch of customers. Since customers expect to pay jack shit for bread, pretty much everybody sells it at a loss. Same exact thing for milk. So raise the price on other stuff then, right? Wrong. You also get people who just come for those other things, and they'll remember when you sell an apple for a dollar and your competitor sells it for 90 cents. These little things add up when you shop for two weeks of groceries in a day, and your customers notice the difference that they spent at your place vs somebody else down the street.
Walmart does so well because they've mastered this game. They operate at almost the slimmest profit margins of any business period, and doing so isn't easy. You have to have all of the details sorted out exceptionally well or else a tiny profit margin can quickly turn into a huge loss at the drop of a hat. And by drop of a hat, I mean the slightest changes in consumer purchasing habits can render entire shelves of goods worthless, so they have to be anticipated exceptionally well if you are going to do what wal-mart does. Likewise, that also means being able to anticipate new consumer demands before the consumers even start to buy them. If you want an example of this, look at how wal-mart anticipated a sudden spike in demand for American flags after 9/11 (and no, it didn't involve knowing about 9/11 before it happened.)
Not only that but they are more willing to hire people that are rude assfucks, or just plain don't give a shit about customer service.
These people won't get a job anywhere else. Just not going to happen.
Does that stop me from shopping there? No, because I don't go there for that, I go there because I want a tomato and a box of cereal at discount price. Wal-mart knows this, which is why they hire them. If it weren't for wal-mart, they'd likely have no job at all.
1) Getting paid isn't a civil right. You have no right to money for nothing or or chicks for free. Somebody has to be willing to give these things to you. If they give it to you for nothing, that is charity. If they give it to you in exchange for work, that is a job.
2) That is completely false. Anybody can start a business in a truly capitalist system. For example, taking your own initiative to knock on doors to mow lawns in exchange for money is running your own business.
Go read up on how the company called Two Men and a Truck was started. Under your reasoning, this isn't possible, yet it happens all the time anyways.
Contrary to popular belief, good CEO's aren't a dime a dozen. All too often I run into people who think they could be a CEO, meanwhile they don't know the first thing about accounting, couldn't manage their way out of a wet paper bag, and are so bad with their personal finances that they pay the minimum on their credit card. Yes, some are overpaid (Steve Ballmer comes to mind with as crappy of a job that he does) but the vast majority are not. If you want to attract a good one, you better be prepared to pay more. The board of directors of a company aren't just going to give their money away to somebody who isn't worth their pay (which is why Steve Ballmer is on his way out.)
Also, telling a company to lower its profit margins is every bit as rude (to all stakeholders) as telling a rank and file employee to ask for a lower wage, and it's just as likely to happen.
Personally, I can't afford a Lamborghini, so I don't buy one. Naturally since I can't afford to live in NYC, I don't do so.
There are plenty of other places to live where doing so would stand to increase your quality of life. Not because the place itself is better (it may very well not be,) but because your cost of living goes way down, which means it is far easier to live within your means. Sure, Houston isn't New York, but if that night life is your thing, or many other (insert city living required to do activity x) is your thing, you can do all of that there, and it'll cost you a lot less. You may end up finding that you get paid less a little less, but your purchasing power has increased which makes it worthwhile (you'd have to earn 2.5 times in NY what you'd have to earn in Austin to make an equivalent living.)
Besides, do you really want to live in a city where the mayor decides what you can't eat? That's New York. I remember when I was in the Army, life there was all about limits (what thou shall not do) yet they weren't allowed to tell you what to eat.
Akamai is really nice when you need more bandwidth, but I think the way they implemented this is going to cause compute resources to be the ultimate bottleneck.
Somebody would have to correct me here if I'm wrong, as I'm a network guy not a web guy (and yes, there's quite a difference.)
Not really. It has to do with saving money. In this regard, the government is operating the same way that private companies already operate. They have a project that needs to get done, and it makes less sense to hire a ton of workers to get a website built only to have them be mostly useless later, so they outsource the job to a firm that specializes in just that. Sure they might have a few people that will need to maintain it on a permanent basis, but not to build the thing from scratch within a relatively short period of time.
Again, already common practice within the industry.
This is just one of those things that the government really doesn't do all that well. Private organizations live and die by their profit margin, so they make damn sure shit works and it works affordably. The government on the other hand basically has bottomless pockets, and does stuff like where Virginia spent millions on Cisco equipment that it didn't even need. The media blamed Cisco sales people, but the actual investigation found that nobody at Cisco made any design specifications or recommendations - they were just asked for specific models of equipment by the government.
The culprit here is actually a government official named Gianato, whose excuse was "I didn't want to buy something that will be obsolete in 10 years" and was later promoted. Cisco, to their credit, actually bought back most of the equipment, probably at a loss too, and they didn't even do anything wrong.
The government failed to do what other private organizations already do - perform a use and need study to determine what their actual needs were, rather than having somebody with practically no knowledge of networking designing a specification, rather he has the job that he has because he's in some politician's cabinet, aka their "good ol' boy" network.
Having the government do it all in-house, by the way, would probably be even worse in the case of TFA, as they obviously had no idea what the hell they were doing (for example, why is it that there was nobody within the government monitoring the project as it was being developed? Yet another industry standard practice for IT projects.)
I remember when I was 5, I used to make paper balloons and stick as many crickets as I could find in them, and then I would set it on fire just to watch the hoppy action.
That surplus had nothing to do with either Clinton or Gingrich (even though both like to take credit for it.) That surplus was entirely the result of excess tax revenue resulting from a bubbled economy. There never was a true surplus that could have lasted, as soon as the bubble popped it was going to become a deficit no matter what. The stupid thing is that both of them added more entitlements while we had that surplus under the foolish assumption that it would last forever. Well guess what, now we have an even bigger deficit than we had before. That deficit that we have today can be partially attributed to both Clinton and Gingrich.
Which ultra rich? Would that be Warren Buffet? Bill Gates? George Sorros? Carlos Slim? These guys all vote democrat you know. In fact slightly more than half of the so called 1% vote democrat.
Way I read it is this: Congress passed a budget, president then says "I don't like this budget. Give me what I want or government shuts down." So, government shuts down.
Your budget has no allowance for heating or cooling.
Of course it does, the cost of electricity covers that.
Your cable internet is half of the lowest rate where I live.
Heh, I'm on a 50/10 tier at a discounted rate (normal price is actually $60.) Getting discounted rates is easy, you just have to have more than one social security number in your household.
Your auto insurance is ludicrously low by standards around here.
Phoenix, Arizona (or rather, somewhere close to it.) It sits almost right smack dab in the middle of average on the national cost of living index. That's largely where car insurance costs come into play. That and the fact that I don't get into any accidents or have any tickets.
You haven't mentioned health insurance,
AHCCCS.
or homeowner's insurance.
It's included in the mortgage.
Houses are very cheap and the climate is very temperate.
That depends on who you ask. Personally I am quite comfortable cycling mid afternoon in 115 degree weather. Really, it doesn't bother me one bit, and I'll be out for up to 2 hours at a time, doing a minimum of 12 miles on hilly terrain (I'm near Red Mountain) with my farthest distance being 40 miles (it was 110 that day.)
Now most people I talk to raise a stink about that kind of weather, but again it doesn't really bother me. Could have something to do with the fact that when you're cycling, you have ample wind.
And houses here aren't cheap. They aren't expensive, but they aren't cheap either. Where do you live, I'm guessing New York or something right? Even if not, something probably much higher than the average cost of living. Well, let me let you in on a little secret: Most of the world isn't as expensive as those places. And really, choosing to live there is part of your problem if you live paycheck to paycheck. Go live somewhere less stressful. That doesn't mean you have to live in the boonies (I certainly don't,) though you may have to add 20 minutes to your drive to reach your GoGo club. To me that isn't a big deal at all - the cost savings is well worth it.
Somebody else on slashdot told me that I don't live to human standards - what a joke. 90% of the world lives at lower standards than I do. Much, much lower. You choose to live in the city with a highrise apartment on the other hand...well...you gotta pay. But I don't want to, and I don't need to.
You are relying on being generally healthy, which is a potential disaster.
Hah, that's a laugh. I have stage 4 CKD.
You don't talk about savings, so it's unlikely you can replace your stuff all that easily, and you aren't preparing for retirement.
Not true, I am saving.
It really wouldn't take much to wipe you out. You're all right where you are as long as nothing bad happens. If somebody crashes into your car and you're injured, you're SOL.
Actually no, I'm not. In fact, I've recently had a few disasters happen. This last summer was really a bad one in particular. My dad died, and social security gave me the finger. Yeah, this amazing program that's supposed to benefit us all so well that my dad paid at least $100,000 into over his lifetime paid us a big fat zero for his death benefit. He put all of that money into it and not a red cent came back. That didn't stop the funeral from costing nothing though (which by the way, in the old days funerals did cost nothing, until the last 100 years where it essentially became illegal for you to care for a dead body without a license.) It would be much better if we simply kept that money instead of sticking it in that black hole called social security.
Then to make matters worse, I was diagnosed stage 4 CKD last summer, and believe me that is hell, and is the primary reason I am not working full time
I pay $23 a month for unlimited everything myself. T-mobile shared plan with 15% veterans discount. I brought my own device (Nexus 4) to their network.
Well I know this is an anecdote, but according to government standards, I am poor. Not just poor, but rather well below the poverty line into what some would call extreme poverty. Yet I don't live paycheck to paycheck.
But really you don't have to be rich to not live paycheck to paycheck. Living paycheck to paycheck simply means that you're living beyond your means. In other words, your chosen level of wealth exceeds that which you can afford with your money.
My monthly expenses are this: $23 a month for my phone, $32 for cable internet, $8 for netflix, $40 for car insurance, $80 for water/trash bill, $100 for electricity, $100 for food, $100 for "rent" (or rather, my contribution to the mortgage.) Yet with a $700/monthish income (it varies - some months I don't bring in any money) I live rather comfortably. I could easily bring in more if I wanted to, but I really don't need to. Or more specifically, I have other priorities at the moment.
In spite of that, I'm hardly what you'd call poor. I live in a nice house, I drive a nice car, I have a nice gaming PC, I have a nice home theater. These things, not money, are what make wealth. Money is either paper sitting in a drawer or a number on a ferrous spinning platter, and by itself does nothing. Also, you know 90% of the world lives off of less money than I do?
Nonetheless, I am part of a statistic that sits on the spreadsheet of activists, politicians, and government bureaus that says "America has a poor problem that clearly needs fixing." But I'm here to tell you that no, it doesn't. The only thing that needs fixing is how most people spend their money (see the bottom comments.)
My phone bill in the 90s was 40 bucks or so. Now my wifes cel phone bill is 80+.
Ouch. You really ought to shop around. I paid $1200 up front for four Nexus 4 phones so that there would be no carrier subsidy when I switched to t-mobile. As a result I am saving almost $2,000 over what would otherwise be a two year contract period. I get all of the minutes, text, and data I want, and t-mobile also allows you to block any kind of overages at all for free (e.g. those fee for text services, international calling) so my bill is always the same every month. Granted it stops being 4g after 500mb, I rarely exceed that anyways, so it doesn't bother me.
Some people buy into the FUD that t-mobile has no coverage, but it works just fine for me. I see no advantage to paying more to another carrier. Then again, some people also complain about wal-mart, but I like shopping there. Yep, I'm probably one of those people you see in the 'people of wal-mart' pictures or something, because I ride there on my bike (mainly for the exercise - I tend not to drive anywhere that is within 6 miles of my house, even in 110 degree weather which doesn't bother me) and walk it around in the store with me. Not because I can't afford to drive to Whole Foods, but because I don't want to. But it does save money nonetheless, and it is certainly healthier to do.
Most people have no wealth at all. Don't believe me? how much is your fancy iphone, computer and TV going to be worth in 5 years, if they still work.
That's not true. My most recent TV I bought (I actually have 5 TV's in my house, all larger than 40") I paid $1,000 for two years ago. It still works fine. Before I got that one, I used a 47" TV that I bought 5 years ago, still works fine, and I still have. I didn't need a new one, rather I wanted one. So I got one. My oldest TV is about 10 years old, and it still works. It's a big huge rear projection tube of some sort with a 55" screen, and I really want to get rid of it because it's so damn big and obnoxious compared to what I have now, but it's certainly not useless. It's been about 2 years since I last added an upgrade to my gaming PC, and I don't have any need to add anything new (it still runs the latest games just fine.) No signs of impending failure, no signs of wear. My sound system I built 2 years ago, still w
This isn't necessarily a problem. The biggest thing the luddites overlook is that wealth can increase even while wages decrease. Too many people put too much emphasis on money and not on actual purchasing power or wealth. Worse is they flat out confuse money and wealth, and generally think of them to be one and the same (they aren't at all the same.)
The whole point of having machines do labor is that now a person no longer has to do it. This means the job can be done cheaper. The end result is a less expensive product, which may even be of superior quality (depends on the good of course.) Remember that wealth isn't money. Material goods (including those made by machines) are wealth.
So now that we don't have phone operators anymore, your phone bill can be cheaper (I don't know about anybody else, but my cell phone with unlimited long distance to anywhere in the US/Canada now costs me less than my landline cost back in the 90's and earlier. I pay t-mobile $116 a month for 5 lines, coming to about $23 per line. Would be a lot cheaper if my state didn't add 18% to the bill in taxes.)
In the early 1900's, a "computer" was a person. Yes, they actually had highly skilled jobs where people had to crunch numbers given to them and make sure that they gave accurate results. Nowadays when somebody says "computer", we think of something else entirely. If you really think technology kills jobs, then you should probably start petitioning congress to ban computers.
One of the most life-critical items is following this trend as well: Food today is already cheaper than it has ever been, and world hunger is at an all time low. Moreover, the poor are more wealthy now than they've ever been (again, material goods.) Recall in the 80's how you had to be one rich fatcat to own a 45" tv, a car phone, and a personal computer. Now today my 47" TV is a lot better than those and pretty much anybody can afford one, I have a cell phone which is better than a car phone in every way and even costs less, and personal computers are so cheap they are practically given away. You can throw me numbers all you want about how we have a declining middle class because some percent income figure on a spreadsheet a point lower today, but that does absolutely not a damn thing to indicate how much wealth the person actually has. My income could drop $100 (whether by inflation or whatever) yet my purchasing power can still increase if the things I buy are becoming cheaper anyways. However these spreadsheets still say "you're poorer" when the reality is the opposite.
Personally I'd prefer making $10 an hour and having my lunch cost $4 rather than making $20 an hour and having my lunch cost $20. I think that if more people understood this, we would probably be better off because we could start eliminating things that contribute to the later scenario (e.g. tariffs) without all of the political drama. (See http://economics.about.com/cs/taxpolicy/a/tariffs.htm for how tariffs make the stuff you buy needlessly cost more, and in fact cause higher unemployment.)
Slashdot Mirror
They say "real journalism" but in my experience, the "real journalists" never really seem to get most things accurate. Every time I've been aware of the events behind a particular story (in some cases, being involved in the story) the "journalists" always seem to miss important details or flat out have some details wrong (for example, a plane crash one of my classmates was involved in, it was reported that all passengers died when in fact there was a survivor.)
The so called "bloggosphere" tends to be more accurate in my opinion.
Just how much of that can go into equipment and infrastructure when they are also contracting with Akamai? Akamai is setup to scale your operations globally, not just within the US. Just as an example, the NBA uses Akamai to stream their live feeds of their games globally in real-time (and apparently the NBA is rather popular outside of the US, something even I wasn't aware of til recently.) That's for video - this is health care website should mostly be just text and there's no reason to use it outside of the US.
No, there isn't. Apparently they are using Akamai services on a permanent basis, which means that most of their infrastructure is already taken care of. This money is being spent primarily on the web development.
Err well no. Money paid to employees isn't taxed - it's a business expense and it is deducted from what is otherwise taxable income.
Really that sounds like any crowded city. I personally haven't experienced anything like that myself, and I've lived in the US all of my life.
A friend of mine from England tells me that in Leeds he's seen people fighting whereas that doesn't really happen here. He also mentioned that it can be pretty rough there, as one time he had somebody just randomly punch him in the face. My guess is that it could have been a skinhead wearing a hoodie or something, as he's ethnically Indian and I've heard that is the kind of thing they'll do.
This one was aimed at Microsoft, but HP certainly deserves it too.
http://2eq9hztv2wc1k6odx469m9znq0.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2012-11-06-at-10.53.18-AM.png
Well let's define affordable for a second. To the government, anything is affordable. Really, if there was a limit they didn't like, all they'd have to do is take it out of a budget that belongs to something else, say education, and then complain that their education budget isn't big enough, so then they raise taxes because think of the children. Now, name one corporation that has pockets as deep as the US government. Name one corporation who, when they don't have enough money, can just change the laws so that more money magically appears.
Indeed there are many examples of wasteful projects in large corporations - nobody will deny that. However the government manages to do waste on a big scale of its own, and when it does so, it doesn't really suffer any consequences. When a corporation has a failed big IT project, heads roll. When the government has a failed IT project, there's maybe a sigh at the worst.
It could indeed be that the tests are flawed. So they're showing that Americans aren't particularly good at math, yet by and large we succeed well beyond everybody else in most respects. Especially given that we design most of the technology that the rest of the world uses (even manufacture most of it as well - though assembly is another matter,) which in itself necessitates mathematics as well as physics. So who are the ones ultimately doing poorly in all of this?
You're assuming that they could just increase the price of everything they sell by 1.1% and everything will be happy go merry.
Not so fast. Odds are you've never run a grocery store before. Some stuff you sell has to be sold at a loss - like bread for example. Bread is such a loser when it comes to money, but if you don't carry it you'll probably lose a bunch of customers. Since customers expect to pay jack shit for bread, pretty much everybody sells it at a loss. Same exact thing for milk. So raise the price on other stuff then, right? Wrong. You also get people who just come for those other things, and they'll remember when you sell an apple for a dollar and your competitor sells it for 90 cents. These little things add up when you shop for two weeks of groceries in a day, and your customers notice the difference that they spent at your place vs somebody else down the street.
Walmart does so well because they've mastered this game. They operate at almost the slimmest profit margins of any business period, and doing so isn't easy. You have to have all of the details sorted out exceptionally well or else a tiny profit margin can quickly turn into a huge loss at the drop of a hat. And by drop of a hat, I mean the slightest changes in consumer purchasing habits can render entire shelves of goods worthless, so they have to be anticipated exceptionally well if you are going to do what wal-mart does. Likewise, that also means being able to anticipate new consumer demands before the consumers even start to buy them. If you want an example of this, look at how wal-mart anticipated a sudden spike in demand for American flags after 9/11 (and no, it didn't involve knowing about 9/11 before it happened.)
Regular walmart shopper here:
Not only that but they are more willing to hire people that are rude assfucks, or just plain don't give a shit about customer service.
These people won't get a job anywhere else. Just not going to happen.
Does that stop me from shopping there? No, because I don't go there for that, I go there because I want a tomato and a box of cereal at discount price. Wal-mart knows this, which is why they hire them. If it weren't for wal-mart, they'd likely have no job at all.
There are a few things wrong with this:
1) Getting paid isn't a civil right. You have no right to money for nothing or or chicks for free. Somebody has to be willing to give these things to you. If they give it to you for nothing, that is charity. If they give it to you in exchange for work, that is a job.
2) That is completely false. Anybody can start a business in a truly capitalist system. For example, taking your own initiative to knock on doors to mow lawns in exchange for money is running your own business.
Go read up on how the company called Two Men and a Truck was started. Under your reasoning, this isn't possible, yet it happens all the time anyways.
Contrary to popular belief, good CEO's aren't a dime a dozen. All too often I run into people who think they could be a CEO, meanwhile they don't know the first thing about accounting, couldn't manage their way out of a wet paper bag, and are so bad with their personal finances that they pay the minimum on their credit card. Yes, some are overpaid (Steve Ballmer comes to mind with as crappy of a job that he does) but the vast majority are not. If you want to attract a good one, you better be prepared to pay more. The board of directors of a company aren't just going to give their money away to somebody who isn't worth their pay (which is why Steve Ballmer is on his way out.)
Also, telling a company to lower its profit margins is every bit as rude (to all stakeholders) as telling a rank and file employee to ask for a lower wage, and it's just as likely to happen.
Personally, I can't afford a Lamborghini, so I don't buy one. Naturally since I can't afford to live in NYC, I don't do so.
There are plenty of other places to live where doing so would stand to increase your quality of life. Not because the place itself is better (it may very well not be,) but because your cost of living goes way down, which means it is far easier to live within your means. Sure, Houston isn't New York, but if that night life is your thing, or many other (insert city living required to do activity x) is your thing, you can do all of that there, and it'll cost you a lot less. You may end up finding that you get paid less a little less, but your purchasing power has increased which makes it worthwhile (you'd have to earn 2.5 times in NY what you'd have to earn in Austin to make an equivalent living.)
Besides, do you really want to live in a city where the mayor decides what you can't eat? That's New York. I remember when I was in the Army, life there was all about limits (what thou shall not do) yet they weren't allowed to tell you what to eat.
Akamai is really nice when you need more bandwidth, but I think the way they implemented this is going to cause compute resources to be the ultimate bottleneck.
Somebody would have to correct me here if I'm wrong, as I'm a network guy not a web guy (and yes, there's quite a difference.)
Not really. It has to do with saving money. In this regard, the government is operating the same way that private companies already operate. They have a project that needs to get done, and it makes less sense to hire a ton of workers to get a website built only to have them be mostly useless later, so they outsource the job to a firm that specializes in just that. Sure they might have a few people that will need to maintain it on a permanent basis, but not to build the thing from scratch within a relatively short period of time.
Again, already common practice within the industry.
This is just one of those things that the government really doesn't do all that well. Private organizations live and die by their profit margin, so they make damn sure shit works and it works affordably. The government on the other hand basically has bottomless pockets, and does stuff like where Virginia spent millions on Cisco equipment that it didn't even need. The media blamed Cisco sales people, but the actual investigation found that nobody at Cisco made any design specifications or recommendations - they were just asked for specific models of equipment by the government.
The culprit here is actually a government official named Gianato, whose excuse was "I didn't want to buy something that will be obsolete in 10 years" and was later promoted. Cisco, to their credit, actually bought back most of the equipment, probably at a loss too, and they didn't even do anything wrong.
The government failed to do what other private organizations already do - perform a use and need study to determine what their actual needs were, rather than having somebody with practically no knowledge of networking designing a specification, rather he has the job that he has because he's in some politician's cabinet, aka their "good ol' boy" network.
Having the government do it all in-house, by the way, would probably be even worse in the case of TFA, as they obviously had no idea what the hell they were doing (for example, why is it that there was nobody within the government monitoring the project as it was being developed? Yet another industry standard practice for IT projects.)
I remember when I was 5, I used to make paper balloons and stick as many crickets as I could find in them, and then I would set it on fire just to watch the hoppy action.
Yes, because taxing an income that has already been taxed is such a wonderful idea.
That surplus had nothing to do with either Clinton or Gingrich (even though both like to take credit for it.) That surplus was entirely the result of excess tax revenue resulting from a bubbled economy. There never was a true surplus that could have lasted, as soon as the bubble popped it was going to become a deficit no matter what. The stupid thing is that both of them added more entitlements while we had that surplus under the foolish assumption that it would last forever. Well guess what, now we have an even bigger deficit than we had before. That deficit that we have today can be partially attributed to both Clinton and Gingrich.
Me neither. Not a damn thing has changed for me. In fact if nobody told me NASA's website was down, I wouldn't have even noticed.
Which ultra rich? Would that be Warren Buffet? Bill Gates? George Sorros? Carlos Slim? These guys all vote democrat you know. In fact slightly more than half of the so called 1% vote democrat.
Way I read it is this: Congress passed a budget, president then says "I don't like this budget. Give me what I want or government shuts down." So, government shuts down.
Your budget has no allowance for heating or cooling.
Of course it does, the cost of electricity covers that.
Your cable internet is half of the lowest rate where I live.
Heh, I'm on a 50/10 tier at a discounted rate (normal price is actually $60.) Getting discounted rates is easy, you just have to have more than one social security number in your household.
Your auto insurance is ludicrously low by standards around here.
Phoenix, Arizona (or rather, somewhere close to it.) It sits almost right smack dab in the middle of average on the national cost of living index. That's largely where car insurance costs come into play. That and the fact that I don't get into any accidents or have any tickets.
You haven't mentioned health insurance,
AHCCCS.
or homeowner's insurance.
It's included in the mortgage.
Houses are very cheap and the climate is very temperate.
That depends on who you ask. Personally I am quite comfortable cycling mid afternoon in 115 degree weather. Really, it doesn't bother me one bit, and I'll be out for up to 2 hours at a time, doing a minimum of 12 miles on hilly terrain (I'm near Red Mountain) with my farthest distance being 40 miles (it was 110 that day.)
Now most people I talk to raise a stink about that kind of weather, but again it doesn't really bother me. Could have something to do with the fact that when you're cycling, you have ample wind.
And houses here aren't cheap. They aren't expensive, but they aren't cheap either. Where do you live, I'm guessing New York or something right? Even if not, something probably much higher than the average cost of living. Well, let me let you in on a little secret: Most of the world isn't as expensive as those places. And really, choosing to live there is part of your problem if you live paycheck to paycheck. Go live somewhere less stressful. That doesn't mean you have to live in the boonies (I certainly don't,) though you may have to add 20 minutes to your drive to reach your GoGo club. To me that isn't a big deal at all - the cost savings is well worth it.
Somebody else on slashdot told me that I don't live to human standards - what a joke. 90% of the world lives at lower standards than I do. Much, much lower. You choose to live in the city with a highrise apartment on the other hand...well...you gotta pay. But I don't want to, and I don't need to.
You are relying on being generally healthy, which is a potential disaster.
Hah, that's a laugh. I have stage 4 CKD.
You don't talk about savings, so it's unlikely you can replace your stuff all that easily, and you aren't preparing for retirement.
Not true, I am saving.
It really wouldn't take much to wipe you out. You're all right where you are as long as nothing bad happens. If somebody crashes into your car and you're injured, you're SOL.
Actually no, I'm not. In fact, I've recently had a few disasters happen. This last summer was really a bad one in particular. My dad died, and social security gave me the finger. Yeah, this amazing program that's supposed to benefit us all so well that my dad paid at least $100,000 into over his lifetime paid us a big fat zero for his death benefit. He put all of that money into it and not a red cent came back. That didn't stop the funeral from costing nothing though (which by the way, in the old days funerals did cost nothing, until the last 100 years where it essentially became illegal for you to care for a dead body without a license.) It would be much better if we simply kept that money instead of sticking it in that black hole called social security.
Then to make matters worse, I was diagnosed stage 4 CKD last summer, and believe me that is hell, and is the primary reason I am not working full time
I pay $23 a month for unlimited everything myself. T-mobile shared plan with 15% veterans discount. I brought my own device (Nexus 4) to their network.
Well I know this is an anecdote, but according to government standards, I am poor. Not just poor, but rather well below the poverty line into what some would call extreme poverty. Yet I don't live paycheck to paycheck.
But really you don't have to be rich to not live paycheck to paycheck. Living paycheck to paycheck simply means that you're living beyond your means. In other words, your chosen level of wealth exceeds that which you can afford with your money.
My monthly expenses are this: $23 a month for my phone, $32 for cable internet, $8 for netflix, $40 for car insurance, $80 for water/trash bill, $100 for electricity, $100 for food, $100 for "rent" (or rather, my contribution to the mortgage.) Yet with a $700/monthish income (it varies - some months I don't bring in any money) I live rather comfortably. I could easily bring in more if I wanted to, but I really don't need to. Or more specifically, I have other priorities at the moment.
In spite of that, I'm hardly what you'd call poor. I live in a nice house, I drive a nice car, I have a nice gaming PC, I have a nice home theater. These things, not money, are what make wealth. Money is either paper sitting in a drawer or a number on a ferrous spinning platter, and by itself does nothing. Also, you know 90% of the world lives off of less money than I do?
Nonetheless, I am part of a statistic that sits on the spreadsheet of activists, politicians, and government bureaus that says "America has a poor problem that clearly needs fixing." But I'm here to tell you that no, it doesn't. The only thing that needs fixing is how most people spend their money (see the bottom comments.)
My phone bill in the 90s was 40 bucks or so. Now my wifes cel phone bill is 80+.
Ouch. You really ought to shop around. I paid $1200 up front for four Nexus 4 phones so that there would be no carrier subsidy when I switched to t-mobile. As a result I am saving almost $2,000 over what would otherwise be a two year contract period. I get all of the minutes, text, and data I want, and t-mobile also allows you to block any kind of overages at all for free (e.g. those fee for text services, international calling) so my bill is always the same every month. Granted it stops being 4g after 500mb, I rarely exceed that anyways, so it doesn't bother me.
Some people buy into the FUD that t-mobile has no coverage, but it works just fine for me. I see no advantage to paying more to another carrier. Then again, some people also complain about wal-mart, but I like shopping there. Yep, I'm probably one of those people you see in the 'people of wal-mart' pictures or something, because I ride there on my bike (mainly for the exercise - I tend not to drive anywhere that is within 6 miles of my house, even in 110 degree weather which doesn't bother me) and walk it around in the store with me. Not because I can't afford to drive to Whole Foods, but because I don't want to. But it does save money nonetheless, and it is certainly healthier to do.
Most people have no wealth at all. Don't believe me? how much is your fancy iphone, computer and TV going to be worth in 5 years, if they still work.
That's not true. My most recent TV I bought (I actually have 5 TV's in my house, all larger than 40") I paid $1,000 for two years ago. It still works fine. Before I got that one, I used a 47" TV that I bought 5 years ago, still works fine, and I still have. I didn't need a new one, rather I wanted one. So I got one. My oldest TV is about 10 years old, and it still works. It's a big huge rear projection tube of some sort with a 55" screen, and I really want to get rid of it because it's so damn big and obnoxious compared to what I have now, but it's certainly not useless. It's been about 2 years since I last added an upgrade to my gaming PC, and I don't have any need to add anything new (it still runs the latest games just fine.) No signs of impending failure, no signs of wear. My sound system I built 2 years ago, still w
This isn't necessarily a problem. The biggest thing the luddites overlook is that wealth can increase even while wages decrease. Too many people put too much emphasis on money and not on actual purchasing power or wealth. Worse is they flat out confuse money and wealth, and generally think of them to be one and the same (they aren't at all the same.)
The whole point of having machines do labor is that now a person no longer has to do it. This means the job can be done cheaper. The end result is a less expensive product, which may even be of superior quality (depends on the good of course.) Remember that wealth isn't money. Material goods (including those made by machines) are wealth.
So now that we don't have phone operators anymore, your phone bill can be cheaper (I don't know about anybody else, but my cell phone with unlimited long distance to anywhere in the US/Canada now costs me less than my landline cost back in the 90's and earlier. I pay t-mobile $116 a month for 5 lines, coming to about $23 per line. Would be a lot cheaper if my state didn't add 18% to the bill in taxes.)
In the early 1900's, a "computer" was a person. Yes, they actually had highly skilled jobs where people had to crunch numbers given to them and make sure that they gave accurate results. Nowadays when somebody says "computer", we think of something else entirely. If you really think technology kills jobs, then you should probably start petitioning congress to ban computers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_computer
One of the most life-critical items is following this trend as well: Food today is already cheaper than it has ever been, and world hunger is at an all time low. Moreover, the poor are more wealthy now than they've ever been (again, material goods.) Recall in the 80's how you had to be one rich fatcat to own a 45" tv, a car phone, and a personal computer. Now today my 47" TV is a lot better than those and pretty much anybody can afford one, I have a cell phone which is better than a car phone in every way and even costs less, and personal computers are so cheap they are practically given away. You can throw me numbers all you want about how we have a declining middle class because some percent income figure on a spreadsheet a point lower today, but that does absolutely not a damn thing to indicate how much wealth the person actually has. My income could drop $100 (whether by inflation or whatever) yet my purchasing power can still increase if the things I buy are becoming cheaper anyways. However these spreadsheets still say "you're poorer" when the reality is the opposite.
Personally I'd prefer making $10 an hour and having my lunch cost $4 rather than making $20 an hour and having my lunch cost $20. I think that if more people understood this, we would probably be better off because we could start eliminating things that contribute to the later scenario (e.g. tariffs) without all of the political drama. (See http://economics.about.com/cs/taxpolicy/a/tariffs.htm for how tariffs make the stuff you buy needlessly cost more, and in fact cause higher unemployment.)