This doesn't have anything to do with THIS goverment. The Democrats wouldn't have been any different*.
Anyway, I agree with you. Patriot Act is going to stay. Governments rarely ever give up newly acquired powers. Already, the FBI, and the Attorney-general, John "what freedom?" Ashcroft, are lobbying in favour of it. Ashcroft recently went on this USA-wide tour lobbying for the Patriot Act (and the future "Patriot Act II"). Not sure how the tour went but I'm sure he had some impact.
Mostly likely, what will happen is that the courts will rule against some minor points here and there. But the main parts of the Patriot Act will stand.
(* Some even support the theory that the Republicans and Democrats are the same party. This becomes evident if you ignore all the lies and rhetoric, and look at both party's actions over the last 50 years or so.)
The reason Congress can pass a bill like the Patriot Act even knowing that it is blatantly unconstitutional is that Congress feeds on public opinion. They do whatever it takes to get votes to stay in office.
Better than the original poster's opinion but I disagree with you as well. The public has very little say in any of this. This is a plutocracy after all. I'll bet 99.999999% of the population had no idea what the Patriot Act was when it was passed. Therefore, the govt is not relying on public opinion at all. In fact, I'll bet 50% of the population still has no idea what the Patriot Act is now.
So, I would say the following instead:
The reason Congress can pass a bill like the Patriot Act even knowing that it is blatantly unconstitutional is that Congress can do whatever the hell it wants--democracy is an illusion. They do whatever it takes to please the plutocrats.
Claiming law is complex is meaningless. I mean, EVERYTHING in life is complicated. Is running a business complex? How about the tax system? How about science? Law is no different than anything else. Theoretical physics is far more complicated than law yet more agree with a given position. Agreement and disagreement have nothing to do with complexity.
Quoting unanimous decisions in court is almost irrelevant too. One would expect unanimous decisions to occur less than anything else simply based on statistics*. Statistically, there is only one way for the unanimous decision to occur (9-0). In contrast, there are many other possibilites for the other choice (8-1,7-2, etc). Therefore, given that humans are not clones of each other with identical thoughts, 9-0 is least likely to occur.
(* This is a similar to reasoning as why the universe is moving from a state of order to disorder. Statistically, if both states are "equal", this (i.e. order->disorder) MUST happen. There is only one ordered state for a given thing while there are millions of disordered states. For example, if you assume a normal glass cup is in an ordered state, and a broken one is a disordered state, then there is only one possible state for order, while there are millions of disordered states (the cup can break in many different ways but can be normal in one way only))
Sivaram Velauthapillai
What you are saying would make sense if the Congresspersons and Senators actually read the Patriot Act. If I remember correctly, more than 90% of the people didn't even read it. It was passed very quickly after it was introduced.
It doesn't matter who is in power when they don't read the law.
But to the original poster's credit, he never said he was a Christian. All he said was that he fears God. It is quite possible that he is a God-fearing non-Christian. In fact, don't evil people fear God yet are evil? I'm not a Christian but doesn't Satan himself fear God?
If you wanna know how it really is, then go look at what the iraqilinux guys are saying for example and read some stuff on their website. after all they are there. most people were not hurt by our military and they all have food.
There is a mistake you are making. The guys at IraqiLinux or whatever are most likely upper class or upper middle class. People who own computers in Iraq right now are certainly not working class (especially given that most Iraqis lost some of their wealth with the breakdown of the banking system). These guys most likely had food even during a tyranny likes Saddam's. You may not realize it but in most of these poor or developing countries, the people you come into contact on the internet are the upper end of the economic class. This class generally does ok even during a war or some catastrophe. Even people you see being interviewed on tv are the upper end. They are the elites. The poor, working class, and lower middle class* do not get the same treatment. I mean, just watch a tv interview where some guy from say Kuwait is being interviewed. Do you think this guy is working class? Most likely not. How about China? How many tv reports have you seen from the interior of the country? Do you know that most of the Chinese you see on tv are from the wealthier areas?
When someone setups a website from say Colombia, that person is doing ok. The vast majority of the population won't waste their money and time on things like websites. All the issues you read from these websites are skewed towards the upper end.
It's same with media from foreign countries. If you go and read print media (this is available online; just check out Google News or something), what you read is totally different from what the general population reads. What you read is generally the English-speaking newspapers which are geared towards foreigners and the elites. The issues the elites deal with are not the same as faced by the general population.
What I say applies to the vast majority of poor or developing countries on earth. When you meet some guy in a chat, or a message board, or in a game, these guys are actually the upper end of the spectrum. You hardly ever meet the "regular" people. Most of the time, these people don't have the money or time for computers/etc. Also, most of the general population does not speak English (assuming English isn't a major official language). The people who DO speak English, are the elites.
So the next time you meet someone from China, or Iraq, or Kuwait, or Bolivia, or Pakistan, or Bulgaria, or Tanzania, or whatever, keep that in mind. Is someone representative of the population, or are they part of the elite clique in these poor countries?
(* Most poorer countries have a TINY middle class (relative to richer countries). So most are either working class, poor, or upper class. This means that the people you meet online are actually have a good job, good house, etc)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
If by terrorists you mean Al-Qaida, most of what you say is not correct. It seems you have fallen for US govt propaganda again.
Everything you say would make sense if any of it were true. Unfortunately for you, most of what you say is misleading. Groups like Al-Qaida have not established themselves in Iraq yet. USA (or the so-called coalition) hasn't faced Al-Qaida in Iraq yet (except for some minor attacks possibly). The vast majority of attacks in Iraq are from remnants of the past government, unemployed disgruntled people, revenge attacks, patriots defending Iraq, and various ethnic attacks. Al-Qaida has done very little in Iraq. Perhaps their only major attack has been against the Shiite cleric around 4(?) months ago.
The terrorists have us in what I liken to the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't tic-tac-toe game...
I agree that Usama bin Laden's goal is to get USA into a paradox, similar to what you allude to. However, Iraq isn't it. Iraq is pretty much a US imperialist mission--has little to do with terrorists, WMD, or anything (Al-Qaida was not present in Iraq in the past). Usama bin Laden's goal, in my opinion, is to force USA to invade Saudi Arabia, and hence causing a holy war. Invading Saudi Arabia will necessarily cause a holy war because once you start bombing Mecca and Medina, that's pretty much a holy war (similar to what would happen is someone started bombing Vatican City).
I rarely ever say this, but you are a pussy.
heh... A God-fearing person swearing--I wonder what God will think of that;)
In related news from Canada, the equivalent of the Patriot Act in Canada is facing some problems as well. After 9/11, something resembling the Patriot Act (although not as damaging), called the Anti-Terrorism Act (Bill C-36), was passed in Canada. Needless to say, it strips all sorts of liberties. Unlike the US Patriot Act, the Canadian one has gotten little criticism throughout the years (this isn't that unusual because liberties aren't a big concern of the populace in Canada.) However, something changed all that last week.
A reporter for Ottawa Citizen was raided and many assets (including computers, notes, etc) were seized by the RCMP. For our neighbours down south, RCMP is kind of like the FBI in USA. The RCMP used powers in received after 9/11 to carry out this raid. There have been some controversy, with media organizations taking the matter to court. This is very important to the media because the recent action is an affront to protection of media sources. My feeling is that the Anti-Terrorism Act will be changed. Unfortunatley, the changes will be cosmetic--governments don't like giving up newly found powers.
As a side note, it is crazy how all this is playing out. If you are from Canada or know a little bit, you would know that there is this controversy over the 'Mahed Arar case'. This raid was related to it. Some guys were dissing me last week right here on Slashdot for claming that someone was rogue or lying (CSIS, RCMP, or the high-level govt official). I guessed that CSIS was rogue but the two posters who, needless to say posted anonymously, thought otherwise (either these people were naive or likely CSIS employees). Given the recent events, I wonder if these guys (assuming they are not a party to the mentioned organizations) have changed their opinions.
the problem with capitalism is that it is so synonymous with freedom.
I COMPLETELY disagree with that view. Freedom and capitalism are not connected at all. If your world view is limited to, say USA then I can see why you would say that. But if you look at the whole world, over a period of time, you will find that freedoms have nothing to do with capitalism.
There are countries that are capitalist yet provide few freedoms. And there are countries that are capitalist but provide a lot of freedoms. An example of the former is Singapore. An example of the latter is USA. Singapore is one of the top capitalist countries (don't take my word for it; check out capitalist press). Singapore is even more capitalist than USA (more freer markets, etc). Yet it is a totalitarian country on par with China.
There are also many other countries with very few freedoms. One just needs to look at the Middle East. Countries like Kuwait are more capitalist than even Europe. And let's not forget past tyrannies like the US-backed government in Chile run by the free market promoter Pinochet.
In any case, capitalism isn't about freedom because it says nothing about freedom. Capitalism is purely an economic system. You can run it in a totalitarian country (like Nazis did) or in a "free" country (like France). The only freedom capitalism requires is private property. Other than that, anything is fair game. The vast majority of capitalists were in favour of slavery (a couple of hundread years ago). How can you say capitalism has anything to do with freedom when it supported slavery? Capitalists also support things like child prostitution, no minimum wages, child labour, and so forth. I hardly consider people slaving away in those situations to be "free".
As far as Ireland is concerned, it is one of the poorer countries compared to the rest of Europe (not by a whole lot but still below what it should be). It also joined the EU. Therefore, I would expect it to grow more than established countries like Germany or France. As I said earlier, I don't support the capitalist notion of continuous growth. This situation is just like how China is growing at something like 10% per year (according to official Chinese sources; but more like 8% in truth) while USA comes nowhere near 10%, even though USA is far more capitalist than China is. The growth in Ireland is not unexpected in my eyes. Similarly, I expect some of the other EU countries to grow too (the poorer ones).
As far as Russia is concerned, a similar story. Russia's GDP declined significantly after the collapse of the USSR. One would expect it to go back to at least 2/3 of the USSR levels. Let me make a bold prediction. Russia will never have the same GDP as USSR (adjusted for Russia alone, and relative to growth of the rest of the world). I'm not supporting the totalitarian system that passed as "Communism" but all I'm saying is that it won't recover.
Let's look at the opposite. If capitalism is supposed to help, why is Mexico not doing well. After signing NAFTA (north american free trade agreement), Mexico became more capitalist. But its growth rate is something like 1% since joining NAFTA. Interestingly, its growth rate was higher before NAFTA (although I don't think NAFTA explains all of it).
as for capitalist decline, it is precisely because people will vote to legally take from one group and give to another, usually themselves.
Maybe you should take some responsibility. I mean, the world is ruled by capitalists! You guys control everything. The monetary system. The work environment. And so forth. The government is even capitalistic. Name one government that is not influenced by capitalists. If capitalism goes down, it's all your fault. Stop blaming others. The citizens of most countries, including so-called democracies, have less control of their government than in recent history. Corporations influence and control all branches of government, including the legal system. That's capitalism!!!
And how does the salary of the average american compare to the salary of the average swede? Those vacation days are not exactly free..
GDP per capita is fairly similar (at least not what you would expect if you think unions are bad and 90% of the country is unionized (I support unions BTW)). I have no idea what wages are but I imagine USA pays probably a little bit more. It's very hard to get wages, and even if you can get the numbers, they are misleading. You have to look at cost of living. Nordic countries tax heavily so wages aren't exactly comparable.
The vacation days may not be free but you fail to realize something. When leftists like me or worker movements ask for vacation days, they are asking for a free day with the same pay. We are not talking about an extra day/week/whatever with lowered pay. Even US corporations would be willing to give extra days without pay.
So, when people talk about longer holidays, they are talking about more days off with similar pay. If you are talking about more days off with lower pay, then there is no point discussing. I mean, $100 for 100 days is the same as $50 for 50 days. Days off mean nothing in that case.
And no one really wants the people who make the products to be injured or killed or not feed thier family, but simply want to make sure that total costs of employment do not go too high.
Clearly you have no idea how working conditions were prior to the 40's in the Western world. And you have no idea how working conditions are like in the vast majority of the poor and developing countries. Think about what you said in that paragraph: no one wants to abuse others & no one wants costs to go high. I'm paraphrasing of course. Now, what happens when those two conflict (which is actually the majority of the time)? One has to take precedence. That is precisely where the problem is.
You may not realize it, or you may not know it, but there are millions of employers (especially in the poor countries) who just don't care about anyone except themselves. Just like how things were in the late 1800's, 1910's, 20's, etc. It costs money to take care of people. It costs money to improve worker standards. It costs money to ensure that injured workers are taken care of. And so forth.
When there is a conflict, profit takes precedence for the capitalists. There is no if's or but's. One just needs to take a look around. Or read what business books say. You don't need to listen to me. Just read a book, or watch a documentary, or visit a poor or developing country to see how it is.
The problem most people get into is putting the firm and worker on opposite sides of the good/evil spectrum. While many people are ideologically opposed to one or the other, it really makes no sense.
It doesn't make sense to a "naive" person like you. But the fact of the matter is, there IS a conflict. Karl Marx pointed out why and it is true. The "better" your job is, the less you feel it. If you had a high end professional job, for example, you won't even know of the conflict. The further down you go, the more real it is.
Let's look at the basics of it. There must NECESSARILY be a conflict because there are competing interests between the worker and the corporation/employer. For instance, an employer wants to PAY THE LEAST and make the employee WORK THE MOST. In contrast, an employee wants to get PAID THE MOST and WORK THE LEAST. These are just two attributes. You can also consider things like safety conditions, environmental aspects, health liabilities, and so forth. In all these things, there will be a similar conflict. Just take a look around. Whenever there is an argument for shortening the work week, who is arguing against it? Who is arguing for it? The positions are taken precisely as I described. The capitalists (owners) don't want a shorter week while the workers want a shorter work. Don't take my word for it. Go and check out newspapers and see the arguments (there is an argument in France these days but it happens in USA all the time too).
This conflict will ALWAYS* exist as long as you have capitalists and workers. You just cannot get away from it. Even if you pay the worker a million dollars, or even if the worker improves output by one million, it will still exist.
(* I said the conflict will always exist but strictly speaking, that is not true. The conflict will cease to exist if the capitalist and the worker are one and the same. This happens, for example, when you are a shopkeeper. You work in the shop but you own it too. Another example would be a law firm. There is very little conflict in a law firm because everyone owns everthing. In general, if the employees own the business there will be no conflict. Generally this is not true and I posit that this cannot be true under capitalism (because of discrepancy in wealth) )
There is nothing more symbolic than the declining and obsolete monarchy giving an elitist knighthood. The monarchy is on its last breath. I don't think it will survive another 50 years.
I think I just became an enemy of the state with my position (Canadians are supposed to be subservient to the Queen).
I completely disagree with your view. Most of what you say is so simplistic that you don't even distinguish key features. I prefer to use the two dimensional Political Compass system which eliminates some of the disagreements over the contemporary left-right system.
You are simply looking at the results without the underlying philsophies. People can support the same position but have different reasons for it.
You also fail to realize that different factions of a particular wing support different politicies. For example, the far-right in USA (eg. tradional conservative, Pat Buchanan) is protectionist, while most of the right wing (including neoconservatives, capitalists, and the so-called Christian Right) are not. In a similar manner, the far-left (eg. anarchism) is anti-state while other elements of the far-left (eg. communism) is pro-state. With your view, a fascist and an anarchist are the same. For instance, both are an anti-war (generally). But the underlying reasons are different. A fascist is against a war because he/she doesn't want to lose their "kind", while an anarchist is against the war because he/she is usually non-interventionist and war is state aggression.
Let me just ask you one thing: are unions generally left-wing or right-wing? With your view, I think you would say they are right wing, when in fact the reality is anything but.
typically by severely regulating immigration, lowring the # of H1Bs, imposing stiff tariffs on imports and regulating work exports.
You are mixing up economics and politics. Things like immigration are political; while tariffs are economic. Note that EVERYTHING is called political when in fact some things are economic decisions. The right wing is anti-immigration, while the left-wing is pro-immigration. The right wing is mostly anti-protectionist (it's against capitalism) while most of the left-wing is protectionist. The only faction of the right wing that is protectionist is far-right (such as traditional conservatives such as Pat Buchanan). Find me someone else on the right that is protectionist.
You must watch CNN too much. Its called "brainwashing".
I don't even get CNN but CNN does less brainwashing than the Fox News you surely follow.
Hehe yeah that has worked well for Russia, Cuba, China... They kept it, uh really low.
Did you even understand my comment? I was talking about institutions. You obviously have no clue. As a side note, Russia has a lower GDP now than when it was USSR. China's is clearly higher but China isn't as capitalist as you imagine (not that it was socialist to begin with).
This is an unfortunate reason why the US is headed for trouble in the 21st century, we are turning socialist, the other to-be superpowers are turning capitalist.
You know how you tell when a system is failing? The hardcore supporters stop supporting it and start denying everything. By claiming that USA is becoming more socialist, when in fact it is becoming more capitalist, you are in complete denial. Free trade, removal of tariffs, privatization, etc mean that USA is becoming more capitalist. I have no idea where you get the idea that it is becoming more socialist. I suppose in your upside down world, USA is tending towards socialism, while I guess Europe is heading towards capitalism.
If USA collapses, it will not be because of socialism, socialists, leftists, liberals, or any of that. It will all be due to capitalism. I can't fathom how you can claim otherwise.
Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about--no offense. Your polarized view (white vs rest) is skewing your thoughts. Let's go over Liberalism & Left Wing Ideology 101 to get things straight.
The left wing is not in favour of minorities per se. They are in favour of egalitarianism. It just so happens that minorities are abused by majorities (the opposite happens infrequently), so they defend minorities more than majorities.
As far as looking out for the country, I agree that right wingers are more prone to do that. Nationalism is far more common on the right than left.
As far as the Democratic Party only looking out for its interests, that's true. The Democratic Party isn't very leftist. Ask anyone in the world (other than Americans). The Democratic Party is very centrist and center-right on economic issues. Compare to true left-leaning or leftist parties like the Labour party in Britain, Liberals or NDP in Canada, or in France or whatever. The Democratic Party is not very leftist. USA does not have a labour party so there truly isn't a left-wing party (other than some minor one like the Green Party).
If you think Democrats only look out for their own "kind", how about Dennis Kuicinich?
If you think leftists are cheering the loss of jobs, find me ONE article where a leftist is doing that (don't cite me some capitalist). The left-wing or the left-leaning press is the one that is against this.
And on top all this, how does all this left-wing cheering the loss of jobs play with the unions? Unions are supposed to be left-wing! So how does this all this work?
On top of all that, how does all this work with the fact that capitalism is what is driving the situation and the left-wing is anti-capitalist.
I suggest that you leave the cave you have been living in and start learning something. The following comment shows you have a long road ahead: as long as white men are suffering, their fan base assumes something's going right
Who is Sammy Smith? Anyone famous? Or did you just make it up? Sounds familiar--maybe from some movie? Sounds like the name of a mob hitman lol:)
I think you meant it as a joke but it actually happened to me. Some people have told me to simplify my name (by truncating it eg. Sivaram-> Ram; all my friends call me Ram so it isn't a big deal). Being unemployed it is an attractive move (I'm desperate after all). However I'm not going to do it. I don't want to change my name just because someone can't pronounce it. That's the name from my heritage and I'm not changing it. If someone has a problem they should learn to pronounce at best as they can (you can't pronounce the name exactly anyway, since English spelling is only an approximation). That's my principle: if someone doesn't want me because of my name, well, I don't want them either. Naive and idiotic perhaps; but very principled:) If you lose your principle, what have you left?
The problems with capitalism have not manifested themselves yet. After all, capitalism is only around 200 years old, and the first 100 were very slow. Capitalists often fail to see how they mortgage the future for the present via debt. Problems with debt won't show up for a while. But it's time now. Many countries (rich & poor, small & large) are running into financial problems. It does not look like the capitalists have a way of getting out of the present situation.
So I'm not saying capitalism has failed yet. It will fail when it collapses--clearly hasn't happened yet. But it's getting there.
As far as USA having the largest economy, USA became prosperous during the 1700's and 1800's. By the late 1800's, USA had a bigger economy than Europe. In the last 100 years, it certainly hasn't done too well. On the surface it looks good: GDP is larger than ever, GDP/capita is high, US dollar is the most popular currency, etc. When you dig deep into it, however, the situation isn't so pretty. USA has more than $3 trillion in debt. It took USA around 150 years to accumulate that. How long is it going to take to pay it off? Another 150 years? US currency isn't even backed by gold anymore (when Nixon removed it to prevent collapse in the 1970's). Everything is based on trust. If people lose trust in the dollar, it will come plummeting down. On top of that, the discrepancy in wealth between the rich and poor is increasing at some crazy pace. As this discrepancy increases, the chance of a class war increases.
In any case, just because USA is at the top doesn't mean anything. I mean, Rome was at the top of the world but came tumbling down when imperialism lost its luster.
Lastly, it is my belief, contrary to capitalist views, that a country/region/economy/whatever cannot grow infinitely forever. Capitalists claim that you can keep increasing the "pie" continuously. I believe it cannot be done. An economy cannot continuously grow forever* yet capitalism requires growth. If you don't grow, you die. That's how capitalism is. If your economy doesn't grow, people won't invest there. If your corporation doesn't grow, shareholders will invest in another company that does grow. And so forth. An undeveloped country, say Mexico, has an easier chance of growing than an already developed country, say Canada. At least that's my view.
So overall, the present state of affairs is deceiving. What I am talking about has nothing to do with USA alone (although my examples are clearly US). I'm talking about capitalism--not USA, although USA is the flag bearer of capitalism. A specter is haunting capitalism--and no, it isn't communism.
(* I'm ignoring population growth. Of course, pop growth will result in growth.)
Since I'm on the left, I take exception to you blaming the left for the problems. If anything, it is you capitalists that are the cause of it. New Deal didn't kill the country, it prevented it from collapsing. And do you really think the New Deal had as much impact as all the other things combined? It's time for you right wingers to stop blaming others and take responsibility for the mess.
If you think socialist ideals are the problem, why does the Republican Party, which is clearly right wing, not do anything. And don't tell me the left is controlling the Republican Party. That is clearly controlled by right wingers.
Just admit it: you capitalists failed. It's your system. If it goes down, it's all your fault. Stop being in denial.
I'm not American but as far as the Constitution is concerned, I do not support static documents. I do not believe people should be following words written long ago. Most liberals feel that way. If you went with the Constitution, slavery will still be practiced (it was against the Constitution to free slaves since they are property), women will still be some inferior beings, blacks and other non-whites will still be inferior, and so on. I know conservatives love to have a world where some white men (the rich ones only) control everyone while the rest are inferiors. Fortunately, the vast majority of people don't support that.
I don't think I'm doing it wrong. But I'm open to making mistakes (haven't done stats in a while). Don't quote me on the percentages. Those were just guesses. You need to look at the probability distribution to get the exact percentages.
Having said that, yes, the top 2% of the population (in terms of intelligence) will probably amount to 0.02% (probably less than that) in terms of the size of the population. This is because the distribution is not linear. The vast majority of the population will be close to the mean (average). Those far away (the top 2% is definitely far away). Check out this link for some info on normal distributions.
I don't think I'm making mistakes but let me know where the mistakes are...
You don't even know who I am or where I am from. You are wrong wtih your assumptions but that's ok.
In any case, I don't think the caste system really applies to these jobs. Wherever it is present, it will generally apply to lower level jobs. I don't think elitists will discriminate when it comes to professional jobs but systematic discrimination will, nevertheless, mean that lower castes will not get the same opportunity to go to school (since they are kept down). So the discrimination for professional jobs is more likely to occur in the educational system.
Read what the original guy said. He was discriminating against MCSE or whatever designation. He was basically implying that the majority of the MCSE are dumb and hence he can claim all of them are bad or something like that. Then he/she extended that to ethnicities. I would hardly say that is acceptable.
As far as critical thinking class, waht about it?
English is pretty much my primary language but anyway... Egalitarianism? Happy with equality then?
Intelligence, according to those who acknowledge the existence of it*, is not uniformly distributed. So the top 2% of the US population will not be 5.6 million. If you assume intelligence is distributed as a bell curve (aka normal distribution, aka Gaussian distribution), there will probably be less than 50,000 Americans in it. I'm just guessing on the number (don't have any probability stuff in front of me); also, no one know if intelligence is normally distributed. Whoever that plays with intelligence is pretty much guessing.
* I personally don't support the notion of intelligence. It is more often than not used to suppress lower classes. It is an elitist tool to control others. It was cooked up by aristocrats in the past to keep the peasents (who were uneducated and hence had lower "intelligence") from getting their jobs. It is also the #1 cause of hostility between ethnic groups (fascists use it to their full advantage).
In Ontario (Canada), you cannot call yourself an engineer without certification from the PEO (Professional Engineers of Ontario). I don't think they enforce this for computer engineers though...
If you are ok with stereotyping and discriminating against others, that's fine. Otherwise, lay off the stereotypes... If you don't see anything wrong with that, and if you are an egalitarian, look into eugenics, racism, and white supremacy. By subscribing to your line of thought, you are being a racist and discriminating against others.
What you said originally and what you are saying now are different. Originally you said you won't hire anyone with certification. Now you are saying that you don't care about certification. They are two different things. I think you mean the latter and you probably didn't mean to say the original...
Basically you are laying out a scenario for a global economic depression triggered by unsustainable US debt levels, which is possible. But then that is immediately followed by a total collapse of many world governments and a switch to fascism in the USA.
I'm not too confident about USA switching to fascism. I think it can happen but I'm not too sure about that. The only reason I say it will happen is because depressions or terrible economic catastrophes result in things like that. Fascism is attractive because you can pin the blame on someone or something. Humans have a tendency to blame others, instead of themselves. And fascism provides an avenue to that. In any case, I'm not too sure about USA switching to fascism. US Constitution is resistant to fascism, Americans are mostly "libertarians", and Americans still have that rebel spirit from the past so I'm not sure how easy it will be for the fascists to take over.
What I AM confident about is the collapse of capitalism. This won't happen because USA alone defaults on its debt. USA is important but it's just one big piece of the pie. So the threat isn't from USA defaulting per se. Instead, it is EVERYONE defaulting. If USA defaults, what I forsee happening is other countries defaulting too. What will happen is that it will set off a chain reaction, where other countries start doing the same thing, namely, defaulting on their own debt. It doesn't have to be USA either. Some other country could set it off. Many countries are facing the debt problem. The poorer countries have it even worse. Some countries pay something like 40% of their income on interest payments! Given that debt grows exponentially (look at the formula for interest payments), how long can these countries survive? All it takes is one country to see off the whole thing.
I agree there most certainly is a financial bottleneck on the horizon for the USA as the baby boomers start retiring in the next few years.
I don't think the baby boomer retirement will be as bad as some claim. USA has fairly high immigration, and its birth rate isn't THAT bad either. I think the countries that will be really hit are some European countries like France, Austria, and others.
Capitalism has survived world wars, pandemics, depressions, recessions, bubbles, scandals, corruption, etc.
Scandals, corruption, etc have nothing to do with capitalism. They can happen under any system (just look at "communism"). Perhaps the best example is monarchy. There were SO MANY scandals plauging monarchs yet they never went down. Capitalism, just like any other system, will correct itself. A scandal is too small compared to the system to bring it down.
Booms & busts, prosperity and recession, are all predicted by Karl Marx and others to be a characteristic of capitalism. They will not collapse capitalism because they are inherent to capitalism. The only way these will impact capitalism is if, as Karl Marx predicted, the discrepancy between the rich and the poor get so large as to cause a class war. As long as the middle class is large (as is the case in USA, and others) there won't be a class war. But if the middle class erodes (which almost certainly means that most will drop to lower class than gain and become upper class) then you may see a class war. This is happening in Argentina. Argentina had a big middle class (I think the biggest in South America) but it is being eroded. People are getting poorer and poorer. Countries will potential class war problems are Argentina, Venezuela, South Africa, and so forth.
Things like depressions MAY collapse capitalism. USA, believe it or not, nearly became a "socialist" state during the 1930's. The only thing blocking it was FDR and some of his policies with socialist ideals. Germany at that time, switched to Nazism. Although Nazism is closer to capitalism than socialism, it was still further away from capitalism than before the rise of Nazism. In some sense, capitalism in Germany "collapse
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This doesn't have anything to do with THIS goverment. The Democrats wouldn't have been any different*.
Anyway, I agree with you. Patriot Act is going to stay. Governments rarely ever give up newly acquired powers. Already, the FBI, and the Attorney-general, John "what freedom?" Ashcroft, are lobbying in favour of it. Ashcroft recently went on this USA-wide tour lobbying for the Patriot Act (and the future "Patriot Act II"). Not sure how the tour went but I'm sure he had some impact.
Mostly likely, what will happen is that the courts will rule against some minor points here and there. But the main parts of the Patriot Act will stand.
(* Some even support the theory that the Republicans and Democrats are the same party. This becomes evident if you ignore all the lies and rhetoric, and look at both party's actions over the last 50 years or so.)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The reason Congress can pass a bill like the Patriot Act even knowing that it is blatantly unconstitutional is that Congress feeds on public opinion. They do whatever it takes to get votes to stay in office.
Better than the original poster's opinion but I disagree with you as well. The public has very little say in any of this. This is a plutocracy after all. I'll bet 99.999999% of the population had no idea what the Patriot Act was when it was passed. Therefore, the govt is not relying on public opinion at all. In fact, I'll bet 50% of the population still has no idea what the Patriot Act is now.
So, I would say the following instead:
The reason Congress can pass a bill like the Patriot Act even knowing that it is blatantly unconstitutional is that Congress can do whatever the hell it wants--democracy is an illusion. They do whatever it takes to please the plutocrats.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Claiming law is complex is meaningless. I mean, EVERYTHING in life is complicated. Is running a business complex? How about the tax system? How about science? Law is no different than anything else. Theoretical physics is far more complicated than law yet more agree with a given position. Agreement and disagreement have nothing to do with complexity.
Quoting unanimous decisions in court is almost irrelevant too. One would expect unanimous decisions to occur less than anything else simply based on statistics*. Statistically, there is only one way for the unanimous decision to occur (9-0). In contrast, there are many other possibilites for the other choice (8-1,7-2, etc). Therefore, given that humans are not clones of each other with identical thoughts, 9-0 is least likely to occur.
(* This is a similar to reasoning as why the universe is moving from a state of order to disorder. Statistically, if both states are "equal", this (i.e. order->disorder) MUST happen. There is only one ordered state for a given thing while there are millions of disordered states. For example, if you assume a normal glass cup is in an ordered state, and a broken one is a disordered state, then there is only one possible state for order, while there are millions of disordered states (the cup can break in many different ways but can be normal in one way only)) Sivaram Velauthapillai
What you are saying would make sense if the Congresspersons and Senators actually read the Patriot Act. If I remember correctly, more than 90% of the people didn't even read it. It was passed very quickly after it was introduced.
It doesn't matter who is in power when they don't read the law.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Good rebuttal.. good job... :)
But to the original poster's credit, he never said he was a Christian. All he said was that he fears God. It is quite possible that he is a God-fearing non-Christian. In fact, don't evil people fear God yet are evil? I'm not a Christian but doesn't Satan himself fear God?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
If you wanna know how it really is, then go look at what the iraqilinux guys are saying for example and read some stuff on their website. after all they are there. most people were not hurt by our military and they all have food.
There is a mistake you are making. The guys at IraqiLinux or whatever are most likely upper class or upper middle class. People who own computers in Iraq right now are certainly not working class (especially given that most Iraqis lost some of their wealth with the breakdown of the banking system). These guys most likely had food even during a tyranny likes Saddam's. You may not realize it but in most of these poor or developing countries, the people you come into contact on the internet are the upper end of the economic class. This class generally does ok even during a war or some catastrophe. Even people you see being interviewed on tv are the upper end. They are the elites. The poor, working class, and lower middle class* do not get the same treatment. I mean, just watch a tv interview where some guy from say Kuwait is being interviewed. Do you think this guy is working class? Most likely not. How about China? How many tv reports have you seen from the interior of the country? Do you know that most of the Chinese you see on tv are from the wealthier areas?
When someone setups a website from say Colombia, that person is doing ok. The vast majority of the population won't waste their money and time on things like websites. All the issues you read from these websites are skewed towards the upper end.
It's same with media from foreign countries. If you go and read print media (this is available online; just check out Google News or something), what you read is totally different from what the general population reads. What you read is generally the English-speaking newspapers which are geared towards foreigners and the elites. The issues the elites deal with are not the same as faced by the general population.
What I say applies to the vast majority of poor or developing countries on earth. When you meet some guy in a chat, or a message board, or in a game, these guys are actually the upper end of the spectrum. You hardly ever meet the "regular" people. Most of the time, these people don't have the money or time for computers/etc. Also, most of the general population does not speak English (assuming English isn't a major official language). The people who DO speak English, are the elites.
So the next time you meet someone from China, or Iraq, or Kuwait, or Bolivia, or Pakistan, or Bulgaria, or Tanzania, or whatever, keep that in mind. Is someone representative of the population, or are they part of the elite clique in these poor countries?
(* Most poorer countries have a TINY middle class (relative to richer countries). So most are either working class, poor, or upper class. This means that the people you meet online are actually have a good job, good house, etc) Sivaram Velauthapillai
If by terrorists you mean Al-Qaida, most of what you say is not correct. It seems you have fallen for US govt propaganda again.
;)
Everything you say would make sense if any of it were true. Unfortunately for you, most of what you say is misleading. Groups like Al-Qaida have not established themselves in Iraq yet. USA (or the so-called coalition) hasn't faced Al-Qaida in Iraq yet (except for some minor attacks possibly). The vast majority of attacks in Iraq are from remnants of the past government, unemployed disgruntled people, revenge attacks, patriots defending Iraq, and various ethnic attacks. Al-Qaida has done very little in Iraq. Perhaps their only major attack has been against the Shiite cleric around 4(?) months ago.
The terrorists have us in what I liken to the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't tic-tac-toe game...
I agree that Usama bin Laden's goal is to get USA into a paradox, similar to what you allude to. However, Iraq isn't it. Iraq is pretty much a US imperialist mission--has little to do with terrorists, WMD, or anything (Al-Qaida was not present in Iraq in the past). Usama bin Laden's goal, in my opinion, is to force USA to invade Saudi Arabia, and hence causing a holy war. Invading Saudi Arabia will necessarily cause a holy war because once you start bombing Mecca and Medina, that's pretty much a holy war (similar to what would happen is someone started bombing Vatican City).
I rarely ever say this, but you are a pussy.
heh... A God-fearing person swearing--I wonder what God will think of that
Sivaram Velauthapillai
In related news from Canada, the equivalent of the Patriot Act in Canada is facing some problems as well. After 9/11, something resembling the Patriot Act (although not as damaging), called the Anti-Terrorism Act (Bill C-36), was passed in Canada. Needless to say, it strips all sorts of liberties. Unlike the US Patriot Act, the Canadian one has gotten little criticism throughout the years (this isn't that unusual because liberties aren't a big concern of the populace in Canada.) However, something changed all that last week.
A reporter for Ottawa Citizen was raided and many assets (including computers, notes, etc) were seized by the RCMP. For our neighbours down south, RCMP is kind of like the FBI in USA. The RCMP used powers in received after 9/11 to carry out this raid. There have been some controversy, with media organizations taking the matter to court. This is very important to the media because the recent action is an affront to protection of media sources. My feeling is that the Anti-Terrorism Act will be changed. Unfortunatley, the changes will be cosmetic--governments don't like giving up newly found powers.
As a side note, it is crazy how all this is playing out. If you are from Canada or know a little bit, you would know that there is this controversy over the 'Mahed Arar case'. This raid was related to it. Some guys were dissing me last week right here on Slashdot for claming that someone was rogue or lying (CSIS, RCMP, or the high-level govt official). I guessed that CSIS was rogue but the two posters who, needless to say posted anonymously, thought otherwise (either these people were naive or likely CSIS employees). Given the recent events, I wonder if these guys (assuming they are not a party to the mentioned organizations) have changed their opinions.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
the problem with capitalism is that it is so synonymous with freedom.
I COMPLETELY disagree with that view. Freedom and capitalism are not connected at all. If your world view is limited to, say USA then I can see why you would say that. But if you look at the whole world, over a period of time, you will find that freedoms have nothing to do with capitalism.
There are countries that are capitalist yet provide few freedoms. And there are countries that are capitalist but provide a lot of freedoms. An example of the former is Singapore. An example of the latter is USA. Singapore is one of the top capitalist countries (don't take my word for it; check out capitalist press). Singapore is even more capitalist than USA (more freer markets, etc). Yet it is a totalitarian country on par with China.
There are also many other countries with very few freedoms. One just needs to look at the Middle East. Countries like Kuwait are more capitalist than even Europe. And let's not forget past tyrannies like the US-backed government in Chile run by the free market promoter Pinochet.
In any case, capitalism isn't about freedom because it says nothing about freedom. Capitalism is purely an economic system. You can run it in a totalitarian country (like Nazis did) or in a "free" country (like France). The only freedom capitalism requires is private property. Other than that, anything is fair game. The vast majority of capitalists were in favour of slavery (a couple of hundread years ago). How can you say capitalism has anything to do with freedom when it supported slavery? Capitalists also support things like child prostitution, no minimum wages, child labour, and so forth. I hardly consider people slaving away in those situations to be "free".
As far as Ireland is concerned, it is one of the poorer countries compared to the rest of Europe (not by a whole lot but still below what it should be). It also joined the EU. Therefore, I would expect it to grow more than established countries like Germany or France. As I said earlier, I don't support the capitalist notion of continuous growth. This situation is just like how China is growing at something like 10% per year (according to official Chinese sources; but more like 8% in truth) while USA comes nowhere near 10%, even though USA is far more capitalist than China is. The growth in Ireland is not unexpected in my eyes. Similarly, I expect some of the other EU countries to grow too (the poorer ones).
As far as Russia is concerned, a similar story. Russia's GDP declined significantly after the collapse of the USSR. One would expect it to go back to at least 2/3 of the USSR levels. Let me make a bold prediction. Russia will never have the same GDP as USSR (adjusted for Russia alone, and relative to growth of the rest of the world). I'm not supporting the totalitarian system that passed as "Communism" but all I'm saying is that it won't recover.
Let's look at the opposite. If capitalism is supposed to help, why is Mexico not doing well. After signing NAFTA (north american free trade agreement), Mexico became more capitalist. But its growth rate is something like 1% since joining NAFTA. Interestingly, its growth rate was higher before NAFTA (although I don't think NAFTA explains all of it).
as for capitalist decline, it is precisely because people will vote to legally take from one group and give to another, usually themselves.
Maybe you should take some responsibility. I mean, the world is ruled by capitalists! You guys control everything. The monetary system. The work environment. And so forth. The government is even capitalistic. Name one government that is not influenced by capitalists. If capitalism goes down, it's all your fault. Stop blaming others. The citizens of most countries, including so-called democracies, have less control of their government than in recent history. Corporations influence and control all branches of government, including the legal system. That's capitalism!!!
Sivaram Velauthapillai
And how does the salary of the average american compare to the salary of the average swede? Those vacation days are not exactly free ..
GDP per capita is fairly similar (at least not what you would expect if you think unions are bad and 90% of the country is unionized (I support unions BTW)). I have no idea what wages are but I imagine USA pays probably a little bit more. It's very hard to get wages, and even if you can get the numbers, they are misleading. You have to look at cost of living. Nordic countries tax heavily so wages aren't exactly comparable.
The vacation days may not be free but you fail to realize something. When leftists like me or worker movements ask for vacation days, they are asking for a free day with the same pay. We are not talking about an extra day/week/whatever with lowered pay. Even US corporations would be willing to give extra days without pay.
So, when people talk about longer holidays, they are talking about more days off with similar pay. If you are talking about more days off with lower pay, then there is no point discussing. I mean, $100 for 100 days is the same as $50 for 50 days. Days off mean nothing in that case.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
(NOT QUOTED IN ORDER)
And no one really wants the people who make the products to be injured or killed or not feed thier family, but simply want to make sure that total costs of employment do not go too high.
Clearly you have no idea how working conditions were prior to the 40's in the Western world. And you have no idea how working conditions are like in the vast majority of the poor and developing countries. Think about what you said in that paragraph: no one wants to abuse others & no one wants costs to go high. I'm paraphrasing of course. Now, what happens when those two conflict (which is actually the majority of the time)? One has to take precedence. That is precisely where the problem is.
You may not realize it, or you may not know it, but there are millions of employers (especially in the poor countries) who just don't care about anyone except themselves. Just like how things were in the late 1800's, 1910's, 20's, etc. It costs money to take care of people. It costs money to improve worker standards. It costs money to ensure that injured workers are taken care of. And so forth.
When there is a conflict, profit takes precedence for the capitalists. There is no if's or but's. One just needs to take a look around. Or read what business books say. You don't need to listen to me. Just read a book, or watch a documentary, or visit a poor or developing country to see how it is.
The problem most people get into is putting the firm and worker on opposite sides of the good/evil spectrum. While many people are ideologically opposed to one or the other, it really makes no sense.
It doesn't make sense to a "naive" person like you. But the fact of the matter is, there IS a conflict. Karl Marx pointed out why and it is true. The "better" your job is, the less you feel it. If you had a high end professional job, for example, you won't even know of the conflict. The further down you go, the more real it is.
Let's look at the basics of it. There must NECESSARILY be a conflict because there are competing interests between the worker and the corporation/employer. For instance, an employer wants to PAY THE LEAST and make the employee WORK THE MOST. In contrast, an employee wants to get PAID THE MOST and WORK THE LEAST. These are just two attributes. You can also consider things like safety conditions, environmental aspects, health liabilities, and so forth. In all these things, there will be a similar conflict. Just take a look around. Whenever there is an argument for shortening the work week, who is arguing against it? Who is arguing for it? The positions are taken precisely as I described. The capitalists (owners) don't want a shorter week while the workers want a shorter work. Don't take my word for it. Go and check out newspapers and see the arguments (there is an argument in France these days but it happens in USA all the time too).
This conflict will ALWAYS* exist as long as you have capitalists and workers. You just cannot get away from it. Even if you pay the worker a million dollars, or even if the worker improves output by one million, it will still exist.
(* I said the conflict will always exist but strictly speaking, that is not true. The conflict will cease to exist if the capitalist and the worker are one and the same. This happens, for example, when you are a shopkeeper. You work in the shop but you own it too. Another example would be a law firm. There is very little conflict in a law firm because everyone owns everthing. In general, if the employees own the business there will be no conflict. Generally this is not true and I posit that this cannot be true under capitalism (because of discrepancy in wealth) )
Sivaram Velauthapillai
There is nothing more symbolic than the declining and obsolete monarchy giving an elitist knighthood. The monarchy is on its last breath. I don't think it will survive another 50 years.
I think I just became an enemy of the state with my position (Canadians are supposed to be subservient to the Queen).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I completely disagree with your view. Most of what you say is so simplistic that you don't even distinguish key features. I prefer to use the two dimensional Political Compass system which eliminates some of the disagreements over the contemporary left-right system.
You are simply looking at the results without the underlying philsophies. People can support the same position but have different reasons for it. You also fail to realize that different factions of a particular wing support different politicies. For example, the far-right in USA (eg. tradional conservative, Pat Buchanan) is protectionist, while most of the right wing (including neoconservatives, capitalists, and the so-called Christian Right) are not. In a similar manner, the far-left (eg. anarchism) is anti-state while other elements of the far-left (eg. communism) is pro-state. With your view, a fascist and an anarchist are the same. For instance, both are an anti-war (generally). But the underlying reasons are different. A fascist is against a war because he/she doesn't want to lose their "kind", while an anarchist is against the war because he/she is usually non-interventionist and war is state aggression.
Let me just ask you one thing: are unions generally left-wing or right-wing? With your view, I think you would say they are right wing, when in fact the reality is anything but.
typically by severely regulating immigration, lowring the # of H1Bs, imposing stiff tariffs on imports and regulating work exports.
You are mixing up economics and politics. Things like immigration are political; while tariffs are economic. Note that EVERYTHING is called political when in fact some things are economic decisions. The right wing is anti-immigration, while the left-wing is pro-immigration. The right wing is mostly anti-protectionist (it's against capitalism) while most of the left-wing is protectionist. The only faction of the right wing that is protectionist is far-right (such as traditional conservatives such as Pat Buchanan). Find me someone else on the right that is protectionist.
You must watch CNN too much. Its called "brainwashing".
I don't even get CNN but CNN does less brainwashing than the Fox News you surely follow.
Hehe yeah that has worked well for Russia, Cuba, China... They kept it, uh really low.
Did you even understand my comment? I was talking about institutions. You obviously have no clue. As a side note, Russia has a lower GDP now than when it was USSR. China's is clearly higher but China isn't as capitalist as you imagine (not that it was socialist to begin with).
This is an unfortunate reason why the US is headed for trouble in the 21st century, we are turning socialist, the other to-be superpowers are turning capitalist.
You know how you tell when a system is failing? The hardcore supporters stop supporting it and start denying everything. By claiming that USA is becoming more socialist, when in fact it is becoming more capitalist, you are in complete denial. Free trade, removal of tariffs, privatization, etc mean that USA is becoming more capitalist. I have no idea where you get the idea that it is becoming more socialist. I suppose in your upside down world, USA is tending towards socialism, while I guess Europe is heading towards capitalism.
If USA collapses, it will not be because of socialism, socialists, leftists, liberals, or any of that. It will all be due to capitalism. I can't fathom how you can claim otherwise.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about--no offense. Your polarized view (white vs rest) is skewing your thoughts. Let's go over Liberalism & Left Wing Ideology 101 to get things straight.
The left wing is not in favour of minorities per se. They are in favour of egalitarianism. It just so happens that minorities are abused by majorities (the opposite happens infrequently), so they defend minorities more than majorities.
As far as looking out for the country, I agree that right wingers are more prone to do that. Nationalism is far more common on the right than left.
As far as the Democratic Party only looking out for its interests, that's true. The Democratic Party isn't very leftist. Ask anyone in the world (other than Americans). The Democratic Party is very centrist and center-right on economic issues. Compare to true left-leaning or leftist parties like the Labour party in Britain, Liberals or NDP in Canada, or in France or whatever. The Democratic Party is not very leftist. USA does not have a labour party so there truly isn't a left-wing party (other than some minor one like the Green Party).
If you think Democrats only look out for their own "kind", how about Dennis Kuicinich?
If you think leftists are cheering the loss of jobs, find me ONE article where a leftist is doing that (don't cite me some capitalist). The left-wing or the left-leaning press is the one that is against this.
And on top all this, how does all this left-wing cheering the loss of jobs play with the unions? Unions are supposed to be left-wing! So how does this all this work?
On top of all that, how does all this work with the fact that capitalism is what is driving the situation and the left-wing is anti-capitalist.
I suggest that you leave the cave you have been living in and start learning something. The following comment shows you have a long road ahead:
as long as white men are suffering, their fan base assumes something's going right
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Who is Sammy Smith? Anyone famous? Or did you just make it up? Sounds familiar--maybe from some movie? Sounds like the name of a mob hitman lol :)
:) If you lose your principle, what have you left?
I think you meant it as a joke but it actually happened to me. Some people have told me to simplify my name (by truncating it eg. Sivaram-> Ram; all my friends call me Ram so it isn't a big deal). Being unemployed it is an attractive move (I'm desperate after all). However I'm not going to do it. I don't want to change my name just because someone can't pronounce it. That's the name from my heritage and I'm not changing it. If someone has a problem they should learn to pronounce at best as they can (you can't pronounce the name exactly anyway, since English spelling is only an approximation). That's my principle: if someone doesn't want me because of my name, well, I don't want them either. Naive and idiotic perhaps; but very principled
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The problems with capitalism have not manifested themselves yet. After all, capitalism is only around 200 years old, and the first 100 were very slow. Capitalists often fail to see how they mortgage the future for the present via debt. Problems with debt won't show up for a while. But it's time now. Many countries (rich & poor, small & large) are running into financial problems. It does not look like the capitalists have a way of getting out of the present situation.
So I'm not saying capitalism has failed yet. It will fail when it collapses--clearly hasn't happened yet. But it's getting there.
As far as USA having the largest economy, USA became prosperous during the 1700's and 1800's. By the late 1800's, USA had a bigger economy than Europe. In the last 100 years, it certainly hasn't done too well. On the surface it looks good: GDP is larger than ever, GDP/capita is high, US dollar is the most popular currency, etc. When you dig deep into it, however, the situation isn't so pretty. USA has more than $3 trillion in debt. It took USA around 150 years to accumulate that. How long is it going to take to pay it off? Another 150 years? US currency isn't even backed by gold anymore (when Nixon removed it to prevent collapse in the 1970's). Everything is based on trust. If people lose trust in the dollar, it will come plummeting down. On top of that, the discrepancy in wealth between the rich and poor is increasing at some crazy pace. As this discrepancy increases, the chance of a class war increases.
In any case, just because USA is at the top doesn't mean anything. I mean, Rome was at the top of the world but came tumbling down when imperialism lost its luster.
Lastly, it is my belief, contrary to capitalist views, that a country/region/economy/whatever cannot grow infinitely forever. Capitalists claim that you can keep increasing the "pie" continuously. I believe it cannot be done. An economy cannot continuously grow forever* yet capitalism requires growth. If you don't grow, you die. That's how capitalism is. If your economy doesn't grow, people won't invest there. If your corporation doesn't grow, shareholders will invest in another company that does grow. And so forth. An undeveloped country, say Mexico, has an easier chance of growing than an already developed country, say Canada. At least that's my view.
So overall, the present state of affairs is deceiving. What I am talking about has nothing to do with USA alone (although my examples are clearly US). I'm talking about capitalism--not USA, although USA is the flag bearer of capitalism. A specter is haunting capitalism--and no, it isn't communism.
(* I'm ignoring population growth. Of course, pop growth will result in growth.)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Since I'm on the left, I take exception to you blaming the left for the problems. If anything, it is you capitalists that are the cause of it. New Deal didn't kill the country, it prevented it from collapsing. And do you really think the New Deal had as much impact as all the other things combined? It's time for you right wingers to stop blaming others and take responsibility for the mess.
If you think socialist ideals are the problem, why does the Republican Party, which is clearly right wing, not do anything. And don't tell me the left is controlling the Republican Party. That is clearly controlled by right wingers.
Just admit it: you capitalists failed. It's your system. If it goes down, it's all your fault. Stop being in denial.
I'm not American but as far as the Constitution is concerned, I do not support static documents. I do not believe people should be following words written long ago. Most liberals feel that way. If you went with the Constitution, slavery will still be practiced (it was against the Constitution to free slaves since they are property), women will still be some inferior beings, blacks and other non-whites will still be inferior, and so on. I know conservatives love to have a world where some white men (the rich ones only) control everyone while the rest are inferiors. Fortunately, the vast majority of people don't support that.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I don't think I'm doing it wrong. But I'm open to making mistakes (haven't done stats in a while). Don't quote me on the percentages. Those were just guesses. You need to look at the probability distribution to get the exact percentages.
Having said that, yes, the top 2% of the population (in terms of intelligence) will probably amount to 0.02% (probably less than that) in terms of the size of the population. This is because the distribution is not linear. The vast majority of the population will be close to the mean (average). Those far away (the top 2% is definitely far away). Check out this link for some info on normal distributions.
I don't think I'm making mistakes but let me know where the mistakes are...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You don't even know who I am or where I am from. You are wrong wtih your assumptions but that's ok.
In any case, I don't think the caste system really applies to these jobs. Wherever it is present, it will generally apply to lower level jobs. I don't think elitists will discriminate when it comes to professional jobs but systematic discrimination will, nevertheless, mean that lower castes will not get the same opportunity to go to school (since they are kept down). So the discrimination for professional jobs is more likely to occur in the educational system.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Read what the original guy said. He was discriminating against MCSE or whatever designation. He was basically implying that the majority of the MCSE are dumb and hence he can claim all of them are bad or something like that. Then he/she extended that to ethnicities. I would hardly say that is acceptable.
As far as critical thinking class, waht about it?
English is pretty much my primary language but anyway... Egalitarianism? Happy with equality then?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Intelligence, according to those who acknowledge the existence of it*, is not uniformly distributed. So the top 2% of the US population will not be 5.6 million. If you assume intelligence is distributed as a bell curve (aka normal distribution, aka Gaussian distribution), there will probably be less than 50,000 Americans in it. I'm just guessing on the number (don't have any probability stuff in front of me); also, no one know if intelligence is normally distributed. Whoever that plays with intelligence is pretty much guessing.
* I personally don't support the notion of intelligence. It is more often than not used to suppress lower classes. It is an elitist tool to control others. It was cooked up by aristocrats in the past to keep the peasents (who were uneducated and hence had lower "intelligence") from getting their jobs. It is also the #1 cause of hostility between ethnic groups (fascists use it to their full advantage).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
In Ontario (Canada), you cannot call yourself an engineer without certification from the PEO (Professional Engineers of Ontario). I don't think they enforce this for computer engineers though...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
If you are ok with stereotyping and discriminating against others, that's fine. Otherwise, lay off the stereotypes... If you don't see anything wrong with that, and if you are an egalitarian, look into eugenics, racism, and white supremacy. By subscribing to your line of thought, you are being a racist and discriminating against others.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
What you said originally and what you are saying now are different. Originally you said you won't hire anyone with certification. Now you are saying that you don't care about certification. They are two different things. I think you mean the latter and you probably didn't mean to say the original...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Basically you are laying out a scenario for a global economic depression triggered by unsustainable US debt levels, which is possible. But then that is immediately followed by a total collapse of many world governments and a switch to fascism in the USA.
I'm not too confident about USA switching to fascism. I think it can happen but I'm not too sure about that. The only reason I say it will happen is because depressions or terrible economic catastrophes result in things like that. Fascism is attractive because you can pin the blame on someone or something. Humans have a tendency to blame others, instead of themselves. And fascism provides an avenue to that. In any case, I'm not too sure about USA switching to fascism. US Constitution is resistant to fascism, Americans are mostly "libertarians", and Americans still have that rebel spirit from the past so I'm not sure how easy it will be for the fascists to take over.
What I AM confident about is the collapse of capitalism. This won't happen because USA alone defaults on its debt. USA is important but it's just one big piece of the pie. So the threat isn't from USA defaulting per se. Instead, it is EVERYONE defaulting. If USA defaults, what I forsee happening is other countries defaulting too. What will happen is that it will set off a chain reaction, where other countries start doing the same thing, namely, defaulting on their own debt. It doesn't have to be USA either. Some other country could set it off. Many countries are facing the debt problem. The poorer countries have it even worse. Some countries pay something like 40% of their income on interest payments! Given that debt grows exponentially (look at the formula for interest payments), how long can these countries survive? All it takes is one country to see off the whole thing.
I agree there most certainly is a financial bottleneck on the horizon for the USA as the baby boomers start retiring in the next few years.
I don't think the baby boomer retirement will be as bad as some claim. USA has fairly high immigration, and its birth rate isn't THAT bad either. I think the countries that will be really hit are some European countries like France, Austria, and others.
Capitalism has survived world wars, pandemics, depressions, recessions, bubbles, scandals, corruption, etc.
Scandals, corruption, etc have nothing to do with capitalism. They can happen under any system (just look at "communism"). Perhaps the best example is monarchy. There were SO MANY scandals plauging monarchs yet they never went down. Capitalism, just like any other system, will correct itself. A scandal is too small compared to the system to bring it down.
Booms & busts, prosperity and recession, are all predicted by Karl Marx and others to be a characteristic of capitalism. They will not collapse capitalism because they are inherent to capitalism. The only way these will impact capitalism is if, as Karl Marx predicted, the discrepancy between the rich and the poor get so large as to cause a class war. As long as the middle class is large (as is the case in USA, and others) there won't be a class war. But if the middle class erodes (which almost certainly means that most will drop to lower class than gain and become upper class) then you may see a class war. This is happening in Argentina. Argentina had a big middle class (I think the biggest in South America) but it is being eroded. People are getting poorer and poorer. Countries will potential class war problems are Argentina, Venezuela, South Africa, and so forth.
Things like depressions MAY collapse capitalism. USA, believe it or not, nearly became a "socialist" state during the 1930's. The only thing blocking it was FDR and some of his policies with socialist ideals. Germany at that time, switched to Nazism. Although Nazism is closer to capitalism than socialism, it was still further away from capitalism than before the rise of Nazism. In some sense, capitalism in Germany "collapse