IMF is a last resort. Usually it is used by capitalists to block the collapse of a country. Collapse of a country is a threat to capitalism. Therefore, capitalists spend a ton of money, including billions of their own money, to prop up failing regimes with no hope whatsoever.
In any case, the IMF, like the UN, is followed by the superpowers when it suits them. When it doesn't, no one cares--just like the UN. Poor failing countries break the rules all the time (especially when harsh conditions are placed which no one reasonally expects to be followed without resorting to a totalitarian state).
If any company did anything that the workers were not happy with, they would get sued to kingdom come.
Maybe in your fantasy land... The reality is that the vast majority of lower classes do not and cannot sue. They just can't afford it. Professionals and the higher classes always think the courts can be used but they never realize that the lawyers are too expensive for the typical blue collar worker. So, unless you have some bogus frivolour lawsuit with potential of millions in damage (most worker issues are nothing like this), tough luck finding a lawyer.
Sorry about the interupption folks... I know you guys are in this big debate (although it seems to have veered off into an unrelated tipping wage issue)... You guys need to adjust everything you do with PPP (purchasing power parity). It makes NO SENSE to compare RAW DOLLARS!!! Cost of living is vastly different and must be taken into account. For example, someone living in Canada and making $10,000 is living in poverty. Rent alone is $1,000/month in Toronto. You can't even afford to pay rent with $10,000/year. In contrast, if you make $10,000/year in Afghanistan, you are ultra rich.
What China is doing is not illegal. It's capitalism, that's all. China is playing The Great Capitalist Game as it should. Instead of following US "advice" and ending up as a lapdog like Argentina, it is attempting to stay independent.
When Argentina artificially pegged their currency to the US dollar, all the economists in USA were cheerleading. But when China pegs it (albeit in a different manner), it is bad?
Unfortunately for you, humans actually have a heart, have compassion, and care about others. Obviously, you don't have those traits. Are you sure you are a human?
Unions cannot fight modern corporations. The present day corporations are way too powerful. Also, the worker issues we are talking about is happening on a global scale. Unions are localized entities that have zero power outside a country's border.
The only people who claim that China or even USSR are socialist are the capitalists. Obviously China is nowhere near socialism. It never was and never will be. If China was really socialist, you wouldn't even be talking about unions. There would be unions controlling everything be default (or at least syndicates).
Eventually that money works its way into the hands of the workers, wether it's the company president getting themselves a new yacht built, or a politician buying a new jet.;-)
I don't know if you are being serious or not (with your sarcastic face)... Assuming you are serious, with your reasoning, kings hoardings resources helped the peasents prosper. Unfortunately, that was never the case. Something that you fail to realize is that those that hoard wealth also hoard power. With these powers, the wealthy elites can pretty much keep the lower classes as quasi-slaves.
Of course it is. They're going (quickly) through the same steps that took us through the industrial revolution. Right now they're at the foothills of it, getting the short shrift.
hmmm... industrial revolution and "globalization" have nothing in common.
Did a voice in the marketplace even make the slightest difference to getting companies to implement these policies? Or, was it in fact mob rule (Unions) that did it?
Obviously you don't know history. It was worker movements that were responsible for the benefits that western societies accrued. The marketplace plays no role in these things. If anything, capitalist markets are the ones that worsen the social conditions. For instance, capitalists are against minimum wage. They are also against taxing the wealthy and the corporations at a higher rate (ie. progressive tax system). They are also against worker safety regulations. Obviously you have a skewed understanding of history. I suggest that you lay off your Ayn Rand and Adam Smit and study real history for a while...
I'm not sure what we are arguing about when it comes to USSR and fascist Germany. I agree with what you say. Yes, USSR produced sub-standard "consumer" products. Yes, its weapons and advanced sciences (like space travel, nuclear fission, etc) were top of the line. I am also not denying that USSR got "foreign currency" by trading (as you point out, its currency was not tradeable to other countries). My point is that its ascent was due to "Communism" and not international trade. Just like how I still claim that Germany rose due to its fascism. I think you are seriously overvaluing the impact of international trade to these countries.
The reason is clear, isolated from market forces, how could Soviet factories get market messages to make high-quality manufactured products for consumers and businesses? On the other hand, if you angered the military with a sub-standard product, you would end up in Siberia. So the weapons were top-notch. And the Russians knew good Vodka. Automobiles, on the other hand, they didn't do too well at.
I can see a capitalist like you arguing that prices are an indicator. But I don't think it played the role you are saying. I don't think advanced sciences (eg. nuclear weapons, space travel, ICBMs, sumbarines, jets, wireless communications, etc) were good because of the threat of being sent to Siberia. I am sure you would have been punished for other things too. I mean, if you built the statue improperly, or if a telephone went down, you probably faced the same treatment from these totalitarians.
US$ devaluation
I believe the Dollar will encounter some mild devaluation over the next 12 months, but not as much as you might think. Increasing returns on the stock market will return Dollars from overseas back to the US as the economy strengthens, reducing the oversupply of foreign Dollars.
I am not talking about a mild devaluation. I'm talking major. The type that leads to crises (like the Mexican peso crisis, or the Asian Flu crisis). USA overconsumes. I don't think USA can remain competitive without devaluing its currency.
You are right, if the Dollar massively devalues, that is the end of all world economics, because the Dollar is the reserve currency of the planet. Every central and private bank will fail.
I don't know if the devalue of US$ will lead to the collapse of capitalism. It may be possible for capitalism to survive. I was saying something else. I was predicting the collapse of capitalism when countries start defaulting on their debt. So when USA, or significant other countries, start defaulting on their debt, I forsee the collapse of capitalism.
US Debt
The total debt has been tracking Federal receipts very well for a long period of time, with debt 2-3 times yearly receipts [findarticles.com].
The income tracks the debt (one would hope so or else the situation would be even worse). However, the gap between the two has pretty much been there for a long time. Except during the Clinton years (it is quesionable if you can even consider Cliton as balancing the books since he borrowed social surplus), the gap has been there since 1960 or so. All this time, debt has been increasing. Since debt increases at exponential rates (interest payments are exponentially related to debt), one wonders when USA will be able to pay off its debt--if ever. I claim that many countries won't be able to pay off their debt. I don't if USA will be one of those countries but there are a whole hoard that are in even worse situation. All it takes is one country to default, and then every other developing country will. After that someone is going to have to pick up all these massive debt losses.
I'm not that familiar with Sun stuff. I used them in my previous employment (but I wasn't a system admin or making purchasing decisions). So you would know more than me. You say that the high end hardware is nice. That may have been true in the past. But is it still true? Can't the high-end x86 like Itanimum and AMD Opteron compete? It seems to me that the high-end Sun systems aren't as good relative to the x86. I don't work in the field and don't know much. But I don't know... I mean, can't you cluster the high-end x86 ones for similar performance (with a better price/performance ratio)?
I don't think the proof of trade that you use for Germany and USSR are strong enough. Germany was cut off from others (to a large degree) and USSR was cut off too (to some extent). With your reasoning, ALL countries trade which isn't strong enough IMO.
You are a capitalist and probably believe that trade is the only way to increase GDP. I do not think one can seriously claim Germany or USSR increased their GDP via trade. Yes they were trading but that applies to everything (I mean, even the poor African or Latin American countries, which are getting worse by the day, are trading). Trade was not the significant factor contributing to the rise of Germany and USSR.
As a side note, I count USSR as one country. The trade the individual republics were engaged in would be local trade and not international trade. This is especially true given that USSR was practicing a centralized system.
But keep in mind that USSR GDP per capita reached one fourth of that of South Korea and Taiwan today, and a sixth of Singapore or Hong Kong today.
There is no point looking at present figures. I was talking about USSR during its totalitarian Communism. So we need to look at the figures during that time (before the collapse). USSR's GDP was MORE than half of those countries (before the collapse of Communism). Without spending more time, I can't find any stats that prove my point clearly. All I found was this chart which shows GDP per capita from the year 0 (yes, year zero). THe chart is more tailored for LONG TERM historical analysis (this is the furthest back in history anyone has done AFAIK) but it still provides SOME information for our discussion. Unfortunately it doesn't have the numbers for the countires you mentioned (SK, Taiwan, etc) but it does have Japan. So let's compare USSR to Japan.
In 1973, Japan has a GDP/capita of $11,439 while USSR has $6,058. That is a little over half, and we are comparing it to Japan (as opposed to South Korea and Taiwan). Japan is richer than either of those by a long shot--always has been. So I would guess USSR's GDP/capita was probably 70% of South Korea's. So it was still poorer but nowhere near what you are implying.
So in summary, USSR's increase in GDP is not due to foreign trade but because of industrialization (that's what so-called Communism did: it converted an agarian society into an industrial one).
This is an issue, with regard to the value of the Dollar, but I believe it will solve itself as other developed countries move from net exporters to net importers. Already Britain has a $74 billion trade deficit, Spain has a $50 billion trade deficit, and Austrailia has a $14 billion trade deficit.
USA will have to devalue its currency. It remains to be seen what impact that will have. That's going to negatively impact USA.
The key to Federal Debt is whether you can afford to make the payments on it (the same situation you have with your mortgage). So far, the US has never missed a payment. US Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP was near 100% during WWII, dropped to 25% in 1975, rose to a high of 50% in 1993, and is now at 35% of GDP.
I personally don't rely on debt as a percentage of GDP. A better indicator in my opinion is government income. In that end, it is the government income that is going to pay for the debt--not an abstract measure like GDP. I can't find stats for US income but the following blurb from Encarta Encyclopedia seems to indicate that the US govt is getting less than before (if you assume taxes form the major portion of govt income):
"Taxation is the most important source of revenues for modern governments, typically accounting for 90 percent or more of their income...In the United States, about 30 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of economic output, went for tax payments in 2000. The 30 percent figure is relatively low from a historical standpoint.
Get real. SCO did not write almost all the code in Linux, it does not own almost all the code in Linux, it cannot control almost all the code in Linux. Whatever files are found that are SCO's, if any, will be replaced virtually instantly and it will be business as usual.
If you go with the SCO claim, they claim ownership of a whole hoard of header files and other key source files. Besides, SCO is saying that they own all derivatives of UNIX. And apparently linux is a derivative of UNIX. If you go with that view, SCO owns linux if they actually win the case. SCO is also claiming that the GPL is illegal or invalid or something like that. So anything to do with GPL is invalid too.
To say Linux will "become illegal" is childish and silly. Just as likely, illegal software will be found in M$Windows and M$ will have to stop shipping. Fat chance.
I am not saying linux will become illegal. I was just responding to the hypothetical case where linux IS illegal... As far as MS and others are concerned, SCO might not find any infringing source code (since they are closed source), or MS might just pay them off.
--OFF TOPIC--
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
I'm not saying I want to see terrorist attacks. I'm sorry if you misunderstood my post. I'm just saying that is what is going to happen. Do you really think the present US policy is going to prevent terrorism? If anything, they are creating even more in places like Iraq! The US "war" on terrorism is as bogus as the "war" on drugs. In fact they are almost identical and prone to complete failure. Bush might say that he is moving the frontlines on the "war" on terrorism to Iraq but the fact of the matter is, Al-Qaida is nowhere near Iraq. If anything, they are planning the next attack...
Since I'm unemployed:( I post a ton of messages. It is not uncommon for me to hit the max posts per day:) So karma is next to useless to me. Unless a ton of my posts get flamed or modded down (always possible with my anti-capitalist messages), my karma probably isn't impacted...
I agree with the prediction regarding Sun Microsystems for a few reasons. First of all, I don't think the CEO of Sun is that great. In fact, I think he isn't very good. He reminds of the CEO of a company I used to work for, Motorola. Both CEOs seriously fall behind the competition and lack any insight. Second, Sun will have a tough time because it is caught between two things: hardware and software. Traditionally, its revenues have been from hardware, with software acting as a cash cow. Right now, it will have a hard time. Does it start selling Intel hardware (in which case it won't be making money off that)? Or does it go with software (which it isn't familiar with)? It looks like it is leaning towards software (with its Java Desktop System (which has little to do wiht java)). It remains to be seen if it can compete with Red Hat and Novell, among others.
What's the fun in killing people? Costing billions of dollars in damage multiple times a year, even a month, seems like a much better option if I was a terrorist. But I'm not a terrorist, I fear caves.
Terrorists don't live in caves--at least not most of them. In any case, I haven't read the article but terrorists don't (and won't) use cyber-terrorism because that is not their goal now. Groups like Al-Qaida don't target economic targets right now. All of their targets have been symbolic (warship, embassies, WTC, Pentagon). They may switch to economic targets in the future but we don't know. If they really wanted to cause massive economic hard, they domn't need the internet. They just need to blow the US stock markets. That will cause TRILLIONS of damage! Since financial institutions (like the stock market) are the heart of capitalism, any damage will have massive impact.
As far as the online music sales thingie is concerned, I don't really have a strong opinion yet. A lot of people are buying songs but I'm not sure if that is a long term thing or a short term fad.
Slashdot Mirror
Just curious... where do you stand on the econopolitical spectrum? You sound like a conservative yet seem to be criticizing capitalism...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
IMF is a last resort. Usually it is used by capitalists to block the collapse of a country. Collapse of a country is a threat to capitalism. Therefore, capitalists spend a ton of money, including billions of their own money, to prop up failing regimes with no hope whatsoever.
In any case, the IMF, like the UN, is followed by the superpowers when it suits them. When it doesn't, no one cares--just like the UN. Poor failing countries break the rules all the time (especially when harsh conditions are placed which no one reasonally expects to be followed without resorting to a totalitarian state).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
If any company did anything that the workers were not happy with, they would get sued to kingdom come.
Maybe in your fantasy land... The reality is that the vast majority of lower classes do not and cannot sue. They just can't afford it. Professionals and the higher classes always think the courts can be used but they never realize that the lawyers are too expensive for the typical blue collar worker. So, unless you have some bogus frivolour lawsuit with potential of millions in damage (most worker issues are nothing like this), tough luck finding a lawyer.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sorry about the interupption folks... I know you guys are in this big debate (although it seems to have veered off into an unrelated tipping wage issue)... You guys need to adjust everything you do with PPP (purchasing power parity). It makes NO SENSE to compare RAW DOLLARS!!! Cost of living is vastly different and must be taken into account. For example, someone living in Canada and making $10,000 is living in poverty. Rent alone is $1,000/month in Toronto. You can't even afford to pay rent with $10,000/year. In contrast, if you make $10,000/year in Afghanistan, you are ultra rich.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
What China is doing is not illegal. It's capitalism, that's all. China is playing The Great Capitalist Game as it should. Instead of following US "advice" and ending up as a lapdog like Argentina, it is attempting to stay independent.
When Argentina artificially pegged their currency to the US dollar, all the economists in USA were cheerleading. But when China pegs it (albeit in a different manner), it is bad?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Are you saying all those Swiss chocolates aren't supposed to be good? :)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
lol hehehe :) I don't think they rigged their product to stop working after a period of time... but if they did, it would be funny :)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Unfortunately for you, humans actually have a heart, have compassion, and care about others. Obviously, you don't have those traits. Are you sure you are a human?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Unions cannot fight modern corporations. The present day corporations are way too powerful. Also, the worker issues we are talking about is happening on a global scale. Unions are localized entities that have zero power outside a country's border.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
It really is a miraculous system, when you think about it.
Alchemists claiming to create gold out of nothing seemed miraculous at one time too... The capitalists are no different...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The only people who claim that China or even USSR are socialist are the capitalists. Obviously China is nowhere near socialism. It never was and never will be. If China was really socialist, you wouldn't even be talking about unions. There would be unions controlling everything be default (or at least syndicates).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Eventually that money works its way into the hands of the workers, wether it's the company president getting themselves a new yacht built, or a politician buying a new jet. ;-)
I don't know if you are being serious or not (with your sarcastic face)... Assuming you are serious, with your reasoning, kings hoardings resources helped the peasents prosper. Unfortunately, that was never the case. Something that you fail to realize is that those that hoard wealth also hoard power. With these powers, the wealthy elites can pretty much keep the lower classes as quasi-slaves.
Of course it is. They're going (quickly) through the same steps that took us through the industrial revolution. Right now they're at the foothills of it, getting the short shrift.
hmmm... industrial revolution and "globalization" have nothing in common.
Did a voice in the marketplace even make the slightest difference to getting companies to implement these policies? Or, was it in fact mob rule (Unions) that did it?
Obviously you don't know history. It was worker movements that were responsible for the benefits that western societies accrued. The marketplace plays no role in these things. If anything, capitalist markets are the ones that worsen the social conditions. For instance, capitalists are against minimum wage. They are also against taxing the wealthy and the corporations at a higher rate (ie. progressive tax system). They are also against worker safety regulations. Obviously you have a skewed understanding of history. I suggest that you lay off your Ayn Rand and Adam Smit and study real history for a while...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Welcome to capitalism...
Buckle up... The ride is just starting...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Rise of USSR and Germany
I'm not sure what we are arguing about when it comes to USSR and fascist Germany. I agree with what you say. Yes, USSR produced sub-standard "consumer" products. Yes, its weapons and advanced sciences (like space travel, nuclear fission, etc) were top of the line. I am also not denying that USSR got "foreign currency" by trading (as you point out, its currency was not tradeable to other countries). My point is that its ascent was due to "Communism" and not international trade. Just like how I still claim that Germany rose due to its fascism. I think you are seriously overvaluing the impact of international trade to these countries.
The reason is clear, isolated from market forces, how could Soviet factories get market messages to make high-quality manufactured products for consumers and businesses? On the other hand, if you angered the military with a sub-standard product, you would end up in Siberia. So the weapons were top-notch. And the Russians knew good Vodka. Automobiles, on the other hand, they didn't do too well at.
I can see a capitalist like you arguing that prices are an indicator. But I don't think it played the role you are saying. I don't think advanced sciences (eg. nuclear weapons, space travel, ICBMs, sumbarines, jets, wireless communications, etc) were good because of the threat of being sent to Siberia. I am sure you would have been punished for other things too. I mean, if you built the statue improperly, or if a telephone went down, you probably faced the same treatment from these totalitarians.
US$ devaluation
I believe the Dollar will encounter some mild devaluation over the next 12 months, but not as much as you might think. Increasing returns on the stock market will return Dollars from overseas back to the US as the economy strengthens, reducing the oversupply of foreign Dollars.
I am not talking about a mild devaluation. I'm talking major. The type that leads to crises (like the Mexican peso crisis, or the Asian Flu crisis). USA overconsumes. I don't think USA can remain competitive without devaluing its currency.
You are right, if the Dollar massively devalues, that is the end of all world economics, because the Dollar is the reserve currency of the planet. Every central and private bank will fail.
I don't know if the devalue of US$ will lead to the collapse of capitalism. It may be possible for capitalism to survive. I was saying something else. I was predicting the collapse of capitalism when countries start defaulting on their debt. So when USA, or significant other countries, start defaulting on their debt, I forsee the collapse of capitalism.
US Debt
The total debt has been tracking Federal receipts very well for a long period of time, with debt 2-3 times yearly receipts [findarticles.com].
The income tracks the debt (one would hope so or else the situation would be even worse). However, the gap between the two has pretty much been there for a long time. Except during the Clinton years (it is quesionable if you can even consider Cliton as balancing the books since he borrowed social surplus), the gap has been there since 1960 or so. All this time, debt has been increasing. Since debt increases at exponential rates (interest payments are exponentially related to debt), one wonders when USA will be able to pay off its debt--if ever. I claim that many countries won't be able to pay off their debt. I don't if USA will be one of those countries but there are a whole hoard that are in even worse situation. All it takes is one country to default, and then every other developing country will. After that someone is going to have to pick up all these massive debt losses.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm not that familiar with Sun stuff. I used them in my previous employment (but I wasn't a system admin or making purchasing decisions). So you would know more than me. You say that the high end hardware is nice. That may have been true in the past. But is it still true? Can't the high-end x86 like Itanimum and AMD Opteron compete? It seems to me that the high-end Sun systems aren't as good relative to the x86. I don't work in the field and don't know much. But I don't know... I mean, can't you cluster the high-end x86 ones for similar performance (with a better price/performance ratio)?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I don't think the proof of trade that you use for Germany and USSR are strong enough. Germany was cut off from others (to a large degree) and USSR was cut off too (to some extent). With your reasoning, ALL countries trade which isn't strong enough IMO.
You are a capitalist and probably believe that trade is the only way to increase GDP. I do not think one can seriously claim Germany or USSR increased their GDP via trade. Yes they were trading but that applies to everything (I mean, even the poor African or Latin American countries, which are getting worse by the day, are trading). Trade was not the significant factor contributing to the rise of Germany and USSR.
As a side note, I count USSR as one country. The trade the individual republics were engaged in would be local trade and not international trade. This is especially true given that USSR was practicing a centralized system.
But keep in mind that USSR GDP per capita reached one fourth of that of South Korea and Taiwan today, and a sixth of Singapore or Hong Kong today.
There is no point looking at present figures. I was talking about USSR during its totalitarian Communism. So we need to look at the figures during that time (before the collapse). USSR's GDP was MORE than half of those countries (before the collapse of Communism). Without spending more time, I can't find any stats that prove my point clearly. All I found was this chart which shows GDP per capita from the year 0 (yes, year zero). THe chart is more tailored for LONG TERM historical analysis (this is the furthest back in history anyone has done AFAIK) but it still provides SOME information for our discussion. Unfortunately it doesn't have the numbers for the countires you mentioned (SK, Taiwan, etc) but it does have Japan. So let's compare USSR to Japan.
In 1973, Japan has a GDP/capita of $11,439 while USSR has $6,058. That is a little over half, and we are comparing it to Japan (as opposed to South Korea and Taiwan). Japan is richer than either of those by a long shot--always has been. So I would guess USSR's GDP/capita was probably 70% of South Korea's. So it was still poorer but nowhere near what you are implying.
So in summary, USSR's increase in GDP is not due to foreign trade but because of industrialization (that's what so-called Communism did: it converted an agarian society into an industrial one).
This is an issue, with regard to the value of the Dollar, but I believe it will solve itself as other developed countries move from net exporters to net importers. Already Britain has a $74 billion trade deficit, Spain has a $50 billion trade deficit, and Austrailia has a $14 billion trade deficit.
USA will have to devalue its currency. It remains to be seen what impact that will have. That's going to negatively impact USA.
The key to Federal Debt is whether you can afford to make the payments on it (the same situation you have with your mortgage). So far, the US has never missed a payment. US Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP was near 100% during WWII, dropped to 25% in 1975, rose to a high of 50% in 1993, and is now at 35% of GDP.
I personally don't rely on debt as a percentage of GDP. A better indicator in my opinion is government income. In that end, it is the government income that is going to pay for the debt--not an abstract measure like GDP. I can't find stats for US income but the following blurb from Encarta Encyclopedia seems to indicate that the US govt is getting less than before (if you assume taxes form the major portion of govt income):
"Taxation is the most important source of revenues for modern governments, typically accounting for 90 percent or more of their income...In the United States, about 30 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of economic output, went for tax payments in 2000. The 30 percent figure is relatively low from a historical standpoint.
Get real. SCO did not write almost all the code in Linux, it does not own almost all the code in Linux, it cannot control almost all the code in Linux. Whatever files are found that are SCO's, if any, will be replaced virtually instantly and it will be business as usual.
If you go with the SCO claim, they claim ownership of a whole hoard of header files and other key source files. Besides, SCO is saying that they own all derivatives of UNIX. And apparently linux is a derivative of UNIX. If you go with that view, SCO owns linux if they actually win the case. SCO is also claiming that the GPL is illegal or invalid or something like that. So anything to do with GPL is invalid too.
To say Linux will "become illegal" is childish and silly. Just as likely, illegal software will be found in M$Windows and M$ will have to stop shipping. Fat chance.
I am not saying linux will become illegal. I was just responding to the hypothetical case where linux IS illegal... As far as MS and others are concerned, SCO might not find any infringing source code (since they are closed source), or MS might just pay them off.
--OFF TOPIC--
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work. It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
So what's the solution?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm not saying I want to see terrorist attacks. I'm sorry if you misunderstood my post. I'm just saying that is what is going to happen. Do you really think the present US policy is going to prevent terrorism? If anything, they are creating even more in places like Iraq! The US "war" on terrorism is as bogus as the "war" on drugs. In fact they are almost identical and prone to complete failure. Bush might say that he is moving the frontlines on the "war" on terrorism to Iraq but the fact of the matter is, Al-Qaida is nowhere near Iraq. If anything, they are planning the next attack...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Since I'm unemployed :( I post a ton of messages. It is not uncommon for me to hit the max posts per day :) So karma is next to useless to me. Unless a ton of my posts get flamed or modded down (always possible with my anti-capitalist messages), my karma probably isn't impacted...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The more vague the predictions, the more likely they are to not be wrong, you know.
:)
:)
Kind of like horscopes huh?
Anyone found any good horoscopes for 2004? My life is fucked up and I need some motivation
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The people you call geeks aren't geeks. The people you mentioned just seem to be a typical computer user...
You don't need to like linux to be a geek but playing computer games and hooking up digital cameras does not make a geek...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
NT
Sun IS dying. Its sales have been declining. Its net losses have been mounting. And so on. It is switching to linux and it remains to be seen how successful that is. Companies like IBM, SuSE and Red Hat have greater market share of the linux market.
I agree with the prediction regarding Sun Microsystems for a few reasons. First of all, I don't think the CEO of Sun is that great. In fact, I think he isn't very good. He reminds of the CEO of a company I used to work for, Motorola. Both CEOs seriously fall behind the competition and lack any insight. Second, Sun will have a tough time because it is caught between two things: hardware and software. Traditionally, its revenues have been from hardware, with software acting as a cash cow. Right now, it will have a hard time. Does it start selling Intel hardware (in which case it won't be making money off that)? Or does it go with software (which it isn't familiar with)? It looks like it is leaning towards software (with its Java Desktop System (which has little to do wiht java)). It remains to be seen if it can compete with Red Hat and Novell, among others.
What's the fun in killing people? Costing billions of dollars in damage multiple times a year, even a month, seems like a much better option if I was a terrorist. But I'm not a terrorist, I fear caves.
Terrorists don't live in caves--at least not most of them. In any case, I haven't read the article but terrorists don't (and won't) use cyber-terrorism because that is not their goal now. Groups like Al-Qaida don't target economic targets right now. All of their targets have been symbolic (warship, embassies, WTC, Pentagon). They may switch to economic targets in the future but we don't know. If they really wanted to cause massive economic hard, they domn't need the internet. They just need to blow the US stock markets. That will cause TRILLIONS of damage! Since financial institutions (like the stock market) are the heart of capitalism, any damage will have massive impact.
As far as the online music sales thingie is concerned, I don't really have a strong opinion yet. A lot of people are buying songs but I'm not sure if that is a long term thing or a short term fad.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
How about if linux remains the same? Remains static? It neither grows nor dies? ;)
I haven't read the article but I kind of agree with you. This sounds like a tautology.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I don't get this karma thingie...what's the big deal...
:)
Here... I'm spelling MS with a dollar sign: M$
Sivaram Velauthapillai