We aren't talking about one entity trying to define the system; we have a case where nearly everyone (including economists who are hardcore capitalists that will sell their soul for capitalism) claim it to be capitalism. Therefore it IS capitalism.
I think what you are referring to is PURE capitalism which is the utlimate form of capitalism. In any case, USA is on a path towards pure capitalism.
I could be wrong (not being a capitalist) but I believe capitalism does not consider gray markets to be free market. Similarly, I think capitalism does not consider black market to be a part of the free market either.
This is highly ironic and shows the stupidity of capitalists since black markets are the closest thing to a free market. Not having any regulations and not paying any taxes is very close to the ideal free market.
The reason nothing happens in USA isbecause these corporations are part of USA and hence benefit US citizens. Of course, the fact taht only a tiny fraction gains the benefits is irrelevant. That's how plutocracies work and I would rate USA at 90% on the plutocracy scale:(
I'd rather ask you this: what should the Americans (the people, since you seem to be blatantly anti-American and not just anti-USA) do to get clean on your list?
Drop your imperialistic (foreign) policies and the number of "anti-Americans" will drop exponentially...
When you read newspaper articles, press releases, or anything where a govt or coporate spokesperson is involved, you have to differentiate between what they say and what they mean.
For instnace, when the US Trade official says "America would not be pushing too hard...", well it doesn't mean that USA dropped its origianal goal. It simply downgraded it and is moving more slowly. Often, this involves "buying out" foreign government (via counter-proposals, trade compromises, etc).
If the US official had said "America would not be pushing at all" then it's another story...
Why aren't you attacking the French for their rather nasty colonial past in Africa (or the Brits for that matter) or their more recent and still on-going profitable deals with various dictators and totalitarian governments?
Attacking the past is next to useless because those countries/civilizations/etc don't exist anymore. Modern day Britain is not practicising colonialism anymore (for example). In contrast, USA is as imperialistic as ever. Therefore, we clearly can criticize the US. You asked when will we stop blaming you? Well the answer is simple: When you drop imperialism... When that happens, you can be sure that people will care as much about USA's misdeeds as they do of Spain right now.
Note this important fact. USA is disliked/hated/avoided/etc by more people on earth than any colonial power ever was. Ever wonder why? The vast majority of hte people aren't being bombed by USA and they aren't bombing USA either. Yet many don't respect USA. Think about why.... Also, a 100 years ago very few people hated/disliked/criticized/etc USA. Hardly anyone blamed USA at the scale they do now. Ever wonder why?
The answer that you seek lies in something called (modern day) imperialism... you might want to look that up...
You may think it is merchantilism but it is not. Even the captialists themselves claim to be running capitalism therefore the system is capitalism. For instance, the US govt considers themselves to be capitalists. Also, nearly every economist (modern day economists are mostly capitalist) claims the current system is capitalism.
In any case, the capitalism you seek will never exist because some entity (person, corporation, whatever) will horde resource and become powerful. It is in the interest of companies to become monopolies (or at worst, oligopolies).
wow.. it's amazing that the developers of that Java software didn't even reveal that they were installing a backdoor. Is that even open-source? If not, one good reason to stay away. I wonder how other anonymour-providing services like FreeNet and the GNU software are going be handled. Granted, it is slightly different but still...
I think occupied territories don't have any laws. I'm not a lawyer but that's my impression. Instead, the closest thing to a legal system is the occupying power's wishes. Palestine does not have a government (it only has an "administration", which isn't even elected in most cases). So the laws that apply are whatever Isreal wishes, or the local authoraties (you can be one too) want.
Similarly, I expect Iraq to have no TRUE legal system. Instead, American laws (or at least wishes) will be imposed on the Iraqis. This is the reality of the situation. After all, do you really think that USA will let Saddam's laws be used? Yes, Saddam, like all dictators, basically wrote the laws...
Occupied territories are similar to colonies, under colonialism. Colonies were basically slave states to the colonial power. They had a legal system but it was nothing more than the occupying force's rules passed off as law. SAdly, the population followed the rules:(...
People do it because it is a lot cheaper. Also many people don't know much about Linux or its capabilities. Yes, that's no joke. I'm unemployed now but even a few years ago, I ran into many (apparently highly qualified people) who only had a Windows-centric view. I suspect things haven't changed.
If I ran a software company providing a Linux-based monitoring solution, I highly doubt many would buy it. Windows on the other hand is widely accepted...
It's just like this: If you had to use a scripting language, why does everyone go with VisualBasic and don't even consider stuff like Python? Granted, VB is good at some stuff but Python is platform indepdent and can do things better (if scripting is all you need). Yet, if I ever utter Python I would be run out of the company (if I had a job that is:( )...
A lot of the people in the tech industry are ignorant. This is especially true for tech managers and CIOs. For these guys, the latest press release or published report (which is always from a large corporation) is all that matters. Microsoft or IBM or whatever could be selling the worst software and they would still buy it over one from a smaller company...
I predict that it will happen. As bad as it may seem, the computer (especially software) industry has major quality control problems. There aren't many other industries where you can ship a non-functioning system and then patch it (with the cost and the responsibility laid on the customer). This methodology isn't necessarily bad in itself. In fact, some customers may prefer it. BUT many companies have been taking advantage of it to the point that it is past the acceptable limit.
One reason causing problems is that the software industry (and I suspect the whole computer/tech industry) simply hires the lowest paid person for the job. Often, these people don't even have university degress (many learned it via some certification program or a few courses). Instead of spending the money and developing proper systems, companies literally hack together something and cut corners.
I think what will happen is that there will be a major crisis (perhaps millions of people severly impacted by some software bug) before this whole system collapses. I simply cannot see the world progressing as it is now. We are already at the point where people can lose all their sensitive information on their computer simply due to some virus they didn't patch (keep in mind that end-users and even companies often dont' keep up and patch everything). Once this catastrophe happens, the whole industry will be regulated. Costs will go up but quality will too.
The other engineering fields (civil, etc) went through something like that. There was a point (100 years ago) when anyone could build a bridge. Often many of these bridges were shoddy but people were willing to live with them since they were cheap and it was the norm. But when they started collapsing and killing a lot of people, things changed...
What Japan is proposing is impossible under capitalism. Ignoring the fact that capitalism's collapse may start in Japan (I don't think Japan will get out of its deflation), this will cause all sorts of problems. Someone (or more likely some corporation) will hoard the resource and this will result in wars IMO...
IMDB is good for mainstream opinions, and getting the views of the viewers. I pesonally prefer critics so something like RottenTomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com) is best. RT is good if you want to watch artsy or Oscar-type films...
lol I meant to say tea time but team time sounds funny too... Are you referring to Gallipoli when they were having a tea break while the Australians were being slaughtered? Wasn't that WWI?
You are right about the navy. Russia does have strong navy. In fact, I don't think any European country even has an aircraft carrier?? Maybe Britain has one--not sure. As far as fuel is concerned, Russia SHOULD be able to manage. They do have oil fields. Well, at least they had it during the Soviet days. I"m not sure if the oil fields are part of Russia or part of one of the independent states?
Even with all that, wouldn't the war be a ground war. Sure the navy helps and will hurt the enemy. But I'm thinking the war will be carried on the ground, with either Russia trying to invade Europe, or Germany, France, etc trying to invade Russia by land.
USA has been abusing many of the weak poor countries for a while (eg. tariffs, subsidies, etc). In any case, I don't think currency manipulation is part of "free trade". I think free trade only deals with trade across borders.
I'm not saying it is right or wrong... just saying that is how it is...
GDP of Europe is close to USA's. Here are some stats for 1999:
Western Europe (not counting Eastern Europe): $8.6trillion
North AMerica (includes Canada): $8.7trillion
So the economic power is there. As far as military power is concerned, Europe is peaceful so it doesn't have a big military but that doesn't mean that it can't. Going back to WWII, Germany MAY have taken out USA (not counting WMD) if it didn't fight the rest of Europe and Russia. And Germany back then was supposed to poor (industrial and capable, but poor)...
As far as modern day Russia is concerned, I think Europe can defeat Russia (assuming no WMD and that Europe ramps up its military)...
This also means software is now going to be shaped by industrial policy in a big way.
What you are saying is inevitable. As software becomes more and more critical to societies, they will become important assets. It wouldn't surprise me if some worm that shuts down e-mail in 20 years will cause more damage than a major storm.
I don't know much about their office software but it doesn't seem to be Free Software. For Free Software fans, this is still proprietary... NOTE: I don't know anything about the software and simply basing my opinions on few opinions...
Actually many European countries were superpowers. France was a superpower. Spain was a superpower. And depending on how far back you go, Portugal was one tooo...
I don't think anyone calls Europe a superpower right now but it definitely is one. Europe has the economic power and can ramp up its military to required levels if needed. The only reason Europe isn't a superpower in reality is because they are not unified, contrary to popular belief. The are trying to unify via EU but a lot of countries still aren't part of it.
...in the not so distant future the U.S. will pressure the World Trade Center to get China to change it illegal ways of artificially holding low it's foreign currency.
I'm no capitalist and if anything I hate the WTO. But in any case, I don't think the WTO has control over currencies. You can do whatever you want with your currency. For example, you can print as much money as you want. My understanding is that the WTO only handles trade agreements ALREADY SIGNED. They don't really go around enforcing anything other than on paper...
I agree with you that US military is FAR ahead of anyone else and probably ended the Iraq war a bit sooner. But come on... Iraq WAS a joke. It was totally bankrupt due to the sanctions. I don't think they even had a functional airforce (and their navy was nonexistent). Iraq was nothing more than a 3rd world military at that time. In fact, Iraq was so weak than none of thier neighbours feared it... FYI, Iraq during Gulf War I was much stronger than now.
Slashdot Mirror
We aren't talking about one entity trying to define the system; we have a case where nearly everyone (including economists who are hardcore capitalists that will sell their soul for capitalism) claim it to be capitalism. Therefore it IS capitalism.
I think what you are referring to is PURE capitalism which is the utlimate form of capitalism. In any case, USA is on a path towards pure capitalism.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I could be wrong (not being a capitalist) but I believe capitalism does not consider gray markets to be free market. Similarly, I think capitalism does not consider black market to be a part of the free market either.
This is highly ironic and shows the stupidity of capitalists since black markets are the closest thing to a free market. Not having any regulations and not paying any taxes is very close to the ideal free market.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The reason nothing happens in USA isbecause these corporations are part of USA and hence benefit US citizens. Of course, the fact taht only a tiny fraction gains the benefits is irrelevant. That's how plutocracies work and I would rate USA at 90% on the plutocracy scale :(
Sivaram Velatuhapillai
I'd rather ask you this: what should the Americans (the people, since you seem to be blatantly anti-American and not just anti-USA) do to get clean on your list?
Drop your imperialistic (foreign) policies and the number of "anti-Americans" will drop exponentially...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
When you read newspaper articles, press releases, or anything where a govt or coporate spokesperson is involved, you have to differentiate between what they say and what they mean.
For instnace, when the US Trade official says "America would not be pushing too hard...", well it doesn't mean that USA dropped its origianal goal. It simply downgraded it and is moving more slowly. Often, this involves "buying out" foreign government (via counter-proposals, trade compromises, etc).
If the US official had said "America would not be pushing at all" then it's another story...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Why aren't you attacking the French for their rather nasty colonial past in Africa (or the Brits for that matter) or their more recent and still on-going profitable deals with various dictators and totalitarian governments?
Attacking the past is next to useless because those countries/civilizations/etc don't exist anymore. Modern day Britain is not practicising colonialism anymore (for example). In contrast, USA is as imperialistic as ever. Therefore, we clearly can criticize the US. You asked when will we stop blaming you? Well the answer is simple: When you drop imperialism... When that happens, you can be sure that people will care as much about USA's misdeeds as they do of Spain right now.
Note this important fact. USA is disliked/hated/avoided/etc by more people on earth than any colonial power ever was. Ever wonder why? The vast majority of hte people aren't being bombed by USA and they aren't bombing USA either. Yet many don't respect USA. Think about why.... Also, a 100 years ago very few people hated/disliked/criticized/etc USA. Hardly anyone blamed USA at the scale they do now. Ever wonder why?
The answer that you seek lies in something called (modern day) imperialism... you might want to look that up...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You may think it is merchantilism but it is not. Even the captialists themselves claim to be running capitalism therefore the system is capitalism. For instance, the US govt considers themselves to be capitalists. Also, nearly every economist (modern day economists are mostly capitalist) claims the current system is capitalism.
In any case, the capitalism you seek will never exist because some entity (person, corporation, whatever) will horde resource and become powerful. It is in the interest of companies to become monopolies (or at worst, oligopolies).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
wow.. it's amazing that the developers of that Java software didn't even reveal that they were installing a backdoor. Is that even open-source? If not, one good reason to stay away. I wonder how other anonymour-providing services like FreeNet and the GNU software are going be handled. Granted, it is slightly different but still...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I think occupied territories don't have any laws. I'm not a lawyer but that's my impression. Instead, the closest thing to a legal system is the occupying power's wishes. Palestine does not have a government (it only has an "administration", which isn't even elected in most cases). So the laws that apply are whatever Isreal wishes, or the local authoraties (you can be one too) want.
:( ...
Similarly, I expect Iraq to have no TRUE legal system. Instead, American laws (or at least wishes) will be imposed on the Iraqis. This is the reality of the situation. After all, do you really think that USA will let Saddam's laws be used? Yes, Saddam, like all dictators, basically wrote the laws...
Occupied territories are similar to colonies, under colonialism. Colonies were basically slave states to the colonial power. They had a legal system but it was nothing more than the occupying force's rules passed off as law. SAdly, the population followed the rules
Sivaram Velauthapillai
People do it because it is a lot cheaper. Also many people don't know much about Linux or its capabilities. Yes, that's no joke. I'm unemployed now but even a few years ago, I ran into many (apparently highly qualified people) who only had a Windows-centric view. I suspect things haven't changed.
:( )...
If I ran a software company providing a Linux-based monitoring solution, I highly doubt many would buy it. Windows on the other hand is widely accepted...
It's just like this: If you had to use a scripting language, why does everyone go with VisualBasic and don't even consider stuff like Python? Granted, VB is good at some stuff but Python is platform indepdent and can do things better (if scripting is all you need). Yet, if I ever utter Python I would be run out of the company (if I had a job that is
A lot of the people in the tech industry are ignorant. This is especially true for tech managers and CIOs. For these guys, the latest press release or published report (which is always from a large corporation) is all that matters. Microsoft or IBM or whatever could be selling the worst software and they would still buy it over one from a smaller company...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I predict that it will happen. As bad as it may seem, the computer (especially software) industry has major quality control problems. There aren't many other industries where you can ship a non-functioning system and then patch it (with the cost and the responsibility laid on the customer). This methodology isn't necessarily bad in itself. In fact, some customers may prefer it. BUT many companies have been taking advantage of it to the point that it is past the acceptable limit.
One reason causing problems is that the software industry (and I suspect the whole computer/tech industry) simply hires the lowest paid person for the job. Often, these people don't even have university degress (many learned it via some certification program or a few courses). Instead of spending the money and developing proper systems, companies literally hack together something and cut corners.
I think what will happen is that there will be a major crisis (perhaps millions of people severly impacted by some software bug) before this whole system collapses. I simply cannot see the world progressing as it is now. We are already at the point where people can lose all their sensitive information on their computer simply due to some virus they didn't patch (keep in mind that end-users and even companies often dont' keep up and patch everything). Once this catastrophe happens, the whole industry will be regulated. Costs will go up but quality will too.
The other engineering fields (civil, etc) went through something like that. There was a point (100 years ago) when anyone could build a bridge. Often many of these bridges were shoddy but people were willing to live with them since they were cheap and it was the norm. But when they started collapsing and killing a lot of people, things changed...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
What Japan is proposing is impossible under capitalism. Ignoring the fact that capitalism's collapse may start in Japan (I don't think Japan will get out of its deflation), this will cause all sorts of problems. Someone (or more likely some corporation) will hoard the resource and this will result in wars IMO...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
CK was one of the best sidescrolling games for the PC (at least the later ones... the early ones sucked)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
1 million.. 5 million... 1500 million... 7500million... it's all the same. If the Russians can build a power plant on Mars, this is nothing ;)
:)
Sivaram Velauthapillai, waiting patiently for Russians to power the earth
FPGAs aren't as hard as the original poster was implying but they aren't as easy as you are saying either :)
FPGAs require an understanding of hardware concepts and will take some time to master (eg. timing, gate design, etc)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
IMDB is good for mainstream opinions, and getting the views of the viewers. I pesonally prefer critics so something like RottenTomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com) is best. RT is good if you want to watch artsy or Oscar-type films...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Why do you consider the environmental movement stupid? :(
Sivaram Velauthapillai
lol I meant to say tea time but team time sounds funny too... Are you referring to Gallipoli when they were having a tea break while the Australians were being slaughtered? Wasn't that WWI?
You are right about the navy. Russia does have strong navy. In fact, I don't think any European country even has an aircraft carrier?? Maybe Britain has one--not sure. As far as fuel is concerned, Russia SHOULD be able to manage. They do have oil fields. Well, at least they had it during the Soviet days. I"m not sure if the oil fields are part of Russia or part of one of the independent states?
Even with all that, wouldn't the war be a ground war. Sure the navy helps and will hurt the enemy. But I'm thinking the war will be carried on the ground, with either Russia trying to invade Europe, or Germany, France, etc trying to invade Russia by land.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
USA has been abusing many of the weak poor countries for a while (eg. tariffs, subsidies, etc). In any case, I don't think currency manipulation is part of "free trade". I think free trade only deals with trade across borders.
I'm not saying it is right or wrong... just saying that is how it is...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
GDP of Europe is close to USA's. Here are some stats for 1999:
;)
Western Europe (not counting Eastern Europe): $8.6trillion
North AMerica (includes Canada): $8.7trillion
So the economic power is there. As far as military power is concerned, Europe is peaceful so it doesn't have a big military but that doesn't mean that it can't. Going back to WWII, Germany MAY have taken out USA (not counting WMD) if it didn't fight the rest of Europe and Russia. And Germany back then was supposed to poor (industrial and capable, but poor)...
As far as modern day Russia is concerned, I think Europe can defeat Russia (assuming no WMD and that Europe ramps up its military)...
BTW, Team Time can be important
Sivaram Velauthapillai
This also means software is now going to be shaped by industrial policy in a big way.
What you are saying is inevitable. As software becomes more and more critical to societies, they will become important assets. It wouldn't surprise me if some worm that shuts down e-mail in 20 years will cause more damage than a major storm.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I don't know much about their office software but it doesn't seem to be Free Software. For Free Software fans, this is still proprietary... NOTE: I don't know anything about the software and simply basing my opinions on few opinions...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Actually many European countries were superpowers. France was a superpower. Spain was a superpower. And depending on how far back you go, Portugal was one tooo...
I don't think anyone calls Europe a superpower right now but it definitely is one. Europe has the economic power and can ramp up its military to required levels if needed. The only reason Europe isn't a superpower in reality is because they are not unified, contrary to popular belief. The are trying to unify via EU but a lot of countries still aren't part of it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
...in the not so distant future the U.S. will pressure the World Trade Center to get China to change it illegal ways of artificially holding low it's foreign currency.
I'm no capitalist and if anything I hate the WTO. But in any case, I don't think the WTO has control over currencies. You can do whatever you want with your currency. For example, you can print as much money as you want. My understanding is that the WTO only handles trade agreements ALREADY SIGNED. They don't really go around enforcing anything other than on paper...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I agree with you that US military is FAR ahead of anyone else and probably ended the Iraq war a bit sooner. But come on... Iraq WAS a joke. It was totally bankrupt due to the sanctions. I don't think they even had a functional airforce (and their navy was nonexistent). Iraq was nothing more than a 3rd world military at that time. In fact, Iraq was so weak than none of thier neighbours feared it... FYI, Iraq during Gulf War I was much stronger than now.
Sivaram Velauthapillai