Are you sick? WW2 was for capitalism? Now you will tell me they didn't round up jews and anyone else they didn't like and kill them.
Actually, not capitalism, but resources, which ties back into economics.
Take the Pacific Front. The Japanese invaded China seeking it's manpower and natural resources. They went to war with the United States over oil and scrap metal. They invaded the Dutch East Indies seeking oil and rubber. Every acre of land they invaded can be tied directly to resources or the need to form a defensive line to protect those resources.
The European Front wasn't directly about resources -- yet it still was in a way. Hitler wasn't content to become an economic power (as Germany arguably could have). He wanted living space for his "master race". That living space was to be Russia. All the actions in the West were ironically meant to avoid a two front war (how'd that work out??) with the Western Democracies while he was seizing Russia. His mistake was to think that the Brits would fold and quit -- and to declare war on the United States (what the hell was he thinking?).
That said, there are still examples of military objectives in the West based directly around the need for resources. The drive towards Stalingrad was meant to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus. The Ukrainian campaign had living space and farmland as it's objective. Army Group Center was meant to knock out the industrial heartland of the Soviet Union. The action in Egypt was meant to close the Suez canal and eventually seize the oil of the Persian Gulf.
Am I the only one who is getting a little sick of hearing about bird-flu? Am I the only one who notices that nobody in power talks about things like bird-flu until elections are almost around the corner and they need to show how proactive they are being? Or to change the topic in the media?
For all the damage that the Spanish Flu did I'd point out that most healthy adults will weather it just fine. Plus a lot of the conditions that helped the Spanish Flu spread don't exist anymore (The Western Front and Trench Warfare).
Yes, it's something we need to think about and plan for. Not at the expense of everything else though.
"Writing off" doesn't make the money re-appear, that's true. It does help them with what they pay in taxes. The hypothetical ruined dinner I mentioned still comes out of our pocket from what is after tax money.
True, but there are things that come out of your pocket that can be with tax free money. Medical bills, home repairs caused by uninsured losses, losses in stocks, losses due to crime, noncollectable debt, etc.
If you use a flex spending plan you can even avoid the FICA taxes (as well as income) on a whole slew of expenses. Eyeglasses, over the counter drugs, etc.
Yeah, the burned dinner wouldn't qualify though. But you could always get that money back by suing the person who sold you the stove;)
Almost, but not quite... Companies pay taxes (at least in the US) on net income, not revenue. So extending your example of a 50% tax rate and $20 net income...
That's part of the point I was trying to make. Thank you:) Your point about how they can purchase things cheaper then you or I is also very valid.
If the company then distributes that $10 to the shareholders (sends them a check) the shareholder's have to pay taxes on the money received on their personal income taxes.
Yep -- and why shouldn't they? If the shareholders were getting a salary instead of dividends it would still be taxed. Why shouldn't it be just because it's 'dividends' instead of 'gross pay'? (Disclaimer: You didn't state an opinion on this one way or another -- just a lot of people think this is 'double taxation' and I happen to disagree) As a question: Does a company pay tax on money they distribute to shareholders? I know if they give every employee a nice bonus they don't wind up paying a corporate income tax on that. Do they pay a corporate income tax on money earmarked for dividends?
Sony will get to write off the bad CDs as defective at the end of the fiscal year. You or I accidentally burn something on the stove and we absorb the cost.
As much as I hate Sony you don't think they are absorbing the cost as well? Just because they get to "write it off" doesn't mean they magically get the money back. A write off or a charge off is just an accounting term. They will probably get to report that write off when they file their income taxes -- it will reduce the amount of taxable income they had -- but they still have to absorb the cost.
You or I can do the same thing with some expenses. You can reduce your taxable income by reporting expenses for medical care, uninsured losses, crime losses or bad debt (you loan me money and I default). Whether or not this makes sense for you (vs just taking the standard deduction) is something that only you or your accountant could figure out.
That would be a good way to get fired immediately with no severance and no regrets. It's just business, after all.
I wouldn't advise it unless you already had an offer somewhere else.
I was just pointing out that it's annoying to hear people say "It's just business" when they escort you to the door after giving notice -- but then turn around and bitch when people quit without giving notice.
For the record: I've left three jobs in my lifetime. One was a job where I got completely screwed over -- was promised a portion of the sales that would be made with a piece of software I wrote -- when the software was about 85% complete they "changed their minds". I started looking for work and once I had an offer I walked out the door and never came back. I later reported them to the IRS and New York State Tax Department because they never sent me a W-2 after that tax year was over. They also never sent me the paystub for my last check either -- but it was still directly deposited. There's two law violations right there.
The other two jobs I gave two and four weeks notice respectively. One was only a retail summer job while I was in school -- but I still gave notice.
I'm just point out the fact that "it's just business" cuts both ways. If you treat your employees like shit and don't trust them, then don't get huffy and puffy when they leave without giving notice.
- but that's irrelevant in a society where anyone can sue for almost anything, and where big law firms have networks in place to seek out a representative plaintiff so they can initiate class action lawsuits.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what Directors and Officers liability policies are for?
With the liability that comes with these jobs, the incentives have to be good for people to take them. You'd be mad not to require a pretty hefty package up front. $1 million a year is great until you're named in a class action suit claiming you're responsible for the last stock market correction that vaporized half a billion dollars of market cap.
I'm sure part of your point is valid. As is part of mine. What I can't help but see though is a whole lot of back patting while the employees (and shareholders, creditors and customers) are getting screwed by this clique. I probably shouldn't be bitching about it -- I don't have a solution to offer.
At least you acknowledge the problem -- which is more then a lot of other people do.
United getting to dump their pension plan on the U.S. taxpayers and shaft their retirees is reprehensible
Any company that gets to shaft their retirees is reprehensible. I'm also getting pretty sick of the trend away from actual pensions and 401(k)s and the like. 401(k)s were never intended to completely fund retirement -- nor was Social Security. Perhaps if they had properly funded their pensions in the first place then they wouldn't need current workers and customers to pay for the retirements of previous workers. Perhaps if all employers had properly funded pension plans in the first place instead of shafting employees then they would all be on an equal footing.
But I'll stand by my original statement -- most of the fat payoffs received by top management when they get canned were decided before they took the jobs.
Your probably right. But I don't think that makes it right. Think most people can get severance packages negotiated at the time they are hired? What makes (most) upper managers any different? The fact that they have pointy hair and MBAs?
With a few high profile exceptions, these fat severance packages you hear so much about are negotiated before a CxO even starts working
With a few "high profile exceptions"? You mean like the airline that threatened to file Chapter 11 until they got massive consessions out of the unions -- then management took millions of dollars in raises for themselves? Or Delta which just filed Chapter 11 and got the bankruptcy court to approve tens of millions of dollars in raises to "retain" management?
If there was any justice in the World the U.S. Trustee would appoint a new management team to run the company (in Chap 11 they can do this) and fire the old one. Tell me why it's so important to "retain" management that did such a wonderful job that the company is now in bankruptcy?
IT professionals have a lot of responsibility and a lot of power, and can seriously f-up a company with a few clicks.
You could make the same argument for senior management but somehow when they f-up the company they get a nice severance package from the board. I guess a few mil is a nice reward for running a company into the ground.
Hell, let's not even go there. Let's talk about grunt workers. In a lot of companies the janitors/maintenance are almost as powerful (if not more so?) as the IT staff. They have keys to everything, including (in all of the places I've ever worked) the server room. Sure, they can't screw the company over with a "few clicks", but an uber magnet and/or sledgehammer would probably have the same result.
I for one am tired of being treated like a criminal by paranoid employers. Like if he was going to screw them over he would have given two weeks notice and then screwed them over. And don't give me the "it's just business" argument. If it was just business he would have left without giving them any notice. Hell, if you are salaried just walk out the door at about noon. Odds are they'll have to pay you for the rest of the day. That's business.
"In the long run I would like to see a three-letter code '.sco' which would give Scotland its own global address.
With respect, why should Scotland get it's own TLD? Because it's historically it's own culture and was conquered by the British? I'm not flaming -- but really, where the heck do we draw the line? Should every single American state get it's own TLD? American states arguably have as much (if not more?) autonomy then Scotland does. I'm sure some of my friends from the South would point out that the United States historically wasn't very "United". What's next? A.csa TLD?.nys for New York State?
Besides the nationalist argument, what argument do they have exactly? Am I the only one that thinks new TLDs (.xxx comes to mind) are only a tax imposed by ICANN and the registers on trademark holders and cybersquatters? They form a new TLD, every single decent domain is snatched up by trademark holders (AOL, IBM, Google, Yahoo all come to mind) or cybersquatters. How exactly is this helping the internet community? I get to spend more money to defend my trademark... great!
"Yeah, it was PHB hell; so I sold our data to the competitors."
I did one better. I went to work for one of them and developed a custom sales and rating solution that they were able to use to sell more life policies with. I no longer work for them but I still get a commission every time they sell something using my system. It was designed to rapidly rate an entire companies payroll -- they usually manage to sell 10-15%. If they hit a company with a few hundred people on payroll then I make out pretty well. All I do now is sit back and watch the commission checks roll in every three months. Once a year I update the rating tables for them.
Contrast that to my previous job where I never got a raise or even a bonus because "Business was slow this year". As if my salary should depend on how many policies other people sold. I tried to get them to use this rating system but they wanted none of it. All the better -- I created most of it in my spare time and was able to roll it out within two months of joining the other agency.
My employer has insurance companies as clients, too. Almost universally they're penny wise and pound foolish.
And paranoid too. I wanted to replace the whole tape scheme with some sort of offsite service like LiveVault. He was completely convinced that they would steal our data and sell it to our competitors -- even though they dealt with banks and other companies hundreds of times our size. When he wouldn't go for that I suggested a server at his house backing up in real time across an encrypted VPN -- he didn't trust that either because somebody could "break" the encryption and sell it to our competitors.
The sad thing is that it would have solved a lot of problems. We could have stopped buying bigger tape drives every few years (they scanned everything that came into that office and retained the images forever) when our existing one was too small. It would have been about a million times more secure then the "send a tape home with the CSR method".
The funny thing is that I could never quite get it through to him that if our competitors were that smart/knowledgeable we'd already be out of business. Or that a CSR paid $7.00/hr is much more likely to betray you then a private company that you have a business agreement with.
I've worked at a large bank and a large insurance company, and the controls aren't anything like most people imagine.
No they are not. The stuff I that I saw go on in the insurance industry would scare the living daylights out of people.
The biggest one I can think of would be the offsite tape backups at the agency I worked for. These were run every business day. How do you think they were offsite? Safe deposit box? Fire proof safe at the owners house? Nope! They gave the chief CSR the tapes and made her responsible for them. She took them home in her purse. More then once she lost a tape or forgot to bring it back in.
Despite that glaring amount of stupidity they refused to give me (the in-house IT) administrative access to the network or servers. I was supposed to talk to my boss if I needed him to log in for me. They trusted nobody but they let this woman take the companies entire database and image archive home with her every night. They justified this because "Tape drives are expensive and nobody else is likely to have one or know what's on the tape if she loses it."
I wonder how many of those tapes are floating around out there.
If companies want security, it is not hard to ban everything, hire 20 or 30 police officers, make it a crime to violate their policy, and treat everyone as dishonest liars who are more likely to steal.
The last time I checked a private company can't just decree that something is a crime.
Your story about the National Archives is pretty damn interesting though!
Depends on your definition of 'militia' and 'well regulated'. Disclaimer: I'm a bleeding heart liberal and I'm still against most gun laws for the simple fact that criminals will always get them anyway. I'm not against sane laws like background checks or hunter safety courses -- just laws that restrict your rights to possess firearms if you are a law abiding citizen.
Anti-drug laws? Unconstitutional.
They make the argument under the interstate commerce clause. Of course I don't see how that gives them the right to arrest somebody for growing pot for their own personal use. I hate the war on drugs.
Standing Army in times of Peace? Unconstitutional.
Where do you get that? I agree with your other two points -- but this one? What passage of the Constitution prohibits a standing army? The United States has always stand a standing Army and Navy -- though not to the degree that they exist now.
The Constitution doesn't say anything about speeding in a car of course, but I feel that speeding laws are certainly against the spirit of the Constitution.
Speeding laws exist for the public safety. I don't think the Founding Fathers meant "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to mean that you could drive your Corvette through a school zone at 85mph while the buses are loading. If you want to talk about bullshit laws against victimless crime then maybe you should point out seat belt laws. They make sense for kids (they can't legally consent to give up their rights) but adults? C'mon!
The only reason seat belt laws exist is because the insurance industry wants them. Perhaps they should abolished as unconstitutional and the insurance companies should just have the right to refuse to pay if you weren't wearing one and the accident was your fault. Of course you could probably also make the argument that seat belt laws (like speeding and other traffic laws) fall under the 10th amendment and are "reserved to the states" to decide.
They may not be a household name, but they'll still get by financially.
And while they are "getting by" some other artist will have become a national name thanks to the RIAA marketing droids and ClearChannel. His music may not be (probably isn't?) as good as your guy -- but he's the one with the North American tour that pulls in a cool million or so at each stop.
Is it really that hard to understand why RIAA has the power they do? If you could sell a small number of CDs/mp3s on a website and collect all the money -- or sell a large number of CDs from a label and collect little to nothing but become a big enough name that you can go on tour and make millions -- tell me, what would you do?
If we all think RIAA is as bad as we say (I do) then let's do something about it. The Indie artists should get together create their own label that makes fair contracts with the artists and treats the customers like customers and not criminals. Hire a few disillusioned marketing droids from RIAA labels, make some contacts at ClearChannel. If you run the business properly then in a few years you'll have the same marketing power that RIAA does and they won't have everybody (artists and consumers) by the balls like they do now.
The talent is already there. We just need the business sense.
I believe there is a disclaimer near the front of the store that anyone entering the store may be subject to search (especially if the security alarm has gone off -which may or may not be your case). So by just stepping foot on to their property they can search you with reasonable suspicion.
Bullshit. Disclaimers can't force you to give up your legal rights. Now if I signed something they might have a leg to stand on. I still don't think it would allow them to search me though -- the only thing they could do is refuse to let me come back. Sams Club might do this if you refuse the search when leaving because it's probably a condition of your membership -- but they still can't detain you.
At their discretion too, they can choose to detain you till the police arrive if they believe you have stole something.
Again, bullshit. The only (legal) way they can detain you is via a a citizens arrest. If they take that action then they are subjecting themselves to the same probable cause requirements that a law enforcement officer does. I.e: they'd probably be in the clear if they saw you on film stuffing something into your coat pocket. Merely declining an illegal search is not probable cause for anything. Even an actual law enforcement officer would not be able to search your person in this scenario -- though he would still have the right to frisk you under the Terry search doctrine for concealed weapons.
If a Wal Mart greeter ever places me under citizens arrest for merely refusing to have my bags checked then they might as well just sign me a check right there -- because they would buried if I decided to sue them for false arrest. They might even wind up being criminally charged.
Then you have zero sympathy for somebody who was young and made a stupid mistake. What do you suppose his chances are for a productive life with a felony record? That will automatically disqualify him from a lot of scholarships and student aid, so forget about college. The felony conviction will also prevent him from getting the few decent jobs that there are for people without college degrees.
Do you seriously think that someone deserves to have their life ruined over a first time offense involving a friggen iPod? You do realize that someone with no hope and no prospects is much more likely to continue to steal? Do you honestly think that this is something that couldn't be resolved with a conditional discharge, community service, and maybe a small fine?
It's that friggen logic that leads us to moronic zero tolerance policies that see kids expelled from school for threatening to beat up a classmate (as though we didn't make/receive our share of those threats in school). Like they have any chance at all of a productive non-criminal life without a high school diploma.
Theft *does* directly harm someone, in that deprives them of their property. Whether the victim is a person or a corporation doesn't matter.
If you steal something from me then it's going to deprive me of the money it takes to replace it or the time it takes to file an insurance claim for me. You shouldn't have the ability to do this without getting punished -- I'm just saying that compared to say kicking the shit out of me and then raping me with a toilet plunger it's fairly mild by comparison.
Theft *does* directly harm someone, in that deprives them of their property. Whether the victim is a person or a corporation doesn't matter. This "kid" was older than 18 years old, and being an adult, I don't see any reason why he should be cut slack on this. He was old enough to know better, and should bear the responsibility for his actions. Had he done it when he was a juvenile, I might agree with you somewhat, but he knew exactly what he was doing, and it speaks very strongly toward his character (or lack thereof), as does his feeble whining to avoid responsibility for what he did.
I'd make the argument that he's an adult when society treats him like one. The last time I checked there are certain things that you couldn't do at 18 -- like legally buy a beer. And all that is beside the point. Do you really think that he deserves a felony conviction and the lifetime of disenfranchisement that will entail over something as petty and stupid as this? For a first time offense that didn't physically harm anyone?
If I beat the shit out of my wife in a lot of states that's only a misdemeanour. How the hell does this kid get charged with a felony?
High percentage of racial minorities? You've never been to Vestal, NY have you?;) The only reason they have any racial minorities is because of Binghamton University.
He did something terribly illegal, stealing, which any 4 year old knows is wrong
Terribly illegal? No, murder, rape, arson, manslaughter and perjury are "terribly illegal". When did our society get brainwashed into thinking that stealing is "terribly" illegal? I consider things "terribly" illegal when they directly harm someone else. Money and IPods are just objects -- not human lives.
There's a reason why it's usually a misdemeanour. I'm not saying it shouldn't be punished -- but let's put it into perspective. Do you really think he deserves a felony conviction on his record for the rest of his life? Yeah, that will keep him from turning into a professional criminal instead of a stupid scared kid -- ruin his chances for a productive life.
As much as I root for the good guys and follow this stuff in real life and fiction (Jack McCoy is one of my favorite fictional characters) it seems to me that the criminal justice system is self-perpetuating at times.
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Are you sick? WW2 was for capitalism? Now you will tell me they didn't round up jews and anyone else they didn't like and kill them.
Actually, not capitalism, but resources, which ties back into economics.
Take the Pacific Front. The Japanese invaded China seeking it's manpower and natural resources. They went to war with the United States over oil and scrap metal. They invaded the Dutch East Indies seeking oil and rubber. Every acre of land they invaded can be tied directly to resources or the need to form a defensive line to protect those resources.
The European Front wasn't directly about resources -- yet it still was in a way. Hitler wasn't content to become an economic power (as Germany arguably could have). He wanted living space for his "master race". That living space was to be Russia. All the actions in the West were ironically meant to avoid a two front war (how'd that work out??) with the Western Democracies while he was seizing Russia. His mistake was to think that the Brits would fold and quit -- and to declare war on the United States (what the hell was he thinking?).
That said, there are still examples of military objectives in the West based directly around the need for resources. The drive towards Stalingrad was meant to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus. The Ukrainian campaign had living space and farmland as it's objective. Army Group Center was meant to knock out the industrial heartland of the Soviet Union. The action in Egypt was meant to close the Suez canal and eventually seize the oil of the Persian Gulf.
bird-flu should do the job very nicel
Am I the only one who is getting a little sick of hearing about bird-flu? Am I the only one who notices that nobody in power talks about things like bird-flu until elections are almost around the corner and they need to show how proactive they are being? Or to change the topic in the media?
For all the damage that the Spanish Flu did I'd point out that most healthy adults will weather it just fine. Plus a lot of the conditions that helped the Spanish Flu spread don't exist anymore (The Western Front and Trench Warfare).
Yes, it's something we need to think about and plan for. Not at the expense of everything else though.
"Writing off" doesn't make the money re-appear, that's true. It does help them with what they pay in taxes. The hypothetical ruined dinner I mentioned still comes out of our pocket from what is after tax money.
True, but there are things that come out of your pocket that can be with tax free money. Medical bills, home repairs caused by uninsured losses, losses in stocks, losses due to crime, noncollectable debt, etc.
If you use a flex spending plan you can even avoid the FICA taxes (as well as income) on a whole slew of expenses. Eyeglasses, over the counter drugs, etc.
Yeah, the burned dinner wouldn't qualify though. But you could always get that money back by suing the person who sold you the stove ;)
Almost, but not quite... Companies pay taxes (at least in the US) on net income, not revenue. So extending your example of a 50% tax rate and $20 net income...
That's part of the point I was trying to make. Thank you :) Your point about how they can purchase things cheaper then you or I is also very valid.
If the company then distributes that $10 to the shareholders (sends them a check) the shareholder's have to pay taxes on the money received on their personal income taxes.
Yep -- and why shouldn't they? If the shareholders were getting a salary instead of dividends it would still be taxed. Why shouldn't it be just because it's 'dividends' instead of 'gross pay'? (Disclaimer: You didn't state an opinion on this one way or another -- just a lot of people think this is 'double taxation' and I happen to disagree) As a question: Does a company pay tax on money they distribute to shareholders? I know if they give every employee a nice bonus they don't wind up paying a corporate income tax on that. Do they pay a corporate income tax on money earmarked for dividends?
Sony will get to write off the bad CDs as defective at the end of the fiscal year. You or I accidentally burn something on the stove and we absorb the cost.
As much as I hate Sony you don't think they are absorbing the cost as well? Just because they get to "write it off" doesn't mean they magically get the money back. A write off or a charge off is just an accounting term. They will probably get to report that write off when they file their income taxes -- it will reduce the amount of taxable income they had -- but they still have to absorb the cost.
You or I can do the same thing with some expenses. You can reduce your taxable income by reporting expenses for medical care, uninsured losses, crime losses or bad debt (you loan me money and I default). Whether or not this makes sense for you (vs just taking the standard deduction) is something that only you or your accountant could figure out.
That would be a good way to get fired immediately with no severance and no regrets. It's just business, after all.
I wouldn't advise it unless you already had an offer somewhere else.
I was just pointing out that it's annoying to hear people say "It's just business" when they escort you to the door after giving notice -- but then turn around and bitch when people quit without giving notice.
For the record: I've left three jobs in my lifetime. One was a job where I got completely screwed over -- was promised a portion of the sales that would be made with a piece of software I wrote -- when the software was about 85% complete they "changed their minds". I started looking for work and once I had an offer I walked out the door and never came back. I later reported them to the IRS and New York State Tax Department because they never sent me a W-2 after that tax year was over. They also never sent me the paystub for my last check either -- but it was still directly deposited. There's two law violations right there.
The other two jobs I gave two and four weeks notice respectively. One was only a retail summer job while I was in school -- but I still gave notice.
I'm just point out the fact that "it's just business" cuts both ways. If you treat your employees like shit and don't trust them, then don't get huffy and puffy when they leave without giving notice.
- but that's irrelevant in a society where anyone can sue for almost anything, and where big law firms have networks in place to seek out a representative plaintiff so they can initiate class action lawsuits.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what Directors and Officers liability policies are for?
With the liability that comes with these jobs, the incentives have to be good for people to take them. You'd be mad not to require a pretty hefty package up front. $1 million a year is great until you're named in a class action suit claiming you're responsible for the last stock market correction that vaporized half a billion dollars of market cap.
I'm sure part of your point is valid. As is part of mine. What I can't help but see though is a whole lot of back patting while the employees (and shareholders, creditors and customers) are getting screwed by this clique. I probably shouldn't be bitching about it -- I don't have a solution to offer.
At least you acknowledge the problem -- which is more then a lot of other people do.
United getting to dump their pension plan on the U.S. taxpayers and shaft their retirees is reprehensible
Any company that gets to shaft their retirees is reprehensible. I'm also getting pretty sick of the trend away from actual pensions and 401(k)s and the like. 401(k)s were never intended to completely fund retirement -- nor was Social Security. Perhaps if they had properly funded their pensions in the first place then they wouldn't need current workers and customers to pay for the retirements of previous workers. Perhaps if all employers had properly funded pension plans in the first place instead of shafting employees then they would all be on an equal footing.
But I'll stand by my original statement -- most of the fat payoffs received by top management when they get canned were decided before they took the jobs.
Your probably right. But I don't think that makes it right. Think most people can get severance packages negotiated at the time they are hired? What makes (most) upper managers any different? The fact that they have pointy hair and MBAs?
With a few high profile exceptions, these fat severance packages you hear so much about are negotiated before a CxO even starts working
With a few "high profile exceptions"? You mean like the airline that threatened to file Chapter 11 until they got massive consessions out of the unions -- then management took millions of dollars in raises for themselves? Or Delta which just filed Chapter 11 and got the bankruptcy court to approve tens of millions of dollars in raises to "retain" management?
If there was any justice in the World the U.S. Trustee would appoint a new management team to run the company (in Chap 11 they can do this) and fire the old one. Tell me why it's so important to "retain" management that did such a wonderful job that the company is now in bankruptcy?
IT professionals have a lot of responsibility and a lot of power, and can seriously f-up a company with a few clicks.
You could make the same argument for senior management but somehow when they f-up the company they get a nice severance package from the board. I guess a few mil is a nice reward for running a company into the ground.
Hell, let's not even go there. Let's talk about grunt workers. In a lot of companies the janitors/maintenance are almost as powerful (if not more so?) as the IT staff. They have keys to everything, including (in all of the places I've ever worked) the server room. Sure, they can't screw the company over with a "few clicks", but an uber magnet and/or sledgehammer would probably have the same result.
I for one am tired of being treated like a criminal by paranoid employers. Like if he was going to screw them over he would have given two weeks notice and then screwed them over. And don't give me the "it's just business" argument. If it was just business he would have left without giving them any notice. Hell, if you are salaried just walk out the door at about noon. Odds are they'll have to pay you for the rest of the day. That's business.
From your link:
"In the long run I would like to see a three-letter code '.sco' which would give Scotland its own global address.
With respect, why should Scotland get it's own TLD? Because it's historically it's own culture and was conquered by the British? I'm not flaming -- but really, where the heck do we draw the line? Should every single American state get it's own TLD? American states arguably have as much (if not more?) autonomy then Scotland does. I'm sure some of my friends from the South would point out that the United States historically wasn't very "United". What's next? A .csa TLD? .nys for New York State?
Besides the nationalist argument, what argument do they have exactly? Am I the only one that thinks new TLDs (.xxx comes to mind) are only a tax imposed by ICANN and the registers on trademark holders and cybersquatters? They form a new TLD, every single decent domain is snatched up by trademark holders (AOL, IBM, Google, Yahoo all come to mind) or cybersquatters. How exactly is this helping the internet community? I get to spend more money to defend my trademark... great!
"Yeah, it was PHB hell; so I sold our data to the competitors."
I did one better. I went to work for one of them and developed a custom sales and rating solution that they were able to use to sell more life policies with. I no longer work for them but I still get a commission every time they sell something using my system. It was designed to rapidly rate an entire companies payroll -- they usually manage to sell 10-15%. If they hit a company with a few hundred people on payroll then I make out pretty well. All I do now is sit back and watch the commission checks roll in every three months. Once a year I update the rating tables for them.
Contrast that to my previous job where I never got a raise or even a bonus because "Business was slow this year". As if my salary should depend on how many policies other people sold. I tried to get them to use this rating system but they wanted none of it. All the better -- I created most of it in my spare time and was able to roll it out within two months of joining the other agency.
My employer has insurance companies as clients, too. Almost universally they're penny wise and pound foolish.
And paranoid too. I wanted to replace the whole tape scheme with some sort of offsite service like LiveVault. He was completely convinced that they would steal our data and sell it to our competitors -- even though they dealt with banks and other companies hundreds of times our size. When he wouldn't go for that I suggested a server at his house backing up in real time across an encrypted VPN -- he didn't trust that either because somebody could "break" the encryption and sell it to our competitors.
The sad thing is that it would have solved a lot of problems. We could have stopped buying bigger tape drives every few years (they scanned everything that came into that office and retained the images forever) when our existing one was too small. It would have been about a million times more secure then the "send a tape home with the CSR method".
The funny thing is that I could never quite get it through to him that if our competitors were that smart/knowledgeable we'd already be out of business. Or that a CSR paid $7.00/hr is much more likely to betray you then a private company that you have a business agreement with.
Yeah, it was PHB hell.
I've worked at a large bank and a large insurance company, and the controls aren't anything like most people imagine.
No they are not. The stuff I that I saw go on in the insurance industry would scare the living daylights out of people.
The biggest one I can think of would be the offsite tape backups at the agency I worked for. These were run every business day. How do you think they were offsite? Safe deposit box? Fire proof safe at the owners house? Nope! They gave the chief CSR the tapes and made her responsible for them. She took them home in her purse. More then once she lost a tape or forgot to bring it back in.
Despite that glaring amount of stupidity they refused to give me (the in-house IT) administrative access to the network or servers. I was supposed to talk to my boss if I needed him to log in for me. They trusted nobody but they let this woman take the companies entire database and image archive home with her every night. They justified this because "Tape drives are expensive and nobody else is likely to have one or know what's on the tape if she loses it."
I wonder how many of those tapes are floating around out there.
If companies want security, it is not hard to ban everything, hire 20 or 30 police officers, make it a crime to violate their policy, and treat everyone as dishonest liars who are more likely to steal.
The last time I checked a private company can't just decree that something is a crime.
Your story about the National Archives is pretty damn interesting though!
Mi...cro...?
Sid Meier threw a chair as MicroProse was going down the drain?
Shit! And to think that so many /.'ers had respect for him :(
Anti-gun laws? Unconstitutional
Depends on your definition of 'militia' and 'well regulated'. Disclaimer: I'm a bleeding heart liberal and I'm still against most gun laws for the simple fact that criminals will always get them anyway. I'm not against sane laws like background checks or hunter safety courses -- just laws that restrict your rights to possess firearms if you are a law abiding citizen.
Anti-drug laws? Unconstitutional.
They make the argument under the interstate commerce clause. Of course I don't see how that gives them the right to arrest somebody for growing pot for their own personal use. I hate the war on drugs.
Standing Army in times of Peace? Unconstitutional.
Where do you get that? I agree with your other two points -- but this one? What passage of the Constitution prohibits a standing army? The United States has always stand a standing Army and Navy -- though not to the degree that they exist now.
The Constitution doesn't say anything about speeding in a car of course, but I feel that speeding laws are certainly against the spirit of the Constitution.
Speeding laws exist for the public safety. I don't think the Founding Fathers meant "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to mean that you could drive your Corvette through a school zone at 85mph while the buses are loading. If you want to talk about bullshit laws against victimless crime then maybe you should point out seat belt laws. They make sense for kids (they can't legally consent to give up their rights) but adults? C'mon!
The only reason seat belt laws exist is because the insurance industry wants them. Perhaps they should abolished as unconstitutional and the insurance companies should just have the right to refuse to pay if you weren't wearing one and the accident was your fault. Of course you could probably also make the argument that seat belt laws (like speeding and other traffic laws) fall under the 10th amendment and are "reserved to the states" to decide.
They may not be a household name, but they'll still get by financially.
And while they are "getting by" some other artist will have become a national name thanks to the RIAA marketing droids and ClearChannel. His music may not be (probably isn't?) as good as your guy -- but he's the one with the North American tour that pulls in a cool million or so at each stop.
Is it really that hard to understand why RIAA has the power they do? If you could sell a small number of CDs/mp3s on a website and collect all the money -- or sell a large number of CDs from a label and collect little to nothing but become a big enough name that you can go on tour and make millions -- tell me, what would you do?
If we all think RIAA is as bad as we say (I do) then let's do something about it. The Indie artists should get together create their own label that makes fair contracts with the artists and treats the customers like customers and not criminals. Hire a few disillusioned marketing droids from RIAA labels, make some contacts at ClearChannel. If you run the business properly then in a few years you'll have the same marketing power that RIAA does and they won't have everybody (artists and consumers) by the balls like they do now.
The talent is already there. We just need the business sense.
I believe there is a disclaimer near the front of the store that anyone entering the store may be subject to search (especially if the security alarm has gone off -which may or may not be your case). So by just stepping foot on to their property they can search you with reasonable suspicion.
Bullshit. Disclaimers can't force you to give up your legal rights. Now if I signed something they might have a leg to stand on. I still don't think it would allow them to search me though -- the only thing they could do is refuse to let me come back. Sams Club might do this if you refuse the search when leaving because it's probably a condition of your membership -- but they still can't detain you.
At their discretion too, they can choose to detain you till the police arrive if they believe you have stole something.
Again, bullshit. The only (legal) way they can detain you is via a a citizens arrest. If they take that action then they are subjecting themselves to the same probable cause requirements that a law enforcement officer does. I.e: they'd probably be in the clear if they saw you on film stuffing something into your coat pocket. Merely declining an illegal search is not probable cause for anything. Even an actual law enforcement officer would not be able to search your person in this scenario -- though he would still have the right to frisk you under the Terry search doctrine for concealed weapons.
If a Wal Mart greeter ever places me under citizens arrest for merely refusing to have my bags checked then they might as well just sign me a check right there -- because they would buried if I decided to sue them for false arrest. They might even wind up being criminally charged.
I suppose this explains the reason why I always want to drink coffee after getting wasted... the liver knows best ;)
;)
Hey, it sounds better then that bumper sticker, "The liver is evil and must be destroyed"
Yes, absolutely I do.
Then you have zero sympathy for somebody who was young and made a stupid mistake. What do you suppose his chances are for a productive life with a felony record? That will automatically disqualify him from a lot of scholarships and student aid, so forget about college. The felony conviction will also prevent him from getting the few decent jobs that there are for people without college degrees.
Do you seriously think that someone deserves to have their life ruined over a first time offense involving a friggen iPod? You do realize that someone with no hope and no prospects is much more likely to continue to steal? Do you honestly think that this is something that couldn't be resolved with a conditional discharge, community service, and maybe a small fine?
It's that friggen logic that leads us to moronic zero tolerance policies that see kids expelled from school for threatening to beat up a classmate (as though we didn't make/receive our share of those threats in school). Like they have any chance at all of a productive non-criminal life without a high school diploma.
Theft *does* directly harm someone, in that deprives them of their property. Whether the victim is a person or a corporation doesn't matter.
If you steal something from me then it's going to deprive me of the money it takes to replace it or the time it takes to file an insurance claim for me. You shouldn't have the ability to do this without getting punished -- I'm just saying that compared to say kicking the shit out of me and then raping me with a toilet plunger it's fairly mild by comparison.
Theft *does* directly harm someone, in that deprives them of their property. Whether the victim is a person or a corporation doesn't matter. This "kid" was older than 18 years old, and being an adult, I don't see any reason why he should be cut slack on this. He was old enough to know better, and should bear the responsibility for his actions. Had he done it when he was a juvenile, I might agree with you somewhat, but he knew exactly what he was doing, and it speaks very strongly toward his character (or lack thereof), as does his feeble whining to avoid responsibility for what he did.
I'd make the argument that he's an adult when society treats him like one. The last time I checked there are certain things that you couldn't do at 18 -- like legally buy a beer. And all that is beside the point. Do you really think that he deserves a felony conviction and the lifetime of disenfranchisement that will entail over something as petty and stupid as this? For a first time offense that didn't physically harm anyone?
If I beat the shit out of my wife in a lot of states that's only a misdemeanour. How the hell does this kid get charged with a felony?
Mustang, Corvette, and 300C come to mind.
No decent affordable American cars.... ;)
Actually you might have me on the Mustang. I personally would not desire to own a Corvette though.
High percentage of racial minorities? You've never been to Vestal, NY have you? ;) The only reason they have any racial minorities is because of Binghamton University.
Don't feel sorry for this kid.
Why would you? He's a dumbass.
He did something terribly illegal, stealing, which any 4 year old knows is wrong
Terribly illegal? No, murder, rape, arson, manslaughter and perjury are "terribly illegal". When did our society get brainwashed into thinking that stealing is "terribly" illegal? I consider things "terribly" illegal when they directly harm someone else. Money and IPods are just objects -- not human lives.
There's a reason why it's usually a misdemeanour. I'm not saying it shouldn't be punished -- but let's put it into perspective. Do you really think he deserves a felony conviction on his record for the rest of his life? Yeah, that will keep him from turning into a professional criminal instead of a stupid scared kid -- ruin his chances for a productive life.
As much as I root for the good guys and follow this stuff in real life and fiction (Jack McCoy is one of my favorite fictional characters) it seems to me that the criminal justice system is self-perpetuating at times.