In print media, they have to cover the costs of paper and ink plus a distribution system on top of all their news costs. The paper and ink and delivery are probably one of their biggest share of costs. A news paper is currently what, 50 cents or 75 cents now with a buck fifty for the Sunday edition
I don't know if it's still true but subscriptions used to cover the cost of printing and delivering the paper, the profits came from ads. I don't know where you live but the last tyme I checked the cost of the newspaper in stores around here, Minneapolis/St Paul, I think the daily paper ie Monday through Friday was $1.50.
Your right, if they charge, I won't pay. I would rather go back to the kid down the road throwing the paper into the bushed every day
Same here, though I rarely read the paper anymore if I wanted to I'd rather pay to have the dead tree type of paper delivered than subscribe online.
So then those people won't have access to news stories... perhaps just the first paragraph.
The fact is that news costs money. I don't know the specifics of how such a system would work without being intrusive - but people can't work for free (just like you and me).
Oh, I agree but like the MP/RIAA newspapers may have to change their business models. I don't have an answer, but I do believe many won't pay for subscriptions. The poorest, and arguably the ones needing the news the most, may not be able to afford to subscribe. However news providers act as a check on government, though as with all those WMDs Iraq had, er didn't have, they do fail sometimes.
Perhaps for broadcasters though the airwaves could be freed, broadcasting licenses cost millions. That would reduce cost some in which case advertizing may pay for reporters.
Oh yeah, let's have competing groups pirating the air waves, that will make everything better.
No, just go back to how the airwaves were homesteaded. Way back before the Federal Radio Commission, which was the predecessor to the FCC, was enacted the first person to use a certain frequency in a specific location was said to have homesteaded that frequency in that area. When someone came along and started using the same frequency someone else was already using courts held the right of the first person to use that frequency. It was only after big media companies or broadcasters started pushing for licensing when they became mandatory. These big companies did not like the competition so they made sure competition was reduced.
And that's a big problem with large government, it reduces competition.
Armature radio? I suppose most do contain some form of wiring...
Though I don't think it's still there there used to be a requirement that the person could design and build their own transmitter to get an amateur license. Another requirement was that the operator had to know Morse code.
P.S. a pox on wikipedia - the encyclopedia that every imbecile has edited
Though more than 15 years ago I knew people who had their amateur radio license. I wanted to get mine however I didn't learn enough Morse code.
You're using "mercantile nation" differently than others do. For instance Dictionary.com says "2. engaged in trade or commerce: a mercantile nation."
if China were really trading fairly
China doesn't trade fairly, that I admit. If China wanted to trade fairly then they'd have to let the market set the price of yuan or the Chinese Renminbi. But instead the government does.
she would be spending that money around the globe and those dollars would ultimately work their way back to the US economy.
China does spend, er invest, that money throughout the world. For instance "China to invest in Brazil oil". China is one of the biggest investors in Africa. It's because of China that there hasn't been a solution in the Sudan before, but the Chinese are pushing for peace now.
those "New Deal" era reforms made by Roosevelt that were successful
Obviously, all taxes are bad in some theoretical sense, but if you were going to tax -effectively-, and raise revenue to do what it is that governments do, then, the things to tax would be hoards. Capital Gains taxes are the -worst- form of taxes because they encourage hoarding. On the other hand, sales taxes are pretty terrible too because they discourage spending, and that ultimately lowers the velocity of money.
Depending on how you look at it taxing something but not another may be bad, or visa versa. Taxing investments drives money away from investments, and taxing spending drives money away from spending. However not enough people in the US invest enough, too many people have been living beyond their means since at least the 1990s. That stimulus package passed in early 2008, where rebates were mailed out to tax payers, failed because many people used it to pay off debt instead of spending it. If they had spent it though then they would of had more debt. Damn if I do and damn if I don't. About the only thing I can see working is to reduce government spending so taxes can be lowered if not eliminated. Reduce the size of government and use user fees for those things government does mean to provide, like roads.
I'd happily pay $0.20 to read my fave sunday newspaper online each week.
If I had to pay I'd rather pay for the dead tree variety. It may not bother you but it bothers me, and I've had other tell me it bothers them too, to read page after page on a monitor. Even reading/. I constantly shift my gaze away from my monitor. But I can read print all day long.
Broadcast is only expensive because politicians made it that way. Before licenses were required many people were able to broadcast and even today there are pirate radio stations. It cost little to set up your own station, ham or amature radio operators do it a lot.
AP and Reuters are two of the few actual content providers. They SHOULD charge. After all, they charge newspapers for their content. They have live trained reporters around the world, many of them risking their lives. This has substantial value. They deserve to be paid.
The problem is that many people don't want to pay. If these news agencies start charging they may find readership dropping.
Not actually true, in the case of newspapers. The bulk of their money comes from subscription payments
Before the net came along I knew a reporter for the local newspaper and she said what the GP said, that subscriptions pay for printing and distribution but the profits were made from ads. That may of changed since the net came along.
government would grant newspapers exemption from anti-trust regulation
Just focusing on this I don't see how print newspapers can remain viable without them going online. Newspaper readership may be falling. I used to be an avid newspaper reader but it's been more than 10 years since I've sat down and read more than an article or two in the papers.
Another model is that of NPR. Basically non profit user supported.
I don't know how accurate it is but Wiki says NPR member stations get about 1/3 of their funding from pledge drives, 1/3 from sponsers, "and one-third from grants from state governments, university grants, and grants from the CPB itself."
What "we"? If you mean the government, a good economic system may mean government spending more than it brings in taxes. And governments are frequently borrowing from each other.
Rather, they should be spending those dollars for their people.
The Chinese people are benefiting from trade. Up until the recession the average Chinese was seeing an improved living standard. A Chinese from a rural village could move to a big city and work saving their money. After a few year they could have enough saved to move back to the village and start their own business. While many people in the US would say the Chinese lived and worked in slave labor conditions, the same is true about US labor, especially in the past. My own family is a good example, my background is low income. Our mother, I have two sisters, taught us while we were growing up we could be almost anything we wanted to be as long as we were willing to work for it. Neither of our parents went to college, my dad enlisted in the US Air Force and retired from it while my mother worked her way through a 2 year technical school, while raising my sisters and I, to become a lab assistant in a hospital. All three of us went to college. My older sister became a nurse and my younger sister got her Masters in Taxation and now runs her own accounting business. Me, I started college with a major in Computer Engineering. Unfortunately that ended when I was hit while riding my bike after my classes one day. The accident, ha ha it was no accident as the driver who hit me caused other accidents because he didn't take care of his diabetes, left me with a disability which unless a break through in neurology happens before I die will be permanent. I survived a Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI. And I do mean survived, while in a coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived. It was no miracle, but something else entirely.
On the other hand, I would like to see trade expanded between the USA, Canada, and the European Union
If I recall right, one of the problems with TBIs is poor memory, Canada is the US's biggest trading partner. And Mexico is near the top as well.
Actually, protectionism in the USA worked extremely well in the period from 1820s up through the Wilson administration.
Okay, I learned something today, there was protectionism in the US in the 1820s.
In short, protectionism does work really well, but ultimately, it can cause wars if countries perceive that they are being starved of raw materials.
Protectionism works well for some but not all. However I believe free trade can raise more people's standard of living than protectionism does. The years since World War II shows this. Though there isn't true free trade international trade has opened up since the war and though there's a larger population less people are at or below the poverty line.
the real national crisis was a Fannie Mae house of cards that the American left created?
Citation needed
There's a lot out there. If you want to follow the WSJ, you can go there through the back issues, all the way back to when Fannie Mae
Both Democrats and Republicans supported Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
And half of the Republicans if you want to be that way.
Yeah, well, you would be right. I mean, I remember Reagan promising that free trade would improve American companies and instead, over the last thirty years, it has utterly destroyed them
Thing is is Reagan didn't fully support free trade. For instance to protect Harley Davidson he imposed tariffs on Japanese motorcycles. He also imposed tariffs on Japanese electronics. Fact is is there has been no free trade in a long tyme. One way or another US businesses have used government to restrict trade.
And Republicans still keep pushing that free trade button with every dictatorship to all we have left is our secretary of state heading off to China to go publicly beg for money. That's pathetic.
Ah, something we agree on. One of the things that bothers me is that while Republicans use the rhetoric of free trade they don't really support it.
So you want to be part of the problem?
Yeah I do. Lock and load!:-) Just kidding.
Perhaps I was a bit harsh. Maybe a thread from yesterday is affecting me more than I should let it. That discussion was also about free markets, trade, but no matter how much research I presented the other party only ridiculed it without backing up their own position. It seems too many want to ridicule a proposal without making their own, and I have to include myself there because I don't always make a proposition.
I agree about Jerry Falwell, but I also think Reagan's decision to adopt free trade as part of his reform, and Clinton's decision to stick with it, is the real root cause of our present economic mess, and we will not fix it until we get rid of it.
Perhaps you haven't heard yet but communism failed. Okay, so maybe you'll say you know that but will you also admit no president since World War 2 supported free trade? Not one, not Reagan, not Clinton, and certainly not Bush II.
Having said "This is a Republic, not a Democracy" I'll point out that in a republic the leaders are not necessarily elected. All that's needed for a republic to exist is that the head of state not be a monarch.
I mean, what has all of this conflict accomplished?
It shows the rest of the world that people can question their government and don't need to take thinks on "faith" or at the point of a gun.
You speak of the "free market" as if it really exists. It doesn't, governments all over world help their industries.
Oh, I agree. I have said in my previous posts about free markets, as well as post about monopolies and patents, that one does not exist.
In some cases it's by using a monopoly illegally, but in others it's from hard work.
Really? I've been in the software industry for a LONG time. Luck has a lot more to do with success than most people admit. I have seen excellent technical companies destroyed and imbecilic stupidity rewarded.
Surprise, surprise, I agree. That does not mean that those who apply themselves can't make it though.
Meanwhile some who do not make it don't because they refuse to offer what consumers and users want.
Like Microsoft and Vista and technologies like DRM? Where is the free market? Why does a CD cost $18.
In a free market Microsoft would not get away with what the company has done. Nor would DRM exist. And a CD would cost what buyers are willing to pay for it.
And who determines need and value?
One presumes a panel of experts appointed to do this. Not perfect, but something.
And how are those expert picked?
In a free market buyers do.
The "free market" is a myth. Microsoft buys the free market.
Just because the free market does not exist now does not mean it's a myth. A freer market existed in the late 1820s to early '30s. Read Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" some tyme to get an example of one. He wrote the book after touring the US back then. Quite simply corporations had not yet taken control of government.
I've not exactly come out with enthusiastic support for Obama, but I think in this case the administration is doing the right thing. I do not believe the Presidency should be tracked to the extent that it is, because it undermines the ability of the President to do his or her job.
He or she was elected by the people and as such the people should know what the president does. Hiding documents show government is not to be trusted.
These are petty debates and if we are to have a genuine democracy, we should judge programs more by their efficacy and trust that the Constitution was right in the powers it gave to the President
Trust? Neither the USA's Founding Fathers nor I trust government. And wasn't it Ronald Reagan who said "Trust, but Verify"?
Of course this was before corporations became powerful as Thomas Jefferson warned about.
So, your solution is to make them even more powerful by implementing libertarianism?
No, libertarians want to make corporations less powerful. Libertarian Party spokesperson Andrew Davis says "The Libertarian Party is adamantly opposed to any sort of bailout of American corporations who, through their own mismanagement, find themselves at the brink of failure,". Corporations get their power from governments, by limiting the power of government the power of corporations will be limited too.
Again - real sharp, logical thinking right there.
Again no logic at all. Since you can't seem to use reason and logic and back up your positions I see no reason to continue this.
True however government subsidizing creates winners and losers.
True, but so does everything else in the world.
There's a big difference between the government picking winners and losers and a free market picking them. One is coercive and the other voluntary.
those who get the most in subsidies can come out on top despite any technical merit.
Again, true, but the system is inherently unfair. People who get into the game with more money tend to come out on top despite any technical merit. Granting money to people with less may improve fairness.
And how did they get to the top? In some cases it's by using a monopoly illegally, but in others it's from hard work. Meanwhile some who do not make it don't because they refuse to offer what consumers and users want. Adobe has offered 16 bit and 24 bit colour depths for years and CS4 has 48 bits while Photoshop Elements supports 16 bits. The GIMP project keeps promising 16 bits it doesn't even support 12 bit colour depths. All GIMP supports is 8 bit per colour channel, for a total of 24 bits.
Then how's the money to be given out?
In an abstract, I would suppose based on a "need" of the developer and "value" of the idea.
And who determines need and value? In a free market buyers do. Since slashdotters are fond of using them I will use a car analogy as well. Before the economic meltdown, which will get worse, people bought a car based on their own wants or "needs". Those who wanted, and could afford it, could buy an expensive but stylish car whereas those who couldn't afford a high price tag may be able to buy a cheap used car.
Slashdot Mirror
In print media, they have to cover the costs of paper and ink plus a distribution system on top of all their news costs. The paper and ink and delivery are probably one of their biggest share of costs. A news paper is currently what, 50 cents or 75 cents now with a buck fifty for the Sunday edition
I don't know if it's still true but subscriptions used to cover the cost of printing and delivering the paper, the profits came from ads. I don't know where you live but the last tyme I checked the cost of the newspaper in stores around here, Minneapolis/St Paul, I think the daily paper ie Monday through Friday was $1.50.
Your right, if they charge, I won't pay. I would rather go back to the kid down the road throwing the paper into the bushed every day
Same here, though I rarely read the paper anymore if I wanted to I'd rather pay to have the dead tree type of paper delivered than subscribe online.
Falcon
So then those people won't have access to news stories... perhaps just the first paragraph.
The fact is that news costs money. I don't know the specifics of how such a system would work without being intrusive - but people can't work for free (just like you and me).
Oh, I agree but like the MP/RIAA newspapers may have to change their business models. I don't have an answer, but I do believe many won't pay for subscriptions. The poorest, and arguably the ones needing the news the most, may not be able to afford to subscribe. However news providers act as a check on government, though as with all those WMDs Iraq had, er didn't have, they do fail sometimes.
Perhaps for broadcasters though the airwaves could be freed, broadcasting licenses cost millions. That would reduce cost some in which case advertizing may pay for reporters.
Falcon
What liberals? CNN certainly doesn't support liberals.
Falcon
Oh yeah, let's have competing groups pirating the air waves, that will make everything better.
No, just go back to how the airwaves were homesteaded. Way back before the Federal Radio Commission, which was the predecessor to the FCC, was enacted the first person to use a certain frequency in a specific location was said to have homesteaded that frequency in that area. When someone came along and started using the same frequency someone else was already using courts held the right of the first person to use that frequency. It was only after big media companies or broadcasters started pushing for licensing when they became mandatory. These big companies did not like the competition so they made sure competition was reduced.
And that's a big problem with large government, it reduces competition.
Falcon
Armature radio? I suppose most do contain some form of wiring...
Though I don't think it's still there there used to be a requirement that the person could design and build their own transmitter to get an amateur license. Another requirement was that the operator had to know Morse code.
P.S. a pox on wikipedia - the encyclopedia that every imbecile has edited
Though more than 15 years ago I knew people who had their amateur radio license. I wanted to get mine however I didn't learn enough Morse code.
Falcon
The hallmark of a mercantile nation is hoarding.
You're using "mercantile nation" differently than others do. For instance Dictionary.com says "2. engaged in trade or commerce: a mercantile nation."
if China were really trading fairly
China doesn't trade fairly, that I admit. If China wanted to trade fairly then they'd have to let the market set the price of yuan or the Chinese Renminbi. But instead the government does.
she would be spending that money around the globe and those dollars would ultimately work their way back to the US economy.
China does spend, er invest, that money throughout the world. For instance "China to invest in Brazil oil". China is one of the biggest investors in Africa. It's because of China that there hasn't been a solution in the Sudan before, but the Chinese are pushing for peace now.
those "New Deal" era reforms made by Roosevelt that were successful
Some economists believe FDRs reforms prolonged the Great Depression as I've said elsewhere. Here's what the Wall Street Journal has to say about "How Government Prolonged the Depression". The protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, enacted in 1930, may of made it worse.
Obviously, all taxes are bad in some theoretical sense, but if you were going to tax -effectively-, and raise revenue to do what it is that governments do, then, the things to tax would be hoards. Capital Gains taxes are the -worst- form of taxes because they encourage hoarding. On the other hand, sales taxes are pretty terrible too because they discourage spending, and that ultimately lowers the velocity of money.
Depending on how you look at it taxing something but not another may be bad, or visa versa. Taxing investments drives money away from investments, and taxing spending drives money away from spending. However not enough people in the US invest enough, too many people have been living beyond their means since at least the 1990s. That stimulus package passed in early 2008, where rebates were mailed out to tax payers, failed because many people used it to pay off debt instead of spending it. If they had spent it though then they would of had more debt. Damn if I do and damn if I don't. About the only thing I can see working is to reduce government spending so taxes can be lowered if not eliminated. Reduce the size of government and use user fees for those things government does mean to provide, like roads.
Falcon
I'd happily pay $0.20 to read my fave sunday newspaper online each week.
If I had to pay I'd rather pay for the dead tree variety. It may not bother you but it bothers me, and I've had other tell me it bothers them too, to read page after page on a monitor. Even reading /. I constantly shift my gaze away from my monitor. But I can read print all day long.
Falcon
yet broadcast airtime is very expensive.
Broadcast is only expensive because politicians made it that way. Before licenses were required many people were able to broadcast and even today there are pirate radio stations. It cost little to set up your own station, ham or amature radio operators do it a lot.
Falcon
AP and Reuters are two of the few actual content providers. They SHOULD charge. After all, they charge newspapers for their content. They have live trained reporters around the world, many of them risking their lives. This has substantial value. They deserve to be paid.
The problem is that many people don't want to pay. If these news agencies start charging they may find readership dropping.
Falcon
Not actually true, in the case of newspapers. The bulk of their money comes from subscription payments
Before the net came along I knew a reporter for the local newspaper and she said what the GP said, that subscriptions pay for printing and distribution but the profits were made from ads. That may of changed since the net came along.
Falcon
government would grant newspapers exemption from anti-trust regulation
Just focusing on this I don't see how print newspapers can remain viable without them going online. Newspaper readership may be falling. I used to be an avid newspaper reader but it's been more than 10 years since I've sat down and read more than an article or two in the papers.
Falcon
Another model is that of NPR. Basically non profit user supported.
I don't know how accurate it is but Wiki says NPR member stations get about 1/3 of their funding from pledge drives, 1/3 from sponsers, "and one-third from grants from state governments, university grants, and grants from the CPB itself."
Falcon
My proposal is that the USA should cut off free trade with nations that adopt mercantile policies
How are you using mercantile?
We shouldn't be begging the Chinese for a loan.
What "we"? If you mean the government, a good economic system may mean government spending more than it brings in taxes. And governments are frequently borrowing from each other.
Rather, they should be spending those dollars for their people.
The Chinese people are benefiting from trade. Up until the recession the average Chinese was seeing an improved living standard. A Chinese from a rural village could move to a big city and work saving their money. After a few year they could have enough saved to move back to the village and start their own business. While many people in the US would say the Chinese lived and worked in slave labor conditions, the same is true about US labor, especially in the past. My own family is a good example, my background is low income. Our mother, I have two sisters, taught us while we were growing up we could be almost anything we wanted to be as long as we were willing to work for it. Neither of our parents went to college, my dad enlisted in the US Air Force and retired from it while my mother worked her way through a 2 year technical school, while raising my sisters and I, to become a lab assistant in a hospital. All three of us went to college. My older sister became a nurse and my younger sister got her Masters in Taxation and now runs her own accounting business. Me, I started college with a major in Computer Engineering. Unfortunately that ended when I was hit while riding my bike after my classes one day. The accident, ha ha it was no accident as the driver who hit me caused other accidents because he didn't take care of his diabetes, left me with a disability which unless a break through in neurology happens before I die will be permanent. I survived a Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI. And I do mean survived, while in a coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived. It was no miracle, but something else entirely.
On the other hand, I would like to see trade expanded between the USA, Canada, and the European Union
If I recall right, one of the problems with TBIs is poor memory, Canada is the US's biggest trading partner. And Mexico is near the top as well.
Falcon
There's always the initial, hysterical article about how Obama is doing something oh-so-terrible (e.g. killing net neutrality).
Perhaps the part that would have killed net neutrality was removed because so many complained.
Remember all those complains about the stimulus package being full of pork?
The stimulus package is pork.
Falcon
Actually, protectionism in the USA worked extremely well in the period from 1820s up through the Wilson administration.
Okay, I learned something today, there was protectionism in the US in the 1820s.
In short, protectionism does work really well, but ultimately, it can cause wars if countries perceive that they are being starved of raw materials.
Protectionism works well for some but not all. However I believe free trade can raise more people's standard of living than protectionism does. The years since World War II shows this. Though there isn't true free trade international trade has opened up since the war and though there's a larger population less people are at or below the poverty line.
Falcon
every time the White House changed party hands, the previous president would be up Shit Creek.
That's how it should be, not just the White House, but all of government. Sunshine laws are good.
Falcon
the real national crisis was a Fannie Mae house of cards that the American left created?
Citation needed
There's a lot out there. If you want to follow the WSJ, you can go there through the back issues, all the way back to when Fannie Mae
Both Democrats and Republicans supported Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
And half of the Republicans if you want to be that way.
Yeah, well, you would be right. I mean, I remember Reagan promising that free trade would improve American companies and instead, over the last thirty years, it has utterly destroyed them
Thing is is Reagan didn't fully support free trade. For instance to protect Harley Davidson he imposed tariffs on Japanese motorcycles. He also imposed tariffs on Japanese electronics. Fact is is there has been no free trade in a long tyme. One way or another US businesses have used government to restrict trade.
And Republicans still keep pushing that free trade button with every dictatorship to all we have left is our secretary of state heading off to China to go publicly beg for money. That's pathetic.
Ah, something we agree on. One of the things that bothers me is that while Republicans use the rhetoric of free trade they don't really support it.
So you want to be part of the problem?
Yeah I do. Lock and load! :-) Just kidding.
Perhaps I was a bit harsh. Maybe a thread from yesterday is affecting me more than I should let it. That discussion was also about free markets, trade, but no matter how much research I presented the other party only ridiculed it without backing up their own position. It seems too many want to ridicule a proposal without making their own, and I have to include myself there because I don't always make a proposition.
Falcon
if you really wanted to benefit the American working man, you'd cut off the flow of imports
If you really wanted to help the working American then you would support free trade, not protectionism.
It's a system that worked pretty well for the USA before...
When was this? Certainly not when protectionists passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which led to the Great Depression.
I agree about Jerry Falwell, but I also think Reagan's decision to adopt free trade as part of his reform, and Clinton's decision to stick with it, is the real root cause of our present economic mess, and we will not fix it until we get rid of it.
Perhaps you haven't heard yet but communism failed. Okay, so maybe you'll say you know that but will you also admit no president since World War 2 supported free trade? Not one, not Reagan, not Clinton, and certainly not Bush II.
Falcon
the real national crisis was a Fannie Mae house of cards that the American left created?
Citation needed.
If there was a genuine investigation of the last 8 years, half the Democrats in Congress ought to be executed.
And half of the Republicans if you want to be that way.
I promise any Republican that there will be no trials, only murders, for what these people have done to this country.
So you want to be part of the problem?
Falcon
Having said "This is a Republic, not a Democracy" I'll point out that in a republic the leaders are not necessarily elected. All that's needed for a republic to exist is that the head of state not be a monarch.
I mean, what has all of this conflict accomplished?
It shows the rest of the world that people can question their government and don't need to take thinks on "faith" or at the point of a gun.
Falcon
You speak of the "free market" as if it really exists. It doesn't, governments all over world help their industries.
Oh, I agree. I have said in my previous posts about free markets, as well as post about monopolies and patents, that one does not exist.
In some cases it's by using a monopoly illegally, but in others it's from hard work.
Really? I've been in the software industry for a LONG time. Luck has a lot more to do with success than most people admit. I have seen excellent technical companies destroyed and imbecilic stupidity rewarded.
Surprise, surprise, I agree. That does not mean that those who apply themselves can't make it though.
Meanwhile some who do not make it don't because they refuse to offer what consumers and users want.
Like Microsoft and Vista and technologies like DRM? Where is the free market? Why does a CD cost $18.
In a free market Microsoft would not get away with what the company has done. Nor would DRM exist. And a CD would cost what buyers are willing to pay for it.
And who determines need and value?
One presumes a panel of experts appointed to do this. Not perfect, but something.
And how are those expert picked?
In a free market buyers do.
The "free market" is a myth. Microsoft buys the free market.
Just because the free market does not exist now does not mean it's a myth. A freer market existed in the late 1820s to early '30s. Read Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" some tyme to get an example of one. He wrote the book after touring the US back then. Quite simply corporations had not yet taken control of government.
Falcon
I've not exactly come out with enthusiastic support for Obama, but I think in this case the administration is doing the right thing. I do not believe the Presidency should be tracked to the extent that it is, because it undermines the ability of the President to do his or her job.
He or she was elected by the people and as such the people should know what the president does. Hiding documents show government is not to be trusted.
These are petty debates and if we are to have a genuine democracy, we should judge programs more by their efficacy and trust that the Constitution was right in the powers it gave to the President
Trust? Neither the USA's Founding Fathers nor I trust government. And wasn't it Ronald Reagan who said "Trust, but Verify"?
Falcon
Of course this was before corporations became powerful as Thomas Jefferson warned about.
So, your solution is to make them even more powerful by implementing libertarianism?
No, libertarians want to make corporations less powerful. Libertarian Party spokesperson Andrew Davis says "The Libertarian Party is adamantly opposed to any sort of bailout of American corporations who, through their own mismanagement, find themselves at the brink of failure,". Corporations get their power from governments, by limiting the power of government the power of corporations will be limited too.
Again - real sharp, logical thinking right there.
Again no logic at all. Since you can't seem to use reason and logic and back up your positions I see no reason to continue this.
Falcon
True however government subsidizing creates winners and losers.
True, but so does everything else in the world.
There's a big difference between the government picking winners and losers and a free market picking them. One is coercive and the other voluntary.
those who get the most in subsidies can come out on top despite any technical merit.
Again, true, but the system is inherently unfair. People who get into the game with more money tend to come out on top despite any technical merit. Granting money to people with less may improve fairness.
And how did they get to the top? In some cases it's by using a monopoly illegally, but in others it's from hard work. Meanwhile some who do not make it don't because they refuse to offer what consumers and users want. Adobe has offered 16 bit and 24 bit colour depths for years and CS4 has 48 bits while Photoshop Elements supports 16 bits. The GIMP project keeps promising 16 bits it doesn't even support 12 bit colour depths. All GIMP supports is 8 bit per colour channel, for a total of 24 bits.
Then how's the money to be given out?
In an abstract, I would suppose based on a "need" of the developer and "value" of the idea.
And who determines need and value? In a free market buyers do. Since slashdotters are fond of using them I will use a car analogy as well. Before the economic meltdown, which will get worse, people bought a car based on their own wants or "needs". Those who wanted, and could afford it, could buy an expensive but stylish car whereas those who couldn't afford a high price tag may be able to buy a cheap used car.
Falcon
Agreed about the waste of tax money.
The money wasted was a loss of freedom.
Falcon