Seems like everybody instantly is attaching their personal political interpretation of the data. The article was about the difficulties intelligence agencies face as traffic shifts, not that the agencies are the primary reason for the shift. While security of data plays a small role, economics is playing a larger role. FTFA
International networks that carry data into and out of the United States are still being expanded at a sharp rate, but the Internet infrastructure in many other regions of the world is growing even more quickly.
The traffic in and out of the US isn't going down, it's still climbing. As countries develop around the world, it makes economic sense that they would develop their own intraregional connections. China is natrually going to build more tubes to it's developing regional trade partners. You have a situation where there is more global communication being generated elsewhere, which results in a reduction in the % of traffic through the US.
This is less about security policy, and more about the reduced economic reliance on the US.
I would argue that decisions like this are to a large extent the result of a way of thinking specifically associated with business schools and their MBA graduates.
As another poster pointed out, not all MBA's are created equal. In fact part of MBA programs is to teach students to look at the big picture, and give examples of how "additional costs" for things like quality, supply chain management, and research actually save money. I'm sure many people on slashdot know lazy or unintelligent engineers/programming/IT hacks who become decision makers through politics, or off the hard work of others; those people are not representative of the skills that are taught in the university. What usually happens is money losing business units are under the gun to prove their value at all times. If a company sees a bunch of quality problems costing them money, they may come to the conclusion that they might as well cut the quality department because not only is it eating money, it's not even working. So they scale back, outsource, or otherwise balance the value of the business unit to the cost. Specifically looking at research, you may create amazing things, but if the rest of the company can't figure out how to monetize that research it's just dead weight. Depending on the company structure they may be able to change the culture of the company to enable capitalizing on research. Usually, though, in large corporations it won't work the structure is too large and entrenched to change - so cut the dead weight by selling it, spinning it off, or change it's focus to something the company can use.
Don't you mean - Best case scenario, you end up a supervillian. They have all the fun Worst case from comic books is you become a puddle of goo that starts the superhero investigation.
but the fact is we have had a steady erosion of our rights ever since the Articles of Confederation was abandoned
Fixed that for you. The US Constitution was the start of the erosion of rights as the federal government was granted more power. The Bill of Rights at best was a temporary bandaid - from the start the politicians have opportunistically grabbed power and erroded the rights of states and individuals.
The bean counters with their MBA's came in and removed 4 of the 6 major cities citing to move this project out by christmas rather than doing it right.
And the know-it-all geeks pout because they don't realize more doesn't equal better. "But you said you were going to start with 6 so your game can only be 33% as good!"
One is running a hedge fund in Santa Fe. One went to Bermuda to work for an offshore financial operation. One went to a search engine company. One headed a group developing software inside the iPhone. They're all making lots of money, but they're not doing robotics.
Why is that a bad thing? It's not just about individuals chasing money, it's about companies *gasp* hiring intelligent people to do important things like manage large amounts of resources. Their choices aren't contributing to the decline of the US, they're keeping it going. Eventually robitics will be an enough part of the economy to keep smart people, but it hasn't matured to that point yet.
You're right, a company that sells services rather than goods can never be sustainable in the long run.
Of course it depends on the long-term viability of the services themselves... remember AOL had a $200B market cap at one point. When I see their market cap I have to ask myself "What makes Google special?" and I'm hard pressed to find an answer. Yes, Google has achieved critical mass, but they don't have any services that users could abandon overnight if something better comes along - remember Yahoo used to be the undisputed king of search.
When the existing system is so far gone that no one is willing to try fixing it, yes you do throw it out. Thus far, "fixes" just keep making it worse. It really is about time to just throw the whole thing out and start over.
You can't just sit at home and complain and expect things to be fixed. How much time do you spend educating your neighbors on copyright, or contacted elected officials?
The intent of copyright/patents is to promote innovation by making it profitable. Instead, they are now stifling innovation by making it unprofitable. Can't really get much more opposite than that.
The existing incarnation is making it more difficult to be profitable, but innovation is far from being a negative ROI.
Yep, you really like those nits. Either you're too obtuse to grasp what I meant, or you're just ignoring it because you love those nits.
Yup, you like to try and make a point with an example, and complain about nitpicking when I point out what a poor example it is.
No. Just no. Sorry, I'm not playing your nitpicking game.
It's not nitpicking, it's pointing out specific issues. You don't throw out an exisiting system that have generally been working for 200 years unless there is something compelling to change to. If there are a number of holes in the new system, don't dismiss them, address them.
And it's that mentality that is causing all this grief. Piracy is not a sale at a cost of 0. Piracy is a non-sale. As I implied before, it's been demonstrated over and over again that the vast majority of piracy incidents (obviously the exact percentage can't be quantified, but a safe bet is it's over 99%) are by people who would never have purchased the product pirated. Does that justify piracy? No. But the fact is, it's not a lost sale. The key here is, it doesn't affect your end profit, certainly not enough to warrant spending time and money trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
Do you have actual statistics? If piracy is just accepted, then even if 99% would never have purchased you would likely get an influx of people who would have purchased but don't, because they don't have to.
And that's what copyright and patents did at first. Not any more. Now they have the exact opposite effect.
Yes the rules are causing barriers, but they are far from having the opposite effect. It's not like society is slowing down significantly in terms of technology and culture.
The fact that it's really not "a limited time" any more. The original durations specified in our first copyright and patent laws are much too long for today's fast-paced world of software and high-tech. What we have now is so far beyond ludicrous, it's mind-numbing. And that's why people pirate and don't care - they know that any software they're at all interesting in using will be obsolete loooooooong before it ever enters the public domain. That's completely against the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law is to give the innovator a brief period of time to be the sole profiteer of his work, and then everyone is allowed to profit from it. In the software world, that would be at most a year. Yes, really. Think about it.
A small developer could spend over a year to find a market, so no it wouldn't be a year. I'd estimate the average time to get an acceptable ROI is 3-7 years. I never said keep the system as it is, but don't throw it out.
Come on. Seriously. That's the way it's ALWAYS worked with anything that doesn't have an obvious value. If you're a startup developer, you have to create and release some games for free before a publisher will even look at you. Either that or start with waaaaaaaaaaay more cash than any startup developer has had. But at this point that's largely moot, as pretty much everyone in the game industry already has past work to demonstrate their skill, or work for someone who does.
The difference is with the current rules a publisher can't just distribute your games without compensation. Without protections the big corporations will just take any good idea presented to them and use their own developers for the future.
About as realistic as expecting the government to legislate a mandatory profit for the entertainment industry in an economy based on CAPITALISM
It isn't legislating profits, it's legislating OPPORTUNITY for a return. There's no guarantee people will buy your game, but at least there's a chance.
That's the whole point really. Capitalism is about a free market without rules (for the most part). The problem here is that people are trying to legislate value that doesn't in truth exist.
There are plenty of rules in a capitalist society. Little things like fraud, counterfeiting, contracts, etc. There is a recognition that for "fair" trade which is the essence of the free market, certain rules should be adhered to otherwise the system breaks down. The reason you can't print your own money is not that it's stealing, but rather it destroys the value of cash rendering it worthless. There's a recognition that the realization of ideas have value (otherwise people wouldn't want them), and that certain rules are needed to encourage investment and "promote progress."
If people are refusing to pay for it (whether it's because of piracy or simply not buying your product is mostly irrelevant, as has been demonstrated over and over again), you're probably charging too much. If you can't sell it at a price acceptable to the market and remain profitable at the same time, you're probably investing too much money into it.
If the cost to produce was 0, then there'd be no problem with reproductions selling at 0. The problem is ideas aren't magically realized, and there is a great value to society to try and encourage investment in new ideas - that is how progress is made. Like most laws it's a balancing act between the needs of society vs the individual. What is so amazingly wrong about a creator being able to secure how their works are distributed for a limited time?
The sponsor is free to set forth whatever expectations he chooses. The developer is also free to either accept or reject the sponsor based on those expectations.
That's the problem I have, the idea gets axed before it can be realized. Ideas good or bad aren't given a chance to succeed on their merits but rather somebody's else's vision.
Are you following this thread at all??? The "sponsor" in this thread is a collective comprised of thousands or even millions of gamers.
How realistic is it to think that thousands or millions of gamers can unite to sponsor a single idea? You can't get enough fans to sponsor "Enterprise" or keep Stephen King writing "The Plant." Most people would rather just pay to consume rather than pay to sponsor. Then you get into the horrible politics that would be involved with any large group. "my {favorite character} doesn't have a big enough role, I'm withdrawing support"
So this whole scenario assumes the game will be pirated and there will be a lot more people than the sponsor determining whether or not the game is garbage.
But the holder of the purse-strings is the ultimate decision maker for future products.
I still don't see what's wrong with the current system other than some people don't want to play by the rules. If you don't like the DRM, no demo, CD requirement, price instead of pirating just not consume. Games aren't essential to life, and there's a whole lot of alternatives for entertainment. I'm not sure about you, but I've never played a game that was so incredible I couldn't live without it; And maybe publishers will really get the idea of what people want when they don't get sales, and there's no "piracy boogieman" to point to.
well, now we have the internet, no less earth shattering than the printing press. and what is the internet going to change?
it destroys the concept of intellectual property
you either get that, or, like those who still believe in the preeminence of a ruling class, you don't get it. and you will be befuddled for many centuries to come
intellectual property is dead. the internet killed it. understand that, or not, but it is the truth whether you like it or not. deal with it
Technology also destroys many of our concepts of privacy, I guess we should just sit back and just deal with it.
It can be thus: "I like your talent at making games. I'll pay you $xxxxxxxx to come up with a new game for me."
And usually the expectation is that whatever new you create is along the lines of what you previously did. Which makes it difficult for artists to explore and take chances. "Hey why did you make a FPS, I hired you for your 4X talent"
The risk is, if the developer then makes a garbage game, the chances of him being commissioned for another game of his own design drop dramatically.
But the sponsor is the sole decision maker on what is garbage.
Hahhhahahahhahahaha. That's priceless. Madden 2028, God of War 12, Pokemon Silver Tournament Card Champion Alpha 3, The Sims Universe, and Mario Party 234 would like to discuss how innovation and risk died when game budgets started hitting in the tens of millions.
Yes because every title costs tens of millions to produce. When you start killing off the viability of the indie scene you lose the risk taking. A huge company is not going to spend their valuable hours developing something that they don't see a market for. If a small studio creates a game that fills a strong niche, at least their developers have a chance to be rewarded for their effort and more importantly are protected from a company with greater marketing and distribution muscle from just taking it without compensation.
Some of the best symphonies ever written were commissioned works.
That's actually my point, you'll still have art, but you destroy risk taking. Do you think rich white guys would sponsor rap music? No, but they'll invest in it to turn a profit.
Star Trek takes place in a future where mankind has embraced socialism and lives in a utopia....
Who says it's a utopia? From what I remember there was very little time spent looking at civilian life. Sure everybody had their needs covered, but there was strict military and government control. Not everybody had their own starship, science projects could be hijacked for military purposes, and on a few occasions regular folk were allowed to die because some treaty said they weren't allowed to live on their planet. Besides it can't be a utopia without Khan!
Cars are not abundant. It takes a significant expenditure of materials and effort to put one together. When I drive off in one, I cannot simply dupe it and give the dupe to my friend. The laws of physics dictate a level of scarcity to this good, and as such it makes perfect sense to expect to receive money from every person who obtains a car.
Games (or any art) are not abundant either. They may be easy to reproduce, but they are very difficult to produce. So you get in a situation of trying to find a way to encourage investment to produce something, while knowing that it can be reproduced infinitely.
Once I have the data in my hot little hands, I can dupe it and give it to my friends at zero direct cost to the producer.
Do you feel the same way about your medical records? Just because data can be distributed doesn't mean it's in the public interest for it to do so.
We also feel that the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism doesn't guarantee a ROI on any kind of development project, so when you pound your fist in frustration at your inability to monetize your efforts we just say, "so try something else...thats what every other entrepreneur in the world has had to do...what makes you special? If you can't make money making games, do something else, and stop whining." That is the same answer we get when we complain about being downsized, or having low-paying jobs, or what-have-you...so we are just responding in turn.
As long as the rules are followed. Companies can't lay everybody off to bust up unions. Copying a game is breaking the rules, don't like the rules get them changed.
Piracy has been alive and well since before the computer games industry even existed...and since long before DRM existed...and the games industry thrived anyway. And it still thrives, despite the continued piracy. Enough people pay for the games (even though they don't have to) that the industry remains profitable.
In part because copyright infringement is illegal, so not everybody does it. If copying was legal, then how many would pay for games? Other industries would exploit the hell out of being able to distribute games free, imagine a copy of Half-Life 2 in every box of cereal.
If that doesn't work, and we actually reach a state of utter cultural impoverishment where no games (or music or movies, for that matter) are being produced because nobody can figure out how to make a living doing it (and no hobbiests manage to churn out anything but crap)...which I maintain is an economic impossibility...but if it actually does occur THEN it might make sense to talk about legislation...and there would be a conscious buy-in to the legislation from the masses who are hungry for cultural enrichment. However, this has not happened, and I therefore submit that it makes no sense to try to preemptively pass laws based on the premise that it might happen (given that it is unlikely and that the situation could be remedied after the fact anyway).
It wouldn't just be cultural impoverishment, there would be a huge amount of economic impoverishment. Almost every sector of the US (as well as European & Japanese) economy relies on the preservation intellectual property. Why would you want to commit to something so sweeping when there are no compelling reasons. Yes reform is needed to tweak the system, but it shouldn't be abandoned unless there is something demonstrably better to replace it.
But the ones who can adapt will choose another business model, based on selling the service of writing software rather than selling a disc in a box.
Essentially you'd be promoting a sponsorship model which would destroy the risk taking and innovation of game developers. The sponsor would already have something in mind when they hire a developer. In the current model a developer has freedom to create something different then shop it around - sometimes their ideas hit, other times they miss, but what's important is they have incentive to take risks. You wouldn't have independent studios that make games to survive, you have a bunch of people contracted by the EAs & Activisions of the world. Any independent studio that creates a great idea on their own would just have it hijacked by the megacorps with much greater marketing and flexibility to extract money from alternate revenue streams than pushing product.
From our viewpoint here in the present, we can't know exactly what that future model would look like. We can, however, see that the fundamentals are all there: programming and game design skill is a scarce resource (unlike data), and it's one that people are already willing to pay for. We might need a novel system of middlemen to pick the wheat from the chaff, or a new payment model to allow millions of individual gamers to fund development rather than a handful of investors, but there's no reason to think selling copies is the only way to make money.
We have seen the non-box business model, software as a service. You never own a copy of the game, you pay to access it while it runs on some big mainframe. As I said before this would kill small studios and the innovation they bring. An EA has enough different games to make running a server farm profitable, and enough marketing muscle to exploit advertising or other ways to make money
Everybody should, it's one of the battlefields for Cold Wars. Countries with nukes can't fight each other directly, but they can use the world stage for cultural fights. They show off their achievements to intimidate and convince people their way is superior. This year's Olympics are China's version of the moon landing
If they are all making $8/hour, that means the labor cost of my food at the restaurant was about 40 cents.
That's only true if they magically showed up at the time of your order. A business needs to pay them whether or not they are selling anything. If you feel like paying them 40 cents more everytime you buy a burger, give them a tip - there's nothing stopping you.
We are now seeing wealth concentration at a disturbing level again and that living standard crater for working people, partially thanks to the Bush administration. A hedge fund manager making billions of dollars a year pays taxes at 15%. Most working people pay around %37.5 counting income and all payroll taxes, and not counting regressive sales taxes. Most people didn't notice but the Republicans instituted an extremely regressive tax system designed to destroy working people and to make the rich, very rich, very fast.
Just because the rich are getting richer doesn't mean the poor aren't getting richer. The reason a hedge fund manager makes huge amounts of money is because he created huge amounts of money with his investments. The middle class has been enjoying an improving standard of living (greater home ownership rates, disposable income, investments), so it isn't a case of stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. The recent problems that are depressing the middle class have to do with drastic changes in energy and food, which are global issues that can't be solved by adjusting domestic tax rates.
Slashdot Mirror
Blue Screen of Death
While security of data plays a small role, economics is playing a larger role. FTFA
International networks that carry data into and out of the United States are still being expanded at a sharp rate, but the Internet infrastructure in many other regions of the world is growing even more quickly.
The traffic in and out of the US isn't going down, it's still climbing. As countries develop around the world, it makes economic sense that they would develop their own intraregional connections. China is natrually going to build more tubes to it's developing regional trade partners. You have a situation where there is more global communication being generated elsewhere, which results in a reduction in the % of traffic through the US.
This is less about security policy, and more about the reduced economic reliance on the US.
As another poster pointed out, not all MBA's are created equal. In fact part of MBA programs is to teach students to look at the big picture, and give examples of how "additional costs" for things like quality, supply chain management, and research actually save money. I'm sure many people on slashdot know lazy or unintelligent engineers/programming/IT hacks who become decision makers through politics, or off the hard work of others; those people are not representative of the skills that are taught in the university.
What usually happens is money losing business units are under the gun to prove their value at all times. If a company sees a bunch of quality problems costing them money, they may come to the conclusion that they might as well cut the quality department because not only is it eating money, it's not even working. So they scale back, outsource, or otherwise balance the value of the business unit to the cost.
Specifically looking at research, you may create amazing things, but if the rest of the company can't figure out how to monetize that research it's just dead weight. Depending on the company structure they may be able to change the culture of the company to enable capitalizing on research. Usually, though, in large corporations it won't work the structure is too large and entrenched to change - so cut the dead weight by selling it, spinning it off, or change it's focus to something the company can use.
Don't you mean - Best case scenario, you end up a supervillian. They have all the fun
Worst case from comic books is you become a puddle of goo that starts the superhero investigation.
Fixed that for you.
The US Constitution was the start of the erosion of rights as the federal government was granted more power. The Bill of Rights at best was a temporary bandaid - from the start the politicians have opportunistically grabbed power and erroded the rights of states and individuals.
And the know-it-all geeks pout because they don't realize more doesn't equal better.
"But you said you were going to start with 6 so your game can only be 33% as good!"
I had a 120 page kinetics book that was almost $200
Why is that a bad thing? It's not just about individuals chasing money, it's about companies *gasp* hiring intelligent people to do important things like manage large amounts of resources. Their choices aren't contributing to the decline of the US, they're keeping it going. Eventually robitics will be an enough part of the economy to keep smart people, but it hasn't matured to that point yet.
Of course it depends on the long-term viability of the services themselves... remember AOL had a $200B market cap at one point.
When I see their market cap I have to ask myself "What makes Google special?" and I'm hard pressed to find an answer. Yes, Google has achieved critical mass, but they don't have any services that users could abandon overnight if something better comes along - remember Yahoo used to be the undisputed king of search.
"Sorry your house is on fire, but we can't go inside to put it out until we get a warrant... should only be about 10 more minutes"
You can't just sit at home and complain and expect things to be fixed. How much time do you spend educating your neighbors on copyright, or contacted elected officials?
The existing incarnation is making it more difficult to be profitable, but innovation is far from being a negative ROI.
Yup, you like to try and make a point with an example, and complain about nitpicking when I point out what a poor example it is.
It's not nitpicking, it's pointing out specific issues. You don't throw out an exisiting system that have generally been working for 200 years unless there is something compelling to change to. If there are a number of holes in the new system, don't dismiss them, address them.
Do you have actual statistics? If piracy is just accepted, then even if 99% would never have purchased you would likely get an influx of people who would have purchased but don't, because they don't have to.
Yes the rules are causing barriers, but they are far from having the opposite effect. It's not like society is slowing down significantly in terms of technology and culture.
A small developer could spend over a year to find a market, so no it wouldn't be a year. I'd estimate the average time to get an acceptable ROI is 3-7 years. I never said keep the system as it is, but don't throw it out.
The difference is with the current rules a publisher can't just distribute your games without compensation. Without protections the big corporations will just take any good idea presented to them and use their own developers for the future.
It isn't legislating profits, it's legislating OPPORTUNITY for a return. There's no guarantee people will buy your game, but at least there's a chance.
There are plenty of rules in a capitalist society. Little things like fraud, counterfeiting, contracts, etc. There is a recognition that for "fair" trade which is the essence of the free market, certain rules should be adhered to otherwise the system breaks down. The reason you can't print your own money is not that it's stealing, but rather it destroys the value of cash rendering it worthless. There's a recognition that the realization of ideas have value (otherwise people wouldn't want them), and that certain rules are needed to encourage investment and "promote progress."
If the cost to produce was 0, then there'd be no problem with reproductions selling at 0. The problem is ideas aren't magically realized, and there is a great value to society to try and encourage investment in new ideas - that is how progress is made. Like most laws it's a balancing act between the needs of society vs the individual.
What is so amazingly wrong about a creator being able to secure how their works are distributed for a limited time?
That's the problem I have, the idea gets axed before it can be realized. Ideas good or bad aren't given a chance to succeed on their merits but rather somebody's else's vision.
How realistic is it to think that thousands or millions of gamers can unite to sponsor a single idea? You can't get enough fans to sponsor "Enterprise" or keep Stephen King writing "The Plant." Most people would rather just pay to consume rather than pay to sponsor. Then you get into the horrible politics that would be involved with any large group. "my {favorite character} doesn't have a big enough role, I'm withdrawing support"
But the holder of the purse-strings is the ultimate decision maker for future products.
I still don't see what's wrong with the current system other than some people don't want to play by the rules. If you don't like the DRM, no demo, CD requirement, price instead of pirating just not consume. Games aren't essential to life, and there's a whole lot of alternatives for entertainment. I'm not sure about you, but I've never played a game that was so incredible I couldn't live without it; And maybe publishers will really get the idea of what people want when they don't get sales, and there's no "piracy boogieman" to point to.
Technology also destroys many of our concepts of privacy, I guess we should just sit back and just deal with it.
And usually the expectation is that whatever new you create is along the lines of what you previously did. Which makes it difficult for artists to explore and take chances. "Hey why did you make a FPS, I hired you for your 4X talent"
But the sponsor is the sole decision maker on what is garbage.
Yes because every title costs tens of millions to produce. When you start killing off the viability of the indie scene you lose the risk taking. A huge company is not going to spend their valuable hours developing something that they don't see a market for. If a small studio creates a game that fills a strong niche, at least their developers have a chance to be rewarded for their effort and more importantly are protected from a company with greater marketing and distribution muscle from just taking it without compensation.
That's actually my point, you'll still have art, but you destroy risk taking.
Do you think rich white guys would sponsor rap music? No, but they'll invest in it to turn a profit.
Who says it's a utopia? From what I remember there was very little time spent looking at civilian life. Sure everybody had their needs covered, but there was strict military and government control. Not everybody had their own starship, science projects could be hijacked for military purposes, and on a few occasions regular folk were allowed to die because some treaty said they weren't allowed to live on their planet.
Besides it can't be a utopia without Khan!
Games (or any art) are not abundant either. They may be easy to reproduce, but they are very difficult to produce. So you get in a situation of trying to find a way to encourage investment to produce something, while knowing that it can be reproduced infinitely.
Do you feel the same way about your medical records? Just because data can be distributed doesn't mean it's in the public interest for it to do so.
As long as the rules are followed. Companies can't lay everybody off to bust up unions. Copying a game is breaking the rules, don't like the rules get them changed.
In part because copyright infringement is illegal, so not everybody does it. If copying was legal, then how many would pay for games? Other industries would exploit the hell out of being able to distribute games free, imagine a copy of Half-Life 2 in every box of cereal.
It wouldn't just be cultural impoverishment, there would be a huge amount of economic impoverishment. Almost every sector of the US (as well as European & Japanese) economy relies on the preservation intellectual property. Why would you want to commit to something so sweeping when there are no compelling reasons. Yes reform is needed to tweak the system, but it shouldn't be abandoned unless there is something demonstrably better to replace it.
Essentially you'd be promoting a sponsorship model which would destroy the risk taking and innovation of game developers. The sponsor would already have something in mind when they hire a developer. In the current model a developer has freedom to create something different then shop it around - sometimes their ideas hit, other times they miss, but what's important is they have incentive to take risks.
You wouldn't have independent studios that make games to survive, you have a bunch of people contracted by the EAs & Activisions of the world. Any independent studio that creates a great idea on their own would just have it hijacked by the megacorps with much greater marketing and flexibility to extract money from alternate revenue streams than pushing product.
We have seen the non-box business model, software as a service. You never own a copy of the game, you pay to access it while it runs on some big mainframe. As I said before this would kill small studios and the innovation they bring. An EA has enough different games to make running a server farm profitable, and enough marketing muscle to exploit advertising or other ways to make money
Everybody should, it's one of the battlefields for Cold Wars. Countries with nukes can't fight each other directly, but they can use the world stage for cultural fights. They show off their achievements to intimidate and convince people their way is superior.
This year's Olympics are China's version of the moon landing
That's only true if they magically showed up at the time of your order. A business needs to pay them whether or not they are selling anything. If you feel like paying them 40 cents more everytime you buy a burger, give them a tip - there's nothing stopping you.
Just because the rich are getting richer doesn't mean the poor aren't getting richer. The reason a hedge fund manager makes huge amounts of money is because he created huge amounts of money with his investments. The middle class has been enjoying an improving standard of living (greater home ownership rates, disposable income, investments), so it isn't a case of stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. The recent problems that are depressing the middle class have to do with drastic changes in energy and food, which are global issues that can't be solved by adjusting domestic tax rates.
Screw the orphans of Stormwind... what about the Gnomish refugee problems in Ironforge.