I wish people would quit trotting up make-believe numbers like incomparably calculated infant mortality rates.
These are not make belive, they are official statistics.
Other countries don't use the same metrics as the US.
"Infant mortality rate" seems to be quite clear. Why should you Americans use metrics that make you look worse than the others?
US health care is undeniably the best in the world, it's not even close. The reason we score low is because the poor don't get access to all that good shit like the middle and upper class.
How can you contradict yourself in the same paragraph with so much conviction?
As for education level and other useless "development metrics"
I guess they useless only because you don't like them. If you want to rationalise your way out of this argument, you need a lot more ability.
Your theories are all very beautiful, but as for me, I prefer to have a safe job so I can pay my mortgage and raise my kids. And I want the same good for everyone else so I can live in peace without the fear of being mugged.
The economists that invent all those beautiful numbers have comfortable lives with plenty of employment, and they don't give a fuck about the people to which they want to apply their theories. So they can all kiss my hairy ass.
The reason the bomb was dropped was because it cost a fortune to build and congress would ask serious questions if it wasn't used.
Don't forget the US wanted to scare the shit out of Stalin. Of course, the Soviet Union had the bomb a few years later and then the nuclear arms race began. One of the most useless and stupid ways of spending money and time.
All that you say is wonderful, but it takes an actual commitment from the government and society to change something. Today, the mantra is "less state, better state". The governments prefer to pay these people in cash just to keep the crime and violence rates relatively controlled.
Getting people out of the poverty cycle takes decades and it's not easy. But what, invest in the future? Are you fucking crazy?
Are you schizophrenic? If you're reaping the benefits what are complaining about? Without unemployment subsidy you'd be living on the street because you were unfortunate enough to lose your job. How would it be better, for society or yourself?
Pigs are raised in the wild, they only eat natural food and they receive no antibiotics or hormones. Their meat tastes a lot better than the supermarket one, and I keep both in the freezer. What does that have to do with the farming method? Everything.
The vegetables also spend some time sitting at a shelf. I live in the big city, so I have to bring the vegetables and store them. And still, they taste better than the supermarket ones.
I get lots of vegetables, olive oil and pork from my folks. They are retired, live in the country and farm for fun. After eating a tomato from them, you'll never want to buy tomatoes at the supermarket again. And olive oil is so expensive, I get the best, 100% pure olive oil in the world for free.
Somehow people think it's normal to embed in webpages stuff that is executable code for a particular operating system and processor architecture. WTF?!?
This is soooo fucking stupid I almost can't believe it. I've tried for years to convince people of that but they look at me as if I'm an alien.
It was a tremendous lock-in strategy for Micro$oft, though. They're still cashing in on it. Fortunately, the tide is changing, but it will take a long, long time until this ActiveX shit is gone.
A lot of money goes out illegally. And yes, I disapprove it and it is indeed a crime.
Right now, a former minister is being investigated for having bought two ghost hi-tech companies in the Bahamas for millions of euros. That was an (allegedly) illegal way to transfer a shitload of money to a fiscal haven. This is only one item in a giant money laundering case that made an investment bank go bankrupt and a few high-placed executives jailed. It involved draining the bank dry using speculative operations through fiscal havens to cover tracks. Too bad, he's very well connected so even if he's convicted, which I doubt, he'll never go to jail.
Another politician is in trial now for (allegedly) having millions in secret accounts in Switzerland. If it wasn't for a journalist investigation, the guy would never get caught. He's been a mayor all his life and he's (allegedly) a millionaire. Mayors don't get paid that much. Where did he get the money?
I saw a documentary the other day: A Spanish journalist went to a bank in Gibraltar with a hidden camera and asked to open an account to hide some "inherited" money. The guys took care of everything really neatly. She transferred the dough stashed in her luggage in several trips across the border and managed to get a few hundreds of thousands into Gibraltar with absolutely no control. A fictitious company was created and she was given a credit card in the name of the company that she could use to spend her money around the world without raising any suspicion.
Ok, I see it now. The article seems to imply (between much irrelevant filler...) that some of those highly speculative hedge funds also operate in tax havens.
Yeah, it's just the Financial Times and the guy is only a professor, so it must be all bullshit.
Therefore tax havens must be responsible for the crisis.
Bombing me with strawman arguments may seem fun, but gets old pretty fast.
Yes, it's all down to tax havens. All the biggest problems in the current crisis are down to those damnable tax havens and hedge funds etc. Like the following, all HQ'ed and "regulated" in well known tax havens:
Yes, if only those damn tax havens listed above were banned from doing business, the financial crisis would not have happened. If only banks were forced to be in "well regulated" onshore locations where there is accountability, there would be no recession
Now, that's just silly. When did exactly I said such?
And as we all know, bankers, lawyers and their associates in major cities are all highly ethical people
They're all greedy heartless bloodsucking motherfuckers but there is still some supervision and vigilance in regulated markets that prevents them to directly finance criminal activities. Of course, with the massive deregulation that took place in the latest years, accountability and responsibility are not in great shape.
Swiss bankers or lawyers in the Cayman Islands are just fine with you calling them up and asking them to transfer funds to your friend "Omar" in Tashkent with no explanation or supporting documents
Yes, they are. That's their job. That's what the fiscal havens are for. And not only Omar, you can also transfer a few millions to your friend Pablo in Colombia, or to your friend Alphonse in Congo.
Don't be naive. The underground economy worldwide moves billions every year. Where do you think the money financing drug, weapons, etc. comes from? Do the criminals/warlords/terrorists pull it from their asses? No, it comes from the legal economy, through fiscal havens.
It's funny that they have so much vigilance, but they can't stop billions of euros illegally leaving the US and European economies towards fiscal havens where they pay no taxes and there's no accountability whatsoever. Want to fight terrorism? End the fiscal havens.
Fiscal havens played a very important part in creating the current economical crisis. Yet, the chicken shit governments of G8 and the world financial institutions haven't done shit to end this, besides a few cosmetic tricks.
This is like people in a small town protesting against the local brothel, but they all go there on Saturday night.
If I don't pay my taxes, the IRS will make my life miserable, they will come to my house and take my furniture, my car, etc. But Joe the CEO can transfer his savings to the Conga Bonga Islands through book manipulation and happily wait for retirement without paying a dime in taxes. And his money can be invested in drugs or weapons, there's no way to trace it.
you can't say something because it's offensive towards some group of people
We can say offensive stuff at will. What's illegal is incitement to hatred and violence against a group and also incitement to commit crimes. It's not a lot different from the US, and it's very seldom enforced, because it opens a few cans of worms. You have to understand that we had Fascism and Nazism destroying our whole continent. These are infections that must be closely contained or can become septicemia. You never had such problems over there.
Europeans evidently regard that as too much freedom.
And Australians, Canadians, etc. etc. Don't blame it on Europe. You are the exception, not us.
Anyway, this is a pissing contest. I like our way and also your way. I don't like the way of China or Iran. Freedom is a great thing.
What you're talking about is a society like ancient Greece. They had slaves to do all labour for them, so they could dedicate themselves to science, philosophy, music, whatever.
We could have the same in the close future, but machines will be the new slaves, which eliminates the ethical barriers.
A philosopher from my country, Agostinho da Silva, was a proponent of the Labour less Society. He defended the idea that labour will eventually end and people will do only things that make them happy. People will make themselves busy because the human nature compels us to be creative and to keep ourselves busy, not for basic survival. If you think of it, although my job can be boring and a pain in the ass, it's a lot better to work as a computer geek, which I would be anyway, than to work 16 hours in a factory turning screws to make enough money to feed my family. Nobody can possibly enjoy the latter.
But to make it work for everyone, a revolution in minds would be needed. The mechanisation of labour has been done to benefit the owners of the means of productions, not society. The owner invests in machines to improve his margins, while the workers are tossed on the streets with nothing. The Labour less Society could turn out to be a dystopia after all, with an elite living in comfort and luxury having machines to work for them. The general masses living in complete misery because in this new society they are no longer needed as a labour force. The asset they had, their working capacity, has zero value.
I feel sad for you that you don't live in a country that respects free speech.
You will find that, with the exception of the USA, all developed countries forbid hate speech and incitement to violent crime. In my country that law has only ever been enforced once, though, as far as I can remember.
Apart from that, I can say pretty much anything I want.
How many people could have education and health care for life with the cost of a single one of the boondoggles? It's not a problem of not having enough money, you are just spending it in the wrong place.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish people would quit trotting up make-believe numbers like incomparably calculated infant mortality rates.
These are not make belive, they are official statistics.
Other countries don't use the same metrics as the US.
"Infant mortality rate" seems to be quite clear. Why should you Americans use metrics that make you look worse than the others?
US health care is undeniably the best in the world, it's not even close. The reason we score low is because the poor don't get access to all that good shit like the middle and upper class.
How can you contradict yourself in the same paragraph with so much conviction?
As for education level and other useless "development metrics"
I guess they useless only because you don't like them. If you want to rationalise your way out of this argument, you need a lot more ability.
Your theories are all very beautiful, but as for me, I prefer to have a safe job so I can pay my mortgage and raise my kids. And I want the same good for everyone else so I can live in peace without the fear of being mugged.
The economists that invent all those beautiful numbers have comfortable lives with plenty of employment, and they don't give a fuck about the people to which they want to apply their theories. So they can all kiss my hairy ass.
How do you mod a post -1 Liar?
The reason the bomb was dropped was because it cost a fortune to build and congress would ask serious questions if it wasn't used.
Don't forget the US wanted to scare the shit out of Stalin. Of course, the Soviet Union had the bomb a few years later and then the nuclear arms race began. One of the most useless and stupid ways of spending money and time.
A 60 percent taxation rate is uncivilized.
Well, if you step aside of your religious beliefs about taxation, you may notice that Sweden and the other Nordic countries are ahead of the United States. So 60% taxation may be not so bad, after all.
I wouldn't mind paying the taxation of Sweden if I could have their standard of living.
All that you say is wonderful, but it takes an actual commitment from the government and society to change something. Today, the mantra is "less state, better state". The governments prefer to pay these people in cash just to keep the crime and violence rates relatively controlled.
Getting people out of the poverty cycle takes decades and it's not easy. But what, invest in the future? Are you fucking crazy?
Are you schizophrenic? If you're reaping the benefits what are complaining about? Without unemployment subsidy you'd be living on the street because you were unfortunate enough to lose your job. How would it be better, for society or yourself?
Pigs are raised in the wild, they only eat natural food and they receive no antibiotics or hormones. Their meat tastes a lot better than the supermarket one, and I keep both in the freezer. What does that have to do with the farming method? Everything.
The vegetables also spend some time sitting at a shelf. I live in the big city, so I have to bring the vegetables and store them. And still, they taste better than the supermarket ones.
I approve locally grown food, too.
This food is all organically produced.
These are all partisan articles, full of anecdotal and inaccurate statements.
Which "facts" are you talking about?
Tastes better, too.
I get lots of vegetables, olive oil and pork from my folks. They are retired, live in the country and farm for fun. After eating a tomato from them, you'll never want to buy tomatoes at the supermarket again. And olive oil is so expensive, I get the best, 100% pure olive oil in the world for free.
An ActiveX control contains native executable Wintel code. It's ridiculous that it can be part of a web page.
The browser is bound to a particular OS and processor? Yes, I'm OK with it, I installed it.
Somehow people think it's normal to embed in webpages stuff that is executable code for a particular operating system and processor architecture. WTF?!?
This is soooo fucking stupid I almost can't believe it. I've tried for years to convince people of that but they look at me as if I'm an alien.
It was a tremendous lock-in strategy for Micro$oft, though. They're still cashing in on it. Fortunately, the tide is changing, but it will take a long, long time until this ActiveX shit is gone.
A lot of money goes out illegally. And yes, I disapprove it and it is indeed a crime.
Right now, a former minister is being investigated for having bought two ghost hi-tech companies in the Bahamas for millions of euros. That was an (allegedly) illegal way to transfer a shitload of money to a fiscal haven. This is only one item in a giant money laundering case that made an investment bank go bankrupt and a few high-placed executives jailed. It involved draining the bank dry using speculative operations through fiscal havens to cover tracks. Too bad, he's very well connected so even if he's convicted, which I doubt, he'll never go to jail.
Another politician is in trial now for (allegedly) having millions in secret accounts in Switzerland. If it wasn't for a journalist investigation, the guy would never get caught. He's been a mayor all his life and he's (allegedly) a millionaire. Mayors don't get paid that much. Where did he get the money?
I saw a documentary the other day: A Spanish journalist went to a bank in Gibraltar with a hidden camera and asked to open an account to hide some "inherited" money. The guys took care of everything really neatly. She transferred the dough stashed in her luggage in several trips across the border and managed to get a few hundreds of thousands into Gibraltar with absolutely no control. A fictitious company was created and she was given a credit card in the name of the company that she could use to spend her money around the world without raising any suspicion.
Want more?
Ok, I see it now. The article seems to imply (between much irrelevant filler...) that some of those highly speculative hedge funds also operate in tax havens.
Yeah, it's just the Financial Times and the guy is only a professor, so it must be all bullshit.
Therefore tax havens must be responsible for the crisis.
Bombing me with strawman arguments may seem fun, but gets old pretty fast.
You could google it, but here it goes.
Yes, it's all down to tax havens. All the biggest problems in the current crisis are down to those damnable tax havens and hedge funds etc. Like the following, all HQ'ed and "regulated" in well known tax havens:
Institutions in developed countries were directly responsible for the crisis but Tax havens payed a very important role in hiding transactions.
Yes, if only those damn tax havens listed above were banned from doing business, the financial crisis would not have happened. If only banks were forced to be in "well regulated" onshore locations where there is accountability, there would be no recession
Now, that's just silly. When did exactly I said such?
And as we all know, bankers, lawyers and their associates in major cities are all highly ethical people
They're all greedy heartless bloodsucking motherfuckers but there is still some supervision and vigilance in regulated markets that prevents them to directly finance criminal activities. Of course, with the massive deregulation that took place in the latest years, accountability and responsibility are not in great shape.
Swiss bankers or lawyers in the Cayman Islands are just fine with you calling them up and asking them to transfer funds to your friend "Omar" in Tashkent with no explanation or supporting documents
Yes, they are. That's their job. That's what the fiscal havens are for. And not only Omar, you can also transfer a few millions to your friend Pablo in Colombia, or to your friend Alphonse in Congo.
Don't be naive. The underground economy worldwide moves billions every year. Where do you think the money financing drug, weapons, etc. comes from? Do the criminals/warlords/terrorists pull it from their asses? No, it comes from the legal economy, through fiscal havens.
It's funny that they have so much vigilance, but they can't stop billions of euros illegally leaving the US and European economies towards fiscal havens where they pay no taxes and there's no accountability whatsoever. Want to fight terrorism? End the fiscal havens.
Fiscal havens played a very important part in creating the current economical crisis. Yet, the chicken shit governments of G8 and the world financial institutions haven't done shit to end this, besides a few cosmetic tricks.
This is like people in a small town protesting against the local brothel, but they all go there on Saturday night.
If I don't pay my taxes, the IRS will make my life miserable, they will come to my house and take my furniture, my car, etc. But Joe the CEO can transfer his savings to the Conga Bonga Islands through book manipulation and happily wait for retirement without paying a dime in taxes. And his money can be invested in drugs or weapons, there's no way to trace it.
you can't say something because it's offensive towards some group of people
We can say offensive stuff at will. What's illegal is incitement to hatred and violence against a group and also incitement to commit crimes. It's not a lot different from the US, and it's very seldom enforced, because it opens a few cans of worms.
You have to understand that we had Fascism and Nazism destroying our whole continent. These are infections that must be closely contained or can become septicemia. You never had such problems over there.
Europeans evidently regard that as too much freedom.
And Australians, Canadians, etc. etc. Don't blame it on Europe. You are the exception, not us.
Anyway, this is a pissing contest. I like our way and also your way. I don't like the way of China or Iran. Freedom is a great thing.
No, I don't agree with you.
What you're talking about is a society like ancient Greece. They had slaves to do all labour for them, so they could dedicate themselves to science, philosophy, music, whatever.
We could have the same in the close future, but machines will be the new slaves, which eliminates the ethical barriers.
A philosopher from my country, Agostinho da Silva, was a proponent of the Labour less Society. He defended the idea that labour will eventually end and people will do only things that make them happy. People will make themselves busy because the human nature compels us to be creative and to keep ourselves busy, not for basic survival. If you think of it, although my job can be boring and a pain in the ass, it's a lot better to work as a computer geek, which I would be anyway, than to work 16 hours in a factory turning screws to make enough money to feed my family. Nobody can possibly enjoy the latter.
But to make it work for everyone, a revolution in minds would be needed. The mechanisation of labour has been done to benefit the owners of the means of productions, not society. The owner invests in machines to improve his margins, while the workers are tossed on the streets with nothing. The Labour less Society could turn out to be a dystopia after all, with an elite living in comfort and luxury having machines to work for them. The general masses living in complete misery because in this new society they are no longer needed as a labour force. The asset they had, their working capacity, has zero value.
I feel sad for you that you don't live in a country that respects free speech.
You will find that, with the exception of the USA, all developed countries forbid hate speech and incitement to violent crime. In my country that law has only ever been enforced once, though, as far as I can remember. Apart from that, I can say pretty much anything I want.
They could remove this post. It's illegal in my country and would grant the poster some months in jail. Isn't it illegal in the USA?
How many people could have education and health care for life with the cost of a single one of the boondoggles? It's not a problem of not having enough money, you are just spending it in the wrong place.