If public roads are used by everyone, and I am paying for them with taxes, why are there tolls?
You are right that eventually the populace pays for things - but why not make it things that the populace wants? I'm not saying that the populace doesn't want roads... what I am saying is that I pay my taxes, and then $6 in bridge tolls (I live in NY), and invariably, the roads are in the poorest condition! You can always tell when you leave New York and get into Connecticut because the CT highways are better maintained than those in New York. Yet New York taxes are higher, as are New York tolls! Where is all that money going? Why can't I, by spending MORE money than someone in CT for roads, get the roads I'm paying for by your argument?
Okay, I missed your point about NTSC. That's fair. However, let's look at this from a free market perspective. First, it is not necessary for the government to define standards. The ISO often defines standards well before the government does - that's true for Ethernet, CDROM, cabling, and many other things. While it can be helpful if the government defines standards, often, if left to their own devices, companies will agree on a standard *because they will make more money*. Why is that? If they can sell goods and services that are interoperable (to say nothing of after-market goods that can be added on), they make more money. What company today would sell a CDROM that wasn't ISO9660 format? There is no government defined format for CDROMS, but any company that sold CDs that couldn't be used by people wouldn't last long.
Heh, and your whole last argument is a little silly. First, I am not suggesting that people don't pay taxes - merely that they pay less, and/or GET WHAT THEY PAY FOR. Your sewer argument is a perfect example. For starters, a lot of people in this country use septic tanks, which they pay for and maintain themselves. So they pay taxes for sewer maintenance, yet the government does not provide them with sewers. Is that right? They are paying for something they don't use. Your argument would then say "Oh, well that's okay". But it's not - it's being doubled billed.
Double billing - if you went to a restaurant, and they made you pay for your steak, and a steak for someone else, and that person didn't eat steak, but had lobster, you would never eat at that restaurant ever again. You would tell your friends not to eat there. But when it is the government, you are somehow okay with it?
Take education as another example. Everyone pays for public schooling. Your argument says that it's okay for everyone to pay for public schooling, because it provides a minimum standard for education. This is false for two reasons: first, even though the US spends more than most other countries on education, the US public school children rank behind countries that spend less. (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A412 78-2004Dec6.html and http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/0 7/1914226&from=rss)
Second, by using taxes to fund public schools, you are creating inequities by your very system! Since New Yorkers have a larger tax base than say, Kansas, the New York school children have more spent on them, and so get a "better" education than those in Kansas. (see: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/backgrounders/school_f unding.html)
So by your argument, we get a system where people pay for things twice, and the intended results do not come about! Sounds great to me! Sure, it makes sense to keep doing what we're doing - it makes sense to keep paying 50% and not getting my money's worth!
This argument is ridiculous! If what you're saying were true, then we'd all only ever have the money we started out with in the 1500s!
The company that you gave "50 moneys" to, in order to continue to get customers, will use your 50 moneys to improve their efficiency. (Why? If they don't, you'll buy from some other company that does - competition.) So if they can then offer their product for 45 moneys, when you get your next paycheck, if you buy their product again, you'll have 5 extra moneys. Wealth is created through competition - if it were only redistribution there would be a set amount of money in society and it would just go back and forth. But if that were the case it would be the same as if everyone just kept their money - why give it away if I'm just going to get the same thing back eventually?
Sure it does. Your refutation of my argument here amounts to "it doesn't have to be that way because I said so". If you can provide a logical argument for "looking at an aggregate of the wealth of some number of individual people", I'll be more than happy to read it. However, "aggregates", by definition, remove the consequences of the economic equation on some people - and that's been my argument the whole time. You just saying "it's not true" doesn't change anything. You can't look at an "aggregate" without eventually looking at what happens to all those people you're ignoring that aren't in your "aggregate". Ie - if your aggregate contains only Persons A and B, and neglects Persons C and D, then it may be great for Persons A and B to have the government redistribute wealth. But by using that aggregate, you ignore that C and D could be worse off, or even better off! In the first case, which I believe, you would only make my argument for me; in the second, which I don't believe, you further strengthen your own argument. So you are helping me either way - by helping my argument or failing to strengthen yours!
"Contrived hypothetical examples" can prove lots of generalities, and its how theories are created and tested. I'll notice also, that since my "contrived hypothetical example" actually proves what I'm saying, and that you ignored it, that you can't refute its logic and thereby acquiesce in its conclusions, since you failed to prove it wrong or provide a counter-argument.
In fact your whole post resolves to "that's not true because I said so!", which is the most addled of responses - worthy of only an AOL'er at best.
Ha! No government distributes evenly, and that will always be the fallacy in your argument. After all, if the distribution were even as you claim it is, then the government is entirely unnecessary. If the distribution is even, then everyone gets back what they started with - and then why redistribute in the first place?
You've been responding to my posts all night. Pay attention!
You've been stating things all night, so if that's not the same as it being true, that holds for you as well. Of course, you know what they say - arguing on the internet is useless. So this will be my last post.
Your problem with my examples is that you're thinking of now and only now. If mining gold further out in the solar system will occur, it wil occur in the future - when technology is better, and the "per-ounce cost of lifting" will have come down. No one is suggesting these things will happen now - and your inability to see a hypothetical example for what it is shows how staggeringly little imagination you have.
Right now, you are correct about satellites and tourism, but even in 1965 they were too expensive to be worhtwhile investments. Thankfully society progresses! (No thanks to the likes of you.)
You don't need a shuttle to mine gold on Mars. But my point was more that one accident halts the government's space flight program entirely. It sets them back YEARS at a time. Imagine if they had an accident trying to land someone on Mars? How long it would be before they tried again?
There isn't net profit NOW. So no one is going NOW. But in the future when there MAY be a profit, they MAY go then.
And is it mere distraction? Simply mentioning something as a distraction (because you don't want to, or can't, refute it) doesn't make it so. The government does waste billions of dollars - it is in all the papers and is well documented (do a goolge search for "government waste").
Okay. Since you seem to think that "individual wealth" is somehow separate from "societal wealth", your entire first part of your arugment would be correct. However, "societal wealth" can only come from "individual wealth", since society is made up of individuals. Therefore, taking money from individuals (in whatever form, especially taxes) is taking wealth from society, since again, individuals make up society. I will therefore quanitifiable define wealth as the length of time a person can survive on a given amount of money. Therefore, if I can live for two days on $100, my wealth is equal to 2 for every $100 I have.
If we have a society of 5 people (A, B, C, D, and E), with $1000, the society has a wealth of 2. Now, if they government takes 50% of everyone's money, the society has a wealth of 1, and the government has a wealth of 1. At best, the government should redistribute that equally, so that it goes back to having a wealth of 0 and society's individuals have their wealth of 2. But that can't happen since the government itself requires wealth in order to operate.
So let's take your example. Each person has a wealth of 2, including persons A and B. So the government, in its pure arbitrariness takes half the wealth from A and does something with it (buys something from C and D, since they can't just "create" money), and redistributes it to person B. Let's say the government creates a wealth of 3, keeps one for itself as the cost per transaction, and redistributes a wealth of 2 to person B.
As things stand now:
A = 1 B = 4 C = 3 D = 3 E = 2 Government = 1 (wealth used for transaction)
So the total wealth in society has gone up but two, which is great for persons B, C, and D! But what about person A? Person A now has half as much wealth as before. Where is A's money? the government has it, as the government now requires part of the wealth to function. So the government can't redistribute just yet, because it requires a wealth of 1 per transaction to function. So it in turn has to take money from the people again.
So now, as it takes one from everyone, the numbers look like this:
A = 0 B = 3 C = 2 D = 2 E = 1 Government = 2 (wealth used for transactions)
Now, if we use the government's investment in C and D to create further wealth (and if you don't buy that you're nuts - the government buys goods and services from people all the time), we have the following with the redistribution to B:
A = 0 B = 5 C = 3 D = 3 E = 2 Government = 2 (wealth used for transactions)
As you can see, A now has nothing. This means one of two things: A either ceases to exist, or the government now has to redistribute to A AND B.
Of course, your "logical" conclusion will be that the government should just use the wealth of transactions for person A! That solves the problem, right? Wrong. If you'll remember, person A is where the government is getting the money from in the first place! (Along with the other persons.)
So person A now has nothing, and the government has not really created wealth. Furthermore, it has ruined person A! As you can see, the total wealth has increased to 15, but the government has used 2 wealth in transaction costs, so society still only has 13 - and now B has 5 and A has 0.
Let's remove the government, and assume that A, B, C, D, and E are free to trade among themselves, again creating two wealth and using one wealth per transaction. A trades with B, using 1 wealth for the transaction, but in the process enriches C and D, since their goods have to come from somewhere:
A = 2 (A gets three minus one for the cost of transaction) B = 3 (B gets four minus one for the cost of transaction) C = 3 (C gets one for cost of transaction from A) D = 3 (D gets one for cost of transaction from B) E = 2
Total wealth in society after one round: 13.
Next round: A = 3 (A gets four minus one for the cost of the transaction) B = 4 (B gets five minus one for the cost of the transaction) C = 4 (C gets one for cost of transaction from A) D = 4 (D gets one for cost of transaction from B) E = 2
Total wealth in society: 17.
Clearly, government interference can only be harmful.
Governments do not exist to enrich society. They exist to protect rights. The Declaration of Independence says it best:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
It doesn't say "to enrich society". It doesn't say that in the Constitution, either. It's strange that you attribute a function (enriching society) to government that it was never created to do. Society should enrich society. So your definition of government is flawed.
How is the government accountable? By voting? Surely you would not suggest such a thing, when most races end in ties and most politicians are 'bipartisan" to everyone's detriment.
What has the Department of Defense provided the private sector? How silly! Most DoD stuff is private sector built (Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, etc.) for the government. That shows how little you know!
As for the Department of Education, we have spent TRILLIONS on public schools, and they are arguably the worst in the world. The Japanese, Europeans, and Canadians all have higher standards of education than the US and spend far less per student than we do. If that's "enriching society", you have a WARPED definition of enriching.
You do realise that it was the FDA that prevented companies from seeing the European trial results of most drugs? Obviously not. There should be de-regulation. Not everything will be perfect all the time. But when the government approves a medicine it knows to be harmful, and prevents private companies from seeing evidence to the contrary, no one wins. And companies don't sell posion when there is profit to be made - killing your customers is the quickest way to losing them.
Heh, and your accountability argument is laughable. The reason people are not held accountable now is because they're able to utilise donations to political parties to curry favours - in a government that serves only its legitimate purpose that couldn't happen.
The prinicipal of mutual exclusivity is where it's bad. If loggers want to cut down trees, and environmentalists want to save the spotted owl, whom should the government please? The government offends the loggers to please the environmentalists - they offend the environmentalists to please the loggers.
A logging company has incentive to provide for the owls - it doesn't want to lose environmentally conscious customers.
I think you're just trying to bait me at this point. You either didn't read my post, or you didn't understand it - the entire post outlaid which system is more appropriate. And it entirely says that a less government system creates more wealth.
The government does indeed land on things like comets, etc., for two reasons. One, it has to spend the money it takes in on something. And two, enough people are currently interested in such things that the government can please a majority of them by doing such things. If that were to change, the government would stop doing such things.
However, your saying that the government has a lack of incentive is true. If gold were found in large deposits on Mars tomorrow, who do you think would land there first? Burt Rutan and crew, or the Feds? Remember that the Feds have no shuttle program right now because the entire fleet is grounded due to the loss of 25% of the fleet!
And you're right - a business will only go if there is a net profit, either directly or indirectly. And your "billions of dollars" example is bad, because that's mostly government waste! Or do you not remember the $700 hammers and the $1000 dolalr toilet seats? It's very simple - if business can make a profit, they will go. If government has money to burn (which they take from you!) and can please enough people, they might go - and might fail miserably often (two shuttles, several Mars probes), but might not. It's a craphsoot with the government - whereas with private companies you can make educated guesses and/or do research and arrive at conclusions.
Heh, it is interesting that you mention highways. It is the biggest dupe of all time that the automotive industry in this country got the government to pay for roads, when the railroad industry was forced to pay for tracks itself. No one ever mentions that. Furthermore, it is states that pay for local roads, and intrastate highways, and not the Feds.
Government regulations in commerce do not "secure" commerce - they hinder it. That you think the government needs to secure and regulate commerce only shows how little you know about what commerce could be! Try running a company with more than ten people some time and see how "regulations" neither save you money nor secure your commerce.
I don't want broadcast standards set by the government. I have the ability to turn the TV off or change the channel. Why should someone else get to decide what I watch?
Emergency services are helpful, and are a legitimate function of the government. The local government. It can also be done privately, too.
I haven't withdrawn from society. And I am not ignorant. If you are happy paying 25% of your salary in federal taxes, another 10% in state taxes, and another 5% in local taxes, plus sales tax and gasoline tax, and not getting your 50% in return, then by all means continue to do so. And as for utilisation, if you think the government has any process whereby the utilisation that ensures its continued survival doesn't come first, you are sadly mistaken.
You obviously do not know about government budgets. If you do not spend your budget by the end of the year, you do not get the same amount of money next year. My father worked for a government agency for fifteen years, and I worked for a state government for five, so I know that which of I speak. The budgets, therefore, are the same or more the following year. There is no saving there.
Efficiency, however, means that you eventually pay less for something that you originally paid a certain price for. If I pay X for a process to make widgets, but I then find a way to do it more efficiently, it will cost me Y less. (Either through spending less on machinery or on labour savings.) If X - Y then equals Z, I can lower prices and/or sell more widgets. In either instance, if people then buy those widgets, I make more money. (Either by saving Y, or the increase in sales, or both.)
Efficiency translates into savings which can create wealth - the government can not create wealth.
For that matter, the government can't create anything other than more government - any goods and/or services the government uses from the private sector is that much less that the private sector has for the rest of the private sector.
Here is a very simple fact - people pay taxes. Unless the government is exactly repaying those taxes, and giving the people more money than they took in taxes, they are not creating wealth. It's that simple. If you can sit there and say that the government provides goods and services in larger amount then they take in all the taxes from the citizenry, then you are living in a dream world.
His example is false, in that the government in and of itself can not pay for an investment; rather it has to take money from the citizens to pay for the investment. So the government owes a debt to the citizens to pay for Velcro. If indeed Velcro turns out to be worth more than was invested, unless the government has returned the money it took from the citizens, and given them extra, no wealth has been created.
It is not an opinion that the government does not create wealth - it is a fact. Just look at its operating budget. It is half a trillion in the red. That is to say nothing of the national debt! The government is so in debt that it would cost every man, woman, and child in this country $25,000 to pay it off. Even if that were to occur, given the budget deficit, we would be in debt again as soon as it became January.
Heh, your last point is funny. The circular axiom comes for your inability to realise that taxes are bad. You see only the "plusses" in the equation, and not the "minuses". You do not see the taking of taxes as a debt - only the return on investment from Velcro as a plus. If you were to take money from me, you would owe me money (or some service) - yet when the government does it, you fail to see that the government then owes me money (or some service).
In the instance of a private debt, I have some measure of recourse to assume that I am repaid (with interest!) or that the service I've paid for is performed. (I also have recourse not to give you money in the first place.) In the case of the government taking my taxes, I have no recourse to see that the debt is repaid (no chance in hell of getting interest!), and have no measure of assuring that the services I'm provided (when and if they're provided) equal what I pay. Furthermore, since taxes are mandatory and removed from my check by others, I do not have the recourse to not enter into the "loan" of my tax money, as I would with a provate debt.
So you see, the circular reasoning comes from your inability to see the negatives, and your continually seeing only positives.
Song has a partnership with Dish Network, and provides 24 channels of TV to the screen in the headrest in front of you. They also provide trivia, music (broadcast and create your own playlist (for a fee)), as well as movies (for a fee), and games (for a fee). The fees for the pay-per stuff are reasonable, but there's enough free (trivia and 24 channels) stuff to keep you busy the entire flight.
Remember kids, for best viewing experience, just lie on the ground facing up - most of this can be seen with the naked eyes. If you want to try binoculars, that might work as well - but telescopes are not needed for this one. If someone had told me that the first time I went out to look, I wouldn't have wasted those first two hours wondering why I couldn't see anything.;)
If I'm not mistaken, doesn't KDEMail have the ability to send back "fake" bouncebacks to spam messages? I've been hoping that Evolution would get something like that for a long time, but it would seem like a good idea for just about any email client.
That way, you click a button and send the "bounceback", and hopefully after enough, the spammers would remove you from their lists.
Why doesn't package management matter on an embedded device?
Imagine, if you will, the ability to upgrade your embedded os with a press of a button (which, of course, is just a front end for "emerge -vuD world").
Then imagine that a company comes out with a piece of software... you want to download it... and you can. It will download and get and install dependencies. Package management is very useful, and could be even with embedded.
Is it "unnatural and wrong" to cure polio? Or should we let people die early and deformed?
Is it "unnatural and wrong" to want to cure cancer? Or should we just let people waste away and die horribly painful deaths?
If you follow your "argument" to its natural conclusion, it is "unnatural and wrong" to cure just about anything. Or maybe you would like us to cure some things, but stop at a certain point?
The ability to think, and to make the world adapt to us is a great human characteristic. The idea that we wouldn't use our talents to improve oursleves and our world is a specious one. If 10,000 years ago, our ancestors had decided that puttting sticks together in a cross-weave patterns over their heads was "unnatural and wrong", we'd all still be living outside wearing fur.
When I was in fourth grade, my teacher once made the class grade each other's papers. As she read off answers, I stared in horror at the paper I had been given from the girl next to me. Every answer was wrong. Every one. By the time I had ticked off the 30th incorrect answer, I was practically in tears. I felt responsible, somehow, for the problems on the page. It would not be her fault that she failed, but rather my own fault for calling attention to her flaws. I felt ashamed. I felt awful. That was twenty years ago. I've gotten over it.
I may not be a psychiatrist, or even play one on TV, but that sounds *way* too much like you haven't gotten over it.;) Of course, with Slashdot as your only cahartic outlet, you may never get over it!;)
Um... that was exactly my point!
"Bugs" exist in people, too. Oh, and by the way, you can't "correct" your vote after the fact. No matter which voting system you use.
While voting machines may be inherently buggy, I think in certain cases, the paper ones weren't much better. It also doesn't help that some voters can't read and/or fill out a paper ballot. For those of you that remember the 2000 election, the process of filling out a paper ballot was just as buggy, where bugs were "incomplete marks", "multiple marks", or "hanging chads".
They skipped the camera because the 1.3Mpxl version doesn't create significantly better pictures, but it does increase the file size. So it would take longer to send them, but not make them appreciably better in terms of quality.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, all formatting problems aside...
/or GET WHAT THEY PAY FOR. Your sewer argument is a perfect example. For starters, a lot of people in this country use septic tanks, which they pay for and maintain themselves. So they pay taxes for sewer maintenance, yet the government does not provide them with sewers. Is that right? They are paying for something they don't use. Your argument would then say "Oh, well that's okay". But it's not - it's being doubled billed.
2 78-2004Dec6.html and http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/0 7/1914226&from=rss)
f unding.html)
If public roads are used by everyone, and I am paying for them with taxes, why are there tolls?
You are right that eventually the populace pays for things - but why not make it things that the populace wants? I'm not saying that the populace doesn't want roads... what I am saying is that I pay my taxes, and then $6 in bridge tolls (I live in NY), and invariably, the roads are in the poorest condition! You can always tell when you leave New York and get into Connecticut because the CT highways are better maintained than those in New York. Yet New York taxes are higher, as are New York tolls! Where is all that money going? Why can't I, by spending MORE money than someone in CT for roads, get the roads I'm paying for by your argument?
Okay, I missed your point about NTSC. That's fair. However, let's look at this from a free market perspective. First, it is not necessary for the government to define standards. The ISO often defines standards well before the government does - that's true for Ethernet, CDROM, cabling, and many other things. While it can be helpful if the government defines standards, often, if left to their own devices, companies will agree on a standard *because they will make more money*. Why is that? If they can sell goods and services that are interoperable (to say nothing of after-market goods that can be added on), they make more money. What company today would sell a CDROM that wasn't ISO9660 format? There is no government defined format for CDROMS, but any company that sold CDs that couldn't be used by people wouldn't last long.
Heh, and your whole last argument is a little silly. First, I am not suggesting that people don't pay taxes - merely that they pay less, and
Double billing - if you went to a restaurant, and they made you pay for your steak, and a steak for someone else, and that person didn't eat steak, but had lobster, you would never eat at that restaurant ever again. You would tell your friends not to eat there. But when it is the government, you are somehow okay with it?
Take education as another example. Everyone pays for public schooling. Your argument says that it's okay for everyone to pay for public schooling, because it provides a minimum standard for education. This is false for two reasons: first, even though the US spends more than most other countries on education, the US public school children rank behind countries that spend less. (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41
Second, by using taxes to fund public schools, you are creating inequities by your very system! Since New Yorkers have a larger tax base than say, Kansas, the New York school children have more spent on them, and so get a "better" education than those in Kansas. (see: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/backgrounders/school_
So by your argument, we get a system where people pay for things twice, and the intended results do not come about! Sounds great to me! Sure, it makes sense to keep doing what we're doing - it makes sense to keep paying 50% and not getting my money's worth!
This argument is ridiculous! If what you're saying were true, then we'd all only ever have the money we started out with in the 1500s!
The company that you gave "50 moneys" to, in order to continue to get customers, will use your 50 moneys to improve their efficiency. (Why? If they don't, you'll buy from some other company that does - competition.) So if they can then offer their product for 45 moneys, when you get your next paycheck, if you buy their product again, you'll have 5 extra moneys. Wealth is created through competition - if it were only redistribution there would be a set amount of money in society and it would just go back and forth. But if that were the case it would be the same as if everyone just kept their money - why give it away if I'm just going to get the same thing back eventually?
Sure it does. Your refutation of my argument here amounts to "it doesn't have to be that way because I said so". If you can provide a logical argument for "looking at an aggregate of the wealth of some number of individual people", I'll be more than happy to read it. However, "aggregates", by definition, remove the consequences of the economic equation on some people - and that's been my argument the whole time. You just saying "it's not true" doesn't change anything. You can't look at an "aggregate" without eventually looking at what happens to all those people you're ignoring that aren't in your "aggregate". Ie - if your aggregate contains only Persons A and B, and neglects Persons C and D, then it may be great for Persons A and B to have the government redistribute wealth. But by using that aggregate, you ignore that C and D could be worse off, or even better off! In the first case, which I believe, you would only make my argument for me; in the second, which I don't believe, you further strengthen your own argument. So you are helping me either way - by helping my argument or failing to strengthen yours!
"Contrived hypothetical examples" can prove lots of generalities, and its how theories are created and tested. I'll notice also, that since my "contrived hypothetical example" actually proves what I'm saying, and that you ignored it, that you can't refute its logic and thereby acquiesce in its conclusions, since you failed to prove it wrong or provide a counter-argument.
In fact your whole post resolves to "that's not true because I said so!", which is the most addled of responses - worthy of only an AOL'er at best.
Ha! No government distributes evenly, and that will always be the fallacy in your argument. After all, if the distribution were even as you claim it is, then the government is entirely unnecessary. If the distribution is even, then everyone gets back what they started with - and then why redistribute in the first place?
You've been responding to my posts all night. Pay attention!
You've been stating things all night, so if that's not the same as it being true, that holds for you as well. Of course, you know what they say - arguing on the internet is useless. So this will be my last post.
Your problem with my examples is that you're thinking of now and only now. If mining gold further out in the solar system will occur, it wil occur in the future - when technology is better, and the "per-ounce cost of lifting" will have come down. No one is suggesting these things will happen now - and your inability to see a hypothetical example for what it is shows how staggeringly little imagination you have.
Right now, you are correct about satellites and tourism, but even in 1965 they were too expensive to be worhtwhile investments. Thankfully society progresses! (No thanks to the likes of you.)
You don't need a shuttle to mine gold on Mars. But my point was more that one accident halts the government's space flight program entirely. It sets them back YEARS at a time. Imagine if they had an accident trying to land someone on Mars? How long it would be before they tried again?
There isn't net profit NOW. So no one is going NOW. But in the future when there MAY be a profit, they MAY go then.
And is it mere distraction? Simply mentioning something as a distraction (because you don't want to, or can't, refute it) doesn't make it so. The government does waste billions of dollars - it is in all the papers and is well documented (do a goolge search for "government waste").
Okay. Since you seem to think that "individual wealth" is somehow separate from "societal wealth", your entire first part of your arugment would be correct. However, "societal wealth" can only come from "individual wealth", since society is made up of individuals. Therefore, taking money from individuals (in whatever form, especially taxes) is taking wealth from society, since again, individuals make up society. I will therefore quanitifiable define wealth as the length of time a person can survive on a given amount of money. Therefore, if I can live for two days on $100, my wealth is equal to 2 for every $100 I have.
If we have a society of 5 people (A, B, C, D, and E), with $1000, the society has a wealth of 2. Now, if they government takes 50% of everyone's money, the society has a wealth of 1, and the government has a wealth of 1. At best, the government should redistribute that equally, so that it goes back to having a wealth of 0 and society's individuals have their wealth of 2. But that can't happen since the government itself requires wealth in order to operate.
So let's take your example. Each person has a wealth of 2, including persons A and B. So the government, in its pure arbitrariness takes half the wealth from A and does something with it (buys something from C and D, since they can't just "create" money), and redistributes it to person B. Let's say the government creates a wealth of 3, keeps one for itself as the cost per transaction, and redistributes a wealth of 2 to person B.
As things stand now:
A = 1
B = 4
C = 3
D = 3
E = 2
Government = 1 (wealth used for transaction)
So the total wealth in society has gone up but two, which is great for persons B, C, and D! But what about person A? Person A now has half as much wealth as before. Where is A's money? the government has it, as the government now requires part of the wealth to function. So the government can't redistribute just yet, because it requires a wealth of 1 per transaction to function. So it in turn has to take money from the people again.
So now, as it takes one from everyone, the numbers look like this:
A = 0
B = 3
C = 2
D = 2
E = 1
Government = 2 (wealth used for transactions)
Now, if we use the government's investment in C and D to create further wealth (and if you don't buy that you're nuts - the government buys goods and services from people all the time), we have the following with the redistribution to B:
A = 0
B = 5
C = 3
D = 3
E = 2
Government = 2 (wealth used for transactions)
As you can see, A now has nothing. This means one of two things: A either ceases to exist, or the government now has to redistribute to A AND B.
Of course, your "logical" conclusion will be that the government should just use the wealth of transactions for person A! That solves the problem, right? Wrong. If you'll remember, person A is where the government is getting the money from in the first place! (Along with the other persons.)
So person A now has nothing, and the government has not really created wealth. Furthermore, it has ruined person A! As you can see, the total wealth has increased to 15, but the government has used 2 wealth in transaction costs, so society still only has 13 - and now B has 5 and A has 0.
Let's remove the government, and assume that A, B, C, D, and E are free to trade among themselves, again creating two wealth and using one wealth per transaction. A trades with B, using 1 wealth for the transaction, but in the process enriches C and D, since their goods have to come from somewhere:
A = 2 (A gets three minus one for the cost of transaction)
B = 3 (B gets four minus one for the cost of transaction)
C = 3 (C gets one for cost of transaction from A)
D = 3 (D gets one for cost of transaction from B)
E = 2
Total wealth in society after one round: 13.
Next round:
A = 3 (A gets four minus one for the cost of the transaction)
B = 4 (B gets five minus one for the cost of the transaction)
C = 4 (C gets one for cost of transaction from A)
D = 4 (D gets one for cost of transaction from B)
E = 2
Total wealth in society: 17.
Clearly, government interference can only be harmful.
Governments do not exist to enrich society. They exist to protect rights. The Declaration of Independence says it best:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
It doesn't say "to enrich society". It doesn't say that in the Constitution, either. It's strange that you attribute a function (enriching society) to government that it was never created to do. Society should enrich society. So your definition of government is flawed.
How is the government accountable? By voting? Surely you would not suggest such a thing, when most races end in ties and most politicians are 'bipartisan" to everyone's detriment.
What has the Department of Defense provided the private sector? How silly! Most DoD stuff is private sector built (Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, etc.) for the government. That shows how little you know!
As for the Department of Education, we have spent TRILLIONS on public schools, and they are arguably the worst in the world. The Japanese, Europeans, and Canadians all have higher standards of education than the US and spend far less per student than we do. If that's "enriching society", you have a WARPED definition of enriching.
You do realise that it was the FDA that prevented companies from seeing the European trial results of most drugs? Obviously not. There should be de-regulation. Not everything will be perfect all the time. But when the government approves a medicine it knows to be harmful, and prevents private companies from seeing evidence to the contrary, no one wins. And companies don't sell posion when there is profit to be made - killing your customers is the quickest way to losing them.
Heh, and your accountability argument is laughable. The reason people are not held accountable now is because they're able to utilise donations to political parties to curry favours - in a government that serves only its legitimate purpose that couldn't happen.
The prinicipal of mutual exclusivity is where it's bad. If loggers want to cut down trees, and environmentalists want to save the spotted owl, whom should the government please? The government offends the loggers to please the environmentalists - they offend the environmentalists to please the loggers.
A logging company has incentive to provide for the owls - it doesn't want to lose environmentally conscious customers.
I think you're just trying to bait me at this point. You either didn't read my post, or you didn't understand it - the entire post outlaid which system is more appropriate. And it entirely says that a less government system creates more wealth.
The government does indeed land on things like comets, etc., for two reasons. One, it has to spend the money it takes in on something. And two, enough people are currently interested in such things that the government can please a majority of them by doing such things. If that were to change, the government would stop doing such things.
However, your saying that the government has a lack of incentive is true. If gold were found in large deposits on Mars tomorrow, who do you think would land there first? Burt Rutan and crew, or the Feds? Remember that the Feds have no shuttle program right now because the entire fleet is grounded due to the loss of 25% of the fleet!
And you're right - a business will only go if there is a net profit, either directly or indirectly. And your "billions of dollars" example is bad, because that's mostly government waste! Or do you not remember the $700 hammers and the $1000 dolalr toilet seats? It's very simple - if business can make a profit, they will go. If government has money to burn (which they take from you!) and can please enough people, they might go - and might fail miserably often (two shuttles, several Mars probes), but might not. It's a craphsoot with the government - whereas with private companies you can make educated guesses and/or do research and arrive at conclusions.
Heh, it is interesting that you mention highways. It is the biggest dupe of all time that the automotive industry in this country got the government to pay for roads, when the railroad industry was forced to pay for tracks itself. No one ever mentions that. Furthermore, it is states that pay for local roads, and intrastate highways, and not the Feds.
Government regulations in commerce do not "secure" commerce - they hinder it. That you think the government needs to secure and regulate commerce only shows how little you know about what commerce could be! Try running a company with more than ten people some time and see how "regulations" neither save you money nor secure your commerce.
I don't want broadcast standards set by the government. I have the ability to turn the TV off or change the channel. Why should someone else get to decide what I watch?
Emergency services are helpful, and are a legitimate function of the government. The local government. It can also be done privately, too.
I haven't withdrawn from society. And I am not ignorant. If you are happy paying 25% of your salary in federal taxes, another 10% in state taxes, and another 5% in local taxes, plus sales tax and gasoline tax, and not getting your 50% in return, then by all means continue to do so. And as for utilisation, if you think the government has any process whereby the utilisation that ensures its continued survival doesn't come first, you are sadly mistaken.
You obviously do not know about government budgets. If you do not spend your budget by the end of the year, you do not get the same amount of money next year. My father worked for a government agency for fifteen years, and I worked for a state government for five, so I know that which of I speak. The budgets, therefore, are the same or more the following year. There is no saving there.
Efficiency, however, means that you eventually pay less for something that you originally paid a certain price for. If I pay X for a process to make widgets, but I then find a way to do it more efficiently, it will cost me Y less. (Either through spending less on machinery or on labour savings.) If X - Y then equals Z, I can lower prices and/or sell more widgets. In either instance, if people then buy those widgets, I make more money. (Either by saving Y, or the increase in sales, or both.)
Efficiency translates into savings which can create wealth - the government can not create wealth.
For that matter, the government can't create anything other than more government - any goods and/or services the government uses from the private sector is that much less that the private sector has for the rest of the private sector.
Here is a very simple fact - people pay taxes. Unless the government is exactly repaying those taxes, and giving the people more money than they took in taxes, they are not creating wealth. It's that simple. If you can sit there and say that the government provides goods and services in larger amount then they take in all the taxes from the citizenry, then you are living in a dream world.
His example is false, in that the government in and of itself can not pay for an investment; rather it has to take money from the citizens to pay for the investment. So the government owes a debt to the citizens to pay for Velcro. If indeed Velcro turns out to be worth more than was invested, unless the government has returned the money it took from the citizens, and given them extra, no wealth has been created.
It is not an opinion that the government does not create wealth - it is a fact. Just look at its operating budget. It is half a trillion in the red. That is to say nothing of the national debt! The government is so in debt that it would cost every man, woman, and child in this country $25,000 to pay it off. Even if that were to occur, given the budget deficit, we would be in debt again as soon as it became January.
Heh, your last point is funny. The circular axiom comes for your inability to realise that taxes are bad. You see only the "plusses" in the equation, and not the "minuses". You do not see the taking of taxes as a debt - only the return on investment from Velcro as a plus. If you were to take money from me, you would owe me money (or some service) - yet when the government does it, you fail to see that the government then owes me money (or some service).
In the instance of a private debt, I have some measure of recourse to assume that I am repaid (with interest!) or that the service I've paid for is performed. (I also have recourse not to give you money in the first place.) In the case of the government taking my taxes, I have no recourse to see that the debt is repaid (no chance in hell of getting interest!), and have no measure of assuring that the services I'm provided (when and if they're provided) equal what I pay. Furthermore, since taxes are mandatory and removed from my check by others, I do not have the recourse to not enter into the "loan" of my tax money, as I would with a provate debt.
So you see, the circular reasoning comes from your inability to see the negatives, and your continually seeing only positives.
Song has a partnership with Dish Network, and provides 24 channels of TV to the screen in the headrest in front of you. They also provide trivia, music (broadcast and create your own playlist (for a fee)), as well as movies (for a fee), and games (for a fee). The fees for the pay-per stuff are reasonable, but there's enough free (trivia and 24 channels) stuff to keep you busy the entire flight.
...since it's Slashdotted after one comment. :(
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Remember kids, for best viewing experience, just lie on the ground facing up - most of this can be seen with the naked eyes. If you want to try binoculars, that might work as well - but telescopes are not needed for this one. If someone had told me that the first time I went out to look, I wouldn't have wasted those first two hours wondering why I couldn't see anything. ;)
This is one device that was available in the US first. (Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/09/163521 7&tid=126)
If I'm not mistaken, doesn't KDEMail have the ability to send back "fake" bouncebacks to spam messages? I've been hoping that Evolution would get something like that for a long time, but it would seem like a good idea for just about any email client.
That way, you click a button and send the "bounceback", and hopefully after enough, the spammers would remove you from their lists.
Why doesn't package management matter on an embedded device?
Imagine, if you will, the ability to upgrade your embedded os with a press of a button (which, of course, is just a front end for "emerge -vuD world").
Then imagine that a company comes out with a piece of software... you want to download it... and you can. It will download and get and install dependencies. Package management is very useful, and could be even with embedded.
why do you assume it is "unnatural and wrong"?
Is it "unnatural and wrong" to cure polio? Or should we let people die early and deformed?
Is it "unnatural and wrong" to want to cure cancer? Or should we just let people waste away and die horribly painful deaths?
If you follow your "argument" to its natural conclusion, it is "unnatural and wrong" to cure just about anything. Or maybe you would like us to cure some things, but stop at a certain point?
The ability to think, and to make the world adapt to us is a great human characteristic. The idea that we wouldn't use our talents to improve oursleves and our world is a specious one. If 10,000 years ago, our ancestors had decided that puttting sticks together in a cross-weave patterns over their heads was "unnatural and wrong", we'd all still be living outside wearing fur.
Or, instead of not voting, you could join the Libertarian Party, and vote with the one party that stands for true liberty.
I may not be a psychiatrist, or even play one on TV, but that sounds *way* too much like you haven't gotten over it.
Um... that was exactly my point! "Bugs" exist in people, too. Oh, and by the way, you can't "correct" your vote after the fact. No matter which voting system you use.
While voting machines may be inherently buggy, I think in certain cases, the paper ones weren't much better. It also doesn't help that some voters can't read and/or fill out a paper ballot. For those of you that remember the 2000 election, the process of filling out a paper ballot was just as buggy, where bugs were "incomplete marks", "multiple marks", or "hanging chads".
Jacket: Your jacket is drying... ::Air being blown in McFly's face::
Jacket: Beep. Your jacket is dry.
They skipped the camera because the 1.3Mpxl version doesn't create significantly better pictures, but it does increase the file size. So it would take longer to send them, but not make them appreciably better in terms of quality.
The Treo 600 offers a choice of on-screen of keypad dialing. You are not forced to use on-screen dialing by any means.