The people really hurt by this were the proprietor, his sister (the government stole $7-million from her, according to the article I read (not this FA)), and the close to one million customers who had accounts with BetOnSports. All told, the US government stole about $50-million from about a million people.
Point of fact, Krugman always expresses this type of perverse opinion. It's not restricted to the article in question. Maybe it sounded like a "troll" to a couple of uninformed moderators, because his opinions are so bizarre, but you really can't make this stuff up. Go read a few of his articles.
So according to your political theory of America, the Constitution explicitly specifies several things as within the domain of Congress and implicitly specifies every other imaginable issue as within Congress's domain? I wonder, then, why did they bother to explicitly enumerate a list of things within Congress's power? Wouldn't it have been enough just to write the "general welfare clause" and "the interstate commerce clause" and head home, since their goal was to give all powers to Congress? They could have saved quite a bit of time that way, couldn't they? And all that paper wasted on printed copies of debates and printed copies of the Constitution and whatnot?
Of course, cheaters might rely on the fact that voters will be annoyed by the wasted time of a revote, but there will be enough civic-minded individuals there (they wouldn't be voting at all if they didn't care about the process to some degree) to keep people honest.
Actually, this is exactly the method (well, one of them) used to push committee decisions through party conventions in the United States, and presumably the people that make up the conventions at large are among the most civic-minded individuals in the county/state/country.
But it's harder to rig an election if the votes are counted in the open. Plus, electronic voting is not stupid. It makes it so much easier to obscure the fact that they're manipulating the votes when no one can actually watch the process in action. It might be "stupid" on account of the fact that their dishonestly is so obvious, but governments generally take the gamble that they can get away with fooling the majority of people, and most of those who see what's happening them will be too afraid to oppose them openly. It's worked far too many times in the past. Why would they stop doing it?
One would be a fool to believe that office-holders running for re-election -- and the people who support and use them -- want honest elections. Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice.
No, he's not overstating the uniformity between the Two Parties. The are united in their will to rule the rest of us. He is, however, understating the degree to which the United States are unique in this respect. Government everywhere is united against the people. A glance at recent events in Britain and the rest of Europe reveals as much.
The differences within the parties are larger than the differences between the parties.
I agree. Here's an even greater insight: The differences between the people and the government are greater than the differences between the parties. This is true no matter what country you live in.
Of course, Krugman actually advocated created a housing bubble in 2002.
For anyone who thinks parent might be exaggerating, it's no joke. Krugman is quite literally insane. Here's a direct quote from the linked article (emphasis added):
The basic point is that the recession of 2001 wasn't a typical postwar slump, brought on when an inflation-fighting Fed raises interest rates and easily ended by a snapback in housing and consumer spending when the Fed brings rates back down again. This was a prewar-style recession, a morning after brought on by irrational exuberance. To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.
We can opt to not buy products from X or Y company because of their abuse of us.
And they make slightly less money.
We can opt out of our government and join or start another.
And then they shoot us.
See the difference?
By the way, when you said we could stop buying products from a company "because of their abuse of us", what did you mean? By "abuse", did you mean something like "refusing to sell us their products at the prices we think they're worth" or "refusing to sell us products or services on the terms we would prefer"? Or, on the other hand, did you mean something like "lobbying the government to get higher regulations placed on their competitors" or "bribing legislators to make their services mandatory"?
The two are very different. They are polar opposites. On the one hand, an owner of a good chooses to keep that good rather than let it go on terms unacceptable to him. You may think your $100 is worth more than the company's product, or the businessman may think his product isn't worth letting go for a mere $75.99. Since it's his property in the first place, such a decision is eminently justified.
It is far different to use government power to get what we want. Is there any action of government which does not depend on, or equate to, holding a gun to the head of an innocent person? A company, non-profit organization, or person which uses government force to enlarge its business or accomplish its goals has stepped out of the realm of controlling the disposition of its own property and into the realm of thuggery.
Everyone in this country either sides with government or corporations, which is completely countering the population's goals.
Actually, the vast majority of people side with the government, including most of those who also side with corporations and also including most people who claim to oppose the government. The very few people who don't side with the government also don't side with corporations as they exist today, because for the most part those corporations are entangled with government in one way or another.
Why not side with the only entity that can outright control everything we've created?
You're right, I side with God. In reality, noone else can "outright control everything we've created". There is no "the people". The fact that you're here arguing your point today proves that "the people" are not some unified group with shared interests, but rather they include people with extremely diverse interests which are not mutually compatible.
Now getting people to oppose the government... that's a worthy cause, and if everyone were rational, that would be a shared interest. But people like you who just want to "use the government" and let it "work for us" are just trying to exercise power over others.
You sound disparaging of unions. Businesses are always pulling crap. They'll take everything we let them take. They're always looking for an angle, always trying to game the system.
Unlike unions?
If we let them, they would lower wages to nothing
Of course, if people are willing to work for nothing, there are certainly businesses willing to pay them nothing. Now re-read that sentence and look for the key phrase.
lobby for bad laws that are entirely too favorable to them, and use our police, paid for by our taxes, to enforce those laws.
Sounds like a problem with government.
A pity the free market extremists don't see that.
So-called free-market extremists don't permit the sorts of abuses you've described anyway.
How about busting a competitor's knees?
Certainly not permitted by free market extremists!
Bribing or threatening the officials, or the competition?
When the "officials" are governments, i.e. users of force, no "free market extremist" would permit that.
Sabotaging facilities, or the competitors?
Those property-rights supporting extremists don't support that stuff either!
This dumping of polluted sites is classic. Mining operations pull that one all the time. They get to estimate how much pollution their operation will cause, because they wrote the laws on that. Naturally they underestimate as much as they can. For a few years they mine the material and rake in the profits. They shelter those profits, and then declare bankruptcy and leave us to clean up the massive mess they made. Of course the mess is ten times more expensive to clean up than they estimated, and because they planned to declare bankruptcy all along, they did nothing to mitigate the mess when it would have been cheaper.
Again, damaging of others' property, which we free-market extremists have no tolerance for.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I see. Even at best, your situation is a very specific one and the advice you gave is not at all generally wise and beneficial for everyone in general, even though your original post suggested that you thought it was.
that one you selected to quote is the one i am serious about
That's my point.
the problem arises with different US states having differing tax benefits that vary depending on the whims of state government, then company A moves in and eventually the tax benefits are dissolved like the washington state example so company A looks for another state which adds to the cost of running their cloud in having to pack up and move and then set up elsewhere, which also adds to economic instability. IF it did not make a difference because all states were on the same tax level then company A would not move (neither to another state or outside the USA) its unstable because its the cost of doing business is higher and the corporates lose trust in government from the instability factor...
If company A moves out, it's because the people running the company have calculated that the company can make more money if it moves somewhere else. Thus, while the increase in taxation adds to the cost of running the business, moving elsewhere actually decreases the cost of doing business, which decreases economic instability. If all states had the same tax level, that level would be higher than the average state's tax level when the levels are different. The cost of doing business would be higher everywhere. Thus lower overall economic productivity and stability.
When you say "[if] all states were on the same tax level then company would not move... outside the USA", I assume by state you mean government, not just US state. Clearly you can see that if all US states had high tax levels and other countries had lower taxes, there would be an incentive to leave the US.
Europe is a powerful example of this. Look at all the countries like France and Germany complaining about "tax havens" like Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Andorra. They're not complaining because Monaco etc. are "unstable". They're complaining because they want to have extremely high taxes and countries like Monaco and Andorra provide a competitive reason for people to move there and conduct business there. They want high taxes world-wide and world-governmental powers strong enough to enforce them, and that is the logical conclusion of your arguments. If you consider yourself a "freedom loving american", you'd better re-consider how you look at this issue.
looking at the big picture in a way that benefits everyone = themselves & investors + the government & their constituents (some of which may or may not be employees)...
Have you ever considered that maybe it's impossible to do things in a way that benefits everyone? Even aside from a practical perspective, maybe certain groups of people actually genuinely hold positions that are antithetical to the best interests of others? That perhaps the nature of government itself is defined by such a position?
Not everyone has the same time preferences. There are plenty of people who will prefer to take a lower short-term profit (or even a short-term loss) if they are convinced that it means greater long-term profit.
then in turn the higher income garnered from the higher prices should raise their taxes, you see how it can easily spiral out of control? the USA should change the state taxes to a more centralized system to level the field so the tax is the same no matter where they move their cloud to, and if they leave the country then put a tarif on them for it. why should the consumer pay extra because the top dawgs want a 30 bedroom mansion & small private navy of pleasure craft? (it has been spiraling out of control since Reaganomics turned the world in to a playground for the rich at the expense of the working classes)
Slashdot Mirror
Odd, the 32-bit version is GPL.
I agree. In fact, 640K ought to be enough for anybody.
This is a good cause for a boycott. DirecTV... who else?
The people really hurt by this were the proprietor, his sister (the government stole $7-million from her, according to the article I read (not this FA)), and the close to one million customers who had accounts with BetOnSports. All told, the US government stole about $50-million from about a million people.
Point of fact, Krugman always expresses this type of perverse opinion. It's not restricted to the article in question. Maybe it sounded like a "troll" to a couple of uninformed moderators, because his opinions are so bizarre, but you really can't make this stuff up. Go read a few of his articles.
So according to your political theory of America, the Constitution explicitly specifies several things as within the domain of Congress and implicitly specifies every other imaginable issue as within Congress's domain? I wonder, then, why did they bother to explicitly enumerate a list of things within Congress's power? Wouldn't it have been enough just to write the "general welfare clause" and "the interstate commerce clause" and head home, since their goal was to give all powers to Congress? They could have saved quite a bit of time that way, couldn't they? And all that paper wasted on printed copies of debates and printed copies of the Constitution and whatnot?
True, but he'll have to work harder to come up with a voting system as stupid as that used at the "Jesus Seminar".
Of course, cheaters might rely on the fact that voters will be annoyed by the wasted time of a revote, but there will be enough civic-minded individuals there (they wouldn't be voting at all if they didn't care about the process to some degree) to keep people honest.
Actually, this is exactly the method (well, one of them) used to push committee decisions through party conventions in the United States, and presumably the people that make up the conventions at large are among the most civic-minded individuals in the county/state/country.
There's a separate room for every vote, with a waiting room right outside. Wouldn't election day be such a fun month?
What does Social Security, "a social insurance program funded through dedicated payroll taxes" (Wikipedia), have to do with voting?
But it's harder to rig an election if the votes are counted in the open. Plus, electronic voting is not stupid. It makes it so much easier to obscure the fact that they're manipulating the votes when no one can actually watch the process in action. It might be "stupid" on account of the fact that their dishonestly is so obvious, but governments generally take the gamble that they can get away with fooling the majority of people, and most of those who see what's happening them will be too afraid to oppose them openly. It's worked far too many times in the past. Why would they stop doing it?
One would be a fool to believe that office-holders running for re-election -- and the people who support and use them -- want honest elections. Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice.
No, he's not overstating the uniformity between the Two Parties. The are united in their will to rule the rest of us. He is, however, understating the degree to which the United States are unique in this respect. Government everywhere is united against the people. A glance at recent events in Britain and the rest of Europe reveals as much.
Hardly a joke, but rather an important insight.
The differences within the parties are larger than the differences between the parties.
I agree. Here's an even greater insight: The differences between the people and the government are greater than the differences between the parties. This is true no matter what country you live in.
Of course, Krugman actually advocated created a housing bubble in 2002.
For anyone who thinks parent might be exaggerating, it's no joke. Krugman is quite literally insane. Here's a direct quote from the linked article (emphasis added):
The basic point is that the recession of 2001 wasn't a typical postwar slump, brought on when an inflation-fighting Fed raises interest rates and easily ended by a snapback in housing and consumer spending when the Fed brings rates back down again. This was a prewar-style recession, a morning after brought on by irrational exuberance. To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.
Especially considering his "solution" to the meltdown is more of what brought it on in the first place.
We can opt to not buy products from X or Y company because of their abuse of us.
And they make slightly less money.
We can opt out of our government and join or start another.
And then they shoot us.
See the difference?
By the way, when you said we could stop buying products from a company "because of their abuse of us", what did you mean? By "abuse", did you mean something like "refusing to sell us their products at the prices we think they're worth" or "refusing to sell us products or services on the terms we would prefer"? Or, on the other hand, did you mean something like "lobbying the government to get higher regulations placed on their competitors" or "bribing legislators to make their services mandatory"?
The two are very different. They are polar opposites. On the one hand, an owner of a good chooses to keep that good rather than let it go on terms unacceptable to him. You may think your $100 is worth more than the company's product, or the businessman may think his product isn't worth letting go for a mere $75.99. Since it's his property in the first place, such a decision is eminently justified.
It is far different to use government power to get what we want. Is there any action of government which does not depend on, or equate to, holding a gun to the head of an innocent person? A company, non-profit organization, or person which uses government force to enlarge its business or accomplish its goals has stepped out of the realm of controlling the disposition of its own property and into the realm of thuggery.
Everyone in this country either sides with government or corporations, which is completely countering the population's goals.
Actually, the vast majority of people side with the government, including most of those who also side with corporations and also including most people who claim to oppose the government. The very few people who don't side with the government also don't side with corporations as they exist today, because for the most part those corporations are entangled with government in one way or another.
Why not side with the only entity that can outright control everything we've created?
You're right, I side with God. In reality, noone else can "outright control everything we've created". There is no "the people". The fact that you're here arguing your point today proves that "the people" are not some unified group with shared interests, but rather they include people with extremely diverse interests which are not mutually compatible.
Now getting people to oppose the government... that's a worthy cause, and if everyone were rational, that would be a shared interest. But people like you who just want to "use the government" and let it "work for us" are just trying to exercise power over others.
And is there a reason that taxpayers should honor a contract between a failed company and its employees?
You sound disparaging of unions. Businesses are always pulling crap. They'll take everything we let them take. They're always looking for an angle, always trying to game the system.
Unlike unions?
If we let them, they would lower wages to nothing
Of course, if people are willing to work for nothing, there are certainly businesses willing to pay them nothing. Now re-read that sentence and look for the key phrase.
lobby for bad laws that are entirely too favorable to them, and use our police, paid for by our taxes, to enforce those laws.
Sounds like a problem with government.
A pity the free market extremists don't see that.
So-called free-market extremists don't permit the sorts of abuses you've described anyway.
How about busting a competitor's knees?
Certainly not permitted by free market extremists!
Bribing or threatening the officials, or the competition?
When the "officials" are governments, i.e. users of force, no "free market extremist" would permit that.
Sabotaging facilities, or the competitors?
Those property-rights supporting extremists don't support that stuff either!
This dumping of polluted sites is classic. Mining operations pull that one all the time. They get to estimate how much pollution their operation will cause, because they wrote the laws on that. Naturally they underestimate as much as they can. For a few years they mine the material and rake in the profits. They shelter those profits, and then declare bankruptcy and leave us to clean up the massive mess they made. Of course the mess is ten times more expensive to clean up than they estimated, and because they planned to declare bankruptcy all along, they did nothing to mitigate the mess when it would have been cheaper.
Again, damaging of others' property, which we free-market extremists have no tolerance for.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
So you too are a free market extremist!
I see. Even at best, your situation is a very specific one and the advice you gave is not at all generally wise and beneficial for everyone in general, even though your original post suggested that you thought it was.
that one you selected to quote is the one i am serious about
That's my point.
the problem arises with different US states having differing tax benefits that vary depending on the whims of state government, then company A moves in and eventually the tax benefits are dissolved like the washington state example so company A looks for another state which adds to the cost of running their cloud in having to pack up and move and then set up elsewhere, which also adds to economic instability. IF it did not make a difference because all states were on the same tax level then company A would not move (neither to another state or outside the USA) its unstable because its the cost of doing business is higher and the corporates lose trust in government from the instability factor...
If company A moves out, it's because the people running the company have calculated that the company can make more money if it moves somewhere else. Thus, while the increase in taxation adds to the cost of running the business, moving elsewhere actually decreases the cost of doing business, which decreases economic instability. If all states had the same tax level, that level would be higher than the average state's tax level when the levels are different. The cost of doing business would be higher everywhere. Thus lower overall economic productivity and stability.
When you say "[if] all states were on the same tax level then company would not move ... outside the USA", I assume by state you mean government, not just US state. Clearly you can see that if all US states had high tax levels and other countries had lower taxes, there would be an incentive to leave the US.
Europe is a powerful example of this. Look at all the countries like France and Germany complaining about "tax havens" like Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Andorra. They're not complaining because Monaco etc. are "unstable". They're complaining because they want to have extremely high taxes and countries like Monaco and Andorra provide a competitive reason for people to move there and conduct business there. They want high taxes world-wide and world-governmental powers strong enough to enforce them, and that is the logical conclusion of your arguments. If you consider yourself a "freedom loving american", you'd better re-consider how you look at this issue.
looking at the big picture in a way that benefits everyone = themselves & investors + the government & their constituents (some of which may or may not be employees)...
Have you ever considered that maybe it's impossible to do things in a way that benefits everyone? Even aside from a practical perspective, maybe certain groups of people actually genuinely hold positions that are antithetical to the best interests of others? That perhaps the nature of government itself is defined by such a position?
Not everyone has the same time preferences. There are plenty of people who will prefer to take a lower short-term profit (or even a short-term loss) if they are convinced that it means greater long-term profit.
In fact, it is. So are you.
then in turn the higher income garnered from the higher prices should raise their taxes, you see how it can easily spiral out of control? the USA should change the state taxes to a more centralized system to level the field so the tax is the same no matter where they move their cloud to, and if they leave the country then put a tarif on them for it. why should the consumer pay extra because the top dawgs want a 30 bedroom mansion & small private navy of pleasure craft? (it has been spiraling out of control since Reaganomics turned the world in to a playground for the rich at the expense of the working classes)
More like "either help us steal from 40% of people to help you pay for %20 of people or you can't do business in California".