Don't know what alternative there is besides complete socialism, but that didn't work out too well.
Extreme socialism is a disaster. Moderate socialism is practiced in almost every location that is rated among the best places to live in the world. Inheritance taxes that are progressively higher on the high end, or simple wealth taxes both work to make sure people work for a living instead of via inherited fortunes.
I'm wary of confusing correlation and causality, so I don't grant that conclusion.
It certainly is not a given, but it is the most likely causation based upon every scrap of research I've seen to date. It has a logical causation, via established criminal motivation, and experimentally places that mitigate wealth disparity via progressive taxation tend to have decreasing levels of violent crime shortly thereafter.
I would like to see how the income disparity rates are calculated and whaether it accounts for rates of immigration. That would skew things drastically.
Immigration and the resulting culture clash almost always results in increased crime, as Sweden is now discovering, but in places with steady rates of immigration, thus self normalizing, changes in wealth disparity still track amazingly well with crime rates.
Ultimately, the point is that deadneats generally have themselves to blame, as middle class is attainable for anyone who is responsible and motivated.
That is not particularly useful if the ultra wealthy don't have themselves to thank (which they don't) then the disparity still motivates crime.
I'm not saying there aren't circumstances beyond people's control which have put some folks in dire straits.
Those circumstances are not at all uncommon. 1/3 to 1/2 of all personal bankruptcies result from people becoming ill.
This is used as justification for seizing tremendous amounts of money from people who earned it and giving it to people who didn't.
50% of all the wealth in our country is inherited by a tiny portion of the population who did nothing but be born in the right family. Tell me again how they earned that money. That's enough money to pay for healthcare and college for everyone.
The idea that some people voluntarily band together to work out some sort of problem is not communism.
Yes it is. The reason that people form communist cells has no bearing on the economic situation.
The two ideas are mutually exclusive. You either see the exchange of payment for labour as part of a free market or you see it as a form of oppression that must be stopped.
This is a false dichotomy. It is based in your viewing communism as the form of government formerly instituted in some asian countries, and in ignoring it as an economic system. Those "communist" countries were not even communist for the most part, but extreme socialist countries. They are completely separate things and your understanding of economics must not be overly broad if you don't see that. It's like confusing having an American style republic for being a fairly well balanced capitalist system. One does not imply the other.
The number of people who can buy their first house with cash is rather minimal and something that doesn't keep me up at night.
Ahh, but therein lies the rub. It's not that a lot of people can buy houses with cash, but a lot of the wealth that would let most people buy houses is owned by a very small number of people. Last I looked about 50% of the wealth was owned by about 1.5% of the people. Thus 95% of the people can't buy houses and have to take out large loans, because 1.5% of the people started out with all that money instead of them and then loan that money to them and profit on the interest. If the money was equitably distributed to start with (this will never be possible 100%) then most people could buy houses to start out with, instead of having to take out huge loans. Worse yet, because having wealth truly is the key to getting more wealth, these numbers are heading towards even more extreme disparity, meaning that in the next few generations, people in general not only won't have cash for homes to start, but they will never own a home.
If we didn't live in a rather efficient meritocracy, that might be true.
Actually, we don't live in an efficient meritocracy. Statistically speaking the way to get wealth is to start with wealth. That is not to say there is no upward mobility, but it is much more limited than most people think.
If you have talent and work ethic, you'll do well in the US.
I have talent and work ethic. I'm really smart with my money and despite starting with little, I may very well be a millionaire when I retire. That doesn't fool me into thinking that is the route to wealth. Nearly 50% of my earnings go towards paying interest on loans and I was extremely lucky in my acquisition of those loans. 50% of all my hard work and good decision making is paying someone else who is doing nothing except having been born with money. It is called the wealth condensation principal. Quite simply, once money becomes distributed unevenly, the rate of increase of that money increases proportionally to the amount of the inequality. Without measures to counter the disparity, we steadily become less and less of a meritocracy and more and more of an aristocratic society. That is why we need socialist redistribution to nearly if not completely compensate for wealth condensation if we want a stable society. The alternative is that wealth will consolidate more and more until it is forcibly redistributed, probably by a bloody revolution.
What it really boils down to is that some of us who were born without means choose to work our asses off to find a better situation, and others take the easy way out and steal what they want. I don't feel sorry for these people.
Whatever the ethics of the situation, I'm a pragmatist. The rate violent crime and theft will go up and up the greater wealth disparity increases. I'd personally rather not be killed or robbed or have a violent revolution. I'm kind of fond of having a stable government and society.
Then you either fail to understand the scientific method or you are basing beliefs on weak evidence and don't want those challenged. There is no "correct" quote, the fact is simple: a correlation does NOT imply a causation.
Either your understanding of statistics is flawed or your understanding of English is. A correlation frequently implies a causation. A correlation does not imply any particular causation. Do you understand the difference? Because violent crime and wealth disparity correlate this implies that it is likely that either wealth disparity causes crime, crime causes wealth disparity, both, or both are caused by a third factor or group of factors. It does not imply that any given one of these causes is likely.
You have to test for causation in addition to correlation, and it's often much harder.
Because correlation implies causation it is useful to then test for specific causations to determine if a causation really exists and what it is. Because their was a strong correlation between wealth disparity and crime, researchers investigated probable causes (the psychology of criminal motivation) and looked at test cases, where governments mitigated wealth disparity via socialism. The results of both of those provide a logical reason for wealth disparity causing crime and demonstrate that in at least some test cases, lessening wealth disparity decreased crime.
By following the scientific method this makes this the leading theory, and the most probable causation.
Just because a correlation supports your viewpoint doesn't mean that there's anything to it. Couching it in language like "this indicates a causation" or "shows there's very likely a causation" is just plain dishonest. One is not the other.
I think you're confused about the difference between correlation and causation. A correlation does imply a likely causation, which is why this was investigated. It was the research thereafter that indicated which causation most likely explained the correlation.
Actually, at a certain point, there is no incentive to work hard. With the current tax system, I'd almost say that there is a disincentive to work hard. Why build up something great if the government just takes most of it now, and all of it when you die?
You're only looking at half of the equation. People have little or no motivation to work when their efforts will go to nothing (extreme socialism) and they also have little or no motivation to work when they profit whether they work or not (feudalism). The point is to motivate people to work hard by letting them benefit from that work, while not letting them benefit when they don't work hard. Inheritance is entirely benefitting from not working, since it is money from someone else's hard work. As such, it should be taxed at progressively higher rates and provide diminishing returns. Why work at all if I can live my entire life gaining more and more money from interest on my inheritance?
And you sure as hell shouldn't be complaining about it. You were born in the United States of America.
I'm not complaining jelly nuts, I'm explaining the economics of wealth condensation using real world examples.
And that attitude is why you're a loser. You compare your success to the success of others, rather than by your own benchmarks.
I'm a loser eh? Well let me tell you something cheesy wiener, I'm a relatively successful person. I just think it is important that people understand the economics currently in play and the fact that violent crime is motivated largely by the unfairness of the system.
Really, you seem to think that "being successful" or "being happy" means "having a lot of money."
I think that do I shortstack? You seem to be projecting because I said nothing of the sort.
This is the choice you've made, as evidenced by your jealousy of those with more money.
Pointing out unfairness does not indicate jealousy. I don't have a lot to be jealous of, as I'm doing quite well financially. Maybe you should consider why you're reacting so emotively? Feelings of guilt or fear perhaps chicken lips?
You want to be rich? It's not hard in America.
Hey worm muncher, you're buying into a fantasy. Statistically speaking the way to be rich is to be born rich.
I'm not going to bother with the rest of your post as you completely failed to address any points. I do like your precedent setting idea of making up fun nicknames when addressing one another. Have a nice life hairy-butt.
Assuming the OP is referring to college and house, they likely made the right decisions to both maximize their earning potential and reduce sunk rent costs. And their point about still spending about half their lifetime income on interest may still be true if they live in an expensive area such as the California Bay Area.
You're correct on all points. I'm pretty smart about money in general and both college and buying a house are saving me money over the alternatives. As to where I live, currently it is in the midwest, just a fairly expensive area thereof. I'm there because that is where the work is and being employed for the amount I am paid is the best economic choice, besides I enjoy my work which is worth a lot more than I would save in mortgage payments in a less enjoyable job. Just so people don't get the wrong idea, I'm not in favor of progressive inheritance and wealth taxes because they will benefit me personally. I'm on track to be a millionaire by the time I retire, if my investments all work out as planned. It's just that my smart moves and hard work are still going to benefit others nearly as much as myself, simply because of where I started in life.
The perception of apparent injustice in wealth distribution leads immediately to the conlusion that the government needs to confiscate wealth and redistribute it.
Not really. The Government already confiscates a lot of wealth and redistributes it. Rather, it leads one to the supposition that the way in which wealth is confiscated and distributed could be a lot better for society.
I'm not buying it, as that leads to the perception that no matter how hard you work, the government is just going to come and take it all.
Obviously the government confiscating and controlling the distribution of all wealth is an abysmal failure, as proved by extreme socialism. Rather, the level of socialism needs to be appropriate and the distribution managed on a macro level to reduce the possibility for abuse. Either too much or too little wealth distribution both lead to lack of motivation/innovation. If no matter how hard I work I won't make more money, I have no motivation. If, I don't have to work at all and can simply profit from the wealth condensation principal applied to my huge inheritance, I have no motivation. That is why a balance is needed. People need to profit mainly from their own hard work, not from already established wealth or inheritances.
Redistribution always leads to someone having to decide how much is redistributed and to whom. This task most often will fall to those who are wealthy.
It already does, which is why the system is skewed towards increasing wealth disparity. The point of this article is that we need to make the system favor the people in general, rather than the wealthy.
If wealth disparity is higher in the US than in Europe...
Well, it depends upon the locality in Europe. Some have significantly higher and some significantly lower wealth disparity and violent crime than the US. The thing is, these areas correlate very well with one another. The other factor is, you're presumably an American. Foreigners, whether Europeans in the US, or Americans in Europe are more likely to be robbed as many thieves target tourists and other foreigners.
Basically, what I'm saying is, your anecdotal evidence, which is biased by your nationality is not a basis for a scientific conclusion, compared to formal studies of wealth disparity and crime levels.
Regardless, it should still be pointed out that perceived unfairness and actual unfairness are not necessarily the same; and the zero-sum falicy is often then cause of this perception. So perhaps the real cause of crime is poor education instead (which a wealth-based analysis would include whereas an income one blissfully ignores to reach its conclusion).
You're assuming that the unfairness is not real, which is not necessarily the case simply because money may be a fluid commodity. If I'm born into a poor family and have no money at all to start out, I take out loans to go to school and another for a home and work hard and smart all my life As much of the fruit of my labors goes to paying off debt as it does to profiting me. If another person is born wealthy, never works a day in their life, but makes 1000 times what I do simply by collecting interest on their inheritance, would you call that fair? A person who is smart and works hard profits less than one who is lazy and stupid and does nothing to benefit society. Even a child will tell you if one person gets 100 dollars to go shopping and another gets 2 dollars, that isn't fair. There is an inherent unfairness to our system.
There's a curve envolved and whether one way is good or bad depends on your current position on that curve. My complaint though, and this may be more of a comment on the editorial summary on/., is that the argument was made to imply that the amount of "badness" was directly proportional to the income disparity, and therefore to maximize "goodness" all income disparity must be eliminated.
So here's the thing. We're not talking about "badness" we're talking about violent crime. Violent crime does correlate very strongly with wealth disparity (more-so than income disparity). So to say that violent crime increases as wealth disparity increases is completely accurate. That is not to say that reducing violent crime is our ultimate goal, but the summary does speak to crime, not "badness."
Just as I distrust people who wield the "these things are correlated therefore this one caused that one" because they usually have an agenda too. Or for that matter, pretty much any time any human talks at all they have some kind of agenda. Also I wasn't trying to quote anybody (notice the lack of quotation marks or attribution in my comment). BTW, a "proof" is an "implication" in logic; so why again is my statement wrong except that you don't trust it?
Because the best scientific data we have does suggest that wealth disparity is a causative factor for theft and violent crime. Claiming that the correlation between the two does not indicate anything ignores the fact that it implies there is a causative effect, and thus the most probable scientific determination is that is what is happening. I don't have an "agenda" I'm just discussing the relationship. Perhaps it would be better if our society was more violent, so we can better handle those ET's if they ever land. Our laws are created to try to create as much "fairness" and balance the rights of individuals, and improve our quality of living. This is important information for anyone looking to do that, although I doubt our lawmakers are going to pass laws that are likely to keep them from giving their billions to their children and establishing political legacies, nor measures that stop government corruption since, hey that's how they got where they are.
That's the problem in a nutshell, isn't it. You want to be someone else, because you think life should be "fair". I hate to break it to you, but "life" is not fair. Some people are born blind. Is that "fair"? Some are born "deaf". Is that fair? Some people are born rich. Is that fair?
Some people are tortured and killed and some people aren't is that fair? If you're walking down the street and someone shoots you in the back of the head and takes your money is that fair? Of course not. Is that an argument against using the law to ban murder? Of course not. The point is not to "be someone else" as you seem to think, but to make our country the best place we can using the laws to make life as fair as possible and as good as possible for the most number of people. You preach either selfishness or defeatism. Neither is in any way constructive or useful.
You can always compare yourself to others and be either disappointed or grateful. I can see which one you have chosen to be, and it is sad.
I was speaking about the psychology that motivates crime, not my personal feelings. The fact that you assume one is the other is presumptuous and suggests perhaps you're emotionally entangled with the issue. Trying to deal with guilt perhaps?
Here's a lesson I've taught my kids.... Compare yourself to who you CAN BE, and not someone else or by someone else's standards.
Here's another lesson you should teach your kids. The only way to make things better is to try. If you assume things will never be any better and never try to improve society you might as well shoot yourself in the head now.
Life isn't fair. Stop trying to make it fair, because it is futile, and annoys those of us who realize it.
Yeah, lets repeal all laws and go back to feudalism backed by force. Laws and government by the people are just trying to make life more fair, lets just abandon them. Your defeatism is pathetic. I pity your children.
So, what do you propose should be done because of the ability of people to rationalize theft?
People rationalize being unfair more when they are themselves subjected to unfairness. Striking a middle ground where taxes mitigate that unfairness to the right extent are likely to reduce crime. Progressive inheritance taxes on the extreme high end or wealth taxes as have been implemented in other places mean no one inherits more than a few million dollars. This is a good thing because it provides incentive for the wealthy to work and reduces wealth condensation creating instability. It reduces corruption in government by removing what amount to inherited titles amongst wealthy families. It provides funds or reduces taxes for the poor, improving their prospects for advancement. It reduces the number of people who justify violence and theft with their unfair starting position in life and reduces desperation, thus removing many people's motivation for crime. It may or may not work in the US, but it certainly seems to have done so elsewhere.
And in return they give you a house you couldn't afford up front. That's how mortgages work. When you consider the opportunity cost of the few hundred dollars they give you, mortgates are rather cheap.
You don't understand. The only reason I can't afford a house up front and have to pay interest is because of circumstances of birth. Some people are born wealthy and some are born poor. It is not as extreme as when some people are born slaves and others are born aristocrats, but it is the same principal. This inherent unfairness of wealth distribution is what a lot of people use to justify crimes. After all life is already inherently unfair to start with, what does it matter if they take an action that is unfair, but benefits them?
Money is not zero-sum, just because some CEO gets a lot of money doesn't mean I get less.
So what? We're talking about the psychology/sociology of crime. It is the perceived disparity and unfairness that matters, regardless of underlying economics.
If there were perfect equality then there would be no incentive for anybody to make any progress at all.
True, and if there is no socialism all wealth consolidates via the wealth condensation principal until we're living in a totalitarian system. No sociologist or economist in their right mind thinks extreme socialism is going to work. The question is what level of wealth disparity/condensation is ideal to maximize living conditions. I might note, Too much wealth disparity also leads to no incentive for progress. If I'm born wealthy and just leave my money in the stock market certs daddy left me, why should I ever contribute anything to society instead of being a lazy rich bastard?
Correlations don't prove cause-effect relations.
I distrust anyone making this argument as they usually have an agenda.. The correct quote is "correlation does not imply a specific causation." Correlation frequently implies some causation and a lot of science today is finding correlations and testing possible causations. Whether crime causes wealth disparity, wealth disparity causes crime, or both are caused by some other factor is the point of research into the subject. There is some evidence for wealth disparity motivating crime, and very little evidence for any other specific causation therefor scientists in general tend to think that disparity motivating crime is the most probably correct sequence. Most science, especially in very complex systems, is not a matter of proving anything, merely finding likely answers.
The results are highly selective and not an indicator of good/bad on a whole. Even if more crime does result, many other good things may also result as well.
This is true enough, which is why you need to define your goals before taking action. If decreasing crime is your only goal, erasing all laws will do it, although it may not be a good overall result. That said, this argument does not speak to what "good things" might be scientifically caused by wealth disparity, whereas crime is a pretty obvious negative. Until someone can draw such a correlation, this is just spouting unsupported maybes.
People have been Killed, robbed, beatened, and otherwise harmed by people's greed to acquire these products. Yet, none of these are items that are within the definition of "basic needs". Nobody "needs" these.
You're mistaking the psychology here. People aren't stealing because their basic needs aren't met. They're stealing because they have been able to justify that action to themselves, usually with an internal dialogue along the lines of, "life is unfair. Nothing is fair. Thus stealing, is just another way to get what I want. Why should I be a chump and stay poor just because I was born that way? I'm going to make something of myself the same way a lot of the rich families did, by being unscrupulous and doing whatever it takes."
The "poor" Americans are some of the richest people in the world, just look at the obesity levels. Truly "poor" people are literally dying of starvation, worry about their next meal, wonder where they will sleep tonight.
Crime does not correlate to poverty nearly as well as disparity. People don't rob others because they are poor, they do so because they feel justified since others were born with so much more than they were. Take a look at internet crime, suddenly people in the third world with nothing can rob people in the US. Predictably, there has been an explosion of internet crime from the third world. "An American makes 500 times what I do, despite being a moron. I can live for years off of one case of fraud against them." Of course there are going to be more crimes do to this disparity. Within the US, it is the difference between the rich and poor, not the overall level compared to the world (which most don't see) that drives crime.
I know, I've been "poor". I've also know what its like to have to get up off my ass and get a job, and do crappy work for a living. If one works hard, is honest and never stops learning, one can end up in IT, with a decent wage.
Yeah for a lifetime of hard work and smart decisions you can make 1/100,000th what one of the people born to extreme wealth and who is a lazy idiot makes from investing all that inheritance in lending firms that lend you the money you need to get started and then collect interest. In fact, over the course of my life I'll make about as much money paying interest on my mortgage and other loans as I will make for myself. Someone else is making just as much off my hard work as I am and they've done nothing but start out with money. That sort of unfairness is what drives people to crime, although usually the crime is committed based upon opportunity, not targeting the wealth specifically.
Americans are a bunch of whiney wimps who would rather get rich quick, while being poor, than work hard.
Who wouldn't rather get rich quick? This phenomenon, by the way, is in no way limited to the US. Wealth disparity correlates to violent crime and robbery levels the world around.
The summary mentions income disparity, but that statistic is only used because it is easy to measure. Sociologists modeling this issue actually find that wealth disparity, not income disparity has the closest correlation to violent crime of any observed factor. Another thing to be kept in mind is that "correlation does not necessarily imply a specific causation." This quote is often mangled by people with agendas. Correlation frequently does imply some causation, whether that causation is direct in either direction or both items are caused by another factor. Probably half of all science is finding correlations and testing for causations.
Finally, I'd like to address where the research on this subject has gone in the last few decades. The correlation between wealth disparity and violent crime fits neatly with research into motivation and de-motivation for criminal behavior. In the 80's and 90's corporations funded a lot of research into how to stop employee theft. At the same time a few other studies also tackled the same issue from a less mercenary perspective. The results of all this research led to some surprising changes in the way most sociologists think about crime. While threat of punishment is a deterrent to crime, it is nowhere near as important a deterrent in most cases as was previously assumed. In fact, the strongest motivation for not commit crime was moral, but in a rather unfocused way. In some instances a sign that says please don't steal (maybe Apple wasn't nuts) proved more effective at deterring crime than a security camera. Treating employees well and building up loyalty to the company is one of the most cost effective ways to reduce theft. Business schools in the US are just in the last 5 years starting to teach this, so it may take a while for it to worm its way into corporate culture.
By now you're probably wondering, how this fits in with wealth disparity. Wealth disparity allows people to justify their crimes, removing the moral motivation to not commit crimes. If one man is born with nothing and has to go into debt simply to get started and remains in debt for years while working hard and making good decisions, and another person is born wealthy, never has to work a day in their life and is an idiot, and makes 1000 times what the first person does simply by investing in firms that loan money to the first person and people like him and collect interest, it is easy to see that life has not treated the two people fairly. The smart and hard worker makes little and struggles while the lazy idiot gets a free ride. The more common and drastic this seems to our first person, the more likely they are to commit violent crimes and robberies. They can justify those crimes to themselves by looking at the inherent unfairness they have been subjected to. Now here's where it gets interesting. Remember where I mentioned earlier that the motivation was unfocused? While the potential criminal may have justified their actions via the unfairness, they commit their violence and crime based upon opportunity. That means they are no more likely to rob the rich than to rob other poor people.
So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a hypothetical causation between wealth disparity and crime, that is somewhat supported by statistical evidence. It also gives us clues to potential ways to reduce violent crime by addressing the motivations for crime. If we implement more progressive inheritance or wealth taxes and apply that money to socialist programs aimed at the very poor, will crime be reduced? I think it will, and that seems to be the case in other countries, but no one knows for certain. I also think rather than a dole for the poor we'd do better to address the culture of drug prohibition via decriminalization, set up addiction treatment and management programs, and address the healthcare crisis that exemplifies the percieved wealth disparity issue, if not the actual differentiation.
Actually, if I recall correctly Sweden's tax rate for the average citizen is only 15% higher than the US's tax rate for the average citizen. It was in a book published last year, something about peso and cheese or some other inane title.
BTW, 46 million low-income Americans receive health benefits from Medicare, so we are on the way to socialized health care in the US already.
In a half-assed sort of way. It provides many of the drawbacks with few of the advantages. Old people commit murder to get into prison so they can get a needed surgery. Juries award million dollar settlements to injured parties, not because the defendant did anything wrong, but because they feel sorry for the victim and it is the only way they will get their medical treatments paid for. I have no illusions that our government can properly administer socialized healthcare as demonstrated by our current medicare system, but the incidental benefits for society are worth it from what I've seen where other countries have done so.
Plus I think you will see that the U.S. was a more violent country than anywhere in Scandanavia way before their move to greater socialism.
I wasn't implying quite that direct of a connection. Sane drug laws and treatment programs are probably a bigger factor than anything. Sweden's low rate of wealth disparity, was not created by socialism, although socialist policies maintain it. Rather, it is one of several contributing factors the their more stable, less violent culture.
But hey, don't let me stop you from moving to Sweden or Denmark if you prefer! Norway would be better, they've got the oil money.
And don't forget Iceland, there are lots of choices and I actually am fond of snowy winters and used to them. Perhaps I will move to northern Europe some day, but not soon.
Yeah, but most are of the "Polish plumber" new EU country variety and have some skills. That said, I'm proud of Sweden for keeping the doors open to immigration, unlike Denmark.
Actually, most of their immigrants are from the middle east and Africa. I'm not sure what type of skills they have. I'm not about to judge Norway either, they are in a tough place. Do they accept large numbers of immigrants and see their entire way of life change drastically as the majority of their country subscribes to a religion that teaches it is mandatory that the government is part of the church and which has some very restrictive and antiquated policies? If you were a woman in Norway would you vote in favor of laws that introduce a majority into your country that is likely to pass laws making it illegal for you to own property? That is not an easy decision t make.
I even quoted the MOAB guys who said Apple was given one month's notice on several bugs. Apple is not being proactive.
Hmm, Apple hasn't commented and I certainly don't trust the MOAB guys. Who do I trust? I trust the CEO of OmniGroup who mentions in an interview on Arstechnica today that he was given zero notice and found out about the bug in OmniWeb when a friend e-mailed him after seeing the MOAB release.
No, you claimed Apple had proactively introduced mandatory access controls and I refuted your bogus claim.
No, I said they were being proactive by developing it. They obviously have not yet released such a feature, although they did mention it in some developer notes. Do you know what proactive means? It means working on solutions to problems you don't have yet. Apple does not yet have a problem with trojans or malware in general, but they are working on a solution.
Fulll public disclosure is not "irresponsible by all security industry standards".
I never said it was. Learn to read jackass. I said what MOAB is doing, which is intentionally hoarding bugs and not disclosing them to vendors or the public until a time frame that makes quickly patching them difficult, is irresponsible. Are you arguing it isn't?
The day I take ethics advice from a liar is the day hell freezes over.
I suspect that will be about two years before you learn to read properly.
The poorest 10% in Sweden have incomes the same as the poorest 10% in the US
True, but they also have free health care, education, retirement, child care, and parental leave. They have more vacation time, less violence and an all around higher standard of living. My brother pays 15% of his income in child care and I pay 20% of mine for health care. My girlfriend pays 40% of hers paying off her student loans. All of these are significant amounts of wealth not reflected by simple income rates.
That's without Sweden having to deal with 20 million low-skill immigrants operating in the informal labor market.
Sweden has a lot of immigration. 12% of residents are immigrants and 20% are first generation natives, mostly from the middle east. They are just more sensible about how they tax and allocate tax dollars than the US.
The "ease of use versus security" dichotomy is a false dichotomy more often than not.
I agree most of the time, and in the general case, but not necessarily for any given instance.
The problem is, what they're doing was never any easier than following a more secure policy, and after the first few exploits it's resulted in an overall reduction of the ease of use of OS X, without any actual increase in security.
If a person clicks on say, a PDF file. If they have auto-opening of PDF files disabled they then have to double click on the item in the downloads window. This is an extra step which Windows users are not accustomed to. As such, many of them find it harder, and some are confused as to why they aren't looking at a PDF instead of a list of downloads. Some might even assume Macs can't read PDFs. So in this particular instance, I think auto-opening them is easier. You say after the first few exploits, but those exploits are so rare and uncommon practically no one has ever seen them outside of a lab. If this becomes a common vector for exploits in the wild they will have to disable it by default or find a better way to work around it.
Instead of extending the sandbox to include those applications that themselves sandbox the documents they display (safe applications), they have added a bunch of extra dialogs into LaunchServices just in case Safari (or some other Webkit-based application displaying an untrusted document) calls LaunchServices.
Ideally, Apple will implement mandatory access controls and it won't matter if they auto open files in some program because that program won't be able to do anything anyway. That, however, is a lot more work than deciding the correct default setting in Safari.
More convenient AND more secure. Why do anything else? Microsoft has already AMPLY proven that the path of asking the user "I'm about to do something that might be really stupid, should I?" doesn't work.
I think your solution is a band-aid. (To be fair, so is Apple's current solution.) It does not address other downloads from other, non-Web-kit applications like mail. It is also missing graduated levels of trust. You ask users or the OS provider to decide if applications are safe or not safe. That is not sufficient granularity. If I have a PDF file, is it safe for Preview to open it? What if there is a buffer overflow in Preview and it takes over the process? Can it then start a mail server and send spam? I don't want Preview to ever send mail, and the OS should restrict it from so doing. The way to do this is with mandatory access controls and a system to determine the trust level of a given application. Apple is working on both.
Microsoft has implemented half of such a solution, in a broken way, without fixing a number of other problems that contribute to the issue and while completely ignoring the human part of the security equation. That does not mean such a system can't be done correctly.
Nope. The reason is, you missed a step. Wealth is also represented in the configuration of materials, and to a somewhat lesser degree, labor and rights.
You're mistaken. The configuration is a labor cost, pure and simple. People were paid to put it in that shape.
I recognize that the claimed theory behind those things is not based on zero-sum economics, but it is still a significant underlying theme, especially in the things that people actually believe, not just theoretically.
That's like saying "torturing people is a significant underlying theme to capitalism, especially for the things capitalist actually believe they should do, not just the economic theory." Socialism and capitalism are economic methods. They are not the opinions or people who have implemented those methods or claimed affiliation with those methods.
Especially if you're still a communist at this late date (not "you" personally, "you" in general) at this late date.
You could personally call me a communist, in that I recognize the importance and benefits of the system. In fact, I mentioned I think communist cell sizes are too small so you can even say I'm in favor of more communism. Some of the best and most beneficial living conditions in the US can be found on communes, co-ops, and monasteries.
The true theoretical backings of communism have been utterly destroyed in practice, so what people actually believe is probably coming from something else.
Communism has not been destroyed as a theory and as I mentioned it works every day in almost every country. The theory that communism would be beneficial if we increased the size of the communist cells to gigantic proportions has been pretty well demonstrated, but that is not the same thing at all. Like it or not the traditional atomic family meets all the classic criteria for being a communist cell.
I was just attacking the zero-sum fallacy.
And I believe rightly so in the case of "a job for a job" but then you went on and carried it beyond what I think is reasonable. Your assumptions seemed to be that we were a perfect capitalist model, which is of course untrue, and further because of that limitation on the items you discussed I felt you were fundamentally misstating a few items. I thought it important to mention the reality of our economy and correct your statements about several very misunderstood and often maligned (but necessary) parts of it.
So you are saying that increasing the minimum wage cost US jobs? Gee, who could have predicted that?!
So here's an interesting question. What if, instead of raising the minimum wage, we provided socialized health care and education and paid for it with a sliding scale wealth tax? The individual working would still have more wealth to spend as they would not have to pay for healthcare (which many can't afford now) or for medical treatments or for their 4 year degree. It would result in more educated workforce which would naturally be able to command higher wages compared to other countries (than they do now).
Right now 50% of the wealth in the country is possessed by a tiny minority. The majority of that wealth was inherited and does more to remove incentive to work hard than it does to provide incentive. The average person spends as much money paying interest on their home and car and credit card bills and student loans as they do on all their other expenses combined. They are basically paying a huge tax for not having started with any money.
I agree regulating things at the bottom does not work, but better distribution of current wealth can mitigate a lot of these problems. Hey it works in Sweden (so far).
Ok, let me get this straight. You did not cooperate with the new developers, or "teach them your code". You not only actively encouraged others to do the same, but also look for new jobs. You then in fact left the company - without, it seems, adequate documentation - and somehow you think they sold you out?
Actually, this is fairly common because in general American business schools are just now beginning to teach the value of treating employees well. What happened in the scenario described. The upper management decided that money was what mattered to the company, but their view was short sighted. Instead of being loyal to employees and considering the cost of them over new employees in another country, they decided to let them all go. This demonstrates that the company is impersonal and does not care. As a result, the employees (including our storyteller) reacted as one would expect. They acted like mercenaries towards the company, but demonstrated loyalty to one another. They did what they could to get as much for themselves and one another as possible before screwing the company over and moving on.
This is not at all uncommon. And if the company treats the new employees the same way, some day they are likely to walk en masse and form their own company that competes and the US company will die. This is capitalism at work people. American companies are making dumb and/or very short sighted moves. The upper management is just looking to make money and move on. Shareholders and the board just hire another guy who has raped a dozen companies already, because "He was CEO of XXX before their stock suddenly went to hell, surely he is a better than other choices." I worked at a company who hired on a new CEO. A little Googling on my part showed that he had worked at a dozen companies for a few years each. Sure enough, within a year he had hired on a bunch of his buddies giving them big salaries and nothing to do and started layoffs of the people who did work and had experience and made money.
The current trend in American companies is killing them and replacing in house talent with outsourcing is just one of the symptoms.
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Don't know what alternative there is besides complete socialism, but that didn't work out too well.
Extreme socialism is a disaster. Moderate socialism is practiced in almost every location that is rated among the best places to live in the world. Inheritance taxes that are progressively higher on the high end, or simple wealth taxes both work to make sure people work for a living instead of via inherited fortunes.
I'm wary of confusing correlation and causality, so I don't grant that conclusion.
It certainly is not a given, but it is the most likely causation based upon every scrap of research I've seen to date. It has a logical causation, via established criminal motivation, and experimentally places that mitigate wealth disparity via progressive taxation tend to have decreasing levels of violent crime shortly thereafter.
I would like to see how the income disparity rates are calculated and whaether it accounts for rates of immigration. That would skew things drastically.
Immigration and the resulting culture clash almost always results in increased crime, as Sweden is now discovering, but in places with steady rates of immigration, thus self normalizing, changes in wealth disparity still track amazingly well with crime rates.
Ultimately, the point is that deadneats generally have themselves to blame, as middle class is attainable for anyone who is responsible and motivated.
That is not particularly useful if the ultra wealthy don't have themselves to thank (which they don't) then the disparity still motivates crime.
I'm not saying there aren't circumstances beyond people's control which have put some folks in dire straits.
Those circumstances are not at all uncommon. 1/3 to 1/2 of all personal bankruptcies result from people becoming ill.
This is used as justification for seizing tremendous amounts of money from people who earned it and giving it to people who didn't.
50% of all the wealth in our country is inherited by a tiny portion of the population who did nothing but be born in the right family. Tell me again how they earned that money. That's enough money to pay for healthcare and college for everyone.
The idea that some people voluntarily band together to work out some sort of problem is not communism.
Yes it is. The reason that people form communist cells has no bearing on the economic situation.
The two ideas are mutually exclusive. You either see the exchange of payment for labour as part of a free market or you see it as a form of oppression that must be stopped.
This is a false dichotomy. It is based in your viewing communism as the form of government formerly instituted in some asian countries, and in ignoring it as an economic system. Those "communist" countries were not even communist for the most part, but extreme socialist countries. They are completely separate things and your understanding of economics must not be overly broad if you don't see that. It's like confusing having an American style republic for being a fairly well balanced capitalist system. One does not imply the other.
The number of people who can buy their first house with cash is rather minimal and something that doesn't keep me up at night.
Ahh, but therein lies the rub. It's not that a lot of people can buy houses with cash, but a lot of the wealth that would let most people buy houses is owned by a very small number of people. Last I looked about 50% of the wealth was owned by about 1.5% of the people. Thus 95% of the people can't buy houses and have to take out large loans, because 1.5% of the people started out with all that money instead of them and then loan that money to them and profit on the interest. If the money was equitably distributed to start with (this will never be possible 100%) then most people could buy houses to start out with, instead of having to take out huge loans. Worse yet, because having wealth truly is the key to getting more wealth, these numbers are heading towards even more extreme disparity, meaning that in the next few generations, people in general not only won't have cash for homes to start, but they will never own a home.
If we didn't live in a rather efficient meritocracy, that might be true.
Actually, we don't live in an efficient meritocracy. Statistically speaking the way to get wealth is to start with wealth. That is not to say there is no upward mobility, but it is much more limited than most people think.
If you have talent and work ethic, you'll do well in the US.
I have talent and work ethic. I'm really smart with my money and despite starting with little, I may very well be a millionaire when I retire. That doesn't fool me into thinking that is the route to wealth. Nearly 50% of my earnings go towards paying interest on loans and I was extremely lucky in my acquisition of those loans. 50% of all my hard work and good decision making is paying someone else who is doing nothing except having been born with money. It is called the wealth condensation principal. Quite simply, once money becomes distributed unevenly, the rate of increase of that money increases proportionally to the amount of the inequality. Without measures to counter the disparity, we steadily become less and less of a meritocracy and more and more of an aristocratic society. That is why we need socialist redistribution to nearly if not completely compensate for wealth condensation if we want a stable society. The alternative is that wealth will consolidate more and more until it is forcibly redistributed, probably by a bloody revolution.
What it really boils down to is that some of us who were born without means choose to work our asses off to find a better situation, and others take the easy way out and steal what they want. I don't feel sorry for these people.
Whatever the ethics of the situation, I'm a pragmatist. The rate violent crime and theft will go up and up the greater wealth disparity increases. I'd personally rather not be killed or robbed or have a violent revolution. I'm kind of fond of having a stable government and society.
Then you either fail to understand the scientific method or you are basing beliefs on weak evidence and don't want those challenged. There is no "correct" quote, the fact is simple: a correlation does NOT imply a causation.
Either your understanding of statistics is flawed or your understanding of English is. A correlation frequently implies a causation. A correlation does not imply any particular causation. Do you understand the difference? Because violent crime and wealth disparity correlate this implies that it is likely that either wealth disparity causes crime, crime causes wealth disparity, both, or both are caused by a third factor or group of factors. It does not imply that any given one of these causes is likely.
You have to test for causation in addition to correlation, and it's often much harder.
Because correlation implies causation it is useful to then test for specific causations to determine if a causation really exists and what it is. Because their was a strong correlation between wealth disparity and crime, researchers investigated probable causes (the psychology of criminal motivation) and looked at test cases, where governments mitigated wealth disparity via socialism. The results of both of those provide a logical reason for wealth disparity causing crime and demonstrate that in at least some test cases, lessening wealth disparity decreased crime.
By following the scientific method this makes this the leading theory, and the most probable causation.
Just because a correlation supports your viewpoint doesn't mean that there's anything to it. Couching it in language like "this indicates a causation" or "shows there's very likely a causation" is just plain dishonest. One is not the other.
I think you're confused about the difference between correlation and causation. A correlation does imply a likely causation, which is why this was investigated. It was the research thereafter that indicated which causation most likely explained the correlation.
Actually, at a certain point, there is no incentive to work hard. With the current tax system, I'd almost say that there is a disincentive to work hard. Why build up something great if the government just takes most of it now, and all of it when you die?
You're only looking at half of the equation. People have little or no motivation to work when their efforts will go to nothing (extreme socialism) and they also have little or no motivation to work when they profit whether they work or not (feudalism). The point is to motivate people to work hard by letting them benefit from that work, while not letting them benefit when they don't work hard. Inheritance is entirely benefitting from not working, since it is money from someone else's hard work. As such, it should be taxed at progressively higher rates and provide diminishing returns. Why work at all if I can live my entire life gaining more and more money from interest on my inheritance?
Hmmm. Isn't what you suggest simply a protection racket? "Pay us off or we'll mug/kidnap/kill you."
What do you think the IRS is now? I merely stated that the unfairness of the system leads people to commit crimes, and I don't wholly blame them.
Guess what, Buttercup? Life isn't fair!
Really pudding buns? Isn't that what I just said?
And you sure as hell shouldn't be complaining about it. You were born in the United States of America.
I'm not complaining jelly nuts, I'm explaining the economics of wealth condensation using real world examples.
And that attitude is why you're a loser. You compare your success to the success of others, rather than by your own benchmarks.
I'm a loser eh? Well let me tell you something cheesy wiener, I'm a relatively successful person. I just think it is important that people understand the economics currently in play and the fact that violent crime is motivated largely by the unfairness of the system.
Really, you seem to think that "being successful" or "being happy" means "having a lot of money."
I think that do I shortstack? You seem to be projecting because I said nothing of the sort.
This is the choice you've made, as evidenced by your jealousy of those with more money.
Pointing out unfairness does not indicate jealousy. I don't have a lot to be jealous of, as I'm doing quite well financially. Maybe you should consider why you're reacting so emotively? Feelings of guilt or fear perhaps chicken lips?
You want to be rich? It's not hard in America.
Hey worm muncher, you're buying into a fantasy. Statistically speaking the way to be rich is to be born rich.
I'm not going to bother with the rest of your post as you completely failed to address any points. I do like your precedent setting idea of making up fun nicknames when addressing one another. Have a nice life hairy-butt.
Assuming the OP is referring to college and house, they likely made the right decisions to both maximize their earning potential and reduce sunk rent costs. And their point about still spending about half their lifetime income on interest may still be true if they live in an expensive area such as the California Bay Area.
You're correct on all points. I'm pretty smart about money in general and both college and buying a house are saving me money over the alternatives. As to where I live, currently it is in the midwest, just a fairly expensive area thereof. I'm there because that is where the work is and being employed for the amount I am paid is the best economic choice, besides I enjoy my work which is worth a lot more than I would save in mortgage payments in a less enjoyable job. Just so people don't get the wrong idea, I'm not in favor of progressive inheritance and wealth taxes because they will benefit me personally. I'm on track to be a millionaire by the time I retire, if my investments all work out as planned. It's just that my smart moves and hard work are still going to benefit others nearly as much as myself, simply because of where I started in life.
The perception of apparent injustice in wealth distribution leads immediately to the conlusion that the government needs to confiscate wealth and redistribute it.
Not really. The Government already confiscates a lot of wealth and redistributes it. Rather, it leads one to the supposition that the way in which wealth is confiscated and distributed could be a lot better for society.
I'm not buying it, as that leads to the perception that no matter how hard you work, the government is just going to come and take it all.
Obviously the government confiscating and controlling the distribution of all wealth is an abysmal failure, as proved by extreme socialism. Rather, the level of socialism needs to be appropriate and the distribution managed on a macro level to reduce the possibility for abuse. Either too much or too little wealth distribution both lead to lack of motivation/innovation. If no matter how hard I work I won't make more money, I have no motivation. If, I don't have to work at all and can simply profit from the wealth condensation principal applied to my huge inheritance, I have no motivation. That is why a balance is needed. People need to profit mainly from their own hard work, not from already established wealth or inheritances.
Redistribution always leads to someone having to decide how much is redistributed and to whom. This task most often will fall to those who are wealthy.
It already does, which is why the system is skewed towards increasing wealth disparity. The point of this article is that we need to make the system favor the people in general, rather than the wealthy.
If wealth disparity is higher in the US than in Europe...
Well, it depends upon the locality in Europe. Some have significantly higher and some significantly lower wealth disparity and violent crime than the US. The thing is, these areas correlate very well with one another. The other factor is, you're presumably an American. Foreigners, whether Europeans in the US, or Americans in Europe are more likely to be robbed as many thieves target tourists and other foreigners.
Basically, what I'm saying is, your anecdotal evidence, which is biased by your nationality is not a basis for a scientific conclusion, compared to formal studies of wealth disparity and crime levels.
Regardless, it should still be pointed out that perceived unfairness and actual unfairness are not necessarily the same; and the zero-sum falicy is often then cause of this perception. So perhaps the real cause of crime is poor education instead (which a wealth-based analysis would include whereas an income one blissfully ignores to reach its conclusion).
You're assuming that the unfairness is not real, which is not necessarily the case simply because money may be a fluid commodity. If I'm born into a poor family and have no money at all to start out, I take out loans to go to school and another for a home and work hard and smart all my life As much of the fruit of my labors goes to paying off debt as it does to profiting me. If another person is born wealthy, never works a day in their life, but makes 1000 times what I do simply by collecting interest on their inheritance, would you call that fair? A person who is smart and works hard profits less than one who is lazy and stupid and does nothing to benefit society. Even a child will tell you if one person gets 100 dollars to go shopping and another gets 2 dollars, that isn't fair. There is an inherent unfairness to our system.
There's a curve envolved and whether one way is good or bad depends on your current position on that curve. My complaint though, and this may be more of a comment on the editorial summary on /., is that the argument was made to imply that the amount of "badness" was directly proportional to the income disparity, and therefore to maximize "goodness" all income disparity must be eliminated.
So here's the thing. We're not talking about "badness" we're talking about violent crime. Violent crime does correlate very strongly with wealth disparity (more-so than income disparity). So to say that violent crime increases as wealth disparity increases is completely accurate. That is not to say that reducing violent crime is our ultimate goal, but the summary does speak to crime, not "badness."
Just as I distrust people who wield the "these things are correlated therefore this one caused that one" because they usually have an agenda too. Or for that matter, pretty much any time any human talks at all they have some kind of agenda. Also I wasn't trying to quote anybody (notice the lack of quotation marks or attribution in my comment). BTW, a "proof" is an "implication" in logic; so why again is my statement wrong except that you don't trust it?
Because the best scientific data we have does suggest that wealth disparity is a causative factor for theft and violent crime. Claiming that the correlation between the two does not indicate anything ignores the fact that it implies there is a causative effect, and thus the most probable scientific determination is that is what is happening. I don't have an "agenda" I'm just discussing the relationship. Perhaps it would be better if our society was more violent, so we can better handle those ET's if they ever land. Our laws are created to try to create as much "fairness" and balance the rights of individuals, and improve our quality of living. This is important information for anyone looking to do that, although I doubt our lawmakers are going to pass laws that are likely to keep them from giving their billions to their children and establishing political legacies, nor measures that stop government corruption since, hey that's how they got where they are.
That's the problem in a nutshell, isn't it. You want to be someone else, because you think life should be "fair". I hate to break it to you, but "life" is not fair. Some people are born blind. Is that "fair"? Some are born "deaf". Is that fair? Some people are born rich. Is that fair?
Some people are tortured and killed and some people aren't is that fair? If you're walking down the street and someone shoots you in the back of the head and takes your money is that fair? Of course not. Is that an argument against using the law to ban murder? Of course not. The point is not to "be someone else" as you seem to think, but to make our country the best place we can using the laws to make life as fair as possible and as good as possible for the most number of people. You preach either selfishness or defeatism. Neither is in any way constructive or useful.
You can always compare yourself to others and be either disappointed or grateful. I can see which one you have chosen to be, and it is sad.
I was speaking about the psychology that motivates crime, not my personal feelings. The fact that you assume one is the other is presumptuous and suggests perhaps you're emotionally entangled with the issue. Trying to deal with guilt perhaps?
Here's a lesson I've taught my kids .... Compare yourself to who you CAN BE, and not someone else or by someone else's standards.
Here's another lesson you should teach your kids. The only way to make things better is to try. If you assume things will never be any better and never try to improve society you might as well shoot yourself in the head now.
Life isn't fair. Stop trying to make it fair, because it is futile, and annoys those of us who realize it.
Yeah, lets repeal all laws and go back to feudalism backed by force. Laws and government by the people are just trying to make life more fair, lets just abandon them. Your defeatism is pathetic. I pity your children.
So, what do you propose should be done because of the ability of people to rationalize theft?
People rationalize being unfair more when they are themselves subjected to unfairness. Striking a middle ground where taxes mitigate that unfairness to the right extent are likely to reduce crime. Progressive inheritance taxes on the extreme high end or wealth taxes as have been implemented in other places mean no one inherits more than a few million dollars. This is a good thing because it provides incentive for the wealthy to work and reduces wealth condensation creating instability. It reduces corruption in government by removing what amount to inherited titles amongst wealthy families. It provides funds or reduces taxes for the poor, improving their prospects for advancement. It reduces the number of people who justify violence and theft with their unfair starting position in life and reduces desperation, thus removing many people's motivation for crime. It may or may not work in the US, but it certainly seems to have done so elsewhere.
And in return they give you a house you couldn't afford up front. That's how mortgages work. When you consider the opportunity cost of the few hundred dollars they give you, mortgates are rather cheap.
You don't understand. The only reason I can't afford a house up front and have to pay interest is because of circumstances of birth. Some people are born wealthy and some are born poor. It is not as extreme as when some people are born slaves and others are born aristocrats, but it is the same principal. This inherent unfairness of wealth distribution is what a lot of people use to justify crimes. After all life is already inherently unfair to start with, what does it matter if they take an action that is unfair, but benefits them?
Money is not zero-sum, just because some CEO gets a lot of money doesn't mean I get less.
So what? We're talking about the psychology/sociology of crime. It is the perceived disparity and unfairness that matters, regardless of underlying economics.
If there were perfect equality then there would be no incentive for anybody to make any progress at all.
True, and if there is no socialism all wealth consolidates via the wealth condensation principal until we're living in a totalitarian system. No sociologist or economist in their right mind thinks extreme socialism is going to work. The question is what level of wealth disparity/condensation is ideal to maximize living conditions. I might note, Too much wealth disparity also leads to no incentive for progress. If I'm born wealthy and just leave my money in the stock market certs daddy left me, why should I ever contribute anything to society instead of being a lazy rich bastard?
Correlations don't prove cause-effect relations.
I distrust anyone making this argument as they usually have an agenda.. The correct quote is "correlation does not imply a specific causation." Correlation frequently implies some causation and a lot of science today is finding correlations and testing possible causations. Whether crime causes wealth disparity, wealth disparity causes crime, or both are caused by some other factor is the point of research into the subject. There is some evidence for wealth disparity motivating crime, and very little evidence for any other specific causation therefor scientists in general tend to think that disparity motivating crime is the most probably correct sequence. Most science, especially in very complex systems, is not a matter of proving anything, merely finding likely answers.
The results are highly selective and not an indicator of good/bad on a whole. Even if more crime does result, many other good things may also result as well.
This is true enough, which is why you need to define your goals before taking action. If decreasing crime is your only goal, erasing all laws will do it, although it may not be a good overall result. That said, this argument does not speak to what "good things" might be scientifically caused by wealth disparity, whereas crime is a pretty obvious negative. Until someone can draw such a correlation, this is just spouting unsupported maybes.
People have been Killed, robbed, beatened, and otherwise harmed by people's greed to acquire these products. Yet, none of these are items that are within the definition of "basic needs". Nobody "needs" these.
You're mistaking the psychology here. People aren't stealing because their basic needs aren't met. They're stealing because they have been able to justify that action to themselves, usually with an internal dialogue along the lines of, "life is unfair. Nothing is fair. Thus stealing, is just another way to get what I want. Why should I be a chump and stay poor just because I was born that way? I'm going to make something of myself the same way a lot of the rich families did, by being unscrupulous and doing whatever it takes."
The "poor" Americans are some of the richest people in the world, just look at the obesity levels. Truly "poor" people are literally dying of starvation, worry about their next meal, wonder where they will sleep tonight.
Crime does not correlate to poverty nearly as well as disparity. People don't rob others because they are poor, they do so because they feel justified since others were born with so much more than they were. Take a look at internet crime, suddenly people in the third world with nothing can rob people in the US. Predictably, there has been an explosion of internet crime from the third world. "An American makes 500 times what I do, despite being a moron. I can live for years off of one case of fraud against them." Of course there are going to be more crimes do to this disparity. Within the US, it is the difference between the rich and poor, not the overall level compared to the world (which most don't see) that drives crime.
I know, I've been "poor". I've also know what its like to have to get up off my ass and get a job, and do crappy work for a living. If one works hard, is honest and never stops learning, one can end up in IT, with a decent wage.
Yeah for a lifetime of hard work and smart decisions you can make 1/100,000th what one of the people born to extreme wealth and who is a lazy idiot makes from investing all that inheritance in lending firms that lend you the money you need to get started and then collect interest. In fact, over the course of my life I'll make about as much money paying interest on my mortgage and other loans as I will make for myself. Someone else is making just as much off my hard work as I am and they've done nothing but start out with money. That sort of unfairness is what drives people to crime, although usually the crime is committed based upon opportunity, not targeting the wealth specifically.
Americans are a bunch of whiney wimps who would rather get rich quick, while being poor, than work hard.
Who wouldn't rather get rich quick? This phenomenon, by the way, is in no way limited to the US. Wealth disparity correlates to violent crime and robbery levels the world around.
The summary mentions income disparity, but that statistic is only used because it is easy to measure. Sociologists modeling this issue actually find that wealth disparity, not income disparity has the closest correlation to violent crime of any observed factor. Another thing to be kept in mind is that "correlation does not necessarily imply a specific causation." This quote is often mangled by people with agendas. Correlation frequently does imply some causation, whether that causation is direct in either direction or both items are caused by another factor. Probably half of all science is finding correlations and testing for causations.
Finally, I'd like to address where the research on this subject has gone in the last few decades. The correlation between wealth disparity and violent crime fits neatly with research into motivation and de-motivation for criminal behavior. In the 80's and 90's corporations funded a lot of research into how to stop employee theft. At the same time a few other studies also tackled the same issue from a less mercenary perspective. The results of all this research led to some surprising changes in the way most sociologists think about crime. While threat of punishment is a deterrent to crime, it is nowhere near as important a deterrent in most cases as was previously assumed. In fact, the strongest motivation for not commit crime was moral, but in a rather unfocused way. In some instances a sign that says please don't steal (maybe Apple wasn't nuts) proved more effective at deterring crime than a security camera. Treating employees well and building up loyalty to the company is one of the most cost effective ways to reduce theft. Business schools in the US are just in the last 5 years starting to teach this, so it may take a while for it to worm its way into corporate culture.
By now you're probably wondering, how this fits in with wealth disparity. Wealth disparity allows people to justify their crimes, removing the moral motivation to not commit crimes. If one man is born with nothing and has to go into debt simply to get started and remains in debt for years while working hard and making good decisions, and another person is born wealthy, never has to work a day in their life and is an idiot, and makes 1000 times what the first person does simply by investing in firms that loan money to the first person and people like him and collect interest, it is easy to see that life has not treated the two people fairly. The smart and hard worker makes little and struggles while the lazy idiot gets a free ride. The more common and drastic this seems to our first person, the more likely they are to commit violent crimes and robberies. They can justify those crimes to themselves by looking at the inherent unfairness they have been subjected to. Now here's where it gets interesting. Remember where I mentioned earlier that the motivation was unfocused? While the potential criminal may have justified their actions via the unfairness, they commit their violence and crime based upon opportunity. That means they are no more likely to rob the rich than to rob other poor people.
So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a hypothetical causation between wealth disparity and crime, that is somewhat supported by statistical evidence. It also gives us clues to potential ways to reduce violent crime by addressing the motivations for crime. If we implement more progressive inheritance or wealth taxes and apply that money to socialist programs aimed at the very poor, will crime be reduced? I think it will, and that seems to be the case in other countries, but no one knows for certain. I also think rather than a dole for the poor we'd do better to address the culture of drug prohibition via decriminalization, set up addiction treatment and management programs, and address the healthcare crisis that exemplifies the percieved wealth disparity issue, if not the actual differentiation.
"Free" means a tax rate of about...
Actually, if I recall correctly Sweden's tax rate for the average citizen is only 15% higher than the US's tax rate for the average citizen. It was in a book published last year, something about peso and cheese or some other inane title.
BTW, 46 million low-income Americans receive health benefits from Medicare, so we are on the way to socialized health care in the US already.
In a half-assed sort of way. It provides many of the drawbacks with few of the advantages. Old people commit murder to get into prison so they can get a needed surgery. Juries award million dollar settlements to injured parties, not because the defendant did anything wrong, but because they feel sorry for the victim and it is the only way they will get their medical treatments paid for. I have no illusions that our government can properly administer socialized healthcare as demonstrated by our current medicare system, but the incidental benefits for society are worth it from what I've seen where other countries have done so.
Plus I think you will see that the U.S. was a more violent country than anywhere in Scandanavia way before their move to greater socialism.
I wasn't implying quite that direct of a connection. Sane drug laws and treatment programs are probably a bigger factor than anything. Sweden's low rate of wealth disparity, was not created by socialism, although socialist policies maintain it. Rather, it is one of several contributing factors the their more stable, less violent culture.
But hey, don't let me stop you from moving to Sweden or Denmark if you prefer! Norway would be better, they've got the oil money.
And don't forget Iceland, there are lots of choices and I actually am fond of snowy winters and used to them. Perhaps I will move to northern Europe some day, but not soon.
Yeah, but most are of the "Polish plumber" new EU country variety and have some skills. That said, I'm proud of Sweden for keeping the doors open to immigration, unlike Denmark.
Actually, most of their immigrants are from the middle east and Africa. I'm not sure what type of skills they have. I'm not about to judge Norway either, they are in a tough place. Do they accept large numbers of immigrants and see their entire way of life change drastically as the majority of their country subscribes to a religion that teaches it is mandatory that the government is part of the church and which has some very restrictive and antiquated policies? If you were a woman in Norway would you vote in favor of laws that introduce a majority into your country that is likely to pass laws making it illegal for you to own property? That is not an easy decision t make.
I even quoted the MOAB guys who said Apple was given one month's notice on several bugs. Apple is not being proactive.
Hmm, Apple hasn't commented and I certainly don't trust the MOAB guys. Who do I trust? I trust the CEO of OmniGroup who mentions in an interview on Arstechnica today that he was given zero notice and found out about the bug in OmniWeb when a friend e-mailed him after seeing the MOAB release.
No, you claimed Apple had proactively introduced mandatory access controls and I refuted your bogus claim.
No, I said they were being proactive by developing it. They obviously have not yet released such a feature, although they did mention it in some developer notes. Do you know what proactive means? It means working on solutions to problems you don't have yet. Apple does not yet have a problem with trojans or malware in general, but they are working on a solution.
Fulll public disclosure is not "irresponsible by all security industry standards".
I never said it was. Learn to read jackass. I said what MOAB is doing, which is intentionally hoarding bugs and not disclosing them to vendors or the public until a time frame that makes quickly patching them difficult, is irresponsible. Are you arguing it isn't?
The day I take ethics advice from a liar is the day hell freezes over.
I suspect that will be about two years before you learn to read properly.
The poorest 10% in Sweden have incomes the same as the poorest 10% in the US
True, but they also have free health care, education, retirement, child care, and parental leave. They have more vacation time, less violence and an all around higher standard of living. My brother pays 15% of his income in child care and I pay 20% of mine for health care. My girlfriend pays 40% of hers paying off her student loans. All of these are significant amounts of wealth not reflected by simple income rates.
That's without Sweden having to deal with 20 million low-skill immigrants operating in the informal labor market.
Sweden has a lot of immigration. 12% of residents are immigrants and 20% are first generation natives, mostly from the middle east. They are just more sensible about how they tax and allocate tax dollars than the US.
The "ease of use versus security" dichotomy is a false dichotomy more often than not.
I agree most of the time, and in the general case, but not necessarily for any given instance.
The problem is, what they're doing was never any easier than following a more secure policy, and after the first few exploits it's resulted in an overall reduction of the ease of use of OS X, without any actual increase in security.
If a person clicks on say, a PDF file. If they have auto-opening of PDF files disabled they then have to double click on the item in the downloads window. This is an extra step which Windows users are not accustomed to. As such, many of them find it harder, and some are confused as to why they aren't looking at a PDF instead of a list of downloads. Some might even assume Macs can't read PDFs. So in this particular instance, I think auto-opening them is easier. You say after the first few exploits, but those exploits are so rare and uncommon practically no one has ever seen them outside of a lab. If this becomes a common vector for exploits in the wild they will have to disable it by default or find a better way to work around it.
Instead of extending the sandbox to include those applications that themselves sandbox the documents they display (safe applications), they have added a bunch of extra dialogs into LaunchServices just in case Safari (or some other Webkit-based application displaying an untrusted document) calls LaunchServices.
Ideally, Apple will implement mandatory access controls and it won't matter if they auto open files in some program because that program won't be able to do anything anyway. That, however, is a lot more work than deciding the correct default setting in Safari.
More convenient AND more secure. Why do anything else? Microsoft has already AMPLY proven that the path of asking the user "I'm about to do something that might be really stupid, should I?" doesn't work.
I think your solution is a band-aid. (To be fair, so is Apple's current solution.) It does not address other downloads from other, non-Web-kit applications like mail. It is also missing graduated levels of trust. You ask users or the OS provider to decide if applications are safe or not safe. That is not sufficient granularity. If I have a PDF file, is it safe for Preview to open it? What if there is a buffer overflow in Preview and it takes over the process? Can it then start a mail server and send spam? I don't want Preview to ever send mail, and the OS should restrict it from so doing. The way to do this is with mandatory access controls and a system to determine the trust level of a given application. Apple is working on both.
Microsoft has implemented half of such a solution, in a broken way, without fixing a number of other problems that contribute to the issue and while completely ignoring the human part of the security equation. That does not mean such a system can't be done correctly.
Nope. The reason is, you missed a step. Wealth is also represented in the configuration of materials, and to a somewhat lesser degree, labor and rights.
You're mistaken. The configuration is a labor cost, pure and simple. People were paid to put it in that shape.
I recognize that the claimed theory behind those things is not based on zero-sum economics, but it is still a significant underlying theme, especially in the things that people actually believe, not just theoretically.
That's like saying "torturing people is a significant underlying theme to capitalism, especially for the things capitalist actually believe they should do, not just the economic theory." Socialism and capitalism are economic methods. They are not the opinions or people who have implemented those methods or claimed affiliation with those methods.
Especially if you're still a communist at this late date (not "you" personally, "you" in general) at this late date.
You could personally call me a communist, in that I recognize the importance and benefits of the system. In fact, I mentioned I think communist cell sizes are too small so you can even say I'm in favor of more communism. Some of the best and most beneficial living conditions in the US can be found on communes, co-ops, and monasteries.
The true theoretical backings of communism have been utterly destroyed in practice, so what people actually believe is probably coming from something else.
Communism has not been destroyed as a theory and as I mentioned it works every day in almost every country. The theory that communism would be beneficial if we increased the size of the communist cells to gigantic proportions has been pretty well demonstrated, but that is not the same thing at all. Like it or not the traditional atomic family meets all the classic criteria for being a communist cell.
I was just attacking the zero-sum fallacy.
And I believe rightly so in the case of "a job for a job" but then you went on and carried it beyond what I think is reasonable. Your assumptions seemed to be that we were a perfect capitalist model, which is of course untrue, and further because of that limitation on the items you discussed I felt you were fundamentally misstating a few items. I thought it important to mention the reality of our economy and correct your statements about several very misunderstood and often maligned (but necessary) parts of it.
So you are saying that increasing the minimum wage cost US jobs? Gee, who could have predicted that?!
So here's an interesting question. What if, instead of raising the minimum wage, we provided socialized health care and education and paid for it with a sliding scale wealth tax? The individual working would still have more wealth to spend as they would not have to pay for healthcare (which many can't afford now) or for medical treatments or for their 4 year degree. It would result in more educated workforce which would naturally be able to command higher wages compared to other countries (than they do now).
Right now 50% of the wealth in the country is possessed by a tiny minority. The majority of that wealth was inherited and does more to remove incentive to work hard than it does to provide incentive. The average person spends as much money paying interest on their home and car and credit card bills and student loans as they do on all their other expenses combined. They are basically paying a huge tax for not having started with any money.
I agree regulating things at the bottom does not work, but better distribution of current wealth can mitigate a lot of these problems. Hey it works in Sweden (so far).
Ok, let me get this straight. You did not cooperate with the new developers, or "teach them your code". You not only actively encouraged others to do the same, but also look for new jobs. You then in fact left the company - without, it seems, adequate documentation - and somehow you think they sold you out?
Actually, this is fairly common because in general American business schools are just now beginning to teach the value of treating employees well. What happened in the scenario described. The upper management decided that money was what mattered to the company, but their view was short sighted. Instead of being loyal to employees and considering the cost of them over new employees in another country, they decided to let them all go. This demonstrates that the company is impersonal and does not care. As a result, the employees (including our storyteller) reacted as one would expect. They acted like mercenaries towards the company, but demonstrated loyalty to one another. They did what they could to get as much for themselves and one another as possible before screwing the company over and moving on.
This is not at all uncommon. And if the company treats the new employees the same way, some day they are likely to walk en masse and form their own company that competes and the US company will die. This is capitalism at work people. American companies are making dumb and/or very short sighted moves. The upper management is just looking to make money and move on. Shareholders and the board just hire another guy who has raped a dozen companies already, because "He was CEO of XXX before their stock suddenly went to hell, surely he is a better than other choices." I worked at a company who hired on a new CEO. A little Googling on my part showed that he had worked at a dozen companies for a few years each. Sure enough, within a year he had hired on a bunch of his buddies giving them big salaries and nothing to do and started layoffs of the people who did work and had experience and made money.
The current trend in American companies is killing them and replacing in house talent with outsourcing is just one of the symptoms.