On the other hand, if you look at the nature of the corporations they previously served, these individuals' ethics were already in question.
Agreed, but the same is true for a lot of the people that are effective politicians in Washington. Pretending the game is on the up and up and hiring people who will be honorable and get screwed is not necessarily the best strategy, although I'd personally prefer it. But, hey, I'm not a political insider either. It's the results I care about and these are the first negative results so I'll wait and see if it is corrected.
I'm taking the view that their "baggage" is actively influencing their present behavior.
I absolutely agree. They certainly are acting biased by their previous employment. Hiring them was a lousy decision. As I said, I'm waiting to see if they are stopped by the administration or, preferably, replaced before I judge whether Obama plans on letting them behave in a biased manner to curry favor or if he's honest and strict about stopping the corporate favoritism.
And if the app isn't written to assume that there will be a separate thread, you're going to be up shit creek with synchronization problems and race conditions.
Not really. You see programs using OpenGL already have to hand off data to the GPU so they are already coded with that in mind. Since they don't know how fast the GPU will process things, they already account for the fact that they don't know how long it will be before it is returned. OS X just starts a process dedicated to feeding the GPU, so that if the program happens to be CPU bound and that is the reason (a fairly common occurrence in some degree) it removes that bottleneck by leveraging another core. Theoretically, this could double the performance of those apps, although realistically you see much more modest gains.
But doing things "automatically" that the programmer doesn't expect isn't going to work, its just going to cause bugs.
Umm, it's been working in OS X for over a year and I don't see any of these bugs you theorize.
as we've swung too far towards extreme capitalism in the last decade.
That's so ridiculously untrue I literally LOLed. There's more government interference now than there's ever been before in the U.S - even before all of Obama's new bullshit. I can hardly even believe someone could say something like that.
We collect a smaller percentage of the income of the wealthiest people in comparison to the poorest. That's a decrease in socialism and an increase in capitalism. That's been the trend for a decade.
No, what "destabalized" the economy was the government fucking around with financial markets trying to provide a "social safety net" for poor people by encouraging banks to make bad loans.
That just made the problem worse and delayed the crash, it didn't cause the problem. The wealthy are getting wealthier and the poor are getting poorer as a trend. Do you expect that to be sustainable and stable? Economists sure don't.
Also, providing a "social safety net" isn't really the government's job.
A democracy's job is to do the will of the people, so yeah it sort of is the government's job.
Maybe the "lower economic classes" should do the rest of us a favor and take responsibility for themselves?
Want to come over and play a game of monopoly with me? I'll start with a $5K and you can borrow limited money from me at 15%, when I feel like it. You can then take responsibility for how well you do.
Firstly, it's false on the face of it: Ubuntu is certified on Sun T2000, a 32-thread and Canonical is supporting it.
Actually, the article talks about application development tools for various OS's and their poor support for creating good, multithreaded applications for Linux or Windows. I didn't see much in the way of complains about the OS using the CPUs, just about the ability of applications to do so given the current toolset.
I think OS's can do more to make multi-cores work better with existing software. For example, OS X can take any OpenGL program and spawn a thread for feeding data to the GPU, without the software having been rewritten to accommodate that change. In this way some existing applications can theoretically be twice as fast when running on a multi-core system. That sort of innovation at the OS level is as important as changes to developer tools for the transition to larger numbers of cores.
If you're going to say that you didn't vote for him and you don't like what he's doing, don't tacitly approve of him by saying you don't want him to fail.
Why? Just because I think my doctor is an idiot trying to cure my medical problems with acupuncture and don't approve of the method, doesn't mean I want that cure to fail. Those of us that accept that we are fallible and don't know everything can hope some other person's solution to a problem will succeed, while at the same time preferring another solution be applied instead.
Your comments are the worst sort of partisan reduction of politics to the level of sports teams. I don't care which team wins, I just want either team to solve the problems our country faces. A pyrrhic victory serves no one.
But, this type of ruling/defense by the administration, along with other things are really starting to bother me.
Actually, this ruling is just the opposite of the other actions the Obama administration has taken. It's been a real mixed bag. He's appointed some questionable people, but implemented policies against just this sort of interference. We'll have to wait and see how this one pans out.
The moving of the census to be controlled by the executive branch. This is scary enough, in that it should be more independent....and above political needs. I see on the news that possibly ACORN is being tapped to 'help' with the census. I'd think the controversy over the potential voting fraud they were associated with, would sideline them on this effort.
The Census Bureau has been part of the (executive) Department of the Interior since 1902. Obama just made the head a larger post. I don't think the census has much affect upon the presidential race, since who lives where in states or even the number of people has little to do with electoral college votes right now. Rather, it has a lot to do with Congressional elections, so if you're arguing a conflict of interest I think you have it backwards. As for ACORN, there wasn't any scandal I know of, just media scare tactics about ACORN turning in voter registrations that were likely improper (and which they marked as such) as the law requires them to turn in all the voter registrations they receive, regardless of what their opinion of them is.
Obama was promising that he'd try to cut down earmarks..."line by line" I think was his quote. Yet, that Omnibus bill was loaded with what, like 8K of them?
Yup, he broke a promise there. Sadly, I think I would have done the same in his place. Getting it passed right away for economic reasons was simply too big of a concern compared to the relatively insignificant amount of pork dollars. It sucks that such compromises had to be made, but I lay that mostly at the feet of congress.
The move to help people in housing problems....where they are allowing judges to overturn, revamp the condition of valid contractual agreements, that is dangerous, with far reaching implications for valid contract law in the US.
Again I'd do the same in the short term. There are already plenty of laws that interfere with contract law and place limitations on it. In my (northern) state you can't kick people out or shut off their heat regardless of nonpayment during the winter months. It doesn't matter what your contract says. This is more of the same and absolutely needed to keep the economy from spiraling down the shitter even faster. Housing is more than a contract and more than a market. It is the stable wealth base and security base of a large portion of our populace.
While it is understandable that people are pissed over the AIG bonuses...the acts passed by the house which try to retroactively and specically target these, again, is scary and I'd think unconstitutional.
Yeah, they screwed up in handling that originally and now are still messing it up. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is unconstitutional though. It has been mishandled, but that is again, mostly congress. I don't think any of us has any illusions left that they're working for us.
The latest proposals...to not only mandate what execs of bailout companies can make..but also implications coming out that they want to actually set limits on what healthy, non=bailout companies can pay....that acares[sic] me.
The former is absolutely necessary in my mind. Execs should be fired, not given bonuses. As for non-bailout companies, it is attacking the very real wealth disparity problem, but I agree it is a misguided approach to it. It is much more of a "looks good" solution to appease the people than a real, workable solution. I'm not worried about us becoming less capitalist tho
It can validly be considered flamebait because it starts with, "Are you retarded?" This is unfortunate because, it is factual and corrects the misconceptions of a highly modded post that is, well a little retarded. That's a harsh way to phrase it as well as offensive. In truth the original poster was not retarded, just uninformed and "ranty".
Now that the dems are in power, you're surprised that they are doing everything to secure the media's interests? Really?
Actually, Obama implemented policies to make lobbying, especially by insiders, harder. That includes big media. He also made claims that he would be sure to prevent people from favoring industries where they had just been hired from, or where they had the potential to be hired to (for example people can't leave the executive branch and then immediately become a lobbyist to the executive branch). This is interesting, because unlike most other changes Obama promised, this one was within his executive power. This makes it a good test of his intention since it is not something he has to rely upon and make compromises with Congress in order to accomplish.
When he appointed these RIAA lawyers they were among a half dozen that made me cringe. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt for a short time as I did with the FOIA issue. Effective lawyers often come with baggage, although I'd rather he appointed some ACLU heavyweights. Now, I'll give him some time to become aware of the issue and take action to rein in his subordinates or replace them. I don't expect that will happen, in all honesty, but I am reserving judgement.
Raise your hand if you were surprised by this posting.
I was not surprised. I was slightly disappointed. Still, once these appointments were made, this was a near certainty. The measure will be how it is handled from here. Does he let them continue as they have been? Does Obama become aware of this issue and if so, does he do something about it? That will be the real test of if he is sincere and effective or if he is going to bend to the wishes of powerful lobbyists.
Here's a better idea... Fix all the bugs and then you're sure you've fixed all the big bugs.
Well, that's a nice idea, but it takes a finite nonzero amount of time to do so.
You both make good points. MS's security culture is fairly awful in that when developers find bugs that are potential security issues, they have to fight the system to get them prioritized for fixes and most are considered "low risk" and ignored. Anything that helps prioritize bug fixes is good, provided it is not used a an automated way to ignore a huge number of bugs in an effort to produce a mediocre and "good enough" product in terms of security.
Is that the license OSI approved which got a lot of flak because it says the source can only be run on windows or did they remove that use clause from their OSI licenses?
No. Those are the MS-LPL and MS-LRL licenses. The MS-PL license is fairly innocuous excepting the patent clause which is debatable. It allows the distribution of the source under this license and distribution of binaries for commercial use with a different license.
Instead of trying to build a gee-whiz unique product, they should be building a phone that's cheaper than an HTC G1, runs Android and is available to a variety of networks.
That sounds a lot like what they did, actually. We don't know how much they wanted for this, but it was capable of Android and Windows Mobile and they tried marketing it to multiple providers. The providers weren't interested. They want low end non-smart phones and high end smart phones.
What else would they need?
Buy in from providers and economy of scale to make it cheap enough.
How did the sign get smashed to pieces? There is some material left on it, that looks like paint. My theory is that a blue car or truck struck it and drove away.
How did the sign get smashed to pieces? There is some material left on it, that looks like paint. Last week crazy Carl told me there is a giant, invisible whale that flies through the air. Further it can tell the future. He says it whispered to him and said the "smurfiness was smithereens". How could he have known a week ago? See the smurfiness is the blue color and smithereens means little pieces, but usually refers to things being broken or destroyed, like the sign is destroyed (though not in pieces). My theory is that a giant invisible, flying whale destroyed the sign.
Since no one saw the sign be damaged there is no proof. We don't know. Does that mean we should regard both theories equally? What about after we take samples of the leftover blue material and it exactly matches the color from stock GM vehicle paint in 2001? Are they both still equal? After all we can't prove the invisible flying whale didn't leave paint identical to the color on automobiles, although it did not make that prediction either.
My point is, just because we're not 100% sure does not matter. The scientific method isn't about finding absolutes but about applying a formal method for determining the most likely truth. It works and if you don't like it fine, but don't call not applying it science or expect rational people to "just believe" something that doesn't match up with what science determines is the likely answer.
Ultimately, no one really cares what irrational beliefs you hold -- the vast majority of scientists are religious. The important point is to understand the difference between an unfounded belief and actual science.
I didn't state a belief on scientists being religious or not. I agree with you that people need to understand the difference between an unfounded *belief* and scientific *proof*.
Math has proofs, not science. Science has hypothesis and experiments and theories and peer review. A rational scientist believes the most supported theory is the most likely truth and performs predictive experiments to add or remove support from theories. Evolution is a theory with a lot of correct predictions from experiments. There are several abiogenesis theories each with some level of correct predictions from experiments. Creationism refers to a vague belief held in different ways by different religions. It does not refer to a scientific theory supported by experimentation. Believing it is not rational. That's fine with me you can hold irrational beliefs, just don't try to convince others they are rational or scientific or should be taught in schools as science.
Don't be too quick to jump on the "it's proven" bandwagen[sic].
This is your fundamental misunderstanding. Science is not proving things. It is determining the most likely truth rather than trying to defend a belief by finding facts to support it after you've already made up your mind. Science is a rational process. It isn't infallible and is constantly refined, but the process works a whole lot better than anything else we've tried which is why it is held in such high regard and why people are so eager to try to convince others some belief they have is scientific when it is not.
Actually, because Alienware = Dell, they aren't that expensive...
I didn't realize their prices had gone down after the acquisition. They still seemed more expensive than the Dell branded systems last I looked.
The nice thing about Alienware was (before Dell made them crappy), is they were very good "baseline" systems to buy for gaming.
Actually, from the numbers in reviews, Alienware's quality dropped significantly in the year before the acquisition as they cashed in on their brand o sell lower quality gear at a premium. Also, Dell's hardware reliability has jumped up significantly for laptops (not desktops though).
There are many differences between Microsoft and Apple but Balmer does have a point. Apple really make you pay for their branding.
So does Dell and Sony and HP. How much more does a laptop cost with an Alienware logo on it?
Apple systems run about 20-30% more than average. Sony laptops cost about 20-30% more than average. Apple is right in line with other "premium" vendors. This is not a large issue, especially considering they have some of the most reliable hardware on the market according to independent reviews.
Note: Maybe this is flamebait, but if so the article/Balmer is/are trolling.
When was the last time Ballmer said something to the media that wasn't trying to get press by being inflammatory?
Every time something like this is posted on/. everyone get in a huge flame war debating the virtues and consistencies of Evolution vs. Creationism/Intelligent Design.
I disagree. Every time creationism appears on Slashdot we get a few religious fundamentalists defending it then, shouted down by the 99%+ of Slashdot readers who know what science is.
Anyone promoting evolution or debunking creationism often gets modded up, however anyone arguing for creationism often gets modded down.
Actually, I've seen a few people making good comments with regard to creationism or that "side" of the debate modded up. The problem being there are very few such people and most of the people trying to defend creationism are ignorant or simply trying to rabble rouse.
I'm a creationist, a Christian, and I just ask that we teach both in schools since it is an ongoing scientific debate.
There isn't any scientific debate. Until creationists actually approach the issue using the scientific method, they don't have a side in a scientific debate. What is the specific, scientific hypothesis of creation? What predictions is it making and when will they be tested? Until There is a formal hypothesis which can be tested, creationism isn't even science. Until it passes many such tests and gathers as much experimental evidence as evolution (or at least something in the same neighborhood) there is no point teaching the debate any more than there is teaching the debate between the flat and spherical earth theories. Right now there is not even that much. The flat earth theory at least had a hypothesis and made some predictions which it did not fail.
Let the children decide for themselves through providing pro's/con's of both sides.
I see, and should we waste classroom time also teaching the flat earth debate? How about every other scientific topic? Science class should be about teaching science. That is, it should teach the method so that students can understand and use it and it should teach fundamental, well tested, and important theories that form the basis of large parts of our existing science.
If our educational system were working, you'd understand the scientific method and why creationism is pointless to teach in a science class and why it is likewise absurd to provide scientific degrees on that subject. We need to concentrate on this basics so the next generation is not as uneducated as you are.
I mean, real schools offer up degrees in philosophy, pottery, and basket weaving and who knows what.
Sure they do. What's wrong with that? But they don't offer a scientific degree in philosophy. They probably offer a masters of art in pottery or clay working. The question then really is, does anyone offer an M.S. in basket weaving? If so is it validly approached as scientific basket weaving?
Creationism isn't science, it's just religious propaganda. It's fine with me if they want to offer a religious or public relations degree in creationism... just not a science degree.
Does someone want to tell me what's wrong with plain text?
No graphics for one. Do you really think the state doesn't make any documents that include graphs or maps or charts? Aside from that, it's nice to be able to do some formatting, you know like including page numbers on longer documents and cross references that you don't have to spend hours updating every time you add a page to the middle of a document. Then there's the issue of color. It's awfully nice to be able to add some large, red text and a hazard symbol when said document is providing important information to the reader's health, like "Warning, don't open the valve until the green light comes on or sewage will fill the tunnel killing you!"
there is not a clear way to interpret the bill as excluding OOXML, the format MS rammed through as an ISO standard to compete with ODF.
The version of OOXML ratified as a standard doesn't even have one implementation I know of, let alone two on multiple platforms. Also the restrictions and royalties clause and IP/patent clauses would likely be an issue since MS's licensing of their format significantly restricts competitors.
The bill is carefully worded such that only ODF could pass its test as "open."
That's favoring one vendor over another.
First, while the summary makes the claim only ODF could pass, that's doesn't seem to be true if you actually read it. Second, even if it did, that's favoring a format, not a vendor.
What the government should be doing is mandating a variety of formats based on the preferences of the public.
No, they should be establishing criteria for formats that don't inhibit innovation, but do ensure the benefits of open formats.
Microsoft Office, ODF, PDF and XHTML would be much better, and it wouldn't be that hard for the government to support all of those.
ODF and XHTML both meet the criteria listed in the bill. PDF is a publishing format, not an interchange format for editable documents and does not apply in this case. MSOffice formats don't meet the criteria and would not be allowed, which is a good thing since each one is lacking in an important way. Old formats are not open to all to implement. Their new format is not implemented by multiple vendors and is restricted by patents.
After all, Microsoft Office can or does support all of those formats...
Well, MSOffice doesn't support their new format yet and some other companies will never be able to because of patent issues. Their old format is not published in its entirety and can never be implemented by other vendors.
...mandate that all public records be saved 4 times with File->Save As or a macro that does the same thing.
Sounds like a waste of disk and bandwidth when files are transferred. What's the advantage over saving as ODF?
- It isn't standards compliant. When standards disintegrate the consumer pays.
There is no standard that covers the functionality they need, so they extended and existing standard. This works with regular headphones, they just don't have all the capabilities. Ideally Apple would publish this as a standard, but it isn't a big deal.
It promotes vendor lock in.
How? You can buy controls and headphones from anyone you want ho makes them. Nothing is stopping other MP# player makers from being interoperable.
People who are replacing an older model may not realize there is new lock in until they've actually bought the product.
A different connector is not a new lock, and they can just return it or buy an adapter for their existing headphones and use that adapter on every other player, hence no lock in.
When a market leader pulls this crap, others do too and pretty soon all the MP3 players you can buy have this "feature".
Sony hasn't been promoting bizarre lock in for years? It's a free market, buy from someone who makes a product you like. Until Apple has monopoly influence on the market, they are in no way undermining the market or other players.
What about those that do care about the headphones? What about those who can't use ear buds due to hearing or ear problems?
They buy third party headphones r an adapter for their existing headphones if they want this iPod... otherwise they buy a different player. What's the problem?
Not if there's a patent on the tech and Apple wants to lock them out...
Lots of places follow Apples patents. Haven't heard a thing from them. So what patent are you talking about.
If they aren't locked out there's a licensing fee which drives the price up of all the headphones
Yeah, we've seen Apple's outrageous licensing fees. The larger cost is simply the hardware for the controls, which Apple will no longer be including with the iPod if you use third party headphones. But hey, if you don't like them, there are lots of other players out there.
Sounds like a good argument to develop a standard rather than applaud this bad behaviour[sic].
Probably, would be preferable, but I don't see it as a big deal in any case. Call IEEE if you're concerned..
This is innovation? Seriously?
Yes, it is innovation, although innovation others have already done. Adding controls inline is a new feature. If you don't like that feature you can "vote" against it by buying something else. It's called the free market.
Mainly because it is easy for two doctors to set up shop and compete, and it is harder with roads.
That's the qualitative difference? So since it is easy for rival mercenary groups to compete for the same service the military is socialist, but road construction is not? I reject your definition.
There's also the point that other countries with socialized medecine[sic] programs have some real problems that we don't have.
Sure, and also lots of advantages we don't have, like longer lifespans and overall better coverage. It is better in other countries for the majority of people. They also have advantages like lower wealth disparity, lower crime, and more stable economies.
If you get a rare form of cancer, or anything else really off the wall, you will probably die before they figure it out.
Interestingly, if you get something rare in the US you're pretty much screwed too. I know, I've been there, with some of the best healthcare available to the middle class I still dropped $20K out of pocket and Mayo Clinic and several other "prestigious" institutions were basically useless. I looked up the numbers If you have something rare, in the US your average time for a correct diagnosis is 4 years.
The only reason why England and Canada work as well as they do is the escape valve that people can always go somewhere (like America) where they can pay for good health care.
The UK's healthcare is among the worst of socialized healthcare systems in the industrialized world. Canadians rarely ever come to the US for non-cosmetic procedures.
America also has spiraling health care costs, but that is largely due to overregulation...
Nice assertion, but the evidence to date has not supported that conclusion. In any case countries with much more strict regulation (Japan) or socialized systems seem to be getting better results for the price. We haven't even touched on the other societal benefits such as the economics benefits the gain.
I don't have any magic answers, but I will claim that socializing everything is not the solution.
Of course not, extreme socialism is just as unstable as extreme capitalism. The problem is we've moved away from socialism in recent years and our economy destabilized as the wealth disparity that resulted went out of control. Returning to previous tax policies is probably the only viable solution and new, more efficient socialist outlets for that income are the most efficient way to restore the balance.
You are trying my patience. I gave you a link to a discussion of just what "socialism" means. It's government control of the means of production, and it's redistribution of wealth. None of your examples fit.
Government controlling the production of roads, for example? Sorry, you're the one that doesn't understand what socialism is. Redistribution of wealth is not an inherent property of socialism, just the main reason it is used in conjunction with progressive taxation to stabilize economies.
Extreme libertarians (anarcho-capitalists) claim that the free market can solve all problems...
So, none of them are competent economists. Fundamentalist christians claim we shouldn't fix the economy because it speeds the coming of the rapture. That doesn't make it a good idea to take their advice.
Why can't you see a simple point? In tough times, people have less money to spend. They are forced to economize. Maybe they wanted to fly to Europe for a vacation, now they don't.
The economics you learned in 8th grade for managing a home budget don't really apply on the national scale, especially when you completely misunderstand the problem. We don't have a wealth shortage. We have a distribution problem.
This is a good point, and explains why financial education is important, but it isn't a good argument for wealth redistribution. . Teach people to not use credit cards to the max, not to buy lottery tickets, and to start saving money.
Should we also teach them to live on the streets since both rent and home mortgages redistribute huge amounts of wealth upward to people born with more?
Look, I wish it was as easy as educating people financially, but it isn't credit cards are a symptom of the problem. Even financially responsible people from the lower and middle classes on average earn more money for the wealthy than they acquire for themselves.
The solution isn't to try to redistribute the wealth (which doesn't work)...
You mean which doesn't work except in countries with better standards of living than ours where it's worked quite well for a long time.
....but to increase financial education.
Seriously? That's your plan? Teach people with no money how to better manage that money? You really think that will fix our economic crisis? What are you going to tell the people being kicked out of their homes? What are you going to tell the people who can't get health insurance and then get sick, or can't afford it then get sick? Save more money by using magic? What part of zero net wealth are you not understanding?
If we want to make a difference we have to teach people how to not be poor.
Oh, don't worry they'll learn. They always do. They learn to not be poor by forcibly taking it from the rich. Violent crime correlates with wealth disparity to an amazing degree. More than one bloody rebellion was spurred on by increasing wealth disparity.
You shouldn't be investing money that you may need tomorrow to eat.
But because of the economic fluctuations, people no longer know. Where once they felt secure in their employment, now they aren't. Where once they felt secure in their retirement investments, now they're not.
In times like the depression it is excusable to be focused on other things, but now in the US it is possible for any person to live within their means and save money for investing.
For many people, living within their means now means dying of illness or living on the streets.
This is basic finance.
You seem a little weak on the basic finance of poverty. Do you think the tent cities appearing are because people are unwisely investing in camping gear and taking long vacations with others?
You gave an example of the depression as a time of extreme volatility happening at the same time as wealth disparity, so as a counterexample, consider a feudal society, where wealth inequality is at its extreme, and yet, the value of things change very little.
Ahh, yes, we just need a permanently oppressed slave class that can be killed in bad times. Or, we need wealth redistribution by invading neighboring cities and looting them. Feudal societies always lurched between financial extremes and most people lived in abject poverty with very high death rates from the same. That's not a very admirable counterexample.
Indeed you are correct, however it is not Obama's plan. His own projections have the national debt growing very quickly.
That's funny. As of two days ago the news said, "President Barack Obama plans to increase taxes on the wealthy and cut spending for the war in Iraq as part of a plan to slash the U.S. budget deficit to $533 billion by the end of his first term..." That's less than half current level at which we've been accumulating debt under Bush. Further, if we can repair the economy we can start to actually pay some of it off.
You seem undereducated on economics, and desperately looking for ways to somehow justify the opinion you already d
Interesting how everyone is an anonymous coward when they reply in argument.
No, words have meanings - try looking them up.
Every president to date has advocated a significant amount of socialism... the economic term. They are socialists in that regard. They have not been socialist as in members of that political party, but then that has nothing to do with the economics we were discussing.
The highway department, post office, military, police, fire department, public schools, NASA, and the FDA are all socialist programs.
Completely fucking wrong.
The things you listed are all services provided by the goverment. They are not "the means of production" nor are they part of an income redistribution system.
You seem to have some conceptual problems. How is, for example, construction of roads by the government qualitatively different from socialized healthcare? They are both industries that in some places are strictly private and for profit, but in other places are run by the government as a service to the people.
Socialist programs were established as part of our government from day one.
Wrong again.
Army, Navy, Post office, all socialist programs. All can and had been done as private businesses in the past and are done as private businesses today (Xe, FedEx).
For fucks sake, how much do you think you can get from them? The high end already pays the vast majority of income taxes in America.
Well, we could raise taxes on the high end to levels they were 20 years ago when the economy was stable. Sure the high end pays most of the taxes, but not as much proportional to the amount of wealth they control. People taking in a million bucks a year can absolutely afford another $100K in taxes to balance out the fact that they have been constantly gaining ever larger shares of the wealth in the US. The goal should be a sustainable system where wealth is not constantly moving in one direction based upon inheritance instead of who works hardest and smartest.
So the top 5% pay 60% of all the income tax paid in America and that's still not enough for you?
No it isn't. It will be enough when the economy is stable. 60% is still not enough to balance out the earning power advantage their wealth brings them.
If you jack the tax rates up, why would those top end rich people keep playing the game?
They don't have a choice.
Why would they run companies? They are already super rich, why not just live off their current riches instead of trying to make more money?
Because they are greedy. If they want to just live off their current wealth, that's fine. Other people will run companies and progressive taxes will mean over a few generations that wealth will disappear and go to people who actually work and create benefit to society.
YOU CAN'T DO JUST ONE THING. If you jack the tax rates, you don't just raise tax revenues. You also discourage business.
So trickle down economists have claimed, but the data has not backed said assertion. Taxes on individuals at the very high end have not been shown to discourage their investment in US business.
And the socialists won't care.
See, here's your problem. You have an irrational and emotional response to the word "socialism". What is socialism, other than the government paying for goods and services with tax dollars instead of running it via private business. Every country in the world engages in socialism to some extent or their economy collapses. You're not being an economist and looking at what the appropriate level of socialism to stabilize our economy is. You're just emotionally rejecting anything associated with that word and trying to disassociate it from current programs where the government collects taxes and pays for services for the people. If we call it Quigglepop will that make you feel better? We need more Quigglepop in our economy, where the US implements services like the post office or military, but applied to the healthcare market. Does that sound better to you?
It is more important to punish the rich than to collect the revenues. Ask an honest socialist whether he would support lowering the tax rates on t
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On the other hand, if you look at the nature of the corporations they previously served, these individuals' ethics were already in question.
Agreed, but the same is true for a lot of the people that are effective politicians in Washington. Pretending the game is on the up and up and hiring people who will be honorable and get screwed is not necessarily the best strategy, although I'd personally prefer it. But, hey, I'm not a political insider either. It's the results I care about and these are the first negative results so I'll wait and see if it is corrected.
I'm taking the view that their "baggage" is actively influencing their present behavior.
I absolutely agree. They certainly are acting biased by their previous employment. Hiring them was a lousy decision. As I said, I'm waiting to see if they are stopped by the administration or, preferably, replaced before I judge whether Obama plans on letting them behave in a biased manner to curry favor or if he's honest and strict about stopping the corporate favoritism.
And if the app isn't written to assume that there will be a separate thread, you're going to be up shit creek with synchronization problems and race conditions.
Not really. You see programs using OpenGL already have to hand off data to the GPU so they are already coded with that in mind. Since they don't know how fast the GPU will process things, they already account for the fact that they don't know how long it will be before it is returned. OS X just starts a process dedicated to feeding the GPU, so that if the program happens to be CPU bound and that is the reason (a fairly common occurrence in some degree) it removes that bottleneck by leveraging another core. Theoretically, this could double the performance of those apps, although realistically you see much more modest gains.
But doing things "automatically" that the programmer doesn't expect isn't going to work, its just going to cause bugs.
Umm, it's been working in OS X for over a year and I don't see any of these bugs you theorize.
That was just their excuse. First they said all bills would be online for public review for five days, then they said 48 hours.
You seem confused. You keep referring to "they". Who are you applying that pronoun to?
as we've swung too far towards extreme capitalism in the last decade.
That's so ridiculously untrue I literally LOLed. There's more government interference now than there's ever been before in the U.S - even before all of Obama's new bullshit. I can hardly even believe someone could say something like that.
We collect a smaller percentage of the income of the wealthiest people in comparison to the poorest. That's a decrease in socialism and an increase in capitalism. That's been the trend for a decade.
No, what "destabalized" the economy was the government fucking around with financial markets trying to provide a "social safety net" for poor people by encouraging banks to make bad loans.
That just made the problem worse and delayed the crash, it didn't cause the problem. The wealthy are getting wealthier and the poor are getting poorer as a trend. Do you expect that to be sustainable and stable? Economists sure don't.
Also, providing a "social safety net" isn't really the government's job.
A democracy's job is to do the will of the people, so yeah it sort of is the government's job.
Maybe the "lower economic classes" should do the rest of us a favor and take responsibility for themselves?
Want to come over and play a game of monopoly with me? I'll start with a $5K and you can borrow limited money from me at 15%, when I feel like it. You can then take responsibility for how well you do.
Firstly, it's false on the face of it: Ubuntu is certified on Sun T2000, a 32-thread and Canonical is supporting it.
Actually, the article talks about application development tools for various OS's and their poor support for creating good, multithreaded applications for Linux or Windows. I didn't see much in the way of complains about the OS using the CPUs, just about the ability of applications to do so given the current toolset.
I think OS's can do more to make multi-cores work better with existing software. For example, OS X can take any OpenGL program and spawn a thread for feeding data to the GPU, without the software having been rewritten to accommodate that change. In this way some existing applications can theoretically be twice as fast when running on a multi-core system. That sort of innovation at the OS level is as important as changes to developer tools for the transition to larger numbers of cores.
If you're going to say that you didn't vote for him and you don't like what he's doing, don't tacitly approve of him by saying you don't want him to fail.
Why? Just because I think my doctor is an idiot trying to cure my medical problems with acupuncture and don't approve of the method, doesn't mean I want that cure to fail. Those of us that accept that we are fallible and don't know everything can hope some other person's solution to a problem will succeed, while at the same time preferring another solution be applied instead.
Your comments are the worst sort of partisan reduction of politics to the level of sports teams. I don't care which team wins, I just want either team to solve the problems our country faces. A pyrrhic victory serves no one.
But, this type of ruling/defense by the administration, along with other things are really starting to bother me.
Actually, this ruling is just the opposite of the other actions the Obama administration has taken. It's been a real mixed bag. He's appointed some questionable people, but implemented policies against just this sort of interference. We'll have to wait and see how this one pans out.
The moving of the census to be controlled by the executive branch. This is scary enough, in that it should be more independent....and above political needs. I see on the news that possibly ACORN is being tapped to 'help' with the census. I'd think the controversy over the potential voting fraud they were associated with, would sideline them on this effort.
The Census Bureau has been part of the (executive) Department of the Interior since 1902. Obama just made the head a larger post. I don't think the census has much affect upon the presidential race, since who lives where in states or even the number of people has little to do with electoral college votes right now. Rather, it has a lot to do with Congressional elections, so if you're arguing a conflict of interest I think you have it backwards. As for ACORN, there wasn't any scandal I know of, just media scare tactics about ACORN turning in voter registrations that were likely improper (and which they marked as such) as the law requires them to turn in all the voter registrations they receive, regardless of what their opinion of them is.
Obama was promising that he'd try to cut down earmarks..."line by line" I think was his quote. Yet, that Omnibus bill was loaded with what, like 8K of them?
Yup, he broke a promise there. Sadly, I think I would have done the same in his place. Getting it passed right away for economic reasons was simply too big of a concern compared to the relatively insignificant amount of pork dollars. It sucks that such compromises had to be made, but I lay that mostly at the feet of congress.
The move to help people in housing problems....where they are allowing judges to overturn, revamp the condition of valid contractual agreements, that is dangerous, with far reaching implications for valid contract law in the US.
Again I'd do the same in the short term. There are already plenty of laws that interfere with contract law and place limitations on it. In my (northern) state you can't kick people out or shut off their heat regardless of nonpayment during the winter months. It doesn't matter what your contract says. This is more of the same and absolutely needed to keep the economy from spiraling down the shitter even faster. Housing is more than a contract and more than a market. It is the stable wealth base and security base of a large portion of our populace.
While it is understandable that people are pissed over the AIG bonuses...the acts passed by the house which try to retroactively and specically target these, again, is scary and I'd think unconstitutional.
Yeah, they screwed up in handling that originally and now are still messing it up. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is unconstitutional though. It has been mishandled, but that is again, mostly congress. I don't think any of us has any illusions left that they're working for us.
The latest proposals...to not only mandate what execs of bailout companies can make..but also implications coming out that they want to actually set limits on what healthy, non=bailout companies can pay....that acares[sic] me.
The former is absolutely necessary in my mind. Execs should be fired, not given bonuses. As for non-bailout companies, it is attacking the very real wealth disparity problem, but I agree it is a misguided approach to it. It is much more of a "looks good" solution to appease the people than a real, workable solution. I'm not worried about us becoming less capitalist tho
MODS: how is this flamebait?
It can validly be considered flamebait because it starts with, "Are you retarded?" This is unfortunate because, it is factual and corrects the misconceptions of a highly modded post that is, well a little retarded. That's a harsh way to phrase it as well as offensive. In truth the original poster was not retarded, just uninformed and "ranty".
Now that the dems are in power, you're surprised that they are doing everything to secure the media's interests? Really?
Actually, Obama implemented policies to make lobbying, especially by insiders, harder. That includes big media. He also made claims that he would be sure to prevent people from favoring industries where they had just been hired from, or where they had the potential to be hired to (for example people can't leave the executive branch and then immediately become a lobbyist to the executive branch). This is interesting, because unlike most other changes Obama promised, this one was within his executive power. This makes it a good test of his intention since it is not something he has to rely upon and make compromises with Congress in order to accomplish.
When he appointed these RIAA lawyers they were among a half dozen that made me cringe. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt for a short time as I did with the FOIA issue. Effective lawyers often come with baggage, although I'd rather he appointed some ACLU heavyweights. Now, I'll give him some time to become aware of the issue and take action to rein in his subordinates or replace them. I don't expect that will happen, in all honesty, but I am reserving judgement.
Raise your hand if you were surprised by this posting.
I was not surprised. I was slightly disappointed. Still, once these appointments were made, this was a near certainty. The measure will be how it is handled from here. Does he let them continue as they have been? Does Obama become aware of this issue and if so, does he do something about it? That will be the real test of if he is sincere and effective or if he is going to bend to the wishes of powerful lobbyists.
Here's a better idea... Fix all the bugs and then you're sure you've fixed all the big bugs.
Well, that's a nice idea, but it takes a finite nonzero amount of time to do so.
You both make good points. MS's security culture is fairly awful in that when developers find bugs that are potential security issues, they have to fight the system to get them prioritized for fixes and most are considered "low risk" and ignored. Anything that helps prioritize bug fixes is good, provided it is not used a an automated way to ignore a huge number of bugs in an effort to produce a mediocre and "good enough" product in terms of security.
Is that the license OSI approved which got a lot of flak because it says the source can only be run on windows or did they remove that use clause from their OSI licenses?
No. Those are the MS-LPL and MS-LRL licenses. The MS-PL license is fairly innocuous excepting the patent clause which is debatable. It allows the distribution of the source under this license and distribution of binaries for commercial use with a different license.
Instead of trying to build a gee-whiz unique product, they should be building a phone that's cheaper than an HTC G1, runs Android and is available to a variety of networks.
That sounds a lot like what they did, actually. We don't know how much they wanted for this, but it was capable of Android and Windows Mobile and they tried marketing it to multiple providers. The providers weren't interested. They want low end non-smart phones and high end smart phones.
What else would they need?
Buy in from providers and economy of scale to make it cheap enough.
How did the sign get smashed to pieces? There is some material left on it, that looks like paint. My theory is that a blue car or truck struck it and drove away.
How did the sign get smashed to pieces? There is some material left on it, that looks like paint. Last week crazy Carl told me there is a giant, invisible whale that flies through the air. Further it can tell the future. He says it whispered to him and said the "smurfiness was smithereens". How could he have known a week ago? See the smurfiness is the blue color and smithereens means little pieces, but usually refers to things being broken or destroyed, like the sign is destroyed (though not in pieces). My theory is that a giant invisible, flying whale destroyed the sign.
Since no one saw the sign be damaged there is no proof. We don't know. Does that mean we should regard both theories equally? What about after we take samples of the leftover blue material and it exactly matches the color from stock GM vehicle paint in 2001? Are they both still equal? After all we can't prove the invisible flying whale didn't leave paint identical to the color on automobiles, although it did not make that prediction either.
My point is, just because we're not 100% sure does not matter. The scientific method isn't about finding absolutes but about applying a formal method for determining the most likely truth. It works and if you don't like it fine, but don't call not applying it science or expect rational people to "just believe" something that doesn't match up with what science determines is the likely answer.
Ultimately, no one really cares what irrational beliefs you hold -- the vast majority of scientists are religious. The important point is to understand the difference between an unfounded belief and actual science.
I didn't state a belief on scientists being religious or not. I agree with you that people need to understand the difference between an unfounded *belief* and scientific *proof*.
Math has proofs, not science. Science has hypothesis and experiments and theories and peer review. A rational scientist believes the most supported theory is the most likely truth and performs predictive experiments to add or remove support from theories. Evolution is a theory with a lot of correct predictions from experiments. There are several abiogenesis theories each with some level of correct predictions from experiments. Creationism refers to a vague belief held in different ways by different religions. It does not refer to a scientific theory supported by experimentation. Believing it is not rational. That's fine with me you can hold irrational beliefs, just don't try to convince others they are rational or scientific or should be taught in schools as science.
Don't be too quick to jump on the "it's proven" bandwagen[sic].
This is your fundamental misunderstanding. Science is not proving things. It is determining the most likely truth rather than trying to defend a belief by finding facts to support it after you've already made up your mind. Science is a rational process. It isn't infallible and is constantly refined, but the process works a whole lot better than anything else we've tried which is why it is held in such high regard and why people are so eager to try to convince others some belief they have is scientific when it is not.
Actually, because Alienware = Dell, they aren't that expensive...
I didn't realize their prices had gone down after the acquisition. They still seemed more expensive than the Dell branded systems last I looked.
The nice thing about Alienware was (before Dell made them crappy), is they were very good "baseline" systems to buy for gaming.
Actually, from the numbers in reviews, Alienware's quality dropped significantly in the year before the acquisition as they cashed in on their brand o sell lower quality gear at a premium. Also, Dell's hardware reliability has jumped up significantly for laptops (not desktops though).
There are many differences between Microsoft and Apple but Balmer does have a point. Apple really make you pay for their branding.
So does Dell and Sony and HP. How much more does a laptop cost with an Alienware logo on it?
Apple systems run about 20-30% more than average. Sony laptops cost about 20-30% more than average. Apple is right in line with other "premium" vendors. This is not a large issue, especially considering they have some of the most reliable hardware on the market according to independent reviews.
Note: Maybe this is flamebait, but if so the article/Balmer is/are trolling.
When was the last time Ballmer said something to the media that wasn't trying to get press by being inflammatory?
Every time something like this is posted on /. everyone get in a huge flame war debating the virtues and consistencies of Evolution vs. Creationism/Intelligent Design.
I disagree. Every time creationism appears on Slashdot we get a few religious fundamentalists defending it then, shouted down by the 99%+ of Slashdot readers who know what science is.
Anyone promoting evolution or debunking creationism often gets modded up, however anyone arguing for creationism often gets modded down.
Actually, I've seen a few people making good comments with regard to creationism or that "side" of the debate modded up. The problem being there are very few such people and most of the people trying to defend creationism are ignorant or simply trying to rabble rouse.
I'm a creationist, a Christian, and I just ask that we teach both in schools since it is an ongoing scientific debate.
There isn't any scientific debate. Until creationists actually approach the issue using the scientific method, they don't have a side in a scientific debate. What is the specific, scientific hypothesis of creation? What predictions is it making and when will they be tested? Until There is a formal hypothesis which can be tested, creationism isn't even science. Until it passes many such tests and gathers as much experimental evidence as evolution (or at least something in the same neighborhood) there is no point teaching the debate any more than there is teaching the debate between the flat and spherical earth theories. Right now there is not even that much. The flat earth theory at least had a hypothesis and made some predictions which it did not fail.
Let the children decide for themselves through providing pro's/con's of both sides.
I see, and should we waste classroom time also teaching the flat earth debate? How about every other scientific topic? Science class should be about teaching science. That is, it should teach the method so that students can understand and use it and it should teach fundamental, well tested, and important theories that form the basis of large parts of our existing science.
If our educational system were working, you'd understand the scientific method and why creationism is pointless to teach in a science class and why it is likewise absurd to provide scientific degrees on that subject. We need to concentrate on this basics so the next generation is not as uneducated as you are.
I mean, real schools offer up degrees in philosophy, pottery, and basket weaving and who knows what.
Sure they do. What's wrong with that? But they don't offer a scientific degree in philosophy. They probably offer a masters of art in pottery or clay working. The question then really is, does anyone offer an M.S. in basket weaving? If so is it validly approached as scientific basket weaving?
Creationism isn't science, it's just religious propaganda. It's fine with me if they want to offer a religious or public relations degree in creationism... just not a science degree.
Does someone want to tell me what's wrong with plain text?
No graphics for one. Do you really think the state doesn't make any documents that include graphs or maps or charts? Aside from that, it's nice to be able to do some formatting, you know like including page numbers on longer documents and cross references that you don't have to spend hours updating every time you add a page to the middle of a document. Then there's the issue of color. It's awfully nice to be able to add some large, red text and a hazard symbol when said document is providing important information to the reader's health, like "Warning, don't open the valve until the green light comes on or sewage will fill the tunnel killing you!"
there is not a clear way to interpret the bill as excluding OOXML, the format MS rammed through as an ISO standard to compete with ODF.
The version of OOXML ratified as a standard doesn't even have one implementation I know of, let alone two on multiple platforms. Also the restrictions and royalties clause and IP/patent clauses would likely be an issue since MS's licensing of their format significantly restricts competitors.
The bill is carefully worded such that only ODF could pass its test as "open."
That's favoring one vendor over another.
First, while the summary makes the claim only ODF could pass, that's doesn't seem to be true if you actually read it. Second, even if it did, that's favoring a format, not a vendor.
What the government should be doing is mandating a variety of formats based on the preferences of the public.
No, they should be establishing criteria for formats that don't inhibit innovation, but do ensure the benefits of open formats.
Microsoft Office, ODF, PDF and XHTML would be much better, and it wouldn't be that hard for the government to support all of those.
ODF and XHTML both meet the criteria listed in the bill. PDF is a publishing format, not an interchange format for editable documents and does not apply in this case. MSOffice formats don't meet the criteria and would not be allowed, which is a good thing since each one is lacking in an important way. Old formats are not open to all to implement. Their new format is not implemented by multiple vendors and is restricted by patents.
After all, Microsoft Office can or does support all of those formats...
Well, MSOffice doesn't support their new format yet and some other companies will never be able to because of patent issues. Their old format is not published in its entirety and can never be implemented by other vendors.
...mandate that all public records be saved 4 times with File->Save As or a macro that does the same thing.
Sounds like a waste of disk and bandwidth when files are transferred. What's the advantage over saving as ODF?
- It isn't standards compliant. When standards disintegrate the consumer pays.
There is no standard that covers the functionality they need, so they extended and existing standard. This works with regular headphones, they just don't have all the capabilities. Ideally Apple would publish this as a standard, but it isn't a big deal.
It promotes vendor lock in.
How? You can buy controls and headphones from anyone you want ho makes them. Nothing is stopping other MP# player makers from being interoperable.
People who are replacing an older model may not realize there is new lock in until they've actually bought the product.
A different connector is not a new lock, and they can just return it or buy an adapter for their existing headphones and use that adapter on every other player, hence no lock in.
When a market leader pulls this crap, others do too and pretty soon all the MP3 players you can buy have this "feature".
Sony hasn't been promoting bizarre lock in for years? It's a free market, buy from someone who makes a product you like. Until Apple has monopoly influence on the market, they are in no way undermining the market or other players.
What about those that do care about the headphones? What about those who can't use ear buds due to hearing or ear problems?
They buy third party headphones r an adapter for their existing headphones if they want this iPod... otherwise they buy a different player. What's the problem?
Not if there's a patent on the tech and Apple wants to lock them out...
Lots of places follow Apples patents. Haven't heard a thing from them. So what patent are you talking about.
If they aren't locked out there's a licensing fee which drives the price up of all the headphones
Yeah, we've seen Apple's outrageous licensing fees. The larger cost is simply the hardware for the controls, which Apple will no longer be including with the iPod if you use third party headphones. But hey, if you don't like them, there are lots of other players out there.
Sounds like a good argument to develop a standard rather than applaud this bad behaviour[sic].
Probably, would be preferable, but I don't see it as a big deal in any case. Call IEEE if you're concerned..
This is innovation? Seriously?
Yes, it is innovation, although innovation others have already done. Adding controls inline is a new feature. If you don't like that feature you can "vote" against it by buying something else. It's called the free market.
Mainly because it is easy for two doctors to set up shop and compete, and it is harder with roads.
That's the qualitative difference? So since it is easy for rival mercenary groups to compete for the same service the military is socialist, but road construction is not? I reject your definition.
There's also the point that other countries with socialized medecine[sic] programs have some real problems that we don't have.
Sure, and also lots of advantages we don't have, like longer lifespans and overall better coverage. It is better in other countries for the majority of people. They also have advantages like lower wealth disparity, lower crime, and more stable economies.
If you get a rare form of cancer, or anything else really off the wall, you will probably die before they figure it out.
Interestingly, if you get something rare in the US you're pretty much screwed too. I know, I've been there, with some of the best healthcare available to the middle class I still dropped $20K out of pocket and Mayo Clinic and several other "prestigious" institutions were basically useless. I looked up the numbers If you have something rare, in the US your average time for a correct diagnosis is 4 years.
The only reason why England and Canada work as well as they do is the escape valve that people can always go somewhere (like America) where they can pay for good health care.
The UK's healthcare is among the worst of socialized healthcare systems in the industrialized world. Canadians rarely ever come to the US for non-cosmetic procedures.
America also has spiraling health care costs, but that is largely due to overregulation...
Nice assertion, but the evidence to date has not supported that conclusion. In any case countries with much more strict regulation (Japan) or socialized systems seem to be getting better results for the price. We haven't even touched on the other societal benefits such as the economics benefits the gain.
I don't have any magic answers, but I will claim that socializing everything is not the solution.
Of course not, extreme socialism is just as unstable as extreme capitalism. The problem is we've moved away from socialism in recent years and our economy destabilized as the wealth disparity that resulted went out of control. Returning to previous tax policies is probably the only viable solution and new, more efficient socialist outlets for that income are the most efficient way to restore the balance.
You are trying my patience. I gave you a link to a discussion of just what "socialism" means. It's government control of the means of production, and it's redistribution of wealth. None of your examples fit.
Government controlling the production of roads, for example? Sorry, you're the one that doesn't understand what socialism is. Redistribution of wealth is not an inherent property of socialism, just the main reason it is used in conjunction with progressive taxation to stabilize economies.
Extreme libertarians (anarcho-capitalists) claim that the free market can solve all problems...
So, none of them are competent economists. Fundamentalist christians claim we shouldn't fix the economy because it speeds the coming of the rapture. That doesn't make it a good idea to take their advice.
Why can't you see a simple point? In tough times, people have less money to spend. They are forced to economize. Maybe they wanted to fly to Europe for a vacation, now they don't.
The economics you learned in 8th grade for managing a home budget don't really apply on the national scale, especially when you completely misunderstand the problem. We don't have a wealth shortage. We have a distribution problem.
In tough times, government collects less in the w
This is a good point, and explains why financial education is important, but it isn't a good argument for wealth redistribution. . Teach people to not use credit cards to the max, not to buy lottery tickets, and to start saving money.
Should we also teach them to live on the streets since both rent and home mortgages redistribute huge amounts of wealth upward to people born with more?
Look, I wish it was as easy as educating people financially, but it isn't credit cards are a symptom of the problem. Even financially responsible people from the lower and middle classes on average earn more money for the wealthy than they acquire for themselves.
The solution isn't to try to redistribute the wealth (which doesn't work)...
You mean which doesn't work except in countries with better standards of living than ours where it's worked quite well for a long time.
....but to increase financial education.
Seriously? That's your plan? Teach people with no money how to better manage that money? You really think that will fix our economic crisis? What are you going to tell the people being kicked out of their homes? What are you going to tell the people who can't get health insurance and then get sick, or can't afford it then get sick? Save more money by using magic? What part of zero net wealth are you not understanding?
If we want to make a difference we have to teach people how to not be poor.
Oh, don't worry they'll learn. They always do. They learn to not be poor by forcibly taking it from the rich. Violent crime correlates with wealth disparity to an amazing degree. More than one bloody rebellion was spurred on by increasing wealth disparity.
You shouldn't be investing money that you may need tomorrow to eat.
But because of the economic fluctuations, people no longer know. Where once they felt secure in their employment, now they aren't. Where once they felt secure in their retirement investments, now they're not.
In times like the depression it is excusable to be focused on other things, but now in the US it is possible for any person to live within their means and save money for investing.
For many people, living within their means now means dying of illness or living on the streets.
This is basic finance.
You seem a little weak on the basic finance of poverty. Do you think the tent cities appearing are because people are unwisely investing in camping gear and taking long vacations with others?
You gave an example of the depression as a time of extreme volatility happening at the same time as wealth disparity, so as a counterexample, consider a feudal society, where wealth inequality is at its extreme, and yet, the value of things change very little.
Ahh, yes, we just need a permanently oppressed slave class that can be killed in bad times. Or, we need wealth redistribution by invading neighboring cities and looting them. Feudal societies always lurched between financial extremes and most people lived in abject poverty with very high death rates from the same. That's not a very admirable counterexample.
Indeed you are correct, however it is not Obama's plan. His own projections have the national debt growing very quickly.
That's funny. As of two days ago the news said, "President Barack Obama plans to increase taxes on the wealthy and cut spending for the war in Iraq as part of a plan to slash the U.S. budget deficit to $533 billion by the end of his first term..." That's less than half current level at which we've been accumulating debt under Bush. Further, if we can repair the economy we can start to actually pay some of it off.
You seem undereducated on economics, and desperately looking for ways to somehow justify the opinion you already d
No, you're a fucking moron.
Interesting how everyone is an anonymous coward when they reply in argument.
No, words have meanings - try looking them up.
Every president to date has advocated a significant amount of socialism... the economic term. They are socialists in that regard. They have not been socialist as in members of that political party, but then that has nothing to do with the economics we were discussing.
The highway department, post office, military, police, fire department, public schools, NASA, and the FDA are all socialist programs. Completely fucking wrong. The things you listed are all services provided by the goverment. They are not "the means of production" nor are they part of an income redistribution system.
You seem to have some conceptual problems. How is, for example, construction of roads by the government qualitatively different from socialized healthcare? They are both industries that in some places are strictly private and for profit, but in other places are run by the government as a service to the people.
Socialist programs were established as part of our government from day one.
Wrong again.
Army, Navy, Post office, all socialist programs. All can and had been done as private businesses in the past and are done as private businesses today (Xe, FedEx).
For fucks sake, how much do you think you can get from them? The high end already pays the vast majority of income taxes in America.
Well, we could raise taxes on the high end to levels they were 20 years ago when the economy was stable. Sure the high end pays most of the taxes, but not as much proportional to the amount of wealth they control. People taking in a million bucks a year can absolutely afford another $100K in taxes to balance out the fact that they have been constantly gaining ever larger shares of the wealth in the US. The goal should be a sustainable system where wealth is not constantly moving in one direction based upon inheritance instead of who works hardest and smartest.
So the top 5% pay 60% of all the income tax paid in America and that's still not enough for you?
No it isn't. It will be enough when the economy is stable. 60% is still not enough to balance out the earning power advantage their wealth brings them.
If you jack the tax rates up, why would those top end rich people keep playing the game?
They don't have a choice.
Why would they run companies? They are already super rich, why not just live off their current riches instead of trying to make more money?
Because they are greedy. If they want to just live off their current wealth, that's fine. Other people will run companies and progressive taxes will mean over a few generations that wealth will disappear and go to people who actually work and create benefit to society.
YOU CAN'T DO JUST ONE THING. If you jack the tax rates, you don't just raise tax revenues. You also discourage business.
So trickle down economists have claimed, but the data has not backed said assertion. Taxes on individuals at the very high end have not been shown to discourage their investment in US business.
And the socialists won't care.
See, here's your problem. You have an irrational and emotional response to the word "socialism". What is socialism, other than the government paying for goods and services with tax dollars instead of running it via private business. Every country in the world engages in socialism to some extent or their economy collapses. You're not being an economist and looking at what the appropriate level of socialism to stabilize our economy is. You're just emotionally rejecting anything associated with that word and trying to disassociate it from current programs where the government collects taxes and pays for services for the people. If we call it Quigglepop will that make you feel better? We need more Quigglepop in our economy, where the US implements services like the post office or military, but applied to the healthcare market. Does that sound better to you?
It is more important to punish the rich than to collect the revenues. Ask an honest socialist whether he would support lowering the tax rates on t