Trump is openly picking individual winners and losers in the business world. By naming specific companies like Boeing and GM, instead of setting more generic industry wide rules, Trump's action is the very definition of crony capitalism. Yes, there are procurement problems in the defense industry, but why attack the F35 program and not the littoral combat ship (LCS) program.
Perhaps Trump likes to mouth off with only a superficial knowledges of whatever he happens to hear on the cable news, or perhaps people around him are using inside knowledge to capitalize on the subsequent market valuation of those publicly traded companies.
Slowly but surely, Trump's actions will diminish US's worldwide competitiveness and standing, much like Obama's inactions. However, Obama does not have a history of predatorial financial and gender behavior.
yeah, let's keep our eyes on the ball. Trump, someone who repeatedly casts the free press as the enemy is now the president. Obama and GW have their faults, but at least they are not tribal narcissist with little or no empathy for the opposition. It's going to be a tough ride until Trump is removed.
30K jobs at 75K average cost per employee (wage/salary + bonus + benefits + tax + insurance) = $2.25 billion annual labor cost.... for a $7 billion factory. Really???
In trade, China needs the U.S. more than vice-versa.
Exactly, and China knows this. That is why China has been aggressively seeking alternative markets worldwide. Everywhere from Central and South America to Africa, not to mention the rest of Asia. China is also busy trying to build up their own internal consumption and pushed RMB to be a part of SDR.
China knows its military expansion is only made possible by its economic success, and we know this too. Unlike other Asian and European countries where we use trade as a tool to either entice democratic reforms or crush authoritarian regime's ability to finance its military, we've met our match with China.
I am not a fan of TPP but I view TPP as our attempt to rebalance world trade in the Asia away from its current sinocentric hegemony. If we want to take away TPP, what are we replacing it with?
Globalism is not the problem. Plenty of high wage countries still have robust manufacturing sectors and take care of its working class. Unfortunately for us, the chants of "U-S-A" drowns out any discussion and we look inwards to rehash our past failed policies instead of looking outwards to study how others thrives in a globalized market.
I had a similar conversation with my friends. My belief is that the ruling class of America decided it's cheaper to pay people off with welfare than to give people jobs. Given the chance, I think most people will prefer meaningful work.
The very few getting comfortable on the bottom rungs of our social safety net are just there to obscure the masses of working poor who are below the safety net, do distract us from the real issues of why people can't find jobs.
Sure, there are plenty of minimum wage jobs available, but finding those jobs can be a challenge. Moving to a new place for a minimum wage job is also equally challenging.
Yes, we can clearly see where Trump's conflict of interest are, and thanks to his blind supporters, he doesn't care either. Trump's questionable business ethics is legendary.
I don't have problems with technocrats, some are career politicians. As long if they are honest and competent, why not. However, Trump is neither honest nor competent. Trump is just a self promoter who is good at selling his brand. Over the years, his year of hustling for a quick buck has gradually diminished his technical skills. Let's not forget, Trump is one of the loudest birthers. Trumps lives in his own grandiose narcissistic TV reality world. Too bad for us, he just pulled off his biggest con. His world is now our reality. Fuck!!!
Some of this experiments were non-trivial, and he definitely was smart enough to go beyond what the nuclear regulatory agency thought was possible for an average citizen.
We can criticize the potential of harm to others by his experiments, but who are we do judge the wisdom of his actions for him.
Yeah, too bad his energies was misdirected and unguided.
Yup, we're in for a rude awakening if we do engage in a trade war with China. But, better to wake up now than later.... I dislike Trump, didn't vote for him, and the thought of his pending presidency is nauseating, but might as well let Trump be Trump. A trade war with China will leave Trump with little free time to tinker with the domestic issues. We may end up getting some of our manufacturing jobs back, or at lease shift them toward more US friendly countries.
I bet Putin will support a trade war with China. A chance to take down both US and China.
So, let's push for a trade war with China to save our nation from both Trump and China. I am for it:)
Well, it's kind of too late for Microsoft. The locals has already learned and adapted. Cost will be lower in Vietnam but will cost for Microsoft in Vietnam be lower than the cost for Xiaomi in China? China is Xiaomi's domestic market and unlike our government, the Chinese government actual cares about keeping its citizens employed and earning a living. Sure, it's not a great living for most, but it is improving.
It's sad to see communist authoritarians beating the capitalist democrats in the world economy.
We live in a delusional bubble and sooner or later that bubble will burst. We were very good but to stay the best takes effort and money. Both of which we traded for political demigods and cheap trinket and oil from authoritarian regimes around the world to live our obese Wal-Mart fueled lives.
We want to be the best, but where will the brain and money that are needed for such endeavor come from? Certainly not from the flag lapel wearing politicians that caters to the money worshiping financial and legal sectors while neglecting the egalitarian nature of a strong domestic manufacturing base.
So, no being first in the world doesnt' matter to us anymore, as long if we think we're number one that's what counts.
That's very adolescent of of you to dismiss someone else's idea as adolescent rant while offering nothing of substance except support for status quo. Our system is broken. In addition to our military industrial complex, we also have a prison industrial complex, public sector union mafia, and the new kid on the block, private school public student loan pyramid scheme.
I heard Lawrence Lessig's keynote at SCALE 12X and he sounded like a pragmatic guy. During the typical after talk Q&A session when idealogical can lean a bit to the extremes, politely he kept to his believes and reminded everyone that our system is corrupt, not necessarily the politicians and that we've came a long way since the days where congressmen have safes in their capital office for the random bags of money that just appears.
I am fairly cynical of our entire political process, however I have donated to the Mayday's first round of funding and now I am contemplating selling some of my treasured 2A relics to help fund the second round. As much as I cling to my 2A relics, it's an illusion of power that keep us fat and lazy, sitting comfortably in our homes looking for that next purchase. At least Lessig is doing something to reform our corrupt and inept political system, that far more than anything accomplished with 2A relics in modern time.
I don't know if he will be successful or not, but at least he has a history of advancing our civl liberty causes and MAYDAY, despite the long odds, is one of the better ideas available today.
Guns make you fat and lazy. Just look at the NRA. Decades of advocating the protection of 2A as a mean to protect our collective freedom, yet we have two administration worth of torture, rendition, mass surveillance, and drone strikes, while the NRA grew old and fat. Still yelling the same old crap while our guns rust away in the safe.
Anyway, I donated my half case worth the 62gr.223. If this works, I'm selling my AR/HK/Sigs. If it takes money to buy our freedom back, rather than with guns, so be it!
I hear Lessig's keynote during SCALE 12X. More importantly, I heard his answer during the pubic Q&A. He seems like a pragmatic, hard working guys who lives in the real world.
Dumping $2.6 million worth of editable food when there are people starving is shocking to most of us. Yet, this is a reflection of our current law suit happy society.
Most of us has very little to loose and most food banks has very little to loose so our local food bank gladly take in our donated food items and we happily go on with our lives do what we can for people who are starving, one canned food at a time. Also, I've volunteered at the local food banks and base on what I've seen, Costco peanut butter is probably an upgrade to the various expired high fructose laden supermarket rejects.
Life is very different for our newly anointed fellow big corporate beings. In their billion dollar world, with their million dollar lawyers, somewhere, somehow, the meaning of starving people became irrelevant. After all, corporations do not understand the physical pain of starvation.
Lenovo again? First you took my Thinkpad now my Moto X.
I guess the "Don't be Evil" Google is long dead. The principled stand of exiting from the Chinese market, followed by assembling the Moto X in the US, then selling Motorola to Lenovo? ? ? WTF, Google.
Yes, US is guilty of everything you listed. We can talk about all the past and present failed US policies. We can openly criticize the policies. For those of us who live in the US, we can even openly organize to remove the politicians in questions. That is the difference between democratic nations and authoritarian countries.
Like the old saying, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." US has certainly slipped but it is still far ahead of China is terms of basic civil rights for all.
Um, Veganism is about minimizing cruelty and suffering. Vegetarianism is just a form of diet. I know plenty of vegetarian with leather handbags and leather upholstered car interiors.
I do eat meat but I am a bit uncomfortable with the whole classifying living things into how complex they are according to human definitions. It goes without saying, life is essential to every living being regardless of their CNS complexity. Just because something doesn't feel what humans perceive to "pain" does not mean that they do not feel "pain." Everyday we learn something new about our environment and our fellow Earth cohabitants. The old thinking that crustaceans do not feel pain is being dispelled by new research data.
I usually store my nexus 7 into the thigh pockets of my cargo pants. It's fairly secure, especially in pockets large enough to button up. Fairly inexpensive and unobtrusive. The weight of the nexus 7 is held very close to the body so I really don't feel the extra mass, unlike putting it in a oversize jacket pocket.
Snowden was a hero for exposing domestic spying of American by NSA. However, by disclosing US spying on foreign governments, Snowden has crossed the line.
Disclosing anything related to foreign affairs short of atrocities that involve the lost of innocent lives is treasonous. By claiming US hacking of foreign networks and now the disclosure on UK spying, Snowden is hurting his own credibility as a whistleblower which will damage the current push to hold NSA accountable for domestic spying.
Whatever fault and atrocity US may have committed, anyone in the world is free to criticize and any US resident is free to discuss and lobby for change. The same cannot be said for China and that is fundamental difference between China and the rest of the free world.
I disagree strong with the Patriot Act, the use of torture and the Iraq War, but even I know that those actions pale in comparison to the tens of millions if not hundred of millions of Chinese that perished in the last 50 years due to the ineptness of an authoritarian regime.
While China certainly has achieve spectacular economic growth in the last 50 years, but I would argue that the US civil rights movement that continues today has far more importance than avoiding starvation.
I am kind of the IT person in a small company with about 20 users and I switched everyone over to OpenOffice 4 or 5 years ago and we have never looked back. OO has certainly came a long way since we started using it. There's a few access programs we use to run reports that I haven't been able to convert to postgresql, but I only need on copy of MS office running on the W2K server and that pretty much solved our report generation.
With the money we saved from using open office and the various linux email/web/sql servers, I managed to upgrade everyone to dual 20" screen desktops. The hylafax fax server I installed almost 10 years ago is still running today. Nothing MS made ever lasted that long, because like it or not you're forced to upgrade every few years.
BTW, I stay away from any external web based application because we simply do not have enough bandwidth to handle the traffic volume. As much as I like gmail, it's a lot faster to send a 3mb email attachment to an email server on the dmz. We're still limited by the T1 bandwidth, but at least I am free to do other tasks instead of waiting for the attachment to upload.
Reducing the role of Thomas Jefferson? Why? He's one of my favorite founding father. The person who writes so eloquently about freedom and dares to question the validity of God by cutting and pasting his own version of the bible. Yet, he still chooses to keep slave and may have even father children with slaves. To me, Thomas Jefferson personifies the constant struggle we all have between liberty and financial reality.
Our society is best served when we base our laws and actions on our collective logic and reason. What ever flaws DOE or any other government bureaucracy has is infinitely better than having our laws decided base on a illogical text supposedly written by God but in reality is written by men masquerading as God. The social conservative can't win their arguments base on science or logic so now they are trying to subvert our nation with politics staring with our children. I am ashamed to be a registered Republican. Damn, when they said small fiscally responsible government I didn't know the plan was to save money by moving city hall to the local christian churches and hand everyone a bible as an all purpose first aid kit, universal text book, and life's decision maker. . . . .
I was on the privatization wagon until GWB started to "privatize" our armed forces
GWB didn't privatize the armed forces. Contractors were used to fill the roles that DoD lacked the manpower to fill because of the post Cold War draw down of the American military. The proper thing to do would have been to institute a military draft to provide DoD with the required manpower. The downside to this is that we'd have to justify our foreign policy to the American people and nobody on either side of the aisle wants to do that....
I lean toward the draft. Let the politicians justify their decision to the American people and we should all get a chance to shoulder the responsibility of our country going to war beside shopping at the local air conditioned malls. Put everyone on reserve status.
I don't care for the private contractors because I don't see why Blackwater should be paid a premium to do what normal American solders do everyday and I don't see why Haliburton should make a profit for doing what normal American solders used to do.
FedEx/UPS on the other hand discriminate base on your shipping volume and profitability.
Why is this a bad thing? If you mail one package a year and ask them to come to your location to pick it up it doubtless costs them more than someone who regularly mails packages.
That depends on if you view postal service as a public service or private service. I view it as a public service and as a public service it should treat everyone roughly the same. Image if you are a farmer in rural American and has to pay "market" price every time you want send in your utility payment.
Or, imaging waiting in that long postal office line only to have people walk in and constantly cut in front of you because they are the "volume" shippers
There is a reason why USPS looses money year after year
Above market wages?
I am fairly cheap so I think most government workers are overpaid, including the USPS. But I think USPS looses money because they are a public service and cannot discriminate against the rural population.
Sometimes the special FedEx/UPS surcharges cost more then USPS's parcel rate for rural areas.
However, where else can you mail something for $0.44 to anywhere in the US
Why is that a good thing? If I walk into my post office and "mail" something to a PO box contained within that same post office it ought to cost less than mailing something to Alaska or Hawaii.
The good thing is that they treat everyone roughly the same.
I was on the privatization wagon until GWB started to "privatize" our armed forces and now BHO wants to "privatize" our space exploration. I love the USPS/FedEx/UPS comparison. The good thing about USPS is that they usually don't care who you are or how much you ship, you pretty much get the same overall treatment depending on the mood of their staff. FedEx/UPS on the other hand discriminate base on your shipping volume and profitability.
There is a reason why USPS looses money year after year, beside the typical government bureaucracy. However, where else can you mail something for $0.44 to anywhere in the US with no additional charge for Saturday delivery.
In our pursuit of ever cheaper crap most of us forgot that freedom is not free. . . . C'mon people. . . wake up!
China is not Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or even Singapore. It's not a free and democratic country and the last 10 years proved that we don't have a snowball chance in hell of either luring China toward democracy or contain China's brand of authoritarian capitalism. Combine our insatiable desire for imports and China's currency manipulation and we created our current financial meltdown. Sadly, the extraordinary efforts we made to save our economy ultimately benefited our biggest creditor, China. More bullet trains for China.
So here we are facing a downward financial and technological spiral and instead of looking to Germany or Japan for inspiration, our politicians want to frame every single political debate around religion or what they think the bible says. . . sad. . damn sad. .
Slashdot Mirror
Trump is openly picking individual winners and losers in the business world. By naming specific companies like Boeing and GM, instead of setting more generic industry wide rules, Trump's action is the very definition of crony capitalism. Yes, there are procurement problems in the defense industry, but why attack the F35 program and not the littoral combat ship (LCS) program.
Perhaps Trump likes to mouth off with only a superficial knowledges of whatever he happens to hear on the cable news, or perhaps people around him are using inside knowledge to capitalize on the subsequent market valuation of those publicly traded companies.
Slowly but surely, Trump's actions will diminish US's worldwide competitiveness and standing, much like Obama's inactions. However, Obama does not have a history of predatorial financial and gender behavior.
yeah, let's keep our eyes on the ball. Trump, someone who repeatedly casts the free press as the enemy is now the president. Obama and GW have their faults, but at least they are not tribal narcissist with little or no empathy for the opposition. It's going to be a tough ride until Trump is removed.
30K jobs at 75K average cost per employee (wage/salary + bonus + benefits + tax + insurance) = $2.25 billion annual labor cost.... for a $7 billion factory. Really???
In trade, China needs the U.S. more than vice-versa.
Exactly, and China knows this. That is why China has been aggressively seeking alternative markets worldwide. Everywhere from Central and South America to Africa, not to mention the rest of Asia. China is also busy trying to build up their own internal consumption and pushed RMB to be a part of SDR.
China knows its military expansion is only made possible by its economic success, and we know this too. Unlike other Asian and European countries where we use trade as a tool to either entice democratic reforms or crush authoritarian regime's ability to finance its military, we've met our match with China.
I am not a fan of TPP but I view TPP as our attempt to rebalance world trade in the Asia away from its current sinocentric hegemony. If we want to take away TPP, what are we replacing it with?
Globalism is not the problem. Plenty of high wage countries still have robust manufacturing sectors and take care of its working class. Unfortunately for us, the chants of "U-S-A" drowns out any discussion and we look inwards to rehash our past failed policies instead of looking outwards to study how others thrives in a globalized market.
I had a similar conversation with my friends. My belief is that the ruling class of America decided it's cheaper to pay people off with welfare than to give people jobs. Given the chance, I think most people will prefer meaningful work.
The very few getting comfortable on the bottom rungs of our social safety net are just there to obscure the masses of working poor who are below the safety net, do distract us from the real issues of why people can't find jobs.
Sure, there are plenty of minimum wage jobs available, but finding those jobs can be a challenge. Moving to a new place for a minimum wage job is also equally challenging.
Yes, we can clearly see where Trump's conflict of interest are, and thanks to his blind supporters, he doesn't care either. Trump's questionable business ethics is legendary.
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
I don't have problems with technocrats, some are career politicians. As long if they are honest and competent, why not. However, Trump is neither honest nor competent. Trump is just a self promoter who is good at selling his brand. Over the years, his year of hustling for a quick buck has gradually diminished his technical skills. Let's not forget, Trump is one of the loudest birthers. Trumps lives in his own grandiose narcissistic TV reality world. Too bad for us, he just pulled off his biggest con. His world is now our reality. Fuck!!!
Some of this experiments were non-trivial, and he definitely was smart enough to go beyond what the nuclear regulatory agency thought was possible for an average citizen.
We can criticize the potential of harm to others by his experiments, but who are we do judge the wisdom of his actions for him.
Yeah, too bad his energies was misdirected and unguided.
Yup, we're in for a rude awakening if we do engage in a trade war with China. But, better to wake up now than later.... I dislike Trump, didn't vote for him, and the thought of his pending presidency is nauseating, but might as well let Trump be Trump. A trade war with China will leave Trump with little free time to tinker with the domestic issues. We may end up getting some of our manufacturing jobs back, or at lease shift them toward more US friendly countries.
I bet Putin will support a trade war with China. A chance to take down both US and China.
So, let's push for a trade war with China to save our nation from both Trump and China. I am for it :)
Well, it's kind of too late for Microsoft. The locals has already learned and adapted. Cost will be lower in Vietnam but will cost for Microsoft in Vietnam be lower than the cost for Xiaomi in China? China is Xiaomi's domestic market and unlike our government, the Chinese government actual cares about keeping its citizens employed and earning a living. Sure, it's not a great living for most, but it is improving.
It's sad to see communist authoritarians beating the capitalist democrats in the world economy.
We live in a delusional bubble and sooner or later that bubble will burst. We were very good but to stay the best takes effort and money. Both of which we traded for political demigods and cheap trinket and oil from authoritarian regimes around the world to live our obese Wal-Mart fueled lives.
We want to be the best, but where will the brain and money that are needed for such endeavor come from? Certainly not from the flag lapel wearing politicians that caters to the money worshiping financial and legal sectors while neglecting the egalitarian nature of a strong domestic manufacturing base.
So, no being first in the world doesnt' matter to us anymore, as long if we think we're number one that's what counts.
That's very adolescent of of you to dismiss someone else's idea as adolescent rant while offering nothing of substance except support for status quo. Our system is broken. In addition to our military industrial complex, we also have a prison industrial complex, public sector union mafia, and the new kid on the block, private school public student loan pyramid scheme.
I heard Lawrence Lessig's keynote at SCALE 12X and he sounded like a pragmatic guy. During the typical after talk Q&A session when idealogical can lean a bit to the extremes, politely he kept to his believes and reminded everyone that our system is corrupt, not necessarily the politicians and that we've came a long way since the days where congressmen have safes in their capital office for the random bags of money that just appears.
I am fairly cynical of our entire political process, however I have donated to the Mayday's first round of funding and now I am contemplating selling some of my treasured 2A relics to help fund the second round. As much as I cling to my 2A relics, it's an illusion of power that keep us fat and lazy, sitting comfortably in our homes looking for that next purchase. At least Lessig is doing something to reform our corrupt and inept political system, that far more than anything accomplished with 2A relics in modern time.
I don't know if he will be successful or not, but at least he has a history of advancing our civl liberty causes and MAYDAY, despite the long odds, is one of the better ideas available today.
Guns make you fat and lazy. Just look at the NRA. Decades of advocating the protection of 2A as a mean to protect our collective freedom, yet we have two administration worth of torture, rendition, mass surveillance, and drone strikes, while the NRA grew old and fat. Still yelling the same old crap while our guns rust away in the safe.
Anyway, I donated my half case worth the 62gr .223. If this works, I'm selling my AR/HK/Sigs. If it takes money to buy our freedom back, rather than with guns, so be it!
I hear Lessig's keynote during SCALE 12X. More importantly, I heard his answer during the pubic Q&A. He seems like a pragmatic, hard working guys who lives in the real world.
Dumping $2.6 million worth of editable food when there are people starving is shocking to most of us. Yet, this is a reflection of our current law suit happy society.
Most of us has very little to loose and most food banks has very little to loose so our local food bank gladly take in our donated food items and we happily go on with our lives do what we can for people who are starving, one canned food at a time. Also, I've volunteered at the local food banks and base on what I've seen, Costco peanut butter is probably an upgrade to the various expired high fructose laden supermarket rejects.
Life is very different for our newly anointed fellow big corporate beings. In their billion dollar world, with their million dollar lawyers, somewhere, somehow, the meaning of starving people became irrelevant. After all, corporations do not understand the physical pain of starvation.
You too? I thought I'm the only idiot in the room. . . .
Lenovo again? First you took my Thinkpad now my Moto X.
I guess the "Don't be Evil" Google is long dead. The principled stand of exiting from the Chinese market, followed by assembling the Moto X in the US, then selling Motorola to Lenovo? ? ? WTF, Google.
Yes, US is guilty of everything you listed. We can talk about all the past and present failed US policies. We can openly criticize the policies. For those of us who live in the US, we can even openly organize to remove the politicians in questions. That is the difference between democratic nations and authoritarian countries.
Like the old saying, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." US has certainly slipped but it is still far ahead of China is terms of basic civil rights for all.
Um, Veganism is about minimizing cruelty and suffering. Vegetarianism is just a form of diet. I know plenty of vegetarian with leather handbags and leather upholstered car interiors.
I do eat meat but I am a bit uncomfortable with the whole classifying living things into how complex they are according to human definitions. It goes without saying, life is essential to every living being regardless of their CNS complexity. Just because something doesn't feel what humans perceive to "pain" does not mean that they do not feel "pain." Everyday we learn something new about our environment and our fellow Earth cohabitants. The old thinking that crustaceans do not feel pain is being dispelled by new research data.
I usually store my nexus 7 into the thigh pockets of my cargo pants. It's fairly secure, especially in pockets large enough to button up. Fairly inexpensive and unobtrusive. The weight of the nexus 7 is held very close to the body so I really don't feel the extra mass, unlike putting it in a oversize jacket pocket.
Snowden was a hero for exposing domestic spying of American by NSA. However, by disclosing US spying on foreign governments, Snowden has crossed the line.
Disclosing anything related to foreign affairs short of atrocities that involve the lost of innocent lives is treasonous. By claiming US hacking of foreign networks and now the disclosure on UK spying, Snowden is hurting his own credibility as a whistleblower which will damage the current push to hold NSA accountable for domestic spying.
Whatever fault and atrocity US may have committed, anyone in the world is free to criticize and any US resident is free to discuss and lobby for change. The same cannot be said for China and that is fundamental difference between China and the rest of the free world.
I disagree strong with the Patriot Act, the use of torture and the Iraq War, but even I know that those actions pale in comparison to the tens of millions if not hundred of millions of Chinese that perished in the last 50 years due to the ineptness of an authoritarian regime.
While China certainly has achieve spectacular economic growth in the last 50 years, but I would argue that the US civil rights movement that continues today has far more importance than avoiding starvation.
I am kind of the IT person in a small company with about 20 users and I switched everyone over to OpenOffice 4 or 5 years ago and we have never looked back. OO has certainly came a long way since we started using it. There's a few access programs we use to run reports that I haven't been able to convert to postgresql, but I only need on copy of MS office running on the W2K server and that pretty much solved our report generation.
With the money we saved from using open office and the various linux email/web/sql servers, I managed to upgrade everyone to dual 20" screen desktops. The hylafax fax server I installed almost 10 years ago is still running today. Nothing MS made ever lasted that long, because like it or not you're forced to upgrade every few years.
BTW, I stay away from any external web based application because we simply do not have enough bandwidth to handle the traffic volume. As much as I like gmail, it's a lot faster to send a 3mb email attachment to an email server on the dmz. We're still limited by the T1 bandwidth, but at least I am free to do other tasks instead of waiting for the attachment to upload.
Reducing the role of Thomas Jefferson? Why? He's one of my favorite founding father. The person who writes so eloquently about freedom and dares to question the validity of God by cutting and pasting his own version of the bible. Yet, he still chooses to keep slave and may have even father children with slaves. To me, Thomas Jefferson personifies the constant struggle we all have between liberty and financial reality.
Our society is best served when we base our laws and actions on our collective logic and reason. What ever flaws DOE or any other government bureaucracy has is infinitely better than having our laws decided base on a illogical text supposedly written by God but in reality is written by men masquerading as God. The social conservative can't win their arguments base on science or logic so now they are trying to subvert our nation with politics staring with our children. I am ashamed to be a registered Republican. Damn, when they said small fiscally responsible government I didn't know the plan was to save money by moving city hall to the local christian churches and hand everyone a bible as an all purpose first aid kit, universal text book, and life's decision maker. . . . .
I was on the privatization wagon until GWB started to "privatize" our armed forces
GWB didn't privatize the armed forces. Contractors were used to fill the roles that DoD lacked the manpower to fill because of the post Cold War draw down of the American military. The proper thing to do would have been to institute a military draft to provide DoD with the required manpower. The downside to this is that we'd have to justify our foreign policy to the American people and nobody on either side of the aisle wants to do that....
I lean toward the draft. Let the politicians justify their decision to the American people and we should all get a chance to shoulder the responsibility of our country going to war beside shopping at the local air conditioned malls. Put everyone on reserve status.
I don't care for the private contractors because I don't see why Blackwater should be paid a premium to do what normal American solders do everyday and I don't see why Haliburton should make a profit for doing what normal American solders used to do.
FedEx/UPS on the other hand discriminate base on your shipping volume and profitability.
Why is this a bad thing? If you mail one package a year and ask them to come to your location to pick it up it doubtless costs them more than someone who regularly mails packages.
That depends on if you view postal service as a public service or private service. I view it as a public service and as a public service it should treat everyone roughly the same. Image if you are a farmer in rural American and has to pay "market" price every time you want send in your utility payment.
Or, imaging waiting in that long postal office line only to have people walk in and constantly cut in front of you because they are the "volume" shippers
There is a reason why USPS looses money year after year
Above market wages?
I am fairly cheap so I think most government workers are overpaid, including the USPS. But I think USPS looses money because they are a public service and cannot discriminate against the rural population.
Sometimes the special FedEx/UPS surcharges cost more then USPS's parcel rate for rural areas.
However, where else can you mail something for $0.44 to anywhere in the US
Why is that a good thing? If I walk into my post office and "mail" something to a PO box contained within that same post office it ought to cost less than mailing something to Alaska or Hawaii.
The good thing is that they treat everyone roughly the same.
I was on the privatization wagon until GWB started to "privatize" our armed forces and now BHO wants to "privatize" our space exploration. I love the USPS/FedEx/UPS comparison. The good thing about USPS is that they usually don't care who you are or how much you ship, you pretty much get the same overall treatment depending on the mood of their staff. FedEx/UPS on the other hand discriminate base on your shipping volume and profitability.
There is a reason why USPS looses money year after year, beside the typical government bureaucracy. However, where else can you mail something for $0.44 to anywhere in the US with no additional charge for Saturday delivery.
In our pursuit of ever cheaper crap most of us forgot that freedom is not free. . . . C'mon people. . . wake up!
China is not Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or even Singapore. It's not a free and democratic country and the last 10 years proved that we don't have a snowball chance in hell of either luring China toward democracy or contain China's brand of authoritarian capitalism. Combine our insatiable desire for imports and China's currency manipulation and we created our current financial meltdown. Sadly, the extraordinary efforts we made to save our economy ultimately benefited our biggest creditor, China. More bullet trains for China.
So here we are facing a downward financial and technological spiral and instead of looking to Germany or Japan for inspiration, our politicians want to frame every single political debate around religion or what they think the bible says. . . sad. . damn sad. .