who lowered his pay (to $1.00 IIRC) to help the company save money
Very noble gesture coming from a guy who already has enough money to live on for decades. Quite impressive. He'll probably get an honorable dinner, at company expense, just to award his good natured contribution to the company. The award may even include some special stock options that nobody else qualifies for.
Federal spending has increased at a rate opposite of free fall
It's an acceleration. I left my physics book at work but I think it's 9.8 m/s^2. I seem to remember there being a derivation based upon kinetic energy and momentum which placed a limit on the rate of a free falling object related to mass but the details escape me. Nevertheless if hell is infinitely hot then hell has infinite mass and infinite velocity or rate of movement. So, assuming that there's no cap on federal spending (which we seem to be trying to prove), then you're saying that federal spending, as it approaches infinity, is sending us all to hell?
what would happen, then, if we made the top 5% pay ALL of the tax burden?
The companies that are set up, with themselves at the top making salaries which account for the majority portion of the granted funding, would no longer need to be incorporated as non-profit.
There was just a story on the east coast about a number of non-profits milking government money. One such company had a contract that amounted to all of $2 million, and the purpose was to help mentally challenged people find jobs, and the CEO was paying himself a nice fat $400k/year for his generosity in helping those poor people receive the money the government had allocated for them. That's not counting his two VPs and any executive board they may have had. "Grab ahold everyone. This pork barrel is going for a roll."
That's not the exception. That's the rule. It's a pyramid scheme.
They have a bank account with bank of TAX. 60% of the money in the bank account belongs to them. The other 40% is money they've milked out of other people. Now tell me who actually gets to go make withdrawals. It's the top 5%. Sounds like things work out quite favorably for them. Nice pyramid scheme.
Any bets on how this $1.5 billion will actually filter down to the little guy?
The cost will be used to justify an increase in taxes and fees related to broadcasting. That will cause the cost of advertising on those broadcast channels to increase. That will cause the cost of products to increase.
The little guy will see a higher price on everything from peanut butter, to gasoline, to media. Likely insurance costs will go up, too, and investments from little guy investors will see a lower return.
I don't want to be cynical but, what with the sons and daughters of the ruling class not really needing to hold any job until they can be anointed to an executive position, it's probably easier for them to qualify for TV vouchers than people whose every child is slaving away at age 14. Who has more IRS income? I'd love to be rich and be able to support my offspring so that they can qualify as poor. What a scam.
At a very simplified level that's a perfect description of how it's done.
it is very doubtful that I should ever have the right to tell you that you cannot sell yourself into slavery
Should I sell myself into slavery and, at a later time decide that slavery sucks, should the federal government back the slaveowner in retaining me as a slave?
This isn't so much about you have the right to do. This is about what is done with the authority power created by taxpayer money. I agree that in the course of normal events maybe I can sell myself into slavery (though I personally disagree but I'm accepting it to get to the point). When it comes time to decide that slavery truly does suck, however, the law of the government does not empower them to aid the slaveowner.
Industry estimates show some $400 million was invested in open-source startups in 2005
All $400 million? That's enough to buy Bill Gates' lunch, maybe, if he's eating light that day.
The market is still dubious about open source and for good reason. The big players, the ones pushing around 400 billion dollars, still control the legal avenues and we've seen that the legal avenues are being used in many ways to hedge out the OSS players. If $400 million in VC was invested in OSS startups then it really was venture capital in the truest sense of the term.
I'm happy to see OSS getting a foot in the door but I'm not going to break out the champagne and glasses until we see some real reform on both the business and political fronts.
Printer friendly mode has been a staple of existence for many years. I'm actually surprised that it was adopted so readily rather than inisting on forcing more ads on users.
Writing more words about it isn't going to improve your plan. The fact still remains that increasing the size of government is not the best solution to the problem. Any systems which have compromised the other three branches would very quickly compromise any new branch. Money, power, greed. Look at the newly created Office of Homeland Security. Just what do they do now that we didn't do before, and how much is this costing us?
That's actually a really good response except you responded to the metaphor. Everyone knows that, once a governmental arm has been created, it never goes away and only gets larger.
There would be no spontaneous 14 million line code removal from the government should you get another branch of oversight.
And you removed 14 million lions of code from a 15 million line base with a 1000 line widget set? What is this, static vs. dynamic library linking? How does that relate to government again?
How about we turn that around? The US government is supposed to work in a means that is as transparent as possible to the American people, as it should be. If they've got nothing to hide, they can quit taking so damn many of their actions in secret.
I'm sure they'll be in contact with you shortly to explain their position on the matter.:)
Slashdot Mirror
There was just a story on the east coast about a number of non-profits milking government money. One such company had a contract that amounted to all of $2 million, and the purpose was to help mentally challenged people find jobs, and the CEO was paying himself a nice fat $400k/year for his generosity in helping those poor people receive the money the government had allocated for them. That's not counting his two VPs and any executive board they may have had. "Grab ahold everyone. This pork barrel is going for a roll."
That's not the exception. That's the rule. It's a pyramid scheme.
The little guy will see a higher price on everything from peanut butter, to gasoline, to media. Likely insurance costs will go up, too, and investments from little guy investors will see a lower return.
I don't want to be cynical but, what with the sons and daughters of the ruling class not really needing to hold any job until they can be anointed to an executive position, it's probably easier for them to qualify for TV vouchers than people whose every child is slaving away at age 14. Who has more IRS income? I'd love to be rich and be able to support my offspring so that they can qualify as poor. What a scam.
At a very simplified level that's a perfect description of how it's done.
Someone call the RIAA. Jefferson clearly stole Mason's lyrics without having obtained the proper copyrights.
This isn't so much about you have the right to do. This is about what is done with the authority power created by taxpayer money. I agree that in the course of normal events maybe I can sell myself into slavery (though I personally disagree but I'm accepting it to get to the point). When it comes time to decide that slavery truly does suck, however, the law of the government does not empower them to aid the slaveowner.
This is the sort of thing that would've been profitable to be in the correct social circles and invest in the company about 1-2 years ago.
Imagine the donations you could make to sf.net and debian.org after a windfall like that hits.
The market is still dubious about open source and for good reason. The big players, the ones pushing around 400 billion dollars, still control the legal avenues and we've seen that the legal avenues are being used in many ways to hedge out the OSS players. If $400 million in VC was invested in OSS startups then it really was venture capital in the truest sense of the term.
I'm happy to see OSS getting a foot in the door but I'm not going to break out the champagne and glasses until we see some real reform on both the business and political fronts.
Will this cut lawyer fees?
For as much funding and resources as MS has: when are we going to hear of an exploit identified by MS before someone else gets to it first?
For cripes' sakes. Don't these people bug-test their own code? I know I do.
UPnP proved to be the pinnacle of security in implementation...didn't it?
Printer friendly mode has been a staple of existence for many years. I'm actually surprised that it was adopted so readily rather than inisting on forcing more ads on users.
Hehe. It can't be THAT bad.
The rules made by the US dictate you
Where else can I go to drink beer and talk geek?
Writing more words about it isn't going to improve your plan. The fact still remains that increasing the size of government is not the best solution to the problem. Any systems which have compromised the other three branches would very quickly compromise any new branch. Money, power, greed. Look at the newly created Office of Homeland Security. Just what do they do now that we didn't do before, and how much is this costing us?
That's actually a really good response except you responded to the metaphor. Everyone knows that, once a governmental arm has been created, it never goes away and only gets larger.
There would be no spontaneous 14 million line code removal from the government should you get another branch of oversight.
And you removed 14 million lions of code from a 15 million line base with a 1000 line widget set? What is this, static vs. dynamic library linking? How does that relate to government again?
ZING!!!
That's so wrong. :)
Feeling defensive today?