The question is, which outcome will lead to a stable and prosperous society. Best evidence shows that humans decide whether they are prosperous based on their comparisons to their neighbors. The gap between the super wealthy and the very poor, therefor is the problem - especially as the middle and working classes continue to get poorer, while the very wealthy throw toga parties.
You did raise a false choice, based on some invalid conclusions. History has shown us that when the middle and lower classes prosper, so do the upper classes. That stands in stark contrast to the conditions that arise from an imbalance in the distribution of resources like the imbalance that exists today - hunger, homelessness - instability, violence. Check the news, we are solidly on our way.
I don't wish to live in a third world country, one like the state of things during the gilded age, with sweat shops and child labor. But that is where we are headed based on the evidence (high unemployment numbers, lower and decreasing median income numbers against inflation, low debt free homeownership, high personal debt rates, violent attacks on police and other random acts, etc.) of recent years - even before the economic problems of recent months (though that did accelerate already worsening problems).
The working and middle classes have been pretending to be prosperous, utilizing large amounts of credit card debt (that bubble is next to pop by the way), in addition to the obscene amount of housing debt they had been collecting. The reality is, they couldn't, and still can't afford to live that kind of life. The funny thing about credit - it's a loan, and it costs money. People were naive to believe that a loan or a credit card made them more wealthy.
More of the same is more of a shift in wealth to the already wealthy while the rest of us get poorer, and lose out homes (again, the evidence is clear here). The fix is easy enough, we just need to will to do it. Spread the wealth around (the opposite of what is happening now) through fairer compensation laws - no need for handouts. And we even have history to show us how well that works - take a look at the New Deal (a deal put in place to stave off socialism, not to encourage it - gotta get with the history!). More people prosper in that situation - including the very wealthy.
Also, I couldn't care less about their perceived money problems, just to express my actual anger at these people and their greedy entitlement mentalities.;-P
Also, also, I appreciate the moderate tone you took with your comments. We could use more of that. The yelling is not productive.:-)
Just to add, on the net, things do turn around.. eventually. For example, here on Slashdot, the comments used to drip freemarket talking points. Most of that has died off, and there is now a new sort of consensus around a role for government (still not well defined but getting there).
I'm hoping this is the last S.A.R.S., bird flu, swine flu meme that will really take hold, at least for a while. It's well passed silly to be this worked up over something like this - and it does look like this one isn't catching on quite like bird flu did.
Wordpress.com is software as a service. WordPress.org contains the source code - and anyone can setup a service to compete with Wordpress.com (or even host one in a machine locally, if their ISP allows that) - and they even let you integrate with their network.
I don't see what Wordpress is doing to be all that different from any company selling Linux programs.
Of course, there are other examples that demonstrate what RMS is concerned about with his statements - and I think it's important for business owners to be aware of the issues, and make wise decisions. That kind of wishful thinking didn't stop hordes of companies from helping build MS's empire though.
The market for hardcore games is still there, and always will be - we'll probably just define it a little more honestly than hardcore games - maybe young men's games, or something like that, and it will no longer dominate games media coverage.
I mean, GTA is a "hardcore game" and some even call it mature, which is like saying a Van Dam movie is mature. I can't say I agree to that.
I further predict that there will be a new market for more traditional kinds of games that really are mature. Movies went through this same kind of transition early on. We're a ways off in games yet though.
So should all government utilities only run at a profit? The point is, these things cost money, and someone has to pay for it. The question then, Is it cheaper (per user or if important enough, per captica) to use tax money instead of allowing a company to skim a profit (or bull doze a profit in the case of large American companies)?
If your questions about efficiency are only centered on turning a profit, then you are probably missing the point of a public utility.
Exactly, especially when the regulations are not beneficial. In the case though, TWC is looking for regs that harm their competition, and that they are ok with. The same goes for bailouts, which are a form of regulation. Real companies have never behaved as though they want real, fair markets with free access. They just want to win, and are happy to have that win handed to them by the government.
This should all be plainly obvious at this point, and anyone who thinks that mantra has any meaning beyond a marketing ploy to fool citizens into working against their own interests, well, there are some painful conclusions to draw about those people.
I agree with most of what you said. AS3.0 made things a lot more strict, without addressing the main problem with AS2 - all silent errors. They can still fix it, that strictness is useful for larger undertakings and library authors (the browsers are even adding it to JavaScript).
The fix, default the timeline (and maybe even the entire Flash IDE) to non-strict mode, and add in a slew of warnings instead of throwing application halting errors all over the place. Auto-type marshaling is great! As long as you get a warning to let you know where it happened (so you'll know where to look when you just traced undefined or null).
ECMAScript 3.1 was used because they decided to back off the goals of ECMAScript 4.0 - 3.1 more readily describes the renewed goals as being less ambitious, only an incremental improvement over 3.0. When it's done though, it will be a whole new version - fifth edition or ECMAScript 5.0.
The last line from TFA, "That's the proper role of standards." describes that. Standards standardize innovations that become common - usually some common set of incompatible implementations (hence the need for standardization). It's inappropriate to use standards in an attempt to innovate. The W3C learned that lesson with xhtml 2.0.
There are calculators online - the basic problem is that if you do something like add a 1 hour walk 3 times a week to your normal routine, those extra calories burned will be easily offset by eating just one extra donut that week. Which is especially easy since the walk will likely stimulate appetite.
In order to affect your calorie burn in a significant way, you will really need to change your entire life style - like trade a desk job for a construction job. That'll have a huge impact on your daily calorie burn as well as increase your metabolic rate.
Since most people are unwilling to do that, the only other solution is to reduce caloric intake. There's no way around it, no valid excuse anyone can come up with. If you want to lose weight, you have to take in fewer calories than you burn - that usually means skipping the donuts.
That's probably true.:-) I know a lot of people who struggle with their weight. The common problem they all exhibit is the unwillingness to connect the food they eat with their problem. Instead they come up with all the tired excuses. Step one is understanding and accepting the problem. Then you can see what might be contributing to the behavior. There are plenty of theories as to what is triggering the behavior of over eating.
The formula is the same though - calories in > calories burn = fat storage. It's that simple.
Obese people eat more calories than they burn. You might be able to come up with reasons why they do (perhaps microbial based reasons) - and therefor come up with ways to mitigate that behavior - the fact remains, they eat too many calories. Barring rare disease (exceedingly rare) that's the only explanation for their obesity.
Also, exercise has very little impact on weekly calorie burn relative to intake - though it is definitely good for the heart. Eating fewer calories than you burn is the only way to lose weight.
People aren't straight enough with this information, and come up with too much BS to sugar coat this. It's actually not that hard to understand.
You're right I over stressed that point with absolutes.:-) I also probably inappropriately brought voting machines into this (which I will maintain an absolute position on, because of the human incentives I mentioned, and because it's too important to allow those problematic machines in there). I'll try to tone down my hyperbola, good catch (I actually realized I forgot the mea culpa to address your original beef after I posted last - my bad).
I stand by my original position. I'll get into voting machines for a minute, because that's where the trouble is (in other systems, like ATM machines, enough people are incentivized to play fair, to hold those systems in balance).
There is zero way to verify that the code you just compiled is the same code that is showing up on the screen. It would even be possible to show you what you need to see to think you are compiling then running code, when in actuality it's a show. It would be a tremendous amount of work to fool someone knowledgeable, but it's possible - easier to fool a grunt.
There are just too many points of failure with voting machines in particular. The source code, who downloads it (verified? how?), compiles it (binary verfied? how?), installs it on the machines (verified to be running the same code they just compiled?) - how does that person know the visuals on the machine are from the code they just compiled, or is that code actually coming from another binary on a second hidden harddrive or ROM chip - is that the same software running an hour later? Who are we trusting here?
That's just the tip of possible vectors to get malicious code in a voting machine.
With Google's updater, there are fewer possible ways to get code in there, and maybe you can verify that you are running something you yourself compiled (on WIndows, can you? can you on Linux?) - in this case though, there are in my humble opinion fewer reasons for Google to cheat here - I'm not saying they can't be trusted. I'm pointing out that open the source to your proprietary built software, doesn't mean you haven't mixed something in hoping no one will notice before distribution of binaries. And just because you have the source with thousands or millions of lines of code, does not mean it has been peer reviewed, or that those peers have caught something malicious that might be in there.
My main point - having the source code should not make people feel as rosy as it seem to make them feel. It's better than nothing, but it's not the security blanket people think it is./stream of thought - this probably sounds more conspiratorial than I intend it - I don't think everyone is out to get everyone else (except maybe with voting machines;-). I think there's a risk there and we should understand what it is.
I don't have the time to read this thoroughly, but I'll respond the "government let's it" talking point. The problem is, the market does lead to consolidated ownership, in a mature market. That's how that works - the example you give with the phone company - the monopoly was not given to the phone company, they won the market, then the government had to decide which tool to use to deal with the situation. In that case, they chose to regulate, and created a utility. It wasn't until after that company owned the market that government let them have it.
It works like this:
1. Government investment in research/technology/science leads to new opportunity. The internet and computer industries were both born this way. The resurgence of the American car industry after WWII was largely a result of this kind of thing too - and the airline industry.
2. Out of that opportunity, an industry is born. At this point, less regulation is better, because there tends to be quite a bit of competition to hold things in check (fair rules and enforcement still apply however). Most of the many markets on the net are at this point, though some are headed toward consolidation (very early stages).
3. Industry matures, when one or a few players dominate the market, and things break down (higher prices, falling quality). At this point, there tends to need to be some government intervention - breaking up large companies to create competition again (this is temporary, as we saw in recent decades with the telcos, as they all consolidated right up, and carved and divvied the nation into regional monopolies) or regulate, if the mature industry has provided essential infrastructure (the internet, phones, roads, police, power etc.), or simply poses a risk to the rest of the economy (more than just it's own industry, or possibly even then) - AIG is the example there.
I agree with most of the second part of your post, but can't help but read that and think, "Well great, but that's not the free market!" That's just the plain old mixed market. The labels are probably not as important though - I'm sure we'll end up with something new in the U.S. - something that looks like one of the other mixed markets, but not quite exactly the same (and probably free market leaning - hopefully only where appropriate). It seems that's kind of what we've been doing for the last 80 years or so anyway, before the ideologs took over for the last few decades.
That is likely to have more verifiable results - but consider whether you can still be 100% sure you are not running something untrusted.. do you audit all the code you build?
At some level you have to trust your vendors, whether it's for binary or source distribution. That's just how it is. Of course that explains why you should not ever use electronic voting machines - since that system can't be trusted, ever. But that's a different issue.:-)
The question is what percentage of total cars sold are from the same class as the Chevy Malibus. Afaik, most of the new cars being sold are sub-compacts. None of the American Car companies, have much in that range, and they certainly don't have anything that competes either on features with price points. The American car companies are simply not competitive in the largest market segment.
It's worth noting, that those cars are not getting the cutting edge green technology either. and more Japanese cars are made in the U.S. than American cars anyway. That last one is hard to get passed. Support the companies that broke the back of labor? It doesn't feel right.
The problem with those growth studies, is that it always seems that the "growth" is always concentrated to the upper end of the economic scales. I don't live their and don't care about their prosperity - and I suspect a growing number of other working Americans are starting to notice the same thing. So the "growth" proponents are really going to have to come up with something new to sell.
I do agree that traditional "trickle down" bailout programs that propped up these auto makers in the 80s have propped them up in a position that does not help them become competitive, and the proof is in the pudding - if these American car companies want me to buy American, they had better make a better car than I can get for the money from an American built Japanese car company.
This is the same problem with voting machines. Google has release source codes they claim they used to create the code running on your machine. There is no way to verify that, so this is not reassuring in the slightest, unless you don't know how software works. I think it's great that Google did this, and I have no reason to cite to distrust their intentions here - but this is false assurance at it's best.
I think GP should have said the natural consequence of capitalism, is that it easily lends itself to abuse in the end. Once a few or a single company owns a market, there are no market forces keeping them in check. The free market doesn't account for that scenario, despite desperately repeated talking points. So yeah, capitalism doesn't own corruption, but without some kind of system of fair rules, coupled with enforcement, it does lend itself to corruption quite easily.
I'll also note that capitalism does some things quite a bit more efficiently (and therefor maybe better) than the other economic systems - but each economic system, like each political system, has it's benefits, and I don't see why we constantly feel the need to apply one system to everything in an ideologically pure way.
These systems are human social machines - tools we can use to gain a benefit. Why don't we use the appropriate tool where they are needed. When the market based system stops working well, that's when it's time to either hit the reset button (break up the cartels and monopolies - refineries and energy companies come to mind here), or to regulate them (in the case of vital infrastructure, like roads, police, healthcare or the internet).
I just don't get the ideological reverence some hold for a particular tool over another.
Answer: Large companies suck at innovating (aside from occasionally optimization), so instead they "compete" by changing the rules (lobbying the government, or in this case rerouting the local toll roads). They should just compete and provide a better product - they have enough money, so that can't be the problem. They don't though, so they just change the rules.
I don't know why so many people seem to prefer to prop up gigantic businesses rather than helping small innovative ones, as far as their voting choices go.
Slashdot Mirror
The question is, which outcome will lead to a stable and prosperous society. Best evidence shows that humans decide whether they are prosperous based on their comparisons to their neighbors. The gap between the super wealthy and the very poor, therefor is the problem - especially as the middle and working classes continue to get poorer, while the very wealthy throw toga parties.
You did raise a false choice, based on some invalid conclusions. History has shown us that when the middle and lower classes prosper, so do the upper classes. That stands in stark contrast to the conditions that arise from an imbalance in the distribution of resources like the imbalance that exists today - hunger, homelessness - instability, violence. Check the news, we are solidly on our way.
I don't wish to live in a third world country, one like the state of things during the gilded age, with sweat shops and child labor. But that is where we are headed based on the evidence (high unemployment numbers, lower and decreasing median income numbers against inflation, low debt free homeownership, high personal debt rates, violent attacks on police and other random acts, etc.) of recent years - even before the economic problems of recent months (though that did accelerate already worsening problems).
The working and middle classes have been pretending to be prosperous, utilizing large amounts of credit card debt (that bubble is next to pop by the way), in addition to the obscene amount of housing debt they had been collecting. The reality is, they couldn't, and still can't afford to live that kind of life. The funny thing about credit - it's a loan, and it costs money. People were naive to believe that a loan or a credit card made them more wealthy.
More of the same is more of a shift in wealth to the already wealthy while the rest of us get poorer, and lose out homes (again, the evidence is clear here). The fix is easy enough, we just need to will to do it. Spread the wealth around (the opposite of what is happening now) through fairer compensation laws - no need for handouts. And we even have history to show us how well that works - take a look at the New Deal (a deal put in place to stave off socialism, not to encourage it - gotta get with the history!). More people prosper in that situation - including the very wealthy.
Also, I couldn't care less about their perceived money problems, just to express my actual anger at these people and their greedy entitlement mentalities. ;-P
Also, also, I appreciate the moderate tone you took with your comments. We could use more of that. The yelling is not productive. :-)
Doh! I didn't log in first...
Just to add, on the net, things do turn around.. eventually. For example, here on Slashdot, the comments used to drip freemarket talking points. Most of that has died off, and there is now a new sort of consensus around a role for government (still not well defined but getting there).
I'm hoping this is the last S.A.R.S., bird flu, swine flu meme that will really take hold, at least for a while. It's well passed silly to be this worked up over something like this - and it does look like this one isn't catching on quite like bird flu did.
Wordpress.com is software as a service. WordPress.org contains the source code - and anyone can setup a service to compete with Wordpress.com (or even host one in a machine locally, if their ISP allows that) - and they even let you integrate with their network.
I don't see what Wordpress is doing to be all that different from any company selling Linux programs.
Of course, there are other examples that demonstrate what RMS is concerned about with his statements - and I think it's important for business owners to be aware of the issues, and make wise decisions. That kind of wishful thinking didn't stop hordes of companies from helping build MS's empire though.
The market for hardcore games is still there, and always will be - we'll probably just define it a little more honestly than hardcore games - maybe young men's games, or something like that, and it will no longer dominate games media coverage.
I mean, GTA is a "hardcore game" and some even call it mature, which is like saying a Van Dam movie is mature. I can't say I agree to that.
I further predict that there will be a new market for more traditional kinds of games that really are mature. Movies went through this same kind of transition early on. We're a ways off in games yet though.
I thought it was cheezy and overdone.
So should all government utilities only run at a profit? The point is, these things cost money, and someone has to pay for it. The question then, Is it cheaper (per user or if important enough, per captica) to use tax money instead of allowing a company to skim a profit (or bull doze a profit in the case of large American companies)?
If your questions about efficiency are only centered on turning a profit, then you are probably missing the point of a public utility.
Exactly, especially when the regulations are not beneficial. In the case though, TWC is looking for regs that harm their competition, and that they are ok with. The same goes for bailouts, which are a form of regulation. Real companies have never behaved as though they want real, fair markets with free access. They just want to win, and are happy to have that win handed to them by the government.
This should all be plainly obvious at this point, and anyone who thinks that mantra has any meaning beyond a marketing ploy to fool citizens into working against their own interests, well, there are some painful conclusions to draw about those people.
But Flash can pump massive amounts of data to a bitmap surface!
http://blog.joa-ebert.com/2009/04/03/massive-amounts-of-3d-particles-without-alchemy-and-pixelbender/
http://unitzeroone.com/labs/alchemyLookupTable/
If only the default authoring tools where more efficient..
I agree with most of what you said. AS3.0 made things a lot more strict, without addressing the main problem with AS2 - all silent errors. They can still fix it, that strictness is useful for larger undertakings and library authors (the browsers are even adding it to JavaScript).
The fix, default the timeline (and maybe even the entire Flash IDE) to non-strict mode, and add in a slew of warnings instead of throwing application halting errors all over the place. Auto-type marshaling is great! As long as you get a warning to let you know where it happened (so you'll know where to look when you just traced undefined or null).
ECMAScript 3.1 was used because they decided to back off the goals of ECMAScript 4.0 - 3.1 more readily describes the renewed goals as being less ambitious, only an incremental improvement over 3.0. When it's done though, it will be a whole new version - fifth edition or ECMAScript 5.0.
That's my understanding at least. :-)
The last line from TFA, "That's the proper role of standards." describes that. Standards standardize innovations that become common - usually some common set of incompatible implementations (hence the need for standardization). It's inappropriate to use standards in an attempt to innovate. The W3C learned that lesson with xhtml 2.0.
There are calculators online - the basic problem is that if you do something like add a 1 hour walk 3 times a week to your normal routine, those extra calories burned will be easily offset by eating just one extra donut that week. Which is especially easy since the walk will likely stimulate appetite.
In order to affect your calorie burn in a significant way, you will really need to change your entire life style - like trade a desk job for a construction job. That'll have a huge impact on your daily calorie burn as well as increase your metabolic rate.
Since most people are unwilling to do that, the only other solution is to reduce caloric intake. There's no way around it, no valid excuse anyone can come up with. If you want to lose weight, you have to take in fewer calories than you burn - that usually means skipping the donuts.
That's probably true. :-) I know a lot of people who struggle with their weight. The common problem they all exhibit is the unwillingness to connect the food they eat with their problem. Instead they come up with all the tired excuses. Step one is understanding and accepting the problem. Then you can see what might be contributing to the behavior. There are plenty of theories as to what is triggering the behavior of over eating.
The formula is the same though - calories in > calories burn = fat storage. It's that simple.
Obese people eat more calories than they burn. You might be able to come up with reasons why they do (perhaps microbial based reasons) - and therefor come up with ways to mitigate that behavior - the fact remains, they eat too many calories. Barring rare disease (exceedingly rare) that's the only explanation for their obesity.
Also, exercise has very little impact on weekly calorie burn relative to intake - though it is definitely good for the heart. Eating fewer calories than you burn is the only way to lose weight.
People aren't straight enough with this information, and come up with too much BS to sugar coat this. It's actually not that hard to understand.
You're right I over stressed that point with absolutes. :-) I also probably inappropriately brought voting machines into this (which I will maintain an absolute position on, because of the human incentives I mentioned, and because it's too important to allow those problematic machines in there). I'll try to tone down my hyperbola, good catch (I actually realized I forgot the mea culpa to address your original beef after I posted last - my bad).
I stand by my original position. I'll get into voting machines for a minute, because that's where the trouble is (in other systems, like ATM machines, enough people are incentivized to play fair, to hold those systems in balance).
There is zero way to verify that the code you just compiled is the same code that is showing up on the screen. It would even be possible to show you what you need to see to think you are compiling then running code, when in actuality it's a show. It would be a tremendous amount of work to fool someone knowledgeable, but it's possible - easier to fool a grunt.
There are just too many points of failure with voting machines in particular. The source code, who downloads it (verified? how?), compiles it (binary verfied? how?), installs it on the machines (verified to be running the same code they just compiled?) - how does that person know the visuals on the machine are from the code they just compiled, or is that code actually coming from another binary on a second hidden harddrive or ROM chip - is that the same software running an hour later? Who are we trusting here?
That's just the tip of possible vectors to get malicious code in a voting machine.
With Google's updater, there are fewer possible ways to get code in there, and maybe you can verify that you are running something you yourself compiled (on WIndows, can you? can you on Linux?) - in this case though, there are in my humble opinion fewer reasons for Google to cheat here - I'm not saying they can't be trusted. I'm pointing out that open the source to your proprietary built software, doesn't mean you haven't mixed something in hoping no one will notice before distribution of binaries. And just because you have the source with thousands or millions of lines of code, does not mean it has been peer reviewed, or that those peers have caught something malicious that might be in there.
My main point - having the source code should not make people feel as rosy as it seem to make them feel. It's better than nothing, but it's not the security blanket people think it is. /stream of thought - this probably sounds more conspiratorial than I intend it - I don't think everyone is out to get everyone else (except maybe with voting machines ;-). I think there's a risk there and we should understand what it is.
I don't have the time to read this thoroughly, but I'll respond the "government let's it" talking point. The problem is, the market does lead to consolidated ownership, in a mature market. That's how that works - the example you give with the phone company - the monopoly was not given to the phone company, they won the market, then the government had to decide which tool to use to deal with the situation. In that case, they chose to regulate, and created a utility. It wasn't until after that company owned the market that government let them have it.
It works like this:
1. Government investment in research/technology/science leads to new opportunity. The internet and computer industries were both born this way. The resurgence of the American car industry after WWII was largely a result of this kind of thing too - and the airline industry.
2. Out of that opportunity, an industry is born. At this point, less regulation is better, because there tends to be quite a bit of competition to hold things in check (fair rules and enforcement still apply however). Most of the many markets on the net are at this point, though some are headed toward consolidation (very early stages).
3. Industry matures, when one or a few players dominate the market, and things break down (higher prices, falling quality). At this point, there tends to need to be some government intervention - breaking up large companies to create competition again (this is temporary, as we saw in recent decades with the telcos, as they all consolidated right up, and carved and divvied the nation into regional monopolies) or regulate, if the mature industry has provided essential infrastructure (the internet, phones, roads, police, power etc.), or simply poses a risk to the rest of the economy (more than just it's own industry, or possibly even then) - AIG is the example there.
I agree with most of the second part of your post, but can't help but read that and think, "Well great, but that's not the free market!" That's just the plain old mixed market. The labels are probably not as important though - I'm sure we'll end up with something new in the U.S. - something that looks like one of the other mixed markets, but not quite exactly the same (and probably free market leaning - hopefully only where appropriate). It seems that's kind of what we've been doing for the last 80 years or so anyway, before the ideologs took over for the last few decades.
I totally agree. I used "trickle down" there hopefully to noodle anyone who still buys that bill of goods. :-)
That is likely to have more verifiable results - but consider whether you can still be 100% sure you are not running something untrusted .. do you audit all the code you build?
At some level you have to trust your vendors, whether it's for binary or source distribution. That's just how it is. Of course that explains why you should not ever use electronic voting machines - since that system can't be trusted, ever. But that's a different issue. :-)
The question is what percentage of total cars sold are from the same class as the Chevy Malibus. Afaik, most of the new cars being sold are sub-compacts. None of the American Car companies, have much in that range, and they certainly don't have anything that competes either on features with price points. The American car companies are simply not competitive in the largest market segment.
It's worth noting, that those cars are not getting the cutting edge green technology either. and more Japanese cars are made in the U.S. than American cars anyway. That last one is hard to get passed. Support the companies that broke the back of labor? It doesn't feel right.
The problem with those growth studies, is that it always seems that the "growth" is always concentrated to the upper end of the economic scales. I don't live their and don't care about their prosperity - and I suspect a growing number of other working Americans are starting to notice the same thing. So the "growth" proponents are really going to have to come up with something new to sell.
I do agree that traditional "trickle down" bailout programs that propped up these auto makers in the 80s have propped them up in a position that does not help them become competitive, and the proof is in the pudding - if these American car companies want me to buy American, they had better make a better car than I can get for the money from an American built Japanese car company.
This is the same problem with voting machines. Google has release source codes they claim they used to create the code running on your machine. There is no way to verify that, so this is not reassuring in the slightest, unless you don't know how software works. I think it's great that Google did this, and I have no reason to cite to distrust their intentions here - but this is false assurance at it's best.
I think GP should have said the natural consequence of capitalism, is that it easily lends itself to abuse in the end. Once a few or a single company owns a market, there are no market forces keeping them in check. The free market doesn't account for that scenario, despite desperately repeated talking points. So yeah, capitalism doesn't own corruption, but without some kind of system of fair rules, coupled with enforcement, it does lend itself to corruption quite easily.
I'll also note that capitalism does some things quite a bit more efficiently (and therefor maybe better) than the other economic systems - but each economic system, like each political system, has it's benefits, and I don't see why we constantly feel the need to apply one system to everything in an ideologically pure way.
These systems are human social machines - tools we can use to gain a benefit. Why don't we use the appropriate tool where they are needed. When the market based system stops working well, that's when it's time to either hit the reset button (break up the cartels and monopolies - refineries and energy companies come to mind here), or to regulate them (in the case of vital infrastructure, like roads, police, healthcare or the internet).
I just don't get the ideological reverence some hold for a particular tool over another.
Answer: Large companies suck at innovating (aside from occasionally optimization), so instead they "compete" by changing the rules (lobbying the government, or in this case rerouting the local toll roads). They should just compete and provide a better product - they have enough money, so that can't be the problem. They don't though, so they just change the rules.
I don't know why so many people seem to prefer to prop up gigantic businesses rather than helping small innovative ones, as far as their voting choices go.