God forbid any company would actually contribute taxes to the infrastructure of the countries in which they operate. I mean, that would just make too much sense.
Do you go to the most expensive store that sells what you want or the cheapest? Corporate execs and directors first responsibility is to make money for the shareholders. If moving from Ireland to Singapore supports that mission, they'd be committing malpractice if they didn't make the move.
Sure, it's nice to celebrate philosophies of altruism where economics come far later than the "greater good." However, that's not how the world works. People in general will always look out for their own self-interest. So, the best approach will take that into account.
Ireland doesn't want to raise it's taxes. The rest of the EU wants them to so that they don't have to compete against Ireland for business. So, in this case, government is taking the position of a trust attempting to fix prices (tax rates). It's not good when corporations collude to fix prices and it's not good when governments do it either.
And, if Ireland wasn't wasting money bailing out the banks, they'd have plenty of revenue to cover the costs of their social infrastructure. Not letting rich bankers eat the shit cake that they baked is what has caused Ireland's problems.
Furthermore, those who are first in possession of the new money have a huge advantage: the market has yet to be affected by it, so they can use it to purchase lots of goods at uninflated prices. By the time the new money gets to Joe Sixpack in the form of a necessary wage increase to keep up with inflation, the new equilibrium is all but settled and he ends up about where he was before.
It's much more complicated than that...
The "rich" that have the money first tend to purchase higher end goods than Joe Sixpack, once basic economic needs are covered. Those higher end goods are cars with advanced technologies, high-end appliances and electronics and other similar things that are beyond the purchasing capacity of average people.
So, effectively, that extra money is going into the R&D of technologies that improve the standard of living. It creates the markets that allow those technologies to be developed that would not otherwise exist without people with excess capital available. And, over time, manufacturers of that technology improve their production processes, which tends to drive the costs down making it more affordable for general consumption.
So, it may be generally true, in terms of relative purchasing capacity, that those at the Joe Sixpack level never seem to grow to a higher level. However, it's an extremely narrow view to claim that their standard of living is not improving. The amount of technology available to today's middle and lower classes that makes their lives better is, on the aggregate, better than what the richest people in the world could purchase 30-40 years ago.
If all we do is compare current living conditions, the "rich" will always look better off. However, if we look at it from a more holistic perspective, today's "rich" people and their expensive toys are improving, even if it is unintended, the standard of living for society as a whole.
I'm not arguing for or against the money system and it's derivative effects here. All I'm doing is making the case for why society needs "rich" people. They have the capital to waste exploring new, risky ideas that would not otherwise be available to improve the collective standard of living.
You don't even see the gas prices of the Autobahn gas stations until you exit the Autobahn because advertising is strictly prohibited.
You also have to keep your car properly maintained and actually demonstrate you have the skills necessary to be driving on the road. Without those first, banning road-side advertising or any other number of specific distractions is doing little more than lip service to the real problem. American's don't keep their cars properly maintained and they definitely don't know how to drive. Until we get real, European style testing for drivers, our roads will be full of idiots wielding deadly weapons.
Although I disagree with LaHood on this one, your comment is fallacious. He is attempting to protect me from people who lack the skill to do two things at once.
You actually touched on the real issue with highway safety in the US... skill.
We let almost anyone with a heartbeat have a driver's license. There may be some states with decent requirements, but where I'm at, the entire testing process is a complete joke. All you have to do is drive around some cones in a parking lot. That's it...
If the US implemented similar training and testing requirements to what they have in Europe, the highway fatality rates would plunge. Of course, any common sense solution is destined to fail to be implemented in the US political system. We prefer actions that aren't that significant in the grand scheme of things, but give the politicians the opportunity to claim they're fixing the problems.
And so, we have 55 mph speed limits on 6 lane wide interstate highways, red light cameras that increase the number of accidents at intersections in which they are installed and arguments for cell phone jammers. All the while, our real problem is that few people have the skills that they should have to be on the road safely to begin with...
Good luck inspecting your own food before buying it. I guess you can just have your family sue the grocery store after you die of food poisoning, or maybe we'll just rely on word-of-mouth getting around and the grocery store selling tainted meat going out of business after a few hundred people die.
Well, we could just put anyone that sells tainted food that causes death in prison for involuntary manslaughter since it would be their negligence that caused it...
Of course, that's not as good as our current regulated system where no one ever dies or gets sick from the food supply since it's inspected, right? Regulating things always insures that they are done properly. I bet no one could name an instance where regulation failed... and if they can, it can only be because we need more regulations.
I don't know why we'd want to fire loads of useless bureaucrats and implement a simple rule like, "If you do ANYTHING that causes undue harm to another person or their property, you face serious criminal charges." It's much better that we continue trying to keep the system patched for every possible loophole, rather than implementing a simple rule that allows a judge and jury to look at the facts and punish people that, under the current regulated system, get out of doing time on technicalities because they can afford the right lawyers.
We need more regulations... not some common sense system that can't be gamed by the guys with the most bucks...
I don't get the arguments about how the Chinese will always lag in these threads, how they're slow, how they don't know how to do anything well enough, that they make crap. I'm actually old enough to remember the exact same arguments said about the Japanese. I was a kid, but I did hear it from my parents, especially when I was told about build quality. Then the 1980s happened. Then Chrysler had to be bailed out by Ronald Reagan, and suddenly Japanese cars and electronics were what everyone wanted.
And, then the 90's happened and the Japanese economy still hasn't recovered...
We're in a world economy. Sure, the US has had years of being on top. It's not going to stay there, though. But, it's not going to be the Japanese or Chinese or Indians or whatever that's going to take over. We're moving to a much more distributed world economy.
No single nation is going to dominate. The US is going to be knocked off it's perch by the world, not any individual nation. And none of them will dominate for the exact same reasons.
There would still be a huge bureaucracy because that is an enormous amount of money to distribute and enormous incentives for cheating.
Yes, but it does put the bureaucracy in one single department that already exists... the IRS. As much as I hate that, it's better than the huge number of agencies that exist today.
Good luck paying for that scheme in a country of 300,000,000 with an influx of poor people coming in every day.
Actually, that idea was strongly advocated by Milton Friedman, who could hardly be called socialist. While the GP is a bit optimistic about the effects that it would have had, by getting rid of the bureaucracies that exist to "aid the poor" and just giving the money to them directly, we could accomplish much more with a smaller government. It's a system that stream-lines the distribution of aid as well as encourages people to work and be productive, since you're required to file a tax return to get the money.
Would it be utopia? Certainly not. But, I'd take a negative tax any day over a huge bureaucracy with a vested interest in keeping the status quo.
This argument always conveniently ignores that the big corporations would not exist if the government was not involved in the market. The government created the corporations. If it wasn't for the government, it would just be people that were actually liable for their actions.
That's so stupid it makes my hair hurt. Governments aren't what creates or sustains corporate entities - profits do. Every government in the world could disappear tomorrow, and you'd still have big banks, big energy companies, big health care companies, and Blackwater.
Wow, you sure have the blinders on...
Government laws are the only reason there is such a thing as a corporation. You can take all the money in the world, and you can't create a non-person entity that has the power of a corporation without the government defining that sort of entity. You can have businesses, but you can't have corporations.
If you can't recognize that there is no natural entity called a corporation and they only exist because government has defined them, I understand why your hair hurts...
The Interior Department was the most corrupt department (that we know of) during the Bush/Cheney administration. It was the main feeding grounds for Jack Abramoff, centered on using Indian tribes to grab casino industry money. It was the Interior Department's MMS office that traded favors to oil corps for coke and hookers, then let BP drill the Gulf despite its obvious contempt for safety, and let it slide through the resulting Macondo Well blowout through this Summer.
"Most corrupt department" was the hardest fought competition this whole decade, and it's clearly continued even after Bush/Cheney left. I am not at all surprised that the Interior Department is in bed with another monopoly disserving the people it's supposed to protect.
Imagine a day when people realize that the government isn't corrupt only when people they disagree with are in power...
Maybe that'll be the day that we can actually deal with our problems in an honest and pragmatic way...
But, for now, we're arguing over whose flavor of kool-aid we should be drinking... I'll just have to take your word as to how delicious the one you're drinking is...
You know you're either trolling or an incredibly dense American urban hipster with no grasp of self-awareness when you decide that "advertisements", "light pollution" and "cars" are infinitely worse than "starvation", "corruption", "bad trading", and "living under the iron-clad rule of a megalomaniac".
You know what's worse than advertisements? Not being able to buy anything because there's nothing to buy. No food, no clothes, no nothing. You know what's worse than light pollution? Not being able to turn the lights on at night. You know what's worse than cars and traffic? An ox cart pulled by a malnourished ox that you're seriously considering turning into food this winter, even though the meat's tougher than nails and it means you'll have to pull your plow by hand next spring. But, hey, it's that or starve.
But, hey, that fixie you were riding on before you posted your nonsense on this thread will totally come in handy in the Middle Ages-meets-zombie apocalypse world you have mapped out in your sociopathic head as an "ideal utopia" for your urban hipster douchebaggery. Good luck with that.
I resent this post... Don't you know that the American way is to spout off "facts" that you don't have a clue about and be super pretentious about how you're doing your part to make the world better, and if it wasn't for the (conservatives | liberals | whoever disagrees) that just don't get it, we'd have a (socialist | capitalist | name your fantasy land) utopia?
I think you don't appreciate how important self-importance is to our culture... Stop trying to really solve problems and start screaming out all your preconceived notions while blasting dehumanizing labels at anyone that prefers a different flavor of kool-aid...
It's pretty but there are a number of things that have never been solved:
- it doesn't work AT ALL for a percentage of people. If they don't go, your audience is lessened by their numbers plus a bit more (to account for those groups who say "Yeah, but John can't see it - let's go watch something 2D instead").
- it can induce headaches, motion sickness and all sorts of problems in others.
- it's not "true" 3D, I can't get out of my seat and look at the film from the side. I also can't "stick my head inside" an object that's coming out the screen towards me. It's usually only ever "2D plus depth tricks" which isn't the same.
- it's more expensive than 2D
- it requires more specialist hardware than 2D (and often requires people to don some sort of equipment THEMSELVES to do that)
- it's used as nothing more than a gimmick rather than an actual way to put the viewer "on-stage".
There was a time when most of that could be said about color.
- Some people can't see color
- Remember the Japanese cartoons causing seizures?
- It's not "true" color (first technicolor and only recently have displays gotten to a level of quality that color reproduction can be consistently close to accurate)
- It was more expensive than black and white (although I don't know if they charged more for color movies at the theatre back then)
- It requires special hardware (but, at least we don't need glasses on top of it)
- I don't know if you can say that color was only used as a gimmick early on, though... It was certainly used for artistic effect, such as in The Wizard of Oz.
I'm not arguing against your points. I think they're valid. I'd just argue that time will improve the technology and the creative people will learn to use the medium in an appropriate way that actually adds to the work. That scenario has been repeating itself since the days of cave drawings.
Unless the Republicans take control of the Senate in a few days, the Senate is unlikely to question the President's authority. He can call it an Executive Agreement, or whatever he wants; a Senate controlled by his political party will most likely let him do what he likes. Then these law professors and whoever can file a law suit of some sort, it can wend its way through the court system for several years until the current players are out of office, and eventually 5-10 years (or more) from now the Supreme Court can decide if ACTA is really a Treaty that requires Senate approval or not.
Actually, that's the nice thing about the senate (if there is such a thing). It requires 2/3 to ratify a treaty. Since the D's only have 59 seats, that means they at least need 8 R's to make that sort of move.
Of course, on this particular issue, I'd be surprised if it got less than 85 votes anyway... Both sides are owned by the "intellectual property" camp.
At least conceptually, this sort of thing is a good example of why supermajority requirements are a "good" thing... actually, everyone loves it when there's something that they don't want passed up for a vote. It's only when the other side is in the simple minority that people start bitching about filibusters and such...
My knowledge of battery technology is somewhat limited, but could this be accomplished (discounting the power requirements to do the actual charging) by creating a battery pack of multiple cells that are charged in parallel rather than one big cell? I know there are some varieties of lithium based batteries that charge fairly quickly. Would an array of batteries charge any quicker than a single battery of the same capacity? Do we lose any efficiency with an array (other than the natural resistance of additional wiring)?
Not to be trite, but every program is successful for those that gain benefit from it...
And every program is successful insofar as it is successful. And every program is beneficial towards those whom it benefits. I think you're missing the key point of what I was saying: The train system benefits people who don't pay for tickets.
I guess I was missing the point of what you were saying, you were missing the point of what I was saying or both. I was specifically responding to your comment that in some ways it has been successful. My statement was just asserting that if we don't look at it holistically, you can judge anything to be successful. That's how we end up with politicians making claims such as "Mission accomplished."
The reason I'm against rail is that it's terribly wasteful and inefficient.... If people begin moving to a new area, you just create new or change the current bus routes or increase capacity by more frequent buses.
That assumes some things-- for example, that you have the infrastructure in place to accommodate however many busses are required. It also assumes that the same people who would take a train will also take a bus. It's very hard to get an apples-to-apples comparison.
So how are you accounting for the efficiency of rail travel vs. road travel? Does it include the cost of building/maintaining the roads/busses/cars vs. the costs of building/maintaining trains and train cars? Does it include measures of energy efficiency? Are we including the various subsidies that the government has given to each industry? Are we including the subsidizing effect of shipping goods over each infrastructure system?
Are we talking highspeed rail or the stuff that's been around since forever? Are we talking about local public transportation (the subway) or long-distance (Amtrak)? Are we assuming the current volume of travel for each system, or are we assuming the same amount of traffic in both cases? Or are we talking about the theoretical efficiency in some idealized future-city that doesn't exist yet? Are we talking about commuter traffic, or vacation travel? Are we talking about travel within sparse suburban areas, or between major cities?
There are so many questions. But my point is less about whether Amtrak itself is good, and more about the sort of argument we're having. It's not as simple as "my logic is good and yours is bad." It's more like, "we're thinking about different things, making different assumptions, and prioritizing different values."
One thing is virtually guaranteed. Trains will always cost more than buses. The trains themselves are usually much more complicated pieces of engineering, especially when we start talking about high speed rail. Trains require special infrastructure to be built for them to travel on, whereas buses can use the already existing roadways. If you want to change train routes because you find one particular area utilizes the system more and could use more destinations, it takes years, whereas a change to bus routes can be made virtually instantaneously.
As for energy efficiency, when you take into account the amount of extra infrastructure that must be built to support rail, trains would have to be tremendously more efficient in terms of energy requirements and would need to be loaded at a significant enough capacity to bring down the cost per passenger mile in order to be competitive.
Sure, there are lots of questions to determine which is "better." But, there are very few scenarios, when capital costs and construction environmental impacts are taken into account (which most systems don't do), in which rail is a better alternative to buses. Typically, it's got an advantage between relatively close, though not too close, high population residential and business centers.
Don't get me wrong. I'd love to hop on a train in the morning and ride to
Excellent point. Polls shows that most americans are "liberal" when it comes to social ideas (like allowing gays to marry), but "conservative" when it comes to political ideas (government is best when it is small).
By most of the rest of the world's definition of "liberal," both of those are liberal ideas.
Well first, to take your example of Amtrak, whether it worked and why it worked or didn't work is still open to interpretation. I notice you limited your "results" to Amtrak's overall balance sheet. You haven't taken into account the benefit Amtrak brought to the people who do take trains, nor the alleviation of car traffic brought to congested cities. There's also the fact that some routes are more heavily trafficked than others, and Amtrak could be said to be very successful if you only looked at those routes. So in some ways, I'd say that Amtrak is a successful program.
Not to be trite, but every program is successful for those that gain benefit from it... especially when we don't consider the opportunity costs from not spending that money on a better solution.
But also your criticism of "not enough customers" doesn't begin to address the question of "why weren't there enough customers?" There are tons of socioeconomic issues involving culture, infrastructure development, and civic design that lead to a situation where taking a train is undesirable or infeasible-- but most of those things can be changed.
In reality, most people decide first whether they like/dislike public transportation on emotional grounds, and then find arguments that support their position.
Those are all great questions and points there. Personally, I'm pro-mass transit, but anti-rail. The reason I'm against rail is that it's terribly wasteful and inefficient. Every cost study that I've seen based on costs per passenger mile put rail at the highest cost. The other issue is that rail requires immense capital outlays and doesn't really offer and adaptability as population centers and desired destinations change. It also takes years to implement. Whereas, bus service, which can also be ran on renewable energy resources, is quite adaptable and tremendously competitive with respect to costs. If people begin moving to a new area, you just create new or change the current bus routes or increase capacity by more frequent buses. If you want to add bus service, you can do it within weeks (or quicker depending on how bureaucratic things are with purchasing new buses).
Rail is a beautiful idea in concept, but terrible in reality (at least in the US). In Europe, things might be a little different because of population densities, but even the numbers I've seen for that seemed to be quite costly when compared to bus service.
You're way too thoughtful and informed to be posting on slashdot. Great post.
This is just one of those things we continue to believe academically because it is INCREDIBLY politically expedient, just like ALL tax cuts pay for themselves (some might, under certain circumstances, at certain times).
As someone that is very much for low taxes, one of the things that troubles me is the argument that keeps being made about "extending tax cuts" or cutting taxes. From my perspective, if the government is spending more than it takes in, any reduction in current taxation is not a tax cut, but a tax deferment. That money (plus interest) has to be collected at some later date. It's like running up a huge credit card bill and talking about all the money you're saving because none of it's coming out of your checking account.
This argument always conveniently ignores that the big corporations would not exist if the government was not involved in the market.
Oh, I know that quite well. You'll get the occasional Libertarian who argues for the abolition of corporations, though nothing like that is part of the party's platform. You'll also find a handful who agree that copyrights and patents are government interference and should be abolished -- but again, not part of the platform.
And, that's why I'm not a registered Libertarian. I'm for the abolition of corporations. I'm for major reform of patents and copyrights that actually get them in-line with their original intent, to encourage innovation, rather than protect the big corporations profits by creating artificial scarcity. And, ideally, I'd like to see a total abolishment of political parties, though I have difficulty reconciling that with my belief in the first amendment. Regardless, we need a system that isn't setup to keep the 2 ruling parties in perpetual power.
You'll find find few -- if any -- big-L Libertarians who understand that land deeds, and therefore all material property -- ultimately made from elements extracted from the land -- rests on government involvement.
No government, no property in the capitalist sense. That's why "libertarian capitalism" of the sort put forth by the Libertarian Party is inherently contradictory.
There are certainly those that identify themselves as Libertarian that essentially are anarchists that believe in zero government. However, I do believe that most believe that government is a necessary component of any civil society. Most believe that governments only function is to secure our individual rights to life, liberty and property, which covers what your discussing there.
While I do believe that to a large degree myself, I also do not find that in conflict with a social safety net for those that are unable to provide shelter, food, healthcare and education for themselves and their families. I think the mistake we tend to make is that we expand those functions to many that don't need it and/or they become tools of our corporatist politicians that are used to keep their rich donors income statements growing.
Unfortunately, common sense is much too nuanced for most people. So, our system is one of group labels and dehumanizing attacks that dismisses any differing opinion by attempting to make it seem absurd regardless of any partial merits. And so, we end up with two extreme, equally ignorant positions to choose from. It's just too easy to throw labels at people and their ideas than to actually consider them and compromise on our entrenched positions. And, thus, any political discussion tends to devolve into a shit-slinging exercise rather than a real conversation.
Why do you think the R's are more Libertarian leaning now? Ron Paul? Sharon Angle? Do you think they would be in the race without a huge amount of discontent from the Tea Party? Big ships don't turn on a dime, and saying, "I don't vote because I didn't get my way" is pathetic. Vote L or G, and push the ship in the direction you want it to go. I may not get my way, but I WILL get my say.
I'm guessing you meant to reply to another post, because I'm in total agreement with you. I do vote, but other than voting for Obama in the D primary in '08, I've only voted for 3rd parties for the past 12 years. The best thing the discontented voters could do is to go out and vote for a third party... any 3rd party. As soon as the duopoly parties start both losing elections, we'll start to see real change in our system. More voices are what we need.
I should have been more clear: the Libertarian Party may siphon a few votes, but it's selected policies of the Party that are hypocritically used by the GOP. Lacking the deep pockets of libertarian-orient groups (eg. Cato), green organizations don't really factor into the equation.
Ahh, that makes more sense to me there. However, I wouldn't say that makes the Libertarians a tool of the GOP. I would consider it as the GOP periodically throws the L's a bone, though that's been quite rare since the beginning of the Bush days.
And, Cato actually supports many positions that are traditionally Democrat positions. They've been much to the "left" of Obama with respect to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as prohibition. In those respects, Cato's money is going directly against the R's.
I'm sure that there are L's that are basically disenchanted R's out there, but I'm not so much one of those. I get more pissed listening to Sean Hannity than I do Keith Olberman. Although, both are just carrying the water for their own team while ignoring their hypocrisy when their guys do the same thing they're ranting about.
Deregulating big business and handing power to corporate plutocracy is not "more freedom in economic matters", it actually lets powerful interests decrease your freedom.
This argument always conveniently ignores that the big corporations would not exist if the government was not involved in the market. The government created the corporations. If it wasn't for the government, it would just be people that were actually liable for their actions.
Government arguing for regulation of the corporations is a lot like the mob suggestion that you pay them for "protection." We all know where the real threat originates from. Unfortunately, too many are stuck in the weeds and can't recognize that the corporate problem is not that there aren't enough rules about managing corporations. The problem is that there are rules that allow them to exist to begin with.
...the republicans are going to try to win that 7% of libertarians to vote for their candidate next year by passing more libertarian-style laws or running a more libertarian-leaning candidate...
I'm not sure when exactly was the last time this actually happened. It certainly had to be prior to the W era, because as a Libertarian, there's hardly anything at all the R's have done in the past 10 years that get me even slightly interested in voting for them. And, I haven't. However, I did vote for Obama in the D primary in 2008 because he seemed like he would work to repeal some of the ridiculous limitations that have been put on personal liberty. Of course, that was before he got in power and essentially just followed the Bush agenda in a "lite" kinda way.
The Libertarian Party is a tool of the GOP, and always will be.
I find that to be an interesting statement since the Libertarian vote is typically a syphoning of votes from the Republican candidate. Would you say that the Green Party is a tool of the Democrats as well, since they have the same relationship as the R's and L's?
As someone that typically votes Libertarian, I can assure you that I'm just as likely to be voting D as I am R. The patriot act, wars, money to Christian groups, abortion prohibition, blue laws, etc are as much of a turn-off for me as large government bureaucracies funneling billions to corporate donors, which both sides do. I agree with the D's as much as I do the R's.
As to each's argument that the other is completely owned by special interests and not "the people," I'm in complete agreement with both. Unfortunately, there seems to be a blind spot with both in which their own special interest masters are not bad guys unduly influencing the system. And, that's why our problems aren't getting solved.
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God forbid any company would actually contribute taxes to the infrastructure of the countries in which they operate. I mean, that would just make too much sense.
Do you go to the most expensive store that sells what you want or the cheapest? Corporate execs and directors first responsibility is to make money for the shareholders. If moving from Ireland to Singapore supports that mission, they'd be committing malpractice if they didn't make the move.
Sure, it's nice to celebrate philosophies of altruism where economics come far later than the "greater good." However, that's not how the world works. People in general will always look out for their own self-interest. So, the best approach will take that into account.
Ireland doesn't want to raise it's taxes. The rest of the EU wants them to so that they don't have to compete against Ireland for business. So, in this case, government is taking the position of a trust attempting to fix prices (tax rates). It's not good when corporations collude to fix prices and it's not good when governments do it either.
And, if Ireland wasn't wasting money bailing out the banks, they'd have plenty of revenue to cover the costs of their social infrastructure. Not letting rich bankers eat the shit cake that they baked is what has caused Ireland's problems.
Furthermore, those who are first in possession of the new money have a huge advantage: the market has yet to be affected by it, so they can use it to purchase lots of goods at uninflated prices. By the time the new money gets to Joe Sixpack in the form of a necessary wage increase to keep up with inflation, the new equilibrium is all but settled and he ends up about where he was before.
It's much more complicated than that...
The "rich" that have the money first tend to purchase higher end goods than Joe Sixpack, once basic economic needs are covered. Those higher end goods are cars with advanced technologies, high-end appliances and electronics and other similar things that are beyond the purchasing capacity of average people.
So, effectively, that extra money is going into the R&D of technologies that improve the standard of living. It creates the markets that allow those technologies to be developed that would not otherwise exist without people with excess capital available. And, over time, manufacturers of that technology improve their production processes, which tends to drive the costs down making it more affordable for general consumption.
So, it may be generally true, in terms of relative purchasing capacity, that those at the Joe Sixpack level never seem to grow to a higher level. However, it's an extremely narrow view to claim that their standard of living is not improving. The amount of technology available to today's middle and lower classes that makes their lives better is, on the aggregate, better than what the richest people in the world could purchase 30-40 years ago.
If all we do is compare current living conditions, the "rich" will always look better off. However, if we look at it from a more holistic perspective, today's "rich" people and their expensive toys are improving, even if it is unintended, the standard of living for society as a whole.
I'm not arguing for or against the money system and it's derivative effects here. All I'm doing is making the case for why society needs "rich" people. They have the capital to waste exploring new, risky ideas that would not otherwise be available to improve the collective standard of living.
You don't even see the gas prices of the Autobahn gas stations until you exit the Autobahn because advertising is strictly prohibited.
You also have to keep your car properly maintained and actually demonstrate you have the skills necessary to be driving on the road. Without those first, banning road-side advertising or any other number of specific distractions is doing little more than lip service to the real problem. American's don't keep their cars properly maintained and they definitely don't know how to drive. Until we get real, European style testing for drivers, our roads will be full of idiots wielding deadly weapons.
Although I disagree with LaHood on this one, your comment is fallacious. He is attempting to protect me from people who lack the skill to do two things at once.
You actually touched on the real issue with highway safety in the US... skill.
We let almost anyone with a heartbeat have a driver's license. There may be some states with decent requirements, but where I'm at, the entire testing process is a complete joke. All you have to do is drive around some cones in a parking lot. That's it...
If the US implemented similar training and testing requirements to what they have in Europe, the highway fatality rates would plunge. Of course, any common sense solution is destined to fail to be implemented in the US political system. We prefer actions that aren't that significant in the grand scheme of things, but give the politicians the opportunity to claim they're fixing the problems.
And so, we have 55 mph speed limits on 6 lane wide interstate highways, red light cameras that increase the number of accidents at intersections in which they are installed and arguments for cell phone jammers. All the while, our real problem is that few people have the skills that they should have to be on the road safely to begin with...
Good luck inspecting your own food before buying it. I guess you can just have your family sue the grocery store after you die of food poisoning, or maybe we'll just rely on word-of-mouth getting around and the grocery store selling tainted meat going out of business after a few hundred people die.
Well, we could just put anyone that sells tainted food that causes death in prison for involuntary manslaughter since it would be their negligence that caused it...
Of course, that's not as good as our current regulated system where no one ever dies or gets sick from the food supply since it's inspected, right? Regulating things always insures that they are done properly. I bet no one could name an instance where regulation failed... and if they can, it can only be because we need more regulations.
I don't know why we'd want to fire loads of useless bureaucrats and implement a simple rule like, "If you do ANYTHING that causes undue harm to another person or their property, you face serious criminal charges." It's much better that we continue trying to keep the system patched for every possible loophole, rather than implementing a simple rule that allows a judge and jury to look at the facts and punish people that, under the current regulated system, get out of doing time on technicalities because they can afford the right lawyers.
We need more regulations... not some common sense system that can't be gamed by the guys with the most bucks...
I don't get the arguments about how the Chinese will always lag in these threads, how they're slow, how they don't know how to do anything well enough, that they make crap. I'm actually old enough to remember the exact same arguments said about the Japanese. I was a kid, but I did hear it from my parents, especially when I was told about build quality. Then the 1980s happened. Then Chrysler had to be bailed out by Ronald Reagan, and suddenly Japanese cars and electronics were what everyone wanted.
And, then the 90's happened and the Japanese economy still hasn't recovered...
We're in a world economy. Sure, the US has had years of being on top. It's not going to stay there, though. But, it's not going to be the Japanese or Chinese or Indians or whatever that's going to take over. We're moving to a much more distributed world economy.
No single nation is going to dominate. The US is going to be knocked off it's perch by the world, not any individual nation. And none of them will dominate for the exact same reasons.
There would still be a huge bureaucracy because that is an enormous amount of money to distribute and enormous incentives for cheating.
Yes, but it does put the bureaucracy in one single department that already exists... the IRS. As much as I hate that, it's better than the huge number of agencies that exist today.
And if wishes were made of fairy dust...
Good luck paying for that scheme in a country of 300,000,000 with an influx of poor people coming in every day.
Actually, that idea was strongly advocated by Milton Friedman, who could hardly be called socialist. While the GP is a bit optimistic about the effects that it would have had, by getting rid of the bureaucracies that exist to "aid the poor" and just giving the money to them directly, we could accomplish much more with a smaller government. It's a system that stream-lines the distribution of aid as well as encourages people to work and be productive, since you're required to file a tax return to get the money.
Would it be utopia? Certainly not. But, I'd take a negative tax any day over a huge bureaucracy with a vested interest in keeping the status quo.
That's so stupid it makes my hair hurt. Governments aren't what creates or sustains corporate entities - profits do. Every government in the world could disappear tomorrow, and you'd still have big banks, big energy companies, big health care companies, and Blackwater.
Wow, you sure have the blinders on...
Government laws are the only reason there is such a thing as a corporation. You can take all the money in the world, and you can't create a non-person entity that has the power of a corporation without the government defining that sort of entity. You can have businesses, but you can't have corporations.
If you can't recognize that there is no natural entity called a corporation and they only exist because government has defined them, I understand why your hair hurts...
The Interior Department was the most corrupt department (that we know of) during the Bush/Cheney administration. It was the main feeding grounds for Jack Abramoff, centered on using Indian tribes to grab casino industry money. It was the Interior Department's MMS office that traded favors to oil corps for coke and hookers, then let BP drill the Gulf despite its obvious contempt for safety, and let it slide through the resulting Macondo Well blowout through this Summer.
"Most corrupt department" was the hardest fought competition this whole decade, and it's clearly continued even after Bush/Cheney left. I am not at all surprised that the Interior Department is in bed with another monopoly disserving the people it's supposed to protect.
Imagine a day when people realize that the government isn't corrupt only when people they disagree with are in power...
Maybe that'll be the day that we can actually deal with our problems in an honest and pragmatic way...
But, for now, we're arguing over whose flavor of kool-aid we should be drinking... I'll just have to take your word as to how delicious the one you're drinking is...
You know you're either trolling or an incredibly dense American urban hipster with no grasp of self-awareness when you decide that "advertisements", "light pollution" and "cars" are infinitely worse than "starvation", "corruption", "bad trading", and "living under the iron-clad rule of a megalomaniac".
You know what's worse than advertisements? Not being able to buy anything because there's nothing to buy. No food, no clothes, no nothing. You know what's worse than light pollution? Not being able to turn the lights on at night. You know what's worse than cars and traffic? An ox cart pulled by a malnourished ox that you're seriously considering turning into food this winter, even though the meat's tougher than nails and it means you'll have to pull your plow by hand next spring. But, hey, it's that or starve.
But, hey, that fixie you were riding on before you posted your nonsense on this thread will totally come in handy in the Middle Ages-meets-zombie apocalypse world you have mapped out in your sociopathic head as an "ideal utopia" for your urban hipster douchebaggery. Good luck with that.
I resent this post... Don't you know that the American way is to spout off "facts" that you don't have a clue about and be super pretentious about how you're doing your part to make the world better, and if it wasn't for the (conservatives | liberals | whoever disagrees) that just don't get it, we'd have a (socialist | capitalist | name your fantasy land) utopia?
I think you don't appreciate how important self-importance is to our culture... Stop trying to really solve problems and start screaming out all your preconceived notions while blasting dehumanizing labels at anyone that prefers a different flavor of kool-aid...
Apparently you didn't look hard enough.
From the article:
"IE is now a 39.53% in Europe and Firefox at 38.65%."
Unless you're using some new fangled kind of math, that's not double.
He's using politician math... You get whatever results you need to support your preconceived notions...
It's pretty but there are a number of things that have never been solved:
- it doesn't work AT ALL for a percentage of people. If they don't go, your audience is lessened by their numbers plus a bit more (to account for those groups who say "Yeah, but John can't see it - let's go watch something 2D instead").
- it can induce headaches, motion sickness and all sorts of problems in others.
- it's not "true" 3D, I can't get out of my seat and look at the film from the side. I also can't "stick my head inside" an object that's coming out the screen towards me. It's usually only ever "2D plus depth tricks" which isn't the same.
- it's more expensive than 2D
- it requires more specialist hardware than 2D (and often requires people to don some sort of equipment THEMSELVES to do that)
- it's used as nothing more than a gimmick rather than an actual way to put the viewer "on-stage".
There was a time when most of that could be said about color.
- Some people can't see color
- Remember the Japanese cartoons causing seizures?
- It's not "true" color (first technicolor and only recently have displays gotten to a level of quality that color reproduction can be consistently close to accurate)
- It was more expensive than black and white (although I don't know if they charged more for color movies at the theatre back then)
- It requires special hardware (but, at least we don't need glasses on top of it)
- I don't know if you can say that color was only used as a gimmick early on, though... It was certainly used for artistic effect, such as in The Wizard of Oz.
I'm not arguing against your points. I think they're valid. I'd just argue that time will improve the technology and the creative people will learn to use the medium in an appropriate way that actually adds to the work. That scenario has been repeating itself since the days of cave drawings.
Unless the Republicans take control of the Senate in a few days, the Senate is unlikely to question the President's authority. He can call it an Executive Agreement, or whatever he wants; a Senate controlled by his political party will most likely let him do what he likes. Then these law professors and whoever can file a law suit of some sort, it can wend its way through the court system for several years until the current players are out of office, and eventually 5-10 years (or more) from now the Supreme Court can decide if ACTA is really a Treaty that requires Senate approval or not.
Actually, that's the nice thing about the senate (if there is such a thing). It requires 2/3 to ratify a treaty. Since the D's only have 59 seats, that means they at least need 8 R's to make that sort of move.
Of course, on this particular issue, I'd be surprised if it got less than 85 votes anyway... Both sides are owned by the "intellectual property" camp.
At least conceptually, this sort of thing is a good example of why supermajority requirements are a "good" thing... actually, everyone loves it when there's something that they don't want passed up for a vote. It's only when the other side is in the simple minority that people start bitching about filibusters and such...
My knowledge of battery technology is somewhat limited, but could this be accomplished (discounting the power requirements to do the actual charging) by creating a battery pack of multiple cells that are charged in parallel rather than one big cell? I know there are some varieties of lithium based batteries that charge fairly quickly. Would an array of batteries charge any quicker than a single battery of the same capacity? Do we lose any efficiency with an array (other than the natural resistance of additional wiring)?
And every program is successful insofar as it is successful. And every program is beneficial towards those whom it benefits. I think you're missing the key point of what I was saying: The train system benefits people who don't pay for tickets.
I guess I was missing the point of what you were saying, you were missing the point of what I was saying or both. I was specifically responding to your comment that in some ways it has been successful. My statement was just asserting that if we don't look at it holistically, you can judge anything to be successful. That's how we end up with politicians making claims such as "Mission accomplished."
That assumes some things-- for example, that you have the infrastructure in place to accommodate however many busses are required. It also assumes that the same people who would take a train will also take a bus. It's very hard to get an apples-to-apples comparison.
So how are you accounting for the efficiency of rail travel vs. road travel? Does it include the cost of building/maintaining the roads/busses/cars vs. the costs of building/maintaining trains and train cars? Does it include measures of energy efficiency? Are we including the various subsidies that the government has given to each industry? Are we including the subsidizing effect of shipping goods over each infrastructure system?
Are we talking highspeed rail or the stuff that's been around since forever? Are we talking about local public transportation (the subway) or long-distance (Amtrak)? Are we assuming the current volume of travel for each system, or are we assuming the same amount of traffic in both cases? Or are we talking about the theoretical efficiency in some idealized future-city that doesn't exist yet? Are we talking about commuter traffic, or vacation travel? Are we talking about travel within sparse suburban areas, or between major cities?
There are so many questions. But my point is less about whether Amtrak itself is good, and more about the sort of argument we're having. It's not as simple as "my logic is good and yours is bad." It's more like, "we're thinking about different things, making different assumptions, and prioritizing different values."
One thing is virtually guaranteed. Trains will always cost more than buses. The trains themselves are usually much more complicated pieces of engineering, especially when we start talking about high speed rail. Trains require special infrastructure to be built for them to travel on, whereas buses can use the already existing roadways. If you want to change train routes because you find one particular area utilizes the system more and could use more destinations, it takes years, whereas a change to bus routes can be made virtually instantaneously.
As for energy efficiency, when you take into account the amount of extra infrastructure that must be built to support rail, trains would have to be tremendously more efficient in terms of energy requirements and would need to be loaded at a significant enough capacity to bring down the cost per passenger mile in order to be competitive.
Sure, there are lots of questions to determine which is "better." But, there are very few scenarios, when capital costs and construction environmental impacts are taken into account (which most systems don't do), in which rail is a better alternative to buses. Typically, it's got an advantage between relatively close, though not too close, high population residential and business centers.
Don't get me wrong. I'd love to hop on a train in the morning and ride to
Excellent point. Polls shows that most americans are "liberal" when it comes to social ideas (like allowing gays to marry), but "conservative" when it comes to political ideas (government is best when it is small).
By most of the rest of the world's definition of "liberal," both of those are liberal ideas.
Well first, to take your example of Amtrak, whether it worked and why it worked or didn't work is still open to interpretation. I notice you limited your "results" to Amtrak's overall balance sheet. You haven't taken into account the benefit Amtrak brought to the people who do take trains, nor the alleviation of car traffic brought to congested cities. There's also the fact that some routes are more heavily trafficked than others, and Amtrak could be said to be very successful if you only looked at those routes. So in some ways, I'd say that Amtrak is a successful program.
Not to be trite, but every program is successful for those that gain benefit from it... especially when we don't consider the opportunity costs from not spending that money on a better solution.
But also your criticism of "not enough customers" doesn't begin to address the question of "why weren't there enough customers?" There are tons of socioeconomic issues involving culture, infrastructure development, and civic design that lead to a situation where taking a train is undesirable or infeasible-- but most of those things can be changed.
In reality, most people decide first whether they like/dislike public transportation on emotional grounds, and then find arguments that support their position.
Those are all great questions and points there. Personally, I'm pro-mass transit, but anti-rail. The reason I'm against rail is that it's terribly wasteful and inefficient. Every cost study that I've seen based on costs per passenger mile put rail at the highest cost. The other issue is that rail requires immense capital outlays and doesn't really offer and adaptability as population centers and desired destinations change. It also takes years to implement. Whereas, bus service, which can also be ran on renewable energy resources, is quite adaptable and tremendously competitive with respect to costs. If people begin moving to a new area, you just create new or change the current bus routes or increase capacity by more frequent buses. If you want to add bus service, you can do it within weeks (or quicker depending on how bureaucratic things are with purchasing new buses).
Rail is a beautiful idea in concept, but terrible in reality (at least in the US). In Europe, things might be a little different because of population densities, but even the numbers I've seen for that seemed to be quite costly when compared to bus service.
You're way too thoughtful and informed to be posting on slashdot. Great post.
This is just one of those things we continue to believe academically because it is INCREDIBLY politically expedient, just like ALL tax cuts pay for themselves (some might, under certain circumstances, at certain times).
As someone that is very much for low taxes, one of the things that troubles me is the argument that keeps being made about "extending tax cuts" or cutting taxes. From my perspective, if the government is spending more than it takes in, any reduction in current taxation is not a tax cut, but a tax deferment. That money (plus interest) has to be collected at some later date. It's like running up a huge credit card bill and talking about all the money you're saving because none of it's coming out of your checking account.
Oh, I know that quite well. You'll get the occasional Libertarian who argues for the abolition of corporations, though nothing like that is part of the party's platform. You'll also find a handful who agree that copyrights and patents are government interference and should be abolished -- but again, not part of the platform.
And, that's why I'm not a registered Libertarian. I'm for the abolition of corporations. I'm for major reform of patents and copyrights that actually get them in-line with their original intent, to encourage innovation, rather than protect the big corporations profits by creating artificial scarcity. And, ideally, I'd like to see a total abolishment of political parties, though I have difficulty reconciling that with my belief in the first amendment. Regardless, we need a system that isn't setup to keep the 2 ruling parties in perpetual power.
You'll find find few -- if any -- big-L Libertarians who understand that land deeds, and therefore all material property -- ultimately made from elements extracted from the land -- rests on government involvement.
No government, no property in the capitalist sense. That's why "libertarian capitalism" of the sort put forth by the Libertarian Party is inherently contradictory.
There are certainly those that identify themselves as Libertarian that essentially are anarchists that believe in zero government. However, I do believe that most believe that government is a necessary component of any civil society. Most believe that governments only function is to secure our individual rights to life, liberty and property, which covers what your discussing there.
While I do believe that to a large degree myself, I also do not find that in conflict with a social safety net for those that are unable to provide shelter, food, healthcare and education for themselves and their families. I think the mistake we tend to make is that we expand those functions to many that don't need it and/or they become tools of our corporatist politicians that are used to keep their rich donors income statements growing.
Unfortunately, common sense is much too nuanced for most people. So, our system is one of group labels and dehumanizing attacks that dismisses any differing opinion by attempting to make it seem absurd regardless of any partial merits. And so, we end up with two extreme, equally ignorant positions to choose from. It's just too easy to throw labels at people and their ideas than to actually consider them and compromise on our entrenched positions. And, thus, any political discussion tends to devolve into a shit-slinging exercise rather than a real conversation.
It would be funny if it weren't so tragic...
Why do you think the R's are more Libertarian leaning now? Ron Paul? Sharon Angle? Do you think they would be in the race without a huge amount of discontent from the Tea Party? Big ships don't turn on a dime, and saying, "I don't vote because I didn't get my way" is pathetic. Vote L or G, and push the ship in the direction you want it to go. I may not get my way, but I WILL get my say.
I'm guessing you meant to reply to another post, because I'm in total agreement with you. I do vote, but other than voting for Obama in the D primary in '08, I've only voted for 3rd parties for the past 12 years. The best thing the discontented voters could do is to go out and vote for a third party... any 3rd party. As soon as the duopoly parties start both losing elections, we'll start to see real change in our system. More voices are what we need.
I should have been more clear: the Libertarian Party may siphon a few votes, but it's selected policies of the Party that are hypocritically used by the GOP. Lacking the deep pockets of libertarian-orient groups (eg. Cato), green organizations don't really factor into the equation.
Ahh, that makes more sense to me there. However, I wouldn't say that makes the Libertarians a tool of the GOP. I would consider it as the GOP periodically throws the L's a bone, though that's been quite rare since the beginning of the Bush days.
And, Cato actually supports many positions that are traditionally Democrat positions. They've been much to the "left" of Obama with respect to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as prohibition. In those respects, Cato's money is going directly against the R's.
I'm sure that there are L's that are basically disenchanted R's out there, but I'm not so much one of those. I get more pissed listening to Sean Hannity than I do Keith Olberman. Although, both are just carrying the water for their own team while ignoring their hypocrisy when their guys do the same thing they're ranting about.
Deregulating big business and handing power to corporate plutocracy is not "more freedom in economic matters", it actually lets powerful interests decrease your freedom.
This argument always conveniently ignores that the big corporations would not exist if the government was not involved in the market. The government created the corporations. If it wasn't for the government, it would just be people that were actually liable for their actions.
Government arguing for regulation of the corporations is a lot like the mob suggestion that you pay them for "protection." We all know where the real threat originates from. Unfortunately, too many are stuck in the weeds and can't recognize that the corporate problem is not that there aren't enough rules about managing corporations. The problem is that there are rules that allow them to exist to begin with.
...the republicans are going to try to win that 7% of libertarians to vote for their candidate next year by passing more libertarian-style laws or running a more libertarian-leaning candidate...
I'm not sure when exactly was the last time this actually happened. It certainly had to be prior to the W era, because as a Libertarian, there's hardly anything at all the R's have done in the past 10 years that get me even slightly interested in voting for them. And, I haven't. However, I did vote for Obama in the D primary in 2008 because he seemed like he would work to repeal some of the ridiculous limitations that have been put on personal liberty. Of course, that was before he got in power and essentially just followed the Bush agenda in a "lite" kinda way.
I find that to be an interesting statement since the Libertarian vote is typically a syphoning of votes from the Republican candidate. Would you say that the Green Party is a tool of the Democrats as well, since they have the same relationship as the R's and L's?
As someone that typically votes Libertarian, I can assure you that I'm just as likely to be voting D as I am R. The patriot act, wars, money to Christian groups, abortion prohibition, blue laws, etc are as much of a turn-off for me as large government bureaucracies funneling billions to corporate donors, which both sides do. I agree with the D's as much as I do the R's.
As to each's argument that the other is completely owned by special interests and not "the people," I'm in complete agreement with both. Unfortunately, there seems to be a blind spot with both in which their own special interest masters are not bad guys unduly influencing the system. And, that's why our problems aren't getting solved.