And when the air moves from the high-pressure underside to the low pressure top-side a very cool (but aerodynamically undesirable) effect called wing tip vorticies are formed. There are some awsome pictures of this, which I cannot be bothered to find.
Actually there was a theory that the reason that geese fly in a V formation was that they borrowed the up-draft shed from the wingtip from the goose ahead of them to significally increase flight efficiency. Don't know if this theory has merit, but I learned of it in a fluid dynamics class.
Lately there has been a surge of "In Memory of" decals on the back windows of cars around here. To me (and only me apperently) this beggs the question what's the memorial? The car? I don't want to offend anyone, but it sure seems like a poor (and kind of tacky) choice of a memorial to me, if only because of the fact that a car is so temporary.
But hey if it helps you through the mourning more power to you I guess
I am no biologist, but I am so sick of people putting together simple stories like think that they think somehow reflects a tremendously complex process.
Stories like this are what lead to the rise and fall of social darwinism, and why the ID people think that they can debunk evolution...
I read the first few posts and groaned, certain that the collective IQ of slashdot had taken a sharp drop. At least its good to know that there are a few people out there who aren't suckers who lap up every piece of media created "science" on the subject.
I don't think that it's a matter of more or less superficial, I think most mediums have the potential to deeply detail any given moment in their own way.
The problem is in adaptations, often times the depth associated with a particular moment is there because of the original medium, and it is often impossible to translate this to any different medium.
A good director can add complexity where there was none in the book, and can even improve on the original story. IMHO this is why the best adaptations tend to be from mediocre books (Jurassic Park). The director has the ability to expound on the story the author laid the framework for.
I would even go so far as to say that it is impossible for a director to improve on an excellent book, although a good or mediocre movie may still appeal to the American audience more than the original material (LotR).
While this is somewhat off topic the topic of taxes and government spending I thought I'd share this with you and solicit your thoughts.
While I am by no means an economist, if I had to pigeon hole myself I would say that in the area of government's role in business and daily life I'd classify myself as classical conservative i.e. an advocate for small government.
My problem may be one of semantics, and is much, much less well thought out then our tax discussion. For you see while I would prefer fewer enormous government entities (as would a classic conservative) I am also wary of big business (classic liberal).
Assuming I'm not mixing my labels, and given that I am trying to explain a gut feeling, rather than a logical argument, I am wondering if you see any reconciliation between the two.
I sense that the problem may be in the misleading nature of America's two party system. What I really want is a government that will provide what private enterprise is unable to, (a point I know you disagree on) and I accept the bureaucracy involved... And businesses that are able to operate independently, competing among themselves, but with safeguards in place to prevent against monopolistic, and anti-competitive tendencies.
Any thoughts? Am I trying to have my cake and eat it too?
A "mixed economy" may be an oxymoron, but it is still a reality, and in my opinion the most workable reality. You claim that anything less than laissez-faire is more or less socialist, and I agree with you. However, if I were talking to a Marxist he would claim that anything short of pure communism is more or less capitalistic, and I would agree with him as well. As far as I'm concerned what we label the extremes is of little consequence, it's the middle I'm interested with anyway.
In the middle you have some public funding of some private enterprise, or some government run or controlled enterprise. This allows certain entities that could not exist in a laissez-faire system to thrive. Where the balance of government control should lie is a constantly evolving question, and clearly has no simple solution.
I think that some taxation is a good thing because I continue to believe that were it not for your coercion that people would become vastly tighter with their purse strings. No doubt the ACLU would collapse. Googling "ACLU funding" I found the very first article indicates that it is partially taxpayer funded. (I could not quickly track down the EFF's funding info) Even charitable groups that do not receive a dime of public funding benefit from our tax laws, because donations are tax deductible.
Further, I do not see "profit" as a dirty word, which is very different from greed. I do believe that in a laissez-faire system all groups of consequence would have to be profitable, but not necessarily "spawned from greed." I do however think that people have a very strong tendency toward greed and laziness. A purely communist society will fail because of people's propensity toward laziness, while a laissez-faire system will fail from their propensity toward greed.
If taxes and tax-deductible donations were gone I firmly believe that funding for charitable organizations would dry up. While this would certainly be seen from personal donors, the much larger effect will be seen by business. Charities depend on corporate donations, and when there aren't "games" to be played with the taxman the choice is as simple as increase earnings per share OR donate to the United Way. Investors will vote with their dollars. Much like in communism when you bury responsibility for action it has the effect of eliminating the roll of conscience in decision-making.
The deferment of responsibility is why in laissez-faire systems child labor is hired. Children take the jobs due to socio-economic pressures - pressures that the government can mitigate by regulating business. If a family of 7 can only survive in a laissez-faire system by sending all children to work it will certainly do so. However, if the government outlaws child labor, and mandates a sufficiently large minimum wage not only will the children be able to seek education, ultimately improving their lot in life, but the parents will also be able to provide for all of their children with their increased wage. With this government oversight we have stepped out of laissez-faire...
So now instead of working the children alternative is to become educated, and have the opportunity to become skilled laborers, and be better off than their parents. True in a laissez-faire system there is no option. That to me is evidence against the system, not for it.
Quality is important in increasing profit, but that does not eliminate unskilled, or even child labor on assembly lines. Look at Nike, they hired child labor because their smaller fingers are more suited to some of the tasks. Ok, that's anecdotal evidence, but the fact remains that you don't need skilled laborers on a semi-automated assembly line to produce quality parts. Child labor is the cheapest, and therefore best source of unskilled labor from a laissez-faire point of view.
Good stewardship of the environment is always a difficult concept to impart to business. It will only be much more so if government regulations are removed, as would necessarily be the case under
I'm noticing that everyone is making the assumption that it's child porn, whereas TFA only says "a technician saw private files on the computer that he thought might be illegal."
I'm wondering how the slashdot clime would change if it was the Lord of the Rings Trilogy the tech suspected of being illegal.
I don't expect anyone to pay for anything that I want, but rather I expect everyone to pay for something that benefits a significant portion of the population, even if I don't see the benefit directly. I think that this is important, because I find it hard to believe that some services, such as police and education would be financed suficiently to survive on the open market.
If something is my responsibility, or my success/failure, I expect to be held responsible. If I am a part of a project that succeeds/fails I expect to be held partially responsible.
I certainly appreciate Bob's position, and while I am intrigued by some of his ideas, Bob and I are never going to agree on taxes. That does not mean that he is wasting his time though. For me the real benefit is having my assumptions challenged, especially by someone who has done the research as it appears that Bob has. This type of debate helps me to weed out weak ideas, and either change or improve them.
I am not against re-examining my opinions, and I don't think it would be presumptuous to say that I have a more moderate opinion in this case. It is my experience that moderate opinions may drift a bit more freely than more extreme ones, so I am not surprised to find that I am being more influenced than Bob is.
This type of debate also frequently piques my interest in a topic that I haven't previously had any compulsion to explore, and in this case my next book may very well be one that Bob has suggested.
I consider myself a centrist; I do not reject laissez-faire economics, nor do I embrace communism. I feel that both approaches have their merits, and that their applications are not mutually exclusive. Neither am I fool enough to be put off by negative labels associated with both. I try to look at examples and real evidence of what both (for that matter all) systems do well and poorly.
You raise good points about power, telephone, and other infrastructures competing, even being built without government assistance. I concede that this is a good thing. But I maintain that there are "good" projects that require government assistance. Although I am beating a poor corpse that was once a horse, I am going to revisit the issue of roads.
Perhaps good, sturdy, and cheap roads would exist within cities and between Boston and D.C., and between L.A. and San Francisco if we opened road building were a public enterprise. There might even be O.K. roads that stretch from Denver to Chicago, and Detroit to Miami. But if every road has to be profitable as a condition of it being built what happens to county road 7? Tolls would have to be terrific if roads were built between small Midwestern towns. Farmers could make it to market at top tractor speed. Tourism of wild escapes would evaporate.
I think that while we do disagree on what is right or wrong, I think the more telling issue is that we disagree on mine, yours and ours. While I'm far from claiming everything is ours, I do think that it is both right, and effective to tax a portion of our income to pay for our projects. I'm ok with giving up some of mine for us.
I have big problems with allowing business to make all decisions based on profits. For instance, even with the governments hand in the matter its like pulling teeth to get business to reduce emissions. The industrial revolution and laissez-faire economics proved (to me at least) that business cannot be trusted to do what's right for anybody but the business. Protecting the environment will never be good business, but that doesn't keep it from being right.
I read the review of What They Won't Tell You About Capitalism, and I find the arguments that child labor was better than the alternative, and the increase of productivity of adult workers made the practice obsolete thin to say the least. If buisness is given free reign it will do all in its power to increase the value to the owner.
In my experience people tend to separate good citizenship and investments. So while on one hand they might donate money to an environmental organization, they also own shares in Exxon/Mobile. So while it is possible that poor citizenship could cause problems finding investors or customers, I find it unlikely.
My hope is that government looks out not only for us, but also protects them (children, minorities, anyone without political or financial power) from being beat up by us.
While I am certainly opinionated, I apologize if I came off as hostile, it was not my intent.
As I understand it your position is that a large bureaucracy makes everything less efficient due to the requirements of sustaining not only the project, but also the bureaucrats.
I would tend to agree that the bureaucracy will raise the cost of any project over what a private company could theoretically get the same job done for. I do not however agree that there would be motivation for a private organization to invest in many "public works" that define modern America. I also would argue that many projects that are currently carried out by the government were to be placed under private control they would be inferior because any private organization would have to have an eye constantly on the bottom line. Since there are many good things that will always cost more than can be made on them (e.g. county roads) theses projects will be neglected by enterprise.
As to eminent domain, I realize that it is a double-edged sword, and I am comfortable with that. However, I take issue with the recent Supreme Court decision that allows eminent domain proceedings for economic development of an area. Fortunately I live in a state (DE) that has a law protecting against such a seizure (even if it does have significant wiggle room.) My position is that if land needs to be acquired for a public work such as a road, school, or firehouse, if a fair market value price is offered, eminent domain is acceptable.
I looked over Gatto's website, and skimmed a few passages of his book. If his information on literacy is accurate, that is certainly interesting, but I still believe that education is one of the most powerful gifts we can give a child. I do not think that breaking the "factory schools," and leaving education up to the parents is an optimal solution. Especially in poor areas of the city children will be sent to work at a young at the same types of jobs as their parents to earn supplemental income. This will only further entrench poverty and give further credence to the old saying, "Where you start in life is a good indication of how far you'll go." I'm not going to sit here and say that it's easy to get out of poverty, but I highly doubt that it will be easier if we make education optional. (I admit that I only glanced at his work, and its entirely possible that I missed the point completely)
Armed conflict has been around since the dawn of man, and nationalism perfected it. I am very aware of the mess of treaties, regulation that existed after 1912 (I hardly think they decreased after '45 though.) I place a heavy burden of blame for WWII on the treaty of Versailles, and Wilson's weak stance issues that could have actually given the German people a chance. This however doesn't provide evidence against my argument that there are times when pre-emotive military action is not only justified, but also desirable, such as was the case immediately after Germany invaded Poland. From this follows that taxes (and bureaucracy) are necessary to raise and support a modern army.
Concerning civil liberties I do not think that freedom to (not) associate in a commercial setting would in any way undermine racism and segregation. On the contrary I think that it would foster it. The almighty dollar rules in business, and if it is extended to civil issues he with the most gold would have the power. Sure, blacks would be able to ignore white only restaurants busses etc. and could "choose" to use thier own infrastructure, but due to the distribution of wealth everything available to them would be necessarily inferior.
Finally, while taxes are mandatory, I certainly wouldn't call them coerced. I would like to reiterate my stance that just because it could be done better by a private group, doesn't mean that it would be done. The reason bureaucracy is an acceptable facet of our culture is so that we can re-distribute the wealth, and somewhat level the playing field. If everything were left up to privat
While you may be more well read than I am on the subject, I still tend to disagree, so I'll expound a bit on each of my points.
1. Roads - It is certainly possible to build a private road, but it ceases to be practical as soon as we want to build roads that go somewhere other than between Boston and DC in 1875. In order to build a (new) road in anything resembling a cost-effective manner today you have to leverage eminent domain, and to break even it needs to be a high traffic route. The interstate system flatly could not have been built privately. Rural routes and county roads would remain muddy wagon ruts without taxes. As far as city roads go, maybe they could be nice and well built, but do you really want to have to pay a toll every time you turn? Do you want to have to research the cheapest way to work if we let competition dictate toll prices?
2. Medical/Scientific research - You must have never seen real research done. It take years, and costs millions, and switching to private funding won't change that. There are also ethical issues and safety issues at play. If we rush every drug to clinical trials the death rate under experimental drugs will balloon, and its hard to argue that that is a good thing, even if we get drugs out faster. If we don't have enough doctors, (and I'm not sure that this is the case) the reason isn't a government conspiracy, but rather one involving malpractice insurance decreasing the salary of doctors to the point where interest in the profession is waning.
3. Have you ever seen a mall security guard do police work? If the police force of a major city were privatized who would pay for it. Would you pay every time you wanted a crime solved? Could you pay per man-hour? How could we ever clean up a blighted urban area if no one there could pay for police service?
4. National defense - Without getting too political, most reasonable people would agree that in modern warfare a centrally commanded military is the only way to succeed in any type of armed conflict. The only practical way to have a united military with a single command is to make sure that all pay checks come from the same place, and to have a uniform system of punishment for soldiers transgressions.. Furthermore, there are reasons why we should pre-emotively become involved in a conflict, e.g. see how well appeasement worked in WWII. I have my own issues with the cost, effectiveness, and appropriate use of the military, but I am sure that the United States would not exist today were it not for military paid for with taxes.
5. Civil Rights - Yes the government abused civil rights, and yes there are independent groups that fight for civil rights. However, no private group could enforce equal housing, equal lending, affirmative action, and fair hiring processes. I think the state of civil rights would be much worse today without active government intervention.
6. Universally available public education - Sure there are fantastic private schools, and private education is better in many places, but it can never be universally available because we have a class system. As far as your literacy claim see http://nces.ed.gov/naal/historicaldata/illiteracy. asp I'm going to assume that there wasn't a step change in literacy prior to the department of education being established in 1867.
7. Let me add one more - JUSTICE - Its not even conceivable to me how a privately run justice system could be run, and where it could collect fees, and how it could remain impartial. Now lets factor in prison. How is any private company going to raise funds to keep the bad guys locked up? Either we have summary executions for minor crimes, or draconian speeding tickets, or maybe we can dump them in a penal colony and let them fend for themselves.
In summary, there are things that are good for society as a whole, but people don't want to pay for on there own. These are the things that are best suited to government subsidy through taxes. We could conceivably privatize most of the above government functions, but they would still have to be subsidized through taxes, in essence still making them government works.
Examples of things done better with taxes than privetly:
1. Road building
2. Medical/Scientific research (federal grants)
3. Policing
4. National Defense
5. Human/Civil rights efforts
6. Universally available education
Now I'm not saying the government does any of these things perfectly, but none of these could be effectively done by a for profit company.
Examples of things done better with taxes than privetly:
1. Road building
2. Medical/Scientific research (federal grants)
3. Policing
4. National Defense
5. Human/Civil rights efforts
6. Universally available education
Now I'm not saying the government does any of these things perfectly, but none of these could be effectively done by a for profit company.
I understand your argument, but if you want to be a professional musician you are practically coerced into signing with a label. You can maybe scrape together a living as an independent musician, but if you really want to "make it" you have to hand over your soul.
The reason people want us to feel bad for them after signing a contract is that they saw their options as: eat and become a corporate puppet, or play in back rooms for any nickles.
Couple that with the fact that the music industy (and Sony in particular) are percieved to be more evil than your standard multi-national corporation, and its not hard to think of the musician as being exploited.our integrity and earn a pittance, or make
Ahhh, should have re-read my own post to see what he was talking about...
Now that is a sticky question, but I still think that raising the standards is not a bad idea, we're not creating a problem we just moving it higher up the ladder.
With all all the schools enrollment increasing I think that there are definately people that are being let in, who frankly don't belong there. I feel that if a student doen't have the drive or motivation to put in an effort to succeed in high school I'm not convinced that they should be given a shot at college. Also if a student for whatever reason is unable to get decent grades in high school and really does have a drive to get a college education, there will always be comunity colleges that can be used to spring board into the four year institutions.
For the most part, yes i trust the hiring boards of universities. They've had a lot of practice and if you have a crappy faculty your enrollment is going to take a nose dive. How they gauge qualified I'm not qualified to say.
And if you're not qualified to teach or do research, then yes I feel safe in saying you can't contribute to an academic setting.
Everyone has had both good and bad teacher, but what people fail to realize is that often the crappy teachers do phenominal reseach. No, the system isn't perfect, but as far as getting good people there are a lot of systems worse than the Universities (the government comes to mind)
You may refer to some textbooks years later, but I'd be willing to bet that a good number were hawked for beer money at the end of the quarter. I'd also be willing to be that you knew at the beginning (at least some of the time) that certain texts weren't worth keeping.
In situations where you know at the beginning of the quarter that the text book will do you no good after that class this is a good deal (economically) for the student since a 33% discount is probably more than the resale value of the book.
Just because tuition is expensive doesn't mean that universities are turning a profit.
Yes tuition is too expensive, yes DRM'd text books is a terrible idea, but no, the cost of learning is not the university's fault. It's expensive to hire qualified instructors (experts in their field), expensive to fund their research, expensive to provide them office space, etc. etc. etc.
Research is expensive, and if tax payers aren't willing to subsidize it with property taxes they will end up paying for it when their kid goes to college.
If you really want to blame the schools for something you can start by criticizing the trend that everyone is smart enough to get into state. If you start rejecting people who really aren't qualified to be there in the first place we can direct some of their grant money to better qualified students who need it just as badly.
There are many things wrong with the current university system, but greed isn't one of them.
Any excuse to (re)teach people to drive has my support, but only if we can get stricter standards, that actually require people to know how to drive to be recertified to drive on the left hand side.
Ah duct tape covers holes good.
You only need to add holes if you ain't fix'n it right, or if your building something (like a gun-rack) i.e. building isn't fixing.
i stand by my statement that all a good redneck needs to fix something is duct tape and WD-40, but i wouldn't argue with someone who wanted to use a 8 lb sledge.
Ahhh and here the fatal flaw is underestimating the power of bureaucracy.
See all they have to do is point out that all the previous launches cost $1B, and that inflation in 2004 was around 4%, and they are sure to spend at least $1.04B.
Any bureaucracy beyond a certain critical mass can absorb any amount of money near it.
Slashdot Mirror
And when the air moves from the high-pressure underside to the low pressure top-side a very cool (but aerodynamically undesirable) effect called wing tip vorticies are formed. There are some awsome pictures of this, which I cannot be bothered to find.
Actually there was a theory that the reason that geese fly in a V formation was that they borrowed the up-draft shed from the wingtip from the goose ahead of them to significally increase flight efficiency. Don't know if this theory has merit, but I learned of it in a fluid dynamics class.
Slightly OT, but this reminds me of something...
Lately there has been a surge of "In Memory of" decals on the back windows of cars around here. To me (and only me apperently) this beggs the question what's the memorial? The car? I don't want to offend anyone, but it sure seems like a poor (and kind of tacky) choice of a memorial to me, if only because of the fact that a car is so temporary.
But hey if it helps you through the mourning more power to you I guess
here here. Mod parent up!
I am no biologist, but I am so sick of people putting together simple stories like think that they think somehow reflects a tremendously complex process.
Stories like this are what lead to the rise and fall of social darwinism, and why the ID people think that they can debunk evolution...
I read the first few posts and groaned, certain that the collective IQ of slashdot had taken a sharp drop. At least its good to know that there are a few people out there who aren't suckers who lap up every piece of media created "science" on the subject.
I don't think that it's a matter of more or less superficial, I think most mediums have the potential to deeply detail any given moment in their own way.
The problem is in adaptations, often times the depth associated with a particular moment is there because of the original medium, and it is often impossible to translate this to any different medium.
A good director can add complexity where there was none in the book, and can even improve on the original story. IMHO this is why the best adaptations tend to be from mediocre books (Jurassic Park). The director has the ability to expound on the story the author laid the framework for.
I would even go so far as to say that it is impossible for a director to improve on an excellent book, although a good or mediocre movie may still appeal to the American audience more than the original material (LotR).
A follow-up if I may...
While this is somewhat off topic the topic of taxes and government spending I thought I'd share this with you and solicit your thoughts.
While I am by no means an economist, if I had to pigeon hole myself I would say that in the area of government's role in business and daily life I'd classify myself as classical conservative i.e. an advocate for small government.
My problem may be one of semantics, and is much, much less well thought out then our tax discussion. For you see while I would prefer fewer enormous government entities (as would a classic conservative) I am also wary of big business (classic liberal).
Assuming I'm not mixing my labels, and given that I am trying to explain a gut feeling, rather than a logical argument, I am wondering if you see any reconciliation between the two.
I sense that the problem may be in the misleading nature of America's two party system. What I really want is a government that will provide what private enterprise is unable to, (a point I know you disagree on) and I accept the bureaucracy involved... And businesses that are able to operate independently, competing among themselves, but with safeguards in place to prevent against monopolistic, and anti-competitive tendencies.
Any thoughts? Am I trying to have my cake and eat it too?
Is a checkbook balancing simulator really going to be any more engaging than a page of math problems.
You really can't get to interesting case studies until you've done the grunt work in grade school.
A "mixed economy" may be an oxymoron, but it is still a reality, and in my opinion the most workable reality. You claim that anything less than laissez-faire is more or less socialist, and I agree with you. However, if I were talking to a Marxist he would claim that anything short of pure communism is more or less capitalistic, and I would agree with him as well. As far as I'm concerned what we label the extremes is of little consequence, it's the middle I'm interested with anyway.
In the middle you have some public funding of some private enterprise, or some government run or controlled enterprise. This allows certain entities that could not exist in a laissez-faire system to thrive. Where the balance of government control should lie is a constantly evolving question, and clearly has no simple solution.
I think that some taxation is a good thing because I continue to believe that were it not for your coercion that people would become vastly tighter with their purse strings. No doubt the ACLU would collapse. Googling "ACLU funding" I found the very first article indicates that it is partially taxpayer funded. (I could not quickly track down the EFF's funding info) Even charitable groups that do not receive a dime of public funding benefit from our tax laws, because donations are tax deductible.
Further, I do not see "profit" as a dirty word, which is very different from greed. I do believe that in a laissez-faire system all groups of consequence would have to be profitable, but not necessarily "spawned from greed." I do however think that people have a very strong tendency toward greed and laziness. A purely communist society will fail because of people's propensity toward laziness, while a laissez-faire system will fail from their propensity toward greed.
If taxes and tax-deductible donations were gone I firmly believe that funding for charitable organizations would dry up. While this would certainly be seen from personal donors, the much larger effect will be seen by business. Charities depend on corporate donations, and when there aren't "games" to be played with the taxman the choice is as simple as increase earnings per share OR donate to the United Way. Investors will vote with their dollars. Much like in communism when you bury responsibility for action it has the effect of eliminating the roll of conscience in decision-making.
The deferment of responsibility is why in laissez-faire systems child labor is hired. Children take the jobs due to socio-economic pressures - pressures that the government can mitigate by regulating business. If a family of 7 can only survive in a laissez-faire system by sending all children to work it will certainly do so. However, if the government outlaws child labor, and mandates a sufficiently large minimum wage not only will the children be able to seek education, ultimately improving their lot in life, but the parents will also be able to provide for all of their children with their increased wage. With this government oversight we have stepped out of laissez-faire...
So now instead of working the children alternative is to become educated, and have the opportunity to become skilled laborers, and be better off than their parents. True in a laissez-faire system there is no option. That to me is evidence against the system, not for it.
Quality is important in increasing profit, but that does not eliminate unskilled, or even child labor on assembly lines. Look at Nike, they hired child labor because their smaller fingers are more suited to some of the tasks. Ok, that's anecdotal evidence, but the fact remains that you don't need skilled laborers on a semi-automated assembly line to produce quality parts. Child labor is the cheapest, and therefore best source of unskilled labor from a laissez-faire point of view.
Good stewardship of the environment is always a difficult concept to impart to business. It will only be much more so if government regulations are removed, as would necessarily be the case under
I'm noticing that everyone is making the assumption that it's child porn, whereas TFA only says "a technician saw private files on the computer that he thought might be illegal."
I'm wondering how the slashdot clime would change if it was the Lord of the Rings Trilogy the tech suspected of being illegal.
I don't expect anyone to pay for anything that I want, but rather I expect everyone to pay for something that benefits a significant portion of the population, even if I don't see the benefit directly. I think that this is important, because I find it hard to believe that some services, such as police and education would be financed suficiently to survive on the open market.
If something is my responsibility, or my success/failure, I expect to be held responsible. If I am a part of a project that succeeds/fails I expect to be held partially responsible.
I certainly appreciate Bob's position, and while I am intrigued by some of his ideas, Bob and I are never going to agree on taxes. That does not mean that he is wasting his time though. For me the real benefit is having my assumptions challenged, especially by someone who has done the research as it appears that Bob has. This type of debate helps me to weed out weak ideas, and either change or improve them.
I am not against re-examining my opinions, and I don't think it would be presumptuous to say that I have a more moderate opinion in this case. It is my experience that moderate opinions may drift a bit more freely than more extreme ones, so I am not surprised to find that I am being more influenced than Bob is.
This type of debate also frequently piques my interest in a topic that I haven't previously had any compulsion to explore, and in this case my next book may very well be one that Bob has suggested.
I consider myself a centrist; I do not reject laissez-faire economics, nor do I embrace communism. I feel that both approaches have their merits, and that their applications are not mutually exclusive. Neither am I fool enough to be put off by negative labels associated with both. I try to look at examples and real evidence of what both (for that matter all) systems do well and poorly.
You raise good points about power, telephone, and other infrastructures competing, even being built without government assistance. I concede that this is a good thing. But I maintain that there are "good" projects that require government assistance. Although I am beating a poor corpse that was once a horse, I am going to revisit the issue of roads.
Perhaps good, sturdy, and cheap roads would exist within cities and between Boston and D.C., and between L.A. and San Francisco if we opened road building were a public enterprise. There might even be O.K. roads that stretch from Denver to Chicago, and Detroit to Miami. But if every road has to be profitable as a condition of it being built what happens to county road 7? Tolls would have to be terrific if roads were built between small Midwestern towns. Farmers could make it to market at top tractor speed. Tourism of wild escapes would evaporate.
I think that while we do disagree on what is right or wrong, I think the more telling issue is that we disagree on mine, yours and ours. While I'm far from claiming everything is ours, I do think that it is both right, and effective to tax a portion of our income to pay for our projects. I'm ok with giving up some of mine for us.
I have big problems with allowing business to make all decisions based on profits. For instance, even with the governments hand in the matter its like pulling teeth to get business to reduce emissions. The industrial revolution and laissez-faire economics proved (to me at least) that business cannot be trusted to do what's right for anybody but the business. Protecting the environment will never be good business, but that doesn't keep it from being right.
I read the review of What They Won't Tell You About Capitalism, and I find the arguments that child labor was better than the alternative, and the increase of productivity of adult workers made the practice obsolete thin to say the least. If buisness is given free reign it will do all in its power to increase the value to the owner.
In my experience people tend to separate good citizenship and investments. So while on one hand they might donate money to an environmental organization, they also own shares in Exxon/Mobile. So while it is possible that poor citizenship could cause problems finding investors or customers, I find it unlikely.
My hope is that government looks out not only for us, but also protects them (children, minorities, anyone without political or financial power) from being beat up by us.
Finally, It's not my tax policy, it's ours.
While I am certainly opinionated, I apologize if I came off as hostile, it was not my intent.
As I understand it your position is that a large bureaucracy makes everything less efficient due to the requirements of sustaining not only the project, but also the bureaucrats.
I would tend to agree that the bureaucracy will raise the cost of any project over what a private company could theoretically get the same job done for. I do not however agree that there would be motivation for a private organization to invest in many "public works" that define modern America. I also would argue that many projects that are currently carried out by the government were to be placed under private control they would be inferior because any private organization would have to have an eye constantly on the bottom line. Since there are many good things that will always cost more than can be made on them (e.g. county roads) theses projects will be neglected by enterprise.
As to eminent domain, I realize that it is a double-edged sword, and I am comfortable with that. However, I take issue with the recent Supreme Court decision that allows eminent domain proceedings for economic development of an area. Fortunately I live in a state (DE) that has a law protecting against such a seizure (even if it does have significant wiggle room.) My position is that if land needs to be acquired for a public work such as a road, school, or firehouse, if a fair market value price is offered, eminent domain is acceptable.
I looked over Gatto's website, and skimmed a few passages of his book. If his information on literacy is accurate, that is certainly interesting, but I still believe that education is one of the most powerful gifts we can give a child. I do not think that breaking the "factory schools," and leaving education up to the parents is an optimal solution. Especially in poor areas of the city children will be sent to work at a young at the same types of jobs as their parents to earn supplemental income. This will only further entrench poverty and give further credence to the old saying, "Where you start in life is a good indication of how far you'll go." I'm not going to sit here and say that it's easy to get out of poverty, but I highly doubt that it will be easier if we make education optional. (I admit that I only glanced at his work, and its entirely possible that I missed the point completely)
Armed conflict has been around since the dawn of man, and nationalism perfected it. I am very aware of the mess of treaties, regulation that existed after 1912 (I hardly think they decreased after '45 though.) I place a heavy burden of blame for WWII on the treaty of Versailles, and Wilson's weak stance issues that could have actually given the German people a chance. This however doesn't provide evidence against my argument that there are times when pre-emotive military action is not only justified, but also desirable, such as was the case immediately after Germany invaded Poland. From this follows that taxes (and bureaucracy) are necessary to raise and support a modern army.
Concerning civil liberties I do not think that freedom to (not) associate in a commercial setting would in any way undermine racism and segregation. On the contrary I think that it would foster it. The almighty dollar rules in business, and if it is extended to civil issues he with the most gold would have the power. Sure, blacks would be able to ignore white only restaurants busses etc. and could "choose" to use thier own infrastructure, but due to the distribution of wealth everything available to them would be necessarily inferior.
Finally, while taxes are mandatory, I certainly wouldn't call them coerced. I would like to reiterate my stance that just because it could be done better by a private group, doesn't mean that it would be done. The reason bureaucracy is an acceptable facet of our culture is so that we can re-distribute the wealth, and somewhat level the playing field. If everything were left up to privat
While you may be more well read than I am on the subject, I still tend to disagree, so I'll expound a bit on each of my points.
. asp
1. Roads - It is certainly possible to build a private road, but it ceases to be practical as soon as we want to build roads that go somewhere other than between Boston and DC in 1875. In order to build a (new) road in anything resembling a cost-effective manner today you have to leverage eminent domain, and to break even it needs to be a high traffic route. The interstate system flatly could not have been built privately. Rural routes and county roads would remain muddy wagon ruts without taxes. As far as city roads go, maybe they could be nice and well built, but do you really want to have to pay a toll every time you turn? Do you want to have to research the cheapest way to work if we let competition dictate toll prices?
2. Medical/Scientific research - You must have never seen real research done. It take years, and costs millions, and switching to private funding won't change that. There are also ethical issues and safety issues at play. If we rush every drug to clinical trials the death rate under experimental drugs will balloon, and its hard to argue that that is a good thing, even if we get drugs out faster. If we don't have enough doctors, (and I'm not sure that this is the case) the reason isn't a government conspiracy, but rather one involving malpractice insurance decreasing the salary of doctors to the point where interest in the profession is waning.
3. Have you ever seen a mall security guard do police work? If the police force of a major city were privatized who would pay for it. Would you pay every time you wanted a crime solved? Could you pay per man-hour? How could we ever clean up a blighted urban area if no one there could pay for police service?
4. National defense - Without getting too political, most reasonable people would agree that in modern warfare a centrally commanded military is the only way to succeed in any type of armed conflict. The only practical way to have a united military with a single command is to make sure that all pay checks come from the same place, and to have a uniform system of punishment for soldiers transgressions.. Furthermore, there are reasons why we should pre-emotively become involved in a conflict, e.g. see how well appeasement worked in WWII. I have my own issues with the cost, effectiveness, and appropriate use of the military, but I am sure that the United States would not exist today were it not for military paid for with taxes.
5. Civil Rights - Yes the government abused civil rights, and yes there are independent groups that fight for civil rights. However, no private group could enforce equal housing, equal lending, affirmative action, and fair hiring processes. I think the state of civil rights would be much worse today without active government intervention.
6. Universally available public education - Sure there are fantastic private schools, and private education is better in many places, but it can never be universally available because we have a class system. As far as your literacy claim see http://nces.ed.gov/naal/historicaldata/illiteracy
I'm going to assume that there wasn't a step change in literacy prior to the department of education being established in 1867.
7. Let me add one more - JUSTICE - Its not even conceivable to me how a privately run justice system could be run, and where it could collect fees, and how it could remain impartial. Now lets factor in prison. How is any private company going to raise funds to keep the bad guys locked up? Either we have summary executions for minor crimes, or draconian speeding tickets, or maybe we can dump them in a penal colony and let them fend for themselves.
In summary, there are things that are good for society as a whole, but people don't want to pay for on there own. These are the things that are best suited to government subsidy through taxes. We could conceivably privatize most of the above government functions, but they would still have to be subsidized through taxes, in essence still making them government works.
Examples of things done better with taxes than privetly: 1. Road building 2. Medical/Scientific research (federal grants) 3. Policing 4. National Defense 5. Human/Civil rights efforts 6. Universally available education Now I'm not saying the government does any of these things perfectly, but none of these could be effectively done by a for profit company.
boxen?
I understand your argument, but if you want to be a professional musician you are practically coerced into signing with a label. You can maybe scrape together a living as an independent musician, but if you really want to "make it" you have to hand over your soul.
The reason people want us to feel bad for them after signing a contract is that they saw their options as: eat and become a corporate puppet, or play in back rooms for any nickles.
Couple that with the fact that the music industy (and Sony in particular) are percieved to be more evil than your standard multi-national corporation, and its not hard to think of the musician as being exploited.our integrity and earn a pittance, or make
Ahhh, should have re-read my own post to see what he was talking about...
Now that is a sticky question, but I still think that raising the standards is not a bad idea, we're not creating a problem we just moving it higher up the ladder.
With all all the schools enrollment increasing I think that there are definately people that are being let in, who frankly don't belong there. I feel that if a student doen't have the drive or motivation to put in an effort to succeed in high school I'm not convinced that they should be given a shot at college. Also if a student for whatever reason is unable to get decent grades in high school and really does have a drive to get a college education, there will always be comunity colleges that can be used to spring board into the four year institutions.
For the most part, yes i trust the hiring boards of universities. They've had a lot of practice and if you have a crappy faculty your enrollment is going to take a nose dive. How they gauge qualified I'm not qualified to say.
And if you're not qualified to teach or do research, then yes I feel safe in saying you can't contribute to an academic setting.
Everyone has had both good and bad teacher, but what people fail to realize is that often the crappy teachers do phenominal reseach. No, the system isn't perfect, but as far as getting good people there are a lot of systems worse than the Universities (the government comes to mind)
You may refer to some textbooks years later, but I'd be willing to bet that a good number were hawked for beer money at the end of the quarter. I'd also be willing to be that you knew at the beginning (at least some of the time) that certain texts weren't worth keeping.
In situations where you know at the beginning of the quarter that the text book will do you no good after that class this is a good deal (economically) for the student since a 33% discount is probably more than the resale value of the book.
Just because tuition is expensive doesn't mean that universities are turning a profit.
Yes tuition is too expensive, yes DRM'd text books is a terrible idea, but no, the cost of learning is not the university's fault. It's expensive to hire qualified instructors (experts in their field), expensive to fund their research, expensive to provide them office space, etc. etc. etc.
Research is expensive, and if tax payers aren't willing to subsidize it with property taxes they will end up paying for it when their kid goes to college.
If you really want to blame the schools for something you can start by criticizing the trend that everyone is smart enough to get into state. If you start rejecting people who really aren't qualified to be there in the first place we can direct some of their grant money to better qualified students who need it just as badly.
There are many things wrong with the current university system, but greed isn't one of them.
Any excuse to (re)teach people to drive has my support, but only if we can get stricter standards, that actually require people to know how to drive to be recertified to drive on the left hand side.
Ah duct tape covers holes good. You only need to add holes if you ain't fix'n it right, or if your building something (like a gun-rack) i.e. building isn't fixing. i stand by my statement that all a good redneck needs to fix something is duct tape and WD-40, but i wouldn't argue with someone who wanted to use a 8 lb sledge.
Clearly you're not a redneck, what you really need is duct tape and WD-40.
If it moves and shouldn't use the duct tape. If it doesn't move and should use the WD-40.
Plus if you have a lighter you can make some really cool pyrotechnic displays with only those tools.
Methinks the tower of babel was actually a space elevator, and we'd do well to heed the good book's warnings about arrogance.
We're getting mighty smug what with the lack of locusts and what not...
Ahhh and here the fatal flaw is underestimating the power of bureaucracy.
See all they have to do is point out that all the previous launches cost $1B, and that inflation in 2004 was around 4%, and they are sure to spend at least $1.04B.
Any bureaucracy beyond a certain critical mass can absorb any amount of money near it.