I have always thought that the point of voting was NOT to get my guy to win, but to choose the candidate that most closely matches by beliefs. A vote cannot be wasted if this is your goal.
If voting has a goal, this implies someone has something to gain.
If someone has something to gain, then any entity with the most to gain, will have their goal enacted.
And if you think you have the most to gain, then you need to stop smoking crack.
Who is going to have their goals enacted:
The person who supplied one vote, based on some marketing they were exposed to?
The organization who funded the campaign, which marketed to those who voted?
You know, that's a perfectly fine argument, but it comes with a heavy price
Okay Mike, value that "heavy price".
It's perfectly fine to say "but it comes with a heavy price" when your job doesn't involve making these decisions, however it's another to actually realise no one can predict the future and therefore accurately calculate the future value (Which would be a stupid thing to do anyway).
Additionally, if the cost of an action can be paid later, society will always increase their leverage by paying it later, and is right to do so considering the economies of growth (technology, population, infrastructure, etc). This is why people take out loans.
You're not considering what regulations govern the Private Schools in the US. They aren't completely free, and is exactly why I said...
And in the instances where the private isn't as good as the public, I guarantee you that there will be government regulation causing this.
Additionally, Michael Moore's latest movie Sicko (Which I believe is the sum of your research on Private Hospital's in the US vs. Public Hospital's in the EU), grossly understates those systems. My mother is a nurse in Australia and has friends who have nursed all over the world, and the state of public health care in Britain, Canada and Cuba is completely fucked. You aren't able to choose which kind of treatment you get, even if there is a better alternative, and you often have HUGE weighting times. Additionally, these systems are so inefficient and so much money goes to it, that the rest of the system and people who don't want to pay for it, are forced to, and therefore earn a lot less than they would otherwise. Which is part of the reason why people in the housing projects over there (Britain mostly) can't get out.
There is always less economic mobility in a planned system, such as Socialism.
And if you think that a business can provide a terrible service and get away with it (Without Government help), then you're not considering who is paying for it.
Any business does not exceed unless it is able to provide the greatest amount of value, it is able to.
As you've replied to someone else about the EU and US. These are what we in the industry like to call "mixed economies", which means that part of the economy is public and part is private.
Have a look at each of these countries, and in almost every aspect the private service is far greater than the public service.
And in the instances where the private isn't as good as the public, I guarantee you that there will be government regulation causing this.
It's more like he walks into your store and offers you $0.01 to make a similar copy of a case of beer, you refuse, a passing police officer reminds you that the $0.01 per "similar copy of the case of beer" price is fixed by law and declared to be fair, and he walks out of the store with a similar copy the beer.
There... FIXED!
Since, by selling the music, they didn't physically remove anything. Where as, with the original beer analogy, someone else wouldn't have been able to purchase that exact case of beer. In this one, they can!
I'd like to see people get off their fucking high horses for once.
Almost everybody has an opinion on this subject, it's almost always never right, and it never will be.
I don't know your circumstances, you don't know mine. Maybe my kids need to be "coddled", maybe they don't.
The problem is, everyone believes you can pigeon hole education such that, we can force the public education system to meet all of our needs.
The only way anybody's needs are going to be met, is if we deregulate and privatise the industry. Because I guarantee that, if government isn't standing in my way, I will choose the best education for my child, and then I will get what I pay for!
Now, how does selling a counterfeit under someone else's name fit in to your view of capitalism?
In all instances where counterfeit goods are sold, someone has made the choice to choose these counterfeit goods over legitimate goods. Often this is due to cost or similar. Generally when sold there will be some idea that these are counterfeit, such as they are sold in a market not known to sell originals.
If we look at this from a moral point of view, given these products can be made, even if the prices were identical (which is unlikely), more would be in the market place, more people could purchase these goods, more people would benefit from these.
Now consider if the price was far lower, then you're serving the poorer people in a country with a good they else wise might not have been able to purchase.
Most people don't understand that it's nice for us high income people to say, we should protect the company or we should subsidize this or that, it may seem directly the right thing to do, however you need to remember that ALL costs at the end of the day take the greatest burden on the people with the lowest income.
This is pretty interesting, perhaps this shows how inefficient the "one console fits all"/"media center" ideology can be. Given that a lot of people either don't know about what else it can do, or don't care about what it can do (I know all of my friends are in that boat), it might show that Microsoft and the Sony have devoted too much time and money towards these than they should have.
I'd like to see a follow up to this analysing the consumers needs (present) vs. the companies expectations of those needs, and account for these additional expenses. It would be interesting to see how much more profitable these machines could have been, an how much easier it might have been for them to get to production, and how many they could have produced for their initial release (Especially since the PS3 was majorly set back by BlueRay).
In a truly free market (such as one defined by anarcho-capitalism) money does not equal power. Because there are no arcane laws at the control of a single person.
What can be seen is that providing the greatest amount of value for the most amount of people provides you with the greatest amount of money. All transactions are entirely voluntary, and from this solitary fact you can see that any person who does not have the best interests of enough people will inevitably go bankrupt. Now this is a very simple, yet for most people complex idea, that you really need to sit down, think about, and understand.
Soon we will have a large class of people who's only choice in life will be to do exactly what their landlord tells them.
The situation you provided has been covered quite a lot by economists. What has been found is somewhat the polar opposite to what you believe. First of all, these exact circumstances exist today, you need only look at welfare housing, such as the "projects" in America and the housing trust in Australia and Great Britain.
People often believe that people with money are able to control other people through arbitrarily setting prices. However, this is completely false. Firms do not set prices, firms react to the market to charge the most economic price for their products and services. Firms which arbitrarily set prices, or attempt to use prices to control people, any firm which did engage in these practices would not survive unless somebody was able and willing to pay these prices. In a free market it is almost impossible to maintain a monopoly, even on natural resources, such as land and oil, as there will always be substitutes (Have a look at how people live in Tokyo). This is a poorly written and brief example of the invisible hand of the market
This isn't without going into economic mobility in a free market system versus our current systems, or even the inherent inefficiencies in large business which are only able to prosper due to regulation which is meant to "protect" people from large businesses (Being a small business man, I know this only too well).
There are so many reasons why these problems can either, not exist or temporarily exist (such that in the grand scheme of things, it's not worth ruining your freedom over), that it's just not funny.
You sound more like an English literature/communications major than an economist. Your thinking is too linear. Instead of stating this is what will happen, describe the transactions that will take place, and think about why they take place. If you ever describe a transaction where a person is forced to make a decision which is harmful to themselves, think about what you would do in that situation, and that is what other people will do.
Now, everything you have brought up in this one message, is covered really really well in "Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition" by Milton Friedman, it's not a very expensive book, it isn't very thick and it's written really well. It explains everything I have touched on and more.
If you want to discuss topics like this, you have to read this book or "Free to Choose: A Personal Statement" by Milton Friedman, or if you don't want to read free to choose you can download the tv series produced in the 80s just search on mininova or torrentspy for "free to choose".
Even if you think all of these are just libertarian propaganda, these books/tv series only deal with logic and discuss both sides of the argument, more so, these are the quint
You're wrong. Given everybody has the greatest amount of personal freedom, the only things which can be exploited, can be exploited in the current system.
Instead of me going on with a rant, why don't you provide me with an example of how an anarcho-capitalism (A specific free market form of libertarianism) future could be so bad, and I will show you how a truly free market, doesn't allow it to exist.
One person owning everything and the rest of us owning nothing is still Pareto optimal. It sure is, however you've neglected to mention how one gets to this Pareto optimality from the current status quo.
From what you've said, I don't believe you have any understanding of the economic concepts at hand.
You might be out of the "trailer trash" bracket, but I know a hell of a lot of people still in it, actually the majority of my family.
Have you used our public health care recently?
My mother was a nurse, all of her friends are nurses and when you talk to them, you get to hear the real horror stories. It's fucking rubish, over crowded, under paid, public hospitals are being closed, entire wards are going un-used due to funding and gaming the system.
A mate of mine recently had to wait 6 months with a painful wizdom tooth, just to get surgery on it, only to be operated on by a crappy student.
Great, so we're going to pay twice as much, than if the entire market was de-regulated and Telstra was completely sold.
Additionally, a lot of people don't want broadband. We don't live in a densely populated country, we can't provide these facilities economically, however the government now wants to provide it to use forcefully an inefficiently, and force everyone to pay for it with taxes and inflation.
This is the best pole I have seen, and I am extremely happy with the results. Ron Paul is the only Presidential candidate who understands what is actually in the best interests of Americans, since he is a staunch Libertarian.
I truly hope that he wins the election, even though I live in Australia, he would have the power and chance to set some excellent presidents for the rest of the world.
Ballmer. The last one is for him so that he can properly gauge how far he can throw it, most lethal angles, etc, for when they start losing significant sales to linux boxxen.
This sort of assumes that Ballmer throws things that they "lose significant sales" too.
So when did Microsoft enter the "chair market"? Since that's the only thing I've heard of him throwing.
Although the consumers don't directly pay the termination rates, the business have it in their best interest to negotiate for lower termination rates as it increases the profitability of their service. This is another reason why companies would be trying to grab market share, as it would give them a greater bargaining chip.
One limitation of the caller-pays model would be in "bridging networks", for instance, when you call someone whose network can't directly be reached from your network, and requires going through an in between network. In this case, the cost of the middle network could be shared by both the caller and the callee, however each person would have to pay the rates that their network has negotiated on their behalf. This is what can happen when you call an overseas or interstate or similar number. This would still have the added benefit of both the caller and the callee feeling the impact, and therefore making a choice in their best interest.
Although this would increase the complexity of the transaction immensely in some cases, it would be beneficial to all.
I can see that the caller-pays model is far superior in value for the consumer, and therefore in time, it will most likely go in that direction. The only thing stopping it would be Government intervention in the way of regulation on such an environment.
Either way, thanks for bringing this idea up, I hadn't thought about it until I read your thread.
I think you're forgetting that the MPAA and RIAA make money by inserting themselves into government and regulating these industries, so they can charge the bands for releasing music they should have been able to release without their intervention.
The MPAA and RIAA do not benefit from moving to an online model they can not regulate, in fact if that model proved to work, they would ultimately lose money.
I blame the Government and Producers as they are the ones "allowing" this to happen.
All you can to is switch between paying 3 cents markup or paying 2 cents markup.
Given that one company provides a better fee (and assuming that both companies are identical in every other way), one company is going to lose market share. When this company loses it's market share, it not only loses the 2/3 cents, it also loses the 10cents from the competitions companies calls. Additionally when you call a TelAzul to TelAzul that company keeps all of the profit.
This creates an atmosphere of attempting to generate market share, since that yields the most amount of profit, and since the difference between you and your competitors is marginal you go with which ever appears the best, if you are a discerning customer. However, what this also generates are programs which provide benefits to anyone who calls someone who is on the same carrier, since these costs can be driven way down very easily, and it boosts your market share.
The reason the businesses in Australia develop their business models around market share are due to the size of the market. Australia's population compared to the US or Canada is approximately 20 million, which is spread (not evenly) over 7 million square kilometres. Given a service such as this is considered one of relative convenience, and the cost cutting culture that was generated on traditional telecommunications after the privatisation of Telstra, the price people are willing to pay for this service is nominal. Now, with these prices, that small market share, and that large area to cover, business must attempt to position them selves for the greatest market share, to sustain what might be considered a small amount of profit in the US or Canada.
This is without considering the other environmental externalities such as purchasing price parity, less supporting business infrastructure in Australia, etc.
So there are pro's and con's to both business models. As it stands, the Australian model is going alright, if it turns out to not be a successful one, they will change.
Say hello. Even when you don't need something. You say a big Hi to the pretty lady at the front desk every time you pass. Why not treat the tech guy the same? Sure, he doesn't say anything back. Don't be fooled. Sysadmins are like cats -- he won't acknowledge you, but he's mentally keeping score.
Don't question what he does all day. Systems administrators are like firemen and cops. If you don't have a couple of bored ones hanging around, you'll be sorry when there's an emergency.
Fill out the stupid request form or other idiotic bureaucratic formality every time the printer jams. If you go directly to Joe Admin for help without putting a request in the system, you'll eventually get him fired. The CEO asks the department head for an automated help desk report to justify headcount, and see? What does that guy do all day? He doesn't even say hi.
Treat everything he does as a favor. Like most first-responder jobs, sysadmin is a career cul-de-sac -- the only way out is to become, ugh, a manager. Let him savor the delusion that everyone envies his gig in Operations because he's got all the root passwords and triple-encrypted card keys to the server room.
Never forget: He can read your mail.
This is a really good post, and points out what I've been doing without thinking about it.
I believe it's a personality type conflict, and the fact that a sysadmin's position is less than rewarding.
I have never had a problem with any sysadmin's, even when I was at school and messing with their networks, I was always friends with them. It's probably more my ability to talk to them on (or above as it may well be) their level of understanding, and my ability to understand their jokes, mannerisms, and above all, sense of humour.
One thing I've noticed is, we nerds often act, speak and think differently to other people, who could not in the slightest fathom our motivations or understanding of the social context around them. Such as, we tend to be more deprecating and agresive than other people, when they come into contact with this, especially if they have not had a large amount of exposure to this kind of personality, they don't know how to take it. Some resent it, some feel threatened by it, others ignore it, some understand it.
In all incidents with "bad" sysadmin's it's generally their personality. Some time it can be their management (giving them too many tasks), or it's that you're frustrated and don't know why they won't do more to help you, or they aren't particularly competent (These are generally the ones who aren't nerds, and are doing it because "Hey, I heard there's good money in this field").
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent post. Well put. The best I have read on this thread yet!
If voting has a goal, this implies someone has something to gain.
If someone has something to gain, then any entity with the most to gain, will have their goal enacted.
And if you think you have the most to gain, then you need to stop smoking crack.
Who is going to have their goals enacted:
I like your response.
You have all candor, of someone who does not understand the subject matter.
(This was a veiled insult, brought to you by simple logic and common sense.)
Okay Mike, value that "heavy price".
It's perfectly fine to say "but it comes with a heavy price" when your job doesn't involve making these decisions, however it's another to actually realise no one can predict the future and therefore accurately calculate the future value (Which would be a stupid thing to do anyway).
Additionally, if the cost of an action can be paid later, society will always increase their leverage by paying it later, and is right to do so considering the economies of growth (technology, population, infrastructure, etc). This is why people take out loans.
Additionally, Michael Moore's latest movie Sicko (Which I believe is the sum of your research on Private Hospital's in the US vs. Public Hospital's in the EU), grossly understates those systems. My mother is a nurse in Australia and has friends who have nursed all over the world, and the state of public health care in Britain, Canada and Cuba is completely fucked. You aren't able to choose which kind of treatment you get, even if there is a better alternative, and you often have HUGE weighting times. Additionally, these systems are so inefficient and so much money goes to it, that the rest of the system and people who don't want to pay for it, are forced to, and therefore earn a lot less than they would otherwise. Which is part of the reason why people in the housing projects over there (Britain mostly) can't get out.
There is always less economic mobility in a planned system, such as Socialism.
And if you think that a business can provide a terrible service and get away with it (Without Government help), then you're not considering who is paying for it.
Any business does not exceed unless it is able to provide the greatest amount of value, it is able to.
I call bullshit.
As you've replied to someone else about the EU and US. These are what we in the industry like to call "mixed economies", which means that part of the economy is public and part is private.
Have a look at each of these countries, and in almost every aspect the private service is far greater than the public service.
And in the instances where the private isn't as good as the public, I guarantee you that there will be government regulation causing this.
If it doesn't exist... you're in the minority.
Wait wait wait... lets get this right!
It's more like he walks into your store and offers you $0.01 to make a similar copy of a case of beer, you refuse, a passing police officer reminds you that the $0.01 per "similar copy of the case of beer" price is fixed by law and declared to be fair, and he walks out of the store with a similar copy the beer.
There... FIXED!
Since, by selling the music, they didn't physically remove anything. Where as, with the original beer analogy, someone else wouldn't have been able to purchase that exact case of beer. In this one, they can!
A company that benefits from reducing the freedom of its clients, made available through technology, is campaigning against said freedom.
Well this has worked well for Sony, Toshiba, Microsoft, etc, so I assume this will work just as well for these sites.
I'm just glad market forces are always stronger than a companies PR campaign.
I'd like to see people get off their fucking high horses for once.
Almost everybody has an opinion on this subject, it's almost always never right, and it never will be.
I don't know your circumstances, you don't know mine. Maybe my kids need to be "coddled", maybe they don't.
The problem is, everyone believes you can pigeon hole education such that, we can force the public education system to meet all of our needs.
The only way anybody's needs are going to be met, is if we deregulate and privatise the industry. Because I guarantee that, if government isn't standing in my way, I will choose the best education for my child, and then I will get what I pay for!
In all instances where counterfeit goods are sold, someone has made the choice to choose these counterfeit goods over legitimate goods. Often this is due to cost or similar. Generally when sold there will be some idea that these are counterfeit, such as they are sold in a market not known to sell originals.
If we look at this from a moral point of view, given these products can be made, even if the prices were identical (which is unlikely), more would be in the market place, more people could purchase these goods, more people would benefit from these.
Now consider if the price was far lower, then you're serving the poorer people in a country with a good they else wise might not have been able to purchase.
Most people don't understand that it's nice for us high income people to say, we should protect the company or we should subsidize this or that, it may seem directly the right thing to do, however you need to remember that ALL costs at the end of the day take the greatest burden on the people with the lowest income.
This is pretty interesting, perhaps this shows how inefficient the "one console fits all"/"media center" ideology can be. Given that a lot of people either don't know about what else it can do, or don't care about what it can do (I know all of my friends are in that boat), it might show that Microsoft and the Sony have devoted too much time and money towards these than they should have.
I'd like to see a follow up to this analysing the consumers needs (present) vs. the companies expectations of those needs, and account for these additional expenses. It would be interesting to see how much more profitable these machines could have been, an how much easier it might have been for them to get to production, and how many they could have produced for their initial release (Especially since the PS3 was majorly set back by BlueRay).
It's spelt Teal'C you insensitive clod!
What can be seen is that providing the greatest amount of value for the most amount of people provides you with the greatest amount of money. All transactions are entirely voluntary, and from this solitary fact you can see that any person who does not have the best interests of enough people will inevitably go bankrupt. Now this is a very simple, yet for most people complex idea, that you really need to sit down, think about, and understand.
The situation you provided has been covered quite a lot by economists. What has been found is somewhat the polar opposite to what you believe. First of all, these exact circumstances exist today, you need only look at welfare housing, such as the "projects" in America and the housing trust in Australia and Great Britain.
People often believe that people with money are able to control other people through arbitrarily setting prices. However, this is completely false. Firms do not set prices, firms react to the market to charge the most economic price for their products and services. Firms which arbitrarily set prices, or attempt to use prices to control people, any firm which did engage in these practices would not survive unless somebody was able and willing to pay these prices. In a free market it is almost impossible to maintain a monopoly, even on natural resources, such as land and oil, as there will always be substitutes (Have a look at how people live in Tokyo). This is a poorly written and brief example of the invisible hand of the market
This isn't without going into economic mobility in a free market system versus our current systems, or even the inherent inefficiencies in large business which are only able to prosper due to regulation which is meant to "protect" people from large businesses (Being a small business man, I know this only too well).
There are so many reasons why these problems can either, not exist or temporarily exist (such that in the grand scheme of things, it's not worth ruining your freedom over), that it's just not funny.
You sound more like an English literature/communications major than an economist. Your thinking is too linear. Instead of stating this is what will happen, describe the transactions that will take place, and think about why they take place. If you ever describe a transaction where a person is forced to make a decision which is harmful to themselves, think about what you would do in that situation, and that is what other people will do.
Now, everything you have brought up in this one message, is covered really really well in "Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition" by Milton Friedman, it's not a very expensive book, it isn't very thick and it's written really well. It explains everything I have touched on and more.
If you want to discuss topics like this, you have to read this book or "Free to Choose: A Personal Statement" by Milton Friedman, or if you don't want to read free to choose you can download the tv series produced in the 80s just search on mininova or torrentspy for "free to choose".
Or if you're really into this topic, you need to read "Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market" by Murray Rothbard, hell it's even free!
Even if you think all of these are just libertarian propaganda, these books/tv series only deal with logic and discuss both sides of the argument, more so, these are the quint
You're wrong. Given everybody has the greatest amount of personal freedom, the only things which can be exploited, can be exploited in the current system.
Instead of me going on with a rant, why don't you provide me with an example of how an anarcho-capitalism (A specific free market form of libertarianism) future could be so bad, and I will show you how a truly free market, doesn't allow it to exist.
From what you've said, I don't believe you have any understanding of the economic concepts at hand.
If you are into this subject, I recommend you download "Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market" by Murray Rothbard and have a read, or for a more concise and easy to read explanation buy "Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition" by Milton Friedman.
Whoah, mate. You need to take a step back.
2 2008470-5006301,00.html?from=public_rss
You might be out of the "trailer trash" bracket, but I know a hell of a lot of people still in it, actually the majority of my family.
Have you used our public health care recently?
My mother was a nurse, all of her friends are nurses and when you talk to them, you get to hear the real horror stories. It's fucking rubish, over crowded, under paid, public hospitals are being closed, entire wards are going un-used due to funding and gaming the system.
A mate of mine recently had to wait 6 months with a painful wizdom tooth, just to get surgery on it, only to be operated on by a crappy student.
I don't know where you've been living in recent years but it sure as hell can't have been here, since you would have seen the various strikes on the news:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,
Great, so we're going to pay twice as much, than if the entire market was de-regulated and Telstra was completely sold.
Additionally, a lot of people don't want broadband. We don't live in a densely populated country, we can't provide these facilities economically, however the government now wants to provide it to use forcefully an inefficiently, and force everyone to pay for it with taxes and inflation.
Great, I can't fucking wait.
This is the best pole I have seen, and I am extremely happy with the results. Ron Paul is the only Presidential candidate who understands what is actually in the best interests of Americans, since he is a staunch Libertarian.
I truly hope that he wins the election, even though I live in Australia, he would have the power and chance to set some excellent presidents for the rest of the world.
This sort of assumes that Ballmer throws things that they "lose significant sales" too.
So when did Microsoft enter the "chair market"? Since that's the only thing I've heard of him throwing.
Although the consumers don't directly pay the termination rates, the business have it in their best interest to negotiate for lower termination rates as it increases the profitability of their service. This is another reason why companies would be trying to grab market share, as it would give them a greater bargaining chip.
One limitation of the caller-pays model would be in "bridging networks", for instance, when you call someone whose network can't directly be reached from your network, and requires going through an in between network. In this case, the cost of the middle network could be shared by both the caller and the callee, however each person would have to pay the rates that their network has negotiated on their behalf. This is what can happen when you call an overseas or interstate or similar number. This would still have the added benefit of both the caller and the callee feeling the impact, and therefore making a choice in their best interest.
Although this would increase the complexity of the transaction immensely in some cases, it would be beneficial to all.
I can see that the caller-pays model is far superior in value for the consumer, and therefore in time, it will most likely go in that direction. The only thing stopping it would be Government intervention in the way of regulation on such an environment.
Either way, thanks for bringing this idea up, I hadn't thought about it until I read your thread.
I think you're forgetting that the MPAA and RIAA make money by inserting themselves into government and regulating these industries, so they can charge the bands for releasing music they should have been able to release without their intervention.
The MPAA and RIAA do not benefit from moving to an online model they can not regulate, in fact if that model proved to work, they would ultimately lose money.
I blame the Government and Producers as they are the ones "allowing" this to happen.
Given that one company provides a better fee (and assuming that both companies are identical in every other way), one company is going to lose market share. When this company loses it's market share, it not only loses the 2/3 cents, it also loses the 10cents from the competitions companies calls. Additionally when you call a TelAzul to TelAzul that company keeps all of the profit.
This creates an atmosphere of attempting to generate market share, since that yields the most amount of profit, and since the difference between you and your competitors is marginal you go with which ever appears the best, if you are a discerning customer. However, what this also generates are programs which provide benefits to anyone who calls someone who is on the same carrier, since these costs can be driven way down very easily, and it boosts your market share.
The reason the businesses in Australia develop their business models around market share are due to the size of the market. Australia's population compared to the US or Canada is approximately 20 million, which is spread (not evenly) over 7 million square kilometres. Given a service such as this is considered one of relative convenience, and the cost cutting culture that was generated on traditional telecommunications after the privatisation of Telstra, the price people are willing to pay for this service is nominal. Now, with these prices, that small market share, and that large area to cover, business must attempt to position them selves for the greatest market share, to sustain what might be considered a small amount of profit in the US or Canada.
This is without considering the other environmental externalities such as purchasing price parity, less supporting business infrastructure in Australia, etc.
So there are pro's and con's to both business models. As it stands, the Australian model is going alright, if it turns out to not be a successful one, they will change.
Now it's time to go home... Weeee!
I believe it's a personality type conflict, and the fact that a sysadmin's position is less than rewarding.
I have never had a problem with any sysadmin's, even when I was at school and messing with their networks, I was always friends with them. It's probably more my ability to talk to them on (or above as it may well be) their level of understanding, and my ability to understand their jokes, mannerisms, and above all, sense of humour.
One thing I've noticed is, we nerds often act, speak and think differently to other people, who could not in the slightest fathom our motivations or understanding of the social context around them. Such as, we tend to be more deprecating and agresive than other people, when they come into contact with this, especially if they have not had a large amount of exposure to this kind of personality, they don't know how to take it. Some resent it, some feel threatened by it, others ignore it, some understand it.
In all incidents with "bad" sysadmin's it's generally their personality. Some time it can be their management (giving them too many tasks), or it's that you're frustrated and don't know why they won't do more to help you, or they aren't particularly competent (These are generally the ones who aren't nerds, and are doing it because "Hey, I heard there's good money in this field").