"If everyone wants to get paid above average, half of the available positions will remain unfilled."
Only if there's something like 'basic rent' in place.
In the meantime, in the real world, it's not so much about what you, as an employee, want to be paid, but about what you, as an employer, want from your employees. And then, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
"Consider that we have homeless people and other poor people who aren't necessarily helped by higher taxes in this country."
And then consider that those homeless are probably the ones that most benefit from the kind of jobs these people are doing, since are the most exposed to health/environment base standards.
"I want to say there should be a cap for how much government employees can earn for employment that is consistent over time."
It is said the if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. If you are paying below average, what kind of people do you think you'll attract?
"Now most people do it for no other reason than they are too spineless to buck the trend and actually *be* productive as opposed to looking productive."
Why should it be any other way?
Time and again experience shows there's more profit in looking productive than actually being productive -and arguably, being experienced in looking productive more than being productive will help you climbing the corporate ladder once you go into management.
"Or is there a different plan you are talking about?"
No, I'm not talking of a different plan. It's only the part you omited. It was not the money lended back then -or else Greece would be nowadays a buoyant economy as no less money has been lent in the past five years, but what was done with the money: Greece is still in the same place it was, opened to turism and a gate between Eurasia and Black Sea/Mediterranean; it still owns the biggest merchant fleet. It still has powerful basic infrastructures and a chance to grow both in quality agriculture and knowledge industries.
"at what point did Goldman Sachs become a German and/or French company?"
Of course Goldman Sachs is not a EU company itself (while with a branch incorporated in Europe and still a big company with their hands dirty in quite some national-level crisis), but it is not companies the ones that do things; it is people, and the ties between Goldman Sachs execs and these governments and agencies are hurtingly notorious. In example:
Mario Monti: Prime Minister of Italy, ex Goldman Sachs.
Mario Draghi: European Central Bank's Director, ex Goldman Sachs
Lucas Papademos: Greece Prime Minister, ex Goldman Sachs
Petros Christodoulus: Head of Greece's debt management agency, ex Goldman Sachs
Otmar Issing: board member of Bundesbank and ECB, ex Goldman Sachs
Karel Van Miert: EU Competition Comissioner, ex Goldman Sachs
Peter Shutherland: Attorney General of Ireland and prominent voice during Irish bail-out, ex Goldman Sachs
Antonio Borges: head of the IMF's European Dpt. ex Goldman Sachs
Yes, it is. It counts on honest politicians and a transparent system and, of course, further economical help to reach its intended goal (Greek productivity) instead of returning back to Germany without even show in Greek soil so, yes, extremly optimistic.
But not unreal. It only takes to have a look at Greek GDP and expenditures build up to know.
"You are saying this as if these were somehow imposed upon the Greek."
That was exactly the case.
"it takes two to tango."
Yes. The question is, which two? It was German (mainly, and Frech, and others) interests and corrupted Greek politicians the ones dancing, liyng to the Greek people which had no saying in this issues (because they didn't have the means to know).
"Leaving the Euro will mean that the country has defaulted"
Partially, yes.
"and whatever currency they put in place will have no value at all."
Absolutly wrong. It is wrong in theory, and it has been shown wrong in practice lots of time. It is not as if it were the first time a nation restorts to devaluate its currency.
"The government will be bankrupt and will not be able to pay civil servants or pensioners."
That's stupid beyond contempt. If anything, they will have zero problems paying civil servants or pensioners, the problems will be anywhere else but certainly not in paying their internal, publicly-backed obligations: under their own currency they will be able to print as much money as they need to cover them! Of course, the standard output will be skyrocketing inflation but, as long as they have a mildly honest government (what a contrast with later ones) they'll manage to maintain it within 15-20%.
"There are only 3 ways this goes:"
The only reasonble one is the first one: creditors accept to write-off some debt. Not any kind of debt, but only the part that was fradulently imposed on Greece (Goldman Sach bonds, military over-expending and other fraudulent contracts). At the same time Greece needs to put as much effort and money as needed to put to an end to tax fraud, mainly from big fortunes as well as a stronger progressive tax law centered on direct taxes, not indirect like VAT as the IMF insists on doing. With only this, there will be no need to touch VAT, pensions, healthcare or education.
"Thing is, the one who stole money is Greek government."
Yes. With the enthusiastic help of French and German governments and Goldman Sachs.
It is not that it's some kind of a secret but, still, I find amusing that the obvious fact that current Greek situation was a well planned trap of central/northen Europe and economical lobbies against south Europe economies doesn't gather but a fraction of mindshare than the "Greeks must pay" and "Greeks lived above their means".
Just some examples: * Greek economical situation was falsified by Goldman Sachs, so Greece apparently reached the required levels to enter de EU and Euro currency. German government knew it (and even now, Mario Draghi, GS ex-consultant is current head of the European Central Bank). Still, I don't see anybody asking Goldman Sachs for billionary fines and compensations. * Greece can't (partially) default its debts, not at least within the monetary union, still Greece hasn't still seen a dime of Germany's war compensations (I'm not even going into it's legal weight, but the obvious fact is that this helped to develop Germany's economy and now Greece is in a position to be returned the favour). Double standard anyone? * Greece spends a quite above average percentage of its GDP on defense (at about 2.5% -a percentage significant enough as to put an end to Greece's crisis on its own), mostly on weapons bougth to... Germany and France, mainly to protect European interests on the zone. Do you know what Germany and France are *not* saying? They are not saying "return me back our planes and tanks, which are well above the level you need for self-defense, and so part of your debt gets settled". * Most of the money lent to Greece isn't going to support Greek economy so it can go stronger, produce more taxes and return the debt but it is going back to Germany and other northern European countries and to support the Greek *private* banking system (again an example on the 'privatization of benefits but nationalization of loses', some "liberals" are so keen of). Even IMF concludes that no more than 11% of lends ended up being used to support the country's operations.
All this has not to be understood as if the Greek people voluntarily decided going that path (rising defense expenses to 2.5% of GDP, allowing Goldman Sachs to falsify the accounts, giving public contracts to cronies, etc.). This all was the result of a corrupt government with aquitance of (mainly) German government and banks, which are the same that now tear their robes in anger.
No, it was not that the Greeks were expending abover their means, it is that Germany -with the help of Greece's corrupt politicians, was robbing Greeks above their means and now Germany tries to hide their tracks just by shouting up loud.
"Absolutely wrong. If this was right, "design by comittee" wouldn't be a synonym for utterly fucked up."
Point being that those in the comittee are good at reaching places at comitees, not necessarily good at the problem at hand.
In other words: "designed by comittee" is a synonym for "uttelry fucked up" because it never happens that the ones that can solve the problem are at the comittes but their managers. Imagine a world where the solvers instead of their managers were at the comittee.
"You should look into how much people trusted banks with their money before the advent of FDIC."
This *is* a valid point. Just as current bank regulation and standards didn't grow overnight, these kind of somehow novel services will need time to settle. Not a intrinsic problem of the services themselves but of their maturity status. But still you see the vast majority of critics are directed to the services themselves, not their development status.
You see, one can somehow compare current cloud services' situation to that of banking on the 17th or 18th century and the critics here instead of saying "banking is a good thing but beware it still has quite some rough corners", they are saying "Banking? it's a bluff, there's no way anybody sensible will ever put his money and confidence on them".
"Jesus, read a fucking book. Short of that, read a fucking wiki page. "
Have you read it? Maybe yes, but it's obvious your political bias blinds your reading comprehension: the paragraph "The Franco Era, 1939-75" basically says exactly the same I did in my previous message. If I didn't look the logs, I could believe somebody took my message as the seed to write it!
"They moved away from government control, and the direct result was that people stopped starving."
They didn't moved away from govenment control, and people stopped starving not because of more liberalism but because allowing USA to sit military bases in Spain ended up the blockage and thus the autarky situation, allowing access to both international loans and markets. It's all there, in the article you linked to.
"They moved away from government control"
You still didn't provide a single fact backing your claims, just as I predicted.
"The more state control their is, the more impoverished the people, PERIOD."
State control remained the same at the sixties as at the forties and fifties, still Spain's economical conditions got better. The fact it contradicts your credo doesn't make it any more true. PERIOD.
"If state intervention "worked" as you claimed, then there would have been no need for reforms"
There were no market reforms; not in private property status, not in banking, not in the ability to create new business or lack of thereof. It is you the one that repeats once and again the existence of such market reforms but you still have been unable to provide a single example.
"Spain would have been a magical paradise where the dictator commanded the tides and economic growth was shat out by flying unicorns on command. [...] You dumbassed statists are simply too stupid to understand the concept of a spectrum"
And the pot called the kettle black.
So the case that a dictatorship in very specific conditions managed to rise the economy of a devastated country once the international community opened the barriers to market and money, needs to rise it to superpower levels or it didn't happen -not that it was such a difficult feat: arguably the difficult thing for anybody would have been despressing the economy even more. Citing the article you linked to: "The success of the stabilization program was attributable to a combination of good luck and good management"; it doesn't say it was because of going from anywhere to the American Way of Life, sorry.
And then, being aware of the circumnstances and understanding why it happened makes me into a "dumbass statist".
And it's the other people, not Mr tmosley, the ones that "are simply too stupid to understand the concept of a spectrum". Well, yeah.
Just for the benefit of others, I know you are beyond salvation, pay attention that current China socio-economic status has lots in common to Spain's in the late fifties/early sixties -main qualitative difference being that because the hughe size of the country and population, they still could develop under autarky if needed so. Still a dictatorship, still a centrally planned economy, still heavy government involvement in markets and industries and -just like Spain in the sixties, still quickly growing up. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that China government's political theorists studied the Spanish case.
*You shouldn't trust the cloud providers. Even if the CSP and its employees are trustworthy, if they get a court order or double-secret-probation security letter, they have to turn the data over.*
You *shouldn't* trust banks. Even if the bank and its employees are trustworthy, if they get a court order, they have to lock your accounts and/or hand your money to the government.
"Just because an accountant is "satisfied" with marketing double speak about the "cloud", that just shows how clueless they are."
Of course, anything new needs to be analyzed and put into perspective, but I really don't understand this rabid hate for cloud services except being afraid of lose job security (OK, "cloud" is marketspeech, then let's call it for its real name: outsourcing).
Basically 99% of what's needed for our business is already outsourced: from building the place we are working on to most of internal processess. Data safeguarding/management is only one more. After all, data about money can't be more important than money itself and money safeguarding/management has already outsourced to banks since, when? always?
"Next time there's a server security breach, I'll call my accountants to come fix it right?"
How's this any different to a physical bank security breach (aka robbery)? Next time the bank your accountants work with is robbed will you call them to fix the mess too?
"The more critical financial information is placed up into a cloud, the more of a target it becomes."
For an untargetted attack? Maybe yes, just like your money becomes more of a target when you put it in a bank along with a lot more money from other people. But targetted attacks? What would you prefer? Attacking a company's network to reach the data or attack a company's network just to know which company manages the company's data and after that, attack the outsourced company to get your hands on the data?
"In reality the only credentials that should have access to all data would be the service a backup runs under and the backup operator should have a healthy loyalty based paycheck."
Not even that.
On a properly configured system for sensible enough data, agents you can't impersonate run on the clients and offer the already cyphered data to the central backup manager. The credentials that can backup the data can't restore it and viceversa.
On top of that, you segregate data/systems into security realms and you backup/restore them to/from different systems with different teams/credentials.
""1) Falangism (fascism, the Spanish version), as well as nationalcatolicism were not abandoned by Franco till his death in 1975." You can say that, but it's wrong."
I might be wrong, but I'm Spanish, I'm old enough to remember the old bastard and I know. Where were you?
"The US intervened and forced free market refoms starting in the 60's."
The US had not the slightest interest in the economical output of Spain. All it was interested in, was setting militar bases on the country as the cold war grew, which USA got in exchange of allowance for external commerce. Oh, you might need to revisit your sources, since US involvement was in the fifties, not the sixties: 1953: Pacto de Madrid, which opens American militar fields at Moron, Zaragoza, Torrejon de Ardoz and Rota; 1955, Spain enters the United Nations; 1959, Eishenhower visits Spain.
Of course, after that, USA *companies* (not USA government, though we know CIA was not far away from big companies' interests) wanted their piece of the cake (Coca-Cola and Chrysler were notable examples) with not such a big sucess (specially Chrysler after their deal with Barreiros) because of lacking understandment of the Spanish socio-economic landscape.
"The Spanish Miracle didn't happen until after the free market reforms were imposed."
And those market reforms were, for instance?
I won't hold my breath waiting for your answer because I already know it: basically no one.
What there was, was the new development strategy brought by the "technocrats" (Opus Dei national-catolics, not CIA agents, remember?): a strong investment on the real state market (subsidized homes) and public infrastructures (the water reservoirs' case even made for a long running joke) to increase internal demand; strong network of *government owned* companies in strategic fields like naval, heavy industry, textile, transportation, telco, minery and turism later on (organized within the National Institute of Industry) to support the needs of those infrastructures and housing efforts as well as to try to bring back foreign currency by means of exports; turism (Fraga's 'Spain is different' campaign -you might know about this guy because he went to swim in the Mediterranean to demonstrate there were no danger when a B-52 of yours clumsily dropped four atomic bombs back in 1966, nothing serious, just the worst 'broken arrow' incident known to date) and bring-home money from immigrants, again to get hands into foreign currency.
"If you can't even get basic facts straight, I would suggest you crawl back into your hole, you idiot goon."
I see your frantic handwaving, your strong claims, but still no data to support anything you say.
"The only definition that makes sense to me is that the value to society is the aggregate of the value to individuals. And individuals express the value of something based on how much they are willing to pay for it relative to other things."
It can well make sense to you but it is, nevertheless, tautological: what you are saying is that "Free markets distribute capital according to how much people actually contribute to society", while the value of "contributions to society" is "the quantity of capital those contributions are able to attract".
You know, tautologies doesn't make for good definitions.
"I think the successes of that era were probably due to the abandonment of fascism for the free market you hate so much rather than the other way around, commiefriend.
It was EXACTLY in the 60's when there was a quasi-coup that forced Franco to adopt economic liberalization."
EX-CUSE-ME!?
Do you have the slightest idea of what you are talking about!?
1) Falangism (fascism, the Spanish version), as well as nationalcatolicism were not abandoned by Franco till his death in 1975. 2) Autarky was nothing desired by Franco but imposed to Spain by both the Eastern and Western blocks. 3) The enter of the so called "technocrats" into the government, many of them belonging to Opus Dei, an ultra catholic sect, was not only not imposed to Franco but strongly impulsed by him. Technocrats' policies were applied in the so called 'Development Plans' (Do they sound like USSR's 'Quinquennial Plans'? -there it goes your "economic liberalization"). 4) Where the hell did you take the idea that there was a "quasi-coup" in the sixties?
"Fact is, their continued intervention in the market only held them back"
Fact it that Franco's support to Hitler but still without entering the WW II meant Spain was mostly "forgotten" by the post-war USA's economical support to Europe and Japan. Fact is that Spain, still under Franco and still under central economic planning, had a strong enough economic impulse in the sixties as to be called "The Spanish Miracle".
"Had they taken the path of freedom, they would have advanced as Germany and Britain did."
No: USA has a record of supporting dictatorships long enough as to make that kind of argument moot. It is much more near to reality to say that if Spain had recieved the economic support that Britain, Germany, Italy or Japan got from USA, its economic situation by 1975 would have been about the same.
"As much as I hate to, I have to second your notion on the values of dictatorships."
Maybe I didn't explain myself. Franco's regime was a dictartorship that, among other things, costed jail time and even the life of some relatives of mine, nothing to be taken lightly.
The point was about planned economies, something shared in common in Franco's days as well as, say, current Finland. Again, "planned economy" doesn't necessarily mean USSR stalinism nor Franco's autarchy but having a clear understandment that a) governments' first goal is looking after the liberty and the pursue of happiness of its constituent citizenship, not free market, not corporations' profit, not anything else, so all laws, policies and strategies ougth to be reasoned and tested in light of these basic principles and b) no, the invisible hand of capitalism does not insure neither the liberty nor the happiness of citizenship, so it is not the substitute of point a.
"You're wrong. That is not a free market. The wealthy Republican land owners can ask for whatever rent they want. That is oppression rather than freedom."
No, you are the wrong one.
It is called "capitalism" for a reason: it is not about freedom, not *your* freedom, anyway; it is about capital, you fool!
"That's called "investing", and is an integral part of capitalism."
It is not an integral part, it's its very basis, root and soul.
You see, you have those that work and you have those with capital (it hasn't to be that black and white, you can be part worker part capital owner). But somehow, it is called "capitalism", it is not called "workerism": this should be a hint strong enough for those paying attention.
"As fucked up as the free market is, I have little faith in government's ability to improve on it."
Except it works.
In Spain, back in the sixties, once the worst of the post-war economy was over, government heavily subsidized 950 sq/ft apartments affordable to a growing middle class through long mortages ("long" at least by back in that day's standards, we are talking about 15 years). This not only opened the way for middle class to own a humble but dignified home but also pushed forward economy on its own since a significant share of the economy was directly or indirectly supported by the real state market.
The funny thing is that in those sixties and up to 1975, Spain was under a dictatorship. While the system was abused under Franco's dictatorship in that a selected bunch of families got the big share of this real state market, it really achieved its goals and it was not till we got democracy that this was fully bastardized and worked as the seed for our saddening corruption levels and the heavy impact last economic crisis had in our country.
So there it goes free market vs goverment in terms of ability to make things happen.
Slashdot Mirror
"If everyone wants to get paid above average, half of the available positions will remain unfilled."
Only if there's something like 'basic rent' in place.
In the meantime, in the real world, it's not so much about what you, as an employee, want to be paid, but about what you, as an employer, want from your employees. And then, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
"Consider that we have homeless people and other poor people who aren't necessarily helped by higher taxes in this country."
And then consider that those homeless are probably the ones that most benefit from the kind of jobs these people are doing, since are the most exposed to health/environment base standards.
"I want to say there should be a cap for how much government employees can earn for employment that is consistent over time."
It is said the if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. If you are paying below average, what kind of people do you think you'll attract?
"Now most people do it for no other reason than they are too spineless to buck the trend and actually *be* productive as opposed to looking productive."
Why should it be any other way?
Time and again experience shows there's more profit in looking productive than actually being productive -and arguably, being experienced in looking productive more than being productive will help you climbing the corporate ladder once you go into management.
"Or is there a different plan you are talking about?"
No, I'm not talking of a different plan. It's only the part you omited. It was not the money lended back then -or else Greece would be nowadays a buoyant economy as no less money has been lent in the past five years, but what was done with the money: Greece is still in the same place it was, opened to turism and a gate between Eurasia and Black Sea/Mediterranean; it still owns the biggest merchant fleet. It still has powerful basic infrastructures and a chance to grow both in quality agriculture and knowledge industries.
"What plan are you talking about to increase Greek productivity?"
No need for too many magic recipies. Basically the same path that worked for Greece between the fifties and seventies would also work now.
"at what point did Goldman Sachs become a German and/or French company?"
Of course Goldman Sachs is not a EU company itself (while with a branch incorporated in Europe and still a big company with their hands dirty in quite some national-level crisis), but it is not companies the ones that do things; it is people, and the ties between Goldman Sachs execs and these governments and agencies are hurtingly notorious. In example:
Mario Monti: Prime Minister of Italy, ex Goldman Sachs.
Mario Draghi: European Central Bank's Director, ex Goldman Sachs
Lucas Papademos: Greece Prime Minister, ex Goldman Sachs
Petros Christodoulus: Head of Greece's debt management agency, ex Goldman Sachs
Otmar Issing: board member of Bundesbank and ECB, ex Goldman Sachs
Karel Van Miert: EU Competition Comissioner, ex Goldman Sachs
Peter Shutherland: Attorney General of Ireland and prominent voice during Irish bail-out, ex Goldman Sachs
Antonio Borges: head of the IMF's European Dpt. ex Goldman Sachs
Exactly that.
It seems slashdot editors are short of news if this comes to first page.
In other news, water is wet. News at 11.
"This is extremely optimistic."
Yes, it is. It counts on honest politicians and a transparent system and, of course, further economical help to reach its intended goal (Greek productivity) instead of returning back to Germany without even show in Greek soil so, yes, extremly optimistic.
But not unreal. It only takes to have a look at Greek GDP and expenditures build up to know.
"You are saying this as if these were somehow imposed upon the Greek."
That was exactly the case.
"it takes two to tango."
Yes. The question is, which two? It was German (mainly, and Frech, and others) interests and corrupted Greek politicians the ones dancing, liyng to the Greek people which had no saying in this issues (because they didn't have the means to know).
"Leaving the Euro will mean that the country has defaulted"
Partially, yes.
"and whatever currency they put in place will have no value at all."
Absolutly wrong. It is wrong in theory, and it has been shown wrong in practice lots of time. It is not as if it were the first time a nation restorts to devaluate its currency.
"The government will be bankrupt and will not be able to pay civil servants or pensioners."
That's stupid beyond contempt. If anything, they will have zero problems paying civil servants or pensioners, the problems will be anywhere else but certainly not in paying their internal, publicly-backed obligations: under their own currency they will be able to print as much money as they need to cover them! Of course, the standard output will be skyrocketing inflation but, as long as they have a mildly honest government (what a contrast with later ones) they'll manage to maintain it within 15-20%.
"There are only 3 ways this goes:"
The only reasonble one is the first one: creditors accept to write-off some debt. Not any kind of debt, but only the part that was fradulently imposed on Greece (Goldman Sach bonds, military over-expending and other fraudulent contracts). At the same time Greece needs to put as much effort and money as needed to put to an end to tax fraud, mainly from big fortunes as well as a stronger progressive tax law centered on direct taxes, not indirect like VAT as the IMF insists on doing. With only this, there will be no need to touch VAT, pensions, healthcare or education.
"Thing is, the one who stole money is Greek government."
Yes. With the enthusiastic help of French and German governments and Goldman Sachs.
It is not that it's some kind of a secret but, still, I find amusing that the obvious fact that current Greek situation was a well planned trap of central/northen Europe and economical lobbies against south Europe economies doesn't gather but a fraction of mindshare than the "Greeks must pay" and "Greeks lived above their means".
Just some examples:
* Greek economical situation was falsified by Goldman Sachs, so Greece apparently reached the required levels to enter de EU and Euro currency. German government knew it (and even now, Mario Draghi, GS ex-consultant is current head of the European Central Bank). Still, I don't see anybody asking Goldman Sachs for billionary fines and compensations.
* Greece can't (partially) default its debts, not at least within the monetary union, still Greece hasn't still seen a dime of Germany's war compensations (I'm not even going into it's legal weight, but the obvious fact is that this helped to develop Germany's economy and now Greece is in a position to be returned the favour). Double standard anyone?
* Greece spends a quite above average percentage of its GDP on defense (at about 2.5% -a percentage significant enough as to put an end to Greece's crisis on its own), mostly on weapons bougth to... Germany and France, mainly to protect European interests on the zone. Do you know what Germany and France are *not* saying? They are not saying "return me back our planes and tanks, which are well above the level you need for self-defense, and so part of your debt gets settled".
* Most of the money lent to Greece isn't going to support Greek economy so it can go stronger, produce more taxes and return the debt but it is going back to Germany and other northern European countries and to support the Greek *private* banking system (again an example on the 'privatization of benefits but nationalization of loses', some "liberals" are so keen of). Even IMF concludes that no more than 11% of lends ended up being used to support the country's operations.
All this has not to be understood as if the Greek people voluntarily decided going that path (rising defense expenses to 2.5% of GDP, allowing Goldman Sachs to falsify the accounts, giving public contracts to cronies, etc.). This all was the result of a corrupt government with aquitance of (mainly) German government and banks, which are the same that now tear their robes in anger.
No, it was not that the Greeks were expending abover their means, it is that Germany -with the help of Greece's corrupt politicians, was robbing Greeks above their means and now Germany tries to hide their tracks just by shouting up loud.
"Absolutely wrong. If this was right, "design by comittee" wouldn't be a synonym for utterly fucked up."
Point being that those in the comittee are good at reaching places at comitees, not necessarily good at the problem at hand.
In other words: "designed by comittee" is a synonym for "uttelry fucked up" because it never happens that the ones that can solve the problem are at the comittes but their managers. Imagine a world where the solvers instead of their managers were at the comittee.
"You should look into how much people trusted banks with their money before the advent of FDIC."
This *is* a valid point. Just as current bank regulation and standards didn't grow overnight, these kind of somehow novel services will need time to settle. Not a intrinsic problem of the services themselves but of their maturity status. But still you see the vast majority of critics are directed to the services themselves, not their development status.
You see, one can somehow compare current cloud services' situation to that of banking on the 17th or 18th century and the critics here instead of saying "banking is a good thing but beware it still has quite some rough corners", they are saying "Banking? it's a bluff, there's no way anybody sensible will ever put his money and confidence on them".
"Jesus, read a fucking book. Short of that, read a fucking wiki page. "
Have you read it? Maybe yes, but it's obvious your political bias blinds your reading comprehension: the paragraph "The Franco Era, 1939-75" basically says exactly the same I did in my previous message. If I didn't look the logs, I could believe somebody took my message as the seed to write it!
"They moved away from government control, and the direct result was that people stopped starving."
They didn't moved away from govenment control, and people stopped starving not because of more liberalism but because allowing USA to sit military bases in Spain ended up the blockage and thus the autarky situation, allowing access to both international loans and markets. It's all there, in the article you linked to.
"They moved away from government control"
You still didn't provide a single fact backing your claims, just as I predicted.
"The more state control their is, the more impoverished the people, PERIOD."
State control remained the same at the sixties as at the forties and fifties, still Spain's economical conditions got better. The fact it contradicts your credo doesn't make it any more true. PERIOD.
"If state intervention "worked" as you claimed, then there would have been no need for reforms"
There were no market reforms; not in private property status, not in banking, not in the ability to create new business or lack of thereof. It is you the one that repeats once and again the existence of such market reforms but you still have been unable to provide a single example.
"Spain would have been a magical paradise where the dictator commanded the tides and economic growth was shat out by flying unicorns on command. [...] You dumbassed statists are simply too stupid to understand the concept of a spectrum"
And the pot called the kettle black.
So the case that a dictatorship in very specific conditions managed to rise the economy of a devastated country once the international community opened the barriers to market and money, needs to rise it to superpower levels or it didn't happen -not that it was such a difficult feat: arguably the difficult thing for anybody would have been despressing the economy even more. Citing the article you linked to: "The success of the stabilization program was attributable to a combination of good luck and good management"; it doesn't say it was because of going from anywhere to the American Way of Life, sorry.
And then, being aware of the circumnstances and understanding why it happened makes me into a "dumbass statist".
And it's the other people, not Mr tmosley, the ones that "are simply too stupid to understand the concept of a spectrum". Well, yeah.
Just for the benefit of others, I know you are beyond salvation, pay attention that current China socio-economic status has lots in common to Spain's in the late fifties/early sixties -main qualitative difference being that because the hughe size of the country and population, they still could develop under autarky if needed so. Still a dictatorship, still a centrally planned economy, still heavy government involvement in markets and industries and -just like Spain in the sixties, still quickly growing up. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that China government's political theorists studied the Spanish case.
*You shouldn't trust the cloud providers. Even if the CSP and its employees are trustworthy, if they get a court order or double-secret-probation security letter, they have to turn the data over.*
You *shouldn't* trust banks. Even if the bank and its employees are trustworthy, if they get a court order, they have to lock your accounts and/or hand your money to the government.
"Just because an accountant is "satisfied" with marketing double speak about the "cloud", that just shows how clueless they are."
Of course, anything new needs to be analyzed and put into perspective, but I really don't understand this rabid hate for cloud services except being afraid of lose job security (OK, "cloud" is marketspeech, then let's call it for its real name: outsourcing).
Basically 99% of what's needed for our business is already outsourced: from building the place we are working on to most of internal processess. Data safeguarding/management is only one more. After all, data about money can't be more important than money itself and money safeguarding/management has already outsourced to banks since, when? always?
"Next time there's a server security breach, I'll call my accountants to come fix it right?"
How's this any different to a physical bank security breach (aka robbery)? Next time the bank your accountants work with is robbed will you call them to fix the mess too?
"The more critical financial information is placed up into a cloud, the more of a target it becomes."
For an untargetted attack? Maybe yes, just like your money becomes more of a target when you put it in a bank along with a lot more money from other people. But targetted attacks? What would you prefer? Attacking a company's network to reach the data or attack a company's network just to know which company manages the company's data and after that, attack the outsourced company to get your hands on the data?
"In reality the only credentials that should have access to all data would be the service a backup runs under and the backup operator should have a healthy loyalty based paycheck."
Not even that.
On a properly configured system for sensible enough data, agents you can't impersonate run on the clients and offer the already cyphered data to the central backup manager. The credentials that can backup the data can't restore it and viceversa.
On top of that, you segregate data/systems into security realms and you backup/restore them to/from different systems with different teams/credentials.
""1) Falangism (fascism, the Spanish version), as well as nationalcatolicism were not abandoned by Franco till his death in 1975."
You can say that, but it's wrong."
I might be wrong, but I'm Spanish, I'm old enough to remember the old bastard and I know. Where were you?
"The US intervened and forced free market refoms starting in the 60's."
The US had not the slightest interest in the economical output of Spain. All it was interested in, was setting militar bases on the country as the cold war grew, which USA got in exchange of allowance for external commerce. Oh, you might need to revisit your sources, since US involvement was in the fifties, not the sixties: 1953: Pacto de Madrid, which opens American militar fields at Moron, Zaragoza, Torrejon de Ardoz and Rota; 1955, Spain enters the United Nations; 1959, Eishenhower visits Spain.
Of course, after that, USA *companies* (not USA government, though we know CIA was not far away from big companies' interests) wanted their piece of the cake (Coca-Cola and Chrysler were notable examples) with not such a big sucess (specially Chrysler after their deal with Barreiros) because of lacking understandment of the Spanish socio-economic landscape.
"The Spanish Miracle didn't happen until after the free market reforms were imposed."
And those market reforms were, for instance?
I won't hold my breath waiting for your answer because I already know it: basically no one.
What there was, was the new development strategy brought by the "technocrats" (Opus Dei national-catolics, not CIA agents, remember?): a strong investment on the real state market (subsidized homes) and public infrastructures (the water reservoirs' case even made for a long running joke) to increase internal demand; strong network of *government owned* companies in strategic fields like naval, heavy industry, textile, transportation, telco, minery and turism later on (organized within the National Institute of Industry) to support the needs of those infrastructures and housing efforts as well as to try to bring back foreign currency by means of exports; turism (Fraga's 'Spain is different' campaign -you might know about this guy because he went to swim in the Mediterranean to demonstrate there were no danger when a B-52 of yours clumsily dropped four atomic bombs back in 1966, nothing serious, just the worst 'broken arrow' incident known to date) and bring-home money from immigrants, again to get hands into foreign currency.
"If you can't even get basic facts straight, I would suggest you crawl back into your hole, you idiot goon."
I see your frantic handwaving, your strong claims, but still no data to support anything you say.
"The only definition that makes sense to me is that the value to society is the aggregate of the value to individuals. And individuals express the value of something based on how much they are willing to pay for it relative to other things."
It can well make sense to you but it is, nevertheless, tautological: what you are saying is that "Free markets distribute capital according to how much people actually contribute to society", while the value of "contributions to society" is "the quantity of capital those contributions are able to attract".
You know, tautologies doesn't make for good definitions.
"Free markets distribute capital according to how much people actually contribute to society."
Euhhh... no, unless you take a tautologic approach, certainly not.
"I think the successes of that era were probably due to the abandonment of fascism for the free market you hate so much rather than the other way around, commiefriend.
It was EXACTLY in the 60's when there was a quasi-coup that forced Franco to adopt economic liberalization."
EX-CUSE-ME!?
Do you have the slightest idea of what you are talking about!?
1) Falangism (fascism, the Spanish version), as well as nationalcatolicism were not abandoned by Franco till his death in 1975.
2) Autarky was nothing desired by Franco but imposed to Spain by both the Eastern and Western blocks.
3) The enter of the so called "technocrats" into the government, many of them belonging to Opus Dei, an ultra catholic sect, was not only not imposed to Franco but strongly impulsed by him. Technocrats' policies were applied in the so called 'Development Plans' (Do they sound like USSR's 'Quinquennial Plans'? -there it goes your "economic liberalization").
4) Where the hell did you take the idea that there was a "quasi-coup" in the sixties?
"Fact is, their continued intervention in the market only held them back"
Fact it that Franco's support to Hitler but still without entering the WW II meant Spain was mostly "forgotten" by the post-war USA's economical support to Europe and Japan. Fact is that Spain, still under Franco and still under central economic planning, had a strong enough economic impulse in the sixties as to be called "The Spanish Miracle".
"Had they taken the path of freedom, they would have advanced as Germany and Britain did."
No: USA has a record of supporting dictatorships long enough as to make that kind of argument moot. It is much more near to reality to say that if Spain had recieved the economic support that Britain, Germany, Italy or Japan got from USA, its economic situation by 1975 would have been about the same.
Good enough for an intro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"As much as I hate to, I have to second your notion on the values of dictatorships."
Maybe I didn't explain myself. Franco's regime was a dictartorship that, among other things, costed jail time and even the life of some relatives of mine, nothing to be taken lightly.
The point was about planned economies, something shared in common in Franco's days as well as, say, current Finland. Again, "planned economy" doesn't necessarily mean USSR stalinism nor Franco's autarchy but having a clear understandment that a) governments' first goal is looking after the liberty and the pursue of happiness of its constituent citizenship, not free market, not corporations' profit, not anything else, so all laws, policies and strategies ougth to be reasoned and tested in light of these basic principles and b) no, the invisible hand of capitalism does not insure neither the liberty nor the happiness of citizenship, so it is not the substitute of point a.
"You're wrong. That is not a free market. The wealthy Republican land owners can ask for whatever rent they want. That is oppression rather than freedom."
No, you are the wrong one.
It is called "capitalism" for a reason: it is not about freedom, not *your* freedom, anyway; it is about capital, you fool!
"That's called "investing", and is an integral part of capitalism."
It is not an integral part, it's its very basis, root and soul.
You see, you have those that work and you have those with capital (it hasn't to be that black and white, you can be part worker part capital owner). But somehow, it is called "capitalism", it is not called "workerism": this should be a hint strong enough for those paying attention.
"As fucked up as the free market is, I have little faith in government's ability to improve on it."
Except it works.
In Spain, back in the sixties, once the worst of the post-war economy was over, government heavily subsidized 950 sq/ft apartments affordable to a growing middle class through long mortages ("long" at least by back in that day's standards, we are talking about 15 years). This not only opened the way for middle class to own a humble but dignified home but also pushed forward economy on its own since a significant share of the economy was directly or indirectly supported by the real state market.
The funny thing is that in those sixties and up to 1975, Spain was under a dictatorship. While the system was abused under Franco's dictatorship in that a selected bunch of families got the big share of this real state market, it really achieved its goals and it was not till we got democracy that this was fully bastardized and worked as the seed for our saddening corruption levels and the heavy impact last economic crisis had in our country.
So there it goes free market vs goverment in terms of ability to make things happen.