I know you're sarcastic, but I used to spend way more than 8 minutes a month tagging mp3s and renaming music files... That is hours of my time saved in exchange for that 8 minutes.
I pay for a music streaming service even though I could download or rip almost everything I want to listen to. Why? Because it is too damn convenient. I have no desire to mess with poor quality torrents or organizing my own music collection anymore. Hell, I used to spend more than $10 a month just buying CDs. And some of those I would get tired of pretty quickly. If you have a decent programming job/salary, $10 a month is not all that much.
Yes, I admit that some of the literary references in the article are outdated, but the arguments presented therein are just as relevant today as 30 years ago. As to whether it is tendentious or rhetorically flat, well, that is a matter of opinion.
What reasons are there for advocating the free market approach for the highway industry? First and foremost is the fact that the present government ownership and management has failed. The death toll, the suffocation during urban rush hours, and the poor state of repair of the highway stock, are all eloquent testimony to the lack of success which has marked the reign of government control. Second, and perhaps even more important, is a reason for this state of affairs. It is by no means an accident that government operation has proven to be a debacle, and that private enterprise can succeed where government has failed.
Just as in other businesses, there would be facets peculiar to this particular industry. The road entrepreneur would have to try to contain congestion, reduce traffic accidents, plan and design new facilities in coordination with already existing highways, as well as with the plans of others for new expansion. He would have to set up the "rules of the road" so as best to accomplish these and other goals. The road industry would be expected to carry on each and every one of the tasks now undertaken by public roads authorities: fill potholes, install road signs, guard rails, maintain lane markings, repair traffic signals, and so on for the myriad of "road furniture" that keeps traffic moving.
Applying the concepts of profit and loss to the road industry, we can see why privatization would almost certainly mean a gain compared to the present nationalized system of road management.
Government is the reason we don't have more efficient transportation. Our politicians decided that everyone should drive, so they took our money and built lots of congested highways. Here is what we really need:
Government regulation is the direct CAUSE of our telecom monopolies in the first place. That didn't work out so well, so they try to apply band-aid after band-aid. Talk about breaking your leg and giving you crutches. "See, without us you wouldn't be able to walk!"
This is what I have already done. I was in the mode of upgrading my smartphone, and got the galaxy nexus when that first came out. I ultimately decided to sell it and buy an iPad instead. I am back to using my older Droid 2 as a prepay phone on page plus without much of a data plan. I have the new LTE iPad which is only $30 a month for 2GB. That is a LOT cheaper than the $80 I was paying for voice and data on my galaxy nexus. I'm happy just using my Droid 2 mostly as a phone and doing my mobile internet on an iPad. I carry it with me on the train to work and read my news feeds every day.
I have Apple's keyboard dock and their Digital AV Adapter. You bet your ass I would work on some iOS apps directly on my iPad if I could. My laptop and desktop are both windows. I don't own a mac. Why should I have to buy a mac just to develop apps for my tablet?
I grew up in midwest suburbs, and I don't think my childhood was "soul crushing". If you don't like the suburbs, well that's fine. You are welcome to not live there. But I just don't get the hateful crusade against them. I personally enjoyed having a decent sized yard as a kid.
That in order to be a super productive coder you need to be able to type at 150 words per minute.
I almost never code with both hands anymore. My carpel tunnel has gotten worse over the past few years, so I am constantly switching arms. So far I have still been able to hold down my senior developer job.
It was rent seekers in the political class who claimed private industry was doing a poor job, with no proof whatsoever, then used the power of their government positions to take over or consolidate said industries because they wanted more control over people.
I feel that is certainly debatable. Just because the government currently provides health care and fire fighting services now does not mean it is the most efficient way of doing things. Many people are simply used to how things are done now so they just reject the idea outright. But it doesn't HAVE to be that way.
It's not a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration has been engaged in an unprecedented war on whistleblowers. Glenn Greenwald has covered this extensively in his column over at Salon. The United States wants to send a message to people who might think about leaking sensitive government information. The best way to do that is to nab the biggest whistleblower of them all, the founder of Wikileaks.
This is the root of the issue. The United States government wants him for exposing their dirty, corrupt secrets. They will try everything they can to get him while making it look like it was legally done by the book, all while making HIM look like a criminal to the easily manipulated public. Whatever charges they come up with in the meantime are incidental to the government's cause.
I wouldn't be surprised if the charges against him were completely politically motivated. I mean, how often is this law actually used against people? When was the last time someone was thrown in jail over failing to use a condom? Come on.
I am a decently avid sports fan and I only have an internet subscription. But you know what? My ISP, Cox, doesn't block the analog channels that come through on the same cable. Time Warner was the same way. I have a coax splitter where one side goes into my cable modem and the other goes into my Tivo. This essentially gets me free basic cable. The local OTA HD channels are also passed through as well. So I can watch all of the football games in HD, and a decent amount of baseball games that are on broadcast TV.
For one thing, I doubt his vote was the deciding vote on the issue. It is impossible to quantify how much his advocacy increased the bill's vote count.
Also, government funding of research is just another case of Bastiat's "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen". Government funding crowds out private investment. Even if the bill never existed, there is a real business incentive to invest research in science that can be used to increase worker productivity.
This way they can charge $30 for an extra power adapter. I guess if you decide that you really like being a part of the iOS ecosystem, the extra cost will be worth it to you. Judging by the sheer number of iPhone sales, plenty of people think that it is.
I had an Asus laptop, an old pentium M w3v, which lasted me around 8 years. The only reason I don't use it any more is because the power jack keeps getting loose. I had it re-soldered but it soon stopped working again. I still can't complain though, since I got plenty of use out of that thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Frankly, I would rather earn 90k, work less, and have more free time to spend with my family.
I know you're sarcastic, but I used to spend way more than 8 minutes a month tagging mp3s and renaming music files... That is hours of my time saved in exchange for that 8 minutes.
I pay for a music streaming service even though I could download or rip almost everything I want to listen to. Why? Because it is too damn convenient. I have no desire to mess with poor quality torrents or organizing my own music collection anymore. Hell, I used to spend more than $10 a month just buying CDs. And some of those I would get tired of pretty quickly. If you have a decent programming job/salary, $10 a month is not all that much.
It would seem the history of state and federal spending since 1956 disagrees with you. As you can see in figure 2 on page 9 of this paper, there is a clear upward trend in the majority of years. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12173/05-17-highwayfunding.pdf
Yes, I admit that some of the literary references in the article are outdated, but the arguments presented therein are just as relevant today as 30 years ago. As to whether it is tendentious or rhetorically flat, well, that is a matter of opinion.
What reasons are there for advocating the free market approach for the highway industry? First and foremost is the fact that the present government ownership and management has failed. The death toll, the suffocation during urban rush hours, and the poor state of repair of the highway stock, are all eloquent testimony to the lack of success which has marked the reign of government control. Second, and perhaps even more important, is a reason for this state of affairs. It is by no means an accident that government operation has proven to be a debacle, and that private enterprise can succeed where government has failed.
Just as in other businesses, there would be facets peculiar to this particular industry. The road entrepreneur would have to try to contain congestion, reduce traffic accidents, plan and design new facilities in coordination with already existing highways, as well as with the plans of others for new expansion. He would have to set up the "rules of the road" so as best to accomplish these and other goals. The road industry would be expected to carry on each and every one of the tasks now undertaken by public roads authorities: fill potholes, install road signs, guard rails, maintain lane markings, repair traffic signals, and so on for the myriad of "road furniture" that keeps traffic moving.
Applying the concepts of profit and loss to the road industry, we can see why privatization would almost certainly mean a gain compared to the present nationalized system of road management.
Government is the reason we don't have more efficient transportation. Our politicians decided that everyone should drive, so they took our money and built lots of congested highways. Here is what we really need:
FREE MARKET TRANSPORTATION: DENATIONALIZING THE ROADS* by Walter Block. Department of Economics. Rutgers University, Newark.
Government regulation is the direct CAUSE of our telecom monopolies in the first place. That didn't work out so well, so they try to apply band-aid after band-aid. Talk about breaking your leg and giving you crutches. "See, without us you wouldn't be able to walk!"
This is what I have already done. I was in the mode of upgrading my smartphone, and got the galaxy nexus when that first came out. I ultimately decided to sell it and buy an iPad instead. I am back to using my older Droid 2 as a prepay phone on page plus without much of a data plan. I have the new LTE iPad which is only $30 a month for 2GB. That is a LOT cheaper than the $80 I was paying for voice and data on my galaxy nexus. I'm happy just using my Droid 2 mostly as a phone and doing my mobile internet on an iPad. I carry it with me on the train to work and read my news feeds every day.
I have Apple's keyboard dock and their Digital AV Adapter. You bet your ass I would work on some iOS apps directly on my iPad if I could. My laptop and desktop are both windows. I don't own a mac. Why should I have to buy a mac just to develop apps for my tablet?
I grew up in midwest suburbs, and I don't think my childhood was "soul crushing". If you don't like the suburbs, well that's fine. You are welcome to not live there. But I just don't get the hateful crusade against them. I personally enjoyed having a decent sized yard as a kid.
That in order to be a super productive coder you need to be able to type at 150 words per minute.
I almost never code with both hands anymore. My carpel tunnel has gotten worse over the past few years, so I am constantly switching arms. So far I have still been able to hold down my senior developer job.
It was rent seekers in the political class who claimed private industry was doing a poor job, with no proof whatsoever, then used the power of their government positions to take over or consolidate said industries because they wanted more control over people.
I feel that is certainly debatable. Just because the government currently provides health care and fire fighting services now does not mean it is the most efficient way of doing things. Many people are simply used to how things are done now so they just reject the idea outright. But it doesn't HAVE to be that way.
The question libertarians have is does the government do an adequate job in public safety and health? It's entirely possible that the answer is no.
It's not a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration has been engaged in an unprecedented war on whistleblowers. Glenn Greenwald has covered this extensively in his column over at Salon. The United States wants to send a message to people who might think about leaking sensitive government information. The best way to do that is to nab the biggest whistleblower of them all, the founder of Wikileaks.
This is the root of the issue. The United States government wants him for exposing their dirty, corrupt secrets. They will try everything they can to get him while making it look like it was legally done by the book, all while making HIM look like a criminal to the easily manipulated public. Whatever charges they come up with in the meantime are incidental to the government's cause.
I wouldn't be surprised if the charges against him were completely politically motivated. I mean, how often is this law actually used against people? When was the last time someone was thrown in jail over failing to use a condom? Come on.
I am a decently avid sports fan and I only have an internet subscription. But you know what? My ISP, Cox, doesn't block the analog channels that come through on the same cable. Time Warner was the same way. I have a coax splitter where one side goes into my cable modem and the other goes into my Tivo. This essentially gets me free basic cable. The local OTA HD channels are also passed through as well. So I can watch all of the football games in HD, and a decent amount of baseball games that are on broadcast TV.
For one thing, I doubt his vote was the deciding vote on the issue. It is impossible to quantify how much his advocacy increased the bill's vote count.
Also, government funding of research is just another case of Bastiat's "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen". Government funding crowds out private investment. Even if the bill never existed, there is a real business incentive to invest research in science that can be used to increase worker productivity.
This way they can charge $30 for an extra power adapter. I guess if you decide that you really like being a part of the iOS ecosystem, the extra cost will be worth it to you. Judging by the sheer number of iPhone sales, plenty of people think that it is.
The internet would have happened with or without his involvement. Giving a politician any kind of credit is kind of ridiculous, IMO.
Most of the early turnpikes were privately owned.
right, because nobody but the government would have been smart enough to create a similar method for connecting computers together.
I had an Asus laptop, an old pentium M w3v, which lasted me around 8 years. The only reason I don't use it any more is because the power jack keeps getting loose. I had it re-soldered but it soon stopped working again. I still can't complain though, since I got plenty of use out of that thing.