What has been hammered into children over the past 40 years or so is that their parents, school authorities, police and government do not deserve respect because of their position. Any respect they are to be given must be earned.
This opens the door to all sorts of nonsense, such as the parent backing the child when the child is rude to or even physically assaults a teacher.
Of course the parents are afraid of their children turning them in to the police for abuse. Why do you think "child abuse" is such a significant crime today when it is clear that parents were as a rule far more abusive towards their children 50-100 years ago. This is clearly separate from the parents that lock their kid in a cage until age 12 or some nonsense like that. Ordinary "discipline" of 1930 would get a parent thrown in jail today.
Copyright is mostly a matter of respect and practicality. In 1960 it may not have been practical to copy a book or a record for an individual but there was also an underlying understanding that it was just somehow "wrong" to do so. Today any semblance of respect is gone and it is extremely practical to copy and redistribute everything digital. Wrong? I don't know anyone that actually believes downloading music via P2P services is wrong. If they aren't doing it they would like to but have only a dial-up Internet connection at home.
Consequences? There are no consequences on the Internet. Unless you really, really motivate someone you will be protected by layers of agents and businesses that have decided it is their job to protect their customers and users. This of course leads to getting away with just about anything until someone keeps pushing the limit too far.
Why do you think the US has anything Cuba wants anymore? In 1960 we had factories that made things that were needed in Cuba. In 1980 Cuba had 30-year-old cars they couldn't get parts for because they were made in the US.
Today everything is made in China and nothing is made in the US. Canada and Mexico make a lot of cars for the US, so I wouldn't think getting parts would be a problem for Cuba.
Really, what does the US have that Cuba could possibly want? Wal-Mart? Banks? High risk home mortgage companies?
Cuba is not a terrorist state, never really has been. However the government pretty much reserves the right to nationalize anything at any time they choose. This is what they did in 1959 and what they continue to claim they can and will do today.
If someone was greedy and stupid enough you might think you could set up some kind of labor-intensive manufacturing operation in Cuba and export the finished products to the US through Mexico. Lots of people in Cuba out of work and willing to work for next to nothing, right? So much lower labor costs than we have in the US. Sounds like a really good plan.
Except for this little "nationalization" threat and what happened in 1959. Say 10 investors get together and build a factory in Cuba which is marvelously successful. Until the Cuban government decides they want a piece of the pie... well a very large piece... actually, just the whole pie. So the Cuban government kicks the owners and managers out of the country and takes the factory over. Just like 1959.
In the past this was an act of aggression that was essentially a declaration of war. Wars have been started in the past for similar reasons. The War of 1812 wasn't all that dissimilar. I believe there have been several South American countries that have had disagreements (with shooting) over this very subject.
The US has pretty much said over and over since 1959 that they aren't going to go to war over Cuba. When above-mentioned investors come back to their Senator demanding the US "do something" it is entirely possible that "something" would indeed be done. Well, let's just nip that in the bud and say building factories in Cuba isn't allowed. And, partly for past "nationalization" trade with Cuba is heavily restricted.
Today, the trade restrictions are wearing a bit thin. But, conversely the US exports food and little else these days. Everything comes from China and China is under no such trade restrictions. So really, what difference would it make to remove the trade restrictions? Except maybe to allow Wal-Mart to build stores in Cuba. Can you imagine, they would want to bring in their own cleaning staff but the locals would be able to understand them.
I think Cuba is overall better off without trade with the US, at least until the US has something that Cuba needs.
In order to ship stuff to a foreign reseller from the US the reseller needs to understand they are dealing with US goods that are being shipped to them not for export. Should they re-export it and the US exporter finds out, you pretty much need to cut off relations with that reseller.
Failure to do so I am certain leaves you open to prosecution because you are ignoring US export laws.
Obviously, they can't go after anyone - they have no information about the identity of the perpetrator.
Also, law enforcement agencies do not assist with civil cases. Discovery motions do that, but now judges are refusing to allow discovery. No evidence therefore equals no case.
Let's see - music piracy has pretty much reached an equal level of penetration as that of broadband use in the US. Probably similar levels, if not greater in other countries.
Why would people buy a CD if they can simply download - for free - anything they want? OK, perhaps not anything they want is available. The key here is that the current, popular music is 100% available. These are the sales that used to drive the music promotion machine. Radio play, advertising, music videos and everything else that is part of "music promotion". Well, I would say it is pretty much over.
CD sales through large chain stores are going to drop as broadband penetration increases. At some point the large chains are going to say it isn't worth the floor space any longer. iTunes and other music sales online account for perhaps 1% of the music on portable players today. Sure, it is a nice niche to be in because that 1% is fairly profitable but it is only a very small niche. I don't see the percentages changing much, if at all.
This pretty much means the end of music promotion. Radio stations aren't going to be playing music they aren't paid to play if they then have to turn around and pay for playing that very same music. Advertisers aren't going to be paying top rates for their ads to be surrounded by the whatever is left over. It will be like talk radio ads, very low rates for the most part. Thus ends a good portion of what people in the US have grown up with as a result of music promotion.
I have no doubt there will be plenty of people that record their own music and want to "publish" it on the Internet. Some will be good, some will be utterly ego-driven from people that "know" they are the best guitar player or singer the world has ever seen. It will be quite a different listening experience for most.
Some will just keep downloading the back catalog of everything recorded from 1955 until 1990.
Unfortunately, many parents have abdicated the role and need the school to step in - any values the child is going to learn are going to come from the school. Period. Home is often so disfunctional that it is just a stopping by place between school days.
School voucher programs are just a sneaky way of collapsing what is now the public education system. Anyone with a child that can go somewhere else will take them there. This leave the children that cannot go anywhere else because of handicaps or limitations. The private schools do not have to take these kids, so the public school ends up with all the kids that really have no hope and no options. This isn't a way to repair public education but a way to eliminate it.
Sadly, in the US today it is assumed that if you frame an advertisement over about the 8th grade level most people aren't going to understand it. This clearly points to a failure of the public education system. Similarly, an uninformed voter is going to vote for bigger promises and have no memory of failed promises - exactly what we are looking at today. Again, failure of the education system. But you can't have a "representative" government without the participation and understanding of the population. If the population has been trained to only learn from video games and to watch TV, we are going to continue electing irresponsible people into government at all levels. Public, free and mandatory education is the only thing that can ensure voters have a chance of understanding what they are voting on.
We have goverment officials at all levels (local, state and federal) that actually believe all children should go to college. What about the children that cannot because of their own limitations, not because of any discrimination or financial lacking? Do we want to be teaching 8th grade mathematics (again!) in college?
By continuing to intentionally move low-skill jobs to immigrant laborers and low-wage countries, we are setting up a situation where if you don't go to college and be a "knowledge worker" you are doomed to spend your life on welfare. 50 years ago a person that was incapable of being a "knowledge worker" had career options. Today they can look forward to being the burger flipper and that is about it.
While I am sure/. is full of "knowledge workers" and people that can use and manipulate higher order symbology, there are some people out there that can't. Their minds do not work that way. There was plenty of testing that verified this in the early 20th century. Did we just forget all about that? Evidently.
I do not know of any health plan where the maximum out-of-pocket is more than $5,000. $2,000 is far more common.
Anyone with a plan that makes them pay more than $2,000 per year has the wrong plan. My employees have this sort of plan from United Health Care and it is less than $200 a month for a single person.
Basically, I think you are just wrong about maximum out of pocket expenses.
That law is already in place. Maybe not enforced very well, but that specific law is here already.
What the H-1B worker gets you is someone that can't switch jobs. They need a sponsoring employer and have about two weeks to leave the country if they lose that sponsoring employer that brought them in. Switching sponsors isn't trivial. So you have a worker that can't quit and unless they want to return to the armpit of a place they came from, they will do what they are told and keep their mouth shut.
This has little to do with wages and everything to do with worker "loyalty."
But we have an economy that is now structured around paying people to stay poor and artifically low prices that distort everything, including wages paid to high tech workers.
Let's imagine a case where all the illegals either (a) walked home or (b) demanded the prevailing wage that a legal worker would get. McDonalds and Wendy's would have to charge more. Their people would get paid more. These people could then afford to pay more for rent and maybe apartment building owners could make some improvements. See? Everybody wins.
The difference is Clinton lied to a court of law. Martha Steward lied to the FBI and got jail time. Libby lied to a grand jury and would appear to be getting jail time. Clinton lied to a court and got nothing.
Bush, if you accept the "lying" idea, lied to the press. Hardly the same thing.
Look for the press party beginning as soon as the first "illegal combatant" reaches the US. The will be given as much press time as possible to spew their messages of unfair treatment, torture, oppression and hate.
These people aren't criminals, they are warriors. If we gave a trial to every North Korean soldier that was captured, we'd still be having trials. The Korean War was another illegal war, just as illegal as what is going on today. Civilans were caught in the middle and died just the same as today. Why aren't we having hearings about what went on in the Korean War? Or are the Asian people there somehow less than the people in the Middle East?
So, in light of recent events I should be able to videotape police activities, right?
Anytime I see police making a traffic stop, I whip out my camcorder and get some nice clear pictures of the police officer and the person being stopped. Sounds about like what is being promoted here.
The reason this is (was?) illegal in many places should be clear to people but apparently isn't. Yet, I hope.
The first problem is the idea that people are innocent until proven guilty. Yes, even in America today. So what does my videotape show? Someone being questioned by police. This is the sort of thing that attracts voyeurs like rotting meat attracts flies. People will pay for video like this, especially (but not exclusively) if the person is some kind of public figure or celebrity. Should it be legal to publish such video? Well here in the anonymous Internet age once you have something in digital form there is literally no stopping it from being distributed. You can't stop it and you can't shut it down.
See? This doesn't have anything to do with the police and everything to do with the other people. If you watch any of the police video shows you will always see the "perp" with his face pixelated so they aren't identifiable. Do you think amature videographers are going to do this before uploading their clip to YouTube?
This means a simple traffic stop where the cop tells you to watch running through yellow lights has the potential to become an issue with your job. Why? A lot of public-facing jobs really are closed to people that have even a hint of controversy about them. Would you leave your child in the care of a teacher that was accused of having sex with a child? Would you hire someone as a bank teller that was accused of embezzlement? Would you still hire them if your insurance company told you that hiring them would raise your insurance rates? 50 years ago this sort of information could be private and not disclosed. Today, it is readily available to be misused. And it certainly is misused, every day.
Is it right that groundless accusations can prevent people from getting a job? No. Does it happen every day? Yes, absolutely. Is having video tape of accused (but not convicted) people going to help or hurt?
What about privacy? Not of the police but of the person being stopped, questioned or possibly arrested?
With other folks taking the suspect's picture it is going to become common for these photos to make their way onto the web and into TV news. So you now have even worse situations with "Look who got arrested today!!!" even when no arrest was made.
Think about it - you are stopped by the police for going through a yellow light. No ticket issued, just a warning. Next day you find your very recognizable picture on some web page and half your co-workers think it is very funny. Of course the caption on the picture makes it seem like you are being hauled off to jail. Funny? Not when you have a public-facing job and people now believe you are "some kind of criminal." Even if all you do is work in a shoe store you are going to get canned if you spend more time explaining the picture than selling shoes.
If you are a public figure how much do you think a picture of you being questioned by the police would be worth? To tabloid newspapers? To your opposing candidates in an election? Think these pictures won't be sold because "oh these are ACLU cameras" - think again.
The only way this makes sense is with an underlying assumption that all police officers are violent thugs that need to be monitored constantly. If that is even remotely the case there are other ways of dealing with that problem than getting photographs and video of people being stopped or questioned by the police.
Slavery reached the point where it was more of a custom than a practice with a viable economic basis. When it was no longer economically sound, it was going to go away.
The Civil War or War Between the States wasn't even all that much about freeing the slaves and ending slavery.
Mostly, it just faded away because of practicality. Doesn't seem that way 140 years later, but that is what happened.
There were no polltion problems to speak of. London was a bit dirty, but outside of one or two urban areas everything was fine.
All resource utilization was "sustainable", meaning that natural processes provided sufficient recycling of used materials back into new raw materials.
There was no population pressure anywhere.
We can return to 1850 and it would solve all of our resource, pollution and population problems. It would require killing off somewhere around 6 billion people within the next 20-30 years but after that the problem would be solved. With strict worldwide controls on population growth we wouldn't have to worry that things would build back up to an unsustainable level again.
The question is, do you believe that the Earth would return to a more pristine state after such a population reduction? If so, there is little time to waste in implementing such a plan. I believe there would be a great deal of support for this idea today. Unfortunately, it does mean that most people have given up on any real future for humans.
Good luck convincing anyone that Magnusson-Moss applies to computer software. Software can most certainly cause problems for hardware, especially these days. Did you hear about the Debian release that deleted the firmware on CD drives? How about the (partly true) warning that a misconfigured X server can cause a monitor to catch fire? No? You would be hearing about those instances I would expect.
When you have "soft" hardware where the driver provides substantial functionality and no driver is supplied for Linux but someone "reverse engineered" a driver that mostly works you aren't going to have much to go on when the hardware manufacturer claims that they can't provide warranty service except with the original software. The claim has a great deal of merit, especially with notebook computers because Linux doesn't support all the hardware properly.
Dell does not have a warehouse of computers waiting to ship. Dell builds the computers to order. You can get bumped up in the schedule sometimes but generally they can quote you a shipping date at the time of the order that is pretty good - within a day or two.
Paying for overnight shipping and expecting it to be there in the morning doesn't work with Dell. Never did.
If you want to buy computers that way, go with HP.
Too many people. Use pedicabs. Far simpler, nearly non-polluting and employs all those that would otherwise be sitting at home collecting welfare and watching TV.
Easiest way to kill of an electric car is get the batteries declared as toxic waste and make it illegal for anyone but the manufacturer to actually own one.
That's a lot closer to what happened to the EV-1 than some "oil company conspiracy".
All those lead-acid batteries might cause cancer. Funny, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop on the Lithium-Ion batteries in hybrid cars. So far, nobody has done much of anything and there have been very few hybrids junked as end-of-life. I would expect someone to start noticing the batteries piling up fairly soon, say 3-4 years.
Recycling? Sure, they can be recycled. Not sure what a lithium-ion battery can be recycled into, but I'm sure it isn't a new lithium-ion battery. As such, recycling only makes a limited amount of sense. It is like plastic recycling in the US - somewhere around 90% of it is just dumped for one reason or another even though it was originally collected to be recycled. Same with paper. It doesn't pay enough. The result of recycling paper is low-grade materials, not nice new paper.
In the US because of the way credit reporting works you would just get a form that says you authorize them to (a) send your information to various third parties as required and (b) allow these third parties to keep that information as long as necessary to validate future credit inquiries. This would be required for every purchase not paid for in cash or over some absurdly low amount, like $100.
Basically, you would be authorizing the collection and distribution that goes on today anyway. Except now there would be additional forms and paperwork required.
The other alternative is we just shut down the finance companies, most non-bank credit cards and credit reporting agencies. Tell everyone cash or check period. I know, that is how the rest of the world works today. But it isn't how the US economy has worked for 50 years.
Given the way credit is handled in the US, that would be a very, very large change. You would essentially be dismantling the credit reporting and credit agency organizations. This isn't just Experian and the like - this would include the smaller regional credit service bureaus.
We're probably talking about a few billion in revenue here, so it isn't a small change. It would also affect (if not eliminate) the concept of a "finance company". Add a few more billion to this.
What would you do? Require a new government department? Abolish credit except through banks? Make the borrower pay for some new investigation service?
The problem is that in the US almost everything is financed in some way. This is far different from how it is in other parts of the world. You want to buy a desk and someone tells you they have a 90-days-same-as-cash plan. What this is in fact is selling your purchase to a finance company who then pays the store some percentage immediately. The store thinks it is worth it because they get more sales. The finance company thinks it is great because most people take longer than the free period to pay it off, so they get interest above and beyond what they paid the store. They approve people based on credit reports - saved information that is maintained and sold to the finance company so they have some idea who they are dealing with.
I believe the situation in Europe is a lot closer to you go to the store and they want cash. Period. No finance company. No credit reporting. No information being collected. Stores just sell less stuff.
Any change like "you own your information and it cannot be sold" or "no information collected and saved by third parties" would require changing all of this. This wouldn't be a trivial change and would have far reaching effects. Further than most people would guess.
You can do that now in the US. And the US Information Commissioner does the same thing when the spammer can be traced to a whole bunch of compromised Windows boxes in California or some rented server it Korea.
No matter what laws are passed, unless there is cooperation from both the ISPs and foreign governments spam isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
The problem in the US is partly the wireless providers wanting specific features on "their" phones and partly the systems they have implemented. Verizon didn't (and may still not) sell Nokia phones because they don't work with Verizon's network equipment very well. On the other hand, if you bring a CDMA tri-band phone into a Verizon store it can be activated in almost all cases. It may not work very well if it is a Nokia. There are some other problems I am sure.
But the idea of the phone being tied to the wireless vendor solely because of choice is a myth.
Europe and much of the rest of the world has it easy - a single mature standard that is at least 15 years old. The US has three different bands being used and more network quirks than you would think possible. So not everything works as nicely as it does with a single standard.
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What has been hammered into children over the past 40 years or so is that their parents, school authorities, police and government do not deserve respect because of their position. Any respect they are to be given must be earned.
This opens the door to all sorts of nonsense, such as the parent backing the child when the child is rude to or even physically assaults a teacher.
Of course the parents are afraid of their children turning them in to the police for abuse. Why do you think "child abuse" is such a significant crime today when it is clear that parents were as a rule far more abusive towards their children 50-100 years ago. This is clearly separate from the parents that lock their kid in a cage until age 12 or some nonsense like that. Ordinary "discipline" of 1930 would get a parent thrown in jail today.
Copyright is mostly a matter of respect and practicality. In 1960 it may not have been practical to copy a book or a record for an individual but there was also an underlying understanding that it was just somehow "wrong" to do so. Today any semblance of respect is gone and it is extremely practical to copy and redistribute everything digital. Wrong? I don't know anyone that actually believes downloading music via P2P services is wrong. If they aren't doing it they would like to but have only a dial-up Internet connection at home.
Consequences? There are no consequences on the Internet. Unless you really, really motivate someone you will be protected by layers of agents and businesses that have decided it is their job to protect their customers and users. This of course leads to getting away with just about anything until someone keeps pushing the limit too far.
Why do you think the US has anything Cuba wants anymore? In 1960 we had factories that made things that were needed in Cuba. In 1980 Cuba had 30-year-old cars they couldn't get parts for because they were made in the US.
Today everything is made in China and nothing is made in the US. Canada and Mexico make a lot of cars for the US, so I wouldn't think getting parts would be a problem for Cuba.
Really, what does the US have that Cuba could possibly want? Wal-Mart? Banks? High risk home mortgage companies?
Cuba is not a terrorist state, never really has been. However the government pretty much reserves the right to nationalize anything at any time they choose. This is what they did in 1959 and what they continue to claim they can and will do today.
If someone was greedy and stupid enough you might think you could set up some kind of labor-intensive manufacturing operation in Cuba and export the finished products to the US through Mexico. Lots of people in Cuba out of work and willing to work for next to nothing, right? So much lower labor costs than we have in the US. Sounds like a really good plan.
Except for this little "nationalization" threat and what happened in 1959. Say 10 investors get together and build a factory in Cuba which is marvelously successful. Until the Cuban government decides they want a piece of the pie... well a very large piece... actually, just the whole pie. So the Cuban government kicks the owners and managers out of the country and takes the factory over. Just like 1959.
In the past this was an act of aggression that was essentially a declaration of war. Wars have been started in the past for similar reasons. The War of 1812 wasn't all that dissimilar. I believe there have been several South American countries that have had disagreements (with shooting) over this very subject.
The US has pretty much said over and over since 1959 that they aren't going to go to war over Cuba. When above-mentioned investors come back to their Senator demanding the US "do something" it is entirely possible that "something" would indeed be done. Well, let's just nip that in the bud and say building factories in Cuba isn't allowed. And, partly for past "nationalization" trade with Cuba is heavily restricted.
Today, the trade restrictions are wearing a bit thin. But, conversely the US exports food and little else these days. Everything comes from China and China is under no such trade restrictions. So really, what difference would it make to remove the trade restrictions? Except maybe to allow Wal-Mart to build stores in Cuba. Can you imagine, they would want to bring in their own cleaning staff but the locals would be able to understand them.
I think Cuba is overall better off without trade with the US, at least until the US has something that Cuba needs.
In order to ship stuff to a foreign reseller from the US the reseller needs to understand they are dealing with US goods that are being shipped to them not for export. Should they re-export it and the US exporter finds out, you pretty much need to cut off relations with that reseller.
Failure to do so I am certain leaves you open to prosecution because you are ignoring US export laws.
Obviously, they can't go after anyone - they have no information about the identity of the perpetrator.
Also, law enforcement agencies do not assist with civil cases. Discovery motions do that, but now judges are refusing to allow discovery. No evidence therefore equals no case.
Let's see - music piracy has pretty much reached an equal level of penetration as that of broadband use in the US. Probably similar levels, if not greater in other countries.
Why would people buy a CD if they can simply download - for free - anything they want? OK, perhaps not anything they want is available. The key here is that the current, popular music is 100% available. These are the sales that used to drive the music promotion machine. Radio play, advertising, music videos and everything else that is part of "music promotion". Well, I would say it is pretty much over.
CD sales through large chain stores are going to drop as broadband penetration increases. At some point the large chains are going to say it isn't worth the floor space any longer. iTunes and other music sales online account for perhaps 1% of the music on portable players today. Sure, it is a nice niche to be in because that 1% is fairly profitable but it is only a very small niche. I don't see the percentages changing much, if at all.
This pretty much means the end of music promotion. Radio stations aren't going to be playing music they aren't paid to play if they then have to turn around and pay for playing that very same music. Advertisers aren't going to be paying top rates for their ads to be surrounded by the whatever is left over. It will be like talk radio ads, very low rates for the most part. Thus ends a good portion of what people in the US have grown up with as a result of music promotion.
I have no doubt there will be plenty of people that record their own music and want to "publish" it on the Internet. Some will be good, some will be utterly ego-driven from people that "know" they are the best guitar player or singer the world has ever seen. It will be quite a different listening experience for most.
Some will just keep downloading the back catalog of everything recorded from 1955 until 1990.
Unfortunately, many parents have abdicated the role and need the school to step in - any values the child is going to learn are going to come from the school. Period. Home is often so disfunctional that it is just a stopping by place between school days.
/. is full of "knowledge workers" and people that can use and manipulate higher order symbology, there are some people out there that can't. Their minds do not work that way. There was plenty of testing that verified this in the early 20th century. Did we just forget all about that? Evidently.
School voucher programs are just a sneaky way of collapsing what is now the public education system. Anyone with a child that can go somewhere else will take them there. This leave the children that cannot go anywhere else because of handicaps or limitations. The private schools do not have to take these kids, so the public school ends up with all the kids that really have no hope and no options. This isn't a way to repair public education but a way to eliminate it.
Sadly, in the US today it is assumed that if you frame an advertisement over about the 8th grade level most people aren't going to understand it. This clearly points to a failure of the public education system. Similarly, an uninformed voter is going to vote for bigger promises and have no memory of failed promises - exactly what we are looking at today. Again, failure of the education system. But you can't have a "representative" government without the participation and understanding of the population. If the population has been trained to only learn from video games and to watch TV, we are going to continue electing irresponsible people into government at all levels. Public, free and mandatory education is the only thing that can ensure voters have a chance of understanding what they are voting on.
We have goverment officials at all levels (local, state and federal) that actually believe all children should go to college. What about the children that cannot because of their own limitations, not because of any discrimination or financial lacking? Do we want to be teaching 8th grade mathematics (again!) in college?
By continuing to intentionally move low-skill jobs to immigrant laborers and low-wage countries, we are setting up a situation where if you don't go to college and be a "knowledge worker" you are doomed to spend your life on welfare. 50 years ago a person that was incapable of being a "knowledge worker" had career options. Today they can look forward to being the burger flipper and that is about it.
While I am sure
Anyone with a plan that makes them pay more than $2,000 per year has the wrong plan. My employees have this sort of plan from United Health Care and it is less than $200 a month for a single person.
Basically, I think you are just wrong about maximum out of pocket expenses.
Which employers are using this technology today? How about a list? Who does this bill affect right now?
As far as I know, nobody. This is a PR sham, grandstanding for grandstanding's sake.
That law is already in place. Maybe not enforced very well, but that specific law is here already.
What the H-1B worker gets you is someone that can't switch jobs. They need a sponsoring employer and have about two weeks to leave the country if they lose that sponsoring employer that brought them in. Switching sponsors isn't trivial. So you have a worker that can't quit and unless they want to return to the armpit of a place they came from, they will do what they are told and keep their mouth shut.
This has little to do with wages and everything to do with worker "loyalty."
True, we're not talking about high tech jobs.
But we have an economy that is now structured around paying people to stay poor and artifically low prices that distort everything, including wages paid to high tech workers.
Let's imagine a case where all the illegals either (a) walked home or (b) demanded the prevailing wage that a legal worker would get. McDonalds and Wendy's would have to charge more. Their people would get paid more. These people could then afford to pay more for rent and maybe apartment building owners could make some improvements. See? Everybody wins.
The difference is Clinton lied to a court of law. Martha Steward lied to the FBI and got jail time. Libby lied to a grand jury and would appear to be getting jail time. Clinton lied to a court and got nothing.
Bush, if you accept the "lying" idea, lied to the press. Hardly the same thing.
Look for the press party beginning as soon as the first "illegal combatant" reaches the US. The will be given as much press time as possible to spew their messages of unfair treatment, torture, oppression and hate.
These people aren't criminals, they are warriors. If we gave a trial to every North Korean soldier that was captured, we'd still be having trials. The Korean War was another illegal war, just as illegal as what is going on today. Civilans were caught in the middle and died just the same as today. Why aren't we having hearings about what went on in the Korean War? Or are the Asian people there somehow less than the people in the Middle East?
So, in light of recent events I should be able to videotape police activities, right?
Anytime I see police making a traffic stop, I whip out my camcorder and get some nice clear pictures of the police officer and the person being stopped. Sounds about like what is being promoted here.
The reason this is (was?) illegal in many places should be clear to people but apparently isn't. Yet, I hope.
The first problem is the idea that people are innocent until proven guilty. Yes, even in America today. So what does my videotape show? Someone being questioned by police. This is the sort of thing that attracts voyeurs like rotting meat attracts flies. People will pay for video like this, especially (but not exclusively) if the person is some kind of public figure or celebrity. Should it be legal to publish such video? Well here in the anonymous Internet age once you have something in digital form there is literally no stopping it from being distributed. You can't stop it and you can't shut it down.
See? This doesn't have anything to do with the police and everything to do with the other people. If you watch any of the police video shows you will always see the "perp" with his face pixelated so they aren't identifiable. Do you think amature videographers are going to do this before uploading their clip to YouTube?
This means a simple traffic stop where the cop tells you to watch running through yellow lights has the potential to become an issue with your job. Why? A lot of public-facing jobs really are closed to people that have even a hint of controversy about them. Would you leave your child in the care of a teacher that was accused of having sex with a child? Would you hire someone as a bank teller that was accused of embezzlement? Would you still hire them if your insurance company told you that hiring them would raise your insurance rates? 50 years ago this sort of information could be private and not disclosed. Today, it is readily available to be misused. And it certainly is misused, every day.
Is it right that groundless accusations can prevent people from getting a job? No. Does it happen every day? Yes, absolutely. Is having video tape of accused (but not convicted) people going to help or hurt?
What about privacy? Not of the police but of the person being stopped, questioned or possibly arrested?
With other folks taking the suspect's picture it is going to become common for these photos to make their way onto the web and into TV news. So you now have even worse situations with "Look who got arrested today!!!" even when no arrest was made.
Think about it - you are stopped by the police for going through a yellow light. No ticket issued, just a warning. Next day you find your very recognizable picture on some web page and half your co-workers think it is very funny. Of course the caption on the picture makes it seem like you are being hauled off to jail. Funny? Not when you have a public-facing job and people now believe you are "some kind of criminal." Even if all you do is work in a shoe store you are going to get canned if you spend more time explaining the picture than selling shoes.
If you are a public figure how much do you think a picture of you being questioned by the police would be worth? To tabloid newspapers? To your opposing candidates in an election? Think these pictures won't be sold because "oh these are ACLU cameras" - think again.
The only way this makes sense is with an underlying assumption that all police officers are violent thugs that need to be monitored constantly. If that is even remotely the case there are other ways of dealing with that problem than getting photographs and video of people being stopped or questioned by the police.
Slavery reached the point where it was more of a custom than a practice with a viable economic basis. When it was no longer economically sound, it was going to go away.
The Civil War or War Between the States wasn't even all that much about freeing the slaves and ending slavery.
Mostly, it just faded away because of practicality. Doesn't seem that way 140 years later, but that is what happened.
Ah, for the joys of 1850.
There were no polltion problems to speak of. London was a bit dirty, but outside of one or two urban areas everything was fine.
All resource utilization was "sustainable", meaning that natural processes provided sufficient recycling of used materials back into new raw materials.
There was no population pressure anywhere.
We can return to 1850 and it would solve all of our resource, pollution and population problems. It would require killing off somewhere around 6 billion people within the next 20-30 years but after that the problem would be solved. With strict worldwide controls on population growth we wouldn't have to worry that things would build back up to an unsustainable level again.
The question is, do you believe that the Earth would return to a more pristine state after such a population reduction? If so, there is little time to waste in implementing such a plan. I believe there would be a great deal of support for this idea today. Unfortunately, it does mean that most people have given up on any real future for humans.
Good luck convincing anyone that Magnusson-Moss applies to computer software. Software can most certainly cause problems for hardware, especially these days. Did you hear about the Debian release that deleted the firmware on CD drives? How about the (partly true) warning that a misconfigured X server can cause a monitor to catch fire? No? You would be hearing about those instances I would expect.
When you have "soft" hardware where the driver provides substantial functionality and no driver is supplied for Linux but someone "reverse engineered" a driver that mostly works you aren't going to have much to go on when the hardware manufacturer claims that they can't provide warranty service except with the original software. The claim has a great deal of merit, especially with notebook computers because Linux doesn't support all the hardware properly.
Dell does not have a warehouse of computers waiting to ship. Dell builds the computers to order. You can get bumped up in the schedule sometimes but generally they can quote you a shipping date at the time of the order that is pretty good - within a day or two.
Paying for overnight shipping and expecting it to be there in the morning doesn't work with Dell. Never did.
If you want to buy computers that way, go with HP.
Too many people. Use pedicabs. Far simpler, nearly non-polluting and employs all those that would otherwise be sitting at home collecting welfare and watching TV.
Easiest way to kill of an electric car is get the batteries declared as toxic waste and make it illegal for anyone but the manufacturer to actually own one.
That's a lot closer to what happened to the EV-1 than some "oil company conspiracy".
All those lead-acid batteries might cause cancer. Funny, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop on the Lithium-Ion batteries in hybrid cars. So far, nobody has done much of anything and there have been very few hybrids junked as end-of-life. I would expect someone to start noticing the batteries piling up fairly soon, say 3-4 years.
Recycling? Sure, they can be recycled. Not sure what a lithium-ion battery can be recycled into, but I'm sure it isn't a new lithium-ion battery. As such, recycling only makes a limited amount of sense. It is like plastic recycling in the US - somewhere around 90% of it is just dumped for one reason or another even though it was originally collected to be recycled. Same with paper. It doesn't pay enough. The result of recycling paper is low-grade materials, not nice new paper.
In the US because of the way credit reporting works you would just get a form that says you authorize them to (a) send your information to various third parties as required and (b) allow these third parties to keep that information as long as necessary to validate future credit inquiries. This would be required for every purchase not paid for in cash or over some absurdly low amount, like $100.
Basically, you would be authorizing the collection and distribution that goes on today anyway. Except now there would be additional forms and paperwork required.
The other alternative is we just shut down the finance companies, most non-bank credit cards and credit reporting agencies. Tell everyone cash or check period. I know, that is how the rest of the world works today. But it isn't how the US economy has worked for 50 years.
Given the way credit is handled in the US, that would be a very, very large change. You would essentially be dismantling the credit reporting and credit agency organizations. This isn't just Experian and the like - this would include the smaller regional credit service bureaus.
We're probably talking about a few billion in revenue here, so it isn't a small change. It would also affect (if not eliminate) the concept of a "finance company". Add a few more billion to this.
What would you do? Require a new government department? Abolish credit except through banks? Make the borrower pay for some new investigation service?
The problem is that in the US almost everything is financed in some way. This is far different from how it is in other parts of the world. You want to buy a desk and someone tells you they have a 90-days-same-as-cash plan. What this is in fact is selling your purchase to a finance company who then pays the store some percentage immediately. The store thinks it is worth it because they get more sales. The finance company thinks it is great because most people take longer than the free period to pay it off, so they get interest above and beyond what they paid the store. They approve people based on credit reports - saved information that is maintained and sold to the finance company so they have some idea who they are dealing with.
I believe the situation in Europe is a lot closer to you go to the store and they want cash. Period. No finance company. No credit reporting. No information being collected. Stores just sell less stuff.
Any change like "you own your information and it cannot be sold" or "no information collected and saved by third parties" would require changing all of this. This wouldn't be a trivial change and would have far reaching effects. Further than most people would guess.
You can do that now in the US. And the US Information Commissioner does the same thing when the spammer can be traced to a whole bunch of compromised Windows boxes in California or some rented server it Korea.
No matter what laws are passed, unless there is cooperation from both the ISPs and foreign governments spam isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
The problem in the US is partly the wireless providers wanting specific features on "their" phones and partly the systems they have implemented. Verizon didn't (and may still not) sell Nokia phones because they don't work with Verizon's network equipment very well. On the other hand, if you bring a CDMA tri-band phone into a Verizon store it can be activated in almost all cases. It may not work very well if it is a Nokia. There are some other problems I am sure.
But the idea of the phone being tied to the wireless vendor solely because of choice is a myth.
Europe and much of the rest of the world has it easy - a single mature standard that is at least 15 years old. The US has three different bands being used and more network quirks than you would think possible. So not everything works as nicely as it does with a single standard.