But patent lawsuits don't deprive anyone of anything. Much like illegal file sharing, nobody is deprived so it's not the same as buying a stolen car without knowing it.
In this case, i4i lost actual customers. The loss can be shown on their balance sheet.
Patents are all about proper licensing, and as such, judges work very hard to punish only the guilty, and not the innocent bystander.
If we were to compare it to a robbery, Dell is more like the driver of the getaway car than an innocent bystander. They have profited from distributing microsoft's patent infringing software. The MS partnership with Dell is an important part of the MS distribution system. I'd accept Dell as an innocent bystander if they had no distribution contracts with MS and were buying Office at retail. That would make them a customer rather than a partner.
No-one who has entered into contracts to help MS build and maintain their market position is a bystander, they are partners.
On one hand, you have fundamentalist athiests in charge of Western media who take every opportunity to attack and discredit any religion
The attacks on religion carried out tend to be a little less brutal than harvesting religious people for organs. Nobody cares if Falun Gong is criticized.
an officially atheist government (the best kind!)
Officially atheist governments have tended to be every bit as brutal as theocratic dictatorships. Secular government is far more desirable. Religious beliefs should be irrelevant to government since they cannot issue a decree that affects the existence or otherwise of any god. Believing something without evidence is not valid grounds for criminal sanctions.
While true, it's also explicitly one of the factors that go into determining whether injunctions should be issued--- they're discretionary relief that is supposed to take into account any hardship the injunction might cause to nonparties.
Is a business that is a MS partner a nonparty? I know they aren't involved in the lawsuit, but they are certainly involved in the distribution of the unlicensed product. Why should they have no hardship, since they profit from the patent infringement?
The judgement went against MS. All they have to do is license the patent from i4i. If they win the appeal, they can stop paying. If they haven't even tried to come to a licensing agreement with i4i, no court should even listen to them about lifting the injunction. What is being claimed is effectively that MS (and partners) will suffer hardship if they don't pay their bills. No shit! The obvious solution would be to pay the bill, and for Dell to sue MS for losses incurred due to their illegal practices if they don't.
Remember that many, many users are extremely limited in their ability to make "simple" changes to a browser configuration
Incompetence in such matters is a choice. People who make such a choice need not be considered. There is a "Help" menu. People unwilling or unable to use it can pay for training or put up with whatever they get as far as I'm concerned.
Sucks for those who don't have what the people want.
There are two solutions to this: (a) force people to use products/services they don't want in order to make things "fair" for the producers of unwanted products or (b) for those producers to come up with a more desirable product/service so that people use it voluntarily. One of these solutions destroys free choice and ultimately the economy, the other benefits the economy by increasing choice and competitively drives prices down. Can you guess which solution has which effect?
Sucks even more for the people who don't want what the super-rich and powerful are selling.
If there are a sufficient number of such people someone will implement solution (b) which will also deal with this issue. If you aren't willing to put money on the table to make such a solution profitable or to build that solution yourself, I don't see any grounds for complaint on that basis.
Of course, the government ought not to be enforcing the purchase of monopoly products, such as the example in my country where online tax software only runs on MS windows. However it is governments acting as customers, not regulators, that is having more effect on the MS monopoly, for example, by demanding open formats in their software purchases. Anti-trust cases regarding bundled software seem to be having comparatively less effect. Google came to prominence by having an uncluttered interface and better search algorithms. I'm having difficulty seeing a problem with that.
In what way is this worse than having politicians decide the matter?
Perhaps I, as a scientist, could try criminal cases, I'm sure I'd be perfectly qualified since apparently science and law are the same thing now.
Ever heard of jury duty? At law, it isn't enough to convince an expert. Since the legal effects of environmental legislation will affect everybody, you have to come up with with a presentation of the evidence that can convince non-experts or give up on representative government, opting instead for a dictatorship by the intellectual elite.
Interesting. I would have gone for a different explanation of the judicial/military thing, that some instructions in the bible are intended for different groups. The instruction of "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" for example, applying to the judiciary and forgive those who do you wrong to individuals. Even in our secular society we follow this sort of principle, rejecting personal revenge but allowing the courts to impose sentences on people.
I wouldn't be inclined to hold a grudge against someone who stole something, but I'd think it pretty wrong if a court forgave them on my behalf. Just as wrong as if I just took revenge on them myself. In the case of home defence, I wouldn't consider a person who killed an armed intruder to be less loving or christian than one who passively submitted to the assault. I'd consider the duty to protect my children to outweigh any consideration of loving the intruder. As you put it "love your defeated enemies", but I suppose that if you are not in a position of strength, whether you love or not is irrelevant. Who cares what you think of the people who conquer you? It is how you treat the people you have an advantage over that would make a difference. Maybe that isn't christian by most standards, but I'm ok with that.
But did SCO put the code in there? It's sort of like this. Say your car radio was stolen. Now later on you buy a used car, then sell it. You find out later on that the radio in that car was the same one stolen out of your other car years earlier. Would you get your radio back?
You already did get the radio back when you bought the used car. At that time you had both legal title and possession of the radio. I imagine that your contract to sell the car (including radio) could not be invalidated since the purchaser acquires it from the legal owner. Perhaps the person who sold you the car with stolen radio could be charged with something, but that probably wouldn't affect the legality of the transaction when you sold your property.
It is quite clear that all along in history, violence solved a lot of problem.
It did, but it was never the most expedient way to solve the problem, because it resulted in the destruction of people and property. Asimov's maxim is not about pacifism; it is about using more effective tools of war (like espionage, political influence, psychological manipulation, propaganda or even assassination) that do not destroy valuable resources.
I've never before heard assassination being proposed as an alternative to violent solutions. I like your style!
If you want to play the "find a contradiction in the Bible game", I'm all up for it, but nonetheless pretty much every evangelical Christian I spoke to believes that "God is love", and that "love your enemies" is unconditional, so that seems to be the mainstream interpretation - and so I use that. In truth, I don't care either way because it's not my god nor my holy book.
Ha Ha, fair enough, just ask them if on that basis they are prepared to disband the military or the judicial system. You'll find a fairly consistent "No". Perhaps as phantomfive said: "Letting someone destroy, conquer and enslave you is in no way equivalent to being loving."
You are effectively proposing building the entire economy of your country upon foreign sweatshops, with citizens reaping all the benefits. Be careful what you wish for: eventually, the people in those sweatshops will start wondering why so much money that they earn are sent overseas, while no actual product is being produced there.
No, that's what's happening at the moment because people are buying plastic toys instead of productive capacity. In suggesting that people increase their productive capacity I am hardly advocating an economy in which nothing is produced. What I'm saying is that cheap manufacturing and technological advance can put economic power (in the form of productive capacity) in the hands of ordinary individuals that has been only in the hands of corporations or people with large amounts of investment capital. The individual ownership of computers is a case in point. The availability of CNC lathes and mills at consumer prices is another. I am not at all in favour of importing everything and producing nothing.
Ultimately, in a capitalist system, if you spend all your money on lifestyle rather than capital, you guarantee your place at the bottom of the food chain. The existence of cheap foreign labour is irrelevant to this point. If you want to spend your money on capital so you can improve your productivity, cheap labour in overseas manufacturing is a benefit to you not an obstacle.
The former also is very much non-Christian (but very American, remembering the famous words "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition").
Maybe you've been taught Christianity incorrectly:
Matthew 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Luke 22:36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
Free market capitalism by definition exists within a regulatory framework. You specified improved regulation rather than more regulation, so the only possible answer to your question is yes. In some cases, improved may mean less.
As a somewhat offtopic aside, I see the creation of money supply through fractional reserve lending as something incompatible with the ideal of free market capitalism. I see the provision of a stable currency as the governments role, a responsibility and power that ought not be handed to private banking corporations.
I checked my bank account apparently I'm not one of the "us".
Do you have hot and cold running water on demand? Do you have light at the flick of a switch? Have you ever been at serious risk of not being able to obtain enough food because there wasn't enough rain, or a storm wiped out local crops?
Seriously, the poor of Adam Smith's time had a lifestyle far below any westerner's lifestyle today. When I realised that I had conveniences that could only be had by people with a team of servants in centuries past, I began to think of myself as rich. Compared to the richest people right now, you're probably not. Compared to the average over the last thousand years, rich is probably a fairly accurate description of your circumstances.
If you ship that iron to China to have it refined and turned into steel, then ship it back to the US, we have to pay more for it than we sold it for, and that is wealth being transferred out of the country. If the iron had stayed in the US, it would have cost more to refine, but at least all that wealth would have stayed here.
Maybe, or maybe you've swapped low value iron and valueless currency for high value steel. You really think you benefit by paying more for your productive infrastructure, just because it's made in the US?
How about my situation: a few months ago I bought a block splitter to sell firewood as a sideline. It cost me about $1600AU (cheap Chinese one), similar model made here in Australia $3990AU, proper industrial splitters start at $5900AU. Remember, this is a side business, not my main income, it has the potential for about 10K though. I simply didn't have the money available for a more expensive one, though I would prefer them. My options were to use the Chinese one (until I make enough money to upgrade) or not do it at all. How long it would take of saving up I haven't worked out, but it isn't my main priority so a fair while. The Chinese one is not a "lost sale" for the others. Cheap Chinese manufacturing gave me the ability to turn some cash and spare time into a second income.
If the things you import represent a loss to your economy, it is your purchasing habits, not the price of Chinese labour that is the problem. Stop buying useless crap and use the cheap labour to increase your own productive capacity, then you won't have to be bitter about someone in another country getting a job. They'll make you more competitive, not less.
I haven't quite worked out how to explain the fact that most of his redistribution so far has been from the poor to the rich (especially lots and lots of bankers), but I'm pretty sure that's somehow Marxist too.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by
degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all
instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the
proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the
total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by
means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on
the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures,
therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable,
but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves,
necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are
unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of
production.
These measures will of course be different in different
countries.
Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will
be pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents
of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means
of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive
monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport
in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by
the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and
the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a
common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of
industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries;
gradual abolition of the distinction between town and
country, by a more equable distribution of the population
over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools.
Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form.
Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c.
Seems to be a lot there that people who wouldn't self-identify as communists would be in favour of like free public education. Interesting about the centrally controlled state bank though, although Obama could really only be said to have taken a step in the implementation of that, the formation of the Federal Reserve itself is far more significant. I'm pretty sure Obama didn't travel back in time and do that.
But with free trade, even that probably isn't enough to keep us on top. Developing countries will eventually catch up.
If only you had some objective standard of living or level of wealth as your goal, instead of wanting to be "on top". I'd be quite willing to co-operate with people who want to achieve something, not so willing when that something is to be "on top" with me presumably underneath.
You could potentially have what is currently a third world standard of living and still be "on top", so long as the rest of the world starves faster than you. That can't be what you really want, though. Get a more honourable objective than being "on top", because otherwise you are assured of being in some form of conflict with the rest of the world, diverting your resources from productivity to conflict. You're already paying for that conflict by borrowing from China, how "on top" is that?
The US has played the game of "on top" pretty well, but it's the wrong game for the long term.
Does that take into account the number of people that actually put in a genuine, consistent effort to reach a higher income? Even your stats say that 58% got out of the bottom quintile. 36% got to the middle quintile or higher. I know myself that I could be richer, sometimes I've valued extra time with my family over extra money from more work. If I end up in a statistic that puts my income in less than the top quintile it won't say anything about my ability to be economically mobile.
I see from another post of yours "You need to *KNOW* somebody...". So, introduce yourself. Get to know people. If you're friendly and useful, you might be surprised the people who will accept you in their circle.
I know plenty of people that have never made a serious attempt to become wealthy. I haven't asked them why, maybe they are already happy, maybe they don't believe they can, maybe they think the effort isn't worth it. Regardless of the reason, such people make statistics on economic mobility nearly worthless.
The only way you can become cheap enough to compete with India and China is if you completely ditch all the achievements of the labor movement throughout the last century - 8-hour workday, etc.
There is the possibility in some occupations to increase your output by owning and operating tools and equipment, or being in an industry that requires physical presence.
As an example, I'm currently working in arboriculture. The chances of getting a worker in India to do my job is zero since the trees can't be sent overseas for pruning. I also own a variety of tools and equipment that make me many times more productive than someone who has only themselves to offer at low rates. Although I'm very expensive per hour compared to other workers, it is impossible on many jobs to hire enough workers to match my productivity for the same money.
A couple of weeks ago a friend was (again) complaining about cheap Chinese labour. We happened to be going to a hardware store to get a couple of things. I showed him he could put together enough tools to get started in a small business for under $2000. Cheap overseas labour isn't a problem, it's a benefit, unless you use that cheap labour to spend all your money on frivolity like plastic toys and wide screen TV's. Really, though, that's still you being the problem. Use that cheap manufacturing to increase your own productive capacity, it's a resource for the individual every bit as much as it is for large companies. This will also make people less dependent on employment with large companies. All that's lacking for myself to operate as an independent business rather than a sub-contractor is to start advertising and invoice customers directly instead of invoicing other businesses. As a result, there is very little incentive for me to take any low paying work or work under conditions I don't like.
Your power in negotiations is determined largely by your ability to walk away from the deal (choose something else) and the other parties ability to do the same. With a bit of planing and some relatively small investment, cheap overseas manufacturing can deliver to the individual the ability to walk away from the employment options offered by large corporations. While I was working for a multi-national on a unionised site, house prices more than doubled, wages hardly increased at all. Unions are not enough, you must be prepared to walk away.
Sure a foreign market can impose conditions, but not just any old conditions they like
In that case foreign countries don't have sovereignty then, since someone (you?) gets veto rights over what market regulations they may impose. There are countries that have laws I find reprehensible. I have the choice to not go there or go and argue those laws in the courts of that country. If you choose the court option you have no grounds for complaint should the ruling not go your way.
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If I buy off-the-shelf Ace brand widgets to manufacture my Whatzidoodles, that doesn't make me a subsidiary of Ace.
That analogy would be applicable if Dell was buying Word at retail.
They don't want to have to tell their customer that they can't buy Word. That's all there is to it.
That's pretty much it. A modified Word which won't read existing files in an organisation would cost them a heap in customer support.
But patent lawsuits don't deprive anyone of anything. Much like illegal file sharing, nobody is deprived so it's not the same as buying a stolen car without knowing it.
In this case, i4i lost actual customers. The loss can be shown on their balance sheet.
Patents are all about proper licensing, and as such, judges work very hard to punish only the guilty, and not the innocent bystander.
If we were to compare it to a robbery, Dell is more like the driver of the getaway car than an innocent bystander. They have profited from distributing microsoft's patent infringing software. The MS partnership with Dell is an important part of the MS distribution system. I'd accept Dell as an innocent bystander if they had no distribution contracts with MS and were buying Office at retail. That would make them a customer rather than a partner.
No-one who has entered into contracts to help MS build and maintain their market position is a bystander, they are partners.
On one hand, you have fundamentalist athiests in charge of Western media who take every opportunity to attack and discredit any religion
The attacks on religion carried out tend to be a little less brutal than harvesting religious people for organs. Nobody cares if Falun Gong is criticized.
an officially atheist government (the best kind!)
Officially atheist governments have tended to be every bit as brutal as theocratic dictatorships. Secular government is far more desirable. Religious beliefs should be irrelevant to government since they cannot issue a decree that affects the existence or otherwise of any god. Believing something without evidence is not valid grounds for criminal sanctions.
While true, it's also explicitly one of the factors that go into determining whether injunctions should be issued--- they're discretionary relief that is supposed to take into account any hardship the injunction might cause to nonparties.
Is a business that is a MS partner a nonparty? I know they aren't involved in the lawsuit, but they are certainly involved in the distribution of the unlicensed product. Why should they have no hardship, since they profit from the patent infringement?
The judgement went against MS. All they have to do is license the patent from i4i. If they win the appeal, they can stop paying. If they haven't even tried to come to a licensing agreement with i4i, no court should even listen to them about lifting the injunction. What is being claimed is effectively that MS (and partners) will suffer hardship if they don't pay their bills. No shit! The obvious solution would be to pay the bill, and for Dell to sue MS for losses incurred due to their illegal practices if they don't.
Remember that many, many users are extremely limited in their ability to make "simple" changes to a browser configuration
Incompetence in such matters is a choice. People who make such a choice need not be considered. There is a "Help" menu. People unwilling or unable to use it can pay for training or put up with whatever they get as far as I'm concerned.
Sucks for those who don't have what the people want.
There are two solutions to this: (a) force people to use products/services they don't want in order to make things "fair" for the producers of unwanted products or (b) for those producers to come up with a more desirable product/service so that people use it voluntarily. One of these solutions destroys free choice and ultimately the economy, the other benefits the economy by increasing choice and competitively drives prices down. Can you guess which solution has which effect?
Sucks even more for the people who don't want what the super-rich and powerful are selling.
If there are a sufficient number of such people someone will implement solution (b) which will also deal with this issue. If you aren't willing to put money on the table to make such a solution profitable or to build that solution yourself, I don't see any grounds for complaint on that basis.
Of course, the government ought not to be enforcing the purchase of monopoly products, such as the example in my country where online tax software only runs on MS windows. However it is governments acting as customers, not regulators, that is having more effect on the MS monopoly, for example, by demanding open formats in their software purchases. Anti-trust cases regarding bundled software seem to be having comparatively less effect. Google came to prominence by having an uncluttered interface and better search algorithms. I'm having difficulty seeing a problem with that.
Are they serious? A fucking *law court*?
In what way is this worse than having politicians decide the matter?
Perhaps I, as a scientist, could try criminal cases, I'm sure I'd be perfectly qualified since apparently science and law are the same thing now.
Ever heard of jury duty? At law, it isn't enough to convince an expert. Since the legal effects of environmental legislation will affect everybody, you have to come up with with a presentation of the evidence that can convince non-experts or give up on representative government, opting instead for a dictatorship by the intellectual elite.
Interesting. I would have gone for a different explanation of the judicial/military thing, that some instructions in the bible are intended for different groups. The instruction of "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" for example, applying to the judiciary and forgive those who do you wrong to individuals. Even in our secular society we follow this sort of principle, rejecting personal revenge but allowing the courts to impose sentences on people.
I wouldn't be inclined to hold a grudge against someone who stole something, but I'd think it pretty wrong if a court forgave them on my behalf. Just as wrong as if I just took revenge on them myself. In the case of home defence, I wouldn't consider a person who killed an armed intruder to be less loving or christian than one who passively submitted to the assault. I'd consider the duty to protect my children to outweigh any consideration of loving the intruder. As you put it "love your defeated enemies", but I suppose that if you are not in a position of strength, whether you love or not is irrelevant. Who cares what you think of the people who conquer you? It is how you treat the people you have an advantage over that would make a difference. Maybe that isn't christian by most standards, but I'm ok with that.
They were made expressly for their purpose. All the people working on them knew that purpose, thus directly contributed to that action.
But did SCO put the code in there? It's sort of like this. Say your car radio was stolen. Now later on you buy a used car, then sell it. You find out later on that the radio in that car was the same one stolen out of your other car years earlier. Would you get your radio back?
You already did get the radio back when you bought the used car. At that time you had both legal title and possession of the radio. I imagine that your contract to sell the car (including radio) could not be invalidated since the purchaser acquires it from the legal owner. Perhaps the person who sold you the car with stolen radio could be charged with something, but that probably wouldn't affect the legality of the transaction when you sold your property.
Unimaginitive people resort to violence, intelligent people use other means.
Yes, that's why Einstein helped develop nukes. Stupid, unimaginative freak that he was.
It is quite clear that all along in history, violence solved a lot of problem.
It did, but it was never the most expedient way to solve the problem, because it resulted in the destruction of people and property. Asimov's maxim is not about pacifism; it is about using more effective tools of war (like espionage, political influence, psychological manipulation, propaganda or even assassination) that do not destroy valuable resources.
I've never before heard assassination being proposed as an alternative to violent solutions. I like your style!
If you want to play the "find a contradiction in the Bible game", I'm all up for it, but nonetheless pretty much every evangelical Christian I spoke to believes that "God is love", and that "love your enemies" is unconditional, so that seems to be the mainstream interpretation - and so I use that. In truth, I don't care either way because it's not my god nor my holy book.
Ha Ha, fair enough, just ask them if on that basis they are prepared to disband the military or the judicial system. You'll find a fairly consistent "No". Perhaps as phantomfive said: "Letting someone destroy, conquer and enslave you is in no way equivalent to being loving."
You are effectively proposing building the entire economy of your country upon foreign sweatshops, with citizens reaping all the benefits. Be careful what you wish for: eventually, the people in those sweatshops will start wondering why so much money that they earn are sent overseas, while no actual product is being produced there.
No, that's what's happening at the moment because people are buying plastic toys instead of productive capacity. In suggesting that people increase their productive capacity I am hardly advocating an economy in which nothing is produced. What I'm saying is that cheap manufacturing and technological advance can put economic power (in the form of productive capacity) in the hands of ordinary individuals that has been only in the hands of corporations or people with large amounts of investment capital. The individual ownership of computers is a case in point. The availability of CNC lathes and mills at consumer prices is another. I am not at all in favour of importing everything and producing nothing.
Ultimately, in a capitalist system, if you spend all your money on lifestyle rather than capital, you guarantee your place at the bottom of the food chain. The existence of cheap foreign labour is irrelevant to this point. If you want to spend your money on capital so you can improve your productivity, cheap labour in overseas manufacturing is a benefit to you not an obstacle.
The former also is very much non-Christian (but very American, remembering the famous words "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition").
Maybe you've been taught Christianity incorrectly:
Matthew 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Luke 22:36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
Free market capitalism by definition exists within a regulatory framework. You specified improved regulation rather than more regulation, so the only possible answer to your question is yes. In some cases, improved may mean less.
As a somewhat offtopic aside, I see the creation of money supply through fractional reserve lending as something incompatible with the ideal of free market capitalism. I see the provision of a stable currency as the governments role, a responsibility and power that ought not be handed to private banking corporations.
I checked my bank account apparently I'm not one of the "us".
Do you have hot and cold running water on demand? Do you have light at the flick of a switch? Have you ever been at serious risk of not being able to obtain enough food because there wasn't enough rain, or a storm wiped out local crops?
Seriously, the poor of Adam Smith's time had a lifestyle far below any westerner's lifestyle today. When I realised that I had conveniences that could only be had by people with a team of servants in centuries past, I began to think of myself as rich. Compared to the richest people right now, you're probably not. Compared to the average over the last thousand years, rich is probably a fairly accurate description of your circumstances.
If you ship that iron to China to have it refined and turned into steel, then ship it back to the US, we have to pay more for it than we sold it for, and that is wealth being transferred out of the country. If the iron had stayed in the US, it would have cost more to refine, but at least all that wealth would have stayed here.
Maybe, or maybe you've swapped low value iron and valueless currency for high value steel. You really think you benefit by paying more for your productive infrastructure, just because it's made in the US?
How about my situation: a few months ago I bought a block splitter to sell firewood as a sideline. It cost me about $1600AU (cheap Chinese one), similar model made here in Australia $3990AU, proper industrial splitters start at $5900AU. Remember, this is a side business, not my main income, it has the potential for about 10K though. I simply didn't have the money available for a more expensive one, though I would prefer them. My options were to use the Chinese one (until I make enough money to upgrade) or not do it at all. How long it would take of saving up I haven't worked out, but it isn't my main priority so a fair while. The Chinese one is not a "lost sale" for the others. Cheap Chinese manufacturing gave me the ability to turn some cash and spare time into a second income.
If the things you import represent a loss to your economy, it is your purchasing habits, not the price of Chinese labour that is the problem. Stop buying useless crap and use the cheap labour to increase your own productive capacity, then you won't have to be bitter about someone in another country getting a job. They'll make you more competitive, not less.
I haven't quite worked out how to explain the fact that most of his redistribution so far has been from the poor to the rich (especially lots and lots of bankers), but I'm pretty sure that's somehow Marxist too.
Interestingly enough, from The Communist Manifesto
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
These measures will of course be different in different countries.
Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c.
Seems to be a lot there that people who wouldn't self-identify as communists would be in favour of like free public education. Interesting about the centrally controlled state bank though, although Obama could really only be said to have taken a step in the implementation of that, the formation of the Federal Reserve itself is far more significant. I'm pretty sure Obama didn't travel back in time and do that.
But with free trade, even that probably isn't enough to keep us on top. Developing countries will eventually catch up.
If only you had some objective standard of living or level of wealth as your goal, instead of wanting to be "on top". I'd be quite willing to co-operate with people who want to achieve something, not so willing when that something is to be "on top" with me presumably underneath.
You could potentially have what is currently a third world standard of living and still be "on top", so long as the rest of the world starves faster than you. That can't be what you really want, though. Get a more honourable objective than being "on top", because otherwise you are assured of being in some form of conflict with the rest of the world, diverting your resources from productivity to conflict. You're already paying for that conflict by borrowing from China, how "on top" is that?
The US has played the game of "on top" pretty well, but it's the wrong game for the long term.
Does that take into account the number of people that actually put in a genuine, consistent effort to reach a higher income? Even your stats say that 58% got out of the bottom quintile. 36% got to the middle quintile or higher. I know myself that I could be richer, sometimes I've valued extra time with my family over extra money from more work. If I end up in a statistic that puts my income in less than the top quintile it won't say anything about my ability to be economically mobile.
I see from another post of yours "You need to *KNOW* somebody...". So, introduce yourself. Get to know people. If you're friendly and useful, you might be surprised the people who will accept you in their circle.
I know plenty of people that have never made a serious attempt to become wealthy. I haven't asked them why, maybe they are already happy, maybe they don't believe they can, maybe they think the effort isn't worth it. Regardless of the reason, such people make statistics on economic mobility nearly worthless.
The only way you can become cheap enough to compete with India and China is if you completely ditch all the achievements of the labor movement throughout the last century - 8-hour workday, etc.
There is the possibility in some occupations to increase your output by owning and operating tools and equipment, or being in an industry that requires physical presence.
As an example, I'm currently working in arboriculture. The chances of getting a worker in India to do my job is zero since the trees can't be sent overseas for pruning. I also own a variety of tools and equipment that make me many times more productive than someone who has only themselves to offer at low rates. Although I'm very expensive per hour compared to other workers, it is impossible on many jobs to hire enough workers to match my productivity for the same money.
A couple of weeks ago a friend was (again) complaining about cheap Chinese labour. We happened to be going to a hardware store to get a couple of things. I showed him he could put together enough tools to get started in a small business for under $2000. Cheap overseas labour isn't a problem, it's a benefit, unless you use that cheap labour to spend all your money on frivolity like plastic toys and wide screen TV's. Really, though, that's still you being the problem. Use that cheap manufacturing to increase your own productive capacity, it's a resource for the individual every bit as much as it is for large companies. This will also make people less dependent on employment with large companies. All that's lacking for myself to operate as an independent business rather than a sub-contractor is to start advertising and invoice customers directly instead of invoicing other businesses. As a result, there is very little incentive for me to take any low paying work or work under conditions I don't like.
Your power in negotiations is determined largely by your ability to walk away from the deal (choose something else) and the other parties ability to do the same. With a bit of planing and some relatively small investment, cheap overseas manufacturing can deliver to the individual the ability to walk away from the employment options offered by large corporations. While I was working for a multi-national on a unionised site, house prices more than doubled, wages hardly increased at all. Unions are not enough, you must be prepared to walk away.
Sure a foreign market can impose conditions, but not just any old conditions they like
In that case foreign countries don't have sovereignty then, since someone (you?) gets veto rights over what market regulations they may impose. There are countries that have laws I find reprehensible. I have the choice to not go there or go and argue those laws in the courts of that country. If you choose the court option you have no grounds for complaint should the ruling not go your way.
Actually, they [Bush and co] never could take a joke. Not with good grace and humor, at any rate.
Can you explain this video of Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner then?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq7sRkg_2Ss