You can get a low-end laptop for $350 and a copy of Office 2010 Home & Business for $200 - that's right between the 16GB and 32GB iPad. Or you can go with OpenOffice and spend that $200 on better hardware.
You can edit word documents, spreadsheets, autocad drawings etc...
You mean, you can use watered-down mobile apps that support a fraction of the features of those document formats? You can view a spreadsheet as long as it doesn't use any Excel features that have been added since 2000?
That's nice for a proof of concept, but in the real world people do sometimes use the features of the software they've paid for.
Try this carry a laptop, through a warehouse, and update a shipment status without setting it down.
Try this: carry a package in one hand and a tablet in the other, and update the shipment status without setting either down.
If you want portability and convenience, the iPad loses to any handheld/pocket-sized device, even the iPod Touch. If you want functionality, it ties the iPod Touch and loses to laptops. The only device the iPad can beat in the business world is another tablet, and then only when you don't use it for anything complicated.
Exactly. The iPad really isn't any more portable than a laptop to begin with: it's a little lighter, but not less bulky in any meaningful sense. It doesn't fit in your pocket, so you need a bag for it, and once you've got the bag it doesn't really matter whether the device inside it is 1" or 1.5" thick.
But if you have to haul around a stand and a keyboard to make the iPad usable, now it's less portable than a laptop.
We all know, the main reason is that pre-iPad tablets kinda had to be placed on the table.
Funny, but have you felt an iPad? It's not all that light; to use it for more than a few minutes, you have to lay it down or lean it against something.
It makes a great portable Web-Ex client, as well as GotoMeeting and other presentation formats. It handles documents well. Using iAnnotate lets me markup and read PDF docs.
I also found it great for reading specs rather than killing trees with paper or trying to read them off a computer screen. I can take them with me with ease.
[...] Add on top of that the fact that I can do Voip calls and listen to my music all at the same time.
At my office, we do all that stuff with laptops that cost about as much as an iPad, but they also run Office and various other productivity apps. Have you discovered any advantage of doing them on an iPad instead, or are you just pointing out that the iPad isn't 100% useless in an office environment?
I also have RDP and VNC clients plus a shell terminal (no, not jailbroken) lets me SSH into other boxes and do sys admin work as well as a slew of other network tools available.
My god, why would you torture yourself by trying to do remote desktop and SSH without a keyboard? I mean, yes, those tools exist, but the iPad itself really isn't suited for typing more than a few words at a time.
Just so you are up to date with your FUD, there are a lot of alternate browsers for iOS now.
Not really. The "alternate browsers" that Apple has allowed are based on WebKit, just like Safari. They won't, however, allow alternate browser cores: so if someone discovers an exploit in WebKit, you can't avoid it by switching browsers.
Sandboxing is the job of the OS. Every program that runs is isolated from others and from the hardware by the OS. Every interaction with anything outside of its address space has to go via the OS.
Protecting one application from another is the job of the OS. But the OS doesn't protect one application from its (potentially untrusted) plugins. That's where sandboxing provided by a VM or interpreter comes in, like I said. Running every add-in in its own process is another option, but that comes with its own set of tradeoffs (i.e. performance and complexity).
These bits of code are all incredibly complex - they have to be to get good performance - and small bugs in them can allow malicious code to escape. The operating system's protection, in contrast, is provided by the MMU, which is a relatively simple bit of hardware.
Some operating system protections are provided by the MMU. Others, like file and network permissions, are provided by bits of code which can have bugs.
Probably because they solve a problem that is only really applicable in the closed-source world: needing to run the same binary on multiple operating systems / architectures.
Not really: they also solve the problem of delivering compiled code in a form that can be easily sandboxed. You can load untrusted code into your process (e.g. an applet on a web page) and run it, confident that the VM and language make it impossible for that code to access memory/files/hardware you don't want it to access.
It would be possible to perform sandboxing on C source code, if there were a standardized "safe" set of APIs, and if you restricted the language and compiler to forbid things like pointer arithmetic, unions, and inline assembly. But then you wouldn't really be writing C anymore, you'd be writing in a language that isn't quite C using a library that isn't quite the C library.
Your inability to correctly identify "naive faith" is disturbing. I hope for the sake of our state's education system that you went to school somewhere else.
You have to massively ignorant to believe that Legislature will not ride the camel into the tent once it's nose is in - because once the tax is in place, the whole dynamic changes.
So you're saying that the idea you and I both agree is "political suicide" would somehow stop being political suicide? That if a high-earners income tax passes, the people of Washington will turn around 180 degrees and say "Income tax for the middle class? Sign me up!"
That, sir, is naive.
You're correct in that the voters are mostly stupid and don't understand that one comes with others - but only an idiot would argue that somehow negates the simple fact that the voters have repeatedly attempted to reign in spending by reigning in taxes.
You're demolishing your own argument here. If the voters don't understand the connection between taxes and spending, then their attempts to cut taxes cannot also be attempts to reign in spending.
Sorry, I thought it was clear that my questions were rhetorical.
The legislature has not supported an income tax for all residents, just like they haven't repealed a tax without replacing it. There is no reason to believe your scenario is any more likely than mine, and that's why I called you out for spreading FUD in the first place.
You are obviously not a Washington State citizen or resident, or if you are - you are profoundly ignorant of the political situation here.
I am a Washington State citizen, and I am not ignorant of the political situation. You seem to have seriously misunderstood me.
Nobody in the State House or Senate will ever propose an income tax. Ever. It's a third rail issue here, and even proposing an income tax could be a career ender. Voting in favor of an income tax would be political suicide.
My point exactly!
That's why the anti-1098 scaremongering about the idea that the legislature would extend the tax to cover everyone was nothing but FUD. The legislature wouldn't vote to extend the high-earners income tax to all residents for the same reason that they haven't proposed an income tax on their own: it's political suicide.
If you live here, you may trust Olympia and place your naive faith in them 'listening to' the high income earners... But your fellow citizens, after suffering through the past decade and a half, are not so trusting and naive.
It's "trusting and naive" to think that legislators will tend to put upper-class interests ahead of middle-class interests? That's a new one.
We've seen, again and again, how the people have attempted to rein in State spending - and how again and again the Legislature has tried to work around the will of the people.
The people have attempted to rein in taxation, but spending? Show me the polls where a majority of residents want to cut back on state programs.
most Washington residents (including me) believed that once they introduced a personal state income tax here, the politicians would plead "necessity" and keep lowering the threshhold over time to the point where most residents would be paying it
If that's the case, then why haven't they done it already?
Seriously. If "the politicians" want an income tax that applies to most residents, then why don't we already have one? The initiative wouldn't have granted them any powers they don't already have. If Olympia wants an income tax, they can still pass one.
I believe the biggest reason was that in only two years the law makers could modify the tax to include all Washington tax payers, not just the rich.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. That's one of the talking points the anti-1098 campaign was using before the election. It was FUD then and it's FUD now.
Here's why: if the legislature wanted to pass an income tax, they would've done it already.
"Only two years" is how long it takes after an initiative passes before the legislature can change it. The anti-1098 campaign baselessly speculated that the legislature would extend the tax to cover everyone, even though they've been free to do that all along and have never taken the opportunity. But it's just as likely that the legislature would repeal the tax after "only two years": after all, the tax would only have impacted high income earners, and that's who the legislature listens to.
When I think holograph, I think about a three-dimensional figure of light being projected onto a table top.
That's a special effect you see in movies. It's not real, and there's no real theory for how such a thing could even be made. Dismissing this real, working technology because it doesn't look like a Hollywood "hologram" is like dismissing a laser-powered rifle because it doesn't shoot a solid, brightly colored chunk of light that flies across the room like in Star Wars.
(Sorry, I'm closely related to a pioneer in holography and worked in the field for several years, so I can be pedantic about it sometimes.)
Apple usually puts emphasis on how the features are easy-to-use, not about how they're the first to do it.
Not the first to do it at all, but they do claim they're the first to do it well, i.e. in a way that's easy to use or efficient, even when an easy-to-use and efficient implementation already exists on other platforms.
When people talk about android, android isn't really an OS- it's more like Gnome or KDE with a basic permission system hacked on (and a totally Android only API).
If you do not understand difference between 10 dollars 4 years ago and 24+ dollars today for an ounce of gold, that's not my problem. If you don't understand 60% increase of price of corn over the last 3 months, that's not my problem.
If you don't understand that corn and gold aren't the only two things on the market, that is your problem.
There is a measure for the rate of change in overall price levels, and it is showing historically low rise. You can cherry-pick a few commodities whose prices are going up, but you're not fooling anyone.
So I guess in your head that means poor people can afford more gold, look, it's more expensive. So prices went up, must be better for the poor.
It's amusing how you make up ridiculous strawmen like this. I can tell that even you realize that you're utterly out of your league, and you're flailing around as fast as you can to try to distract yourself from your own incompetence.
You know as well as I do that falling wage and price levels are bad for people with debt, and good for people with stockpiles of cash. You know it because it's so simple and obvious that there's no way not to know it, especially after I've spoon-fed the explanation to you over and over.
But you can't bring yourself to admit it, so you make up nonsense arguments and try to stuff them in my mouth. You try to turn this into some kind of class issue about "poor people" vs. "rich people", when you know perfectly well that I'm talking about people who have debt versus people who have stockpiles of cash -- it's about what you own, not what you earn. You know the argument I've actually put forward is correct, and now you're desperately trying to deflect the conversation from it. It'd be pathetic if it weren't so hilariously transparent.
That's also why you're so afraid of these simple questions:
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
Since you've proven to be too much of a coward to answer on your own, I'll answer for you: you do it because deception and sophistry is all you have. You have no true understanding of the subject outside your own tiny bubble. You refuse to make any attempt to communicate honestly or in commonly understood terms, because such obfuscation is the only hope you have of hiding your ignorance.
I thought there might be a shred of understanding somewhere in your mind, if I just worked hard enough, but now I can see I've been wasting my time. You are a complete fraud, and this will be my last response. Have a nice day.
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
It must be something else, living in your world.
Yeah, you ought to come visit sometime. There are over 6 billion of us here. It's much less lonely than your world.
This IS rampant inflation. You don't see it because you are blind. Your government made you blind. Compare the prices you had to pay a year ago to prices today. Prices are going up.
Not very much. Overall price levels have been rising more slowly than they have in the past. They have risen more slowly than the Fed's target level. In some cases, they've fallen.
They KNOW that inflation is money supply and not the stupid bullshit ridiculous mindless idiotic garbage they brainwashed you with.
Really, this is such a stupid line of argument that I can't believe you're still pursuing it.
It doesn't matter what you call it. Using the term "inflation" to refer to monetary expansion doesn't make monetary expansion any better or worse. And a downward spiral in price levels doesn't magically become a good thing just because you stop calling it "deflation".
You say we shouldn't fear deflation because when you say "deflation" you refer to something that isn't bad (and let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're right). But this is like claiming we shouldn't fear tigers because when you say "tiger" you're referring to what the rest of us call a butterfly. At best, it's a pointless semantic game; at worst, it's going to get someone eaten because they don't know your nonstandard definitions.
So just how incredibly stupid it is to suggest that inflation is better than deflation for all these people, who are not seeing any of their wages increased while the prices are going up? And prices ARE going up.
No, actually. There is a figure that measures the rate of rise in price levels, and that figure shows that prices are not going up at the rate they typically have in the past. Most of the world calls that figure "inflation"; I don't know what you call it, but calling it something else doesn't change the facts.
The only way for people to start saving money is if these people could actually pay LESS for things.
The phenomenon that results in people paying less for things also means they get paid less for working. That's the part you continue to ignore. If the price of goods falls, the wages of the people who make those goods must also fall.
Deflation is the correct way to get rid of that $5000 debt.
Sure -- by turning it into an even bigger debt (in real dollars). That's what we call "out of the frying pan and into the fire".
But the most important problem would be eliminated - inability to save due to non-existent interest rates, due to the policy of gov't, which destroys all incentives to save and creates an impossibility to get out of the debt hole.
What nonsense. Low interest rates (on savings) don't destroy the incentive to pay down debt, because interest rates on loans and credit cards are still as high as ever. If you're paying 18-24% interest on your credit card, that's all the incentive you need!
The money is expanded and the market is showing CRAZY RAMPANT inflation
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
Why are you so afraid to answer my questions, roman_mir? Are you so guilty about your obfuscation that you can't bear to admit it?
You are comparing the rampant inflation to a dust mite? Good luck holding onto your purchasing power.
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
Until you can answer the above questions, I'm going to avoid referring to either "inflation" or "deflation" with you, since you don't seem to grasp the fact that other people understand those words to mean something very different from what you mean with them.
So, yes: I am comparing monetary expansion to a harmless dust mite. An increase in price levels would be worrisome, once it got high enough, but even you yourself acknowledge that that isn't happening. My purchasing power is perfectly safe when prices aren't rising.
I am not at all worried about monetary expansion that doesn't lead to an increase in price levels. In fact, I think the fact that we aren't seeing an increase in price levels suggests that we haven't had enough monetary expansion.
On deflation: I have no kind words for you there at all. Saying that people with PILES OF CASH will profit from falling prices? What bubble do you live in?
It's called the real world.
Look, this is simple. If you have cash when prices are falling, that means you can buy more stuff without any extra effort. That's good for you. And the more cash you have saved up, the better it is for you.
If you don't have a pile of cash in the bank, because you're living paycheck to paycheck, then you don't get that benefit, because your wages will fall too. The price for labor will fall just like the price for goods. This can play out two different ways.
The better scenario is that the price of goods falls first, and then for a short while before your wages fall (or you get laid off), you're able to buy more stuff with the same paycheck. But once wages fall (assuming you still have your job), you're back to where you were before.
The worse scenario is that the price of wages falls first, and then for a short while before the price of goods falls, you're able to buy less stuff with your paycheck. Sucks to be you, but once the price of goods falls, you'll be back to where you were before. (Again, assuming you still have your job.)
But worst of all is if you have any debt -- like most Americans do. If you owe $5000, that amount is given in nominal dollars and is not affected by changing price levels or wages.
Suppose you earn $10 an hour: your debt is equivalent to 500 hours of labor. But if the price for labor falls and suddenly you're only earning $8 an hour, your debt is now equivalent to 625 hours of labor; it will now take you 25% longer to pay back that debt. Do you see the problem?
Let me ask that again, since this is another one of those points you keep refusing to acknowledge. Do you understand why it's a problem for wages to fall while debt in nominal dollars stays the same?
I don't understand how your world view got so perverted to believe that people who benefit from falling prices are the rich ones, when it is absolutely clear that falling prices benefit first of all the poorest and then the middle class
I think the reason you're so confused on this point is that you somehow think the prices of goods and services will fall while wages stay the same!
Obviously, in a fantasy world where wages stayed the same while everything else got cheaper, that would benefit rich and poor alike. But that's not what would actually happen, because wages would fall too.
And since wages fall just like the prices of everything else, who gets the benefit? People with piles of cash sitting around! Because just like a $5000 debt is still $5000 even when prices are falling, a bank balance of $50
Keynesians invented their definition of inflation, which came much after Birmingham scholars had theirs, 100 years before Keynesians and those guys knew what inflation was - increase of money supply, and they counted on it.
Regardless of which came first, you're aware that your definition is not a common one today, right? So...
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
You are completely ignorant of the rampant inflation around you
Not at all. I am fully aware of the increased money supply. I just don't use the word "inflation" to refer to it -- and neither do most people outside your Austrian echo chamber. I also don't consider it a bad thing.
(You are completely ignorant of the monster under your desk! Of course, the thing I call a "monster" is the same thing that 99% of the world calls a "harmless dust mite"...;)
Keynesians cannot see forest for the trees, none of them predicted the bubbles, they didn't even see the bubbles of housing prices
False. Paul Krugman was one Keynesian who predicted the housing bubble.
I prefer deflation. In my world it is much better when prices fall, so I can afford more with less money.
Spoken like someone with a big pile of cash in the bank and no debt.
Unfortunately, most Americans aren't in that boat. As I've explained, deflation is a very bad thing for everyone else: their debts are measured in nominal dollars, so deflation means they owe more; and since their wages fall as prices fall, they can't actually "afford more" for any significant time.
that is Keynesian nonsense. Inflation is expansion of monetary supply.
According to a handful of believers in a niche theory, sure. If you want to become marginalized, making up your own definitions of common terms is a great way to do it!
But like I said, you're going to have a hard time discussing economics with anyone outside that small, insular group if you insist on using your definition instead of the standard one that everyone else uses.
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
You insist that Austrian economics is discredited, which of-course is pure nonsense, Jim Rogers, Soros, Schiff and others who make pretty living investing based on Austrian school, have predicted the economic collapse during the Internet bubble, predicted the collapse of the housing bubble, predicted the inflation and the resulting rise of commodities and emerging markets
You say that as if they're the only ones who predicted those bubbles. That is not what happened.
while the Keynesians are generally lost in the woods normally found speculating on stocks going up and down in basic day trading schemes.
What a bizarre thing to say. Are you using some special Austrian definition of "day trading" too?
But good luck to you in all your endeavors, may you be right and may you never experience the effects of the inflation that you are so consistently not seeing, AFAIC there isn't much hope for this not to become a hyper-inflationary depression, which I wish you also never to experience.
You too, sir. I hope the deflationary spiral your preferred policies would create never becomes reality, and I hope you're never laid off or forced into bankruptcy as a result.
again, the Fed is expanding the money supply all the time, all the stimulus and 0% lending to banks and selling the bonds, all of this is inflation.
No, expanding the money supply is not the same as inflation. Inflation is a rise in price levels (but you don't have to take my word for it). When the money supply is expanding perfectly in sync with the level of economic activity, so that prices remain flat, that's zero inflation.
If you're going to make up your own definition of common economic terms, you're going to have a hard time discussing economics with anyone.
you SHOULD NOT be buying any widgets. You should be saving your money, the widget prices must fall.
Congratulations, you've found a delicious recipe for an even worse economy.
People don't buy widgets; widget manufacturers see reduced demand and lay off their employees; laid off employees have even less money to buy even fewer widgets; the cycle continues. That's why serious economists caution against deflation.
The household debt, well that's an excellent question - if you have a house that's falling in price to the point where it's under water (you owe more than the house is worth), leave the house. Get out of that house, leave it, don't pay.
What makes you think all debt is mortgages?
What's your prescription for all the American households who have thousands of dollars of unsecured debt? Deflation would mean they owe even more than they currently do. Should millions of families declare bankruptcy?
inflation means monetary expansion. You, not I believe that inflation is all about looking at prices.
Inflation is not at all the same as monetary expansion. I and everyone else except you believe that inflation is all about prices, because that's the standard definition of the term. That's the definition used in every textbook and by everyone who works in the field.
You seem to have made up your own definition, but that doesn't mean anyone else is required to use it.
it's not 'my own' theory, though it's completely logical, this is Austrian economics. [...] that's one of the ridiculous believes forced upon the people in most of the so called 'educational institutions' by the so called 'economists', which the Keynesians are most surely not.
Ah yes, Austrian economics. Generally discredited, but popular among libertarians, which I guess is why you want an economics section on Slashdot -- you're far more likely to find support for those theories here than in any serious economics forum. And while you're posting about those theories, you can chuckle at the majority of economists who disagree with them, and tell yourself they're not really economists.
What's the purpose of giving money to people who are going to spend it on trinkets? Is it to pass that money to the companies?
The point is to facilitate economic exchanges. Every time you exchange money for goods, you're creating value: you and the seller are each better off. That's how an economy works.
The problem we're currently facing is that people are unwilling to make those exchanges because they're placing a high value on cash. The solution is to give them more cash so they'll be willing to trade some of it away.
Slashdot Mirror
You can get a low-end laptop for $350 and a copy of Office 2010 Home & Business for $200 - that's right between the 16GB and 32GB iPad. Or you can go with OpenOffice and spend that $200 on better hardware.
You can edit word documents, spreadsheets, autocad drawings etc...
You mean, you can use watered-down mobile apps that support a fraction of the features of those document formats? You can view a spreadsheet as long as it doesn't use any Excel features that have been added since 2000?
That's nice for a proof of concept, but in the real world people do sometimes use the features of the software they've paid for.
Try this carry a laptop, through a warehouse, and update a shipment status without setting it down.
Try this: carry a package in one hand and a tablet in the other, and update the shipment status without setting either down.
If you want portability and convenience, the iPad loses to any handheld/pocket-sized device, even the iPod Touch. If you want functionality, it ties the iPod Touch and loses to laptops. The only device the iPad can beat in the business world is another tablet, and then only when you don't use it for anything complicated.
I'd like to see you walking and typing on a laptop.
I'd pay to see someone walking and typing on an iPad. They're hard enough to type on when you can set them down!
Exactly. The iPad really isn't any more portable than a laptop to begin with: it's a little lighter, but not less bulky in any meaningful sense. It doesn't fit in your pocket, so you need a bag for it, and once you've got the bag it doesn't really matter whether the device inside it is 1" or 1.5" thick.
But if you have to haul around a stand and a keyboard to make the iPad usable, now it's less portable than a laptop.
We all know, the main reason is that pre-iPad tablets kinda had to be placed on the table.
Funny, but have you felt an iPad? It's not all that light; to use it for more than a few minutes, you have to lay it down or lean it against something.
It makes a great portable Web-Ex client, as well as GotoMeeting and other presentation formats. It handles documents well. Using iAnnotate lets me markup and read PDF docs.
I also found it great for reading specs rather than killing trees with paper or trying to read them off a computer screen. I can take them with me with ease.
[...] Add on top of that the fact that I can do Voip calls and listen to my music all at the same time.
At my office, we do all that stuff with laptops that cost about as much as an iPad, but they also run Office and various other productivity apps. Have you discovered any advantage of doing them on an iPad instead, or are you just pointing out that the iPad isn't 100% useless in an office environment?
I also have RDP and VNC clients plus a shell terminal (no, not jailbroken) lets me SSH into other boxes and do sys admin work as well as a slew of other network tools available.
My god, why would you torture yourself by trying to do remote desktop and SSH without a keyboard? I mean, yes, those tools exist, but the iPad itself really isn't suited for typing more than a few words at a time.
Just so you are up to date with your FUD, there are a lot of alternate browsers for iOS now.
Not really. The "alternate browsers" that Apple has allowed are based on WebKit, just like Safari. They won't, however, allow alternate browser cores: so if someone discovers an exploit in WebKit, you can't avoid it by switching browsers.
Sandboxing is the job of the OS. Every program that runs is isolated from others and from the hardware by the OS. Every interaction with anything outside of its address space has to go via the OS.
Protecting one application from another is the job of the OS. But the OS doesn't protect one application from its (potentially untrusted) plugins. That's where sandboxing provided by a VM or interpreter comes in, like I said. Running every add-in in its own process is another option, but that comes with its own set of tradeoffs (i.e. performance and complexity).
These bits of code are all incredibly complex - they have to be to get good performance - and small bugs in them can allow malicious code to escape. The operating system's protection, in contrast, is provided by the MMU, which is a relatively simple bit of hardware.
Some operating system protections are provided by the MMU. Others, like file and network permissions, are provided by bits of code which can have bugs.
Probably because they solve a problem that is only really applicable in the closed-source world: needing to run the same binary on multiple operating systems / architectures.
Not really: they also solve the problem of delivering compiled code in a form that can be easily sandboxed. You can load untrusted code into your process (e.g. an applet on a web page) and run it, confident that the VM and language make it impossible for that code to access memory/files/hardware you don't want it to access.
It would be possible to perform sandboxing on C source code, if there were a standardized "safe" set of APIs, and if you restricted the language and compiler to forbid things like pointer arithmetic, unions, and inline assembly. But then you wouldn't really be writing C anymore, you'd be writing in a language that isn't quite C using a library that isn't quite the C library.
Your naive faith in the Legislature is touching.
Your inability to correctly identify "naive faith" is disturbing. I hope for the sake of our state's education system that you went to school somewhere else.
You have to massively ignorant to believe that Legislature will not ride the camel into the tent once it's nose is in - because once the tax is in place, the whole dynamic changes.
So you're saying that the idea you and I both agree is "political suicide" would somehow stop being political suicide? That if a high-earners income tax passes, the people of Washington will turn around 180 degrees and say "Income tax for the middle class? Sign me up!"
That, sir, is naive.
You're correct in that the voters are mostly stupid and don't understand that one comes with others - but only an idiot would argue that somehow negates the simple fact that the voters have repeatedly attempted to reign in spending by reigning in taxes.
You're demolishing your own argument here. If the voters don't understand the connection between taxes and spending, then their attempts to cut taxes cannot also be attempts to reign in spending.
Sorry, I thought it was clear that my questions were rhetorical.
The legislature has not supported an income tax for all residents, just like they haven't repealed a tax without replacing it. There is no reason to believe your scenario is any more likely than mine, and that's why I called you out for spreading FUD in the first place.
When has this legislature ever supported an income tax for all residents?
What reason is there to believe your scenario (extending the tax) is any more likely than mine (repealing it)?
You are obviously not a Washington State citizen or resident, or if you are - you are profoundly ignorant of the political situation here.
I am a Washington State citizen, and I am not ignorant of the political situation. You seem to have seriously misunderstood me.
Nobody in the State House or Senate will ever propose an income tax. Ever. It's a third rail issue here, and even proposing an income tax could be a career ender. Voting in favor of an income tax would be political suicide.
My point exactly!
That's why the anti-1098 scaremongering about the idea that the legislature would extend the tax to cover everyone was nothing but FUD. The legislature wouldn't vote to extend the high-earners income tax to all residents for the same reason that they haven't proposed an income tax on their own: it's political suicide.
If you live here, you may trust Olympia and place your naive faith in them 'listening to' the high income earners... But your fellow citizens, after suffering through the past decade and a half, are not so trusting and naive.
It's "trusting and naive" to think that legislators will tend to put upper-class interests ahead of middle-class interests? That's a new one.
We've seen, again and again, how the people have attempted to rein in State spending - and how again and again the Legislature has tried to work around the will of the people.
The people have attempted to rein in taxation, but spending? Show me the polls where a majority of residents want to cut back on state programs.
most Washington residents (including me) believed that once they introduced a personal state income tax here, the politicians would plead "necessity" and keep lowering the threshhold over time to the point where most residents would be paying it
If that's the case, then why haven't they done it already?
Seriously. If "the politicians" want an income tax that applies to most residents, then why don't we already have one? The initiative wouldn't have granted them any powers they don't already have. If Olympia wants an income tax, they can still pass one.
I believe the biggest reason was that in only two years the law makers could modify the tax to include all Washington tax payers, not just the rich.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. That's one of the talking points the anti-1098 campaign was using before the election. It was FUD then and it's FUD now.
Here's why: if the legislature wanted to pass an income tax, they would've done it already.
"Only two years" is how long it takes after an initiative passes before the legislature can change it. The anti-1098 campaign baselessly speculated that the legislature would extend the tax to cover everyone, even though they've been free to do that all along and have never taken the opportunity. But it's just as likely that the legislature would repeal the tax after "only two years": after all, the tax would only have impacted high income earners, and that's who the legislature listens to.
Perhaps I am missing something, but this technology doesn't seem like a holograph at all. It seems like it's a dynamic hologram.
A holograph is a document written entirely in the handwriting of the person whose signature it bears.
When I think holograph, I think about a three-dimensional figure of light being projected onto a table top.
That's a special effect you see in movies. It's not real, and there's no real theory for how such a thing could even be made. Dismissing this real, working technology because it doesn't look like a Hollywood "hologram" is like dismissing a laser-powered rifle because it doesn't shoot a solid, brightly colored chunk of light that flies across the room like in Star Wars.
(Sorry, I'm closely related to a pioneer in holography and worked in the field for several years, so I can be pedantic about it sometimes.)
Apple usually puts emphasis on how the features are easy-to-use, not about how they're the first to do it.
Not the first to do it at all, but they do claim they're the first to do it well, i.e. in a way that's easy to use or efficient, even when an easy-to-use and efficient implementation already exists on other platforms.
When people talk about android, android isn't really an OS- it's more like Gnome or KDE with a basic permission system hacked on (and a totally Android only API).
Not quite - Android also includes a set of kernel patches.
If you do not understand difference between 10 dollars 4 years ago and 24+ dollars today for an ounce of gold, that's not my problem. If you don't understand 60% increase of price of corn over the last 3 months, that's not my problem.
If you don't understand that corn and gold aren't the only two things on the market, that is your problem.
There is a measure for the rate of change in overall price levels, and it is showing historically low rise. You can cherry-pick a few commodities whose prices are going up, but you're not fooling anyone.
So I guess in your head that means poor people can afford more gold, look, it's more expensive. So prices went up, must be better for the poor.
It's amusing how you make up ridiculous strawmen like this. I can tell that even you realize that you're utterly out of your league, and you're flailing around as fast as you can to try to distract yourself from your own incompetence.
You know as well as I do that falling wage and price levels are bad for people with debt, and good for people with stockpiles of cash. You know it because it's so simple and obvious that there's no way not to know it, especially after I've spoon-fed the explanation to you over and over.
But you can't bring yourself to admit it, so you make up nonsense arguments and try to stuff them in my mouth. You try to turn this into some kind of class issue about "poor people" vs. "rich people", when you know perfectly well that I'm talking about people who have debt versus people who have stockpiles of cash -- it's about what you own, not what you earn. You know the argument I've actually put forward is correct, and now you're desperately trying to deflect the conversation from it. It'd be pathetic if it weren't so hilariously transparent.
That's also why you're so afraid of these simple questions:
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
Since you've proven to be too much of a coward to answer on your own, I'll answer for you: you do it because deception and sophistry is all you have. You have no true understanding of the subject outside your own tiny bubble. You refuse to make any attempt to communicate honestly or in commonly understood terms, because such obfuscation is the only hope you have of hiding your ignorance.
I thought there might be a shred of understanding somewhere in your mind, if I just worked hard enough, but now I can see I've been wasting my time. You are a complete fraud, and this will be my last response. Have a nice day.
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
It must be something else, living in your world.
Yeah, you ought to come visit sometime. There are over 6 billion of us here. It's much less lonely than your world.
This IS rampant inflation. You don't see it because you are blind. Your government made you blind. Compare the prices you had to pay a year ago to prices today. Prices are going up.
Not very much. Overall price levels have been rising more slowly than they have in the past. They have risen more slowly than the Fed's target level. In some cases, they've fallen.
They KNOW that inflation is money supply and not the stupid bullshit ridiculous mindless idiotic garbage they brainwashed you with.
Really, this is such a stupid line of argument that I can't believe you're still pursuing it.
It doesn't matter what you call it. Using the term "inflation" to refer to monetary expansion doesn't make monetary expansion any better or worse. And a downward spiral in price levels doesn't magically become a good thing just because you stop calling it "deflation".
You say we shouldn't fear deflation because when you say "deflation" you refer to something that isn't bad (and let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're right). But this is like claiming we shouldn't fear tigers because when you say "tiger" you're referring to what the rest of us call a butterfly. At best, it's a pointless semantic game; at worst, it's going to get someone eaten because they don't know your nonstandard definitions.
So just how incredibly stupid it is to suggest that inflation is better than deflation for all these people, who are not seeing any of their wages increased while the prices are going up? And prices ARE going up.
No, actually. There is a figure that measures the rate of rise in price levels, and that figure shows that prices are not going up at the rate they typically have in the past. Most of the world calls that figure "inflation"; I don't know what you call it, but calling it something else doesn't change the facts.
The only way for people to start saving money is if these people could actually pay LESS for things.
The phenomenon that results in people paying less for things also means they get paid less for working. That's the part you continue to ignore. If the price of goods falls, the wages of the people who make those goods must also fall.
Deflation is the correct way to get rid of that $5000 debt.
Sure -- by turning it into an even bigger debt (in real dollars). That's what we call "out of the frying pan and into the fire".
But the most important problem would be eliminated - inability to save due to non-existent interest rates, due to the policy of gov't, which destroys all incentives to save and creates an impossibility to get out of the debt hole.
What nonsense. Low interest rates (on savings) don't destroy the incentive to pay down debt, because interest rates on loans and credit cards are still as high as ever. If you're paying 18-24% interest on your credit card, that's all the incentive you need!
The money is expanded and the market is showing CRAZY RAMPANT inflation
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
Why are you so afraid to answer my questions, roman_mir? Are you so guilty about your obfuscation that you can't bear to admit it?
You are comparing the rampant inflation to a dust mite? Good luck holding onto your purchasing power.
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
Until you can answer the above questions, I'm going to avoid referring to either "inflation" or "deflation" with you, since you don't seem to grasp the fact that other people understand those words to mean something very different from what you mean with them.
So, yes: I am comparing monetary expansion to a harmless dust mite. An increase in price levels would be worrisome, once it got high enough, but even you yourself acknowledge that that isn't happening. My purchasing power is perfectly safe when prices aren't rising.
I am not at all worried about monetary expansion that doesn't lead to an increase in price levels. In fact, I think the fact that we aren't seeing an increase in price levels suggests that we haven't had enough monetary expansion.
On deflation: I have no kind words for you there at all. Saying that people with PILES OF CASH will profit from falling prices? What bubble do you live in?
It's called the real world.
Look, this is simple. If you have cash when prices are falling, that means you can buy more stuff without any extra effort. That's good for you. And the more cash you have saved up, the better it is for you.
If you don't have a pile of cash in the bank, because you're living paycheck to paycheck, then you don't get that benefit, because your wages will fall too. The price for labor will fall just like the price for goods. This can play out two different ways.
The better scenario is that the price of goods falls first, and then for a short while before your wages fall (or you get laid off), you're able to buy more stuff with the same paycheck. But once wages fall (assuming you still have your job), you're back to where you were before.
The worse scenario is that the price of wages falls first, and then for a short while before the price of goods falls, you're able to buy less stuff with your paycheck. Sucks to be you, but once the price of goods falls, you'll be back to where you were before. (Again, assuming you still have your job.)
But worst of all is if you have any debt -- like most Americans do. If you owe $5000, that amount is given in nominal dollars and is not affected by changing price levels or wages.
Suppose you earn $10 an hour: your debt is equivalent to 500 hours of labor. But if the price for labor falls and suddenly you're only earning $8 an hour, your debt is now equivalent to 625 hours of labor; it will now take you 25% longer to pay back that debt. Do you see the problem?
Let me ask that again, since this is another one of those points you keep refusing to acknowledge. Do you understand why it's a problem for wages to fall while debt in nominal dollars stays the same?
I don't understand how your world view got so perverted to believe that people who benefit from falling prices are the rich ones, when it is absolutely clear that falling prices benefit first of all the poorest and then the middle class
I think the reason you're so confused on this point is that you somehow think the prices of goods and services will fall while wages stay the same!
Obviously, in a fantasy world where wages stayed the same while everything else got cheaper, that would benefit rich and poor alike. But that's not what would actually happen, because wages would fall too.
And since wages fall just like the prices of everything else, who gets the benefit? People with piles of cash sitting around! Because just like a $5000 debt is still $5000 even when prices are falling, a bank balance of $50
Keynesians invented their definition of inflation, which came much after Birmingham scholars had theirs, 100 years before Keynesians and those guys knew what inflation was - increase of money supply, and they counted on it.
Regardless of which came first, you're aware that your definition is not a common one today, right? So...
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
You are completely ignorant of the rampant inflation around you
Not at all. I am fully aware of the increased money supply. I just don't use the word "inflation" to refer to it -- and neither do most people outside your Austrian echo chamber. I also don't consider it a bad thing.
(You are completely ignorant of the monster under your desk! Of course, the thing I call a "monster" is the same thing that 99% of the world calls a "harmless dust mite"... ;)
Keynesians cannot see forest for the trees, none of them predicted the bubbles, they didn't even see the bubbles of housing prices
False. Paul Krugman was one Keynesian who predicted the housing bubble.
I prefer deflation. In my world it is much better when prices fall, so I can afford more with less money.
Spoken like someone with a big pile of cash in the bank and no debt.
Unfortunately, most Americans aren't in that boat. As I've explained, deflation is a very bad thing for everyone else: their debts are measured in nominal dollars, so deflation means they owe more; and since their wages fall as prices fall, they can't actually "afford more" for any significant time.
that is Keynesian nonsense. Inflation is expansion of monetary supply.
According to a handful of believers in a niche theory, sure. If you want to become marginalized, making up your own definitions of common terms is a great way to do it!
But like I said, you're going to have a hard time discussing economics with anyone outside that small, insular group if you insist on using your definition instead of the standard one that everyone else uses.
Tell me this: why on earth would you talk about "rampant inflation" when you know perfectly well that "inflation" means something else in the minds of everyone who will read your comment? Are you trying to deceive them, or do you just not care whether they understand what you're saying?
You insist that Austrian economics is discredited, which of-course is pure nonsense, Jim Rogers, Soros, Schiff and others who make pretty living investing based on Austrian school, have predicted the economic collapse during the Internet bubble, predicted the collapse of the housing bubble, predicted the inflation and the resulting rise of commodities and emerging markets
You say that as if they're the only ones who predicted those bubbles. That is not what happened.
while the Keynesians are generally lost in the woods normally found speculating on stocks going up and down in basic day trading schemes.
What a bizarre thing to say. Are you using some special Austrian definition of "day trading" too?
But good luck to you in all your endeavors, may you be right and may you never experience the effects of the inflation that you are so consistently not seeing, AFAIC there isn't much hope for this not to become a hyper-inflationary depression, which I wish you also never to experience.
You too, sir. I hope the deflationary spiral your preferred policies would create never becomes reality, and I hope you're never laid off or forced into bankruptcy as a result.
again, the Fed is expanding the money supply all the time, all the stimulus and 0% lending to banks and selling the bonds, all of this is inflation.
No, expanding the money supply is not the same as inflation. Inflation is a rise in price levels (but you don't have to take my word for it). When the money supply is expanding perfectly in sync with the level of economic activity, so that prices remain flat, that's zero inflation.
If you're going to make up your own definition of common economic terms, you're going to have a hard time discussing economics with anyone.
you SHOULD NOT be buying any widgets. You should be saving your money, the widget prices must fall.
Congratulations, you've found a delicious recipe for an even worse economy.
People don't buy widgets; widget manufacturers see reduced demand and lay off their employees; laid off employees have even less money to buy even fewer widgets; the cycle continues. That's why serious economists caution against deflation.
The household debt, well that's an excellent question - if you have a house that's falling in price to the point where it's under water (you owe more than the house is worth), leave the house. Get out of that house, leave it, don't pay.
What makes you think all debt is mortgages?
What's your prescription for all the American households who have thousands of dollars of unsecured debt? Deflation would mean they owe even more than they currently do. Should millions of families declare bankruptcy?
inflation means monetary expansion. You, not I believe that inflation is all about looking at prices.
Inflation is not at all the same as monetary expansion. I and everyone else except you believe that inflation is all about prices, because that's the standard definition of the term. That's the definition used in every textbook and by everyone who works in the field.
You seem to have made up your own definition, but that doesn't mean anyone else is required to use it.
it's not 'my own' theory, though it's completely logical, this is Austrian economics.
[...]
that's one of the ridiculous believes forced upon the people in most of the so called 'educational institutions' by the so called 'economists', which the Keynesians are most surely not.
Ah yes, Austrian economics. Generally discredited, but popular among libertarians, which I guess is why you want an economics section on Slashdot -- you're far more likely to find support for those theories here than in any serious economics forum. And while you're posting about those theories, you can chuckle at the majority of economists who disagree with them, and tell yourself they're not really economists.
What's the purpose of giving money to people who are going to spend it on trinkets? Is it to pass that money to the companies?
The point is to facilitate economic exchanges. Every time you exchange money for goods, you're creating value: you and the seller are each better off. That's how an economy works.
The problem we're currently facing is that people are unwilling to make those exchanges because they're placing a high value on cash. The solution is to give them more cash so they'll be willing to trade some of it away.