Speaking about the general level of freedom, and what happens with the spooks' information, I think we probably think the same thing: Americans have a significantly larger set of freedoms than the citizens of China, and have less to fear from the government. However, the spooks in both countries have more or less the same objectives and probably similar methods.
No... you see the spooks in China are trying to prevent the people of China from exercising political power and the replacement of the current party in power with any other party.
The spooks in the US are trying to prevent violent attacks. They aren't involved in preventing the replacement of the current party in power with any other party and the people of the US do exercise political power, as we will all see on November 4.
It's the difference between a democracy and a totalitarian dictatorship.
T
For example, both countries through people who try to oppose the current rulers in jail.
This explains why pro-Democracy activists are jailed in China and why Obama and Biden are jailed in the US.
Um... wait a minute... something's wrong there.
Can you explain things again so I understand why the US and China are the same?
To give yourself an idea of how common pentagonal forts are, check out http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie =UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-35,GGLJ:en&q=pentagonal+ fort.
Interestingly enough, Fort Sumter, among many others, was a pentagonal fort.
It is certainly possible that the Pentagon was originally planned for a highly unusual pentagonally shaped piece of land, and just by wild coincidence that was the standard shape for military installations for centuries, but if you actually understood what Occam's Razor is you would understand that it says that we should assume the simplest explanation - the one without coincidences.
As for your claim that "fortifications of pretty much anything bigger than a bunker were already old news by the time the [Pentagon] was designed", all I can say is that that's ludicrous. Simple examples:
Cheyenne Mountain
The German fortifications of the Normandy beaches
The extensive British anti-invasion fortifications (including an anti-tank line that ran right across South England and circles around many major cities)
A pentagon is a very traditional shape for fortifications. Reason is very simple. If you have a pentagon shaped fort then each side of the fort can provide supporting fire to its two adjacent sides.
A sides on a square fort cannot provide supporting fire at all. Sides on a hexagonal fort can but with a hexagonal fort you can only get 50% of the defenders firing against an attack on a side. With a pentagonal fort you can get 60%. This basic fact makes a pentagon the most effective shape for a fortification, assuming no terrain features to change the situation.
It would be an amazing coincidence if The Pentagon was pentagonal for any reason but this.
I suggest you find a computer company that guarantees that all of their customer service is US based then.
In fact, given your feelings, you should probably look for one that guarantees that their whole supply chain is US based.
What's that? Can't find one? I wonder why...
Could it be that doing that would greatly increase the cost of your computer and no one is actually willing to pay significantly higher prices to get an all USA computer and service?
Nah, you don't say!
I don't mind reasoned intelligent disagreement, but this is just silly.
As the article you linked to points out, hedge fund managers hire CEOs, they don't act as CEO themselves, the fees paid to CEOs directly impact their bottom lines, and despite that, hedge fund managers are continuing to pay CEOs huge amounts. The writer thinks that's a bad idea, but I notice that no one is lining up to have her manage their money, so presumably the people with enough skin in this game to matter and to really pay attention disagree with her.
In short, you've disagreed with me by posting a link that provides strong evidence for my point.
The NY Times recently had an article pointing out that hedge funds are paying CEOs of their portfolio companies sums that are as high as or even higher than what public companies pay.
Since the principals of hedge funds are compensated almost totally as a proportion of the profits made by their funds and since CEO salaries obviously directly impact that (if a CEO is taking $100MM out of a company's bank account each year then the company is worth $100MM less each year because it has less cash) that means those CEO salaries directly impact the compensation of the people running a hedge fund - every dollar they pay a CEO may mean $.20 to $.40 out of their own pockets (the remainder comes from their investors).
This means that hedge fund principals have tremendous incentives not to overpay CEOs. They are still paying them hundres of millions per year.
Based on this, you have to decide that the people running hedge funds are stupid, or that they are Good Samaritans who feel the pain of executives who make under 9 figures, or that top flight CEOs actually make that much difference to a company's bottom line.
Stop using logic!!!!
This conversation is about $!#$@!#$ fat cat bosses with MBAs conspiring with smelly foreigners using unfair labor practices and unfair trade to steal our jobs!
Please focus on what's important, not logical facts and arguments!
GET WITH THE PROGRAM!
The HMOs that are pushing offshore medical care cover travel costs, housing (sometimes including a hotel room for a family member), all incidentals (ie. meals, taxi, etc.)
Why shouldn't they? It's still cheaper than sending someone to a US hospital.
If you don't want to leave the country to get important surgery no problem - just pay more for your health insurance. Personally, I'll happily take a plan that lets me do the tourist thing on their dime if I get sick, especially if it saves me money!
The point that I was trying to make is that you can't "compete" with a factory in an area with substantially lower costs (i.e. the Third World) by using technology and making your process more efficient. You can have the most efficient, technologically advanced factory in the world, but it's going to be a temporary advantage. Eventually, someone is going to take the same processes and the same technology, set it up in a low-cost area, and still undercut you. So the "American technology will save us" argument doesn't hold water. (Unless you're planning on having some sort of ridiculous export-control system to prevent foreigners from getting technology, but I think we can all agree that's a stupid and unworkable idea, so let's not say it too loudly around any politicians.)
Bull crap.
For example, one of my customers owns 8 garment factories in China. He recently purchased a UK company with a lingerie factory in England. He's expanding it.
Why?
Well, first off the labor component of high end lingerie cost is relatively small - all that silk, etc. costs money.
Secondly, it takes a lot of very high skilled hand labour to make those tiny little undies that men so like to buy their wives and girl friends. (It's amazing - a lot of lingerie is worth more than its weight in gold!). Factory workers with 10 or 15 years of experience doing that kind of work can't be replaced in less than five or ten years.
Now, when he rationalizes his integrated operation you may see some changes. For example, if it was me I might start doing cutting and partial production in China and then shipping the WIP to the UK for the delicate work... in which case the value of the UK operation will be even higher because it will only be doing the things that it is better than China at and I would want to expand it even more.
That doesn't mean jobs won't be lost... for example the UK guys doing cutting or relatively unskilled sewing would probably lose their jobs. But they would need more high skilled guys who do the delicate work with the silk and lace and frilly accessories.
If you don't outsource and you don't import programmers (ie. H-1B) then two things happen:
1. You bid up salaries 2. A lot of programming won't get done
Second point is key. A lot of IT that people were willing to spend money on won't happen because your inventory of available programmer hours will be smaller.
If you believe that IT is valuable to our economy (and I do) then that will have a knock on effect damaging our economy and American companies throughout.
For example, consider Oracle vs. SAP. Obviously Oracle's going to have to pay more for programmers if they don't outsource or use H1-Bs. That means they will do less programming - marginal projects won't happen - and their costs will be higher so their prices will probably also be higher.
SAP, on the other hand, is a German company. Unless your plan includes tarriffs on imports of foreign software they won't be affected. Even if you do that, what about the rest of the world market? Europe, Asia, Latin America, etc?
So SAP gets a big boost against Oracle in the ERP and Financials space.
So now what happens to all those American jobs that you were trying to protect at Oracle when Oracle gives up and shuts down their ERP business?
Ooopsie?
Hong Kong and China and the garment industry are a great example of this.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s garment factories in HK started lobbying to import PRC workers to cut costs. The government refused to save jobs. So HK garment factories started moving to China.
The government said "That's OK - they keep their office work in HK so we're keeping the good jobs. And the factory jobs would have gone to PRC workers anyway if we had let them import PRC workers."
Then the HK companies started moving their office work to China, but importing HK staff to do most of it. The HK government said "That's OK - it's still jobs for HK people."
Then the HK companies started hiring and training more and more PRC office staff. And the HK government shut up. Today when I visit my garment factories in China I see one HK guy running a department with 20 - 50 white collar PRC workers.
I don't know if HK could have stopped this process by letting HK companies import PRC workers, but they sure as heck could have slowed it down.
As an initial dry run, let me suggest that you get together with 15 of your closest friends and see how long it takes to decide where to have lunch.
I predict one of two results:
1. One or two strong personalities take over and make a decision, or
2. You take longer deciding where to eat lunch than actually eating lunch.
In contrast, in my company (which I happen to be the boss of) I decide where to have our weekly lunch. It therefore takes 30 seconds. Other people get input - they tell me what they like and don't like - but since I'm picking up the check I decide.
Seems to work OK.
Now imagine your happy little company making a hiring decision. Worse yet, a firing decision. Cringing yet?
They'll take it up the butt like with Chinese blog
on
No Backdoor in Vista
·
· Score: 1
We've already seen with the Chinese blog censorship controversy that they'll bend over and take it up the butt for any government that doesn't play nice.
If, for example, the Chinese demand a back door to Chinese Vista or they will ban it and move the country to Linux how long do you think it will take for Ballmer to give prima donnas like Niel Ferguson figruative 9mm brain hemorrages?
So since you don't like the idea of him living chest deep in shit you won't help him get there and you don't want anyone else to help him get there so if you have your way he has to keep living neck deep in shit.
I bet those people stuck living neck deep in shit because of your high ideals would be eternally grateful!
$.14 is not a living wage even in China and the only people who make that little are desperately poor farmers.
I've never heard of an export factory paying less than about $.40 / hour. That would be supplemented by free or subsidized dorm and usually three meals / day.
That's not enough to satisfy you or me, but when you realize that the only alternative for the people getting those jobs is to be one of those desperately poor farmers making a third of that you realize that it's still a good deal.
I live and work in China and sell software to Chinese factories so I actually know a bit about this and your claims are just inane.
Workers in China don't starve. I've eaten breafast, lunch, and dinner factory canteens more times than I can count, sometimes getting the manager plate, sometimes (when an extra manager meal wasn't ordered for me) getting the worker plate. It's a bit bland and boring (necessary when you're cooking one dish for several thousand people) but it's filling and nutritious and better than what most workers would get at home. Hungry workers (never mind starving ones) don't do good work.
Pretty much no one gets $.13 per hour. That's RMB 1/hour or 200/month. That's what the poorest farmers in China make but I've never heard of anyone in a factory at that kind of wage - for that money people would stay home on the farm. The lowest wage for a totally unskilled and not very smart worker with no experience is about three times that. A skilled sewing machine operator will make 5 to 8 times that. Higher end workers (ie. trainers, team leaders, etc.) will make 7 to 10 times that. FYI, a fresh grad software engineer also makes about 10 times that.
In addition, the factory will almost always provide a dormitory and three meals per day.
No one is forced to take these jobs. Chinese beg borrow and steal to get the money to go to industrial areas to try to get these kinds of jobs. That's because the alternatives are far worse.
Chinese farms are poor, the working conditions are brutal and dangerous (even in the US farming is dangerous), and there is no opportunity for enhancement.
Prostitution is always an option for attractive girls, but just like in the US most prefer to find other work.
So yes, there is a huge difference between censoring the Internet and giving people jobs they are glad to have.
Even if a child occasionally got killed by birds that normally ate monkeys can we really say that birds preyed on homo sapiens?
Today children (and even adults) occasionally get killed by domestic dogs. But if you were frozen and woke up in 50,000 AD and got told by an anthropologist that in AD 2000 human beings were preyed on by domestic canines wouldn't you tell him that he was mistaken?
Slashdot Mirror
No... you see the spooks in China are trying to prevent the people of China from exercising political power and the replacement of the current party in power with any other party. The spooks in the US are trying to prevent violent attacks. They aren't involved in preventing the replacement of the current party in power with any other party and the people of the US do exercise political power, as we will all see on November 4. It's the difference between a democracy and a totalitarian dictatorship. T
No... Falun Gong is batshit crazy. So what? People shouldn't be thrown in jail for believing in stupid things.
For example, both countries through people who try to oppose the current rulers in jail. This explains why pro-Democracy activists are jailed in China and why Obama and Biden are jailed in the US. Um... wait a minute... something's wrong there. Can you explain things again so I understand why the US and China are the same?
I thought everyone knew this, but I guess not...
A pentagon is a very traditional shape for fortifications. Reason is very simple. If you have a pentagon shaped fort then each side of the fort can provide supporting fire to its two adjacent sides.
A sides on a square fort cannot provide supporting fire at all. Sides on a hexagonal fort can but with a hexagonal fort you can only get 50% of the defenders firing against an attack on a side. With a pentagonal fort you can get 60%. This basic fact makes a pentagon the most effective shape for a fortification, assuming no terrain features to change the situation.
It would be an amazing coincidence if The Pentagon was pentagonal for any reason but this.
I suggest you find a computer company that guarantees that all of their customer service is US based then. In fact, given your feelings, you should probably look for one that guarantees that their whole supply chain is US based. What's that? Can't find one? I wonder why... Could it be that doing that would greatly increase the cost of your computer and no one is actually willing to pay significantly higher prices to get an all USA computer and service? Nah, you don't say!
As the article you linked to points out, hedge fund managers hire CEOs, they don't act as CEO themselves, the fees paid to CEOs directly impact their bottom lines, and despite that, hedge fund managers are continuing to pay CEOs huge amounts. The writer thinks that's a bad idea, but I notice that no one is lining up to have her manage their money, so presumably the people with enough skin in this game to matter and to really pay attention disagree with her.
In short, you've disagreed with me by posting a link that provides strong evidence for my point.
I need a better class of debating opponent.
The NY Times recently had an article pointing out that hedge funds are paying CEOs of their portfolio companies sums that are as high as or even higher than what public companies pay. Since the principals of hedge funds are compensated almost totally as a proportion of the profits made by their funds and since CEO salaries obviously directly impact that (if a CEO is taking $100MM out of a company's bank account each year then the company is worth $100MM less each year because it has less cash) that means those CEO salaries directly impact the compensation of the people running a hedge fund - every dollar they pay a CEO may mean $.20 to $.40 out of their own pockets (the remainder comes from their investors). This means that hedge fund principals have tremendous incentives not to overpay CEOs. They are still paying them hundres of millions per year. Based on this, you have to decide that the people running hedge funds are stupid, or that they are Good Samaritans who feel the pain of executives who make under 9 figures, or that top flight CEOs actually make that much difference to a company's bottom line.
Stop using logic!!!! This conversation is about $!#$@!#$ fat cat bosses with MBAs conspiring with smelly foreigners using unfair labor practices and unfair trade to steal our jobs! Please focus on what's important, not logical facts and arguments! GET WITH THE PROGRAM!
The HMOs that are pushing offshore medical care cover travel costs, housing (sometimes including a hotel room for a family member), all incidentals (ie. meals, taxi, etc.) Why shouldn't they? It's still cheaper than sending someone to a US hospital. If you don't want to leave the country to get important surgery no problem - just pay more for your health insurance. Personally, I'll happily take a plan that lets me do the tourist thing on their dime if I get sick, especially if it saves me money!
I think you're missing a key point.
There are a limited number of US programmers.
If you don't outsource and you don't import programmers (ie. H-1B) then two things happen:
1. You bid up salaries
2. A lot of programming won't get done
Second point is key. A lot of IT that people were willing to spend money on won't happen because your inventory of available programmer hours will be smaller.
If you believe that IT is valuable to our economy (and I do) then that will have a knock on effect damaging our economy and American companies throughout.
For example, consider Oracle vs. SAP. Obviously Oracle's going to have to pay more for programmers if they don't outsource or use H1-Bs. That means they will do less programming - marginal projects won't happen - and their costs will be higher so their prices will probably also be higher.
SAP, on the other hand, is a German company. Unless your plan includes tarriffs on imports of foreign software they won't be affected. Even if you do that, what about the rest of the world market? Europe, Asia, Latin America, etc?
So SAP gets a big boost against Oracle in the ERP and Financials space.
So now what happens to all those American jobs that you were trying to protect at Oracle when Oracle gives up and shuts down their ERP business?
Ooopsie?
Hong Kong and China and the garment industry are a great example of this.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s garment factories in HK started lobbying to import PRC workers to cut costs. The government refused to save jobs. So HK garment factories started moving to China.
The government said "That's OK - they keep their office work in HK so we're keeping the good jobs. And the factory jobs would have gone to PRC workers anyway if we had let them import PRC workers."
Then the HK companies started moving their office work to China, but importing HK staff to do most of it. The HK government said "That's OK - it's still jobs for HK people."
Then the HK companies started hiring and training more and more PRC office staff. And the HK government shut up. Today when I visit my garment factories in China I see one HK guy running a department with 20 - 50 white collar PRC workers.
I don't know if HK could have stopped this process by letting HK companies import PRC workers, but they sure as heck could have slowed it down.
It sounds like a wonderful idea.
As an initial dry run, let me suggest that you get together with 15 of your closest friends and see how long it takes to decide where to have lunch.
I predict one of two results:
1. One or two strong personalities take over and make a decision, or
2. You take longer deciding where to eat lunch than actually eating lunch.
In contrast, in my company (which I happen to be the boss of) I decide where to have our weekly lunch. It therefore takes 30 seconds. Other people get input - they tell me what they like and don't like - but since I'm picking up the check I decide.
Seems to work OK.
Now imagine your happy little company making a hiring decision. Worse yet, a firing decision. Cringing yet?
We've already seen with the Chinese blog censorship controversy that they'll bend over and take it up the butt for any government that doesn't play nice.
If, for example, the Chinese demand a back door to Chinese Vista or they will ban it and move the country to Linux how long do you think it will take for Ballmer to give prima donnas like Niel Ferguson figruative 9mm brain hemorrages?
So since you don't like the idea of him living chest deep in shit you won't help him get there and you don't want anyone else to help him get there so if you have your way he has to keep living neck deep in shit.
I bet those people stuck living neck deep in shit because of your high ideals would be eternally grateful!
$.14 is not a living wage even in China and the only people who make that little are desperately poor farmers.
I've never heard of an export factory paying less than about $.40 / hour. That would be supplemented by free or subsidized dorm and usually three meals / day.
That's not enough to satisfy you or me, but when you realize that the only alternative for the people getting those jobs is to be one of those desperately poor farmers making a third of that you realize that it's still a good deal.
Come to China.
$4.50 / hour is $800 per month.
A good apartment in an OK area will cost you $300 per month.
Good Chinese restaurant food twice a day will cost you $100 per month.
Transport, etc. maybe $30 per month (Shenzhen subway fare to go halfway across the city is US$.40).
You can buy nice pants for US$10 a pair, OK shoes for US$15.
I don't claim you would save a lot on US$4.50 an hour here, but you would live comfortably.
Many local people raise families and support parents on less.
In addition, the factory will almost always provide a dormitory and three meals per day.
Chinese farms are poor, the working conditions are brutal and dangerous (even in the US farming is dangerous), and there is no opportunity for enhancement.
Prostitution is always an option for attractive girls, but just like in the US most prefer to find other work.
So yes, there is a huge difference between censoring the Internet and giving people jobs they are glad to have.
Today children (and even adults) occasionally get killed by domestic dogs. But if you were frozen and woke up in 50,000 AD and got told by an anthropologist that in AD 2000 human beings were preyed on by domestic canines wouldn't you tell him that he was mistaken?