I don't see why I (living in Orlando) should pay for your avalanche reports any more than I think it makes sense for you to pay for my hurricane alerts. Muddying the water and abstracting out the *real* cost of living somewhere is poor resource management.
As a corporation looking at the balance sheet there's essentially no difference between the government cutting me a check and the government giving me a tax break. Talking about them as if they're meaningfully different is a psychological trap that the two entrenched parties like to make you argue about when really it doesn't matter.
You only need government intervention where it's either impossible or unprofitable for private enterprise to create such a system. The USPS is a good example that was essentially impossible for private companies to create at the time. I definitely support government protected parks, but do you really think there's not a huge market incentive already for energy companies to improve efficiency?
Ron Paul is really good at getting fringe elements (the more libertarian side) of the Republican Party fired up. He raises a truckload of cash in his "Presidential" campaign, drops out, and any money left over goes straight into the Republican general coffers. Ron Paul is a money maker, not a real candidate.
This is the kind of situation where I think to myself: We're going to be going $1 Trillion in debt this year.. let's skip paying for whatever it is we were going to pay for with that $1 Trillion and just pay off every student loan on the books. Then again, I felt the same way about the bank bailout... instead of giving money to them we should've just paid down a bunch of mortgages. Philosophically I was opposed to either way, but if you're *going* to spend the money, might as well help people. The option we chose helped the big banks at the expense of the people rather than helping the people which by proxy would help the big banks by turning a bunch of bad loans into good loans.. helping actual people makes the idea DOA.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I assumed. Any site that has a FB image/link/whatever on it means that FB can track me there. I guess it was just so obvious to me that I didn't understand the shock value of it.
I've been a web developer for 10 years.. so I feel a bit stupid for not getting it on the technical side. Once you're off Facebook's site Facebook shouldn't be able to get information about what you're doing... except of course if there's a Facebook "like" button or whatever that thing's called. But that's something every analytics/advertiser does and has nothing to do with whether you're logged into Facebook. So.. what's the story here?
Not for nothing, but Youtube and Gmail are pretty successful. Google isn't doing too shabby to have 3 huge products, two of which are industry leaders.. not sure where Gmail stands on market share.. Docs is gaining market share in small business (hear all the people complaining that + isn't available for the docs pro customers?), and as they improve the apis and scripting capabilities of docs I'm sure it will continue to grow.. currently they've picked the low hanging fruit. But yes, Google keeps sucking it up on the social side because they don't "get it." And no, I don't "get it" either wrt the social networking side.
Google+ needs APIs so that third party developers can make tons of time wasters so people can spend hours on end playing farmville+ or whatever. The only thing that can save Google+ is to make it horrible.
If my withholding is too much (meaning I'm going to get a return) I don't get 4% return on that money. If I did I'd withhold a ton more since savings accounts give about 1% currently.
"charge you a ton of personal data" -- The aggregation of all that data has lots of value, but the value of any one individual's data on a site like Google/Facebook/Amazon is approximately zero.
If someone has uploaded something to facebook that you have a legitimate copyright for I'm fairly certain they'd take it down after you inform them of it.
IMHO blackberries are still superior devices when looked at through the myopic view of being a for-work device. However.. as a "personal" device that occasionally gets used for work I'd prefer an iPhone/Android over a blackberry.
Generally speaking I don't mind paypal or ebay. The combination of the two, and specifically the fact that ebay makes it incredibly difficult to impossible for you to accept an alternative option to accept credit card payments is evil because it abuses their monopoly position in the online auction market. Letting 1 or 2 other options in would completely erase any concerns I have about ebay or paypal.
I consider taxes my employer pays on my behalf to be income that I would otherwise have been able to collect. So that's my 15% even though on paper my employer pays half. Also I have a side business which I do pay the 15% and that amounts to about 1/3 of my income.
WRT taxation without representation I'm talking about the fact that most of the laws written today are written at the behest of large corporations to the detriment of the citizens and small business. I do occasionally throw my vote down the abyss towards a third party candidate but I'm of the opinion that most Americans get very little representation, in spite of the fact that they may have bought into the illusion that they do.
Last I checked I was in the 85th percentile on incomes. I put a boat load into tax deferred accounts as well as have a family/mortgage and many other deductions.
"Consultant" is not designed to underpay someone. When I'm a "consultant" I generally get paid more than when I'm working a W-2 job, even after adjusting for benefits and everything. There's additional risk as a consultant which is difficult to quantify financially, but I've been pretty fortunate to always get paid and never get canned unexpectedly.
I'm upper middle class. I'm taxed at 15% for FICA plus about 12% federal income tax rate.. so 27% of my income just for federal income tax. Taxation without representation? Yeah, I'm getting that.
Not that it directly relates to your post which was kind of participating in a threadjack.. but I think it's safe to assume the types of people who might be putting viruses on US predator drones are not script kiddies.
I'm guessing marketing. It may also have other value and be really cool but marketing is the likely reason. Lots of countries are hurting and big expensive projects like the LHC that don't have quick turnaround for usable technology are quick to be axed.
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I don't see why I (living in Orlando) should pay for your avalanche reports any more than I think it makes sense for you to pay for my hurricane alerts. Muddying the water and abstracting out the *real* cost of living somewhere is poor resource management.
As a corporation looking at the balance sheet there's essentially no difference between the government cutting me a check and the government giving me a tax break. Talking about them as if they're meaningfully different is a psychological trap that the two entrenched parties like to make you argue about when really it doesn't matter.
You only need government intervention where it's either impossible or unprofitable for private enterprise to create such a system. The USPS is a good example that was essentially impossible for private companies to create at the time. I definitely support government protected parks, but do you really think there's not a huge market incentive already for energy companies to improve efficiency?
I have a hard time believing that California public schools would do any such thing.
Ron Paul is really good at getting fringe elements (the more libertarian side) of the Republican Party fired up. He raises a truckload of cash in his "Presidential" campaign, drops out, and any money left over goes straight into the Republican general coffers. Ron Paul is a money maker, not a real candidate.
This is the kind of situation where I think to myself: We're going to be going $1 Trillion in debt this year.. let's skip paying for whatever it is we were going to pay for with that $1 Trillion and just pay off every student loan on the books. Then again, I felt the same way about the bank bailout... instead of giving money to them we should've just paid down a bunch of mortgages. Philosophically I was opposed to either way, but if you're *going* to spend the money, might as well help people. The option we chose helped the big banks at the expense of the people rather than helping the people which by proxy would help the big banks by turning a bunch of bad loans into good loans.. helping actual people makes the idea DOA.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I assumed. Any site that has a FB image/link/whatever on it means that FB can track me there. I guess it was just so obvious to me that I didn't understand the shock value of it.
Actually, life insurance will be cheaper for most people because you'll be paying in longer.
I've been a web developer for 10 years.. so I feel a bit stupid for not getting it on the technical side. Once you're off Facebook's site Facebook shouldn't be able to get information about what you're doing... except of course if there's a Facebook "like" button or whatever that thing's called. But that's something every analytics/advertiser does and has nothing to do with whether you're logged into Facebook. So.. what's the story here?
These days you really have to go out of your way to *not* eat more than the recommended daily intake of salt.
Not for nothing, but Youtube and Gmail are pretty successful. Google isn't doing too shabby to have 3 huge products, two of which are industry leaders.. not sure where Gmail stands on market share.. Docs is gaining market share in small business (hear all the people complaining that + isn't available for the docs pro customers?), and as they improve the apis and scripting capabilities of docs I'm sure it will continue to grow.. currently they've picked the low hanging fruit. But yes, Google keeps sucking it up on the social side because they don't "get it." And no, I don't "get it" either wrt the social networking side.
Google+ needs APIs so that third party developers can make tons of time wasters so people can spend hours on end playing farmville+ or whatever. The only thing that can save Google+ is to make it horrible.
If my withholding is too much (meaning I'm going to get a return) I don't get 4% return on that money. If I did I'd withhold a ton more since savings accounts give about 1% currently.
"charge you a ton of personal data" -- The aggregation of all that data has lots of value, but the value of any one individual's data on a site like Google/Facebook/Amazon is approximately zero.
If someone has uploaded something to facebook that you have a legitimate copyright for I'm fairly certain they'd take it down after you inform them of it.
IMHO blackberries are still superior devices when looked at through the myopic view of being a for-work device. However.. as a "personal" device that occasionally gets used for work I'd prefer an iPhone/Android over a blackberry.
Generally speaking I don't mind paypal or ebay. The combination of the two, and specifically the fact that ebay makes it incredibly difficult to impossible for you to accept an alternative option to accept credit card payments is evil because it abuses their monopoly position in the online auction market. Letting 1 or 2 other options in would completely erase any concerns I have about ebay or paypal.
I consider taxes my employer pays on my behalf to be income that I would otherwise have been able to collect. So that's my 15% even though on paper my employer pays half. Also I have a side business which I do pay the 15% and that amounts to about 1/3 of my income.
WRT taxation without representation I'm talking about the fact that most of the laws written today are written at the behest of large corporations to the detriment of the citizens and small business. I do occasionally throw my vote down the abyss towards a third party candidate but I'm of the opinion that most Americans get very little representation, in spite of the fact that they may have bought into the illusion that they do.
Last I checked I was in the 85th percentile on incomes. I put a boat load into tax deferred accounts as well as have a family/mortgage and many other deductions.
"Consultant" is not designed to underpay someone. When I'm a "consultant" I generally get paid more than when I'm working a W-2 job, even after adjusting for benefits and everything. There's additional risk as a consultant which is difficult to quantify financially, but I've been pretty fortunate to always get paid and never get canned unexpectedly.
I'm upper middle class. I'm taxed at 15% for FICA plus about 12% federal income tax rate.. so 27% of my income just for federal income tax. Taxation without representation? Yeah, I'm getting that.
Technically the Democrats could put up another candidate, but historically that doesn't happen unless the incumbent has medical issues or something.
Our country is practically the size of your continent. It helps to break it up a bit.
Not that it directly relates to your post which was kind of participating in a threadjack.. but I think it's safe to assume the types of people who might be putting viruses on US predator drones are not script kiddies.
I'm guessing marketing. It may also have other value and be really cool but marketing is the likely reason. Lots of countries are hurting and big expensive projects like the LHC that don't have quick turnaround for usable technology are quick to be axed.