And you believe corporation executives, who of course have employment contracts of their own, are any more benevolent towards the needs of society? If executives see first hand that the company is successful due in part to their contributions they certainly negotiate for better compensation. Why should non-executives behave differently? Unions have been on the decline over the past 30 years as well as average American wages. Perhaps you would prefer we emulate the more successful Chinese economic model where unions are illegal and dissidents are punished? Maybe unions would be less necessary if there were more competition to put downward pressure on profits and elevate wages. However, for a company such as verizon, who suckles off the government tit and enjoys monopoly status in many of it's service areas, unions are a sufficient check on corporate power.
Who will foot the bill for the DOJ prosecution and his potential incarceration? Not the corporation Cisco since American corporations are expected to receive tax incentives from governments instead of paying any taxes to them. Certainly not the Cisco executives who are in a tax bracket of their own full of loop holes to preserve their imbalanced incomes. No, it will be the average American who will pay since they are alleged to be the main benefactor of imprisoning this individual in a case which should be at most a civil manor and not a criminal one. This is state captialism at it's worst.
All of which is to say that these banks repaid cash owed to a program run by the Treasury Department by. . . borrowing from another program run by the Treasury Department.
Classic pyramid scheme. Perhaps that is why an unfinished pyramid is on our money.
We knew the federal reserve corporation was lending money; we did not know the extent or exactly to who. Does this matter? From the article:
"This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."
"The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed lacks a comprehensive system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse. In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans."
This is a real American corruption crisis of private individuals using government authority to pick market winners and losers.
There is certain trend in the media industry to move away from products to per licensed use. This is an absolute assult on capitalist principals which generates wealth through property. Instead of selling products that may gain value over time (I by old pc games as collector items) and allowing new markets to grow (gamestop resell,emulators) these unscrupulous corporations want to charge each individual use of a product over your entire lifetime! It is hypocritical for these corporations to lobby for intelectual property protection when they don't even want to generate property.
China is still a communist (arguably fascist) country that uses authoritarian means to enforce the status quo dictated by loyal party members. Free market's don't work when there isn't the basis of freedom. Any illusion of prosperity by common Chinese works is eclipsed but the tremendous increase in the inequality of wealth only rivaled by our own country. Scientific advances also account for a large part of global progress and that is not entirely contingent upon global trade.
The US government is broke and our states and local government are selling off public assets to the highest bidder, including chinese government owned corporations. Our country prospered for over a hundred years using tariffs to fund federal government and now with free trade policies it is bankrupt. As American's we are all aware of what happens to broke third world countries run by plutocrats who amass egregious public debt: we exploit them every day.
I look at DLC from a macroeconomic perspective which is why I never purchase any. With physical disks game producers create property that can be individually owned and resold thus creating tangible wealth. With DLC no property changes hands and thus the consumer is at the complete mercy of some third party as to what they are allowed to do with their fiat license. Certainly suppliers such as sony lust after such an arrangement since they can resell access to the same content over and over to the same consumer when the next generation of hardware is put on the market with zero competition from and reseller market. However, this runs completely contrary to the intent of intellectual property laws whose sole purpose is to advance the creation of NEW sciences and arts. Perhaps spending five dollars here and there for one time use licenses like a movie ticket makes sense but to spend hundreds of dollars on worthless content (DLC is usually locked to a single piece of hardware) is foolish in my opinion.
"Taxation without representation" was a shared creed during the American Revolution and the converse is true as well.
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." Thomas Jefferson
Why is supporting what end users want and what developers want mutually exclusive? If power users are attracted to a platform they will inevitably bring along regular users. I can see how artificially restricting the capabilities of a product increases a companies control over the market but I do not see the value for customers. In a free market once one purchases a product it becomes their property to do with as they please. While I love my rooted droid and rave about the device to the others it will be my last Motorola device unless Motorola provides an affordable open device.
China is more of a Fascist government than a Communist one these days and this is all very reminiscent of when some American corporations and banking institutions collaborated with the Nazi's to reap huge military buildup profits in a down global back in the 1930's.
Sony took Microsoft's lead when about a year after the XBox 360 came out Microsoft stopped enhancing the Xbox360 to play older Xbox games. Why should a console company increase the value of a consumer's game collection by supporting backwards compatibility when they can simply rebrand older generation games as Downloadable Content and re-charge consumers again for the sake of convenience.
Maybe google will now seriously invest in developing a new language that delivers on the promise of openness that sun/jcp always talked about but never delivered upon. Of course there is always c++
Corporations are artificial entities of the state and should be regulated as such. The government provides different types privileged status and recognition to a group of willing participants in order to generate an incentive for a particular socially beneficial activity, such as commerce, charity, political activity, etc. As a citizen the government has absolutely no right to impede on an individual's freedom of speech, freedom of association, or use of their property. However the government, as an advocate of the People, has the sole prerogative to dictate what liberties a particular role in a corporation is afforded. After all, incorporation involves the granting of special privileges such as legal protection and tax breaks in return for certain obligations such as shareholder meetings and separate tax filings. There is absolutely no mention of corporations in the Constitution and in actually the swell in the influence of corporations is a historically recent phenomena. It was practically impossible to incorporate until the later part of the 19th Century. Now days due to modern limited liability laws there is no practical reason to chose any other type of business enterprise other than incorporation.
This is only a ploy to trigger Federal spending on IBM hardware by politicians who publicly and vigorously support national pride but privately pledge allegiance to the corporatist policies that are destroying this country. This wouldn't be the first time IBM played both side. Never forget their business dealings with the Nazis and how they put profit over humanity.
Actually what needs to happen for America to stay competitive with China is for an oppressive fascist authoritarian government to seize power and subsequently squelch all dissent as party loyalist pillage the country. Then we would be apples to apples the same as China and that future doesn't seem to be too far off.
Great point. Drone attacks are plain and simple assassinations attacks. These attacks are occurring in allegedly sovereign countries with publicly declared pro-US governments in charge of their own police forces. The drone attacks are tantamount to a SWAT team saying they think they have a know serial killer's location and decide to level the building rather than raid it. Since it is perpetrated by our government only in a foreign land this somehow makes it acceptable. I am always perturbed by the American "patriots" that profess to be fighting for freedom and justice but only qualify it to apply to American citizens or a subset there of. Our country was founded on Enlightenment theory which addressed universal concepts such as Liberty, Justice, and Equality. If one truly believes in these principles it is impossible to rationalize that they are not natural rights and only apply to certain segments of society determined by some sort of government or community consensus.
Being the astute Capitalist that you are surely you are aware that Capitalism is contingent upon property rights protected by the government. Since IP is only a legal concept it does fall in the purview of government regulation. Currently due to the first sale doctrine massive amounts of game capital has been created by our society that has value and can actually appreciate. Gamestop alone makes billions of dollars in revenue a year and millions of people go to a free marketplace to buy and sell games. Now two corporations, Sony and Microsoft, who have a monopoly on their prospective online markets, wish to altogether eliminate that form of property ownership and assume full control of all gaming transactions. It is their plan to distort the market so that no one can by or sell games without their involvement and approval. Since most of us have taken economic courses we all know that all corporations desire to become monopolies and we also know that monopolies do not benefit consumers. Being the diligent citizens that we are here at slashdot we are alarmed by these wannabe cartels and their attempted authoritative seizure of the free market. It is little wonder with large corporations attempting these unscrupulous tactics that 10% of the people own 71% of the wealth in America.
With that said, if they do attempt these tactics gamers will rebel. I personally purchase 60% of my games used but most of the new ones I do buy are sequels to ones I have enjoyed before. I also prefer to buy games for the PS3 instead of the 360 because of free online play although Sony will soon follow Microsoft and charge subscriptions. I consider myself a game collector so all of the games I buy I keep. If property ownership is removed the console game market I will dramatically decrease my spending. Right now gaming has a high entertainment value in that one can buy a used game relatively cheap and play it for many hours. With elimination of first sale prices will be kept artificially high to increase profit. No longer will I consume the variety of games that I did before and will be extremely more selective of the titles that I will be forced to buy new due to price sensitivity. Most likely I will probably only buy triple A titles. If the market gets too domineering I will switch back over to PC gaming that is a more open platform. In the 80's there was a console depression and if Microsoft and Sony attempt to violate the principles of the free market that made them successful they will face the consequences.
Being familiar with the Constitution you would know that it makes no reference to corporations or what legal privileges and entitlements they should or should not have. Corporations are in fact intangible legal entities conjured by the state whose sole function, like Intellectual Property laws, is to promote trade and commerce for the benefit of society. As a civilization we have agreed to a social compact that limits the liability that participants in corporation may incur and in return we all enjoy the benefits that their pooled investments and risks generate. With corporations being artificial entities of the state then certainly in a government of the People, by the People, and for the People the People should be able to define and regulate the legal status of corporations in accordance with their benefit to society. The Constitution explicitly protects the rights of Individuals to freely associate and organize together but those members should not expect and demand special legal entitlements for doing so.
CNN will do anything to boost ratings, even fake war coverage Who would want to watch a news channel that puts corporate profit above journalistic integrity? These guys are right up there with faux news.
Your assumption is that a person in distress would first call EMS which is not always the case. Without network neutrality would the carries prefer to take on legal liability for delaying or blocking direct emergency communications between people that result in personal injury or property damage?
Additionally, who should decide what emergency calls are? A) The sender and receiver, who own the communication B) The government, consisting of elected representatives who presumably server the public interest C) Carrier corporations who's sole existence is to maximize profit within legal, not ethical, boundaries?
Finally, DOS Attacks are illegal and are investigated and prosecuted by the FBI. If carriers wish to protect their customers from illegal attacks with the customers consent that is an entirely different issue apart from network neutrality.
Slashdot Mirror
And you believe corporation executives, who of course have employment contracts of their own, are any more benevolent towards the needs of society? If executives see first hand that the company is successful due in part to their contributions they certainly negotiate for better compensation. Why should non-executives behave differently? Unions have been on the decline over the past 30 years as well as average American wages. Perhaps you would prefer we emulate the more successful Chinese economic model where unions are illegal and dissidents are punished? Maybe unions would be less necessary if there were more competition to put downward pressure on profits and elevate wages. However, for a company such as verizon, who suckles off the government tit and enjoys monopoly status in many of it's service areas, unions are a sufficient check on corporate power.
Who will foot the bill for the DOJ prosecution and his potential incarceration? Not the corporation Cisco since American corporations are expected to receive tax incentives from governments instead of paying any taxes to them. Certainly not the Cisco executives who are in a tax bracket of their own full of loop holes to preserve their imbalanced incomes. No, it will be the average American who will pay since they are alleged to be the main benefactor of imprisoning this individual in a case which should be at most a civil manor and not a criminal one. This is state captialism at it's worst.
How convenient, a one stop shop to delete the pesky embarrassing dissident mobile photos and videos.
Did they pay it back?
Yes, with money borrowed from the treasury.
All of which is to say that these banks repaid cash owed to a program run by the Treasury Department by. . . borrowing from another program run by the Treasury Department.
Classic pyramid scheme. Perhaps that is why an unfinished pyramid is on our money.
"This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."
"The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed lacks a comprehensive system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse. In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans."
This is a real American corruption crisis of private individuals using government authority to pick market winners and losers.
There is certain trend in the media industry to move away from products to per licensed use. This is an absolute assult on capitalist principals which generates wealth through property. Instead of selling products that may gain value over time (I by old pc games as collector items) and allowing new markets to grow (gamestop resell,emulators) these unscrupulous corporations want to charge each individual use of a product over your entire lifetime! It is hypocritical for these corporations to lobby for intelectual property protection when they don't even want to generate property.
"Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." Benito Mussolini
China is still a communist (arguably fascist) country that uses authoritarian means to enforce the status quo dictated by loyal party members. Free market's don't work when there isn't the basis of freedom. Any illusion of prosperity by common Chinese works is eclipsed but the tremendous increase in the inequality of wealth only rivaled by our own country. Scientific advances also account for a large part of global progress and that is not entirely contingent upon global trade. The US government is broke and our states and local government are selling off public assets to the highest bidder, including chinese government owned corporations. Our country prospered for over a hundred years using tariffs to fund federal government and now with free trade policies it is bankrupt. As American's we are all aware of what happens to broke third world countries run by plutocrats who amass egregious public debt: we exploit them every day.
I look at DLC from a macroeconomic perspective which is why I never purchase any. With physical disks game producers create property that can be individually owned and resold thus creating tangible wealth. With DLC no property changes hands and thus the consumer is at the complete mercy of some third party as to what they are allowed to do with their fiat license. Certainly suppliers such as sony lust after such an arrangement since they can resell access to the same content over and over to the same consumer when the next generation of hardware is put on the market with zero competition from and reseller market. However, this runs completely contrary to the intent of intellectual property laws whose sole purpose is to advance the creation of NEW sciences and arts. Perhaps spending five dollars here and there for one time use licenses like a movie ticket makes sense but to spend hundreds of dollars on worthless content (DLC is usually locked to a single piece of hardware) is foolish in my opinion.
"Taxation without representation" was a shared creed during the American Revolution and the converse is true as well.
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." Thomas Jefferson
Why is supporting what end users want and what developers want mutually exclusive? If power users are attracted to a platform they will inevitably bring along regular users. I can see how artificially restricting the capabilities of a product increases a companies control over the market but I do not see the value for customers. In a free market once one purchases a product it becomes their property to do with as they please. While I love my rooted droid and rave about the device to the others it will be my last Motorola device unless Motorola provides an affordable open device.
China is more of a Fascist government than a Communist one these days and this is all very reminiscent of when some American corporations and banking institutions collaborated with the Nazi's to reap huge military buildup profits in a down global back in the 1930's.
When I die I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming like the artificial driving companion in his car.
Sony took Microsoft's lead when about a year after the XBox 360 came out Microsoft stopped enhancing the Xbox360 to play older Xbox games. Why should a console company increase the value of a consumer's game collection by supporting backwards compatibility when they can simply rebrand older generation games as Downloadable Content and re-charge consumers again for the sake of convenience.
Maybe google will now seriously invest in developing a new language that delivers on the promise of openness that sun/jcp always talked about but never delivered upon. Of course there is always c++
Corporations are artificial entities of the state and should be regulated as such. The government provides different types privileged status and recognition to a group of willing participants in order to generate an incentive for a particular socially beneficial activity, such as commerce, charity, political activity, etc. As a citizen the government has absolutely no right to impede on an individual's freedom of speech, freedom of association, or use of their property. However the government, as an advocate of the People, has the sole prerogative to dictate what liberties a particular role in a corporation is afforded. After all, incorporation involves the granting of special privileges such as legal protection and tax breaks in return for certain obligations such as shareholder meetings and separate tax filings. There is absolutely no mention of corporations in the Constitution and in actually the swell in the influence of corporations is a historically recent phenomena. It was practically impossible to incorporate until the later part of the 19th Century. Now days due to modern limited liability laws there is no practical reason to chose any other type of business enterprise other than incorporation.
This is only a ploy to trigger Federal spending on IBM hardware by politicians who publicly and vigorously support national pride but privately pledge allegiance to the corporatist policies that are destroying this country. This wouldn't be the first time IBM played both side. Never forget their business dealings with the Nazis and how they put profit over humanity.
Actually what needs to happen for America to stay competitive with China is for an oppressive fascist authoritarian government to seize power and subsequently squelch all dissent as party loyalist pillage the country. Then we would be apples to apples the same as China and that future doesn't seem to be too far off.
Corporate cronyism at it's finest.
As the great journalist Bill Moyers always quotes: News is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity.
Great point. Drone attacks are plain and simple assassinations attacks. These attacks are occurring in allegedly sovereign countries with publicly declared pro-US governments in charge of their own police forces. The drone attacks are tantamount to a SWAT team saying they think they have a know serial killer's location and decide to level the building rather than raid it. Since it is perpetrated by our government only in a foreign land this somehow makes it acceptable. I am always perturbed by the American "patriots" that profess to be fighting for freedom and justice but only qualify it to apply to American citizens or a subset there of. Our country was founded on Enlightenment theory which addressed universal concepts such as Liberty, Justice, and Equality. If one truly believes in these principles it is impossible to rationalize that they are not natural rights and only apply to certain segments of society determined by some sort of government or community consensus.
Being the astute Capitalist that you are surely you are aware that Capitalism is contingent upon property rights protected by the government. Since IP is only a legal concept it does fall in the purview of government regulation. Currently due to the first sale doctrine massive amounts of game capital has been created by our society that has value and can actually appreciate. Gamestop alone makes billions of dollars in revenue a year and millions of people go to a free marketplace to buy and sell games. Now two corporations, Sony and Microsoft, who have a monopoly on their prospective online markets, wish to altogether eliminate that form of property ownership and assume full control of all gaming transactions. It is their plan to distort the market so that no one can by or sell games without their involvement and approval. Since most of us have taken economic courses we all know that all corporations desire to become monopolies and we also know that monopolies do not benefit consumers. Being the diligent citizens that we are here at slashdot we are alarmed by these wannabe cartels and their attempted authoritative seizure of the free market. It is little wonder with large corporations attempting these unscrupulous tactics that 10% of the people own 71% of the wealth in America.
With that said, if they do attempt these tactics gamers will rebel. I personally purchase 60% of my games used but most of the new ones I do buy are sequels to ones I have enjoyed before. I also prefer to buy games for the PS3 instead of the 360 because of free online play although Sony will soon follow Microsoft and charge subscriptions. I consider myself a game collector so all of the games I buy I keep. If property ownership is removed the console game market I will dramatically decrease my spending. Right now gaming has a high entertainment value in that one can buy a used game relatively cheap and play it for many hours. With elimination of first sale prices will be kept artificially high to increase profit. No longer will I consume the variety of games that I did before and will be extremely more selective of the titles that I will be forced to buy new due to price sensitivity. Most likely I will probably only buy triple A titles. If the market gets too domineering I will switch back over to PC gaming that is a more open platform. In the 80's there was a console depression and if Microsoft and Sony attempt to violate the principles of the free market that made them successful they will face the consequences.
Being familiar with the Constitution you would know that it makes no reference to corporations or what legal privileges and entitlements they should or should not have. Corporations are in fact intangible legal entities conjured by the state whose sole function, like Intellectual Property laws, is to promote trade and commerce for the benefit of society. As a civilization we have agreed to a social compact that limits the liability that participants in corporation may incur and in return we all enjoy the benefits that their pooled investments and risks generate. With corporations being artificial entities of the state then certainly in a government of the People, by the People, and for the People the People should be able to define and regulate the legal status of corporations in accordance with their benefit to society. The Constitution explicitly protects the rights of Individuals to freely associate and organize together but those members should not expect and demand special legal entitlements for doing so.
CNN will do anything to boost ratings, even fake war coverage Who would want to watch a news channel that puts corporate profit above journalistic integrity? These guys are right up there with faux news.
Your assumption is that a person in distress would first call EMS which is not always the case. Without network neutrality would the carries prefer to take on legal liability for delaying or blocking direct emergency communications between people that result in personal injury or property damage? Additionally, who should decide what emergency calls are? A) The sender and receiver, who own the communication B) The government, consisting of elected representatives who presumably server the public interest C) Carrier corporations who's sole existence is to maximize profit within legal, not ethical, boundaries? Finally, DOS Attacks are illegal and are investigated and prosecuted by the FBI. If carriers wish to protect their customers from illegal attacks with the customers consent that is an entirely different issue apart from network neutrality.