Forcing a company to ship its competitors with its own product is ridiculous and anti-capitalism.
Forcing MS to give consumers a choice on browsers is pro-consumer, pro-competition, and good for web standards. It may fly in the face of Capitalist thinking, but Europe makes no such hypocritical pretenses. Like the USA, they are social democracies with mixed economies. Unlike the USA, they are not so ashamed of it they feel compelled to lie or pretend otherwise. Of chief concern there is the effect on the citizens (not the consumers mind you) and not of the large corporation that may lose a concept as insidious as mindshare.
Some people have adopted this crazy idea that there is supposed to be balanced competition at all times, enforceable by the government.
I, on the other hand, have noted that many people have begun to worship the invisible hand of the market. I used to be one such person, when I believed that capitalism was a more efficient system of distributing resources. I was a capitalist because I thought it worked best. Recent evidence has shown that a measured form of rights-based socialism, as is enjoyed in the majority of the EU member states produces healthier economies and higher standards of living. So, if socialism works demonstrably better, why are so many still convinced capitalism is somehow better or sacred or holy? I think it is because many people, at least in the US, combine the concept of the invisible hand and god. If you are prone to flights of fancy, and are told the principles and forces of the market are directed by an invisible hand, well, god is invisible isn't he? That must include his hands. Who else has large enough hands to steer the entire economy?
My point is, the hand of the market is not benevolent, it is a metaphor. The hand of the market refers to the collective wisdom of those involved in the game of finance. For other examples of collective wisdom see controversial pages on wikipedia, digg, and the implosion of the mortgage and credit industries.
Marijuana is, or was at the time, a Mexican term for the smokable bud of the cannabis plant. When the public campaign to criminalize pot was going on, those behind the push sought to associate it with Mexican Immigrants and Jazz Musicians (read: black people), because we all know what blacks and Mexicans really want: to fuck our pure white daughters. An interesting fact to consider: when the sticky-icky was outlawed, most Americans had no idea that cannabis, the wonder plant that had produced necessary fibers since colonial days and served as the parchment on which our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written and the fibers from which the first flag was woven, was the same plant as marijuana, the devil weed from south of the border that makes good young men into murderers and innocent young ladies into sex starved jazz fans.
So, those who brought the term into popular American usage were certainly racists, and I think that was the GP's point. However, as George Carlin said, there are no bad words only bad ideas or actions. Words are neutral.
Because there are so many active components in cannabis, not just THC, the trick is to vary the strains you smoke with some degree of regularity to avoid acclimating to a single cannabinoid pattern.
Use != abuse. Drug abuse is the use of a drug to the point at which it endangers self or others, or interferes with the tasks of daily life. Since oxycodone is an opiate, and therefore is highly addictive and causes painful withdrawal, it is likely be abused by a high percentage of users. Cannabis is not chemically addictive, although sustained use can be psychologically habit forming. Even so cannabis has no withdrawal effects.
How is this any different than in most states in the USA, which have "at-will" employment where an employee can apparently be fired for any reason that isn't illegal?
Well, I suppose because political discrimination is illegal in France.
The left-right political spectrum is not so useful given the diversity and disparity of modern political systems. Socialism and Fascism are in no conceivable way incompatible. They are not opposites. Indeed the peculiar character of true socialism lends itself startlingly well to fascist ideals.
Fascism is the political ideology that states society is at its strongest, and ergo its best, when all people work together. There is an old Roman metaphor that people are like twigs, scattered on the ground they may be easily trampled, but bound tightly together in a bundle they are strong and may resist outside threats. Fascism tends to marginalize minority opinions, and are known to promote nationalism or racism as fundamental to societal unity. Fascist states also tend to be preoccupied with fear of citizen uprisings, and often employ propaganda and domestic surveillance to ensure a population remains within a docile-supportive range.
Socialism is an economic system whereby the government takes ownership of the means of production. The means are then leased back to the people with the oversight of government to ensure the best use of a society's resources. Socialism may either give the means of control over to a democratic body that takes the opinions of the people into account when planning the economy, or to a body like the Communist Party in Soviet Russia, a fascist group if ever there was one.
Fascism = one party, or as the Germans so eloquently put it: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!
Socialism = the government owns the means of production, all citizens are government workers
Marx said that after capitalism gorged itself into ruination, it would be replaced by socialism. In other words, the people would rise up and regulate the economy to avoid a society in which the creation of a bourgeois class was institutionally inevitable. His description was an oversimplification, with the government outright owning the means of production rather than merely regulating corporate practice, of what is going on in modern day Europe.
Marx said nothing about the structure of the government that would own the means of production, the notion of a uniform Communist Party was an addition made by Lenin and, to a greater extent, Stalin. It is from Stalin that we get the concept of "political correctness," which is Joe's day meant the most rigorous and logical interpretation or application of the writings of Marx and other Communist dogma.
Anyway, poli-sci lecture over, I just want to attempt to clarify the essential truth you have hit upon with more precise language.
Fanaticism may dress in many different suits, but it always smells like bullshit.
How can you question the president in such a time of crisis? What, do you want the terrorists to win you fascist, hippie-hating, racist, ultra right-wing, America hater? Why do you hate America so much? What has America ever done to you?/sarcasm
Seriously though, this kind of reality distortion usually only shows up around the CEO's of certain fruit companies. Has it occurred to you that hoping for Obama's failure will effect you at least as adversely as it will effect the President? More specifically, do you want the economic collapse to continue, or maybe its that you want a breakdown of security that leads to more terrorist attacks, or perhaps you wish further destabilization in Pakistan so Al Qaeda can finally get their hands on some nukes, or do you just wish America's prestige in the global community would continue to erode? How is it exactly that you wish Barack Obama would fail?
Te use of your email account is a bit strange, but perhaps someone has taken out a credit card in your name? Have you attempted to contact the credit card company from which these payments have been made?
"You'll look like a(n) [insert derogative] to the people who do."
"Remember that you're penning/typing your message not for yourself but for others to read, you should at least be respectful of the people reading and proof your own work."
This should read as follows: "Remember that you're penning/typing your message not for yourself, but for others to read; you should at least be respectful of the people reading and proof your own work. It could also be two sentences, divided at the semicolon; this is possible because it has two complete clauses.
Finally, you made a typo in your latest post. I have corrected it in bold.
It's not high and mighty, it is simply paying attention to the details.
I am reminded of something Caesar Augustus said in a letter to (I think it was) Cicero. I cannot remember the exact quote (either the Latin I read it in or the direct translation) but it was to this effect: Those who emphasis perfect grammar over accessibility have lost sight of the purpose of communication. Everyone makes mistakes. You should still try to be right, but know that you are not perfect either, so try to be understanding when others make mistakes.
Oh, and I always mix up affect and effect. Anyone know if I used it correctly?;-)
Home and Business would have an option at install to run either in desktop or laptop mode the only difference being that laptop mode deactivates compositing and other effects and activates battery saving technologies.
I am so relieved to see that Microsoft is repeating some of their Vista mistakes with 7. As a Linux user and supporter, I was beginning to worry that MS was learning from the past and would undo the damage of Vista.
I can tell you how I would do it if I were MS. Ther would be 3 versions of Windows:
1. Windows 7: Home - The full version of Windows with Media Center and an Installed Game Browser, this SKU would be capable of everything needed for day to day computing, entertainment and gaming
2. Windows 7: Business - the same as Home, with the game browser and media center replaced with the full version of Office, which would be included in the price
3. Windows 7: Server - W7 stripped down to a CLI with all desktop software and bloat removed in favor of administrative applications (whatever constitutes such on Windows)
You could just take comfort in the fact that, regardless of the distro you choose, it was free, and it wasn't any more free because features had been removed or restricted to get you to pay for the full set.
Moore hasn't seen it and has said he will assume it to be trash regardless of public reception, critical acclaim or the decent of the almighty to induct the work into some sort of cosmic hall of cinematic excellence. Moore has been burned so badly in the past, he fears the flame to much to come into the light. He is hardly unbiased. Neither is Gibbons, who, as others have noted, has financial interest in the success of the film. Shit, I guess the only fair thing to do would be to see it and pass your own judgment.
My grandmother still uses Windows ME. I have suggested she update, even offered to do it for her, but she resists, laboring under the delusion that the entire interface would change as drastically as the last time when she switched from an old Mac (and I mean old) to her current machine. I would insist, but at her current rate of adoption she won't actually connect it to the internet before the sun burns down to an ember... All that aside, my gran still uses an outdated version of Windows you insensitive clod!
I think you mean Gaelic, and there is a complex formula for determining how to interpret Gaelic letters into spoken sound, but you would half to be at least half-cocked for me to explain it to you. I would have to be pissed.
As a side note, I was going to be a smart ass and post that in Gaelic, but, according to the internet, the Gaelic language is too complex for computers.
There are really two types of illegal drugs, there are psychedelics and there are DRUGS.There also exists some middle ground, drugs which pose some dangers, especially if they are made incorrectly. This is where alcohol lives.
Do you know the difference between narcotics and drugs? Narcotics are opiates. They are derived from, or synthesized to mimic the effects of, opium. Opium has only one side-effect if taken and prepared correctly: crippling addiction. Opiates are a bad recreational drug, although they have their value as a medicine administered by a trained professional.
The other two big drugs I can think of are crack cocaine, and crystal methamphetamines. Both are products that could never be sold legally for all the same reasons that poorly made moonshine can't be sold in your local package store. They contain unsafe amounts of dangerous chemicals.
Then there is a whole class of drugs that are perfectly safe for human consumption. They don't drive you mad, or kill you, or make you dependent on them. Psilocybin mushroom, which cause a form of vivid hallucinatory food poisoning and are believed by many to be the origin of religion in human thought, LySergic acid Diethylamide-25, which inspired the double helix theory of DNA, and was on the fast track to FDA approval for use in psychotherapy before the Merry Pranksters tried to spike the water supply of a few major cities, Mescaline, which has been used in religious ceremony for hundreds of years on the American continent, and Cannabis,WHICH IS LESS TOXIC THAN NUTMEG OR WATER.
My point is that there are some drugs that cannot be sold for recreational use because they are not remotely safe (eg crack, meth, PCP), some drugs which can be sold if their production is monitered and standards are established (eg LSD, cocain, MDMA, etc) and some drugs which are harmless and grow from the earth (eg cannabis, shrooms) We should approach the issue rationally.
I remember way back when (10-15 years ago), a certain Bill Clinton Administration passed a "Luxury Tax" on such things. The logic was that the rich will just keep buying these things even if they taxed them to death. Reality was that they had to rescind the tax when the workers for the companies making those thing lost their job. Not a single rich person lost their job. Taxes only hurt the poor, regardless of who you think you're punishing.
Which is why sales taxes are foolish, because they come with too many unintended consequences. The government should take, or rather we should be expected to contribute to the maintenance of our communities, an amount commensurate with our personal annual income.
2) The Top of the economy buys things from the bottom of the economy, and hires [the poor] to service the rich.
The problem isn't the rich, in spite of Obama and the left. The poor will always be with us. Looking around here in the USA, Most of those called "poor" aren't really "poor", especially when compared to the truly impoverished in the rest of the world.
I agree with you that poor and rich are amorphous and relative terms of little value in serious discussion. The important part is how big a gap separates those at the bottom from those at the top. The reason this is important is because strong countries, countries that last and even prosper, have a large middle class. Countries with a few rich elite and a large group of relatively impoverished folk, folk who live paycheck to paycheck, tend to wind up oligarchies or embroiled in rebellion. Society shouldn't punish the most productive and successful members of society, but they should be obliged to contribute in greater amounts to the welfare of the nation. Taxes aren't about punishment, they are about running a government.
I care more about opportunity than I care about people being poor. Opportunity to succeed and be successful. To that end, each and every regulation government imposes limits the ability of one to succeed. True economic justice doesn't punish success (taxes, regulation), True economic justice means the little guy has as much opportunity to succeed as the big guys. Let me know when a true startup or small mom/pop company can make a car, without being regulated to death before they even start.
What is justice? How does it relate to the economy? Remember, justice is neither freedom nor equality, those are clear cut and well defined virtues. If you study political theory, you will discover that man has been divided on the subject of what justice is since the field was developed some 2000 years. You seem to equate justice with equality of opportunity and freedom of action. This is one possible approach. It really comes down to your definition of opportunity. Is opportunity merely a lack of governmental interference, or is it a lack of morally arbitrary limits? Are you morally responsible for your skills? What I am saying is what percentage of success, in America, is because of hard work, and what percentage is a result of innate skills, luck and having sprung from the correct womb?
3) Economic Recovery can only happen when we start imposing the same restrictions on imported goods as found on goods produced in the US (or where ever you are). The reason we offshore is because there is economic advantage to. When we can't make electronics in the US because of environmental, worker safety, and wage laws make it non-feasible to do so, but China has no such problems, of course all of our stuff will be made in China.
As I understand you here, you are not proposing we lift environmental/worker safety/minimum wage laws here, but rather create a product categorization that denotes sustainable production, and safe conditions for workers paid a livable wage. This, it seems to me, is one of those proposals that is so brilliant, it is obvious when it is spelled out. I can't believe no one (that I have heard of) is suggesting it. It skirts the entire issue of appearing anti-free trade, while making any who appose it align themselves with pollution and worker cruelty in a much more direct way.
Wrong, and I dare say not for the first time today
on
Google's Gatekeepers
·
· Score: 1
His point was that it is hardly the same thing. Here, I will help you out. The relevant bits are these:
Until Google start doing things to stop people using other search engines...
Please, tell me, what has Google done to prevent you from using Yahoo!, Ask, Alta Vista, Live, or Baidu?
Do you? Wikipedia says DISH is a legally distinct entity from Echostar. The relevant bit reads "The company was formerly part of EchoStar Communications Corporation before DISH Network was separated in December 2007." A Google News search seems to support this. Even DISH Networks will tell you it is true. Plover pointed this out above, and I fact checked Wikipedia.
Slashdot Mirror
Forcing a company to ship its competitors with its own product is ridiculous and anti-capitalism.
Forcing MS to give consumers a choice on browsers is pro-consumer, pro-competition, and good for web standards. It may fly in the face of Capitalist thinking, but Europe makes no such hypocritical pretenses. Like the USA, they are social democracies with mixed economies. Unlike the USA, they are not so ashamed of it they feel compelled to lie or pretend otherwise. Of chief concern there is the effect on the citizens (not the consumers mind you) and not of the large corporation that may lose a concept as insidious as mindshare.
Some people have adopted this crazy idea that there is supposed to be balanced competition at all times, enforceable by the government.
I, on the other hand, have noted that many people have begun to worship the invisible hand of the market. I used to be one such person, when I believed that capitalism was a more efficient system of distributing resources. I was a capitalist because I thought it worked best. Recent evidence has shown that a measured form of rights-based socialism, as is enjoyed in the majority of the EU member states produces healthier economies and higher standards of living. So, if socialism works demonstrably better, why are so many still convinced capitalism is somehow better or sacred or holy? I think it is because many people, at least in the US, combine the concept of the invisible hand and god. If you are prone to flights of fancy, and are told the principles and forces of the market are directed by an invisible hand, well, god is invisible isn't he? That must include his hands. Who else has large enough hands to steer the entire economy?
My point is, the hand of the market is not benevolent, it is a metaphor. The hand of the market refers to the collective wisdom of those involved in the game of finance. For other examples of collective wisdom see controversial pages on wikipedia, digg, and the implosion of the mortgage and credit industries.
Marijuana is, or was at the time, a Mexican term for the smokable bud of the cannabis plant. When the public campaign to criminalize pot was going on, those behind the push sought to associate it with Mexican Immigrants and Jazz Musicians (read: black people), because we all know what blacks and Mexicans really want: to fuck our pure white daughters. An interesting fact to consider: when the sticky-icky was outlawed, most Americans had no idea that cannabis, the wonder plant that had produced necessary fibers since colonial days and served as the parchment on which our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written and the fibers from which the first flag was woven, was the same plant as marijuana, the devil weed from south of the border that makes good young men into murderers and innocent young ladies into sex starved jazz fans.
So, those who brought the term into popular American usage were certainly racists, and I think that was the GP's point. However, as George Carlin said, there are no bad words only bad ideas or actions. Words are neutral.
Because there are so many active components in cannabis, not just THC, the trick is to vary the strains you smoke with some degree of regularity to avoid acclimating to a single cannabinoid pattern.
*ahem*
I would think...
Use != abuse. Drug abuse is the use of a drug to the point at which it endangers self or others, or interferes with the tasks of daily life. Since oxycodone is an opiate, and therefore is highly addictive and causes painful withdrawal, it is likely be abused by a high percentage of users. Cannabis is not chemically addictive, although sustained use can be psychologically habit forming. Even so cannabis has no withdrawal effects.
If you simplify the laws, you'll get nothing but an army of assholes abusing them.
And things would be exactly as they are now, except the army of assholes wouldn't be called lawyers anymore.
How is this any different than in most states in the USA, which have "at-will" employment where an employee can apparently be fired for any reason that isn't illegal?
Well, I suppose because political discrimination is illegal in France.
If you really want to learn political corruption from the masters, go to Italy and study at the feet of Burlusconi.
The left-right political spectrum is not so useful given the diversity and disparity of modern political systems. Socialism and Fascism are in no conceivable way incompatible. They are not opposites. Indeed the peculiar character of true socialism lends itself startlingly well to fascist ideals.
Fascism is the political ideology that states society is at its strongest, and ergo its best, when all people work together. There is an old Roman metaphor that people are like twigs, scattered on the ground they may be easily trampled, but bound tightly together in a bundle they are strong and may resist outside threats. Fascism tends to marginalize minority opinions, and are known to promote nationalism or racism as fundamental to societal unity. Fascist states also tend to be preoccupied with fear of citizen uprisings, and often employ propaganda and domestic surveillance to ensure a population remains within a docile-supportive range.
Socialism is an economic system whereby the government takes ownership of the means of production. The means are then leased back to the people with the oversight of government to ensure the best use of a society's resources. Socialism may either give the means of control over to a democratic body that takes the opinions of the people into account when planning the economy, or to a body like the Communist Party in Soviet Russia, a fascist group if ever there was one.
Fascism = one party, or as the Germans so eloquently put it: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!
Socialism = the government owns the means of production, all citizens are government workers
Marx said that after capitalism gorged itself into ruination, it would be replaced by socialism. In other words, the people would rise up and regulate the economy to avoid a society in which the creation of a bourgeois class was institutionally inevitable. His description was an oversimplification, with the government outright owning the means of production rather than merely regulating corporate practice, of what is going on in modern day Europe.
Marx said nothing about the structure of the government that would own the means of production, the notion of a uniform Communist Party was an addition made by Lenin and, to a greater extent, Stalin. It is from Stalin that we get the concept of "political correctness," which is Joe's day meant the most rigorous and logical interpretation or application of the writings of Marx and other Communist dogma.
Anyway, poli-sci lecture over, I just want to attempt to clarify the essential truth you have hit upon with more precise language.
Fanaticism may dress in many different suits, but it always smells like bullshit.
How can you question the president in such a time of crisis? What, do you want the terrorists to win you fascist, hippie-hating, racist, ultra right-wing, America hater? Why do you hate America so much? What has America ever done to you? /sarcasm
Seriously though, this kind of reality distortion usually only shows up around the CEO's of certain fruit companies. Has it occurred to you that hoping for Obama's failure will effect you at least as adversely as it will effect the President? More specifically, do you want the economic collapse to continue, or maybe its that you want a breakdown of security that leads to more terrorist attacks, or perhaps you wish further destabilization in Pakistan so Al Qaeda can finally get their hands on some nukes, or do you just wish America's prestige in the global community would continue to erode? How is it exactly that you wish Barack Obama would fail?
Te use of your email account is a bit strange, but perhaps someone has taken out a credit card in your name? Have you attempted to contact the credit card company from which these payments have been made?
Cunning linguistics? Isn't that sort of thing illegal under Sha'ria law?
"you'll look like sloppy to the people who do."
This should either read:
"You'll look sloppy to the people who do."
-or-
"You'll look like a(n) [insert derogative] to the people who do."
"Remember that you're penning/typing your message not for yourself but for others to read, you should at least be respectful of the people reading and proof your own work."
This should read as follows: "Remember that you're penning/typing your message not for yourself, but for others to read; you should at least be respectful of the people reading and proof your own work. It could also be two sentences, divided at the semicolon; this is possible because it has two complete clauses.
Finally, you made a typo in your latest post. I have corrected it in bold.
It's not high and mighty, it is simply paying attention to the details.
I am reminded of something Caesar Augustus said in a letter to (I think it was) Cicero. I cannot remember the exact quote (either the Latin I read it in or the direct translation) but it was to this effect: Those who emphasis perfect grammar over accessibility have lost sight of the purpose of communication. Everyone makes mistakes. You should still try to be right, but know that you are not perfect either, so try to be understanding when others make mistakes.
Oh, and I always mix up affect and effect. Anyone know if I used it correctly? ;-)
Perhaps that explains the 50% with reasonable views on Phelps' smoking habits.
Home and Business would have an option at install to run either in desktop or laptop mode the only difference being that laptop mode deactivates compositing and other effects and activates battery saving technologies.
I am so relieved to see that Microsoft is repeating some of their Vista mistakes with 7. As a Linux user and supporter, I was beginning to worry that MS was learning from the past and would undo the damage of Vista.
I can tell you how I would do it if I were MS. Ther would be 3 versions of Windows:
1. Windows 7: Home - The full version of Windows with Media Center and an Installed Game Browser, this SKU would be capable of everything needed for day to day computing, entertainment and gaming
2. Windows 7: Business - the same as Home, with the game browser and media center replaced with the full version of Office, which would be included in the price
3. Windows 7: Server - W7 stripped down to a CLI with all desktop software and bloat removed in favor of administrative applications (whatever constitutes such on Windows)
Does that sound good to anyone else?
You could just take comfort in the fact that, regardless of the distro you choose, it was free, and it wasn't any more free because features had been removed or restricted to get you to pay for the full set.
Moore hasn't seen it and has said he will assume it to be trash regardless of public reception, critical acclaim or the decent of the almighty to induct the work into some sort of cosmic hall of cinematic excellence. Moore has been burned so badly in the past, he fears the flame to much to come into the light. He is hardly unbiased. Neither is Gibbons, who, as others have noted, has financial interest in the success of the film. Shit, I guess the only fair thing to do would be to see it and pass your own judgment.
I don't think grandma is using WinServer 2003
My grandmother still uses Windows ME. I have suggested she update, even offered to do it for her, but she resists, laboring under the delusion that the entire interface would change as drastically as the last time when she switched from an old Mac (and I mean old) to her current machine. I would insist, but at her current rate of adoption she won't actually connect it to the internet before the sun burns down to an ember... All that aside, my gran still uses an outdated version of Windows you insensitive clod!
I was unaware it was concidered good form to call it Irish, as I have always known it as Gaelic. Learn something new every day...
Pissed means drunk, but I suspect this would only be the beginning of our linguistic difficulties...
I think you mean Gaelic, and there is a complex formula for determining how to interpret Gaelic letters into spoken sound, but you would half to be at least half-cocked for me to explain it to you. I would have to be pissed.
As a side note, I was going to be a smart ass and post that in Gaelic, but, according to the internet, the Gaelic language is too complex for computers.
There are really two types of illegal drugs, there are psychedelics and there are DRUGS. There also exists some middle ground, drugs which pose some dangers, especially if they are made incorrectly. This is where alcohol lives.
Do you know the difference between narcotics and drugs? Narcotics are opiates. They are derived from, or synthesized to mimic the effects of, opium. Opium has only one side-effect if taken and prepared correctly: crippling addiction. Opiates are a bad recreational drug, although they have their value as a medicine administered by a trained professional.
The other two big drugs I can think of are crack cocaine, and crystal methamphetamines. Both are products that could never be sold legally for all the same reasons that poorly made moonshine can't be sold in your local package store. They contain unsafe amounts of dangerous chemicals.
Then there is a whole class of drugs that are perfectly safe for human consumption. They don't drive you mad, or kill you, or make you dependent on them. Psilocybin mushroom, which cause a form of vivid hallucinatory food poisoning and are believed by many to be the origin of religion in human thought, LySergic acid Diethylamide-25, which inspired the double helix theory of DNA, and was on the fast track to FDA approval for use in psychotherapy before the Merry Pranksters tried to spike the water supply of a few major cities, Mescaline, which has been used in religious ceremony for hundreds of years on the American continent, and Cannabis,WHICH IS LESS TOXIC THAN NUTMEG OR WATER.
My point is that there are some drugs that cannot be sold for recreational use because they are not remotely safe (eg crack, meth, PCP), some drugs which can be sold if their production is monitered and standards are established (eg LSD, cocain, MDMA, etc) and some drugs which are harmless and grow from the earth (eg cannabis, shrooms) We should approach the issue rationally.
1) Who do you think builds Yachts, Jets etc?
I remember way back when (10-15 years ago), a certain Bill Clinton Administration passed a "Luxury Tax" on such things. The logic was that the rich will just keep buying these things even if they taxed them to death. Reality was that they had to rescind the tax when the workers for the companies making those thing lost their job. Not a single rich person lost their job. Taxes only hurt the poor, regardless of who you think you're punishing.
Which is why sales taxes are foolish, because they come with too many unintended consequences. The government should take, or rather we should be expected to contribute to the maintenance of our communities, an amount commensurate with our personal annual income.
2) The Top of the economy buys things from the bottom of the economy, and hires [the poor] to service the rich.
The problem isn't the rich, in spite of Obama and the left. The poor will always be with us. Looking around here in the USA, Most of those called "poor" aren't really "poor", especially when compared to the truly impoverished in the rest of the world.
I agree with you that poor and rich are amorphous and relative terms of little value in serious discussion. The important part is how big a gap separates those at the bottom from those at the top. The reason this is important is because strong countries, countries that last and even prosper, have a large middle class. Countries with a few rich elite and a large group of relatively impoverished folk, folk who live paycheck to paycheck, tend to wind up oligarchies or embroiled in rebellion. Society shouldn't punish the most productive and successful members of society, but they should be obliged to contribute in greater amounts to the welfare of the nation. Taxes aren't about punishment, they are about running a government.
I care more about opportunity than I care about people being poor. Opportunity to succeed and be successful. To that end, each and every regulation government imposes limits the ability of one to succeed. True economic justice doesn't punish success (taxes, regulation), True economic justice means the little guy has as much opportunity to succeed as the big guys. Let me know when a true startup or small mom/pop company can make a car, without being regulated to death before they even start.
What is justice? How does it relate to the economy? Remember, justice is neither freedom nor equality, those are clear cut and well defined virtues. If you study political theory, you will discover that man has been divided on the subject of what justice is since the field was developed some 2000 years. You seem to equate justice with equality of opportunity and freedom of action. This is one possible approach. It really comes down to your definition of opportunity. Is opportunity merely a lack of governmental interference, or is it a lack of morally arbitrary limits? Are you morally responsible for your skills? What I am saying is what percentage of success, in America, is because of hard work, and what percentage is a result of innate skills, luck and having sprung from the correct womb?
3) Economic Recovery can only happen when we start imposing the same restrictions on imported goods as found on goods produced in the US (or where ever you are). The reason we offshore is because there is economic advantage to. When we can't make electronics in the US because of environmental, worker safety, and wage laws make it non-feasible to do so, but China has no such problems, of course all of our stuff will be made in China.
As I understand you here, you are not proposing we lift environmental/worker safety/minimum wage laws here, but rather create a product categorization that denotes sustainable production, and safe conditions for workers paid a livable wage. This, it seems to me, is one of those proposals that is so brilliant, it is obvious when it is spelled out. I can't believe no one (that I have heard of) is suggesting it. It skirts the entire issue of appearing anti-free trade, while making any who appose it align themselves with pollution and worker cruelty in a much more direct way.
Until Google start doing things to stop people using other search engines...
Please, tell me, what has Google done to prevent you from using Yahoo!, Ask, Alta Vista, Live, or Baidu?
You are correct in a really technical sense.
Isn't that the best kind of correct?
/yes i know what echostar is
Do you? Wikipedia says DISH is a legally distinct entity from Echostar. The relevant bit reads "The company was formerly part of EchoStar Communications Corporation before DISH Network was separated in December 2007." A Google News search seems to support this. Even DISH Networks will tell you it is true. Plover pointed this out above, and I fact checked Wikipedia.