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Comment Re:$1B in new tax revenue! (Score 4, Insightful) 164

It's particularly lovely in this case because you need to record not just the customer's location and the tax rate there, but also some corroborating evidence that the customer is in fact in that location, then register with the appropriate authority in that location. The reporting burden is going to mean fewer small sites capable of doing their own checkout process.

Comment Re:Still can't believe (Score 1) 106

It's Capitalism 101.

While the general snark in this comment is evident, I have to protest about conflating private ownership of the means of production with government agencies wasting money doing useless tasks (to say nothing of the risks associated with it).

Perhaps the inability to differentiate these two is actually something that's common these days, though, which would explain a lot about modern discourse on the topic -- likewise the conflation of "jobs" and "wealth" (the former being a means to an end).

Comment Re:5% less leg room? (Score 1) 65

I have switched from air to train travel in Europe because flying has become too uncomfortable for tall people.

From my preliminary understanding of things, you wouldn't be using Qatar Airways for flights within Europe anyway. They're more of a long-haul hub-and-spoke model airline that could take you from Europe to Africa or east Asia with a one-stop trip. For intra-European air travel you'd use a different airline, and probably a different model of airplane, optimized for fuel efficiency on shorter-haul trips (and possibly a narrowbody plane, if the airports in question aren't so busy that they're trying to max out every landing slot).

Comment Re:LOL fascists (Score 2) 62

You know, some day some group is going to rise up against a crony-infested system designed to funnel money to the wanton rapacious capitalist elites, and will replace it with a crony-resistant system -- instead of just replacing it with a differently awful crony-infested system using the leftism de jure.

Comment Re:I never have understood (Score 4, Interesting) 265

Every nation has a currency. The US economy is just as prone to stagnation, deficit, over, and under valuing as any other currency.

See, you used two words in that sentence. One of them is economy, the other is currency. They're related, but they're not the same. The thing that matters to most US residents is the economy -- specifically that it will be growing enough that it's possible to find a job in it which will secure a certain amount of output to secure one's well-being. (Residents saving for retirement benefit from both). The thing that matters to someone who borrow or lend or hold dollars isn't the economy per se, it's the fact that he can use that dollar in the future to buy a predictable amount of goods and services: price stability. (Stability is better than an increase in value of those dollars, because borrowing and lending need to balance each other out... besides, if you really wanted returns you'd find a real investment, not cash.)

The US has flirted with price stability issues in the past (look at the 1970s and early 1980s), but not to the extent that Russia is experiencing right now. Russia has issued additional rubles through the state-backed Rosneft bond offering (a bailout averting a bankruptcy for one of Putin's top cronies) which was the proximate cause of the ruble free-fall, and because of sanctions, falling oil prices, and general economic decline outside of the oil sector, the ability of a ruble to purchase valuable goods and services (like oil) in the future is in question. China, meanwhile, has its own set of currency controls (hence a thriving black market in RMB-USD) and central-bank interventions of a scope and magnitude which make QE and QE2 look small.

So what else are you going to use? Euros? No way, I thought you were worried about stagnation and deficits and stuff. Gold? Oh, yeah, obviously it's been an absolute MODEL of price stability lately, hahahahahahahahahaha... Bitcoin? Makes gold look good. Pounds sterling? Mmmaybe, in a pinch. Then most of the other currencies are on the small side, so it's harder to use them in high volumes.

Comment Re: In other words, ... (Score 1) 307

Perhaps there's something to the pervasive media narrative about Silicon Valley after all. Not only do they have no ability to relate to the non-asian and non-white crowd but they also have no ability to relate to whites that aren't rich enough for east coast boarding schools either.

Wait, boarding schools? I don't think that's Silicon Valley you're talking about, my friend. I could see Wall Street being accused of that, maybe...

Comment Re:Fucking Hell, Harper needs to go! (Score -1, Flamebait) 122

"Canadian jobs"? Do Canadians own those jobs? Perhaps this should be better-codified, then! I mean, there are places in the world where people own jobs and are legally entitled to sell the job or pass it on to their children. Mexico teachers' unions come to mind. Of course, they're also a textbook case of dysfunction and an entitlement mentality trying to dignify itself with the trappings of leftism.

Anyway. Essentially what I'd like to get at is that this is a hideously ugly form of nationalism which doesn't really deserve any of the dignity of the idealized socialist struggle (CS workers as the proletariat, ha!) and miserable economic policy to boot. (no nation in history has ever become prosperous by isolating itself from trade.)

Of course, the real question is why the US needs to launder these workers through Canada and doesn't just let them in directly (we're clearly letting in plenty of unskilled workers, after all...)

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