That isn't socialism. Again, socialism means state controlled means of production. Socialism also means an end to the forces of supply and demand because the government just sets whatever price it wants.

Free market by definition means that prices are governed by the forces of supply and demand. That's really all there is to it. Contrary to common slashdot belief, a monopoly typically isn't a free market because then prices typically aren't subject to supply and demand, or at least the forces of supply and demand are severely diminished.

As for your mill, so long as its product is traded on the free market, and the government doesn't own it, then by definition it is capitalism. Doesn't matter who owns it.

Communism would mean that nobody owns it, not even the workers (theoretically, as there's no government either,) and they give away its product free of charge to just anybody who asks, in exchange for nothing at all. It doesn't take a genius to see that this wouldn't last long, and in all cases it hasn't. Every time somebody has built a commune, it collapses quickly. When I tell people this, they often point to communist China, USSR, etc. But if you look at how those countries work, they weren't communist at all. The USSR was one of the few cases of pure socialism, see my post below.

In a word? LOL.

When a government "nationalizes" (read: takes control of) the means of production, then that industry loses any incentive to improve itself because it has no competitors, and what ends up happening is that entire country sees that particular industry gradually fall behind its neighbor states. This, by the way, is the same effect that monopolies tend to have in capitalist countries, which is why most capitalist countries forbid their existence. Recall what happened to IE during its monopoly days, and it fell behind so bad in comparison to other browsers that it became a running joke among those in tech circles.

But even if it isn't a profit motive for the government, it's almost always because some corrupt politician wants to make himself look good while sacrificing the country's long term economic well being in the process.

USSR (which was communist for all of about 5 years, which failed miserably, and only stayed communist in name only) was about as pure socialist as you can get. They also had a saying there: They pretend to pay you if you pretend to work. Likewise, their GDP was in a constant slide into unsustainability the minute they lost the ability to conquer other states (off of the backs of whom they derived what little growth they had until those states converted into full socialism themselves.) In fact what few technologies they had were mostly stolen from conquered states and western governments (their first bomber was an exact copy of US bombers that Americans left behind in China after Japanese bombing runs in WWII; they even copied articles found inside, such as one of the crew member's personal camera.)

I recall hearing about how some USSR fighter pilot decided to defect to the US in the 70s, and when the engineers were given his aircraft (which was state of the art Russian technology,) they were surprised to see that it was still using vacuum tubes, where US aircraft had started using integrated circuits a decade earlier.

Oh and something else to add: Raising the minimum wage too high takes away those menial jobs from younger kids with no work experience at all.

If you're flipping burgers in high school, or even while you're in your 20s going to college, you're doing the right thing. Just about every successful person I know started out doing menial jobs at a young age. Bonus points if you pay extra attention to how your boss does his/her job while you're doing yours.

Dude, pay the fuck attention to what he said, he was specifically calling blame for the people who airbrushed it out. You can't blame somebody for not wanting to get fined to last Tuesday and/or having their broadcast license (which is their sole means of employment) revoked over a titty.

Ever since 2004, there's been a heavy sense of "if in doubt, blur it out" in the entire broadcast industry, and it's not their fault at all.

Actually I think they probably had a good reason to do that. Remember how much of a shitstorm the 2004 superbowl halftime caused? The FCC made a lot of money that day by fining the shit out of everybody involved.

And I like how the website you linked just jumps on Fox News and conservatives, even though this action likely has nothing to do with either of them (Fox affiliates are independently owned.)

Let me rephrase that question: What are they attempting to accomplish?

TPB should just run from inside of TOR.

Really? So why do they even bother if they know that it's not possible?

The problem is that politicians aren't necessarily in the business of common sense, and police departments need their revenue, just like any other third world country. (And no, I'm not saying the US is a third world country, just that our police departments behave like one. Though third world countries may even be a little more honest, because they don't hide the fact that they need bribes to keep working.)

Remember how Chuck Schumer ordered the DOJ to seize their domain name, and was royally pissed when he found out that there was no domain name to seize? He doesn't give a shit about Silk Road being more safe than street dealers, rather in his own pathetic little mind, he seems to think that you can keep a hippie off of drugs by just hiding his joints. But in his defense, that is a common theme amongst his fellow democrats who also happen to think that banning guns will 100% keep them out of the hands of criminals as well.

Or the US government could suddenly declare that genetic engineering is subject to DEA oversight, subjecting that particular field to a dark age.

Which given the US government's stupidly overzealous substance control laws, it's not far removed from being a reality.

Better call Saul.

You're referring to the law of threes. That isn't due to collusion, rather it's due to how consumers tend to develop brand loyalty. It manifests particularly hard in the tech sector where independent developers tend to pick two platforms to support and ignore the rest. Microsoft has been fighting this tooth and nail with their windows phone platform, which can't seem to catch a break, because the other two players have everybody's attention.

Just so you know, everything you just said also applied to Irish and Gypsies. What you said however does not apply to hispanics. Yet, AA applies to hispanics and not Irish or Gypsies.

So how do you explain that one?

In such a scenario, I imagine that people who don't do anything at all will still feel entitled to have it all, kind of like occupy wall street.