Not only he is completely wrong on the Second Amendment, he is also completely wrong on Obamacare.

Obamacare is part of the large government that is destroying USA at this point, a country with largest debts and deficits in history of the world, larger debts than of all other countries combined, larger deficits than trade deficits of all countries that have trade deficits combined. Obamacare is not the answer to his question as to how to get insurance in the tightly regulated and monopolised USA market. The answer is to open the market for global competition, where Perens would have been able to buy insurance from any insurance company in the world, where the insurance is not mandated at all.

In fact Perens would have been better off without any insurance at all if only he could actually keep his money rather than lose it to the Mafia that runs government and steals his and all other people's incomes via direct taxes and all other indirect taxes (business regulations) and the tax of inflation

Perens is an economic ignoramus.

As always when it concerns the economy /. is mostly full of complete nonsense. Apple is a wealth GENERATION engine, no iPhones, no iPads etc. are taken from anybody by Apple and 'extracted', they are created by Apple and then redistributed into the population. As per usual the socialists completely miss the entire point of the economy and of free market capitalism, which is the engine that produces wealth at the rate higher than any other methodology ever discovered by humans on this planet.

When a company creates new products it creates the wealth. In fact the entire point of a company to combine scarce resources in such a way as to produce maximum amount of wealth at the minimum expense and Apple is EXCELLENT at it obviously, otherwise they wouldn't be where they are.

Extraction is what governments do, not productive businesses.

So even government officials admit that government is burdensome. Of-course it is burdensome, of-course the real problem is that it is burdensome for the people, not for government officials. Individuals are burdened by the burdensome government, that's the problem, not that NSA is burdened by burdensome rules that attempt at preventing NSA from becoming even more burdensome than it is.

Krugman does not know anything about the economy that is in any way more useful than an average consumer, in fact Krugman knows LESS about the economy than an average consumer.

Krugman believes in Keynesian nonsense, actually in the last few years the official party line became even worse than what Keynes himself was talking about. Today the government and its mouthpieces (the likes of Krugman and the MSM and the rest of the so called 'main stream economists') are touting the idea that inflation is necessary, they are not even just saying that they are scared of deflation, they are now scared of this new scarecrow: 'lowflation'. Krugman will have you believe that consumers suffer from lower prices, that if a consumer comes to a supermarket and sees prices that are lower than the year before or that are even not higher than the year before (by at least 2%) then the consumers suffer.

Krugman is not an economist at all, he is just a propaganda spewing con-artist and the PhD that he holds is simply a 'mainstream' way to give him some credence within the system. Krugman can always be relied upon to come out with the most idiotic schemes for 'fixing' the economy or like in this case 'fixing' the environment.

The only thing that import tariffs against China will do is raising import prices for the Americans. The Chinese have a gigantic domestic market that they can tap in the moment they let the exchange rate for their currency float. More than a billion people that are ready to buy stuff the moment the government stops subsidising USA consumer by printing its own currency to buy USD and US bonds The Chinese do not need Americans, the Americans need the Chinese much more. China is a productive country - they produce the stuff everybody else buys.

America is not a productive country, which is clear from its gigantic trade deficits and debts. 47Billion USD in trade deficit last month as opposed to the expected 41Billion (and all of a sudden the Canadians are 'buying' 9Billion USD worth of F35 useless piles of metal).

  USA consumers are happy enough to use credit cards to buy Chinese products today with a possible 20% markup due to the cost of the credit rather than waiting and saving to spend less on the same products. Similarly they will not wait for a year to buy something they need today if they knew that the prices would go down by 1-2% in a year. Who will not buy something they need today if it costs 100 bucks if they know it will cost 99 or 98 USD a year from now? However plenty of people will buy on a credit card now with a chance to pay 120 in a year for something that costs 100 today.

For some time I thought Krugman pretends to be an idiot, now I think he is an idiot - a useful idiot. An idiot useful to the propaganda machine that uses him. To offer this 'solution' one has to be a complete moron. The USA economy is INCAPABLE of producing anything that the consumers need, which is why WalMart has profits by importing most of what the Americans buy from abroad and which is why the trade deficits are insane.

USA doesn't have factories that are waiting for the workers to be hired that can be restarted on a moment's notice. USA DOES NOT HAVE THE CAPITAL TO START MEANINGFUL PRODUCTIVE BUSINESSES, USA ONLY HAS DEBT. USA needs to go through a period of deleveraging that did not happen yet. USA needs to get rid of its government and of insane ideas spouted by morons like Krugman in order to be able to restructure its economy, to start saving again in order to have capital that then can be used to become productive again.

USA IS BORROWING MONEY FROM CHINA TO BUY CHINESE PRODUCTS. Where does Krugman suggest the American consumers get more money to buy more Chinese goods that will go up in price once the import taxes are introduced?

The import taxes are NOT going to hurt the companies, they are going to hurt Americans who will no longer have access to those goods. The companies will be able to sell to other markets, especially the local Chinese market that is simply waiting for something like an American import tax to force the hand of its government to stop fixing currency exchange rates and allow the local Chinese market to start consuming the products that the Chinese are producing.

The fact that so many /. readers are missing all of the above and actually believe in this nonsense is the sad testament of what the effect of the decades of brainwashing by the likes of Krugman on behalf of the oppressive government does to the population.

- and the free market would not keep 'official' time in order to keep functioning? Curios.

- wealthy societies take care of their environment. The argument should not be in favour of government but in favour of a wealthy healthy free market capitalist economy. Humans have devised the most successful system to generate wealth and prosperity, which in the long run means health and a healthy environment - free market capitalism. Government is never source of wealth and or health, government is the source of oppression, theft and murder. Governments have nothing that they do not steal and murder for first.

- same exact argument as the one above, and of-course government provides utilities with the monopoly power to destroy/prevent competition and thus reduce our choices and raise our costs. May I do not want water from the tap A, maybe I want water from the tap B, without government supplied chemicals in it but that instead uses a competing cleaning procedure.

- again, licensing does not provide anything but a piece of paper. The actual reason why our houses are safe is technology that is built by the free market capitalist system and the fact that in that system home builders want to sell more homes, not kill their customers.

- absolutely wrong. The greatest nightmares are in the hands of the government, that is true. The surveillance state, the militarised police force and the wars and genocide.

My greatest DREAMS are in my own hands.

- WRONG.

The most abstract and extreme version of 'gains' made from no value whatsoever is your Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank.

Those are the entities that are responsible for the extreme abstraction of money away from any value and devaluation of the dollar. HFT wouldn't even exist if there was a real market, a real productive economy in the first place, instead you have NEGATIVE REAL interest rates and nobody can find any yield in this environment. The environment of destruction of private property rights, destruction of individual liberties all as a consequence of destruction of the rule of the law - the Constitution.

A right is a protection of an individual against government abuse, nothing more. Individuals are supposed to have all the rights and the governments shouldn't even exist, however since they do, they are only supposed to be delegated a very small number of precisely enumerated powers, none of which should be open to interpretation.

The government that USA had at some point was an attempt to prevent the consequences of economic and thus societal destruction that you are experiencing at this point. The Congress was supposed to originate laws and Senate was supposed to kill the laws before they made it to the POTUS. SCOTUS was supposed to evaluate the already existing laws and kill them the government usurped power through those laws it was never supposed to have in the first place.

It is all broken now, but AFAIC it cannot work as a principle as long as there is in fact such an entity as Congress (or any other) that can even PROPOSE new laws into existence.

The only laws that we need are supposed to protect private property, starting with our own bodies, the right to own and operate our own private bodies, which then extends to the right to own and operate the fruits of our labour, our property, which is only extension of our bodies and lives. If the system is based on such immutable ideas and nothing else, then government cannot regulate us, cannot regulate our businesses and steal our property (for any reason at all), only then we can have real rule of law and only then there can be no such power in the hands of the few - to DESTROY the value of the money, to STEAL through taxes, business regulations and any other form of abuse of power.

But are you, any of you prepared to accept the consequences of your own actions and accept the fact that you are responsible for your own lives and nobody else can be made a slave to you through any form of theft (taxes, regulations, inflation)?

I do not believe you are ready, vast majority of you do not even understand the words that are written here, starting with the basics, such as what a right is.

Every Dollar, every Euro that comes out of pockets of people that are enslaved by the collectivist governments of the world that end up in the hands of people, whose jobs are based on that stolen money is pork barrel and none of it can exist in a free society. Of-course the society is not free, the people are slaves and the likes of you cheer for slavery.

Actually labour costs have become smaller and smaller proportion of total cost of business because the government made USA worker too expensive and made running a business too expensive, so wherever possible costs will be shifted from buying labour (and labour is just another price, labour is just a good/service that is provided at a price, nothing else, when prices go up people end up changing the recipe, and if it means automating away or replacing local jobs with offshore jobs that is what they will do).

USA labour is not more productive, USA MANAGEMENT is more productive by using less and less USA labour. USA labour is too expensive to use thanks USA government. USA workers are LESS productive than before because they are no longer employed.

This has been in the works for a very long time now.

2005: A new America http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

2010: batshit insane government: http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

2010: Turnstiles: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

2012: danger of starting business in USA: http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

2012: in a 'post capitalist economy' children will work again: http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

2012: USA and the Iron Curtain: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

2012: vote for Ron Paul is vote for technology http://ask.slashdot.org/commen...

2012: hydra like government http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

2013: on Woz compares Cloud and PRISM to Communist Russia http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

2011: Local Currencies To Replace Dollar For 5 Countries' Dealings : http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

2012: 'supporting the government' : http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

destruction of standard oil as example of government cancer http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

long term economic and social prosperity, USA nation of men rather than of laws: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

2012: On NDAA: http://politics.slashdot.org/c...

(journal on NDAA) http://slashdot.org/journal/27...

(journal on a man being convicted on issuing competing currency to the USD) http://slashdot.org/submission...

on copyrights and patents being oppressive laws destructive to the economy and society:
http://politics.slashdot.org/c...
http://politics.slashdot.org/c...

journal: Interpreting the Constitution = breaking the law. : http://slashdot.org/journal/31...

2012: USA is bankrupt: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

2012: collectivist government: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

2012: USA runs a war economy http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

It's not a guy manifesto, it's not a 'geeky' manifesto, I would say the keyword here being manifesto (and much of what it carries).

Here is my take on the entire situation:

this is the age of the socialist welfare state, the time when people feel that others owe them something and if they are not immediately given what they believe the others owe them, they are out to take it, steal it or murder it. This one decided that the government is not big enough to fulfil his insane desire for women to give him what he believes he had the entitlement to. So since he would not be just given it on a silver platter, he decided to take the matters into his own hands. When the collectivist mob uses government to steal from a productive minority under the barrel of a gun (call it taxes and regulations) this one wouldn't be given pussy on a silver platter, but since he is a product of this collectivist mob, he decided that violence is the correct response for this perceived 'injustice'. What can I say, he is a perfect example of the ideology that has permeated through the collectivist / socialist / fascist mob that we call 'society' today.

- this is how I know you are dumber than 76% of the Swiss.

There shouldn't be a minimum wage at all. I hired 4 people just in the last month (all students) and the condition was that they come in for free for a few weeks to learn until they can be put on a project. 3 of them are already on a project, so they are now getting paid. 1 of them is not and I talked to the guy and told him that I like his effort and ethic but his performance is god awful. I will pay him 1/3 of what I pay others and that would be at least 30% less than minimum wage in USA for example when compared in across currencies.

But I have a choice to do this or not, however if there was a minimum wage law and I had to abide by it, I would send the kid home, I would NOT hire him and NOBODY would.

The people that are rallying the troops behind minimum wage and increase of minimum wage believe that the minimum wage workers are supposed to be paid a 'living wage' for some reason, but that's pure nonsense. Nobody is entitled to any such thing, you are only as good as your productivity and ability / experience, etc., but most importantly productive output of-course. If you are skilled and are able to use complex tools to perform complex tasks in an efficient manner, you will be making much more than the minimum wage.

If you have no skills and the only job you can get in your economy is an ENTRY level job then you can either have that job if there is no minimum wage law or you can without a job because you are not going to be paid more than the money you can make for the employer.

WM, McDonalds an other jobs of that type are all entry level jobs. The fact that your economy is fucked so bad that other jobs are unavailable is only an indicator that your economy and policy is just as stupid as you are, because your type of policy is what destroyed that economy.

So you have nothing at all to add, nothing at all to answer with, thus you answer with a personal attack. The 'kooks' are the likes of you.

Sure, some of it is just murder advertising by the media, however here is my take on this:

this is the age of the socialist welfare state, the time when people feel that others owe them something and if they are not immediately given what they believe the others owe them, they are out to take it, steal it or murder it. This one decided that the government is not big enough to fulfil his insane desire for women to give him what he believes he had the entitlement to. So since he would not be just given it on a silver platter, he decided to take the matters into his own hands. When the collectivist mob uses government to steal from a productive minority under the barrel of a gun (call it taxes and regulations) this one wouldn't be given pussy on a silver platter, but since he is a product of this collectivist mob, he decided that violence is the correct response for this perceived 'injustice'. What can I say, he is a perfect example of the ideology that has permeated through the collectivist / socialist / fascist mob that we call 'society' today.

USA destroyed human rights that used to be protected under its Supreme law - the Constitution. That is incidentally the reason for the huge collapse it is experiencing in the economy - out of control government.

Individual freedoms ( actual human rights) are attacked on every front in the USA ( and the rest of the world) on a daily basis via the private property protection destruction - the class warfare and the collectivism - politics of envy and welfare state. There will be no significant progress in any useful field (useful for the people)if therr is no individual freedom.

Carly? Sure, she didn't know what was going on, however it is not an HP problem, this is America's problem. Actually this is a collectivist problem, a Marxist problem, a communist problem, a fascist problem.

This is a problem of government that grows based on inflation - creating money out of thin air and then pretending that inflation is good for you, while in reality it is used to prop up asset purchases by the US 'too big to fail' and it's used to prop up the failing USA welfare state. This is a problem of government, the very existence of government is the problem. There is no reason to have any centralised governments in a global economy, but never mind reason, there is no justification to have a monopoly on violence when when have already proven as a species that we do best when we are free as individuals to innovate, to create new ideas and businesses, to build supply, which increases competition and lowers prices.

The problem with HP and so many others is that they are operating in a non-free environment by the rules set up by the collectivist propagandists that are hell bent on ruling you, not on letting live.