to get money out of the hands of the top and into the bottom? The top right now are using their wealth and privilege to gut companies' pensions and equity. Hostess is the current example, but remember Sci-Fi monthly and quarterlies? Every wonder what happened to Asimov's monthly magazine? The suits will tell you Americans just got dumber and stopped reading. Fact is somebody noticed that the company that distributed those monthly reading periodicals was stilling on a tonne of real estate that had appreciated in value over the years. They got bought up and liquidated for the short term profits. Every mag instantly lost their distribution network, and those guys run pay check to paycheck (real Americans there), so they went under.

How are you planning on dealing with those guys? The Bain capitals of the world? They completely break Capitalism, unless you're OK with the 'winner-take-all' approach.

there was a huge run on them in the early 2ghz processor era, which is probably when most of your PCs were from. Go get yourself an 800mhz pentium and watch how long it lasts. I'm sitting here typing on a 3 ghz Athlon 64 that's well over 5 because I bought a board that fixes the bad caps problem.

we just keep moving more and more of the wealth to the top, and let the rest of the world go to hell. If you're in the top 1% that's still 60 million people living like gods among men. The US middle class was really a fluke. First time in history. Before that a miniscule group of people took everything and the rest died of starvation and/or elements. I think the phrase is 'winner take all' economics...

Anyway, I guess my point is, people keep asking what's gonna happen when nobody can afford to buy stuff, ignoring the fact that the folks that own everything don't really care, because, well, they already own it all.

start socializing these profits and productivity gains. I'm just saying... otoh if somebody's got a better idea (that doesn't involve 90% of us dying of starvation) I'm all ears....

when you're a poor ass rust belt or New Orleans worker you live where you're born and you stay there because moving is expensive. I 140 miles for a job and it ended up costing me $2k. You are correct that it's awful that we bail out the rich while ignoring the poor though. Socialize the loses, privatize the profits.

Also, $60 Billion dollars really isn't a lot of money. It just seems like a lot because to one person it is. And I think my main point is that under Democratic leadership most of that $60 billion won't go to rebuilding $5+ million dollar homes. It'll go to rebuilding $50-$100k homes.

The delayed execution is the 3rd option. Or an event model. Think of something like a make file where you don't do anything until all the pre-requisites have been satisfied. Error checking is necessary because ultimately you want to be able to have programs which can adjust to real world events (mouse motions, changing screen sizes, stuff arriving on the network wire). And in the real world thinks may not happen in the order you hope they would or in one of the orders you thought they could. Probably the most common way to handle this is publish subscribe or event model.

when you've already got a successful business. There's a reason most of Disney's stuff is retreads of old tales. It's much easier to sell something tried, true tested and familiar. Later on when you're established and you've got a steady flow of cash in payin' the bills you can get to real innovation. The thing people like to ignore is that most big innovation is built on past successes. Just about all the big guys in tech got there because their parents were well enough off to support them while they fucked around getting something off the ground. Try doing that around a 40-50 hour work schedule. Doesn't happen.

Disney et. all are monopolizing those stories. Hell, that Harry potter twat has sued people copying the framework of her stories that she herself stole.

Like Bain and the guys that did Hostess in are what's scaring me. Basically guys with money and connections come in, buy a company, and then immediately start raiding the pension funds and paying themselves huge consulting fees from the loans they take out on the business' good name. Then they blame the whole sodding mess on workers making 45k/yr and unions and shut the whole thing down and move it to Mexico where slave labor abounds.
br> These guys are what'll stop innovation. They've got it so good (because they're so damn rich) they don't care about innovation. They become intensely, frighteningly conservative. There what's moved the US so far right these days. They don't want anything to change since they're makin' out like bandits. Hell, they've made progress (as in 'progressive') a bad word...

this was pointed out during the recent storms (Sandy), and there were several pundits that pointed out that Democrats tended to staff FEMA with professional disaster management folks while the Republicans tended to give those positions out to friends, family and donors. That was why the disaster was as well handled as it was and didn't turn into New Orleans II: The Squeal.

The hard part about this is even though it's demonstrably true (it's easy to trace the reasons for the FEMA appointments under the two administrations) it's so outlandish to think that a man would appoint someone to such an important position for political points that people just don't believe you when you point it out. Even if you've got the evidence (google it) to back it up...

you get laughed at for being a tin foil hatted conspiracy theorist. The trouble is this stuff is so horrible people can't believe it's happening. It's too far removed from reality. Plus their taught from day one that America is the greatest country on earth, and it's hard to get away from a belief that's been ingrained in you since childhood.

Ever notice how little time Obama spent attacking Romney's policies? The Obama campaign did focus groups and found they couldn't attack Romney on policy because nobody believed he was going to implement them for real. The massive cuts to medicare, social security, tax cuts for the rich, etc. Maybe Romney wasn't really gonna do those things, we'll never know. But either way Obama couldn't convince anyone that he might...

Parts of Detroit are warzones the police won't enter, and India has a horrific murder rate. It's just not tracked in the lower castes. The world is a far, far worse place than you think it is...

people in intense poverty, with no hope of escape, and virtually no access to mental health services are a little more prone to violence.

Man, I wish it was my job to gather pointless stats of the obvious.

Everything Assange does is now easier to do if you are in the government? This is an obvious deflection on his part.... "hey look pay no attention to how I violate privacy of others communications.. look at how the government could theoretically violate YOUR privacy of communication".

no one ever said they were. Just that you are entitled to live. Real freedom isn't the freedom to die in a gutter. If you must work as a slave to buy the bread to eat, to buy wood to burn in the winter to survive, to buy medicine to live, are you really free? True freedom is economic security. Without economic security you are at the mercy of the haves. Of the lucky few. You're not free, because if you stop doing what they tell you then they let you die. Remember, you're not free when I can compel you to do something against your wishes...

Also, you're making another mistake, which is assuming we're incapable of providing food, housing and health care for one person without depriving it from another. This isn't the 1800s. We're no longer at the mercy of mother nature. The Dutch, for example, unencumbered by notions of false capitalistic "Freedom", have solved the problem of their port cities being destroyed by storms ever 30 years. Meanwhile America continues to let it happen while building ever increasing monuments to the petty desires of a few lucky bastards...

You're misplacing your anger. It was not his generation. It was a few select people that used their wealth and power to trick, cow and frighten the entire USA. They use sentiments like you just expressed to divide us so they can conquer us. Stop thinking in terms of punishment for mistakes. Start asking what people REALLY deserve. Food. Housing. Health Care. You ARE entitled to those things. Don't let the Mitt Romneys of the world tell you otherwise. Don't let them set you at each other's throats....