While this "loophole" seems bad on the surface, maybe it isn't. If corporations are considered people, perhaps we can start locking them up/shutting them down when they are breaking the law... you know... just like everyone else.
Surely that constitutes something cruel and unusual as corporate punishments go!
Still, artificial respiration might help.
Actually, current studies show that keeping the blood circulating is more critical than ventilation in CPR. It seems that interrupting the blood flow, even for just the times required to respire, significantly reduces survival percentages which aren't all that good to begin with. Sorry, didn't save my references.
Keyboard stress? Bah.
I don't mean to sound like I'm preaching but I have to respond to that. Some background: I have experienced pain to the level that it caused be to lose consciousness several times despite my trying to stay conscious. This was from a broken back. I rank that as an 9 on the 10 scale with 10 being enough to kill me outright. I have a fairly rare form of arthritis where my body mistakes my tendons, joints, etc. for disease and therefore tries its hardest to destroy. With opiate painkillers and a cocktail that suppresses my immune system response across the board I range between a 3 and 5, 24-7. With this as my experience I would have to question many peoples' judgement of just how bad pain is. For example, I would rather go through the level 9 pain of being transfered from gurney to x-ray that caused me to pass out than go through the constant 3 to 5, 24-7. When you know the pain is going to stop at some point helps reduce the agony. Typing this on the keyboard doesn't hurt much more than my quiescent pain but by tomorrow, in reaction to having done this my pain will be up in the 4-5 range. When you say
I couldn't grasp anything with my right hand for about 2 days because of typing too much.
you are only getting a short taste of what people with more severe illnesses are experiencing. Many will live with a high level of pain, as you describe, constantly or for as long as they continue to have a keyboard in their life. We won't be hearing from too many of these people on Slashdot as they would certainly have to be masochistic. As for teaching your daughter to not report pain -- careful there. Pain and our responses to it both mentally and physically are a complex subject.
Keep viewing corporations as ATM machines and they *will* relocate to more desirable locations because there are a lot of countries out there that see the benefits of all the jobs that large companies bring.
I believe that companies will do exactly as you say "move to more desirable locations". The owndao theory of economics says that says corporations, people, etc. will move from areas of lesser desirability (A) to areas of higher (B) at a rate proportional to the difference in desirability divided by the resistance to change (rate~(B-A)/R). Resistance to change would be things like reluctance of employees to move, costs of moving infrastructure, etc. (R) This will occur until an equilibrium is reached. Destinations that are currently desirable because of cheap labor, low taxes, subsidies will tend to become less desirable as the destination population becomes better educated/informed and insists on higher pay, or government services, and the government realizes that it has this group of businesses that look like a juicy tax income source. There are several easy to recognize examples of this such as Japan, then South Korea, then China...
Those in charge in government like to think they "create jobs". No, a government job is not a "good" job, it is a drain on the tax base because it generates no wealth.
As businesses try to reduce manufacturing costs through automation or outsourcing, jobs in the industrial sector that actually produce durable goods will begin to disappear. This causes people to move from industrial manufacturing to other available jobs which tend to be non-producing, service-oriented jobs.
People still want the durable products as well as services but find themselves in a lower income bracket. They, as consumers, buy the cheapest durables available which, at this time tend to come from the young, industrial-phase countries. This, of course causes a trend toward more and more wealth leaving the country and flowing to the young industrialists.
At the same time exports fall off as the companies (and countries) can no longer compete in their old cash cow of industry. They move labor and/or manufacturing out of the country to stay competitive. Now, young industrial countries (such as China is today) absorb the lost jobs and manufacturing. Soon the post industrial country has a negative trade balance, the taxable base begins to get smaller and businesses and governments switch to providing services.
As service providers there is a new opportunity to make money but now it is done with no tangible product. As such it cannot be saved or passed down, and it cannot be stockpiled. Not so good for the old-style industrialists who bought and sold companies that had tangible worth. Now products have become agreements, food services (not food), software, engineering, medicine... Unfortunately, no one can eat this, or sell it to someone that has no need for it. One good thing about this new on-demand economy is that inflation cannot reduce the value of something that is ephemeral.
All this time, the government and people are still having to buy tangibles with savings mainly built up in the latter industrial age and still recognized by other nations. With this constant deficit spending, soon this government will have little of worth to the rest of the world and the economy will collapse. This will put the country back into the cycle as a poor pre-industrial country in a world where the natural resources have either been used or are held captive by newly powerful nations.
Sounds gloomy but that's how I see it. Unless a new "product" is discovered by the country before the collapse. I think the ultimate resource in such a world would be technical knowledge and the ultimate products would come from that. I believe the main product could be energy.
One thing the industrial countries and all others in fact, must have is energy. It is the universal product. Perhaps cornering the market in fusion technology, or some other large-scale, abundant/renewable source. People will always want to move from toil to paradise (free time, unlimited resources, yeh! sounds like the Star Trek TNG future) so shouldn't we accept that as fact and prepare for what is to come?
Whether a government job is "at the expense of the rest of us" seems to me to be a minor issue given the job of preparing ourselves for the transition that will follow our post-industrial current state.
I'm curious what others think.
We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts. -- Patrick Moynihan
