They have things called "brakes" as well.

Those brake things are still governed by how the tire interacts with the surface.

On the other hand, educated immigrants (also bearing educated children) might improve the economy as a whole, since their presence lowers the cost of doing business while adding new entrepreneurs.

I think immigration helps this country (and our economy).

The problem is that he is attempting to conflate FOUR different issues:

1. USA! USA! USA! - (technology superpower): Just make all the STEM programs FREE. You want college level calc? Here's your free book and this is when/where your free class meets. His approach would have us relying on the educational systems in other countries that supply the immigrants. That's stupid.

2. Immigration - he really means H-1B visas.

3. Cheap labour - see #2.

4. What would personally benefit him and his company - see #3.

If we are turning away Nobel laureates because of our immigration limits ... no, we aren't. It's about cheap labour.

From TFA:

I asked the CEO of a startup with about 70 programmers how many more he'd hire if he could get all the great programmers he wanted. He said "We'd hire 30 tomorrow morning." And this is one of the hot startups that always win recruiting battles. It's the same all over Silicon Valley. Startups are that constrained for talent.

Bullshit. Startups are constrained by MONEY.

It is a RISK for an established programmer to work for a startup. They have families. They have responsibilities. You have to offer them a LOT of money to take that risk.

While I believe that you intended that as a joke, it actually reflects the reality that he missed.

Becoming a programmer requires that a certain amount of infrastructure exist to provide the education necessary. So , no, we aren't talking about 95% vs 5%.

Secondly, the companies pushing for more visas are NOT doing it because they're looking for the best and the brightest from around the world. They're doing it to drive the price of programming down.

It's fucking PROGRAMMING. It can be done ANYWHERE in the world. If company X wants to hire the top 20 programmers in India then they can do that. And those programmers can work from home (in India). They are the best, right?

Maybe if you were Japanese...

Which means absolutely nothing because you can't actually use any of that firepower in any conflict short of "Civilization as we know it is coming to an end." That's not to dispute the rest of your points, which are mostly valid, but let us leave the SSBN out of the calculation of modern naval firepower. They have a specific mission: deterrence. The day they are called upon to loft their birds is the day that mission has failed.

There is an argument to be made that we need more ships, particularly attack submarines and surface combatants. The former will prove decisive in any conflict with the PRC and the latter are needed for missile defense, amongst other missions. Unfortunately most of the shipbuilding budget is going to the Gerald Ford CVNs while the looming Ohio replacement is going to consume billions more. Both are needed at the end of the day, so unless we're going to throw more money at the Navy I'm not sure what the solution is. I'd opt for throwing more money at them, since it takes decades to build a modern Navy, and it can't be used (as easily) for interventionist adventures in the same manner as a standing army....

The office network probably is not to get work done.

Of course not. The Facebook, porn, and shopping, for the most part. Oh, and cat videos.

Correction: Navy *pays* a company $0.01

Thank you for your two cents on the matter.

Jackson ends up telling NO story - just a vomit of computer-guided coloured lights. Sound and fury, signifying nothing...

I was more worried about replenishing Red Vines, than seeing what happened next.

As a result, the money is stolen not from the customers, but from the bank itself.

"Party on, Garth."

Bizarre argumentation. One hardly knows where to begin with your assumptions and red-herring analogies.

To address your first point - with it's ill-considered implications of parity between democracy, capitalism and actual worth or value: Commercial success at this scale simply indicate how thoroughly that vulgarity and thoughtlessness have been cultivated and encouraged by this media-driven culture over the past 90-100 years or so.

When people make "free choices" in such a society, they do so in appalling ignorance, with a maximum of empty stimulation. This is the post-Edward Bernays world.

The vulgarity of this decadent age. So? He rapes the corpse of JRR Tolkien and that's just fine if it earns a bauble and a penny?

That was a case of "resource constraint".

Exactly.

I AM one of those "small musicians and authors".

I would wager even odds that you are posting from the United States of America. I would not like to bet that you posted from the Happy Friendly Super Awesome Democratic Nation of North Korea.