Comment Re:Capitalist flight (Score 1) 1142
Dang it! I screwed up the editing on that one. Hit the wrong button and submitted it before it was ready.
/me slaps himself upside the head with a dead fish.
Comment Re:Capitalist flight (Score 1) 1142
- Ballmer sounds like an unpatriotic ass. Perhaps /I'm wrong and he's a really nice guy, but not in this article. He's turning his back on the country that gave Ballmer opportunity to be where he is today. Industrialist Carnegie came from Scotland and loved the U.S., and maintained loyalty until his death. He would have never entertained the idea of moving factories to China for cheap labor.
It's a different world, though it's not really. Corporations and the powers that be want the world to be smaller with no borders so that they can have cheap labor and maximized profits. To hell with the people that buy their products. The idea is to become rich NOW and to hell with the future. - Raising corporat taxes doesn't affect the consumer as badly as you believe. Yes some prices get raised, but increased taxation also leads to more cuts internally like plastic desks instead of mahogany, fewer free trips to Vegas, snd so on.
Not at all true. I've been there, in the corporate setting where costs are cut and taxes (part of overhead) are rising. Prices go up and labor costs are cut. The big thing is labor. That is the largest chunk of overhead. If a company can offshore for cheap, it will. Taxes are lost, the government takes further action to regain that lost income (because they MUST spend, spend, spend), and the downward spiral continues. The key to survival, is smaller government and tariffs on imports and exports. In fact, that is the way the system was designed. In a perfect world tariffs would not be necessary, but this is far from perfect. It is full of greedy, selfish people who run the huge, powerful corporations. Completely free trade does not work when laws are not uniform across the board. If imports were taxed (tariffs) as they should be, we would not be having this discussion. - If California's standard of living drops, then wages will drop, and eventually the factories will move back here because WE will be the cheaper labor than the Chinese.
And we want this why? People are already hurting bad. I know because I am here. I was working in a lucrative industry with a very well paying job. I know many people who are losing house, property, family, everything. As the jobs go away, and wages suddenly drop, people go hungry. We are becoming a 3rd-world economy based upon service, and not production. Look around the world and it does not take a genius to figure out that this does not work. Outsourcing all labor and manufacturing, even for a short time (and it will) is extremely detrimental to us, the working class.
PGA
It's a different world, though it's not really. Corporations and the powers that be want the world to be smaller with no borders so that they can have cheap labor and maximized profits. To hell with the people that buy their products. The idea is to become rich NOW and to hell with the future. - Raising corporat taxes doesn't affect the consumer as badly as you believe. Yes some prices get raised, but increased taxation also leads to more cuts internally like plastic desks instead of mahogany, fewer free trips to Vegas, snd so on.
Not at all true. I've been there, in the corporate setting where costs are cut and taxes (part of overhead) are rising. Prices go up and labor costs are cut. The big thing is labor. That is the largest chunk of overhead. If a company can offshore for cheap, it will. Taxes are lost, the government takes further action to regain that lost income (because they MUST spend, spend, spend), and the downward spiral continues. The key to survival, is smaller government and tariffs on imports and exports. In fact, that is the way the system was designed. In a perfect world tariffs would not be necessary, but this is far from perfect. It is full of greedy, selfish people who run the huge, powerful corporations. Completely free trade does not work when laws are not uniform across the board. If imports were taxed (tariffs) as they should be, we would not be having this discussion. - If California's standard of living drops, then wages will drop, and eventually the factories will move back here because WE will be the cheaper labor than the Chinese.
And we want this why? People are already hurting bad. I know because I am here. I was working in a lucrative industry with a very well paying job. I know many people who are losing house, property, family, everything. As the jobs go away, and wages suddenly drop, people go hungry. We are becoming a 3rd-world economy based upon service, and not production. Look around the world and it does not take a genius to figure out that this does not work. Outsourcing all labor and manufacturing, even for a short time (and it will) is extremely detrimental to us, the working class.
PGA
Comment Re:Presumed innocent?? (Score 2, Interesting) 203
No. Laws are not made to convict the guilty, or to protect the innocent, they are made to administer justice in an otherwise unjust world. There is no such thing as security, and to remove rights and freedoms from the majority in the pursuit of more security from the few scum in society is a fools errand.
The true victims are those that believe all these "security" measures are indeed that.
Take DNA after convicted. Take fingerprints after conviction. Otherwise, leave them alone.
PGA
The true victims are those that believe all these "security" measures are indeed that.
Take DNA after convicted. Take fingerprints after conviction. Otherwise, leave them alone.
PGA
Comment Re:Presumed innocent?? (Score 5, Insightful) 203
It is unconstitutional. DNA is personal property and protected. A person is INNOCENT until proven guilty, not the other way around. The act of being arrested is NOT proof of guilt, and in no way removes the rights of the individual being arrested (except in the eyes of The Man, no one seems to have any rights but them).
So go ahead and collect DNA. You may eventually have everyone on record, but that's no big deal for most of us.
Who decides that it is no big deal? Who decides if you are a criminal or not (or me, or the guy down the street)? When government is allowed to take even the smallest step, it never stops and only uses that small step to build a long path to no rights for the People and more power for government.
If a person is found guilty of a felony, then and ONLY then can ANY of their rights be forfeit. In addition, the loss of rights must fit the crime.
PGA
So go ahead and collect DNA. You may eventually have everyone on record, but that's no big deal for most of us.
Who decides that it is no big deal? Who decides if you are a criminal or not (or me, or the guy down the street)? When government is allowed to take even the smallest step, it never stops and only uses that small step to build a long path to no rights for the People and more power for government.
If a person is found guilty of a felony, then and ONLY then can ANY of their rights be forfeit. In addition, the loss of rights must fit the crime.
PGA
Teachers Need an Open Source Education 440
palegray.net writes "Teachers are sorely in need of an education in what open source software is, what it isn't, and how it can benefit their students. A recent news story at the Reg discussed the case of a Texas teacher who accused those distributing Linux to students of committing criminal acts. A HeliOS blog entry exposes a 'higher education' culture of apathy, lies, and fear of open source software. Things have got to improve, and that improvement needs to start with misguided teachers getting their facts straight."
