The argument that "business" should not have to do anything with disabled people as they create costs is particularly concerning. It means exclusion from most of the workings of the world as "business" is what is supposed to run the world. Another problem is the rather nasty attitudes about placing blame and the hyperbole about wanting to deny others their ability. It's the sort of paranoia out of Ayn Rand really, and the most aggressive people might actually be able to justify things I'd rather not contemplate, if they come to the conclusion that we're living "undeserved" lives.

It is quite a feat that it's nearly enough to radicalize me, and I'm a guy who is mostly interested in things "working" in general, and am even amenable to arguments that SOMETIMES it MIGHT be true that some of the complaints of the other side may have merit, and that not quite everything is necessary. But then again, I already give up on a lot of things, even though they may not understand it.

Guess what, an even better idea would be to put them into these huge institutions where everything could be centralized so there is not even a need for transporting them anywhere...

And now that the cost center is well defined, the taxpayer can have complete control over the finances!

What would you have done in case of catastrophic illness, or was that just a risk you were willing to take?

There is a logic to it.

- Pure market solution would not provide for this
- Market solution with "guidance" is wrong as it interferes with the pure market solution
- Government solution is wrong because it taxes people, but at least people see how they are being manhandled by government. It is also a worse solution, so we still prefer it because it is.... worse.

Not necessarily. If the majority of people agree that, say, accessibility is desirable, be it whether they pay through taxes or some "hidden" cost, then it remains to decide what is the best way to implement the goal.

If it is then agreed that the best way to get disabled people included in the world is to make sure that competition does not mean accessibility is sacrificed, then they might not be interested in getting this "tax signal" at all.

I am not sure if, if one really seeks a solution that inclusively works in the real world, you can break up these kinds of costs into separate components that you could then just tax people with. They just need to be a part of the big picture in a way that you can't just constantly "re-evaluate" in terms of whether they in particular have now become "too expensive".

Integration into the services on the overall market is just simply more efficient. Certainly the cost is passed on to the consumer, but the providers will just keep on improving how they do whatever they do... this improves the entire service, accessibility included.

The problem with that kind of reasoning is that most services in society actually are provided by private businesses, and rightfully so, as that kind of an arrangement comes with various benefits that you are certainly aware of. Not only is access inclusive, it will, in the long term cause the services to actually improve according to just who happens to do things better. We can of course discuss what the actual market mechanism is that is used to send the appropriate signals -- it does not need to be as ludicrously heavy-handed as some slashdot posters would like to make it sound like.

I fail to see how some separate government arrangement is, in the modern world, any different from shoving disabled people back into bureaucratic institutions -- and at that point it is all too easy to start reducing the so-called "necessary" tax amount to maintain even that.

At least over here in Europe I mostly do not see this kind of concern from businesses or business-minded individuals. The attitude mostly is that this is just something that is taken out of competition by just agreeing to take care of it, if by some kind of agreed upon standards if needed, and that's it.

Ah, very well. But the "essential" stuff is still in Advanced Technologies.

No they didn't. They have licenses to keep making phones, but the IP belongs to Nokia. It was most specifically left out of the deal.

If you could sell your manufacturing etc capability for $7B and then move back in in a very lightweight way, the answer would probably be "yes". I do not really think Nokia should be going back into phones but if they can license the brand in this way, why not.

The IP was kept by Nokia, it was just licensed to MS. As a shareholder I am quite glad the floundering phone business was offloaded the MS before it sank the company. Currently Nokia has cash, is profitable, and is well-positioned in the networks business... not bad in my view.

In hindsight, I am actually starting to feel that the Microsoft move was the right one exactly so that Nokia could make their handsets a takeover target. Devices were quickly becoming commoditized; Nokia had not managed to create a content ecosystem; and as yet another Android manufacturer they could not have brought much more to the table than companies like Samsung.

Of course WP hasn't taken off, but that Nokia managed to offload its handset business to MS in time was genuinely a positive thing for for company. Most importantly the patents were kept in the company, and the networks business seems to actually have more future growth potential for a strong engineering company than rectangles any Chinese firm can churn out at massive quantities.

I'm a happy shareholder since 2012.

Incidentally, I just today read an article about some Finnish developers with experience developing big game titles in Silicon Valley. They had been thinking about where to set up their own business, and they chose to return to Finland. The reason to this is that despite pay being much higher in the US, the cost of living can also be high and things like daycare and education for kids are both superior and cost-effective here, despite them being paid through taxes. They even argued that the infrastructure we get through taxation should be a draw for knowledge-workers, especially if they're planning on a family.

I don't know about the American style of government, but the government-waste meme is not a natural law. Then again I fail to see how you could ever get to the point where we are in things like public education, as that would require individual steps to be taken that would be resisted as "Socialist".