Would you rather:

It's better when the government does it?

Could Nokia have a tablet in the works? If so could they release them with Ubuntu or would their Microsoft agreement limit them to Windows on those as well?

I believe that was actually more of an Inventory issue. The bubble burst - the economy sucked - gas was through the roof, and American car makers focused mostly on larger gas guzzlers. The number of 'new' cars already built that weren't going to sell that year was going to be a gigantic financial hit. They lobbied to help get those cars out of the way.

True, trade tariffs are really the only tool against this - but at some point I think economically it makes more sense to give up.

If a country is willing to subsidize a product and keep their people in complete poverty to a level that even after a big tax still beats our prices, then I say move on, buy the product and forget about it.

Think about it - if China wants to sell their Hankook tires at a price far below American tires with similar quality by taxing their own people then you can't win that battle. Buy their tires or make advancements far beyond Chinese tires. Yes it can/will hurt American jobs at first, but the entire country will be able to afford better tires at a cheaper price. We'll get more jobs elsewhere and our standard of living will improve off their poverty. The cotton gin destroyed thousands of American jobs as well - but everyone could afford a shirt. Advancements play out to be a positive economic move.

There are many economic situations that there are not easy solutions; in fact I'd argue we chase better solutions for indefinitely (i.e. financial regulations). We need to stop spending so much time and effort on problems with no solutions. Financial regulation will never catch up to the market. Name a time when the regulations were ahead of the market. Solution: put people in jail that steal/commit fraud/etc... Don't bail those out that fail. Done - move on.

Ron Paul is not a hypocrite for this - and I'm shocked at the lack of intelligence of Slashdot on this one.

The site was setup to profit from his name from day one. It doesn't matter if they 'fought' for the guy. Without his name the site and merchandise had no value. This is a strong trademark - something that acquired secondary meaning but would otherwise be nondescript.

You can try to argue that there are other Ron Paul's - which is true for the domain name, but the domain name value is all tied directly to the Ron Paul. They aren't generating sales and traffic because of Ron Paul the plummer.

I doubt Ron Paul's views often - but anything you specifically disagree with, look deeper, normally you'll find you were misinformed or confused.

No we shouldn't have them. It is a fine line, but aggressive driving always effects other traffic by definition. Even if you are the best aggressive driver out there it doesn't mean the people you affect are not going to get in accidents because of your 'waves' of change. There is no way to inform them, "Hey, I'm Mario Andriette, keep driving like I'm not even here, you'll be fine."

Now, if someone is driving on the phone but is indistinguishable from other traffic that should not be banned. If you rear-end someone because the reaction time was slow, then you are at fault. If changing the radio station was the reason it doesn't mean we should ban that as well.

If you are txting while driving I think you're an idiot. If you drive without a seat belt you're an idiot too. Call me a librarian but neither should be illegal. Freedom limited to 'smart' decisions only is no freedom at all. Not taking a bath, eating nothing but Milky Ways and watching TV all day isn't a good decision either.

While your numbers are actually correct (some electric motors can be high 90% efficient) you are missing a major factor.

If you think of gas as a battery (since it is simply stored energy), the amount of energy you get from 1 L ~= 35MJ
For 1 L of the best batteries you get ~1.3MJ

So even if the electric automobile was 100% efficient your still 5.4 times more efficient with gas (7MJ per/L versus 1.3MJ/L)

The all electric vehicle will not be the future.

Perhaps the model wasn't off by much, rather the rate of mac growth being so high that 16% is already a guarantee with the current adoption/switch-over rate.

The problem with the millionaire's surtax is your talking about a band-aid at best. The rich already pay the vast amount of taxes in this country. According to CNN 48% of people don't even pay federal taxes anymore. Even ignoring that - history shows the government will take in ~18% of GDP at the end of the day; no matter what they tax who. Think about how important that is - even if they tax the rich 85% - they'll still get the same amount at the end of the day. There are lots of reasons for that magic number - but some of it comes down to how much of their own money people want to keep at the end of the day. The more they are taxed the more they will hide, or they will make less. Would you work for 30 cents on the dollar - perhaps - but as hard as you'd work for 80?

The government really does have a spending problem only. Revenue is quite static; however the big trouble they got themselves into is their deficit spending. GDP is C + I + G +-exports basically. G (government spending) is a huge part of GDP, but government overspending is roughly 12% of our GDP. Think about that - 'fake demand' is really all it is.

If the government spends what they take in next year (which they should) our GDP will shrink 12% automatically. No one wants that - because that cycle gets worse - revenue goes down the year after and now they have to spend even less, etc...

Option 2 is what the President, most dems, and many repubs want - 'kick the can'. Now some are smart enough to know that only makes the inevitable worse. Some probably really do believe we can borrow more and more - even though to even stay at our current state we have to borrow 'exponentially' more every year. Run that through your head - to sustain our current economic situation (which isn't that good) we have to borrow at record rates - to the point where in 10 years we'll have to borrow as much as our entire country produces in one year - just to keep where we are.

Bottom line - we take the hit now and ride through it - or we ride it out until it collapses entirely.

Your argument is moot. We tax ourselves enough to fix every bridge/road/highway/tunnel in the entire world twice-a-year, but only 1% goes to the Department of Transportation. There are plenty of valid arguments out there for taxing more but please don't give me the 'we need better infrastructure' bit.

Also you can tax the rich all you want but history shows at the end of the day the government will pull in 18% of the GDP as revenue. No matter what the tax code has been they always end up with the same amount of income. They have to spend as much as they take in. Period. The worst part is that for the past 20 years roughly 10% of the GDP is actually them overspending; so think about that after ten years of that - they have pumped in an entire year of GDP of 'fake' demand. Money getting moved around creating jobs that are unsustainable - unless we borrow even more. Think about that - the housing market - electronics - services; anything and everything has been inflated by their overspending.

So here we are - best case scenario we smarten up and cut back by about 10% on government spending every year for 10+ years (under what they take in that is). Things will continue to get worse but we'll make it. The other scenario is we continue to play 'kick the can' or default. Some could argue the government should default as it was their fault for getting in this mess - but think about who gets affected; social security, medicare, infrastructure, pensions, etc... Do the banks or the rich lose anything? Those that benefited most by the pumping of the money in the system. Kicking the can is just as bad - as the fall becomes much much worse the longer we put it off. Oh, and it is all just math - nothing to do with political views - the math will balance out there is no question.

Give Microsoft credit - xbox live is setup/run extremely well. They had to compete with xbconnect, Xlink Kai, and other freebies back in the day; they stepped up and created a better alternative. Everyone was willing to pay for a service - as long as it was worth it. It was and still is.

The revenue has allowed them to build a better network and keep it up. I'm not claiming they too couldn't be hacked, just highly doubt it would be to this level.

True, but in the Enterprise environment they are essentially equivalent. You can't afford to run an unsupported OS if users are allowed on the internet.

It will be a sad day. XP, for its time, and everything into consideration, is probably the best OS we've seen - which is why people are still running it. It works/worked with more devices and applications that anything out there. It is user-friendly, but still had the win2000 tech aspects behind it. I think it really raised the bar, and it took years for Linux or OS X to surpass it as most useful OS.

If your house gets robbed my house can lose property value. What if I had let you borrow something?

You seem to think that you won't have to pay for the people that can't afford health insurance in the new system. I have news for you - you will always have to pay for the people that can't afford health insurance - one way or another - unless you deny them any type of treatment.

As for the freeloading assholes you speak of - they don't really exist in a way that this will fix any of it. Freeloaders exist in 3 ways - 1) they can afford it but choose not - 2) they cannot afford it period - 3) they could maybe afford it but they are fiscally irresponsible and don't save enough to do so. The #1's will pay when they have something done - you seem to think they get free care - they get a bill and if they have the money they will have to pay - if not you are talking about criminals, and everything will be taken from them. Oh and BTW, they will pay more than your insurance company does. #2 type freeloaders you will still pay for, period, get over it or deny them ER visits. #3's are assholes, but when they don't pay they become in group #2. You make it sound like they are driving beemers and I pay for their health insurance.

If freeloaders are driving up the price so much, then how come when it becomes mandatory the prices won't fall? It didn't in Mass, it didn't with the asshole car drivers in 48 states, it won't for the country. The higher taxes you speak of are for the buttloads of regulations that are added every year, along with the lawyers that make the real profits in the health care system. Of course those who can't pay bring up the amount, but nothing compared to those 2, and no more than you do if you have a couple kids.

Oh, and no chance the founding fathers would agree with you, or they would have put it in the constitution. "Life, Liberty, Health care coverage, and the pursuit..." I have no problem with a state doing exactly what this bill tries to do, but the Federal government was not given the right to make these changes 'within' the states, only among. Wouldn't you rather 50 chances at a good health system, instead of one - so if it fails we all suffer. Common Sense.

You can drive legally without car insurance, but only in two states. You should be able to choose to drive without car insurance.

Making car insurance mandatory has not lowered rates as far as I know in any of the 48 states.

I get amazed at how many people are not for 'freedom' in things like this. I may be an idiot if I don't have insurance, but that should be my choice. If I'm mid twenties making ok money, then I should be able to risk not having car or health insurance if I want. Lets say I want out of my current situation, save up, start my own business; well health insurance can very easily run me dry - especially if my company doesn't cover much or any, and I can get stuck where I am. Odds are for 3-4 years I can go without it and not need it even once. In 4 years I can save up a lot. If in those 4 years I need something, I pay for it, if I don't my credit gets totally screwed and I lose everything I've been working for; so I might take out a loan and pay it off. On top of that I get a worse price than a health insurance company does - so unless I default then I don't hurt the system. I don't use any of 'your' money. If it is something drastic that costs me hundreds of thousands of dollars, then yes I can't pay all that off and you will pay for it - the system will pay for it; however if you or I with insurance also have something of that magnitude then other people will also pay for it. In my lifetime I will never put that much money into the system, so having a child or two can easily put you in a position where the insurance company has paid more for you than you will ever put in.

The argument you, and many others make, is a very poor argument; but unfortunately usually wins out in politics. It is very similar to an alarm system on a house. Do you know anyone that would argue that an alarm system is a bad idea? anyone? Yet how many people do you know have one? According to your argument for the better good the state, heck the Federal government, should make it mandatory for every house to have an alarm. Everyone will be safer that way, you can't argue against that - its perfect f'd up logic that totally forgets the principles that this country was founded on and has made us ahead of the rest of the world. Some people prefer Universal Canadian Health care, this country was not founded by people that felt that way. People didn't get in boats from Europe to come over here for Universal Health Care, they came for freedom. I'm afraid too many generations have past and we have forgotten just that.

Long-term the gaming industry was something they didn't want to miss. The xbox got in there at just the right time. In another 10 years you'll see other companies trying to get in one way or another. It's definitely nice when you are a large enough company that you can take a loss for years, just so you don't miss the boat - which also lowers prices for the consumer.