You are correct, you can get developers cheaper overseas. However, what most people don't realize, is that their interests do not align with yours. Employees in your company are interested in getting the job done. Employees of an outsourcing firm are interested in fulfilling the terms of their contract. These two things do not always line up. An employee of your company is willing to go the extra mile to get the job done. An employee of an outsourcing firm will be told to go home, as long as the company is within its terms of the contract. We've got an outsourcing contract with [redacted] right now. Our contact says that non-production support has a 3 day SLA. Getting the test environments up and running before a production deployment is non-production support. Getting a new environment up is not easy, there are all kind of things that can go wrong. Our db got corrupted, and we need to go back to a copy? Should only take a couple of hours. Takes three days. Every time.

...in one of the most conservative nations on earth. See? I can make logical fallacies too.

This is the same state that saw the suicide of Megan Meier.That incident got a lot of lawmakers here thinking about how to protect kids online.There is a lot of stuff in the law: about how schools have to have written policies regarding social networking, requiring background checks, etc. This line is the one that is too vague: Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student.

However, imagine you are a lawmaker, and a bill arrives on your desk with that line in it, but also these:

SECTION 168.021 - In order to obtain a teaching certificate, an applicant must complete a background check as provided in section 168.133.

SECTION 168.071 - The crimes of sexual contact with a student while on public school property as well as second and third degree sexual misconduct are added to the offenses for which a teacher's license or certificate may be revoked.

Are you really going to vote against this law?

No argument with any of that. Yet, when you levy a tax, behavior will change, whether you intend it or not. I'm just saying acknowledge that fact, and try to use it to society's benefit.

No reason we can't reduce the income tax rate to offset the increase. Whether we should is another matter, and debatable.

Look at the article title, dumbass. Don't jump down my throat for continuing the conversation. Prick.

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1

Good point, and well put.

Sales tax is not a fair tax. You want a fair tax, you want APT. Sales taxes disproportionally hit the lower classes. APT is income agnostic. If you are serious about fair taxation, you should really check it out.

Awesome, ty. :)

I'm not sure what your issue is, unless you are one of those "all taxes are bad, mmkay?" loons. Some taxes are necessary for a functional government. Any taxes you levy will influence behavior. Why not be intelligent about how you do it?

Good for you. What should we tax then? Any tax you levy is going to change economic behavior. Why not change it in directions that benefit society?

I'm a firm believer in using the tax code to influence behavior. Tax the snot out of them. Considering that my house is entirely lit by canned lighting on dimmer switches, an incandescent ban means I basically have to rewire my house - fluorescent dimmables just don't work. If they were heavily taxed - to the point of being slightly more expensive that the fluorescents - then I would have an alternative, while the majority of the market will still make the choice you want them to. Everybody wins.

And that was all well and good when a university education could be had for the price of a reasonable car. Today, putting my kid through an average level state school is going to cost me 6 figures, no joke. I've got a 4 year old, and I am being told I need to save A QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS to put him through THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI. Not Harvard, not Yale, Mizzou. If he wants to be an art major, he I wish him all the happiness and success in the world. I'm not paying for it.

That's an awfully rosy view of business. If business was so easy to change, I would have a choice of more than two internet providers. An entrenched business is just as hard to change as government - we are still waiting for Linux on the desktop, aren't we? I realize you are Libertarian, and this is like religion for you, but I state this unequivocally - there are some problems that are best solved by monopoly (government), and there are some that are best solved through competition (business). Health care is the perfect example. In every way, the profit motive in health care works against the patient. This holds true pretty much every place where the same outcome is desired for all "consumers" - where there is no way to compete on the product or service, so the only place to compete is on price. Health care, retirement security (not planning, but security), fire prevention, universal education...all of these functions are more efficiently served by government than business. In the long term, the inherent self interest of business always results in society being worse off, as business seeks to maximize profits regardless of consequence. See how that works? Absolutist positions are lazy thinking. Ideology is only good for getting people killed; it rarely is effective at solving real problems.