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Comment Re:Perspective (Score 1) 306

To put some perspective on your comment - although there are some ISPs which do have a cap of 15-30, or even 50gb ... there are also quite a few providers who offer a premium service with no cap.
Zen Internet is a good example - it costs a bloody fortune, but you can download however much you like. If the ISP offends you after, you can also leave with 1 months notice. There is also no secret cap that I am aware of - and I downloaded several hundred gigabytes in some months.
Virgin's cable service is also uncapped, and it is significantly cheaper, although I don't know if they have an secret cap like some ISPs do.

The difference between the UKs internet and the US's internet is that the UK has competition, and the US has monopolies and duopolies for service in a given area. We might have to pay more - but you *can* get what you want.

Comment Re:We told you. (Score 1) 303

This is *exactly* how the UK system for DSL works.
British Telecom administers the infrastructure, and many, many ISPs offer service through BT's lines.
It doesn't prevent some ISPs from having draconian policies, but there is certainly enough competition to have both restrictive and open policies. Cheap and expensive.

Internet service is not a natural monopoly/duopoly. It can be a competitive enviroment and fair to consumers.

And guess what it required - govenment legislation to remove BT's original monopoly on the telephone infrastructure.

Comment Re:Good luck with that (Score 1) 130

I do believe you just claimed that student loans (almost free education) was a bad thing...
Well, only in that making education 'almost' free is only 'almost' good enough.
But you can go to your happy place in the dark ages.

Anyone who believes that the average person should be *less* educated should be sent to a third-world country to reconsider how nice education is.

I do believe your post claims that both low-income jobs AND welfare should be thrown out, I appreciate your natural selection instinct, and think you'd be first against the wall when the revolution came. And it would come hard.

You've got to be a troll, right? Surely someone can't actually believe this crap and be capable of mostly correct spelling and grammar?
Hell, someone who believed that probably couldn't operate a light switch, much less a PC.

Comment Re:Well, we all know what to do... (Score 1) 359

Err...no.
Minimum wage means that the companies can't pay people less than subsistance for jobs, and can't take advantage of the fact that there are always more people than jobs - or at the very least it's a common situation.

Without minimum wage, companies can pay a pittance of a wage to the people already struggling to find employment, and can also abuse those workers with impunity, because a worker who can barely afford to pay for housing, food and electricity with a job sure as hell isn't going to quit unless they've got somewhere better to go to already.

The fact that immoral companies are willing to circumvent minimum wage by abusing workers without legal recourse does not make it fair to let them abuse all workers equally.

Comment Re:Holy shit. (Score 2, Insightful) 693

Solution: Minimum wage increase - if benefits are supposed to cover the minimum acceptable level of income for someone to live on (and that's certainly what they represent here in Oceania - erm, the UK) then full time employment should not be permitted to pay less than that.
Of course you could argue that would hurt the economy or some bullshit like that, but the fact is that $7/hour is a piss-poor wage and *that* is what makes people sit on the dole for a lifetime. Some of them probably are too lazy to work - but most of them are too lazy to work for less money, significantly less respect, and much more effort. Plus there are costs involved with working such as travel, eating at work, etc - in other words it's not the benefits that create the problem, it's the lower-class worker exploitation that $7/hour represents.
Plus, how much enthusiasm can you have for a job where the manager might fire you just because he's in a bad mood that day?

Comment Re:I totally agree (Score 1) 252

Wow, such a long post - virtually no content - one godwin, one '[Needs Citation]', one 'Muhaha I have money', one 'Go USA, screw the rest of you' and one argument that works against you more than for.
Oh yeah, that last one was your main point: if drug trials are so expensive, then maybe they should be government funded rather than paid for by companies, since everyone benefits from them.
And the real reason for your post is subtle, but there - you're just worried that socialist health care might make you a little communist (and are unaware that you already are a little communist, and a little socialist).
So yeah, my opinion is that people who can afford should share a little of that with those who cannot.
Your opinion seems to be that people who cannot afford should be seen and not heard.

Comment Re:I totally agree (Score 1) 252

What makes you assume people get their opinion on healthcare from the media - I get my opinion on the US's ludicrous healthcare from friends of mine who are victims of the system.
And these are normal, healthy people, who suffer from the same sort of occasional illness that I do - and yet they will avoid going to the doctors over some things they shouldn't because it can cost a fair bit, and because of how insurance works (premiums) and because on rare occasions some bureocratic mixup puts them in thousands of dollars of debt.
Everybody gets sick, everybody needs healthcare.
Don't charge the people who get unlucky and need healthcare more.
Don't charge the poor for the privilege of not dying - or else some of them will not be able to afford it.
The US healthcare system is fucked, evil and greedy, deal with it.

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