Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Thanks for making so crystal clear exactly what you are and how you think. I prosper by being of service to others, who voluntarily pay me for perceived value in excess of my cost. Every transaction has two winners. Every person with whom I deal is special, I'm just a guy trying to be of value to others. Don't know where you come off with your assumption of arrogance.
I deeply value and appreciate the giants whose shoulders we stand on, and fully understand our history. I love the progress we have made in cleaning the air and water--I just don't think we should go on and on to further extremes so that we end up broke, freezing and starving in the dark. I think it is particularly stupid to push uneconomic "green" stuff that will be unstoppable anyway, once it becomes economic.
I also have a deep understanding for where your extreme collectivist philosophy will take us. No thanks. And by the way, lest you mistake things, this is not an argument against roads, bridges, garbage collection or the need to pay for them.
Without federal funding for numerous green projects, the private sector would never pick them up because they have no immediate marketable value. If it wasn't for government spending, we wouldn't have lasers, which are innumerable objects today and our world would be very different without them. The entire concept was nearly discarded because nobody saw a profitable use for them.
You seem to forget that business are in the business for one reason--money. If something can't make money, you don't invest in it. No businessman has ever taken a real risk in the past fifty years.
You know, the trouble with extremist positions is that they don't allow for common sense. There is extreme Right and Left, and neither get the job done properly if left to their own little collectives.
You seem so hopelessly enamored with government spending, you fail to grasp what could possibly supply that funding. For sure, there are many projects from dams to bridges to telecommunications to carbon fiber that government took a valuable role in. But Government WORKS FOR US, we don't work for government. You seem lost in this rather obvious fact.
If not for people taking risks, if not for hard-working people rising above all else to get ahead in their lives, doing their daily work, government would not exist. There's a reason the United States doe not have a man like Putin in charge. If you think government is the be all and end all, then I suggest some fine reading about countries where that truly is the case.
Ask your local homeless how many of them are on the streets because they couldn't make a business work. I get the feeling your number will be in the range of zero.
Those "huge risks" are written off with bankruptcy. Most busness that fail as such are because of mismanagement, and that's not a risk--that's poor planning and management.
Thanks, I get it. We are too far apart to even communicate. The government totally owns you and you like it, and you believe it owns everybody and they should like it. You see no role for individual differentiation except to attribute defects to business people. And you love, love, love Barack Obama. Spread your views as widely as possible, at least up until Election Day.
I guess all the business owners would have come together to fight ze germans and the japs. Oh, and all those other wars. Oh yes, we owe everything to our corporate overlords.
They would, the same way they fought the British. You forget that history of this country started with rejection of the government. You forgest that big swaths of this country were explored by adventurous people who did not wait for the government to form official expeditions. You forget about Minutemen, Alamo, volunteers and everything else that made this country great.
I bet three hundred years ago there were people like you arguing that the King of England is not that bad. He may be taxing us senseless but look at the security British soldiers provide, look at the roads and cities His Majersty government built with our tax money, look at the bigger picture. We need the King to survive. We should all just shut up, pay our taxes and be greatful God gave us the King, someone who knows better and can show us the way.
You see, complacent, gutless people like you have always been a problem, 300 hundred years ago and today. Unfortunately today there is more and more people like you and less people who would rather take things into their own hands. That's exatly why we are failing.
You seem to forget that business are in the business for one reason--money. If something can't make money, you don't invest in it. No businessman has ever taken a real risk in the past fifty years.
Oh man.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
Ask your local homeless how many of them are on the streets because they couldn't make a business work. I get the feeling your number will be in the range of zero.
Those "huge risks" are written off with bankruptcy. Most busness that fail as such are because of mismanagement, and that's not a risk--that's poor planning and management.
No, that still constitutes a risk. Business is the combination of a number of things which can not be separated in such a way.
Any business failure is the result of poor execution in some area or another.
I don't buy into this theory that success and failure are the results of "luck" or the lack thereof. A business loss can be the result of poor management, but this is simply a function of misjudgment of one's ability to perform a function essential to the business. No different than any other fundamental business error.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
A risk is taken against chance. If you do everything right, make a risk, and chance fails you, you've taken a risk. If you do everything wrong, and you fail, that's not a risk. If you're gambling your house and personal finances on a business, and you get put out on the street do to a risk, you've taken a real risk. If all you had to do was sign off some bankruptcy forums--you haven't taken a risk. Nothing was ever truly at stake.
Read what you are quoting.
"You might want to plug into reality every once in a while. No businessman has ever taken a real risk in the past fifty years? Are you familiar with the failure rate of businesses? Do you know that the typical small business failure wipes out the owner's personal finances, often costing him or her their home, their savings, and retirement accounts? Most businesses are undertaken with huge risks to the owners."
I would hope it is not your contention that bankruptcy is some type of magical button that allows you to recoup any and all money and time you've invested into your business. Even if it was, somebody paid for it (your creditors). So he was right, and if he was wrong, he was still right.
Hell, discard everything else and you're still looking at tens, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of time spent.
Starting any business is a risk, as those of us who are plugged in already know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
The U.S. copyright protected the works of individuals and their inventions of the time.
Nobody here has argued against copyright law or anything remotely similar.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
The infamous intercontinental railroad bridged the East and West of our growing nation. It was Jefferson that sent out Lewis and Clark. That same government and individual helped pen the Constitution which protects your very freedoms.
More recently, you have the internet, which wouldn't exist without the design and protocols created by ARPA and its ARPANET protocol, all federally funded.
You wouldn't have it with the ARPANET protocol, which underpins the entire history of the internet. The "basic" research you talk about? It's the nonmarketable theoretical research you often seen done by the groups like DARPA and NASA--both federally funded.
Which has ballooned to something that makes the primitive "internet" look like a 6 year old's science project. Yes, the government was involved in the birth of the internet, but these are not things that would just never have been invented, the use is and was apparent.
But hey, I'll concede that the government planted the seed that was the internet, once you concede that 99% of what we know as the internet now was developed by people like me. The government is the client now, to the tune of billions of dollars a year.
What I find ironic is that most of this great technology originally developed by the government was done for defense, the only category of spending that liberals would cut without throwing a tantrum.
No, they'd rather spend money on food stamps and social justice. Then when it's time to argue, they'll start talking about "investment" in roads, bridges and internets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
And then you have "private" enterprises which soak up federal research grants left and right because they alone can't pay for the expense of research.
Can you name Intel's competitors without looking it up, or even cite the R&D budget for Intel, AMD, or ARM?
Not that this is some type of knowledge test on microprocessor manufacturers, but Intel spends about 6.5 billion on R&D, every year. AMD's total revenue last year was... about 6.5 billion. ARM pales in comparison to either.
To put that in perspective, Intel's revenue in 2011 was a little over 50 billion. So yes, I would assume that Intel vastly outspends AMD on R&D.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
Cite it. Last I checked, Intel is in the business of making fat loads of cash, and they do that through inventions of microprocessor manufacturing--all of which is marketable.
Yes... many years down the road, as he said. New microprocessor architectures (not to include anything even close to revolutionary) take a good 3-5 years to design.
That's farther down the road than would interest any politician I can think of.
And again, that 3-5 years is just for a new processor architecture. Nothing revolutionary or even notable just a few years later. I've love to get one of these for my laptop. Announced in 2007 and I still can't find one on eBay.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
ITS NOT BASIC RESEARCH. That undermines the entirety of what both federal government programs, and federal funding have done. Novel research has been done, not just this insulting basic research you are so nebulous about.
I'm assuming we're talking about the internet? It's basic research if viewed in context. The internet as it exists now was developed 99% by the private sector.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
That's a role of government, genius. Our government spends billions on items that are not directly economically viable. Not everything can, will, or is supposed to make money. Your infrastructure isn't supposed to make money. It's an expense. Your see the ROI by providing power to more people.
This is funny. What does ROI stand for again?
You're contradicting yourself in a major way here. On one hand, infrastructure is good because it provides a good ROI. On the other hand, government is good because it doesn't care about meany capitalist stuff like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
How many of those companies used federal loans and grants to start their businesses? Would you like to guess? Or perhaps the tax-deductions they get for being a certain type of business?
Interesting. Apparently, even your divine government has determined that in these cases, investing in those businesses will actually be a net positive in the long run.
Really though, this is not about the abolition of government and any and all investment that goes along with it. Unfortunately for you, as you would like to make it about that.
It's about an outlook on innovation and the engine that keeps this country going. Which I would say is primarily business. Government exists only because citizens (many of whom own businesses) have found that it is more practical to pool resources to accomplish certain tasks.
It is a result of society, not a creator of one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
Money has no ethics, why do you entertain the idea that people who are looking to hoard money would have any ethics to go with it?
GAH!!! EVIL CAPITALIST PIGS!!!
Who said money had ethics? Answer: Nobody said money had ethics.
Who said people who are looking to hoard money had ethics? Answer: Nobody even said people or businesses themselves had ethics.
Please, read again, slowly.
"This is a system that requires us to be of value to the rest of society, a moral ethic that no other economic system has."
Not a complicated point, and dead on if you drop the emotion actually take the time to and understand it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
The grocer has to con as much money as possible from every passerby. If part of that con is convincing the passerby that he "cares," so be it. But there is no ethics in raw business. It's an oxymoron.
The grocer will be more successful the more value he provides to others. This is simple fact. Sure, he can be a con man, but screwing over your customers usually doesn't end too well. In the long run, you'll probably make more by giving people what they want, no?
That's why it works.
Is your grocer a con man?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
Literally everything you enjoy is in one way or another tied to the government. You cannot escape it.
They are... the borg.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
The government funds billions in research every year. The government helps develop and maintain the infrastrucutre that nobody profits from.
What happened to ROI? If there is no net profit from infrastructure spending, why do we do it again?
If there is no ROI in an investment, it's a bad investment, period.
A risk is taken against chance. If you do everything right, make a risk, and chance fails you, you've taken a risk. If you do everything wrong, and you fail, that's not a risk. If you're gambling your house and personal finances on a business, and you get put out on the street do to a risk, you've taken a real risk. If all you had to do was sign off some bankruptcy forums--you haven't taken a risk. Nothing was ever truly at stake.
Really? When you mortgage your house and use your life savings to fund a business it is not a risk?
When you lose you life savings and your house how is banckruptcy going to help you? You haven't started a business in your life, have you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
More recently, you have the internet, which wouldn't exist without the design and protocols created by ARPA and its ARPANET protocol, all federally funded.
ARPANET is not a protocol But how would ARPA develpped internet if it wasn't for privately developed UNIX, transistors or microchips? How would they do it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
You can't escape the grasp of government in any nation which has one, regardless of type, because it represents....
We did, we sent the British and government of the King Of England home.
Remember?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
Nobody saw a use for lasers back in the fifties, which is why nobody but the British government wanted to fund the research departments responsible. Intel can easily see a use for quantum computing, which is why they have been competing with IBM to develop chips.
Laser was developed by Bell Labs and Hughes Labs. What British government has to do with anything here?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
Literally everything you enjoy is in one way or another tied to the government. You cannot escape it.
Hilarious. How was the government involved in developemnt of the first car or a first plane? How was the government involved in a development of a first transistor? Telephone?
Agaian, hilarious
Quote:
Originally Posted by Konraden
The government funds billions in research every year. The government helps develop and maintain the infrastrucutre that [i]nobody profits from.
Yes it does but only because business owners pay their taxes and give employment to people who pay theirs.
Let me guess, are you a postal worker who watches PBS from time to time?
There is not much value in your wirtitings but often you mention something you heard about get all wrong later on.
Retired postal worker?
Context is irrelevant. The issue is the statement Obama made which was pointed out by the OP on this thread. No matter what Obama said before or after, it is still wrong. Wrong is wrong no matter else was said.
The understanding of context is what separates someone with a strong but reasonable opinion from someone who's just being a dick.
The understanding of context is what separates someone with a strong but reasonable opinion from someone who's just being a dick.
And sometimes their true ideology comes out when they talk off the cuff.
"An unelected group of people" is how he described the Supreme Court in an off the cuff statement.
How much respect does that statement show he has for the highest court in the nation ?
You see, he left out some key words in his remarks that would have let those statements go unnoticed.
What if he said this:
"You didn't build that by yourself. Somebody else helped you make that happen."
That's pretty clear and straightforward. No need to go taking out ads to explain yourself.
No need for debate over "context".
Most times the "real person" comes out when talking off the cuff and not parroting a speech someone else wrote.
Ask your local homeless how many of them are on the streets because they couldn't make a business work. I get the feeling your number will be in the range of zero.
Those "huge risks" are written off with bankruptcy. Most busness that fail as such are because of mismanagement, and that's not a risk--that's poor planning and management.
A risk is taken against chance. If you do everything right, make a risk, and chance fails you, you've taken a risk. If you do everything wrong, and you fail, that's not a risk. If you're gambling your house and personal finances on a business, and you get put out on the street do to a risk, you've taken a real risk. If all you had to do was sign off some bankruptcy forums--you haven't taken a risk. Nothing was ever truly at stake.
The U.S. copyright protected the works of individuals and their inventions of the time. The infamous intercontinental railroad bridged the East and West of our growing nation. It was Jefferson that sent out Lewis and Clark. That same government and individual helped pen the Constitution which protects your very freedoms.
More recently, you have the internet, which wouldn't exist without the design and protocols created by ARPA and its ARPANET protocol, all federally funded.
You can't escape the grasp of government in any nation which has one, regardless of type, because it represents the codified laws of the society that harbors it.
You wouldn't have it with the ARPANET protocol, which underpins the entire history of the internet. The "basic" research you talk about? It's the nonmarketable theoretical research you often seen done by the groups like DARPA and NASA--both federally funded.
And then you have "private" enterprises which soak up federal research grants left and right because they alone can't pay for the expense of research.
Can you name Intel's competitors without looking it up, or even cite the R&D budget for Intel, AMD, or ARM?
Cite it. Last I checked, Intel is in the business of making fat loads of cash, and they do that through inventions of microprocessor manufacturing--all of which is marketable.
Nobody saw a use for lasers back in the fifties, which is why nobody but the British government wanted to fund the research departments responsible. Intel can easily see a use for quantum computing, which is why they have been competing with IBM to develop chips.
ITS NOT BASIC RESEARCH. That undermines the entirety of what both federal government programs, and federal funding have done. Novel research has been done, not just this insulting basic research you are so nebulous about.
That's a role of government, genius. Our government spends billions on items that are not directly economically viable. Not everything can, will, or is supposed to make money. Your infrastructure isn't supposed to make money. It's an expense. Your see the ROI by providing power to more people.
But to sit there and expect those EHV lines to generate money is asinine. Research falls into that category regularly because not everything we discover is marketable. What's the marketability of learning the smell of space?
How many of those companies used federal loans and grants to start their businesses? Would you like to guess? Or perhaps the tax-deductions they get for being a certain type of business?
I didn't say it was, but don't let that stop you from setting up the strawman.
George Will is about as useful as a bucket of broken *******s, but I'm utterly perplexed you read this story and took it at face value. Upon reading about an indictment for material false witness, something smelled fishy.
But considering the case is still ongoing, and neither party is at liberty to fully disclose the case, we'll hae to do what we always do--wait.
Money has no ethics, why do you entertain the idea that people who are looking to hoard money would have any ethics to go with it?
The grocer has to con as much money as possible from every passerby. If part of that con is convincing the passerby that he "cares," so be it. But there is no ethics in raw business. It's an oxymoron.
sigh.
Literally everything you enjoy is in one way or another tied to the government. You cannot escape it.
The government funds billions in research every year. The government helps develop and maintain the infrastrucutre that nobody profits from.
I guess we don't want power to our homes, or new technology in which to better our lives.
If you're so short sighted to see the power of alternative renewable energy sources, I can't help you. I'm going to go down a water slide instead, that'll win me this argument.
"I get the feeling", sums up your entire philosophy. No facts, no real info just feelings.
Instead of making gross uninformed statements, why Don't you do SOME research so you can discuss an issue with some substance?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
