On Thu, 2005-03-10 at 22:45 -0500, Paul M Foster wrote:
> If it weren't for the ability of the American free market economy to
> innovate (and improve productivity), the U.S. would have become Mexico
> long ago.
Well, I would argue it's more than that. Mexico, let alone many other
countries, allowed themselves to be ruled by the military. If there is
one, clear difference between the United States and _any_ other nation
on the planet ... our military has _always_ answered to a civilian
leader and _never_ done otherwise even once.
Our forefathers were absolutely brilliant on this and many other things.
> Tax cuts inevitably produce improved growth, productivity and
> investment for obvious reasons.
Especially income tax cuts. The overwhelming majority of discretionary
income is recycled into non-liquid investments -- it doesn't
discriminate based if ten people make $60,000 or on person makes
$600,000, the same dollar can do the same amount of good for our
economy.
Which is really what gets to me. People are so obsessed with "fair" (a
concept that leads to socialism) and what's "good" for them that they
forget it's really about what's _good_ for _all_ of us (i.e., our
economy).
> Implementation. American unionized wrench-twiddlers get paid far more
> than they're worth, with no real penalty for slow or poor quality
> production. Who cares if I make a crappy car? The union says you can't
> fire me, and you have to pay me five times as much as the guy who flips
> burgers, even though what I do is only about twice as difficult.
Unions are a perfect example of the concept of a public commons turned
into communism. Remember, the concept of socialism is only about 175
years old, and people still don't get the idea that you can't force
something that is even supposed "great" on someone else if they don't
want it.
People created unions to counter-balance abusive employers. It was a
common good created by _individual_ choice. People choose to work
together if they wanted, to get what they wanted.
Soon people though unions were so good that everyone should have to join
them. So it was no longer about individual choice, but mandate. They
lobbied and got "community rights." Now the balance was upset in favor
of unions.
So then the employers lobbied back to restrict the "community rights" of
unions, which created even more mandates, restrictions, etc... And now
we have a continuing lobbying effort of unions against business, lots of
waste, a total loss of what everything was all about.
Unions _only_ work when there is _individual_ choice, when people choose
to freely assemble. That's why these types of unions work in a
capitalist-democracy, because it's about individual choice and right to
assembly.
But when unions are mandated and people are forced to join, because
someone things they know better for you, and the resulting "community
rights" aka "communism" results, _everyone_ loses their individualism
and soverenty and it becomes about lobby and special interest. And
sadly enough, it hurts the original purpose of the union the most.
[ NOTE: I have the same arguments on Freedomware too. As Freedomware
gets mandated ("we know better than you"), it will become Commuware, and
the best things about Linux will be lost (largely through regulation and
counter-regulation). It must remain about individual choice. Enact
laws to promote open standards, software merits will win on their own.
To counter-lobby to so-called "even the field" against Microsoft will
only hurt those people who choose _good_ commercial software, as well as
those who don't want to have rules imposed on Freedomware development. ]
> The orientals and Europeans have a tough row to hoe in trying to sell
> automobiles in the American market. They have to do it better, or they
> might as well resign themselves to being purely regional (and small)
> manufacturers.
> I'm not surprised at Chrysler using foreign engines. It's axiomatic that
> a manufacturer will attempt to find the least expensive parts that do
> the job, including those from foreign countries.
The economy is global, everyone gets parts from everywhere else.
> It's kinda like those
> call centers in India. I can't blame American companies for doing this,
> given the expense (including regulatory expense) of American workers. I
> think it's a bad idea service- and PR-wise, but I understand the pure
> dollars and cents of it.
Outsourcing works the farther you move away from the American consumer.
If you outsource the core API, that's typically okay, technology at its
core is typically similar across languages.
Once you get closer to the user elements, that's going to cost you more
(in fixes once the outsourced code comes back) because the developers
don't understand the locale issues.
Once you get to customer service, forget it.
Other than "follow the Sun" 24x7 support, I think outsourcing customer
service costs everyone more.
-- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org ---------------------------------------------------------------- Community software is all about choice, choice of technology. Unfortunately, too many Linux advocates port over the so-called "choice" from the commercial software world, brand name marketing. The result is false assumptions, failure to focus on the real technical similarities, but loyalty to blind vendor alignments.
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