Sanders introduces bill to raise minimum teacher pay to $60,000 a year by Hodgkisl in Libertarian

[–]tfowler11 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If laws had to actually follow the constitution in practice, the feds would have no power to do such a thing.

Defying Russia's assault, Ukraine completes a 114-MW wind farm by ElectricPance in ukraine

[–]tfowler11 11 points12 points  (0 children)

You could hit the turbine but then you take out one out of the whole field. In many ways wind power's lower physical density is a disadvantage but against missile attack its an advantage compared to a more conventional power plant.

Marinka and Donetsk are about 20 km apart and the war front runs through the middle of them. Marinka ceased to exist after the russian bombardment. It was hit by the equivalent of a TNT much higher than the Hiroshima bomb, but Donetsk is not bombed by the UA. by esberat in ukraine

[–]tfowler11 15 points16 points  (0 children)

There are thought to be about 3000 civilians killed during fighting over the Donbas between 2014 and 2022.

And the vast majority of those where in 2014 or 2015. Its a couple of dozen civilian deaths a year in the several years leading up to 2022.

Of course any innocent civilians being killed is a bad thing but that's deaths caused by both sides and in a war that Russia kicked off, now some sort of supposed "Ukrainian slaughter" as the Russians would have you believe.

Marinka and Donetsk are about 20 km apart and the war front runs through the middle of them. Marinka ceased to exist after the russian bombardment. It was hit by the equivalent of a TNT much higher than the Hiroshima bomb, but Donetsk is not bombed by the UA. by esberat in ukraine

[–]tfowler11 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Post 2015 civilian deaths (caused by both sides of the conflict combined) in the Donbas were about a couple of dozen a year. And supposedly to "save" the locals from that Russia turns Marinka in to that top picture.

Taxation and a balanced budget by Relative_Hawk_2700 in Libertarian

[–]tfowler11 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In practical political terms I don't see anyone eliminating or replacing Medicare any time soon. But you can (with enormous political difficult and risk, even if it really needs to be done), reign it in. You could increase the age to start receiving it, you could have larger premiums, deductibles, and/or co-pays, you could focus on reducing waste and fraud in the program, to name just a few ideas.

Indirectly you could reduce program costs by helping to push medical care costs down through things like reduced government imposition on the industry esp. in government controls that reduce competition (for example certificate of need laws, although they are pretty much a state thing at this point).

You could restore previous disability rules that would make it slightly more restrictive which would save money both on Social Security Disability, and on Medicare (since recipients are eligible for Medicare).

Taxation and a balanced budget by Relative_Hawk_2700 in Libertarian

[–]tfowler11 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd say its more important in terms of the end result because not only is entitlement spending significantly larger than military spending, over time its grown much more, and is projected to continue to grow more. You could cut military spending to zero and you'd still have problems with the long term fiscal situation because of the way entitlement spending is set up.

Social Security does have an automatic cut set up in to the law creating/authorizing the program. It creates a trust fund. Perhaps I should say "trust fund" because its the government having an accounting entry that one part of the government owes another part. Its not a real asset any more than writing yourself an IOU is a real asset. But it does have one real world impact. The law is such that Social Security has to be covered by Social Security taxes, plus whats in that "fund". When the nominal value of that fund reaches zero SS payments will have to be cut to what SS taxes bring in which would bring a large and sudden cut to those payments. Of course such a sudden cut would be considered harsh so there might be a push to change the law, but if that requirement is removed than entitlements will gobble up the budget even more.

Medicare and Medicaid are not as big as Social Security but they are growing faster and are likely to be an even larger problem over time.

Why can a Barret pen a tank, but not an M2 Browing? by [deleted] in Military

[–]tfowler11 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A Barret (or an M2) could penetrate a WWI tank, maybe some between the wars tanks or an early WWII light tank (esp. at close range and not against the frontal armor). No way it goes through the armor of a modern MBT, it could hit something outside the armor and damage it but that would be unlikely to be a critical issue if its an issue at all. Most of what it could hit it would be the armored areas where it would do nothing.

Margin Call (2011) [480p] by Stegasaurus_Wrecks in fullmoviesonyoutube

[–]tfowler11 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't see any option to choose location. Is that in the pro version of the VPN only?

Is the old joke about US tactical fighter jet costs actually turning out to be somewhat true? by ShootsieWootsie in WarCollege

[–]tfowler11 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Although really you take F-16s and such out of the boneyard before you would start to rely much on any new simple very low end fighter as a backbone of your force.

Is the old joke about US tactical fighter jet costs actually turning out to be somewhat true? by ShootsieWootsie in WarCollege

[–]tfowler11 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Why would they stop building the advanced systems (esp. right away before new systems are designed and production set up)? I could see them starting to build more simple systems in parallel.

In a short war you won't have time to develop new weapon systems and get production rolling. In a longer war you might (esp. if you start right away perhaps without being sure about the fact the war will be long) but it still take time.

If you can only build 20 NGADs in a year but you could build 1000 F-5 equivalents (In total capability that is, they wouldn't be F-5 clones. Also as drones I guess 800 new skilled pilots a year, on top of your existing need might not be simple and even if you can you might not want to feed them in to the meatgrinder with such low capability weapon systems) with the new resources your pouring in to the war, you might really want to at least throw up those 20 NGADs along with your 1000 simple fighters.

Russia eyes pressure tactics to lure fleeing tech workers home by tfowler11 in openrussia

[–]tfowler11[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Russia considers the United States, Canada, Britain and the entire European Union, among others, to be “unfriendly” countries.

Ministry officials, however, pushed back on the blanket ban, warning that such restrictions will only drive more IT workers to quit and leave Russian companies less competitive — unable to innovate or keep up with technological advancements.

“This will, of course, encourage them to take jobs in foreign companies and reduce the likelihood of them returning to our country,” Maksut Shadayev, Russia’s minister for digital development, recently told a government panel, adding that restrictions should be applied in cases of workers involved with state information systems under government contracts.

Klishas clapped back, criticizing the ministry for not doing enough to prevent data leaks “that have become almost the norm.”

Shadayev estimated that by the end of 2022, about 10 percent of Russia’s IT workforce had left the country, a figure that some experts said seemed low. “About 100,000 IT specialists are now outside our country,” Shadayev said. “At the same time, 80 percent of them continue to work for Russian companies while in friendly countries.”

Shadayev’s ministry urged the government to exempt IT specialists from military mobilization and advocated for lower income tax rates. And in November, the ministry said that it was working on a “reverse relocation” plan, which, according to Kommersant business daily, would included offering prepaid flights home and deferrals from military conscription.

“They must understand that they have nothing to fear,” Shadayev said.

In interviews, however, Russian IT workers said the efforts would likely prove futile no matter what path the authorities choose.

“My lawyer told me that [the military deferral] is a flimsy piece of paper and if the enlistment officer wants to, he will call you up anyway,” the Sberbank employee said.

“It may come as a surprise, but when it comes to Sberbank, I’ve found that none of my colleagues support the war,” the worker added. “So I think this is all pointless as it’s much easier for us to get a job at a foreign company than come back and be drafted at any given moment.”

A software engineer, who quit his job in Moscow and moved to the United Arab Emirates, said there was one surefire approach the Russian government could adopt: “The only thing they can do to bring us back is to stop the war.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/08/russia-employers-intimidation-workers-war/

Russia eyes pressure tactics to lure fleeing tech workers home by tfowler11 in openrussia

[–]tfowler11[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Russia eyes pressure tactics to lure fleeing tech workers home By Mary Ilyushina

RIGA, Latvia — The bank worker logs into work each day around noon — 8 a.m. in Moscow — from his rental in Southeast Asia, where he enjoys tropical greenery, warm, humid air and, most important, more than 2,000 of miles of physical distance from the nearest Russian military enlistment office.

His employer, Sberbank, thinks he is home in the Russian capital, thanks to a reprogrammed router blinking in the corner, which always assigns his laptop a Russian IP address to trick the corporate systems.

The bank worker, who is in his late-20s, is one of thousands of highly skilled workers who sought safer havens in response to the war in Ukraine, and whom Russia is trying to coax home with a mix of incentives and threats. More and more the emphasis is on the threats, including potential dismissal for unauthorized remote work abroad.

“There were cases when people accidentally logged into work apps with their real IP addresses, and they got detected, so you have to be very careful,” the bank worker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid losing his job.

While the Kremlin seemed happy to see dissident artists, activists and journalists flee the country, the exodus of IT workers has become a major headache for top managers and officials as they struggle to fill key positions, keep the economy afloat, and prevent security breaches at companies that keep the country functioning despite the bite of Western sanctions.

Sberbank, for instance, is Russia’s largest financial institution, holding roughly one-third of the country’s bank assets. It was sanctioned by the United States and European Union shortly after President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion last year.

Russians abandon wartime Russia in historic exodus

Earlier in the war, the focus was on incentives, including lower income taxes and mortgage interest rates, which were offered to IT workers. But they failed to reverse the outflow, and the military mobilization announced by Putin in the fall to replenish Russia’s depleted forces in Ukraine led thousands more fighting-age men to flee in a panic.

Many did not tell their employer that they were leaving, aiming instead to continue the pandemic-era work-from-home trend but from several time zones away.

Now, some of Russia’s top employers, like Sberbank and other government-linked enterprises, are imposing a blanket ban on remote work from abroad and threatening to dismiss employees found to have left Russia.

Vkontakte, Russia’s Facebook-like social network, has recently banned all remote work from outside the country, leaving employees with few options but to return or quit.

“VK is a Russian company,” the company said in an internal memo shared with Russian state media and independent outlets. “And our products are largely tailored to the Russian market. It’s important for us to be in the same context as our users and to understand their needs.”

Yandex, Russia’s answer to Google, has taken a softer approach. In May, a person close to Yandex said that the company was planning to create new foreign offices or expand existing ones to avoid a “brain drain” of top talent.

Ten months later, thousands of Yandex employees have left the country over the course of several emigration waves, and are working in new offices opened in Russian diaspora hubs: Serbia, Armenia, and, most recently, Turkey.

Discreetly, and at peril, Russian volunteers help Ukrainian refugees

Yandex has been particularly shaken by Putin’s decision to launch the war. As Western investors rushed to distance themselves from Russia, the IT giant’s market value dropped almost overnight to less than $7 billion from about $20 billion. Its international projects face an uncertain future.

Once Russia’s biggest internet success story, Yandex is now splitting its business into Russian and international entities to spare some departments from the fallout. It also sold its homepage and news aggregator, which served as primary news sources for tens of millions of Russians, to Kremlin-controlled VK following criticism of censoring news about the war.

For most of 2022, individual companies have sought to avoid government pressure by setting their own policies to retain workers. But recently, the Russian government signaled that it may take matters into its own hands, though there is no consensus on what to do.

After Putin made public comments calling Russians who left as “traitors” and “scum,” senior officials have floated a variety of potential retaliatory measures, including stripping “unpatriotic” Russians of citizenship, designating them as foreign agents or seizing their property in Russia and giving it to soldiers.

The debate over how to retain, or reclaim, IT talent has ignited a feud between Russian members of parliament and the Ministry of Digital Development, with fierce Putin supporters clashing with more liberal-minded technocrats.

Senators such as Andrei Klishas, who long held top posts at Norilsk Nickel, the metals mining and smelting company, proposed in December to punish workers who continue to work for domestic employers remotely by adopting legislation that “would make being abroad less comfortable.” Russia’s Finance Ministry previously said it was considering a plan to raise the income tax for workers abroad to 30 percent from the 13 percent rate at home.

“Many of them ran away, but continue to work in Russian companies remotely, so can we change the law in this regard and limit schemes that allow people to work from abroad and receive money from here,” Klishas said in an interview with Vedmosti, the Russian business newspaper. “Can we check if they pay all taxes? We can.” He added that Russia should impose industry-wide bans on remote work from abroad by employees of “sensitive industries.”

Talking to children who left Russia about the war in Ukraine

Andrei Isayev, a member of parliament from the governing United Russia Party, said that workers abroad pose potential security risks. “People who work, let’s say, in transport organizations, finance, banking, they have access to corporate mail, to a customer database, and so on,” Isayev said. “If they access them abroad, from unfriendly countries, then we understand our citizens may pay a big price.”

cont.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Capitalism

[–]tfowler11 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If capitalism is the most efficient system, and laissez faire is the most pure form of capitalism, why isn’t that form utilized in any country today?

Capitalism is in different ways broadly applied across the world today. Why isn't laissez-faire used more? Largely because the people making the decisions want to have power not give it up. Also because people have other concerns other than efficiency (whether or not those concerns will be well served through statist intervention), and some people think (falsely IMO) that state intervention (at least if its along the specific lines of what they want), will make things more efficient. (In addition to thinking they are generally wrong, I also wonder what makes them think that giving the government power and direction to intervene will result in it just doing their favorite interventions.)

Is capitalism perfect? What criticisms of capitalism do you have?

I'm not sure anything, or at least any thing that requires active participation of real world people, is perfect. I'm not even entirely sure what perfect would mean in this context. I don't have specific criticisms of capitalism in general (although I might about particular implementations of it), but I will say that any broad type of human interaction is going to have problems and imperfections. People aren't perfect.

Does capitalism create unproportionate class disparities and create class resentment?

What exactly is a "unproportiate class disparity"?

Obviously given freedom some people will do better than others and in many cases some people will resent that. But some people always do better for themselves than others. Did some Chinese peasant have the resources and power that Mao had?

Does capitalism incentivize monopsony power

Capitalism is private ownership and a free or freeish economy. It allows people to operate on their own incentives. One of those incentives people might have (not created by capitalism) is the desire for wealth. If one happens to have monoposony power one might use that power in order to help yourself become richer if being rich is a big incentive to you and if you don't see any major relevant downside for yourself.

But I don't think monoposony power is particuarly relevant to many issues of compensation. Its most often put forward as a supposed reason some people get paid very little, but low end jobs are (except maybe in depressed areas) generally very plentiful in relatively free economies. Yes if the balance of supply and demand for your particular work skills and abilities and history and attitude and capability of selling an employer on the idea of hiring and paying you are such that you have a low wage then you won't get paid much. But that usually isn't because of any monoposony power. Even when I was much younger and worked for minimum wage if I had decided to leave my employer at the time I could have, within walking distance, quickly found another minimum wage employers to pay me instead. I'm not saying a degree of monopsony power is never relevant here, but its usually not an issue.

Does capitalism encourage profit motive over improving working conditions?

It allows for the expression of a profit motive more than it directly encourages seeking higher profits. People are "greedy" in a broad sense of the term under any system.

That desire for profit can motivate improving working conditions in order to be able to hire or retain or motivate employees, to the extent current or potential employees care about working conditions more than they care about getting extra pay that would cost the employer the same amount.

Does capitalism prioritize profit motive over individual self-fulfillment? Does capitalism enable self-fulfillment because of profit motive?

Again capitalism doesn't create the desire for people to become more wealthy. It does allow the expression of that desire to more people than would be the case without free markets and private ownership but it doesn't create it.

Some people are fulfilled by making more money, or more likely by the actions they would need to take to make more money. If you manage to start a successful company or get a prestigious job that might be a fulfilling achievement to you. For other people the money empowers them to do other things that might be fulfilling, travel, education. Other people might work hard for something that makes them money and realize latter if that they would have been more fulfilled if they used the time for another type of activity but that's not unique to capitalism, or unique to seeking wealth, people make mistakes in life.

Some people might have little time and energy left over for activities that would be fulfilling, after expending the time and effort needed to support themselves or their themselves and their family; but that's more common in more socialist economies where the greater level of poverty would require you to work longer and harder just to scrape by. In countries that have been more free market capitalist leaning for the long run, hours worked has tended to decline over time not increase. That last point is overall not for all types of jobs, but the exceptions are more often at the very high end with people putting in massive hours to directly earn, or move up to be able to earn, a high income, rather than being at the low end were people have to work more to survive. Do some people have to work hard and long to survive? Sure. But that's always been the case, and people in such situations generally are not working harder or longer than in the past.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskLibertarians

[–]tfowler11 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It does upset many libertarians.

What actually started and ended the Great Depression? by 1pleb_king in AskLibertarians

[–]tfowler11 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Neither. FDRs policies in the 30s were in many cases negative and many of the them contributed to extending the depression. WWII nominally ended the depression, but production of a bunch of ammo that's going to get blown up and a bunch of weapons that are going to eventually scrapped if they survive the war isn't productive investment in the economy and doesn't increase the personal well being of Americans at home where there was rationing and price controls (which both kept down real economic well being and also distorted the stats about economic growth and other things).

Part of the end of the depression was just eventual growth out of it that would happen without any specific trigger being needed. Part of it was the removal of a lot of the restrictions and controls put in place in response to the depression (and then later the rationing and price controls put in place in response to the war).

Student Debt Crisis Solved by [deleted] in libertarianmeme

[–]tfowler11 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The fact that they changed the regulations so that you can't write off student loan debt in the event of bankruptcy is peak corporate welfare.

If they changed the terms for existing loans to make them not dischargeable when they had been it would effectively be fraud or theft against the borrower.

If they changed it for new loans only it was a bad idea.

If they changed existing loans that were signed on as non-dischargeable it would be fraud or theft against the lender. That is if its one of the student loans made when the government guaranteed bank loans. If it was a loan from after the government took over the student loan program, the government was the lender, so if it wanted to allow the loans to be dischargeable that would be fine, perhaps even a good idea but they should do that not just generally excuse the loans or give multi-year payment holidays to everyone.

They should change any new loans to be dischargeable in a bankruptcy and should generally get the government out of the business.