I'm not touching that

If malware was just uploaded on my computer so help me god I will find you and murder you slowly with a rusty butter knife!

And if this is meant as a joke, it's not funny. It's totally not funny.

I guess I can play this on school :D

also. i want the Club3d Radeon HD5870

not only because it can sh*t out Crysis at a framerate of 25 with everything on max and on 3840x1080 (YES THATS TWICE FULLHD!) but also

it's putting the power and awesome of BATMAN in your pc




note - just the club3d version, other manufacturers put on sh*tty stickers:

Anyway crossfire or sli is pretty f**king ridiculous imo. you get to pay double to price to gain about 20-30% performance in the best of situations.. Whoohoo

the only reason it could work is if you for instance grab 2 gtx280 in sli.. but then again you would need a 1000W powersupply and a additional Gpu Power unit or you would most likely not be able to run both lol

so yeah unless someone have about 2000$ to spend on his gpu then its pretty useless imo

yes crossfire and sli etc are ridiculous, but this thing doesnt need it. i'ts built with 2x gtx285 anyway ant it only pulls about 175 watts at full load (which is a lot but manageable, standard vidcard is like 100 i think)

anyhoo, not like i was gonna buy it, €349(=$511) is too steep for me, i buy stuff that costs half. Stupid americans get it for $379.99. you pay like 40% less for everything.

And on that note. How come signals go across the globe that america is being poor and such? I've checked average wages and those are higher then in the Netherlands, but stuff costs less?

Don't bring up its that it's a big country and you drive further. Gas costs 1,35 a litre here, which is about $7,50 a gallon. So you can drive three times as far for the same cost. And if you drive more then 4-5 hours to and fro your office i think it's time to think about relocating.

US Economy discussion GO!

We've got traffic bottlenecks here too, it once took me over 2 hours to get to school(took the car because i had big bags for s trip) whereas it takes me 45 minutes by train (of which 25 are actually spent in the train and the other 20 walking home->station and station->school)
"experemints" of both the train and car on peak traffic times.

How much does insurance cost? like health per human, per car etc (doesn't have to be really exact, just to compare the different insurances against each-other) also. shouldn't the insurance pay your families meds?

I just googled a few health insurances in the netherlands. Starts off around 100 euros(146.63 U.S. dollars) with 155 euro's Deductible a year. Included are hospitalization, medication and basic dental (no bridges, inlays, crowns. no cosmetic braces and whitening programmes either)


Also, what's this negro guy trying to change exactly? i read it's good, i read it's bad, i read that people do not want it, i read that its the insurance companies telling their employees to complain or be fired.... could you give me an idea of how it works now and how it would work if Obama's plan went through?

on the wages, no i got the average(or median.. not 100% sure) income per capita for here and there. There will be some slight discrepancies with more extreme riches and poorer over there (bill gates etc) but that shouldn't account for such high differences

NL income: -> $33427 (€22600)
US income: -> $50233
difference being 17000 dollar, about a third.

i only took the car once to school ;) there's traffic issues on that road every day, which is why i prefer the train. also allows me to eat/sleep/work a bit. Let me put it differently, every time i took the car to school it took me over 2 hours to get there.

---CAR INSURANCE-----------------------------------------------
1000 dollars a month is just ridiculous. for that money i'd buy myself an old car an not take insurance i think. Or at least no insurance on my own car. 6000 dollars should get quite a decent car to wreck in half a year =P

Car insurance here is a dependant on car value etc mostly, and then there's a deduction of X% per no-claim year. differs a bit between where you get it though.

Our car (93-94ish mazda 323, nothing fancy) sells for around 2-3000euro, costs about 120 a month in insurance and taxes. A 2001 volvo S60
sells round 8-9000 and costs about 170 a month. A 2007 chevy captiva goes for about 25-30.000 and costs 350 a month. I'm guessing a brand new SUV would be around 500ish.

---HEALTH INSURANCE--------------------------------------------
What i don't understand is why prices are so high for health insurance, and yet there's so little benefit. You pay 500 a month for what? 75 dollars off on meds? It's quite understandable that companies want to run profit, if they don't make any earnings they cease to exist. But human lives are a tricky thing to put a price on, which is why i think the health of humans shouldn't be in the hands of companies.

As far as i'm taught the government is made, paid, and supposed to take care of the people, to some degree. They are to represent the people and their views.
They are to take the money they gather from taxes and redistribute to where it's necessary. Like education, health, infrastructure, the country's safety (aka the army). But in the US lots of things are handled by private companies: healtcare, insurance, education (large part) and or are not getting enough support.

By the way I'm not saying they should spend more on it. The governamental spendings (6,6%)are about the same as other countries such as italy (6,4) and canada(6.7). Instead they should be more active in providing the health care services. not subsidizing people that buy insurance, but subsidizing and regulating the hospitals directly. This takes leverage out of the hands of insurance companies because the costs of going to the hospital would be lower.

Right now nobody can realistically afford their entire broken leg treatment or open heart surgery, so they NEED insurance in case something happens. When hospitalization costs less, companies will need to start offering competetive prices to not lose customers willing to take a bit of a gamble.

What would be a good idea too is to have the state have its own 'insurance company' which sets the competetive price mark. I'm pretty sure this is already there but i'm not sure how it works.


---ILLEGALS----------------------------------------------------
Yes illegals are a large, important part of the US economy but i feel they aren't really relevant to what I'm trying to find out here. What I'm looking for is an explanation about the average American being economically very weak, and for some reason i think they're not really going to use illegals in such polls. Correct me if I'm wrong.

One can say that illegals pose a problem for the government. Because the gov only has problems with 'em. companies reap the fruits though, because they get cheap labor and have virtually no commitments. If the US gov wants to fix it's problems with aliens, stop calling them aliens and treat them as immigrants.

So yeah, technically they drain the system a bit, if companies do not use the saved costs well (which i think happens too much)

And those are indeed absurd things concerning the bank, but I understand where they come from. 1 - they have to pay fees etc too to get the different ATM's to communicate. But these costs should be covered by your annual fee for the pass (if any fee). 2 - they want to have as much money as possible to speculate with. What happens if you cancel your account? lose the 500?
Do all banks have these types of rules?

I'm currently still using a free student account, which should have been upgraded to a paid account several years ago I think, but they haven't bothered me about it yet. Free ATM usage in the Netherlands, fees for usage *out of state*. Don't have the 500 thing either. I just have to pay if I go negative. Which I don't.

Is 500/1000 really just for 1 person/car a month though?

Also another thing I find weird: Bonuses. These are omnipresent in economies today it seems. Some electricity CEO makes 800.000 a year, which is a lot. On top of that a bonus of nearly 300.000. With that some other presents, and he makes well over 1,5 million a year. While not showing any results. Not being able to trace "customer satisfaction" easily they can just say they improved it and deserve a bonus. I disagree.

They did what they were assigned to do. If I deliver my papers on time I don't get €10 extra because I did what I was supposed to do in the first place. In fact what those companies are doing is scientifically known to be backwards. Offering people a bonus or reward for a complex creative problem will only distract them.

So giving these high-up people bonuses deals double damage: take away resources that could be used to enhance the working and effect of the company, as well as distracting the business tops so the perform worse then wanted. Triple damage if you count the dissatisfaction of customers feeling cheated out of their money.

Yeah, I agree with that. Most people hear 'illegal alien' and they think of murderers and rapists and drug dealers. But most of those people are honest hard working people, their only crime is being too poor. But you don't realize just how many stupid people are in this country. XD

And I understand WHY banks charge money, I just don't like it. XD

No, each bank is different. Me, I have a savings accounts, so all the rules aren't that bad actually. But my brother has an account at a different bank and he's got more than me. Banks are a lot like fast food restaurants, there's so many of them, and they're all slightly different from each other. XD

500/1000, yes, 1 person. >_<

Yeah, bonuses are stupid. I'm not sure if you heard about any of the scandals that happened a while back. Enron, just as an example.

Corporate/Wall Street scandals have become so common that most people don't bother to pay attention to them anymore. (1:40) There's a lot of greedy assholes out there. XD

edit:



Edited by greenraven - 28 September 2009 at 6:34am

I haven't heard and followed much about Enron(actually thought they were
in gasoline) mainly because i didn't have any interest for economics and
politics till about 5 years ago. So I've lots of ketchup to do.

While I'm not fond of the man's shouty presentation, he does make a few
good points. In my eyes, the current *top of the world* is based on money.
People on top have the most access to money, people that want money want
to get on top and they'll do just about anything to get there.

Which is why it doesn't work. The people don't looks for a job that fits
them, or leave it to the person that fits the job best. They see a wall
of cash and think "yeah I can sorta do this" and take the job.

I think it could be an idea to legislatively put limits and boundaries on
bonuses and salaries, because how much can one possibly need? I've calcu-
lated that if you win around 3 million euro, you (and family) can live off
of that till you die. About 85 years, with 3000 euros a month to spend.
(assuming bank interest equals inflation you would keep the same life
standard in the future)

3 million. For a lifetime. And these people figure that they need more then
"only a million per year" which is absurd. Of course there are exceptions,
like the president which needs to spend a lot on protection, but thats sort
of a nonissue because you could have 2 budgets: one for himself to spend
(say 2 mill a year) and one for the costs of his safety.

You can say this will drive top businessmen away, but isn't that sort of
what we would prefer? get rid of the people that cost so much for so little
improvement to society. Yes they are important people that have a lot of
knowledge, but for 2 million a year you can have a dozen well paid economics.

Recently Obama changed his views because thousands of health insurance employees went on the street and protested (probably encouraged by layoff threats).
That means politicians listen when you actually go and protest.

You say politicians make laws and they need the financial backing, which is absolutely true, because currently politics is about campaigning. Because political awareness is low and campaigns are the only way to get the word out. Because nobody can use the internet to educate or spread ideas... oh wait.

The idea of people not being able to be elected because they are not rich is only partially true. It will be harder if you don't want to depend on company backing, but not impossible. And even if you did get support from companies, that does not mean you have to do as they say. Yes they might cut off funding for next term, but really you shouldn't respond to these threats.

Some politicians say they do it because "they can't do any good when they're not there". Well they're not doing any good now either. And who says that with them gone we will not find other people to replace them? People not backed by companies? People not paid for? People that really say what their heart believes instead of their wallet?

What i think the problem is, is that western citizens are too mild, or that the circumstances are not dire enough. Take a look at Cuba etcetera. They weren't happy with the situation. They did something about it. Now of course there was way too much violence involved and we don't want that to happen. But how about protesting as a country? None of that happens because, frankly, all we do is sit on the internet and talk about it.

We tell ourselves that we can't change it and we don't have any power, which is nonsense. We can't change it from just sitting down and writing angry blogs. We can change things by writing blogs to mobilize people.

Yeah i meant 3 mill after taxes and 3 million euros would be about 4.3 mill dollar. Still though, even if it were 10 million dollars. There are people that think that is not enough for them for a YEAR which is ridiculous.

Any company can run for a while without the top dogs, for instance a cleaning company will still have the people go out and clean every day. But after a while the customers start to drop etc or new connections need to be made and a manager would be required. Highup people are important. But not as important as they want us to believe they are.

I dont read posts over 3 lines long.

yes.


oops

Let's discuss the influence of the people then. How about instead of waiting for
the rich-controlled government to repair the rich-controlled companies and regu-
lations, we do something ourself? For instance not working for them, but instead
organizing small companies in clusters that can compete with large scale corporate
machines. For instance not buying at Xcorp because they are 5 dollar cheaper but
going to LocalShoppe and buying there (maybe even saving the 5 dollars in gas).

What is needed is not changes in regulations, because there are and always will be
loopholes, technicalities and evasions. A change of policy will probably help to
some degree, but it is not the cure. What we need is a paradigm shift in the average
man.

I find it ironic that there are so many small businesses and freelancers and whatnot
that complain about not being able to compete with large scale corporations, while
they (small co's) themselves buy all their supplies at large corporation because it's
cheaper. In effect they are making things harder for their own kind of business.

Currently there's a lot of talk about sustainable energy, sustainable food production,
sustainable building resources. What about sustainable economy?

Aside from keeping small companies in the loop, and reducing the mono- and duopolies
this would/could have several other benefits. Instead of buying Irish beef that has
to be flown over to San Fran, buy local meat. How about not buying Oranges that are
imported from Brazil to France and getting them from Spain instead.

Of course this would apply less to certain types of business ofcourse, like moving
companies and such, but nevertheless it would noticably reduce CO2 production, there
would be less traffic required and thus require less roads to be layed.

Heck, on the point of roads being layed. Commuting. Work at the office? Home offices.
Not neccesarilly spend 100% of the time working at home, but give people the oppor-
tunity. This will reduce gas costs, commuting times, and improve employees autonomy.
There are several way to do this, like having mo/fri in office and tue/we/thu at home,
or having them choose their own time.

Local doesn't necessarily mean "from your town" but more "from the area". If you
were to buy meat from say, Iowa, instead of California or Venezuele or etc, that
'd be considered more local too.

I understand that for companies it's hard to change their ways because they'd be
making less/no/negative profits. I also understand that customers would rather pay
less. But i also understand that buying stuff from small corporations is one of
the few, if not only way to get out of the downward cycle of large corporations
nomming small 'indie' businesses.

Aside from that, there are benefits of buying on a small scale too, such as the
clerks often having more attention for you, and a better understanding and caring
of what you need. This is why elderlies often prefer buying at local tech stores
and ask for help because they don't know anything about tech.

About the tree programs and emission testing: it doesn't work (enough). While the
EU-25 reduced overall emissions of greenhouse gases by almost 5% between 1990 and
2004, CO2 emissions from road transport rose by 26%.

Cars get cleaner but there are more cars showing up out there. Instead of reducing
the impact of new cars, reduce the amount of (new) cars. It took nine years ('95-
'04) to reduce the CO2 emissions from 186g/km to 163g/km. That's 12%. If companies
have one work-at-home-day a week that would be about 20% per car. Without techno-
logical changes, without extra costs.

Would you rather work 8 hours a day and commute 3 or work 8 hours and 30 minutes
without commuting?

Yes. But imagine how people react when you ask them to work half an
hour extra to work from home. Face it, it's faster to pop over your
cubicle wall and ask Eric what you need to know then it is to email
him. So you've got to put some time aside for communication, and
preferably a day a week together for communication, exchange of tang-
ible work assets, meetings etcetera. But that'd still save you 4 days
of driving and 6 hours of *busy* a week.

I'm really interested in trying this concept out for myself, with some
projects in the not-too far future. Will update when I've got a clearer
plan...

Really though, i think it's time for people to open their minds and look
around for solutions. they're everywhere. And to see what the *real*
problems are. E.g. the amount of cars on the road, not their faulty co2
filters.

Just the other day i had a discussion with my girlfriend. Both our rooms
are messy. She looses her phone often, i lose mine very rarely. She says
she need to clean her room (i agree, and i'm cleaning mine too) but she
doesn't see that her room can be messy and she would still find her phone
if there was just a small change. I don't lose my phone because it's 99%
of the time:
A - in my pocket/bag when i'm out and about
B - on the charger.. so even if its under a pile o junk (hardly ever)
     i can trace the power cord.
C - in a small wooden box thingy which holds my wallet, keys etc and stays
     in a very specific place.

It's not the messy room that causes her to loose her phone, it's her not
having assigned a standard place for her phone. It's on the bed, next to
the bed, on the desk, on the cupboard, on her giant pillow, in the living
room, kitchen table, stairs, hallway, et, cetera.

Same here, well kind of. I won't say I can find -everything- but i can find what's important and used often. The report i did on some play 4 years ago might be a problem, but phone, wallet, video games, shoulder bags, books and photos i can locate in a jiffy.

But anyway, seek out the true problems and their solutions, not a small side problem.

CAD comics. Haha. What a hoot. I'm slapping my knee as I type this.

jailbait :<

and those are fake

Edited by Leroy - 09 October 2009 at 12:48pm

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