On 10/13/09 17:34, andrel wrote:
>> In the end, though, it's a question of rights. The government doesn't
>> have the right (at least here), to know all the details of what type
>> of stuff I'm buying.
>
> Neither does my government, even if a bank knows something about my
> behaviour does not mean that the government does. Or probably more

	Yeah, but the government can get access to those records easily over 
here. A bit *too* easily in recent times.

	Also, I don't know what the rules are regulating how those private 
companies use the data. In some cases, I believe they're allowed to sell 
some information about you to others (which you formally agree to in the 
terms of service).

> It is not about accepting cash. Of course I can pay cash. It is simply
> not convenient.

	Oh, you'll find it similar here. Lots of people (at least those that 
have good jobs) rarely carry cash or pay in it. Most of my friends are 
that way. Lots of others do pay cash, though. Don't know which is in the 
majority.

>> Elections don't quite fix that. Just because I elected certain "good"
>> people doesn't mean the system will change for the better. The
>> president can't just change everything if he wants to.
>>
>> I'm guessing that in your country, those kinds of abuses have probably
>> been a lot rarer - hence more trust for the government.
>
> I am still in the dark what kind of abuse you are talking about.

	I've kind of forgotten the whole context of this discussion:

1. Government getting access to your phone records without warrants.

2. Government getting access to your financial records (with or without 
warrants, but perhaps for dubious reasons).

3. Government seeing that you buy lots of stuff from Middle Eastern food 
stores and putting you on the no fly list. OK - that may be a bit of a 
stretch, but in California some years ago, it was revealed that law 
enforcement agencies were planning to monitor those kinds of stores for 
very similar reasons - someone quashed it before it got put into 
practice. And people have been put on no-fly lists for pretty weak 
reasons (anti-war activist, name sounds too Middle Eastern, etc).

4. Government knowing what kinds of books you read (library, etc).

5. If you want historical reason, they've done all kinds of fun stuff to 
various minorities. Look up the Tuskegee experiments.


>> (as well as good politicians). Did you think they rigged the elections
>> to get there?
>
> No, what I think is that for at least the level of senator, but probably
> even some levels below that, the big companies decide who you can vote for.

	I think it's in the opposite direction. The *higher* the office, the 
more the influence of big companies. Perhaps that's what you meant?

>> We're straying from the original topic, but as lots of people say, the
>> key to a good democracy is an informed population. And most people
>> here are really, really uninformed about most things. Chances are if
>> they read the news moderately, they're even more uninformed.
>
> Why don't you try the BBC model? Oh yes, because someone will pay the
> senators to prevent that.

	Well, we do have NPR & PBS. And they're fairly good in their limited 
scope. I haven't investigated what's preventing them from going full out 
the way BBC does. Probably because the people don't want to spend a lot 
of money and they would get a lot of flak from the private news agencies 
stating that it's unfair competition (which it kind of is...).

	If you've been following the BBC lately, you'll know that little 
Murdoch just leveled that exact same accusation against the BBC. in the 
past few weeks. The BBC will probably survive those kinds of attacks 
because it has been big historically. Over here there's no historic 
precedent, so it's hard for government run news agencies to justify 
themselves growing large.

>> In the US, there's a general belief that if a person wants to screw
>> himself, the government should stay out of it. Of course, they may
>> have stuff like suicide hotlines, etc.
>
> I noticed a tendency to assume that everybody fully controls his or her
> own destiny. Well, that is a complete fiction. You can pretend that is
> so as long as it does not involve you or your loved ones. Of course
> *your* house will not burn down, it has never done so, hence it won't
> happen.

	And if it does, it's your fault for not having insurance.

	Yes, it's a silly notion. But deep rooted here. In the end, it's like 
the C/C++ analogy I gave. For *some* categories of successes, I think 
the US _does_ allow you to be mostly in control. For many others, the 
"freedom" likely works against it. Few want to realize that, and many 
others are happy with the tradeoff.

>> So you want a huge loan for your house that you can't reasonably pay
>> off? The government won't stop you.
>
> In the case of the bank here the bank sold products that looked solid,
> had people trained to sell them, avoiding all nasty details and paid the
> people that sold them a more if they sold dodgy mortgages than for solid
> ones. There is no way that any John Doe could figure that out for
> himself. It was probably the same in the US. You can not claim that
> someone who wants to buy something and somebody with great authority
> shows them that they can afford it, is wanting to shoot himself in the
> foot. It may be the ground state for some people in the US to assume so,
> but just wait until misfortune hits them.

	Similar story here.

	I haven't been following it, so I don't know if they plan on or already 
have passed legislation to address this issue. A lot of people want some 
regulation on it, and perhaps are justified in asking for it because the 
government had to bail them out. If they had let them collapse, then 
perhaps there wouldn't be legislation.

>> And since we don't have universal health care paid for by taxes, and
>> perhaps many other tax supported benefits that you may have, the cost
>> to the community is not big (financially).
>
> I am convinced our system will cost less on average than yours.

	Health care? I bet it already is costing less per capita than what we 
currently have. I think the US has the highest per capita health costs.

>> Finally, you have to realize that the US population is much, much
>> bigger than your country's. So there's a lot of inertia, and it has to
>> get quite bad before things can change. Something small may cost your
>> community pretty quickly and pretty noticeably. Over here it has to be
>> that much bigger before people notice the problems.
>
> No. 16 million has the same sort of inertia as 300 million.

	I'd really dispute that. If your country had the obesity levels that we 
do, people would worry. Over here, it's still not a big concern. Also, I 
suspect your country is more densely populated. Bad stuff results in bad 
news that travels fast and is in your neighborhood. Over here, people 
could get laid off in large numbers in nearby cities and most people in 
this city wouldn't know about it unless they read that part of the news.

>> Well, either way is democratic, if the people supported it. Not sure
>> what your point is.
>
> It was an answer to Darren. Why I can not live everywhere that I want to
> and why I think that is OK.

	Fair enough.

>> Also, there's history behind this. Such laws over here would be viewed
>> as intending to keep "people we don't like" out (race, religion, etc).
>> Although perhaps they find legal ways to do that already.
>
> What makes you think we don't have such a history?

	I don't know.<G> Maybe we're a lot more sensitive about our history 
than people over there are with yours. Or perhaps when such legislation 
was passed on your side, plenty of provisions were provided to ensure it 
wouldn't be used to exclude certain groups.

	

-- 
Ground yourself, THEN hug your motherboard!

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andrel wrote:
> That is national banks, not regular.

All our banks create money out of nothingness. None of them actually run 
printing presses per se.

>> but lots of companies will go belly-up when their customers hear of 
>> nastiness perpetrated by the owners. Especially now in the days of 
>> internet.
> 
> Internet was not involved, apart from making it easy to transfer large 
> sums out of the bank rapidly.

Internet as a means of distributing information between people who may be 
friends of those who (say) run television stations.

> I had not heard before of a bank, or other company for that matter, that 
> was liquidated by a group of costumers because the CEO/owner had caused 
> trouble for customers, was considered to be a hard learner, and could 
> not be replaced in any other way.

No, that is rather extreme. But there are plenty of small companies that get 
in trouble by ticking off customers.

Stuff like this happens too.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/2009/10/09/2009-10-09_black_nfl_players_crush_prospect_of_playing_for_a_rush_limbaughowned_st_louis_ra.html

> There is this small problem of even more people gotten into trouble by 
> this bankruptcy than were there in the first place.

Well, in the USA, most people have their money insured by the federal 
government. Ever since 1929 or so, the government has made sure a run on 
your bank won't leave you broke. There are limits, of course, but they're 
pretty high for most people.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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andrel wrote:
> On 13-10-2009 18:06, Darren New wrote:
>> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>>>     Elections don't quite fix that. Just because I elected certain 
>>> "good" people doesn't mean the system will change for the better. The 
>>> president can't just change everything if he wants to.
>>
>> Plus, the USA's legal system isn't like europe. We don't have a 
>> parliment where it makes sense to run a few people on one specific 
>> platform like the Pirate Party. You have to pick someone who has a 
>> whole mix of views (about which they are likely lying), and hope they 
>> agree with you more than they disagree, even if they get elected. 
> 
> I'd rather vote for someone who has though about issues and is willing 
> to try to solve them than for someone who agrees with me.

Sure. We'd all like that. Except for the huuuge number of people who don't 
think real hard and don't appreciate others thinking either.

If you want people to vote for the things you want to see happen, it looks 
like the parliament system works better than ours.

> As an outsider I have my doubts about how 
> ethically they actually were, but that may be just me.

No, it's really not just you. :-)


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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andrel wrote:
> There is a risk associated with cash. I think there is a tendency here 
> to pass regulation that minimizes the cost for the shop owner.

There's a risk to the shop keeper in accepting cash?

>>     Elections don't quite fix that. Just because I elected certain 
>> "good" people doesn't mean the system will change for the better. The 
>> president can't just change everything if he wants to.
>>
>>     I'm guessing that in your country, those kinds of abuses have 
>> probably been a lot rarer - hence more trust for the government.
> 
> I am still in the dark what kind of abuse you are talking about.

Really!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp

That's one of *many* abuses.

> No, what I think is that for at least the level of senator, but probably 
> even some levels below that, the big companies decide who you can vote for.

They unfortunately also determine how that politician votes, regardless of 
what they promised.

> Why don't you try the BBC model? Oh yes, because someone will pay the 
> senators to prevent that.

We have that. It's called "PBS". The problem is people hear we're in debt 
and taxes are too high, and they cut the funding for stuff like that. Even 
tho it's 0.01% of the funding for something completely unnecessary that the 
politicians want.

> There is no way that any John Doe could figure that out for 
> himself. 

I was amused at some of the stories here where the mortgage brokers and real 
estate agents get loans and later complain they didn't know they were 
adjustable. Come now, if you don't, who would?

> I am convinced our system will cost less on average than yours.

I have no doubt. Indeed, it's almost tautological, since the government is 
the source of money and thus doesn't need a profit.

>>     Well, either way is democratic, if the people supported it. Not 
>> sure what your point is.
> 
> It was an answer to Darren. Why I can not live everywhere that I want to 
> and why I think that is OK.

Yes. I just misunderstood how the rules were set and decided. If there's a 
democratic law about having to fulfill certain conditions, it seems quite 
reasonable. The idea that there's someone deciding on a case-by-case basis 
whether you, yes you, get to live in this particular city... that would be 
something else.

>>     Also, there's history behind this. Such laws over here would be 
>> viewed as intending to keep "people we don't like" out (race, 
>> religion, etc). Although perhaps they find legal ways to do that already.
> 
> What makes you think we don't have such a history?

Dunno. Did you ever have a civil war over whether to get rid of slavery or 
not? :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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andrel wrote:
> On 13-10-2009 6:05, Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> On 10/12/09 17:01, andrel wrote:
>>> Sure, but for us the whole concept of a bank was handling money
>>> including changing into a different currency.
>>
>>     Yes, but you may have been the first person in a year or longer 
>> asking for that currency in that particular branch/bank. 
> Probably, she wanted US dollars. ;)

But she wanted to *give* them your currency, which the bank then has to 
account for, handle, and exchange.  You just went to a bank that doesn't do 
that sort of thing. It would be like going to a personal-accounts bank to 
get a loan to build an office building or something.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> why are you worried about it?"

Grand Theft Auto: "They're only taking away liberties you weren't using anyway!"

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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On 10/13/09 17:48, andrel wrote:
> On 13-10-2009 5:26, Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> On 10/12/09 14:07, andrel wrote:
>>>> Well, yes. We still have a mite bit more freedom than that in this
>>>> country. :-) People are still allowed to deal purely in cash if they
>>>> want.
>>>
>>> Is there a reason why you would want that freedom?
>>
>> When the Bush administration was caught monitoring phone conversations
>> en masse (and likely illegally), their defense was along the lines of
>> "If you're not calling terrorists, why are you worried about it?"
>
> Yes, a common reply.
>
> Just for argument sake let me try to rephrase this: why would you want
> de deny a company of being able to handle all salary payments uniformly
> and electronically? Why would you want to force them to have an armoured
> truck delivering huge stacks of cash on pay day?

	Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if some employers require direct 
deposit in banks. Although perhaps they'll make exceptions for 
exceptional employees who can give a good reason not to do that (maybe 
the law requires them to handle them - not sure).

	Before I used direct deposit, checks were the standard way. Cash 
payments were rare. People who didn't have bank accounts could go banks 
and get them cashed - although today that tends to raise eyebrows in itself!

	I think that's what Darren meant - freedom not to have a bank and 
perhaps he was equating checks with cash. It's almost the same, really. 
Instead of getting paid by the company, you'll get your salary from the 
bank.

-- 
AAAAA - American Association Against Acronym Abuse

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On 14-10-2009 1:50, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> That is national banks, not regular.
> 
> All our banks create money out of nothingness. None of them actually run 
> printing presses per se.

I was thinking you might use it in that way.

>>> but lots of companies will go belly-up when their customers hear of 
>>> nastiness perpetrated by the owners. Especially now in the days of 
>>> internet.
>>
>> Internet was not involved, apart from making it easy to transfer large 
>> sums out of the bank rapidly.
> 
> Internet as a means of distributing information between people who may 
> be friends of those who (say) run television stations.

As such that was not the case.

>> I had not heard before of a bank, or other company for that matter, 
>> that was liquidated by a group of costumers because the CEO/owner had 
>> caused trouble for customers, was considered to be a hard learner, and 
>> could not be replaced in any other way.
> 
> No, that is rather extreme. But there are plenty of small companies that 
> get in trouble by ticking off customers.
> 
> Stuff like this happens too.
>
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/2009/10/09/2009-10-09_black_nfl_players_crush_prospect_of_playing_for_a_rush_limbaughowned_st_louis_ra.html

> 
> 
>> There is this small problem of even more people gotten into trouble by 
>> this bankruptcy than were there in the first place.
> 
> Well, in the USA, most people have their money insured by the federal 
> government. Ever since 1929 or so, the government has made sure a run on 
> your bank won't leave you broke. There are limits, of course, but 
> they're pretty high for most people.

This was a small bank, only about G€8. Our limit is k€100 and apparently 
4000 pass that limit. And about the same number had high risk product 
that imply that in case of a bankruptcy they are paid last, so they 
effectively also lost their money.

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On 14-10-2009 1:51, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> On 13-10-2009 18:06, Darren New wrote:
>>> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>>>>     Elections don't quite fix that. Just because I elected certain 
>>>> "good" people doesn't mean the system will change for the better. 
>>>> The president can't just change everything if he wants to.
>>>
>>> Plus, the USA's legal system isn't like europe. We don't have a 
>>> parliment where it makes sense to run a few people on one specific 
>>> platform like the Pirate Party. You have to pick someone who has a 
>>> whole mix of views (about which they are likely lying), and hope they 
>>> agree with you more than they disagree, even if they get elected. 
>>
>> I'd rather vote for someone who has though about issues and is willing 
>> to try to solve them than for someone who agrees with me.
> 
> Sure. We'd all like that. 

I specifically prefer someone who has a consistent view that I don't 
agree with over someone with some vague ideas that might change their 
opinion every few weeks. I am not sure there a re many people that think 
that way.

> Except for the huuuge number of people who 
> don't think real hard and don't appreciate others thinking either.

Which is a really big 'except'.

> If you want people to vote for the things you want to see happen, it 
> looks like the parliament system works better than ours.

don't trust on that ;)

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On 10/14/09 00:47, andrel wrote:
>>> I'd rather vote for someone who has though about issues and is
>>> willing to try to solve them than for someone who agrees with me.
>>
>> Sure. We'd all like that.
>
> I specifically prefer someone who has a consistent view that I don't
> agree with over someone with some vague ideas that might change their
> opinion every few weeks. I am not sure there a re many people that think
> that way.

	Sadly, far too many people I know prefer it otherwise. They feel that a 
consistent person is too idealistic, and someone whose changed a lot in 
the past is being pragmatic.

	Pretty much explains the situation we're in.


-- 
DOS means never having to live hand-to-mouse

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