Concensus? Suppose there were a national referendum with these two choices:
(A) A simple national VAT; no federal income tax, but the average persons total federal taxes will be 1/3 higher.
(B) A complicated federal income tax, but your taxes remain the same.
Which do you think would pass?
That appears to be a no-brainer, but I think the choice is determined by who has the better PR campaign. Very sadly, I think Americans have allowed politicians to think for them too long. Far too many people make their decisions on slogans and party affiliations rather than do a little digging and figure out what the facts really are.
Nuts! IRS statistics say that in spite of all the bitching, moaning, and whining....
My observation is that everyone bitches, moans and whines about taxes; they think their group pays too much and the other groups don't pay their fair share [whatever the hell fair is]. Everyone also bitches, moans and whines about government being too large and then bitches, moans and whines to get a new federal program. Huh? My contention is that we have a country full of bitchers, moaners and whiners and no thinkers.
...And American liberals have vowed to fight both to the last man and last bullet- -because they're "regressive".
I don't think I ever recall hearing a politician saying that they wanted a more complex tax system [It's like saying you shouldn't love your mother]. But there have been times over the last 25 years when there has been sufficient control of the Executive and Legislative by either party when they could have implemented a simpler system, but when the opportunity arises neither party has done anything serious to get a simpler tax system. My personal conclusion: None of them really wants to have a simpler tax system they just pander the proposal pre-election time and drop it after the election.
I'm not surprised at all. I knew it. And why.
I disagree on your conclusion. The major market in that niche has always been the US market and despite the bitching, whining and moaning, accomodating exportable and non-exportable versions was not a major technological hurdle. The European market was not huge [plus there are still a couple of European countries that ban encryption, as if you could stop it]. Everyone was playing to the US market anyway. And financial institutions were exempt from the export rules. There was a government entity that approached Gates directly about developing a secure operating system; his response, it wasn't worth his time. The market wasn't large enough and it had nothing to do with export, it had to do with market size. MSFT and other US companies were more interested in the mass market, where there is near zero interest in security.
So if you're a French or German or Afghani operation, whose code do you buy?
Forget Afghans. There's no market. After that it depends on who you are and what your paranoia level is. If you're really paranoid [as you should be] you would buy the product that was developed in the country that your from, because you don't trust those "other" intelligence agencies. If your moderately paranoid, you buy the cheapest high quality product. If you're not paranoid [or you believe that security breaches only happen to the other guy]; which I believe is the largest market by far; then you buy the cheapest crap you can get your hands on...unless you can get it for free.
Test question: Which firewall do you have for personal use? I use Black Ice.
I'll pass on a discussion of the pros and cons of the Clipper Chip; remember that there are still people out there that believe there is some hidden trap door in DES, they just haven't found it yet. I'll also speculate that Ashcroft could have slipped Clipper into the Patriot Act.
And along the same line, DOD and NASA money enormously speeded up transistor and IC development. Remember, single transistors used to cost $100+ EACH. The only customers were DOD and NASA.
I don't think there are very many people that are even aware let alone acknowledge how much the Feds have contributed to development of the technology. There wasn't anyone in the private sector that was willing to invest large sums of money when you had the wizards at IBM concluded that there was no market for PCs and the world didn't need any more than 6 mainframes.
Aside 1: It's not very easy these days to figure out where technological design comes from. I recalled last night that there was another company in the security sector that I was looking at. US owned and operated, all offices in the US in fact. Took a little trip to the company to gather some information and talked to the senior design engineer...an Israeli national. Must have been a coincidence, Israel is our friend and ally.
Aside 2: Between nukes, DARPA, and Clipper we must have been at some meeting together. Do you recall eating donuts?
jttmab |
