|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
TCHS 4O 2000 [4o's nonsense] alvinny [2] - csq - edchong jenming - joseph - law meepok - mingqi - pea pengkian [2] - qwergopot - woof xinghao - zhengyu HCJC 01S60 [understated sixzero] andy - edwin - jack jiaqi - peter - rex serena SAF 21SA khenghui - jiaming - jinrui [2] ritchie - vicknesh - zhenhao Others Lwei [2] - shaowei - website links - Alien Loves Predator BloggerSG Cute Overload! Cyanide and Happiness Daily Bunny Hamleto Hattrick Magic: The Gathering The Onion The Order of the Stick Perry Bible Fellowship PvP Online Soccernet Sluggy Freelance The Students' Sketchpad Talk Rock Talking Cock.com Tom the Dancing Bug Wikipedia Wulffmorgenthaler       |
|
bert's blog v1.21 Powered by glolg Programmed with Perl 5.6.1 on Apache/1.3.27 (Red Hat Linux) best viewed at 1024 x 768 resolution on Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Mozilla Firefox 1.5+ entry views: 2129 today's page views: 534 (19 mobile) all-time page views: 3249131 most viewed entry: 18739 views most commented entry: 14 comments number of entries: 1215 page created Tue Apr 22, 2025 12:46:59 |
|
- tagcloud - academics [70] art [8] changelog [49] current events [36] cute stuff [12] gaming [11] music [8] outings [16] philosophy [10] poetry [4] programming [15] rants [5] reviews [8] sport [37] travel [19] work [3] miscellaneous [75] |
|
- category tags - academics art changelog current events cute stuff gaming miscellaneous music outings philosophy poetry programming rants reviews sport travel work tags in total: 386 |
| ||
|
 Hawking razors may be hazardous (Source: Huffington Post) As it turns out, Woods isn't even the best golfer in the world, or so North Korea says - their invincible Dear Leader went 38 under par in a single round (with five holes-in-one, each presumably with plenty of witnesses), and it was his first time playing! And the world media doesn't peer too deeply into Kim's private dalliances, so why do that to poor Woods? The draw for the 2010 World Cup has also been concluded last night, which I caught via live streaming from a Chinese channel, which provided near-instantaneous translation from English (or maybe they had it on a slight time delay?) North Korea got into the "Group of Death" composed of five-time champions Brazil, heavyweights Portugal and the Drogba-led Ivory Coast, which might lead to a dive-fest when the latter two duke it out for second place, if all goes according to form. But not to fear, the bunny-eating Dear Leader has prepared for every eventuality, and has banned the World Cup from being broadcast in the Workers' Paradise unless they win, which I suppose is a polite way of saying that they aren't going to pay capitalist imperialist pigs for the TV rights. Creative video editing would probably be able to make it appear that their ball-kicking heroes of the proletariat utterly dominated their opponents, however, and only failed to qualify due to the machinations of the immoral Western conspirators. Not that I have the right to condemn their practices, seeing as to how I led an invincible Manchester United side to 50-plus wins in a row and a historic Quadruple in my first season as their manager, on Football Manager 2008, yesterday. Their unfortunate opponents might possibly have thought thus:
Too bad North Korea probably won't be hosting the World Cup anytime soon, otherwise they could have taken a leaf out of the South's books... This seems an opportune time to mention Take This Job and Ship It, a book by Democrat Senator Byron L. Dorgan. It covers, among other things, how US companies have avoided taxes by re-incorporating themselves overseas, how jobs are outsourced overseas even when the comparative advantage arises from exploitation, how pharmaceutical companies charge US citizens higher prices for medical drugs, and how reasonable tariffs can curb job leakages. In fact, as often seems to be the case with such books, there is a token reference to Singapore (on page 105): "...drug companies are being courted by Singapore; lured by tax breaks, Merck is investing $500 million for two plants which will manufacture Zocor and Eztrol, both cholesterol drugs. Oh my! But what of the dangers of shipping drugs from Asia to America?" The major conclusion that I was left with, after getting through the book, was however simply this: Isn't this a case of global wage equilibrium in progress, as predicted by standard economic theory? Mr. Dorgan has his constituents (who voted for him) to think about, but from another perspective, is there a good reason for two workers, who simply happen to live in different countries, to be paid different amounts for the same work? The key argument used against cheap imports was that labour is commonly commodified and exploited in developing countries, and examples of mistreated child workers, and workers that toil under poor conditions and are literally worked to death, and all that for a paltry 30 US cents or less per hour, are given. The trouble is that a few US dollars a day is in fact a good living wage in many areas, while minimum wages in the US are mostly above US$7 an hour - if employers overseas cleaned up their act and began offering more humane working hours and a raise, there is no running away from the fact that a company can hire five good, content and disciplined line workers elsewhere, for every worker in the USA. In a free market, what happens is that it simply makes little sense to keep unskilled or semi-skilled manufacturing jobs in the States - such jobs are, unfortunately, commodities, as previously explained, and it is useless to pretend otherwise. Therefore, the call for trade barriers, but using such measures as a long-term solution are likely incompatible with both accepted economic theory and America's international role. Not that this is good news for us, since the logic applies equally to Singapore. In the business of making stuff, we do retain some advantages such as stable government, a compliant workforce and well-enforced laws, but the bottom has been falling out of the barrel for some time - there are always cheaper hands available to screw in a bolt than can be found in either Singapore or the USA (N.B. one might even take a module on IT outsourcing). The real test will come when a machine, which I dub the Humanbot, is developed, which can essentially perform any repetitive semi-skilled task that a human worker can, for cheaper than even the barest subsistence wage. This will of course not be simple, as such bots would need to be both dexterous and strong, capable of being easily trained (or programmed), and require low energy consumption. However, the task is also not unthinkably difficult, as it does not require anything near true artificial intelligence to be useful. If and when the Humanbot is invented (and mass-produced, possibly by self-replication, although that is not a requirement), there will have to be a sea change in economics, and indeed the whole of human organization, as we know it. It would sever, for the first time in history, the sacred bond between labour and survival, the requirement to work to live. Not completely, but near enough. I have been lucky enough to experience first hand the effect of price competition - for years, I had visited the neighbourhood barber monthly, and he charged S$8 per head (more during festive periods, probably less some years ago and for kids). Then Snip Avenue moved in, with a hipper ambience, and charged half price. One rainy Thursday afternoon, I made it down to Snip Avenue, only to see that they were extremely understaffed (or overworked) - they didn't even have a spare guy to man the counter, and I ended up taking a seat for half an hour with no reprieve in sight. Frustrated, I went back to my old barbershop, only to see a completely empty shop, with just two aged barbers (neither my usual one) idling inside. I ended up amortizing the cost of the visit by getting the good ole NSBoy Number Three buzz cut, which is extremely comfy, tidy and functional. Perhaps I should consider having it as my usual hairstyle :D Now, I have to say that the barber was meticulous in giving the buzz cut, spending quite a bit of time trimming the edges just so (though there being no other customers might have contributed), compared to a Snip Avenue cut. Sadly, I have a feeling that they will be driven out of business sooner rather than later, as even their core clientele - elderly men - seems to have migrated for cheaper pastures. Four dollars twenty cents is four dollars twenty cents, after all. One thing that could be both cheaper and better would be lab-grown meat (link by zh). Would this end religious bans on meat consumption, since such meat feels no more pain than a vegetable? More creepily, it might make it possible to eat ourselves, in a manner of speaking. $829/$1100 and falling for virtual footie punting, and here's the rescue mission underway: $100 on Liverpool to beat Blackburn (at 1.52) - their lean spell seems over $50 on Manchester City to draw Chelsea (3.50) - technical analysis, I believe that's what it is called $25 on Sunderland to beat Fulham (3.50) - sorry, Mr. Ham $25 on Tottenham to beat Everton (2.25) - this is to make up for it, Mr. Ham Next: Fancy Footlose For Free
Trackback by Fat Burning Chef
Trackback by google plus android apps
Trackback by loa cheat
Trackback by hostgator Hatchling Review
Trackback by Hotels in africa
Trackback by Best chiropractor Santa Monica
Trackback by how to delete google plus accounts
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
 Copyright © 2006-2025 GLYS. All Rights Reserved. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
