How many of said countries require more than a simple majority to pass a budget though? To my knowledge the US is quite the exception in that it requires a _special_ majority for such things.
A simple majority could be challenging if the government is formed via coalition, but if you have any examples where 1) a single party formed government and 2) a simple majority was the only requirement to pass a budget and 3) a budget failed to pass… then enlighten me by all means!
Here in Australia the (single party) government of the day was dismissed in 1975 after failing to secure a supply bill. The government was dismissed by the Governor General, the Crown's representative in Australia, and the event sparked a bit of a ruckus. Google: The Whitlam Dismissal.
There's lots of instances of our government requesting dissolution of the Houses following failure to secure votes, but in most cases they're for things other than operating expense bills, taken as proxies indicating the government does not have the confidence of the House to continue to act. Since failure to secure a bill is grounds for dissolving Parliament, it's not likely to be used for political grandstanding here.
Always good to come across fellow Australians in here!
I’d probably argue for an exception on that one, given the Whitlam government didn’t have a senate majority… but at the very least, I feel like a single case in the last 50 years is pretty supportive of my argument. The US government is on the verge of shutdown so often these days that I wonder how many people are desensitised to the situation!
How does failing to pass budget affect debt repayments? Could they simply end up defaulting sometime in future? That is not great outlook for a "reserve currency".
I mean it happened earlier this year in Tasmania, and it was absolutely for grandstanding purposes, given they'd had an election less than a year before.
Isn’t the super majority for getting over filibusters in the Senate? The catch is that it’s a Senate rule and the Senate sets is own rules via simple majority.
There’s nothing really stopping a government with simple majority control across all branches from doing away with the filibuster and ramming the budget through except internal party politics.
> a Senate rule and the Senate sets is own rules via simple majority.
Right, each house of the US legislature starts the session with a >50% vote to re-adopt a slowly mutating package of rules that it used last time and has carried forward for decades, defining how work is scheduled, what committees exist, how seniority is calculated, who gets the nice office with the window, etc.
This leads to the "nuclear option" of a special >50% vote to remove the underlying rule which imposes the larger vote-margin for certain situations.
The Australian Government can be dissolved if any bill fails to pass on second introduction, with some caveats. In most cases the executive (formed by the holder of the lower house majority) didn't also hold a simple majority in the Senate, or had defections or independent/minor party objections over the bill.
Single party forming government is already questionable democracy.
Edit: At least there is required more than simple majority for some things - as there needs to be compromise (consensus in society). But we see now the flaw that ruling party does not care about compromises.
If I ever create a trendy SaaS company (or an untrendy one for that matter), I'm definitely cribbing the 'pay more if you have accountants on staff' criteria... love it!
I agree re: quality of leads, but also wonder how many sales are lost to competitors _with_ advertised pricing purely because the user didn't want the hassle of talking to sales (maybe not purely, but you get the gist).
Depending on the business, that could be a customer you wouldn't want anyways. Customers looking solely for lowest price tend to be nightmare customers that would in the long run be more expensive as a customer than just not having them as a customer at all.
Companies that seek to convert every single potential sale and feel a non-sale is a net loss tend to be the companies that I as a potential customer do not want to be a customer of. They tend to have shite customer support anyways.
At the end of the day, the "contact us" pricing clearly is not something that ends companies, otherwise nobody would use it.
I'm confused; you seem to be arguing opposite things. A few comments above, you say:
> ["Call for pricing"] also means that the price isn't fixed, and that a good negotiator might be able to get a lower price than someone else.
But you also say:
> [A potential customer who doesn't want to talk to sales] could be a customer you wouldn't want anyways. Customers looking solely for lowest price tend to be nightmare customers...
So the potential customer who does call for pricing -- possibly with the intent to negotiate that price down -- is also potentially that nightmare customer who is just looking for the lowest price and will be a drag on your time and resources.
To me, the potential customer who just wants to get started without needing to suffer through a call with a sales person... well, that customer sounds at least as likely to be someone who will be a nice, quiet customer who uses your product and doesn't call or write in with inane complaints and issues all the time.
I don't think this is a good signal. I do agree that a potential customer who calls is probably more likely to sign up, but it's still an extra barrier to customer acquisition, no matter how you slice it.
In my experience, "call for quote" type places are way more expensive than $5.99/month type of things. It's usually for the plans that for more than 2,000/perX that get those. At that point, it is definitely a negotiation. These places feel like just because your website receives X hits per hour/day/week translates to you being able to pay for a higher rate to do something like license a font/image/music.
The places that are using 'call for quote' on things available on Walmart tend to be people that don't want people of Walmart listed as a customer. However, again, in my experience, I haven't seen one of these. It's been for things that are going to have sticker shock level pricing.
The problem is this discussion is too abstract. There is a big difference between a 10 pack of cheap pens and a custom made pen - depending on which we are talking about different things make sense. Likewise it could be a sheet of paper or replace all the printers in the office. Some things call and we will figure out pricing make a lot of sense, while for others it doesn't. When you realize all of the above exists with call us prices but they are sold differently it starts to make sense why the signal is both good and bad to different people - we are thinking of different situations and so the signal means different things.
If you have capable hardware and kids, a local LLM is great. A simple system prompt customisation (e.g. ‘all responses should be written as if talking to a 10 year old’) and knowing that everything is private goes a long way for me at least.
If you want something that ‘just works’, it’s hard to go past the entry level options from Bambu Lab despite their march towards Cloud and ecosystem lock in. If that kind of thing bothers you, the new Creality ‘Hi’ series is probably where I’d start if I was starting today. For other useful things to print, check out Gridfinity as well!
Even a 'microscopic siliceous structure', which is what they're talking about here? To be clear, I am in no position whatsoever to challenge your statement, just curious as to why it would be unlikely for something invisible to the human eye to be shifted around the planet via plate tectonics (which seems entirely plausible to the layperson that I am).
The government is being deliberately non-prescriptive about that, as they are about what qualifies as 'social media' (statement of fact - no comment on the approach itself). Ideally the legislation is accompanied by a government digital service that allows 3rd parties to verify age _without_ divulging full identity, but I don't see that side of things being discussed anywhere down here :(
I didn't have any trouble, although I have owned full versions of Workstation and Fusion in the past. Having said that, their licensing portal is awful and i wouldnt be surprised at all if things were getting lost somewhere in the back end.
A simple majority could be challenging if the government is formed via coalition, but if you have any examples where 1) a single party formed government and 2) a simple majority was the only requirement to pass a budget and 3) a budget failed to pass… then enlighten me by all means!