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The government themselves do this kind of thing sometimes: charge for the actual delivery of the digital documents, which are public domain. That's not illegal, just not really sustainable. Since they're public domain, anyone who buys them could, if they choose, redistribute them. One instance of that that I recall was that in 1999, Bruce Perens bought the TIGER geographic data set from the US Census on CD, for I think $500 or $1000 or something, and then released it online freely. The Census Bureau wised up and you can now download new versions of the TIGER data set directly from the Census at the previous link instead of having to play that game.

Another example is the court document database, PACER, which has public-domain documents but charges per-page for access. That's led to RECAP, a project to slowly siphon documents out of it and republish them.

You're telling me that out of the population of the US, Canada and Western Europe, that only 70M of those people make more then $34,000?

If they were all Americans, that means 3 out of every 4 Americans make less than $34,000, a number I feel is high, especially when you add in the populations of Western Europe.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

Per capita money income in past 12 months (2012 dollars) $28,051
Median household income $53,046

I don't pay too much attention to the Daily Mail. They have turned out to be unreliable too many times in the past. I've even caught them intentionally lying about some issues with global warming.

The 2nd chart in the article I used is from the US Census. I think that's pretty reliable.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032011/perinc/new01_001.htm

For the top 1% worldwide I used this:

http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwphe/0305002.html

And the calculator here:

http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/why-give/how-rich-am-i

which is based on the above.

Few dispute that classic ADHD, historically estimated to affect 5 percent of children, is a legitimate disability that impedes success at school, work and personal life. But recent data from the CDC show that the diagnosis had been made in 15 percent of high school-age children, and that the number of children on medication for the disorder had soared to 3.5 million from 600,000 in 1990."

According to this census data there are 62.3 million School aged children in the US, Five percent of that is 3.1 Million. The numbers don't seem so far off. Even the 5% may be off as diagnostic criteria changes over time. It may be higher now.

There are 2.4 Doctors per 100,000 people in the US.

The number of doctors per 100,000 people in the US is a bit higher than this. Per the Kaiser Family Foundation, there were 834,769 professionally active physicians in the US in November, 2012. The US population at the time was 314.8 million (per the US Census Bureau's Population Clock), making the number of doctors per 100,000 people a more reasonable 265. Here's a graph showing the number of physicians per 10,000 (note - not 100,000) people in the US.

The ratio of CEO compensation to average worker compensation is now approximately 10 times its value in 1950. This is approximately commensurate with the average increase in the Dow average adjusted for inflation.

Right; and one should hardly be surprised by this since our government continually passes more and more regulations that generally only benefits big businesses. The barrier to entry for a small or medium-sized firm to get on a public stock exchange is enormous. When competition is limited, one should not be surprised when the market can no longer efficiently remove wasteful players. Paying prices vastly more than necessary to secure a proper executive is, of course, very wasteful. But this is not a fundamental issue with CEO pay, this is an issue with regulation that keeps smaller firms out.

But why should CEOs receive the entire benefit of a growing economy when all actors have contributed to that growth? CEO compensation has no correlation with company performance.

As I see it, the problem has nothing to do with a free vs. a coerced market. The problem is that the market of executive compensation is entirely divorced from the market at large. "Stockholders... vote... for whatever the management recommends no matter how poor the management’s record of accomplishment may be". This is what I mean by oligarchy: a few privileged elites have control over this smaller market without the essential feedback cycles that stabilize prices in the larger economy.

Yes, and this smaller market is much easier to manipulate when it remains artificially small due to artificial barriers to entry. That said, your definition of oligarchy is quite arbitrary; even if you could absolutely measure the power the "privileged elites" have over a smaller market, at what ratio of power to size does it constitute an oligarchy? I do agree with your sentiment, and I think my paragraph above speaks to it.

The issue is that the market value of labor has plummeted in relation to productivity and in relation to the value of top earners. In the 50s one could work part time at a minimum wage job and pay rent and college tuition and walk away with a degree free and clear. Today, just to pay rent, one needs roommates or more than one part-time minimum-wage job, let alone any ability to pay for education in order to get a better job.

1950: $0.75/hour * 20 hours * 50 weeks = $750 wages $42 * 12 months = $504 rent $35 * 4 quarters = $140 tuition

2013: $7.25/hour * 20 hours * 50 weeks = $7250 wages $602 * 12 months = $7224 rent $3917 * 2 semesters = $7834 tuition

How do you measure productivity? GDP is a pretty useless measurement. Also, there is this silly notion that public sector consumption should actually be counted as production. Since there is no objective way to measure public sector "productivity" (since it is not part of a market), it should not be included in aggregates; also it is quite common for the public sector to be horribly inefficient with its "funds". Government makes up

The ratio of CEO compensation to average worker compensation is now approximately 10 times its value in 1950. This is approximately commensurate with the average increase in the Dow average adjusted for inflation.

But why should CEOs receive the entire benefit of a growing economy when all actors have contributed to that growth? CEO compensation has no correlation with company performance.

As I see it, the problem has nothing to do with a free vs. a coerced market. The problem is that the market of executive compensation is entirely divorced from the market at large. "Stockholders... vote... for whatever the management recommends no matter how poor the management’s record of accomplishment may be". This is what I mean by oligarchy: a few privileged elites have control over this smaller market without the essential feedback cycles that stabilize prices in the larger economy.

The issue is that the market value of labor has plummeted in relation to productivity and in relation to the value of top earners. In the 50s one could work part time at a minimum wage job and pay rent and college tuition and walk away with a degree free and clear. Today, just to pay rent, one needs roommates or more than one part-time minimum-wage job, let alone any ability to pay for education in order to get a better job.

1950:
$0.75/hour * 20 hours * 50 weeks = $750 wages
$42 * 12 months = $504 rent
$35 * 4 quarters = $140 tuition

2013:
$7.25/hour * 20 hours * 50 weeks = $7250 wages
$602 * 12 months = $7224 rent
$3917 * 2 semesters = $7834 tuition

I believe that raising the average wage will have a better impact on the economy as a whole than raising executive compensation. I believe that income inequality is a social ill that should be addressed through policy -- not by Marxian state capture of the means of production and not through Randian private hoarding of the means of production, but through a hybrid realistic approach like "all employees should receive stock options or profit sharing if executives do".

So, the middle class are to blame for their debt load. I guess that is true. However, when you think your house is worth 15 times your yearly income, and its dollar value is rising faster than the money you make from your two household jobs, it makes that debt seem like nothing. Until the crash. Median debt in the US was $70k in 2010, as opposed to $50k in 2000. Most of that is real estate loans. Total debt has been going down since 2009, for obvious reasons. More Info.

Americans have ALWAYS consumed too much. That is what drives our economy. Larry Sommers gave a talk at the IMF recently where he made the claim that we only consume enough to have full employment during bubbles. Otherwise, we are in 'secular stagnation', meaning, basically, not enough demand to employ everybody. He is right, and other economists have been saying this for years. Given the current economy, we need MORE consumption, not less.

Unless we can give up the dream of full employment, and migrate to some sort of post-scarcity economy, we are doomed to these binge-purge cycles, and everybody wanting a new IPhone and Xbox One. If only they weren't so damned cool.

I used the price of new homes.
http://www.census.gov/const/uspriceann.pdf

So true. There are plenty of places with a cost of living far below a place like DC or Silicon Valley which pay decently enough that you end up way ahead.

For comparison, CNN's site has a cost of living calculator, and the US census site has several pages about cost of living worth looking at.

Because every single traditional power source is also heavily subsidized. It's only fair. Plus, we should be encouraging solar over other sources for a host of reasons, namely environment impact and better grid resistance to failures.

People always forget to mention the geopolitical and economic reasons for using solar. Because it is domestically produced, it reduces our trade deficit, half of which is due to petroleum imports. We also don't end up putting money in the pockets of such lovely foreign countries as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, etc. Yes, yes, yes I know we get most of our petrol from Canada, but the fact that we consume about a quarter of the world's petrol keeps prices high on the international market.

...China's biggest e-retailer, totaled more than $3.1 billion, doubling the $1.5 billion spent by U.S. consumers on Cyber Monday in 2012.

How many people live in China? How many people live in the US?

. A more valid comparison would be the amount of money spent per person, that removes the bias of large-populations.

Agreed. Here are some numbers:

Currently the US hosts: 317,047,520 people
China hosts: 1,349,585,838 people
(Source: http://www.census.gov/popclock/)
Ratio US to China: 1:4.2567

I think it's delightful that someone is bright enough to identify this as propaganda. Please help me fight such pernicious lies that Heritage purports to justify these "facts".

It seems to be amply footnoted, with 50+ references:
[1]Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith, âoeIncome, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010,â U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports: Consumer Income, P60-239, September 2011, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf (September 13, 2011). The Census Bureau defines an individual as poor if his or her family cash income falls below certain specified income thresholds. These thresholds vary by family size. In 2010, a family of four was deemed poor if its annual income fell below $22,314. A family of three was deemed poor if its annual income was below $17,374.
[2] See Catholic Campaign for Human Development, âoePoverty Pulse, Wave IV,â January 2004, at http://old.usccb.org/cchd/PP4FINAL.PDF (September 7, 2011). Interestingly, only about 1 percent of those surveyed regarded poverty in the terms the government does: as having an income below a specified level.
[3]These surveys include the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, What We Eat in America, Food Security, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the American Housing Survey, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. See U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Residential Energy Consumption Survey, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/ (June 22, 2011); U.S. Department of Agriculture, What We Eat in America, NHANES 2007â"2008, Table 4, at http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12355000/pdf/0708/Table_4_NIN_POV_07.pdf (June 22, 2011); Mark Nord, âoeFood Insecurity in Households with Children: Prevalence, Severity, and Household Characteristics,â U.S. Department of Agriculture, September 2009, at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB56/EIB56.pdf (September 7, 2011); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, âoeAbout the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,â at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/about_nhanes.htm (September 7, 2011); U.S. Census Bureau, âoeAmerican Housing Survey (AHS),â at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs.html (June 27, 2011); and U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2001 Panel, Wave 8 Topical Module, 2003, at http://www.bls.census.gov/sipp_ftp.html#sipp01 (June 27, 2011).
[4]U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey for the United States: 2009, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/h150-09.pdf (September 8, 2011).
[5] U.S Department of Energy, Residential Energy Consumption Survey.
[6]Derek Thompson, âoe30 Million in Poverty Arenâ(TM)t as Poor as You Think, Says Heritage Foundation,â The Atlantic Monthly, July 19, 2011, at http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/30-million-in-poverty-arnt-as-poor-as-you-think-says-heritage-foundation/242191/ (September 7, 2011).
[7] C. T. Windham, B. W. Wyse, and R. G. Hansen, âoeNutrient Density of Diets in the USDA Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, 1977â"1978: I. Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Dietary Density,â Journal of

I think it's delightful that someone is bright enough to identify this as propaganda. Please help me fight such pernicious lies that Heritage purports to justify these "facts".

It seems to be amply footnoted, with 50+ references:
[1]Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith, âoeIncome, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010,â U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports: Consumer Income, P60-239, September 2011, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf (September 13, 2011). The Census Bureau defines an individual as poor if his or her family cash income falls below certain specified income thresholds. These thresholds vary by family size. In 2010, a family of four was deemed poor if its annual income fell below $22,314. A family of three was deemed poor if its annual income was below $17,374.
[2] See Catholic Campaign for Human Development, âoePoverty Pulse, Wave IV,â January 2004, at http://old.usccb.org/cchd/PP4FINAL.PDF (September 7, 2011). Interestingly, only about 1 percent of those surveyed regarded poverty in the terms the government does: as having an income below a specified level.
[3]These surveys include the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, What We Eat in America, Food Security, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the American Housing Survey, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. See U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Residential Energy Consumption Survey, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/ (June 22, 2011); U.S. Department of Agriculture, What We Eat in America, NHANES 2007â"2008, Table 4, at http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12355000/pdf/0708/Table_4_NIN_POV_07.pdf (June 22, 2011); Mark Nord, âoeFood Insecurity in Households with Children: Prevalence, Severity, and Household Characteristics,â U.S. Department of Agriculture, September 2009, at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB56/EIB56.pdf (September 7, 2011); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, âoeAbout the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,â at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/about_nhanes.htm (September 7, 2011); U.S. Census Bureau, âoeAmerican Housing Survey (AHS),â at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs.html (June 27, 2011); and U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2001 Panel, Wave 8 Topical Module, 2003, at http://www.bls.census.gov/sipp_ftp.html#sipp01 (June 27, 2011).
[4]U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey for the United States: 2009, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/h150-09.pdf (September 8, 2011).
[5] U.S Department of Energy, Residential Energy Consumption Survey.
[6]Derek Thompson, âoe30 Million in Poverty Arenâ(TM)t as Poor as You Think, Says Heritage Foundation,â The Atlantic Monthly, July 19, 2011, at http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/30-million-in-poverty-arnt-as-poor-as-you-think-says-heritage-foundation/242191/ (September 7, 2011).
[7] C. T. Windham, B. W. Wyse, and R. G. Hansen, âoeNutrient Density of Diets in the USDA Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, 1977â"1978: I. Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Dietary Density,â Journal of

I think it's delightful that someone is bright enough to identify this as propaganda. Please help me fight such pernicious lies that Heritage purports to justify these "facts".

It seems to be amply footnoted, with 50+ references:
[1]Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith, âoeIncome, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010,â U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports: Consumer Income, P60-239, September 2011, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf (September 13, 2011). The Census Bureau defines an individual as poor if his or her family cash income falls below certain specified income thresholds. These thresholds vary by family size. In 2010, a family of four was deemed poor if its annual income fell below $22,314. A family of three was deemed poor if its annual income was below $17,374.
[2] See Catholic Campaign for Human Development, âoePoverty Pulse, Wave IV,â January 2004, at http://old.usccb.org/cchd/PP4FINAL.PDF (September 7, 2011). Interestingly, only about 1 percent of those surveyed regarded poverty in the terms the government does: as having an income below a specified level.
[3]These surveys include the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, What We Eat in America, Food Security, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the American Housing Survey, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. See U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Residential Energy Consumption Survey, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/ (June 22, 2011); U.S. Department of Agriculture, What We Eat in America, NHANES 2007â"2008, Table 4, at http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12355000/pdf/0708/Table_4_NIN_POV_07.pdf (June 22, 2011); Mark Nord, âoeFood Insecurity in Households with Children: Prevalence, Severity, and Household Characteristics,â U.S. Department of Agriculture, September 2009, at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB56/EIB56.pdf (September 7, 2011); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, âoeAbout the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,â at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/about_nhanes.htm (September 7, 2011); U.S. Census Bureau, âoeAmerican Housing Survey (AHS),â at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs.html (June 27, 2011); and U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2001 Panel, Wave 8 Topical Module, 2003, at http://www.bls.census.gov/sipp_ftp.html#sipp01 (June 27, 2011).
[4]U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey for the United States: 2009, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/h150-09.pdf (September 8, 2011).
[5] U.S Department of Energy, Residential Energy Consumption Survey.
[6]Derek Thompson, âoe30 Million in Poverty Arenâ(TM)t as Poor as You Think, Says Heritage Foundation,â The Atlantic Monthly, July 19, 2011, at http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/30-million-in-poverty-arnt-as-poor-as-you-think-says-heritage-foundation/242191/ (September 7, 2011).
[7] C. T. Windham, B. W. Wyse, and R. G. Hansen, âoeNutrient Density of Diets in the USDA Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, 1977â"1978: I. Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Dietary Density,â Journal of

I think it's delightful that someone is bright enough to identify this as propaganda. Please help me fight such pernicious lies that Heritage purports to justify these "facts".

It seems to be amply footnoted, with 50+ references:
[1]Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith, âoeIncome, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010,â U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports: Consumer Income, P60-239, September 2011, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf (September 13, 2011). The Census Bureau defines an individual as poor if his or her family cash income falls below certain specified income thresholds. These thresholds vary by family size. In 2010, a family of four was deemed poor if its annual income fell below $22,314. A family of three was deemed poor if its annual income was below $17,374.
[2] See Catholic Campaign for Human Development, âoePoverty Pulse, Wave IV,â January 2004, at http://old.usccb.org/cchd/PP4FINAL.PDF (September 7, 2011). Interestingly, only about 1 percent of those surveyed regarded poverty in the terms the government does: as having an income below a specified level.
[3]These surveys include the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, What We Eat in America, Food Security, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the American Housing Survey, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. See U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Residential Energy Consumption Survey, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/ (June 22, 2011); U.S. Department of Agriculture, What We Eat in America, NHANES 2007â"2008, Table 4, at http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12355000/pdf/0708/Table_4_NIN_POV_07.pdf (June 22, 2011); Mark Nord, âoeFood Insecurity in Households with Children: Prevalence, Severity, and Household Characteristics,â U.S. Department of Agriculture, September 2009, at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB56/EIB56.pdf (September 7, 2011); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, âoeAbout the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,â at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/about_nhanes.htm (September 7, 2011); U.S. Census Bureau, âoeAmerican Housing Survey (AHS),â at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs.html (June 27, 2011); and U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2001 Panel, Wave 8 Topical Module, 2003, at http://www.bls.census.gov/sipp_ftp.html#sipp01 (June 27, 2011).
[4]U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey for the United States: 2009, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/h150-09.pdf (September 8, 2011).
[5] U.S Department of Energy, Residential Energy Consumption Survey.
[6]Derek Thompson, âoe30 Million in Poverty Arenâ(TM)t as Poor as You Think, Says Heritage Foundation,â The Atlantic Monthly, July 19, 2011, at http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/30-million-in-poverty-arnt-as-poor-as-you-think-says-heritage-foundation/242191/ (September 7, 2011).
[7] C. T. Windham, B. W. Wyse, and R. G. Hansen, âoeNutrient Density of Diets in the USDA Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, 1977â"1978: I. Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Dietary Density,â Journal of

In the US at least, all children are covered and have been for a long time.

Not according to the US Census Bureau (see page 24). Somebody lied to you.

My first thought was "How did he get so much information about Kentucky?" But then I realized that's only a fraction of the numbers he has.

I'd be happy with a car OS that kills less than 30,000 people per year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

Or even less than 10 million accidents a year.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/transportation/motor_vehicle_accidents_and_fatalities.html

Guess this brings a new meaning to "Blue Screen of Death"

You mean humans, who get it wrong 10 million times a year in the USA alone?

10M accidents out of 250M drivers isn't a very good error rate.

10,000,000 accidents per year in the US alone.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/transportation/motor_vehicle_accidents_and_fatalities.html

I can just see the headlines. "Self driving cars cause hundreds of thousands of accidents per year!"
Even though that'd be ~1% of what humans do.

I'd be happy with a car OS that kills less than 30,000 people per year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

Or even less than 10 million accidents a year.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/transportation/motor_vehicle_accidents_and_fatalities.html

No, I just noticed that on my own. Apparently just the sites I tried to get information off of were closed down. http://www.census.gov/ http://www.fs.fed.us/ http://www.nps.gov/ Those were the ones that I tried to use.

Hmmm, that appears to be correct.

US Exports at the Census bureau.

Due to the lapse in government funding, census.gov sites, services, and all online survey collection requests will be unavailable until further notice.

Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at usa.gov.

Websites affected by this shutdown are all census.gov hosted websites, including:

Census.gov
American Factfinder
Public API
FTP Servers
FAQs
Blogs
Online Surveys
Federal Statistical Organization websites: FCSM, FedStats and MapStats

Why would you stop access to the data but leave the server running?

Some citations for my numbers:

http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2012/pre-existing/
http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/publications/reports/health-reform/pre-ex-conditions-findings.html

Notice that the non-government site posits a much higher number. I have more faith in the HHS numbers though.

Census data for the uninsured numbers: http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb13-165.html

you're more likely not to be insured if you have a pre-existing condition

Citation please.

Logic. If they won't sell it to you if you have a pre-existing condition, then you're more likely to have a pre-existing condition if you don't have insurance than if you do. This is a direct result of Bayes theorem. Look into conditional probability.

And even if we accept your #'s as factual, why not consider the break down of them, to quote a book sitting on my shelf (Liberty & Tyranny (Page 107)):

Yup, that's a real impartial source there. ROFL. Actual studies, government or by a respected university (public or private) or STFU.

Also, use numbers that aren't most of a decade old and from before the worst financial crisis of the last 60 years.

One of the early features of Obamacare was expanding access to so called "high risk pools"... know what happened? Not a whole lot of people signed up: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/why-hasnt-anyone-signed-up-for-the-high-risk-health-insurance-pools/239833/

Mostly because people didn't know about it at first- it wasn't well marketed. But FYI, the Maryland plan was sold out for the year months ago. I tried applying for it and was put on the waiting list. And told not to expect to get it this year (I haven't).

Says you (if true)... but still ignoring the immediate secondary effects, not to mention tertiary items such as the loss of insurance by others due to the new law.

Not a single person will lose insurance due to this law. Blatant fearmongering.

maintaining coverage under COBRA.

Which takes money, and lots of it, since you're paying for the insurance without the help of your ex employer, plus a 2% administrative fee on top (plus 50% if you file for disability and get an extension). It also takes having an employer that provides insurance in the first place, and not being one of the 1 in 6 employees working for a firm with less than 20 employees and therefore exempt from COBRA.

Not that I think the ACA was a good move, I've said in the past that it's the wrong answer to the wrong problem. All it does is prop up grossly inefficient insurance companies by guaranteeing them a supply of customers. The entire model of health insurance is horribly broken, but nobody wants to fix it, just keep slapping more bandaids on top.

instead, people have bought the line that teachers are "overpaid" and don't bother to realize that teachers earn incredibly low salaries for the education and professional level of their work. that is insane.

You're both right. Teacher salaries are low, yet the U.S. spends more per student on education than any other country on the planet.

People think teacher salary = education spending. It isn't. Far from it. If you look at the latest educational expenditure stats (page 8 of the state level tables), you see that our schools spend $8649 per student on salaries, wages, and benefits. If the average class size is a modest 25, that's $216,255/yr per class being paid to educators. If the average teacher salary is $50k (call it $70k with benefits), who is the rest of the money going to?.

Obviously some of the extra is necessary (bus drivers, janitors, basic administration, etc). But from the research I've done, the bulk of the extra $145k goes to administrators. They've managed to worm their way into a position where they're in charge of how the money is allocated. If the budget is ever increased, they allocate most of it to themselves. If the budget is ever cut, they pass on the cuts to the teachers and rely on the teacher's union to stir up a firestorm about how we aren't spending enough money on education, when in fact we're spending more than any other country. Both you and OP have been suckered in by their ruse - thinking that teacher salary = education spending. When in fact teacher salary = education spending - administration overhead and other costs.

Incidentally, I should point out that the "teachers aren't paid enough" argument runs counter to the interest of current teachers. If your reasoning is that higher salaries will attract better teachers, then the logical course of action is to fire the current teachers and hire completely different teachers at the higher salaries. Retaining the current batch of teachers and simply increasing their salary won't change anything (other than improving the teachers' standard of living).

If you mean globally, Christianity is a distant second to Islam.

That's an incorrect statement, easily refuted by checking Wikipedia or a Google search.

And I suspect there's been more Apple products sold in America than there are Christians.

At first I was skeptical. There are 234 million adults in the United States, of whom approximately 44% attend church regularly; so you're guessing that more than 103 million Apple devices have been sold in the US? Apple, Inc. has been around since 1976, so you may be right, if you count every iPod and every Mac and so on all the way back to the Apple I.

I know Slashdot is mostly single guys,

...How? That seems a really stupid thing to say. Having a quick look at the US Census http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2011.html above 15 only 30% have never been married. I suspect the numbers here are higher.

Yet we call bandages "Band-Aids". We use a lift to go down. In the south they order a "Coke" when they're actually ordering Pepsi. It's common use has made it mean crash, even if it was on purpose. Hell, even the government accepts the terminology now: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf

Stop being such a pedant. If you know what someone means, and they communicate it in a generally accepted manner, there is no need to get uptight. It's the meaning of the words, not the actual words. If you always take things literally then I'm sorry you have to deal with people.

My bad - should have realized that number was high when I misread the table: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf
11 Million traffic ACCIDENTS in 2009, only 36,000 deaths

That's still 3,000 deaths per month, every month, and it's actually down from almost 4000/month in 1990 so things are improving.

while the 11 MILLION motor vehicle deaths in the US that year apparently can't even justify enforcing existing distracted driving laws.

Is this a total since the automobile was introduced? There simply aren't that many deaths annually.

Paying people's wages is almost the original computer application.

I believe tabulating census data was the original computer application.

$10.50-$11.50 per hour works out to be around $21k-$24k a year on average, given a full 40-hour work-week. That's hardly middle class. It's actually much closer to the Census Bureau's defined poverty threshold. If the worker is the head of a traditional 4-person family, it actually puts him/her at or below the poverty line.

If I was an peak oil exporting country I'd take him.

After that any of the top trade partners of the US

Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, Germany, South Korea

All the nice sentences just to talk around full compliance with CALEA?
Its not like it was just some fax with a time, ip and port number from some city police department.. with an amazing letterhead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/edward-snowden-claims-microsoft-collaborated-with-nsa-and-fbi-to-allow-access-to-user-data-8705755.html
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/11/snowden_docs_detail_collaboration_between_nsa_and_microsoft/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/nsa-taps-skype-chats-newly-published-snowden-leaks-confirm/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
US Adult Computer and Adult Internet Users
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1158.pdf
The tiny % number wrt to big US computer use number and US MS marketshare seem to add up :)
Interesting http://cryptome.org/2013-info/06/whistleblowing/whistleblowing.htm lists gov works, bankers, military, a call-centre-employee, health insurance PR, a few former NSA, CIA, FBI employees, people in sports and education, press, lawyers...
In this broad mix, how/why did so many within the US computer/CS/networking elite stay so silent? Did they feel it was just a domestic link to the FBI in continuous use?
Was the psychological profiling and testing of contractors near perfect Cash was great?
So few staff over so many product ranges over many years?

We could reach a different conclusion, based on the same data: given that the black minority accounts for less than 14% of population, according to latest census data, the black-on-white murders are really disproportionately more common than white-on-black murders (black-on-black murders being even much more represented), when adjusted for population size.

This is common knowledge.

You're either naive or are trying to be deliberately misleading. That "median income" figure is median HOUSEHOLD income, where a household is approximately 2 parents and 2.3 kids.

Here it is, sir.

Households, 2007-2011 : 114,761,359
Persons per household, 2007-2011 : 2.60

So you claim 4.3 people per household, but the actual numbers from the census indicate 2.6 persons per household. How could you be so wrong about such a basic figure in your argument? It would be something if you were at least close but you werent even close at all.

On the same page, home ownership sits at 66.1%.

Who are you trying to convince. and why are you trying to convince them with errors and lies?

Up until late 19th century, the age of sexual/marriage majority matched being a biological adult.

The idea that marriage is now much later than it used to be is a common misconception, at least for Europe and the US. Really, the outlier in (relatively) recent history was the post-WWII era, when age of first marriage dropped sharply from the levels of the late 19th and early 20th century. In 1890, average age of first marriage for women in the US was 23.5, and 26.5 for men. http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/marriage/data/acs/ElliottetalPAA2012figs.pdf In the late 18th century, average age was 20-22 for women, ~26 for men. http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-England-1500-1800-Abridged-footnotes/dp/0061319791/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1327690657&sr=8-3

29 years old is young now?

With the rest of society's median age getting older:

In general, the U.S. population continues to grow older with a median age over 40 years old in many states.

and the trend is continuing, 29 years old is quite young compared to the general population.

Cities are not good places to live in, because of Blacks and Hispanics. It is true. Crime rates among Blacks on average, city by city, outstrips that of Whites by a factor of seven. For Hispanics, the comparable rates are around five.

What makes a city crime-ridden or not is the amount of Blacks (first) and then Hispanics (second). San Francisco is far less violent because it is filled with Asians (who offend at about .3 the rate of Whites, yes a third of the White rate) and Whites.

It is fundamentally the nature of the people who determine if a city is livable or not. Detroit, Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco are all heavily Democratic, very liberal places. One is a disaster. Because the population of Detroit is Black at around 90% and thus riddled with crime.

The achilles heel of cities is the great seethign underclass of Blacks and Hispanics that have been unable or unwilling to moderate criminal and violent criminal behavior at that. When daily life is a series of high risk for personal violence, all those who possess enough wealth and skills to do so, flee.

San Francisco is a great place to live, but the geography which includes massive Black/Hispanic populations across the bay and South make it a tiny enclave of low violence, mostly White then Asian, at around 49% and 33% respectively, and only 6.1% and 15.1% Black and Hispanic respectively. This accounts for almost no kids, persons under 5 at 4.4% -- the limited real estate that is majority non-violent (again Asian then White) is so small everyone wants to live there. Places in Oakland are dirt cheap but few Whites/Asians want to live close to the Black dysfunction and murders.

Most cities are a function of demographic churn in the US (crime in miserable places like the urban monstrosity of Shanghai or Beijing is astonishingly low -- no wonder they are filled with low-crime Chinese as is Tokyo and Osaka filled with low-crime Japanese). Raising prices ethnically cleanses Blacks (to a lesser extent Hispanics who with the willingness to live in ultra-high density and miserable conditions can persist in high cost urban areas beyond Blacks) and lowers crime. But makes children unaffordable; and even the most ethnically cleansed of Black cities or neighborhoods have miserable schools filled with the kids of recently arrived Hispanics requiring pricey private places for elite kids: DC's Sidwell Friends (the Bush, Obama, Clinton, and Carter kids all went there), places in NYC, and SF.

Austin and Portland and Seattle and lily-White Pittsburgh are all great alternatives to places like San Francisco, but only as long as they are mostly White and Asian. Get a substantial portion of Black or even Hispanic people and you get the crime dynamics of Detroit or Mexico City.

In all likelihood, the tech future belongs to Asia because they do not subscribe to loony religious theories about populations or status-chasing re "Diversity" or other religious beliefs. Chinese and Japanese and Korean people "know" their peoples and races and cultures are superior, they desire no "cultural enrichment" and can get down to the boring but critical task of assembling lots of smart people in one place and creating new technology without the overhead of crime-driven demographic churn and establishment of new cities every ten years.

Every day in America, another 27 people die as a result of drunk driving crashes. That's over 9500 people a year. There are 211,000,000 registered drivers I propose we ban either cars or alcohol. I'll let you pick. The death rate is about the same number, but the number of drivers is less than the number of guns, so you're more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than you are to be shot to death. Not much though. I assume you agree with me that all cars or alcohol should be banned? Or maybe you just think we should only allow smaller cars. Nobody really needs to drive a 2-ton dually death machine anyways. Or maybe we should just ban all alcohol but wine. Nobody ever gets drunk on wine and drives a car. And no the argument that it's fun to just drink a few beers in not a strong argument for not banning alcohol.

Except your argument is extremely flawed, because we've already drastically reduced the vehicular death rate through safety improvements and drunk driving initiatives. There's plenty more we could do, but it is in no way analogous to *complete inaction* in regards to gun-related crime. Also, note that, unlike a gun, it *is* illegal to operate a vehicle without a license.

Every day in America, another 27 people die as a result of drunk driving crashes. That's over 9500 people a year. There are 211,000,000 registered drivers I propose we ban either cars or alcohol. I'll let you pick. The death rate is about the same number, but the number of drivers is less than the number of guns, so you're more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than you are to be shot to death. Not much though. I assume you agree with me that all cars or alcohol should be banned? Or maybe you just think we should only allow smaller cars. Nobody really needs to drive a 2-ton dually death machine anyways. Or maybe we should just ban all alcohol but wine. Nobody ever gets drunk on wine and drives a car. And no the argument that it's fun to just drink a few beers in not a strong argument for not banning alcohol.

Considering that workers in the US enjoy among the highest wages in the world I'd say pretty good

You'd have to compare "purchasing power" and/or inflation adjusted wages over time before and after the Chinese "robots" aka workers started being used.

High and going up = things getting better for the workers.
High but going down = things getting worse for the workers.

See the median and mean incomes: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/2011/H06AR_2011.xls
When did the Chinese workers start to really come "on line" (and outsourcing begin)? Maybe it's not a marked downward trend but it sure doesn't look as bright as you suggest.

The second and relevant one here is if labor costs are high. The fact that Chinese firms are finding it viable to automate means that millions of people are being pulled from poverty.

High relative to alternatives. Are the Chinese "robots"/workers causing millions of Americans being pulled to become richer than they were before?

If the answer is no (and it seems to be no from the census figures), then why would cheaper and cheaper robots cause more and more Chinese people to be richer in the future?

Maybe it's because of the trade deficit (starting at about 1998?): http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/
But that might be related - it could mean in future the people that own the robots would become richer as the rest become poorer and have a "trade deficit" with the robot owners. And even if the robots and robot owners are in the US doesn't mean that most US people would own the robots: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505124_162-57578162/robots-are-going-to-take-your-job/

Considering that workers in the US enjoy among the highest wages in the world I'd say pretty good

You'd have to compare "purchasing power" and/or inflation adjusted wages over time before and after the Chinese "robots" aka workers started being used.

High and going up = things getting better for the workers.
High but going down = things getting worse for the workers.

See the median and mean incomes: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/2011/H06AR_2011.xls
When did the Chinese workers start to really come "on line" (and outsourcing begin)? Maybe it's not a marked downward trend but it sure doesn't look as bright as you suggest.

The second and relevant one here is if labor costs are high. The fact that Chinese firms are finding it viable to automate means that millions of people are being pulled from poverty.

High relative to alternatives. Are the Chinese "robots"/workers causing millions of Americans being pulled to become richer than they were before?

If the answer is no (and it seems to be no from the census figures), then why would cheaper and cheaper robots cause more and more Chinese people to be richer in the future?

Maybe it's because of the trade deficit (starting at about 1998?): http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/
But that might be related - it could mean in future the people that own the robots would become richer as the rest become poorer and have a "trade deficit" with the robot owners. And even if the robots and robot owners are in the US doesn't mean that most US people would own the robots: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505124_162-57578162/robots-are-going-to-take-your-job/

/sighs

They haven't stopped declining SINCE cellphones became a big thing, either.

... and safety technology hasn't stopped increasing during that time period, either.

Here's my question to you: you say that traffic fatalities have been declining... what about overall accident rates? Unless they've been on the decline as well, and in similar or better numbers than the fatalities, you're really only helping me prove my point.

FWIW, according to this document from the census bureau, overall accident rates have remained fairly steady over the last few decades, with fatalities and serious injuries seeing a slightly higher decrease; in other words, we have about the same amount of wrecks, but less deaths because cars are safer than they used to be.

Two hits on Google show you are wrong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States#Total_number_of_vehicles
http://www.census.gov/popclock/

As you notice; all the way up to the very recent histories, these cities grew from ~65k people to over 6 million people; all without the help of cars. The jump from then to now (when cars were available) only pushed that up by a factor of 2.

You're comparing 4000 years of growth and 100 years of growth as if they're somehow equivalent?

So tldr; : No cars would mean even bigger cities. Not in terms of density, but sheer diameter and area filled with people.

That conclusion doesn't fit the data. Here's U.S. census data from 1800 to 1990 of the percentage of the population living in urban vs. rural areas. As you can see, the advent of widespread car ownership does not correlate with a slowdown in urbanization as you're hypothesizing.

The definition of "urban" used by the census includes both urban cores and relatively low-density suburbs surrounding those since 1950. Thus census data would not distinguish between the growth of the urban core or the growth of the surrounding agglomeration.

Your analysis contains some very important oversights:

Your numbers are taken from the US Census Bureau: 2001 & 2011.

First, let's look at the difference between 2003 & 2004, so that we can see the addition of the Department of Homeland Security. See how the total number of full time employees stays roughly the same, but the 2004 numbers have that extra section for the DHS with ~140k full time employees? Those people weren't all hired that year -- the DHS employees are already in the grand total on the top line. You were double counting them in your 2011 numbers. So let's revise your numbers to account for that:
2001: 2.7M employees with a payroll of $11.4B
2011: 2.85M employees with a payroll of $16.1B

That's a 6% increase in headcount, and a 41% increase in payroll. Still pretty big, right? Well, we ought to adjust for inflation. Looks like the $16.1B would have been worth $12.7B in 2001.

So really, we're looking at a 6% increase in headcount, and an 11% increase in inflation-adjusted payroll. It's not nothing, but it's not what you're making it out to be.

Let's go into even more detail!

By pulling up the 2008 numbers, we can see which parts are attributable to Bush, and which are attributable to Obama. Since Bush has more years of growth, we'll annualize the results.

(I did this in Excel, and you're free to download the tables from the Census website and repeat my calculations. I'm tired of making hyperlinks.)

Under Bush, the Federal Government grew at an average of 4.5% per year, with the largest contributors being National Defense, Healthcare and Law Enforcement. Under Obama, the Federal Government grew at an average of 1.4% per year, with the largest contributors being Healthcare and the Postal Service (which didn't grow much percentage-wise, but its sheer size meant that even a few percentage points put it over the top). Remember, we're talking about payroll here, so Social Security & Medicare aren't nearly as big.

So under Obama, the government payroll has actually been shrinking in inflation adjusted dollars. And remember, this is pre-sequester. Of course, that doesn't mean all of the cuts were Obama's idea, or all of the heavy spending was Bush's. But it does show that over the past several years, the government has been trimming the fat. Your "throw the bums out" approach is unwarranted.

Your analysis contains some very important oversights:

Your numbers are taken from the US Census Bureau: 2001 & 2011.

First, let's look at the difference between 2003 & 2004, so that we can see the addition of the Department of Homeland Security. See how the total number of full time employees stays roughly the same, but the 2004 numbers have that extra section for the DHS with ~140k full time employees? Those people weren't all hired that year -- the DHS employees are already in the grand total on the top line. You were double counting them in your 2011 numbers. So let's revise your numbers to account for that:
2001: 2.7M employees with a payroll of $11.4B
2011: 2.85M employees with a payroll of $16.1B

That's a 6% increase in headcount, and a 41% increase in payroll. Still pretty big, right? Well, we ought to adjust for inflation. Looks like the $16.1B would have been worth $12.7B in 2001.

So really, we're looking at a 6% increase in headcount, and an 11% increase in inflation-adjusted payroll. It's not nothing, but it's not what you're making it out to be.

Let's go into even more detail!

By pulling up the 2008 numbers, we can see which parts are attributable to Bush, and which are attributable to Obama. Since Bush has more years of growth, we'll annualize the results.

(I did this in Excel, and you're free to download the tables from the Census website and repeat my calculations. I'm tired of making hyperlinks.)

Under Bush, the Federal Government grew at an average of 4.5% per year, with the largest contributors being National Defense, Healthcare and Law Enforcement. Under Obama, the Federal Government grew at an average of 1.4% per year, with the largest contributors being Healthcare and the Postal Service (which didn't grow much percentage-wise, but its sheer size meant that even a few percentage points put it over the top). Remember, we're talking about payroll here, so Social Security & Medicare aren't nearly as big.

So under Obama, the government payroll has actually been shrinking in inflation adjusted dollars. And remember, this is pre-sequester. Of course, that doesn't mean all of the cuts were Obama's idea, or all of the heavy spending was Bush's. But it does show that over the past several years, the government has been trimming the fat. Your "throw the bums out" approach is unwarranted.