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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.

Yeah, so maybe the subject is flame bait, but self righteous ass clowns like you really grind my gears.
You have the balls to talk about India spending money on weapons when the 21% of US children live in poverty?
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/
When there an estimated 500k homeless people living in US cities?
America spends 4.5% on GDP on the military, NOT including the illegal wars being waged.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
You sir, are a jackass.

Why do you think that HPV is "incredibly rare"?

Population of US : ~251 million [http://www.census.gov/popclock/]
Population of US with HPV : ~79 million [http://www.cdc.gov/std/HPV/STDFact-HPV.htm]

That is ~31% of the population of a country which is aware of the disease and actively fighting it.

Government aid isn't meant to help you save for retirement. It is meant to help you survive. That said, they government is painfully aware that geographic location data is needed for cost of living adjustments, but they haven't found a reliable way to do that as of yet.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/methodology/supplemental/research/Renwick_SGE2011.pdf

You are also thinking of this as a person who is not currently below poverty. They receive a range of aid for basics which you pay for out of pocket. Food, utilities, housing. All of these are can be made available as additional aid depending on the income level, which reduces the burden on the poor. Someone who isn't below that level wouldn't qualify for most of these benefits, and they often don't factor that into their calculations.

Although it may seem impossible for someone to 'get by' on 11K a year, the additional aid they receive does soften that burden and make it possible, although most would not want to live that like if they had the means not to.

Internet was in many households long before Microsoft implemented it on the "commodized PC platform".

The numbers aren't there to support such a claim. In fact, they prove just the opposite. The US Census figures are particularly striking and persuasive.

Households With a Computer and Internet Access 1984 to 2003

Internet Adoption 1995-2011

In 1990 the Internet had existed for only 7 years; just 3 million people had access to it worldwide. 73% of these people were living in the United States, 15% were in Western Europe.

Internet Users 1990

No, every single one of there tests have been seriously flawed. IN fact, anything involving driving on the show borders on surprisingly stupid.

That's not even getting into the issue that the issue is reflexes and response time, so you should test reflexes and response time, not how much of X is in your system.
Of course, that would be reasonable, and remove most people over 60 from driving.

Except, of course, for the fact that safe driving involves more than reflexes and response time - if you want to remove the least safe drivers from the road, that would be drivers under the age of 24 - they have a much higher accident rate than average (even higher than drivers over 75). But it's the 25 - 55 year olds that get into the most drunk driving accidents. The 55-75 year olds have the lowest accident rate.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1114.pdf

a good fraction of the over-60 population sober are worse drivers than a good fraction of the 20-30 yr old population at 0.08). Lower it and, for example, I don't see how you could rationally also allow anyone over the age of 60 to drive.

That certainly doesn't jibe with the statistics here, which show that the fatal accident rate for drivers 75 and over is lower than for anyone 24 or younger, and that the fatal accident rate for drivers between 55 and 74 is lower than for any other age group.

Not sure where you get your statistics of 30,000 people dying per year from guns, but even assuming it's an accurate statistic (huge leap of faith here), according to the US Census, http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf (see here's the difference of just putting a number out there versus data to back it up) 46,800 people were killed in the US alone in auto accidents in 2012. Why is no one screaming to Congress to ban automobiles? It would save 16,800 more lives per year than your "fact" of 30,000 people killed by guns each year.

Now get back to propping up our economy and owning most of our soverign debt.

Care to back that up with a source? They are the largest foreign holder of debt but that is far from owning most of our debt. China owns about 8% of public debt.

China's exports by country - US buys 20% from China.
Also China runs an year-on-year positive trade balance

US goods trade: total showing a deficit since at least 1989.
Goods trade with China only - deficit again

Gotta ask yourself the population of which country would suffer the most if the trade between the two would suddenly stop?

Now get back to propping up our economy and owning most of our soverign debt.

Care to back that up with a source? They are the largest foreign holder of debt but that is far from owning most of our debt. China owns about 8% of public debt.

China's exports by country - US buys 20% from China.
Also China runs an year-on-year positive trade balance

US goods trade: total showing a deficit since at least 1989.
Goods trade with China only - deficit again

Gotta ask yourself the population of which country would suffer the most if the trade between the two would suddenly stop?

(but we can't afford to educate our children... bright.)

Note: Im trying to cite sources on both sides-- not just heritage, but also huffington-- and to include "primary" sources (US Dept of Education).

Interesting thing about education is that there seems to be little direct relationship between spending and results with education. Look at [PDF WARNING] per-pupil spending by state (Table 8, on page 26), and compare to NAEP performance by state. You have some top spenders in the first few top spots, but you also have the very top spenders-- New York and DC-- all the way at the bottom of the list; and you have a number of others scattered throughout the rankings. It would be nice if there were a combined graph somewhere, but I wasnt able to find one.

Also (and I didnt know this till looking it up just now), apparently per-student expenditures have doubled since 1970, and yet scores have remained flat:
http://www.heritage.org/static/reportimages/796DF8C7C231CFFE366308277E88CF57.gif
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-gates/bill-gates-school-performance_b_829771.html
(verify the numbers @ http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66 and http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-chart.html)

Its almost as if, after a certain point, spending on education has very little effect. Almost as if "getting iPads for your students" doesnt ACTUALLY magically implant knowledge in their brain, or motivate them to learn. Almost as if there are much more important factors like family and community involvement.

This is an interesting comment, that has been running around the community organization circuit lately. However, it doesn't hold to be true. Income after taxes have tripled since 1984 while expenditures as a function of income has decreased by 20%.

In 1984, people in the US spent 103.5% of their income on housing, food, entertainment, etc. In 2009 that number was down to 80.8%. (See: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/income_expenditures_poverty_wealth/consumer_expenditures.html, http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0684.xls)

Most notably, we can see that housing increased its dominance over personal expenditure, and with the 20% decrease more income may be devoted to savings or discretionary spending.

This is an interesting comment, that has been running around the community organization circuit lately. However, it doesn't hold to be true. Income after taxes have tripled since 1984 while expenditures as a function of income has decreased by 20%.

In 1984, people in the US spent 103.5% of their income on housing, food, entertainment, etc. In 2009 that number was down to 80.8%. (See: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/income_expenditures_poverty_wealth/consumer_expenditures.html, http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0684.xls)

Most notably, we can see that housing increased its dominance over personal expenditure, and with the 20% decrease more income may be devoted to savings or discretionary spending.

I am, for example, *FAR* more likely to be run down by a taxi or MUNI bus while crossing the street downtown than I am to be killed in any kind of terrorist attack.

Massachusetts averages less than one traffic fatality per day. If you were in the Boston area yesterday, it would not be an unreasonable calculation to think the risk of being killed by a terrorist - who was known to be armend, dangerous and in the immediate vicinity - was at least as high and potentially much higher than that of being run down while driving or crossing the street.

If we had Nascar-like service stations every 20 miles along every stretch of road, highway, freeway, and dirt path, everywhere... THEN 100 mile range would work just-fine. Otherwise, no. 200 is a pretty good minimum, assuming fast charging stations proliferating.

*You* must be a professional driver or be a traveling salesman or something. From http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-15.pdf, 42.3% of people took fewer than 20 minutes to get to work. (You get to 56.5% for fewer than 25). Even if that 20 minutes (remember, that's the maximum) was all freeway time, let's say 21.66 miles. So double that (for return trip) and add some various driving around, and 60 miles covers a huge proportion of people's commutes.

My first thought exactly. The mark to beat is an extremely imperfect one. We meat popsicles are hovering around 11 million reported accidents per year. Though on a general decline, I think the google-mobile can give us a run for our money.

Most accidents are caused by someone picking something up they dropped, looing the wrong way at the time, changing the radio station, etc. or inibriation.

Really? I'd like to see the source of your assertion.

Granted distracted driving is the darling of the press these days. But that doesn't make it the major contributor to fatalities.

In fact, fatalities by all causes are on a steady year by year decline and have been for 15 years.

Drunk driving still accounts for a great deal, 31% of the overall traffic fatalities in 2010. One-half of traffic deaths ages 21 to 25 were drinking drivers.

Distracted driving hovers around 16% of fatal crashes by comparison.

Drunk driving is about 4 times as deadly as distraction.

Most accidents are caused by someone picking something up they dropped, looing the wrong way at the time, changing the radio station, etc. or inibriation.

Really? I'd like to see the source of your assertion.

Granted distracted driving is the darling of the press these days. But that doesn't make it the major contributor to fatalities.

In fact, fatalities by all causes are on a steady year by year decline and have been for 15 years.

Drunk driving still accounts for a great deal, 31% of the overall traffic fatalities in 2010. One-half of traffic deaths ages 21 to 25 were drinking drivers.

Distracted driving hovers around 16% of fatal crashes by comparison.

Drunk driving is about 4 times as deadly as distraction.

There are roughly 200 million drivers in the US. They have roughly 11 million accidents per year.

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

The catch is, nearly all traffic accidents are preventable by one of the parties involved. Most are at low speeds and most are due to the driver not paying attention to the situtation around them. Next time you are at a busy traffic light, count the cars around you. Chances are one of them will be in an accident that year. Now do that every time you stop at a traffic light....

Fuck and Ass. There, no one died.

I beg to differ.

'Masses' is a fairly relative concept, as is 'affordable'.

I'm unwilling to bend quite so far as this.

The median household income in 1977 was $13, 570. Money Income in 1977 of Households in the United States

Yep

(See table 1114 - the last two columns: "Accident rates per number of drivers")

Well, what I read that I like is over 1000 gallons of ethanol produced per acre-year. Since my family ethanol/gasoline needs are approximately 1000 gallons per year, that means that even evil energy beet fuel production only needs one acre of farm land to produce our energy needs, half that if we update our vehicles to higher efficiency ones. This is, of course, ignoring the cost of production issues.

Now, with nearly 100 million families of four (equivalent, also consider that we might be below average in our fuel consumption) in the U.S. - 100 million acres is a lot of farmland - a bit over 10%, but it wouldn't be a bad transition from oil.

Maybe algae energy is better, certainly is if it can be done on marginal lands, but either way, I'm liking the biofuel implications here.

4,143,077 Texans live in poverty. 1,655,085 of them are children. http://www.census.gov/

90% of them are illegal aliens.

Dude, the difference is SLAVERY. All large civilizations are built on the backs of slaves...

Not, they aren't; it may be PC to say so, but it's just not true. No large modern civilization was built mainly on slavery, because slavery is just not efficient and productive enough. It's risky and expensive to educate slaves, so you can't build serious industrial capacity on slavery, their mobility as a workforce is minimal, you get lots of extra expenses for security, not to mention motivation.
 
Even in America, where slavery was much more prevalent and lasted more than in most other world powers, the productivity of the industrialized North (based mostly on immigrant labor) was far ahead of the productivity of the slave-owning South. Look at the 1850 census, especially here http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1850c-06.pdf (table CXCV, on page 11) to see how the gross manufacturing production of non-slaveholding states dwarfs the GP of slave-holding states. Though the difference isn't as great, the agricultural production (http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1850c-05.pdf) AND productivity was also larger in the North.
 
Of course, this doesn't mean the slaves didn't contribute, or had it easy, but, if you really want America to have been build on somebody's back, that back would belong to the immigrant laborer.

We are spending far more per person than we did in 1943, the height of World War II spending. And we aren't even in a major war.

This, and few seems to fucking know it, and its starting to piss me off that so few do.

The raw facts:

Government spending in 2011 was $6.251 trillion dollars (source: OECD.ORG
Total number of households in 2011 was 114.761 million (source: CENSUS.GOV

Government spending per household was $54469.72 in 2011, more than the median household income (source: basic math)

People seem to get caught up in the Federal numbers as if thats all that was spent, all that was borrowed, and all that is owed. Its not the case. People also jump to erroneous conclusions such as if the Federal government was greatly downsized that many government services would be cut, when in actuality the State and Local governments are funding and providing most of the cost of most of the services they cite as potentially lost or harmed (education, police, fire, justice, etc..)

The solution to the problem isn't cutting taxes on the middle class, raising taxes in the rich, or the ridiculous idea of spending even more.. no, the solution really is to stop spending so god damned much.

Where are these mythical greedy rural folks expecting handouts you talk about? Cause I've never met a one living in such places my whole life.

Really?

You've never met a person in the country whose mail cost more to deliver that the mail of someone living in a city apartment and yet sending mail to them costs the same? You've never a met person in the country who has used something funded via the RBS or the RUS? Never met someone who ever used the RHS? You've never met a rural person on food stamps?

I have however met many a person in the city living on welfare with an escalade in the driveway and using a food stamp funded cell phone.

I suspect you're lying or at least being deceptive. How large a number is "many"? You can't fund a cell phone with food stamps so you are just making that up (or it was criminal fraud - that happens in the country too you know and isn't relevant to subsidizing), or you misunderstand the lifeline program and have mixed it up with food stamps I guess (though if you can't tell the difference between food and telephones?).

Given that a higher percentage of rural people are on food stamps than city people (see data at https://www.census.gov/sipp/), it's amazing you've managed to invert that in your meeting of people. Do you frequent the poor city neighborhoods and the rich rural ones?

Americans are girly man with small penises and they need to compensate with big cars and big guns.

Why do many gun control advocates have this strange fascination with penises, and small penises in particular, that they need to bring it up in every discussion on the subject? I don't hear gun owners bringing that topic nearly as much. Makes you wonder who's the insecure one here. ~

For self defense, you want the smallest revolver possible as it is the easiest to handle, the quickest to fire, the easiest to keep near you, doesn't jam, requires the least maintenance and at close range is still highly lethal.

The smallest revolver possible would be something chambered in .22 - that's hardly "highly lethal". A .38 might cut it, but a lot of people would also dispute the "highly lethal" assertion, or at least its stopping power (it does you no good if the assailant dies half an hour later from blood loss, if in the meantime he gets to cut you to strips with a knife he charged you with).

Revolvers are also not the smallest handguns available. They're generally heavier than automatic pistols (because of the cylinder), and they're also not as flat - and you can't make their frames out of polymer, since there's too much stress. I dare you to find a revolver that's as small and light as a, say, Ruger LCP, or Kel-Tec P-32. The latter I can (and do) carry in the pocket of my jeans, and it looks and feels much like a thick wallet (it's actually thinner than my actual wallet in the other pocket). Reliability-wise, modern semi-automatics are also plenty reliable, and revolvers can jam, too (though I agree that the likelihood of that is smaller).

Anyway, you don't really want the smallest gun. You want the smallest gun that you can conveniently carry concealed. What that is varies from person to person, since it depends a lot on the body build, the kind of clothing that you wear, and your definition of "convenience". A lot of people can conveniently carry a compact 1911 chambered in .45. And a .45 is definitely a much more reliable man-stopper than a .38.

oh wait... there aren't. The stories simply don't exist. The entire idea that gun owners can defend themselves just isn't true, it doesn't happen.

Forget the NRA, what about the government reporting such cases? For example, NCVS, provided by the Department of Justice, reports 65,000 cases per year - are they hallucinating about them?

If civilian gun ownership made sense, the US would be the safest place in the world to life in. Is it?

Well, if you go state by state, you'll find that some US states (generally, out of those that have more liberal gun laws) are safer to live in than some European countries. Apparently, New Hampshire has two times less murders per capita than Belgium, for example. And Utah is safer to live in than Finland.

God forbid you live in Illinois on California, though. Or Texas and Arizona.

And if you go around comparing European countries, they, too, show a very unclear picture. Switzerland is safer than Australia and UK, how about that? Czech Republic (where concealed handgun carry is legalized) has lower murder rates than Luxembourg (where civilians cannot possess firearms at all). On the other hand, the safest European country by far is Iceland, which has moderately restrictive gun laws (handguns banned, long guns permitted for hunting purposes - curiously enough, semi-auto rifles are banned, but not semi-auto shotguns).

Which is to say, there doesn't seem to be any particularly good correlation between gun ownership and safety, either way.

My sources for data on countries and on states.

Instead of comparing the rates for US as a whole to individual European countries, look per-state instead - laws are different in them, and so are economic conditions.

You'll find some curious things. For example, the murder rate in New Hampshire (0.9 per 100k in 2009), with its particularly liberal gun laws, is quite a bit lower than that in UK (1.3). On the other hand, the murder rates in New York (4.0) and Illinois (8.4) are significantly higher, despite their restrictive gun laws. Utah (1.4) is lower than Finland (2.0), yet California (5.4) with its state-wide AWB and high-cap mag ban is much higher than Switzerland (0.7). Vermont (1.3) with its "constitutional carry" fares better than Belgium (1.7), while Wisconsin (2.6) - the only "no-issue" state in the country - is worse than Romania (2.0).

Now, I'm not going to claim that liberal gun laws are what results in lower murder rates. There are plenty of states with such laws and high rates - Alaska (3.2), Texas (5.4) etc. All I'm saying is that liberal gun laws, and widespread gun ownership, doesn't seem to correlate particularly well with murder rate.

Then why does Alaska have such a high violent crime rate per 100k?

Their rape rate is about 6 times NY state and the aggravated assault stats are about 2 times worse.
Citation:
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0308.pdf

Mass murder rates are more about population, since AKs population is so low they just don't have enough crazies is my guess on that one.

Wrong question. The proper question is "how often is it the primary caretaker who gets sole custody?" and the answer, as you'd expect, is probably close to 90% or higher. If a child is raised by a stay-at-home parent, the courts will almost always find that parent to be the best caretaker for the child, absent some unusual circumstances.

[citation needed].

There were three sentences there... Is there a specific one you'd like a citation for? I mean, I'm happy to help answer your question, but you have to be a little more definite with what the question is.

There were three sentences, but only one conclusion. You appeared to hypothesize that the discrepancy in custody awarding was due to the courts awarding custody to stay at home moms over dads who have left the parenting to their wives. Well, only 23% of married mothers of children under 15 were stay-at-home moms (link), but the wife got sole custody ~70% of the time (link and apologies for the slightly less trustworthy source. It was honestly the only thing I found that gave the ratio custodialFathers:custodialMothers:jointCustody.) Two things to note:
1. In my brief research, I encountered some evidence (although not enough to completely convince me) that this discrepancy was due to fathers asking for custody less. It appears both you and the poster you were replying to may be wrong.
2. I admit that the question of who is the primary caretaker is harder to determine. But, since I have shown that the father gets sole custody 10% of the time (30% when combined with joint custody), you must now show that this is reflected in the proportion of parenting duties carried out by mothers and fathers. Please note, I am not claiming I know why custody gets split the way it is, much less that it must be because of discrimination. I am simply saying that I don't accept that that your explanation is correct either.

How often it's the female who pays alimony/child support to the male? Next to never?

Exactly as often as the male is the primary caretaker and the female is the one with the career. Again, rare in the pre-feminism days, increasing now, thanks to feminism.

Well, it turns out that in 2006, 33.4% of wives earned more than their husbands (link. But only 3.6% of alimony recipients were male (link), so it looks like you're wrong in claiming that alimony payments are being distributed fairly.

Did you realize that you were changing the terms mid-question? I'm going to assume good faith on your part and that you just weren't thinking when you wrote the question.

First, this is a question about child support and primary caretakers [of the child] and your statistic is about... alimony. Unrelated. And, contrary to your assertion, I never said anything about "alimony payments being distributed fairly." But we'll come back to that in a second.

The person you were responding to asked about both child support and alimony. I assumed--apparently erroneously, my apologies--that you were trying to answer both questions, which is why I talked about alimony

Second, you mentioned that 33.4% of wives earned more than husbands, but you were responding to a question about primary caretaker vs. non-primary caretaker. Unless you're making the bold (and incorrect) assertion that wives are always the primary caretaker, then your statistic is unrelated to the point you're trying to make. Again, when husbands are primary caretakers,

The US is top 10 per-capita GDP in the world. This of course includes the massive rural areas that our country has in the average. Whatever point you were trying to make, "we're not making much money" is baloney.

We are not making much money. Corporations are.
Look at the median income for US Americans and compare it to the rest of the Western countries.

According to the US Census Bureau, the median income for US households in 2011 was $50,054.
Since you mentioned Norway, according to the Norwegian Central Bureau of Statistics, the median post-tax income for Norwegian households in 2010 was ~$74,000.

Yes, we're making much money - for others, not ourselves.

Poverty isn't the people with low incomes living in trailer parks and low income housing, They are the people pushing shopping carts on the streets with children in tow.

Not true:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/measure.html

I think US Office Of Personnel Management has better data than your article: http://www.opm.gov/feddata/historicaltables/totalgovernmentsince1962.asp

So, federal government: 4.4 million employees

Plus, state and local, 16 million: http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/governments/cb12-156.html

NO. The republicans and the ~50% of the people who voted republican are "holding the country hostage". Of course they would say that the democrats and a bunch of crack mothers are holding the country hostage and leading us to financial ruin. That's really the problem.

It's no where near 50%.

The current bunch are still the leftovers from 2008 and 2010 (and 2006 for senators), right?

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/elections/voting-age_population_and_voter_participation.html has numbers for "U.S. Representatives" I'm going to assume they mean that and that they aren't counting senate votes. In which case the voter turnouts 53.3% and 37.0% of the voting age population actually voted for the (including the senate would make the number "worse" since 2006 wasn't a Presedential election year and hence a turnout of 36%).

If we assume the votes really are 50/50 - we ignore third party votes and that there are more republicans in the house - then we have (0.5*53.3 + 0.5*37.0)/2 = 22.6% of the people being republicans and holding the country hostage, 22.6% of the people being democrats and holding the country hostage, and 54.9% of the people not thinking either side is better enough than the other to bother voting and just being held hostage.

Not so much. While I can't find 2012 figures, per capita money income in the US was lower in 2011 compared to 2001 (adjusted for inflation), though it was about 17% above where it was in 1991.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&met_y=ny_gnp_pcap_pp_cd#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gnp_pcap_pp_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:USA&ifdim=region&tdim=true&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false [google.com] Looks pretty healthy to me.

That chart you show is expressly not adjusted for inflation, which you would see if you hovered over the "?" by the title that explains the data (its also gross national income per capita which isn't the same thing as per capita money income). See this table (XLS): in 2011 dollars, per capita money income in the US was $27,554 in 2011, and $29,030 in 2001, and $23,540 in 1991.

Shockingly enough, in countries where there are strict gun laws, there appear to be less shootings by criminals than int he U.S.

While non-gun petty and violent crime have risen as the number of firearms in private hands has decreased.

This is the simple fact opponents of gun control simply cannot deal with.

Less guns mean less gun violence.

And a fact that proponents of gun control in the U.S. ignore is that drunk driving kills more people each year than firearms, by about 15%, and vehicle crashes in general kill 4,000 times as many as guns..

In 2010, 8,874, people were killed by firearms.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

In 2010, 10,228 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes
http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html

In 2009, 35,900,00 people were killed by automobiles.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf

Yet I don't see the Dianne Feinstein's of the world on a mad rush to ban alcohol, or ban automobiles. If the push to ban guns was about deaths of citizens, young children, then we'd have banned cars long ago, or passed laws to make it much harder for people who just don't have the coordination and brain power to drive a car safely, etc, etc, and we'd have banned alcohol outright, again (with the same results).

Pull the blinders off people. Stop drinking the Kool-aid. The push to ban guns is about political ideology of the left, not saving lives. Always has been, always will be. Mass shootings like this are simply a timely opportunity to push their ideological agenda again, hoping the outrage will put enough wind in their legislative sails to pass something.

The 2nd amendment to the U.S. constitution guarantess us the right to bear arms. And it puts no limitations on the types of arms.

There is no guarantee in the constitution of a right to own or drive an automobile, or consume alcohol.

Seems to me if the concern were truly for dead children, as is being claimed here, then we'd surely embark on passing legislation to once again ban alcohol, and if we really want to cut down on deaths, ban automobiles.

Guns amplify the problem like no other tool in existence does.

So yeah easy access and possession of guns IS THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

Gun homicides in the US ~ 9000/year (2010).
AIDS deaths a year, 17,000/year
2009 vehicle accident deaths 33,808/year.
Smoking releated deaths 440,000/year.
Cardiovascular diseases kill 2,140 a day or ~800,000/year.

Sure looks like guns make the lions share of the killing.

> In much smaller numbers.

Smaller numbers?
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html

27 people will die in the time I take to type this comment.
Twice as many will be killed by lightning this year (a mere 10% of those who are stuck).
Four to Eight times as many will die of arson

This is tragic and unnecessary, but to imply that is pervasive or even, for that matter, statistically relevant is ridiculous. The numbers are already tiny. Yes, I understand completely that the numbers don't matter when you're the one affected, but if you're taking about sweeping policy reform, them you're not talking about those affected.

Is this not the site I read when I see how people decrying the latest TSA or "counter-terrorism" attack on our rights? Well guess what: The terrorists killed over 100x as many as this did, and probably more than 10x of what school shootings have done over the history of the US. I guess people here are much, much more worried about privacy than guns when to comes to loss of rights, because 9/11 is far better grounds for action than this is.

So what good is in such demand that it is singlehandedly keeping everyone in Poland employed? What good has gone so out of style that Spain and Greece have such high unemployment rates.

So let's look at the issue for the specific countries you list, and I'll add one more - Italy. Italy, Greece, and Spain are all having a major issue with their economy. The question is why? And the answer really has nothing to do with this thread, but since you asked...

Here's some demographic information: Poland
Spain Population Spain Ages
Greece Ages Greece CIA Demographics
Italy Ages

For comparison, we'll also look at the USA: Ages, 2010 Census population and age information.

Look at the age spreads.
All typically have a 66% 15-64 age range for the population; but if you look at the 0-14 and 65+ ranges and median ages, you'll see the problem - and it's one of entitlements. The 65+ group is generally dependent on each countries equivalent of the US's Social Security program; yet how fast the 65+ group is growing is an issue - especially for southern Europe. It would be one thing if the age spreads were relatively even - that is, 0-14 and 65+ were about equal (as is Poland) as it is more sustainable than when the 0-14 is a smaller group than 65+. Preferably 0-14 would be larger group.

Leaving the 0-14 and 65+ groups aside, the bigger issue is the spread of ages in the 15-64 range, which the median age reveals. Greece is listed at 40+; and Greece. Comparatively, US and Poland are around 36 median age. (Italy and Spain are more like Greece in demographics, but I cannot find a similar source to specify it.) So this tells us that for Greece the 65+ group is going to start growing really fast compared to the other two groups; Spain and Italy being similar will have the same issue. Without the Median age coming down, and the growth of the 0-14 grow, having a Social Security type program that the 65+ group relies on is only going to be more and more of a problem as people exit the economy and draw benefits, thus depressing the economy as more money is extracted from the economy in order to pay for those benefits - money that could have otherwise been used to promote economic growth and in turn encourage people to have more children and thereby grow the population.

According to the US Census bureau, 4 out of 5 Americans live in an urban area. Yes, we have some wide open spaces. But that's what they are: open spaces with no people in them. The vast majority of humans live in clusters that would bring the cost of broadband down.

Hey there poor person, why don't you have your investments setup in IRAs and 401(k)s?

51.1% of US familes own stock - even 13.6% of families in the bottom 20% of income own some stock (source).ï

Actually, poorer women tend to have higher birth rates. Education and access to contraception are two of the most relevant factors in a lower birth rate, and these are woefully lacking for most poor American women. I found this Census Bureau paper with some data from 2006 showing that women in lower income brackets have much higher birth rates.

The median household income in the US is $52,000 USA Quick Facts

The OP, to whom I initially replied, was talking about "gypsies" - as in the ethnicity. You then followed up my response that this was racist by posting about "romanipen" conflating the two. By talking about this in response to anti-ziganistic racism you're putting together the ideology (Which I can't find any evidence of existing, and I'm not learning Polish just to debunk that link) and the ethnicity. Romani are born to Romani. To call them "gypsy trash" and include them as con-men etc is insulting and racist. That's my original point and I stand by it, though you've tried moving the goalposts all over. The census bureau hold a bunch of data that's free to access. - http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/

They have some neat apps that you can use to visualize data. Go look at what being black (all other markers equal) does to your income, likelihood of being incarcerated etc. It might open your eyes...

As for the issue regarding the treatment of blacks, just look up the stats. Even if what you were saying about "ghetto mentality" were true (it isn't - poor blacks are equally likely to commit crime as the rest of their socio-economic class) you'll see that amongst university educated blacks there is still a lower hiring rate for the same qualifications, lower pay at the same level in companies etc.

Illegal immigration is the vast majority of current immigration. No need to assume, when you can measure.

Bullshit. And why bother measuring, when you can just make up numbers?

According to Wikipedia, there is 7 to 20 million illegal immigrants in the US.

According to the US census bureau, there are 40 million immigrants in the US as of 2011.

Doesn't quite seem like a "vast majority", or actually any kind of majority, does it?

Seriously. 2 minutes of googling. But why bother if you already have the wrong answer in your head?

I suspect that people with education and stable incomes continue to have children at the already low rate that they have historically.

That immigrants are also reducing the number of pregnancies hints that they understand the consequences and costs of raising children. Or maybe it hints that with access to free medical services (and yeah, lets not kid ourselves, for them it is free), they have managed to throw off the traditions of the third world of having many children even when living in squalor in the hopes that some of them will survive to take care of them in their old age.

(You would sort of expect this, since anyone willing to abandon their homeland and go on a long and dangerous journey risking arrest, and sometimes life, in the hopes of improving their conditions, would seem unlikely to fall back into the trap that they left).

Its been a long time since this country had a depression lasting 5 years, (with another 4 years on the horizon). Long enough for even the clueless to begin to understand the costs involved of feeding kids while out of work.

So who is still having those kids? I suspect the least able to support them. Unmarried teen age girls living in poverty. Despite nationally declining rates, teen birth rates in the United States remain persistently high, at 34.4 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 19. And these rates are dramatically higher than in other developed countries. Twice as high as Canada.

Also those living on public assistance, of one form or another, where having another kid means another increase in their assistance check.
The birth rate for women 15 to 50 years old receiving public assistance income in the last 12 months was 155 births per 1,000 women, about three times the rate for women not receiving public assistance. See page 15.

With no skills, and no prospects, there seems to be an entire population of breeder-class individuals. And they are not necessarily the immigrants that we all thought they were.

$50/hour translates to an annual salary of $100,000.

The "top 1%" of earners in the US make $312,000/year (see data here).

Obviously 100k$/year is a decent salary, but ~20% of american households bring in that much or more. So it's not such a small group of people for whom it is reasonable to pay $50 to avoid an hour of hassle. (And presumably the subset of people shopping for a developer-optimized Linux laptop are going to skew away from the low end of the earning distribution.)

People are not rational.

Indeed. Is it rational to put so much thought into people you never met, never would want to meet, who live thousands of miles away? How does Casey Anthony affect me in any way, except for my being constantly bombarded by it in the media?

A kid died, that's tragic to the people involved. Meanwhile, children are being killed by their government bombing them, war in the Congo, war between the Palestineans and Israelis, auto accidents... yet we fixate on one kid?

Indeed, we are not rational. I don't want to fucking hear about Casey Anthony. I'd rather hear about there being fewer violent crimes than before, a fact that the sensationalist media don't seem to want you to know about.