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The above quote appears to be fabricated, see for example : http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2007/11/is_iran_suicidal_or_deterrable If you want real quotes for threatening, or wanting to, nuke targets, you probably find more from U.S military leaders.

At least the median income in Australia is still A$66,820*

Were you implying that $66k is high?
If so, what good is a high median income when life is ridiculously expensive? Australia is one of the most expensive friggin countries in which to live.

Have you not read any of the many articles on this subject? Here are 2:

The Economist
SMH

http://www.economist.com/blogs/leviathan/2011/11/tobin-tax-again

What are you talking about, Commie????? It means Freedom!!!11!!!! God bless Ay-Murrrrka!!!111!!11

Presumably, you're one of the idiots who freely believes that al-Gur was responsible for 9-11, and not al-Qaeda...

The King of Thailand has long had an officially-backed, and in early years American-assisted, cult of personality. It's illegal to criticise the king in Thailand, and hundreds of people are convicted of insulting the King every year, and in many cases thrown in jail for extended periods of time.

Don't expect much comprehension from Americans.
Turkey is an American ally, so American media is doing what it can to ignore the uprising.

Turkey probably wishes their protests were getting as much coverage as
Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Bahrain (is that all of 'em?) did.

In case anyone is wondering why the Turkish military hasn't removed the Prime Minister already

Why are you assuming it's already been taxed in another country?

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21578399-testimony-capitol-hill-apples-boss-made-case-corporate-tax-reform-more-ways

"The company is incorporated in Ireland but in effect is managed from America (where its board meetings are held). This lets it claim it is a resident of nowhere for tax purposes, thanks to a difference between Irish and American rules: America bases residency on where a firm is incorporated; Ireland on where it is managed or otherwise controlled. Mr Levin called this the âoeHoly Grailâ of tax avoidance: stateless profits, beyond the reach of all taxmen."

I always found it rather strange that bacterial infections could spread so easily in a "sanitary" environment like a hospital.

Also in a place where all viruses are killed, there are no bacteriophages to attack the viruses, unlike our mucous membranes.

Yes, and for an example of this, mention "Streisand effect" to someone that doesn't read Slashdot, and they will probably have no idea what you are talking about.

What about someone reading the Economist?

These are the same people who are now building new coal burning plants because they shut down their nuclear power industry. And the coal they are burning is low quality crap lignite. In some countries in Europe coal consumption is increasing 50% per year.

Some have called it a new golden age of coal in Europe:

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21569039-europes-energy-policy-delivers-worst-all-possible-worlds-unwelcome-renaissance

Now of course they are going to turn their back on much cleaner natural gas because they are afraid that they can't write effective regs for shale gas production?

MOAR COAL!!!

Europe's environmental policy is flat out nuts.

It won't help rescue the drowning victim because the actual people who could rescue aren't going to be any closer to the victim than currently and a 20 minute response time will REMAIN a 20 minute response time for that reason.

Sure, I used the wrong word. I should have said "soon-to-drown" victim, not "drowning" victim. Also in theory, the quadrocopter itself could carry a rescue buoy and/or it could also be paired up with a water rescue bot like Emily.

This presumes

a) that the drone is taken out there (if it's on a charging station), but if they knew that then they could also send humans out there at that time instead

A bot could be sitting in a launching station ready to deploy at a moment's notice 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year. I don't think you could say the same thing for a human being. In any case, I'm not saying that a bot would be ideal for all use cases. That's certainly not the case.

Here is a link to a good article.
      There were 3 tests with D-Wave going against a generic algorithm.
      It tied on 2 or the 3 tests, but beat the generic algorithm running 3,600 times faster.
      However, if it went against a specialized algorithm it was just as fast.

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21578027-first-real-world-contests-between-quantum-computers-and-standard-ones-faster

I never said corporate income tax was not meant to be collected, nor did I say it wasn't collected. I said corporations didn't "pay much" in income tax. I grant that is rather subjective, but it is still non-zero.

You said that it was by design. I'm saying otherwise :-)

I challenge you to find a corporation that is paying ZERO in taxes, which is the phrase the article used.

"Despite reporting net income of $30 billion over the four-year period 2009 to 2012, Apple Operations International paid no corporate income taxes to any national government during that period,"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324787004578495250424727708.html

In 2011, another Ireland-based Apple unit, Apple Sales International, which sells iPhones, iPads MacBooks and other products to overseas distributors, recorded $22 billion in pretax earnings but paid just $10 million in taxes, investigators found. That works out to a rate of about .05%.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324787004578495250424727708.html

"In April, Amazon was revealed to be routing its UK sales through its European headquarters in low-tax Luxembourg, meaning that last year its UK corporation tax bill was nil, despite revenue of £3bn from the sale of books, DVDs and other goods."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/good-bean-counters-starbucks-has-paid-no-tax-in-uk-since-2009-8212579.html

"Most of Google’s revenues in Europe are booked in Dublin, then shifted via royalty payments to a Dutch subsidiary, before whatever is left is recognised as profits by a subsidiary in Bermuda, which levies no income tax."
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21568432-starbuckss-tax-troubles-are-sign-things-come-multinationals-wake-up-and-smell

Regardless of localized sweetheart deals or incentive abatements or whatever, they are still paying fees, sales or VAT tax, and many more. Hence my retort that claiming a corporation pays "zero in taxes" is a gross distortion. Whether or not they should be paying more, or be allowed to structure in such a way to avoid paying certain taxes, is a different discussion.

Shrug. So close to zero as to be zero for all intents and purposes.

Individuals pay 'fees, sales or VAT tax and many more' as well and so what? This is not a valid reason to not pay income taxes.

With regard to these...companies don't pay VAT - they collect it from their customers and for what they do pay they have the right to claim it back from the government. Sales tax in the US on what they buy for themselves, yes. Not sure what fees you're talking about.

End result is that individuals are carrying the tax burden at all levels, not corporations.

You have a misconception, mainframes and the related piece (e.g. storage, software, services) at the end of 2012 accounted for a quarter of IBM sales and half its profits.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/09/ibms-mainframes

that's a fallacy, to think COBOL is the same as mainframes. COBOL is run on Unix, OpenVMS and Linux systems at many financial, healthcare and insurance corporations. That code isn't going anywhere, it integrates with databases and various front end Java Server EE middleware well.

Mainframes run all the common enterprise software, any and all modern languages, DBMS, middleware servers.

When the asian corporations outgrow the low end stuff they are using, and want huge scalability and massive throughput, they'll be needing mainframes.

While I believe (as a "leftist") that being rich is not evil, I do recognize that over the last 30 years it has become far harder to break out of the class that they're born into. While at one point in US history economic classes may have been fluid, that's no longer the case for the most part. And that is why I think our current system is so farked up.

Really.

For example this poll conducted by the Economist. 67% of voter deemed Obama to be a centrist.

http://www.economist.com/economist-asks/barack-obama-centrist

Yeah, and kid$ like you have been $aying this $ince '98, too. *Yawn*

To be fair it must be pointed out that M$ ran an $18 billion loss in 1998. Subsequently they may have gone over to Enron-style accounting to shuffle the numbers. Now even with all the voodoo economics, M$ is running a loss. Things would be even more bleak without tricks like deferred sales.

So if it were up to just the numbers, they would have been long gone.

Television dramas that rely on forensic science to solve crimes are affecting the administration of justice via http://www.economist.com/node/15949089

There is a new titanium power which will make the process much cheaper too.

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21571847-exotic-useful-metals-such-tantalum-and-titanium-are-about-become-cheap

Try this:

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions

The chart shows that 1. Temperatures have risen but 2. Less than what current climate models predict at the 50% confidence level. It has almost broken the 10% level of confidence.

(Which means our current climate models are piss poor and predicting future events, and even less on the right course of action. This does not mean global warming is not happening – just that the models need a lot of work.)

I also like the library for "The Economist" which is quite pricy, but has a high density of informative and in depth articles and if I ever had a subscription there is no way I would keep up with their weekly publication.

http://www.economist.com/

Print:
1) The Economist. Very informative. Their politics are not hidden, and socially, they're definitely left of center. Financially, they're the "Voice of the Plutonomy." But, it works. The articles are typically quite informative.

Online magazines:
1) IEEE Spectrum
2) Communications of the ACM
3) Dr. Dobbs
4) Infoworld
5) Linux Journal
6) Machine Design

And a variety of online information sources for current events. Typically, Google and Google News are good starting points.

I am happy to pay for these publications because they are well written, well edited, and have content that is not easily available elsewhere.

Sure, except that they're all available online or in a digital format (e.g. eBook).

The Economist's
National Geographic
Harper's
Paris Review
The New York Review of Books
Granta
Foreign Affairs

Granta and The Paris Review appear to only have digital versions available, but the rest provide logins and a means to access the full content of each article online, from what I can gather. And, honestly, if you're interested in supporting these magazines, shouldn't you be reading them on a screen anyway, since the printing and distribution account for some of their largest costs?

I do believe something is lost in the experience when we switch to screens from paper, but I also believe that it is largely outweighed by the convenience of easier access, the availability of more content at any given moment, and the lower costs for content creators. And for someone like you, who seems to believe that content is king, I'm surprised you wouldn't agree.

I read The Economist (every week) and I am constantly amazed by its quality and informativeness. Although, I must mention, I technically don't read most of it since I consume the Audio Edition during my commute to work. The articles I don't get to during the week (because my commute is slightly shorter than the average audio edition length) I typically try to catch up on with the dead-tree edition that is delivered. If the USPS ever ends Saturday delivery that's one thing I'll miss: getting my delivery of the economist before Monday.

The subscription price is a little steep (about US$120), I feel like I could not go without it.

The Economist, December 15th, 2012:

"“The technology is riding the fine line between promise and hype,” says Rick Tinsley, the boss of Silver Peak Systems, a networking firm. Sceptics fret that cost savings could easily be eaten up by the expense of new SDN controllers and software.

Better still, SDN makes it easier to reconfigure a network to, say, launch a new application for employees or customers. Its boosters liken it to a mobile-phone operating system onto which new apps can be loaded quickly and seamlessly. Small wonder, then, that companies such as Facebook and Google have been studying SDN carefully. Google runs two vast networks—one that links its huge data centres together and another that delivers its services to the outside world. The company has already deployed SDN across its data-centre network (which was not involved in this week’s snafu) and says that extending it to the external network is “inevitable”. Many big financial institutions and telecoms firms are also experimenting with the technology."

"Money is most optimal when it is fixed in value"

While it may be true that currency can be too volatile, Cyprus would disagree that a fixed value is ideal. Cyprus is on the Euro, whose value is based on something more stable than Cypriot econmics (ie: the economics of the entire EU). The debt in Cyprus got too big to be supported by the modest production of the island nation.

That is a bad thing in itself, and governments should not let such things happen, but what happened next is worse. Normally a country would devalue its currency in this situation. That's bad, because it generally leads to further devaluation of the currency, and in extreme cases can lead to hyperinflation. But when the currency can't be devalued, and the country doesn't have the money to service its debt, things get really unpleasant.

In the end, the EU wound up bailing Cyprus out, but things were getting really nasty. The Economist has a good article.

Yeah, all those nuts at the Economists and at the MET

A lot more smarty than you:

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21574490-climate-change-may-be-happening-more-slowly-scientists-thought-world-still-needs

Radical environmentalists take over a science and use it to further their agenda. Now that it seems things aren't as they so confidently predicted they have become the new deniers.

They haven't

If this causes them to attack. . . Then, well, it was inevitable anyhow and we might as well get it over with and kill them.

So then you think there is no foreseeable downside to delivering personal insults to the leader of a country in which he is revered as practically a god (pharaoh being out of style) and in which you and three generations of your family can be sent to a "prison camp" for making a joke about said leader? Why hasn't personal insult been part of the messaging by South Korea, Japan, the US, and the allied powers in Korea? But maybe you're right, so the more the merrier. Might as well start rounding up "Anonymous" as a threat to world peace (that's inevitable too, right?) - the Hague should be able to find plenty of room for them. Or, if sauce for the goose is your thing, then just publish their real names and addresses and let nature take its course.

Companies might have to start issuing license keys in this manner for their s/w to get around Apple's stubbornness..

- Download app for free from the store - On first launch, app sends you to a webpage where you can buy a license - Copy-paste license key into app (or something like that)

Apple's basically messing with the user experience by being stubborn.

This is not allowed. What is allowed, and many companies do, is that you sign up on their web site and can then access the service on iOS. Or you get free access if you already have the service, the IOS app is just another delivery mechanism - e.g. you get The Economist free on the iPad if you subscribe on paper.

What happens is exactly what we are starting to see worldwide: Rising unemployment, with jobs liquidating but never returning, and accelerating polarization into the rich and the poor.

From 2009-2013, these charts show unemployment rates (as measured by US standards) dropped in the US, Australia, Canada, Germany, and Japan.

I won't dispute that global income inequality is increasing, but it is increasing because more people are getting rich, not that poor people are becoming poorer.

The number of poor people (living on under $1.25 per day 2005 price level) declined pretty much everywhere from 2005 to 2008. China has taken 660 million people out of poverty since 1981. Even in Africa, from 2005 to 2008, poverty fell by 12 million to 47% - the first time less than half of Africans have been below the poverty line.

Financial products are logical constructs. Virtual products. Like objects in an online game which people buy and sell.

The financial world depends on logical constructs. Currency, the base of the financial world, is a logical construct. Slips of paper to which people ascribe value. Gold is the same way. One cannot eat gold, wear it, drink it, shelter under it, use it to bind wounds or cure ailments. But to many (most) it has "value." Currency is a durable construct because it makes people's lives easier, and improves their standard of living.

Stocks ("shares of ownership") are an older financial product. So are bonds. Futures are bets. Then you get into the myriad financial products/bets and their derivatives on which today's global financial system is based.

1) "A financial product is about as conceptual as you can get,” says Wilson Ervin, a senior adviser at Credit Suisse. “You just need paper and ink.”-- The Economist magazine

2) "In an even more blunt description, Tourre calls the CDOs he produced "intellectual masturbation" and likens himself to Dr. Frankenstein. "When I think that I had some input into the creation of this product (which by the way is a product of pure intellectual masturbation, the type of thing which you invent telling yourself: 'well, what if we created a 'thing', which has no purpose, which is absolutely conceptual and highly theoretical and which nobody knows how to price?")" -- CNN / Money

"Financial Innovation" consists of two things:

1) Creation of new virtual products / logical constructs.

2) Methods by which one can entice others to take on more debt.

Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the only beneficial financial innovation of the last 30 years was the ATM. However, the ATM is not a financial innovation, but a technological one. So that leaves a dim legacy of recent financial innovation.

I'm all for financial innovation just as long as it doesn't lead to "financial pollution" - public costs. Like a tannery which dumps effluent into a river. The tannery keeps the profit and the public bears the costs. The concept is known in the financial sector as "privatize the profits, socialize the losses." In recent years, the financial sector has been able to successfully privatize its profits, yet push the costs onto the public. This is done by government insurance of private debt, and outright rescues and bailouts.

In any regulation of the financial sector, the key I think is to make sure that losses are limited to the participants in the transaction.

This fellow - well if he is able to make money, bravo. If he and his shareholders lose money, the laws regulating the financial sector should make sure that the losses are limited to participants in the transaction, and not imposed on the public.

Whether or not the returns from private equity are better than the public markets has been controversial for a long time.

However it is well known that other aspects of these markets are undesirable for investors. Lack of disclosure, poor liquidity and negative scaling are some of these.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/09/private-equity

Given the lack of clear benefits and the well-known problems with these funds it's pretty obvious that pension funds should not be invested in these instruments.

I agree with your second statement while disagreeing with your first.

I would hope that the public is mature enough to understand that investing in alternative asset classes will result in lump, erratic returns – they are designed that way. Many have long lock up periods (10 years) to ensure that the investment managers focus on long term results. Alternative asset classes (VC being a subclass) has been touted as a wonderful thing – the reality has been less rosy. Many used cheap interest rates to leverage up during the good days or other cheap strategies. The good ones are great but there are too many poor ones out there. Owners of a fund have a right to good management and accurate reporting – demand no less.

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21568741-hedge-funds-have-had-another-lousy-year-cap-disappointing-decade-going

My google search shows that they're still in the prototype stages, but they're coming.

Given that locomotives are listed as having 30 year lifespans, I'm not surprised that development is lagging on them compared to cars.

...aims to make plans for guns available owners of 3-D printers...

Is that supposed to be in english?

Isn't that the term for the spin you put on a ball in billiards?

I think the word you're looking for is "English," with a capital E.

Oh, and before anyone gets all 'trolololol, Grammar Nazi" on me, I feel it's important to point out that poor grammar is an indication that you are a high credit risk, and credit companies these days very much are looking at such things.

So, see? I did you a favor!

Don't worry, China is on track to outpace the US in military expenditures by 2023. I'm sure that's all for "peaceful regional defense" and will have no impact on the US.

China's military rise
http://www.economist.com/node/21552212

The dragon's new teeth: A rare look inside the world's biggest military expansion
http://www.economist.com/node/21552193

Essential reading on China cyber:

The Online Threat: Should we be worried about a cyber war? (The first page of this is a must read wrt China.)
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/01/101101fa_fact_hersh

Great snippet: ""The N.S.A. would ask, 'Can the Chinese be that good?' " the former official told me. "My response was that they only invented gunpowder in the tenth century and built the bomb in 1965. I'd say, 'Can you read Chinese?' We don't even know the Chinese pictograph for 'Happy hour.'"

To say nothing of the more recent news.

But yes, yes...this is all about "false flag" attacks, because naturally the US is always the evil aggressor, and there has never been any oppression or tyranny in the world, save for what the US has foisted upon it. The principles of freedom for which the US stands are just an illusion force fed to a compliant public by the lapdog mainstream press. In fact, we probably have secret time machines so we could extend this evil beyond our nation's short existence in this world. That explains all the bad things that happened before we were around.

Don't worry, China is on track to outpace the US in military expenditures by 2023. I'm sure that's all for "peaceful regional defense" and will have no impact on the US.

China's military rise
http://www.economist.com/node/21552212

The dragon's new teeth: A rare look inside the world's biggest military expansion
http://www.economist.com/node/21552193

Essential reading on China cyber:

The Online Threat: Should we be worried about a cyber war? (The first page of this is a must read wrt China.)
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/01/101101fa_fact_hersh

Great snippet: ""The N.S.A. would ask, 'Can the Chinese be that good?' " the former official told me. "My response was that they only invented gunpowder in the tenth century and built the bomb in 1965. I'd say, 'Can you read Chinese?' We don't even know the Chinese pictograph for 'Happy hour.'"

To say nothing of the more recent news.

But yes, yes...this is all about "false flag" attacks, because naturally the US is always the evil aggressor, and there has never been any oppression or tyranny in the world, save for what the US has foisted upon it. The principles of freedom for which the US stands are just an illusion force fed to a compliant public by the lapdog mainstream press. In fact, we probably have secret time machines so we could extend this evil beyond our nation's short existence in this world. That explains all the bad things that happened before we were around.

Don't worry, China is on track to outpace the US in military expenditures by 2023. I'm sure that's all for "peaceful regional defense" and will have no impact on the US.

China's military rise
http://www.economist.com/node/21552212

The dragon's new teeth: A rare look inside the world's biggest military expansion
http://www.economist.com/node/21552193

Essential reading on China cyber:

The Online Threat: Should we be worried about a cyber war? (The first page of this is a must read wrt China.)
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/01/101101fa_fact_hersh

Great snippet: ""The N.S.A. would ask, 'Can the Chinese be that good?' " the former official told me. "My response was that they only invented gunpowder in the tenth century and built the bomb in 1965. I'd say, 'Can you read Chinese?' We don't even know the Chinese pictograph for 'Happy hour.'"

To say nothing of the more recent news.

But yes, yes...this is all about "false flag" attacks, because naturally the US is always the evil aggressor, and there has never been any oppression or tyranny in the world, save for what the US has foisted upon it. The principles of freedom for which the US stands are just an illusion force fed to a compliant public by the lapdog mainstream press. In fact, we probably have secret time machines so we could extend this evil beyond our nation's short existence in this world. That explains all the bad things that happened before we were around.

Alternatively, accept that people are going to poke fun at your style of writing.

Also accept that you may be denied credit and/or pay higher interest rates. Credit agencies have found that people with poor grammar are bad credit risks. There is an especially strong correlation with typing in either ALL CAPS, or all lower case. Several companies already monitor social media and collect data.

There is also a secondary effect: If many of your friends, especially those you communicate with frequently, use bad grammar, then you are likely to be a bad credit risk as well.

It should be a .com. From "The Economist": http://www.economist.com/news/business/21573101-management-tips-catholic-church-pope-ceo

THE Roman Catholic church is the world’s oldest multinational. It is also, by many measures, its most successful, with 1.2 billion customers, 1m employees, tens of millions of volunteers, a global distribution network, a universally recognised logo, unrivalled lobbying clout and, auguring well for the future, a successful emerging-markets operation.

. . . more choice quotes:

The pope has no shortage of crisis-management tools at his disposal, including the doctrine of papal infallibility.

His most pressing task will be to deal with the sex scandals. This is partly a theological issue: the church would attract a very different workforce if it did not insist that all priests be male and celibate.

Still, he could learn from the private sector about how to manage the workforce he has. First, you need to punish errant employees rather than protecting them or shuffling them about. The best companies are quick to “proactively outplace” wrongdoers. Second, you need to treat your reputation as your most precious asset by drawing up clear rules on ethical behaviour, insisting staff adhere to them and conducting aggressive public-relations campaigns. Third, you have to keep looking ahead. Companies hold meetings of senior leaders to review their strategies every year, rather than every century or so.

The church’s core competence lies in providing spiritual goods. Yet it devotes a lot of its energy to running an earthly operation. Some of this makes sense—schools and hospitals help fulfil Jesus’s mandate while promoting customer stickiness. But what about running an in-house bank (complete with the world’s only ATM machine with instructions in Latin)? Or managing property portfolios? Big companies like IBM and Ford have got out of non-core businesses and contracted out as much as possible to specialist companies. The church should do likewise.

The church cannot take its success in the global South for granted. It is under pressure from lean start-ups with more vigorous marketing. Its market share in Latin America has declined from 90% in 1910 to 72% today, thanks to the growth of Pentecostalism. The Latin American church is responding by borrowing Pentecostal techniques such as holding “liberation masses” in soccer stadiums and allowing priests to speak in tongues.

Why would someone with something to hide use Skype?

Seriously - if you've got something to hide, use something to which you have the source and can control the encryption used.

or use skype steganography

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21571120-tinkering-skype-can-allow-people-send-undetectable-messages-speaking

I will point out that cherry picking extreme, narrow, simplistic crude aspects of religion is going to create a fun house mirror distortion.

If you want better academic data on the subject I might recommend Oxfords’ “Explaining Religion” http://www.icea.ox.ac.uk/large-grants/explaining-religion/

Or, if that is too much, a good lay article can be found here: http://www.economist.com/node/10903480

Let’s try to unpick this – and suggest that taxes can work.

A tax would work (and would be the most efficient choice) if it were a uniform global tax. Canada would still have the highest greenhouse gas emitter but that would be o.k. Extractive and heavy industries tend to be the most polluting, but I would wager that they would be one of the more efficient producers, so total greenhouse gases would go down.

The issues is that lesser developed countries would like to develop, and thus have an incentive to lower carbon taxes. The proven method is to invest in extractive and heavy industries – and to fuel those with cheap dirty coal. It’s hard to convince people to forgo the easy fruits of today for the fruits of tomorrow. And then there is the point that we actually want these countries to develop.

So, one option is to levy a carbon tax on imports. That has issues as well. On part is the measuring of carbon inputs. The other is that these taxes are often a veil to hide special interest groups trying to grab special favors.

However, people have suggested methods. For a good article on the subject: http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21572180-can-trade-restrictions-be-justified-environmental-grounds-air-trade

Indeed. But, then again a Senate budget has no teeth to it; only house budgets do. The senate did try to pass a bill to stop the sequester, since bills actually have teeth in them, which was (surprise! surprise!) filibustered.

It's called planned obsolescence. Detroit got fat and rich using this model after WW II, then it started to fall apart for them when customers in America and Europe started to take a liking to Japanese and German cars that didn't start falling apart as soon as they drove it off the dealer's lot.

The Senate is not as Democrat controlled as people think they are: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/02/parliamentary-procedure

That's the dirty little secret about federal charges in the U.S. Federal court rules don't require the prosecution to hand over their evidence until the trial unlike state courts where the accused has a chance to see the evidence against him- or herself and prepare a defence. And the minimum penalties are always enormous.

That's why federal charges are so highly feared in the U.S. and it's why almost all federal cases are pleaded out.

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21570742-how-mandatory-minimum-sentences-distort-plea-bargaining-thumb-scale

The article is about a different issue, but it describes the problem.