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Are you talking about M1, M2 or M3? Or don't you know what you're talking about at all?

I get to talk to elected and non-elected officials on a regular basis. They have a tremendous number of people talking at them all the time, with so many opposing points of view they can never keep up. The only bits that stick are the well presented ones, carefully crafted and without repetitions or ambiguities.

I've seen some of the FFII supporters talking to Parliamentarians, and frankly it was embarrassing watching a few of them. They had the nugget of an idea, but couldn't present it clearly and concisely. They would start a beautifully thought out thread, then before getting to a conclusion lose the train of thought and end up talking about something completely different, often repeating ideas already presented. Very annoying for all those very familiar with the issue, and certainly annoying and confusing for the intended audience.

The guy is a busy man ... present for 30 minutes and give the rest for him to either ask questions

Not that you will have time to hone your presenting skills, but the best lobbyists present each idea in one to three minutes, then engage the politico with questions where they have to actually think about the issue. The guys who make the biggest money are schooled in the tradition of rhetoric, where every thought is presented as a series of conflicting questions (with spin) and as if...then statements. This requires the politician to make a concious decision on the spot on which way to think about a subject, and this forced thinking will most likely be the way they will vote later.

There is a whole debate on the best way to word the if...then statements, first, second or third person, singular or plural. Compare and contrast "if you support long term growth in rapidly changing fields, then are you prepared to oppose entrenched laws?" with "if our objectives are to protect ideas of individuals from the oppressive threat of corporate lawsuits, can we obtain a balance...". (N.B. there is no right way) Forcing immediate responses from an audience is orders of magnitude more effective in creating lasting impressions. Even more effective is to word the if...then statements so the politician comes to conclusions on his own, thus becoming his ideas.

Impassioned emotional pleas are no good here, construct a good well founded argument

Precisely. The issue of patents, copyright, and ideas having value goes back thousands of years, and is a very complicated area. Narrow down your arguments to a very limited discussion of a single domain, and be prepared to place it within the larger and global (historical) scope of the battle. The emotion should be evident by the fact you have taken the time to become politically active to protect what you believe in.

Do your homework throughly before going in

This is the most important idea in the post, buried right in the middle. Not only do your homework, but practice the presentation as well. Out loud, on real humans, several times. If you have a lawyer friend, ask them to hear your presentation and offer criticism (then listen to them and correct yourself). Lawyers who practice in front of courts have to be skilled at presenting clear and linear ideas. Even if you don't know any lawyers, just try out your presentation on a few people and ask for feedback. By the third or fourth time you will notice a huge improvement in which ideas get presented, and which ones you drop because they are not needed. Try videotaping your presentation and then review it later with friends, watch where you say "ummm..." or where you repeat yourself.

For material to study, browse the websites of the EFF and the FFII, and read this speech by Alan Greenspan. If you have an entire hour, you can effectively present four to six points with a limited background and context. Limit yourself to only these, avoid digression and monologing.

the AC

I wouldn't pick on Mr. Greenspan, he's one of the few people in Washington with a brain.

He's spoken about intellectual property, and specifically the difficult of "enforcement of contracts". He's very much aware of the downsides of strict intellectual property law. He argues that productivity is the most important thing, and has given examples of where productivity would've been destroyed by strict application of "physical property concepts".

For example in this speech (boldface mine):

Implementing an effective rule of law, however, has its own difficulties. One key component, a law of contracts, governs the resolution of certain disputes between parties. Yet if adjudication were requested for more than a very small fraction of contracts, our court system would be swamped into immobility and the performance of our economy would suffer. Thus, if our market system is to function smoothly, the vast majority of trades must rest on mutual trust and only indirectly on the law.

Do you think an economy where the RIAA sues 10,000 people within a few months is an example of the latter?

Another quote:

In the case of physical property, we take it for granted that the ownership right should have the potential of persisting as long as the physical object itself. In the case of an idea, however, we have chosen to strike a different balance in recognition of the chaos that could follow from having to trace back all the thoughts implicit in one's current undertaking and pay a royalty to the originator of each one.

Another:

If our objective is to maximize economic growth, are we striking the right balance in our protection of intellectual property rights? Are the protections sufficiently broad to encourage innovation but not so broad as to shut down follow-on innovation? Are such protections so vague that they produce uncertainties that raise risk premiums and the cost of capital? How appropriate is our current system--developed for a world in which physical assets predominated--for an economy in which value increasingly is embodied in ideas rather than tangible capital?

There are actually plenty of good quotes in that speech, and others, that make me believe he has thought about this and understands the realities of intellectual property.

I wish they would just keep minting billions more of the things until these "collectors" hoarded enough of them to realize their folly. Then they could go out and spend them; participate in the free exchange of capital for goods etc etc, and put that $670 million to use in the economy.

Yeargh!

to YOU! The fact that when you deposit a check in your account and the bank won't credit it immediately. You know what I'm talking about....when a bank will wait for five business days to credit your account even thought they got the money in about .75 seconds.

This is especially true now that Check 21 is in place.

I have worked in a remittance processing environment for nearly 13 years. Payment processing of standard bill payments for large credit card issuers is more automated than you can imagine. Remittance envelopes and the statements inside are usually designed for quick efficient processing by automated equipment. Equipment such as this and this make quick work of most payments with minimal staff. Check 21 promises to streamline processing of paper checks even further.

Online payments often go through middlemen, who take a cut of the action, and whose payments are then processed manually by the bank. It can take longer to credit and clear an online payment than a standard payment.

f this is true, why haven't the economists been coming out of the woodwork in support of this plan? Why have so many of them come out of the woodwork to say that the centerpiece of his plan--private accounts--is more likely to hurt Social Security than help it?

You haven't been paying much attention to Alan Greenspan's recent pronouncements, have you? I forgive you, because you're overseas and not paying attention to US news sources. But it's kind of hard to miss.

It is not Iraq all over again. Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme, and has to fail -- maintaining it is impossible. People also don't pay attention to the harsh facts of the program when it was instituted.....there were sixteen payees to each recepiant, and the national life expectancy was below the retirement age. Today, there are three payees, and the average life expectancy is eleven years after the retirement age.

Medicare has exacerbated the problem (and Bush made it worse by deciding that it's a good idea to force taxpayers to pay for old men's Viagra). Medicare is scheduled to go broke before Social Security.

-- big anti-Bush rant snippage, because it's not even worth commenting on --

The surface: We're trying to fix Social Security. Dig deeper: We're trying to dismantle a socialist program and return it to the hands of private industry. Dig deeper still: We believe it will benefit us in the long run, but we're not about to get bogged down by actually debating this.

Government pensions should be eliminated -- I disagree with giving them to "private industry." Your retirement is your responsibility, not mine.

Hence, we end up abusing projections, cherrypicking data for the worst case scenarios, and hauling out the boogeyman of a "bankrupt social security" that will leave us broke and destitute--which simply isn't the case.

Take a math course, and a public finance course, it might do you good. It's a pyramid scheme. With a declining birthrate, and increasing number of beneficiaries, it's simple math -- it will collapse, unless you up taxes well over fifty percent, and eliminate the yearly caps for individuals. The only way to "save" it is to raise the retirement age to eighty or higher. Outlawing birth control and abortion would help matters, too, because getting that population up will be necessary. People, start gettin' busy, because the baby boomers begin retiring in fifteen years....those kids will need to go right to work!

Yes, Social Security needs attention and adjustment.
Wait a minute, you just said it was fine!
No, it's not the ticking time bomb the administration is so fervently claiming it is.
Then, why wait until it is, when it can be done cleanly now, without causing more people difficulty?

Looking for a job?

I was recently brought on to an e-commerce project...day 1 was stopping the fraudulent orders being sent to Malaysia or to the drop sites in the US. All it takes is a 30 second call to the card company to get the issuing bank's number...99% of the bad cards were verified as stolen from the bank. One card wasn't reported as stolen yet...yay for me.

If Paypal, IIS, etc can figure out key encryption, why can't we?

1) Credit card company creates keys and issues it to the customer...the card number is replaced by a number identifying the key.
2) Payment request certificates are sent to the customer who either signs it or doesn't sign it.
3) Transactions are encrypted using keys....you, your bank, the merchant and the card company can decrypt the info, no one else.

Didn't I just describe SSL/GPG? Oh wait..I did.

It boils down to this: if you can't handle the technology (aka keep spyware off your machine, keep it updated, and keep your card number safe), DON'T USE THE TECHNOLOGY. Write a check...but of course, that's digitized now thanks to Check 21...that old technology will be deprecated very soon in favor of direct debit.

Many people don't realize how long it can take for a check to bounce. The standard method of clearing checks is still physically shipping little pieces of paper around the country. So for a California check to bounce in New York requires the physical check to travel across the country, sit on a manager's desk until he gets around to dealing with it, and physically travel back before you find out it's no good. This can take weeks. Overseas, longer.

Just wait til tomorrow (the 28th). It'll be interesting to see how quickly checks start bouncing. Check 21 takes effect in the US. Quick version, it gives banks and merchants the option to move images of your original check electronically and destroy the original. I work a bank and the retail folks have been cautioning customers for a while now that float time (time it takes a check to clear your bank after you write it) can be reduced to almost nothing, and thus people should be more careful about what they write checks for. For example, did you know that Target Inc has their own bank? A check you write at Target can be posted against your account before you walk out the door, and processed as a check (not just an electronic debit as some places do now).

It won't be a sudden transformation, but I'm guessing that within the next two years people will be asking "what the heck WAS float?" As another side effect, it will also cut down on check kiting schemes that rely on float.

Is it not part of the Department of the Treasury? ah, yes it is.

The Department of Engraving and Printing deals with paper currency and the US Mint deals with coinage.

Maybe better proof is found in this PDF explaining the organization of the US Treasury (US Mint is clearly at the bottom-middle)

Is it possible you were referring the the Federal Reserve?

This is the "Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act", commonly known as "Check 21". Basically it allows a bank anywhere along the path from where the check is first deposited, to its arrival for payment at your bank, to replace the paper check with a front and back image scan. The law provides that your copy of this substituted check must be treated like an original check for the purpose of things like using it as a receipt to show you paid. For example, if your landlord failed to record the fact that you paid the rent, but deposited your check anyway, the law requires this substitute check image (printed back to you by your bank) be accepted as proof the check was deposited just as the original would be.

Banks are not required to do the image scan of checks, but they are allowed to do so. Banks are required to accept the image scan in place of those checks when the image scan gets done. If PayPal is allowing you to write checks against your account (but they would BE a bank if this happens, I'd think), they would have to update their software by October 28 to comply. More likely, if "Check 21" is an issue here, is that they may be adding some software to allow them to image scan checks made as payment to them. But the more they do like this, the closer they become to being a real bank.

When an image scan is done, the check can be processed much faster because it can now be sent to the account holder bank electronically. This is where the "float" many people depend on can start to disappear. OTOH, your bank may be able to get funds into your account for checks paid to you that you deposit equally faster. There is a possibility that PayPal was doing things that depend on the "float". Many business and people have been doing that for years. Practices will now have to change.

For more information:

• http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/trunc ation/default.htm
• http://www.nclc.org/initiatives/check21.shtml
• http://news.findlaw.com/prnewswire/20041004/04oct2 004153239.html
• http://www.frbservices.org/Retail/check21About.htm l
• http://reged.com/Check21/About21.html
• http://www.fnbonline.com/site/check21faq.html

Can't you read? The economy is DECLINING. Did you miss the numbers? Did you miss where I pointed out that 2003 is WORSE than 2000?

Yes I can read, very well infact, well enough to tell you that government income is not the economy as your statement implies. You site that there is a decrease in government revenue during the period of 2002 and 2003. I countered with the attacks of 9/11 that were directed against and had massive effect on the economic infrastructure of the US. There is also the burst of the dot.com bubble and its slow down effects on the economy to consider. But I wouldn't want to put to many balls in the air as you appear to have trouble with just two.

By your logic I should be able to ask why 2003 is still better than 1999 when Clinton's tax rates were still in effect? The economy was rolling along the tax rates were higher, and yet we see less income than we did in 2003...please explain to me how your "science" deals with that issue?

As for the economy declining, maybe you'd care to explain how in your "declining" economy this is possible?

Or maybe you'd care to enlighten me as to why the Fed has raised the prime interest rate twice in the past two months (not something they are known to do during a declining economy)?

If you do want to use Clinton's data, that just shows that his management policy resulted in growth over his administration and further illustrates the decline during Bush's regime.

Carville has told you this enough times so it must be true, right???

Except that the data and reports don't agree with you, allow me to quote from The 1996 JEC Report on The Reagan Tax Cuts:

The 1993 Clinton tax increase appears to having the opposite effect on the willingness of wealthy taxpayers to expose income to taxation. According to IRS data, the income generated by the top one percent of income earners actually declined in 1993. This decline is especially significant since the retroactivity of the Clinton tax increase in that year limited the ability of taxpayers to deploy tax avoidance strategies, temporarily resulting in an increase in their tax burden. Moreover, according to the FY 1997 Clinton budget submission, individual income tax revenues as a share of GDP will be lower during the first four years of the Clinton tax increase, which include the effects of the 1990 tax increase, than under the last four years of the Reagan tax changes (FY 1986-89). Furthermore, according to a study published by the National Bureau for Economic Research,[2] the Clinton tax hike is failing to collect over 40 percent of the projected revenue increases.

The Reagan tax cuts, like similar measures enacted in the 1920s and 1960s, showed that reducing excessive tax rates stimulates growth, reduces tax avoidance, and can increase the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich. High top tax rates can induce counterproductive behavior and suppress revenues, factors that are usually missed or understated in government static revenue analysis.

So we see that tax cuts can increase government income by stimulation of the economy and in the case of the GW Bush cuts forestalled a major decrease in government income that would have occurred due to the massive negative economic effects that occurred during 2000 and 2001.

"Far from "group think," American nuclear and intelligence experts argued bitterly over the tubes. A "holy war" is how one Congressional investigator described it. But if the opinions of the nuclear experts were seemingly disregarded at every turn, an overwhelming momentum gathered behind the C.I.A. assessment. It was a momentum built on a pattern of haste, secrecy, ambiguity, bureaucratic maneuver and a persistent failure in the Bush administration and among both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to ask hard questions."
If this were a surprise, it might matter more. However, I have trouble believing that an intelligent person can believe most of the things the Bush administration says. I do not think this will hurt Bush because his supporters are completely uninterested in knowing the truth.
Do you remember the cost estimates of the Republician Drug Plan? (e.g. here, here).
What about WMD?
Do you believe him when he talks about how much better is the economy?
Did you believe Bush or Greenspan when they talked about the need for tax reductions because the federal government was going to have too large a surplus?
"But continuing to run surpluses beyond the point at which we reach zero or near-zero federal debt brings to center stage the critical longer-term fiscal policy issue of whether the federal government should accumulate large quantities of private (more technically nonfederal) assets. At zero debt, the continuing unified budget surpluses currently projected imply a major accumulation of private assets by the federal government. This development should factor materially into the policies you and the Administration choose to pursue.
"I believe, as I have noted in the past, that the federal government should eschew private asset accumulation because it would be exceptionally difficult to insulate the government's investment decisions from political pressures. Thus, over time, having the federal government hold significant amounts of private assets would risk sub-optimal performance by our capital markets, diminished economic efficiency, and lower overall standards of living than would be achieved otherwise.
"Short of an extraordinarily rapid and highly undesirable short-term dissipation of unified surpluses or a transferring of assets to individual privatized accounts, it appears difficult to avoid at least some accumulation of private assets by the government." (From here)

When I hear Bush or his crew talk, I know that the truth is the exact opposite of their opinion.
Iraq was a hotbed of terrorists before we invaded? NO!
Iraq is now a hotbed for terrorists because Bush invaded? YES!

Did Bush look like a "little boy" who did not really belong in that first debate?

Gold owned by the U.S. Treasury: $11 billion
Gold held by the Federal Reserve: $586 million

FRB Currency and Coin Services:

Currency in Circulation: (2003) $690 billion, 1/2-2/3 held abroad

Consider the contraction in credit implied by a return to the gold standard. What happens when 2/3 of america's gold reserves can be claimed abroad?

The point is moot anyway-I did some further digging through the Federal Reserve site & found out (buried in their regulations for implementing the law) that it can't be used with ACH, as it requires an original check to create a substitute one.

The Federal Reserve Board took comments from concerned parties in formulating the regulations (many of which were the same as my concerns about fraud and forgery) and specifically added regulations to address them. I don't know if they covered every possible huckster's scheme, but enough of them to (pardon the mixed metaphor) take enough wind out of my sail to get me off this hobby horse...

If anyone else out there has any curiousity: Check 21 Regulations & Comments as PDF

See: Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act

Information Week raised some of the issues: Quality vs. Deception in Managing IRDs

It seems to me, that the more jobs that we have here in the USA (apologies to those readers that are not in the USA), that the more tax dollars the goverment will take in in order to fund the ever increasing beast called the Federal goverment.

Alan Greenspan said the following today:

"Early initiatives to address the economic effects of baby-boom retirements could smooth the transition to a new balance between workers and retirees. As a nation, we owe it to our retirees to promise only the benefits that can be delivered.

If we have promised more than our economy has the ability to deliver to retirees without unduly diminishing real income gains of workers, as I fear we may have, we must recalibrate our public programs so that pending retirees have time to adjust through other channels. If we delay, the adjustments could be abrupt and painful.

Because curbing benefits once bestowed has proved so difficult in the past, fiscal policymakers must be especially vigilant to create new benefits only when their sustainability under the most adverse projections is virtually ensured."

"Although domestic investment has accounted for only half our recent productivity gains, its contribution has historically been much larger. Should the pace of efficiency gains slow, it would fall to the level of investment to again become the major contributor to productivity gains. Investment, however, cannot occur without saving. But maintaining even a lower rate of capital investment growth will likely require an increased rate of domestic saving because it is difficult to imagine that we can continue indefinitely to borrow saving from abroad at a rate equivalent to 5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product."

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2 004/20040827/default.htm/

If you have a truly secure system, obscurity may increase the security somewhat.

If the system is totally secure, additional obscurity will not increase security as it is already totally secure.

Obscurity requires one to trust the architects of the protocol and the software. Downloading the software without any means to verify its integrity, requiring one of the most insecure browsers or recommending an out-dated version of Sun's JRE does not help me to trust them.

The Federal reserve system (the Fed) is a group of banks that support and adminster the issuance of currency, regulate banks and act as a "lender of last resort" for other banks in the system. The Fed was created in the 1910's with the overhaul of the banking system. The Fed's site has a good overview about its structure.

Many of the posters have complained about how the Fed issues currency, focusing on the accounting slight of hand when the Fed effectively sells currency to the U.S. Treasury. While the accounting is a bit odd, this is necessary to have the debits equal the credits on the respective balance sheets and not much more. Stow your tin foil hat in the overhead compartment.

The Fed also serves as the bankers bank, speeding transactions between banks by acting as a clearing house for transactions. The Fed makes a nice income from this service, skimming a bit of money from each transaction. Without a strong clearing house, transferring money between banks would be riskier and therefore more expensive.

As you have also read, the Fed is involved in manipulating the money supply to keep real inflation close to 0. This "honest money" policy means that the value of a US dollar will have nearly the same claim on resources from year to year. Before the Fed system, there was little regulation on the money supply (it adds money by buying bonds and subtracts my selling) and the Federal goverment would typically run the printing presses when it needed money, debasing the currency. Remember, price inflation is really money deflation. As the price increases, what's really happening is that money is becomming less valuable.

Don't long for the pre-Fed days, inflation was rampant. With the Fed today, the goverment can't just create money by running the printing presses, instead it has to buy it from the Fed.

Gold-based (or any other commodity) currency has its own problems, too numerous to list here. Nixon did the right thing at Brenton Woods by getting the US off the gold standard for good.

Lastly, because of the liquidity the Fed has added to the banking system, you can do thinks like take money out of your savings account without waiting 6 to 8 weeks like the old days or get deposits credited to your account in 1 - 3 days, not weeks like before.

The GAO and the Comptroller General can review their books anytime they want. That's what an audit is.

The GAO is the accounting arm of Congress.

ie. your site is full of it, as are you.

Let's see if I can blast through your tin foil hat:

First it is not "a private corporation operated and owned by private banks" Frequently Asked Questions about the Fed

"The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects."

Second, there is no confusion over public / private control over the internet. It is publicly controlled. Congress can revoke ICANN's authority any time it wants.

Further, the Fed is not unconstitutional. I suppose an argument could be mabout the non-delegation doctrine, but that's deader than the 2nd ammendment in Ginsburg's utopia. Further the court has recognized delegation guided by an "intelligible principle", which using monetary policy to maintain macroeconomic stability certainly is.

Finaly it is not evil. It has done an amazing job of executing monetary policy. The two most recent Chairs Greenspan and Volker are amazing men.

The alternative is to have Congress control monetary policy. Bad idea. Can you imagine the confidence that would be inspired if Congressional hacks had control of the money supply? Yikes.

PS The Fed was created on 12/23 not 12/24.

The Federal Reserve is a system set up by capitalists (banks) for capitalists (banks).

Wrong. The Federal Reserve System was set up by an act of Congress December 23, 1913. The Fed is a public/private organization with a complex structure that makes the Board of Governors Federal employees (like Mr. Greenspan) and the staffs of the regional banks private sector employees. Your questions about what it does will be answered somewhat here.

Instead of giving the money to individuals (which is the way it should be done in a truly free system), they pass it out to their buddies in the banking system who make a profit by leasing the money to individual borrowers.

How is this crap insightful? The Fed makes short-term loans to individual banks. These loans are at low interest rates but must be paid back quickly also. Banks also deposit cash reserves with the Fed. There is no 'giving' of money. Even if there were, that's a silly sentiment. "Let's power the economy by giving away worthless paper currency to everyone." It would be worthless because everyone had it in equal measure without any value being attached.

The Federal Reserve also has a very powerful way of making a shit load of money: inflation. They just print a lot more money that they would be allowed to print if the system were regulated by just laws. Who or where does all this money goes to? I have no idea.

Yes, you don't have any idea. You're completely clueless about our financial system. You probably aren't aware that at any moment, there are a few hundred billion in coin and currency in circulation (600 bil or so in 2003). The US GDP in 2003, for instance, was something on the order of 11 trillion dollars. Search that document, it's there. Please note that we aren't even considering bank deposits, stock ownership or any other securities, like bonds.

An intelligent person might come to the conclusion that most money doesn't exist as currency at all. It's only written on paper or stored in a computer somewhere. You'd be right if you came to that conclusion. Therefore, the Fed printing 100 billion more of $100 bills would have a negligible effect anyway.

There's an even more compelling reason why your statement above is stupid. The Fed doesn't *GIVE OUT* money. The funds are either loaned in the short term, or given out of the member bank's deposits to the Fed. Therefore, there is no inflationary pressure associated with $100 bills going to Bank X since they are paid for one way or another.

So how exactly were they making money off of this? Answer: they aren't. They make most of their money off of check processing and ACH transfers which they act as the middleman for.

Essentially, we have the wolves in charge of the chicken coop. There're making a killing, so to speak, and there's nothing you and I can do about it. Other than complain.

Next time you make a comment about something, how about knowing something...anything about what it is you are commenting about?

Thank you.

The Federal Reserve is a system set up by capitalists (banks) for capitalists (banks).

Wrong. The Federal Reserve System was set up by an act of Congress December 23, 1913. The Fed is a public/private organization with a complex structure that makes the Board of Governors Federal employees (like Mr. Greenspan) and the staffs of the regional banks private sector employees. Your questions about what it does will be answered somewhat here.

Instead of giving the money to individuals (which is the way it should be done in a truly free system), they pass it out to their buddies in the banking system who make a profit by leasing the money to individual borrowers.

How is this crap insightful? The Fed makes short-term loans to individual banks. These loans are at low interest rates but must be paid back quickly also. Banks also deposit cash reserves with the Fed. There is no 'giving' of money. Even if there were, that's a silly sentiment. "Let's power the economy by giving away worthless paper currency to everyone." It would be worthless because everyone had it in equal measure without any value being attached.

The Federal Reserve also has a very powerful way of making a shit load of money: inflation. They just print a lot more money that they would be allowed to print if the system were regulated by just laws. Who or where does all this money goes to? I have no idea.

Yes, you don't have any idea. You're completely clueless about our financial system. You probably aren't aware that at any moment, there are a few hundred billion in coin and currency in circulation (600 bil or so in 2003). The US GDP in 2003, for instance, was something on the order of 11 trillion dollars. Search that document, it's there. Please note that we aren't even considering bank deposits, stock ownership or any other securities, like bonds.

An intelligent person might come to the conclusion that most money doesn't exist as currency at all. It's only written on paper or stored in a computer somewhere. You'd be right if you came to that conclusion. Therefore, the Fed printing 100 billion more of $100 bills would have a negligible effect anyway.

There's an even more compelling reason why your statement above is stupid. The Fed doesn't *GIVE OUT* money. The funds are either loaned in the short term, or given out of the member bank's deposits to the Fed. Therefore, there is no inflationary pressure associated with $100 bills going to Bank X since they are paid for one way or another.

So how exactly were they making money off of this? Answer: they aren't. They make most of their money off of check processing and ACH transfers which they act as the middleman for.

Essentially, we have the wolves in charge of the chicken coop. There're making a killing, so to speak, and there's nothing you and I can do about it. Other than complain.

Next time you make a comment about something, how about knowing something...anything about what it is you are commenting about?

Thank you.

The Federal Reserve is a system set up by capitalists (banks) for capitalists (banks).

Wrong. The Federal Reserve System was set up by an act of Congress December 23, 1913. The Fed is a public/private organization with a complex structure that makes the Board of Governors Federal employees (like Mr. Greenspan) and the staffs of the regional banks private sector employees. Your questions about what it does will be answered somewhat here.

Instead of giving the money to individuals (which is the way it should be done in a truly free system), they pass it out to their buddies in the banking system who make a profit by leasing the money to individual borrowers.

How is this crap insightful? The Fed makes short-term loans to individual banks. These loans are at low interest rates but must be paid back quickly also. Banks also deposit cash reserves with the Fed. There is no 'giving' of money. Even if there were, that's a silly sentiment. "Let's power the economy by giving away worthless paper currency to everyone." It would be worthless because everyone had it in equal measure without any value being attached.

The Federal Reserve also has a very powerful way of making a shit load of money: inflation. They just print a lot more money that they would be allowed to print if the system were regulated by just laws. Who or where does all this money goes to? I have no idea.

Yes, you don't have any idea. You're completely clueless about our financial system. You probably aren't aware that at any moment, there are a few hundred billion in coin and currency in circulation (600 bil or so in 2003). The US GDP in 2003, for instance, was something on the order of 11 trillion dollars. Search that document, it's there. Please note that we aren't even considering bank deposits, stock ownership or any other securities, like bonds.

An intelligent person might come to the conclusion that most money doesn't exist as currency at all. It's only written on paper or stored in a computer somewhere. You'd be right if you came to that conclusion. Therefore, the Fed printing 100 billion more of $100 bills would have a negligible effect anyway.

There's an even more compelling reason why your statement above is stupid. The Fed doesn't *GIVE OUT* money. The funds are either loaned in the short term, or given out of the member bank's deposits to the Fed. Therefore, there is no inflationary pressure associated with $100 bills going to Bank X since they are paid for one way or another.

So how exactly were they making money off of this? Answer: they aren't. They make most of their money off of check processing and ACH transfers which they act as the middleman for.

Essentially, we have the wolves in charge of the chicken coop. There're making a killing, so to speak, and there's nothing you and I can do about it. Other than complain.

Next time you make a comment about something, how about knowing something...anything about what it is you are commenting about?

Thank you.

Whence does the "right" of these idle class heirs to the wealth created by workers come from? Well, robber baron George Baer talked about the divine right of capital a century ago, but in actual practice, it is easy enough to see by what means the rentier expropriates for himself if one observes what happens to tenants who does not pay their landlord, or workers who refuse to let capital-owners expropriate profit (like at Argentina's Brukman factory).

History repeats itself, look at the correlation between national debt and inflation during the Reagan years.

Jeez. It's pretty apparent that you didn't bother to actually look anything up before making this claim. Inflation went down from the double digit mess that Carter caused to a low of 1.86% in 1986 during the Reagan years.

Besides, if the Fed were worried that THIS economy is growing so fast, they must have been terrified during the dot-com boom of a few years ago. Oh, that's right, they weren't worried then, either.

Again, you were not paying attention. Between 1999 and 2000, the Fed raised short term rates a total of 1.75% to cool the unsustainable growth. You can read just how concerned they were during 1999 and 2000, with every statement expressing concern that financial conditions may no longer be consistent with containing inflation.

Sorry, but I look at things beyond how they just affect me.

How about the 99.9999% of us (who are not terrorists) who are also unaffected?

John Kerry voted for the Patriot Act as a temporary means of handing a tough situation. John Ashcroft is trying to make the changes permanent.

Maybe that is because this "tough situation" is not a temoprary one either?

It's a shame you can't base your opinions on what's actually happening, rather than what you've been told is happening. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Turn off the TV and do your own research. It's not difficult.

One could say the same about you, being that you seem to have a hard time grasping basic historical facts. If doing your own research is not difficult, why is it that you are blatantly wrong on obvious facts?

History repeats itself, look at the correlation between national debt and inflation during the Reagan years.

Jeez. It's pretty apparent that you didn't bother to actually look anything up before making this claim. Inflation went down from the double digit mess that Carter caused to a low of 1.86% in 1986 during the Reagan years.

Besides, if the Fed were worried that THIS economy is growing so fast, they must have been terrified during the dot-com boom of a few years ago. Oh, that's right, they weren't worried then, either.

Again, you were not paying attention. Between 1999 and 2000, the Fed raised short term rates a total of 1.75% to cool the unsustainable growth. You can read just how concerned they were during 1999 and 2000, with every statement expressing concern that financial conditions may no longer be consistent with containing inflation.

Sorry, but I look at things beyond how they just affect me.

How about the 99.9999% of us (who are not terrorists) who are also unaffected?

John Kerry voted for the Patriot Act as a temporary means of handing a tough situation. John Ashcroft is trying to make the changes permanent.

Maybe that is because this "tough situation" is not a temoprary one either?

It's a shame you can't base your opinions on what's actually happening, rather than what you've been told is happening. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Turn off the TV and do your own research. It's not difficult.

One could say the same about you, being that you seem to have a hard time grasping basic historical facts. If doing your own research is not difficult, why is it that you are blatantly wrong on obvious facts?

You can't. The current risk-free short-term interest rate is about 1.1%, which is less than the rate of consumer-price inflation.(Federal Reserve Statistics). There are various measures of consumer price inflation varying from 1.7% to 3.1% but they're all bigger than the risk-free interest rate.
You can get more interest by taking risks, notably by buying long-term instruments. Part of the risk in a 10-year bond is the possibility that inflation and interest rates will rise in tandem, as they did in the 1970s, reducing both the value of your interest and the value of your capital.
You can buy inflation-indexed US Treasury bonds. But, first, they cost more than the price at which they were issued (and at which they will be redeemed), and secondly, the money which is supposed to compensate for inflation is taxable - so it won't fully compensate for inflation.
The bottom line is that nobody can live on the interest on $1,000,000, because after you eliminate risk and allow for inflation, there isn't any interest.

Did you get this from actual households, or did you just hear it on FOX news?

Well, the federal reservefederal reserve actually, but I suppose FOX news could cite them too, hence your confusion.

I agree SCO employees may find it hard getting out, but I disagree they have nad no chance (how long has the SCO saga been running?) to escape or that ethics doesn't matter. Don't agree with Iraq but you're mentioning that is OT and a poor analogy (good to remove Sadam and establish a non-totalitarian regime but way bad to money-grub and try to hang on to power after doing that).

You may not like to "pick and choose where we want to apply ethics" but I try to do my best.

Please state your sources every time you claim a fact!!!!

According to the RBoC stock coversion, SCO has a business presence in 82 countries with a network of 11,000 resellers and 4,000 developers. While the 11,000 resellers are solution providers, and their developers when dubbed developer network is listed as 8,000 in number, I haven't seen any actual "employees" numbers anywhere.

You use nothing more but a vague "good" to describe a well-performing economy. That's just pathetic.

Consumer debt load is at record high, including mortgage debt. According to the same source (USATODAY), "household debt levels rose nearly 11% in 2003" alone!!! This does not tell good things about household balance sheets. In fact, consumer debt levels reveal what the balance sheets wouldn't. In this case, they tell you how sh*t-fscked the Americans got, living today on money they will earn tomorrow for years now and it can't get better.

And when was the last time you checked the 2003 record-high $380 billion dollar deficit.

I am not opposing the fact that the economy doesn't suck. But you have not shown it and made close to zero effot (only concrete unemployment numbers)!! You have to know your facts and know what makes a good economy first.

I will conclude my point by reiterating the fundamentals. I said it once, I'll say it fscking again: State your sources!!!

As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve derives its authority from the U.S. Congress. It is considered an independent central bank because its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branch of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by the Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms. However, the Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by the Congress, which periodically reviews its activities and can alter its responsibilities by statute. Also, the Federal Reserve must work within the framework of the overall objectives of economic and financial policy established by the government. Therefore, the Federal Reserve can be more accurately described as "independent within the government."

According to the Federal Reserve, the wealthiest 1% of Americans own 42.2% of the stock market, while the 90% of Americans not within the wealthiest 10% own only 15.6% of the stock market. And in every study, the percentage owned by the top 1% has been increasing (and thus, that owned by the bottom 99% has been decreasing). Something to keep in mind with these Panglossian factoids about widespread stock ownership.

In the last survey of this type done (Bush cancelled these reports), the wealthiest 1% of Americans own 42.2% of the stock market, while the 90% of Americans not within the wealthiest 10% own only 15.6% of the stock market. As far as the dynamics of how they're owned it varies - directly, through mutual funds, trusts, whatever. This is what the distribution ultimately is however. If you look at the surveys, wealth distribution has been drifting upward to the top 1% increasingly in each survey done. The bond market is even more lopsided. Anyhow, it is quite correct that multimillionaires benefit mostly from owning rentier items to expropriate rent, dividends and interest from; while workers rely mostly on wages. It's interesting to look at the statistics regarding inheritance pertaining to this as well.

Too late.

There is no way 30 year debt would be so cheap if what you say is true.

Oh, yes there is. If you hadn't noticed, dispite the commercial and consumer debt sectors purporting to be market-based, interest rates in the U.S. have been institutionalized by congress as a command economy. If Greenspan and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency say the prime rate goes up, it goes up, and if they say it goes down, well, they have about 1.5% left before they get to zero.

I'm not claiming that the market doesn't play a part. If the consumer economy (about 2/3 of the GDP) was actually robust, there would be a lot more demand for homeowner credit, and that would push rates up faster that you can say "Freddy Mac."

We are teetering on the brink. The baby boomers are looking at their health insurance go up 8-10% annually, and thinking about retirement. Something has to give.

Look, why not go to Sweden's two-bracket steeply progressive system? Are you going to offer any reasons not to?

Whatcha gonna say when several million Americans who have worked hard their entire lives suddenly can't collect the Social Security benefits they've been paying for their entire working lives? "Fuck you, leave my taxes alone, you freeloading jerks!"?

There's a big, angry, flashing red warning light going off right now. We're cutting taxes like they were cancers, out administration has unequivocally stated that they plan to keep cutting taxes, regardless of the fact that both the federal budget and federal deficit are the largest they've ever been. Our forecast for the next few years is to spend money we don't have, and amazingly enough, nobody seems to care that we don't have enough money to pay Social Security. Nobody seems to care that we're running a 6.5 trillion dollar national debt. No, everything and anything can be fixed by cutting taxes. Economy doing well? Well then, cut taxes. Economy doing poorly? Well then, cut taxes. Sky still blue? Well then, cut taxes.

We're spending our nation into oblivion, the largest generation in American history is about to start demanding retirement benefits, and our fiscal policy is being dictated by a president who has a long and proud history of total incompetence at running a business.

And you want lower taxes.

Do you understand how insanely irresponsible that is?

The intent of copyright is to bribe authors to produce value for the public domain. Patents and copyrights exist for the same purpose.

Read these comments by Greenspan for a good introduction to economic thought on intellectual property law. Greenspan asks one question I think is key in characterizing copyright law.

Are the protections sufficiently broad to encourage innovation but not so broad as to shut down follow-on innovation?

If the protections shut down follow-on innovation, as DRM does, then they are too broad and must not be supported by law.

20 year treasury bills are at 4.6% and Aaa corporate bonds at 5.33%. 30 year fixed mortgages are 5.05% today, so just paying off your mortgage may give you that kind of return.

federal reserve

Clearly, Larry Rosen or Alan Greenspan should be invited to participate, in order to get some kind of balanced perspective.

Not that I'm holding my breath for anything other than economic looting, from the Bush admistration.

A little more to the point: there's $8.5 trillion in actual, tangible dollars in the world. U.S. GDP is %28 of the world's GDP. This is a super-duper rough (gravelly, even), back-of-the-envelope calculation, but you might say, then, that there's about $30-$40 trillion worth of real wealth in the world. My point being: RIAA is suing for something like twice the money in the world. `Nuf said.

(Isn't there a law against something like that? ;)

• A written security program that coordinates all aspects of the physical and electronic data security
• A risk assessment that details systems and the data they contain, vulnerabilties and threats, controls in place to mitigate threats, and the overall effectiveness of controls
• Vendor management policies and practices
• Involement, approval, and annual reporting to the board of directors of the security program

Kevin

US $1 notes last 6 months in circulation. Australian $5s last 3 - 4 years at a minimum. US $20s last 2 years, Australia's last a lot longer.

Sorry, just because it's US money doesn't mean that it's any hardier than anyone elses paper money ;) Banknotes are pulp cotton. All of them. Even the american ones. And therefore they get wet and soggy, torn, frayed, dirty etc.

Plastic can suck, but it lasts longer.

As far as entitlement, having to work for it, earning it, not resting etc., there is a huge class of people like this in the USA. They are the company owners. If you look at the Forbes 400 richest Americans, as UFE did a few years back 43.35% of them inherited their way directly onto the list (with the other 56.65% inheriting up to $300 million). The workers in a company create all the wealth, the owners and shareholders do not do any work, they simply take the wealth created by the workers as an entitlement, not working for it, earning it, and resting while doing it. According to the federal reserve, 42.2% of all stock is owned by the richest 1% of Americans, with the poorest 90% of Americans owning only 15.6% of it.

Perhaps the difference in approach is you are only looking at your only situation and I am looking at a bigger picture. Over the past thirty years according to the US government Bureaur of Labor Standards, the average US inflation-adjusted hourly wage fell. Workers make less today in the US than they did thirty years ago. Go to the BLS site and look it up. American workers work over 100 more hours per year now than thirty years ago. During this time there has been enormous productivity gains, which means workers are more skilled and creating more wealth per hour. How much of this did workers get? Nothing. Nada. Zip. All of the self-improvement they did had absolutely 0 benefit to them, in fact, since wages dropped, they were actually punished for this.

The reality is that if over the past thirty years productivity boomed, which it did, but inflation-adjusted wages fell, which they did, then all of that improvement has not benefited American workers at all. They're actually worse off - not because they're more skilled but because they weren't as well-organized as the owners and thus were not able to share in any of those benefits. Instead they are running scared, repeating the bosses mantra that they should be running scared, increasing productivity even MORE. They have to compete with each other to work faster and faster and do more. Of course, this is borne out of a tech industry with no competition - where ENIAC and Crays and ARPAnet (the Internet) were funded by government to defense contractors. The owners don't have to compete, only workers have to compete, with each other, to make their boss more money, with no benefit to themselves except that they won't lose their seat when the music stops in this round of musical chairs. I'm sorry, I just don't buy into this submissive, running scared mentality.

i understand what you are saying, however the types of contracts and the systems that banks have with these services aren't exactly like switching to another long distance carrier. you can't just switch with a phone call. the argument was that redundancy was built in and carefully planned, with multiple circuits to eds. who would have known eds's datacenter would be flooded? i guess if we had maps and knew the geography of eds' datacenter and we were weather experts we would have never partnered with them.

i'll bet you that 1 in 5 or so people reading this have bank accounts with a bank that had similar problems that week, and perhaps didn't even know it and blaimed it on the bank.

the same thing could happen if a certain part of virginia were to flood out these little guys. i hate to beat a broken drum, but it's true. you can have multiple redundancies however disaster planning and a real disaster often lead to differing results. in a perfect world all banks would have 5 different redundant connections and 4 of them would lose them money 99.9% of the time. most banks will take their chances because the fed say they have done a reasonable effort.

but in the end it really doesn't matter because i don't work there anymore. i'm a jeans and tshirt guy rather than suit and tie and i'm not one for office politics so i left. =)

So as I said, I do see this as one of the problems to be solved, although I feel it's of lesser importance. There are many ways of doing this. One of them is previewing - when downloading an audio or video file, when you're about 100k into it (100-200k if it's video), do a preview and see what you're getting. With this looping stuff you have to go farther than 100k however - preview one fourth to one third of the way into the audio files. Many Gnutella clients have a preview feature, as does Fasttrack (Kazaa).

Another method is to ban IP's and IP ranges spreading this. This is already being done - it's only a minor fix because they will always get around it, but it will help somewhat, they won't be able to have big servers spewing this stuff 24/7

The real way to fix this however is hashes. Which are already ubiquitous - they already exist and are known on Gnutella (Shareaza, Gnucleus, Morpheus, Bearshare, Limewire), Fasttrack (Kazaa) and Edonkey2000. On Gnutella (Shareaza) and Edonkey2000, you can click through or cut and paste these URI's (URLs) to files from web sites (or Usenet, IRC, e-mail, instant messengers, whatever) and start searching and downloading the files - for FastTrack (Kazaa), it is a little bit more time-consuming and complex, but worth it if you're going to be downloading a large file. The hash technology is already there, the key now is finding a trusted source for hashes which are both good and whose data is findable and downloadable on p2p networks, and for those sources to survive. I guess I'll detail how this is currently working with the various p2p networks, why not?

There are four major p2p networks - Gnutella, Fasttrack, Edonkey and Freenet. Freenet is a publishing network, the others are all file sharing networks, which is what we're concerned with. Gnutella and Fasttrack are the two largest networks. Edonkey2000 specializes somewhat in large files however, so if it's 100MB+ files you're after, Edonkey2000 is on par, and perhaps better in some ways currently, than Gnutella and FastTrack. Edonkey2000 and FastTrack are closed networks - closed source server/clients and closed protocol networks. Gnutella is open, the protocol is open, and robust open source server/clients like Gnutizen exist for it. This gives Gnutella advantages, such as a choice of multiple clients for virtually every platform, as well as other advantages. Of all the file sharing p2p networks, Gnutella is my favorite and I believe Gnutella is the future of p2p. I think competition amongst p2p networks is healthy however as every can steal everyone elses best features and innovations.

Gnutella files are hashed for HUGE with an implementation called sha1. You can read about the technical aspects here if you wish to. These hashes are useful for finding additional sources for found files so that one can resume downloads or download from multiple sources with integrity. Actually there's one caveat to that - if you are downloading from an honest client, it will tell you a truthful hash of it's data. A client could give a fake hash and then send other data - but you would have to directly download from the rogue. How clients deal with this is even more complex - Gnucleus downloads overlapping chunks - it downloads 1-2000 from one source and 1950-3950 from another - if 1950-2000 do not match from both sources, it marks both chunks as possibly bad. You can read more details about this in Gnutella documentation and discussion groups.

Aside from this usage, these hashes can be used externally as well. Currently, Shareaza, which is a pretty good servent (server/client), is the only one from which URI's (URL's) can be cut, paste, and clicked through to from the web/IRC/e-mail etc. I'm sure clients like Gnucleus will have this ability in the future. If you had Shareaza installed, you could click on a link like this - which is an, I believe uncopyrighted, Chomsky speech, Shareaza would launch (if you don't have it already) and would ask you if you want to download the file or cancel. If you select download it would connect to GnutellaNet, search for the file, and if it found a host which has the file and which has upload slots open, would start downloading it. Actually, the Slashdot "allowed HTML" filters are pulling some necessary characters out of the above link, so you can't click through on /., although you can on a normal HTML web page. I can't post an URL that you can cut and paste either since /. forces a line break after 40 characters or so, if /. didn't do this and the below was in one line, you could have cut and paste it into Shareaza, I'll show it here for an example, imagine this was all on one line for you to cut and paste, or better was just a link to cut. You can do this on any HTML page, it's just the Slashdot HTML parsing messing it up -

gnutella://sha1:HXHSJ6ATN3LQCCIOBGUEWV5FFCKP2KBL/N oam%20Chomsky%20-%20Audio%20Book%20-%20Noam%20Chom sky%20-%20At%20Johns%20Hopkins%20University.mp3/

I would give the above link a rank of "7", because the last time I searched for it, 7 people replied they had it. I have several hashes with a score of 80-90, meaning you're more likely to find or download them, but the above is the only one I have that I have enough confidence in that the data is uncopyrighted.

So now you have one link to a hash - where can you find trusted sources which tell you what hashes are ubiquitous, making it more likely you will find and be able to download them, are rated in terms of quality by multiple sources and so forth? Well for Gnutella, one source is Bitzi. You can search for data there, see what is the most reported, what things are ranked, see comments, see bit rates, file sizes, artists, titles and so forth. It is very cool. Most interaction is from Bitzi into Shareaza (the only Gnutella client that does this currently), but from within Shareaza if you find a file you can type "find Bitzi ticket" and see if the hash has been reported on already. One thing which I'm sure will soon be remedied is that Bitzi does not have direct clickthrough to Shareaza, I have to copy hashes to my clipboard, edit them to Shareaza format and paste them into Shareaza. I'm sure soon Shareaza and Bitzi will agree on a standard and remove this step so I can just click through. And soon Gnutella clients other than Shareaza will have this ability as well. Bitzi's data base is open to the public, you can read their open data policy on their web site, anyone is free to use the data as long as Bitzi is credited. Bitzi.com is the only large, good source of Gnutella hashes I know of. Edonkey2000 has had hashes for a while, and has several good, large sources for hashes such as Filenexus.com and Sharereactor.com. Since Gnutella is a larger network and it just implemented this ability, I'm sure it will have even more and larger sources in addition to Bitzi. And since Bitzi's database is open to all, if Bitzi goes down someone else can open the database up again somewhere else. I'm sure in the future, even the trusted rating system will become distributed.

Gnutella uses the sha1 hash, Edonkey2000 uses another, and Kazaa uses another. Web sites exist that centralize the hashes for these. I'm sure soon web sites will exist that coalesces and translates all of this. Gordon Mohr, who runs Bitzi, wants to see a universal p2p tag, magnet, which is agnostic about which p2p backend it is using. Why not? We can have a tag that we (more or less) trust, and can retrieve the data from Gnutella, FastTrack, Edonkey2000 or Freenet. It's a great idea.

I am less interested in other p2p networks than Gnutella but I'll discuss their hash and meta-data web sites a little. The most interesting one is Edonkey2000, which as I said, has come to specialize in large (100MB+) files, and which I have to admit is a pretty good way to download large files with some guarantee of integrity. There are two major meta data sites for Edonkey - Filenexus and Sharereactor. There are other sites as well. If you're looking for large files, they do a pretty good job currently.

Fasttrack (Kazaa) uses hashing, but the Kazaa client is not that friendly to this kind of thing. So Fasttrack/Kazaa is more of a pain in this respect than any of the others. Nonetheless, you can download a program called Sig2dat that helps you copy and paste FastTrack's UUhashes. The you can go to web sites that give meta data, rankings and so forth to these hashes. Kazaa/FastTrack is unfriendly to all of this so it is much more of a pain - you have to install files that help you do this (sig2dat), you have to restart Kazaa for every file you want to download in this fashion and so forth. With Kazaa, all of this is a hassle, it's much easier to do in Gnutella (Shareaza), Edonkey2000 and Freenet.

And lastly there is Freenet. Freenet has been using hashes since the beginning. Freenet is a publishing network, not a file sharing network. That is nomenclature - file can be and are shared on Freenet - from html pages to gifs and jpgs, to mp3's, to avi's, although Freenet is the last place you want to look for large files, Freenet's bailiwick is small files. Even a 4 meg mp3 on Freenet is harder to find and slower to download than any of the other 3 networks. Small files are the domain of Freenet - HTML pages and images. The Freenet protocol is more rich than the other protocols in many ways, thus you have more than just audio and video files going over it, you have third-party applications utilizing it, thus you have things like Fproxy (A world-wide web equivalent which runs over Freenet) and Frost and Freenet message board (Usenet equivalents - both for text and binaries). One benefit of Freenet is it's hard to crack down on people for publishing information - because no one knows who data is coming from or going to. This is not absolute, but it is much safer than the file sharing p2p networks in this respect. Also, people publish data, so that what you put out is stored somewhere other than your computer, and if your web site or shared file or whatnot is popular, it will be out there all the time without your node needing to be connected. Freenet also used a lot of signatures, encryption and so forth, so you already have a pretty solid trust mechanism and data integrity. It depends on what hash is used - KSK hashes are insecure, but SSK are signed. So with Freenet there are large upsides and downsides - the downsides are downloading is much slower, since you're downloading via intermediaries, not directly, and the larger the file, the slower the download and the harder it is to find a complete file. The upshot of Freenet is that there is less of a legal risk with regards to sharing/publishing data, data is signed by the publisher which greatly helps integrity, and also Freenet's protocol allows extensions other than file sharing with it's own internal network - web and Usenet like applications, and I'm sure there will be more in the future.

Two years away isn't too bad, you'll probably come out just as the US economy is on the edge of going up. Unfortunately big companies take about a year after that to raise their hiring freeze, so then you'll get something 6 months after that when the Oxbridge people have cleared. These statistics don't lie. If you want to know about the UK economy (objectively, not some Merrill Lynch analyst talking crap) then uhhhhh I dunno. Maybe that's why those city people can bullshit everyone.

Glasgow University has strong links with some large companies, and a lot of graduates do get some half-decent work at these firms (BT is the big one they're friendly with. IBM and Motorola are friendly too (which reminds me, in addition to the languages I mentioned earlier, we're also learning assembly for the MC6808 microcontroller)).

I thought that I wanted to work in City, then when I had a second round in Lehman I saw the company behind the scenes. I saw the glamour of city life was all just a crock of shit. All that IT there does is bitch about Unix saying "When is Microsoft gonna make their OS scalable?" There was only *1* employee there doing R and D in reconfigurable GUIs (using XML from a server and translating it into parameters for a GridBagLayout in Java UI). They don't care about the technology, they just want point and click so that they can go snuff some coke or something. Now these people are probably out in the street, good, let's see how long they can live in their Porsche Carrera.

Don't undersell yourself, those companies worship us together with Altera and Xylinx, but the position of these companies is far from omnipotent right now. They'll see your CV and say, "Yes, we'll interview you just as a formality. Now the number of positions we have open is -200. Ummmmm, ahhhh I'm sorry I've got to sack some people and then I'll call you back after 2 years."

I'm studying my degree mostly to feed my interest in computing. I'm not battling through exams just to get a CS degree in the vain hope of getting a high paid job.

Many people, unfortunately do take computing because of the promise of money. This is probably why of the 500 first year CS students that I was one of, there are now only around 230 in 2nd year. That'll probably be around 140 that get into 3rd year, and somewhere in the region of 80-100 that progress into 4th year. That means that ~80% of the people who tried it just couldn't cope. And that doesn't take into account the number of people that actually do pass the honours exams.

Its a competitive field, at university as well as in the "real world"

Difficult times aren't crap, if you study about the world economic system (take a macroeconomics and politics module, just for a laugh) you'll see that the entire Banks system of gearing ratios leads to booms and busts. What does suck is the catch-22 of normal jobs are unavailable, and if you take a lower job your career ends up on the wrong track for the rest of your life.

I'm pretty sure that the only Executive office exempt from this is the White House. All other offices/departments/agencies/commissions must release information whenever asked.

Nope. Each agency can withold information based on the following exemptions, which can be found in
5 USC 552(b).

To wit the Census Bureau says:

It is the policy of the agency to make records available to the public to the greatest extent possible, in keeping with the spirit of the FOIA, while at the same time protecting sensitive information that may be withheld pursuant to one of the FOIA's exemptions. In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 552(b), the following is a list of these exemptions which apply to Government information subject to the FOIA:

(b)(1) EXEMPTION - Protects Classified Matters of National Defense or Foreign Policy

This exemption protects from disclosure national security information concerning the national defense or foreign policy,provided that it has been properly classified in accordance with the substantive and procedural requirements of an executive order.

(b)(2) EXEMPTION - Internal Personnel Rules and Practices

This exemption exempts from mandatory disclosure records "related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency." Courts have interpreted the exemption to encompass two distinct categories of information:

(a) internal matters of a relatively trivial nature--sometimes referred to as "low2" information; and

(b) more substantial internal matters, the disclosure of which would risk circumvention of a legal requirement--sometimes referred to as "high 2" information.

(b)(3) EXEMPTION - Information Specifically Exempted by Other Statutes

This exemption incorporates the disclosure prohibitions that are contained in various other federal statutes. As originally enacted in 1966, Exemption 3 was broadly phrased so as to simply cover information "specifically exempted from disclosure by statute." The new Exemption 3 statute prohibits agencies from releasing under the FOIA any proposal "submitted by a contractor in response to the requirements of a solicitation for a competitive proposals," unless that proposal "is set forth or incorporated by reference in a
contract entered into between the agency and the contractor that submitted the proposal."

(b)(4) EXEMPTION - Trade Secrets, Commercial or Financial Information

This exemption protects "trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person [that is] privileged or confidential." This exemption is intended to protect the interests of both the government and submitters of information.

(b)(5) EXEMPTION - Privileged Interagency or Intra-agency Memoranda or Letters

This exemption protects "interagency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party ...in
litigation with the agency." As such, it has been construed to "exempt those documents and only those documents that are normally privileged in the civil discovery context."

(b)(6) EXEMPTION - Personal Information Affecting an Individual's Privacy

This exemption permits the government to withhold all information about individuals in "personnel and medical files and similar files" when the disclosure of such information " would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." This exemption cannot be invoked to withhold from a requester information pertaining to the requester.

(b)(7) EXEMPTION - Investigatory Records Compiled for Law Enforcement Purposes

As amended, this exemption protects from disclosure "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes...."

EXEMPTION 7(A) Records or information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings. This exemption authorizes the withholding of "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that production of such law enforcement records or information ... could reasonably be expected to interfere
with enforcement proceedings."

EXEMPTION 7(B) Records, the disclosure of which would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication.

This exemption is aimed at preventing prejudicial pretrial publicity that could impair a court proceeding, protects "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes [the disclosure of which] would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication."

EXEMPTION 7(C) Personal Information in Law Enforcement Records. This exemption provides protection for personal information in law enforcement records. This exemption is the law enforcement counterpart to Exemption 6, providing protection for law enforcement information the disclosure of which "could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy."

EXEMPTION 7 (D) Identity of a Confidential Source. This exemption provides protection for "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes [which] could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source --including a State, local, or foreign agency or authority or any private institution which furnished information on a confidential basis--and, in the
case of a record or information compiled by a criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation, or by an agency conducting a lawful national security intelligence investigation,information furnished by a confidential source."

EXEMPTION 7(E) Circumvention of the Law. This exemption affords protection to all law enforcement information which "would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law."

EXEMPTION 7(F) To Protect the Physical Safety of a Wide Range of Individuals. This exemption permits the withholding of information necessary to protect the physical safety of a wide range of individuals. Whereas Exemption 7(F) previously protected records that "would... endanger the life or physical safety of law enforcement personnel," the amended exemption provides protection to "any individual" when disclosure of information about him or her "could reasonably be expected to endanger [his/her] life or physical safety."

(b)(8) EXEMPTION - Regulation of Financial Institutions

This exemption protects matters that are "contained in or related to examination, operating, or condition reports prepared by,on
behalf of, or for the use of an agency responsible for the regulation or supervision of financial institutions."

(b)(9) EXEMPTION - Geological and Geophysical Information Concerning Wells

This exemption covers "geological and geophysical information and data, including maps, concerning wells."

Support your local congressman... He needs some cash before campaign finance reform kicks in.

Technically the mints and BEP don't operate at a "profit" or "loss" since the Federal Reserve bears the cost of making money. The Fed isn't making a "profit" either, because as new money goes into circulation it replaces old money and meets any demand for incresed liquidity:

"Typically, most of the newly printed currency replaces currency destroyed by the Reserve Banks because it is unfit for further circulation. The remainder is printed to meet expected increases in the demand for currency. The Federal Reserve pays the BEP the cost of printing new currency and arranges and pays the cost of transporting the currency from the BEP facilities in Washington, D.C., and Fort Worth, Texas, to the Federal Reserve cash offices across the country. From 1990 to 2000, the number of Federal Reserve notes in circulation increased 57 percent, which represents an average annual growth rate of 4.6 percent."