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I switched my main work system from windows to a good linux/gnu distro and I have to say that openness is bliss. Just the idea is a reason to shift, each and every user can contribute to the betterment of a project. When I look back I can see how limited I was as a Windows User and the dangers of that blindness, in free software such does not happen because the software and choices are open and hence get shapped by the community: merge, branch and fork. Gnewsense, Parabola, Trisquel and other free linux/gnu distros are the way to go. I for one use Parabola. Ubuntu is not free, software model: Free and open source software with PROPRIETARY components. " Canonical Ltd. (is a UK-based privately held computer software ". "If what is in the public's interest is also in the private interest of government decision-makers, the public interest will be served." http://ingrimayne.com/econ/government/PublicPrivate.html Why should we chain ourselves to private interests if we can truly be free? The world should not be run by a toy in the shape of a person who for dough, sniffs til everyone's demise. I hope that someday people realize the best approach in life is to, from a collection of ideas reach the bottom goal/idea, a upside-down tree of epicness.

GHCQ - Nobody but a Brit or a spy would be acquainted with that acronym.

Hey McGrew, ever watch James Bond? :)

Seriously though, I agree with what your saying, we have the same problem in Oz on some issues (dope is a great example), right now we heading into a federal election, both major parties are competing with each other to see who can capture the xenophobe vote. Contrary to what some people think, the parties are not conspiring with each other. They are responding to what is (shamefully) a popular sentiment amoungst Aussie voters, that ugly sentiment is reflected by the system because political parties tend to shift their policies toward the "middle". In otherwords bipatisan inhumanity is the democratic reflection of an ignorant public, not a corruption of the system by people in black helicopters.

I always have to wonder. Where do the anti tax hikes people think the money goes? It's not like the government isn't going to spend it, and that the people they give it to aren't going to spend it (at least not significantly less so than the people who held it in the first place, and in most cases, they are more likely to spend it).

Are you arguing for increased taxation, or increased spending? Because they're really quite unrelated things in present federal finance, and assuming $X of new taxation corresponds to $X of new spending (i.e. a fixed deficit level) is disingenuous.

Which means ... taxes create jobs. More jobs than you would get without taxes. I think the success of the stimulus has pretty much proven that to all but the very stupid.

Eh, yeah, there's some very stupid going on, but also, taxation inherently harms the economy by destroying value. (See here, or your favorite microeconomics text.) So even assuming your fixed-deficit model, unless the government expenditure of its tax revenue is more effective in job creation by enough to pay back that destroyed value, the tea-partiers are actually right, even though none of them could explain why.

Of course, to what degree government expenditures actually create more jobs vs. private expenditures is mostly a matter of conjecture, since economics is probably the hardest science to obtain field measurements without unknown confounding factors.

An economy doesn't "grow" in any sense unless outside wealth is coming in in some form.

Economies are positive sum, not zero sum. They can grow without any outside trade. Your description is incorrect. For example, your description would imply that it is impossible for the World Economy to grow, because there is not outside wealth coming in from aliens.

Here is a nice sum of positive, zero, and negative sum in the context of economics. http://www.conceptualmath.org/philo/econ_sum.html

Here is a more detailed example of positive-sum trade between 2 parties (Crusoe and Friday) on a desert island. http://ingrimayne.com/econ/International/Comparative.html

Banks DO just "create money" The only check on this phenomenon is the reserve requirements the government places on depository institutions. Check out this link for a more in depth explanation of how banks create money : http://ingrimayne.com/econ/Banking/Commodity.html .

Kids, time for some ECON 1010. This tactic is called Price Discrimination, selling the same product for different prices to different people. As mentioned in the article, this tactic has been around as long as "kids menus" and "elderly discounts" have been around. A great example that the article doesn't mention is airline companies, the reason that their prices go up the closer you get to the day of flight isn't because they're running out of seats, it's because they know they can catch business travelers who often have to make last minute plans for a flight, as opposed to families on vacation that plan months in advance.

It's reigion locking, after a fashion. If there's a problem with Steam, it's that there is no easy way to "unregister" a game that is tied to an account. Of course, this opens up a whole new can of worms, where it might be possible to hack a steam account and then unregister every game associated with it, which is probably why they haven't implemented such a feature yet. Mark my words, it'll be in in a few months, and before then you can probably email valve support and have them do something about your account.

Get an education: http://ingrimayne.com/econ/Introduction/Unintend.h tml

The gold standard is terrible, leads to recessions, and in general unnecessarily constrains the economy. Here's a hint: if you think money is generally created by printing more currency, you obviously don't know what the hell you're talking about. Even if you understand how money is created, you still may not. For a thorough debunking of the gold standard, read this: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/goldbug.html

For an introduction on how money is created, try this: http://ingrimayne.com/econ/Banking/Commodity2.html

http://www.ingrimayne.com/econ/Banking/Commodity.h tml
for those who don't get what the parent is talking about. Although banks don't quite "magic" money into existence.

The CU borrows money from me at 4.32% and loans it out at high 5s to low 6 percent, depending on the type of loan.

Uh, a bank borrows $1 from you but then issues loans for $20 - not $1 - through the magic of Fractional Reserve Banking. A bank with a reserve ratio of 5% and $1 in deposits can issue loans of $1/0.05=$20 which loaned out at 5% yields at a gross profit of 96.68% after paying you 4.32%. Banks are literally in the business of creating money (which is not the same as wealth).

Fractional reserve banking and Bank-debt money began with gold. Merchants used gold as a currency to exchange services and goods (wealth). But carrying gold was inconvenient and dangerous, so merchants gave their gold to goldsmiths to safely store in their vaults; the goldsmiths in turn gave the merchants notes indicating how much gold was on deposit. The merchants then began to exchange the notes among themselves, and the notes became currency.

Funny thing though, the goldsmiths noticed that when people used the notes as currency, they never came back to get claim their actual gold. And as long as not everyone claimed their gold, the goldsmiths could issue more notes than they had gold. The goldsmiths also charged interest for borrowing the notes - and here is the really clever part - that could only be paid with other notes, which could only be acquired by borrowing more notes, which required interest paid in notes, ad infinitum.

If $1000 loan is granted at prosper with a 10% interest rate, it'll make about $153 over three years if everyone pays up.

Bzzzt, wrong answer. Banks earn $3060 - not $153 - from $1000.

If you start with $1000 in capital you limit your earnings to $153 only if you limit your loans to $1000. Through the magic of Fractional Reserve Banking however, a bank with a reserve ratio of 5% and $1000 in deposits can issue loans of $1000/0.05=$20,000 which loaned out at 10% yields $3060. Banks are literally in the business of creating money (which is not the same as wealth).

Fractional reserve banking and Bank-debt money began with gold. Merchants used gold as a currency to exchange services and goods (wealth). But carrying gold was inconvenient and dangerous, so merchants gave their gold to goldsmiths to safely store in their vaults; the goldsmiths in turn gave the merchants notes indicating how much gold was on deposit. The merchants then began to exchange the notes among themselves, and the notes became currency.

Funny thing though, the goldsmiths noticed that when people used the notes as currency, they never came back to get claim their actual gold. And as long as not everyone claimed their gold, the goldsmiths could issue more notes than they had gold. The goldsmiths also charged interest for borrowing the notes - and here is the really clever part - that could only be paid with other notes, which could only be acquired by borrowing more notes, which required interested paid in notes, ad infinitum.

Efficiency is defined by Pareto efficiency ... Here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficient [wikipedia.org]