Slashdot Mirror

Many indeed do have designs on eventually going home, but few actually do. According to this article, only around 1800 people gave up their US green card or citizenship in 2011... and that doesn't even mean they necessarily "went home", just that for some reason they left the US - presumably for good.

That is most Republicans. The Liberals typically share it. Republicans - me me me. Liberals - us us us.

Wrong asshat.. Conservatives give a LOT more to charity that liberals. Don't facts suck?

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/...

Well, I'll give you this one: Liberals are more generous with other people's money. Conservatives are more generous with their own money.

In an even starker finding, the study shows that the religious and conservative states are the most generous givers. Seventeen of the most generous states, in relative terms, voted for Romney in 2012, while 15 of the 17 least generous ones picked Obama for re-election.

This may expose a correlation between conservative voters believing that redistribution is something that should be done out of their own pocket, not by the government.

Do you know any other tunes? It turns out what you're playing for is only the beginning of the story. Here is something from the middle.

Vicious truck attack kills 84 during France fireworks display
Berlin massacre reminiscent of deadly Nice attack (12 dead, 48 injured)
Barcelona attack as it happened: At least 13 dead and 100 injured after van hits crowd in act of terror

We don't know how it will end yet, but the portents aren't good.

German Intel Report Reveals Extent Of Islamist Infiltration In Germany

You can avert your eyes if you want to, or refuse to hear, but that will not stop the truck, bomb, knife, machinegun, . . .

How Edward Snowden Changed the Habits of a Terrorist

There is only one person I know who changed behavior because of Snowden. In October of last year, I traveled to Kenya to meet members of al Shabaab, an al Qaeda linked group that had pulled off a spectacular attack on an upscale mall in Nairobi a month earlier. One of the members, a man named Abdul, changed the SIM card on his mobile repeatedly. When I asked him why, he gave me a one-word answer:

“Snowden.”

It's all good, right?

approximately zero rich Americans leave the country for major medical treatments.

Only if you mean 1.4 million when you say "approximately zero".

Nothing in that article mentions how many "rich" Americans go overseas for medical care. It includes all Americans, including the over 10 million Americans without medical insurance.

Also note that the top two reasons to leave the country are cosmetic surgery and dentistry, two areas where insurance coverage is very low in the US.

approximately zero rich Americans leave the country for major medical treatments.

Only if you mean 1.4 million when you say "approximately zero".

It scares you that officials seek to do their job effectively?

The government does not handle money effectively nor efficiently.

They are infamous for fraud and waste.

Even their so-called success is insanely wasteful in comparison to alternatives.

Why? Because their goal is political support not financial wisdom.

So before digging deeper into my pockets I want them to figure out how to manage the trillions that they are already getting. Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, and most other private companies can manage to put out good products and continue to improve them year after year... and yet the government still hasn't fixed the huge pot hole on the off-ramp by my house that has been there for years. They infamously can't even put up a website to handle registrations for mandatory health care-- Google, operating on miniscule budget in comparison somehow manages to run a near monopoly on world internet searches.

Some taxes must be paid, of course!
But what if we could reduce taxes by twenty five percent and still have a surplus and still meet the government's obligations?

It scares you that officials seek to do their job effectively?

The government does not handle money effectively nor efficiently.

They are infamous for fraud and waste.

Even their so-called success is insanely wasteful in comparison to alternatives.

Why? Because their goal is political support not financial wisdom.

So before digging deeper into my pockets I want them to figure out how to manage the trillions that they are already getting. Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, and most other private companies can manage to put out good products and continue to improve them year after year... and yet the government still hasn't fixed the huge pot hole on the off-ramp by my house that has been there for years. They infamously can't even put up a website to handle registrations for mandatory health care-- Google, operating on miniscule budget in comparison somehow manages to run a near monopoly on world internet searches.

Some taxes must be paid, of course!
But what if we could reduce taxes by twenty five percent and still have a surplus and still meet the government's obligations?

Not all that cynical, really. The history of IT is filled with stories about massive Government and Military IT upgrades that either don't pan out or run severely over budget and end up cancelled or drastically scaled down. For instance, air traffic control modernization has been a big issue since the Carter administration: https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... Then there's the IRS modernization: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/... And various military software overhauls: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12... https://arstechnica.com/inform...

I consider a math error of that magnitude better than I dunno.

Obama created the Consumer Finanical Protection Board (CFPB) and they are the agency that went after Well Fargo (after a banking employees union identified the problem).

Of course the republicans hate, hate, haaaaate the CFPB because congress can't neuter it like the way they neutered all other enforcement agencies - by starving them.

The Obama administration has the worst cyber security record of any administration

That's a bit disingenuous consider the fact that cyberattacks have been steadily increasing for over a decade. There is no such thing as perfect security and, as the number of attacks grows, the number of failures will grow as well.

What the Obama administration did do was start taking the threats more seriously.

It remains to be seen if Trump can get the federal government IT and contractors to get their shit together on this issue

You mean the guy who thinks his 10 year old nephew is "so good with these computers, it's unbelievable"? Yeah. I'm sure he'll be making great decisions about cybersecurity and won't propose a security theater trainwreck that does nothing but put money in his cronies' pockets.

Thet's because too many private companies profit from it.

Profit is what makes things happen.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

— Adam Smith

No, it is not the despicable "profit" — it is because government can't do anything well. Take a look at the VA hospital system — do you really want the same thing in all of the nation's hospitals?..

Part 1, pure hyperbole and Bullshit. If there is illegal activity due process will find it and prosecute it, and the Constitution provides the presumption of innocence. Leftists wanted that for their candidate.

Part 2. You can run a Google search and find Nancy Pelosi telling a women that illegal aliens are not criminals. Woman: “In 2010 one of the illegals slaughtered my son,” she began. “He tortured him, he beat him, he tied him up like an animal. And he set him on fire. And I am not a one-story mother. This happens every day because there are no laws enforced at the border.” Pelosi: "I pray for you, again, we all pray that none of us has to experience what you’ve experienced. So thank you for channeling your energy to help prevent something like that from happening, but I do want to say to you, that in our sanctuary cities, our people are not disobeying the law. These are law-abiding citizens. It enables them to there without being reported to ICE in case of another crime that they might bare witness to."

Part 3 - The basis of the ban is that the 7 States under moritorium are either failed states, or openly support terrorism. The US does not employ Santa Claus to determine a person's status, it relies on foreign governments to provide status. If there is no central Government (Libya, Sudan, Syria), status can not be provided. Other Governments (Iran) can not be trusted to provide reliable information. Christians, including Yazidis , were mentioned as a priority since ISIS has been openly committing genocide against those groups.

Part 4, and I'm done doing research for you can be found here as well as numerous other sources.

I don't care about your opinion of the Democratic party any more than you care about mine. I don't listen to Fox, or CNN, or MSNBC, or NBC, or anyone else to form my opinion. ALL media in this country has become so biased the truth is hard to find. I go to sources, and suggest you do the same. I can say absolutely that my opinion is based in facts, and constantly being updated with evaluations. Not many, including you it seems, can say the same (referencing your lack of desire or ability to find information on immigration, Pelosi's statement, etc..).

Dude, this is a red herring. The fortune 500 DOES NOT PAY TAXES. If we lowered taxes to ZERO % the net effect would be the same.

Corporate tax reform tax is meaningless for the big guys. The only thing a ZERO % corporate tax would is put a lot of high priced MBA's in the unemployment line. Taxes are a big industry in the USA. The more complex, the better since that equals fees. Imagine what a flat tax would do to H&R block and their industry.

Tax reform would destroy the important financial jobs, so it is ALL TALK and will never happen. They have their lobbyists on the ready.

If we could downsize the parasites: legal, accounting, government fees/regulations, insurance, this would have a measurable gain on what is left of the middle class.

You know that - how?

From the lame stream media that gave him $2B+ in free coverage.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/03/28/Ex-Trump-Insider-Donald-Doesn-t-Want-Be-President
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michael-moore-donald-trump-never-wanted-to-be-president-w434840

He certainly ran hard and pushed hard to win the nomination.

All he did was show up, insult everyone and made promises that he can't keep.

German, and Kaliningrad / Königsberg was nice to visit before Putin's rise to power and the descent of Russia into Fascism.

Irrelevant, read! Notice anything?

It's implausible to come to any conclusion other than it was a bribe. They got access and favorable treatment during e.g. water pollution investigations out of it. What they apparently did was file two contracts, one for the futures to go up, one to go down. Whichever made money they gave to Clinton, the other one they ate.

Trump controls Isis?

You mean, he bought them out? No wonder their wages were cut

Who stores passwords in clear these days ?

You've apparently never worked on a project for a government agency.

They're typically a combination of right-up-to-date (on things which you can just spend money on and it shows up, like a brand new laptop and monitor every year) and 20-30+ years behind (on things which require actual policy/best practices/technology knowledge).

It doesn't shock me at all that the FBI help desk is as described. I'm a little more familiar with the IRS. In 1991 they were spending $8 Billion to modernize from their 1950s/60s system. By 1997 the IRS was already on their second or third failed "modernization" project, that one failed to the tune of $4 Billion. As recently as 2013 they were still failing to migrate from "1960s" technology to a relational database system.

Multiply that by all the other government agencies

Quote:

Of 3,555 federal IT projects that cost at least $10 million, only 6 percent were a success, according to a study by the Standish Group. In addition, 52 percent of large projects were deemed "challenged," meaning they didn't meet user expectations, went over budget, or ran late. All of the remaining projects - 42 percent - were outright failures.

And that's just quick news stories/studies from 5 minutes of Google search reading.

Consider that AFAIK, (this being 9/11 today, its pertinent) since we reported it to them 15+ years ago, none of the Air Traffic Control radar installations have any physical security and they're still running an OS from 20+ years ago that anyone can walk up to and make modifications to. At one point, the Dept. of Agriculture turned off all their firewalls to rely on IDS only because it was too inconvenient to have to keep punching holes for more ports through them.... the stories go on and on!

Who stores passwords in clear these days ?

You've apparently never worked on a project for a government agency.

They're typically a combination of right-up-to-date (on things which you can just spend money on and it shows up, like a brand new laptop and monitor every year) and 20-30+ years behind (on things which require actual policy/best practices/technology knowledge).

It doesn't shock me at all that the FBI help desk is as described. I'm a little more familiar with the IRS. In 1991 they were spending $8 Billion to modernize from their 1950s/60s system. By 1997 the IRS was already on their second or third failed "modernization" project, that one failed to the tune of $4 Billion. As recently as 2013 they were still failing to migrate from "1960s" technology to a relational database system.

Multiply that by all the other government agencies

Quote:

Of 3,555 federal IT projects that cost at least $10 million, only 6 percent were a success, according to a study by the Standish Group. In addition, 52 percent of large projects were deemed "challenged," meaning they didn't meet user expectations, went over budget, or ran late. All of the remaining projects - 42 percent - were outright failures.

And that's just quick news stories/studies from 5 minutes of Google search reading.

Consider that AFAIK, (this being 9/11 today, its pertinent) since we reported it to them 15+ years ago, none of the Air Traffic Control radar installations have any physical security and they're still running an OS from 20+ years ago that anyone can walk up to and make modifications to. At one point, the Dept. of Agriculture turned off all their firewalls to rely on IDS only because it was too inconvenient to have to keep punching holes for more ports through them.... the stories go on and on!

What's another paltry couple of billion dollars when they can't account for that they did with 6 Trillion dollars

There's a reason 401ks were introduced, they are far superior and allow you to control your own retirement money.

401k is the biggest failure in US economic history.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/...

https://www.newsmax.com/Financ...

http://articles.latimes.com/20...

The vast majority of people with 401k plans will not have nearly enough money to retire by age 70. The entire 401k law has been nothing but another way to siphon working and middle class wealth to rich people.

And they may well pay the price for it and become irrelevant.

More of the "Do it the way I say you should or you will fail declarations".

I also smell another shill:

http://www.americansfortaxfair...

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/...

Totally And Permanently Disabled. That is, medically incapable of any sort of gainful employment.

Neither are the two equivalent (a legless veteran can still write software or work telephones), nor is gainful employment a requirement for solvency — one could have wealth and/or other sources of income: inheritance, family support, disability insurance, etc.

I'm guessing that involves more than a 35% drop in after tax employment income.

Wrong. The 35% drop I cited is average for people, who were disabled at least 10 years — that's as close to "permanent" as it gets with the current rate of scientific and engineering development. You are welcome to cite a different source, but "your guessing" is not acceptable.

what would be the point in needling such a person to pay off the student loan?

The point is three-fold: a) to collect the money owed from those, who are not in fact insolvent despite disability; b) to discourage cheaters from faking disability — a major fraud-magnet, which the "benevolent" government officials have no incentive to fight; c) to encourage people to get and carry disability insurance.

as evidenced by behaviors like gas prices going up, people dump SUVs and get small efficient cars, then when they happen to go down again for a little while, they dump the small cars and start buying gas-guzzling SUVs again, regardless of how many times gas prices have yo-yo'd in the past.

Your example is both anecdotal, and incorrect. Americans are keeping their cars longer, and are not trading them in for gas guzzlers.

Humans, as a group, also tend to be greedy, and corporations see how much global warming measures will cost them in profits,

Corporations are in the business of making money. Power companies don't care if they run coal plants, gas plants, or vast fields of solar panels. All that matters is whether or not it is profitable. If you want to do something useful, go into researching ways to make solar panels that work at night, or wind farms that don't have to shut down during a windstorm to keep from catching fire, or batteries that don't have to be replaced every 3-5 years. Renewables are unreliable, batteries are expensive, and no one has hit upon a good combination of either that is suitable for industry or residential living. If/when someone does invent a solution, investors will be beating down their door.

The only remotely saving grace for me in this is that I'll be long dead before the Earth becomes uninhabitable due to human damage to the environment, so I try to find what enjoyment I can in what years I have left to me and try not to let myself get too down on how stupid, overall, humans are being about so many more things than this -- and I'll keep telling people how things really are anyway, even if they won't listen.

Or you could revel in your nihilism. I guess that works too.

The food stamp program is $74 billion according to this story http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/...

According to http://www.reuters.com/article... the iraq war has cost roughly 2 Trillion. So the GP is correct.

Actually I found a better website http://www.usgovernmentspendin... If you add up the Pensions (which the lions share is SSA), Health (Medicare), and Welfare, You get a total spend of 2287.5 billion spent on social welfare programs.

Considering that our total 2015 budget was 3,650.5 billion, that means we spent 62% of our budget on welfare programs. If my math is correct.

Now look at military spending for 2015 and it is 820.2, smaller than either SSA, or Health spending. and only 22% of the budget. If my math is correct

The level of arrogance and ignorance in both your post and the grandparent would be astounding if it wasn't for the fact that it appears to be all-too-common. That "landlocked Asian minor country" has the largest coastline of any nation in the world. They are in the midst of rapid deployment of technologies to exploit the resources and opportunities of the arctic region including many new icebreakers in an effort to open a northern sea route (which may become very viable if the global warming predictions come true). Further, their current military campaign in Syria has proven remarkably effective, especially in contrast to the anemic actions of the United States and our western allies before they entered the conflict. They have demonstrated the capabilities of submarines being able to fire missiles while submerged to the effective use of some of their most modern fighters (as opposed to our failed F-35) and effective long range cruise missiles. They are growing increasingly capable while we appear to be stagnating.

It should also be noted that Russia has been signing major deals with some of the world's largest nations at the same time that we seem to be alienating our friends here in the United States. Far from being a needy border-line-third-world-nation, Russia seems to be showing us up time and again. Twice now the United States in the past few years, the United States has been forced to back down when Russia asserted their will in Syria, and despite economic pressure on Russia over Ukraine, they have not backed down at all. A lot of talk has been made over how Russia has a shrinking cash reserve and yet everyone seems to forget that _they_actually_have_a_reserve. Further, their foreign debt is currently decreasing at the same time our national debt has just reached $19 trillion. When one considers that our proposed defense budget is as large at the combined total of the next 8 countries and yet we have a fighter that cannot fight and a high-tech destroyer that cannot float, I don't think we have much room at all to speak of Russian corruption (though it almost certainly exists).

Given current trajectories, it seems to me that our country is more likely to face a future of irrelevancy than the Russians right now. Our press is very selective about what they cover, but reality has a nasty way of asserting itself and often in very painful ways.

No superfund site has been created for activities that has taken place after 1986. The private sector simply doesn't operate that way anymore.

That is entirely unknown. They are still adding locations so they may just not have gotten to them yet. Full disclosure: I have not fully researched this topic, my conclusions are based on the fact that sites are still being added, and incidents like this mine spill and these leaks and these incidents. The latter was only not a fund candidate because a) company had significant resources and b) cleanup needed to happen asap.

Co2 most definitely is born by the private sector. Almost all negative aspects if any are actually measurable are realized through reduced costs of products and lowered land values (most of which is controlled or owned by the rich who can afford the losses ).

You are partially correct, the costs are born by the land owners, many of whom are not rich, as they don't hold the mineral rights. Perhaps you should take a good look at the issues around fracking wells and who bears the cost. Here's a hint, it's not the company and in many cases not the land owners that are affected.

But since you missed on that mark:

1. in Judalang v. Holder The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Obama made an “arbitrary and capricious” attempt to rewrite the rules governing who is eligible for relief from deportation, in violation of the law.

2. in Henderson ex rel. Henderson v. Shinseki The US Supreme Court ruled that Obama illegally ignored the appeals of vets seeking VA care they were owed

3. in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning The US Supreme Court ruled that Obama illegally declared the Senate in recess and then made illegal appointments to the NLRB.

4. in U.S. v. Jones The US Supreme Court told Obama to stop illegally tracking people without warrants by hiding GPS beacons on their cars.

5. Of course, Obama's transfer of Gitmo prisoners for deserter Bergdahl was illegal by admission of the Obama administration itself - the law clearly states that the President must give congress written notice in advance before such releases, which he deliberately did not do.

I could go on and on, this guy is the most illegal dirtbag to hold the office since Nixon. You Obamabots make this too easy.

FEMA is mostly a fund provider and insurance for disasters.

And they're terrible at it.

I saw something about the Navy considering a BYOD policy with the Navy's computer systems.

I mean... what the fuck? These idiots should just get a custom US government smartphone and anyone that asks for an iphone should get a black bag thrown over their head

Have to be a little careful how I respond to this... let's just say that the last thing you want is the Federal government (or at least the DoD and the Intel community) picking out your cellular technology for you. The world of cell phones has evolved in less than a decade from dumb phones that couldn't even text to portable supercomputers; GPS-enabled dog collars and pill bottles; and increased worldwide coverage at (inflation adjusted) equal or lower prices to what you got 10 years ago. In the US Federal government, 10 years has brought you the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter at billions over budget and years behind schedule. Let's please never think that the US government is compatible with cutting edge technology in anything that does not evade radar, blow things up, or do so simultaneously.

In the US government world, in a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, anywhere where SECRET/TOP SECRET/SCI information is shared), you can't even bring a cell phone into the facility. Think about this: everyone at the NSA, DISA, CIA Langley etc. misses your phone call unless they are sitting at their desk. Forget that "Homeland" or "24" bulls**t about people using their Droid Razrs in CIA headquarters or wherever the hell Jack Bauer is supposed to be (Federal Secret Counter-Non Existent Surveillance Footage - Large Screen TV and Fake Hologram Agency?). This is how forward thinking the government is about mobility.

Additionally, in 2008 the government (NSA and DISA) got together to decide to do exactly what you suggested. The result? The Secure Mobile Environment - Portable Electronic Device (SME-PED) initiative, which began with a forward looking technology initiative, and by the time it had run the gantlet of DoD/Intel requirements and Federal acquisition policies, had turned into a gigantic brick of a device - running Windows CE - that cost multiple thousands of dollars. This was launched shortly after the iPhone hit the market.

I can't share the detailed results for a variety of reasons, but I can say that adoption was very poor. Real-world users decided to either stick with earlier, cheaper secure dumb phones; or just risk things and make phone calls about secret information on the mobile phones that they actually carried every day and wanted to use. At any rate, the lesson learned was that 1.) people love cell phones because they are cheap and people have lots of choices; and 2.) when the US government gets involved to pick a "secure" cell phone that all its employees should use, nobody actually uses it.

Since the CIA monitors government email and the NSA monitors private email, I don't really think this is a security issue.

Either the CIA or the NSA has archival copies of Hillary R. Clinton's emails both government and personal. The next time you loose your email simply call the CIA or NSA and ask them for a computer-readable copy of your email in a format which can be imported into your email client or server. These government agencies could fund their "intelligence operations" by acting as a cloud storage service provider.

Since the CIA monitors government email and the NSA monitors private email, I don't really think this is a security issue.

I mean, no one — not even you — has any evidence of it.

except we do. the docs snowden leaked contain entries going back to around ~2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%29 PRISM is a clandestine anti-terrorism[1] mass electronic surveillance data mining program launched in 2007 by the National Security Agency (NSA) and government survialence has been consistantly leaked on slashdot since it started in 1997, going back to CARNIVORE, RAPTORE, and this: Narus

Citation needed.

This is the war on drugs
Reagan declares war
This is parellel construction, basicly allowing cops to either plant evidence, and effectively nullifies reasonable suspicion.
This is civil foreiture. As you can see, the government can now just take your stuff without having to provide evidence
far less conviction in a court of law, jury of peers or not

Empty words.

hey mr pot, the kettle called, your fucking black.

There is no downside to lower gas prices. lower prices on anything is always a positive.

  we as a group are saving billions a day after a very long recession. The gas prices are still not low enough to help those who need it most, the poor and lower middle class.

Not entirely true as a long term downtrend in overall prices (deflation) is a huge drag on an economy as people put off purchases waiting for things to get cheaper. This leads to a lower volume of products being made (and fewer jobs making them) and slower innovation. In the PC world you sometimes see people skipping a generation (or two) of graphics adapters just for that reason, but fortunately not enough to have a real impact. Now imagine that behavior applied to every tangible good that people buy. You have a less "wasteful" society as things aren't thrown away as quickly, but you also have a market in which a new or improved product, after selling through the early adopters, has few buyers and may never get mainstream adoption. No demand for new products means less R&D into making them and slower innovation. Why waste the money?

As far as lower gas and oil prices, that is HUGE. Like $40,000,000,000 huge according to this (and several other) articles:

Falling Gas Prices Could Provide $40 Billion Boost to Economy

Just how big of a boost can lower gas prices provide? Joseph LaVorgna and Brett Ryan, economists at Deutsche Bank, offered one answer in a note to clients Tuesday. “According to our calculations, every one cent annual change in gasoline prices is worth approximately $1 billion in annual U.S. household energy consumption,” he wrote. “The bottom line is that if the current 40 cent decline in energy costs is maintained, then consumer cash flow would improve by roughly $40 billion; this is equivalent to almost three-tenths on annualized GDP growth.”

Just how much of that extra money consumers actually spend on goods and services may depend in part on how confident they are that the economy and job market will continue to improve. But with stagnant wages still holding back consumer spending, every extra dollar will help.

Most people pushing for a higher gas tax to "save the highway fund" really care most about increasing the price of gas for "environmental reasons". If they really just cared about saving the highway fund then they would propose means of funding it that applied the burden either equally on ALL PEOPLE as all people benefit from the highways whether they use them directly or not, or on EVERYONE WHO USES THEM regardless of the type of fuel/batteries they use to motivate their vehicles. This is just the opposite of what they want though. Their true cause is to use the highway fund problems as an excuse to raise the gas tax to punish the troglodytes who still use gasoline-powered cars. Most of these people would be perfectly happy with a low- or no-growth economy since that would slow carbon emission growth.

Slower growth in carbon emissions, gas burning troglodytes punished, electric car owners pay less than their Fair Share for highway use. Win-win-win!

There is no failure to see here - move (on) along - the websites have brilliantly served their purposes - they've managed to transfer $5 billion so far from taxpayers to the carefully selected chosen ones - who will carefully contribute to the next group of chosen ones. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/...

Who's saying it's a conspiracy with no evidence? They are actively trying to get bills passed to funnel withheld funds into government-controlled accounts. It's not a leap to think means-testing will be applied to "fairly" redistribute money when SS payments can't be made. It's also perfectly logical to see the sequestering of a percentage of my money into a 3% return as theft considering the substantial inflation we will hit.

Further, I'm talking about portfolio managers here, not flunkies.

The state of the education system in the US has become pathetic. I've seen it for years in the primary education system. I'm a little shocked that it is now at the university level too. Especially with the prices of tuition these days. It's even more surprising when you read stories like this

Just to be more specific on what the IRS does, you can follow this link to see a letter from Leonard Oursler, the national director for legislative affairs for the Department of the Treasury, to the chairman and ranking member of the finance committee.

In the letter, Mr. Oursler indicates that it was Lois Lerner's responsibility to preserve the emails as an official government record, "...the email must be printed and placed in the appropriate file by the employee."

The issue here is that emails related to operations, decision making and a host of other subjects are official government records that must be preserved. These preservation requirements fall well outside standard IT-style email retention policies.

This is a clear case of Washington Monument Syndrome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...

Threaten the most visible/popular projects to get more money.

Congress Makes NASA Finish Useless $350 Million Structure
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

Government Blatantly Wastes $30 Billion This Year (NASA appears 3 times)
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/...

You mean the one in utah? http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304441404579119490744478398 Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/10/08/2-Billion-NSA-Spy-Center-Going-Flames http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2013/10/08/fiery-explosions-rock-nsa-data-center.html 10 fiery explosions, known as arc-fault failures, have ripped apart machinery, melted metal and destroyed circuits. No because the govt couldn't design and implement a billion dollar data storage center. they could show what happen when you have an arc-fault failure. Arc Flash is the result of a rapid release of energy due to an arcing fault between a phase bus bar and another phase bus bar, neutral or a ground. During an arc fault the air is the conductor. Arc faults are generally limited to systems where the bus voltage is in excess of 120 volts. Lower voltage levels normally will not sustain an arc. An arc fault is similar to the arc obtained during electric welding and the fault has to be manually started by something creating the path of conduction or a failure such as a breakdown in insulation. So why did we except anything less from the website?

You can duck but you can't run - apparently. It's worth considering though. This guy tried it. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2011/07/22/Barack-Obama-The-Democrats-Richard-Nixon#page1

Not sure I agree with sam_vilain's claim that it's "worth reading" (seems more like a string of poorly-reasoned ad-hominem to me), but here you go:

Following his request for asylum in Russia, it's become pretty clear that Edward Snowden is officially the most naïveperson in the room.

Not only is he surrounded by members of Russia's Foreign Security Service (FSB) — the successor to the KGB — but he's loudly trumpeting the moral superiority of the Putin government, one of the most repressive, cutthroat regimes in modern history.

David Francis' Fiscal Times write-updigs into Snowden for his "mind boggling naiveté":

He is asking for asylum in a country that continues to openly squash dissent, often using violent tactics. Putin runs the country with an iron fist, has jailed people who oppose him, and has chased others out of the country. Opponents have been known to meet early deaths, often under suspicious circumstances.

Francis notes theuntimely,often gruesomedeathsof several political opponents to Putin over the years.

Snowden's statements about Russia's sterling Human Rights image come within days of the imprisonment of high-profile political opposition leader Alexei Navalny,on what some call trumped-up embezzlement charges.

Snowden himself acknowledged his potential for naivetyto Bart Gellman of the Washington Post: “Perhaps I am naïve, but I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.”

To make matters worse, the person seemingly speaking for Snowden now —Russian attorney Anatoly Kucherena — also happens to be the head of public relations for the FSB.

Freelance reporter and intelligence expert Joshua Foust writes:"The involvement of known FSB operatives at his asylum acceptance ... suggests this was a textbook intelligence operation, andnota brave plea for asylum from political persecution."

"The Russians are very good at what they do," wrote Foust, referring to their simultaneous control of the "principal" — Snowden — and the public message.

Putin — a former lieutenantcolonelin the KGB — drew laughs from Finland students when he said regarding Snowden, "If you want to stay, please, but you have to stop your political activities. We have a certain relationship with the U.S., and we don’t want you with your political activities damaging our relationship with the U.S."

The Russian president just as deftly shifted the blame to the U.S., a foreseeable consequence of the State Department's decision to revoke Snowden's passport.

It seems in all of this, Snowden is not the super-intelligent super spy he makes himself out to be, but just an analyst who is in over his head.

Looking at his statement that he could be "petting a phoenix, in a palace" in China, indicates that he expected to be gree

The problem with your rationale is that the vast majority of the world is neither the US or Western Europe. And it's precisely there where the Chinese excel. I suggest you read http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2011/09/23/Europe-The-Strings-Attached-to-a-Chinese-Bailout.aspx#page1 to get a better picture of what's coming. Some countries are investing their foreign reserves in yuans, the Chinese offering money to Europe with some conditions (kind of like the World Bank, IMF), and the truth is, as we all know whoever has the most money will likely end up ruling.

And all of this happens while we over here complain that Chinese workers are slaves, and when you ask such "slaves" about their condition they just say that people in the West are just lazy and have too many holidays.

How many cheap iphones can a jobless person purchase?
You're being deliberately obtuse. What has happened in the past is no evidence of what will happen in the future. Automation drops prices. Comprehensive automation leaves everyone without a job. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I think our goal should be 0% employment. But that goal leaves us with no one buying things in this style of economy. So we need a new way. These charts show what productivity increases have done over the last four years. A trillion dollars more GDP, five million fewer workers. And this trend will continue. We need a change and we need it now.

Yes this exactly. If the USPS did not have to prefund 10 years in advance its retirement plans they would be at least breaking even. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/08/03/Going-Postal-Congress-Adds-to-Systems-Woes.aspx#page1

Much as I like NASA, if that's what it takes to get the deficit under control, then that's what needs to happen.

This won't do squat about getting the deficit under control. The cause of the deficit is Medicare/Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office has been telling us this for over a dozen years. Left as it is, Medicare/Medicaid will consume all tax revenue in 50-70 years. All the savings from cutting defense since the 1960s (when it consumed over 10% of GDP - half the federal budget) has been counteracted by growth in Medicare/Medicaid.

Unfortunately, (1) The most powerful voting block is retired people, who are the primary beneficiaries of Medicaid/Medicare. They vote against anyone suggesting it be cut or restructured to slow its growth. And (2) most members of one of the major political parties absolutely refuse to believe social programs are the cause of our budget woes (they're excluded from the automatic cuts if sequestration hits). They think everything can be fixed by cutting defense spending, even though we'd still be running a budget deficit if we dropped military spending to zero. And no, FICA taxes do not cover Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Medicare/Medicaid outlays have exceeded Medicare/Medicaid tax revenue for over a decade, and Social Security outlays began exceeding Social Security tax revenue in 2010. We've known for 3 Presidents exactly what the problem is. We've just refused to do anything about it.

Don't take my word for it, don't take some pundit's word against it. Read the CBO reports. Read their older reports if you like. Then decide for yourself.

Sorry bud, the facts don't line up behind your argument. The Republicans filibustered far more during each of the last six years than the dems did each year when they were the minority from 2000-2006. In fact, if you look at this on a graph, you'll see the it stays pretty steady when dems are minority, but usually increases a great deal when reps are the minority. You can see a ton of charts that show this in different ways if you google image search "republican filibuster chart", but here's a pretty good one: http://assets.thefiscaltimes.com/TFT2_20101228/App_Data/MediaFiles/3/2/4/%7B32460E0F-8033-4BB9-AC50-4E29BEE8DBC1%7Dfilibuster%20chart.jpg?w=587&h=549&as=1

"Show of hands: how many of you guys even knew this guy's name before the VP announcement?"

Actually, Paul Ryan has gotten a lot of mention in political news for the last few years due to his budget proposals. That's the whole reason Romney picked him for VP. If you've been paying attention to American politics (and I don't blame you for not), you should have heard of him by now. People on the left talk about him a fair bit because the media takes his "deficit-reduction" plans very seriously even though they don't actually reduce the deficit (Republicans get a free pass on this sort of thing). Here's ThinkProgress way back in 2009:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/03/30/37165/ryan-gop-budget/

Here's Paul Krugman in 2010:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html

Here's Dean Baker in 2010:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/08/can-we-plese-shut-the-washington-post-down-today.html

Here's Bruce Bartlett in 2011:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2011/04/07/Wealthy-Get-Free-Pass-in-Ryan-Budget.aspx

Finally, here's some Ryan critiquing from earlier this year:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/24/why-do-new-york-times-columnists-keep-swooning-for-paul-ryan/

And here's DeLong again from yesterday:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/08/in-which-i-disagree-with-josh-barro-on-paul-ryan-arithmetick-has-to-be-primary-hey-rocky-watch-me-pull-a-rabbit-out-of-th.html

You'll note that neither Ryan's budgets nor their criticisms have changed very much. As for your friends, perhaps they felt their "cut+pasted pre-digested talking points that someone else wrote" were informative enough. There's nothing wrong with referencing someone else's writing.