Slashdot Mirror

Like I was saying before, I think the key distinction here is between enforcement and applicability.

I totally and 100% agree with you that the US has no authority to enforce its laws outside of its territory. That's not something I ever meant to argue. What I meant to argue is that--despite lack of enforcement--a number of laws do still _apply_ (in the sense of restricting which actions are legal from a US government perspective) to those outside of US territory. To go back over my example and rephrase it a bit, it doesn't particularly matter what Bob is trying to bring back into the country...it wasn't a matter of the cigars being illegal. I was explaining that bob could be criminally charged for violating US Department of Treasury sactions on cuba. Bob's simple act of spending money in cuba was the illegal part. I was just using cigars because they'd be a stereotypical way for bob to get caught.

According to Treasury's web site at http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/prog rams/cuba/cuba.shtml/, these sanctions _apply_ to all US Citizens and permanent residents, no matter where in the world they happen to be. (If they did not apply in Cuba, they would be very ineffective sanctions) Will these sanctions ever be enforced in Cuba by the Cuban government? Of course not. The enforcement waits for Bob's return to US soil, exactly like you were saying. The law, however, continues to restrict which actions Bob can legally take from a US perspective, no matter where he is.

You've spent an entire paragraph accusing everyone else of having absolutely no clue... but provided no indication that you do.

Actually, this started with me suggesting that random shit off of the Internet isn't the best way to figure out a relatively complex topic, especially when well vetted books on the subject are available. This stems from my observation that people who get their economics education from the aforementioned random shit do things like claim that the value of money should always go up (for no apparent reason) or that the Federal Reserve is a for-profit entity or that its books are never audited. Those discussions usually end up going off the deep end, ending with vague descriptions of conspiracies that are never articulated well enough to be sensible but which, for some reason, are more sensible than the obvious conclusion: fiat money works, and money of any sort works best for institutions that have a lot of it.

That's pretty much the definition of the Federal Reserve. They mint the coins, they print the cash, they number everything, and they control the interest rates at which they allow the US Gov't and the public to lease that coined money and printed cash. I know you're getting off on your rant but you're ignoring the rather obvious facts to do it.

The Fed is not for profit. Full stop. It has a rather unusual corporate structure involving private banks, but the private banks aren't running the show. That makes a pretty big difference. People throw around wild accusations about the Fed being some sort of money-hungry entity with huge profit motives, but they're never able to explain sensibly exactly how the people who actually make the decisions profit from them.

For as much as you're saying that nobody else has a clue you're certainly ignoring the concept of debt.

Please continue. How, exactly, is the availability of credit a problem? The misuse of debt financing certainly is, but that's a different matter entirely. Take that up with people who abuse credit cards or with your local congress-critter as he borrows money and spends it on silly things.

Well, except at the part where the bank and politicians work together to sign debt for everyone else. Just how far outside of the scope of reality do you prefer to be?

OK. Let's go a little bit deeper. Let's say (to use a wild example) that our glorious leaders decide to engage in expensive and ill-considered foreign adventurism. Let's ignore the fact that we were dumb enough to elect them for the moment. They issue bonds to pay for it. The Fed has no control over this fact. With or without the Fed and with or without fiat currency, those bonds are issued via auction on the open market--a market in which banks and the Fed are just another buyer (noting that last I checked, the Fed held just shy of 5% of our public debt). Depending on prevailing economic conditions, the Fed may or may not buy or sell bonds to tweak the money supply. The decision to do so is made by a board dominated by government appointees with no profit incentive either way. Make no mistake, the politicians are the driving force behind public debt, and they'd be doing it regardless of how the system is structured.

But a few extra $500 billion dollar spending bills on top of an already $13 trillion dollar debt just might make things a little more difficult for you, and a little easier for the bankers?

Take it up with Congress and the President. They're the ones borrowing the cash.

And just who signed the paperwork for those $500 billion dollar spending bills and that $13 trillion dollar debt?

The Treasury Department. Specifically, the Bureau of Public Debt. Note that the Federal Reserve is not to be found at that link destination.

And ju

Maybe, instead of citing a graph compiled from Encarta data (which is obviously fudged just a little bit to support someone's opinion) hosted on some private user page, you could look at some actual historical record?

Ah, yes. Rather than Encarta, one should look to Wikipedia for the real facts? I tried. The information in direct dispute with what I said gave references. I tried to check a few and came up with: http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdhisto1.htm and http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdhisto2.htm And I looked up some of the statements that were available and a number of the debts seemed to be cashflow. That is, when you buy something on net-30 terms, it counts as debt. When you spend money you will be on average 15 days behind. So, on net-30 terms with a billion dollar budget, you will have $41 million in debt and not actually borrow a penny from anyone. Since it seems that the numbers are being quoted out of context and the full balance sheets are not available that far back for what I want to see, I can't tell if it is normal operating debt or whether it is long-term borrowing. No one seems to separate out the long term borrowing, especially that far back. Based on the words used, the "real" national debt was started in the 1930s, so short term borrowing and operational finances seems to be able to explain the numbers given. You seem to accept that numerical spin can happen. Yet you take the numbers you like and quote them as gospel and ignore the others.

Maybe, instead of citing a graph compiled from Encarta data (which is obviously fudged just a little bit to support someone's opinion) hosted on some private user page, you could look at some actual historical record?

Ah, yes. Rather than Encarta, one should look to Wikipedia for the real facts? I tried. The information in direct dispute with what I said gave references. I tried to check a few and came up with: http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdhisto1.htm and http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdhisto2.htm And I looked up some of the statements that were available and a number of the debts seemed to be cashflow. That is, when you buy something on net-30 terms, it counts as debt. When you spend money you will be on average 15 days behind. So, on net-30 terms with a billion dollar budget, you will have $41 million in debt and not actually borrow a penny from anyone. Since it seems that the numbers are being quoted out of context and the full balance sheets are not available that far back for what I want to see, I can't tell if it is normal operating debt or whether it is long-term borrowing. No one seems to separate out the long term borrowing, especially that far back. Based on the words used, the "real" national debt was started in the 1930s, so short term borrowing and operational finances seems to be able to explain the numbers given. You seem to accept that numerical spin can happen. Yet you take the numbers you like and quote them as gospel and ignore the others.

I would be far happier to just write you a check for setting a broken arm after falling down those stairs, thank you very much.

I have this, right now. It's called a Health Savings Account or HSA.

http://www.treas.gov/offices/public-affairs/hsa/

My wife and I together have a medical deductable of $5,000 per year. We can also deposit pre-tax dollars into the HSA, and use that to write checks to pay for things like a broken arm. With a $5,000 deductable, our monthly insurance premiums are pretty low.

And we don't need to get routine medical stuff "approved" by our insurance. Just write a check. (Or pay with a special Visa card that draws on the HSA.)

If everyone had this, US healthcare would be much more cost-effective.

Making an exact replica of a 20 USD bill isn't illegal as such. Well, maybe, but still under copyright laws. Using it instead of real money is what you're hinting at. That, in your analogy would be selling counterfeit CDs. Which is not the point here.

Actually, it is illegal. If you want to make a copy of a bill, it has to be either smaller than three-quarter size, or bigger than one and a half size, or look substantially different. Reproductions must be one-sided. The design of the bill is in the public domain. http://www.bep.treas.gov/document.cfm/18/117

What I was trying to get at is that making an exact replica of money (say, using a Star Trek style replicator) can get you all the free music you want. And everybody involved would be happy, except for the Treasury Department. Your money would be real money to everybody involved, but using it would be morally questionable, because putting it in circulation would cause inflation.

Similarly, making copies of music creates "Musical Inflation".

1. This has nothing to do with the OLPC Project submitting to the terms of the Fedora Project Individual Contributor License Agreement. It also has NOTHING to do with the GPL. These don't matter, period. The OLPC project is run by Americans, in Cambridge from what I gather. This means that the OLPC project was already subject to US export regulations, regardless of any license agreement or what have you.
2. Yes, the hardware is also subject to US export regulations
3. The Fedora Project Wiki entry for Legal/Export is outdated and inaccurate. For example, Iraq is still listed under "Embargoed Destinations". Iraq is not embargoed (*somehow* that changed when we invaded)
4. There are two US agencies that are important when discussing the Cuba sanctions/embargo. The Department of Commerce and the Treasury Department.
   • Here's a nice 6 page overview of the US embargo of Cuba from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (Treasury). Notice the text stating:
     To whom do these sanctions regulations apply?All U.S. citizens and permanent residents wherever they are located, all people and organizations physically in the United States, and all branches and subsidiaries of U.S. organizations throughout the world
   • And here's a nice overview from the Bureau of Industry and Security (Commerce) discussing exports and reexports to Cuba. Note that you will need to obtain a license from BIS for shipping something like an Xbox or OLPC to Cuba. Also note that there is a general policy of denial in place (meaning it's unlikely that these exports will be authorized by BIS)
5. No, you can't be a "middle man" or you'd be violating US export control regulations. There are these pesky things called General Prohibitions that, you know, "prohibit" certain things. General Prohibition 10 in Part 736 of the Export Administration Regulations states:
   You may not sell, transfer, export, reexport, finance, order, buy, remove, conceal, store, use, loan, dispose of, transfer, transport, forward, or otherwise service, in whole or in part, any item subject to the EAR and exported or to be exported with knowledge that a violation of the Export Administration Regulations, the Export Administration Act or any order, license, License Exception, or other authorization issued thereunder has occurred, is about to occur, or is intended to occur in connection with the item

1. This has nothing to do with the OLPC Project submitting to the terms of the Fedora Project Individual Contributor License Agreement. It also has NOTHING to do with the GPL. These don't matter, period. The OLPC project is run by Americans, in Cambridge from what I gather. This means that the OLPC project was already subject to US export regulations, regardless of any license agreement or what have you.
2. Yes, the hardware is also subject to US export regulations
3. The Fedora Project Wiki entry for Legal/Export is outdated and inaccurate. For example, Iraq is still listed under "Embargoed Destinations". Iraq is not embargoed (*somehow* that changed when we invaded)
4. There are two US agencies that are important when discussing the Cuba sanctions/embargo. The Department of Commerce and the Treasury Department.
   • Here's a nice 6 page overview of the US embargo of Cuba from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (Treasury). Notice the text stating:
     To whom do these sanctions regulations apply?All U.S. citizens and permanent residents wherever they are located, all people and organizations physically in the United States, and all branches and subsidiaries of U.S. organizations throughout the world
   • And here's a nice overview from the Bureau of Industry and Security (Commerce) discussing exports and reexports to Cuba. Note that you will need to obtain a license from BIS for shipping something like an Xbox or OLPC to Cuba. Also note that there is a general policy of denial in place (meaning it's unlikely that these exports will be authorized by BIS)
5. No, you can't be a "middle man" or you'd be violating US export control regulations. There are these pesky things called General Prohibitions that, you know, "prohibit" certain things. General Prohibition 10 in Part 736 of the Export Administration Regulations states:
   You may not sell, transfer, export, reexport, finance, order, buy, remove, conceal, store, use, loan, dispose of, transfer, transport, forward, or otherwise service, in whole or in part, any item subject to the EAR and exported or to be exported with knowledge that a violation of the Export Administration Regulations, the Export Administration Act or any order, license, License Exception, or other authorization issued thereunder has occurred, is about to occur, or is intended to occur in connection with the item

I've seen posts with this link that still got it wrong.

It is not a matter of past or present debts, or debts already incurred verses about to be incurred.

It means that if cash is accepted, then this bill must be accepted. A merchant can not insist on bills backed by precious metals (they were, decades ago), or bills that are not creased, or "the new style" bills, or "the old style" bills, or bills printed after such-and-such a date, or...

You are correct sir. See US Treasury site:

http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal- tender.shtml

Only creditors have to take legal tender, so if you pay first, they can place restrictions on form of payment.

The more you know.

if we cannot take a stand on censorship, how can we possibly expect China to?

Fine, take a stand on censorship. But by hounding Google, you're doing it wrong. I can't say this enough, it seems, so I'll bring out the obnoxious bold letters again. Google has no impact whatsoever on whether or not the Chinese government censors its citizens. None. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Goose egg.

Could they take it up as an issue and maybe make an impact using their financial resources? Maybe. But then, they could also take up fighting genocide in Darfur. They could take up preventing AIDS in Africa. They could take up womens' reproductive rights. They could take up building tidal wave detection and alerting systems in southeast Asia. They could spend every dime they have on solving the world's problems. They already spend a lot. Which other ones should they take up? What do they have to do before they're no longer evil? Go bankrupt?

If anything, by hassling Google, you're actually being counterproductive, as there are much more effective means of trying to make positive changes than wasting your time griping about a company that has absolutely no say-so in the matter at all. Do you really feel so strongly that filtering search results in China is so evil that you should boycott Google for doing it? I'm sorry, but that's pretty stupid.

Plus, if this is the standard by which you judge whether a company is or isn't evil, then you're pretty much screwed supporting any company. As I've said, every company that deals with China at all has to abide by Chinese laws. Do you have a television? Did any of its parts come from China? You obviously have a computer, who made all of the components in it?

Oh, and what do you plan on doing about the U.S. government? That's right, our own government. You know that huge national debt that we keep hearing about? Guess who owns $416.2 billion of it? That's right: China. Just to put that in perspective, that's just shy of the amount of money that has been spent on the Iraq War. That's right, put another way, China is indirectly paying for our little experiment in spreading so-called democracy. (You sure as hell didn't think that we were paying for it, did you?) So unless you want to move out to the wilderness and get by on subsistence farming and hunting, I guess you're supporting oppression in various places around the world.

So of all the productive things that could be done to help unfetter the Chinese people from government oppression, and of all the ways in which you depend on China to live a normal life, why are you singling out Google to pick on? I mean, I already know the answer, but I'm interested in seeing what you have to say.

I'd imagine that the monitoring around those systems is massive, and the security/setup is top-notch

You'd think so, but what evidence we have doesn't confirm your optimism:
http://www.treas.gov/tigta/auditreports/2007report s/200720048fr.html
http://www.fcw.com/article98135-04-03-07-Web&print Layout

The first article covers unsecured taxpayer information on IRS laptops, a problem the audit agency raised in 2003 which has yet to be addressed fully by the IRS. The second discusses more general security issues and reports that, "The tax agency experiences gaps in access controls related to user identification and authentication, authorization, encryption, monitoring, and physical security. Data is at risk from weaknesses in configuration management, segregation of duties, media destruction and disposal, and personnel security controls." For instance, the IRS backup tapes were unencrypted and stored at facilities where they were physically available to non-IRS personnel.

I recently had a first-hand experience with the quality of IT procedures at the IRS. One of my clients is a well-known consumer law organization whose inbound mail I scan for viruses and spam. One of their attorneys contacted me the other day saying that she was unable to receive email from attorneys at the IRS. Now some of you may have encountered the various forms of viruses and phishing scams that use forged @irs.gov addresses. In an effort to combat such stuff, I added a rule to my inbound mail server requiring that messages claiming to from someone@irs.gov actually be sent from a server in *.gov. Notice I didn't limit these messages just to servers in irs.gov; to cut down on the potential for false positives the rule allowed any such messages that originated on any server in the Federal government. Most of the illegitimate "irs.gov" messages I've seen come from spambots on residential and office networks and would be blocked by this otherwise quite permissive rule.

Well, these legitimate IRS messages were blocked because they originated on a server that had no reverse-DNS resolution configured. Without reverse-DNS my server couldn't determine the sending server's domain and thus blocked these legitimate irs.gov messages. Even if I hadn't had this rule in place, these messages might well have been tagged as spam. I give hosts with no reverse-DNS entries a pretty high SpamAssassin score, though not one that alone would result in the message being tagged as spam.

We later confirmed that this server was, in fact, an official outbound mail server for the IRS's attorneys, and perhaps for many other of its bureaucrats as well. Having reverse resolution configured for an SMTP server is pretty much de rigueur these days if you want to insure your messages get delivered. Apparently this knowledge did not extend to the IT staff at the Internal Revenue Service.

That [commerce] clause is actually one that most conservatives dislike and think its been interpreted too widely by Liberals

Liberals, conservatives - absolutely irrelevant. The point is, it was a blatant violation of the constituting authority, and the population let it happen, and as such, it belongs in that list just as much as anything else there does. There is nothing in the commerce clause that can possibly be construed as allowing the feds to regulate commercial and/or non-commercial activity that remains within the borders of any state.

Export controls? Those have been around for years and years, and really aren't specific to a single party AFAIK.

No, not export controls. Lists that forbid you and I to sell anything - from a ham sandwich to a house - to people on those lists, or people at the addresses on those lists. Didn't know about those, hey? I wonder what else you've missed? And what is this about a "party"? I didn't say a single word about a party. Or liberals/conservatives, as above. What's the message you're trying to get across here?

In general most of your rant is on target, but you should stick to things that are true and verifiable, otherwise a casual observer might remark that both sides are equally dishonest.

My "rant" is 100% accurate in every regard as far as I know, although there is no reason I would expect "casual observers" to recognize each and every instance in it — they, like you, are very likely indeed to have missed, or misunderstood, one or more of those items. I made it long enough so that everyone, hopefully, will at least recognize something that touches them. There are many, many things I left off because posts like that tend not to be read if they're too long anyway.

The bottom line is that the government, the fed in particular, but the states as well, has been allowed not only to misbehave, but to put in place control mechanisms that have no controls or limits of their own, and that terminates a comfortable public's ability to counter those actions.

You could disagree with the importance of the measurement - the debt of the US as a percentage of GDP isn't as bad as, say, Germany, so the reason the US looks worse in the total debt is purely because it is bigger. But it doesn't mean it isn't the answer to the question, just that the question is misleading.

Most, if not all of the names on the list are non-English surnames. And I couldn't find a single U.S. Congresscritter on the list, though there were plenty of Congress/MPs/Presidents/Dictators/etc. from other countries, most of them in Bush's 'Axis of Evil'.

The use of this list in war ("War on Terror") isn't new. Regardless of the merits of this war, the gem below is from http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/faq/ answer.shtml.

How long has OFAC been around?

The Treasury Department has a long history of dealing with sanctions. Dating back prior to the War of 1812, Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin administered sanctions imposed against Great Britain for the harassment of American sailors. During the Civil War, Congress approved a law which prohibited transactions with the Confederacy, called for the forfeiture of goods involved in such transactions, and provided a licensing regime under rules and regulations administered by Treasury.

OFAC is the successor to the Office of Foreign Funds Control (the ``FFC''), which was established at the advent of World War II following the German invasion of Norway in 1940. The FFC program was administered by the Secretary of the Treasury throughout the war. The FFC's initial purpose was to prevent Nazi use of the occupied countries' holdings of foreign exchange and securities and to prevent forced repatriation of funds belonging to nationals of those countries. These controls were later extended to protect assets of other invaded countries. After the United States formally entered World War II, the FFC played a leading role in economic warfare against the Axis powers by blocking enemy assets and prohibiting foreign trade and financial transactions.

OFAC itself was formally created in December 1950, following the entry of China into the Korean War, when President Truman declared a national emergency and blocked all Chinese and North Korean assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction. [05-02-06]

Full disclosure: I make money by providing software to automatically manage the SDN list for companies that do international trade. You'd be surprised how many people qualify for "hits" against this list and how much manual work needs to be done to clear them.

Now available in arctic-fresh XML!

Want to check for your name?

No, just because they are currently getting away with it by no means makes it legal. From OFAC:
"TRANSACTIONS INVOLVING U.S. AFFILIATES - No U.S. person
may approve or facilitate the entry into or performance of transactions
or contracts with Iran by a foreign subsidiary of a U.S. firm that the
U.S. person is precluded from performing directly. Similarly, no U.S.
person may facilitate such transactions by unaffiliated foreign persons."

Right now it's not in the best interest of the BIS or the Tresury Department to pursue the matter, but don't think they won't in the future. Most charges that are brought against companies don't appear until years after the violation, take a look at a few, look at some of the names of the companies that thought what they were doing was legal.

The BIS has a very long memory and for all we know, they're still putting a case together. If they're going to take on a serving administration's pet company, you'd have to be sure you have your ducks in a row and saluting.

I mean, come on now, you really think that if they didn't have a sitting Vice President in their back pocket that they would REALLY allow their spokeswoman to talk right out of her ass like that?

Now wait just one second - the US property tax dates back to the Revolutionary War. If you want to say that it's anti-libertarian, that's fine, but it's hardly anti-American.

It's certainly a more classic "American" tax than the income tax is, which notably required a Constitutional Amendment to pass muster, and taxing property holders as an approach dates back to feudal taxes payed to the king by the landholder.

What does this have to do with corporations?

If you check out the Dept of the Treasury site (particularly here), you'll find that "In God We Trust" was not officially adopted as the national motto until 1956. It had been around much longer than that (since the 1860s on the two-cent coin), but the above quotation is strictly a part of the Star Spangled Banner, and not an official declaration.

As a result of the Bank Secrecy Act (Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act of 1970); the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986; the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988; Section 2532 of the Crime Control Act of 1990; Section 206 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991; the Annunzio-Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act (Title XV of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992); the Money Laundering Suppression Act of 1994 (Title IV of the Riegle-Neal Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act of 1994); the Money Laundering and Financial Crimes Strategy Act of 1998; and the USA PATRIOT Act (Title III, International Money Laundering Abatement and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act of 2001).

Read more about what the US Treasury has to say at http://www.occ.treas.gov/moneylaundering2002.pdf/ and stop making up un-true assertions to justify your pre-conceived prejudice.

Maybe defense at 537 billion.

How about Health and human services at 687 billion? There is oodles of waste there.

Here is a breakdown of the US budget taken from the treasury departments website http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/index.html

Budget Outlays

Legislative Branch 4,463

Judicial Branch 6,382

Department of Agriculture 88,296

Department of Commerce 6,673

Department of Defense-Military 537,308

Department of Education 66,623

Department of Energy 21,583

Department of Health and Human Services 687,946

Department of Homeland Security 49,302

Department of Housing and Urban Development 45,891

Department of the Interior 9,952

Department of Justice 24,643

Department of Labor 50,218

Department of State 15,225

Department of Transportation 65,928

Department of the Treasury:

Interest on Treasury debt securities (gross) 440,627

Other 58,626

Department of Veterans Affairs 74,032

Corps of Engineers 7,758

Other Defense Civil Programs 47,540

Environmental Protection Agency 7,875

Executive Office of the President 3,644

General Services Administration 881

International Assistance Program 17,246

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 16,350

National Science Foundation 5,837

Office of Personnel Management 67,428

Small Business Administration 1,433

Social Security Administration 621,979

Other independent agencies 22,295

That is a total of 3 trillion, which gives NASA a wopping 0.5% of the US budget. During Apollo, it was at 6%. That is quite a difference.

NASA still does amazing work, but its kind of hard to make everything work when Congress will not give them the budget they were told to plan to. Something gets cut when they don't get money they were supposed to.

It *was* only illegal to deface currency if the intent was fraudulent -- I guess trying to cast a nickel into two dimes, or making a $1 look like a $10.

Only if it's done fraudulently.

No, it's not. At least not unless you're doing something fraudulent.

http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal- tender.shtml

Despite popular urban legend, there was no budget surplus in the Clinton administration. You need look no further than the U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt to see that not once did the national debt go down from one year to the next not one. What Clinton did was borrowed $248 billion from other government agencies (Intergovernmental debt) to pay $231 billion of public debt--meaning the debt still increased by $17 billion. There definitely wasn't a surplus under Clinton. Borrowing from your Visa to pay your Mastercard doesn't count as a surplus.

Despite popular urban legend, there was no budget surplus in the Clinton administration. You need look no further than the U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt to see that not once did the national debt go down from one year to the next not one. What Clinton did was borrowed $248 billion from other government agencies (Intergovernmental debt) to pay $231 billion of public debt--meaning the debt still increased by $17 billion. There definitely wasn't a surplus under Clinton. Borrowing from your Visa to pay your Mastercard doesn't count as a surplus.

1) Don't confuse Deficit with Debt.
2) Take a look at Debt held by the Public, not including Intragovernmental Holdings.

For the lazy (from your very own site):

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm

scroll down to the bottom. Notice a trend during the Clinton years?

Here's another one for you:

http://www.cbo.gov/budget/historical.pdf

People like you are the reason this country treats money like a dot-com most of the time.

Yeah, sure, that's why the Federal debt fell during his term... OOPS... Not the case, the Federal debt increased EVERY year! Perhaps that touting of a surplus was in fact fiction?

Oh and ignore the fact that Federal tax revenues skyrocketed after the tax cut package...

Yeah, sure, that's why the Federal debt fell during his term... OOPS... Not the case, the Federal debt increased EVERY year! Perhaps that touting of a surplus was in fact fiction?

Oh and ignore the fact that Federal tax revenues skyrocketed after the tax cut package...

...are financing most of our balance or payments thanks to Bush

The growth of China to an economic power did not happen overnight. Continued trade with China, despite attempts to tie trade to mitigating its human rights situation (e.g., Tianamen Square 1989), has been going on for at least two decades - well before the current administration. Here:

http://www.itds.treas.gov/mfn.html

If you want to read up on the impact of the Most Favored Nation trading status, you will find a solid evaluation here:

http://www.fas.org/man/crs/92-094.htm

Check the facts first before making sweeping announcements. Don't let your Bush Derangement Syndrome get the better of you.

If you want to see the current US national debt, check this out http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

As much as America funds other governments, I don't think Uncle Sam should pay for Ireland's banking debts. Maybe the banks in the FDIC...

In fact, Bush with a Republican Congress has added more to the debt in 5 years than all 43 prior Presidents _combined_.

Not really.

At the beginning of 2001, we see that previous presidents ran up a debt of about $5.7 trillion. The present value of the debt is about $8.5 trillion.

So Bush has run up $2.8 trillion, or about half as much as all previous presidents.

And for what it's worth, which isn't much, the Democrats actually had control of the Senate from Jun 2001 - Jan 2003. But other than that, it's been Republicans.

It looks like Bush's dad contributed about $1.5 trillion, and Clinton did about $1.3 trillion. So we'll have to give them the silver and the bronze medals, I guess.

This is what happens to the currency of debtor nations, and it turns into an endless spiral, till eventually, no americans can afford the '$100 laptop', simply because thier peso's are worthless.

If your timeline is only a year or two, low risk is usually what's recommended. If you're young and saving for retirement, then risker is fine, since if something goes wrong, you've got plenty of time for things to work out.

One of the best low-risk investments is directly in US Treasury Notes/Bills/Bonds, and it's really easy to do. Any US individual can go right to the Treasury Direct web site, set up an account linked to your checking account, and purchase 4-week notes to 30-year bonds. This site is run directly by the US Treasury, and does not involve third party brokers. Rates are running right about 5% right now depending on the term.

Anybody can participate in the weekly US Treasury auctions, and it's pretty simple. I'm surprised that more individuals don't use this.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control specifies a list of Specially Designated Nationals. Banks and other organizations are required to freeze accounts of people on this list until their real identity can be verified.

You can see the list here:

http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/

My favorite is the guy with the a.k.a. of Foopie. His other a.k.a is AHMED THE TANZANIAN which is a little more intimidating than Foopie.

No, not really. Politicians just love to make things look better than they really are. I believe the national debt grew by over 2.5 trillion dollars in the 90's. Yes, it (very breifly) went down (very slightly) in 2000 (not part of the 90's, though), but of course that was during the rapid growth of the dot-com economy, which no one really expected to last.

Republicans generally support the 2nd amendment
True, but I haven't seen many Republicans pass legistlation that is really in the spirit of the second ammendment.
And was put into place (say goodbye to foreign FAL and AK kits) smack dab in the middle of the Republican's terms of office. And 18 U.S.C. 925(d)(3) still stands.
If this was so offensive to the politicans as they claimed, you'd think it would of have been repealed or at least weakened, but instead, it has gotten a little bit stronger.
But hey, as long as we stopped gay marriage...

Oregon doesn't have a handgun waiting period btw ;)

Get a Curio & Relic FFL (aka C&R FFL, Collector License, Cruffle) and that won't be a problem for long. It's $30 for a 3 year license. Send a copy to MidwayUSA or Brownells and you will save more than that on a parts order with the discount pricing. Buy a Swiss K31, look under the butt plate, and find the name & address tag of who the rifle was issued to. Setup correspondence with the person or family.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Firearms_Lice nse
http://www.atf.treas.gov/firearms/nlc/ffl/faqs_col lect.htm

Yeah they pretty much hand you the lists

http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/ delimit/index.shtml

Of course some of the entries are obviously from gathered inteliigence. I recall having to block anyone called "The Chess Player" from signing up. Unfortunately most websites don't gather date of birth, and when you do name only matching you catch a lot of innocent people - who are usually mightily pissed off about having to call EVERY SINGLE SITE that they try to sign up for.

The other big caveat is what you're supposed to do when you find a match - it's virtually impossible to stop them just changing their details and signing up again.

Dude, we are 8 trillion dollars PAST broke

"(Cutting about 15 billion in pork from the latest round of funding)."

Ironically,short term Treasury securities are paying around those rates recently. And if you want to get something a bit longer than a year, it's there. And the risk is much lower than a 3 percent default rate. You can purchase these as well online from TreasuryDirect. For free. Don't even have to participate in competitive bidding if you have less than like 5 million to invest. Sounds like a crappy deal indeed.

So, at $42.2222 per troy ounce, and 14.5833333 troy ounces in 1 pound, if these sites are really "worth their weight in gold", then on.com weighs ~1/2 ton while jasmin.com weighs only ~1/4 ton. Makes sense, of course, given the starvation diets most of those girls are probably on ...

Please don't crucify me if my math is off ... I'm tired. Just laugh at attempted joke ....