Slashdot Mirror

here's a more direct link

http://www.treas.gov/
they have a wealth of information about money

Let's clear this up:

FAQs: Currency
Legal Tender Status

Question I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal?

Answer The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 102. This is now found in section 392 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The law says that: "All coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal-tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues."

This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.

From the faq.

These stats are from the U.S. Treasury Department. http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/js1287.htm

Fact Sheet:
Who Pays The Most Individual Income Taxes?

The individual income tax is highly progressive - a small group of higher-income taxpayers pay most of the individual income taxes each year.

* In 2001, the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than one-half (53.3 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third (32.0 percent) of income.
* The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.9 percent of all individual income taxes in 2001. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual income taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group's tax share has grown faster than their income share.
* Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in this group have paid over 90 percent of all individual income taxes. In 2000 and 2001, this group paid over 96 percent of the total.
* The President's tax cuts have shifted a larger share of the individual income taxes paid to higher income taxpayers. In 2004, when most of the tax cut provisions are fully in effect (e.g., lower tax rates, the $1,000 child credit, marriage penalty relief), the projected tax share for lower-income taxpayers will fall, while the tax share for higher-income taxpayers will rise.
* The share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers will fall from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent.
* The share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers will rise from 30.5 percent to 32.3 percent.
* The average tax rate for the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers falls by 16 percent as compared to a 12 percent decline for taxpayers in the top 1 percent.

So, as much as you would like to believe that the poorer wage earners pay ALL of the income taxes, it just AIN'T true. It would amuse me if one year the top 5% of wage earners just decided to take the whole year off. You would hear such screaming and whining about it that you would never again forget WHO IS CARRYING THE LOAD!

I AM Atlas and I'm just about ready to shrug, dude. Get your affairs in order, cause the shit's about to hit the fan.

Considering that during the current fiscal year we have spent $ 151,351,702,275.20 just on interest on the debt, it seems that $4.2M is a very effective use of tax dollars.

I agree. This has nothing to do with "typical" Internet sales so much as it is a crackdown on bootlegging.

Tobacco and alcohol are regulated with peculiar laws pretty much anywhere in the Western world. So are medical drugs, too, although regulation in those cases is even stricter.

Most European countries even claim an official monopoly over these goods, meaning that they decide who sells them, and taxes them indipendently of official VAT and/or "typical" customs duties. Many countries put official stamps on packs of cigarettes or alcohol containers to ensure that they've been through the official duties agency.

This happens in the US, too, although they may not have gone so far as to call it a monopoly. There's even a federal agency whose mission is to ensure that controlled substances and goods are properly taxed and sold according to law, and to assist individual states in doing so.

I agree, the U.S. should have ceded control a long time ago. Are you happy?

Yes, I am happy. But you missed the point of that. You (assuming you're the same AC) said US occupation of Panama was "news", so I posted several links for you to peruse to show that its "old news". I'm glad you found credibility problems with one or two of my links, it means the time I spent looking for three was worthwhile.

And so what if Iraq had a democracy 50 years ago.

It makes your original statement about voting for the first time wrong, assuming you can find a 65 year old Iraqi. Thats all.

HOW YOU FEEL SUPERCEDES THE FEELING OF THOSE IRAQIS VOTING IN IRAQ.

Thanks for the caps, I had no idea that my feelings superceded the feelings of those in Iraq. I know that for the most part they're happy, and at this point in time all I can do is hope Bush's experiment works and that Iraq becomes a peaceful secular democracy.

You mention that the U.S. is going to slap Iraq with a bill.

Aww, you got me there. Bush promised it would come from Iraqi oil money. Then he "retracted" that promise. Of course, Bush has other ways of getting money out of Iraq.

Here's to hoping that History will prove me wrong and I am missing the signs, and we won't be doomed to repeat it.

That's because of the interest accumulating on the debt. You'll note that the debt increased _less_ than the amount of interest for all the years you have listed, and it has increased _more_ than the amount of interest in 2002, 2003, and 2004.

National debt to the penny

Interest expense on the debt

That's because of the interest accumulating on the debt. You'll note that the debt increased _less_ than the amount of interest for all the years you have listed, and it has increased _more_ than the amount of interest in 2002, 2003, and 2004.

National debt to the penny

Interest expense on the debt

It is a common misconception that people are required to take any form of currency simply because it's legal tender. Actually, private businesses can make whatever rules they like about what they'll accept, which is why you see businesses with signs saying things like "No bills larger than $20", "No pennies", or even "No cash". See the US Treasury's FAQs.

See this pdf:


PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION AND INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS - The receipt or transmission of postal, telegraphic, telephonic or other personal communications, which does not involve the transfer of anything of value, between the United States and Iran is authorized. The exportation from the United States to Iran of information and informational materials, whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, and any transaction incident to such exportation is authorized.

He isn't doing it because of Social Security, he's watching his wealth shrink by the day as the dollar tumbles.

The significant bulk of earnings for BRK-A comes from insurance investment income and non-insurance business. There are some international holdings like Cologne Re, but by and large the underwriting portion of BRK-A supplies earnings but are significantly offset by long-term liabilities which he smartly insists upon fully accounting for. Basically, while the reinsurance business supplies him with plenty of cheap cash, the parts of BRK-A that really throw off unencumbered cash are the non-insurance portions. Look at his largest equities investment holdings, and survey the range of business holdings. The vast majority (100% of the major equity positions he uses as a compromise proxy for holding the business, about 90% of the subsidiaries by count, they don't break out balance sheet, earnings statements, etc. by subsidiary unfortunately) are U.S.-based businesses; they have international operations and sales, but by and large they concentrate on the U.S. markets.

So you are saying that with a pre-dominant orientation to U.S. markets, he decides that his lesser orientation to international markets justifies repositioning his cash? That doesn't make sense because there are transaction costs to moving cash around like that, and Buffett is not in the habit of paying other people a lot to hold his cash for him. That's why outside of insurance-related risk management activities, you see him tend to just sit tight on top of a mountain of fairly mundane cash instruments with hyper-low transaction expenses. Because his overseas exposure is relatively limited, he doesn't have a huge incentive to switch cash allocation strategies away from a dollar denomination unless he was convinced we're facing a sea change in the forseeable future.

Furthermore, ever since we floated after closing the gold window in the 70's, we've seen fluctuations of the current magnitude before; in fact, worse differentials. BRK-A sat through all of those fluctuations because Buffett simply doesn't care about chasing the first and last 20% of a move. He's not moving because "he's watching his wealth shrink by the day as the dollar tumbles", he's moving because something much bigger has caught his attention. On the order of what traders call a "secular" change.

What a shithole we're digging, and it's all by design, it's happening today, and as far as I know it's not even impeachable, because it doesn't involve any titillating sexual indiscretions.

So you're saying this is all caused by the Bush administration and Republicans? All or most of it? Show me the numbers for that assertion, because the record shows both sides of the aisle fed copiously at the trough. Reckless spending is an equal opportunity sin. It took decades of irresponsible spending by everyone (citizens and Congress) to get us to this close to insolvency. If you snapped your fingers, erased the last five years, and replaced Bush with whoever you prefer, it won't materially change the fact that the American electorate wilfully voted over the course of generations for deficit spending, largely on goals that result in non-income producing assets, and their duly elected representatives complied. The sooner we stop pointing fingers to assign blame for sunk costs, which only wins political points and not national economic advantage, the sooner we can address the national behavioral problems that led us into this mess in the first place.

Public finances are a funny thing, they don't quite operate like a household or business. Because they can roll over debts and tinker with taxation to raise capital, and creditors don't ever really call due the entirety of the debts, everything can go swimmingly until the creditors as a group suddenly lose faith in t

See this site for a table of the current national debt broken down by category. Any corporation facing a future obligation that it must pay is required by law to state unfunded future liabilities in it's financial statements. None of these appear in the treasury reports.

Every penny of payroll taxes collected is spent. Not a single penny in excess of what is paid to beneficiaries is saved, BY LAW. If the social security "trust fund" is truly an asset, where are the assets? They're gone, and all that remains is a vague promise of the government to somehow raise the funds to repay these IOU's, subject to appropriations and future political will.

And if the government "defaults" on these IOU's, how likely do you think it will be to sue the government for the benefits it has promised but not delivered?

Don't confuse these with Treasury bills. If the government defaults on those, every source of funding for the government will evaporate, and that would be a disaster. If the government defaults on these social security IOU's (written to the government, by the government) the only party directly injured is the government.

I wish it weren't so, really. This is my future being screwed, and I'm not happy about it at all.

Yet the numbers tell a different story. You are being swindled, pal.

And your numbers are?

I'm quite well aware of people writing up reports saying that there is nothing to worry about. Some say, for example that the assumptions of the models that predict bankruptcy are excessively pessimistic. But unless you point us to what you are using as the basis for your statement that we're being swindled, we can simply assume you are just blowing rhetoric.

On the other hand, I'm looking at a $20B hedge that one of financial history's most consistent performers has placed against the dollar. That is 15% of market cap on Berkshire Hathaway. Even more interesting, that is over 50% of the company's cash position, what it really took to position that hedge (he still has the cash, but it is a real pain in the ass to manage multiple currency positions like that). He is not the only one taking short positions against the dollar, just a trader who is well known to the mainstream. In his entire career, he has only ever made one other investment of comparable magnitude, and that is when he bought GEICO, which rocketed BRK.A to the top by essentially giving him a private venture fund to capitalize purchases of other income-producing assets. There is a first time for everything, and Buffett might be wrong, but odds are he knows something you don't.

Talk is cheap, but 50% of cash in the billions backs up a metric assload of talk. And Buffett is saying we're borrowing too much. He doesn't give specific prescriptive advice, but when you look at what we are spending on well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that even if we dropped defense to zero, we still won't dig out of our hole fast enough; and that's just the public debt. You want to talk about Social Security? Sure, let's talk unfunded liabilities. You think our current public debt hole is manageable? Okay, I'll give you a hole so deep, it exceeds the total net worth of the nation. In equities terms, the "book value" of the nation cannot cover the unfunded liabilities. The Social Security and Medicare Trustees' annual reports have to be off by almost 100% to make the unfunded liabilities even match the net worth of the nation.

Naturally, when you are talking about what you owe versus what you have, prudence dictates that you don't risk more than 10% of capital on any one class of expenditures. So you probably want the Trustees to be off by a factor of 10 to be relatively prudent. The only reason our creditors are not running screaming in the other direction is because we don't have to pay these unfunded liabilities right away, so it is not yet impacting our ability to pay them back. It's someone else's problem at this time, in other words.

I don't know what reports you're reading, but I'm looking through the Trustees' own words. If you can point to analyses that can demonstrate how the Trustees' numbers are off by an order of magnitude, hey, I might think history is being made and Buffett will make the biggest mistake of his trading career. The swindle I believe history will write, is upon the enstupidated and innumerate American voting citizenry, for believing they can get something for nothing. Thank God that we have intrinsic strengths that have not been totally destroyed yet, so we are unlikely to see Chinese Cultural Revolution scale deprivation and slaughter when the bill comes due. But make no mistake about it. If Buffett and a hell of a lot of other traders are right, we are in for an incredibly tough, whipsaw ride starting around 2010 or so. And going on for anywhere from 5 years to possibly decades, depending upon

SS could be put on a sound basis by not borrowing money from it for other portions of the goverment. The IOU's to SS are nearly as large the national public debt.

This whole practice of borrowing money that can't be paid back because it doesn't look like a tax increase is horrific.

In the following, public debt refers to money owed to external agencies (mostly China for new debt), and intergovenment mostly means IOU's from SS. However, I have not been able to find a detailed break down of which depts are involved in intergovermental stuff to what degree. I would really like to see those numbers.

Current Debt

FWIW: http://www.atf.treas.gov/explarson/safexpact/model rockets.htm

"In God We Trust" was only seen on certain money (some coins) before McCarthyism. When the commie witch hunts began, it was added to the rest of our money.

If you dont believe me try the US Treasury.

Personally I think that motto being on money is insulting to GOD, I mean think about what money gets used for. Jesus would kick some serious American ass over it if he were here today.

As for the founding fathers and religion thats way off topic from where we are even now.

I think you mean the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (Yeehaw!)

And yes, something this powerful should probably be regulated by them. But hands off my little 5mW pointer..

Hang on cowboy, number one, $1.85 trillion dollars is held by foreign countries not $2t. Big difference.

Number two, that $85b held by Caribbean Banks is most like offshore tax havens held by Americans.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm says that $3.1t is held by intragovernmental organizations. Because the Government IS the American Public, we own that too.

It also says that debt held by the public (ie everyone else not the Gov) is $4.44t. Subtract $1.85t that foreign gov's own and you get $2.59t.

Add that to what's held by the Government and you get $5.69 trillion dollars held by Americans.

Therefore, the grandparent poster is correct. The majority of the bonds issued are sold to people, organizations (including governmental ones) and companies within the US.

Done and done.

Yes there is a trading deficit with China but that's not what the poster was talking about. He is repeating a faulty fact: China is the major holder of US National debt.

Most of what I've read has said that totaled up, all of the private investment dwarfed the foreign government investment. If you've got a link that shows otherwise, I'd like to see it.

I can't find any specific statistics on this and the U.S. Treasury departments Financial Management Service only use the terms Federal and Public in their data that I can find now. (lots of _huge_ .doc files here

So my guess is that the private investment no longer dwarfs the foreign investment. It's still larger, mut more like 65-35 instead of 75-25.

Some facts you should try to wrap your mind around:
1.) As long as this nation has existed, we've had a national debt. So, if we waited until there was no debt to pay for something, we would have no government. See the history: http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opd.htm#histor y

2.) We never actually have to pay back our debt! I'm not going to get into Econ 101 with you, but because our debt is written in US dollars, we can, effectively pay off our debt with even more debt forever. While you and I may not agree with this tactic, you have to at least acknowledge that it exists.

3.) The consequences of when China stops investing in us will be inconsequential. China has invested $177 billion in US debt, and while this makes them the second largest nation to invest in the US government, it also means that China holds less than 4% of US National Debt held by the public and less than 2.5% of the total US National Debt. US companies have invested hundreds of billions of dollars (and continue to do so) in China and the US serves as one of China's largest trading partners, primarily as a market for goods. If China were, for some bizarre reason (conspiracy theorists note this please) pull all of its meager investments in the US in some weird attempt to manipulate the US economy, the US could retaliate and cause catastrophic damage to China. Finally, the public debt works as a public auction in a free market system, if China were to stop investing in the US, there would likely be another country to pick up the slack without some much as a hiccup.

There are many valid arguments against a ballooning national debt, wild and inaccurate statements that include references to credit cards and China are not normally not some of them (the credit card analogy is particularly inaccurate for several reasons: there is no 3rd party creditor, we set the interest rates and terms, etc).

it's a felony to do so (or to possess one), in violation of the 1934 National Firearms Act

U.S. taxes are currently (2003) 35.7% of GDP

I don't think so. According to the Treasury Department, Federal taxes hit "a postwar high of 20.8 percent [of GDP] in 2000," and I don't see state taxes being at a magnitude of three-quarters of federal ones.

Please give a source for your figure of 35.7%, I'd like to check it out.

Not to pick a nit, and not that it'd change the coin battery setup, but the metal composition of the 1 cent piece has changed since mid-1982.

From the US Treasury Website (emphasis mine):

The composition of the coin was changed again in 1962. Mint officials felt that deletion of the tin content would have no adverse effect on the wearing qualities of the coin, whereas, the manufacturing advantages to be gained with the alloy stabilized at 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc would be of much benefit. Congressional authority for this modification is contained in an Act of Congress approved on September 5, 1962. In 1982, the coin's composition changed again to copper-plated zinc. These coins, which are still being produced today, contain 97.6 percent zinc and 2.4 percent copper. This coin is identical in size and appearance to the predominantly copper cent issued before 1982, but this modification saves the Government an estimated $25 million in metal costs every year.

I haven't had to look since getting this job in 2001. Thank God. So I've got no real feel for what things are like now.

I love the field and hate it at the same time. Maybe I should just go and get an FFL, and say "screw this computer lunacy."

"In God We Trust" and "Under God" have not been with us for a long time when we talk about Money and The Pledge.
Educate yourself. These were added strictly as part of the Cold War and McCarthyism to keep "Godless Commies" out of school and from using money.

The American people voted for a president that presided over an economy that produced a record current account deficit, a record trade deficit, a record budget deficit and a national debt of such proportions that the IMF says they threaten the world economy.

Who ever said all that Americans ever care about is money?

Hmm. 7.4 trillion is a lot less than $280,000 per citizen. That'd be 84 trillion.

To compare, Americans hold about 2 trillion in personal, non-mortgage debt. So our government is just like the people.

Umm, more than one nation has "most-favored nation" trading status. See this page.

Far more important. The dollar is weakening, Americans are getting cheaper.

Hmmm. 1.5 trillion of the debt is held by the Social Security Trust Fund. If you look at the Debt Site you'll see that over 3 trillion is in by intragovernmental holdings. 4 trillion is held by the Public, of which 1.7 trillion is held by foreign investors.

Want to stop the Ponzi scheme? Stop the greatest one of all time, Social Security.

From the Mission statement linked to from The United States Secret Service, a branch of the United States Treasury Department.

MISSION STATEMENT The United States Secret Service is mandated by statute and executive order to carry out two significant missions: protection and criminal investigations. The Secret Service protects the President and Vice President, their families, heads of state, and other designated individuals; investigates threats against these protectees; protects the White House, Vice President's Residence, Foreign Missions, and other buildings within Washington, D.C.; and plans and implements security designs for designated National Special Security Events. The Secret Service also investigates violations of laws relating to counterfeiting of obligations and securities of the United States; financial crimes that include, but are not limited to, access device fraud, financial institution fraud, identity theft, computer fraud; and computer-based attacks on our nation's financial, banking, and telecommunications infrastructure.

Please, in the future, be more accurate when referring to people whose arguably most important job is to take a bullet for the president (Officer Leslie Coffelt and Special Agent Tim McCarthy, see question six).

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?

Actually they're about half of it. See those Intragovernmental Holdings? That's the non-publicly held share, which is borrowed from all those nice things that are supposed to take care of us in our old age or infirmity.

While the Fed rate was low the interest payments on debt went down, but don't expect that bargain to last.

• National Debt(Date)
• 5,807,463,412,200.06(09/28/2001)
• 5,674,178,209,886.86(09/29/2000)
• 5,656,270,901,633.43(09/30/1999)
• 5,526,193,008,897.62(09/30/1998)
• 5,413,146,011,397.34(09/30/1997)

Strange, but it seems to me that if the budget were balanced, the debt would not be increasing. But hey, I'm not a math major. Maybe there's something about addition and subtraction that I missed somewhere along the way.

Yeah, we're at 7.4 Trillion now. Did I say I liked Bush? I hope I didn't imply that.

• despite the increasing budget deficit. When George W Bush took office there was a $236.4 Billion surplus (Source: Congressional Budget Office.) The budget deficit of $446 billion (Source: CNN.) In addition, the national debt has incressed from $5,674,178,209,886.86 to $7,347,867,800,168.01 during the Bush administration (Source: US Treasury Dept. Office of hte Public Debt)
• [Bush Supports] Pre-emptive military action anywhere in the world to prevent potential threats toward the United States " we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of selfdefense by acting preemptively against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our country...To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively." -The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, written by The National Security Council and approved by George W Bush (Sept. 2002) The statement which you claim is one sided says exactly the same thing as Bush's own office policy documents.
• [Bush Supports] addressing the budget deficit, if at all, by cutting government spending (except for defense spending) rather than raising taxes "Many of the tax cuts - including the new, low 10 percent tax bracket, the reduction in the marriage penalty, the doubling of the child tax credit, the phase-out of the death tax, and the increase in small business expensing - are set to expire. This tax relief must be made permanent so families and businesses can plan for the future with confidence." Source: The Bush Line: President Bush's Record of Cutting Taxes from George W Bush's Offical Campaign Website) That sure doesn't sound like he wants to raise taxes and the only other way to balance the budget would be by cutting spending.
• [Bush Suppoorts] Opening more forests in the US to logging and opening more Federal land to oil exploration "President Bush will seek to promote environmentally sound domestic oil production" (Source: A Plan for Creating Opportunity for America's Workers, George W Bush's Offical Campaign Website) and signed the ironically named "Healthy Forest Initative" which opened a huge amount of public land for logging.

We also have never had a President insisting on tax cuts during a time of war. Dubya threatened to veto the $87 Billion last year if it rolled back any tax cuts.

While the budget is record-breaking in dollar amount, it is still under 2.9% GDP

The debt is growing with each annual deficit, and service on that debt is an increasing drag on the country. Last years service on the debt was over $300 Billion. And an increasing amount of that debt is owed to countries like China that may not always be dependable friends.

Reagan asserted that budget deficits don't harm the economy. Clinton proved it.

How, by eliminating the deficit?

You forgot the other difference. Bush says the US is in Iraq forever, and Kerry says that maybe they'll pull out in 4 years...as long as you elect him for his second term, they are as good as gone.

No, the major issue is that some vets paid by Bush say Kerry didn't earn all his medals. And some other people say Bush lost his wings for refusing a drug test, and then deserted his unit in wartime. So really, the entire election is about the Vietnam war.

You're right about the "Big Government Liberals" too ;) Here is a telling little graph of the federal deficit. Feel free to check the numbers yourself at the Treasury Department (These numbers seem higher than the reported deficit. This is because they are calculated by subtracting the national debt from one year to the next. Clearly, if you used to owe 5$, and now owe $10, you must have borrowed another $5, and therefore, had a REAL deficit of $5, including interest on your current debts, of course)

It seems to me that this is a perfect ploy to take control of the Internet.

The Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel (banking act of 1913) that get's money from the US congress (practically for free now that the gold standard is gone), and they loan it to other banks. When the US got into debt, they (the banks and others who have borrowed it) now collect $300 plus billion per year from Congress...who they got it from for free in the first place...

2004 Interest Numbers:

July $15,097,639,601.03
June $84,468,634,709.08
May $20,432,938,610.90
April $12,755,485,706.79
March $14,096,687,261.36
February $15,150,706,352.06
January $13,004,064,259.60
December $82,435,960,974.56
November $19,292,044,501.20
October $13,311,682,915.94
----------------------
FISCAL Year Total $ 290,045,844,892.60

see: http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdint.htm

Let's see... I'm thinking about giving control of my families bank account to my friend John (cause he's better at numbers than me)...

60 years later...My kids need to borrow some money...perhaps John (or his networked friends) can help us out?

Perhaps I should check into Johns background...and learn that the friends that he loans the money to are actually creating an environment which pushes me into debt...forcing me to borrow my own money back from him. Oh well, there isn't enough transparancy to see those connections...so I guess I'll just borrow the money cause times are tough...

The Federal Reserve is in big trouble. Transparancy is hitting them hard. Check out Where Is the Money?

And check out the collapse of the US dollar, which is an exact inversion of the success of the Dow Jones:
USDollar vs. DJI

If the Federal Reserve can move towards using the Internet, then the entire world financial system will be sitting on top of this network. Then if the system crashes...they can blame it on the Internet, and they can rebuild the entire system, banking and Internet, in one fell swoop.

That sounds like a grand conspiracy theory to me. And we know that conspiricies are now true, in the age of perpetual war;)

With Bush's multiple rounds of slashing taxes, that means we have LESS to spend. We've got record budget deficits and we have to cut spending correspondingly. Period.

To-date this fiscal year, revenue is up over $47 billion compared to last year: http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0604.txt

Of course spending is up over $100 billion for the same period, but we do indeed have MORE to spend, even if it isn't enough to cover the increase in outlays.

My company works with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (the folks who print the bills). The Bureau issues transparent vinyl purses and packs for employees to carry their lunch and belongings. This makes it easier to see whether somebody is walking off with sheets of un-cut currency.

We also worked with the US Mint (the folks who mint the coinage). They told a story about metal detectors tied to biometrics that were so sensitive that when a woman became pregnant, the changes in the metal chemistry of her blood (increased iron, etc...) were enough to have to retake the biometric scan. That one always seemed apocryphal to me (but a very cool concept nonetheless).

Besides, are you trying to say that Bush's *triple dip* recession was due to the bubble? What sort of wierd tripple-burst bubble are you claiming that we had? Ongoing wars? He started them! Afghanistan was arguably justified, but the biggest economic damage - Iraq - was soley the neocon's doing.

I think the others that replied to your post more than adequately answers this part of your troll. Get over the Bush-bashing already. It got old about 3 years ago. I'm not even a Bush fan and I'm sick of the mindless Bush-bashing.

Know your law

Regulator guidance to the industry was written in 2001, and does not indicate banks should try something better than a password

Maybe US banks will try a better authentication mechanism when customers wake up and no longer have confidence in the current authentication schemes.

Remember national debt interest payments go mostly to Americans, who spend and circulate the money and it get taxed back to the government. US savings bonds and treasury bills/notes = national debt.
In fact the government itself owns almost half of the debt! And that doesn't include debt owned by local or state governments

"Employers are required to pay social security taxes quarterly."

Wrong you are..

1st... Your link claims..quarterly reporting on 941 forms.. .
"Employers must report income and employment taxes withheld from their employees on an Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return (Form 941)"

2nd.. Employers must make deposits on either a monthly and a twice a week schedule. see pages17 thru 22..

Deposit penalties.. calender days and personal liability is attached to all payments.
2% .. 1 to 5 days late.
5%... 6 to 15 days late.
10%.. 16 or more days late.
15%.. 10 days after 1st IRS notice.
(and it goes up from there)..

3rd.. The SS receipts comparison was for the first six months(that is two quarters in laymens terms) for each Federal fiscal year.

"I'm not an expert on tax law, and tax documentation makes my eyes water, so I may be misunderstanding. "

Agreed, you are obviously not an expert, and you do not understand tax law/payment requirements.

Second, most of the entries on that list don't have SSNs, because they're not US persons. Here's the entry mentioned:

• BIN AL SHIBH, Ramzi
  (a.k.a. BINALSHEIDAH, Ramzi Mohamed Abdullah; BINALSHIBH, Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah; a.k.a. OMAR, Ramzi Mohammed Abdellah), Billstedter Hauptstr Apt 14, 22111 Hamburg, Germany; Emil Anderson Strasse 5, 22073 Hamburg, Germany; Letzte Heller #109 Hamburg University, 22111 Hamburg, Germany; Marienstr #54, 21073 Hamburg, Germany; Schleemer Ring 2, 22117 Hamburg, Germany; DOB 16 Sep 1973; alt. DOB 1 May 1972; POB Khartoum, Sudan; alt. POB Hadramawt, Yemen; Passport Nos. A755350 (Saudi Arabia), R85243 (Yemen), 00085243 (Yemen); nationality Yemeni (individual) [SDGT] BIN MANSOR, Amran (a.k.a. BIN MANSOR, Henry; a.k.a. BIN MANSOUR, Amran; a.k.a. MANSOR, Amran); DOB 25 May 1965; POB Malaysia (individual) [SDGT]

So this is a credit bureau screwup, not a Government screwup.

Misery, though, is having the same name as someone on the list.

Clinton: 10 trillion dollar surplus (over 10 years)
Bush: 5 trillion dollar deficit (over 10 years)

I think you ment to say a $10 trillion dollar budget surplus, which most certainly did not translate into a real surplus. Why else would the national debt go up from $4.4 Trillion to $5.8 Trillion during the Clinton years, and never go down from year to year?

Clinton: War in Bosnia/Serbia WITH UN backing
Bush: War in Iraq with NO international support

Um, the Bosnia/Serbia conflict never had UN backing, and the war with Iraq had 17 UN resolutions authorizing it (in fact, requiring it from the UN Charter).

Clinton: Longest growth/expansion in US history
Bush: Most job losses since great depression

Just like the fabled Clinton Budget Surplus, the so-called economic growth and expansion of the late '90s was FAKE. If you will recall, we had company after company finally admit that they actually had not been making money during the late '90s. Economic growth and expansion isn't measured by astronomically high PE ratios on stocks, you know.

Also, Here is the national employment summary for March 2004. Compare to the national emploment summary of Jan. 2001, when Bush took office. Current civilian employment is 138,298,000, which is 2,200,000 more than Jan 2001 (135,999,000). How is this the biggest job loss since the depression when we have 2.2 million more jobs now than we did when he took office?

Even with a booming economy, debt grew: Historical Debt Outstanding - Annual.

I wish both parties would stop spending the money and start paying off the debt.

As the US Dept. of Treasury informs us here, they no longer produce $5,000 and $10,000 bills. but they do accept them as legal currency.