Slashdot Mirror

If you're curious, you can see graphics of these old bills.

The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

You're not looking at him through the eyes of a woman.

They actually have more coverage than just government protection:

"The Secret Service was established as a law enforcement agency in 1865. While most people associate the Secret Service with Presidential protection, our original mandate was to investigate the counterfeiting of U.S. currency--which we still do. Today our primary investigative mission is to safeguard the payment and financial systems of the United States. This has been historically accomplished through the enforcement of the counterfeiting statutes to preserve the integrity of United States currency, coin and financial obligations. Since 1984, our investigative responsibilities have expanded to include crimes that involve financial institution fraud, computer and telecommunications fraud, false identification documents, access device fraud, advance fee fraud, electronic funds transfers, and money laundering as it relates to our core violations."
Source: http://www.treas.gov/usss/investigations.htm

Seems to fall within their coverage to me.

Joe Sacher

While the Coalition against Insurance Fraud claims that 10% of all auto and home insurance claims are fraudulent ($79 billion per year they say), my quick review of the IRS data on the issue just doesn't seem to support that claim.

Considering the fact that in the State of Utah, there were an astounding 61 cases of insurance fraud in 1999 alone! WOW! 61 cases of fraud in one year coming from a state with 2,129,836 people. That's less than .01% of the population commiting insurance fraud.

Fraudulent zodiacs. The Linux Pimp

As far as spending the money on a tax-cut, that is a non-meaningful statement. A tax-cut would mean that the money was never collected, and could never, therefore, be spent. Where is that money now? I have not paid it. How can "letting me keep more of the money I earn" be called "spending".

As for the tax cut benefitting the wealthies 10 percent the most, almost any tax-cut is going to do that, unless it has a "cap". I would bet if the following tax-cut was implemented, the top 10 percent would still see the most benefit by dollar value

• top 10% - 10% tax-cut - pays over million, so saves $100,000
• 10-20% - 20% tax-cut - pays around $100,000, so saves $20,000
• 20-30% - 30% tax-cut - pays $10,000, so saves $3,000
• ...
• 70-80% - 80% tax-cut - pays $1,000, so saves $800
• 80-90% - 90% tax-cut - pays $100, so saves $90
• bottom 10% - 100% tax-cut - already pays nothing, so saves nothing

Hal Duston
hald@sound.net

No they don't do that at all ...

...Or do they?

Until the debt goes away and the feds start buying stocks bonds the social security system is just another income transfer program. But then it gets really scarey because the gov will start voting its shares!

Just to give you some feel for the amount of debt that the US has build up. Lets play with this some more - there are approximately 250 million people in the US, of which approximately 180 million are tax payers. That means that to clear the debt in the US, each taxpayer would have to pay $31,400. Now all this talk of exponential growth in the economy is all very well, but when you consider that this debt is growing exponentially as well (deficit in June 2000 was $30.4 billion dollar) you have a big problem. The only thing keeping the US out of serious recession is the value of the dollar - if the investors believe that this debt is getting too large to service, the dollar will fall in value. Then things get messy.

To see the debt figures - click here

So I'd say that the US had better start servicing that debt - at a rough estimate, assuming a 6% interest rate, the US tax payer must contribute nearly $2000 a year which goes to stabilizing the debt (not paying it off). That is entirely wasted money that could be spent elsewhere if it wasn't being flushed around various financial institutions.

So it is difficult to see why there is little or no outcry about this - it is probably the most serious problem that the US faces internally and it will have to pay for it sooner or later. The longer it is left, if the interest rate is larger than the growth in the economy, the burden of debt becomes ever heavier.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

The United States currently, as you probably know, has a "rather large" national debt. As of 10/11/00, this debt totaled $5,660,113,029,266.52 according to http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov /op d/opdpenny.htm. This worries me, and I suspect does the same to many of my contemporaries. It would seem that these prosperous times are the best to consider beginning to pay this off.

What is your plan to reduce our national debt, and how long would it take under your plan to pay this off?

-(())

The second class action suit I was part of, but never signed up for, was against Sprint spectrum. They were sued because they switched platforms, but did not offer to move Spectrum customers to Sprint PCS free of charge. Sprint lost the suit. Before I got the judgement in the mail I had got moved to Sprint PCS for free. How? I told them I would go to Bell Atlantic (Now Verizon) if they did not. They were giving away free phones.

"I'm feeling very litigous Jerry" - Kramer

It's an age-old debate. How do national laws apply to the internet? They don't. Will they be made to do so? Without a doubt.

How can an entity comprised of information be governed by a system based on the physical? How can geographic governments rule what is not geographic? As far as information is concerned, and commerce to that extent, geography is essentially obsolete.

Take a look at this old article from the US Treasury that touches on the subject of geography's irrelevance. The relevant question is, how do we convey to stodgy legislators the essential freedom from barriers that earmarks communication today?

---
"The Constitution...is not a suicide pact."

If you transfer money to someone in Iran, you could be sent to prison. There is an office in the Department of the Treasury called the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC for short.

The purpose of that office is to enforce trade embaros against enemies of the United States. That list of enemies can include countries like Iraq, or persons like Osama Bin Ladin.

Each country has its own restrictions. Specifically to answer questions about Iran, Americans are prohibited from importing anything at all, including rugs of Iranian origin either directly from Iran, or through a third country. There is an exception made for books and other Iranian publications. There is some question about how you could go about this. I doubt anyone in the US will care if you bring texts from Iran, but to actually set up a business is a different story. I know for a fact that credit card companies, including one I used to work for, set up filters based on databases built from OFAC sources by Thompson Financials to catch funds going to or coming from OFAC listed countries. Those assets are frozen, and everyone involved in the transaction loses their money or goes to prison. You may not be able to set up a cash based business either, because customs will eventually intercept the physical money you're trying to send to Iran to buy the books.

Yes, 60 Minutes II (March 14, segment title: Mind of the Assassin). I don't know how useful it will utimately be, but I can't be worse than all this other profiling B.S. and MOSAIC. At the very least they seemed to have some useful insights. I believe it is described at http://www.treas.gov/usss/ntac.htm

President Clinton announced a budget *surplus* some time ago. How come the US treasury still reports a higher US national debt every month?

hard to believe? take a look:

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/op d/opdpenny.htm

ok... I'm going to stand up and admit to some ignorance here... can someone please relate the british monetary system to the illustrious "pound sterling" reported on the financials . . . PLEASE!
what is a pence? and a ukp? and even though it isn't involved here ... quid? I've been reading more and more discusions of british money and every one of them seems to introduce some new term that I'm going to have to guess is modern slang.

as turnabout and to explain what I mean here is the American system in terms of the US Dollar.

a penny (slang: a copper) is a one cent piece and is worth 0.01 USD; making it the smallest monetary unit off-line. a nickel is a five cent piece; a dime is ten cents, and a quarter (more recent slang: a silver) is twenty five cents; making four quarters equal to 1.00 USD. These are all common coins. less common coins are the half dollar (old slang: a slug) at fifty cents and the silver dollar at one dollar; the silver dollar was more recently reissued as the Susan B. Anthony Dollar and was a dismal flop in terms of public acceptance. There are more gimics in progress, like commemerative state quarters (I've got all five so far!) and a "gold dollar"...

Curency comes in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000, and 100,000 USD bills; officially they're Treasury Reserve Notes - and they're all the same ugly green. The one dollar bill is also called a buck, a green back, and a skin (all slang, in order of decreasing commonality). The two dollar bill is rare. The five dollar bill is called a spot in some circles, a spot is a ten dollar bill in others. slang for the hundred USD bill is a 'C' note, while 1000 USD is a grand or 'G'. most bills have a president pictured on the front so they often go by the name of the president... a Franklin is a hundred, a Grant is fifty, a Jackson or an Andy Jackson is twenty, Hamilton is a ten, Lincoln a five, Jefferson is two, a Washington is one dollar. bills larger than 500 USD are no longer printed and being removed from circulation, with some of the real big ones never having been publicly circulated.

ok, y'all got the point.... for those that really want to know more the US Treasury and US Mint are both using president Gore's invention.

As I've been politically active, I asked NIC.Gov if I can register my name under .Gov also. I wonder how large a staff they'll need to monitor when political clubs drop below the registration requirements and get de-registered.

But I am surprised that AlGore didn't already get GOP.Gov registered to the GOvernment Printing office...