International trade dries up and the global economy collapses.
Very easy to make such a one line reply, but that is silly. Trade and the global economy weren't bad before all this free trade, life will go on just fine.
The army arrests and deports illegal immigrants?
I'm not sure how you got that out of what I posted. Rounding up existing illegals is the job of law enforcement, not the Army.
The US Army should be deployed to the Southern border to prevent people from crossing the border illegally. This applies to immigrants as well as drug cartels.
"Most of the immigrants hail from Central America, and many come with children. They often turn themselves over to authorities immediately after crossing the river, following the advice of smugglers, friends and relatives, who tell them they will eventually be released and allowed to continue to their destination.
For parents with young children, that has largely been true because the U.S. has only one long-term family detention facility, in Pennsylvania, and itâ(TM)s full. Most parents are handed notices to appear at the immigration office closest to their destination and dropped off at bus stations across the Southwest."
That is a bloody crime, why even have borders or rules? Why should I follow the rules when they don't have to? They are taking American jobs and holding down wages.
Instead of having government buses waiting for them, how about we have Predator Drones firing hellfire missiles at them? Sooner or later, they'll get the message to stop.
This nonsense is why Trump is at over 40%, hard working Americans are sick of this crap and want it to stop.
Maybe you're proposing they just summarily execute the immigrants or threaten to invade Mexico.
If an invading army is crossing your borders, you shoot at them.
As for invading Mexico, it may well come to that if they can't get the drug cartels under control. If they can't clean up their mess, we'll do it for them.
Well in that case the US becomes a pariah state.
Yea, like it did after Iraq? I hate to burst your bubble, but no one in the world cares any more about Mexico than they did about Iraq, and we have FAR more interest in Mexico than we ever did in Iraq.
The problem is your "stick" isn't nearly as big as you think it is
Apple couldn't get many Americans to build iPhones at the wages that they (technically that their suppliers) pay in China (if it were even legal to do so - which it isn't).
That is true, but you have to come to accept that the wages in China aren't acceptable either.
At least for imported to the US goods.
So if the wages have to go up in China, then the wages in the US don't look so bad.
No, I agree with AC, he really should go fuck himself for proposing backwards nonsense.
To summarize, it's anti-tinkerer, anti-owner garbage.
Then you're an idiot... because the OP made some valid points about why things cost what they do and why the protections need to be there.
That YOU don't like it, doesn't make his point invalid.
The other option is that we don't have such improvements, which maybe you would support, but then we'd all be using 70's tech and be passed by the rest of the world.
He'll end up with the regulatory bodies saying that this form of tax is illegal under the agreements and the USA would have to pay a lot of compensation
Or... the US could just not and then what?
The rules aren't the same at that level, and if those agreements are harming the US, then it is time to change them.
You might be able to stop current businesses from making the upheaval to move to China, but making a second upheaval to come back? Not with tax cuts.
What if the United States passed a law saying that any goods imported into the US for sale, have to be made under the same laws as if they were made in the US?
Worker pay, hours, rights, EPA rules, etc. must all be followed.
Want to make the iPhone in China? Fine, go right ahead, but you have to pay the workers $7.25/hr and pay overtime over 40 hours. You also have to make them according to EPA rules.
Don't do it, you can't import them.
No new taxes required, just required that US workers have an equal chance at the jobs.
Under those conditions, making them in China would be FAR less attractive.
Trump's chances of convincing Apple to more their manufacturing are about the same as his chances of convincing Mexico to give him a free wall.
The wall thing is interesting...
I get that you don't think that can happen, but you might be shocked. If we could get a US President who has a pair and understands that it isn't an equal or even situation, we might get something done with Mexico.
Or to put it another way... Trump is the only person who could meet with the Mexican President and say to him, "It may seem like we have each other over a barrel here... but it just seems that way..."
Or to be more blunt... Would the President of Mexico like the US Army deployed on his northern border and start dealing with the problem without his help?
It comes down to a different point of view:
"Mr. President (of Mexico), would you like lube or no lube? Either way you're going to learn who is actually in charge here, we can do this the easy or the hard way, take your pick."
"Together we can solve this problem WITH your help, or the US can solve it WITHOUT your help."
The tax codes have almost NOTHING to do with why Apple builds their products in China.
That can be fixed...
A reduction in the corporate tax rate to 10% for companies that manufacture 75% or more of their goods inside the US, with US sourced parts.
A 35% import tax on foreign made goods.
1) The supply chain for electronic assembly is in Asia. Most of the parts are made there and the companies that assemble them are there.
Yes, but that can change. It didn't used to be that way, the US lost all of that due to many stupid policy decisions over many years. It won't be reversed overnight, but it should be reversed sooner or later.
4) Labor and environmental regulations in places like China are substantially less stringent. This is not a bad thing but it does matter for where to make products. Matching the lack of regulations in some of these places would be a bad idea.
How about a law that says that anything imported for sale into the US has to be made under the same laws and rules as if it were made in the US?
You want to make iPhones in China? Fine. But you'll have to pay the workers and treat them as if they were US employees, and comply with US EPA rules, even in China.
That's not about manufacturing, that's about where they book their income to avoid US taxes. They funnel all their income through ireland and other low tax locations to avoid paying US taxes on it. Every sale they make of an Apple Product in the US is booked through Ireland so that they pay no corporate income tax on those sales.
And if the laws were changed, so that sales in the US for items produced overseas were taxed 35% and sales in the US for items produced locally were taxed at 10%, and any foreign royalty payments were taxed at 20%, that would all change.
Now wouldn't it?
Tim Cook is right, the tax code is badly out of date, for a time before cheap container shipping, easy digital communication, and laws in the 21st century.
As in how many would we have to back out of to do this?
I honestly don't know... but it is worth looking into...
At the end of the day, the United States of America has to do what is in its own best interest, just like every other country does.
If the current tax/manufacturing/legal environment is harmful to us, then changes need to be made.
There can be a middle ground between doing nothing, and just tearing up every treaty overnight. Nothing says you can't go to the other nations and talk to them. You know, like civil people do.
And if that doesn't work, well, no treaty lasts forever.
Non-commodity firms like Apple charge the highest price they can get away with in the marketplace, regardless of their costs. If they thought the same number of people would pay $50 extra for an iPhone, that is what the price tag would be already. When costs go up, in the short run, Apple just becomes less profitable because of the higher costs.
The irony is that Apple might actually be just fine doing that...
Why?
If the iPhone was made here, then lots of jobs have to be created here. Lots of money gets pumped into the US economy rather than China's economy.
Result? People in the US have more money to spend, some of which will go back to Apple in the form of iPhones.
Henry Ford was right about one thing... if your employees can't afford to buy your product, you might have a problem. That might not apply to Rolex watches, but to anything you want to sell 10s of millions of, it does.
If we ship everything overseas, who will have any money to buy anything here?
Not everyone who votes Republican is a fundamental Christian NRA wingnut. Not everyone who votes Democrat is a tree hugging, socialist nutjob.
I agree with this... however, the 10% on either extreme end do so much screaming that they get all the attention.
In my experience, most moderate people "don't discuss politics in polite company", leaving the only discussion to the extremes.
You may vote repub because you are fiscally conservative. You may vote dem because you care about social programs...
I wish I could pick and choose...
I'm a life long Republican, but Bernie Sanders is 100% right when it comes to health care. We have tens of millions of uninsured, tens of millions more who are underinsured or can't afford the copays/deductibles. Yet the United States of America spends twice as much per person as England does on health care, and they cover everyone, "free at the point of service".
Our current system is broken and the ACA is a bad patch. If we can afford 11 aircraft carriers, we can afford to provide universal national health care.
On the flip side, the Dems have it all wrong on gun control. Chicago is heavy with gun violence, yet has strict gun laws. It really has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with social and economic situations in life. The majority of gun crime in this country is gang related, and from the poor against the poor. Revamping the social safety net would do more to curb gun violence than anything you do with guns.
Besides, our system of government doesn't really give all that much power to the president without the help of the other branches.
Tell that to Obama, who seems determined to rule by decree. Yes I know, other Presidents have done it, but I don't recall any doing it this much. This summer, with immigration before the SCOTUS, will be telling in how much power the President really has.
I mean, think about the biggest thing Obama "rammed" through during his presidency... Obamacare... and now tell me how your life is now ruined because of it...
I had health insurance before ACA, I don't today. Lots of people are in that position. I make too much to get subsidized insurance via the exchanges, and I can no longer buy a low priced, high deductible catastrophe plan. So I'm uninsured. I'm not going to pay $1,000 a month for insurance I'm not likely to need, just to make a broken system work.
The other problem with the ACA is that it will slowly bankrupt us, while growing less effective over time. The premium jumps this year are noticeable, the growing debt is noticeable, over time those are problems and at least partly the result of ACA.
I'm not suggesting we go back to before the ACA, that isn't going to happen. But we can't leave it like it is either.
He is not actually going to build that wall on the Mexican border, and whatnot.
Why not?
We're being invaded by drug cartels and illegals walking across the border. If we can justify deploying our army against people half way around the world, why can't we do it on our own border?
The job of the US military is to protect and defend this country. So do it, start shooting anyone who comes across the border illegally.
The drug cartels use 4x4 pickup trucks with night vision to drive across the border at night. We have Predator drones and tanks.
They know all this, but, like most things, are thinking that most of us are too stupid / uneducated to know better. Seems to be true; case in point: Trump: "I'll build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it." (crowd goes wild) No one gets a serious answer to the follow up question: Um, okay. How?
Actually, he has answered that question, but the media doesn't want to promote it or give it air time.
What Trump has said, more or less, is that Mexico is highly dependent on the US for jobs, money, and a bunch of other stuff, thanks to NAFTA.
To quote a phrase, "It might seem like we have each other over a barrel, but it just seems that way..."
If we had a leader with some balls, he can basically call up the President of Mexico and point out to him that while it seems like the US and Mexico are on equal footing, it just seems that way.
Mexico can help clean up the mess WITH our help, or we can help clean up the mess WITHOUT their help. Which choice would they prefer?
In other words... lube or no lube? Your choice, but one way or another, you're going to learn what is up.
That isn't politically correct to say, the media doesn't want to give it air time, but that is basically what he said.
The whole thing seems bizarre, because I would think that MONEY would be the driver for most of Hollywood.
No, not really...
Sure, they talk about money and appear to focus on money, but the reality is that once you have a lot of money and are free from worries about money, you undergo an interesting transformation...
Money stops being everything...
Power, control, egos, influence, vanity, and "winning" become just as, if not more important, than money.
Put $100 million in the bank and earn $20 million a year and you'll find that your worldview and focus changes... a lot...
I explained that to my brother too. He agreed with it, and I offered to install a new SSD in his slow laptop and reinstall Windows 7 on that. A few weeks later he went out and bought a new laptop with Windows 10 on it. I think we're screwed.
No, he likely "agreed with it" to avoid hearing a rant from you about it.
If it is centralized and subject to controls similar to SWIFT wires and credit card processing, my continued existence would no longer be feasible.
People hiding from government existed long before Bitcoin came out...
You'd be just fine...
Frankly, if you think Bitcoin has any chance of replacing national banks or government control, you're kidding yourself... If it ever grew large enough, it would draw the attention of the regulators who would insist on control, or they would outlaw it.
Their control over wire transfers between all countries with Rothschild banks is complete.
Yea, the minute someone brings up the Illuminati, I largely write them off...
The world is a bit bigger and more complex than you're suggesting. It isn't perfect, but there isn't a group of 10 people sitting around deciding it all.
The European energy market isn't free or open either...
The German power market is worse in some respects than anything we have over here...
At the end of the day, you're kidding yourself if you think wind and solar cost less than coal. They don't. You can make them cost less, by playing around with the market, but on their own, they don't.
As a condition of living in a society, and all the benefits that provides, you will occasionally be forced to do things or pay for things you wouldn't necessarily want if you lived alone. Deal with it.
Yea, thanks but no thanks, that just isn't going to happen.
If we all listened to people like you, we'd be having the government order us around in terms of what we eat, what we do, how much exercise we get, and where we shop and work.
You probably would like to take away my truck, after all it burns far more gas than your car likely does, so it "harms you" by polluting more and putting out more CO2 than your car does.
You can take that attitude and shove it, plenty of us like some personal freedom and your viewpoint is simply not welcome.
Slashdot Mirror
International trade dries up and the global economy collapses.
Very easy to make such a one line reply, but that is silly. Trade and the global economy weren't bad before all this free trade, life will go on just fine.
The army arrests and deports illegal immigrants?
I'm not sure how you got that out of what I posted. Rounding up existing illegals is the job of law enforcement, not the Army.
The US Army should be deployed to the Southern border to prevent people from crossing the border illegally. This applies to immigrants as well as drug cartels.
https://youtu.be/Nt2Wz81ygOc
If you're crossing the border between the US and Mexico, at night, you're an invader... People who invade other nations are enemies.
http://www.pressherald.com/201...
"Most of the immigrants hail from Central America, and many come with children. They often turn themselves over to authorities immediately after crossing the river, following the advice of smugglers, friends and relatives, who tell them they will eventually be released and allowed to continue to their destination.
For parents with young children, that has largely been true because the U.S. has only one long-term family detention facility, in Pennsylvania, and itâ(TM)s full. Most parents are handed notices to appear at the immigration office closest to their destination and dropped off at bus stations across the Southwest."
That is a bloody crime, why even have borders or rules? Why should I follow the rules when they don't have to? They are taking American jobs and holding down wages.
Instead of having government buses waiting for them, how about we have Predator Drones firing hellfire missiles at them? Sooner or later, they'll get the message to stop.
This nonsense is why Trump is at over 40%, hard working Americans are sick of this crap and want it to stop.
Maybe you're proposing they just summarily execute the immigrants or threaten to invade Mexico.
If an invading army is crossing your borders, you shoot at them.
As for invading Mexico, it may well come to that if they can't get the drug cartels under control. If they can't clean up their mess, we'll do it for them.
Well in that case the US becomes a pariah state.
Yea, like it did after Iraq? I hate to burst your bubble, but no one in the world cares any more about Mexico than they did about Iraq, and we have FAR more interest in Mexico than we ever did in Iraq.
The problem is your "stick" isn't nearly as big as you think it is
It is bigger than you think it is...
Apple couldn't get many Americans to build iPhones at the wages that they (technically that their suppliers) pay in China (if it were even legal to do so - which it isn't).
That is true, but you have to come to accept that the wages in China aren't acceptable either.
At least for imported to the US goods.
So if the wages have to go up in China, then the wages in the US don't look so bad.
Nobody has any obligation to accept copyright law or restrictions to copyright or any other intellectual property claims.
You do, in the sense that you can't break it...
You don't have to agree with it to be bound by it, just like you're bound by the million other laws we have...
I don't need any of that shit. I build a simple fucking tractor that's electrical and analog controlled.
Electrical? As in no motor other than an AC motor?
Must be a long extension cord!
No, I agree with AC, he really should go fuck himself for proposing backwards nonsense.
To summarize, it's anti-tinkerer, anti-owner garbage.
Then you're an idiot... because the OP made some valid points about why things cost what they do and why the protections need to be there.
That YOU don't like it, doesn't make his point invalid.
The other option is that we don't have such improvements, which maybe you would support, but then we'd all be using 70's tech and be passed by the rest of the world.
He'll end up with the regulatory bodies saying that this form of tax is illegal under the agreements and the USA would have to pay a lot of compensation
Or... the US could just not and then what?
The rules aren't the same at that level, and if those agreements are harming the US, then it is time to change them.
You might be able to stop current businesses from making the upheaval to move to China, but making a second upheaval to come back? Not with tax cuts.
What if the United States passed a law saying that any goods imported into the US for sale, have to be made under the same laws as if they were made in the US?
Worker pay, hours, rights, EPA rules, etc. must all be followed.
Want to make the iPhone in China? Fine, go right ahead, but you have to pay the workers $7.25/hr and pay overtime over 40 hours. You also have to make them according to EPA rules.
Don't do it, you can't import them.
No new taxes required, just required that US workers have an equal chance at the jobs.
Under those conditions, making them in China would be FAR less attractive.
Trump's chances of convincing Apple to more their manufacturing are about the same as his chances of convincing Mexico to give him a free wall.
The wall thing is interesting...
I get that you don't think that can happen, but you might be shocked. If we could get a US President who has a pair and understands that it isn't an equal or even situation, we might get something done with Mexico.
Or to put it another way... Trump is the only person who could meet with the Mexican President and say to him, "It may seem like we have each other over a barrel here... but it just seems that way..."
Or to be more blunt... Would the President of Mexico like the US Army deployed on his northern border and start dealing with the problem without his help?
It comes down to a different point of view:
"Mr. President (of Mexico), would you like lube or no lube? Either way you're going to learn who is actually in charge here, we can do this the easy or the hard way, take your pick."
"Together we can solve this problem WITH your help, or the US can solve it WITHOUT your help."
It is not a partnership of equals.
The tax codes have almost NOTHING to do with why Apple builds their products in China.
That can be fixed...
A reduction in the corporate tax rate to 10% for companies that manufacture 75% or more of their goods inside the US, with US sourced parts.
A 35% import tax on foreign made goods.
1) The supply chain for electronic assembly is in Asia. Most of the parts are made there and the companies that assemble them are there.
Yes, but that can change. It didn't used to be that way, the US lost all of that due to many stupid policy decisions over many years. It won't be reversed overnight, but it should be reversed sooner or later.
4) Labor and environmental regulations in places like China are substantially less stringent. This is not a bad thing but it does matter for where to make products. Matching the lack of regulations in some of these places would be a bad idea.
How about a law that says that anything imported for sale into the US has to be made under the same laws and rules as if it were made in the US?
You want to make iPhones in China? Fine. But you'll have to pay the workers and treat them as if they were US employees, and comply with US EPA rules, even in China.
Don't, and they can't be imported.
That's not about manufacturing, that's about where they book their income to avoid US taxes. They funnel all their income through ireland and other low tax locations to avoid paying US taxes on it. Every sale they make of an Apple Product in the US is booked through Ireland so that they pay no corporate income tax on those sales.
And if the laws were changed, so that sales in the US for items produced overseas were taxed 35% and sales in the US for items produced locally were taxed at 10%, and any foreign royalty payments were taxed at 20%, that would all change.
Now wouldn't it?
Tim Cook is right, the tax code is badly out of date, for a time before cheap container shipping, easy digital communication, and laws in the 21st century.
Time for a new tax code.
As in how many would we have to back out of to do this?
I honestly don't know... but it is worth looking into...
At the end of the day, the United States of America has to do what is in its own best interest, just like every other country does.
If the current tax/manufacturing/legal environment is harmful to us, then changes need to be made.
There can be a middle ground between doing nothing, and just tearing up every treaty overnight. Nothing says you can't go to the other nations and talk to them. You know, like civil people do.
And if that doesn't work, well, no treaty lasts forever.
Non-commodity firms like Apple charge the highest price they can get away with in the marketplace, regardless of their costs. If they thought the same number of people would pay $50 extra for an iPhone, that is what the price tag would be already. When costs go up, in the short run, Apple just becomes less profitable because of the higher costs.
The irony is that Apple might actually be just fine doing that...
Why?
If the iPhone was made here, then lots of jobs have to be created here. Lots of money gets pumped into the US economy rather than China's economy.
Result? People in the US have more money to spend, some of which will go back to Apple in the form of iPhones.
Henry Ford was right about one thing... if your employees can't afford to buy your product, you might have a problem. That might not apply to Rolex watches, but to anything you want to sell 10s of millions of, it does.
If we ship everything overseas, who will have any money to buy anything here?
Not everyone who votes Republican is a fundamental Christian NRA wingnut. Not everyone who votes Democrat is a tree hugging, socialist nutjob.
I agree with this... however, the 10% on either extreme end do so much screaming that they get all the attention.
In my experience, most moderate people "don't discuss politics in polite company", leaving the only discussion to the extremes.
You may vote repub because you are fiscally conservative. You may vote dem because you care about social programs...
I wish I could pick and choose...
I'm a life long Republican, but Bernie Sanders is 100% right when it comes to health care. We have tens of millions of uninsured, tens of millions more who are underinsured or can't afford the copays/deductibles. Yet the United States of America spends twice as much per person as England does on health care, and they cover everyone, "free at the point of service".
Our current system is broken and the ACA is a bad patch. If we can afford 11 aircraft carriers, we can afford to provide universal national health care.
On the flip side, the Dems have it all wrong on gun control. Chicago is heavy with gun violence, yet has strict gun laws. It really has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with social and economic situations in life. The majority of gun crime in this country is gang related, and from the poor against the poor. Revamping the social safety net would do more to curb gun violence than anything you do with guns.
Besides, our system of government doesn't really give all that much power to the president without the help of the other branches.
Tell that to Obama, who seems determined to rule by decree. Yes I know, other Presidents have done it, but I don't recall any doing it this much. This summer, with immigration before the SCOTUS, will be telling in how much power the President really has.
I mean, think about the biggest thing Obama "rammed" through during his presidency... Obamacare... and now tell me how your life is now ruined because of it...
I had health insurance before ACA, I don't today. Lots of people are in that position. I make too much to get subsidized insurance via the exchanges, and I can no longer buy a low priced, high deductible catastrophe plan. So I'm uninsured. I'm not going to pay $1,000 a month for insurance I'm not likely to need, just to make a broken system work.
The other problem with the ACA is that it will slowly bankrupt us, while growing less effective over time. The premium jumps this year are noticeable, the growing debt is noticeable, over time those are problems and at least partly the result of ACA.
I'm not suggesting we go back to before the ACA, that isn't going to happen. But we can't leave it like it is either.
He is not actually going to build that wall on the Mexican border, and whatnot.
Why not?
We're being invaded by drug cartels and illegals walking across the border. If we can justify deploying our army against people half way around the world, why can't we do it on our own border?
The job of the US military is to protect and defend this country. So do it, start shooting anyone who comes across the border illegally.
The drug cartels use 4x4 pickup trucks with night vision to drive across the border at night. We have Predator drones and tanks.
This is not a contest of equals.
They know all this, but, like most things, are thinking that most of us are too stupid / uneducated to know better. Seems to be true; case in point: Trump: "I'll build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it." (crowd goes wild) No one gets a serious answer to the follow up question: Um, okay. How?
Actually, he has answered that question, but the media doesn't want to promote it or give it air time.
What Trump has said, more or less, is that Mexico is highly dependent on the US for jobs, money, and a bunch of other stuff, thanks to NAFTA.
To quote a phrase, "It might seem like we have each other over a barrel, but it just seems that way..."
If we had a leader with some balls, he can basically call up the President of Mexico and point out to him that while it seems like the US and Mexico are on equal footing, it just seems that way.
Mexico can help clean up the mess WITH our help, or we can help clean up the mess WITHOUT their help. Which choice would they prefer?
In other words... lube or no lube? Your choice, but one way or another, you're going to learn what is up.
That isn't politically correct to say, the media doesn't want to give it air time, but that is basically what he said.
Mostly centered on avoiding taxes while still relying on civilized society and infrastructure to continue on... somehow.
Everyone does that, it isn't exclusive to the rich.
My point was that money stops being the driving force behind day-to-day decisions. Other concerns and interests come to the front.
When you no longer "want", you find that your view of the world changes.
The whole thing seems bizarre, because I would think that MONEY would be the driver for most of Hollywood.
No, not really...
Sure, they talk about money and appear to focus on money, but the reality is that once you have a lot of money and are free from worries about money, you undergo an interesting transformation...
Money stops being everything...
Power, control, egos, influence, vanity, and "winning" become just as, if not more important, than money.
Put $100 million in the bank and earn $20 million a year and you'll find that your worldview and focus changes... a lot...
It is going to be difficult to get people to dump Windows simply because people either don't know or don't care about what Microsoft is doing.
I know what Microsoft is doing, and while I care, sort of, it is number 137 on my care list...
I run Windows because it runs the programs that I want to run. It works well without a fuss and doesn't cause me any major headaches...
If I ran Linux, I would have more headaches than Windows gives me. So I don't. It really is quite that simple.
I explained that to my brother too. He agreed with it, and I offered to install a new SSD in his slow laptop and reinstall Windows 7 on that. A few weeks later he went out and bought a new laptop with Windows 10 on it. I think we're screwed.
No, he likely "agreed with it" to avoid hearing a rant from you about it.
He doesn't really care.
Go ahead, Microsoft shills, mod me down to neg one troll, go right ahead, you're just proving that what I'm saying is true by trying to silence me
I'm not modding you anything, but just because something is true for you doesn't make it true for everyone.
I like Windows 10.
Seriously, how much longer are you Microsoft holdouts going to put up with this imperialistic, authoritarian bullshit from Microsoft?
Because it is better than any other option at the moment?
And you honestly think Windows "just work"(s) ?
Yes, it does... if it doesn't work for you, then you're either making it harder than it needs to be, or you're on the wrong web site.
Ooh, have they added another member to the group?
Crap that was funny, you made me laugh out loud! :)
If it is centralized and subject to controls similar to SWIFT wires and credit card processing, my continued existence would no longer be feasible.
People hiding from government existed long before Bitcoin came out...
You'd be just fine...
Frankly, if you think Bitcoin has any chance of replacing national banks or government control, you're kidding yourself... If it ever grew large enough, it would draw the attention of the regulators who would insist on control, or they would outlaw it.
Their control over wire transfers between all countries with Rothschild banks is complete.
Yea, the minute someone brings up the Illuminati, I largely write them off...
The world is a bit bigger and more complex than you're suggesting. It isn't perfect, but there isn't a group of 10 people sitting around deciding it all.
The European energy market isn't free or open either...
The German power market is worse in some respects than anything we have over here...
At the end of the day, you're kidding yourself if you think wind and solar cost less than coal. They don't. You can make them cost less, by playing around with the market, but on their own, they don't.
As a condition of living in a society, and all the benefits that provides, you will occasionally be forced to do things or pay for things you wouldn't necessarily want if you lived alone. Deal with it.
Yea, thanks but no thanks, that just isn't going to happen.
If we all listened to people like you, we'd be having the government order us around in terms of what we eat, what we do, how much exercise we get, and where we shop and work.
You probably would like to take away my truck, after all it burns far more gas than your car likely does, so it "harms you" by polluting more and putting out more CO2 than your car does.
You can take that attitude and shove it, plenty of us like some personal freedom and your viewpoint is simply not welcome.