Saying anything else is Enron accounting and calls deeply into question any source which does so.
Not to mention that the "surplus" was based on paper dot com profits, an economy based on smoke and mirrors. When the dot com became the dot bomb and the economy went boom, so did the "surplus". It returned to the ether from which it came. The whole "surplus for years to come" was based on the worst kinds of wishful thinking.
Obama offered a plan for $4 trillion in deficit cuts, with 75% coming from spending cuts (including cuts to entitlement programs).
One, Obama denies putting any entitlements on the table right now, and two, every single time Congress enacts a "mix of spending cuts and tax raises", we always get the tax raises, but the spending cuts don't happen. I've seen this all the way back to the 80's. They'd be nuts to take that deal. Suckers and Chumps to take that deal.
Spending is the problem. If taxes are raised, politicians will just spend it. This has been proven by history, time after time. If you think this is "perfectly reasonable, then you are part of the problem.
Not raising the debt limit is not paying the minimum balance due on your credit card rating?
That's absolutely silly. That's like saying that if Mastercard doesn't raise your borrowing limit, then you'll have no choice but to stiff them. Nevermind that you've now proved an inability to pay them what you owe them already. Why should you be given a higher debt limit?
Not raising the debt celing simply means that we can't borrow anymore until we've got our current out-of-control spending under control. You can still pay the debt without borrowing even more money.
We have a debt ceiling problem because we can't seem to put a ceiling on our spending. Fix the later and you'll fix the first. Meantime, start cutting expenditures, and you'll free up money to pay those debts, and then you've paid your creditors and you haven't defaulted and at the same time, haven't raised the debt ceiling. Cutting spending is the answer, not borrowing even more money. Cut entitlements, cut the military budget, call something from all Federal departments.
. Sometimes I wish we could send all the people like you to a separate country, so that you can screw up your own lives without affecting mine. Perhaps the feeling is mutual =).
It is. And it would make an intersting experiment, no?
There is no tax, and no government in Somalia. Go for it.
And there's lots of taxes and lots of government in North Korea.
Why would raising taxes DECREASE revenue? The economy isn't in a bad state so the uphill comparison is wrong.
And sure they can cut spending. Where do you think they'll cut first?
It'll increase it at first, and then decrease it when the risk/reward curve goes south as costs become to high for investors and businesses. Some people who have made enough money will just quit, But most will get various congresscritters to approve tax shelters for supporters, and others will simply reduce their business or conduct more of it abroad. The tax shelter issue will also give us high rates but also ensure that many people legally won't have to pay them.
Because they spent decades partying as they built up huge debts that they now expect their grandchildren to pay?
I see more and more people are starting to take this position. I revered my grandparents... three served in WWII... but their generation got the ball rolling on huge government and expensive entitlements that we and our children never asked for and are now stuck with. As another poster here at Slashdot put it, "Can we stop calling them the greatest generation now?"
The Laffer curve is a miserable failure, as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of economic history can deduce.
The only private investments tax cuts will spur will be in paying accountants to find new and unique ways to hide the taxable income in esoteric financial constructs designed specifically for the wealthy.
The fact that your post is a +5 insightful really makes me wonder if the lunatics are running the asylum at Slashdot.
Your post... besides being conspiracy theory gibberish... both ignores history and reality. Raising tax rates is usually when people rush to "pay accountants to find new and unique ways to hide the taxable income". High taxes are when tax shelters... blessed by Congress to reward and punish certain economic behaviors... really take off. You don't hide money when you can keep more of it. You spend or invest it. You hide it when you think the government is coming to take more of it.
I used to agree with this line of thinking. The problem is the rich aren't investing in US companies. The current tax breaks are creating jobs they just happen to be in China.
Thank your government for that. Example: Congress votes to penalize creation and sale of incandescent light bulbs. Result: companies close American incandescent light bulb factories, and open new factories in Asia. So perhaps "green jobs" were created. But not in the manner that those politicians thought, apparently. So laws that Americans didn't want are now resulting in the losses of American jobs and replaced with Asian jobs.
The constitutionalist fanatics in the tea party or the IMF?
Help me out here. What makes a constitutionalist fanatical? The idea that we should... follow the Constitution? Wasn't that the whole point of creating it in the first place? It's not supposed to be optional. What would be so fanatical about actually governing according to what it says? That's why we have a Constitution.
Maybe we've become so used to our politicians ignoring it that your attitude is actually mainstream. We did our best to ignore the 2nd Amendment for years. We heartily ignore the 4th. We still ignore the 10th.
If you're right, and the Constitution is "optional", then what's the whole point of American government then?
nothing wrong or hypocritical about playing by the rules as they exist, while simultaneously saying the rules are stupid and should be reformed.
You're a fucking idiot. That is the definition of hypocracy.
Playing by the rules while changing them is the only way to succeed in politics and finance and business. Taxation rules are so perverse, due to Congress using it to reward and punish behavior, that you can't operate an enterprise at all without playing by those rules. What you're demanding is that anyone critical of bad rules must take an ascetic stance and divorce themselves from reality. That's just dumb. You'll make a big statement all right... right before you go out of business.
The idea is to save the system by reforming it, not destroy it. Are agricultural subsidies corrupt and a bad idea? They certainly are. But if you turn them down, you're going to be out of the farming business the way it's currently structured. So a farmer could take your stance... refuse the subsidies that all of his competitors are getting... and go out of business. That means the farmers that like those subsidies will win, and nothing will change. Or, you can play by the rules, and convince enough people to change the system to where bad policies are phased out. That's how real change happens in the real world.
False. Rich people don't make money from wages. They make money from investments, dividends, and bond interest. That's why the super rich pay almost no tax (and why C-levels get paid in stock as opposed to salary). In the US we tax income from work, but we do not tax income from wealth.
We tax all forms of income, including investments, and then sometimes we'll slap taxes on top of those taxes. You've never heard of capital gains taxes? We often tax wealth twice. First we'll tax corporate profits, and then we tax those same profits in the hands of private shareholders. When corporations get away with not paying taxes... GE is a good example here... it's because they've made crony capitalism deals with the government, often getting huge tax credits for things like "green initiatives". This is why I want an across the board flat tax on all first time income. Not only will everyone, rich and poor, have skin in the game, it'll stop the insane practice of Congress using taxation to shape consumer behavior to their political liking.
It's the superconducting supercollider all over again (just with fewer Texans shooting it.) Disappointing in the extreme.
Two things killed the SSC: non-physicists that were jealous of the money physics was getting (yes, chemists, biologists, etc, were lobbying Congress to kill the SSC), and Democrats. They saw it as a boondoggle. Bush the Elder wanted it. The Democratic-controlled Congress canceled it.
Republicans have traditionally been in favor of big science and engineering projects. The space station, SSC, etc. But there's a reason why this is different. No matter how you cut it, this project isn't essential. And the American mood right now is one of fear and anger over the debt. That means big projects are mostly going to have to take a back seat for awhile. So before you yell at Congress, turn your anger to the American public. Because this is exactly the kind of thing they're asking to be cut.
If you don't like that, then try to change their minds. If you think that Americans are stupid for wanting a smaller budget and government, then get busy trying to sell them otherwise. Used to, I would have also told you "or move elsewhere". But look around you. With the exception of China and India, pretty much every other country in the world is also deeply in debt and trying to reign in their spending. Where would you go?
If you think the Repubs are going to do any of that, you're dreaming. They're busy pandering.
Pandering to who? The Republicans are the ones that have proposed real reforms for entitlements, despite the deep political danger of doing so. Touching Medicare and Social Security has been the third rail of American politics since the 60's. You may not agree with their plan, but they've had the balls to actually produce a plan. The Democrats haven't even submitted a budget yet.
Don't lecture us about pandering. The Democrats are the ones going to old people and telling them that there's no problem with entitlements. The Democrats are the ones telling old people they'll be eating dog food and selling their organs unless entitlements are made untouchable.
In terms of scale, I'd note that Canada, with 10% the population, generates 1.47x more hydro power than the entire US. HydroQuébec alone (36.8 GW) has ~5.4 GW of additional capacity and upgrades under construction.
In terms of politics, I'd note that environmental movements have put a kibbosh on any further dams, and are lobbying to actually dismantle and remove the ones we already have, in the US and Canada both. And politicians are listening to them.
We can basically say renewable energy fsckin works, now ?
If you mean "It produces electricity", then yes, it works. But that's no great trick. Any kid can produce electricity from simple lessons taught in grade school.
If you mean "It's cost competitive and scales well and can supply all our energy needs", then no, not even close.
The headline is kind of meaningless anyway, as the US doesn't get a lot of it's power from nuclear. It's like saying "KDE passes Gnome in America". Compared to the computer user base as a whole, it doesn't mean much.
'American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half-century because we
- aha, keep dreaming.
The US bond crisis is coming, followed immediately by the currency crisis. I bet there will be more pressing needs, like more weapons to start resource wars against multiple countries much before the US will once again be able to go far into space in its new ships, never mind having humans on board there....
While everything you say is true... there IS an economic storm coming... it's coming everywhere, not just the US. China has some very structurally deep financial problems that are obscured by all of the trinkets they sell abroad. There's a reckoning coming, but the US will probably be better off than most when it comes.
While my field is IT, I work in the commercial aviation sector. We get interns all the time from local colleges, and all of them have been placed in either airport or airline jobs. In my sector at least, interning seems to pay off. We got lots aviation management majors and airlines seems especially quick to snatch them up.
It may well be the case that in a few fields, interning is a bad idea and it's just free labor with no real reward. But in other professions, not only does it provide real world experience that you don't get in a classroom, it seems to open doors to real jobs.
... which will work fine until those countries have built enough windmills, dams and solar arrays to no longer depend on France.
There's not going to be any more dams in Western Europe. Every river that's going to be damned already is. Even if there were other candidates, environmental pressures will prevent it. Dams are now as evil in the eco-mind as gasoline. And people that believe wind and solar can produce energy anywhere near nuclear are living in an alternate universe. The sheer amount of landspace needed for solar panels and windmills to equal the output of nuclear is staggering.
Is there *anything* good that can happen to an ecosystem? Surely *some* changes are good?
Yes, humans can become extinct, which is what I suspect some environmentalists are hoping for eventually. They see us all as an infection on their Earth Mother.
I hope FF loses some market share. Stupidity should be punished in the business world. I don't personally care if it's Microsoft with IE, Google with Chrome, or Apple with Safari, or any other browser. I don't care about rapid releases. I'm against them, actually. In a business environment, rapid releases only muck up the works and makes life harder for the IT staff.
UAVs are smaller, more versatile, cheaper to buy and maintain, stealthier, don't get tired(in the traditional sense) and can loiter for greater periods. The Canadians estimate each F35 at $150M. I don't see an advantage for the F35 that UAVs won't meet or exceed in a few more years. The F35 is a plane looking for a mission, like the Comanche attack helicopter was.
You will be hard pressed to find a more strident critic of the F-35 than myself. I think it's an overpriced, under-performing, designed-by-committee farce. That said, it's still a fighter. UAV's, thus far, are not. I keep hearing people say "we should get rid of manned planes because UAV's do the job better and cheaper". Well, in many cases, yes. UAV's are pitch-perfect for things like long range maritime surveillance. But we're still going to need manned aircraft for many, many decades. We're nowhere near a manned UAV fighter. Not even close. What are you going to do when a squadron of MiG-29's enter your airspace?
UAV's will probably never completely replace manned aircraft, even in the future. What they will replace are "boring" jobs that require long stints in the air that could just as easily be handled at a desk back in the states. But we're going to need manned fighters for a long time. I would argue that we don't need F-35's, and that's debatable, but we've got to have some kind of fast jet with missiles and guns and a man in it.
In other words, unlike Obama, Dubya got congressional approval for his war(s).
Dubya fed us a huge pile of lies for his favorite war, and completely dropped the ball on his less favorite one.
Did Bush seek and get Congressional approval for both wars, or did he not? You're trying to deflect the issue with a "yeah, but...". Bush sought approval, and didn't move until he had it. Obama claims that he doesn't even need it. That's the issue here. You can hate Dubya's guts, but if you're honest, you have to admit that Bush complied with the WPA, and Obama is flaunting it. In other words, Barack Obama is governing in a manner that both he and his supporters condemned Bush for.
except an entire economy that's being engineered by a greedy ruling class to create a massive disenfranchised poor for their own benefit. The world's more complicated than either Adam Smith or Ayn Rand believed, and the super wealthy really are out to get you. It's what they do all day.
I have a hard time believing people are serious when they say schlock like this. Except that I realize that, yes, some people really are this stupid and paranoid.
Why, oh why, would "the rich" want to keep people from bettering themselves and making more money? More money for the general population means more money for... the rich. More people buying the products and services they make.
You're either making the very old, very silly mistake that there is a fixed amount of wealth, and that if one guy makes more, another must make less... or you're simply paranoid and think the world is truly one big conspiracy. Either way, you're to be pitied as much as you're to be mocked.
I work in airport IT, so I'll describe what I see airline crews doing during trouble. If the system at one gate or terminal is down, yes, then they'll send the plane on it's way. This is called "boarding manually". They simply hand collect tickets, hand count bags, etc, and send the flight off. After they've gathered all of the info thats been collected manually, they'll send it to their local office or front desk and process it at working terminals that have a connection to airline systems. It's a pain, but do-able. But if EVERYBODY is down, then the whole thing grinds to a halt. If no one has any access to all the schedule info, weight and baggage, manifests, etc.... then it's simply impossible to board manually on a massive scale.
Slashdot Mirror
Clinton had 4 years where budget was in surplus and the US was paying down the debt.
This is simply untrue. The debt increased every year.
Saying anything else is Enron accounting and calls deeply into question any source which does so.
Not to mention that the "surplus" was based on paper dot com profits, an economy based on smoke and mirrors. When the dot com became the dot bomb and the economy went boom, so did the "surplus". It returned to the ether from which it came. The whole "surplus for years to come" was based on the worst kinds of wishful thinking.
Obama offered a plan for $4 trillion in deficit cuts, with 75% coming from spending cuts (including cuts to entitlement programs).
One, Obama denies putting any entitlements on the table right now, and two, every single time Congress enacts a "mix of spending cuts and tax raises", we always get the tax raises, but the spending cuts don't happen. I've seen this all the way back to the 80's. They'd be nuts to take that deal. Suckers and Chumps to take that deal.
Spending is the problem. If taxes are raised, politicians will just spend it. This has been proven by history, time after time. If you think this is "perfectly reasonable, then you are part of the problem.
Not raising the debt limit is not paying the minimum balance due on your credit card
rating?
That's absolutely silly. That's like saying that if Mastercard doesn't raise your borrowing limit, then you'll have no choice but to stiff them. Nevermind that you've now proved an inability to pay them what you owe them already. Why should you be given a higher debt limit?
Not raising the debt celing simply means that we can't borrow anymore until we've got our current out-of-control spending under control. You can still pay the debt without borrowing even more money.
We have a debt ceiling problem because we can't seem to put a ceiling on our spending. Fix the later and you'll fix the first. Meantime, start cutting expenditures, and you'll free up money to pay those debts, and then you've paid your creditors and you haven't defaulted and at the same time, haven't raised the debt ceiling. Cutting spending is the answer, not borrowing even more money. Cut entitlements, cut the military budget, call something from all Federal departments.
Raising taxes will only further DECREASE revenue.
. Sometimes I wish we could send all the people like you to a separate country, so that you can screw up your own lives without affecting mine. Perhaps the feeling is mutual =).
It is. And it would make an intersting experiment, no?
There is no tax, and no government in Somalia. Go for it.
And there's lots of taxes and lots of government in North Korea.
Why would raising taxes DECREASE revenue? The economy isn't in a bad state so the uphill comparison is wrong.
And sure they can cut spending. Where do you think they'll cut first?
It'll increase it at first, and then decrease it when the risk/reward curve goes south as costs become to high for investors and businesses. Some people who have made enough money will just quit, But most will get various congresscritters to approve tax shelters for supporters, and others will simply reduce their business or conduct more of it abroad. The tax shelter issue will also give us high rates but also ensure that many people legally won't have to pay them.
Why do you hate your grandparents?
Because they spent decades partying as they built up huge debts that they now expect their grandchildren to pay?
I see more and more people are starting to take this position. I revered my grandparents... three served in WWII... but their generation got the ball rolling on huge government and expensive entitlements that we and our children never asked for and are now stuck with. As another poster here at Slashdot put it, "Can we stop calling them the greatest generation now?"
The Laffer curve is a miserable failure, as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of economic history can deduce.
The only private investments tax cuts will spur will be in paying accountants to find new and unique ways to hide the taxable income in esoteric financial constructs designed specifically for the wealthy.
The fact that your post is a +5 insightful really makes me wonder if the lunatics are running the asylum at Slashdot.
Your post... besides being conspiracy theory gibberish... both ignores history and reality. Raising tax rates is usually when people rush to "pay accountants to find new and unique ways to hide the taxable income". High taxes are when tax shelters... blessed by Congress to reward and punish certain economic behaviors... really take off. You don't hide money when you can keep more of it. You spend or invest it. You hide it when you think the government is coming to take more of it.
I used to agree with this line of thinking. The problem is the rich aren't investing in US companies. The current tax breaks are creating jobs they just happen to be in China.
Thank your government for that. Example: Congress votes to penalize creation and sale of incandescent light bulbs. Result: companies close American incandescent light bulb factories, and open new factories in Asia. So perhaps "green jobs" were created. But not in the manner that those politicians thought, apparently. So laws that Americans didn't want are now resulting in the losses of American jobs and replaced with Asian jobs.
The constitutionalist fanatics in the tea party or the IMF?
Help me out here. What makes a constitutionalist fanatical? The idea that we should... follow the Constitution? Wasn't that the whole point of creating it in the first place? It's not supposed to be optional. What would be so fanatical about actually governing according to what it says? That's why we have a Constitution.
Maybe we've become so used to our politicians ignoring it that your attitude is actually mainstream. We did our best to ignore the 2nd Amendment for years. We heartily ignore the 4th. We still ignore the 10th.
If you're right, and the Constitution is "optional", then what's the whole point of American government then?
nothing wrong or hypocritical about playing
by the rules as they exist, while
simultaneously saying the rules are stupid
and should be reformed.
You're a fucking idiot. That is the definition of hypocracy.
Playing by the rules while changing them is the only way to succeed in politics and finance and business. Taxation rules are so perverse, due to Congress using it to reward and punish behavior, that you can't operate an enterprise at all without playing by those rules. What you're demanding is that anyone critical of bad rules must take an ascetic stance and divorce themselves from reality. That's just dumb. You'll make a big statement all right... right before you go out of business.
The idea is to save the system by reforming it, not destroy it. Are agricultural subsidies corrupt and a bad idea? They certainly are. But if you turn them down, you're going to be out of the farming business the way it's currently structured. So a farmer could take your stance... refuse the subsidies that all of his competitors are getting... and go out of business. That means the farmers that like those subsidies will win, and nothing will change. Or, you can play by the rules, and convince enough people to change the system to where bad policies are phased out. That's how real change happens in the real world.
Rich people pay above 30%.
False. Rich people don't make money from wages. They make money from investments, dividends, and bond interest. That's why the super rich pay almost no tax (and why C-levels get paid in stock as opposed to salary). In the US we tax income from work, but we do not tax income from wealth.
We tax all forms of income, including investments, and then sometimes we'll slap taxes on top of those taxes. You've never heard of capital gains taxes? We often tax wealth twice. First we'll tax corporate profits, and then we tax those same profits in the hands of private shareholders. When corporations get away with not paying taxes... GE is a good example here... it's because they've made crony capitalism deals with the government, often getting huge tax credits for things like "green initiatives". This is why I want an across the board flat tax on all first time income. Not only will everyone, rich and poor, have skin in the game, it'll stop the insane practice of Congress using taxation to shape consumer behavior to their political liking.
It's the superconducting supercollider all over again (just with fewer Texans shooting it.) Disappointing in the extreme.
Two things killed the SSC: non-physicists that were jealous of the money physics was getting (yes, chemists, biologists, etc, were lobbying Congress to kill the SSC), and Democrats. They saw it as a boondoggle. Bush the Elder wanted it. The Democratic-controlled Congress canceled it.
Republicans have traditionally been in favor of big science and engineering projects. The space station, SSC, etc. But there's a reason why this is different. No matter how you cut it, this project isn't essential. And the American mood right now is one of fear and anger over the debt. That means big projects are mostly going to have to take a back seat for awhile. So before you yell at Congress, turn your anger to the American public. Because this is exactly the kind of thing they're asking to be cut.
If you don't like that, then try to change their minds. If you think that Americans are stupid for wanting a smaller budget and government, then get busy trying to sell them otherwise. Used to, I would have also told you "or move elsewhere". But look around you. With the exception of China and India, pretty much every other country in the world is also deeply in debt and trying to reign in their spending. Where would you go?
If you think the Repubs are going to do any of that, you're dreaming. They're busy pandering.
Pandering to who? The Republicans are the ones that have proposed real reforms for entitlements, despite the deep political danger of doing so. Touching Medicare and Social Security has been the third rail of American politics since the 60's. You may not agree with their plan, but they've had the balls to actually produce a plan. The Democrats haven't even submitted a budget yet.
Don't lecture us about pandering. The Democrats are the ones going to old people and telling them that there's no problem with entitlements. The Democrats are the ones telling old people they'll be eating dog food and selling their organs unless entitlements are made untouchable.
>
In terms of scale, I'd note that Canada, with 10% the population, generates 1.47x more hydro power than the entire US. HydroQuébec alone (36.8 GW) has ~5.4 GW of additional capacity and upgrades under construction.
In terms of politics, I'd note that environmental movements have put a kibbosh on any further dams, and are lobbying to actually dismantle and remove the ones we already have, in the US and Canada both. And politicians are listening to them.
We can basically say renewable energy fsckin works, now ?
If you mean "It produces electricity", then yes, it works. But that's no great trick. Any kid can produce electricity from simple lessons taught in grade school.
If you mean "It's cost competitive and scales well and can supply all our energy needs", then no, not even close.
The headline is kind of meaningless anyway, as the US doesn't get a lot of it's power from nuclear. It's like saying "KDE passes Gnome in America". Compared to the computer user base as a whole, it doesn't mean much.
'American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half-century because we
- aha, keep dreaming.
The US bond crisis is coming, followed immediately by the currency crisis. I bet there will be more pressing needs, like more weapons to start resource wars against multiple countries much before the US will once again be able to go far into space in its new ships, never mind having humans on board there....
While everything you say is true... there IS an economic storm coming... it's coming everywhere, not just the US. China has some very structurally deep financial problems that are obscured by all of the trinkets they sell abroad. There's a reckoning coming, but the US will probably be better off than most when it comes.
While my field is IT, I work in the commercial aviation sector. We get interns all the time from local colleges, and all of them have been placed in either airport or airline jobs. In my sector at least, interning seems to pay off. We got lots aviation management majors and airlines seems especially quick to snatch them up.
It may well be the case that in a few fields, interning is a bad idea and it's just free labor with no real reward. But in other professions, not only does it provide real world experience that you don't get in a classroom, it seems to open doors to real jobs.
... which will work fine until those countries have built enough windmills, dams and solar arrays to no longer depend on France.
There's not going to be any more dams in Western Europe. Every river that's going to be damned already is. Even if there were other candidates, environmental pressures will prevent it. Dams are now as evil in the eco-mind as gasoline. And people that believe wind and solar can produce energy anywhere near nuclear are living in an alternate universe. The sheer amount of landspace needed for solar panels and windmills to equal the output of nuclear is staggering.
Is there *anything* good that can happen to an ecosystem? Surely *some* changes are good?
Yes, humans can become extinct, which is what I suspect some environmentalists are hoping for eventually. They see us all as an infection on their Earth Mother.
I hope FF loses some market share. Stupidity should be punished in the business world. I don't personally care if it's Microsoft with IE, Google with Chrome, or Apple with Safari, or any other browser. I don't care about rapid releases. I'm against them, actually. In a business environment, rapid releases only muck up the works and makes life harder for the IT staff.
UAVs are smaller, more versatile, cheaper to buy and maintain, stealthier, don't get tired(in the traditional sense) and can loiter for greater periods. The Canadians estimate each F35 at $150M. I don't see an advantage for the F35 that UAVs won't meet or exceed in a few more years. The F35 is a plane looking for a mission, like the Comanche attack helicopter was.
You will be hard pressed to find a more strident critic of the F-35 than myself. I think it's an overpriced, under-performing, designed-by-committee farce. That said, it's still a fighter. UAV's, thus far, are not. I keep hearing people say "we should get rid of manned planes because UAV's do the job better and cheaper". Well, in many cases, yes. UAV's are pitch-perfect for things like long range maritime surveillance. But we're still going to need manned aircraft for many, many decades. We're nowhere near a manned UAV fighter. Not even close. What are you going to do when a squadron of MiG-29's enter your airspace?
UAV's will probably never completely replace manned aircraft, even in the future. What they will replace are "boring" jobs that require long stints in the air that could just as easily be handled at a desk back in the states. But we're going to need manned fighters for a long time. I would argue that we don't need F-35's, and that's debatable, but we've got to have some kind of fast jet with missiles and guns and a man in it.
And every one of the suggestions are fugly. Many just ape European or third world currency.
In other words, unlike Obama, Dubya got congressional approval for his war(s).
Dubya fed us a huge pile of lies for his favorite war, and completely dropped the ball on his less favorite one.
Did Bush seek and get Congressional approval for both wars, or did he not? You're trying to deflect the issue with a "yeah, but...". Bush sought approval, and didn't move until he had it. Obama claims that he doesn't even need it. That's the issue here. You can hate Dubya's guts, but if you're honest, you have to admit that Bush complied with the WPA, and Obama is flaunting it. In other words, Barack Obama is governing in a manner that both he and his supporters condemned Bush for.
except an entire economy that's being engineered by a greedy ruling class to create a massive disenfranchised poor for their own benefit. The world's more complicated than either Adam Smith or Ayn Rand believed, and the super wealthy really are out to get you. It's what they do all day.
I have a hard time believing people are serious when they say schlock like this. Except that I realize that, yes, some people really are this stupid and paranoid.
Why, oh why, would "the rich" want to keep people from bettering themselves and making more money? More money for the general population means more money for... the rich. More people buying the products and services they make.
You're either making the very old, very silly mistake that there is a fixed amount of wealth, and that if one guy makes more, another must make less... or you're simply paranoid and think the world is truly one big conspiracy. Either way, you're to be pitied as much as you're to be mocked.
I work in airport IT, so I'll describe what I see airline crews doing during trouble. If the system at one gate or terminal is down, yes, then they'll send the plane on it's way. This is called "boarding manually". They simply hand collect tickets, hand count bags, etc, and send the flight off. After they've gathered all of the info thats been collected manually, they'll send it to their local office or front desk and process it at working terminals that have a connection to airline systems. It's a pain, but do-able. But if EVERYBODY is down, then the whole thing grinds to a halt. If no one has any access to all the schedule info, weight and baggage, manifests, etc.... then it's simply impossible to board manually on a massive scale.