Just like it's done so many times before, only worse. Not that you can trouble yourself, of course, to read about the Dark Ages, or either of those pesky World Wars, or the 1918 flu epidemic, or anything like that.
the Middle East is lighting on fire
Yeah, just like it's been for thousands of years.
England is Rioting
Just like they've done before. Not that you've, again, bothered to study any history, or heard about the time London really burned down, or was bombed to rubble - just pick one episode and bone up on it.
American Congress caused the value of the dollar to fall through the floor
Ah, OK. It's now clear that you're completely clueless.
and our major enemy is Facebook?
No, that's the fashionable target for a bunch of simpering script kiddies. There's no "our" there.
The really nauseating thing is that he is, of course, exactly right about some of what's in there. That the truth is mixed up in crazy land is part of the problem with guys like this - because when they're calibrating their world view, even their irrational minds can find some confirmation of their suspicions/projections, and it happens just often enough to keep them going on the loonier stuff.
Well, it is a little distored, because it's based on 2009 numbers from the IRS. If we used this year's numbers, the problem would be even worse, needless to say.
there is still a lot of potential for raising revenue by raising taxes on the group that makes $100K - $999K
If we doubled everyone's income taxes, right now - on everyone who pays income taxes on any income, whatever it is... just double it... even that would fall short of closing the deficit, by close to half a trillion dollars. And of course, doing so would hugely damage the economy, by pulling all of that money out of circulation within the economy. The only answer is to spend less (on the government side) in the first place.
No, downgrading doesn't matter. Because investors already know everything that's reflected in that rating, whether the rating happens to say it or not. Idiot leftists who think that spending more than we make is a virtue, or who don't realize that the rich people they hate could have all of their income confiscated entirely every year and it wouldn't even come close to closing the deficit - those are the people to talk about. The S&P downgrade is a mere formality - and as usual everyone with something to invest has long since recognized the weakness that it assigns a score to.
There is a cloud hanging over the US economy, and it won't bustle, thrive, and grow again until blows over. The debt is part of that, but that would vanish quickly in the face of actual economic activity, which generates jobs and huge tax revenue. So, remove the restraints, blocks, punishments and deliberate sabotage being applied to the economy, and allow it to work. Then you won't feel so obliged to use juvenile slurs when talking about the people who have it exactly right on this topic.
the GOP refuses to allow taxes to rise high enough to pay for essential spending and pay off our debts
Do the math. You could tax everyone who makes $1m or more per year (you know, the evil hated rich people) at a rate of 100% (confiscate all of their earnings for the year), and it wouldn't close the deficit - not even close! - let alone pay down the debt. You want more tax revenue? Do the things that allow the taxable economic activity of a non-stagnant economny to come back to life. Essentially, undo all of the things that this administration has actively done to squelch economic activity, stifle the start-up and growth of businesses/jobs. The key to having a large tax base is to allow the economy to actually work. Taking larger percentages of a diminishing flow of cash is exactly the dis-incentive that prevents that from happening.
Not that you don't already know these things, of course - you just don't want to call all of this what it actually is: spending wildly more money than is available, and holding the position that the minority of the people in the country who pay income taxes - and the very small minority of them who pay the vast majority of those taxes - are somehow insufficiently taxed, and that's why we're trillions in debt... completely disengenuous BS.
Care to explain to me why the former plan costs nearly 7x more per MB than the latter?
Because you're making the common mistake of not understanding (or pretending not to) that both plans carry administrative costs and overhead that costs a lot more than the bandwidth. You're thinking that the only thing built into those prices is the actual bandwidth. Which is exactly wrong.
Right, because the back end of their system, and all of their peering connections to all of the other internetworked networks comes at no charge, and is infinite.
Since businesses are not people, they have to be punished in ways that are effective deterrents to them.
Such as sending the people in the business who do criminally negligent things to jail? That happens.
Such as tearing some businesses down - simply making them end,, forfeiting their assets, and stripping their shareholders of anything they had invested, for something that's too broad to be pinned on specific people? That also happens.
I would want a 10% cut of their profits for life.
Would you want that from an individual person who committed the same act?
The point is that even as an individual with relatively *limited* means, it's incredibly easy to hide your actions behind a corporation.
Sure, if you don't mind being a felon. And that's your point, right? That criminals use various methods as they do criminal things? Because using a sham business to commit fraud isn't a problem with the fact that you're allowed to incorporate the dry cleaning shop you open with your cousin Fred, it's a problem with people being willing to commit fraud. So, what you want is more people being busted for committing fraud, right? Or do you not want you and your cousin Fred to be able to incorporate a business?
Corporations give up untold millions of dollars every year in damages/fines for deaths and injuries. There is an entire industry dedicated punishing businesses for what happens as they interact with the public. If the responsibility involves a criminal act by a person who happens to work for a business, that person faces criminal penalties. The fact they happen to work for a business doesn't make the individual people safe from criminal prosecution, ever.
The author even goes so far as to describe how to get a legal drivers license in the name of a corporation
Where, Latvia? In the US, a license to drive is an individual document, tied to a single human being. That has nothing to do with fleet ownership and insurance, etc.
Regardless, I can find any number of books for sale that describe things you can try to do, apparently in contradiction of normally understood laws. For example, you can read whole books on the author's stance that you don't really have to pay income taxes, blah blah blah. Makes for a great read, and really bad legal advice.
People hide behind corporate identities to hide from accountability for their actions
Really? Which big corporation are you thinking of - especially a publicly-traded one - that manages to operate without people readily knowing who their shareholders, board, and executives are? Please be specific.
Of course, you're complaining about law enforcement, not about what it means to form and operate a business, aren't you? Plenty of corporate employees and corporations themselves get into actual, real legal hot water. What you're complaining about (getting unusually easy treatment from law enforcement) also happens all the time at the individual level. You don't really need examples, do you? No.
Those who would give up their privacy for Zuckerburg deserve everything they get.
No. Those who give up some privacy for what they are happy they are getting from Zuckerburg's service for free, deserve and get exactly what they willingly agree to, and sign up for, and can walk away from any time they want.
I realize it's more fun to spin a narrative that involves atmospherics of nefarious villains and poor, helpless victims. But that would be deliberately misrepresenting reality, wouldn't it? Something you're obviously all the more comfortable doing, right now, exactly because you're being an anonymous coward. Which is sort of his point, actually.
just the idealistic or foolish people who essentially just showed up and lent their voice
Really? That the essence of attacking a business's infrastructure? Like the noble and idealistic people who show up at peace rallies and we're-against-The-Man protests and join in smashing the windows of businesses along the street? I know, they're just "lending their voice" to The Movement and whatnot, and sometimes their Voices are Bricks, that's all.
Classic case of Useful Idiots, I guess, and the usual movement leaders' historical disregard for what happens to the true believer cannon fodder. The real movers and shakers are always happy to sacrifice some witless script kiddy posers if that's what it takes to get the vandalism done.
imply that addressing climate change is similar to killing children and you fail to get a good discussion
No, imply that politicians should be given a blank check to do highly questionable things, redistribute income, and fund billions in programs that are mostly pork, and you get push back. Why? Because you think it's safer to do those things than it is to do (or at least articulate) things that might actually matter. Your willingness to spend other people's daily labors on things that have no bearing on reality - to enslave someone else for some portion of their waking hours, under the direction of polticians with absolutely no idea what they're talking about or buying with the taxes levied in the name of a perfectly static climate - is indeed awful. And your blythe dismissal of being called on it just reinforces the fact that you're willing to do anything, as long as if feels like "something" is being done. Why not fund magicians who will sacrifice specific breeds of chickens to appease the sun? Oh, because you draw the line somewhere, right? So "better safe than sorry" isn't your actual position, in reality, but nor will you be specific about what it actually is.
And that wouldn't be so bad, except that people who spout such empty platitudes are heard by other people, including many morons who none the less vote. So, you want to have a "good" discussion? Actually say something beyond hollow aphorisms, and be specific. Include, in your specificity, your understanding of the causality behind your observations, and the funding mechanisms you propose, and whether/why you think that poor developing nations like China should be required to do the same "safe" things you're suggesting that your own citizens do, and what (exactly) you'd propose we do if they refuse. Then you'll have a discussion.
And, of course (as always happens), we now get the unctuous complaint about the rhetorical device as a way to avoid addressing the actual consequences of the position you're supporting. If you think that "better safe than sorry" is the right position, but won't qualify that in real, practical terms - then you really are no better than the people who think the world would be better off if we all just killed ourselves, etc.
My opinion on environmental matters is "Better safe than sorry."
So, you're for killing all but one of each family's kids, right? Over population is the problem, here, so better safe than sorry, right? What... that's too much of an intervention for your taste? OK then, we should confiscate all gas-powered vehicles, then. Better safe than sorry, no question. Hmm.
Is it possible that you're painting a false dichotomy, and that your own tastes on the degree and nature of intervention are no more valid than someone else's? A lot of people think that crippling the economy with taxes and regulations that will have no meaningful impact on the production of gasses that may not have anything whatsoever to do with real-life changes in the climate (which may not be that big a deal anyway) find that that's a dangerous, civilization-endangering thing all by itself. And that a thriving economy is the one with the largess to actually afford ongoing research into efficiency measures, better nukes, etc. And so those people argue for not ham-stringing the people who actually produce the functional prosperity in our culture (because spanking them makes people in the Al Gore Cult feel better, because he's told them they'll feel that way)... THEY are the ones saying, "Better safe than sorry" about something that's diametrically opposed to your point of view.
You think it's gambling to not pay Al Gore's carbon tax mafia money that his investors are saying will alter the atmosphere in a specific way, and other people think it's gamblgin to not do everything possible to keep the economy alive and able to generate the sort of wealth that makes it possible to build things like billion dollar wind farms and grid extensions without devaluing our currency through insane debt to China to pay for it.
Actually, there is a concrete difference, there. You're guessing, and the people who point out the consequences of taxing places like the US and Europe while allowing "developing" nations like China to put a new coal-fired power station on line every week are seeing actual, real facts.
Yet another situation where the failures of market economics is laid bare.
Failure to do what, exactly? Respond instantly to a changing situation? I see. So you're saying that it's a failure of market forces if it takes (say) five years for a typical person to be able to afford to purchase a new $40,000 vehicle... but it's a triumph of government if they're forced to buy it now, using subsidies paid for with money borrowed from people who will be looking to collect it from as-yet-unborn grandchildren?
You think the government is quick on its feet, but private manufacturers and energy companies are not? Shall we take a look at the nimble, so-efficient enterprise that is Medicare/Medicaid? Yes, only government is capable of doing a "correct thing" like that, right? Or a correct thing like spending billions in repeated abortive attempts to build a government-project-managed computer system for the FAA, or for the FBI? The point is, for every thing you think the government is doing better than mere humans could otherwise do, I can show you decades-long histories of things they've expensively, and counter-productively screwed into oblivion. The "public good" is damaged by ill-conceived government action on a daily basis. And you want more of it, and less of people realizing that it's healthy to think for themselves, and be aware of middle- and long-term risks and consequences of their own decision making.
What's your agenda, exactly, in wanting people to be dumber, and the government to be more involved in their lives? I'm guessing you want a job in the run-other-people's-lives part of the equation, huh?
Cool! So, just like the Tea Party is wrong, and the trillion of new debt spent on "stimulus" was actually very effective, and that the key to economic growth actually is to hugely increase deficit spending and to raise the rate at which we tax the economy, then this guy will also be wrong, and NASA's data will show the exact opposite of what he says it does. Because that's just how it must be.
Sure, some people have problems with certain transactions. But what exactly is the point of directly lying about how it works? I don't understand what your agenda is. Or are you just unclear on the difference between a hold on an account while the problem is sorted out and PayPal "keeping everything?" Because you can't possibly be that uninformed, which means you're deliberately reinforcing a false meme for some reason.
So monitor communications at the border, not inside
Have you ever actually used any sort of communications device? Perhaps a telephone, maybe? Never mind. It's not possible that you're that ignorant of how the systems involved actually work, so you're just trolling.
Been using it for many years. Never a single problem. I don't leave large piles of money in that account, but that's because I use their debit/credit card to spend that money on other things that I do... and get a kickback for doing so. I invoice people, send money, process checkouts from multiple business entities, all with trouble or any hint of it. My customers gladly use it. And my experience is not an abberation. The handful of very noisy exceptions are.
All of that said, I use Square (squareup.com) for swipe-the-card type transactions. Terrific service, and customers can't seem to stop enjoying signing their charge with their finger on my iPad screen.
A mere 20% of the population controls the vast majority of wealth in this country
And pay almost all of the taxes. Half of the people in the country pay no income taxes, and many are given a tax "rebate" (on taxes they never even paid!) as a form of redistribution.
But neither SS nor our tax code accurately reflect the wealth distribution or population demographics.
True. The vast majority of people on the receiving end pay little or nothing for what they get. The small number of people who pay most of the taxes are in the opposite situation.
There is plenty of revenue available to pay for it and more
No, there isn't. What you mean is that you think there's plenty of economic activity that could be taxed in order to raise that revenue, and you think you know that further taxing the economy will grow the economy. A notion that has been proven wrong every time.
nor do those with the wealth want to pay for it
They may not want to, but they already do. The people who really don't want to pay taxes are the people who don't want to start paying taxes, because they think only other people should do so. That would be half the people in the country.
Greed is what will kill the US
True. Greed for things that people want to the government to take from one person, and given to them, instead. People want free stuff, and their greed demands that a small percentage of their fellow citizens pay for it. Greed on the left (for power, and thus for continuing to pander to the pays-no-taxes demographic that keeps them in power) is indeed the problem, and they won't be happy until they have completely codified the two countries they want to see: the ones who get free stuff, and the ones who are the productive slaves to those people - both relied upon and always villified at the same time.
There is no trust fund. There never was a trust fund. You do not "pay into" social security, and then get money back out. That is not how it works. The money that is paid out is collected from the people paying in, right then, that year. It is a welfare system, taking money from one group, and giving it to another group. When the number of people taking the money exceed the number of people from who it's being taken, it become unsustainable. That point is rapidly approaching. You could tax everyone who makes over $200k/year at a rate of 100% (take all of their earnings - everything), and it would only pay for the deficit as it currently exists for part of the year. In the coming years, completely confiscating all of their earnings would only cover a fraction of the deficit.
The problem is that half the people in the country pay no income taxes, but want an endless stream of entitlements and services paid for by other people. And that no-tax-paying half of the country is the half that is endlessly wooed by the left, and promised more - for free - by the left. They (the lefty politicians) won't come right out and talk about people actually participating in civil society by coughing up a bit of their income - just like everyone else - as part of the price they pay for getting stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
The world is crumbling around our feet
Just like it's done so many times before, only worse. Not that you can trouble yourself, of course, to read about the Dark Ages, or either of those pesky World Wars, or the 1918 flu epidemic, or anything like that.
the Middle East is lighting on fire
Yeah, just like it's been for thousands of years.
England is Rioting
Just like they've done before. Not that you've, again, bothered to study any history, or heard about the time London really burned down, or was bombed to rubble - just pick one episode and bone up on it.
American Congress caused the value of the dollar to fall through the floor
Ah, OK. It's now clear that you're completely clueless.
and our major enemy is Facebook?
No, that's the fashionable target for a bunch of simpering script kiddies. There's no "our" there.
nauseating
The really nauseating thing is that he is, of course, exactly right about some of what's in there. That the truth is mixed up in crazy land is part of the problem with guys like this - because when they're calibrating their world view, even their irrational minds can find some confirmation of their suspicions/projections, and it happens just often enough to keep them going on the loonier stuff.
but I find your claim hard to believe
Well, it is a little distored, because it's based on 2009 numbers from the IRS. If we used this year's numbers, the problem would be even worse, needless to say.
there is still a lot of potential for raising revenue by raising taxes on the group that makes $100K - $999K
If we doubled everyone's income taxes, right now - on everyone who pays income taxes on any income, whatever it is ... just double it ... even that would fall short of closing the deficit, by close to half a trillion dollars. And of course, doing so would hugely damage the economy, by pulling all of that money out of circulation within the economy. The only answer is to spend less (on the government side) in the first place.
No, downgrading doesn't matter. Because investors already know everything that's reflected in that rating, whether the rating happens to say it or not. Idiot leftists who think that spending more than we make is a virtue, or who don't realize that the rich people they hate could have all of their income confiscated entirely every year and it wouldn't even come close to closing the deficit - those are the people to talk about. The S&P downgrade is a mere formality - and as usual everyone with something to invest has long since recognized the weakness that it assigns a score to.
There is a cloud hanging over the US economy, and it won't bustle, thrive, and grow again until blows over. The debt is part of that, but that would vanish quickly in the face of actual economic activity, which generates jobs and huge tax revenue. So, remove the restraints, blocks, punishments and deliberate sabotage being applied to the economy, and allow it to work. Then you won't feel so obliged to use juvenile slurs when talking about the people who have it exactly right on this topic.
the GOP refuses to allow taxes to rise high enough to pay for essential spending and pay off our debts
Do the math. You could tax everyone who makes $1m or more per year (you know, the evil hated rich people) at a rate of 100% (confiscate all of their earnings for the year), and it wouldn't close the deficit - not even close! - let alone pay down the debt. You want more tax revenue? Do the things that allow the taxable economic activity of a non-stagnant economny to come back to life. Essentially, undo all of the things that this administration has actively done to squelch economic activity, stifle the start-up and growth of businesses/jobs. The key to having a large tax base is to allow the economy to actually work. Taking larger percentages of a diminishing flow of cash is exactly the dis-incentive that prevents that from happening.
... completely disengenuous BS.
Not that you don't already know these things, of course - you just don't want to call all of this what it actually is: spending wildly more money than is available, and holding the position that the minority of the people in the country who pay income taxes - and the very small minority of them who pay the vast majority of those taxes - are somehow insufficiently taxed, and that's why we're trillions in debt
Care to explain to me why the former plan costs nearly 7x more per MB than the latter?
Because you're making the common mistake of not understanding (or pretending not to) that both plans carry administrative costs and overhead that costs a lot more than the bandwidth. You're thinking that the only thing built into those prices is the actual bandwidth. Which is exactly wrong.
Right, because the back end of their system, and all of their peering connections to all of the other internetworked networks comes at no charge, and is infinite.
Since businesses are not people, they have to be punished in ways that are effective deterrents to them.
Such as sending the people in the business who do criminally negligent things to jail? That happens.
Such as tearing some businesses down - simply making them end,, forfeiting their assets, and stripping their shareholders of anything they had invested, for something that's too broad to be pinned on specific people? That also happens.
I would want a 10% cut of their profits for life.
Would you want that from an individual person who committed the same act?
The point is that even as an individual with relatively *limited* means, it's incredibly easy to hide your actions behind a corporation.
Sure, if you don't mind being a felon. And that's your point, right? That criminals use various methods as they do criminal things? Because using a sham business to commit fraud isn't a problem with the fact that you're allowed to incorporate the dry cleaning shop you open with your cousin Fred, it's a problem with people being willing to commit fraud. So, what you want is more people being busted for committing fraud, right? Or do you not want you and your cousin Fred to be able to incorporate a business?
Corporations give up untold millions of dollars every year in damages/fines for deaths and injuries. There is an entire industry dedicated punishing businesses for what happens as they interact with the public. If the responsibility involves a criminal act by a person who happens to work for a business, that person faces criminal penalties. The fact they happen to work for a business doesn't make the individual people safe from criminal prosecution, ever.
The author even goes so far as to describe how to get a legal drivers license in the name of a corporation
Where, Latvia? In the US, a license to drive is an individual document, tied to a single human being. That has nothing to do with fleet ownership and insurance, etc.
Regardless, I can find any number of books for sale that describe things you can try to do, apparently in contradiction of normally understood laws. For example, you can read whole books on the author's stance that you don't really have to pay income taxes, blah blah blah. Makes for a great read, and really bad legal advice.
So, basically, you know absolutely nothing about the SEC, the FTC, SarbOx, etc. It's OK, you can just admit it. You'll feel better.
People hide behind corporate identities to hide from accountability for their actions
Really? Which big corporation are you thinking of - especially a publicly-traded one - that manages to operate without people readily knowing who their shareholders, board, and executives are? Please be specific.
Of course, you're complaining about law enforcement, not about what it means to form and operate a business, aren't you? Plenty of corporate employees and corporations themselves get into actual, real legal hot water. What you're complaining about (getting unusually easy treatment from law enforcement) also happens all the time at the individual level. You don't really need examples, do you? No.
Those who would give up their privacy for Zuckerburg deserve everything they get.
No. Those who give up some privacy for what they are happy they are getting from Zuckerburg's service for free, deserve and get exactly what they willingly agree to, and sign up for, and can walk away from any time they want.
I realize it's more fun to spin a narrative that involves atmospherics of nefarious villains and poor, helpless victims. But that would be deliberately misrepresenting reality, wouldn't it? Something you're obviously all the more comfortable doing, right now, exactly because you're being an anonymous coward. Which is sort of his point, actually.
just the idealistic or foolish people who essentially just showed up and lent their voice
Really? That the essence of attacking a business's infrastructure? Like the noble and idealistic people who show up at peace rallies and we're-against-The-Man protests and join in smashing the windows of businesses along the street? I know, they're just "lending their voice" to The Movement and whatnot, and sometimes their Voices are Bricks, that's all.
Classic case of Useful Idiots, I guess, and the usual movement leaders' historical disregard for what happens to the true believer cannon fodder. The real movers and shakers are always happy to sacrifice some witless script kiddy posers if that's what it takes to get the vandalism done.
imply that addressing climate change is similar to killing children and you fail to get a good discussion
No, imply that politicians should be given a blank check to do highly questionable things, redistribute income, and fund billions in programs that are mostly pork, and you get push back. Why? Because you think it's safer to do those things than it is to do (or at least articulate) things that might actually matter. Your willingness to spend other people's daily labors on things that have no bearing on reality - to enslave someone else for some portion of their waking hours, under the direction of polticians with absolutely no idea what they're talking about or buying with the taxes levied in the name of a perfectly static climate - is indeed awful. And your blythe dismissal of being called on it just reinforces the fact that you're willing to do anything, as long as if feels like "something" is being done. Why not fund magicians who will sacrifice specific breeds of chickens to appease the sun? Oh, because you draw the line somewhere, right? So "better safe than sorry" isn't your actual position, in reality, but nor will you be specific about what it actually is.
And that wouldn't be so bad, except that people who spout such empty platitudes are heard by other people, including many morons who none the less vote. So, you want to have a "good" discussion? Actually say something beyond hollow aphorisms, and be specific. Include, in your specificity, your understanding of the causality behind your observations, and the funding mechanisms you propose, and whether/why you think that poor developing nations like China should be required to do the same "safe" things you're suggesting that your own citizens do, and what (exactly) you'd propose we do if they refuse. Then you'll have a discussion.
And, of course (as always happens), we now get the unctuous complaint about the rhetorical device as a way to avoid addressing the actual consequences of the position you're supporting. If you think that "better safe than sorry" is the right position, but won't qualify that in real, practical terms - then you really are no better than the people who think the world would be better off if we all just killed ourselves, etc.
My opinion on environmental matters is "Better safe than sorry."
So, you're for killing all but one of each family's kids, right? Over population is the problem, here, so better safe than sorry, right? What ... that's too much of an intervention for your taste? OK then, we should confiscate all gas-powered vehicles, then. Better safe than sorry, no question. Hmm.
... THEY are the ones saying, "Better safe than sorry" about something that's diametrically opposed to your point of view.
Is it possible that you're painting a false dichotomy, and that your own tastes on the degree and nature of intervention are no more valid than someone else's? A lot of people think that crippling the economy with taxes and regulations that will have no meaningful impact on the production of gasses that may not have anything whatsoever to do with real-life changes in the climate (which may not be that big a deal anyway) find that that's a dangerous, civilization-endangering thing all by itself. And that a thriving economy is the one with the largess to actually afford ongoing research into efficiency measures, better nukes, etc. And so those people argue for not ham-stringing the people who actually produce the functional prosperity in our culture (because spanking them makes people in the Al Gore Cult feel better, because he's told them they'll feel that way)
You think it's gambling to not pay Al Gore's carbon tax mafia money that his investors are saying will alter the atmosphere in a specific way, and other people think it's gamblgin to not do everything possible to keep the economy alive and able to generate the sort of wealth that makes it possible to build things like billion dollar wind farms and grid extensions without devaluing our currency through insane debt to China to pay for it.
Actually, there is a concrete difference, there. You're guessing, and the people who point out the consequences of taxing places like the US and Europe while allowing "developing" nations like China to put a new coal-fired power station on line every week are seeing actual, real facts.
Yet another situation where the failures of market economics is laid bare.
Failure to do what, exactly? Respond instantly to a changing situation? I see. So you're saying that it's a failure of market forces if it takes (say) five years for a typical person to be able to afford to purchase a new $40,000 vehicle ... but it's a triumph of government if they're forced to buy it now, using subsidies paid for with money borrowed from people who will be looking to collect it from as-yet-unborn grandchildren?
You think the government is quick on its feet, but private manufacturers and energy companies are not? Shall we take a look at the nimble, so-efficient enterprise that is Medicare/Medicaid? Yes, only government is capable of doing a "correct thing" like that, right? Or a correct thing like spending billions in repeated abortive attempts to build a government-project-managed computer system for the FAA, or for the FBI? The point is, for every thing you think the government is doing better than mere humans could otherwise do, I can show you decades-long histories of things they've expensively, and counter-productively screwed into oblivion. The "public good" is damaged by ill-conceived government action on a daily basis. And you want more of it, and less of people realizing that it's healthy to think for themselves, and be aware of middle- and long-term risks and consequences of their own decision making.
What's your agenda, exactly, in wanting people to be dumber, and the government to be more involved in their lives? I'm guessing you want a job in the run-other-people's-lives part of the equation, huh?
Cool! So, just like the Tea Party is wrong, and the trillion of new debt spent on "stimulus" was actually very effective, and that the key to economic growth actually is to hugely increase deficit spending and to raise the rate at which we tax the economy, then this guy will also be wrong, and NASA's data will show the exact opposite of what he says it does. Because that's just how it must be.
paypal keeps everything
Sure, some people have problems with certain transactions. But what exactly is the point of directly lying about how it works? I don't understand what your agenda is. Or are you just unclear on the difference between a hold on an account while the problem is sorted out and PayPal "keeping everything?" Because you can't possibly be that uninformed, which means you're deliberately reinforcing a false meme for some reason.
So monitor communications at the border, not inside
Have you ever actually used any sort of communications device? Perhaps a telephone, maybe? Never mind. It's not possible that you're that ignorant of how the systems involved actually work, so you're just trolling.
Been using it for many years. Never a single problem. I don't leave large piles of money in that account, but that's because I use their debit/credit card to spend that money on other things that I do ... and get a kickback for doing so. I invoice people, send money, process checkouts from multiple business entities, all with trouble or any hint of it. My customers gladly use it. And my experience is not an abberation. The handful of very noisy exceptions are.
All of that said, I use Square (squareup.com) for swipe-the-card type transactions. Terrific service, and customers can't seem to stop enjoying signing their charge with their finger on my iPad screen.
A mere 20% of the population controls the vast majority of wealth in this country
And pay almost all of the taxes. Half of the people in the country pay no income taxes, and many are given a tax "rebate" (on taxes they never even paid!) as a form of redistribution.
But neither SS nor our tax code accurately reflect the wealth distribution or population demographics.
True. The vast majority of people on the receiving end pay little or nothing for what they get. The small number of people who pay most of the taxes are in the opposite situation.
There is plenty of revenue available to pay for it and more
No, there isn't. What you mean is that you think there's plenty of economic activity that could be taxed in order to raise that revenue, and you think you know that further taxing the economy will grow the economy. A notion that has been proven wrong every time.
nor do those with the wealth want to pay for it
They may not want to, but they already do. The people who really don't want to pay taxes are the people who don't want to start paying taxes, because they think only other people should do so. That would be half the people in the country.
Greed is what will kill the US
True. Greed for things that people want to the government to take from one person, and given to them, instead. People want free stuff, and their greed demands that a small percentage of their fellow citizens pay for it. Greed on the left (for power, and thus for continuing to pander to the pays-no-taxes demographic that keeps them in power) is indeed the problem, and they won't be happy until they have completely codified the two countries they want to see: the ones who get free stuff, and the ones who are the productive slaves to those people - both relied upon and always villified at the same time.
There is no trust fund. There never was a trust fund. You do not "pay into" social security, and then get money back out. That is not how it works. The money that is paid out is collected from the people paying in, right then, that year. It is a welfare system, taking money from one group, and giving it to another group. When the number of people taking the money exceed the number of people from who it's being taken, it become unsustainable. That point is rapidly approaching. You could tax everyone who makes over $200k/year at a rate of 100% (take all of their earnings - everything), and it would only pay for the deficit as it currently exists for part of the year. In the coming years, completely confiscating all of their earnings would only cover a fraction of the deficit.
The problem is that half the people in the country pay no income taxes, but want an endless stream of entitlements and services paid for by other people. And that no-tax-paying half of the country is the half that is endlessly wooed by the left, and promised more - for free - by the left. They (the lefty politicians) won't come right out and talk about people actually participating in civil society by coughing up a bit of their income - just like everyone else - as part of the price they pay for getting stuff.