We should eliminate the corporate and personal income tax entirely in favor of the "fair tax"(fairtax.org). It's time that we realized the idiocy of punishing production and rewarding consumption. It is impossible to build a sustainable economy based on "consumer spending". The whole consumer spending economy has been a 30 year fraud enabled by continuous debt accumulation.
Next, we establish some sane, non-protectionist tariffs. Just high enough so that wage and environmental arbitrage are not by themselves a compelling economic advantage to move operations outside the USA.
Then allow a one time, tax free repatriation of any offshore financial assets.
Investment capital would start flowing back to the USA and spark a genuine economic recovery.
"Why is it that climate change discussions always ends up in the same place... the government"
Climate change is to the left as terrorism is to the right. Whipping up a "climate" of fear so that government can accumulate more power and seize more wealth. They want to tax everything they possibly can... oil, gas, propane, firewood, electricity... based on the excuse that they have to rescue us from "climate change". They talk about going after industry, but want the ability to tax, monitor and micro-manage our energy use as individuals They also want to set up another gambling casino on Wall Street with their "carbon credits" scheme.
Go back to 1995 when we had the first Republican-controlled Congress after many decades of Democrat control. Then, examine all of the laws they passed by "compromising" with the Democrats.
Just to name a few...
NAFTA GATT/WTO Treaty Gramm-Leach-Bliley (Wall St. dereg) Commodity Futures Modernization Act(more Wall St. dereg) AUMF Patriot Act (and several renewals) Military Commissions Act TARP (bank bailout) FISA Revisions Act NDAA 2012 TPP
Not to mention all the years of massive deficit spending.
F*** "compromise". Every time these jackasses "compromise" the people of the USA suffer. I despise the religious and militaristic wing of the GOP, but the so-called "moderate" Republicans are the problem, not the solution.
" Cruz is not controlled by Wall Street... Clinton, on the other hand, is married into Wall Street."
Clinton may be figuratively married to Wall Street, but Cruz is LITERALLY married into Wall Street! His wife works at Goldman Sachs and GS has provided financing for Cruz's Senate campaign. If it's Cruz vs. Clinton, Wall Street wins the presidency.
That was my big question too. My current understanding is that the phone can be put into a "Device Firmware Update" (DFU) mode even without the password. The device has a feature which will erase the data if 10 unsuccessful password attempts are made. It also introduces a delay between the time an unsuccessful password is entered and the next attempt can be made. The Feds want Apple to update the firmware to remove these two features so they can try a brute-force attack on the password.
There are considerations other than your day-to-day convenience.
Ever buy or sell something used from the classified ads or CraigsList? How's that going to work without cash? Every single person must be set up with the capability to make electronic transactions or pay a fee to an intermediary?
Do some web searches about Negative Interest Rates. It's happening at central banks and if the government forces us to go cashless, it's going to happen at your bank. How would you like to be charged a 5% fee on your deposits simply for the privilege of having your money deposited in a bank. Isn't loss of purchasing power to inflation bad enough?
What happens when your bank gets in financial trouble, like in 2008? There are proposals floating around in Europe and North America suggesting that in the future, TBTF banks should be rescued by allowing them to "recapitalize" by seizing their customers' deposits. They take your cash and give you some stock in the new, restructured bank.
That's true NOW. How long until this insanity filters down to the retail depositor?
WSJ ran an article a few days ago which reported that the sale of safes and lock boxes in Japan has skyrocketed. The Japanese obviously expect the BoJ's negative interest rate policy to eventually affect the commercial banking sector. That's why the bankers must pursue a "War on Cash".
If banks are "hoarding" it's only because the economy is totally saturated with debt. Pushing lending in this environment only means accepting less credit-worthy borrowers. The same sort of incentive that created the housing bubble. I also think the big banks have major exposure to all of the oil infrastructure that's been built in the past few years and might be hoarding capital as loan loss reserves.
When the globalist elite scumbags of the world recently met at the World Economic Forum in Davos, one of the decisions was apparently to begin a "War on Cash". Mario Draghi soon proposed eradication of the 500 Euro note and Summers is proposing an end to the 100 FRN. Central banks around the world have either implemented(Japan) or are entertaining the idea of negative interest rates. As of now, this only applies to deposits at central banks, but how long before this insanity filters down to the retail banking sector? i.e. rather than getting tiny positive interest on your bank deposits, you must PAY the bank to hold your funds. In order to prevent mass withdrawals and people hiding their money in the mattress, the banking cartel needs to outlaw cash.
There is another more insidious reason for the War on Cash. When the bankers get into financial trouble, like in 2008 (and again in the very near future), they want deposits to be treated as just another liability that can be restructured in bankruptcy. It's called a bank "bail in" which forces depositors to take a "haircut" on deposits. It already happened in Portugal. Think it can't happen here? The Bank of England and FDIC published a paper in 2012 called "Resolving Globally Active, Systemically Important Financial Institutions". Under the proposed strategy, the losses of a bankrupt bank could be apportioned to "unsecured creditors"(depositors are the banks creditors). In exchange for your confiscated deposits, you would receive stock in a new holding company that has been "recapitalized" (with your money).
Canada has also put forth a deposit confiscation proposal in the "Jobs, Growth and Long Term Prosperity: Economic Action Plan 2013". The plan states (in part) that an insolvent financial institution(a TBTF one)
"...can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital."
The "certain bank liabilities" meaning the customers' deposits of course.
The "War on Cash" has very little to do with stopping illicit activity. The government and their masters in the banking cartel want control of all your liquid assets. That way they can skim a little more of your hard-earned wealth(negative interest) and confiscate what you have in the event of some TBTF bank getting in trouble. Also nice for them because they could record even more of your financial transactions and lock you out of the economy if you step out of line.
Apple is not in possession of the phone or the data. If they were, then yes, a warrant to search for and seize certain evidence in Apple's possession would be entirely reasonable. In this case however, there is nothing that the government could search for and nothing for them to seize.
The government is using something called the "All Writs Act" from 1789 in its attempt to coerce Apple to assist them in hacking into the phone. If there's any Constitutional issue here, I'd argue that Apple should challenge the court under based on the 13th Amendment. Forcing Apple employees to assist in this undertaking amounts to involuntary servitude.
"the personell at the concentration and killing camps were members of the "Waffen SS"."
No. The Waffen SS was the armed/military wing of the SS deployed in ground combat operations.
The SS-Totenkopfverbande ( "Death's Head" Unit) was the part of the organization responsible for concentration camps.
I'd say they needed more than commands. Part of the historical lesson of Nazi Germany is that "normal" people can be totally corrupted given the right circumstances. There's certainly no excusing what they did, but it's a bit shallow to write them all off as evil, weak-minded and willing. The command/authority structure was part of it, but there was also a relentless and intensive "brainwashing" effort specifically for the camp guards. They were given constant reassurances that what they were doing served a righteous cause. The guards were also cajoled by material and other privileges, like being allowed to move their families around with them.
Do you think would-be terrorists put entries on their calendar to remind themselves of the time and place of an attack? The cell-service provider can provide records about how the phone was used for communication. If he was a *known* terrorist, why wasn't he arrested and charged with a crime prior to this attack? Why wasn't he under surveillance? He's now dead, so he can't be "aided" by anyone. Your *assumption* is ridiculous. The government could not possibly know that a phone contains the type of information that could thwart an attack. The NSA has even been forced to admit that the gargantuan amount of data they have amassed through their illegal spying operation has failed to prevent one single terrorist incident.
I disagree with UBI, but, assuming it wasn't funded by $trillions in new government borrowing, I don't think it would cause price inflation. Price inflation occurs when there are more units of currency chasing the same amount of goods. With UBI, there would be no "extra" money in the economy, because the money to fund such a program would first need to be taken from somewhere else. i.e. it would have to be funded by cutting government spending in some other area, or, by taking money out of the private economy via taxation.
You're totally right about the student loans, but an income subsidy, IF funded by tax revenue, doesn't create extra demand. With student loans, you create a future liability, so you've "pulled forward" future expenditures and created extra demand in the present. If the UBI replaced government spending under current programs or was taxed out of the economy, there's no increase in total demand. There would definitely be price effects in particular markets(like rent), but it would still be the same amount of $$$ chasing the same amount of goods, so how could there be any across-the-board price increases?
I tend to disagree with the UBI concept on the surface, but who knows? It might even turn out to be cheaper in the long run. Consider the gargantuan amounts of tax revenue currently being spent on every social program at every level of government in the USA. Medicare and Medicaid, SS, food stamps, housing subsidies, etc. Imagine if it was all consolidated in a single program which used direct transfer payments to supplement incomes. Here's the $$$, buy your own food, housing and healthcare. The program would obviously require some administrative overhead, but it seems like it could eliminate a giga-ton of bureaucracy, regulation and redundancy.
Re:First Name Basis? Rude.
on
Carly Is Out
·
· Score: 1
Probably more like "Fi-o-ri-na" being more of a mouthful than "Carly". I'd say there's a fairly even split between candidates being identified by first vs. last name. I'm constantly reading and hearing about "Bernie" and "Hillary" as well. "Rand" was called "Rand"and he even marketed himself as "Rand". "John" and "Chris", or even "Donald" are such common names that they don't effectively serve as unique identifiers for the candidates. "Chris 2016!" just doesn't work. Marco might fall into that group as well, but you hear "Marco" and your brain says "Polo". I think "Bush" is obvious because of the family name recognition.
I don't believe it was some sort of sexist conspiracy to demean Fiorina.
I don't like anything that comes out of Washington DC. You can be sure that the content of the bill serves the best interests of the corporations, even if there are some unintended consequences which end up benefiting the average person.
Damn! Why didn't anyone ever tell me that global warming *cough, cough* "CLIMATE CHANGE" was going to cause the collapse of the USA Federal government? For years I've been focused on making environmentally responsible lifestyle choices. Now you tell me that all of my time and effort has only served to prop up the government? That seriously ruins my day.
Well, better to learn late than never. Guess I'm going to the grocery store and buying a bunch of food that has been imported from far, far away (mmmm, bananas & coconut). Next, I'm going home and cranking my thermostats up from 50F to 75F and covering up my solar panels. This weekend I'll go looking for a full sized pickup truck and start planning my first overseas vacation in 15 years.
I was sort of the fence before, but now I am 100% convinced that global warming *cough* "CLIMATE CHANGE" is a complete hoax.
I know exactly how government works. It's like this:
Government: Give us your money or we will throw you in a cage. If you resist being thrown in a cage we will kill you.
Government: Do what we say or we will throw you in a cage. If you resist being thrown in a cage we will kill you.
Foreign policy is very similar. although they typically skip the cage part and go straight into the killing.
Fuck Congress. Every tech worker in the USA could peacefully organize and they still wouldn't give a damn. They don't have a 12% approval rating for nothing. There is no chance for reform through the political process in Washington DC.
Can't speak for the OP, but the whole debt-based monetary system is one colossal screw! Sovereign governments give up their monetary power and allow a group of private corporations called "banks" to create the money. Then, the government uses force to coerce the citizenry into using the privately created debt-money. Since the whole money supply, minus a tiny amount of physical currency is really just a series of debt obligations and the banking system is a closed loop, banks are collecting interest on money that they created out of thin air. Via this special power, bankers are permitted to suck wealth out of the productive sectors of society and all people who are doing the real work and creating real wealth. Unless you're a banker, government employee or are operating off the grid, you're getting the screw as well. Watch the short film "Money as Debt"(on youtube) if you're unaware of the "bank screw".
Yes, I'm confused about the Deposit/Investment thing because the government repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, thereby removing the firewall between deposit banks and other financial institutions. Also confused because Goldman Sachs was an investment bank, but in 2008, government waved a magic wand and turned them into a deposit bank so that they could cash in on TARP and Federal Reserve bailout $$$. Even more confused because the FDIC has a documented procedure and legal obligation for handling insolvent banks and the law was flagrantly ignored.
The NRA has accepted the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Federal Firearms Act of 1968, the National Instant Checks System(NICS) and all of the state level licensing/permit bullshit. Does that mean that N. Korea should accept USA government restrictions on its weapons programs? Your verbiage suggesting that someone (USA?) is "letting" NK develop and acquire weapons is rather telling. As if it's up to the USA government to rule over the world and tell countries what they are allowed to have.
The USA government and media will of course paint NK as the aggressor for its nuke and ICBM tests. Given the USA government's insane foreign policy of bombing, invasion, regime change and global military imperialism however, I don't blame any other country for ramping up its military capabilities. What would you do as leader of an "Axis of Evil" country?
Take a few minutes to read a couple of papers: "The Changing Face of War" and "Understanding Fourth Generation Warfare" by William Lind. For further reference read "The War of the Flea" by Robert Tabor.
All the high tech tanks and planes of the USA military proved useless against a determined insurgency in Vietnam. The Russians encountered the same thing in Afghanistan, as did the Israelis in their occupation of Lebanon.
Now consider the fact that the longest war in the history of the USA has been in Afghanistan where the vaunted USA military has spent 14 years trying to defeat a small insurgency armed only with rifles and improvised explosives. If the USA government can't defeat a few thousand lightly armed insurgents in a country the size of Afghanistan, how are they going to fight a few million similarly armed U.S. citizens in a country 12x (lower 48 states) the size?
The anti-gun crowd conveniently changes their definition of "mass shooting" to claim that mass murders by firearm never happen outside the USA, and then change the definition again to conclude that there were over 300 in the USA last year (including an incident where four kids were "shot" with pellet guns)
No shootings in Australia with four or more victims since 1996? LOL
Seven shot @ Monash University in 2002 (OMG! School Shooting!!!!!) Seven shot in Hectorville in 2011. A family of five shot to death in Lockhart, NSW in 2014.
Search engines are your friend, you lying sack of urbanite excrement.
Government doesn't print money (or even do the digital equivalent). They borrow money from private banks and the Federal Reserve. The personal income tax (which was passed at roughly the same time as the Federal Reserve was established) is merely the federal government's tool for guaranteeing that the bankers will always get their interest payments.
The $5 in interest I would have earned by depositing that wealth in a money market account isn't worth the risk of paying too little and being fined. Nor is it worth expending the time and effort required to ensure that I pay the minimum necessary to avoid the penalty.
There should be no "consequences" to speech other than having your ideas and opinions criticized. If you have to take a "risk" and must fear "consequences" in order to express yourself, then you don't really have freedom of speech.
Slashdot Mirror
We should eliminate the corporate and personal income tax entirely in favor of the "fair tax"(fairtax.org). It's time that we realized the idiocy of punishing production and rewarding consumption. It is impossible to build a sustainable economy based on "consumer spending". The whole consumer spending economy has been a 30 year fraud enabled by continuous debt accumulation.
Next, we establish some sane, non-protectionist tariffs. Just high enough so that wage and environmental arbitrage are not by themselves a compelling economic advantage to move operations outside the USA.
Then allow a one time, tax free repatriation of any offshore financial assets.
Investment capital would start flowing back to the USA and spark a genuine economic recovery.
"Why is it that climate change discussions always ends up in the same place ... the government"
Climate change is to the left as terrorism is to the right. Whipping up a "climate" of fear so that government can accumulate more power and seize more wealth. They want to tax everything they possibly can ... oil, gas, propane, firewood, electricity ... based on the excuse that they have to rescue us from "climate change". They talk about going after industry, but want the ability to tax, monitor and micro-manage our energy use as individuals
They also want to set up another gambling casino on Wall Street with their "carbon credits" scheme.
Go back to 1995 when we had the first Republican-controlled Congress after many decades of Democrat control. Then, examine all of the laws they passed by "compromising" with the Democrats.
Just to name a few...
NAFTA
GATT/WTO Treaty
Gramm-Leach-Bliley (Wall St. dereg)
Commodity Futures Modernization Act(more Wall St. dereg)
AUMF
Patriot Act (and several renewals)
Military Commissions Act
TARP (bank bailout)
FISA Revisions Act
NDAA 2012
TPP
Not to mention all the years of massive deficit spending.
F*** "compromise". Every time these jackasses "compromise" the people of the USA suffer. I despise the religious and militaristic wing of the GOP, but the so-called "moderate" Republicans are the problem, not the solution.
" Cruz is not controlled by Wall Street ... Clinton, on the other hand, is married into Wall Street."
Clinton may be figuratively married to Wall Street, but Cruz is LITERALLY married into Wall Street! His wife works at Goldman Sachs and GS has provided financing for Cruz's Senate campaign. If it's Cruz vs. Clinton, Wall Street wins the presidency.
That was my big question too. My current understanding is that the phone can be put into a "Device Firmware Update" (DFU) mode even without the password. The device has a feature which will erase the data if 10 unsuccessful password attempts are made. It also introduces a delay between the time an unsuccessful password is entered and the next attempt can be made. The Feds want Apple to update the firmware to remove these two features so they can try a brute-force attack on the password.
There are considerations other than your day-to-day convenience.
Ever buy or sell something used from the classified ads or CraigsList? How's that going to work without cash? Every single person must be set up with the capability to make electronic transactions or pay a fee to an intermediary?
Do some web searches about Negative Interest Rates. It's happening at central banks and if the government forces us to go cashless, it's going to happen at your bank. How would you like to be charged a 5% fee on your deposits simply for the privilege of having your money deposited in a bank. Isn't loss of purchasing power to inflation bad enough?
What happens when your bank gets in financial trouble, like in 2008? There are proposals floating around in Europe and North America suggesting that in the future, TBTF banks should be rescued by allowing them to "recapitalize" by seizing their customers' deposits. They take your cash and give you some stock in the new, restructured bank.
Be careful of what you wish for.
That's true NOW. How long until this insanity filters down to the retail depositor?
WSJ ran an article a few days ago which reported that the sale of safes and lock boxes in Japan has skyrocketed. The Japanese obviously expect the BoJ's negative interest rate policy to eventually affect the commercial banking sector. That's why the bankers must pursue a "War on Cash".
If banks are "hoarding" it's only because the economy is totally saturated with debt. Pushing lending in this environment only means accepting less credit-worthy borrowers. The same sort of incentive that created the housing bubble. I also think the big banks have major exposure to all of the oil infrastructure that's been built in the past few years and might be hoarding capital as loan loss reserves.
When the globalist elite scumbags of the world recently met at the World Economic Forum in Davos, one of the decisions was apparently to begin a "War on Cash". Mario Draghi soon proposed eradication of the 500 Euro note and Summers is proposing an end to the 100 FRN. Central banks around the world have either implemented(Japan) or are entertaining the idea of negative interest rates. As of now, this only applies to deposits at central banks, but how long before this insanity filters down to the retail banking sector? i.e. rather than getting tiny positive interest on your bank deposits, you must PAY the bank to hold your funds. In order to prevent mass withdrawals and people hiding their money in the mattress, the banking cartel needs to outlaw cash.
There is another more insidious reason for the War on Cash. When the bankers get into financial trouble, like in 2008 (and again in the very near future), they want deposits to be treated as just another liability that can be restructured in bankruptcy. It's called a bank "bail in" which forces depositors to take a "haircut" on deposits. It already happened in Portugal. Think it can't happen here? The Bank of England and FDIC published a paper in 2012 called "Resolving Globally Active, Systemically Important Financial Institutions". Under the proposed strategy, the losses of a bankrupt bank could be apportioned to "unsecured creditors"(depositors are the banks creditors). In exchange for your confiscated deposits, you would receive stock in a new holding company that has been "recapitalized" (with your money).
Canada has also put forth a deposit confiscation proposal in the "Jobs, Growth and Long Term Prosperity: Economic Action Plan 2013". The plan states (in part) that an insolvent financial institution(a TBTF one)
"...can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital."
The "certain bank liabilities" meaning the customers' deposits of course.
The "War on Cash" has very little to do with stopping illicit activity. The government and their masters in the banking cartel want control of all your liquid assets. That way they can skim a little more of your hard-earned wealth(negative interest) and confiscate what you have in the event of some TBTF bank getting in trouble. Also nice for them because they could record even more of your financial transactions and lock you out of the economy if you step out of line.
No, that's not the question at all.
Apple is not in possession of the phone or the data. If they were, then yes, a warrant to search for and seize certain evidence in Apple's possession would be entirely reasonable. In this case however, there is nothing that the government could search for and nothing for them to seize.
The government is using something called the "All Writs Act" from 1789 in its attempt to coerce Apple to assist them in hacking into the phone. If there's any Constitutional issue here, I'd argue that Apple should challenge the court under based on the 13th Amendment. Forcing Apple employees to assist in this undertaking amounts to involuntary servitude.
"the personell at the concentration and killing camps were members of the "Waffen SS"."
No. The Waffen SS was the armed/military wing of the SS deployed in ground combat operations.
The SS-Totenkopfverbande ( "Death's Head" Unit) was the part of the organization responsible for concentration camps.
I'd say they needed more than commands. Part of the historical lesson of Nazi Germany is that "normal" people can be totally corrupted given the right circumstances. There's certainly no excusing what they did, but it's a bit shallow to write them all off as evil, weak-minded and willing. The command/authority structure was part of it, but there was also a relentless and intensive "brainwashing" effort specifically for the camp guards. They were given constant reassurances that what they were doing served a righteous cause. The guards were also cajoled by material and other privileges, like being allowed to move their families around with them.
Do you think would-be terrorists put entries on their calendar to remind themselves of the time and place of an attack? The cell-service provider can provide records about how the phone was used for communication.
If he was a *known* terrorist, why wasn't he arrested and charged with a crime prior to this attack? Why wasn't he under surveillance? He's now dead, so he can't be "aided" by anyone.
Your *assumption* is ridiculous. The government could not possibly know that a phone contains the type of information that could thwart an attack. The NSA has even been forced to admit that the gargantuan amount of data they have amassed through their illegal spying operation has failed to prevent one single terrorist incident.
I disagree with UBI, but, assuming it wasn't funded by $trillions in new government borrowing, I don't think it would cause price inflation. Price inflation occurs when there are more units of currency chasing the same amount of goods. With UBI, there would be no "extra" money in the economy, because the money to fund such a program would first need to be taken from somewhere else. i.e. it would have to be funded by cutting government spending in some other area, or, by taking money out of the private economy via taxation.
You're totally right about the student loans, but an income subsidy, IF funded by tax revenue, doesn't create extra demand. With student loans, you create a future liability, so you've "pulled forward" future expenditures and created extra demand in the present.
If the UBI replaced government spending under current programs or was taxed out of the economy, there's no increase in total demand. There would definitely be price effects in particular markets(like rent), but it would still be the same amount of $$$ chasing the same amount of goods, so how could there be any across-the-board price increases?
I tend to disagree with the UBI concept on the surface, but who knows? It might even turn out to be cheaper in the long run. Consider the gargantuan amounts of tax revenue currently being spent on every social program at every level of government in the USA. Medicare and Medicaid, SS, food stamps, housing subsidies, etc. Imagine if it was all consolidated in a single program which used direct transfer payments to supplement incomes. Here's the $$$, buy your own food, housing and healthcare. The program would obviously require some administrative overhead, but it seems like it could eliminate a giga-ton of bureaucracy, regulation and redundancy.
Probably more like "Fi-o-ri-na" being more of a mouthful than "Carly". I'd say there's a fairly even split between candidates being identified by first vs. last name. I'm constantly reading and hearing about "Bernie" and "Hillary" as well. "Rand" was called "Rand"and he even marketed himself as "Rand". "John" and "Chris", or even "Donald" are such common names that they don't effectively serve as unique identifiers for the candidates. "Chris 2016!" just doesn't work. Marco might fall into that group as well, but you hear "Marco" and your brain says "Polo". I think "Bush" is obvious because of the family name recognition.
I don't believe it was some sort of sexist conspiracy to demean Fiorina.
States don't have "Rights" they have "powers".
I don't like anything that comes out of Washington DC. You can be sure that the content of the bill serves the best interests of the corporations, even if there are some unintended consequences which end up benefiting the average person.
Damn! Why didn't anyone ever tell me that global warming *cough, cough* "CLIMATE CHANGE" was going to cause the collapse of the USA Federal government? For years I've been focused on making environmentally responsible lifestyle choices. Now you tell me that all of my time and effort has only served to prop up the government? That seriously ruins my day.
Well, better to learn late than never. Guess I'm going to the grocery store and buying a bunch of food that has been imported from far, far away (mmmm, bananas & coconut). Next, I'm going home and cranking my thermostats up from 50F to 75F and covering up my solar panels. This weekend I'll go looking for a full sized pickup truck and start planning my first overseas vacation in 15 years.
I was sort of the fence before, but now I am 100% convinced that global warming *cough* "CLIMATE CHANGE" is a complete hoax.
I know exactly how government works. It's like this:
Government: Give us your money or we will throw you in a cage. If you resist being thrown in a cage we will kill you.
Government: Do what we say or we will throw you in a cage. If you resist being thrown in a cage we will kill you.
Foreign policy is very similar. although they typically skip the cage part and go straight into the killing.
Fuck Congress. Every tech worker in the USA could peacefully organize and they still wouldn't give a damn. They don't have a 12% approval rating for nothing. There is no chance for reform through the political process in Washington DC.
Can't speak for the OP, but the whole debt-based monetary system is one colossal screw! Sovereign governments give up their monetary power and allow a group of private corporations called "banks" to create the money. Then, the government uses force to coerce the citizenry into using the privately created debt-money. Since the whole money supply, minus a tiny amount of physical currency is really just a series of debt obligations and the banking system is a closed loop, banks are collecting interest on money that they created out of thin air. Via this special power, bankers are permitted to suck wealth out of the productive sectors of society and all people who are doing the real work and creating real wealth. Unless you're a banker, government employee or are operating off the grid, you're getting the screw as well. Watch the short film "Money as Debt"(on youtube) if you're unaware of the "bank screw".
Yes, I'm confused about the Deposit/Investment thing because the government repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, thereby removing the firewall between deposit banks and other financial institutions. Also confused because Goldman Sachs was an investment bank, but in 2008, government waved a magic wand and turned them into a deposit bank so that they could cash in on TARP and Federal Reserve bailout $$$. Even more confused because the FDIC has a documented procedure and legal obligation for handling insolvent banks and the law was flagrantly ignored.
The NRA has accepted the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Federal Firearms Act of 1968, the National Instant Checks System(NICS) and all of the state level licensing/permit bullshit. Does that mean that N. Korea should accept USA government restrictions on its weapons programs? Your verbiage suggesting that someone (USA?) is "letting" NK develop and acquire weapons is rather telling. As if it's up to the USA government to rule over the world and tell countries what they are allowed to have.
The USA government and media will of course paint NK as the aggressor for its nuke and ICBM tests. Given the USA government's insane foreign policy of bombing, invasion, regime change and global military imperialism however, I don't blame any other country for ramping up its military capabilities.
What would you do as leader of an "Axis of Evil" country?
Take a few minutes to read a couple of papers: "The Changing Face of War" and "Understanding Fourth Generation Warfare" by William Lind.
For further reference read "The War of the Flea" by Robert Tabor.
All the high tech tanks and planes of the USA military proved useless against a determined insurgency in Vietnam. The Russians encountered the same thing in Afghanistan, as did the Israelis in their occupation of Lebanon.
Now consider the fact that the longest war in the history of the USA has been in Afghanistan where the vaunted USA military has spent 14 years trying to defeat a small insurgency armed only with rifles and improvised explosives. If the USA government can't defeat a few thousand lightly armed insurgents in a country the size of Afghanistan, how are they going to fight a few million similarly armed U.S. citizens in a country 12x (lower 48 states) the size?
The anti-gun crowd conveniently changes their definition of "mass shooting" to claim that mass murders by firearm never happen outside the USA, and then change the definition again to conclude that there were over 300 in the USA last year (including an incident where four kids were "shot" with pellet guns)
No shootings in Australia with four or more victims since 1996? LOL
Seven shot @ Monash University in 2002 (OMG! School Shooting!!!!!) Seven shot in Hectorville in 2011. A family of five shot to death in Lockhart, NSW in 2014.
Search engines are your friend, you lying sack of urbanite excrement.
Government doesn't print money (or even do the digital equivalent). They borrow money from private banks and the Federal Reserve. The personal income tax (which was passed at roughly the same time as the Federal Reserve was established) is merely the federal government's tool for guaranteeing that the bankers will always get their interest payments.
The $5 in interest I would have earned by depositing that wealth in a money market account isn't worth the risk of paying too little and being fined. Nor is it worth expending the time and effort required to ensure that I pay the minimum necessary to avoid the penalty.
There should be no "consequences" to speech other than having your ideas and opinions criticized. If you have to take a "risk" and must fear "consequences" in order to express yourself, then you don't really have freedom of speech.