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Don't immediately invite or summon that bitch to this fiasco, or stab everyone walking about her virtual office.
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Immediately invite or summon one bitch to this fiancee, or stab everyone walking about this virtual office.
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I disagree about the judges, unless maybe if the term limit is one term with a really long length. Elections of people who are supposed to be objective and fair is a recipe for disaster.
Using that logic, we should have appointed congressmen and presidents too. Atleast we have a choice between two clowns for president. We have no choice on federal judges, or the supreme court. Once they're in, they're in. M Where does it say congress or the president should be fair and objective?  |
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The last time Roman posted here was 10/4. He used to be a lot more active/enthusiastic about his site and updating users on the site's status. I'm not sure if he's just letting it die a slow death or what, but the lack of progress on any front recently is rather discouraging to see.
He's still responsive via email. I had a small issue that he took care of very quickly. |
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If career politicians are an issue, why not just add term limits? Limiting our representatives to those with independent (or family) wealth is not a good plan IMO.
Speaking of representation, did you know the house of representatives used to grow with the population? There used to be an upper limit of 60k people per representative. In order to be that close to direct representation today would require 30,000 representatives rather than the measly 435 we have today. It seems to me that this is why only the powerful can influence politics... each representative has too much to handle to deal with the issues of the average constituent.
Term limits are a good idea. Especially with lifelong appointed judges. That, speaking of which, should be elected, not appointed. I know about the house deal. That's one of my responses to people who claim the census is for adequate representation of the masses. I personally think we should have 30,000 reps. Then absolutely NOTHING would get done unless it had to. That'd be awesome! No more feel good legislation!! M I disagree about the judges, unless maybe if the term limit is one term with a really long length. Elections of people who are supposed to be objective and fair is a recipe for disaster. |
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I'm hedged financially. An economic screwing of the middle class is going to happen no matter who is elected. I'm going for Obama since I refuse to go back to the 1950s on human/gay/women's rights.
That's his strongest point for me as well. Romney can school him in domestic economics, but his economic approach to esp. China would be a disaster. Romney: Hey China, quit printing currency... it's not fair. China: You first asshole. |
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Yes, ING works. Also, I have received 0.04 of my on hold BTC back so far.
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Please immediately invite or summon one bitch to this fiancee, or stab everyone arguing about this virtual office.
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Good examples |
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Those new innovations may be just around the corner. Did anyone here listen to Mike Hearn talk about "Smart Property" and "Contracts". It is some really interesting shit that's built into the Bitcoin protocol.
I didn't hear that talk, but I read about contracts quite some time ago. Here you go: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts |
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I'm not the one claiming this would "change the face of government". If you think it won't make any difference, then you agree with my criticism.
Not really. My way would decrease the likelihood of career politicians getting in. Those that are wealthy are probably the brightest and most capable of running for public office. They wouldn't be there to increase their wallet size, which should weed out a lot of the miscreants we have today. Why wouldn't they be there to increase their wallet size? I think a lot of wealthy people join government for just that reason, expecting that they'll have much more lucrative careers when they leave government. (That doesn't always make them bad people or bad politicians, of course.) All reducing politician's salaries will do is make it harder for people who have more financial obligations and less personal wealth to enter politics. If you think that's a good thing, then you're welcome to advocate for lower salaries for politicians. But it won't make politicians more honest and could do the reverse. As stated in my other post, the problem is the mentality of the individuals. Politics is the problem. If you had selfless individuals, they'd be statesmen. Politicians = money and lies. Statesmen = serving the country. M If career politicians are an issue, why not just add term limits? Limiting our representatives to those with independent (or family) wealth is not a good plan IMO. Speaking of representation, did you know the house of representatives used to grow with the population? There used to be an upper limit of 60k people per representative. In order to be that close to direct representation today would require 30,000 representatives rather than the measly 435 we have today. It seems to me that this is why only the powerful can influence politics... each representative has too much to handle to deal with the issues of the average constituent. |
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Please do invite or summon one witch to this séance, or lick everyone homosexually in this office.
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I support feedom of movement, I would like to see the borders opened much more than they are now, and practical policies and procudures put into place for people to immigrate legally.
You don't see US states putting up border patrolls and inspection points, this freedom of movement has been a great boon to the US. Why would we not see similar benefits from having national borders unrestricted?
++ I'm glad my family immigrated when Ellis Island was open, it helped us a lot. I want others to have that same freedom. We obviously need to find ways to more productively integrate immigrants. Each person represents a tremendous potential both economically and socially. Only seeing the potential downsides to immigration seems un-american to me. Immigration, illegal or otherwise, is only a problem when: a) the country is getting too full b) immigrants come for a free lunch a isn't happening b is happening from mexico because of government handouts. get rid of the handouts "stealing from peter to pay paul" and you won't have this problem anymore. M B is irrelevant. Yes, people have been given handouts, but Mexicans are not getting anywhere near what they put in. They are a net positive to the economy. We are FUCKING ourselves by encouraging hard workers to leave. Maybe I am in an usual area (Maryland) but I have only seen Mexicans working hard on roads, picking crops and doing outdoor work. I have seen them doing jobs that we can not fill in Maryland without them. On the Eastern Shore we do not have enough Mexicans to pick the fields. They might be a net positive for the near term, but what about the future. The slave owners 200 years ago also thought it was a net positive to own black slaves, they didn't think their sons and daughters will one day be wage slaves to support a 25% unemployed black population that rely on welfare/food stamps. racist much? Black unemployment is not 25%. It is not even 15%. For 2012 food stamps are less then 80 billion dollars (projected) , defense is 1000 to 1400 billion dollars. And while it is silly to break down into race, the 85% employees blacks are paying taxes to support those on the food stamps. Get over the race bullshit, that is not the problem with the budget. You are really out of touch with reality, actually 25% is already a generous estimate, I think it may be as high as 50%. The 13% official black unemployment figure is only for those who are "actively seeking work but can't find work". How many blacks are not actively seeking work and just live on welfare/food stamps? foodstamps is not the only program, there are also housing, medicaid, prison (55% prison population are blacks), which together cost almost a trillion and would probably erase the deficit overnight if these programs were abolished. Btw, defense is big, but not that big. For example defense was 895B in 2011, while welfare 565B + Medicaid 275B = 840B just on the federal level, remember the states don't spend anything on defense, but do have their own state level welfare programs, that's another hundreds of billions on welfare. I don't think you can count prisoners in your unemployment figures. Especially for African Americans who have faced decades of racial profiling. |
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After a few PMs chuwalu seems legit. We have a trade in progress and I will update this when I receive the goods.
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modern day technology makes it feasible to "fill" a gold coin with tungsten
This simply highlights Bitcoin's superior efficiency as a monetary instrument due to lower costs. Of course, bitcoins can still be over or undervalued relative to its competitors based on its value proposition. It has lower costs in terms of time because quantity and quality can be verified much more quickly than either gold or fiat currency. No drilling for assays and no special pens for detecting counterfeits. It also has lower costs in terms of money and privacy; pseudo-anonymous, no transaction, storage, etc. fees. When currency controls get ratcheted up in 2014 this will become even more important with Bitcoin acting like invisible monetary glue. Currently, the largest cost associated with using bitcoins in transactions is time. It is time educating the other party about why bitcoins are currency, safe, securing wallets, learning how to use the new technology, etc. The more of that which gets done the greater the network effects and the faster the time cost with using bitcoins declines. As the great credit contraction continues those assets which provide safety (gold) and liquidity (bitcoins) will continue rising in value. Due to the nascent nature of Bitcoin it will likely continue outperforming gold; assuming Bitcoin does not become completely worthless from some type of systemic collapse.  Nice plug, but 2 BTC seems a bit high. |
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What I would like to see happen: income tax should be flattened, exemptions and credits eliminated so there is a single tax rate for all income. At the same time, the spending should be drastically cut: Close oversea military bases, increase minimum social security receiving age, sell off national parks (preferably to states to make state parks or to non-profits who will care for them), raise the interest rate on student loans, give all federal employees a 10% paycut, and whatever else can be cut. After the tax revenue rises above the spending, the surplus can be used to pay down the debt, eliminating that huge chunk of the budget that goes to debt servicing. After the debt is eliminated, taxes should be lowered (still keeping it as a flat income tax so everybody benefits from the lowering) and governemnt services can be expanded.
Why would you cut taxes for the rich (or punish horribly the middle class) while you are trying to balance the budget. The only balanced budget in recent memory came from a 39% tax rate for the upper bracket. It is simple, we have done it before, it WORKS. Combine the additional revenue with modest across the board cuts including defense and you can get a balanced budget. Leave student loans as they are, as the rate is ALREADY ABOVE PRIME. Education is a cost for a functioning society and pays dividends later. Changes need to be made to how colleges operate and to the very high costs but that is a separate issue. I think you misunderstood what I was saying about taxes. My suggestion includes raising the taxes on the wealthy (by removing all the exemptions). I am not suggesting any taxes get cut, until after the budget is balanced and the debt is payed down. Student loans are already above prime, because they are high risk, and they would be higher if not subsidized. Think about it, we are giving money to people on the hope that they will be able to earn money later. This is very different from most loans, which are given to people who demonstrate they are able to pay on those loans now. That's just the issue. I have excellent credit, have never had an account in default, and yet I pay the same rate as someone who has shitty credit and pays late constantly. Lumping all students together is retarded. We are not all equal. My loan should be considered very low risk, but there is no market I can take it to that will asses me for what I am. They see "student loan" and throw it in the pile with all the others. |
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How much for one of these, shipped to 26508? |
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Fuck you. We're already paying 6% variable and the only likely direction is already up. Your talking about a group of people for which 50% can't find employment that actually uses the skills they were promised were valuable. Older people are working longer because of the tough economic times and so fresh graduates can't find jobs. How much more burden do you expect us to bear? Our "elders" have already given us a pile of steaming shit for a country when they were handed a land of opportunity. We won't take much more abuse before you start seeing violence. I personally am more anti-violence than almost anyone my age I know, but I can't control my peers.
whoa buddy, agree with you on the generational warfare, agree that times are tough, where exactly do you propose the money comes from? I'm okay with the other suggestions made by bitcoinbear. In fact, I'm all for reform of the student loan industry. But raising interest rates on one of the groups that is struggling the hardest is outrageous. Yes, we absolutely need to put restrictions on who can take out student loans (GPA requirements, minimum # of hours, no alcohol related offenses, etc). I hate all forms of government guaranteed loans, but you can't fuck over those of us who have worked hard to better ourselves so we can provide useful labor. I am in grad school now, and my education is paid for by my GTA position, but I have about $20k debt still to be paid down from undergraduate. I graduated early with a 3.4 GPA from a great engineering school. I have made every payment on time or early and I have even made several extra payments on my loans. How am I rewarded? By paying more interest than someone who takes a mortgage out on their home. By suggestions that I should be paying more. By suggestions that my friends, who are still smart but not quite as talented as me, who are struggling to pay the bills each month because they can't get a job outside of retail of food, pay more. Whoa buddy yourself. That shit pisses my off. The point is that everybody will have to give a little for this to work. If everybody says "Ok, the list is good except for the one point that effects me", then everything will get taken off the list and nothing will get done. Once we pay down the debt we can go back to subsidizing student loans (although perhaps not quite so much, we don't want to get back into debt as a country). If you cannot afford to pay back the student loans after you get out of college, perhaps you should reconsider taking them in the first place. (and by "you" I am not talking to you specifically, but the general you of all the people considering taking out student loans.) Many people take out student loans and then study subjects that will not help them pay back those loans. I even saw an article that says a "computer science" degree is basically worthless, companies are more interested in actual experience than a piece of paper. Every suggestion you gave other than "cut federal employee pay by 10%" affects me. As for the student loan issue, like I said, I am all for being drastically more restrictive on who can take them out. But that won't change the past where dumbasses thought it was a good idea to hand them out like candy and children were told that borrowing money to go to college was the only way to succeed. The reason they have to be subsidized just to get it down to 6% is because the default rate is high due to the ongoing structure of the program. But punishing me, who has paid as much or more than I owe every month since graduation is not fair. First, fix the problem by adding restrictions, then maybe we can work something out. By the way, when I decided to take them out, the rate was 4%. It's already up to 6% and slowly rising. As far as I can see, it is the only credit based industry in this country where interests rates are rising. They have gone down for everyone else. Oh, and while you're at it, let the housing market bottom instead of spending $40 billion/month subsidizing it. That's about $130 per person per month in case you haven't done the math. And yes, I'm a homeowner, so that would hurt me too, but it's more fair than raising interest rates on student loans. Oh, and how about not bailing out corporations. We may have privatization of profits, but way too many losses are publicized. We left capitalism behind a long time ago. Hopefully one day we can make it back to it. |
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Fuck you. We're already paying 6% variable and the only likely direction is already up. Your talking about a group of people for which 50% can't find employment that actually uses the skills they were promised were valuable. Older people are working longer because of the tough economic times and so fresh graduates can't find jobs. How much more burden do you expect us to bear? Our "elders" have already given us a pile of steaming shit for a country when they were handed a land of opportunity. We won't take much more abuse before you start seeing violence. I personally am more anti-violence than almost anyone my age I know, but I can't control my peers.
whoa buddy, agree with you on the generational warfare, agree that times are tough, where exactly do you propose the money comes from? I'm okay with the other suggestions made by bitcoinbear. In fact, I'm all for reform of the student loan industry. But raising interest rates on one of the groups that is struggling the hardest is outrageous. Yes, we absolutely need to put restrictions on who can take out student loans (GPA requirements, minimum # of hours, no alcohol related offenses, etc). I hate all forms of government guaranteed loans, but you can't fuck over those of us who have worked hard to better ourselves so we can provide useful labor. I am in grad school now, and my education is paid for by my GTA position, but I have about $20k debt still to be paid down from undergraduate. I graduated early with a 3.4 GPA from a great engineering school. I have made every payment on time or early and I have even made several extra payments on my loans. How am I rewarded? By paying more interest than someone who takes a mortgage out on their home. By suggestions that I should be paying more. By suggestions that my friends, who are still smart but not quite as talented as me, who are struggling to pay the bills each month because they can't get a job outside of retail of food, pay more. Whoa buddy yourself. That shit pisses my off. |
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