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But the problem with that line of argument is a wedding cake is a wedding cake. It's distinctly different than not wanting to make either cake in this argument. Those cakes specifically make a message, whereas if there was a custom cake made for that event, but it had none of the content detailed above, then I think it's more like the current case.

In other words, if they (the gay couple in this case) went in and asked the baker to make an overtly gay cake for the wedding, one that celebrates that gays can now be married, then I think you have a good parallel. A more "generic" cake (one not overtly celebrating gay marriage, but still custom designed) then has no inherent message. It could be used for a gay marriage, a bar mitzvah, a quinceanera, or whatever you want.

And that's where the problem comes in because this becomes a nearly impossible line drawing problem. Some of the questions asked by the justices during argument included who counted as "artists"? Does a chef? Attorney for the baker responded no. The logical follow up then is what makes a baker's job inherently different from a cook's? How do you define one being an artist and one not? (NPR story covering this point should be here .

I'll agree with the fact that I should not be forced to project a message I disagree with, but, arguably, that's not what happened here. I think unless someone can provide a convincing distinction or test on who counts as an artist and what counts as a message then there's no real way to determine if someone is being discriminatory or upholding their beliefs in these situations. It becomes hopelessly muddled.

Sarah Kliff also noted on The Weeds last night that the states who receive the 8B will have a choice of what to do of it. They're not required to set up the high risk pools, they could use it for public health stuff or to reduce copays or there's a few other options - and these don't substantively help people with preexisting conditions from paying extremely high premiums. The CBO speculates that few states will take the option to create the high risk pool.

Another crucial point that they make is that the CBO has not scored this bill in its current form, which means we don't really know how much it will cost or how many people will lose their insurance.

https://player.fm/series/voxs-the-weeds/high-risk-podcasting

According to this article, a few other fact-checking organizations have reviewed Snopes' findings and not uncovered any bias.

This NY Times article contends the increased attacks against Snopes are a result of its rising profile.

In a CNN analysis, the South Korean foreign minister says Trump deserves credit. Australia's Prime Minister credits both President Trump and President Xi of China.

Yes.

Under the existing rules and fees,, this was somewhat true as well. It's just that the fees started at $695 for individuals and escalated quickly as your income climbed, to the point where you were paying the equivalent of an average "bronze" plan and might as well get insurance anyways.

Under this proposal, since they kept the pre-existing part, it may actually be to your financial advantage to not buy insurance until you really need it, saving thousands of dollars a year in premiums, and then jumping in and paying the uplift charge when you do need it. The disadvantage being that if you do have doctor visits, medications, and whatnot, you're paying at cost instead of getting negotiated insurer's rates, so those $200-instead-of-$20-copay trips start to eat away at whatever you think you're saving.

One thing not mentioned here already is that under our current tax system, it is the states who collect sales tax. A move like this asserts federal power over the states which won't go over well with most voters. Even though this act calls for state administration, it removes state power to control their own budgets by dictating the state amount. Additionally, states would be required to remit these national taxes to the federal government, meaning that state sales and use taxes would likely remain in place for the purpose of budgeting for other things that the federal government currently requires the states to administer such as:

• public education
• road maintenance
• public safety

Sales tax is <em>the most regressive</em> form of taxation, meaning that lower income folks pay far more of their income toward these taxes than do high-income folks. Providing refundable credits like in this plan is not going to change this, but it sounds warm and fuzzy. In reality, rich folks will just fly to friendlier tax environments to buy the things they want if we implement this system. Lower income folks won't have that luxury.

This is one of those things that sounds nice in theory, but in practice it's a shitshow and doesn't accomplish anything but shielding the accumulated wealth of the top 1% from taxation.

Deeper but far from comprehensive reading on the topic can be found in this book.

Shout out to the mods, this is a pretty divisive topic.

Highly recommend reading anything written by Sarah Kliff over at Vox. She is one of the leading healthcare journalists in the country right now in my opinion. Her articles on Vox as well as discussions on the Weeds podcast are all excellent.

I'll keep it succinct. We pay more for worse outcomes] (https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality-u-s-healthcare-system-compare-countries/#item-u-s-highest-rate-deaths-amenable-health-care-among-comparable-oecd-countries) Anything is better than the current employer sponsored insurance system we use today.

The line is actually 400% of the federal poverty level, which varies with family size. The number you cite is for a family of four. For a single person, the line is $48240.

I have a number of responses here. First and foremost: whether or not voter id laws affect turnout or election results should not be the metric by which we decide if these laws are good laws or not. The question is whether the state has any legitimate reason to make it harder for eligible voters to be able to easily cast a ballot which will be fairly counted. As I explain in my 2012 book, The Voting Wars (https://www.amazon.com/Voting-Wars-Florida-Election-Meltdown/dp/0300198248/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1514912252&amp;sr=8-8&amp;keywords=richard+l.+hasen) there is no good evidence these laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud or to promote voter confidence. The kind of fraud these laws prevent is impersonation fraud, where one person claims to be another. This is extremely rare and I can't find examples where it has been used to swing elections. So the state is making it harder to vote for no good reason (and perhaps the bad reason to make it harder for poor and minority voters---more apt to lack id--to vote).

Second, Alabama may show that voter id laws can be overcome by enough voters to swing an election. But not only should we ask why voters should have to overcome unnecessary laws---we should also ask whether the result would have been even more lopsided had these laws not been put in place in the first place.

On the social science, the evidence is mixed as to how much these laws affect turnout and outcomes. But, as I said, that should not be the primary question to ask about these laws.

The fact that Merkel is from Eastern Germany alone should mean the opposite - ex Soviet satellites detest Russia. The Visegrád group worked hard to disentangle Eastern Europe from Russia and pretty much all ex Warsaw Pact countries except for Hungary are the loudest in asking for a NATO presence there.

Germany sees Putin as a treat, but they are a country of exporters, and they are the 2nd largest exporters to Russia

Identifying voters makes sense. In my 2012 book, The Voting Wars (https://www.amazon.com/Voting-Wars-Florida-Election-Meltdown/dp/0300198248/ref=la_B0089NJCR2_1_11?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1514914872&amp;sr=1-11) I call for universal voter registration conducted by the federal government along with a national voter id (with all costs paid for by the government for the underlying documents like birth certificates). Voters would have the option to use their thumb print to identify themselves. The problem is not voter id per se, but how these laws are implemented in the states. For example, in Texas you can vote with a concealed carry gun permit but not a student id. These laws seem aimed at making it harder for people who vote for Democrats to be able to register and vote. They also don't prevent any appreciable amount of (voter impersonation) fraud or promote public confidence. If states were serious about preventing fraud, they would offer alternatives, like voting with an affidavit swearing identity under penalty of perjury, or expand the lists of acceptable ids.

The goal of a fair election system is simply stated: it is that all eligible voters, but only eligible voters, can easily cast a ballot that will be fairly and accurately counted. If we all worked in good faith to achieve this goal, we'd have a much saner and better election system.

But this doesn't really address the question of whether this is "good" policy. For example, the reliance on property taxes for schools has been roundly criticized because of how it creates a lot of inequality.

Look up the Friedman school of economics (Chicago university I believe) or read "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein. Friedman was praised as the damn messiah of 100% free market, and used South America as his testing ground.

He taught the principle as a science rather than a theory, explaining away mass poverty and death as 'a natural symptom of systemic change'. He knew that privatizing entire countries would be met with resistance, but he believed you HAVE to go to the extreme side of open market 100% or it won't work. He propped up dictators during the socialist revolutions (which scared American companies because then we can't control their natural resources). So he advised leaders like Pinochet in 'total shock' tactics. Be brutal, attack villages, create so much chaos day after day that the people become numb to change and don't notice as you privatize everything- schools, hospitals, parks, everything.

As history showed, these never worked. However, he never once admitted the theory was flawed, instead blaming some of the most brutal dictators in South American history for "not going far enough".

This school of thought still exists. I think of this when I see how crazy our news cycle has become. Everyday more "AHHH SCARY THINGS HAPPENED TODAY" (even before trump, news has become stressful as journalists yell at the screen and shout about people being wrong). I wonder if the descendants of that school are running a similar strategy. Beating us down with crises after crises while they make sweeping changes that we're too distracted or 'shell shocked' to notice.

Well for example, after the violence in the Nevada caucus, it would have been the perfect opportunity to say Sander's is violent and go negative on him, right? If they wanted to paint him in a poor light, that would be the place to do it. But in the draft letter addressing it, they wanted to condemn the violence neutrally, even being careful not to mischaracterize Sanders.

>One more suggestion - concerned that the first sentence below could be misinterpreted as the DNC accusing the Sanders campaign deliberately mischaracterizing this.

So its all confirmation bias. Look around and you could find examples of him being treated poorly, perhaps. But you can also see here of them determinedly trying to deescalate conflict.

It would be naive to assume he's actually killing drug dealers. I recommend The Dictator's Handbook before making any assumptions about why a dictator is allowing violence against a group.

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

For example, let's say an earthquake hits your country and affects 100,000 people on the verge of starvation. Let's say 50,000 support you and 50,000 don't. Guess who isn't getting a single dollar of relief regardless of how much money streams in from Western charities.

One of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act was the 80/20 Rule. This required health insurers to spend at least 80% of premiums on health care reimbursements, leaving 20% for administrative overhead and profit and so forth. The law actually required insurance companies to send consumers rebate checks, if they charged too much in premiums.

The intent here was of course to limit the proportion of premiums that would go towards insurance company overhead as opposed to paying for care.

Unfortunately this creates a pretty perverse incentive, where insurance companies no longer have any real incentive to control healthcare costs. Whatever they pay out just gets passed back to consumers in the form of higher premiums, but the more they pay out in claims the more they're allowed to take in overhead.

Paying for a $100 medication for a customer means they can take $20, but paying for a $1000 medication means they can take $200 in overhead. Which one do you think results in an insurance executive getting the fattest bonus?

The 80/20 Rule and it's unintended consequences

Sanctions generally consist of preventing mutually beneficial transactions between people/entities in the sender country and their counterparts in the target. The closer the integration, the greater the potential impact from sanctions. This means that the EU is more or less in the driver seat- they can have the biggest impact, but will also suffer most of the costs.

Since sanctions will hurt both parties, the goal can't just be "hurt the target as much as you can", but rather "hurt the target and minimize how much I hurt myself." Thus is why financial sanctions are popular- western capital markets dwarf those of typical targets, so cutting them off hurts them much more than the senders.

I wouldn't interpret Russia's energy exports strictly as leverage. Yes, Russia supplies natural gas and Europe would certainly have to reduce consumption or dip into their stocks if Russia cut off the tap. (I'm not sure how plentiful these stocks are or which countries have them, just that "Europe" has "more than usual.") The other side is that Russia is more or less built on energy exports. Fuels account for some 2/3 of their exports and revenue from fuels supplies 50% of federal revenue (source). And Russia can't instantly start selling gas to other markets for the same reason Europe can't instantly buy US gas- the LNG infrastructure isn't there (that and the need for a permit on the US side). All in all, I'm not sure which side comes out less hurt if the fossil fuel trade is seriously impacted.

In terms of the prospects of sanctions, what do you think the goal is? I suspect that Crimea is more or less lost. But in terms of preventing further expansion, I think sanctions could very well hold the line.

This is a huge question, and I've devoted an entire book to it, my 2016 book, Plutocrats United (https://www.amazon.com/Plutocrats-United-Campaign-Distortion-Elections/dp/0300223544/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8).

In short, I think we need a majority of Supreme Court justices who will be more willing to accept political equality as a compelling reason to justify more restrictive campaign finance laws, so long as it can be shown that these laws will allow for robust political competition and free expression. In Plutocrats United, I argue for a combined $25,000 contribution/expenditure limit in federal races, coupled with public financing for congressional elections distributed through campaign finance vouchers. Each voter would have money (such as $100) to distribute to candidates, parties, and interest groups in each election. We also need to strengthen disclosure laws and subsidize public interest lobbying.

The likely worst impacts are actually on people making more than 400% of the Federal Poverty level, or people making under 100% of the FPL in states which didn't expand Medicaid, which is where subsidies get cut off.

But if your insurance company goes bankrupt, that impacts all customers equally.

> a collectivist and an individualist

The common theme that runs through those historical anecdotes and these latest questions is a desire to apply labels to people in order to provide a shortcut to both understanding them and associating them/you with a particular group.

It's a natural human tendency. We're tribal, so we seek group identities for ourselves and to help us identify others.

But none of that actually works to promote understanding.

There are more than 7 billion of us on the planet. We're each individual, complex beings with varied histories. The idea that we can all be broken down into such dichotomized views as collectivist or individualist, liberal or conservative, objectivist or subjectivist, or whatever, just doesn't hold water. We're all all of those things to some degree, depending on the topic, the circumstance, our understanding of those terms, and the opposition we're presented with.

It's also unlikely there is much logical consistency within any of us or that we truly understand our thought processes around these issues. We believe what we believe. We can always educate ourselves and change our beliefs if we're open to it, but none of us holds unflinchingly to a school of thought, because we're a constantly mutating bundle of neurons, not machines.

I recommend reading &quot;Thinking, Fast and Slow,&quot; by Kahneman. It's humbling.

So, yes, all thought — not just political thought — is subjective to some degree. In my opinion, in order to determine what is the "best" policy, we should concern ourselves with the goals and outcomes, not the schools of thought we convince ourselves are in support of them. Who we associate ourselves with is not nearly as important as what we accomplish.

That being said, I've often been labeled a pragmatist. :-)

Milton Friedman wrote about this fifty years ago in his book Capitalism and Freedom. He advocated a negative income tax for the bottom 20% to take the place of all welfare support, which worked spout to be the equivalent of $12k or so iirc. This was almost enacted by Nixon in his first congress but fell apart legislatively. A decade or so later, the earned income tax credit offered a smaller form of this.

There was an experiment in my home province of Manitoba in the 70's where for five years the poor in the small town of Dauphin got a guaranteed annual income if they qualified for the experiment. They were given a varying base amount with a varying claw back rate to be able to analyze the effect on their work habits. The only groups that less the labor force en masse were teenagers and mothers. The teens stayed in school longer and hospital visits went down. The program cost more than expected and with a change in the party in power federally along with a recession in the late seventies/early eighties, a new nationwide program along those lines was politically untenable, although the only person representing the Progressive Conservative party that dominated the following decade is the loudest advocate for its implementation.

My main complaint about the US welfare state from an outsider's perspective is that to qualify for food stamps, you need to have less than $2k in liquid assets, which means that if you lose your jon, you won't get help until you have less than 3 months of expenses. Some states include the value of a vehicle into that figure, which makes it difficult to stay mobile for work opportunities.

Also if you are on a low/fixed income, you can't save money by spending less on groceries because the food stamps have to be spent on groceries, and if your savings go above $2k, you lose out on that supplementary income.

According to this schedule those debates occurred on the 11th of February, and 9th of March. The email that is being cited with the quote "can we get someone to ask his belief?" is dated 5th of May, which was after the final debate (19th of April) and forum (25th of April).

We obviously can't rule out the DNC having pushed for any particular debate question, but just based on the timing this email isn't evidence of that.

> Both cost me hundreds out of pocket to see the dr

This is incorrect. All catastrophic plans under the ACA include 3 no-cost primary care vists per year as well as free preventative care.

https://www.healthcare.gov/choose-a-plan/catastrophic-plans/

>Breitbart is a fake news site.

I would take the term to mean propaganda, which I would say certainly applies to Breitbart and was perfectly exemplified by this recent incident with them regarding climate change.

There are definitely left wing propaganda sites, I would say TYT is certainly a good example, commondreams as well. None on the left seem to be quite as prominent as Breitbart though but that could change over the next 4 years. I wouldn't be surprised if some Breitbart equivalent on the left rises up while Trump is in office.

Not nearly big enough to be a bubble.

All cryptos combined are not even worth 1/10th of a billion dollars.

Modern market bubbles of any serious impact need to be valued in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions. Bitcoin could go down to zero overnight and the economy as a whole wouldn't even blink. It's just way too small right now.

That's perhaps good advice, but given the extreme legislation that is likely to come out of this administration, I'm not sure they'll have any room to compromise, nor are they likely to have leverage to bargain with given the Republican majority in both houses. And for my reference, the Republican proposal for killing the parts of the ACA which make it feasible.

Proportional representation would drastically alter the balance of power in the United States in some very interesting ways. The domination of Republican vs. Democrat would end as smaller parties gain traction. Then the small fish learn to work together to eat big fish, etc.

Here's a good set of writings on PR though the author (Professor Douglas J. Amy, Department of Politics, Mount Holyoke College) is definitely a fan and no longer updates the site: PR Library

She was employed by CNN at the time of the March townhall and had a professional duty to CNN not to disclose CNN questions to any candidate or campaign in advance.

“We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor,” Lauren Pratapas, a network spokeswoman, said in a statement.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is probably the best book I've ever read regarding thinking critically and for oneself. It's not a political book per se, but it really does teach you how to analyze someone's argument, ask the right questions, and recognize situations where biases distort the truth.

Well I don't think all "medically necessary" procedures sustain the life of the patient. A lot of them are for improvement in their quality of life. Like a hip replacement. Grandma's not gonna die without a new hip, but she'll be awfully miserable. And I think that makes it medically necessary.

Edit: I'm new to this sub, but it seems that I should include sources. I hope these are sufficient:

"Medically Necessary" is defined as "Health care services or supplies needed to diagnose or treat an illness, injury, condition, disease or its symptoms and that meet accepted standards of medicine."

according to healthcare.gov and medicare.gov

> So for example you would say there was equality in the opportunity to vote for black people in the South during the 50s and 60s ?

No. It was policy to apply various tests in a discriminatory manner.

>Say for example banks not loaning money to women or minorities ?

Unless the disparate outcome is motivated by intent to discriminate, it's not clear that's a problem.

On the surface you might think that we could import the Singapore health system. A few conservative and liberal politicians seem (at least publicly) quite enamored with it. The lack of strong pricing control here in the United States would likely make this idea politically unpalatable. There are also cultural quirks that would make it hard to transition to that system, same could be said for Canadian style healthcare.

Mrs. Kliff explains it better than I do.

www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2017/4/25/15356118/singapore-health-care-system-

The Weeds podcast where the same topic is discussed roundtable style:

https://player.fm/series/voxs-the-weeds/weeds-live

I honestly don't think a college degree would help you in the field of economics. More likely, you'll just end up with the same beliefs as your professors, whether they are left, right, Keynesian, Chicago, Austrian, or whatever. I think Kazmarov's suggestion is a good one to start at the classical roots, and then explore the different branches and make up your own mind. Always be prepared to have ideas challenged whichever direction you take.

When you're ready to explore the more free-market oriented stuff, Economics in One Lesson is often recommended. So much so that they made a video series.

Something that gets missed a lot in this discussion has been the discussion over the "effective rate" of corporate taxes. One side says they're the highest in the world, the other says that when you look at the effective rate they are only the 4th highest in the world, and not anywhere near the 35% top rate.

https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-the-u-s-have-the-highest-corporate-tax-rate-in-the-world

However, this leaves out the context that some industries have an easier time dodging the corporate rate then others. If you are retailer who does his business in the US, or a purely US located company who can't incorporate in Ireland or move all of your IP to a small island off the cost of the UK, then you are absolutely getting hosed by corporate taxes. This source is a little dated (2007-2012), but it breaks it down in such a great and easily digestible way you can really see who the corporate rate hits.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/25/sunday-review/corporate-taxes.html

To name just a few examples, energy companies pay an effective 37% corporate rate, retailers pay 34%, and financials pay 33%. Meanwhile companies that can move offshore are rewarded. IT companies paed 21% rate, with apple and google in paying 14 and 17 percent respectively. In addition, larger companies tend to be on the lower end of taxes, with smaller companies on the higher end (especially in tech and industrials).

The problem is we have a tax system that doesn't treat everyone equally. Some areas have the advantage over other, and we've rewarded offshoring and clever accounting over growth, productivity, and ingenuity. This bill is a big step in the right direction and ends the incentives for a number of loopholes such as corporate inversions. It's a big step in the right direction and is worth passing when taken in its totality.

>they are highly accurate

Have you done any reading on drone warfare? Leaked internal CIA documents have shown that a majority of drone targets have been killing civilians, not intended targets. Between 2012-2013, 90% of all killed were innocent civilians.

Drone warfare, specifically in Yemen is having very negative effects. The terror inflicted on the population is actually contributing to an increase in radicalization due to USA aggression. Ever since drones were introduced in the region Al-Qaeda has seen a massive increase in membership.

I understand where you're coming from, but I also feel it's important to make the arguments regarding the other aspects of why this is a bad idea. Primarily to swing those who value national security supporting these political opinions in the cultural/political debate, people on the fence, and those who are apathetic to privacy rights.

I find it much easier to argue to change a single opinion than to argue to change someone's core values. We'll definitely be better in the long run if we can instill a cultural value for privacy in the people, but this is just the difference between the long game and short game to me. We can't drop short game strategies because losing the short game is a net loss for the long game as new surveillance structures becomes the new norm.

From my college years: Rousseau for On the Social contract, specifically for the quote "man is born free but everywhere he is in chains". John Rawls for theory of justice, Milton Friedman, Aristotle, Keynes for various books and ideas of theirs (politics by aristotle).

From the last several years the most influencial books for me have been Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter and Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow

For what it's worth, I wrote a short paper on this for a History of Engineering course a while back: You can read it here.

Given it was a history course, it's not precisely what you're after, but I do argue the pros and cons to some extent and compare it with the Interstate Highway System. I'm no expert, but I tend to advocate for HSR; it's only that it's unlikely we'll pursue such a large-scale network all at once and instead focus on regional modules. The key with this is that all modules should connect into one another as a whole eventually, be maintainable/upgradable, achieve the ratings necessary for true high-speeds (beyond the Acela), and not be privatized and fragmented.

As another user posted, Amtrak is more or less a private company with a public contract. In the video it's also mentioned that freight almost always takes priority on these lines. If we want HSR, we need dedicated passenger rail networks.

>https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Napoleon_I_of_France#Quotes

>https://books.google.com/books?id=zq8GhdLeK_kC&amp;pg=PA11&amp;lpg=PA11&amp;dq=The+barbarous+custom+of+having+men+beaten+who+are+suspected+of+having+important+secrets+to+reveal+must+be+abolished.+It+has+always+been+recognized+that+this+way+of+inte...

Its a pretty well documented quote.

>Anti-racism is a talking point invented by the right recently

That's not true. Ibram X Kendi released a book on anti racism in 2019, and who knows how long the concept had been making its academic rounds prior to that?

It's still a terrible fault in the logic for Sweden too, they seem to be willing to do it in the name of harm reduction but making one side of a voluntary legal transaction punishable but not the other is a terrible injustice.

> mainstream as huffpo can discuss a media blackout and not see the irony of them making such a claim...

Doubting that it was mainstream I looked up it's traffic stats. I couldn't believe it's the #33 in the US. I didn't realize that many people looked at the site.

I suppose Trump could sue for defamation.

For example, Fox News are being sued by Rod Wheeler over their entirely false new story about the 'murder' of DNC employee Seth Rich.

Fox News ultimately had to retract the story but Rod Wheeler is suing them for falsely attributing quotes to him as part of the story.

http://www.newsweek.com/seth-rich-fox-news-dnc-emails-667695

https://www.npr.org/2017/08/01/540783715/lawsuit-alleges-fox-news-and-trump-supporter-created-fake-news-story

It will be interesting to see whether the courts decide that Fox News deliberately concocted the story (in collusion with The White House, as Wheeler alleges) to deflect attention from Trump's woes, and if so what punishment they mete out.

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith posits that wealth is derived from labor, and not material goods or resources. Resources like gold are relatively finite but labor is not. As a population expands, so too will its economy and collective wealth so long as individuals continue to labor.

But wait a second, if wealth is not finite, but the representation of that wealth is finite like gold, then we're doomed to experience diminishing compensation, also known as deflation. Deflation discourages spending and investment because purchasers can assume to pay less tomorrow, while producers expect to be compensated less in the future. Deflation is conducive to hiding your money in your mattress.

The solution to this problem is to have a tightly-controlled supply of money that grows at roughly the same rate as the economy. If it grows too fast, we suffer inflation. If it grows too slowly, we suffer from deflation. The goal of monetary policy is to follow the middle ground.

As far as sociology as a social science goes, here is a good starting point: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/class_domination.html

For political decision making, see here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Laumann/publication/231871872_Inner_Circles_or_Hollow_Core_Elite_Networks_in_National_Policy_Systems/links/00b49530e95c9d9ba9000000.pdf

If you don't think that's eough, I'll delete the sentence.

The short answer: Yes, very much so. Not only is Apple's stock down over 45% in the last 7 months, but activist investors like David Einhorn are PISSED about it.

The long answer is that when your friendly finance news service reports that Apple is holding $131 Billion in CASH, they are really referring to a line on the balance sheet called Cash, Cash Equivalents, and Marketable Securities. Looking at Apple's 2012 10K Filing, on page 54 we can see a breakdown of what these are exactly. This statement shows a cash balance of $3 Billion and the rest in a variety of short term, highly liquid investments such as U.S. and non-U.S. government securities, money market accounts, mutual funds, and other corporate securities. None of these investments earn a very robust return; for example, corporate securities earned a fair market gain of $568 million on a balance of $46 Billion, a return of 1.22%, which is not even enough to keep up with current inflation of 2% and CERTAINLY nothing compared with Apple's operating profit margin of 33.46% source. So you can understand why people like David Einhorn are very upset, because Apple is just sitting on cash they could use to grow their R&D or manufacturing capacity, or, at the very least, return some of it to the shareholders.

TL; DR When they say cash, they don't actually mean cash.....

I would just piggy-back on this authoritarian thesis and note that militarism and authoritarian states tend to go hand in hand, and that militarism typically rises when what's perceived as civil society has failed (martial law in this case essentially being a state where civil law broken down). That seems to be an apt description of what the "Disaffected" from the OP's article think and feel.

Here's a by no means exhaustive list of important books in classical liberalism:

On Liberty by Mill

Two Treatises of Government by Locke

The Wealth of Nations by Smith

An Essay on the Principle of Population by Malthus

The Open Society and Its Enemies by Popper

Liberalism by von Mises

A Theory of Justice by Rawls

Common Sense by Paine

The Economist is by far the best place for intelligent discussion on current events from a liberal perspective.

If you want books from any other perspective, just ask me -- I'm decently well read on most political philosophies in Western history (to my shame, I haven't read very much of nonwestern philosophers). I gave you classical liberalism books to start because it is probably the most important political philosophy to contemporary mainstream western politics.

I also can give you contemporary books if you want -- I wasn't quite sure what you were looking for.

For overall shaping of my worldview, two books have made a profound impact:

• <em>Thinking, Fast and Slow</em> by Daniel Kahneman, which really should be read by anyone who thinks about anything. It helps us understand why things that seem inherently true or self-evident are often not.

• <em>The Limits of Power</em> by Andrew J. Bacevich. Though rooted strongly in the Bush era, it explains how the US got to where it is with respect to foreign militarism and failing systems of accountability.

Exchange = https://www.healthcare.gov/. Literally just the place that you go to buy insurance from a multitude of insurance companies.

Co-op = Montana Health Co-op http://www.mhc.coop/. Literally just an insurance company.

To use an analogy, say instead of health insurance we are talking about cookies. An exchange would be similar to the grocery store where you can buy cookies from a multitude of cookie manufacturers. A co-op would be a specific cookie manufacturer, like Nabisco. So if the government created 23 new cookie manufacturing companies (co-ops), and only 7 remained, it would be incorrect to say that 7 out of 23 grocery stores (excchanges) were still operating. All of the grocery stores (exchanges) are still operating. They each have cookies being sold by at least one manufacturer (insurance company). Now some of the new government created manufacturers (co-ops) have failed, so there is less selection of cookies at the store, but the store still runs.

> Dodd-Frank has a ratcheting mechanism called the Volcker Rule that could be legally used to separate commercial (i.e., FDIC insured) and investment banking (http://seekingalpha.com/article/2988366-volcker-rule-its-the-new-glass-steagall).

What's the trigger for the Volcker Rule in Dodd-Frank? Why hasn't it been employed already?

That's not really what I meant by, "he has put the US presence in the region into question." I'm saying that he is floating it as an idea. Which leaves the impression that this is on the table as a bargaining chip with both North and South Korea.

The first time he floated it was back in March in a speech about seeking a better trade deal with South Korea.

The second was (I think) a comment he made during the news conference after the Singapore summit. I don't have the will dig it out, but maybe someone else will?

I take it you mean The Political Brain?

If so the reviews seem promising. Plus thankfully Amazon is also my favorite used book store. $4 shipped used books is a steal.

As I mentioned to /u/justgivingsomeadvice, I did a paper on it about 6 years ago, so I'm not sure how much had changed since. I have the papers saved somewhere, its been about 10 full computer reformats since then, and my backup hd is not the most organized thing in the world. But what you found is correct from what I remember. If the brine is washed out into open ocean, the sheer volume would disperse it and there wouldn't be a problem. But since the density is significantly different from the surrounding water, it had a tendency to stay put and drastically increase salinity in pockets around the outflow sites. But the Persian Gulf is also a much different area from the pacific coast in terms of currents and flow. Still, given all the minutia California environmentalists tend to go after, I would think they would have risen a big stink over this.

Edit: Holy shitsnacks, Batman, OP delivers!

Sorry it's just the mediocre paper that I wrote. The articles themselves are buried somewhere deeper.

Also, an incredibly poorly formatted PowerPoint TL;DR.

> people probably tend to vote anti-establishment, or to upend the current system

As many others have done, this is a good parallel to draw to the current presidential contest in the United States. "Non-establishment" candidates like Sanders and Trump have done well because of their definition in opposition to the current political system (a good piece here).

Just one thing here:

The study you linked (I went to Conn College for my post degree work and therefore actually have access) points to people that require average training and some initial investment in order to function in a job are expensive to replace

So yes, your point is true, that in moderate or high skill positions it is often beneficial to a company to raise wage rather then hire a new employee.

No hospital is going to fire it's head doctor over a 10, 20, even $30,000 dispute because of the time required to find a new one.

On the flip side a cook, server, or janitor at McDonalds takes maybe 3 hours of training total- and IS NOT expensive in any way. A dispute over even $1 an hour is going to result in replacing that cook because of an abudance of low skill labor.

I just wanted to point that out because it sounds like you argue corporations (I.E. McDonalds) are not acting in their best interests (I.E. maximizing profit) which is not true, otherwise the value of the company would certainly not have the growth since the 70's it has had.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MCD+Interactive#symbol=mcd;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

I would argue that a health care plan that's mandated to include preventive services, https://www.healthcare.gov/preventive-care-adults/ , is not truly a catastrophic plan.

You misinterpreted my other statements. I know older people are more expensive. For auto insurance, they are generally less expensive, hence the analogy.

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/6528

> Qaddafi's government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver. During late March, 2011 these stocks were moved to SABHA (south west in the direction of the Libyan border with Niger and Chad); taken from the vaults of the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli. This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French.franc (CFA).

> (Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to commit France to the attack on Libya. According to these individuals Sarkozy's plans are driven by the following issues: a. A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production, b.Increase French influence in North Africa, UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05779612 Date: 12/31/2015 c. Improve his intemai political situation in France, d. Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world, e. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi's long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa)

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/25/tv-pundits-praise-hillary-clinton-on-air-fail-to-disclose-financial-ties-to-her-campaign/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/graphic-whos-the-most-popular-candidate-mentioned-on-television/402451/

The media coverage is very much in favor of Clinton. This affects betting markets. If ESPN FSN and Yahoo sports all talked about how the Browns were the best team in football, and they were the team to beat. The markets would move.

> because of the inaffordability

There's the key: Are those people not buying insurance because it's truly inaffordable to them, or because they just don't want to spend the money on insurance? The subsidies and Medicaid expansion should take care of the truly poor. And there are exemptions for those people who are genuinely facing financial hardships.

Who's left? People who don't believe health insurance is a priority. But they'd have no problem with seeking emergency care regardless of their ability to pay for it. They're the people facing the fines.

Just because you don’t pay Twitter to access their site doesn’t mean you don’t have contractual privity with them. You do, as their Terms of Service and Privacy Policies apply automatically to anyone who visits there website. So it’s not really different from a venue that sells tickets - the purchase of tickets creates contractual privity just like visiting Twitter’s website does. The venue could kick you out if you violate their policies (eg, can’t bring guns, can’t get violent, etc) and Twitter could ban you from their platform if you violate their policies (eg, use it for harassment, or spam, or to send viruses to people).

Just because something is free doesn’t mean you haven’t entered into a contract with them. Any exchange of benefits or obligations creates a contract, as only “a mere peppercorn” is needed for consideration to be exchanged.

I'd like to see a source that shows that ISPs are unable to provide expensive infrastructure upgrades for consumers. This source suggests that ISPs spend very, very little money per gigabit delivered. These same ISPs also tend to have monopoly control in the areas they operate in, so there's no competition. If anything, it seems like they're in a great position to make a profit. They would have no reason to upgrade their infrastructure if it weren't for content providers like Netflix offering services that require a lot of bandwidth.

On the surface, it seems understandable that content providers that use lots of bandwidth should pay more. This doesn't actually work though, because without Net Neutrality there aren't rules about what ISPs can and can't throttle. For example, Comcast directly competes with a lot of companies that it supplies the internet to. They can (and have) used their power as an ISP to create unfair advantages in what would otherwise be a free market.

Personally I enjoy NBC news radio on IHeartRadio. Very non-biased and gives straight facts, it is also updated through the day as more things come to light. I have heard a slight spin once a blue moon, but it's very straight program.

https://www.iheart.com/live/6043/?cmp=android_share

Sure. Here's one talking about paladars (within the context of government ownership).

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/19/world/americas/cuba-restaurants-private-owners/

Edit: Actually, this is better: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nationalization

"From 1966-68, the Castro government nationalized all remaining privately owned businesses in Cuba, down to the level of street vendors."

They're only now starting to allow paladars (privately owned restaurants), but they have to be tiny and fit their rules.

Similarly, Google Ngrams shows mentions of feminism in books from 1800 to 2008, and "peak feminism" was reached in 1997.

link

There shouldn't be a minimum wage at all, the reason being that its just working as a price floor that only creates unemployment. Please read this chapter from Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. Read the whole book, if you have the time!

>For the record I've read Atlas Shrugged and I wouldn't consider it politically neutral.

Neither would I. Neither would I consider most of the other suggestions in this thread (On Liberty, Free Culture, The Shock Doctrine...). huff-themagicdragon's politics may not be neutral, but neither are mine and presumably neither are yours. This subreddit makes room for politics which is not neutral, as long as neutrality in analysis and discussion is not lost.

Clear minds, not closed ears.

[Citation needed].

But no. I agree it is predictable without ensuing occupation but there was expectation of aid. It just didn't happen. And as I cited, we were expected to be the worst choice for military occupation afterwards. And of course it's convenient to assert that the British and French, the prime agents alongside Lebanon to push for the intervention, are helpless and would have done nothing without us but I don't know that that is the case. We were the majority of the forces and military strength, but I feel it would be difficult to assert that France and Britain would be helpless to act without us in some form (whether that is a no-fly zone or just carrying out some of the bombings they did anyways).

To OP.

Don't forget gems like this (too many disparate sources and events to list); DuckDuckGo - VA infects patients with HIV

I believe anyone who signs their life away to the US military, should be given a "care card", that is accepted by all hospitals in the US. They walk in, get treated, show their care card, and leave.

The bill is sent to the US government with negotiated rates already widely known by the medical billing departments and the fed.

I disagree with the characterization of the Mandate Tax as a new thing. Because an individual is automatically exempted if they have too little income it's no more a tax on inactivity than any other deduction. I'm not forced to buy a house by the deduction on mortgage interest. I'm paying taxes on the transaction of earning income with a route to a deduction via purchasing insurance. And though you cut off the rest of the justification from the SC decision that's essentially the same judgment they came to, this is an income tax hike with a fancy but ultimately irrelevant marketing name.

>ultimately, they really don't seem that large a percentage of a pharma company's operating cost or expenditure.

How much is a large percentage? How did you arrive at this number?

>Some others have also noted that, despite the common line, drug companies tend to spend more on advertising than R&D.

And? advertising increases sales, and a large share of pharma "advertising" costs consists of giving drugs away for free. It costs money to run a business.

>Does that fraction bear out the argument that drug costs are high because of R&D?

Drug costs are high because developing, producing, and selling drugs is difficult, expensive, and risky. It costs billions of dollars to develop a drug and get it approved, and the vast majority of new drugs fail somewhere along the way.

A good read if you can get it is Adam Winkler's book Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America. The author takes the 2008 Heller case as a jumping off point to discuss the history of guns and gun regulation in America.

It's relatively balanced (read the Amazon 1 star reviews--people both accusing him of writing NRA propaganda and accusing him if wanting to take their guns). And while people will disagree about some of his arguments and historical claims, it's a pretty good primer.

I think The Prince and The Art of War are pretty baseline political texts, if you're after truly foundational stuff. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, too.

The Wealth of Nations might not be a bad call.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, probably.

And actually, it's not a terrible idea just to go to the library or Amazon and get an intro to political science textbook (for like a 1000 level class) and read through it. It should keep things fairly broad and foundational, but give you plenty of leads on other things and original works you might want to seek out and read.

Hurrah for the classics!

If I may add to that:

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics are, like the Republic, a pretty big deal.

Locke's Second Treatise on Government is essential to understanding the modern liberal state.

Augustine's City of God is essential to understanding the worldview that predated and ultimately led to Locke.

Everyone must read at least a few letters from The Federalist Papers, too.

Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine", Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone", and "Modern Times" by Paul Johnson all offer very interesting and different views of society, as well as our economic and social history.

Since I haven't seen it in the top few comments, I will add that both Clinton and Soros are on record saying things that strongly suggest a globalist worldview, that nation-states should not be sovereign but under a super-national authority. I've picked two prominent examples, but they both seem to fit the general pattern exhibited by their respective ideals.

Clinton:

> My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927

Soros:

> To abolish the existence of states is neither feasible nor desirable; but insofar as there are collective interests that transcend state boundaries, the sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions.

The Crisis of Global Capitalism (1998)

World War 1 was less deadly compared to previous wars. The body count was high because there were so many people involved. To put things into better perspective, the Spanish Flu of 1918 killed more people than WW1 did.

> Historically many, many more warriors have died as the result of poor medical care, starvation or exposure than have died at the end of enemy weapons. It has really only been in the last 300 years or so that significant enough advances in medicine have had a drastic effect on the survival of a soldier. Add into this logistical capabilities have evolved better and better ways to get more warriors, food, medicine and supplies to the battle lines.

https://www.quora.com/How-has-mortality-rate-per-battle-changed-throughout-history

The part about self driving cars was regarding trying to block/delay them via spurious needed laws and requirements. That's how it's relevant.

Grinding in video games is a symptom that we don't have enough real work to do so we invent it. Basic Income embraces this notion and allows us to redefine jobs in this era of plenty.

Lemonade stand regulation. Just one symptom, but I've also heard of ice cream startups shut down due to needing an obscure dairy license. Uber is another big case that is constantly butting heads with taxi medallion systems.

That's actually not feasible- first, the POTUS can only pardon federal crimes, not state crimes. See #2. Most crimes, and drug charges in particular, are at the state level.

Here's a pretty good discussion around it, as well. Follow-up question, though- if the POTUS did decide to pardon all people of a certain federal law, would Congress/Supreme court be able to restrict that action? From the second link, discussion makes it sound like the answer is 'no,' instead states would just have to adjust their laws to account for this.

This is a good question. It prompted me to read the history, and honestly, I just don't know. The mandate was practically a de facto Jewish state by the time of the UN partition. It seems likely there was eventually going to be a war for the region no matter what foreign powers did.

EDIT: This seems like a pretty good answer along similar lines.

You don't cite any sources, while some are quite easy to find. Leaving gun control aside,

• the discussion on minimum wage: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/business/economy/national-minimum-wage-.html - it's mostly about how high the minimum wage should be.

• some discussion on partial birth abortion: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441276/hillary-clinton-partial-birth-abortion-defending-indefensible major push back on Hillary's support for partial birth abortion during the debates

It does seem that the goal posts have moved significantly and that the voter has tried to course correct.

Let's say you work for one of these insurance companies, and they want to see growth year-over-year. As you pointed out the ACA limits their share of total revenue to 20% for administrative and marketing costs. If you can only have a certain percentage of the pie, what are you going to do? The answer is obvious: you bake a bigger pie. I like this portion of the law, but it is a quality-of-service provision not a cost-control provision.

It's still much much cheaper to not have insurance for me and my family than it is to have it. The fee, which is listed here, is $2085 as a per person count or 2.5% of your income. For a family making $100k/year, that puts you at $2,500 for a fee. It takes me about 3-4 months to pay that in premiums.

I do have insurance, but looking at just the cost, premiums are stupid expensive and I can understand why healthy people would rather eat the fee.

No, I'm not neutral. I'm posting now as a commentor - I tried to keep my worst criticisms out of my original post. Is there a rule that the things we discuss in neutral politics can only be from people who don't have an opinion? In that case, I should shut up and let other people carry it from here.

Here's the google scholar search I"m looking at on efficacy - sorting through articles now. Clearly there are many studies on AA efficacy.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=alcoholics+anonymous&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=0%2C48&amp;as_ylo=2000&amp;as_yhi=2013

I don't get the complaining about foul play with redistricting. The Constitution allows states to make their own districting and election laws. Mind you that all of these articles are not showing images of what the Congressional districts actually look like, as if they would all look like this.

Instead all I saw are "Obama won the popular vote but the Republicans kept the House! How is that fair?" Well, because they are two completely different elections with two different systems. Congratulations, you have figured out that democracy is manipulable based on how you measure people's preferences. This is why state elections matter. The only standard by which the Republicans are gerrymandering that I've heard thus far is that the outcome of the presidential election necessarily needs to be mirrored by the outcome of House elections.

The Supreme Court already approved of these redistricting efforts, albeit in a close vote. But then you have websites like ThinkProgress claiming that its all part of the vast right wing conspiracy in all branches of government to undermine Democracy. As if conservatives have some clinical illness that makes them lust for power more than others.

Thanks for the clear take on things here.. I was curious so did some digging.. Looks like there is indeed a correlation, 79% of states that did not expand medicaid are stuck offering the majority of their counties 2 or less carriers to choose from. Only 4 have more than 2 carriers available for most of their counties, the exceptions being Idaho, Maine, Nebraska, Virginia. Of course these things are multifaceted and so this cant explain the whole story since there are quite a few states that have 2 or less that DID expand (VT, CT, RI, W VA, NJ, KY, LA, IA, MI, NV, AK, HI). In fact, expansion seemed to only work for 61% of the states that opted for it (19 of 31 have over 2 carriers to choose from). Not a GREAT success rate? Feel free to check my math here and here

tl;dr-- 61% of states that expanded medicare have more than 2 carrier options, 79% of states that did not expand are stuck with 2 or less.

EDIT- tl;dr was wrong

Barney Frank, one of the architects of the law, gave an interview on Saturday where he stated that the relevant section of the Dodd-Frank bill was specifically intended to supersede the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

>Anyone who has been watching web technology over the past few years has seen the studies that come out occasionally where specific people are able to be identified in data without "identifiable information".

Absolutely. That reminds me of AOL's decision some years ago to release 650,000 users' search data:

>...While the AOL username has been changed to a random ID number, the abilitiy to analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine who the user is, and what they are up to...

In that case, user No. 4417749's data was traceable to a specific woman in Georgia.

We'd like to think that "anonymized" data is just that, and is unable to pinpoint us amongst the masses; but the articles above show that information classified as 'non-identifiable' can still lead to us, given there are enough dots to connect.

I took the insurers claims estimates provided and divided by 2, which is an often used rule-of-thumb given by adjusters for non-insured losses.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/superstorm-sandy-victims-hit-uninsured-105534618.html - from WSJ also, about the same numbers.

The thing is, you could put any number in there, from $0 (because people will fix things on their own and Sandy isn't actually on fire right now), to $500B+, because we need to upgrade our infrastructure to meet the needs of tomorrow, and the only way to do that is with a new super-megarail and fusion reactors to power everyrthing.

>My deductible is 15,000 for each of us before insurance will pay anything.

Is that not higher than the yearly max out of pocket of $6,850 for an individual plan and $13,700 for a family plan?

>Also right when I graduated from college I didn't have insurance for three months (in undergrad, I relied on my school insurance because we had an on campus clinic that covered everything for free) while I was waiting for the enrollment period to kick in for my parent's insurance, and I was pretty ticked off when I still had to pay a fine despite having no income.

Was this pre-ACA? If not, loss of coverage (including student plans) is qualifying life change which should make you eligible for for a special enrollment period outside of the normal open enrollment period.

A co-op isn't quite the same thing as the public option. A co-op is:

>A non-profit organization in which the same people who own the company are insured by the company. Cooperatives can be formed at a national, state, or local level and can include doctors, hospitals, and businesses as member-owners. Co-ops will offer insurance through the Marketplace.

So a co-op is community owned and run, not necessarily government owned, which the public option was.

This is what i was going off of, but i didn't read it carfully enough; if you are using the standard deduction you can't, i'm not sure how many people take the standard deduction though.

We're all right, and i'm kinda wrong.

Here is a better source that explains it more clearly:

https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/dental-coverage/

>Dental coverage for children is an essential health benefit. This means if you’re getting health coverage for someone 18 or younger, dental coverage must be available for your child as part of a health plan or as a stand-alone plan. Note: While dental coverage for children must be available to you, you don’t have to buy it.

>Irrelevant to this point about requiring unnecessary coverage.

It isn't though, as prior to obamacare, for many people, the only option was paying for unnecessary coverage through your employer or having no insurance at all. There are more options these days as now a person can pick from varying levels of insurance as opposed to being forced to accept what their employer provides. I wouldn't call this a failure of obamacare as much as it's a failure of the insurance industry.

Interesting! I personally haven’t heard that take. I’m at a concert so I’d like to think about this some and maybe respond again.

But I am absolutely not trying to provide evidence that Mueller can indict, although thinking through what I’ve said before maybe I wasn’t clear on that. Were Mueller to indict, it would be challenged in court immediately, it would go to the Supreme Court, and we’d probably get a 5-4 in favor of the president.

If that happened, I don’t know? On the face of it, why wouldn’t they also try to disbar him. Seems like you just presented a case for it.

That’s why the popular speculation is that Mueller would simply recommend charges in his report to the DOJ. I believe that report could be made classified, in which case we would theoretically never even know what Mueller thinks. But it would probably be given to Congress publicly so that they could deliberate impeachment.

At any rate, if Trump gets recommended charges or indicted directly, I don’t think obstruction will be the main crime - it will almost certainly be financial crimes, which will be a lot more persuasive (podcast here). . But then again that depends on the scope that Mueller might consider that he has in the probe.

> Honestly, we don't have the ability to switch to a different OS. Microsoft dictates their prices to customers.

That's flatly false. There are plenty of free operating systems.

>Companies like Comcast that force municipal monopolies

Link for that, please.

The average male is stronger than 99.9% of all average females. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247233659_Costs_and_benefits_of_fat-free_mass_in_men_Relationship_to_mating_success_dietary_requirements_and_native_immunity

With no tax increases, both the wikipedia links and charles murray come up with 10k/year for US, and $8k/year for canada. This would cause some people to lose total potential benefits from current system.

this calculator uses a 30% flat tax on personal and corporate income to afford 15k UBI. It assumes that any existing government benefits stay, but that UBI would be deducted from them. So no one would initially risk a lower support cheque.

The main point is that with tax increases, UBI of relatively comfortable level is affordable.

The main reason that UBI is the only hope for an anti poverty program is that it is not conditional upon people staying poor. In the US, EITC, ACA, and other programs provide significant disincentives to earning above a poverty threshold.

I think a lot of people go wrong with Chicago School and Austrian School economics (I'm a libertarian, btw) in asserting "trickle-down" philosophy. This happens for some VERY specific reasons unique to the United States.

Because we own the world's reserve currency, our government's debt is tremendously over-valued. Coupled with a central bank that has the power to print money at will, this is a recipe for conflict with rational monetary policy and classical economics.

• In less-regulated markets, capital flows to where it will achieve (or has the potential to achieve) the best return on investment. In the case of our current crisis, the Federal Reserve can print all of the money that it wants and very little of it will be lent to borrowers. As was the case until Europe started getting crazy this year (April), specific commodities like oil had great potential for return, and so their price rose.

Not entirely sure if you will understand this but:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/356911-quantifying-the-diminishing-impact-of-qe-on-stocks

QE or Stimulus will both have the same effect, a quick hit of liquidity before it all ends up commodity markets.

Engage in policies that stabilize, mutually grow wealth with and encourage economic development in our South and Central American neighbors. The United States has a long history of imposing highly damaging trade policies and destructive governments on latin america. Abandoning the drug war that funnels weapons and cash to cartel terrorists would be a tangible first step. People flee their homeland to escape economic destitution, political repression, violence and chaos.

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/harvest_of_empire

We have no way of knowing who is funding politifactbias.com - it is hidden by "Perfect Privacy LLC". Unlike politifact.com - which is run by the Tampa Bay Times (and uses both left and right leaning people to report).

Whenever I see people recommend things like "The Prince", "The Art of War", etc. as must read books I always wonder if they've actually read them themselves or if they just think that's the kind of thing you're supposed to recommend.