shit_parade

Putin is no hero, but Russia's response to a USA sponsered coup of a Democratic Ukraine is hardly surprising. God-honest Nazis run Ukraine, i'm not joking, NEO-NAZIs, that is the sort of people US policy planners are willing to support in their idiotic attempts to create failed state on the border of Russia. What do you think US response would be if China or Russia or Iran tried that same bullshit in Mexico?

>3. ISIS are not the result of the Iraq war

So killing hundreds of thousands of civilians had no effect whatsoever in allowing extremism and hatred of the US to thrive? How about our arming of the Syrian rebels, do you also believe our policy of handing out weapons like they're candy did nothing in assisting warmongers to engage in war?

I'm baffled by the naivete of your world view.

While another realist would point out that being caught spying on our fellow allies has seriously damaged our relations with them.

Free speech zones, excessive pursuit of whistle blowers, proposed restrictions on cryptography, extensive use of national security letters, resisting FOIA requests, defending NSA programs, killing US citizens in secret.

I'm flabbergasted you believe my fears of government overreach and suppression of dissent is not well grounded.

The problem is implementation, do you really trust the US government to give it even more power over its people by allowing to hand out 'basic incomes' to everyone? I'm sure it will only become yet another tool to oppress dissent.

A better answer is removing expensive barriers of entry to allow small businesses to compete with larger companies, removing artificial boundaries to allow labor to go where it is most needed just as capital is allowed the same today, and _reducing taxes_ allowing the middle class to thrive once more instead of giving special privileges to the wealthy and buying off the poor with free debt.

I assume law enforcement will be largely exempt from these rules, the US military certainly will be.

Extensive gerrymandering, equating money with free speech, and the two party system has made voting a waste of time in the US.

Sure thing citizen, strong privacy regulations will be written into the secret laws and looked over in secret by a secret judge appointed to a secret court, we're the government elected in democratic fashion so you know you can trust us.

And the US continues on its way to corporatism and corporate fascism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Fascist_corporatis...

Thanks for the argument from authority, it is really adding to this discussion.

Another way to think about debt is that central banks are currently purchasing more global sovereign debt than is being issued[1] resulting in negative yields for many bonds. It is hard to fully articulate how perverse this is, but governments are issuing debts and then purchasing them through their supposedly independent central banks and these central banks are paying these governments for the honor of buying their debt -- world governments are paying themselves to take on debts, someone please tell me how anything resembling a market and price realization can occur under these circumstances, this is essentially central planning and is resulting in gross misallocation of wealth throughout the entire developed world.

[1]:http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-09/stunning-chart-day-...

They could of also gone for jury nullification.

> rather than the fact that he went to Yemen and took up arms against the United States while inciting violence against the country.

It is difficult to call it a fact since there was no trial, no due process, nor evidence cited by US government in the killing of its citizen. Perhaps there was secret evidence presented in secret to a secret court, but that's rather grim consolation.

Also the concept of law should absolutely insert itself into matters of foreign military matters. WWI and WWII were both horror shows, Western civilization rightly decided to do their best not to repeat the worst of the atrocities committed therein. You seem all to eager to return to a world where Western governments kill millions without consequence.

Don't worry about it, because you too can go volunteer for the Whitehouse and make America a better place one tech at a time.

>So, let me be frank: Greece's debt is currently unsustainable and will never be serviced, especially while Greece is being subjected to continuous fiscal waterboarding.

Despite the rhetoric this is the problem of not just Greece but many other developed governments, notably Japan. Central banks have been goosing the time value of money in an effort to spur 'growth' because if an entity can become richer faster than their debt will grow then it's a win-win situation.

Insider trading laws also practically do not apply to members of congress -- prior to 2013 congress was exempt to insider trading restrictions and they have since scaled back reporting requirements. As a class, congress magically out performs the market every year, yet I don't know of any instances a sitting member of congress being charged with any insider trading charges.

It's a beautiful idea but the problem is implementation.

The government of most countries is already a powerful and corrupting force, giving it even the additional power and discretion to 'hand out' a basic income is terrifying to consider.

>The entity that’s conducting the most extreme and far-reaching surveillance against most of the world’s communications—the National Security Agency—is bound by United States law.

This seems clearly wrong -- when people like clapper can essentially lie under oath to congress and not suffer any legal consequences it is rather dubious to claim the NSA is bound by US law. There are increasingly 'secret' courts, 'secret' laws, 'secret' budgets, 'secret' legal memos, etc etc, why would you begin your game plan with stating something so clearly incorrect. The reason we know much about what is happening is because of whistle blowers, and much of these people are either in hiding, on the run, dead, or being jailed by the US government. The eff is out of touch with reality if they truly believe the NSA is beholden to the law instead of those controlling and using it as they see fit.

The US government's system of justice seems increasingly opaque, arbitrary, and solely for the purpose of maintaining the status quo and those already in power.

Meanwhile, much worse crimes by those in power such as torture go unpunished.

Credit card fraud results in billions of dollars in losses every year, this is a problem bitcoin will very likely solve at a fraction of the cost.

This issue is being addressed via invertible bloom lookup tables.

https://gist.github.com/gavinandresen/e20c3b5a1d4b97f79ac2

Your comment contributes practically nothing, insider trading exists in every market, bitcoin is no different in that regard.

Because the libor scandal, gold fixing, and central bank puts don't happen in the real market? US congress can even legally get away with inside trading, having laws against it really only allows those in power to punish those without it.

exchanges like bitfinex allow shorting.

Funny how officers deem their lives worth more than the lives they take or families they destroy with no accountability.

Absolutely, freedom must include the right to dissent or disagree.

Japan is moving towards the 'kite' formation common to aging populations which throughout history resembled more of a pyramid, and more often today look like a cylinder. The simple solution would be immigration which will occur eventually whether or not the politicians and people of Japan want it. It would be better to do it now and slower then later on and with larger groups because acclimating foreigners to Japanese society will be more difficult if large enough populations of immigrants can come in to form their own communities. Perhaps that would be best, who knows, but the Japanese would probably prefer more aggressively allowing Koreans and Chinese in small amounts today then large waves in 30 years when they desperately need the additional labor, or allow their country to become internationally irrelevant.

Isn't this exactly what twitter is for?

plastic bag and tin foil worked for me.