The Glade 4.0

26% in less than a year is pretty good gains, considering China had statutorily fixed in exchange rates to the Dollar and Euro until October 2010. They also continue to re-peg the Yuan if it fluctuates too much in a given importer's direction, because China wants to keep their exports cheap. Argentina did the same thing after their major recession during the early part of the 2000-2009 period: they said 1 Argentinian Dollar was worth 1 U.S. Dollar.

That said, the Canadian Dollar, HK Dollar, Australia Dollar, and Euro all continue to make gains against the U.S. Dollar as a general rule. Currency trends have had the U.S. Dollar declining in value in world markets since mid-2007. Indeed, we're about to go on a full 12 months of the Canadian dollar being equal to or greater than the U.S. Dollar.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_yu ... _US_dollar

happy reading.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Didn't you just decry Wikipedia?

A 20-25% decline over years doesn't indicate imminent collapse to me.

didn't you just say it's a reliable source?

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

There are just so many things wrong with that worldview that I don't even know where to begin. How can a sane and humane person think other people starving in the streets and being nibbled by rats would constitute an improvement of society? How sheltered must one's life be to look at contemporary America and think the injustices are too great to suffer? And how narrow and impoverished must one's view of liberty be to think there was more of it in the years when our country was literally enslaving millions of people, when women had virtually no independent political rights, when the government was actively practicing ethnic cleansing with regard to the native population, etc., etc.?

/headshake Honestly, Elm, there are times I just can't even begin to identify with your moral compass.

RangerDave:

I honestly don't think you understand the concept of liberty or freedom. How is that you rationalize obligating my life's work to your sense of morality an act of freedom?

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Didn't say it was, Khross.

Yet, you do all the time; indeed, you did in your very post questioning Elmo's moral compass. Why should my wealth be obligated toward someone else's survival? How does one even measure the net-freedom gained by the impositions placed on me through our government system?

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Your wealth (as I understand how you got it, i.e. the stock market) wouldn't have been possible without the society that you don't want to support.

This isn't 200 years ago where death was cheap. During the Revolutionary War the amount of deaths due to combat were an order of magnitude less than the "normal" deaths to disease. Families today have two kids if that, not six to eight. Not only would a conflict today have most of the deaths resulting from the actual violence, but the collapse of society would bring back rampant disease, famine, etc. How many people do you want to feed to the meat-grinder to bring back "liberty?"

Not to mention, modern technology has made the whole world much smaller. You can't have "liberty" like you had in the 1800s simply because of this. During that time any government official knew that if he grabbed too much power, his subjects could simply leave for the frontier. Today, that avenue doesn't exist. The massive increase in population coupled with modern technology also makes it much easier for the "have-nots" to form up, kill you, and take everything you have. You want to hold on to every cent of your "wealth" even if it means millions dying? Tough luck, those millions will kill you and take everything before that happens.

Because without society you wouldn't make any money or get any work done. They help you, you help them.

Elmo is going to end up a real life Karl Stromberg or Hugo Drax.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Interesting.

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That's a curious false dilemma: either I accept the existing tax code as-is, or I do not want to support society. It seems to me that you have very little understanding of my position on taxation. So, since you missed it the last time ...

1. No property taxes of any kind by any part of government. None.

2. No income taxes of any kind by any part of government. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

3. A 14.5% Federal Sales Tax that applies to all transactions, including initial but not subsequent stock sales.

4. An upper limit on State Sales Taxes as determined by the population of the states.

5. No Federal Entitlement or Insurance Programs.

6. No Payroll Taxes on the Federal Level. States can do this if they choose.

7. No unconstitutional spending or expansive commerce clause policy.

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In a civilised society everyone has access to healthcare, heating, housing, Internet, etc. Nobody is starving in the streets. Everyone is guaranteed safe, no exceptions. You don't need to agree with me but that's how I want things to be.

So will the end of the world.

OMG the end is nigh! We're all going to die in the streets! I can't pay my phone bill!

Your ability to accumulate that wealth was dependent on an intricate web of factors, both past and present, that have nothing whatsoever to do with your personal efforts. You can't stand on the shoulders of giants, as it were, and claim the view is your own achievement. Consequently, a portion of your wealth is owed in payment for the benefits derived from the society in which you live. The exact percentage is impossible to quantify, of course, and the method of collection can be debated, but that's the basic principle in my view. In addition, I believe a democratic system (whether direct or representative) coupled with a right to "opt out" by leaving the country, goes a long way toward making those impositions you complain of voluntary. If you agree to put something to a vote, you can't claim your freedom has been abridged when the result of that vote isn't to your liking.

Beyond all that, though, I believe that justice and liberty are human concepts whose value lies in their capacity to improve the quality of human existence. To claim, as Elmo did, that justice is served by having rats gnaw on the starving bodies of public officials who (he believes) exceeded the proper bounds of their authority, or to argue, as you do, that liberty is enhanced by leaving millions to die rather than imposing obligations on the wealthy, is to elevate an abstraction so far above the needs of those who conceived it that it ceases to serve the purpose for which it was created in the first place.

If you lived by yourself in the woods for a lifetime, what could you make? A really cool tree fort and some spears?

Compare that to a large house with heating, Internet, computers, tv, showers, cars, other people to interact with, advanced health care, and so on. Obviously society helped you out disproportionally so it's not wrong for them to take most of your money through taxes.

In other words, you strongly agree with the statement: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." How much of your salary, beyond current taxation, do you redistribute willingly and actively to those less fortunate than yourself? Since you obviously are incapable of earning anything with your own labor, it seems to me that you should own nothing and save nothing. That is, in point of fact, the logical conclusion of the argument you're making.You cannot easily "opt out" of being a U.S. Citizen and expatriating anymore. I'd love to do so, but all sorts of Federal regulations make that horrendously difficult and impractical. More to the point, I didn't sign up to live in a Democracy. Democracy's are societies where the poor punish the rich for being better are surviving than they are. I signed up for a Republic and got a socialist oligarchy instead.The people who created this nation were of a social strata well beyond yours or mine. They were rich, educated, landed gentry. And, quite honestly, they believed in serfs and slaves as history demonstrates. That said, yes, death by repeated failure is a key aspect of freedom. People must be free to **** up as much as they are free to succeed.

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Society hasn't helped me disproportionately, but you can go off into agreeing with the Poster Who Shall Not Be Named, all you want ...

Americans have a delusional understanding of the words society and culture these days. They also have little to no understanding of basic economics, as demonstrated by the repeated insistence of certain parties that everyone else is entitled to the wealth of the wealthy.

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There are so many people who don't contribute to society, so many companies that have no product but have people flocking to them and investing their retirement accounts, so many people claiming the end of the world from religious, ecological and economic perspectives, it's not even funny.

I recall talking to my kid once about his grades. A 100% is great, job well done, but a 0% takes a hole out of his GPA that can't be filled. We've got a bunch of 0's in our society - people running around amounting to nothing, companies without products (like, WTF is Twitter or Facebook?), folks wanting to take from the rich and give to the poor 'cause it'll get them elected, etc, and I'd not be surprised if the US doesn't ever recover and being the pinnacle of the world again. They're pulling our collective GPA down and taking us with them.

But, that's OK. People that work hard and keep their eye on the brass ring will still come out better than they came in. China will lead the world economy, but that's no biggie, no different than Europe and China having taken a back seat to the US for the last century or so. It'll give the US something to shot for, may be we won't be self-loathing losers next go-round.

'Course, there will be folks that fear change, getting themselves all worked up about **** they can't do anything about. I suggest seeing a pharmacologist. There's some good stuff that'll take care of that paranoia and put a smile on your face to boot.

Medicade will probably cover it.

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In time, this too shall pass.