This should read, 100's of thousands of federal workers, got an extra 16 day paid vacation this year.

Hardly what I would call "bearing the economic brunt" of anything.

It cost 24 billion dollars? Based on.. any number of imaginary things they want to show it cost them right? We must keep spending money we don't have, and we must keep increasing the amount of debt we have or we are all going to die right?

I mean to say, we have to spend this for the Children, and the children just lost 24Billion dollars! If you deny their right to spend, you are a "conspiracy theorist" to boot, so shaddup!

While you and I may not want to live in such a society there are those who would like nothing better. Many of them fancy themselves as the enforcers in such a regime, a chance to be a master instead of one of the many slaves. For people who live to control others every unjust law that makes life unbearable for the rest is yet another opportunity for them to exert their authority and feel that blissful, euphoric sense of power that is for them the ultimate drug.

I beg to differ, obesity is a much bigger risk than cancer.

Perhaps the problem is people like you? Instagram is for the masses, medical industry interop tools are not. It's all about size of the potential customer base to collect valuable data to sell. It has nothing to do with whether the programs have any 'use' but whether the programs can attract users as data points. Ever hear of a venture capitalist looking to make the world a better place instead of making money?

I'm pretty sure people are employed to loudly name-drop companies in conversation at various Starbucks in Silicon Valley.

Very few software developers actually sell software. Most software developers are paid to build custom software used by the same company that they are employed by or by some other company under contract.

I have never met a competent developer who had trouble finding work.

I HAVE met incompetent out-of-touch, burnt-out, full-of-themselves developers who can't find work. It's this second kind that think they're good but are not and who should be in another field.

We don't need or want more lawyers or politicians. We want more scientists and engineers. It probably holds my salary down in the short-term, but it keeps the US competitive and makes my relatively high salary more sustainable in the long term. $60k right out of school is a very comfortable wage.