Why do you use envelopes for snail mail? Do you have something to hide? I think you should be investigated unless you put your letter in a clear ziploc bag with a stamp on it.

Unlikely. People that are good at implementing solutions are not always the same people that are good at envisioning them. My experience is that techies are the worst people to have at a brainstorming session. When an idea is floated, instead of expanding on it, they start nitpicking the technical details. Example: The people on the plane came up with some interesting and provocative ideas, and nearly every comment here is "This won't work because ...."

But they did not come up with interesting nor provocative ideas. "Education is good"--wow, that's provocative. They came up with boring, politically correct, half-ideas that won't be implemented because no participant can or needs to (they're already rich and successful). In reality, what happened was: Silicon Valley's self-professed "elite" got onto a plane and pitched half-baked "ideas" at each other for hours and saying STEM a lot. By "elite" we mean "people who substitute money for brains and talk for ability". Basically venture capitalists, CEOs, and "founders" taking a few hours to brainstorm ridiculous ideas, unburdened from actually having to fund or build any of it.

Your housing expense should be about 28% of your salary, which at $100K is a monthly rent of $2333. It is do-able if you're single, but not if you have a family and kids. Forget buying a house and settling down though, a decent house in a safe neighborhood with decent schools is going to run you over $500K.

I don't know where you live, but where I live, making as little as $70K means you're eating ramen noodles and need to find a few roommates to afford rent. Forget starting a family.

Using a single income figure as a cutoff is kind of pointless. With $100K you can live like a king in Middle Of Nowhere, USA. With $100K in San Francisco or New York City you'll barely be able to afford rent.

A lot of tough talk, but what can everyday Americans do to change their government?

Join a militia to do some group violence? Hear that--that's a drone coming, you've got about 10 seconds...

Go solo against the government? Enjoy your one-way ticket to a secret prison somewhere.

Civil disobedience? How does spending the rest of your life in prison sound?

March in protest? Worked in the 60s, not anymore, unless you like a mouthful of pepper spray and a tear gas canister shot into your skull.

Vote? LOL

LOL I've seen the "resign then offer to contract" stunt work maybe once, for one guy, during my 15 year career. Try it, and more than likely you'll get a response from the boss: "Well..... bye."

LOL I'd love to hear that conversation actually happen. Beautiful.

I work at a place with that attitude. "You changed the copyright string from 2012 to 2013 and re-compiled. MUST RUN FULL WEEK-LONG TEST PLAN AGAIN BECAUSE ANYTHING COULD HAVE BROKE!"

Notice how all the commercials now are very careful to say "Em Pee Gee" instead of "miles per gallon". There is a reason for it. "MPG" can mean anything a lawyer can weasel his way into explaining. "Miles per gallon" is a specific measurement that customers could hold car manufactures to.

I highly doubt you pay 60% of your income on taxes. Please post how you came to that figure, then we'll all school you on the meanings of marginal tax rate and effective tax rate.

When you work in a high cost-of-living area like Silicon Valley, you don't really have much choice about your commute. Anywhere affordable to mere mortals is 1-3 hours away.

...and don't get sick or injured to the point where you'd have to use your nonexistent health insurance.

If you need to work more than 40 hours a week to meet your commitments, that's definitely not over-achievement. You're taking 80 hours to do 40 hours of work.

If that's true, then it's exceedingly difficult to find average-or-better programmers.