Agreed. We've paid off everything every month for well over a decade, pushing two. They love us. The reason is -- they get money from the merchants just for us using the cards. (The original business model of the cards, long before exorbitant interest rates and penalties.)

They especially love us when we run large items through a card and pay them off.

Considering most good cash back or points cards give roughly 3% of the value of the purchase back to the card holder, that would indicate to me that the merchant is paying at *least* 5% and the card company is keeping 2% or so.

The very nature of the transaction being against small business, whenever we do business with a small business or friends, we pay them in cash. No point in them eating 5%+ of the sale so I can have 3% of it as a cash-back award, and the card company can have 2%. But large businesses that make it easier to pay them with a card than pay them cash? They can eat it... even though we know they simply pass it back to us as a higher price tag.

Too bad SCOTUS has decided time and time again that no government personnel are responsible for your safety, ever. If you want protection, hire it or vote it in. You have no expectation of protection in the U.S. Zero.

Do you think they don't invest in things? Just because they aren't hyper-extroverted narcissists who have a pressing need to hold press conferences, doesn't mean they aren't funding or supporting "cool" things. Or even "uncool" things that you need more than you want...

Henry Ford created the modern debt-driven consumer. He didn't pay well enough to buy a car, he offered FINANCING to buy the car.

Yeah... that'd all be great if it were true... but the recent OpenSSL fiasco(s) show that there's significant non-variety in core things (because code-reuse is a good idea on things like crypto, maybe...) but those core things are continually and sometimes dramatically and fatally broken.

The crud layers on top of the core things don't add value when the core is broken.

That's what Boston Children's wants... if she dies before the Courts decide to let her out, there's no witnesses.

It's fun to watch you behave like a child, but seriously... Adult conversation would be much more intelligent.

Yelling "la la la, I can't hear you" is precious, but really not up to the level necessary to straighten out Federal Government overreach and over-spending, without requirement that they even have a budget...

If you just vote to print money... and use it to arm Agencies who have no need of weapons, special assault vehicles, blah blah... and then act like you need more tax money from people to do it, when you've over-spent so badly you're just barely paying the interest on the credit card...

It's time to force FedGov to live within their means. This event wouldn't have even occurred (nor anyone cared about it) if they couldn't fund an army of BLM people via debt.

Enjoy the Oligarchy if you like that sort of thing.

I'm more interested in what vested interest you have in this whole thing? Seem pretty riled up for a $330,000 bill.

200 armed agents to collect? And now evidence that they just shot cattle multiple times just to play hut-hut with their guns?

Let's see... myth about Sharpton? It's public record that he's roughly $3.5M behind on taxes. That's not really debatable. Federal employees? Owe over $3B in back taxes. That's also not debatable.

So the idea that folks are all uppity about "the rule of law" is just silly. If they were, they'd have been demanding 200 armed agents go get all that money, and billions more, owed.

Thousands, if not tens of thousands of businesses "ignore court orders" every day. Whoop dee doo. We don't send people armed with automatic weapons to collect. We garnish wages, seize assets in bank accounts, etc.

I see only one group out of control here. BLM. No need to have armed BLM agents, period... and definitely no need to defend them online. Out of control pretend "law enforcement". They can call the Sheriff and let the locals deal with it. Allowing some bureaucrat to call up an Army with no checks-and-balances in the voting booth, is not only ridiculous, it's dangerous.

You weaken your replies by ranting. Try adult conversation.

What do wing nut freedom blogs have to do with the facts of the case? Mr. Bundy, family, and staff forbade the carrying of firearms by the people on his property.

Eric Parker wants to lay on a public bridge on a public road and aim weapons at people, he should probably be arrested. He had nothing to do with Mr. Bundy's situation other than a misguided attempt to "help". He should not have been there, and he should not have taken up arms.

Please show evidence he was asked to be on that road by anyone actually involved in this measly $300,000 civil case. (Yes, $300,000. The $1M number bandied about by the "rule of law" whiners, is after exorbitant "penalties" that any business would make disappear upon settlement with a good lawyer.)

We have hundreds if not thousands of tax dodgers who owe far more than Mr. Bundy. Al Sharpton, comes to mind. $3.5M. He gets the highest "law enforcement" appointee (who illegally ran guns to murderers in Mexico by forcing law-abiding gun stores to sell them, I might add... great law enforcement there...) to speak at his conventions.

Can you find an IRS Top Ten Most Wanted list? I can't. Probably has something to do with who's on it, and which politicians they pay off. FBI Top Ten Most Wanted, no problem. IRS? Nope.

If you're so concerned about Mr. Bundy's back taxes, perhaps you should get an army to surround Al Sharpton's house with 200 rifle-carrying soldiers.

The "BLM Action" currently has an estimated cost of $2M to the U.S. taxpayer. Let's see... if I were asked if I wanted $2M spent to bother a rancher in the Nevada desert for a $330K bill... nope. Not worth it.

Someone else wants that land, and someone at BLM ordered up an Army. Interesting how we haven't heard who that was yet, isn't it? Who at BLM has the authority to assemble a standing army? I'd like to know.

Such veracity. Didn't you claim that Mr. Bundy had none? Pot. Kettle. Black. I see.

I don't care who's egging it on. I've been listening to only interviews with the man and his family, themselves.

Those turning it into a 2A issue, are nut bags on both sides. Including you.

If anything it was a 1A issue... "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

And possibly a 3A issue... "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

What "Hannity" or any other idiot turns it into is none of my concern as a Citizen. What is my concern as a Citizen is, is whether or not I find it appropriate for Federal armies to steal private property and show up in military dress and fully armed as a military to do so.

Since we're an Oligarchy and headed worse in that direction, my answer is no.

If you believe that, and I don't...

We as a People don't send 200 armed agents to collect $300K bills. Nor do I have any interest in funding such.

Staged. Bundy and family banned carrying of weapons on their land and made folks disarm. The photo from the bridge is a single photo, no one can find any attribution for it, nor Copyright notice (interesting, considering all of the outlets that are using it, they apparently don't have permission of the photographer under the law), and hell... it's the world of Photoshop. The *key* photo for all the whiny media outlets seems to have appeared from nowhere with no attribution.

Which even if true, means it's inept to send 200 armed soldiers to collect. That's not how we handle debts in the U.S.

If it were, we'd have surrounded Al Sharpton's house with 200 armed agents many years ago for the $3.5M in back-taxes he owes. And we probably wouldn't want the top law-enforcement person in the country speaking at his events.

BLM already ran off over 50 other ranchers in the area. Pretty sure Bundy's "damage" was a lot less than the 50 other ranches combined in the late 80s and early 90s when they started claiming the land was theirs to manage instead of the State of Nevada's.