Unlike you, I actually understand the economy. How that hyperinflation that you predicted is going so far, by the way?

No. It was not 'enabled by the Fed' in any way. Not even in the 'it failed to regulate them' way.

Dude, if you had at least two brain cells you could have checked this hypothesis easily. The only way Fed could 'keep rates low' is by buying securities using newly created money. This kind of intervention should be easy to check.

So let's check the evidence: http://www.tradingeconomics.co... - there was no explosive increase in the M1 aggregate until the QE policies started post-2008. And even M2 aggregate shows nothing unusual: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

Actually, I believe that you caused the 2008 crisis by raping little children in a DC kindergarten. That theory has about the same connection to reality as your ramblings.

They can also default and declare bankruptcy. Yet this was not an option on the table, since it could have destabilized the whole Euro area.

Those who say things are impossible should get out of the way of those doing it..

Curious where your calculations come from that say it can't be done with any efficiency. (I am EE).

Yeah. Except, it's the EU countries that went the austerity route that are now in the best shape, financially. And their people see that, and vote to reinforce the politicians that made that wise choice. Government largess can't make the economy grow when the government is too corrupt, and the people too indifferent (or too used to getting away with) to pay the taxes that will let the government throw around huge sums of money. "Stimulus" spending with borrowed money is right up there with sacrificing chickens or doing a magical dance when it comes to fixing what's actually wrong with places like Greece. The problem is cultural, and has been that way for decades. The Nanny State mentality is bad enough, but trying to keep it going when at the same time the entire nation plays games with tax collection so they can all lie to themselves about it is a recipe for ... contemporary Greece.

Yep. Fed actually took over several large financial companies and government provided emergency fiscal stimulus to kick-start the stalled economy. As a result, the recession in the US was not as deep as it could have been.

Europe instead drank the Ayn Rand Koolaid wholesale and went with hard austerity, never mind stimuli. Results are obvious: http://www.tradingeconomics.co... At this point Greece should just exit the Eurozone and leave Germany to pick up the pieces.

There is NO obligation to switch to euro. And there are no fiscal targets for countries that don't plan to do it, so Croatia happily stays with its Kuna, Hungary with foring and Poland with zloty. So far these countries fare much better than peripheral countries that adopted the euro (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc.)

You are a moron. Fiat currency has nothing to do with the 2008 crisis. It could have happened just fine if people used gold or live rabbits as the currency. The whole problem was caused by a huge shadow banking system that essentially allowed to use private debts as if they were a currency. And since private debts are unbounded and uncontrolled, the amount of this "currency" grew without bounds. Until it crashed, trying to cross over to the world of real money when people started to cash CDOs.

Poland has stayed off Euro so far. When this changes, prepare to be Greecefied.

Who approved this "article"?

This is great news for many of us who run Linux desktops. As this is one of the 2 laptops Dell delivers preinstalled with Linux in the dell.com/ubuntu program.

About 4 months ago I got an XPS 15, with almost identical specs ( 256 SSD, 16GB Ram, 4-Core i7 CPU, etc. ). But I had to void my warranty minutes after I opened the box to replace Windows with Ubuntu, so I'm basically on my own support-wise after spending north of $2K.

This laptop would have been perfect for someone like myself and hope its Linux configuration makes enough sales so that it's still around when I need a new computer 2-3 years from now.

I suppose that depends on how you define "average." In the US, over 52 million people participate in 401k plans. That's in addition to those who have other retirement vehicles (like IRAs, etc). Almost all of those funds are tied up at least in part in mutual funds. Probably most people who aren't working aren't contributing to such a plan, though many who are out of work still have money sitting in them. Alas, we have over 90 million people who aren't participating in the labor force - the highest number since the 1970's. In more recent times, when more people had jobs, there was a much more common interest in how one's mutual funds were performing, because more people were actively slicing off a piece of each paycheck to invest therein. That tended to make more people aware of, and interested in how it all works.

The difference is that while you are indeed taking a small risk every time you get on the road, you have the luke-warm comfort of knowing that just like, you the vast majority of other people on the road don't want to die themselves, or see you die. Doesn't mean they're all as careful as they should be, and some are indeed belligerent and dangerous on the road, though they are the minuscule exceptions. Most accidents are the result of inattentiveness in one form or another, or poor judgment.

People, on the other hand, who do things like blow up train loads of passengers in London or Madrid, or who try to blow up an aircraft on final approach over Detroit, or who park a car bomb in Time Square ... they're trying to kill you. It feels different because it is different. We all internalize certain risks, but bristle - very reasonably - when we learn of someone who, out of malice, wants to kill you and everyone else nearby. A dead kid is awful. But there's something substantially different between a kid on a sidewalk getting killed by an out of control car, and a kid like the one in Boston, who had his guts blown out by someone who stood there, looked right at him, and decided to set his IED down on the sidewalk right next to him.

In other words, you're looking for the people doing the baseline, basic research to be better at demonstrating the importance of their work in the grant marketplace.

Translation: everybody who wants grant money should get it. There should be an infinite supply of other people's money so that everyone engaged in their own pet field of research should be able to do whatever they want, indefinitely, without worrying about demonstrating to anyone else that what they're working on is more interesting, more useful, or even sane, compared to the next guy's project. That would be truly fair. The guy looking to synthesize unicorn DNA from horses and narwhals should definitely get some funds diverted his way from that jerk across the hall in the other lab who's working on that stupid HIV vaccine. Because otherwise it's NOT FAIR.

What you mean is that you don't like the laws in place, not that the they're breaking a law that's in place. Try to get it straight.

You mean, increase the taxes on delivered items, right? Because most states already have sales and use taxes, some of them quite high. We'll ignore for the moment those states that have decided they'd rather cover their overhead through things like property taxes or other income taxes, forgoing sales taxes.

If you order a new computer display from an out-of-state vendor, your state's taxes are still owed. Think that just because a business located in some other tax jurisdiction isn't working on behalf of your state to collect and remit your state's taxes on your purchase that somehow you're off the hook? Just wait until you're audited by your state, and you'll find yourself paying those taxes and substantial penalties.

It's not "long past time" for a change, because the situation you want is already in place. If you have a complaint, it should be about your fellow local state citizens who are cheating on their sales and use tax obligations. That's between them and their state government, not between your state government and a business that's located and chartered (and paying taxes) in another state entirely.