Some principles are universal.

No, they aren't.

A parabola is a curve. The word you're thinking of is parable.

They COULD set up a system where they verify and reserve the funds at the bank the check is drawn on. They choose not to do so. That was understandable in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, but not today.

Such a system already exists, but that has nothing to do with the problem that I laid out. The problem with cheques is that they are drawing funds. That is, the person who is receiving the funds deposits the cheque at his or her own bank (Bank A), which then sends a request to the bank where the funds are on deposit (Bank B).

It's easily possible, and not at all troublesome (and already done) for Bank B to freeze the specified funds in the specified account. This is what happens.

However, imagine a situation where i draw a fraudulent cheque for $1000 upon your account #1234 at Bank B, and go to my account at Bank A, and deposit this cheque. They transfer it to Bank B, which takes the $1,000 out of your account and transfers it to my account. You open your account tomorrow and get a nasty surprise, so you immediately inform your bank to stop payment on the cheque.

Bank B demands that Bank A replace the money. Bank A replaces the money- by taking it from me. Hence why Bank A will never guarantee the value of the cheque, regardless of how much time has passed.

Wire transfers are a totally different situation. In a wire transfer, you go to Bank A, withdraw funds, and send them to me at Bank B. Bank B has the funds in hand. If someone has fraudulently obtained a wire transfer, the responsibility for the obtaining falls upon Bank A, who is responsible for the money. Bank B, therefore, will guarantee the wire transfer funds- they have the funds in hand and have no obligation to hand them back over if there's a problem.

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Of course, wiring funds shouldn't be all that expensive these days either. It's not like they have to maintain a telegraph system and brave the wild west with a cash box anymore.
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Where do you live that it is? Wire transfer fees in Europe are trivial.
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More and more, the banking system is becoming sand in the gears of the economy. If they weren't so deeply dug in with such a complex web of regulations that don't really make much sense anymore, the invisible hand would have squashed them ages ago.[/QUOTE]
That web of regulations makes perfect sense- the real problem is that it's not strong enough. One of the reasons why the Canadian economy is so secure right now is because of the massive regulation of their banking system.

That's possible. It all depends on how you transfer the funds. The problem with cheques specifically is that the bank will not guarantee them because they were not initiated by the sender, but by the depositor. It's always possible the depositor has fraudulently arranged the transfer. If there is fraud, the depositing bank is responsible for it, and thus they will not guarantee the funds.

If, however, you wire funds, it's the responsibility of the sending bank to arrange the transfer. If the wire transfer is fraudulent, it is the responsibility of the sending bank to replace the funds: the receiving bank already has the funds, and therefore will guarantee them immediately.

I just cashed $35,000 worth of foreign cheques. My bank informed me in no uncertain terms they would not guarantee the cheques- no length of time was sufficient. There was simply no time at which they would guarantee that they would not withdraw the funds.

But this is not what you originally said, which was that services would need to be cut. Obviously that's not the case.

Interesting, but ultimately ineffective. Are you suggesting, therefore, that three times more productive medical services are conducted on every person in the US per year than on every person in the UK per year?

Because that's what the per-capita expenditures work out to.

If you, as a prosecutor, can't get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich you're not doing your job right.

Grand juries are... at best an unpredictable, and at worst a totally useless, check on prosecutorial power. Not the best model to go from.

Er... why would appointed politicians brag? They're not responsible to the population. They have no reason to brag, because there's nothing to gain.

Which is really the reason why appointed judges makes sense. Judges should not follow the popular opinion, they should follow the law.

Really? How much money is being spent on welfare in the US?

For the most part, they certainly are. They decide to go to the doctor, they decide whether they wish to be treated. The state, for the most part, does not interfere in the provisioning of health services.

The problem is that the cost of healthcare across the world actually strongly disputes that assertion. In the countries where people know the least about their healthcare costs (because the cost mechanism is totally transparent to them) healthcare expenses are much lower.

His point is that he did the work, and the benefit from that work should not cease with his death.

If, for example, I build houses for a living, what happens if I build a subdivision and then don't manage to sell them before I die? Why should my family not be able to get the benefit of that work I did before my death?

Might I suggest you actually learn something about the law before you go off on meaningless idiotic rants?

Just as a very simple example, the 'violations' of the 9th and 10th Amendments that he cites are almost certainly based on entirely flawed understandings of what those amendments actually do.

Troxel v. Granville, US Public Workers v. Mitchell, etc, etc, etc.

Finally, from a political science point of view, government is sovereign and the US government is based on split sovereignty. The Federal government has an incredible amount of power- and it must, by simple virtue of its existence.