Dude, you have to start at 0, so it is 9,999,999 kids.

Under President Carter, inflation was high but the deficit was at one of it's lowest points in many decades. When Reagan came in, inflation went to nothing and the deficit sky-rocketed. If you suddenly got a bunch of credit cards for you household and maxed them out, you couldn't help but increase your standard of living...at least until the bills started coming due.

But on some level, I agree with you. We have to get the Feds where they can't spend money that we don't have. Period.

Fear sells. It isn't just the government that uses it. Spend an afternoon listening to Alex Jones or Talk Radio in general. Watch what people are watching on TV and the movies. Zombie and horror movies are big time right now. Look at what everyone is being told in church, "it's the End Times."

It's all just capitalism in action. If fear makes people part with their money, then someone is going to be dishing out the fear.

I don't know what the exact solution is, but in capitalism, when the market dries up, the sellers move on to different markets.

Under President Carter, inflation was high but the deficit was at one of it's lowest points in many decades. When Reagan came in, inflation went to nothing and the deficit sky-rocketed. If you suddenly got a bunch of credit cards for you household and maxed them out, you couldn't help but increase your standard of living...until the bills started coming due.

The point being, there is other ways of screwing us than printing money. Reagan was a master at it. Not only did he screw us, but we loved him while he did so. Heck, many conservatives want someone like him back in office. We are so delusional as a nation, that if it didn't come out of *my* pocket, it is fantastic.

Well guess what? The deficit comes out of our children's pockets. Fantastic, I know. Right?

But on some level, I agree with you. We have to get the Feds where they can't spend money that we don't have. Period.

I wonder if Snowden might not be a bubble popper? I sure would hate to have a ton of debt in cloud infrastructure here in the US right at the moment.

No. It's who you know...on the ***Internet***. So now you need Facebook to get credit, and Google+ to get hired. Don't use these services because of privacy issues. That's fine, you just won't get credit or a job.

It's like when I used to have to run credit checks on people, and they didn't want to give me their social security number. That's fine, I don't care. You just will not get this product you are wanting without forking it over. Now keep in mind that I totally agreed with the people, but like a good Nazi, I was just doing my job.

Obviously, they are battle hardening, in order to protect our data from the NSA.

It's kind of like the MP3, which was one of the first formats that the *consumer* picked out, and media companies hated. I can kind of see both sides of the metering argument, but it would be nice if the market had a say in it, rather than it being just a bunch of bastards trying to pay off congress to ram it down our throats.

Not a bug, but a feature. It was added to make it easier for the NSA to put all of its "metadata" to easy use.

> There are several viruses known to trigger the autoimmune response

Still significant. Do a search for the *bovine* enterovirus and diabetes. In the alternative medicine world, cows milk has been linked to diabetes ever since I can remember. A quick google shows this link has now been proven:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21922634

Interaction of enterovirus infection and cow's milk-based formula nutrition in type 1 diabetes-associated autoimmunity.

Source

        Immunogenetics Laboratory, University of Turku, Turku, Finland. johanna.lempainen@utu.fi

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

        Enteral virus infections and early introduction of cow's milk (CM)-based formula are among the suggested triggers of type 1 diabetes (T1D)-associated autoimmunity, although studies on their role have remained contradictory. Here, we aimed to analyse whether interactions between these factors might clarify the controversies.

MATERIALS:

        The study population comprised 107 subjects developing positivity for at least two T1D-associated autoantibodies and 446 control subjects from the Finnish diabetes prediction and prevention cohort. Enterovirus, rotavirus, adenovirus, respiratory syncytial virus and bovine insulin-binding antibodies were analysed from prospective serum samples at 3-24 months of age. Data on infant cow's milk exposure were available for 472 subjects: 251 subjects were exposed to cow's milk before 3 months of age and 221 subjects later in infancy.

RESULTS:

        Signs of an enterovirus infection by 12 months of age were associated with the appearance of autoimmunity among children who were exposed to cow's milk before 3 months of age. Cox regression analysis revealed a combined effect of enterovirus infection and early cow's milk exposure for the development of ICA and any of the biochemically defined autoantibodies (p=0.001), of IAA (p=0.002), GADA (p=0.001) and IA-2A (p=0.013).

CONCLUSIONS:

        The effect of enterovirus infection on the appearance of T1D-associated autoimmunity seems to be modified by exposure to cow's milk in early infancy suggesting an interaction between these factors. Moreover, these results provide an explanation for the controversial findings obtained when analysing the effect of any single one of these factors on the appearance of T1D-associated autoimmunity.

        Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A PBS series described it like this:

For bad things, it's like your brain and bad things have Velcro on each other, and everything bad thrown at the brain sticks. And for good things, it is like our brains are coated in Teflon; everything good thrown at it slides right off.

Anyone interested in this should get a copy of the Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt. If a good thing happens and a similar bad thing happens, most people remember the bad thing. In fact, it takes something way better to happen to cancel out a run-of-the-mill bad thing.

I think this is why people are preppers and are stockpiling guns and ammo. And, it's why zombie movies are all the rage. America is in a perfect storm for all of it to happen. Why? Because our crazy American worldview mixed with our religious beliefs. It's a dangerous combination when the future doesn't look real bright anyway, but now you think it is inevitable that we are in the End Times.

Throw in a federal government that can't stop printing money, a large number of blockbuster movies about The End, the guy standing at the front of the church telling you it was foreordained, and mix it with America, which isn't hinged real well to begin with, and what do you get? The crazies that we are.

I don't think we are going to find the answer to our problems in a pill. It's consumed us. We take 3/4ths of the world's pills here in America. How well has it worked for us?

ALL HOPE IS LOST. :)

I see the world totally different after reading this book, though: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt

Life is what *you* make it.

Just remember, it is this way be design. Public education really took off at the same time as industrialization. The goal was not to educate, but to produce factory workers.

Since we no longer have factories, I guess they no longer felt the need to as much as they were.

The question is, are they good jobs? We have done everything possible to destroy the middle class. You can argue 1% vs. 99% until we are blue in the face, but the fact is, what built America was a strong middle class. The logical conclusion is, if you want to unbuild America, you destroy the middle class. Mission accomplished, America.

I'm a libertarian-leaning independent, so I hate both parties. But, I find the Republicans piss me off the most, because they kept waving American flags as they shipped our good-paying jobs overseas.

In other countries, they work just to buy food. In America, we work just to pay health insurance...if you can get it. If someone where I work put their whole family on health insurance, they would work close to two weeks out of the month just to give it to an insurance company. And god forbid they actually need to use it, because there went the other pay check.

On the bright side, there is that month out of the year where you get three pay checks! At least we have that.