They are worlds better than the Cable company.... I used to be down for days with the cable provider because somebody on my block insisted on handing out DHCP addresses for some reason. Their tech support guys couldn't seem to figure out who it was. I finally got tired of them and jumped on FiOS when it first came out.

My connection has been rock solid since. I've had maybe 3 outages that where not my fault in 8 years, and two of those where because of the cheap router the provided was too unstable. I just went and got my own hardware and ditched that horrible Actiontec junk.

However, they are the absolute most expensive for the bandwidth you get. They filter/firewall residential DHCP service to keep you from running servers (http, https, ftp etc) but they don't tell you this directly. Also, they have pretty crappy traffic management so even though I pay for 25/25Mbps connection, I can pretty much count on only getting that when speed checking on their servers. Any real traffic can never approach that, even in aggregate.

So I don't recommend Verizon very highly either. Even if it is the lesser of the various evils available to me.

I know what you mean... I think some miss the forest for the twigs too. Even running THOR, the NSA can watch what you do if they are well enough connected (and running THOR might actually make that more likely.) Packets leaving your network enter the wild wild west and are subject to inspection, monitoring and alteration by a great number of folks that you could never detect much less control. Why then are we up in arms about minor issues with our routers/firewalls? My guess is because it's about the only think we can actually do something about..

I will take your point... But The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is part of the Treasury Department is it not? And a Federal Reserve bank needs to be ready to cough up the physical cash should an account holder demand to make a withdraw.

On that point you are correct, but the physical currency is being expanded. What IS relevant, is the expansion of the total money supply and the artificial lowering of interest rates caused by QE. Not all money is physical these days, much is electronic and only backed by physical currency when it hits the streets in your hands. IMHO Inflation will be the result of QE as it has increased the money supply, both physical and electronic. There is no way to avoid it because we have added more to the currency supply than to our GDP growth.

BTW, I'm not an advocate of buying gold as there are better things to invest in beyond something you cannot legally hold in your hand (unless it's in coin form) and have to pay somebody buy and store. Seems stupid to invest in something like that.

I hear you, but over the last few weeks it seems to be getting a lot better, at least for me. Buffering has not completely stopped, but it went from every 10 seconds down to less than once every 50 min show. Didn't I hear that Netflix agreed to pay Verizon for better connectivity?

Yes, but inflation will be the result of QE, like it or not.

I understand the hope is that we will return to growth by increasing the money supply, but there will be a down side to this eventually. I just hope the cure is less damaging than the disease. IMHO, QE is a short term tactical ploy with negative long term implications, but politics as they are, we are in a play now pay later game plan. It's all about the election coming up and not what really needs to be done, especially if it takes more than 10 words to explain because that doesn't fit in a sound bite.

But hey, I'm just a lowly software engineer.... What does it matter what I say or think?

Hey, what about Verizon FiOS? I got fiber to my house and get as good of service as you can expect from Verizon....

So you had to bring up the price thing eh? Ok.. Ok.. You win... Verizon is VERY pricy for just internet.... Here's hoping for some price competition or something...

Not exactly, but certainly not the extremely loose monetary policy we now have. Perhaps just two shifts at the BPE and stop buying our own bonds with printed (or just made up digital equivalent) dollars? That might be nice...

Well, I've lived in Texas nearly 20 years in three different places, Austin was one of them. And to answer your question, yes, Austin is vastly different than just about any other place I've been in Texas. In fact, it reminds me more of the west coast (where I've lived too) than Texas. I'd warn you, that Austin has it's own special kind of weirdness, mostly because of the University that sits right next to the capital building, but some folks like it.

Austin has some really unique things in it, starting with the pinkish marble capital building all the way down to the people that wonder around on South Congress watching the bats and beyond. It's something to experience, to be sure, but it wasn't my cup of tea.

Problem then becomes distance... Where I live, well in the suburbs, it's going to be a LOOOONG time before a buss (or anything else) will be available within walking distance. There are just not enough riders to make it worth running even a cheap buss to within a few miles of my home. Even though there is a light rail station about 5 miles away. It simply doesn't make sense for public infrastructure to be built for such places. Distances are too great and ridership would be too low. Plus, there are people who live even further out than me.

Autonomous cars sound interesting, but we are decades away from having even a basic version of that technology usable in a public transit format.

Y'all can have Austin. It's a beautiful place with lots of fun things to do, but not my kind of town. Parts of Austin are really great, but there are better places in Texas for me. If you are young looking to have lots of fun, Austin would be great. It's a little weird at times (too weird for me) but some folks like it.

So, if you can stand the weird (or even like it) give Austin a try. Don't let the fact that it's part of Texas fool you, if you like Cali, you will fit in well. Just please let me visit ever now and then, even though it's not my kind of place, there are some excellent places to eat, wonderful places to go and beautiful places to see and I have friends who still live there.

And it never will again... The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is working 24x7 making sure of that.

Ahh, you make my point then... What happens if you happen to produce 120% than expected? Great right? Perhaps, but my claim is that because you don't know and are only counting on 80% and got 40% more than you expected, somebody burned fuel in the expectation of providing that 40% and at least *some* of that will be wasted. See what I'm getting at? This is the waste I am talking about.

BTW, I understand that for wind power, you can only count on 25% of expected capacity. Solar is a bit better availability, depending on the kind of weather being expected, but is still not anywhere near your 80% number.

It's not that solar and wind are useless, but that there are unseen variables that add to their actual costs that most folks don't know or think about.

Yea, I know. I love my Honda too. I was not trying to attack you, but make a joke about the Tesla and the owners of same. Personally, I think they have more money than sense, but I guess there is value in the appearance of being green that a Tesla buys you.

In the USA? Shesh, you do realize how that's not going to happen right?

Where I'm all for mass transit (mostly in the form of buses) in urban areas, it is totally out of step with your average citizen's attitudes about how and when they go places. Folks in the USA want to go, when they want to go. They will gladly take the bus, if it's going where they want, when they want and they are assured they can get back when they want, but if any of these requirements are not met, they will take a car.

Problem for mass transit is two fold. First, by financial necessity, it only runs during and close to peak usage times. Weekdays are great, but middle of the night on the weekends it doesn't make sense because there are not enough riders. If they do run off-peak times, it is usually at a reduced schedule and convenience. Secondly, some kind of transport is necessary in the USA because walking is not possible due to the large distances involved, even in our urban areas. Citizens will feel it necessary to maintain cars in all but the largest urban areas and once they HAVE a car, they will use it because it is simply faster and more convenient than mass transit can ever be.

So, until we can do away with suburbia, the automobile is here to stay, at least in the USA.