Right, but it may have in fact meant something outside of College so I was covering both bases with my comment. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear from what I wrote. I also assumed you fit into the category of people for which you were referring because you made such a negative comment in response to what I wrote. It was a calculated guess but you really didn't give me much information to figure out why you were calling me a stoned pinhead. I should have just ignored your negativity and tried to address the confusion but that's hard to do when someone pisses you off.

The personal attack response isn't a US thing as far as I know. The research I've read so far on the subject indicated that It's caused by disassociation from community. In essence people don't realize that there really is another person on the other side of a text based conversation.

If your point was simply that some people want to go through life in a different order then I totally agree with you. On the other hand, if your point was that they are enjoying themselves more by choosing a path that either doesn't involve college or involves a education track which doesn't develop a marketable skill-set, then I'd say they're being shortsighted and should re-evaluate both their goals and plan to accomplish those goals.

I have no idea how you you would think I was baked based on what I wrote.Are you trying to protect your lack of accomplishments through the use of humor?

College is very enjoyable. It may be challenging at times but most people would never trade their college experience for anything. I love what I do for a living as result of my degree but I'm happy that society values my skills so much.

I went to Oregon State University and paid in-state tuition which has a massive discount. Like I wrote earlier that was per year and it did take me 5 years to complete my BS. I did complete 2 years of internship level engineering work while going to school as well though.

There are cheap but excellent schools out there. I paid 12k/year (all-inclusive) for an engineering degree that paid for itself in just one year. The people with all this debt aren't good higher education shoppers, both in terms of school selection but also degree selection. Or maybe they just weren't cut out for getting one of the degrees that actually pays off.

I think there's an analogous practice for ISPs, Gym's, Clubs and Telecoms. They all charge a subscription fee for their services but if everyone actually tried to use their service at the same time, they couldn't, because in all of these markets the suppliers over-subscribe their services. This allows them to be more efficient and charge less for their services. In the case of banks, they don't charge anything for most of their services and even pay us for keeping our money safe. Just as described in what you quoted from wikipedia.

I'm sure there are other industries with similar practices but they aren't coming to my mind immediately.

Regarding the emergence of central banks. They are largely private enterprises and could have been created by private industry had it had the foresight to do so. The greatest problem with our modern banking system is accountability. The banks know that the Fed will bail them out and bank customers know that the FDIC will give them their money back if the bank doesn't. This leads to banks with very low liquidity taking even greater risks with their customers' money. To solve this problem congress could bring back Glass-Steagal, raise liquidity requirements and break up bank monopolies so that no bank is large enough to hold our economy hostage.

I agree with everything that you've written here except that it would be better to say that the banks are an integral part of the regulation of commerce rather than that they are wholly dependent on government for their existence. The former is a quick summary of your point while the latter makes an unsubstantiated claim which cannot be proven and ignores the history of the banking system. We both know that banks work without a nationally issued currency as they did for hundreds of years so claiming that they wouldn't exist without it makes no sense. But saying the US banking system is tightly integrated with monetary policy is right on point.

One of the articles linked to by the wiki article you provided a link to describes exactly how the banks existed pre-federal regulation; They issued their own currencies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bank_Act

I'm not understanding how a bank's existence depends on government decree. Banks will accept whatever common currency is available. Like any other service based business, they have no physical product. And like pretty much every business on the planet, they depend on a common currency to function. The world economy would fall apart without common currencies issued by the public and a vast majority of products could never be made without one.

While I recognize that some aspects of the villains in the novel also exist, it's to the same degree as the heroes... just like any novel.

Banks have existed long before they were regulated and just because they are regulated they are not government enterprises. Much of their business goes on without any governmental oversight. Their primary means of exchange (not a product) is government issued currency but if people decided to start paying for things in bottle caps then they would accept bottle caps.

Your point about the villains and heroes in the book is still valid though. Unfortunately, I know of very few 1%'ers who don't participate in political bribery or manipulation.

I'm sure if she wanted to just copy what her third grade teacher did it would have been a cake walk. Coming up with new ways to teach is very difficult and was probably a requirement of the assignment since plagiarism is grounds for getting expelled. If the bar for a meaningful job is that it requires someone smart enough to get an engineering degree then there's very few people with meaningful jobs out there. At my engineering school the joke was that you should join the College of Business.

Comcast has called, emailed and sent me multiple letters offering me free equipment to support their switch to all digital. I'm a basic cable subscriber who has only been watching the digital HD channels that have always been offered as part of the basic service (not digital). The lowest tier of digital service blocks the channels I get as a plain basic subscriber which is very odd to me but it probably complies with the law you speak of since their lowest tier service doesn't scramble those channels.

Cryptography is a firmware thing, isn't it?

I don't think it really costs more to buy healthy food. Processed foods are usually purchased because it takes less time to cook them, not because they are cheaper. Maybe it's the time that it takes to work two jobs which makes it nearly impossible to make a healthy and cheap meal. Also, while attending college I had very little income and ate nothing but processed foods yet I never strayed outside of my optimal weight range. I was probably younger than you are now which could impact how my body dealt with those fat generating foods

I've also found that produce in particular is very cheap, at least in my town, but we have lots of local farms and people who care about nutrition so that may contribute to the lower prices.

In trying to find the reason for a link between poverty and malnutrition I found this interesting article and thread which makes the case that it's a lack of knowing how to make cheap healthy meals or the time to research and make those meals which really causes malnutrition. There are some exceptions where there simply isn't a cheap source for healthy food but I doubt it applies to that many people.

I do agree that the CPI shopping cart needs to be changed as it contains items which people don't need to survive or be healthy and lacks some that they do. I also do not doubt that your issues in cooking nutritious foods are real but I'm fairly certain that you could find a way to eat healthily while maintaining an acceptable level of tasty food. Doing so might however require an adjustment to what you find acceptable as I know I had to adjust my desires for taste to lower my cholesterol and blood pressure.

How could someone be "impoverished" while having access to too much food?

First world problems...

It would be great if we brought US law into the 21st century. Many laws already link to others by codes so just converting those into html links would help people understand them better.

I know the "paying attention" idea requires refinement. I would be happy with banning all forms of communication and entertainment from being present during the reading of a bill. Actually, we're pretty much defining a classroom here so probably whatever works in school should work in this situation. The esteemed senators might object to being treated like children though :).