I suppose that we have forgotten that there are no Libertarian Democrats?

Does this mean that the quakes are riding the short bus?

I haven't had faith in *any* faith in networks since MST3K was booted from the SCI-FI channel. It had run 10 years and survived, despite the fact that multiple cable networks dumped it, yet Sci-Fi thought it best to replace it with such winners as Black Scorpion...

I think you're just anti-dwarves.

Pull my dwarf planet

But you have still chosen to be in a position to be screwed. Your entire business can burn down, that sucks, but it was your business and, except in the case of arson, you lost it fair and square, no one forced the building to catch fire. There is a bad crop one year so the farm is lost -- well, no one forced the bad crop upon you.

It sucks, but you have at least taken your own risks. If you get screwed you get screwed. But, along the way, in the private sector, you can use your money as you will. If it comes to it, you can (literally) sell the farm, cut your losses and change where you are in the private sector. You might lose an important member of your staff, you might overhire, you might get sued, but YOU still got into that situation.

When it comes to money, I generally look to the rule of cost-benefit analysis. What does the government cost me? 25% of my income before I see it, 7% sales tax, property taxes, taxes on alcohol and tobacco, and likely soon a tax on owning a second car (how is my wife supposed to get to work when she works different hours from me?) Yet, for this, I get wars I don't like, causes I don't support, and people in office I don't trust. And I will admit, there are a number of things I benefit from in the federal/state government (mostly the highway system), but I will also point out that (as often as not), the government causes as many problems as it solves.

Oh, and one more thing, eventually this debt will have to be REPAID. How is that going to happen if the government continually becomes BIGGER? It simply cannot. So, this either leaves us with a government which defaults on its debt, or inflates the dollar to compensate, neither of these sound particularly appealing.

I fully support taxation which is for certain things. I believe a municipality has the right to tax its citizens for the police force. I will even go so far as to say there are things which necessitate government involvement. My object comes from something deeper.

In 2006, Governor Corzine announced that he was raising the sales tax to 7% to accommodate for budget shortfalls (God forbid he CUTS spending). A week later he said that he was pledging $2 million for sidewalks. Now, I like sidewalks as much as the next pedestrian, but when the state is already in $37 billion in debt, mightn't it be a good idea to avoid spending more money? But this is what the government has done, without fail, in the state of NJ and it is what DC does as regularly, if not more often. For goodness sakes, the initial $800 billion federal relief plan included exclusions for factories which made wooden arrows for children. This isn't intelligent spending.

Oh, and I have a pump, and power from a co-op. The major roads I normally take to get to work are municipal roads, if I take state or international roads for more than about 5 miles, I get stuck in about 20-30 minutes worth of traffic.

No, I understand.

Any time an economy bases a large portion of its business on not only credit systems, but on speculative credit systems, it is subject to a periodic rise and fall. And often one immediately follows the other. This is something which will happen because speculation and credit are both highly tied into human emotion. When the world feels like spending, it thrives, when it gets scared, it starves. This is the way of things.

Here's the thing though. If the entire economy goes bankrupt, if I starve because of it, I have not been forced into that situation. Even if I felt that I had no other options, no one has held a gun to my back and forced me to get a mortgage. Someone is forcing me to pay for government and government waste and they waste it.

I don't think I really need to argue about corruption in NJ, but as far as waste -- I have worked with people on welfare, I was a case manager at a non-profit once and trust me, the government sucks at its job, consistently. I have seen them screw the poor and demand help for people who could not account for hundreds of dollars per month in their budgets. Is this right? Would I ever willingly buy something which functioned like that? For losing 1/4 of my paycheck to this incompetency, I'm getting jack in return.

Yes, but when the private sector loses money, I have CHOSEN to pay them to do it. I am to blame and I take full responsibility for any such losses. When the government loses money, they have forced the money out of me under threat of jail time.

Whatever. It's all good. (I am VERY much a small government person -- I feel that a bureaucratically appointed committee will INEVITABLY contain the people who are MOST INCOMPETENT at the task of spending MY MONEY).

I will note, that as I disliked both nominees this past election, I have done my best to avoid the usage of their proper names. Thus, use of PotUS, chief executive, or current administration.

No, I voted for the Republican nominee. I had simply thought that the liberals would at least remove one ill before creating a number of others (a small consolation to a slightly-more-socialist-that-his-opponent being elected, but so it goes). Now I see that their intent is to pile bad upon bad.

I did not trust this new Administration during his campaign. And when he was elected, I felt that the promise was for more government ineptitude, but at least he would discontinue the idiocy of the 43 president.... I cannot believe this... Less than a week in office and he shows his SUPPORT for this wanton imorality.

... ... ... ...

I think that MS needs to realize that one of the major reasons that standards exist is to PREVENT these things from happening. If there weren't so many inconsistencies, this would be markedly more difficult.

But what do I know about MS anyway? Who am I to comment on their ineptitudes? I use Linux.