Christ, a one-semester programming course is not a commitment to a particular career. No more than it is for chemistry, physics, or biology. Everyone should have an idea of the basic building blocks of the world around them; cargo cultists are not what we need.

"my archive set is large (3+TB) and sensitive (taxes, bank statements, account numbers, passwords, etc)"

Surely tax, bank, account, and password data does not add up to terabytes.

"Right now, the 15% capital gains tax rate is so high that it discourages middle- and lower-income people from investing..."

That seems incoherent/illogical. If they can "only" pocket 85% of the free money from investing, what, people make the decision to blow it on a new TV or car instead? And if that rate was changed by 5% or something they'd change their behavior? That's nonsense.

Bullshit, and a pox on the prequel apologists. As an adult in the last decade or so I've seen all kinds of movies (et. al.) that fill me with equal enjoyment as the original Star Wars movies when I was a kid/teen. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, most of the Marvel superhero movies, etc., truly amazing works of wonder. But Lucas' prequels were appalling, offensive crap. Even among the original movies the standout is Empire which he didn't direct.

Very interesting, thanks for the info.

I think that "confining" was also intended to be "confiding".

"My wife and I are even considering allowing our older child to take the Metro (public transit) to ballet by herself next year when she's in middle school."

That's totally the culture here in NYC... around 3pm when the schools get out the sidewalks, buses, and subways are mobbed with kids traveling from school to wherever on their own. I'm guessing, like, on the order of a million every day. It's so strange to read about such a different culture just a couple states down.

What state/city was that?

Wow, what a fantastic response! Thanks for that.

I must admit, I was unfamiliar with the concept of little corner stores lining all the streets around the corner from where I lived until I moved from a rural area to New York City. I found it to be crazy wonderful and convenient.

For what it's worth, here in New York City (I live in Brooklyn) there are kids all over the place commuting between home & school by themselves all the time. Around 3pm when the schools get out the sidewalks and city buses are literally swarming with the little folks, definitely all ages from elementary through junior high school. They all seem pretty confident, content, and safe about it (if rambunctious). The idea that half the city would have to mobilized to follow around this million-magnitude number kids one-at-a-time would immediately gridlock the entire metropolitan area!

Something less than 52%.

About 48%? Currently about 52% of Americans own stocks (including mutual funds and retirement accounts), and that number has been trending lower each year since 2007.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/162353/stock-ownership-stays-record-low.aspx

Please. We have all of those things in our household, and every time we ever interview a CPA they only thing they can do is (a) remind us to put receipts in a folder, (b) type the info into probably the same software, and (c) boil us with a multi-hundred dollar charge. I let that happen to me once at H&R Block and vowed never again.

My partner has interviewed other CPAs, and when we ask how they can improve our process and they say, "remember to put your receipts all in a folder", we roll our eyes and thank them for their time.

Fascinating, thanks for posting that.