Again, in NYC, Uber drivers carry the same insurance that taxis or any other livery car driver carriers. It's commercial vehicle insurance.

Not in NYC. Same insurance requirements, since they're all regulated livery car drivers.

NYC Taxis have to carry $100k (per person) / $300k (per incident) liability insurance. That's the same for Uber drivers.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/do...

UberX in NYC is somewhat different from UberX in most markets. In NYC, UberX uses licensed livery cars and drivers (who have livery licenses, commercial insurance, etc), the same as Uber Black, etc., and the standard car service companies. The only difference between UberX and Uber Black in NYC is that UberX will have less nice cars (typically Camrys vs. Town Cars).

This is very different from UberX in SF, LA, etc., where it's pretty much "got a car? got a license? congrats, you're an UberX driver!"

Wow, I wish I had mod points to give you.

1. They are spending billions on new infrastructure. AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable spent about $51 billion last year in capex.
2. They aren't focused on lowering consumer costs, but the improved service is definitely there (albeit clearly uneven, depending on location). As an example, Comcast's base broadband service was 10Mbps two years ago. By the end of this year, it will be 50Mbps. Prices have risen about 5-10% over that time, so you're looking at a 75%+ decline in $/Mbps.

If you think that the $ AT&T is getting from USF is at all meaningful to them, or comes even close to the benefit they'd get from being able to raise their other rates to capture the 15%+ USF tax (i.e. instead of consumer paying $100, USF getting 15, and AT&T getting 85, AT&T could get 95, and consumer's bill would drop), you really haven't thought much about this.

As for your complaint that USF subsidizes the wrong things, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the program is designed to ensure that every household in the US, even if poor, rural, or both, has phone service.

AT&T gets minimal benefit from the USF. The vast majority goes to medium and small rural telcos. AT&T would be ecstatic if USF were cancelled tomorrow.

Do you have any data to support this assertion? The data we do have clearly shows that highway fatalities have dropped DRAMATICALLY since seatbelt installation, and later use, became mandatory. In 1967 (the last year before all new cars were required to have seatbelts, the US had 5.26 traffic fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. Fifteen years later (by which time virtually all cars on the road had seatbelts, given the lifespan of a car), that rate was 2.58, or down more than 50%. Even if there was some level of increased reckless driving (which, again, you've provided no evidence for), the NET impact was dramatically positive.

The gov't is saying anything about their value. The buyers in the auction are.

Only if you consider 1819 to be "recent."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

If the gov't had seized 30,000 Magic cards, or 300 lbs of rusty scrap metal, they would have done the same thing. The USMS isn't making ANY comment about the value of bitcoins, merely that it appears others will pay money for them.

It's not a boogey man at all. It's a real risk, regardless of your political persuasion. The convention could end up deciding to repeal the 2nd Amendment, and prohibit private ownership of firearms. It could decide to ban abortion. It could decide to dramatically rein in the EPA, or dramatically expand its powers. The entire basis of our legal system would be on the table.

Actually, you need 2/3 of both the House and the Senate, plus 3/4 of the state legislatures. Amending the Constitution ain't easy (intentionally so).

The Supreme Court has ruled that you can't be compelled to provide a password, if the fact that you have the password is, in and of itself, incriminating. So, if there's a hard drive that the police have reason to believe contains child porn (just as an example), and you haven't acknowledged that the drive is yours, then the police can't compel you to provide the password, since to do so would be to admit that the drive is yours (or at least provide strong evidence that it is). If there's no question that the drive is yours, however (particularly if you've admitted that it's yours), then providing the password doesn't in and of itself incriminate you.