People do say the average worker isn't making as much as they used to. Yep. Friggen mathematicians who calculate things like GDP and median earning vs inflation. It's not some folksy saying, it's fact, we earn less money than we did 20-30 years ago and wages have been stagnant for quite a while.

Also, yes, we do buy more than we used to buy. That is called keeping the economy running, and if we weren't buying all those gadgets and trinkets and things *you* don't think are necessary our economy would be in even worse shape. As for the credit card debt, if wages were at least keeping even with what they have historically been people wouldn't have to fall back on so much credit debt now would they.

Not that people such as yourself who point fingers and speciously declare what other people need or don't need to own would ever willingly put your own lives under someone else's scrutiny to be told what you don't need to have either.

Honestly, I don't know why people don't expect governments to spy on each other, even if they are allies. Every country plays for advantages, and it's not impossible for an ally to setup a politician on one side then defect to another side's position to earn some points. You have to be confident that what a politician is saying is what they actually intend to say.

Truthfully, no nation has friends. They're all frenemies at best.

Show me a phone that has Samsung App store on it, but doesn't have other Samsung apps forced onto it.

Show me an Android phone you can't install competing app stores on.

Thank you for admitting you're wrong.

An interesting example except for a couple things..

• There's absolutely nothing stopping you from loading more than one app store on your Android.
• Every other half decent app store also bundles their own services as well and makes them impossible-ish to remove (Looking directly at you Samsung).
• You CAN delete them if you root your phone though.

No, Apple just forces all development for their device to be with their dev kit only, and tosses out any app created with a different dev kit such as Adobe even if it produces the same code.

Apple allows competing apps on their phones but cripples them in comparison to their own favored apps.

Apple forces all app purchases to go through their app store and there is no other method of installing apps on their devices.

Apple actually is a convicted monopolist on rigging book deals to screw Amazon.

Apple is way, way more evil and monopolistic here than Google could ever try to be. I guess the EU's lesson here for Google is to close up their ecosystem, stop licensing their OS to other manufacturers, make their own phones and screw everyone else as much as possible.

Yes, it's a TV show called Cops, maybe you've seen it.

The police have no lack of cheerleaders who will always dismiss public and especially minority complaints against them.

1) Yes, the police have a siege mentality. Is it justified? Not by these statistics http://www.nleomf.org/facts/of... Officer fatalities are down, and have been down and in fact are not appreciably higher than they were 100 years ago.

2) Yes, modern media and CERTAIN POLITICIANS reinforce the siege mentality, because it benefits them. From selling military class hardware to police, to privatized prisons, policing is big business and is marketed to justify big ticket expenses just as aggressively as the next iPhone.

3) The war on drugs provided the POLICE with a strong profit motive as well, as their policy of seizing property disproportionately benefited police agencies to aggressively pursue even the smallest of drug cases.

4) The police make little to no effort to weed out the irresponsible officers, and in many cases actively pursue programs to recruit them. They defend these known disruptors to the ends of the earth and will do anything rather than admit fault. They no longer attempt to be members of their communities, just the biggest bullies in the community.

5) The media and body politic never make a story out of the DMV doing their jobs, or the garbage men doing their jobs or a hell of a lot of people DOING WHAT IS EXPECTED OF THEM!!!! Why should the public have to stroke LEO's egos for obeying the damn law and their own procedures???

A reputation is not proof. There are more than a few "great" men who've gotten by on their reputation for past deeds while they talk impressionable young devotees into doing the bulk of the actual work for them, which they then take credit for.

Or, conversely, they find a strong willed individual who's great at negotiating but sucks at the actual job and their overpowering personality always derail's team tasks.

Negotiating skill does not equate to job performance, unless your job is being a negotiator.

As opposed to what? Private power companies that stage brownouts to drive up their own prices?

At least state owned power utilities have to face a public board of inquiry before they can raise their rates, and the state regulates how much of their income has to go to keeping their own services repaired. Unlike telecoms letting wired phone service wither because they can make more money on cellular.

Yeah, the private market has always been such an example of fairness and customer service. *eye roll*