At this point the alternatives are either FDA doing what they're doing, or never getting Congress to vote in new regulations. Don't kid yourself that today's congressional Republicans will let any industrial regulations go through.

That's crazy, because multivitamins are dead cheap: something like $15 for most of a year's supply.

The University's are in the process of being privatized here. A few Venture Capitalists noticed our Federal Gov't would give guaranteed loans out to any school with accreditation. So they bought up a bunch of old Secretary Schools that has accreditation from the 40s and 50s and used those to get loans for students to go to their diploma mills.

Meanwhile we've got a political movement to lower taxes while keeping spending constant so that our country goes massively in debt. The debt isn't really a problem (we owe it to ourselves) but it frightens people. After 30 years we have people exploiting that fear to get cuts in education in the name of saving money. The whole scheme is called "Starve the Beast" and was thought up by our Republican and Libertarian parties. The result is most of our subsidies for state education have been cut.

Positive Sum Gaming would work if the rich didn't gain when you lose. But they do. They gain power. See here.. Adaption is a slow, painful process. When the industrial revolution hit in the mid 1700s millions were impoverished by automation before the economy caught up in the 1800s. 60+ years of misery. We've seen it happen, I don't see any good reason we should let it happen again just to preserve a misguided notion of "freedom" at all costs.

You're also assuming we have to have 80% of humanity living in abject poverty. But is that really true? Are we as a people so weak that we can't feed or cloth one another? We already know the answer is no. We already produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet, we just need people willing to say it's OK for people to have food, even if they didn't work themselves to death to get it.

right now. But wages have been in decline for 30 years. A little mis management is one thing (Mitt Rhomney was famously so broke at one point he had to sell the stocks his dad gave him to make ends meet :P ), but we're getting to the point where it's impossible to "work your way through college".

For one thing, when we say "Wages Adjusted for Inflation" we mean inflation as a whole, but the cost of food and shelter (what college kids spend most of their money on, jokes about Ramen & Natty Lite aside) have gone up much faster than inflation. The sort of job you can hold while in College is gonna pay $8-$15 an hour depending on where you live. I know ppl at that income level working part time because the economy sucks and they made mistakes. They're not making it, and somehow I doubt the added expense/stress of school would help them, especially after they graduate with $150k in loans... If you're one of those super humans that doesn't need sleep and can go to class and the work 8 hours then spend 8 hours doing homework you might make it. Everyone else will just drop out. The consoles tell you this when you apply, and a lot of the big majors (Math, CS, MIS, Medical) won't take you if you're working full time.

What sucks is we're so much more productive, you'd think we'd be working less. But why the hell would we give anything to anyone if they didn't "work" for it?

True, I do sometime forget how small and poor Russia really is. Sorry, American here, and we've been told for 60 years the big bad Russians are coming for us any day now...

Weed that doesn't cross state lines you mean.

Exactly. The Supreme Court has decided that weed that doesn't cross state lines can be regulated by the Federal government. Your opinions don't matter.

Yes, I agree that this does not agree with the text of the Constititution but it also follows prior decisions such as allowing the Feds to regulate wheat grown for personal use. Basically, the Supreme court has decided that anything that affects interstate commerce can be regulated, even if that commerce is illegal anyway. And yes, it's hard to imagine anything that doesn't affect interstate commerce.

It's $11 Billion. I know that sounds like a lot, but it's not really. Not on a Global scale. It might help stabilize North Korea a bit though. They're a poor enough nation to notice it.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/04/reverse_heartbl.html

Fixed that for ya.

I mix up "Peoria" and "Pretoria" all the time. Is there much of a difference?

Nobody marches to Peoria.

doesn't raise all ships, it swamps all but the biggest boats. Also, how does that help you, living a middle class life in a first world country. It's OK to think about yourself and your long term well being, You know?

Free trade is great if you're a rich capitalist (e.g. someone that makes their living by owning capital). What about the rest of us? There's plenty of evidence to show NAFTA has been a disaster for everyone on both sides of the boarder except a few wealthy factory owners. Google a little and you won't find much to encourage you.

Karl Marx predicted that capital flowing to where labor was cheapest would result in a race to the bottom, but all anyone can remember about him is that a couple famous dictators happen to use his books for their rhetoric. Not that it's hard to predict that.