Wrong.

Look into Federal Reserve system. It is not Federal. It does not maintain a reserve. It is a consortium of privately owned and undisclosed banks.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how%20the%20federal%20reserve%20creates%20money

In modern, neo-Liberal economic societies Government borrows money from private, central banks. This money is called into creation as debt. The creation of the money is an act of the bank - an accounting phantom - entering new assets as black ink on their ledgers.

Government no more "creates money" under this scenario, that you do, by using a credit card.

If "governments" backed the money, they wouldn't declare "austerity" programs on their own constituency - but instead issue jubilee forgiveness, with full restoration of productive capacity, etc. Instead, the EU and US BOTH "bail out" creditor institutions, ceding all right to their own resources and productive capacity to ownership by the bank.

You've just stated you completely fail to understand the nature of EMP. The most dangerous EMP event is a large nuclear warhead exploded high above the ground, too high to do any meaningful damage on the ground. The damage is caused by the electromagnetic radiation released from the blast as EMP. It only takes one explosion. That isn't a nuclear Armageddon. It is returning a major post-industrial computer based society to a horse and wagon based economy in seconds, without having the horses and wagons to do the work not to mention the computers, computer controlled vehicles (engines), and other electronics.

Having watched Dark Angel I used to think a hydrogen bomb could do that kind of damage. But AFAIK the biggest man-made EMP ever to damage a city was caused by Starfish Prime. It was a 1.44 megaton H-bomb detonated high in the atmosphere, which caused damage in Hawaii, 1,445 kilometres (898 mi) away. The power didn't go out, though, and the damage was limited. Clearly, the EMP from an H-bomb is bad for electronics, but I doubt there's any way that a single bomb of realistic size could knock the entire United States back to a "horse and wagon based economy".

You have to ask: if someone wants to attack with an H-bomb, what is more likely: that they would use it as a normal bomb to kill people, or as an EMP to knock out power and damage electronics in less than a 1000-mile radius? Given the seemingly limited devastation (and the need for a rocket in addition to the bomb itself), I think terrorists would surely choose option one. I imagine option two might be considered as part of a World War 3, in which case the aggressor might well use several bombs, and EMPs could be just the beginning of our worries: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

There is another source of EMP that could be more devastating than any single man-made bomb: see the Carrington Event.

I don't think people are that simple, static or homogeneous.

It will be like squeezing down on a watermelon seed. The harder you squeeze the higher the escape velocity.

I mean holy unintended consequences.

Brought to you by Carbonite.

I enjoy kids, but when I sit down and figure out the math, I don't like them enough to risk my retirement (or early retirement). This is the driving force behind making sure what kind of people I get involved with and ensuring that protection is always a necessary precaution. There are also a lot of other things I would like, in life, but am not willing to risk a couple hundred grand or more on for the limited return that comes with it.

If I were a multi-millionaire, it would be a simple thing to accept (well, no it wouldn't - lack of sleep, diapers, screaming, babysitting, teen years, mooches, layabouts, etc). Not being a multi-millionaire, it is an easy decision -- just like deciding not to buy a yacht is an easy decision.

I just feel bad for my parents. The burden of raising three children has made it a difficult life of sacrifice and less reward or stability. One, likely, without even any promise of affording a retirement as they now approach that age. This won't be a burden I shoulder, however. As most parents desire for their children to have more successful lives than they had, I will be saving myself that burden. (But let's be frank, I'll probably die very young from shitty health anyway, so it isn't like there's a long retirement to contend with anyway!).

Exactly. People who work for minimum wage for a prolonged period of time don't have the foresight or fortitude to do any such thing and just pump them out like pez.

God damn.

I read "male for perspective" in the same mindset as "banana for size comparison".

I've had enough internet, this week.

Better to be smug about being child free than smug about being burdened with children that you can barely tolerate and can't afford.

Kind of like all those "smug" people who rub it in everyone's faces that they didn't get 0 percent down mortgages that they could never afford and therefore didn't go into financial ruin due to poor decision making. The audacity of such people!

This is what really disturbed me about Sarah Palin playing the whole "look what a saint I am, caring for a child with downs/autism/whatever it was!". Despite the fact that she was a "saint" for caring for *her own damn kid*, the fact was that she had him when she was like 40. The risk at 30 is something like 1:1200. At 35 and later, it goes to 1:30 and so on.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for people not having children when their lives aren't together, they don't know who they are, and they are not financially capable without the aid of the rest of us coming to their rescue -- but that doesn't negate the risks you assume in waiting too long, either. And, really, it won't hurt anything if you just don't have any at all. The planet isn't exactly hurting for human resources.

No. In a few decades (at best), I'll be dead. What do I give a shit if my "genetic material" is left behind? I'LL BE DEAD.

If you really want to leave something behind, go murder a few thousand people and guarantee a spot in history books. Or help some people. . . but frankly, you're better killing them. Everyone remembers Manson after a few murders, but almost nobody remembers Borlaug after a billion and counting lives credited to his work.

Christ, what male wants children and decades long financial burdens that badly?

It's a Typepad hosted site...

On demand? Are they 3D printed, "just in time"?

Yeah, and half of the population died before age 5.

But that was safe because everything was organic and there were no vaccines.