http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydw4An4wlrw#t=12s

Naturally if they're going to spend the money on a secure system it might as well fulfill that goal. But do these metro metering devices really need to be all that secure? I checked MARTA's fare schedule and their most expensive ticket is $5 round-trip. Doesn't seem like enough incentive for the average joe to cheat it, esp. when you consider how transit authorities use a few high-profile prosecutions to discourage people from even buying second-hand tickets let alone hacking their own. In my view the system only need be marginally more secure than the honor system.

I agree, freedom and democracy are a virus on humanity that should be stamped out of existence.

We're still in the midst of learning how deeply our own government has violated our privacy and websites decide now is a good time for people to give up their pseudonyms and reveal their true identities? Are they that stupid?

They are in the artic measuring climate change and its affect on reduced sea ice levels yet are now trapped in ice and have called in ice-breaking ships to rescue them, which in turn will reduce the formation of sea ice.

It's not a bug it's a feature!

Because when a lightbulb goes off in our head we'll have nothing to replace it with.

I guess I didn't drive the point home clearly enough. Man projects virtue - his true motivations are quite different.

You're not arguing that taxes don't disincentivize peole to work. You're arguing that the current tax rate doesn't disincentivize *you* to work. Would you still work if your effective tax rate were 60%? 70%? 80%? 100%? And why would you believe that your threshold of disincentivization would be the same for others?

As a small entrepreneur you don't have the same wherewithal as a large corporation to redeploy your resources to other cities, states, and countries in search of competitive advantages.

I didn't say higher taxes prevent prosperity. What I said is that taxes alter the behavior of corporations and how and where they deploy their resources.Tax policy has become a tool of centralized economic planning, using incentives and disincentives to steer companies and individuals into behaviors the government feels are the most beneficial to the economy. That works fine if countries existed in isolation since governments have no competition to their policies. However in a global economy capital and resources are mobile. If a corporation doesn't like the tax policy of a country or feels it can or needs to gain a competitive cost advantage by deploying their resources elsewhere then that's exactly what they'll do. If a country wants to be the recipient of those resources then they have to compete for them, the same as how corporations have to compete for revenue and profits.

And an entrepreneur's chief reason for starting a business is to contribute to society, right? Man has unlimited capacity for applying eloquent piousness to his most coarse of primal desires. Self-determination? Determination toward what end exactly?