It's actually not their road. Each step of the way, local state and federal government has allowed them to build, often times with significant subsidy and tax breaks. We have sanctioned their monopoly/oligopoly, and now it's time to break it up.

The strength and credibility of the dollar is unquestioned, and it will remain unquestioned so long as the federal government spends money and collects taxes without causing too much inflation.

To quote a Jain scholar on the absurdity of creationist belief,
"Some foolish men declare that creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill advised and should be rejected.
If God created the world, where was he before the creation? If you say he was transcendent then and needed no support, where is he now?
How could God have made this world without any raw material? If you say that he made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression.
If you declare that this raw material arose naturally you fall into another fallacy, For the whole universe might thus have been its own creator, and have arisen quite naturally.
If God created the world by an act of his own will, without any raw material, then it is just his will and nothing else — and who will believe this silly nonsense?
If he is ever perfect and complete, how could the will to create have arisen in him? If, on the other hand, he is not perfect, he could no more create the universe than a potter could.
If he is form-less, action-less and all-embracing, how could he have created the world? Such a soul, devoid of all modality, would have no desire to create anything.
If he is perfect, he does not strive for the three aims of man, so what advantage would he gain by creating the universe?
If you say that he created to no purpose because it was his nature to do so, then God is pointless. If he created in some kind of sport, it was the sport of a foolish child, leading to trouble.
If he created because of the karma of embodied beings [acquired in a previous creation] He is not the Almighty Lord, but subordinate to something else
If out of love for living beings and need of them he made the world, why did he not make creation wholly blissful free from misfortune?
If he were transcendent he would not create, for he would be free: Nor if involved in transmigration, for then he would not be almighty. Thus the doctrine that the world was created by God makes no sense at all,
And God commits great sin in slaying the children whom he himself created. If you say that he slays only to destroy evil beings, why did he create such beings in the first place?
Good men should combat the believer in divine creation, maddened by an evil doctrine. Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning or end, and is based on the principles, life and rest. Uncreated and indestructible, it endures under the compulsion of its own nature."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

My favorite is the critique section in the wiki of this notion.

The FCC needs to get out of our bedrooms! The government has no business coming between a man's penis and the wireless carrier that services his porn habits.

So your argument is that the the US would import less. China would be shooting itself in the foot if it sold all it's USD reserves and treasury bills. Russia would be doing the same thing because they are both net exporters. Even if the countries did that, US has many other places it can import from and also has the ability to ramp domestic production. Any currency warfare would cause far more suffering to Russia or China than to the US.

I'm not sure you fully understand why they hold on to USD denominated financial assets (t-bills and reserves).

This becoming comical to the point of absurdity.

This is Slashdot, leave your "logic" at the door.

Worst idea ever. Define contribution plans are the biggest scams that have benefitted mostly the rich and finance sector. 401ks have only been around for a few years and the economic data is not conclusive that they have provided any tangible benefit.

There is a reason the biggest names in banking are constantly urging to privatize social security and lecture the American people that they need to expect less. It is because if they repeat the lies long enough, people will actually believe it.

You have to include all federal taxes to really understand how flat/regressive the US federal tax system is. Payroll taxes have been used to keep statutory income taxes low. Reagan got low personal rates by hiking corporate tax rates as another example.

The point is statutory tax rates is not the actual incidence of taxes for the population. If you still to accept this, I'll give you another example. I lived in the UK earning good money. They have two main brackets, 20% and 40%. I was under the 40% bracket which kicks in after 35,000 GBP. After ALL government payroll/income taxes, I still payed less than if I was in the US for the same set of taxes. However, If I included VAT into my calculation, UK national taxes become greater. Payroll taxes are the most regressive and useless taxes in the US that actively harm the middle class and businesses. Abolish it and this recession is immediately over. There is no downside at all. SS and Medicare doesn't actually need that funding source.

Savings is not "out of circulation." Savings are typically utilized for the investment sector or production sector. Out of circulation can more accurately refer to reserve currency that has not enter the economy. Quantitative easing is an example of how the Fed has dramatically increased the reserves inside the Banks, but this money is locked up and not usable by the banks for loans, because they aren't lending, thus no impact on the real economy.

That's why there's this formula for nominal GDP and Real GDP. Real GDP adjusts for the price levels and inflation.

Weimar Germany inflation was due to the allies demanding war reparations. Weimar had little productive capacity after the war and in order to pay the Allies, they debased their currency. Once the allies stopped demanding payment, the new issue of the transition currency allowed the country to escape the inflationary spiral.

The US can't become Weimar Republic because the US is resource rich and has ridiculous productive capacity. The only thing inflation in the US would lead to is MAYBE less imports.

The problem the US has today is our political system has not figured out a way to keep people employed while importing the rest of the world's wealth.

The true test of a national government's impact on monetary policy and spending is does this spending :
1. Reduce unemployment or underemployment
2. Does this spending cause inflation

You comment is nonsensical because you have not proven that federal spending is unsustainable or causing inflation above the current 2% target. Bernanke is using every tool he has to inflate, but he is stuck below 2%. In fact the real concern has been deflation and continues to be. Today's problem is that the private sector has too much debt, not the government. Private sector debt today stands at 1.7x of GDP what it was during the Great Depression.

Bitcoin is at best a commodity today. As a currency it would be just plain ridiculous. My favorite is how most people who vehemently speak out against a global currency are the same people who love bitcoin. If you want to see what a Bitcoin world would look like, just look at the Euro and Greece.

This is why I don't switch from iOS to android

Payroll taxes is the first simple thing the government can do to boost the economy out of recession.

I'm meant to say "eliminating payroll taxes"