This should not be the roll of government in my opinion. Let the free market decide. Yes, CFLs and LEDs have their place, but so do incandescent bulbs! If people want to buy incandescent bulbs, they should be allowed to get them at affordable prices. Let me tell you two stories about how incandescent bulbs are better than CFLs or LEDs.

My father and I used to work on cars together all year round including the winter. The trouble light we used had an incandescent 100W bulb. We used it for light AND heat! Anytime our hands got cold after gripping a freezing wrench, we would just place them around the light bulb and warm them up quickly. Now, the government is stepping in and telling me that they're smarter than me and that I need to use a CFL or LED bulb instead, which doesn't output nearly as much heat. So instead of having 1 power cord to deal under a freezing car, I am going to have to have 2; one for a light, and another for a heat source. LAME.

I know someone who replaced bulbs on a airport runways. The heat from incandescent bulbs is advantageous in street lights and runways in cold climate because the heat melts the snow which would obscure the light emitted from the bulb!

I am tired of the government pretending to be smarter than the invisible hand of the free market. Rand Paul talked about this. Search for: light bulbs rand paul congress.

If the police can encrypt their long distance radio transmissions, then we should be allowed to encrypt ours. If the police can video record you from their patrol car, then we should be allowed to video record them from ours.

I would rather invest my money with people who actually do the work of creating valuable tangible goods. Namely entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, technicians, machine operators, robots, people who make and program robots, etc. The only think banks create are debt and inflation.

I should have chosen a different word. Pioneered can imply invented. What I meant was, fractional reserve lending became more widely used because of Nathan's success with it. There were several Nathan Rothschilds. My statement was referring to Nathan Mayer Rothschild, who was born in 1777.

Where does it say that the Fed must pay all income back to the Treasury? I read the text of the entire Act and missed that part.

False. Constants don't change -- that is why they are called constants. Bank A loans out 0.9*deposit_X, which then gets deposited into Bank B. Bank B then loans out 0.9*0.9*deposit_X. Rinse and repeat say 100 times. Money_created_from_thin_air = 0.9 + (0.9^2) + ... + (0.9^100) = 9*deposit_X.

The ideal currency is one whose purchasing power remains constant over time. That could easily be done using a feedback control loop, such as a PID controller. Whenever there is inflation, the government could tax. Whenever there is deflation, the government could print debt free money. Either way, the government gets money, but under this system it can get some of the money without needing to tax it away from citizens. There is no need for a middle man (Federal Reserve Bank) to take its cut and give it to its private shareholders.

You mean "derived", not "derives". The Fed was created by a very few members of Congress who were paid off by private bankers back in 1913. Desribe it however you want, but control of the Fed by the public is way too indirect. Period.

If you are implying that the Government has always been borrowing money since the days of the Revolutionary War, you are wrong. Lincoln's greenbacks issued during the Civil War were debt free currency. Coins created at the US mint even today are also debt free currency.

I've never heard of that book. Did you read it?

Federal Reserve Act : Section 7 "Federal reserve banks, including the capital stock and surplus therein and the income derived therefrom shall be exempt from federal state, and local taxation, except taxes upon real estate."

Any single bank can only lend out 90%, but the amount of money supply expansion ends up being roughly 900% after many deposit/lend cycles occur. As I was saying, the value of money is determined by the quantity. According to the Constitution, the value (and hence quantity) should be determined by Congress, who is supposed to be accountable to the public, but in reality is mostly bought off by corporations through lobbyists.

If I were to print money in my basement, I would go to jail. Why then are banks allowed to do it? Banks get to create money out of thin air every time they get people to sign a loan. This is because they are allowed to loan out 9x more money than they take in from people making deposits. That is why banks LOVE it when you deposit money in your savings account because it gives them permission to loan out 9x more money. Not only can they collect interest on that money that they create out of thin air, but if you can't pay them back, they get to seize your assets!

The hand that giveth is above the hand that receiveth. Private banks are above the governments who borrow money from them. Bankers are the masters of deception and fraud. The only things they create are debt and inflation through fractional reserve lending (fraud). Both of those are bad. They create all kinds of problems (such as the "business cycle"), and force people to participate in speculative investing or else watch their savings get inflated away.

Fractional reserve lending was pioneered by Nathan Rothschild and stemmed from greed -- he wanted to lend out more gold than he actually had! Anytime a bank expands the money supply by loaning out more money than they actually have, they are stealing from you who have saved. I understand the need to expand the money supply in order to prevent deflation. However, the government, not a private central bank, should be the one to do that. If the government created money, then they could spend that money rather than having to tax it away from the citizens.

It is no coincidence that the IRS was created shortly after the Federal Reserve Bank was created. How else would the government get money to pay interest on the money it borrowed? If you are in debt, you are a slave to your creditors. In 1913, "our" government allowed itself to become enslaved by the private Fed. The power to issue currency should reside with a government who is accountable to the public. The government exists to serve We The People. We The People should never allow ourselves to becomes slaves to our government (via entitlements, welfare, government healthcare, etc) who is a slave to the central bankers. Woodrow Wilson, and the few members of Congress who were actually present in the capital building 2 days before Christmas in 1913, made the terrible decision to give the power to issue currency to a privately held central bank (that doesn't even need to pay taxes!). The Fed is not really accountable to the public. Yes, the Fed board members are appointed by the President, but that very important decision should not be left up to a single man who may be too easily corrupted.

Governments do not need to borrow money from a bank. They can create money debt free! They are supposed to be doing that according to the US constitution:

"Congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof." Since the value of money is determined by the quantity, Congress should be controlling the quantity of money, not banks!

Read up on Bill Still's ideas for monetary reform in his book "No More National Debt". If you don't want to read, then watch these films:
The American Dream
Money as Debt
The Money Masters
The Secret of Oz
Inside Job

This astronaut risks his life to go to the moon, and now the government isn't even letting him keep a little piece of garbage (essentially, that is what it is) that he brought back as a memento. How incredibly lame.

All the services you mentioned differ in key ways, making your comparison not apples-to-apples.

What about the rights of the fetus? There is already legal precedant establishing those. If you kill a pregnant woman, you get charged with the death of both the woman and the fetus. As far as abortion is concerned, the States should decide what is legal and what isn't, not the Federal government.

Ron Paul doesn't want to do any of that stuff you mentioned.

It is called the "Network Effect" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect . It is the same reason why so many people use eBay.

Let me rephrase --- we not only need fewer taxes, but also lower taxes. The government needs to downsize in a major way.