Apple codes their iOS so that neither they or law authorities have no backdoor or master key to access any iDevice.

When they approach the owner, he can flip the proverbial middle finger by citing the fifth amendment.

And it's all legal despite any Patriot Act, secret FISA court, or intimidating threats from the NSA.

Apple Computers has announced that their servers have crashed due to the extremely large demand from iDevice customers seeking to download the latest iOS version 8. They're blaming it on some bizarre phenomenon called "the Slashdot effect".

An oversimplification. The US, UK, and allies variously broke many cipher systems throughout WWII. Still the US benefitted from this.

What if the Germans were using, say, Windows, Android phones, SSL, Gmail, Yahoo, and Skype, instead of Enigma machines?

I presume you wouldn't say it was "wrong" of the United States to crack the German and Japanese codes in WWII...

...so when US adversaries (and lets just caveat this by saying people YOU, personally, agree are legitimate US adversaries) don't use their own "codes", but instead share the same systems, networks, services, devices, cloud providers, operating systems, encryption schemes, and so on, that Americans and much of the rest of the world uses, would you suggest that they should be off limits?

This isn't so much a law enforcement question as a question of how to do SIGINT in the modern digital world, but given the above, and given that intelligence requires secrecy in order to be effective, how would you suggest the United States go after legitimate targets? Or should we not be able to, because that power "might" be able to be abused -- as can any/all government powers, by definition?

This simplistic view that the only purpose of the government in a free and democratic society must be to somehow subjugate, spy on, and violate the rights of its citizens is insane, while actual totalitarian and non-free states, to say nothing of myriad terrorist and other groups, press their advantage. And why wouldn't they? The US and its ever-imperfect system of law is not the great villain in the world.

Take a step back and get some perspective. And this is not a rhetorical question: if someone can tell me their solution for how we should be able to target technologies that are fundamentally shared with innocent Americans and foreigners everywhere while still keeping such sources, methods, capabilities, and techniques secret, I'm all ears. And if you believe the second a technology is shared it should become magically off-limits because power might be abused, you are insane -- or, more to the point, you believe you have some moral high ground which, ironically, would actually result in severe disadvantages for the system of free society you would claim to support.

If some guy named Bob plays a part in getting Citizens United overturned, you have proof that you are a character if a poorly-written novel.

you either have to cut services or raise other taxes

Maybe taking the punch bowl away makes governments more responsible about what they spend our money on?

And if the choice is between getting 0 (because a company leaves entirely) or a lower rate, isn't a lower rate better?

And with a lower tax rate, who benefits? Must be those naughty shareholders right? Hmm

The largest component among U.S. retirement assets remains IRAs, with $5.68 trillion for the first quarter, according to the ICI report. The second largest is the $5.37 trillion in DC plans, and the third-largest component is government defined benefit plans with $5.2 trillion in assets.

Private-sector DB plan assets remained essentially flat at $2.66 trillion for the first quarter of 2013. Since the beginning of last year, DB assets have hovered between $2.6 trillion and $2.7 trillion, the report said.

(pionline.com)

It is estimated that roughly 55% of pension assets are in equities - either directly or indirectly thru hedge funds.

Historically low total tax as a percentage of GDP in a very long time

I think that sentence disqualifies the rest of what you have said. In any event, let me try to put this in a simple way so that you can understand.

When your income is 30K units you probably own a mediocre TV.
When your income rises to 60K units you probably own a nice TV.

If your income continues to rise, are you going to a) continue buying a new, more expensive TV because you can and/or b) just keep buying more TVs in total? You would need to in order to maintain the same TV consumption as % of total personal GDP.

So the take of the government off the top as a % of GDP is an incredibly stupid way to look at this.

fuck them. Almost 2/3 prediction from existing crime stats. Gee I know a lot of cops aren't the brightest but really? Thats not enough of a leg up?

Good for them for figuring out how to get that deal. Corporate income taxes hurt the poor and low income more than anything else.

Below market rates is already the biggest problem with student loans; don't make it worse. Easy-to-get student loans make the schools see easy-to-get money which causes a positive feedback loop: tuitions rise because so much loan money is handed out because tuitions rise becase so much money is handed out because tuitions rise.
There was a great article in last month's Economist about the direct correlation of student loan availability and tuition increases since the student loan program was instituted. The rates of increase have been WAY over any other price increases in the economy.

-- Han Slowmo, Unix Wars, episode IV

Furthermore, the "tax inversion" only happens because the USA is one of three countries in the world that tries to collect tax worldwide. Let's say a UK headquartered company, for example, has an office in the USA and makes some sales. The UK's IRS does not try to tax that revenue made in the USA, only the revenue in the UK. The USA's IRS, on the other hand, insists on collecting tax on revenue made by a USA headquartered company whose office in the UK made some sales. You see how this puts the USA based firm at a large disadvantage? They have to pay USA level tax everywhere in the world, where the local competing companies are paying only the local level tax.

What needs to happen is to stop tax inversion by stopping this horrible practice by the IRS. USA taxes should only apply in the USA. And USA corporate tax rates, among the highest in the world, need to come way down.

You've proven my point; there is a whole set of payroll taxes your employer pays that is NOT listed on your check stub. There's *your* FICA deduction plus a matching FICA amount paid by your employer, which you do not see on your stub. Then there's *your* SS deduction, and again a matching amount paid by your employer which is not listed. Your employer also pays an unemployment tax which is not listed on your stub.
The point is, all of these payments are, from your employer's point of view, how much it costs to get you to work. You're effectively paying all this extra tax because the money comes from you going to work. But you don't even know about it.