The comparison to national health care doesn't quite fit though, because the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things. It definitely does not, if the Constitution is still a meaningful limit on federal power.

Er, according to whom? Why wouldn't the constitution give the federal government the right to demand specific performance?

And what do you do for a living?

You'd probably cure the budget deficit (but possibly not; it's a substantial deficit) but you'd collapse the economy. Have fun with that.

The problem is that you believe the constitution is an agreement between sovereign states; it is not. It is, in fact, something entirely different. The states gave up their sovereignty to form the United States, which is a new sovereign entity, with its role described in, but not created by the constitution.

That sounds logical at first blush, it's a dramatically oversimplified (and thus, effectively wrong) explanation of what's happening.

The United States (consisting of the federal government and states) is a single sovereign entity. The constitution is a creation of, and subservient to, that sovereign entity- it is a self-imposed restriction on the exercise of that sovereign power and a description of the split of that sovereignty.

The 9th and 10th Amendments are therefore by definition meaningless. Of course all powers that are not granted to the federal government flow to the states; there is nowhere else for them to possibly flow. They are simply restatements of what it means to have a federated government.

Of course, the issue is even more complicated than THAT; because ultimately the federal judiciary (specifically the Supreme Court) is the embodiment of the constitution as a document and the ultimate arbiter as to its meaning; in that respect, the split of sovereignty is not so much defined in the constitution as it is described in broad strokes in the constitution and then assigned to the Supreme Court for specification. In that respect, the issue of the 'federal government usurping those powers' is a meaningless statement in the broad scheme; it cannot by definition usurp what it is legally entitled to, and the Supreme Court defines what it is legally entitled to. The only way the federal government could usurp powers it was not legally entitled to would be to disobey a ruling of the Supreme Court that an exercise of its power was ultra vires

Then don't make a webpage.

Slashdot's method isn't working: the site is infested with trolls and spammers and always has been. That's a perfect example of why the system doesn't work.

All for the better. Who wants to be ruled by 4Chan and the other online 'masses'?

That would only be true if the action of moving between carriers carries no cost to the consumer, and that therefore they are only bound by the cost of the plan which they are obtaining.

The problem is that that isn't true. There are a variety of factors in play that make the equation not as simple- service areas, phone selection, contract periods, early termination fees. The consumer telephony marketplace is relatively 'sticky'. Any one carrier raising rates is not likely to see an immediate and significant outflow of customers; therefore, why wouldn't all carriers do it?

Some principles are universal.

No, they aren't.

A parabola is a curve. The word you're thinking of is parable.

They COULD set up a system where they verify and reserve the funds at the bank the check is drawn on. They choose not to do so. That was understandable in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, but not today.

Such a system already exists, but that has nothing to do with the problem that I laid out. The problem with cheques is that they are drawing funds. That is, the person who is receiving the funds deposits the cheque at his or her own bank (Bank A), which then sends a request to the bank where the funds are on deposit (Bank B).

It's easily possible, and not at all troublesome (and already done) for Bank B to freeze the specified funds in the specified account. This is what happens.

However, imagine a situation where i draw a fraudulent cheque for $1000 upon your account #1234 at Bank B, and go to my account at Bank A, and deposit this cheque. They transfer it to Bank B, which takes the $1,000 out of your account and transfers it to my account. You open your account tomorrow and get a nasty surprise, so you immediately inform your bank to stop payment on the cheque.

Bank B demands that Bank A replace the money. Bank A replaces the money- by taking it from me. Hence why Bank A will never guarantee the value of the cheque, regardless of how much time has passed.

Wire transfers are a totally different situation. In a wire transfer, you go to Bank A, withdraw funds, and send them to me at Bank B. Bank B has the funds in hand. If someone has fraudulently obtained a wire transfer, the responsibility for the obtaining falls upon Bank A, who is responsible for the money. Bank B, therefore, will guarantee the wire transfer funds- they have the funds in hand and have no obligation to hand them back over if there's a problem.

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Of course, wiring funds shouldn't be all that expensive these days either. It's not like they have to maintain a telegraph system and brave the wild west with a cash box anymore.
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Where do you live that it is? Wire transfer fees in Europe are trivial.
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More and more, the banking system is becoming sand in the gears of the economy. If they weren't so deeply dug in with such a complex web of regulations that don't really make much sense anymore, the invisible hand would have squashed them ages ago.[/QUOTE]
That web of regulations makes perfect sense- the real problem is that it's not strong enough. One of the reasons why the Canadian economy is so secure right now is because of the massive regulation of their banking system.

That's possible. It all depends on how you transfer the funds. The problem with cheques specifically is that the bank will not guarantee them because they were not initiated by the sender, but by the depositor. It's always possible the depositor has fraudulently arranged the transfer. If there is fraud, the depositing bank is responsible for it, and thus they will not guarantee the funds.

If, however, you wire funds, it's the responsibility of the sending bank to arrange the transfer. If the wire transfer is fraudulent, it is the responsibility of the sending bank to replace the funds: the receiving bank already has the funds, and therefore will guarantee them immediately.

I just cashed $35,000 worth of foreign cheques. My bank informed me in no uncertain terms they would not guarantee the cheques- no length of time was sufficient. There was simply no time at which they would guarantee that they would not withdraw the funds.

But this is not what you originally said, which was that services would need to be cut. Obviously that's not the case.

Interesting, but ultimately ineffective. Are you suggesting, therefore, that three times more productive medical services are conducted on every person in the US per year than on every person in the UK per year?

Because that's what the per-capita expenditures work out to.