There's also "no technological fix" that will make driving an automobile safe, but we do it every day and have learned to live with the risk. I guess we could make everyone drive 10mph, but choose not to. According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year) there were 32,367 automobile deaths in 2011. There have NEVER been anything like that number of deaths in a year from a nuclear reactor. Chernobyl had approximately 4000 deaths and the entire list on wikipedia for deaths due to nuclear and radiation accidents doesn't adds up to around 4,066 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents). These numbers might not be entirely accurate, but I'm guessing that all the deaths due to nuclear accidents amount to less than 2 months deaths due to automobile accidents in the US alone.

We have got to start thinking about this like we think about automobile accidents. Tragic, but unless are willing to make a drastic lifestyle change, they are necessary and we just live with them. We don't agonize over getting in our car and driving even though it is statistically WAY more dangerous than any nuclear plant.

I think people are confusing psychopaths with sociopaths. While the share some of the same traits (http://voices.yahoo.com/sociopath-vs-psychopath-there-difference-1906224.html), I have found more sociopaths in upper management than psychopaths. Unfortunately sociopaths are EXACTLY what upper management is looking for and often rise to positions of authority in organizations. Their ability to manipulate people and to lay blame for every problem at other's feet is rewarded. They are actually often VERY good at getting people to do what they want.

>>It's interesting that for the moment, these methods only apply to finished and unfinished goods.

What else is there other than "finished and unfinished goods"?

You owe it to yourself to look at Synology's NAS servers. Like you, I almost gave looking until I found these. As with most, you get what you pay for. Their DS710+ can accept data across Gigabit LAN at nearly 100MB/sec (yes that's bytes), mirrored drives, in-place hard drive upgrades, and a while host of other features that is too long to list here. Basically I think it is the perfect SOHO NAS. Note: They have other lower/higher powered models, but most users will find 3TB x 2 (mirrored) to be adequate.

4GB hard drives? Is this 2001 or did you mean 4TB drives?

Inching closer and closer to the "thought police" aren't we?

Bi-direction sync is hard because of the conflicts that can occur (i.e. file changes on more than one system) and limited upload bandwidth. I know of no solution to conflicts other than manual intervention and end-users that I've worked with don't want to "think" about the consequences and make this decision. Even if you could get them to "think" about it, presenting the conflict to them and asking them to decide what to do isn't easy.

You are correct that a versioning file system would help (it cold be used as a work-around to conflicts by saving all versions in chronological order), but then none of the production off-the-shelf file systems (NTFS, EXT3/4, XFS) do that today.

IMHO to the vast majority this seems like a simple problem, but it implementing it isn't nearly as easy as it seems at first blush.

As a provider of secure cloud storage (vitalesafe.com), I can tell you that this is anything but easy. It appears easy on the surface, but collisions (files changing on multiple clients simultaneously and files changing while they are being uploaded), locking, versioning, etc. make this much more difficult than it first appears. Add in the cross-platform (Mac, Windows, Android, Symbian, iPhone/iPad) requirements as well as multi-lingual character sets and differing rules about folder/file name rules and this gets to be quite complex. I've had more than one user (and even IT professionals) say all they want is a "simple online storage solution" but don't understand the ramifications of limited Internet upload bandwidth. If you add a secure requirement, which introduces complexity that end-users HATE, and this is no small task. What users seem to want it 100% security, 100% bi-directional synchronization without any user intervention, and 0% additional complexity.

Actually you are quite wrong. You can carry forward losses and that has been a part of tax law for a LONG time. The problem with individuals is that many of them can't really have losses because they don't have the ability to go below zero unless they have other than normal W2 income. You can't really get a negative W2. Now if you invest $50,000 in a company and it goes bankrupt, you can apply that $50,000 loss against future income until the loss is all gone (even into future years). I know this is true because I has a lady embezzle a rather tidy sum from my company and the carry-forward loss took several years to use up on my personal return. That is what the companies are doing. Take this very important tenant of tax law away and corporations would not invest in many ventures that might not pay off the first year. They aren't cheating, they really lost the money. They are just recognizing that fact when they finally do make money. This doesn't make them money in any way and they eventually have to pay taxes on all of it. They aren't getting any "free lunch", it is just fair and I doubt hardly anyone with any experience in business would refer to this as a loophole.

As to reducing the deficit: the US government now pays around $400B per year about 1/6 the total budget yearly in interest. If we keep borrowing $1.5trillion per year (what will be borrowed in 2010) soon that number will so large that it is unserviceable debt. That is why we MUST fix the deficit. We can chip away at the debt over time (just like you would do as an individual if you found yourself in this situation), but we must not continue to spend more than we make first. Then let's see if there are ways that make sense to everyone involved to increase revenues. The old saying goes "When you find yourself in a hole, STOP DIGGING"

As to your second point. The government doesn't have the responsibility to give anyone (except for the mentally/physically disabled) anything. That is the job of the individual, their churches, and their families. This is a fundamental difference in belief between liberals and conservatives. We can't pay people not to work, supply them with unlimited medical care with prescription coverage, pay them to have children out of wedlock, and expect it all to work out. They are provided a free education and if they are truly poor, financial aid and pell grants are available for post-secondary education. Having worked my way through school and then paying off my student loans after, I know it can be done.

Sort of "newspaper semantics". They made a paper profit in a year, but they had carry forward losses that offset the profit and reduced their taxable income to zero. If I have a company that loses money for several years and then I have a breakout year and make $20 million dollars. The newspaper reports that I made $20 million dollars but paid no taxes. Sounds like "the man" is sticking it to us again. I paid no taxes because I had losses that were greater than the $20 million in profits. The newspaper is looking for a headline and got one (same with GE/Exxon). But they weren't completely honest with you. The profit was a "paper" profit not a real one.

I think you picked up an an article that was subsequently corrected:

http://blogs.forbes.com/energysource/2010/04/07/exxon-says-it-does-pay-u-s-income-taxes/

Oh and by the way, they employed over 100,000 people that paid taxes as well.

You might also want to look at this about GE:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/03/did-ge-really-pay-no-us-taxes-in-2010/73178/

They had huge losses in the GE Capitol division and the losses washed out their profits of the other divisions. What is so hard to understand about this?

>>Basically, is there ANY REASON to not include closing those loopholes, as part of the deficit reduction? Since reducing the debt and deficit is so all-fired important, right?

It is not that reducing the debt is "so all-fired important" it is the deficit that has gotten out of control. We can manage the debt. Our debt ($14 trillion) is about 7 times revues ($2 trillion). That's like someone that makes $100K having $700K in debt. Pretty close to the limit, but not completely outside what might be serviceable. It is the $1.5 trillion deficit that can't be maintained. That's like adding $75K per year to their debt in the example above. It cannot supported.

>>So, can you admit that my anology is actually apt? As that money given to them would easily pay for a great many of the programs which we allegedly can't afford? What money given to them? The government didn't give them any money. Letting someone keep the money they earn isn't giving them anything. Also, one man's loophole is another man's deduction. Do use any loopholes (take deductions) on your income taxes? Which ones are you willing to give up? I'm guessing none of them. What kind of effect do you think the elimination of the mortgage interest deduction would have on the economy and jobs? How about the deduction for children (actually it may be time to get rid of this one because we don't really need to motivate people to have more children do we)? The elimination of a deduction (loophole) will have an effect on the economy, some smaller than others but no deduction elimination will have no effect. Increasing taxes might temporarily increase revenues, but eventually there will be an offsetting negative effect as well. Fundamental question: Do you believe that there is a maximum total percentage (below 100%) of the total incomes of businesses and individuals should the government take in the form of taxes? When we reach that number what should happen?

Let's be truthful. The fair thing is for everyone to pay the same amount. How would you like it if when you went to a restaurant or movie theater they asked your income and set the price based on that number? That wouldn't be fair and you know it. Now unfortunately the fair thing isn't workable, so we have to do something that is minimally unfair; like take more taxes from people that are more productive. Do you really believe it is fair to take 70% of someone's income? I'll bet if you started a company and it was very successful, you would not be remotely interested in contributing 70% in taxes. You make $10 million and pay $7 million in taxes. In theory you might say: I could live on $3 million, but I would bet my house that you would do everything in your power (deductions) to minimize those taxes. You worked really hard for a a really long time to be a success. The flat tax is not that everyone pays the same amount, rather it is the same percentage (with a REALLY low floor). I sincerely believe that it is ridiculous that anyone would pay NO taxes (whether on the low or high end). Everyone should contribute some amount no matter how low or high their income is. Everyone in the US benefits from being here and should be expected to contribute towards paying the government's bills. The very idea that I can live in the US and rationalize that I shouldn't contribute is IMHO un-American. I do make special exemptions for the mentally/physically challenged people. We are a big enough country to take care of these individuals. Everyone else needs to get off their asses and get to work. If you goofed off in school and didn't take advantage of your time there, you are reaping what you sowed. If you are too lazy to put in the 16 hour days for 10-15 years it takes to really get ahead, quit whining. I think you are on the right track when you say "For example, you could spend a lot of money on programs which generate no effective return, such as war, or spend it on programs which continue to return for the entire country. Such as interstate roads, rural electrification, social security, and public education." I think the rub is that there are programs that have never worked, but we the response from many is that "We just need to spend more". We don't seem to be ever able to get rid of programs that don't work or subsidies that are no longer needed. They just keep piling on. We can't even agree on how to measure success. Example: the money spent on education has gone from $14B in 1980 to $43B last year and students keep falling further behind. Clearly the increased spending didn't produce expected results, but Obama's solution is to recommend that the 2011 budget be raised to $68B! A liberal never met a spending program that they didn't like or one that was over funded.