Interesting... That certainly wasn't the case back in the mid 2000s. At least for the shanty town on the side of the road down to Valparaiso. I loved my time living in Chile (Vina del Mar, Valparaiso, Renaca), and it's easily the best country in South America to live in, but there was certainly a lot of shoddy construction quality...

Other than the issue with the Article referenced (Article 1?), what does revenue and war powers have to do with negotiating treaties with another nation? What will stop the Obama Administration from negotiating a treaty with Iran, given that the President faces zero political repercussions for the future?

Question: how do we know the signature of the Iranian fissile material, since we don't have access to their fissile material in the first place?

Nah, just build a semi-truck sized weapon, put it into a 40 foot container, stick it on an ocean freighter, and when it arrives in the port of LA/NY/Houston/Seattle, have it detonate. Prior to screening at the port. Yeah, won't maximize the number of people killed, but would pretty much destroy the port, wipe out massive amounts of infrastructure (water and sewage treatment plants tend to be near the coastline) and still kill a sizable number.

...Scans the list of signatories to the NPT... Huh, I don't see Israel on there...

BUT - I do see Iran! Curious how they're working out a deal to continue seeking nuclear weapons, even though they signed a treaty to not do so...

Because President Bush could so easily have stopped the North Koreans from buying Pakistani nuclear weapon technology in the 1990s... Bush's Fault!

Yes, we're to trust the regime of Iran that for decades claimed they were not seeking nuclear weapons. And now they come out and say "yeah, we're looking for them" - so we negotiate to slow down their progress. What makes you think they're being honest about their progress, or that a 2/3rds reduction in the number of centrifuges will slow them down at all? We'll just ignore the past - and hope they tell the truth this time!

Take everything in the US that Bill Gates owns. He would still be a fabulously wealthy man. In fact, if he just escaped with only his Boeing Business Jet (a private 737), he'd be worth $50 million dollars. Now take the car or home of a person barely scraping by - they have nothing left. Yes, proportionately Bill Gates loses more - but he will still end up in a MUCH better position than the poor person.

At this point, BHO is legally barred from running again. Public opinion cannot influence his fate over the next 2 years. He has nothing tying his hands other than trying to work with the Senate in getting his foreign policy agenda pushed through. The difference between BHO at this point and Chamberlain in 1938 is night and day...

For most people in the US, it's not a $300-$400 phone, it's a free-to-$49 phone. Yes, you have to sign a contract for a few years of service - but you need service anyway to use the phone.

It's not so much the cost of making the product; as others have shown below, that's really a push. A few dollars one way or another on a $300 COGM product. The BIG difference is taxation. Sell that phone for $700 - that's $400 of profit. China's tax rate is about 60% of the US - meaning on that $400 profit, in the US you'll pay around $160 in taxes. In China, you'll pay around $100. That's a $60 difference - that's the big money.

Companies don't just look overseas because of lower labor costs (or lower manufacturing costs) - they look overseas for maximizing profit, and taxes can be a huge chunk of that. Add in 24/7 logistics support throughout China (ever have to do banking on the weekend? Simple in China - rather complex and onerous in the US) and you find the total costs involved are skewed against the US.

Worst of all, this is an area where we are 100% in control of the problem. Simply cut the corporate tax rate in the US down to the OECD average - 24% - and we'd have a tax rate slightly lower than China, and thus eliminate that penalty from discussion. Instead of building products overseas, and leaving the profits over there to be taxed there, companies might choose to build here and leave their profits in the US.

Last I saw, Apple and it's leadership are heavily Democratic, not Republican.

Bill Gates pays a lot more property tax than the poor person. That's how he's protected locally. And if China invaded, Bill would be on his plane flying out - and the poor person would be stuck behind, praying the soldiers protect them.

Correct. The lower end tends to receive more from the Government than the upper end. So in a way, it's still progressive...

Yes, it includes intragovernmental debt. Are you implying that we don't have to pay back the debt we borrowed from the Social Security program, that which is promised to others? The Federal Government owes that money to the people it's promised, right?

Claiming it's not "real" debt means that when I take out a loan and guarantee it with money in my savings account, then the loan doesn't count as an outstanding debt. It's a debt and counts. Add up your debts, add up your assets, and you'll find your net worth.

Go to a bank, show them the above, and ask them if they will "ignore" your outstanding debt you backed with existing assets (bank account). They'll laugh you out of the bank. GAAP pretty much requires you to count that debt (of course, the Federal Government chooses to ignore GAAP because it's politically embarrassing - never mind that if you didn't use GAAP for your own tax reporting or public financial disclosure the same Federal Government will prosecute you and toss you into Federal PMITA Prison).0

In the case of the US Federal Government revenues, our debts piled up a little over $1 trillion more than our assets last year - and always piled up more than revenues, during the Clinton years.