It's ridiculous. I'm getting a Nook soon, but damned if I'm going to pay for ebooks. I'll buy the physical copy and torrent the ebook, thanks.

I though Hollywood was silicone valley?

Nice satire on modern business. That was satire, right? That's why you're modded at +5?

Or.... don't let the signal from the towers penetrate to the prison? Surely the guards can do without when they're on duty?

Verizon has a net income of upwards of $10 billion per year. Upgrade the damn lines already and stop trying to squeeze usage.

Or we didn't have to start trading with China, or could have imposed tariffs tied in directly to indices of abuse and waste as an incentive for them to improve. Or a thousand other ways we could have gone about the issue without giving the base of our economy away wholesale.

Fundamental atheists are a strawman.

In that situation, you probably would be paying 100 times more for your car, food and house. Because they're nicer. You see, if you have more money, you're going to get more benefit from it.

The guy who is earning 10000 a year might get a welfare check and foodstamps for his taxes, as well as some environmental and health protection. At 1000000 a year you'd be getting police protection of your stuff, military protection of your assets and investments, political power (that comes nearly free by virtue of just having the money), subsidies for your investments or business, the kind of stability that allows your business to even function, etc.

The other guy is likely to be hassled by the cops as much as protected by them. He has no foreign investments that require a powerful military and diplomatic structure for protection. A much smaller military would be sufficient to prevent invasion. Most of all any benefits that keep him alive and not starving are keeping your workers alive and well and not rioting outside your door. Like someone else around here said, taxes buy civilisation.

Correction: Bankers tell politicians how to tell bankers how to bank, and bankers tell politicians how to tell car makers how to run car companies.

And we're not the ones they're saying should tone down the rhetoric - they're saying the politicians should tone down the rhetoric.

It does if you like Jack Lemmon http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053291/