Ah, thanks.

[cryptic response]

Hooray! Congrats!

I've never had a CFL fail. I've been replacing incandescents with CFLs whenever a bulb burns out. My oldest CFL is 7 years old and my newest is a little under 1 year old.

Many of us are still living! Just a bit dispersed here and there.

Please proceed, Senator from Arizona.

sPh

(I was trying to be reasonably neutral - after all, the nation's financial stability was at risk)

= = = The difference between banks and MTGox is that while banks also use fraction reserve, the full liabilities are backed by assets in the form of loans they have handed out, and security on the assets of the borrowers such as property. At the time of the financial crisis, those assets and collateral were not sufficient to cover the fractional reserve liabilities, but at least they had something, unlike MTGox which had nothing to back the fractional reserve liabilities. = = =

Spot-on. Of course the major Western money center banks and financial institutions also had the backing of the full faith and credit of major, stable governments including both the maligned US Federal Reserve and ultimately the US Treasury. While bitcoin has the full faith and backing of... Satoshi I guess.

sPh

There is no question that the financial structure of the United States, and mostly likely the world as a result, was in danger in the 2008 time frame. President Bush and Secretary Poulson took the responsible course of action, deflected those whose advice was to let it all burn on principle, put together a bailout plan, invited the presidential candidates to review it, and got it signed into law. IMHO the only competent thing that W did during his entire Presidency.

What President Obama can be held responsible for is not following up TARP with detailed investigations into violations of civil and criminal law, including prosecutions where appropriate. Particularly investigations into the utterly illegal shadow mortgage documentation "registry" that the financial industry apparently created around 2000. This was the first major financial crisis in the history of the United States that did not generate a strong investigatory response. There are undoubtedly reasons why that didn't happen, reasons noble, neutral, and craven, but the lack of _any_ investigation or prosecution is an utter failure of President Obama and his Administration.

sPh

Just to be precise about the situation, Candidates McCain and Obama were invited to the meetings where TARP was agreed upon. They weren't directly responsible, but neither did either object.

sPh

= = = It's legal, but that doesn't make it right. Technically, the first Amendment only prevents the government from restricting free speech. That restriction should apply to every one. = = =

So... your political theory is "libertarianism for me but not for thee"? Corporations to be free to do whatever they want, unless they violate some unwritten norms of right-wing thought? That doesn't sound very, um, free to me.

sPh

Great! When the pirates show up [1] and the "island in nowhere" owners call for help from the US Navy, Royal Navy, Spanish Navy... I'm sure there will be prompt response.

In any case, how are you going to get qualified people to live in the middle of the ocean? Oh, they're going to live in Brooklyn and telecommute? I see a tiny flaw in your "stateless Internet" plan...

sPh

[1] I had a site in a reasonably advanced developing nation where all EDP equipment was twice cleaned out at gunpoint by marauders, along with the copper wire to the phone company stolen. Why they didn't just take the electric power transformers while they were at it I don't know. And that was in a functioning nation-state with a not-hopeless police function.

Except when you do it in-house, you are paying once for the management and "risk management". When you outsource you are going to pay anywhere from 1.5x (with a good, trustworthy established outsourcing entity) to 4x or more (for a fly-by-night "cloud" vendor).

Which is better, pay less or pay more?

sPh