I don't see your suggestion of some other way for him to defend himself.

[citation needed]

Nevermind, I gotcha here. The United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives doesn't agree with you.

My emphasis added. NFA would be the National Firearms Act, and it applies to machine guns, machine gun parts, short barreled shotguns/rifles, silencers, etc. It doesn't apply to your standard handgun, rifle, or shotgun.

I don't understand how his use of some tool changes your ability to use your own similar tool for some other use. Sure, go ahead and tell me about how 3D printers are going to be outlawed, it's been a busy morning and I need a laugh.

I wonder what those guys are digging up on shows like Gold Rush, and Bering Sea Gold. Must be fools gold.

While I understand that fraud and corruption in regards to public utilities are a problem, that's not what I'm talking about here. If some office or store didn't exist, then there would be less car traffic of customers and employees. There would be less need for other infrastructure that is only required because of the increased demand caused by the commerce. This commerce then financially enriches the capitalist. I don't have a problem with charging capitalists for the infrastructure that is used in their commercial ventures.

Having hidden, tax sheltered accounts is another way to increase the return on their capital. If it wasn't saving more than it cost, it wouldn't be happening. The natue of a capitalist is that they must keep getting "much in return", if not, they have to either change in some way or they become former capitalists.

Use of those tactics in no way excludes the use of others. Buying lawyers, lobbyists, regulations, and contracts are just expenses with expected paybacks. Decreasing costs (lowering tax obligations, decreasing benefit and salary) and increasing revenue by buying favorable treatment, both increase the bottom line.

After articles about it in Wired, Forbes, and who knows where else, I would be surprised if more than one cost / benefit survey hadn't already been completed at each of the too-big-fail banks.

Hopefully you got the pre-1983 pennies, double the melt value for the same face value.

I'm starting to think this is a requirement if you do not want a society that doesn't devolve into a small, private group that owns and controls all the resources, natural and human.

Do the companies they own and profit from, and the employees engaged in work for those companies, drive more, fly more, require more police and fire protection, phone lines, clean water, solid waste disposal, waste water disposal?

While some capitalist can only use so many resources as an individual, the total usage by those employed by them can be considerably more.

So, now we have the owners at the top of the pyramid dodging payment of their share of taxes, the corporations dodging payment of the same. This leaves the non-owning class to pay for the infrastructure used by the capitalists to generate their profits.

//*What a waste of potential utility.

Yes, this. Being a wage slave in the fiat money system created by the bankters, for the banksters, is a MUCH better use of my time.

Now, Where did that <sarcasm> tag get off to?

I didn't make any claims about how likely these events are, or what other ramifications would come with them. Someone asked about potential ways bitcoin could fail, that is all I was trying to show.

[citation needed]

flooz was backed by a private company with no requirement to limit or control the volume of their product.

Bitcoin has the backing of current cryptographic techniques, the bitcoin protocol, and the compute power of the bitcoin mining network. While you can mine bitcoins with commodity hardware, it's not like you just get to instantly make as much of them as you want. You are limited by the cost of hardware, the cost of electricity, and at the same time you are competing with other miners on the network.

The NSA executes a 51+% attack on the network and corrupts the blockchain?

EMP wipes out a large portion of the electric grid and/or the internet?

Are you trying to say he should report his mined bitcoins as income, even if they are not converted to some other currency? Does the IRS expect someone to report WoW gold or other virtual currencies as well?

How would that allow them to lock the world, or even a small group, into THEIR bulbs, sockets, controllers, and hardware?

Any time a question in the form of "Why can't/don't/won't X do the the logical thing Y?", the most likely answer is some form of "money/greed/control"

There seems to be growing evidence that the increase in crime in the 70s ,and eventual decrease in the 90s, is related to environmental lead pollution from the rise and fall of the use of lead in gasoline