But it's not just college loans. our entire culture has shifted so far toward individual wealth and away from the common good. The 28/40 year republican rule in the country has pretty much decimated civic values, put us 12 trillion dollars into debt (almost all of it in republican administrations)....

The richest people WANT to see high interest rates on the poor. That's how they make their money. Investing. As far as they are concerned, the higher the better. If a student will pay 8.4% interest, then they are a lot more likely to give him money than the guy only willing to pay 3%. And the more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the rich, the easier it is to raise interest rates to the absolute maximum possible.

The fact is that the free market systems we all love, start to fail at some time. It's always cheaper to pollute the stream, pass debt on to future generations, and screw the poor. It's more expensive to treat the water, raise taxes, and educate and help the poor.

The truth is we need to raise taxes on the wealthy and start putting money back into the common good like an educated public and public infrastructure instead of idiotic private McMansions.

Let's start with the idiotic low taxes on capital gains and the social security tax cap...Rich people pay FAR less of a tax percentage than the middle class, and the middle class is unbelievably ignorant of it. How many of you knew that there is a 13% Social Security tax that ENDS when you make over $106,000? The richest person in the world (Warren Buffet) pays a lower percentage in tax than his secretary? The rich don't even pay tax on money made through stock appreciation, until the stock is sold? But the wage guy has to pay every year?

It's gotten ridiculous, and the public needs to demand that taxes are raised...The rich will fight it tooth and nail and use all sorts of scare tactics and , but that's the only way things are going to get better....and the rich will NEVER do it voluntarily.

Write to your congressman..ask him to raise taxes...especially on the wealthy

http://www.house.gov/

http://www.senate.gov/

My personal belief is often depression is the result of repressed anger and anger directed inward instead of outward. So many highly intelligent people have been brainwashed to believe that they can do nothing to change society, or are afraid they will be suffer terrible consequences if they try and change the world for the better.. Activism helps against depression IMHO "The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little." â" Mark Twain

I guess I see the ISS as being a big floating resort in the sky....and not much else

The problem with that argument is you can use it to justify anything. At some point you need to exercise that thing between your ears.

Einstein did his work with a few books and paper and pencil, and we haven't gotten to the bottom of that in over 100 years. NASA uses billions of dollars to launch Paper Airplanes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origami_airplane_launched_from_space

If you refuse to question anything NASA does, then you'll get just what you deserve.... 10 billion dollars to burn up a bunch of Paper Airplanes.

Name "One" important science discovery from the ISS.

It's a joke. It's a zillion times cheaper to do research on earth. Putting people into space for no other reason than putting people into space is a little silly. We've proven it can be done 40 years ago, but created this stupid idea that we need to keep doing it...at tremendous expense..for pretty much no other reason than National Pride. That's why it's like the Pyramids. Making it bigger is criminally idiotic. Unfortunately, it's probably gonna take another few generations until the mankind figures this out.

Our biggest problem for the planet is our population. Not putting 5 or 6 people into orbit so they can go on speaking tours and write a book.

Settling the solar system makes about as much sense as building Condos at the bottom of the ocean under the North Pole.

In case you haven't noticed...we pretty much have the best planet and we are slowly screwing it up, with apathy and ridiculous pipe dreams like moving to Titan.

Nope..it won't. Using tax payer money to subsidize some sort of cosmic carnival ride with no public benefit is a joke. It's not the kind of jobs the world needs...unless you perhaps you think we ought to go back to building pyramids or something

AT&T wireless once took $1000 out of my checking account because they claim it was within their rights to change my "plan" without my consent from
my previous $60/month with 1500 minutes to $20/month with about $1/minute.

I used the same amount of minutes as I always had and those assholes charged me nearly $1000 for what had previously cost $60. They wouldn't refund my money. They did try to blackmail me into offering a 50% refund if I gave them an additional 2 year contract.

I cancelled my service. If I would have had time, I would have taken them to small claims court.

The lesson, is to never-ever let a company access to your checking account with automatic withdrawal. Once they get your money, there is little you can do about it. without taking them to court.