1. Federal government passes law that banks with over $10b in assets may not charge merchants as much as all banks have been charging for debit transactions.
2. Larger banks (the only ones affected by said law) impose a monthly, instead of per-transaction, fee to make up the difference, while smaller banks continue to charge merchants the same amount they were before.
3. Outrage is expressed by the uninformed and pundits who have an axe to grind, such as Consumers Union.
4. Larger banks lose customers to smaller banks, who will continue to charge merchants the same amount for debit transactions.
5. Larger banks reverse position on monthly fee but increase other fees in order to indirectly make up the difference.

Who exactly won? Thanks Dick Durban!

I too didn't believe the above AC. Two thoughts, in no particular order:

• That's fucking disgusting. And why?!
• So the "internet savvy" should know every perverted thing that has a name? And avoid ever using a similar phrase?

...8% at a time when the market rate for car loans was about half that...

I'm not sure how a loan interest rate is calculated, but I'm sure that an unsecured loan (like a student loan) is going to be quite a bit more expensive than a loan with collateral (such as a car loan). So your story doesn't exactly make sense: it was more expensive than you felt it should be, but you have no idea how expensive it really was, because they didn't tell you how much interest the feds were paying.

Education in the US has been under the control of the Federal government since 1980, and has steadily gotten worse since.

Except that democracy cannot function if people do not understand the issues they are expected to vote on.

Absolutely true.

Our public education system is supposed to ensure that all citizens have at least enough education to responsible citizens.

Your (and my) idea of a public education system would be tasked with that. The current public education system does not perform that function.

Except that teachers need to be paid...

He's not talking about shutting down or de-funding education, he wants to remove the Federal government's role in it. This leaves the states to fund whatever the local government can't afford. This may mean that the states and local governments will raise property or sales taxes. But it leaves us as individuals the freedom to leave an area with crappy or expensive schools and move to an area that does a better job.

Also consider this: the US was founded by individuals who made up a majority of the population and who had an education that was *not* funded by a government. We all have incentive to educate the children in our communities; the Federal government is not the only entity that can accomplish that.

I can easily imagine a life without Federal income tax. I already school my own children AND pay property taxes to fund the schools I don't use. My city fixes the potholes, and I pay them property and vehicle license fees for that. Ditto for the police and garbage collection, which I pay for with my property taxes.

Congress only has the ability to levy income taxes because of the Civil War through the Sixteenth Amendment, and it should have been repealed once the war was over. It's a direct violation of the intent and wording of the rest of the Constitution.

My mother went to college in 74-78 and she worked for her tuition during the school year. She worked at a restaurant, a light-bulb manufacturer, and a pesticide manufacturer, among others. She didn't take out loans.

Without student loans, only children of the wealthy will be able to go to college.

By that logic, the day that student loans end, all of the colleges will go bankrupt. No, obviously they will lower their prices until low enough that enough people can afford it that the college is solvent.

But the Federally subsidized student loan is a subsidy: the interest rate is artificially low, it can go unpaid for decades, the lender charges the government fees based on the amount of the loan, and the government guarantees at least part of the principal. Since the university and lender have incentive to increase the tuition cost, and the students have little incentive to find a lower price, the inflation occurs. It seemed to start in the 80s, but it would be difficult to determine the exact date it began based on this graph.

Also note that ending federally subsidized loans does not mean that there will be no student loans available. They may be more difficult to get, and they will have higher interest rates. But these will keep the tuition cost nailed roughly to the rest of the market.

Police and Fire departments are locally funded. Penitentiaries are state-funded for the most part, while there are federal prisons for those who commit federal crimes. The federal government is not the only government, and the states, counties, and city governments can provide things too. Having one large government run everything leads to enormous inefficiencies, because nobody can keep track of what the government is doing with their money and only a very few people can rise to positions of power enough to do something about it. At a local and state level, things can be inspected and people held responsible for their negligence.

Ron Paul economic ideas are no-fucking-brainers. We've got 150 years of history prior to the creation of the various social programs, where the US was an economic powerhouse that the rest of the planet was immigrating into. There were no federally-run social programs at that time; why do you think everyone wanted to be here?

You can't honestly think that his desire to return the federal government to the responsibilities that were laid down in the founding documents is unfounded and stupid. There's no way you can be that ideologically biased.

And that "old fool" has been saying these same things for decades. Every warning he's given us has come true. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk3FwJTjVi4

Did you even bother to read the plan? It cuts spending by 1 trillion. And schedules further cuts for the next three years, causing a budget surplus in the third year.

And it cuts the Department of Defense budget by 15%, freezes it there, and ends all war funding.

I'm pretty sure that's your device. I have a WiMax-only device, and it switches quickly as long as I'm in a city with coverage. Of course, there's no coverage at all between cities.

Sprint's WiMax network is provided by ClearWire. ClearWire is trying to switch to LTE, is already running trials, and is seeking funding. It's not clear to me what exactly Sprint is doing...are they going to pay ClearWire to upgrade to LTE? Or are they abandoning their relationship with ClearWire?

I'm a recently-added ClearWire customer, and I have a 2-year contract to be on WiMax. If Sprint puts together their own LTE network, ClearWire will be dead. As a doornail.

I would have if it had matching documentation, but according to Google, it doesn't.