I agree that we should have a publicly run bank, although I don't know about eliminating private banks. What all are you counting in that, even investment banks? Here's what I'd like to see:

Abolish the fed, and reconstitute the Treasury under a new Bank of the United States, this will NOT be a central bank. It would be a publicly run depository institution, with full reserves, cooperative with atm companies, and little branches all over the country, everywhere there's a post office. This will offer general depository services to individuals and businesses, and of course, it would handle all government accounts by law. So basically, kill the free checking industry where private banks currently do everything. The bank would be financed through annual account fees and maybe transaction fees for users that are having a lot of transactions, and costing the system more.

But it pays no interest, of course. No savings, no money markets, nothing like that. It is a publicly run service that lets you deposit and withdraw cash, money orders, cashiers checks, and transactions with a standard magstripe card. The head of the bank is elected, say 3 year terms or something.

Now if you want interest, or any kind of investment at all, you go to the private banks (or DIY, a broker, a credit union, whatever). They can offer whatever services they feel like, as long as they stay within the law, which will be reduced a lot, and they honor their contracts. No reserve requirements, that's what the public bank's for. No mandated interbank lending rate, they're big boys, and they WILL be allowed to fail spectacularly. No usury laws, we don't need a nanny state.

And now, the money supply. This is where I'm on the fence. The money supply would be controlled by the new Bank of the US, through the direction of congress. I'm inclined to say that the money supply should be constant, and we should have a Constitutional amendment saying as much, but I haven't thought this through enough. Another way is to index the money supply to current population. But I do believe it should have an objective metric on it, not just, "BLS has shown solid economic growth the past 3 quarters, particularly in the imaginary property and hamburger manufacturing sectors, so we're going to inject a bazillion gajillion dollars into the economy to represent the added wealth in our glorious synergistic society."

But the difference between restricting money supply absolutely and restricting it severely is insignificant compared to what we're doing now, which is like pumping cholesterol intravenously to the world's fattest man. Even a gold/silver standard, which I don't support, would still be lightyears better than what we do today.

You may be thinking that what I wrote above would crash the economy. Probably, but it's gotta happen sooner or later. If any big change happens, the house of cards that we have now is sure to collapse. We may as well use the opportunity to get on some sound footing, while we don't have anything else to lose. Instead, when our economy eventually collapses, we'll probably deal with it by sending our military around the world "liberating" natural resources.

As far as laws for holding stock, I agree that they should be held long term, but I'm hesitant to want that made law. Doesn't seem any more right to me than outlawing gambling.

The saddest part of this whole mess, all these state and local governments based their budgets on INSANE real estate bubbleeconomics.

And a lot of them divested their public pensions of anything resembling a store of wealth, and put it into the wall street casino. So I guess when those people retire, I'll be footing the bill for that too.

I thought this Wilson quote was interesting.

[Government] is not a machine; but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. No living things can have its organs offset against each other, as checks, and live. On the contrary, its life is dependent upon their quick co-operation, their ready response to the commands of instinct or intelligence, their amicable community of purpose. . . . There can be no successful government without the intimate, instinctive co-ordination of the organs of life and action. . . . Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. All that progressives ask or desire is permission--in an era when "development," "evolution," is the scientific word--to interpret the Constitution according to Darwinian principle.

It assumes that the goal is successful government, not individual freedom. To be fair though, the Constitution, even as it was originally written, still gave us more than enough rope to hang ourselves, which it shouldn't have. People taking advantage of that throughout our history are only part of the problem.

This one is interesting too:

http://www.documentarywire.com/the-new-american-century

It talks about the babies in incubators thing, and also about fraudulent sat photos of Iraqi tanks on the Saudi border. Haven't fact checked any of this though.

And there weren't any copiers back when the first books first came out.

Yes, of course! We would have a completely clear picture of the Word of God today in 2009, if only God had a copy machine in 33! Damn the Devil, that wily bastard, delaying the invention of the photocopier by 2000 years!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

How about we abolish patents?

Thanks, I'll look into it. What you said reminded of a video on an old site, but it ended up being something other than I remembered. Anyway, the site went offline for a while, but it's now back up:

http://www.documentarywire.com/

Lots of good stuff there, lots of bs too. Check out Gods of the New Age. It's unashamedly pro-Christian/anti-Hindu, which is bs of course, but it's a really interesting video.

zogger, your stuff about saddam/gulf 1.

You have any links or sources on that? I'd like to read about it myself.

But today, in the Middle Bullshit Era, if you do that you might have someone snitch you out. Then you could be kicked out of the university for being in violation of the stated Ethics Policy, which you have no doubt signed at some point.

I've thought about that several times, and have even done that with some trusted friends in the same classes. But torrents are a lot safer than doing that with some random person.

I usually don't post on health care stuff, I have pretty much no idea what I'm talking about. I've been to the doctor once in about 5 years. And now for a rant from someone who knows nothing:

One of the biggest problems in our system is probably lack of competition, but I'm not sure that's the only thing. It seems like Americans have much higher expectations than most other countries, and so the total cost is going to be greater, of course. And there's also the problem of separating the user from the payer, and all that entails. It seems like insurance isn't the way to do routine medical stuff, because insurance is based on rare needs and pooling the risk.

As far as a public option competing with private options, we already have them coexisting, although I wouldn't necessarily say competing, to a large extent with medicare and medicaid. And I guess that SSA does this for other people, not necessarily retirees, who are TANF eligible, or is that medicare too?

Speaking of that, when health care comes up, I always here about how the ER is the most expensive way to do things, and people use it when it's not necessary. Well ...... why? Sure, there will always be some people who can't pay, but who is it at these hospitals directing people to more expensive stuff, and why is it fundamentally more expensive? Just because the doctors have to be on call or something?

One thing we probably agree on, if we as a society are going to guarantee a certain level of care, then why is that being handled through a for-profit, private intermediary in the first place? If we're going to say that you can get a broken arm taken care of, regardless of your ability to pay, why is that being done in a private setting, rather than a public clinic?

One of the most interesting things I've ever read on /. : If it's important enough to be required, it's too important to be left in the hands of business. Another way of saying that is, government and business are both good at different things, they should both do what they are good at, and stay the hell away from each other, to the greatest possible extent.

So if there are certain things that we've decided WILL be done and WILL be paid for, then why isn't it a government service? Because if that's our decision, then sooner or later it's going to be subject to the freerider problem, in one form or another. Please don't misunderstand, I'm not saying I support all out government run, government paid health care, maintaining our current levels. I don't approve of tax dollars going to chemo or keeping someone technically alive by external mechanical means. If that makes me incompassionate, sorry.

But if we collectively decide that these are things we want unconditionally, then we need to own up to it and pony up the cash (cash, not treasury securities). And it needs to be available without discrimination, for example age discrimination. The sooner we do that, the sooner we'll get a much better idea of the real costs, and the sooner we'll be able to make better decisions.

In summation, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with government providing services, but you must choose between government and private enterprise, you can't have both. What would probably be best here in America is, we make a list of all the things we want to cover, call them rights if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy. We then set up clinics/hospitals/whatnot and the workers are direct government employees. Private enterprises are allowed to operate as well. And for god's sake, let as many people who want it become doctors, as long as they can pass an objective standard. Abolish all forms of guilds, we left Europe for a reason.

Wrt your examples, USPS and the PDs aren't really competing in the same market, and so they aren't providing the same service. There's some overlap, but they're fundametally different things. Just like in what I suggested above, the private operators would be providing things that the public option doesn't, so they're not really competing. But maybe that's what you meant in the first place. Oh and, as always, abolish patents. Intellectual monopoly is evil.

Most (if not all) colleges and universities require students to have health insurance to attend;

Really? I just pay a health center fee along with my tuition, it's $30 per semester.

It may be very different other places, but most colleges? That surprises me.

Nah, I was joking about the cost/portions in EU. Your meats might very well be more hygenic, I don't know. But when I made a short trip to Europe, I noticed that all day I would get about as much meat/fish as I do in one meal in the US, and it was more expensive, even after adjusting for exchange!

Diets in the EU seem to be more based on bread, pasta, and potatoes, I guess. It's a nice place to visit, but I'd never want to live there, because I just couldn't handle the diet, all those baked foods don't fill me up. Just a culture difference, I guess.

That's one of the best things about the US, we have lots of land to grow all kinds of food and herd animals on, so food is relatively cheap here. But for some reason we can't make beer like you guys.

I see your point, but that can't be all there is to it. If we take sept 11 for example, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the cockpit needs to be locked, secure from both attackers and the pilots themselves. And sure, the average person might not understand the concept of an air gap, but they don't understand how a real crack works either. So, given two possible solutions, one rational, and the other "omfg, we're gonna die unless we have a panopticon prison state!" that they're equally unclear on, there must be something else going on that makes fear the default position.

Over the years, I've started thinking it has a lot to do with controling TV. If you control what the box says, you control the reality, or at least the perceived reality, of the populace. From another angle, that's another good point for putting more strict controls on the internet, from the point of view of those in power. I'm sure they would love to turn the internet into glorified TV for content, and into a walled garden for things that actually do need a real grown up global comm system, like software updates. All without encryption of course, except for license holders.

In the face of meatspace terrorism, meatspace liberties can be curtailed. That's why there's "concern" over cyberterrorism. Because the internet is not healthy for the establishment. It can spread both truth and propaganda, but currently, it tends too much toward truth for the establishment. If that sounds crazy to you (nothing on the internet but lies and pr0n!) then you haven't looked around.

FTA:

It is alarming that so many people have accepted the White House's assertions about cyber-security as a key national security problem without demanding further evidence. Have we learned nothing from the WMD debacle? The administration's claims could lead to policies with serious, long-term, troubling consequences for network openness and personal privacy.

Yes, this same thing keeps happening, where a (possibly) real world problem is used to justify a curtailing of freedom, consolidation of power, and serving various agendas of people in power at the time. A cynic might say it's planned, but we're not cynical, are we?

I suggest we give it a name. Let's call it Problem-Reaction-Solution.