The Privacy Act does not protect non-US persons, which is problematic for the exchange of Passenger Name Record information between the US and the European Union.

The privacy act already doesn't apply to non-US persons.

That's what I've been saying for years.

Yes major corporations have more money to buy politicians, but at the end of the day, they can't physically vote. Only people can. I'm sure when the people start firing representatives every time they come up for election. Either the politicians or the companies will see it as a losing game at some point.

Of course then the companies will just attempt to buy the peoples votes instead.....

I find it entertaining, just to see what houses in foreign places go for versus what I paid for my house.

Not trying to be offensive here, but Barack Obama is very close to a Nehemiah Scudder. While Obama is not a religious leader, there are many people who only voted for him because of fanaticism.

And let's face it. The other choice was Mitt Romney, who was Scudder.

I don't see an actual theocracy based on religion coming anytime soon, but I can see a theocracy based on some other type of belief system very soon.

Then you don't live in the parts of the country where our health insurance rates are skyrocketing this year. Our teachers have had their insurance costs double. Our state legislature has been called back for a special session to try and figure out where to get the money to help offset the cost to only a 10% increase.

You don't have any friends that are self-employed that have just been informed their deductibles and rates have to go up because the current plan they've been on for years is too good according to the ACA.

And I guess you didn't read the comments earlier this week where the bronze plan in New York state is $14,000 out of pocket before they start to actually cover anything, and then it's only at 50% of the actual bill you rack up.

Where I live, I haven't heard of one person state they like it. Hell even my unemployed cousin still can't get insurance with the govt. subsidies.

And how is this a bad thing?

We are moving from an industrial society to an intellectual society. Every few hundred years, the human race does this. Right now China is moving from an agricultural society to an industrial one. This is called progress, and while there are definitely going to be growing pains (i.e. higher unemployment for a while, more money needed for social safety nets, etc. etc.), in the end I think it will be better for society as a whole.

The less people who have to work at McDonalds hopefully means more people who can work on discovering a cure for cancer. I know it's a very utopian thought, but I think we can see how this works as demonstrated by the 20th century. Human knowledge progressing can only be a good thing in the end.

Yeah, the next 50 years (an arbitrary number I picked, I have no idea how long it will take) or so are really going to suck for the uneducated, and probably the educated too, but the end result if we can suffer through will be a brave new world.

My fingertip for a mod point.

Some people think a war time economy is the best economy. It worked during the Great Depression, right? As long as they can keep writing blank checks to themselves they can amass even more money they can't spend in a lifetime.

He did the same thing last year.

Those damn martian terrorists are building chemical weapons, quick alert the US govt. So we can launch troops. And liberate the green martians. So we can all live in peace. We must bring peace to the Martians and democracy.

I live in the US, and have attended several colleges. State college, private college, and community college. It is expensive, but I've never seen these $28k per year schools. It took me six years to finish my degree, once I got serious (I worked full-time and was supporting a wife and kids), and I graduated with about $50k in student loans. Yes this is too high, but not anywhere near 28k a year. I graduated from a state-run university. Even the private college I went too, after scholarships, I probably could have graduated with only around 10k in student loans. But I don't know what the overall cost was with room and board.

Two words on why college cost so much: Sallie Mae.

And that's why a new tax plan that only pays for the govt by property taxes. No more income taxes. If you own a house, you pay taxes, if you rent, you don't. Own a 5 million dollar house? You pay a lot more money than someone who owns a 100k house. Own an expensive warehouse, split the cost between all your customers. Seems like a workable plan.

Yeah I agree. It was a stupid idea.

I'm sorry, the school wad paid for by grants and we used the loan money for fun money.