So just perpetual expansion for ever and ever? I don't know why having a balanced budget is such a bad thing. Increasing the money supply simply devalues all the existing money, essentially a property tax.

I wish she had used some real numbers, say it's 2030 and the debt is 26 trillion, and you are starting to get some huge deficits to pay for social security. Keep borrowing and by 2050 pay 50% of your budget in interest payments? Start printing money and by 2050 have an inflation rate of 8%? If the gov't needs to run continual deficits, why not just keep a balanced budget then drop cash out of helicopters on the 4th of July? Same money added to the system.

Really disappointed she didn't mention the Federal Reserve. Why is the US paying interest to a private entity that creates money out of thin air? Are they more credit worthy than a government that can also create money out of thin air?

@bobknight33
"socialism is not american"

i swear sometimes bob i dont know what the fuck you are talking about.

even when people put out,quite correctly i might add,that america has socialism in its economic structure.you respond like they didnt state anything.

it is like you live in this weird bubble and that any information that attempts to enter,that may possibly contradict your own personal understandings.

so when i say that you can have a socialist democracy,i am not just pulling that out of my ass:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism

or that america already has socialist programs,and a majority of them YOU and your children enjoy:
https://mises.org/blog/bernie-sanders-right-us-already-socialist-country
(this is from the von mises institute.not exactly a bastion of liberal/progressive ideology.just in case you wanted to pull that tired and stupid response:well,they are a liberal website blah blah blah)

so if YOU think that socialism is SO bad and harmful and utterly un-american.let us revert to a pure capitalist society shall we?

here are the things that we will be saying goodbye to in your new capitalist america:
1.child labor laws.
thats right...your 8 yr old grandchild can now quit her fucking whining and get to fucking work.hmmmm...nothing like forced labor for the children working 14 hr shifts with no breaks,and 6 days a week.no work on sunday!
because:god.

2.minimum wage.
gone will be a basic minimum wage imposed by federal law.now we shall see the TRUE market place in action! of course,since there is surplus of available workers and there is no minimum.we can exploit the most desperate and vulnerable of our society and pay them 25 cents an hour!
take THAT china!

3.public schools.
education? only if your are part of the new american aristocracy! and what child will be going to school for an education? they are too busy working at the plant! pfffft..education.it is over-rated anyways.

4.fire and police.
now why would i spend my hard earned money in taxes, so my neighbor can be protected from fire damage and property damage? pay for your own protection fuckface! oh...you're too busy working 3 jobs,making .25 per hr? and your kids are working too? aww too bad loser.shoulda pulled yourself up by your bootstraps.

5.voting.(yep.you read that right)
i am a hard working american.who pays his taxes and owns property AND a business! and i JUST gave my employees a raise to .27 per hour! i have a RIGHT to vote! why should those non-property owning losers get a vote as well? i am obviously far more important than they are.whats next? women voting? the horror.

6.social security and medicaid.
now why would we waste time and resources providing a safety net for those losers again?how is it MY responsibility that they couldnt plan for their sunset years? i did give them a raise didnt i? fucking crybabies.and so what if they actually PAID into those programs.i feel better creating my own reality by calling those programs "entitlements",because it makes me feel morally superior to them.

7.public libraries.
there is that pesky "education" again.why should i be responsible for someone else family and their access to literature and information?what do you think i live in? a society? with neighbors? communities?this is just more government intrusion upon MY life and MY freedoms!

look man,i know i am being a cheeky shit in this comment,and i am not anti-capitalist..at all.
capitalism has brought great things for society as a whole..BUT..there is a difference between capitalism and unfettered capitalism,and what we have now is NOT capitalism.

it is socialism for the rich:
see: the bank bailout
see: corporate subsidies (welfare)
see:corporate tax breaks (welfare)
see:our current political system which has been totally over-run by corporate money.a corporate coup de'tat.
which we are all fed the bullshit line of how wonderful captialism is,but the only beneficiaries are corporations,wall street and the dept of defense.

the only people that get to engage in capitalism are the poor and middle class,because actually having to compete is for suckers and losers.

I haven't been following Krugman's column/blog for quite some time, but every once in a while, a piece of his makes its way onto my screen. And his recent takes on HRC/Sanders/Single Payer reminded me that he's a member of the establishment first and foremost.

Many point out how his views of the electability of Sanders vs HRC are eerily similar to what he wrote in '08 about Obama vs HRC. I'd say it even has a touch of Attlee vs Churchill in it. Winston was bound to win the election in '45, beyond any doubt, so Attlee decided not to pretend to be Churchill light, but went all in with socialist ideas. NHS, largescale nationalisation incl the BoE, free secondary education, massive public housing, a focus on full employment, social security, etc -- ten times more radical than anything Sanders even proposed.

48% to 36% - a landslide victory, thank you very much.

WTF?!? "Tangible plan"? What on earth could you possibly mean by that?
The "plan" to round up over 11 million people and deport them, but with zero details about it?
The "plan" to make Mexico pay to build a 2500 mile wall, with zero details about how?
The "plan" to illegally deny fugitives entry to states because, you know, Muslims are bad...MmmmK?
The "plan" to skew the tax system even more in favor of those in the top 5%, to the detriment of the middle and lower classes?
His "plan" to be a smarmy, dickish, douchebag to anyone that isn't in his camp...but also to completely control those people to make them do exactly what he wants...again with zero details how he plans to do so?
The "plan" to force China to...I don't know...ignore all our debt and treat us like the boss we are?

As for Clinton's being 'currently under Federal investigation by America's FBI department.'...the "email scandal" has, just like Benghazi, turned up absolutely zero illegal behavior and is nothing more than a red herring designed by the (absolutely not) "conservative" side of our political system, has gone absolutely no where, and only matters to people who would NEVER have voted for her in the first place...if you think differently, you really need to get out of the Fox bubble and look around at reality for a bit.

Little could be more disastrous for the country than having that vitriolic humanoid pumpkin as our 'leader', since the only successful leading he's ever done is leading people to hate each other, and leading far more people to hate HIM. He's a fairly terrible business man, successful only due to starting with a "tiny loan" (his words, really more of a gift from daddy) of a million dollars and being forced to allow others to take control of his investments. He's a bold faced liar, in fact the truth does not seem to be palatable to him in the least....and he's clearly admitted that in his books and sees it as a good thing to hyper exaggerate and minimize. He's a 'good Christian', who's been divorced how many times? There's no way on earth his plans would even be tried. He (and other republican candidates) don't even have a grasp of what the president does or how, claiming they'll 'repeal the ACA on day one', and they'll discard multiple government departments...somethings the president simply CAN'T just do...along with most of their other ridiculous, impossible 'plans'. They all know they wouldn't actually have that power, yet they all lie to you and tell you they will do the hateful things they've convinced you are the right thing to do by themselves. Fortunately our system is designed so that one nutjob, or even one party of nutjobs can't change laws precipitously.

I hate to tell you, but Bernie Sanders is not excluded for being honest and knowledgeable. ALL candidates are socialist, he's just honest enough to admit it. Tax breaks for the rich...socialism. Bailouts for the airlines and banks...socialism. Social security...socialism. Medicare...socialism. "jobs programs"...socialism. Public parks...socialism. Public roads...socialism. Need I go on?

Your mischaracterization of Obama's record is so patently ridiculous it's not worth contradicting.

I remember -hearing- and -reading- about those days. They were before my time, or at least before I was paying attention to politics. Until Watergate, I wasn't really interested...after that, the GOP was pretty much irrational.

Simpson was one of the half-way rational sorts. Big for privacy and equal rights, but was also pushing to privatize Social Security and cut taxes (mainly for the wealthy, surprise!). I'm not sure he's got solid standing to call others hypocritical on the topic of income inequality...he did his share to help reach our current balance.

Edit: I didn't quite trust my memory after writing the above, so I did a bit of verification. And I found I was right not to trust it. Simpson was not trying to privatize SS, he just wanted to slash the benefits and increase the retirement age. Which has much the same effect for those who have paid into it all along; they get less.

I take issue with the part about birth rates and the 35-year population forecast.

Firstly, the premise that we (Germany) need to stabilise our population level stems primarily from the depopulation of parts of the country, the north-east most of all. However, the cause is not low birth rates. It's urbanisation, which is part and parcel of capitalism. Everything gravitates towards the centres while the rest becomes hinterland to be exploited for resources.

Secondly, population forecasts turn into horseshit real fast. If we were to look at a 35-year forecast created in 1980, we'd miss the reunification, the breakup of Yugoslavia by NATO, about a dozen wars in the Middle East and the destabilisation/desolation in large parts of Southern Europe. Nevermind the EU with all its freedom of movement agreements that were recently suspended.

If we had made a 35-year forecast in 1910... well, you get my point.

Thirdly, Europe is not a singular unity. Our ongoing assault on the economies of Southern Europe (aka austerity) lead to a mass exodus already, Same for the Baltic countries. Unfortunatly, those countries who lost a significant portion of their young and educated over the last years are also the countries who are least equipped to deal with mass immigration in an orderly fashion.

Which brings me to my fourth point: many folks make the argument that we cannot possibly pay for the integration of 800k refugees, much less for 400k a year. Well, we payed for reunification in the most inefficient, corruption-inducing and anti-social way imaginable by piling the cost exclusively on our version of social security. And you know what? It still fucking worked. If Germany can shoulder the cost of reunification, the EU can pay for 2-3 million refugees. End of story.

Finally, we need immigration. Not to maintain population levels, not to even out low birth rates. We need it to not become too homogenous, especially Germany. Too much consensus, too much group think, not enough confrontation and cultural diversity. Shake things up before people start believing their own bullshit again about their own superiority. We've seen it already vis-a-vis Greece.

@eric3579

Does the Polish Six Flags guy look familiar? It's the very same racist imbecile who described the plan to create a unified driver's license across Europe as "Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Ticket" while doing the Nazi salute.

I'd rather have a thousand Syrian refugees than people like him.

I am German myself and I am disgusted how the German media and politicians are only blaming Greece. Some conservative papers (like welt.de) are ticking out completely and are turning to phrases that are very close to our Nazi history and are not allowing overly critical comments.

How Germans could chop down wages so quickly and without much opposition from the people and other parties?
The main reason is Hartz IV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept
Its a reform for the unemployed people, which at first sight doesnt have much to do with wages of the working people. But it does have everything to do with it. Let me explain:
Before Hartz IV unemployed people didnt have much to fear from the state. They got their unemployment (Sozialhilfe) money every month which was enough to live without much fear of anything. It didnt mean much to be unemployed. But people found a job if they wanted to. Of course, like every country, it was exploited by a tiny minority. People were happy with it and many countries were envious of that system because it provided so much social security that people got very peaceful and crime rates were pretty much non-existent.

Hartz IV was planned to cut the massive costs of that social system. The left wing government (which turned out to be massive hypocrites), a coalition of a socialist party and a green party, claimed it would decrease unemployment rates massively and save lots of tax money and they would force those lazy useless unemployed people to get jobs. They emphasized on "the hard earning people whos tax money is stolen by lazy unemployed" and used the tiny minority of exploiters to get Hartz IV under way. Hartz IV was basically a cut for unemployed people where they would barely have enough money to live from or pay the rent from it. It also allowed the government to use many tricks to adjust the unemployment rate. They for example excluded people who were unemployed at a certain age or people who were send on useless trainings (like how you write a job application or how you use a PC), which were forced on them from the government. If they didnt attend, they would get cuts on the already not enough Hartz IV money.

They got it through the parliament (since there was no oppositon of mention thank to their "democratic" coalition) and it went all downhill from there. Unemployed people were suddenly massively discriminated, even by the politicians, because they had created so much hate against unemployed and built many stereotypes in the process, supported by stupid fake shows in the media, just to push Hartz IV through. As I said before, they only used the minority that exploited the system before in their arguments, and didnt care about the majority. That also lead to companies falling for the created stereotype and not employing people who had been using Hartz IV at one time and even going as far as them looking at older employees as inferior. They got rid of them in a massive purge, which also led to the trick of excluding old people near pension-age from the unemployment statistics. Pensions dropped because those old fired people didnt get a job anymore and had to use Hartz IV. That meant that they had to use up their savings before they get Hartz IV money (that rule is part of Hartz IV), which drained old people of their money and also caused them to get caught in an even worse trap:
After a few years of getting Hartz IV money, they dropped to the lowest pension rate, which was barely above Hartz IV. It didnt matter if they worked 40 years of their life in a well paid job. Now they were poor and would never get a pension that was appropriate to their former job. That lead to a massive shift in wealth away from the normal people (middle class and poor), to the rich people. The buying power of Germans was destroyed, and it became even worse after the socialist/conservative government (yes, a stupid coalition like that is possible here) increased the sales tax by 3% to a whopping 19%. As result of this living costs exploded and black labor skyrocketed. Cost of energy of any kind, taxes, food prices, gas, rents, every day stuff you need increased massively. The Euro was to blame too, because prices of many things (especially food) were just exchanged 1-1 to the Euro. So for example if there was cheese before that cost 1 Deutsche Mark, it would now cost 1 Euro, even though 1 Euro was worth 2 Deutsche Mark. Wages collapsed, while everything got much more pricy. Hartz IV made all that worse.
Now for the main reason how Hatz IV pushed wages down:
The fear of dropping into Hartz IV (for the reasons I mentioned) was massive. Nobody ever wanted to drop into Hartz IV because they knew then everything was over. So they accepted extremely low wage jobs, even if that meant they would get less money than they would from Hartz IV, which already was barely enough to live a crappy live from. They took 2, 3, 4 shitty paid jobs instead, and the companies loved it, because they saved a lot of money with that. The problem with that was that even well educated people had fear of Hartz IV and accepted lower wages because of it. Wages didnt rise for 20 years (and they dont rise much now either). Yet living costs, as I said, increased massively. It all came together.
Germanys economy was very low at one point, yet they still tried to tell us that the unemployment rate dropped again (even 2007/08 and every year after that). People started to learn how they manipulated us and now we are here. Companies making revenue records after revenue records, yet nothing is arriving at the people. The media claims everything is well, the statistics still lie to us that the unemployment rate is low, but its not.
And now they are trying to blame the Greeks for our problems. Just like the unemployed Germans before, and the stupid masses fall for it again.
Yet they still wonder why Germans are a dying breed (population has been dropping for years now), and dont get that having children is very expensive in Germany and only few people still have money or time for that (since both women and men have multiple jobs to be able to live) because of these developments.

Greece accumulated debt in a foreign currency (Euro). Had they been using a free-floating currency with Greece as the sovereign issuer, it would have been much less of a problem. But that's a different discussion.

You brought up retirement benefits. These benefits have been a major talking point over here in mercantilistic Germany. Unfortunatly, a lot of inaccuracies crept into the debate over time. A closer look reveals that it's not as black and white as it is made out to be. One point at a time...

The effective retirement age, if we look at OECD stats, is basically the same for men in Greece and Germany. The age of 56 is often thrown around as the expected average retirement age for workers in Greece, but that's only for the totally messed up public sector. The average for the private sector is significantly higher, as the OECD numbers indicate.

Yet the size of retirement benefits is even more controversial. There are, in fact, some very dubious practices going on in Greece, which result in rediculous retirement benefits for a select group of people, even at very young ages. Decades of nepotism, that's what it produces. But even so, pension expenditure as a % of GDP was not significantly higher in Greece before the GFC than in Germany. When Greek GDP collapsed, expenditures as a % increased, naturally. Some have gotten absurd benefits, but the majority got a pittance. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Greece doesn't have a social safety net, unlike Germany. There is no welfare. Many people have to take early retirement at reduced benefits to have any income at all.
So I'll say it's bad in Germany. Last decade's changes to our retirement system have a metric fuckton of people (~40% of workers) heading straight into poverty when they retire. It's social security for them, and nothing else. Still, it's bliss compared to what the plebs in Greece now ended up with.

However, even all those beautiful OECD stats have to be taken with a grain of salt. Germany has a working bureaucracy. Everything is documented. Greece is a mess. Therefore, all comparisons are guesstimates at best.

Finally, as long as the Greek economy produces enough goods and services, it is for them to decide how to distribute their wealth. If they want a lavish retirement system, so be it. Our governments opted to create a true underclass of the working poor, and gutted a retirement system that made it through two world wars unscathed. If German retirees want to bitch about their benefits, it should be aimed squarely at our governments and their intentional deconstruction of our social welfare state.

"WE" is the nation as a whole. Because you wish to separate yourself from the rest of us does not mean 'there is no we', it only means you aren't one of us (or don't want to be).
I live in the real world, where most people are poor planners, and most people don't have the means to plan anyway (more every day, thanks to un-livable wages being the norm). It's not defeatist, it's realist. It would be wonderful if we all had the gift of forethought, perfect knowledge of financial planning, prognostication to be able to know what your needs WILL be, and the income to be able to follow through with financial plans. I live well on 1/2 of a <$30K income and take NO help from anywhere, but most people don't have my advantages or the willingness to live with less, or the time and space to do things like grow their own food, or the property and money/credit to get a solar/wind generation system, even though it saves them tons in the long term, they simply don't have the financial ability to plan long term.
I don't see what your next paragraph has to do with the topic. (It reminds me of the saying 'god only gives you the burden you can carry' which ignores the thousands that commit suicide because their burden was more than they could stand.) One can only rise to the opportunities one is presented with, those that have limited opportunities often have no way to 'rise to the occasion' or 'over come adversity', they can't even overcome their food bills, no matter how hard they work at Wendy's.

I'm for getting rid of 'government cheese' for anyone that does not need it, but removing all programs leaves us back in the 30's with roving gangs of the destitute clogging the streets, expensive abusive state run institutions for the elderly poor, and the economy tanking. I could support a 'means test' or the like for 'welfare' and social security, but it would benefit us all if everyone had access to healthcare, and in the long run would even save those who do pay for it, because as I've said repeatedly, we already pay their bills after the fact (by paying higher bills to cover for those that don't/won't/can't pay their bill). Giving us all access to healthcare outside the emergency room saves us ALL money...and removing the insurance industry middleman saves another 10%-25% that we get NO benefit from.

It's about addressing the real world, not insisting all people should act intelligently and fore-thoughtfully at all times, and designing a system that only works if they do and leads to disaster if they don't. I do not believe people, as a group, are good at planning for their future, and we all do better when at least the minimum of financial planning is taken care of by intelligent educated people rather than left to those who plan poorly. Sometimes that means paying to not have people camped on your lawn waiting to rob you...and it's cheaper to put them in an apartment than in jail. The systems could certainly be better (I'm not holding my breath that they will be improved though), but having no 'safety net' at all has already proven to be far worse for everyone, and the country as a whole in many ways.

It depends...social security, about 1937, medicare, more like 65, public schools, that depends on what you want to call different systems, but in North America it started in 1647
https://www.raceforward.org/research/reports/historical-timeline-public-education-us
The road bit is a PERFECT example of how, even if you don't directly use a service, you benefit from others using it....just like EVERY OTHER SERVICE MENTIONED.
Because we don't deny medical services to those without money, it's a question of do you pay less beforehand or more later, because either way you pay.
Because uneducated children cost society FAR more than educating them does, standing on your myopic moral high ground demanding 'personal parental responsibility' is a self defeating stance demanding people 'give' more than some have to give with no option for the children of the poor. (That said, I can get behind the 'public schools being free only for the poor' plan I think Jefferson had, as long as those schools are on par with private one's)
I explained clearly why even those average numbers are misleading.
Again, is that purchasing power per dollar, per person, or what?
OK, 'middle class' is not the average American. How about give the average American salary instead of cherry picking a rapidly shrinking sub-group that makes your point?
We all pay through the nose...it's just about when and how. You pay for the indigent by paying higher insurance and medical bills...it would be FAR cheaper to simply pay for their medical care in the first place (as in single payer health care). That saves the 10-25% that insurance companies take as profit on day one, and saves on overall medical care cost per person by properly taking care of people instead of waiting until there's an expensive emergency to pay for. (and makes a much healthier, so happier society as a whole)
The fact is that they are happy with their system. It does not make them all 'perfectly equal', there are rich and poor in Norway...or do you not believe that? People DO get ahead in Norway, probably more so than the average person in America who has seen their financial/social status in life, purchasing power, benefits, opportunities, and security go backwards over the last 40 years, unlike Norway.
No, I think the entire 'identical to everyone else' thing is something in YOUR head, not theirs, and not reality.
Don't have disposable income?!? In Norway, not the US?!?! You've GOT to be kidding. Let's ask someone who lives there...@BicycleRepairMan , is there only one social class in Norway, all equal, all making the same amount of money, all poor and destitute with no disposable income?
Well, the American system certainly disagrees with you. Those that put the most effort into their jobs usually make FAR less than those that put little effort into taking advantage of the opportunities available to them, but not to others. Those that make more in our society almost NEVER do it with manual labor, the hardest work to do. They also rarely do 2 or 3 full time jobs, as many poor must do. It's simply not true that working harder gets you advancement in the US, opportunity and connections get you advancement.
I do agree, giving medals for average/expected performance is ridiculous, but that rarely happens in business.

FYI I was thinking $1500/month to 3000$/month. Which would make 75 to 150$/day.

Its nice to have a civil discourse with you.


Other than the clarification above I AGREE WITH ALL THE BENEFITS YOU MENTION.


All I am saying is it the responsibility of the employer to pay for this benefit?


Should the young couple or single woman wait till they can afford such time off? With all the family planning available should the couple or single woman take some responsibility.


According to report California and few other states have placed a tax of sorts to spread this cost over all its citizens. I do not see an issue with this as long all are taxed equal.

-----------------------------------------------------
My reform plan

We do need welfare and social security reform ( which will have to happen) it should be 1 in the same. Everyone over 25 should be able to take 10 years of government paid time off (PTO).

All get 10 years, All pay a tax, call it what you want. But when it is used up then that's it. no more government cheese.

If I am 25 and going to school I should be able to collect a year or two OF government PTO ( paid time off). Your choice.

If I have a baby and want to take 3 months off then I will have 9 years 9 months left for retirement.

If I turn 40 and find myself lost in life and just want to check out of society and go back to school or travel the world for 2 years then I would have 8 years left.

I don't care what you spend you government check on. Schooling, traveling, hookers, drugs. Its you life.

When I turn 65 and think I will still live another 20 I better not retire with my remaining PTO time.

Its your life use it when you need it.


This would stop all the complaining towards welfare people. Also it will keep people from retiring early and sucking tax dollars for years to come. It would naturally provide an incentive to work and to stay working.

There would be no unemployment benefits. Other programs eliminated and rolled into this program. It would streamline the government. Reduce government costs create a a level playing field for citizens. Your PTO pay should be based on you current skill level with minimums and caps.


Granted this is a pie in the sky ideal world thought. But it does have some merit.

Have a good day.

Theories like "it's a viral campaign" or that "Sony tanked it" intentionally are completely out of touch with reality and the facts.

To think they would toss one hundred million dollars in the toilet because the movie wasn't funny enough is nuts. Shitty movies get released all the time.

To think they released terabytes of damaging internal documents (social security numbers, passwords, future projects, embarrassing emails etc etc) as some viral campaign is also nuts.

Sony stock has dropped 7% in the last two weeks.
They did NOT do this.

if you say so man.
but i think you are confusing politics with policy.

i dont find your comment necessarily wrong but rather inaccurate.reflecting the current rhetoric of certain talking heads without any real analysis.

so let us break down your comment:
1."the democrats have turned socialist"
this is a popular meme for the past decade.its a canard but it does hold a nugget of truth.the meme is a creation to distract you from the reality and instead points to things like welfare queens,social security and obamacare as being "socialist".

there is a growing socialism,but its corporate socialism,corporate welfare and state run capitalism.the republicans are even worse in this regard but both parties serve their corporate masters.

2."republicans have become democrats".
if you are referring to wars of aggression and a growing surveillance state and militarized police force.then i agree,this is antithetical to the republican ideology.though their rhetoric attempts to distract,they have consistently voted for bigger government in regards to:military,police and data-gathering on american citizens.

bravo bob! inadvertent truth sayer that you are!

Did you shout how it was treasonous when Regan did it in 86 for 3million?
Or do you think that was different somehow (maybe just because 'Saint Regan')?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128303672

And do you not understand these people are all already here working, so they won't be takin' anyone's jerb? Because they are. Now they'll just be paying taxes, so you'll pay less, and they are not getting full access to services (like Social Security) for it. How are you not on board with that?!
I will say, I wish their culture would change from large families to two child or less families...but that's a completely different issue.

@VoodooV: "Every one of these youtube crusaders are comfortably enjoying the perks of a system they despise."

What perks? Like roads and firemen? You know, it's not like we couldn't have those things without government. And those kinds of services are only a small portion of the federal budget. In fact, from all the excise taxes collected on gasoline, tobacco and alcohol, they'd cover the roads completely, which costs around $60 billion annually. In fact, things like the EPA, Dept. of Trans, NASA, Dept. of Edu, all cost less than the revenue the federal government categorizes as "other." Look it up: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals

So what about all the wars and militarism? Is that, too, a perk? And the prison industrial complex that locks up 1% of our population? What are these perks you speak of?

Even Ayn Rand took gov't assistance.

I love it when statists bring this up. I personally am not an Objectivist, and find lots of flaws with their ideology, but this is a cheap blow. Obviously it shows the economic illiteracy of most statists. For one, she's forced to pay into social security, so therefore why shouldn't she receive some of it back? And second, if you spend more than a couple seconds reading about U.S. monetary policy, you'd know that the purchasing power of the dollar is reduced over time due to inflation, and hence savings are always impacted. This should alarm you instead of excite you.

The whole thing is infested with logical fallacies: false equivalencies, ad homs, strawmen, and even a no true scotsman thrown in for shits and giggles.

By all means don't take any time to point out which things he said were these things. No, that'd be helpful, and we wouldn't want to cloudy any appeals to emotion with pesky things like fact and well thought out rebuttals.

they spend all this time criticizing the problems of gov't and NEVER ONCE demonstrate how it would work without these systems.

I think there are plenty who do. It's just that statists don't accept those answers, or any answers that don't emulate the current status quo systems they're accustomed to. I'm not interested in replacing public schools with another bureaucracy.