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Active military will always be underpaid because defense contractors don't benefit from high soldier salaries. As long as individuals are willing to sign up for military duty at the low pay rates, the free market is working.

9/11 was bad. However, the economy recovered rather quickly from it. The stock market was back to pre 9/11 levels within 2 months or so, I believe. Also, Clinton did attack the terrorists. The republicans immediately accused him of using it to cover up his affair. I'm not too biased...

The budget was balanced in 2001, when Clinton left office. The republican president, as they always do, increased spending without raising taxes. Bush almost doubled fed gov't spending in 8 years.

If AIG received the $170 B to pay off smart banks that properly hedged their risks, then that is what they use it for. GS only received about $13B of the 170B, so there were other banks that were smart enough to hedge, also. Where is the "populist rage" against the banks that took home the...

GS did nothing illegal. Hedging risky investments was the smart thing to do. Just because financial people at other banks weren't bright enough to hedge sufficiently doesn't mean that GS success should be seen as bad or wrong.

PragmaticIdeals, your theory would work except for a little 5 letter word - greed. The more money the financial firms make, the more money invested in them. Also, bonuses are tied to company profits, so these companies are going to play with fire until the bubbles the gov't let them create...

Gold was used for thousands upon thousands of years as money or to back money. It has only been the last 30 years or so that gold hasn't been used to back "money" in any form. How would you say the only 30 years of gold-free fiat "money" have gone?

Using the real deficit numbers from Treasury Direct .gov, and not the make believe/ underestimated official deficit number, the US ran it's first trillion dollar deficit from 9/2007 to 9/2008. So, US investors and foreign investors have to pump $1trillion + per year into our gov't just to keep...

Printing too much is the same as default. Raising taxes is political suicide. Which choice do you think they will make?

Same thing will happen with the federal gov't within 5 to 10 years. all it will take is a few months in a row where foreign investors don't lend us money.

I found it amazing because I always thought stealth was a good 'ole American invention. I'm beginning to wonder if the reason our space program stalled and has just been repeating itself since the mid '70s is because all the German scientists we had retired.

War buffs - Here is an interesting article that seems to imply stealth was created by Hitler's scientists. It is unreal how close this plane looks like our stealth plane. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529548,00.html

Yeah piezoe, gas has gone from about 1.60 a gallon to 2.50 a gallon in no time at all around where I live. Since energy costs factor in the price of so many other things, hard to believe they say inflation is so low.

It's interesting how the GS rebuttal debaser posted did not address the fines the SEC made them pay or all the pending lawsuits. Oh well...

Maybe the moral of the story is invest in GS. They clearly know how to work the loopholes and bubbles better than anyone else. That might be all that matters.

One of the main remaining ways for large banks to make loads of money is through these bubbles. They aren't going to make it with only loans paying 7 to 10% a year. Any bank or credit union can do that.

I don't believe states can legally go bankrupt because they have the ability to collect taxes. This is the same as countries like the Weimar republic, Zimbabwe, and (perhaps soon) America can't file for bankruptcy because they can tax and print money. If the legislators can't/won't do what is...

Have to agree with R.P. on this one. America is overextended right now. We are fighting two wars with two more against you know who possible. We have bases across the world. All of that costs money, folks. Money we are borrowing from foreign nations. If foreign governments slow down/stop...

People need to start looking at these numbers in absolute terms. Sure, a third world country may have deficit to GDP of 100% while the US deficit to GDP is around 12 to 18%. But in absolute terms, the US number is trillions higher. That is a lot of money to ask foreign borrowers for while...

If you cut taxes you need to cut spending also. It's clear the tax cuts and spending increases of the past 30 years did not work. So, tell me exactly which programs you would cut to support the tax cuts?