I've been in and out in under ten minutes. Driver's license renewal took twenty minutes, but that's probably because they had to take my picture and check 5 kinds of ID to make sure I wasn't an incompetent terrorist. If I needed to do something that complicated at my bank, I think I'd bring food and a sleeping bag.

They charge you for using another bank's ATM on top of the fee that bank's ATM charged you. They charge you if you fall below the minimum balance. A friend of mine owas once asked to pay a deposit fee - a fee for depositing a check into his account at the bank.

Heck, they'll even charge you for not doing anything they can charge you for. My former bank tried to charge me a fee for not having any transactions in an account during the then-recent month.

... which is our seemingly-perpetual trade imbalance. Even though oil has gotten cheaper, importing 14 million barrels/day of the stuff is still pretty expensive. OPEC will eventually own our asses if we persist in tooling around in huge SUV's.

It's because of Stem Cell Research

Nahhh, I think it's cloning. How else would they get a big bunch of just-fell-off-the-turnip-truck investors to buy in today's market?

infighting? bickering?

it is called democracy.

Yeah, but a lot of people forgot what it looks like after that 8 year hiatus.

People who want to get rich quick, and for whom rich doesn't ever seem to be rich enough, need to be "returned for regrooving" (to quote Firesign Theater).

I'm hoping that the fiasco has wiped out the next generation of Wall Street financial "wizards" (or is that "lizards"?) before they developed past larval stage. Maybe we'll have a few years to build the country instead of their bank accounts.

is GOP a church of some kind?

I think so. Their policies are based on dogma that nobody is allowed to challenge or even discuss in a rational manner. The dogma itself is never examined, it is always assumed to be absolute truth. Any failure of the policies to produce the promised results is always explained by blaming something/somebody else.

The CNBC clowns are like real estate agents: They got used to the easy life when a bubble made it almost impossible for them to do wrong. Now the bubble has popped and they haven't a clue what to do with themselves, so they're spraying bile randomly at anyone and anything they think they can blame.

If criticized by other party members: Tell them to fsck off.

If criticized by Rush Limbaugh: Run and kiss Rush's ass.

I'd mod your post up if this was slashdot.

I'll just add an observation: Right now, we have people going without food, shelter, medical care, etc because they don't have jobs and can't pay for them AND we have a surplus of all those needed things because people aren't buying enough of them.

I think that any solution to your puzzle is also a solution to this.

Any machine with half a chip would realize that it's MUCH more efficient to BURN THE FOOD.

You betcha. I always thought that premise was one of the weakest parts of the movie.

It's hard to generate power from "low grade" heat (a heat source that is not much hotter than ambient temperature). The waste heat from power plants quite a bit hotter than human body temperature, but power plants throw it away because trying to use it isn't worth the hassle.

In the presence of properly defined property rights (an action ideally suited for government btw), I fail to see how damages from water pollution cannot be compensated. But lets use some imagination. Who is providing your water supply? Is this company bonded and insured? By whom? Who is testing the poisonous effluent? Are they bonded and insured? Who audits the insurance company? Is escrow mandated for the insurer? And those questions are just tip of the iceberg. We could get more in detail if we talked about the extent of property rights. Who sold the land to the polluters? What riparian rights and privileges go with the deed? Furthermore, what precluded the people of your area from raising money and buying the land in question years earlier and instilling those very same property restrictions? (Sounds an awful lot like zoning laws.)

That's a lot of hassle to go through just to get drinkable water. Who's going to do this work in your model?

What we need is the spirit of free capitalism with heavy handed prosecution of those who steal, cheat or otherwise upset the natural order of supply and demand by deception and outright malfeasance. No more white color prisons.

That's an appealing idea, but I don't think it can work as long as those who are winning the game have disproportionate influence in the creation and enforcement of laws. The deregulation that lead to our current crisis was bought and paid for by the people who got rich creating the crisis.

Yeah, right. That must be why they started a completely useless and unnecessary war in Iraq that has killed countless thousands of people.

Like they say, "be careful what you ask for..."

... truth, justice and the American way

Is this one of those "Pick any two of the above" things?

Seriously, you folks should really get some help for your obsession with other peoples' sins. Maybe you should read the bible again. I think there's some stuff you missed, such as the bit about removing the beam from your own eye before you try to remove the mote from your neighbor's.

It's our way or no way. If you disagree with us, you're un-American. We're right and you're wrong. We're good and you're bad. God is for us and against you.

... and they'll do everything in their power to make sure nobody gets a chance to try anything that they don't approve of.