Ambassadar

Agreed. In my microeconomics class our professor talked a lot about the different tariffs throughout history and the impact they had in starting wars. It really caught me off guard how many conflicts could be tied to large tariffs when I started looking into it.

The income tax didn't even make it's first appearance until the Civil War. It was ruled unconstitutional in the 1890's by the Supreme Court. It was brought back in WWI under the guise that it would only be for the super rich and of course once the government established it they just kept expanding it until everyone was nailed by it. The US got along fine without the income tax for 150 years. PS. Tariffs is another way the government would raise money.

One example would be don't eat any kind of seafood from China. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19487107/

My last year of college I think I only changed my bedsheets two or three times.

Well I will admit I don't know what I am talking about on this topic. :wink: I just posted that BBC article since no one had posted an article and thats what I found when I did a web search to try to help out. Be sure to keep us posted on what is going on anyone that is from Belgium. I would be curious to keep up with this.

It sounds like I had by far the worst experience with having my wisdom teeth removed. Mine were turned in towards my other teeth and were going to wreak havoc in my mouth if they surfaced. I think the dentist had to drill through some bone to get to them and take them out. They hadn't surfaced through my gums. They knocked me out with meds for the surgery and I woke up groggy and went to my grandmothers. I fell asleep with a numb face and spit pooling in my mouth but I felt too bad to even swallow. I woke up groggy and put my hand on my chest and it felt like there was a puddle of spit. I was thinking ugh, I drooled all over myself and held my hand up and it was covered in blood. My mouth was full of blood as well. I went outside and started spitting blood out and there was so much it had bubbles in it. It looked like someone had gutted an animal where I was spitting it out. We tried doing the bite a teabag trick to stop the bleeding as well as a few other things but it didn't work so I had to go back to the doc. When I get there he asks if I want local anesthetic or want to just be knocked out again. I just thought it would be a no big deal shot and I didn't want to be unconscious again so he said the local. He proceeds to pull out a harpoon. As he stuck it in my gum I don't know if he meant to or what but I think he hit a nerve with it. My body tensed so hard from the pain that only my feet and head were touching the table from my body arching up as every muscle tensed. I lost my vision and everything went white until he pulled the needle out. He proceeds to cut open the stitches and use some metal vaceum tube to suck the blood out so he can see and I hear it hit something hard. Yeah, I was awake as he was running metal across exposed bone. So anyways he stops the bleeding pretty easy and I go back home. My jaw then proceeds to lock up for a week where I can barely open it enough to get a spoon in my mouth. I was living on banana milkshakes that week. Lost 10 lbs. Miserable experience. Have fun. :D (I seriously doubt yours would be anything like mine)

He is one of these guys that you have to really listen to what he says. He stinks at giving a 10 second explanation of his position but if you can listen to him for ten minutes on an issue he makes a lot of sense. For example he wants the Fed gone. Realistically can he abolish the Fed if he becomes President? I doubt it. He admits as much himself. What he says however is that this country was never meant to have an exclusive government run centralized bank in the first place. What he would be pushing for is allowing commercial banks or states to produce currency. Some people may freak out at the initial thought of that happening but it does several key things. 1. Provides people an alternative to having their money inflated away by the current spend and then print to cover the spending policy of the Fed. 2. Creates some competition for the Fed which would make them more and force them to do a better job. 3. Allows people to use hard currencies if they so choose(this country is all about freedom right?) 4. Allows a smoother transition to a no Fed system in the future if the country chooses that course. Historically banks and states have produced their own money in the United States so it's not a new idea. The Fed wasn't even created until the 1930's so our country ran fine for 150 years without it using a gold standard. If you also notice our government didn't start running up massive debts until they created the Fed to allow them the capability to do so. Our government is acting like a shop-a-holic and the Fed is their Credit Card. What's the best thing to do for someone that can't control their credit spending? Cut up their card.

Make a Japanese friend. ;-)

I haven't been exposed to Japanese much but I went to China a while back and it felt so weird in terms of language. If I went somewhere in Europe or South America I would be able to at least read a road sign or deduce basic things that were written. When visiting China and other Asian countries not only do you not speak the language but you get the experience of feeling absolutely illiterate. As an avid reader and craver of knowledge it felt really strange just all of a sudden becoming illiterate for two and a half weeks.

I'm going to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican Primaries. I think he has some of the most crossover appeal of any candidate in either party. I actually have a good friend that has been a Democrat his entire life that is going to register to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican Primary. On things I don't see eye to eye with him about he usually just says "Constitutionally states should vote on that issue." Constitutionally he is right so even though I disagree with him on the issue he is doing the right thing in referring it to the states to vote on. He is also the only guy that seems to understand economics. He understands the Democrats want to spend a lot on social programs and then jack up the tax rate to pay for it. The Republicans(the neocons to be exact) on the other hand have thrown fiscal responsibility out the window lately and to cover their expenditures they lower the interest rate and start printing off massive amounts of money out of thin air and drive our inflation up which is just an indirect form of tax that really hurts the lower class and middle class.

By the way the whole Belgium splitting in two thing was a spoof by a news station. They just took something that might happen one day and messed with everyone's heads to try to make a point. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6178671.stm

You mean having different cultures in a country makes it weaker? I guess someone should send a note to George Bush about that... "Our diversity makes us stronger." pfft, that is a total load of crap. Diversity in a country leads to conflict and countries wanting to split apart like you have with Canada and Quebec wanting to secede. He needs to go read The Federalist by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Paper Number 2 by John Jay says: "With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people - a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs and who, by their joint counsels, arms and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established the general liberty and independence."

Every single person in this thread has completely ignored supply and demand. When the supply is high and the demand is low then prices stay the same or drop. When demand rises prices rise. Ignore Burger King for now. The question is why has the salary not increased since 1978? My guess is their profit margins have dropped because the supply of tomatoes out there has gone up a lot which means there isn't as much profit per tomato picked which means workers can't get paid as much. It's not anyone being mean or nice, it's just basic economics. The market will bear whatever price it can. My guess is Burger King could probably buy those tomatoes from Mexico or someplace else instead of Florida for the same price which is why they aren't raising what they will pay. To really truly see what was going on you would need to look at the financial statements of tomato growers to see why things are the way they are and where the money is going. This is one of the most [developmentally delayed]ed statements I have read in a while. The reason organic foods are more expensive is because since they don't use the highest yielding crop techniques like chemicals then the yield per acre of farmland is lower. That means it is more expensive to grow them. That expense is passed on to the customer. It's not like a farmer has some obligation to society to grow a lower yielding crop but sell it for the same price. They are only going to do it if it makes economic sense to do it. You need to relax with the conspiracy theories and go read some business books.

I thought it was interesting. Thanks for posting it.

Why would you make an exception for a female?

Just for fun I'm going to do a little calculation. You spend $5 a day on it which is $1825 a year. If cigs never went up in price and you invested that money every year at a modest 10% return in 10 years you would have $31,994 20 years you would have $114,979 40 years you would have $888,504 60 years you would have $6,092,394 Instead you get ashes, a few moments of satisfaction and you probably won't live 60 more years if you keep smoking. I mean just investing what you spend on smoking could be the difference between retiring poor not having money for anything and retiring comfortably with a vacation house. Oh yeah, you will also look 60 years old when you are 45 from it aging your skin so badly. So how exactly is that worth it and had you ever considered that if you gave it up and invested it at 10% a year you could be a millionaire by the time you retired just from that?

How much a day do you spend on cigarettes?

Do you realize how bad a person that believed there was a God would get jumped for making a statement like this?

Jumping to condemning conclusions for the win! /sarcasm

It's the civilian version of the M-16 that can't shoot full auto or do the three shot bursts.

It's cool. You are completely right about the running interfering with trying to bulk.

Time to make it complicated. Part of my decision would depend on the culture and technology of the two worlds. If it was a violent or warlike(Sparta) culture I would be a giant in a heartbeat. If it was more a present day western culture then that wouldn't be a factor. Are there professional sports? As a giant I would be a multimillionaire playing football or basketball with midgets. Boxing would be funny as well since they couldn't even reach your face. I hate getting hit in the face but for 20 million a fight to take some hits in the stomach from a midget... I think I could handle that. A big factor in determining what I would choose would be women. If there was no chance in heck I would ever find a woman I could marry and "get to know" in one world but in the other world I could then that makes the choice easy. I don't really want to try to figure out if being a midget or being a giant would make life better in this realm heh.

Wow... I suggest you go read some books. That would take pages upon pages of someone explaining. As with everything you will find people with different points so read things from different perspectives so you see where people are coming from. Then make up your own mind.

I agree that he needs to alter things to suite exactly what he is going for. As to running more than three times a week... why? I have read on multiple sites that a person doesn't need to run consecutive days to become a stud runner. Most of what I have read says 2 days distance and 1 day intervals is sufficient. As to me personally if I lift three times in a week and run three times as well I don't have the energy to get off the couch on Sunday. My body is hammered alternating lifting and running days. I'm still pretty noobish at this whole running thing though. That may play a factor since I've only been at it for a couple of months. I've worked up to running 5k's but just when I start feeling good about my progress I'll go run with my girlfriend and she will leave me in the dust on a distance run heh. Nothing like a little 5'4 girl leaving you in the dust to smack that male ego back down.