Our government will never reinstitute a gold standard, as doing so would restrict their ability to operate beyond their ecomonic means. In the meantime, gold is already money. Feel free to step out of bondage to the federal reserve at note any time.

This has been my thought, as well, every time I hear SS referred to as an entitlement. OK, then, just give me back my money and we will call it even. I anticipate we will see means testing for SS benefits soon. Those who earn more, and paid more into the system, will receive less. Socialism at its best.

I can't challenge someone with charts and brains. I can say, though, that in my small world physical gold was getting hard to find in local shops prior to the drop. Even at the higher prices less scrap gold was being sold. Except for collectable gold coins with high premiums, little was to be found. It seems Asians, by and large, see the value of storing wealth in metals. From what I read, the flow of gold and silver since the drop has been from the West towards Asia. I suppose the gold goes where the money is. I suspect the Chinese may one day introduce a gold backed currency. Speculation on my part. They stopped exporting gold and have been importing tons of it. Maybe they just like bling? Not.

Evidence, yet again, that our benevolent government is unwilling to perform its legitimate functions and responsibilities, such as enforcing immigration laws, and is totally committed to using legislation to advance individual political ambitions at the expense of tax paying citizens. Anything that John McCain and his BFF Lindsey Graham touch is poison. And Schumer? This bill will probably pass. We will get all the legalization and none of the enforcement. Again. Enforcement would be labelled offensive and racist. Texas will become a socialist state shortly. Glad I left, though I do miss Texas sometimes. What I would give for a good chicken fried steak.

The government gets more of what it subsidizes, and less of what it taxes. An oldie, but a goodie.

The districts cannot retain those who don't master the material, since if the demographics of the failed students to not match the demographics of the school population that is considered proof of discrimination. I was told, at times, to focus remedial efforts on one demographic or another. Standards for pre-AP classes were dropped so the classes would be more inclusive. Those who have been there know.

Some don't put up with it. Parents in Texas rebelled against it. There are federal dollars attached to implementation of Common Core. If states don't play, the feds don't pay.

Scrap, the square root of 2 is irrational. A non-repeating, non-terminating decimal that cannot be expressed with a fraction having a denominator other than one. The square root of -2 is an imaginary number, contains "i", the square root of -1, which, of course, does not really exist. Common core math is a nightmare. There were actually problems for which any answer was acceptable so long as the student could demonstrate having considered what the solutions might be. Individualized teaching methodologies were prohibited. Foundations are neither taught nor learned. Test scores dropped. I told them to stuff it, and I retired.

The video was very powerful. The corruption that is evident by the cooperation between our government and the large financials is truly frightening. As the speaker said, it isn't a Democrat vs Republican issue. My only strategy, such as it is, it to possess physical assets. It is clear that the value of even those, though, are being manipulated without consequence from federal regulators. BTW, I read that Congress recently lifted the prohibition on insider trading by members of Congress. Not sure this is true, but I would not be surprised if it is.

Whether new legislation is passed or not, enforcement will not happen. Neither party has pushed actual enforcement or border security when they were in power. Both benefit from this. The Dems get voters, the Repubs get contributions from business. The taxpayer gets skewered. Writing congressmen is a waste of time unless a huge check is enclosed. That isn't going to change. I got my family out of a southern border state to an area where we don't have to press one for English.

Federal income taxes are my single largest expense. I am not wealthy enough to have some fancy deductions. My only income tax reducing strategy is to avoid working too much, as odd as that may sound. Better to spend a day fishing than to work an extra day and fork over 28% to the IRS.