It's still a bad comparison, though. The government doesn't have to make money on its money. Instead, it has to hope for continued growth of its tax base to eventually cover its debt - or, it can devalue its currency. Households may be able to claim future income growth which sort of compares, but households certainly cannot decide to cause inflation. There's a whole economic toolset available to the federal government that households simply don't have.

There's some (contested) evidence that the higher a country's debt load compared to GDP, the slower its economic growth. However, there isn't really any evidence of causation. In fact, Krugman argues the reverse of what you would expect - it's actually slower economic growth contributing to higher debt load, not debt slowing down growth.

It depends on the state whether you're allowed to run a brewery and restaurant in the same building. In Texas, you pretty much can't. In fact, I don't think breweries here are even allowed to sell their own beer inside the brewery - it has to go through a distributor first. That might be changing soon, though.

As for the "debt ceiling," it's helpful to remember that debt isn't a bad word like it might be in households. For a country like the US, where everyone views holding US debt (treasury bonds) as a safer asset than cash, our government can sometimes borrow cheaper than inflation. That means when the debt comes due, it's actually worth less than when it was issued - the government makes money by taking out debt. It's a rarity, but over the past few years it's happened a few times.

If you want to get concerned about the amount of US debt or its ability to repay that debt, then watch the long-term interest rates on US treasury bills. If they ever spike to 7-10% (depending on how fast the economy is growing, this might be even higher), then it may be time to worry. Right now, it's nowhere close to worry territory.

No. No, you are not. Because you secretly do care about HL3, and you're just trying to publicly deny it to look cool.

There is literally nobody who doesn't care at all about HL3.

I mean, I studied economics, follow the debate about the ACA, and know my company's health policy and how it's unaffected by the ACA. It's a huge law with lots of moving parts, so I won't pretend to comprehensively understand it. I just take issue with the phrase "no idea."

The government has "shut down" several times since the 1990s. It means things like national parks close down, and some government employees don't get paid for a while, but all essential spending continues. It's not really that unbelievable.

The only reason I'd have to move away is if I legitimately feared for my life, or way of life. If we start hearing news stories about people in brown shirts running around vandalizing store fronts and such, I'll book a ticket. Until then, there's nothing to worry about.

Nearly all the Fortune 500 companies already have their salaried employees on group healthcare plans. If their employees are already insured, they do not need to heed most of the provisions of the ACA. My company, for example, probably won't have to pay a wooden nickel because all the employees are already insured.

I would expect IBM to be in a similar situation. If they're laying of thousands of people and converting them to contractors, that's probably because it's been the trend since the recession. In fact, the trend of outsourcing IT work hasn't abated since 2000 as far as I know. Obamacare is, as someone else already pointed out, simply a convenient excuse. My dad works at IBM now so I can call him to confirm if you desire, but I'm pretty sure he has healthcare through IBM and thus IBM wouldn't need to change or pay any more because of Obamacare.

As far as workers being affected, I think the next year's worth of jobs data will be a decent guide to how the implementation actually affects employment. That is, if spending cuts don't force a ton of government employees into unemployment.

And as far as the tax for not participating, as with all progressive programs, the ACA offers refund or waivers (I forget which) on that tax for the lowest-income workers. Frankly, if you're unemployed, underemployed or working minimum wage, the ACA really can't hurt you. The only thing it can do is give employers further excuses to keep cutting your hours and replacing you with cheaper labor, but they've been doing that for decades.

I think Tagg might have something to say about the meaning of "bp" in Bones's fragumentary.

Yeah, zinc isn't terribly useful. If you really want to treat the symptoms, it probably won't HURT, but there are much better medicines out there.

1st rule of marketing strategy: when in doubt, raise your prices.

I already told someone I was up for the next round of this. Don't remember who I told, but I'll gladly help out.

So sorry to hear this. We were all pulling for both of you.

I'm afraid shoutcasting is not a medically valid procedure for the treatment of bloodclots. Otherwise I'd be a goddamn humanitarian or something.

A blooper reel at the end would just kill me. Duder alternating between cracking up and shouting "god dammit" would be hilarious.

My dad had a DVT clot thrown to his pulmonary artery late last year - he was in the hospital over Christmas. Lucky to be alive, since a clot thrown to the heart would have killed him. If your brother's in the hospital, there's pretty much no chance he'll die of this, but he may be stuck in the hospital for quite a while while he recovers, and then he might have to be on blood thinners for a month or two. My condolences, hope everything works out alright!

I tried playing as Sparta yesterday on Normal and went to attack Knossos. My army wasn't nearly large enough and I ragequit (had to wake up super early today anyway). Will start a new game, again as Sparta, probably this weekend.