Yes. Faithless electors. In fact, it happened again in 2000--Barbara Lett-Simmons of Washington, DC abstained.

I doubt that the risk of a faithless vote is ever going to have a significant impact on a modern election--after all, in this day and age of the internet, you can bet a faithless elector's identity would become public, and the hatred of the voters would make a powerful deterrent. I do hate that it's even possible, though.

A beautiful article? Perhaps, but don't let yourself be fooled by the witty writing and compelling rhetoric! Peer beneath the surface and you will see that the whole conclusion is fallacious!

Euros, probably. Last time I checked those were doing really well on the global exchange.

That's an interesting thought--"and start savings and investing." Care to expand on that? I've never taken a formal course on economics, and the idea of a nation investing never occurred to me as anything realistic...could that actually work?

Still, though, the government serves a number of really important functions, like education and maintaining infrastructure. I'm not sure how much more spending it can cut without harming the public--we're already seeing huge cuts to education...

According to the FAQ and the 'About' page, the score of an argument supposedly represents the community's regard for it. So personally I figured there'd be nothing wrong with voting an argument up without typing a Support, or voting one down without typing a Dispute.

I'm new here, so maybe that's not how it works in practice, but it seems like downvoting an argument is perfectly legitimate...

Those statistics aren't a commentary on socialized medicine as a concept, only on those specific instances of it. I still believe that the US has the infrastructure and, despite the recession, the wealth needed to provide socialized medicine with no downturn in quality.

But if the entire economy was run by the government, there'd be no competition.

I think we could definitely do with more government regulation on big business, but I don't want to see a government monopoly. I do trust the government, but not that far--after all, a government is a body of people, and being a government employee doesn't make you less susceptible to corruption than someone in the private sector.

Besides, competition fosters innovation. With regulation to channel that innovation towards the benefit of the consumer, that's definitely a good thing. For all their money-grubbing, corporate interests have given us a lot of neat stuff, ranging from video games and toys to new surgical procedures and medical equipment.

That said, I would not mind the government having a share in the economy--just not a controlling one.

I agree that the government has kind of made a muck of things, but what's the alternative? The way I understand it, much of our economic woe can be pinned on the burst of the credit and housing bubbles, which in turn can be pinned on the companies who were riding those bubbles. Could more regulation on business have prevented the recession, or at least softened the blow? Or were we just doomed?

I voted this comment and the one it was responding to down. Not because I disagree, but because "Who voted this down" and "Someone too cowardly to type a dispute" don't support the Yes side and shouldn't count into the side score.

There really needs to be a "none" option for "you support this view."

Hurting business hurts everyone, though. I agree that corporations wield far, far too much power and need to be brought to heel, but damaging the economy would be a poor way to do it.