It's a false premise - the "Rich American" has a duty to help those who are less fortunate (poor Africans), and that duty extends further than just quid pro quo transactions.
I suspect a better measure of valuation would incorporate the investment amount. If a VC firm invests $X at a valuation of $Y, then it conveys a lot of information (on the beliefs of the VC firm) if X is close to Y, but decreasing information as X decreases.
Of course NSA's actions aren't "the same" as Russia's. The question you should ask is if the NSA was somehow transplanted in the place of the Russian intelligence services in the Russian political environment, would they do the same things? I think it's likely they would.
If that's true, and if there is anything more morally reprehensible about on the one hand requiring bloggers to register with the state, and secretly de-anonymizing them, as you claim, then I think it follows that you can't give the NSA credit for being less morally reprehensible just because they happen to be constrained in that way.
You don't need to afford legal action to make a FLSA claim; the point about people being unaware of the legal mechanisms available to them (or even the illegality of it) is I think much stronger.
If I was working hourly, I'd pray they make me work unpaid overtime, because when I was ready to hop jobs I'd walk into court with a fat 2x back wages (1x + liquidated damages) [1]. If they retaliate, it's up to 3x back wages.
A lot of success is due to luck, but I think there is something to be said for putting yourself in a position to get lucky.
Sure, someone in a third world country might not have the choice to put themselves in such a position, but certainly lots of people in the United States have a choice to put themselves in a position to (or learn the skills that are necessarily antecedent to) get lucky. Unless you would say that all positions are equally lucky and that no choice you make in your position matters with respect to luck?
When the merchant submits the transaction to their credit card processor, depending on the processor, they can have the option of sending a list of items. I'm not sure why anyone does (maybe it'd be required for sales tax purposes, or for more complicated rate calculations), but for example PayPal Pro [1] offers the ability to send a list of items.
It depends on the merchant and the processor. Some, like PayPal Pro [1], support sending a list of items; Stripe and Braintree appear not to. It is always optional.
The financial press often defines recession as a technical term, meaning any two sequential quarters of negative GDP growth. NBER has a slightly different definition [1].
Small nit-pick: "Pro-gun" is not an ideology, it's a position that might flow from an ideology e.g. libertarianism, or might just be a stand-alone position.
Can't you generate the swipe data from the other information you have, i.e. name, the card number, the expiration date, and the CVV2? ISO/IEC 7813 also specifies that there can be discretionary data but it seems it's unused, so what is the significance of swiping in addition to taking a picture and it seems also entering in the expiration and CVV (and number?) manually?