There use to not be a Fed, but after the economy kept periodically collapsing everyone decided that it would be better to have suistanable growth so masses of people wouldn't have to live in squalor every 10 or 20 years.

America's economy has become much stronger after the creation of the Fed in the early 20th century.  Read up on what the Fed does before you choose to disagree with them out of principle and pride rather than purpose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System#Purpose

The fed of the 20th century wasn't the worst, still garbage, but the fed of the 21st century is corrupt beyond belief and run by complete idiots like ben bernanke. There is reason why china laughs at all our experts.

Yeah but then you have to pay for multiple elections.

I always thought that the best way to get rid of the 2 party system is to get rid of the party name next to the canidates name on the ballot. That way people would have to get informed who they are voting for instead of just voting down party lines.

So you'd prefer China's economic experts?  They are Communists you know, it would essentially be like giving the Fed unlimited economic power.

There use to not be a Fed, but after the economy kept periodically collapsing everyone decided that it would be better to have suistanable growth so masses of people wouldn't have to live in squalor every 10 or 20 years.

America's economy has become much stronger after the creation of the Fed in the early 20th century.  Read up on what the Fed does before you choose to disagree with them out of principle and pride rather than purpose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System#Purpose

My way would work in that case as well, just so long as there wasn't overwhelming support for one particular party candidate, you could still vote the other way, and knowing you had a chance to vote again, could vote to your heart (and in a close 50/50 race, sapping one vote from one side would force a runoff, so if enough support accrued at the margins, you would get the chance to vote again, at least for the winners)

Do y'all in New Zealand have simple-plurality elections, or proportional representation? Most commonwealths have the former...

In NZ we have MMP which seems to work pretty well.

We have constituencies in which we directly elect a politician to represent us locally but we also have proportional representation in which you vote for a party and if they get enough of the vote they get members in parliament which they get to choose. We do have a 5% vote threshold on the proportional representation (they need at least 5% of the overall vote to get anybody in parliament) basically to stop some extreme fringe from being a kingmaker.

The system has flaws, small parties are somewhat too powerful, but it is reasonably balanced.

Now onto the topic. Here are my suggestions for America.

1) Fix your healthcare system. I don't know exactly what is wrong with it (though I suspect at least some of the problem is due to doctors being sued?) but it's broken and it's costing you way too much. Proportional to GDP healthcare for all other OECD countries I think is less than 10%, in America (once again from memory) it's 17%.

2) Somehow or another get a third party. Whether its through proportional representation or whatever doesn't really matter (it isn't exactly needed, Britain has four parties in parliament with first past the post). The current two party system isn't a healthy political environment.

3) Make some cuts to your military budget. It's pretty extreme at the moment, and when you need to save money it's a lot of money to be untouchable.

4) Have some way of making your politicians accountable to their country, not just their constituency. As it currently stands your politicians try and earmark as much money for pet projects in their area as possible, no matter the cost to the country.

1.  Balance budget/budget surplus -  This one is a given yet the idiots that calls  themselves politicians can't even manage this.  Americans even elected republicans to go in there and fix the budget which they managed to trim what a few million off the budget.  Good job now make the tough choices and cut medicare, social security, and medicaid.  It is obvious that the cost of drugs/healthcare are spiraling out of control.  The medicaid bill that Bush pushed into was a backdoor agreement with the prescription drug companies.  The USA government can't even bargain for lower drug prices.  If you are suffering from an illness that is caused by your own addiction (cigarettes, alcohol, overeating) then you deserve to die without causing tax payers money.  If you have type 2 diabetes that was brought on by eating non stop then tough luck you deserve to foot the bill.  Americans need to stop trying to be so damn "compassionate".  Creating a surplus is the most important thing for USA at this moment.

2.  Abolish the two party system winner takes all for multi-party proportional representation - The two party system is terrible. Both major parties in USA are complete shit.  They are all corrupt and don't even deserve to be elected.  The winner takes all system is complete bullshit.  They say your vote counts but it doesn't if your person doesn't win.  At least with a porportional representation system your vote isn't totally wasted.  Say your party recieved about 10% of the votes.  Well they would at least have a few seats instead of zero.  There are also more than two ways of looking at one problem.  The smaller parties can get some of their goals acheieved since the major parties have to court them for whatever they want achieved.

3. Abolish the electoral college - This piece of shit idea might have been great back in the day but it is long overdue to get rid of this.  Sure when the first elections were held not too many people were educated enough to make a decent vote due to people not being able to read, news was only in newspapers, etc...  However, there is no need for this system to decide the presidential election.  They say your votes counts yet when you vote for the president if your state votes against you then your vote is worthless.  The presidential election should be decided by overall vote not by which states vote for who.  If the electoral college wasn't there then Bush would have never been president. 

4. Abolish the Fed - Burn their damn building down.  Kick them out of the country.  They serve no purpose and USA would be better off than having the fed ruin everything.  They don't know shit and every time I see Ben Bernanke I want to puke all over him.  Ben Bernanke only knows how to print money.  Well that turned the dollar into shit just so he could bail out piece of shit companies that deserved to go under.  He only serves one purpose, to help his buddies at Goldman Sachs out.  If someone can tell me one good reason why the fed should stay then let me know.

5. Stop being the world police force - I shouldn't even have to discuss this issue.  The Monroe Doctrine started the policing and it needs to stop now.  Being the world police force is just a waste of money and lives.  I am all for war if attacked.

While I believe there are more steps that can be taken to help the USA such as legalize marijuana for taxation; I feel these steps are needed to be taken first.  USA is on a quick slope of decline yet Americans are just sitting around taking it.  It is about to we stand up and fight.  It is time to say fuck you to the corrupt politicians and lobbyist.  It is time to kick them out.  It is time to get rid of our outdated shitty political system.  It is time to make USA great again, or we can just let our country go into further shit.