Slashdot Mirror

I'm using stats from the US Census Bureau https://www.census.gov/newsroo... You can also review https://www.pewsocialtrends.or... The latter source also shows that a majority of Americans live in areas defined as "suburban", and the population of "urban" areas is double that of "rural".

People who use guns oppose gun control, and people who don't use them favor gun control (generally speaking).

That's not entirely true, and not just because of exceptions to the generalization. A majority of gun owners do actually support several gun control measures. Specifically, 89% favor preventing people with mental health issues from buying guns, 77% favor requiring background checks on private sales and at gun shows, 82% favor banning people on the no-fly list from buying guns, and 54% favor creating a federal database for tracking gun sales. Additionally, significant minorities favor banning assault-style weapons (48%) and high-capacity magazines (44%).

They are open about methodology so read it and make specific complaints to them. Otherwise, would you also complain about the Heritage foundation report which confirms the need for advanced education at the same time? Specifically " The income advantage offered by a college degree is nearly double what it was just a generation ago. And it is the full bachelor’s degree that counts: Even someone with a two-year associate degree can expect just 29% more in annual income than a person who holds only a high-school diploma.[2]"

However, the lifetime earnings are much less without a degree.

It still sounds like you're trying to draw conclusions about a large number of people from the anecdotal evidence of your own experience of a very small subset of those people. Plus, you're assuming that "having a new car" = " being irresponsible", and that "living in a poorer neighborhood" = "living next to people you don't want to be around".

I've had a rather unusual experience, having lived in roughly 30 addresses across more than 2 decades, in a large number and types of housing across multiple states and countries. While still "small" as far as even the US population goes, I'd say my exposure exceeds the norm, and my impressions, while still anecdotal and relatively small, certainly are more valid than the 75% who never move from the state they grew up in, or only moved once. And no, I wasn't an Army brat who lived in the cloister of the armed forces housing.

All in all, what this conversation seems to be revealing to me is that you have some issues surrounding economic insecurity that you still need to deal with. It's sort of like hearing someone rant and rave about how fat people are all lazy and stupid, citing as evidence, "I know what I'm talking about because my dad was a fat piece of shit." In that circumstance, it the evidence cited doesn't really prove that fat people are all lazy and stupid, but rather that the person speaking has some daddy issues.

I freely admit to economic insecurity, until you're financially independent, you should be. (not you, specifically, the general "you") Where that is for anyone varies, obviously, but I've not reached a level I consider secure.

Roughly 25% of Americans are first or second generation. Tech companies seem to average 2.21 founders.

So on average you'd expect 1 - 0.75^2.21 = 47% of tech companies to have a founder who is first or second generation (for various definitions of "founder").

TFA says the "most highly valued" tech companies have 1.5 million employees, and an even 60% of them fit the statistic. Based on some googling of number of employees, they are probably looking at just 10 companies. With a sample size of 10, the margin of error for percentages is +/- 32%.

So the 60% figure is actually well within the margin of error of what you'd expect by random chance (47% +/- 32%). Even if you go with the low point in the graph of first and second gen Americans (about 17%), the expectation is 1 - 0.83^2.21 = 34%. Add in the +/- 32% margin of error and 60% is still within the expected range.

Relatively few enlisted men and women are college graduates (4.1%) or have an advanced degree (0.5%). More than nine-in-ten (94.0%) are high school graduates and some of them have attended some college.

Obviously some of this is due to how young they are, having not had the chance to go yet.

There's also some information about post-discharge education attainment here.

Overall, the percentage of Veterans with a Bachelor’s degree was lower than that of non-Veterans throughout the decade.

The difference is not that big, but keep in mind that college is free for veterans and all they need to do is put in the time. One might imagine what it would be like if they were on equal footings with everyone else.

Assimilation is a long term process, most 2nd generation immigrants don't speak their grandparent's language. Hispanics seem to buck this trend some, they are often fluent in both, but mostly identify as American.

The things considered basic necessities in the US are luxuries lots of other places: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org...

Wow, you're really out of touch. In case you haven't noticed, the divorce rate is higher than ever, and more and more people are simply staying single. Sorry, but we can't return to the 50s ideal of a nuclear family with 2.3 kids and a stay-at-home housewife.

Actually, more people are eschewing marriage altogether, and staying single. The increase in this behavior--in single-adult households--is significantly larger than the decrease in the labor force participation rate. That would tend to drive the labor force participation rate upwards, as a single-adult household does not carry a non-working adult; and all the while, the remaining nuclear families of the United States have managed to reduce the number of working adults per household enough to not only offset, but exceed the sharp growth in single-adult households.

Divorce rate isn't representative because divorcees tend to want to be married, and will frequently remarry. Many *do* stay unmarried. The number of adults who are getting married later or not at all is increasing more quickly.

And do you really expect modern women to completely give up on going to college and having a career, especially now that women comprise 60% of the college population?

So rather than taking advantage of the dishwasher, the automatic vacuum cleaner, and the washing machine to increase the amount of leisure time, you expect modern women to take up a second household-career entirely as a hedge for a marriage exit plan? Are you sure your wench just doesn't do any real work and needs to pull her weight around here? I mean housework was a pretty hefty duty in the 50s, but now most of it does itself.

For that matter, families *with* children have the option of paying for daycare or having the woman be the nanny. Daycare is costly, but not as costly as a dedicated nanny. You expect modern women to work so they can pay other people to work and come home to nothing to show for all their work? A salary exceeds daycare, and is deducted by daycare: If you make $20/hr and half your salary goes to daycare costs, you're making $10/hr for that work compared to just staying home. Would you take that job for $10/hr, to come home to a house which still require what little housework remains in this era?

Here's a source. It's Pew, so its reasonably trustworthy, and they say they're pulling their data from the World Bank, so again, reasonably trustworthy. According to that data, the USA bleeds $123 billion in remittances every year, while American ex-pats are sending only $4.5 billion home. I'd say that's a pretty big fucking deal.

Apparently it really depends on your definition of mass shootings. By the most broad definition I could find (4 or more people shot in a single incident) there were 353 mass shootings in the US in 2015 by November 23rd. So about one per day on average.

Fair enough, but whatever definition you use, the question is whether it's getting better or worse if you use consistent definitions year-to-year. And the person you're replying to is right: it's getting better, gun homicide is significantly down from past decades. source

"the trend of gun violence in this country."

The only "trend" in this country is the trend of media sensationalism, mass marketing of fear and public ignorance. The truth is that firearms-related homicide is on a twenty year downward trend. Thanks to the media however, you and millions of others live in a false reality where things are getting worse.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org...

what we have now is a 'grab, take, return home' situation

It's called 'remittance', and it's a huge massive BFD that hardly anyone is talking about. Please take a look at this map and stats in the following link. THAT is where US dollars are flowing.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org...

If you want tuition costs to fall, you have to stop subsidizing education and start creating a competitive market.
Tuition prices have steadily increased with no jumps matching any of the changes matching changes in student loans and grants for both public and private schools. I find it quite funny that you mocked students attending non-state schools with higher than average job placement rates and pay rates and then argue against competitive private schools. Perhaps you would like students to attend schools like Corinthian?

there still is no tuition crisis
Crisis is definitely a weasel word. But call it what you will, inflation adjusted costs doubling is definitely problematic.

Why is that a relevant statistic?
How much more basic can you get than a statistic than students are carrying more debt than before? You could even just have the statistic be for four year schools and eliminate the med school or post docs. The point would remain the same, debts are increasing. Your first article even points to this indirectly by saying that they have increased by current low interest rates and longer payment schemes are keeping the monthly payment the same. We also know that payrates have stagnated and decreased.

Don't argue ad hominem, look at the facts.
That was my entire point. Only selective facts were given.

in the Brookings study: when you look at the statistics
My point is that they don't include all the statistics. Here is a page with only the numbers and no commentary. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org...

certainly don't reflect the mainstream of people and families

Who do you mean mainstream, kemosabe?

Yes, yes, we get it, you have special needs. You'll buy your own truck and like it. The rest of us have better things to do with our lives than to pretend that the atomic family with 2.5 kids and two cars in every pot is still the gold standard of living.

No blanket penalties. If a company is convicted of something like that, remove the patents from whatever drugs they're offending with.

Commit a felony with a gun, and you're not allowed to own any guns; nor are you allowed to vote to change that! Commit a felony marketing any drug, you're not allowed to deal drugs.

Before anybody says that is not comparable, here are some facts about guns & drugs. Prescription medication accounts for 60% of OD deaths. Drug OD deaths have risen 102% since 1992 (to ~38000), while gun homicides have dropped 49% in the same period. Furthermore, owning a gun is an explicitly protected right, whereas selling drugs is not.

It is perfectly reasonable to ban an entire company from ever dealing any drugs ever again if they commit even 1 felony violation.

I believe you'll find the difference, at least for blacks is not fully explainable by economic factors. There is a significant middle-and-upper-class black population.

Here's some data on economic factors separating American black families and white ones. TL;DR: the presence of a few successful black families in America does not negate the fact that white households continue to have significantly higher median incomes, and thus, access to greater resources for their children:

- http://www.pewsocialtrends.org...
- http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Just because the difference between a person with intelligence and talent and one without in more cerebral fields isn't as obvious as the difference between a person with talent in sports and one without doesn't mean the difference isn't there.

But the range of opportunities are totally different. Software development is not a "geniuses only" field. You can be of average intelligence and still have a good career as a software developer, or beta tester, or system operator, or network admin -- just like you can be a decent electrician, carpenter, or architect. But if you want to go into professional sports (in the sense of earning big bucks), you have to be physically exceptional, period.

So I don't want to be that person, but based on the race and age group that commits the most crimes, you could probably guess the correlation between crime and demographic...

> spiraling shithole

Since its independence from colonial rule, the country made advances in nearly every index. Go ahead, prove me wrong by finding charts to the contrary.

> Indian parasites

Parasites? Indian diaspora are quite productive and successful. In US, they have the highest per-capita incomes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01...
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org...
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/29/...

Today, an Indian-American runs Microsoft, an Indian-American is Miss USA and Indian-Americans reign spelling bee.

Of course, facts don't matter to you - a vanilla racist bigot.

If a fight broke out in a british cinema, there'd be a punch-up, the police would be called and someone would be spending the night in the cells.

[..]And that's how it tends to work: there are people carrying all around, I guess, but you'd never know it 99.9% of the time (if you're a layperson who wasn't trained to recognize someone carrying), since those people understand what's at stake, take their responsibility seriously, and know that there are laws barring them from even hinting to someone else that they are carrying.

In America you get shot.

This whole story is just weird[...]. But your sort of generalization isn't helpful either, since it overexaggerates an outlier, rather than recognizing that America's gun violence problem has seen a massive decline over the past two decades, one which, ironically, has largely gone unnoticed

Well the decline seems to be less spectacular lately (link) and is also a global trend aparently. Still compared to the UK (to which the GP was refering) it is still more than 10 times higher!
(link)
Maybe not such a strange remark, since both countries are at the oposite side of curve.

If a fight broke out in a british cinema, there'd be a punch-up, the police would be called and someone would be spending the night in the cells.

As an American (and as a Texan who knows several people with concealed carry permits, including retired and former police officers), I can honestly say that until today, I'd have thought the same would be true in America. With the people I know who carry, I never suspected any of them were carrying until I happened to walk into an in-progress conversation about what types of holsters they used, and realized that they were all using them right then. And that's how it tends to work: there are people carrying all around, I guess, but you'd never know it 99.9% of the time (if you're a layperson who wasn't trained to recognize someone carrying), since those people understand what's at stake, take their responsibility seriously, and know that there are laws barring them from even hinting to someone else that they are carrying.

In America you get shot.

This whole story is just weird, but it's not at all indicative of a typical occurrence. There's a reason something like this is newsworthy: it's incredibly bizarre and abhorrent (well, that, and the original article's reporting was also rather abhorrent, since it tried to twist an insane gun tragedy into a cell phone etiquette debate with this line which they later removed, "The killing underscored the increased debate about when to use smartphones in public").

I'm not trying to suggest that America is a perfect place, free of gun violence. Let's be clear: it's not. But your sort of generalization isn't helpful either, since it overexaggerates an outlier, rather than recognizing that America's gun violence problem has seen a massive decline over the past two decades, one which, ironically, has largely gone unnoticed (in fact, according to that report, the vast majority of Americans believe that the problem has gotten worse or stayed the same, despite the fact that the violence has been halved since 1993).

You just said that because I am a white male that I *must* be benefiting from past slavery.

No, I did not say slavery. I said institutional racism. And it looks like I was 100% correct in predicting that you don't believe it exists.

Does a fish know what water is? As a white male you benefit in so many ways that you don't even realize. Losing unearned privilege tends to really burn which is probably what explains your raging.

Best way to smoke pot and not go to jail? Be white.

Best way to get a good primary education? Be white.

Best way to get a job interview? Be white.

Best way to not be poor? Be white.

Best way to buy or rent a house? Be white.

This water you swim in is as big as an ocean, the problem is that you just don't know what its like to be a fish out of water.

Enlighten me, then. Explain to me how the banking industry executives -- who, except perhaps for a few fall guys, are very likely to be significantly wealthier now than in 2008, unlike average people -- were harmed by the crash they caused. Prove that I'm wrong to call it a real-estate-sector-wide pump-and-dump scheme.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/12/U-N-Maps-Show-U-S-High-In-Gun-Ownership-Low-In-Homicides
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/gun-homicides-ownership/table/
http://tewksburylab.org/blog/2012/12/gun-violence-and-gun-ownership-lets-look-at-the-data/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/14/schoo-shooting-how-do-u-s-gun-homicides-compare-with-the-rest-of-the-world/
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/
http://gunowners.org/op0746.htm

The Rising Age Gap in Economic Well-Being

As per their training, the old think they're poor . That's why they have zero hesitation imposing whatever burdens they're told they deserve on whomever they're told can afford to pay.

There is nothing to worry about. Today. The regime is secure and the bennies will flow.

Right up until the currency folds.

Then the cutbacks; the PIIGS found out what that's about.

None of this is real. The whole damn nation is one giant ponzi scheme of vote buying, and it has a expiration date.

The cultural differences between US states exist, but they are NOTHING compared to the cultural differences between european states. Why? because these states don't have centuries of independent histories and different languages and literatures and tradition.

Many of our states are roughly equivalent in size to your countries and I'd argue each has it's own unique culture. Texas, for example, is vastly different from Maryland. And that's in many ways: accent, racial composition (+ level of racism), foods, culture, hobbies, government, etc, etc. -- Florida has alot of Cuban influence -- New Mexico/California has alot of Mexican influence. And so on.

Sure, US states are big compared to european countries, some of them even in term of population (california, at 39 or so millions is comparable to a mid-sized european country). But the cultural diversity that you are talking about to me seems more comparable to the regional diversity within european countries such as italy, the UK or spain, which have mutually incomprehensible dialects/languages, completely different regional cuisines, and in some cases even some level of legal autonomy (spain, germany, UK) somewhat comparable to what US states enjoy.

Americans are very mobile: they move from one state to another to study, work, marry, etc

Says who? Most people never relocate after their first job/marriage. They at best would experience two states, their birth state and their death state. Over 50% never leave the state they grew up in: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2008/12/17/who-moves-who-stays-put-wheres-home/

I don't consider that "highly mobile" --

This is fairly obvious to anyone who knows a little about both continents, but if you want a citation, how about this one: http://www.acco.be/download/nl/10987314/file/ (from 2008).

In the for- mer EU15, only about 0.1% of the working age popu- lation changes its country of residence in a given year. Conversely, in the US, about 3% of the working age population moves to a different state every year,

So by this measure, americans are 20 times more mobile inter-state than europeans are inter-country.

unless they're in the army where they get shuffled around alot from base to base. And that's why language differences don't matter much -- because no one really knows anything outside of their home state anyways.

It's interesting that you mention the army. The policy in italy back when there was the draft was to send people to different parts of the country for military service, to help spread a common italian language and culture, because a lot of people never even traveled outside their region, let alone move there to live and work. That, together with national TV, is what has brought some level of linguistic and cultural unification to Italy in recent decades.

The cultural differences between US states exist, but they are NOTHING compared to the cultural differences between european states. Why? because these states don't have centuries of independent histories and different languages and literatures and tradition.

Many of our states are roughly equivalent in size to your countries and I'd argue each has it's own unique culture. Texas, for example, is vastly different from Maryland. And that's in many ways: accent, racial composition (+ level of racism), foods, culture, hobbies, government, etc, etc. -- Florida has alot of Cuban influence -- New Mexico/California has alot of Mexican influence. And so on.

Americans are very mobile: they move from one state to another to study, work, marry, etc

Says who? Most people never relocate after their first job/marriage. They at best would experience two states, their birth state and their death state. Over 50% never leave the state they grew up in: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2008/12/17/who-moves-who-stays-put-wheres-home/

I don't consider that "highly mobile" -- unless they're in the army where they get shuffled around alot from base to base. And that's why language differences don't matter much -- because no one really knows anything outside of their home state anyways.

I hate replying twice, but i have to point out that:
"neither has the inflation adjusted price."
is simply not true. House prices have consistently outpaced inflation for decades, until the 2008 financial crisis. But prices still haven't returned to historical norms. And if it did, it wouldn't matter because the only people experiencing a "recovery" are the super rich.

So inflation adjusted wages haven't changed. Inflation adjusted prices are higher than they were in the past. And inflation adjusted executive compensation has increased over 100x in the same period. How is this defensible?

Yeah, because humans are horribly evil creatures who murder each other at every opportunity.

That's why gun homicides are down 49% and violent crimes are down 72% since 1993, while gun ownership has remained steady (and concealed carry has skyrocketed).

In 2011, 31,000 people died firearm-related deaths.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gun_deaths_are_in_the_US_every_year

In 2010, there were 10,000 deaths due to drunk driving, and that number is falling.

http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-fatalities-national-statistics

More crap and bullshit from the anti-gun-control crowd.

All but 11,000 of those gun related deaths were from suicide, so the number of innocent victims are much closer to drunk driving than it you are presenting.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

Many of the remaining deaths were at the hands of repeat offenders, meaning that meaningful prison reforms to lower our recidivism rate would be more effective than gun control. For example, in Illinois, from 1990-2000, 42% of homicides were at the hands of people with at least one felony conviction.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=201308

Also, gun related deaths are down 49% since 1993, so I'm no sure why you are using that to exonerate drunk driving, but condemn firearms.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

This, despite there being more firearms in the country since that time.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self-reported-gun-ownership-highest-1993.aspx

Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation's population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm -- assaults, robberies and sex crimes -- was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

Looks like the cops are trying to take up the slack

Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation's population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm -- assaults, robberies and sex crimes -- was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

And yet, every day when I look at google news, there is another story about some kind of gun violence/accident in some place thousands of miles from me. It's like a constant drumbeat in the media to get people to think things are so bad, something must be done. And politicians of course, are never hesitant to restrict people's rights or acquire yet ever more power. America's problem with guns is a media conspiracy that makes politicians cum in their pants.

"Plenty of countries operate just fine with strict gun control laws and with lower violent crime rates than the U.S."

Looking at another country and assuming that the U.S. could reduce violent crime simply by duplicating that country's gun control laws is the naive view.

Check out this new report from PEW research:

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware

The number of privately owned firearms in the USA is way up. Both the number of firearms owners and the number of concealed carry permit holders are at record highs. Meanwhile, violent crime rates, and even firearms-related crime rates are down. The Clinton gun ban expired in 2004, yet there has been no associated spike in violent crime or gun crime.

The most interesting and relevant case of a foreign country is Australia because we have a before/after view of gun confiscation.

You're aware that teen pregnancies in the United States are down 41% since 1990, right?

Or that 48% of US families contain at least one multi-generational adult (blowing your whole "Single woman only" idea out of the water?)
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/03/18/the-return-of-the-multi-generational-family-household/

26% of children live with one parent. If you're going to single out that trend as being generally responsible for the decline of American...everything,despite the fact that it's a minority of total family arrangements, you really ought to highlight the fact that of that 26^% group, 26% of *them* are being raised by fathers, while 74% are raised by their mothers. You pour out plenty of vitriol on those "selfish" single women, but don't even blink at the selfish men who are raising kids on their own.

As I see it, you've got two options: Revise your previous post to be equally offensive, stupid, and insulting to both women and men, or adopt an opinion that reflects objective reality and requires a basic grasp of math.

If taxation were the sole criterion for the movement of people, wealthy or not, you'd expect to see a migration to Mississippi and Alabama. Because we don't, and reality disagrees with the predictions made by your theory, it is your theory, reality, that is flawed.

Well, it's not as though people say to themselves "high taxes?! I'm moving the heck out of here" though businesses might if it's to their benefit. And there in lies the problem. If businesses and people are taxed disproportionately, the economy will more often that not slow down and suffer. It's only when people and businesses alike become desperate that they sever ties, cut there loss, and move out of state for greener pastures. Raising taxes in a recession *without question* accelerates this process.

The key word here is economic momentum. And the act of Taxation plays a huge role in changing it.

BTW, looks like Mississippi lost people, but Alabama gained. Ok, so you were not right, but not wrong either regarding those two states. However, you might find it interesting to view TX and FL at the following website.

http://pewsocialtrends.org/maps/migration/

For Federalist #10, read the section on how a majority faction won't subvert the democratic republic. The size and spread of the population was critical to that argument.

For the subprime mortgages, a very likely reason the government didn't oversee the mortgage markets was because Congress and the President underfunded the organizations dedicated to overseeing the markets. For instance, the head of enforcement for the SEC testified to Congress that "While we appreciate and examine every lead we receive, we simply do not have the resources to fully investigate them all."

On your last point, you would be incorrect about the financial strength of the middle class. Using the census's figures on median and mean income: From 1949 to 1969, mean and median incomes (adjusted for inflation) approximately doubled. From 1985 to 2005, median and mean incomes (again adjusted for inflation) increased by about 20%. Looking at this chart of how those income gains were distributed also suggests that the 80's and 90's were not the environment of a middle-class powerhouse.

Lastly, under Clinton the top marginal tax rate went from 35% to 39.5%.

Depends on what you call middle class.

In some studies anywhere from 53 to 80 percent of people consider themselves middle class.

I consider myself to be lower middle class and make about 70K for my household. I don't know about you but enough of that is taken by the banks and government that even $1155 is a pretty big chunk of change.

Some people in the $200,000 range consider themselves middle class, I think $1155 is a bit easier to come by for them.

http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/706/middle-class-poll

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21272238/page/2/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class