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http://www.wisebread.com/7-thi...

Pharmacy can't be members only fed and liquor (some states).

http://www.wisebread.com/why-w...

It didn't take much googling to find similar examples.

Yeah, I do. The sense of security that welfare* provides -enables- a person to plan ahead. It frees the mind to have hope and ambition.
http://www.wisebread.com/pover...

I think that this 'sense of security' is one of the most important ingredients in the recipe.

*I'm using welfare generically, i.e. I would include unemployment insurance with this.

What's worse is that they want to power lights from a solar panel, talk about inefficient, haven't they heard of skylights. They could even use this idea

to funnel sunlight in.

Barstool Economics

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
"Since you are all such good customers", he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

Also "free energy" by the coast can turn salt water into drinking water then vehicles can transport them inland.

Why not use the way water is already transported to the homes of people?
But obviously people buy water instead of drinking it out of the tab and that is deliverd by a truck. Often it is as good or better then bottled water.

Except everybody says "Not where I live" and buy into the bullshit that has brought to them by marketing.

Some interesting read here and there are many more sites that will explain what you are exactly are paying for.

To preface, I have no argument with your comments towards the article, just towards marketing.

Well, you're a marketer... I have no beef against you personally as I can see you aren't that bad in your practices, or so you think. However, I really do not like the whole aspect of marketing.

Marketing is subversive, do not deny that, it's true. You can put a pretty picture on using psycology in marketing all you want but the idea is to get into the heads of your potential customers. When you psycographically profile someone, you're essentially finding out what 'works' on them. This doesn't necissarilly mean you're fitting a product to it's demographic. You can, and most do, fit the demographic to the market by doing things like associating images and sounds that evoke emotion for that sort of group that you would like associated with the product.

Lets take a look at DaBeers. Not only has their campaign over the last 80 or so years changed the way people think about diamonds, it has worked the diamond into our culture.

Why? There's no need for diamond jewelry. There wasn't even a want for diamonds before they started their campaign. And it's not like people didn't know about diamonds and marketers were getting the word out. They changed people's perception of the product.

They did this by clever marketing using Bernay's techniques. Watch a diamond commercial and you will see the associations drawn between love, passion, glamor, happiness, and perception of wealth.

This goes way beyond 'good' and 'bad' products because that almost never comes into the equation with marketing.