The trick is that while power lines are indeed naturally bidirectional, there's a hell of a lot more involved in AC transport infrastructure than just power lines. If you're staying in the neighborhood you only need to worry about the local power lines(not a big deal). It's when the power starts hitting transformer switchyards and such in significant amounts that it starts becoming a bigger deal.
It's a bit like the difference between pure gasoline and 'gasohol'. It's not that big of a deal to run ethanol-spiked gasoline in a vehicle designed for it, but it is a big deal for engines that weren't designed for it in mind. Most of our power infrastructure wasn't designed for it, so it needs to be 'tweaked'. Not a big deal on an individual basis, but the sheer scale makes it one.
Most areas in the states don't have any subsidies beyond helping with the install costs. Without German-style 'We pay you for every kwh you generate and consume yourself' subsidies two meters just aren't necessary when you're doing net-metering. Because we don't generally have generous purchase subsidies for solar electric, instead paying wholesale or 'deferred credits' most solar installs are quite deliberately somewhat undersized so the consumer still purchases 'some' power. 70-90%, generally speaking.
On the question of actual usage, collecting the data, you don't actually need 2 meters, you need a fancy one. Most solar power inverters actually have better meters and logging options than the relatively barebone ones most power companies are still using(in the states), especially if you buy one of the add-ons that allow you to log everything to a computer.
After all the fixed costs of connecting each house is the same.
Not really, especially when you get into the back-end. This gets complicated, I'm not an expert, I mostly worry about field capacity, stability, and such using generators in remote locations.
Somebody who merely uses less electricity isn't as much of a load on the electric lines as somebody who puts solar lines up, as aaarrrgggh mentions.
That's because, just like roads, while there's a fixed component to just having a line somewhere, there's also costs associated with sizing the lines based on maximum load and costs based on wear&tear on actually shipping the power. Most electric equipment is high durability, but there is gear that wears out, besides things like weather damage.
With just lowering usage you can shrink the size of the lines(or don't upgrade as you expand). Now consider the house w/solar panels situation - The house is using just as much power at night, so you can't shrink the lines, but now it's producing power during the day when people are generally not home, which translates to current on the lines(losses). Right now that doesn't matter much in most areas because vampire drain and such from homes to do things like keep fridges running and AC/DC converters warm, as well as homes with occupants means the power won't go far. But if you get enough solar panels now you need the infrastructure set up to move the power away from the neighborhood to the rest of the grid.
As for the last part of your comment, while I don't live there anymore, my old utility in ND would cut your rate by about a penny for any kwh over ~1k/month. It's political maneuvering why places like California charge you more per kwh if you 'use too much'.
1. 8 cents, US or Canadian, is below average cost for the continent 2. Fees everywhere - sounds like your company doesn't want to 'deal' with solar. $30/month for the 'privilege' of net-metering? Man, that's easy, and if you want to know how many kwh your solar system is producing, generally the inverter system has a much more in-depth tracking system such as keeping track of the production rates at different times (How much power did I generate between 0900-1030 every Tuesday for the last year?) Net metering is generally the easiest for the electric company to handle - they just keep reading 1 meter every month(or so) just like normal.
BTW, my electric company is something like $50/month even if you don't use any power, so I feel your pain.
I read my local utility's terms. With a net meter -- you don't get paid with more generation than usage; you get a credit against future usage.
Good to know, I tried to keep it fairly generic - 50 states, probably something on the order of 500 separate electric companies, all with different rules and setups. That's why I merely said 'you get paid', while not specifying how - retail, wholesale, time of use, credit, cash, etc...
In general a credit against future usage is better than getting paid retail(generally around a third of retail). Time of use gets complicated. Prices for that can vary between ~2 cents a kwh all the way up to over 40. If you can score some extraordinarily cheap batteries and some fairly complex computer controls you could probably make good money playing with that.
In the USA most don't get a second meter, they use what's called 'net metering'. IE if you generate, say, 500 kwh in a month and use 600, you only pay for 100 kwh, even if you only used 100 kwh during the time your panels were generating significant power and used the other 500 at night and such. If your install is big enough that you go negative(spin the meter backwards), you get paid.
While 'spinning reserve' can be a problem, the bigger expense right now is that homes with solar panels are effectively getting out of would be line maintenance expenses. It costs money to keep the distribution lines and equipment up, and they're still using said lines.
They're effectively being paid retail for the power they produce.
I love the comment about thermodynamics laws, and I wonder where the dried up sewage goes.
I'd probably feed it into industry - a mix of producing fertilizer and incinerating it(done right it can generate more power).
It's more likely that it works a bit like standard desalination where you only remove SOME of the water, discharging the now higher-salinity water back into the ocean(or in this case more poopy sewage).
You would think so, but no... taking insurance is expensive, getting paid is a pain in the neck, the whole thing is a headache.
Did you read the paragraph right after the one you quoted, where I said 'Cash is incredibly easy(and cheap!) in comparison'? I'll admit that I should have started the paragraph with a 'However it doesn't work that way', though, because I know the real situation is a lot more complicated(and expensive).
Side note: Keep in mind that even with the ACA, insurance companies are allowed to spend 20% on "overhead" (and profit). So there is another huge chunk of money that isn't going to actual care. Way too many layers and way too many people with fingers in the pot.
Yep. And that 20% doesn't include the overhead of medical clinic billing departments working to get money out of the insurer.
These are viruses, they can't reproduce on their own. Plus, well, 'Tobacco Patia' virus isn't something that's going to be crossing over to affect humans anytime soon. The tobacco lobby might be a touch worried...
More seriously, we've used biota for industrial production for centuries with limited issues.
I wonder why they don't put the minimum threshold higher on batteries. I've heard that completely discharging lithium batteries is really bad for them. But then why not just build in some extra capacity into the battery, and have it refuse to run once it reaches 20%.
That's actually what modern hybrid and EV battery management systems do. They also stop charging at about 80% of max capacity, because it's the top and bottom 20% of charge states where the maximum wear is. So a 100 kwh 1k charge cycle battery might be exactly identical to a 80 kwh 4k cycle battery.
It's generally not done with consumer electronics because they only expect them to last 1-2 years and weight/cost are bigger concerns than longevity.
It should be noted that when they talk about X numbers of 'charge cycles' it's from 0% to 100% even when it comes to applications where they really expect lots of partial charges - cell phones, EVs, and such. So if you charge it up 50%, then 20%, then 30%, that adds up to 1 cycle. Though if they're being honest they rate the expected cycles by the expected duty cycle - LiIon 'likes' partial charges, NiCad doesn't. Lead-Acid doesn't like being discharged, but tolerates being fully or even over charged the best out of the common chemistries.
Side note: The number of doctors is not based on "free market" anything, it is tightly controlled by the AMA (American Medical Association). Only current doctors can licence new doctors and only existing medical schools can licence new medical schools, they like it the way it is because it keeps doctor pay high.
Disclaimer: I have virtually no personal experience with healthcare costs, so most of my experience is my parent's bills. However, on the balance I'd say the actual cost for doctors is really low compared to the overall cost of healthcare for the average american. Most of my parent's healthcare doctors are eaten up by drugs, followed by surgical expenses(and again, the doctor/surgeon is only a minority cost).
Theoretically more people having insurance means doctors(and clinics, hospitals, etc...) have an easier time getting paid, thus don't need to inflate their prices as much nor hire as much of a staff to do billing.
Personally I think that going more free market would help - get insurance out of the average transaction. Your wife is probably less frustrated with people wanting to see her than she is with dealing with their insurance. Cash is incredibly easy(and cheap!) in comparison.
Don't forget Walmart on the 'No longer a new release' front. Lots of older DVD's available for only a few bucks more than what Blockbuster was renting them for.
It got to the point with me for books and movies that I decided to go to cloud/server based storage because physical media just got too overwhelming - I couldn't keep track in my head which movies I owned and didn't, ended up with a fair number of duplicates when I finally got around to sorting everything.
I also don't think Ayn Rand was talking about Venezuela, or that most of her detractors would support a government take over of Best Buy, but you know, shades of grey and all that.
The kindest thing I can say about Rand was that she was a woman who was horribly burned by the socialist revolution that happened in her country, that included stuff like what's happening in Venezuala now. As a result she became hyper-sensitive to that sort of stuff and wrote her books as moral plays - where the idea IS to beat you over the head with an exagerated and therefore hopefully obvious message.
Aren't most of those curbs only 4-5" tall? My truck would drive completely over one. If they're being displaced, obviously they're not anchored down 'that' well. As for the underside of the car - remember the theory is that the hitch hit the bottom of the car like a spike, where even one of your curbs would more likely be more of a scrape.
I don't care if he struck a pintle-hitch that fell out of the receiver of a deuce and a half, it shouldn't have resulted in a fire. Failing in of itself is acceptable, but it needs to fail safe, not in a way that leads to the loss of the vehicle or to a potential loss of life. They designed the car so that kids sit in rearward-facing seats in the back, what if this had happened with a full load of passengers and the kids couldn't be gotten out in time?
1. Armoring against 'everything' isn't practical, and as has been noted in other places in the thread, gasoline vehicles catch fire fairly frequently as well, often with more tragic circumstances. 2. The loss of life remains potential, as you say. There's plenty of adults who've managed to die in car fires, the incidents thus far allow rather lazy responses while still maintaining safety. A 'full load of passengers' would be 2 adults and 2 kids in this case, with car seats I don't imagine that you could fit a 3rd person in one. Unless you're driving with 2 babies and your disabled grandmother, you should have plenty of time to get out going by incidents. 3. The loss of the vehicle, especially when there's no serious injuries, much less loss of life, means almost jack to me. Especially if it 'gave it all' in keeping said passengers unharmed. Let the thing burn. All it means is that the insurance premiums will need to be a bit higher. Or did you miss that the likely damage to a gasoline vehicle would have probably totaled it as well?
In America we feed 100% of people. Nobody has starved to death in America for a century (a laudable social achievement) so there is no excuse for stealing bread in order to live.
Just to be nitpicky, I read an incident of this happening just a few days ago. Trick is that the parents are up on a raft of charges ranging from neglect all the way up to murder. Investigations into the social services units involved are also ongoing.
I beg to disagree. There's a huge laundry list that allows employers to get out of having to provide healthcare, for example - too small, part time, not been there long enough, etc...
On the other hand I don't think employers should be expected to provide healthcare in the first place. The most they should be expected to do is split payments into a healthcare account that the employee can use to buy healthcare using pre-tax dollars. Perhaps bump the minimum wage by ~$1/hour, mandatory into the account if the business doesn't provide a qualifying plan otherwise.
But the one drug that is no longer prohibited is now the worst offender of all? Me thinks you need to rethink that argument.
It still makes sense if you look at it in the context of that as bad as alcohol is now, as bad as it was before prohibition, the net effects of it's prohibition on society was worse. Alcohol poisonings went up. Hell, our own government caused a number of deaths by deliberately poisoning alcohol in a weird "Drinking is bad! Let's make it worse! by deliberately poisoning it and maybe people will stop!" line of thinking. You vastly empowered organized crime(the 'mobs' of the day, 'gangs' today), got violence on the street, incredible incentives for police to become corrupt, the shift from 'officer of the peace' to 'law enforcement', etc...
My support for legalizing drugs is pure harm mitigation, not harm prevention. Because prevention isn't working even at huge expense.
And those that go, shoudl go to be rehabilitated into civil society.
At least in this case I think the original AC had a very good point in this. A good capitalist will outsource when the result is cheaper and more effective. Sweden has shown the ability to rehabilitate around twice as effectively as the USA(20% recedivism vs 60% here, ergo 80% effective vs 40%), with about 1/3rd the sentence period.
So sending at least a portion of our prison population to the Swedish prisons, paying them the appropriate amounts of course, to do what they manage to do so effectively seems a very good way to rehabilitate them. At least until we send some US personnel over there to learn the appropriate methodology and bring it back.
Actually if you search you'd find that they DID make them. Run of 100 with 10 retained as samples against counterfeiting... The other 90 were sold to various research firms.
Not to say it doesn't cost the tax payer anything. But there certainly are some groups of people that get a lot of extra money. Just imagine how much higher the military budget would have to be if they were to buy everything through normal channels and no longer prison work.
Citation please on the US Military buying anything standardly made by prison labor. The biggest source we buy from is 'Skilcraft' which employes the blind, not prison workers, and the supplies are an average of ~10% more expensive than standard commercial.
Social: I've come to the conclusion that fixing the problem(reform) has to be cheaper than warehousing prisoners. So pretty much ditto, though I'd actually treat prisoners better. The current treatment system actually causes mental damage and additional crime. Law enforcement, courts, and prison is expensive. Let's do the 'fix' right the first time.
As an ancillary, I'd stand up what I call the 'fedjobs' program. Historically the military was the biggest source of skilled craftsmen going. Today our professional military is much more vertical, with a higher proportion of career soldiers who get a second career as a GS or contractor, so they never hit the private sector.
Therefore I propose taking a page from Heinlein and setting up a program of mandatory employment that replaces various welfare programs. Yes, I know this program would be huge, but hopefully other factors would be set up such that ultimately fewer would be on the rolls. Like the military of the past, training would be provided after an initial period. In the case of Fedjobs, after a time of reasonable performance on the available minimum skill jobs they're transition to technical training on a balance of the individual's wants, the program's needs, and demonstrated ability via ASVAB equivalent. Projects worked would primarily be 'infrastructure' which by my definition would be 'anything that improves the quality of life and/or productivity of Americans that can be reasonably expected to last 20 years or longer with only routine maintenance'. Parks, Schools, bridges, roads, buried fiber, power generation plants, power lines, etc... Heck, even education counts under that definition.
Politics: I hate the idea of banning things because, well, they just figure out ways to get around it. Ban people giving the politicos money directly and you'll only see dozens of 'friends of XYZ' and 'enemies of ABC' pop up with their own ad campaigns.
Balanced Budget: On average, my friend, on average. The budget shall be balanced on a 15-20 rolling period, and no, they're not allowed to load the savings period on the back end. This is because I see programs like 'fedjobs' expanding and contracting in counterbalance to the economy, which operates on about a 17 year cycle.
Along with reforming prisons to reduce costs, end the war on some drugs. Treat addiction as a medical condition, not a crime.
Business: I'd hit the copyright system, vastly shortening terms before I go after patents. Patent wise I'd simply go back to requiring an example before you're allowed to patent it.
Legal/Security: Yep
Education: I'm more of the type where we can do this somewhat with the middle class/upper levels where parents are extremely interested in education levels. In poorer areas or where parents are on the whole utterly uninterested in their children's education, you have to step back and re-assess. Concentrate on teaching the kids what they'll need to live in today's society with a decent living. Shoot for lower-middle class, not middle class and higher for a few, discarding the rest.
I've seen those signs as well. Still, having seen a number of them hit at least the ones in my area tend to not break off(wintertime, cars sliding into them is a semi-normal event), they still bend down, but the sign post can still be replaced with a wrench set, no need for working/replacing/repairing the concrete. Which is a couple OOMs easier, faster, and therefore cheaper.
Slashdot Mirror
Some animals like rabbits will actually eat them again
But yeah, you have to chew corn a bit.
The trick is that while power lines are indeed naturally bidirectional, there's a hell of a lot more involved in AC transport infrastructure than just power lines. If you're staying in the neighborhood you only need to worry about the local power lines(not a big deal). It's when the power starts hitting transformer switchyards and such in significant amounts that it starts becoming a bigger deal.
It's a bit like the difference between pure gasoline and 'gasohol'. It's not that big of a deal to run ethanol-spiked gasoline in a vehicle designed for it, but it is a big deal for engines that weren't designed for it in mind. Most of our power infrastructure wasn't designed for it, so it needs to be 'tweaked'. Not a big deal on an individual basis, but the sheer scale makes it one.
Most areas in the states don't have any subsidies beyond helping with the install costs. Without German-style 'We pay you for every kwh you generate and consume yourself' subsidies two meters just aren't necessary when you're doing net-metering. Because we don't generally have generous purchase subsidies for solar electric, instead paying wholesale or 'deferred credits' most solar installs are quite deliberately somewhat undersized so the consumer still purchases 'some' power. 70-90%, generally speaking.
On the question of actual usage, collecting the data, you don't actually need 2 meters, you need a fancy one. Most solar power inverters actually have better meters and logging options than the relatively barebone ones most power companies are still using(in the states), especially if you buy one of the add-ons that allow you to log everything to a computer.
After all the fixed costs of connecting each house is the same.
Not really, especially when you get into the back-end. This gets complicated, I'm not an expert, I mostly worry about field capacity, stability, and such using generators in remote locations.
Somebody who merely uses less electricity isn't as much of a load on the electric lines as somebody who puts solar lines up, as aaarrrgggh mentions.
That's because, just like roads, while there's a fixed component to just having a line somewhere, there's also costs associated with sizing the lines based on maximum load and costs based on wear&tear on actually shipping the power. Most electric equipment is high durability, but there is gear that wears out, besides things like weather damage.
With just lowering usage you can shrink the size of the lines(or don't upgrade as you expand). Now consider the house w/solar panels situation - The house is using just as much power at night, so you can't shrink the lines, but now it's producing power during the day when people are generally not home, which translates to current on the lines(losses). Right now that doesn't matter much in most areas because vampire drain and such from homes to do things like keep fridges running and AC/DC converters warm, as well as homes with occupants means the power won't go far. But if you get enough solar panels now you need the infrastructure set up to move the power away from the neighborhood to the rest of the grid.
As for the last part of your comment, while I don't live there anymore, my old utility in ND would cut your rate by about a penny for any kwh over ~1k/month. It's political maneuvering why places like California charge you more per kwh if you 'use too much'.
1. 8 cents, US or Canadian, is below average cost for the continent
2. Fees everywhere - sounds like your company doesn't want to 'deal' with solar. $30/month for the 'privilege' of net-metering? Man, that's easy, and if you want to know how many kwh your solar system is producing, generally the inverter system has a much more in-depth tracking system such as keeping track of the production rates at different times (How much power did I generate between 0900-1030 every Tuesday for the last year?) Net metering is generally the easiest for the electric company to handle - they just keep reading 1 meter every month(or so) just like normal.
BTW, my electric company is something like $50/month even if you don't use any power, so I feel your pain.
I read my local utility's terms. With a net meter -- you don't get paid with more generation than usage; you get a credit against future usage.
Good to know, I tried to keep it fairly generic - 50 states, probably something on the order of 500 separate electric companies, all with different rules and setups. That's why I merely said 'you get paid', while not specifying how - retail, wholesale, time of use, credit, cash, etc...
In general a credit against future usage is better than getting paid retail(generally around a third of retail). Time of use gets complicated. Prices for that can vary between ~2 cents a kwh all the way up to over 40. If you can score some extraordinarily cheap batteries and some fairly complex computer controls you could probably make good money playing with that.
In the USA most don't get a second meter, they use what's called 'net metering'. IE if you generate, say, 500 kwh in a month and use 600, you only pay for 100 kwh, even if you only used 100 kwh during the time your panels were generating significant power and used the other 500 at night and such. If your install is big enough that you go negative(spin the meter backwards), you get paid.
While 'spinning reserve' can be a problem, the bigger expense right now is that homes with solar panels are effectively getting out of would be line maintenance expenses. It costs money to keep the distribution lines and equipment up, and they're still using said lines.
They're effectively being paid retail for the power they produce.
I love the comment about thermodynamics laws, and I wonder where the dried up sewage goes.
I'd probably feed it into industry - a mix of producing fertilizer and incinerating it(done right it can generate more power).
It's more likely that it works a bit like standard desalination where you only remove SOME of the water, discharging the now higher-salinity water back into the ocean(or in this case more poopy sewage).
Yep, got them confused.
You would think so, but no... taking insurance is expensive, getting paid is a pain in the neck, the whole thing is a headache.
Did you read the paragraph right after the one you quoted, where I said 'Cash is incredibly easy(and cheap!) in comparison'? I'll admit that I should have started the paragraph with a 'However it doesn't work that way', though, because I know the real situation is a lot more complicated(and expensive).
Side note: Keep in mind that even with the ACA, insurance companies are allowed to spend 20% on "overhead" (and profit). So there is another huge chunk of money that isn't going to actual care. Way too many layers and way too many people with fingers in the pot.
Yep. And that 20% doesn't include the overhead of medical clinic billing departments working to get money out of the insurer.
These are viruses, they can't reproduce on their own. Plus, well, 'Tobacco Patia' virus isn't something that's going to be crossing over to affect humans anytime soon. The tobacco lobby might be a touch worried...
More seriously, we've used biota for industrial production for centuries with limited issues.
I wonder why they don't put the minimum threshold higher on batteries. I've heard that completely discharging lithium batteries is really bad for them. But then why not just build in some extra capacity into the battery, and have it refuse to run once it reaches 20%.
That's actually what modern hybrid and EV battery management systems do. They also stop charging at about 80% of max capacity, because it's the top and bottom 20% of charge states where the maximum wear is. So a 100 kwh 1k charge cycle battery might be exactly identical to a 80 kwh 4k cycle battery.
It's generally not done with consumer electronics because they only expect them to last 1-2 years and weight/cost are bigger concerns than longevity.
It should be noted that when they talk about X numbers of 'charge cycles' it's from 0% to 100% even when it comes to applications where they really expect lots of partial charges - cell phones, EVs, and such. So if you charge it up 50%, then 20%, then 30%, that adds up to 1 cycle. Though if they're being honest they rate the expected cycles by the expected duty cycle - LiIon 'likes' partial charges, NiCad doesn't. Lead-Acid doesn't like being discharged, but tolerates being fully or even over charged the best out of the common chemistries.
Side note: The number of doctors is not based on "free market" anything, it is tightly controlled by the AMA (American Medical Association). Only current doctors can licence new doctors and only existing medical schools can licence new medical schools, they like it the way it is because it keeps doctor pay high.
Disclaimer: I have virtually no personal experience with healthcare costs, so most of my experience is my parent's bills. However, on the balance I'd say the actual cost for doctors is really low compared to the overall cost of healthcare for the average american. Most of my parent's healthcare doctors are eaten up by drugs, followed by surgical expenses(and again, the doctor/surgeon is only a minority cost).
Theoretically more people having insurance means doctors(and clinics, hospitals, etc...) have an easier time getting paid, thus don't need to inflate their prices as much nor hire as much of a staff to do billing.
Personally I think that going more free market would help - get insurance out of the average transaction. Your wife is probably less frustrated with people wanting to see her than she is with dealing with their insurance. Cash is incredibly easy(and cheap!) in comparison.
Don't forget Walmart on the 'No longer a new release' front. Lots of older DVD's available for only a few bucks more than what Blockbuster was renting them for.
It got to the point with me for books and movies that I decided to go to cloud/server based storage because physical media just got too overwhelming - I couldn't keep track in my head which movies I owned and didn't, ended up with a fair number of duplicates when I finally got around to sorting everything.
I also don't think Ayn Rand was talking about Venezuela, or that most of her detractors would support a government take over of Best Buy, but you know, shades of grey and all that.
The kindest thing I can say about Rand was that she was a woman who was horribly burned by the socialist revolution that happened in her country, that included stuff like what's happening in Venezuala now. As a result she became hyper-sensitive to that sort of stuff and wrote her books as moral plays - where the idea IS to beat you over the head with an exagerated and therefore hopefully obvious message.
Only if I get an awesome mecha like in that one Japanese game...
I'd prefer to be the EO of the USA rather than president though, President just doesn't have enough power(as Obama has been finding out).
In any case, have a few years before I'm eligible.
Aren't most of those curbs only 4-5" tall? My truck would drive completely over one. If they're being displaced, obviously they're not anchored down 'that' well. As for the underside of the car - remember the theory is that the hitch hit the bottom of the car like a spike, where even one of your curbs would more likely be more of a scrape.
I don't care if he struck a pintle-hitch that fell out of the receiver of a deuce and a half, it shouldn't have resulted in a fire. Failing in of itself is acceptable, but it needs to fail safe, not in a way that leads to the loss of the vehicle or to a potential loss of life. They designed the car so that kids sit in rearward-facing seats in the back, what if this had happened with a full load of passengers and the kids couldn't be gotten out in time?
1. Armoring against 'everything' isn't practical, and as has been noted in other places in the thread, gasoline vehicles catch fire fairly frequently as well, often with more tragic circumstances.
2. The loss of life remains potential, as you say. There's plenty of adults who've managed to die in car fires, the incidents thus far allow rather lazy responses while still maintaining safety. A 'full load of passengers' would be 2 adults and 2 kids in this case, with car seats I don't imagine that you could fit a 3rd person in one. Unless you're driving with 2 babies and your disabled grandmother, you should have plenty of time to get out going by incidents.
3. The loss of the vehicle, especially when there's no serious injuries, much less loss of life, means almost jack to me. Especially if it 'gave it all' in keeping said passengers unharmed. Let the thing burn. All it means is that the insurance premiums will need to be a bit higher. Or did you miss that the likely damage to a gasoline vehicle would have probably totaled it as well?
In America we feed 100% of people. Nobody has starved to death in America for a century (a laudable social achievement) so there is no excuse for stealing bread in order to live.
Just to be nitpicky, I read an incident of this happening just a few days ago. Trick is that the parents are up on a raft of charges ranging from neglect all the way up to murder. Investigations into the social services units involved are also ongoing.
I beg to disagree. There's a huge laundry list that allows employers to get out of having to provide healthcare, for example - too small, part time, not been there long enough, etc...
On the other hand I don't think employers should be expected to provide healthcare in the first place. The most they should be expected to do is split payments into a healthcare account that the employee can use to buy healthcare using pre-tax dollars. Perhaps bump the minimum wage by ~$1/hour, mandatory into the account if the business doesn't provide a qualifying plan otherwise.
But the one drug that is no longer prohibited is now the worst offender of all? Me thinks you need to rethink that argument.
It still makes sense if you look at it in the context of that as bad as alcohol is now, as bad as it was before prohibition, the net effects of it's prohibition on society was worse. Alcohol poisonings went up. Hell, our own government caused a number of deaths by deliberately poisoning alcohol in a weird "Drinking is bad! Let's make it worse! by deliberately poisoning it and maybe people will stop!" line of thinking. You vastly empowered organized crime(the 'mobs' of the day, 'gangs' today), got violence on the street, incredible incentives for police to become corrupt, the shift from 'officer of the peace' to 'law enforcement', etc...
My support for legalizing drugs is pure harm mitigation, not harm prevention. Because prevention isn't working even at huge expense.
And those that go, shoudl go to be rehabilitated into civil society.
At least in this case I think the original AC had a very good point in this. A good capitalist will outsource when the result is cheaper and more effective. Sweden has shown the ability to rehabilitate around twice as effectively as the USA(20% recedivism vs 60% here, ergo 80% effective vs 40%), with about 1/3rd the sentence period.
So sending at least a portion of our prison population to the Swedish prisons, paying them the appropriate amounts of course, to do what they manage to do so effectively seems a very good way to rehabilitate them. At least until we send some US personnel over there to learn the appropriate methodology and bring it back.
Actually if you search you'd find that they DID make them. Run of 100 with 10 retained as samples against counterfeiting... The other 90 were sold to various research firms.
Not to say it doesn't cost the tax payer anything. But there certainly are some groups of people that get a lot of extra money. Just imagine how much higher the military budget would have to be if they were to buy everything through normal channels and no longer prison work.
Citation please on the US Military buying anything standardly made by prison labor. The biggest source we buy from is 'Skilcraft' which employes the blind, not prison workers, and the supplies are an average of ~10% more expensive than standard commercial.
Social: I've come to the conclusion that fixing the problem(reform) has to be cheaper than warehousing prisoners. So pretty much ditto, though I'd actually treat prisoners better. The current treatment system actually causes mental damage and additional crime. Law enforcement, courts, and prison is expensive. Let's do the 'fix' right the first time.
As an ancillary, I'd stand up what I call the 'fedjobs' program. Historically the military was the biggest source of skilled craftsmen going. Today our professional military is much more vertical, with a higher proportion of career soldiers who get a second career as a GS or contractor, so they never hit the private sector.
Therefore I propose taking a page from Heinlein and setting up a program of mandatory employment that replaces various welfare programs. Yes, I know this program would be huge, but hopefully other factors would be set up such that ultimately fewer would be on the rolls. Like the military of the past, training would be provided after an initial period. In the case of Fedjobs, after a time of reasonable performance on the available minimum skill jobs they're transition to technical training on a balance of the individual's wants, the program's needs, and demonstrated ability via ASVAB equivalent. Projects worked would primarily be 'infrastructure' which by my definition would be 'anything that improves the quality of life and/or productivity of Americans that can be reasonably expected to last 20 years or longer with only routine maintenance'. Parks, Schools, bridges, roads, buried fiber, power generation plants, power lines, etc... Heck, even education counts under that definition.
Politics: I hate the idea of banning things because, well, they just figure out ways to get around it. Ban people giving the politicos money directly and you'll only see dozens of 'friends of XYZ' and 'enemies of ABC' pop up with their own ad campaigns.
Balanced Budget: On average, my friend, on average. The budget shall be balanced on a 15-20 rolling period, and no, they're not allowed to load the savings period on the back end. This is because I see programs like 'fedjobs' expanding and contracting in counterbalance to the economy, which operates on about a 17 year cycle.
Along with reforming prisons to reduce costs, end the war on some drugs. Treat addiction as a medical condition, not a crime.
Business: I'd hit the copyright system, vastly shortening terms before I go after patents. Patent wise I'd simply go back to requiring an example before you're allowed to patent it.
Legal/Security: Yep
Education: I'm more of the type where we can do this somewhat with the middle class/upper levels where parents are extremely interested in education levels. In poorer areas or where parents are on the whole utterly uninterested in their children's education, you have to step back and re-assess. Concentrate on teaching the kids what they'll need to live in today's society with a decent living. Shoot for lower-middle class, not middle class and higher for a few, discarding the rest.
I've seen those signs as well. Still, having seen a number of them hit at least the ones in my area tend to not break off(wintertime, cars sliding into them is a semi-normal event), they still bend down, but the sign post can still be replaced with a wrench set, no need for working/replacing/repairing the concrete. Which is a couple OOMs easier, faster, and therefore cheaper.