Even without having to change currency, the cost of living in the USA alone varies by nearly an order of magnitude depending on where you're at.
Currency exchange rates are what you can buy/sell currencies for. Consider that in the USA, you have to pay shipping and local wages that are higher than if the product is left in China.
You can look at the 'Big Mac' price index, but Big Macs are considered a premium food product over in China - thus it's more expensive.
Look at what you can buy the 'typical' lunch for instead. Remember to get out of the tourist areas.
On your first point, I think he was trying to say that the mouse shouldn't cost $80 with labor that cheap, he probably figures there was a huge profit margin on it. Which is possible, I guess.
On 2 - I've used many brands, I personally think MS stuff is 'average to good'. You pay a bit of a premium to have a good expectation of a product that meets your standards.
3&4 - well, from my paying attention, the situations for Chinese workers are improving on average, but China will have to finish working it's way through the excess labor pool from subsidence farmers before conditions really start improving. IE workers will have to gain a bit of 'rarity'.
Your cigarettes cost like 30% of what they would in the USA, it's more like $6-8 for a pack here.(disclaimer: I don't smoke).
Let's look at a few other prices: 1 Gallon Milk 1 Loaf of Bread 1 Gallon Gasoline 5 pounds of rice A 'fryer' chicken (or cost per pound for breasts) Average cost of a 1 bedroom apartment Average cost of a 2-3 bedroom house How much for your average mobile phone contract, per month? How much for your typical 'eat out' dinner?
Some costs are highly variable, but this should give you a better idea of the cost of living than chocolate.
When we buy something (electronics, car, clothes, vegetables, fruits... anything!), do we stop and ask ourselves in what type on conditions that good was produced ? unlikely...
I tried it for a couple months. My simple rule was 'Nothing made in China'. Trying to find a coat not made there? Took 5 stores. Waffle machine? Still haven't found one.
Thing is, with the way goods are made by sub-contractors today, it's not possible for me to confirm conditions. Take a simple electronic good. Were the assemblers treated by my requirements? That might be trackable. But what about those making the resisters, the chips, heck, the wire, power supply, housing, etc...? Each of which is likely either bought on the open market or contracted out to another country.
Better to work on the Country's standards at that point. The problem with China is that China has some of the best standards in the world, including environmental. It's just that nobody pays attention to them.
Do I look at what other businesses are paying? Do I look at the cost of living? Is it where I have people agree to come work for me(IE mutual agreement)?
Is it still a fair wage if I pay my workers so much that I end up bankrupt/closing down because I can't compete?
You can raise a family quite well in my area for $40k/year. In other sections of the country, you would have a hard time supporting a single individual on $40k. In other countries, for $40k a year you could have almost a mansion and servents to clean it.
My house cost $15k. My parents house, which is not that much larger, cost over $150k. Makes a bit of difference.
You are may be correct in stating that they choose to work in those conditions. And although the conditions may be abhorrent to a citizen of a developed western country it may be the norm in China.
The way I see it, China is going through a period almost identical to what the USA went through when it industrialized. There will be growing pains. It will take a couple generations. But things will improve. Hopefully China will learn from the lessons of the USA and Europe, but the more I look at various histories, the more I believe that those 'growing pains' are necessary steps.
When people go off about 'what the market will bear' they seem to only factor in the financial cost of producing an individual widget and not the cost of Goodwill, Public Perception etc. that also factors in.
I'd argue that Goodwill, Public Perception, and such are less important than what you seem to think. The companies are still successful, that's what matters in the end.
Also, in an impoverished area even a factory paying 'sweatshop' wages is an improvement in the region. They pay more than what other jobs in the area would.
I remember reading in article about shoe factories in China - many had to relocate because wages in the immediate region had climbed like 500% in the last 5 years, and the smaller factories were no longer competitive, only the larger, more automated ones were. So the small ones were relocating to a fresh area in China where the wages were still low.
Other manufacturing was moving in due to the higher skills of the workers, availability of infrastructure and such.
In the end, this is a good thing. Right up until all regions of the world are developed, and we have to find a new model because there's no more 'cheap' manufacturing spots left.
In my case I got a 47" LCD TV for ~$700, I've had a receiver and sound system around for the last 7 years that cost $200 new, $120 on the stand, and $200 on the netflix capable Blu-ray DVD player.
It's not as suitable for more than maybe 2-3 people, a bigger TV would be nice, but not essential.
Meanwhile I gain: Cheap popcorn made just the way *I* like it. The ability to pause the movie Ability to start the movie when I want. Set the volume to a level I like Have my own seat
Etc...
Seriously, the parent estimating $20k had better get a true home theater setup for it - HiDef projector & good screen, specialized seating, professionally installed sound, popcorn machine, etc...
Well, no I haven't. Still, even 5 discs would be able to output more requests on average outside of applications/tests almost uniquely optimised for SSD, and a HD won't use more than $100 of electricity in a year, again, outside of special circumstances.
And the fact that the file server is an apple won't magically decrease the odds of a disk failure. It's not like they have their own HD factory.
SSDs do go bad. If the data is that critical, the multiple spinning platters means a graceful degregation of service if one fails, vs a complete failure.
10 discs, each with a 10% chance of failure within a given period of time, gives you a.00000001% of all of them failing.
i am not a hardware expert. However, I have a few uses for something like that in the small company where I work. $4k is pricey, but for applications that rely on huge file I/O and is sensitive to speed, this is viable.
True, but I was just shopping for storage and considering a SSD.
Newegg ran a deal on a 2TB HD yesterday for $130. Standard price for many is $140-150. $150 for 7200 RPM.
At $4k, you can afford to have 20 of these drives and still have money for some fancy controllers. Run them in RAID-1 for the DB application to give you the necessary bandwidth/capacity. 20 Drives beat 1 SSD controller. Heck, for most applications 5-10 beat the SSD. Write doesn't matter much because, well, SSDs write about as slow as HDs.
- sure, but not the richest people, those who matter. Like CITI group's Robert Rubin, Chuck Prince and 3 more executives, making together about 150 million dollars while CITI was collapsing.
There's quite a bit of difference with making a lot of money over bailing out of a sinking ship of a corporation, and making out with a sinking continent of a nation.
But yeah, you're right, the ultra-rich will tend not to lose as much because they have better means of moving their money into shelters of whatever sort - and enough incentive to either see the need coming or hire somebody who will.
Thing is, I think that it's the stockholders that need to reign these people in, more so than the government.
Well, it concerns alcohol and weed for students, not meth.
Still, Meth remains a locally producable drug, popular in areas that lack regular access to other drugs. MJ isn't normally unavailable, so it's probably not a substitution. Going by effects, it's more likely to substitute for cocaine and such.
Of course not. The theater chain will have to assess you a "monoscopic vision modification fee" but luckily its only an extra $2 over the price of a 3D ticket.
At least in the USA, 'HIPAA' should get you out of any charges.
Our local theater doesn't charge any more for the 3D ticket, but hits you with a manadatory glasses fee. Same effect in the end, I guess. They'd just give the guy a 2D pair.
Personally I experience additional eye strain when seeing 3D presentations, which can lead to a head ache.
The local theater has recently switched to showing both the 3D version and the 2D version. Previously they were only showing 3D versions of 3D films. So the market has to be there.
In the end, I figure 3D films are an attempt to keep theaters relevant. Too many people with Hi-Def big screens and HiFi sound systems at home today.
Isn't it amazing how every all problems can be solved by lessening governmental control, according to libertarians, or increasing it, according to socialists? You'd almost think people are posting a thinly veiled ad for their pet ideologue as a comment!
Well, personally I'm a libertarian* because it's the party that most fits with my belief systems.
I don't consider it an 'ad' because, well, I actually believe in what I'm saying.
That being said, I'm not for legalizing drugs without regulating them. In a odd sort of 'the more tightly you clench your fingers' kind of way, I view a 'legal but regulated' as actually practicing more control over drugs than the current blanket prohibition.
If it's legal to produce, people will comply with the necessary regulations, generally speaking. That means you can post rules on purity and safety. That you can enforce environmental regulations, labor rules, charge taxes and fees, etc...
In return they get legal protection, police response, are able to set up long term farms using economical, non-hidden methods. Methods that are, in the end, cheaper than small potato illegal grow farms.
*Note that I consider the extreme Libertarians nuts as well.
Legalization advocates speak as if the problem with alcohol was solved. It never was.
No, Legalization advocates look at alcohol and point out that prohibition led to worse problems than having it be illegal.
1. Usage didn't actually go down significantly 2. Violent crime went up (nonviolent non-alcohol crime like theft went up too) 3. Alcohol poisonings went up 4. Police corruption went up 5. Respect for the law went down 6. The government lost a semi-major source of revenue
I'd like to legalize drugs, and not because I want to use them, or that I think they're harmless. It's that I think that as a cure it's worse than the disease. Heck, it's not even a cure - get semi-effective at preventing drugs and people switch to different, more dangerous ones like Meth. In Australia they huff gasoline if necessary to get high.
There is no such thing as "safe, recreational" use of shit like crack and heroin. That shit gets you addicted, turns you into a zombie, and fucks up anyone that's in any way related to you, no matter how cheap you can get it -- as if that's some solution.
Crack is a manifestation of the war on drugs - prohibition tends to encourage usage of purer, faster acting drugs. During Alcohol prohibition, alcohol poisonings went UP, at least partially because hard liquers replaced wine and beer as the popular vectors - because the hard liquers were easier to smuggle. After prohibition ended, wine and beer quickly retook their positions.
Cocaine isn't nice, but it's nicer than crack. Crack was created in an attempt to stretch Cocaine - essentially getting more hits out of a kilo of cocaine. I think there's evidence to believe that Cocaine would displace crack if legalized.
As for Heroin, it's very similar to Morphine, and Dr. Halsted, one of the founders of John Hopkin's hospital, was a secret morphine addict - virtually unknown until 80 years after his death. He turned to Morphine to beat a cocaine addiction, oddly enough. He became addicted while researching the anesthetic effects of cocaine(worked a lot like lidocaine).
I've seen evidence to believe that a lot of the harm that comes from Heroin addiction is due to poor quality control - users don't know how much they're getting, and the product is far from being pure or at least cut with safe substances. Thus, they have issues controlling dosage, and are often screwed up by impurities resulting from either deliberate adulturation or poor processing.
Many European countries have successfully pursued a strategy of harm reduction - helping to ensure that users get a clean supply, allowing them to find productive work and minimize the effects of their addiction.
Legalizing drugs is surrender. Whatever the cartels are doing, it's 100x better than what a country would look like if people could use whatever mindfuck drugs they could be tricked into trying once.
And who'd bother to trick you into using said drugs, if you can then turn around and buy it safer and cheaper from the pharmacy? There's no profit motive there. That's the approach many european countries use, and it's worked. Not to mention that undisclosed sale would still be illegal and subject the seller to criminal penalties.
It's a very rare decriminalization proponant that doesn't support some level of regulation.
The truly criminal ones are a lot more sophisticated today - they're hacking the SIM chips today to present false information, cloning chips so they don't get turned off, etc...
Identity theft, open a new cell account in somebody's name, preferably somebody who, for whatever reason, either has no cell or multiple ones.
The saying "you don't get something for nothing" will definitely be true for these bribed kids! Not true for the taxpayers paying for their bribes though.
Are you sure about this? Would the 'something for nothing' issue outweigh the benefits of having better educated kids in the first place? Does the extra-mercenary nature you're assuming even show up? Does it last?
All sorts of questions. Like I pointed out earlier, this may be a beneficial aid to motivate kids before they've developed good long term goal systems.
I know as a kid I put a severe discount on future rewards as 'close' as the end of the semester - my parents offered to pay me for good grades, I determined that the work now wasn't worth the reward later. If it'd been broken up a bit more, would it have worked better? Probably.
- what about the previous generations that are leaving the new ones in USA with an insurmountable pile of debt, that you can't even pay interest on, forget about paying out the principal?
Money balanced budget is one of my top concerns.
So when the richest get the money that are newly printed just now and the poorest have to subsidize the richest corporations by having their funds slashed with every new printed dollar, the society is no longer functioning. It is everybody's duty to stop paying taxes, let the government default or print itself into hyper inflation.
Uhhh.... Wow... This has quite a bit wrong with it.
'The richest corporations' would be harmed quite a bit in a hyper-inflation scenario, stock funds should actually be one of the stabler investments in such a scenario. Still, I agree with the last part - our government needs to have a better fiscal policy than a family living off it's credit cards.
So because you want to live to 80 and you are saying you'll need a doctor, everybody has to care?
1. Statistically speaking I have better than a 50-50 shot at making it to 80. Your situation may be different, but the average population has that chance 2. I need to see a doctor at least once a year as is. Again, statistically speaking I'll need to see more of them in the future. Otherwise my lifespan and quality of life is likely to decline rather rapidly... 3. In general, shouldn't everybody?
Basically, take my somewhat specific example and make it more general. There's more than just doctors to worry about, you also want engineers to keep the roads up, accountants to manage finances, law enforcement officers*, etc...
Our society is built upon the investment of past generations. Every generation has to make a certain contribution just to maintain our society, our standard of living, much less increase it. An educated population is critical to this, and if bribing our kids before they've developed proper long term cost-benefit skills or a love for learning on their own, makes for a better education for the least cost, I'm for it.
Who the hell expects to live that long or even wants to?
I'm in my 30's right now. My life expectancy is in the 80's. I'm childless less by deliberate choice than that I'm such an extreme introvert I'd have been better off on a country with arranged marriages. It's *hard* for me to form attachments.
That's 50 years. It really only takes 30 to 'grow' a doctor, less for most taxpayers, etc...
Money is better than nothing, sure, but it's not better than a direct reward in kind (breakfast, sex, etc).
Only if the reward matches the need.
The advantage of the money is that it's generic. If I want I can take that $2 and buy a candy immediately, or a drink, or put it with 10-20 others and get a game, a couple hundred and get a console, etc...
If I'm not looking for breakfast I'm going to prefer the money.
Slashdot Mirror
Even without having to change currency, the cost of living in the USA alone varies by nearly an order of magnitude depending on where you're at.
Currency exchange rates are what you can buy/sell currencies for. Consider that in the USA, you have to pay shipping and local wages that are higher than if the product is left in China.
You can look at the 'Big Mac' price index, but Big Macs are considered a premium food product over in China - thus it's more expensive.
Look at what you can buy the 'typical' lunch for instead. Remember to get out of the tourist areas.
On your first point, I think he was trying to say that the mouse shouldn't cost $80 with labor that cheap, he probably figures there was a huge profit margin on it. Which is possible, I guess.
On 2 - I've used many brands, I personally think MS stuff is 'average to good'. You pay a bit of a premium to have a good expectation of a product that meets your standards.
3&4 - well, from my paying attention, the situations for Chinese workers are improving on average, but China will have to finish working it's way through the excess labor pool from subsidence farmers before conditions really start improving. IE workers will have to gain a bit of 'rarity'.
Does Venezuela have native chocolate producers?
Your cigarettes cost like 30% of what they would in the USA, it's more like $6-8 for a pack here.(disclaimer: I don't smoke).
Let's look at a few other prices:
1 Gallon Milk
1 Loaf of Bread
1 Gallon Gasoline
5 pounds of rice
A 'fryer' chicken (or cost per pound for breasts)
Average cost of a 1 bedroom apartment
Average cost of a 2-3 bedroom house
How much for your average mobile phone contract, per month?
How much for your typical 'eat out' dinner?
Some costs are highly variable, but this should give you a better idea of the cost of living than chocolate.
When we buy something (electronics, car, clothes, vegetables, fruits ... anything!), do we stop and ask ourselves in what type on conditions that good was produced ? unlikely ...
I tried it for a couple months. My simple rule was 'Nothing made in China'. Trying to find a coat not made there? Took 5 stores. Waffle machine? Still haven't found one.
Thing is, with the way goods are made by sub-contractors today, it's not possible for me to confirm conditions. Take a simple electronic good. Were the assemblers treated by my requirements? That might be trackable. But what about those making the resisters, the chips, heck, the wire, power supply, housing, etc...? Each of which is likely either bought on the open market or contracted out to another country.
Better to work on the Country's standards at that point. The problem with China is that China has some of the best standards in the world, including environmental. It's just that nobody pays attention to them.
But how do you define a 'fair wage'?
Do I look at what other businesses are paying? Do I look at the cost of living? Is it where I have people agree to come work for me(IE mutual agreement)?
Is it still a fair wage if I pay my workers so much that I end up bankrupt/closing down because I can't compete?
You can raise a family quite well in my area for $40k/year. In other sections of the country, you would have a hard time supporting a single individual on $40k. In other countries, for $40k a year you could have almost a mansion and servents to clean it.
My house cost $15k. My parents house, which is not that much larger, cost over $150k. Makes a bit of difference.
You are may be correct in stating that they choose to work in those conditions. And although the conditions may be abhorrent to a citizen of a developed western country it may be the norm in China.
The way I see it, China is going through a period almost identical to what the USA went through when it industrialized. There will be growing pains. It will take a couple generations. But things will improve. Hopefully China will learn from the lessons of the USA and Europe, but the more I look at various histories, the more I believe that those 'growing pains' are necessary steps.
When people go off about 'what the market will bear' they seem to only factor in the financial cost of producing an individual widget and not the cost of Goodwill, Public Perception etc. that also factors in.
I'd argue that Goodwill, Public Perception, and such are less important than what you seem to think. The companies are still successful, that's what matters in the end.
Also, in an impoverished area even a factory paying 'sweatshop' wages is an improvement in the region. They pay more than what other jobs in the area would.
I remember reading in article about shoe factories in China - many had to relocate because wages in the immediate region had climbed like 500% in the last 5 years, and the smaller factories were no longer competitive, only the larger, more automated ones were. So the small ones were relocating to a fresh area in China where the wages were still low.
Other manufacturing was moving in due to the higher skills of the workers, availability of infrastructure and such.
In the end, this is a good thing. Right up until all regions of the world are developed, and we have to find a new model because there's no more 'cheap' manufacturing spots left.
In my case I got a 47" LCD TV for ~$700, I've had a receiver and sound system around for the last 7 years that cost $200 new, $120 on the stand, and $200 on the netflix capable Blu-ray DVD player.
It's not as suitable for more than maybe 2-3 people, a bigger TV would be nice, but not essential.
Meanwhile I gain:
Cheap popcorn made just the way *I* like it.
The ability to pause the movie
Ability to start the movie when I want.
Set the volume to a level I like
Have my own seat
Etc...
Seriously, the parent estimating $20k had better get a true home theater setup for it - HiDef projector & good screen, specialized seating, professionally installed sound, popcorn machine, etc...
Well, no I haven't. Still, even 5 discs would be able to output more requests on average outside of applications/tests almost uniquely optimised for SSD, and a HD won't use more than $100 of electricity in a year, again, outside of special circumstances.
And the fact that the file server is an apple won't magically decrease the odds of a disk failure. It's not like they have their own HD factory.
SSDs do go bad. If the data is that critical, the multiple spinning platters means a graceful degregation of service if one fails, vs a complete failure.
10 discs, each with a 10% chance of failure within a given period of time, gives you a .00000001% of all of them failing.
Yeah, like my video server trying to feed multiple HD streams at the same time.
How many HD streams at the same time?
Right now it'd be cheaper for you to get 2 drives in raid 1 and a raid controller smart enough to queue requests seperately to the two drives.
Unless you don't have enough movies to make HD's economical - HD's scale up well, Flash scales down better.
i am not a hardware expert. However, I have a few uses for something like that in the small company where I work. $4k is pricey, but for applications that rely on huge file I/O and is sensitive to speed, this is viable.
True, but I was just shopping for storage and considering a SSD.
Newegg ran a deal on a 2TB HD yesterday for $130. Standard price for many is $140-150. $150 for 7200 RPM.
At $4k, you can afford to have 20 of these drives and still have money for some fancy controllers. Run them in RAID-1 for the DB application to give you the necessary bandwidth/capacity. 20 Drives beat 1 SSD controller. Heck, for most applications 5-10 beat the SSD. Write doesn't matter much because, well, SSDs write about as slow as HDs.
- sure, but not the richest people, those who matter. Like CITI group's Robert Rubin, Chuck Prince and 3 more executives, making together about 150 million dollars while CITI was collapsing.
There's quite a bit of difference with making a lot of money over bailing out of a sinking ship of a corporation, and making out with a sinking continent of a nation.
But yeah, you're right, the ultra-rich will tend not to lose as much because they have better means of moving their money into shelters of whatever sort - and enough incentive to either see the need coming or hire somebody who will.
Thing is, I think that it's the stockholders that need to reign these people in, more so than the government.
Somehow part of my post got eaten when I submitted.
Money owed isn't as much of a problem, I'm more worried about our crumbling infrastructure, still a balanced budget is one of my top concerns.
Oops, you're right. ADA instead of HIPAA. Been hearing HIPAA too much.
but I've never heard of someone saying "Well, I couldn't get weed so I bough some meth!"
http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/24267983/Substitution-of-Marijuana-For-Alcohol-The-Role-of-Perceived-Access-and-Harm
Well, it concerns alcohol and weed for students, not meth.
Still, Meth remains a locally producable drug, popular in areas that lack regular access to other drugs. MJ isn't normally unavailable, so it's probably not a substitution. Going by effects, it's more likely to substitute for cocaine and such.
Of course not. The theater chain will have to assess you a "monoscopic vision modification fee" but luckily its only an extra $2 over the price of a 3D ticket.
At least in the USA, 'HIPAA' should get you out of any charges.
Our local theater doesn't charge any more for the 3D ticket, but hits you with a manadatory glasses fee. Same effect in the end, I guess. They'd just give the guy a 2D pair.
Personally I experience additional eye strain when seeing 3D presentations, which can lead to a head ache.
The local theater has recently switched to showing both the 3D version and the 2D version. Previously they were only showing 3D versions of 3D films. So the market has to be there.
In the end, I figure 3D films are an attempt to keep theaters relevant. Too many people with Hi-Def big screens and HiFi sound systems at home today.
Isn't it amazing how every all problems can be solved by lessening governmental control, according to libertarians, or increasing it, according to socialists? You'd almost think people are posting a thinly veiled ad for their pet ideologue as a comment!
Well, personally I'm a libertarian* because it's the party that most fits with my belief systems.
I don't consider it an 'ad' because, well, I actually believe in what I'm saying.
That being said, I'm not for legalizing drugs without regulating them. In a odd sort of 'the more tightly you clench your fingers' kind of way, I view a 'legal but regulated' as actually practicing more control over drugs than the current blanket prohibition.
If it's legal to produce, people will comply with the necessary regulations, generally speaking. That means you can post rules on purity and safety. That you can enforce environmental regulations, labor rules, charge taxes and fees, etc...
In return they get legal protection, police response, are able to set up long term farms using economical, non-hidden methods. Methods that are, in the end, cheaper than small potato illegal grow farms.
*Note that I consider the extreme Libertarians nuts as well.
Legalization advocates speak as if the problem with alcohol was solved. It never was.
No, Legalization advocates look at alcohol and point out that prohibition led to worse problems than having it be illegal.
1. Usage didn't actually go down significantly
2. Violent crime went up (nonviolent non-alcohol crime like theft went up too)
3. Alcohol poisonings went up
4. Police corruption went up
5. Respect for the law went down
6. The government lost a semi-major source of revenue
I'd like to legalize drugs, and not because I want to use them, or that I think they're harmless. It's that I think that as a cure it's worse than the disease. Heck, it's not even a cure - get semi-effective at preventing drugs and people switch to different, more dangerous ones like Meth. In Australia they huff gasoline if necessary to get high.
There is no such thing as "safe, recreational" use of shit like crack and heroin. That shit gets you addicted, turns you into a zombie, and fucks up anyone that's in any way related to you, no matter how cheap you can get it -- as if that's some solution.
Crack is a manifestation of the war on drugs - prohibition tends to encourage usage of purer, faster acting drugs. During Alcohol prohibition, alcohol poisonings went UP, at least partially because hard liquers replaced wine and beer as the popular vectors - because the hard liquers were easier to smuggle. After prohibition ended, wine and beer quickly retook their positions.
Cocaine isn't nice, but it's nicer than crack. Crack was created in an attempt to stretch Cocaine - essentially getting more hits out of a kilo of cocaine. I think there's evidence to believe that Cocaine would displace crack if legalized.
As for Heroin, it's very similar to Morphine, and Dr. Halsted, one of the founders of John Hopkin's hospital, was a secret morphine addict - virtually unknown until 80 years after his death. He turned to Morphine to beat a cocaine addiction, oddly enough. He became addicted while researching the anesthetic effects of cocaine(worked a lot like lidocaine).
I've seen evidence to believe that a lot of the harm that comes from Heroin addiction is due to poor quality control - users don't know how much they're getting, and the product is far from being pure or at least cut with safe substances. Thus, they have issues controlling dosage, and are often screwed up by impurities resulting from either deliberate adulturation or poor processing.
Many European countries have successfully pursued a strategy of harm reduction - helping to ensure that users get a clean supply, allowing them to find productive work and minimize the effects of their addiction.
Legalizing drugs is surrender. Whatever the cartels are doing, it's 100x better than what a country would look like if people could use whatever mindfuck drugs they could be tricked into trying once.
And who'd bother to trick you into using said drugs, if you can then turn around and buy it safer and cheaper from the pharmacy? There's no profit motive there. That's the approach many european countries use, and it's worked. Not to mention that undisclosed sale would still be illegal and subject the seller to criminal penalties.
It's a very rare decriminalization proponant that doesn't support some level of regulation.
The truly criminal ones are a lot more sophisticated today - they're hacking the SIM chips today to present false information, cloning chips so they don't get turned off, etc...
Identity theft, open a new cell account in somebody's name, preferably somebody who, for whatever reason, either has no cell or multiple ones.
The saying "you don't get something for nothing" will definitely be true for these bribed kids! Not true for the taxpayers paying for their bribes though.
Are you sure about this? Would the 'something for nothing' issue outweigh the benefits of having better educated kids in the first place? Does the extra-mercenary nature you're assuming even show up? Does it last?
All sorts of questions. Like I pointed out earlier, this may be a beneficial aid to motivate kids before they've developed good long term goal systems.
I know as a kid I put a severe discount on future rewards as 'close' as the end of the semester - my parents offered to pay me for good grades, I determined that the work now wasn't worth the reward later. If it'd been broken up a bit more, would it have worked better? Probably.
- what about the previous generations that are leaving the new ones in USA with an insurmountable pile of debt, that you can't even pay interest on, forget about paying out the principal?
Money balanced budget is one of my top concerns.
So when the richest get the money that are newly printed just now and the poorest have to subsidize the richest corporations by having their funds slashed with every new printed dollar, the society is no longer functioning. It is everybody's duty to stop paying taxes, let the government default or print itself into hyper inflation.
Uhhh.... Wow... This has quite a bit wrong with it.
'The richest corporations' would be harmed quite a bit in a hyper-inflation scenario, stock funds should actually be one of the stabler investments in such a scenario. Still, I agree with the last part - our government needs to have a better fiscal policy than a family living off it's credit cards.
So because you want to live to 80 and you are saying you'll need a doctor, everybody has to care?
1. Statistically speaking I have better than a 50-50 shot at making it to 80. Your situation may be different, but the average population has that chance
2. I need to see a doctor at least once a year as is. Again, statistically speaking I'll need to see more of them in the future. Otherwise my lifespan and quality of life is likely to decline rather rapidly...
3. In general, shouldn't everybody?
Basically, take my somewhat specific example and make it more general. There's more than just doctors to worry about, you also want engineers to keep the roads up, accountants to manage finances, law enforcement officers*, etc...
Our society is built upon the investment of past generations. Every generation has to make a certain contribution just to maintain our society, our standard of living, much less increase it. An educated population is critical to this, and if bribing our kids before they've developed proper long term cost-benefit skills or a love for learning on their own, makes for a better education for the least cost, I'm for it.
*Who often have at least a 2 year degree today.
Who the hell expects to live that long or even wants to?
I'm in my 30's right now. My life expectancy is in the 80's. I'm childless less by deliberate choice than that I'm such an extreme introvert I'd have been better off on a country with arranged marriages. It's *hard* for me to form attachments.
That's 50 years. It really only takes 30 to 'grow' a doctor, less for most taxpayers, etc...
However, as an intentionally child-free taxpayer, I really do hate paying for other people's sprogs.
View it as an investment into the future to ensure that there's doctors and nurses and taxpayers to take care of you in your retirement.
Money is better than nothing, sure, but it's not better than a direct reward in kind (breakfast, sex, etc).
Only if the reward matches the need.
The advantage of the money is that it's generic. If I want I can take that $2 and buy a candy immediately, or a drink, or put it with 10-20 others and get a game, a couple hundred and get a console, etc...
If I'm not looking for breakfast I'm going to prefer the money.