I think that the NO experiment(if that's what it is) would point to the need for a full switch, either no public schools, and all charter, or all public schools.
I think that the switch was largely because NO public schools were an incredibly failed mess, to the point that a paradigm change was necessary to break out of the rut. If I remember right, most of the charter schools there are non or not for profit, they're not traditional commercial companies looking for a profit.
A traditional public school, where the union isn't too powerful, where the parents actively participate to make the school great, can be as good as any school. However, in poorer areas parents tend to be less involved, and these schools can be horrible, to the point that a system less dependent upon parental control is better.
*Whether $200k/year is actually is actually a fair pay rate, I don't really know. But short of some part of jealousy (or pissy whining about taxes), I don't see why she shouldn't be being paid well if she's improving the circumstances of her district. Fuck knows that private company presidents can do much worse and can be paid much more. If that's the efficiency of the market, it's hard to argue that the public sector is doing wrong to pay their Superintendent well.
A Superintendent, in charge of a whole school district, making $200k is not out of line in most areas, I think. That leaves principals making $100-150k, and teachers $50-75k. She probably has her doctorate in something educational.
What was it 3 years ago when she took over? Below 36%? Above? The same? Heck, looking at the article, it implies that the graduation rate has increased substantially. Even if it remained the same, that's a lot more kids graduating, which means that 36% of graduates being considered ready is a higher percentage of the kids entering her school.
Also, if she's really getting 100% of graduates employed or in college within, say, a year of graduation, is the state's metric of readiness really accurate?
Finally, I believe that you can only really consistently raise kids ONE rung of the economic ladder a generation. Yes, you can get 1-10% up a couple, but you have to realize that 90% will be within one rung. If the parents are dropouts, you need to shoot for graduation, and being ready for a job on graduation, not necessarily college.
Think roommates and a paying-your-own-way college student lifestyle. Not ideal, lots of incentive to get out and work, but you can *survive* indefinitely.
Thank you! Just the level I was looking for.
And I agree - you'd be able to tune the levels of support fairly easily.
One interesting proposal I heard is that it might encourage entrepreneurship - with the basic level of income assured, they can afford to take the risk in opening their own business.
The cranking kids out thing is, at this point, mostly myth. Besides, we're at 1.9 children per female in the USA, and it needs to be at least 2.1 just to maintain population levels.
The fears of global-overpopulation have been disproved - a first world living standard, or even just close to it, is the real fix for overpopulation. In the coming years, Japan, Russia, most of Europe, China, and many other countries are going to experience severe population decline.
We may end up offering a BIG for children simply to try to get the birthrate up.
There are people right now living in my town in flyover country who want to return to work. They feel out the job market now and then. The problem is that the minute they become employed, the income+benefits they'd get is less than the value of the benefits they're receiving now. This is wrong. This is wrong as hell on so many levels.
Correct, this is why I mentioned welfare cliffs.
The AC, pretty much without reason, proposes that people will quit their jobs(to be fair, some will) in mass, in order to live off the shitty life they can afford with the BIG payment. He also proposes, again without reason, that we would, for some damn fool reason, raise the BIG payment even as more people get on it, because inflation from the wages demanded by the remaining workers reduces their income.
In reality, if you think about it, as more people get on the system the government can do the opposite - lower BIG payments, let life on the BIG get worse. ANY job will put you ahead, income wise. So most will still work. Indeed, most will work enough that they get the BIG taxed back.
Also, most of the *NET* expense would be covered be eliminating existing social programs. The rest would be dealt with by increasing taxes enough to neutralize the BIG payment at some income level.
It's more along the lines of A: Unemployed: Paid $700 in benefits. This could be through traditional welfare programs(costing $900 because of management expenses), or through a BIG, costing approximately $0 in expenses because 'direct deposit to every citizen' is cheaper when you're not trying to means test it. B: makes $2k/month no matter what in salary or whatever. However, in the current situation he's paying $700 of it in taxes, but for the purposes he's at the 'break even point' he's paying $1400 in taxes, but receiving a $700 BIG. Even though he's seeing no benefit from the BIG, the automatic deposit means that if he loses his job he automatically, without the need to file, still gets the BIG, so it acts like unemployment insurance.
And yes, people need to realize that the BIG payments are 'tunable'. You don't have to, and probably shouldn't, set it at a level where a person can live comfortably in his own place. Let's look at the USA: $500/month would probably 'work' if you separate out health care. A household of 4 adults(or children if they're included), would receive $2000/month, which is around poverty level for a family of 4.
Besides reducing management expense, arranged right it eliminates welfare cliffs where somebody is better off working/earning less.
I remember reading the write-up of the experiment in Canada. The results were that people really didn't work less*, did take a little longer to find a job, but generally obtained better ones as a result.
*Well, except for women staying home with newborns and teenagers staying in high school and actually graduating.
Why isn't there a serious response on the federal level instead of expecting the company to do whatever they can with their own resources? A spill in the gulf was dealt with on such a level.
Actually, the spill in the gulf was mostly dealt with on a company level, with the feds breathing down their neck going 'fix it now!' That involved subcontracting, which is the same sort of deal we're seeing here.
For that matter, the gulf spill involved the same sort of response - they had to drill a relief well to take pressure off the original in order to fix a leak.
Which brings up the question: How do you propose that the feds increase the speed of drilling the relief well? Think of it like drilling into a safe. It's going to take a while, and having a dozen guys 'assisting' isn't going to make it go any faster.
They are still taking the money. Just not sharing it with local law enforcement.
Here's the deal: It's not like the feds were active participants in 99% of the seizures. Basically, some podunk jurisdiction would seize the stuff, usually cash. They'd 'charge' the money, not the individual, with the suspicion of being involved in interstate drug trafficking. Note - 'intended to purchase' was a 'good enough' excuse.
In exchange for naming the FBI(for example) as a cooperating agency, even though no FBI agents were involved, it became a federal case under federal jurisdiction, until the program this article is about. In exchange for a 10% cut, the 'arresting' agency got to keep 90% of the money, which is often more generous than what state statutes allowed. Some states don't allow forfeitures this easily. Many only let the agency keep half of the money, etc...
So many state agencies were using this federal program as an end-run around the rules of their own state.
By no longer sharing the money, that removes the desire to confiscate the money in all but the most gregarious of cases.
Now TFA says "...Department of Justice has announced that it's suspending a controversial asset forfeiture program..". And some people are stupid enough to believe that means that the local Leos will just stop doing it.
The trick is that it now enables the states to do something about it. I write my state legislatures, they're more likely to listen. Something like 15 states have already voted in laws to restrict LE profits from asset forfeiture, but their departments simply switched to using the Federal program, and passing legislature to block that is more difficult.
And yes, the departments are blatant about using it for profit.
So local law enforcement agencies will now have big holes in their budgets.
From what I've read, proceeds from such forfeitures goes more towards 'toys' than actual law enforcement. We're talking about stuff like them replacing squad cars after 3 years, not 4, buying items like pop-corn machines and armored vehicles for their SWAT team that are never used.
They're twisting the law with semantics, and shifting the burden of proof over to the accused. Sometimes not even accused, but merely suspected, or affiliated with a suspect.
Suspected? Hell, I've heard of them taking as small amounts as $200-500, found during a traffic stop, claiming that it was 'to buy drugs' when driving away from Colorado.
Mind you, as an old-fashioned sort, I consider those amounts to be pocket change for a long trip because I remember when credit cards weren't as much of an option and bank ATMs weren't as universal, and even if they'd take your card would charge outrageous fees.
If you have glitches often enough for it to be a problem, then it's money well spent.
That being said, I get the idea that people are forgetting that surge suppressors are a thing, and cheaper than UPS units. Hell, I have a whole-house one that I installed on my main breaker box.
Once you are caught and sentenced, that's it. Do the time. If you don't behave in prison, you get MORE time.
How about we get rid of time based sentences period? You're sentenced, not to X years, but to a program that must be completed. Which program you end up in depends on your crime and circumstances.
Say you're a high school dropout caught breaking into cars to steal shit to feed your drug habit. You get 'sentenced' to an education and drug treatment program. Once you've gotten your GED and completed rehab, you're released. On the other hand, take a high school graduate gang banger dealer. That sentencing might be to an anti-gang course and trade school/associates degree. Bust your ass, out in a year. Don't bother? You could be there for the next 20...
Come back? Well, next step up in the program - much more difficult.
You want to hear something crazy? I read a report once that mentioned that it's estimated that 80% of first time offenders are so put off by the immediate results of being caught - arrest, charging, booking, and the trial that any actual punishment is superfluous and that they won't re-offend. Putting them in prison actually increases the odds that they're re-offend because of the extra disadvantages when they get out.
Consider classical conditioning - the closer the punishment is to the offense, the more effective it is. As such, I'd argue that the marginal benefit, reform wise, of any time past, say, 5 years, is very minimal. Longer sentences should be reserved for when you believe reform isn't possible and are switching to simply warehousing them. For that matter, a 10 year sentence is enough to keep a snot-nosed punk out of society long enough for him to 'calm down' given that peak criminality is basically 15-25 year old males.
Technically speaking, this isn't 'Uncle Sam', which would be the federal government. This is the Washington state correctional system that's being petty. Generally speaking, shorter sentences than we assign here in the states are better for various reasons.
So - Either we track down these released felons, who are doing what they're supposed to, in which case we don't need to spend the ~$50k/year to lock them up, or they're back to criminal behavior, in which case they'll show back up in prison from that.
Sunk cost implies the guns have no ongoing value, whereas they become an asset you can use or sell later on - so yes, you can turn them into butter at a later date.
The problem with this would be that the death star is like a F-22 loaded with nukes, not something you're willing to sell to anybody else.
So you consider using it to intimidate others into paying 'not the empire' tax. Problem, the empire is most of the galaxy. What's the maintenance costs on it? How much does it cost to go from system to system.
Remember, any planet you actually use it on is gone, including all infrastructure. I imagine the core materials are easier to reach afterwards, but as technology has advanced, resources have become less important than infrastructure. The contents of a planetary core probably aren't that valuable, and besides, given the way they're probably flying all over the place, not to mention still hot, it'd be a while before you could harvest them anyways - odd orbits and all that. Lots of collisions so you have to constantly watch out for that.
I'm NOT arguing against this particular theory, by the way. I'm just pointing out that your assertion that the "vast majority" of "high quality" correlations imply causation is ridiculous.
It could also be that 'high quality' is a different standard to him than a simple high r value. As he mentions, the correlation not only holds a high r value at a macro level, but when you start going micro - looking at individual states and and times, the correlation is still there. I remember that they tracked the beginning of the crime spikes as well. So the same time delay was valid from the start of use of TEL, adjusted for amounts, and crime spiking, and the same delay from the cessation of use and crime dropping.
There are even theories out there that lead doesn't just lower intelligence - it specifically attacks the 'moderation' part of the brain.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that the NO experiment(if that's what it is) would point to the need for a full switch, either no public schools, and all charter, or all public schools.
I think that the switch was largely because NO public schools were an incredibly failed mess, to the point that a paradigm change was necessary to break out of the rut. If I remember right, most of the charter schools there are non or not for profit, they're not traditional commercial companies looking for a profit.
A traditional public school, where the union isn't too powerful, where the parents actively participate to make the school great, can be as good as any school. However, in poorer areas parents tend to be less involved, and these schools can be horrible, to the point that a system less dependent upon parental control is better.
*Whether $200k/year is actually is actually a fair pay rate, I don't really know. But short of some part of jealousy (or pissy whining about taxes), I don't see why she shouldn't be being paid well if she's improving the circumstances of her district. Fuck knows that private company presidents can do much worse and can be paid much more. If that's the efficiency of the market, it's hard to argue that the public sector is doing wrong to pay their Superintendent well.
A Superintendent, in charge of a whole school district, making $200k is not out of line in most areas, I think. That leaves principals making $100-150k, and teachers $50-75k. She probably has her doctorate in something educational.
What was it 3 years ago when she took over? Below 36%? Above? The same? Heck, looking at the article, it implies that the graduation rate has increased substantially. Even if it remained the same, that's a lot more kids graduating, which means that 36% of graduates being considered ready is a higher percentage of the kids entering her school.
Also, if she's really getting 100% of graduates employed or in college within, say, a year of graduation, is the state's metric of readiness really accurate?
Finally, I believe that you can only really consistently raise kids ONE rung of the economic ladder a generation. Yes, you can get 1-10% up a couple, but you have to realize that 90% will be within one rung. If the parents are dropouts, you need to shoot for graduation, and being ready for a job on graduation, not necessarily college.
My thought towards the AC is that the high-functioning autistics can become roommates if necessary.
Think roommates and a paying-your-own-way college student lifestyle. Not ideal, lots of incentive to get out and work, but you can *survive* indefinitely.
Thank you! Just the level I was looking for.
And I agree - you'd be able to tune the levels of support fairly easily.
One interesting proposal I heard is that it might encourage entrepreneurship - with the basic level of income assured, they can afford to take the risk in opening their own business.
The cranking kids out thing is, at this point, mostly myth. Besides, we're at 1.9 children per female in the USA, and it needs to be at least 2.1 just to maintain population levels.
The fears of global-overpopulation have been disproved - a first world living standard, or even just close to it, is the real fix for overpopulation. In the coming years, Japan, Russia, most of Europe, China, and many other countries are going to experience severe population decline.
We may end up offering a BIG for children simply to try to get the birthrate up.
There are people right now living in my town in flyover country who want to return to work. They feel out the job market now and then. The problem is that the minute they become employed, the income+benefits they'd get is less than the value of the benefits they're receiving now. This is wrong. This is wrong as hell on so many levels.
Correct, this is why I mentioned welfare cliffs.
The AC, pretty much without reason, proposes that people will quit their jobs(to be fair, some will) in mass, in order to live off the shitty life they can afford with the BIG payment. He also proposes, again without reason, that we would, for some damn fool reason, raise the BIG payment even as more people get on it, because inflation from the wages demanded by the remaining workers reduces their income.
In reality, if you think about it, as more people get on the system the government can do the opposite - lower BIG payments, let life on the BIG get worse. ANY job will put you ahead, income wise. So most will still work. Indeed, most will work enough that they get the BIG taxed back.
Also, most of the *NET* expense would be covered be eliminating existing social programs. The rest would be dealt with by increasing taxes enough to neutralize the BIG payment at some income level.
But markets aren’t perfect: most risks are not insurable in private markets – that’s why we have social security systems.
Uh, say what? They are writing from England, where Lloyd's of London is located, the insurance firm notorious for being willing to insure anything?*
Of course you can have a separate system that pays for long term disability.
*Though you might not like the premium.
Your figures are off a bit from what I'd think.
It's more along the lines of
A: Unemployed: Paid $700 in benefits. This could be through traditional welfare programs(costing $900 because of management expenses), or through a BIG, costing approximately $0 in expenses because 'direct deposit to every citizen' is cheaper when you're not trying to means test it.
B: makes $2k/month no matter what in salary or whatever. However, in the current situation he's paying $700 of it in taxes, but for the purposes he's at the 'break even point' he's paying $1400 in taxes, but receiving a $700 BIG. Even though he's seeing no benefit from the BIG, the automatic deposit means that if he loses his job he automatically, without the need to file, still gets the BIG, so it acts like unemployment insurance.
And yes, people need to realize that the BIG payments are 'tunable'. You don't have to, and probably shouldn't, set it at a level where a person can live comfortably in his own place. Let's look at the USA: $500/month would probably 'work' if you separate out health care. A household of 4 adults(or children if they're included), would receive $2000/month, which is around poverty level for a family of 4.
Besides reducing management expense, arranged right it eliminates welfare cliffs where somebody is better off working/earning less.
I remember reading the write-up of the experiment in Canada. The results were that people really didn't work less*, did take a little longer to find a job, but generally obtained better ones as a result.
*Well, except for women staying home with newborns and teenagers staying in high school and actually graduating.
It's a well, not a 'stockpile'. Or perhaps it's better to say that they drilled into a natural stockpile, so the 'that much gas' was already there.
I just wonder that they can't put a vacuum system or something into place to catch *most* of it.
Assuming it's pure methane, that would be ~23k BTU/lb, or about 2.5B BTU/hour.
At around $1.80 per Million BTU, that's about $4,500 worth of gas leaking out per hour. About $3.2M/month.
Not good, by any means, but I think dollars puts it into better scale.
Why isn't there a serious response on the federal level instead of expecting the company to do whatever they can with their own resources? A spill in the gulf was dealt with on such a level.
Actually, the spill in the gulf was mostly dealt with on a company level, with the feds breathing down their neck going 'fix it now!' That involved subcontracting, which is the same sort of deal we're seeing here.
For that matter, the gulf spill involved the same sort of response - they had to drill a relief well to take pressure off the original in order to fix a leak.
Which brings up the question: How do you propose that the feds increase the speed of drilling the relief well? Think of it like drilling into a safe. It's going to take a while, and having a dozen guys 'assisting' isn't going to make it go any faster.
They are still taking the money. Just not sharing it with local law enforcement.
Here's the deal: It's not like the feds were active participants in 99% of the seizures. Basically, some podunk jurisdiction would seize the stuff, usually cash. They'd 'charge' the money, not the individual, with the suspicion of being involved in interstate drug trafficking. Note - 'intended to purchase' was a 'good enough' excuse.
In exchange for naming the FBI(for example) as a cooperating agency, even though no FBI agents were involved, it became a federal case under federal jurisdiction, until the program this article is about. In exchange for a 10% cut, the 'arresting' agency got to keep 90% of the money, which is often more generous than what state statutes allowed. Some states don't allow forfeitures this easily. Many only let the agency keep half of the money, etc...
So many state agencies were using this federal program as an end-run around the rules of their own state.
By no longer sharing the money, that removes the desire to confiscate the money in all but the most gregarious of cases.
Now TFA says "...Department of Justice has announced that it's suspending a controversial asset forfeiture program..". And some people are stupid enough to believe that means that the local Leos will just stop doing it.
The trick is that it now enables the states to do something about it. I write my state legislatures, they're more likely to listen. Something like 15 states have already voted in laws to restrict LE profits from asset forfeiture, but their departments simply switched to using the Federal program, and passing legislature to block that is more difficult.
And yes, the departments are blatant about using it for profit.
So local law enforcement agencies will now have big holes in their budgets.
From what I've read, proceeds from such forfeitures goes more towards 'toys' than actual law enforcement. We're talking about stuff like them replacing squad cars after 3 years, not 4, buying items like pop-corn machines and armored vehicles for their SWAT team that are never used.
They're twisting the law with semantics, and shifting the burden of proof over to the accused. Sometimes not even accused, but merely suspected, or affiliated with a suspect.
Suspected? Hell, I've heard of them taking as small amounts as $200-500, found during a traffic stop, claiming that it was 'to buy drugs' when driving away from Colorado.
Mind you, as an old-fashioned sort, I consider those amounts to be pocket change for a long trip because I remember when credit cards weren't as much of an option and bank ATMs weren't as universal, and even if they'd take your card would charge outrageous fees.
If you have glitches often enough for it to be a problem, then it's money well spent.
That being said, I get the idea that people are forgetting that surge suppressors are a thing, and cheaper than UPS units. Hell, I have a whole-house one that I installed on my main breaker box.
Once you are caught and sentenced, that's it. Do the time. If you don't behave in prison, you get MORE time.
How about we get rid of time based sentences period? You're sentenced, not to X years, but to a program that must be completed. Which program you end up in depends on your crime and circumstances.
Say you're a high school dropout caught breaking into cars to steal shit to feed your drug habit. You get 'sentenced' to an education and drug treatment program. Once you've gotten your GED and completed rehab, you're released.
On the other hand, take a high school graduate gang banger dealer. That sentencing might be to an anti-gang course and trade school/associates degree. Bust your ass, out in a year. Don't bother? You could be there for the next 20...
Come back? Well, next step up in the program - much more difficult.
You want to hear something crazy? I read a report once that mentioned that it's estimated that 80% of first time offenders are so put off by the immediate results of being caught - arrest, charging, booking, and the trial that any actual punishment is superfluous and that they won't re-offend. Putting them in prison actually increases the odds that they're re-offend because of the extra disadvantages when they get out.
Consider classical conditioning - the closer the punishment is to the offense, the more effective it is. As such, I'd argue that the marginal benefit, reform wise, of any time past, say, 5 years, is very minimal. Longer sentences should be reserved for when you believe reform isn't possible and are switching to simply warehousing them. For that matter, a 10 year sentence is enough to keep a snot-nosed punk out of society long enough for him to 'calm down' given that peak criminality is basically 15-25 year old males.
Technically speaking, this isn't 'Uncle Sam', which would be the federal government. This is the Washington state correctional system that's being petty. Generally speaking, shorter sentences than we assign here in the states are better for various reasons.
So - Either we track down these released felons, who are doing what they're supposed to, in which case we don't need to spend the ~$50k/year to lock them up, or they're back to criminal behavior, in which case they'll show back up in prison from that.
I still don't understand, why we don't have self-driving trains already
Blame the Unions, which oppose, strenuously, any automation that could 'cost jobs'.
What annoys me is trying to predict which I need to be using - swipe or chip. Walmart is chip only. Most of my other stores are swipe only.
Sunk cost implies the guns have no ongoing value, whereas they become an asset you can use or sell later on - so yes, you can turn them into butter at a later date.
The problem with this would be that the death star is like a F-22 loaded with nukes, not something you're willing to sell to anybody else.
So you consider using it to intimidate others into paying 'not the empire' tax. Problem, the empire is most of the galaxy. What's the maintenance costs on it? How much does it cost to go from system to system.
Remember, any planet you actually use it on is gone, including all infrastructure. I imagine the core materials are easier to reach afterwards, but as technology has advanced, resources have become less important than infrastructure. The contents of a planetary core probably aren't that valuable, and besides, given the way they're probably flying all over the place, not to mention still hot, it'd be a while before you could harvest them anyways - odd orbits and all that. Lots of collisions so you have to constantly watch out for that.
The state and emergency manager have been heavily involved in the switch to the new water supply, and played a role in completely fucking it up.
Well, since it was the state appointed emergency manager that made the problem worse, sue the state for damages.
I'm NOT arguing against this particular theory, by the way. I'm just pointing out that your assertion that the "vast majority" of "high quality" correlations imply causation is ridiculous.
It could also be that 'high quality' is a different standard to him than a simple high r value. As he mentions, the correlation not only holds a high r value at a macro level, but when you start going micro - looking at individual states and and times, the correlation is still there. I remember that they tracked the beginning of the crime spikes as well. So the same time delay was valid from the start of use of TEL, adjusted for amounts, and crime spiking, and the same delay from the cessation of use and crime dropping.
There are even theories out there that lead doesn't just lower intelligence - it specifically attacks the 'moderation' part of the brain.