public fire departments and building codes have demonstrably better track records than private fire departments did. Public police certainly beat mercenary security forces. Road and infrastructure.. no brainer, really, unless you're a wild idealogue.
back to research though, you're right that the major risk is private enterprise offloading the cost of research on to the taxpayer for for-profit research. But as long as the results of that research are not patented, the damage is limited and it would actually foster greater competition using the results of that research which is a net win for consumers. If the value of the research is high enough, the private enterprise will do it on its own. Hey, imagine that.
your whole question of "relevance" is the point I was referring to. Research doesn't know what is relevant. If only "relevant" research is done, that's the limiting factor of private research I am objecting to. Only that which rich people or profit enterprise thinks is "relevant" gets studied. I would rather have a venue for experts in a field to determine research directions. That means funding must exist outside of profit motives, and outside the whims of a few super wealthy.
then I'm extremely comfortable with a level of coercion, just as I am comfortable with coercion to support police, fire departments, roads, infrastructure, and a myraid number of other government institutions that are far better than free market alternatives could ever be. note that is not "perfect", it's just "better than free market". But that level of coercion is hardly on the same level as autocratic dictums (like Lysenkoism) which stand no chance of responding to the will of the people short of violently. So perhaps different levels of coercion should be acknowledged. Some level is necessary to the function of a society, of course.
elections are actually a fair amount of control, if the coercion is overreaching. Oddly though, while people bitch a lot, they do seem to like not having entire cities burn to the ground because of things like building codes and public firefighters. Perhaps that is why the "free market of political ideas" has not changed this. And perhaps your definition of "coercion" is a tad extreme.
return on investment has been demonstrated. the question is, *return for who*?
in a free market model, it has to be a return for the person or institution putting up the money. Unless a corporation is defined as broadly as government, that is a major restriction on research.
That is, government can research anything that might benefit society. A company can only research what might benefit the company, and it will focus on that which has more *economic* benefit than anything else. That may not be the right choice for all of us... it's just what's right for the company.
You make some very interesting points, but stepping back to look at this in a "big picture" sense, basically it seems you are advocating for two things.
1. is a basic reduction in current standards of living, as measured by GDP itself and general affluence. While I don't have a real problem with that on the individual level, neither do I romanticize the brutal, painful, short life of more primitive technological societies, and our current world does generate significant value that can only be continued by SOME LEVEL of "progress" as we have come to define it. Imagine a world that does have fully mechanized production such that the shared bounty could create a utopia. That's a far cry from dying in the woods because you broke your leg and penicillin hadn't been invented.
So I do think that whatever the level of personal affluence we deem "healthy" is, society has a whole does need to continue to invest in "excellence" and "progress" by technological means... as well as by sociopolitical progress, personal improvement, and *insert favorite metric here*. Stagnation is not an option. To draw just one example, we need to get off of this planet someday, or face certain extinction. the means to do that (or to defeat an ELE asteroid strike) has to be developed... someday, at least. Maybe someday we can say... ok, that's enough... but that day is not today.
I'm not saying you are advocating for stagnation, just pointing out a boundary condition for my thoughts here. Society must incentive "progress" in some way.
2. Current technology cannot completely mechanize production. We can't do everything from mining and farm to robot design and production with only robots. Currently, we would still need quite a lot of labor, even if it is less than before, to keep the "machine running" in order to keep production of just basic items up, food prevalent, etc. And I think that labor pool disappears with a "basic income" of the level you are advocating, again, unless there is some kind of coerced forced labor pool you are considering. Which, perhaps needless to say, I would not support.
Perhaps a day will come where that too is not true, and we can all sit back and live on the bounty of our machines. But I think that is still a ways off. And I would be concerned about such a reality starting to really resemble "Idiocracy";)
Am I off base anywhere in here from your point of view? If so, I'd be interested in hearing how.
Thanks again for raising the bar of discourse around here.
there may be "some" return on investment, but it's totally unpredictable and may not even be in a field a given org is able to capitalize on. "pure" research is not focused on any economic benefit. it just continues, on faith that it will generate some return somewhere for someone. The free sharing of research, for example, not in the best interest of a corporation... unless it's someone else's research. It is, however, in the best interest of society at large.
I put forth there is ALWAYS some other investment beyond pure research that will generate more sure returns for corporations.
As for schools and SETI, that's interesting. Schools receive extremely significant funding and grants from the government in order to do the research they do, even if they are private organizations they are not relying on private FUNDING for that. Private funding for schools is usually tied either to specific funds for specific research programs by companies looking for returns on investment (which means research restricted only to projects likely to return an economic benefit to the funder) or endowments by tribalistic wealthy alumni.
SETI exists since public funding was cut off, only because it attracted the attention and devotion of similarly wealthy patrons. Notice a pattern there yet?
Call me crazy, but I'm not so psyched about research depending on the whims of those who happen to have lots of money. I would rather have the really smart people studying this stuff deciding what might be worthy of investigation, frankly. but unless it generates dollars, that can never happen in a purely free market model.
that's why I like what we have. The free market does what it does so well, and public funding can do other stuff. I only wish we had more public funding for public good research not being serviced by economic engines currently. and less funding for, say, war.
Evading tax liability still does not make the poor pay most of the taxes and tax savings did not propel the compensation differential between average and CEO from 30x to 300x over the last 60 years. I think that, just maybe, your analysis is a bit flawed on that point.
ability to coerce is *not* the only difference between a private and a public organization.
First, you disregard any ability by the people to decide anything through socialism, that is.. democracy. so while you may consider the participation of the minority "coercion", such as your paying taxes for a road system, it's not coercion without any feedback loop. so in fact to call it coercion is a bit disingenuous. You could just as easily call it "group decisionmaking". especially under a more ideal democratic system, since we're dreaming up a theoretical situation here.
Secondly, efficiency is not the key element that is important in research. research is, almost by definition, inefficient. it requires an organization to blindly spend money to achieve an unnamed benefit. that will never happen for long under a private enterprise specifically because it is inefficient, and there will always be more efficient and sure ways to generate a return on investment than a capital-holding entity can capitalize on. examples abound in this very discussion.
note that's research, not development. but even development is constrained by apparent market value instead of public good. So, for example, drugs to treat elective illnesses experienced by the rich receive preferential attention from for-profit drug manufacturers (Viagra, hair loss) instead of actual cures for illnesses that may be much more severe but either less widespread or primarily among poor populations. "Inefficient" development could and does still yield better outcomes for public good.
The free market caters to money, not people. "Efficiency" is simply code for "best financial return". But those two concepts are not truly synonymous, and in research, it's not a core value. It's not even a particularly important one. If you want to figure out how to make the Widget X that everyone needs, the free market is good for that IF there is a return on investment in financial terms.
what's good for capital is not always what is best for people. especially when fewer and fewer people hold more and more of the capital, as has been the progression here in america, at least, for the last 50 years.
to be crystal clear, my fault is the sustainability of your premise, not some moralistic argument related to GDP production and our value as people or anything. If it were sustainable to pay everyone $6k/month just for being people, without enslaving us, I'd be all for it. I just don't think it is. I suspect a subsistence level income, however, would be sustainable.
No, but my premise is that far less than 50% of people would choose to work if they did not have to. Especially for the kind of money you are talking about.
I work very hard for an income that, currently (in todays economy) is a bit less than the $6k/month you talked about. In fact, that's over the median family income in my state (maine, something like 40k last I checked). I love what I do but I am only working, ultimately, to guarantee my own security and future and that of my family at a somewhat "comfortable" level. If that's all guaranteed... well, I might volunteer, or go start a free tai chi studio instead, since I would have no need for additional income, I could do it for free. if you propel me to a stress-free level of income with no work required, I'm not materialistic and I'm not totally driven by ego. You would then remove any need I have for work.
I don't think I'm in the minority there. I think most people would stop or dramatically scale back their productivity... not 50%, but far more. And I need to point out: I'm an entrepreneur. I don't mind working hard. I don't mind taking risks for some benefit. Heck, I work harder than most just because I like to do a very good job if I'm going to put time into doing something (and if I started a free tai chi school, I'd work very hard at that). I have to be one of the last ones who would opt out of a labor pool.
Also, don't forget our population has grown 20% since 1990. GDP probably should at least keep pace with population growth.
I'd prefer to simply see single payer health care, single payer college/educational opportunities as long as you keep your grades up, and WIC-style childhood nutrition programs. Even playing field for everyone, basic needs met. I would pay large taxes for those benefits to be available to all... as long as I could still try to build something new and receive benefit from that. I have a 50% tax rate in mind as a psychological figure I would be comfortable with. I half work directly for me and half work for a stable, productive, happy society to live in.
If you were going to go "basic income" route, you would also have to have forced labor of some minimal level to guarantee sufficient production. And if you did that... well, now you're in a totalitarian regime very reminiscent of several communist countries... and it didn't work so well.
I'm not a fear mongering anti-socialist I hope I have established. But I don't think outright communism works either. I do think a strongly regulated, capitalistic system with extensive social support is the right way to go... we just haven't found the right balance point yet.
I might go for your "basic income" idea... but only if "basic income" were subsistence level wage only.
I just saw this post and it's very interesting. In fact I find most of your posts very interesting.
but there is a critical flaw in your reasoning. GDP is based on the productivity of a population. If you give everyone a basic income, such that they do not have to work, many simple won't. I would daresay most. why would I work when I could instead stay home with my kids?
and thus, GDP falls. i would expect far below the level required to sustain the basic income.
right? People aren't just going to work 30 or 40 hour weeks for fun. Not when they could instead be having fun with their families.
hey I like solar thermal more than most, and I'm a greenie. but the previous poster was right on PV. Currently... unless you are avoiding a massive infrastructure expense (or at the residential scale, and expensive power line buildout), PV has no payback if you're easily accessing the grid, not without subsidy.
maine has a beautiful energy loan program... 1% interest. that's nice. at that level, it's possible to get a loan that is paid with the energy savings. but without it... well, we're getting CLOSE, but it's still not economically justifiable to go PV. also the upfront cost and space limitations are significant barriers for most consumers to go all or mostly solar electric.
close may be good enough and it also means pricing doesn't have to go up too much before it does make sense. but payback/economic improvement is not yet there for solar. luckily though it's not the only reason to use it.
not really. presume the factory had wind turbines (industrial sized, net gains) and/or other renewable forms of energy.
this battery could take more energy to build then those items could ever produce "out in the wild" for it to us and still make sense. this is a BATTERY. not a source of power. it only allows you to use existing transmission lines, and energy sources more effectively. And that can have great value whether it is a 'net positive' or not. Batteries solve portability and timing problems, not generation problems.
"Escalante's open admission policy, a major reason for his success, also paved the way for his departure. Calculus grew so popular at Garfield that classes grew beyond the 35-student limit set by the union contract. Some had more than 50 students. Escalante would have preferred to keep the classes below the limit had he been able to do so without either denying calculus to willing students or using teachers who were not up to his high standards. Neither was possible, and the teachers union complained about Garfield's class sizes. Rather than compromise, Escalante moved on."
Escalante had the class sizes in question. He wouldn't turn away kids when he was obviously already successful, but left in part over the issue. I don't believe "in decline" describes the state of his math program while he was there. Certainly the "10 percentile" bump class size reduction can bring in some cases did not apply to his students since they were already in the top 10 percentile or damn near.
rather than carve out an exception for exceptional performance, slavish devotion to ill fitting rules crushed a major educational opportunity for hundreds, or thousands of kids over the years just in that school. Sad. But Sadly, not rare.
you say it's a good thing, except these guys were churning out mold-breaking scholastic powerhouses in classes with 50+ kids in them.
in other words; they proved that class size was not a limiting factor (to the bounds they went to) in providing a good education, in their environment. and the union was totally wrong.
I don't know where you live that people who are poor live at the same standard of living as people who make $60k/year. I can say here in maine, there is a gap where you wouldn't be able to afford the health care you get as a poor person WITH A CHILD as you would on your own for quite a range of payscales. That sucks, and it's primarily because health insurance is ridiculously expensive. but otherwise, really, it's not such a sweet deal being poor.
the idea of penalizing people with kids though... as much as it might be nice if it made sense... just doesn't. If you don't get the kids well fed and taught while they are young, you will just end up supporting them as adults. either by welfare or in prison, your pick. the research is voluminous and thorough. You can pay now, or pay more later. You don't get to choose not to pay.
the best bet is to make sure the kids are fed and taken care of. then you stand a chance of breaking the cycle. parenting classes are good too.
I think you're missing the motivation that draws many people to herbalism.
an herbal remedy would be preferred by a line of thought that says: a drug distilled from something that I can't even injest on its own may, in fact, have some side effects that a whole, edible plant might not, on the basis that I may have come from hundreds of thousands of generations of people eating the plant and maybe two to four who took the synthetic variant.
this may or may not be true and on the basis of how severe your symptoms are you may or may decide to take the risk either way.
but simply because the drug is "pure" does not mean it is safe, without side effects, or better than all available natural remedies for the same problem. and in many cases, while it may in fact be, it is still not good for you, simply better than whatever ailment you are suffering from, for awhile at least.
ask any pharmacist you know. people have to take drugs to fix problems caused by the drugs they took originally all the time. it's in unnatural dosage levels, in unnatural delivery mechanisms, and may be completely unnatural to find in an isolated form at all.
Imagine someone found out all the great protein in eggs was in the yolk, but we hadn't discovered cholesterol yet. so we just ate concentrated yolks.
I'm on antibiotics right now and decongestants to boot, and I'm probably going in for a cortizone shot soon. first time in 15 years I've done more than ibuprofen, but hey, it's the first time I've needed them. I am not saying that modern medicine is bad. Just that herbalism is not necessarily bad, and just because a medicine in modern, that doesn't make it good. there is a lot to be said for consistency of dosage for sure. but you would be pretty hard pressed to point at the last two hundred years of modern medicine and say "modern medicines are safe". that would be a spin on equal with the fearmongering on "safety checks" for herbs in your previous post, which is just a tad hysterical. you can avoid the pesticides just by getting organic herbs. problem solved. while you may place lots of faith in the modern medical system, the track record would seem to indicate that people are actually taking their chances either way, and lambasting people for taking chances differently than you is just a bit judgemental, and frankly misguided.
all that said, homeopathy is total bullshit, without even the barest shred of performance. I'm not defending that junk.
hey, home ownership is not a requirement for life. choosing to do so is indeed a choice. choosing not to live near your job is a choice. for thousands of years people had to work close to home. now we have cars, so you can CHOOSE to live differently, but that is still a choice.
let's not pretend that there is a gun to any commuter's head. before any holier than thou comments are made, I will note I am in the same boat, stuck with what I now consider to be an unwise house decision and no way to sell, and a 30 minute commute by car with no public transit option. all I can do is carpool. I just don't pretend I was forced to buy the house where I did, or to buy a house at all.
yes, I understand the concept of herd immunity, but the threshold for that is something like 75%-80% successful incoculation rates.
so what is the efficacy of most vaccines? I understand that with flu vaccines it's fairly low in many cases; low enough that we don't even hit "herd immunity" stage even if everyone got the shot. so the argument doesn't hold much water there. Certainly with new vaccines there is no way to know the efficacy of the treatment "in the wild" and people choosing to avoid vaccination for reasons that HAVEN'T been totally debunked is less a selfish and irrational act and a slightly more reasoned one.
but with other vaccines, I don't know what the rates are. I assume that since, say, measles is nearly nonexistent amongst vaccinated people that it's fairly effective. So really you should be concerned if (arbitrary guess) more than something like 10-15% of people choose not to vaccinate. Less than that, and it shouldn't really matter much.
I'm vaccinated. Aren't you? So who cares if some yahoo decides not to?
Some small percentage of people who are vaccinated are not protected, true, but then... those people still exist even if someone doesn't choose to emulate them. so what?
I have never understood this "you're putting all of US at risk" argument.
I don't think that phenomena is restricted to homeschoolers. You should see the special needs fights occurring in rural schools here in maine, amongst simply regularly enrolled kids. I hear the same thing from mass as well (via my special needs education teacher aunt there). I think that issue is simply part of special needs education nationwide. Parents want their kids to be treated as special... big shock.
Excuse me, but exactly what does being the "grown son of two parents who are currently teaching in rural public schools" mean in the context of this discussion? That certainly doesn't give you any qualification whatsoever to discuss the status of homeschooling, unless your parents are also driving the countryside polling homeschoolers as a part of some strange school program.
There are plenty of religious wingnuts out there, no doubt. A quick wiki on homeschooling shows 72% cite religious reasons as an important factor in choosing homeschooling. that's a significant majority and I as a secular people think that sucks. But, I also think they have a right to choose how to live their own lives including how to raise their children, even though I totally disagree with it.
Also why shouldn't public schooling still foot the bill for their kids' educational needs to some degree? It's not like homeschooling allows you to save the 75% of your property taxes that go to local schools.
yes, he had no alternative: he was a dead man and his country conquered no matter what at that point. that is called having your "back against the wall".
Now, if he had nukes (AND we had them, of course) we couldn't invade him, and he'd have been pretty unlikely to just let his country die rather than continuing to rule it.
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public fire departments and building codes have demonstrably better track records than private fire departments did. Public police certainly beat mercenary security forces. Road and infrastructure.. no brainer, really, unless you're a wild idealogue.
back to research though, you're right that the major risk is private enterprise offloading the cost of research on to the taxpayer for for-profit research. But as long as the results of that research are not patented, the damage is limited and it would actually foster greater competition using the results of that research which is a net win for consumers. If the value of the research is high enough, the private enterprise will do it on its own. Hey, imagine that.
your whole question of "relevance" is the point I was referring to. Research doesn't know what is relevant. If only "relevant" research is done, that's the limiting factor of private research I am objecting to. Only that which rich people or profit enterprise thinks is "relevant" gets studied. I would rather have a venue for experts in a field to determine research directions. That means funding must exist outside of profit motives, and outside the whims of a few super wealthy.
then I'm extremely comfortable with a level of coercion, just as I am comfortable with coercion to support police, fire departments, roads, infrastructure, and a myraid number of other government institutions that are far better than free market alternatives could ever be. note that is not "perfect", it's just "better than free market". But that level of coercion is hardly on the same level as autocratic dictums (like Lysenkoism) which stand no chance of responding to the will of the people short of violently. So perhaps different levels of coercion should be acknowledged. Some level is necessary to the function of a society, of course.
elections are actually a fair amount of control, if the coercion is overreaching. Oddly though, while people bitch a lot, they do seem to like not having entire cities burn to the ground because of things like building codes and public firefighters. Perhaps that is why the "free market of political ideas" has not changed this. And perhaps your definition of "coercion" is a tad extreme.
return on investment has been demonstrated. the question is, *return for who*?
in a free market model, it has to be a return for the person or institution putting up the money. Unless a corporation is defined as broadly as government, that is a major restriction on research.
That is, government can research anything that might benefit society. A company can only research what might benefit the company, and it will focus on that which has more *economic* benefit than anything else. That may not be the right choice for all of us... it's just what's right for the company.
You make some very interesting points, but stepping back to look at this in a "big picture" sense, basically it seems you are advocating for two things.
1. is a basic reduction in current standards of living, as measured by GDP itself and general affluence. While I don't have a real problem with that on the individual level, neither do I romanticize the brutal, painful, short life of more primitive technological societies, and our current world does generate significant value that can only be continued by SOME LEVEL of "progress" as we have come to define it. Imagine a world that does have fully mechanized production such that the shared bounty could create a utopia. That's a far cry from dying in the woods because you broke your leg and penicillin hadn't been invented.
So I do think that whatever the level of personal affluence we deem "healthy" is, society has a whole does need to continue to invest in "excellence" and "progress" by technological means... as well as by sociopolitical progress, personal improvement, and *insert favorite metric here*. Stagnation is not an option. To draw just one example, we need to get off of this planet someday, or face certain extinction. the means to do that (or to defeat an ELE asteroid strike) has to be developed... someday, at least. Maybe someday we can say... ok, that's enough... but that day is not today.
I'm not saying you are advocating for stagnation, just pointing out a boundary condition for my thoughts here. Society must incentive "progress" in some way.
2. Current technology cannot completely mechanize production. We can't do everything from mining and farm to robot design and production with only robots. Currently, we would still need quite a lot of labor, even if it is less than before, to keep the "machine running" in order to keep production of just basic items up, food prevalent, etc. And I think that labor pool disappears with a "basic income" of the level you are advocating, again, unless there is some kind of coerced forced labor pool you are considering. Which, perhaps needless to say, I would not support.
Perhaps a day will come where that too is not true, and we can all sit back and live on the bounty of our machines. But I think that is still a ways off. And I would be concerned about such a reality starting to really resemble "Idiocracy" ;)
Am I off base anywhere in here from your point of view? If so, I'd be interested in hearing how.
Thanks again for raising the bar of discourse around here.
there may be "some" return on investment, but it's totally unpredictable and may not even be in a field a given org is able to capitalize on. "pure" research is not focused on any economic benefit. it just continues, on faith that it will generate some return somewhere for someone. The free sharing of research, for example, not in the best interest of a corporation... unless it's someone else's research. It is, however, in the best interest of society at large.
I put forth there is ALWAYS some other investment beyond pure research that will generate more sure returns for corporations.
As for schools and SETI, that's interesting. Schools receive extremely significant funding and grants from the government in order to do the research they do, even if they are private organizations they are not relying on private FUNDING for that. Private funding for schools is usually tied either to specific funds for specific research programs by companies looking for returns on investment (which means research restricted only to projects likely to return an economic benefit to the funder) or endowments by tribalistic wealthy alumni.
SETI exists since public funding was cut off, only because it attracted the attention and devotion of similarly wealthy patrons. Notice a pattern there yet?
Call me crazy, but I'm not so psyched about research depending on the whims of those who happen to have lots of money. I would rather have the really smart people studying this stuff deciding what might be worthy of investigation, frankly. but unless it generates dollars, that can never happen in a purely free market model.
that's why I like what we have. The free market does what it does so well, and public funding can do other stuff. I only wish we had more public funding for public good research not being serviced by economic engines currently. and less funding for, say, war.
Evading tax liability still does not make the poor pay most of the taxes and tax savings did not propel the compensation differential between average and CEO from 30x to 300x over the last 60 years. I think that, just maybe, your analysis is a bit flawed on that point.
ability to coerce is *not* the only difference between a private and a public organization.
First, you disregard any ability by the people to decide anything through socialism, that is.. democracy. so while you may consider the participation of the minority "coercion", such as your paying taxes for a road system, it's not coercion without any feedback loop. so in fact to call it coercion is a bit disingenuous. You could just as easily call it "group decisionmaking". especially under a more ideal democratic system, since we're dreaming up a theoretical situation here.
Secondly, efficiency is not the key element that is important in research. research is, almost by definition, inefficient. it requires an organization to blindly spend money to achieve an unnamed benefit. that will never happen for long under a private enterprise specifically because it is inefficient, and there will always be more efficient and sure ways to generate a return on investment than a capital-holding entity can capitalize on. examples abound in this very discussion.
note that's research, not development. but even development is constrained by apparent market value instead of public good. So, for example, drugs to treat elective illnesses experienced by the rich receive preferential attention from for-profit drug manufacturers (Viagra, hair loss) instead of actual cures for illnesses that may be much more severe but either less widespread or primarily among poor populations. "Inefficient" development could and does still yield better outcomes for public good.
The free market caters to money, not people. "Efficiency" is simply code for "best financial return". But those two concepts are not truly synonymous, and in research, it's not a core value. It's not even a particularly important one. If you want to figure out how to make the Widget X that everyone needs, the free market is good for that IF there is a return on investment in financial terms.
what's good for capital is not always what is best for people. especially when fewer and fewer people hold more and more of the capital, as has been the progression here in america, at least, for the last 50 years.
to be crystal clear, my fault is the sustainability of your premise, not some moralistic argument related to GDP production and our value as people or anything. If it were sustainable to pay everyone $6k/month just for being people, without enslaving us, I'd be all for it. I just don't think it is. I suspect a subsistence level income, however, would be sustainable.
No, but my premise is that far less than 50% of people would choose to work if they did not have to. Especially for the kind of money you are talking about.
I work very hard for an income that, currently (in todays economy) is a bit less than the $6k/month you talked about. In fact, that's over the median family income in my state (maine, something like 40k last I checked). I love what I do but I am only working, ultimately, to guarantee my own security and future and that of my family at a somewhat "comfortable" level. If that's all guaranteed... well, I might volunteer, or go start a free tai chi studio instead, since I would have no need for additional income, I could do it for free. if you propel me to a stress-free level of income with no work required, I'm not materialistic and I'm not totally driven by ego. You would then remove any need I have for work.
I don't think I'm in the minority there. I think most people would stop or dramatically scale back their productivity... not 50%, but far more. And I need to point out: I'm an entrepreneur. I don't mind working hard. I don't mind taking risks for some benefit. Heck, I work harder than most just because I like to do a very good job if I'm going to put time into doing something (and if I started a free tai chi school, I'd work very hard at that). I have to be one of the last ones who would opt out of a labor pool.
Also, don't forget our population has grown 20% since 1990. GDP probably should at least keep pace with population growth.
I'd prefer to simply see single payer health care, single payer college/educational opportunities as long as you keep your grades up, and WIC-style childhood nutrition programs. Even playing field for everyone, basic needs met. I would pay large taxes for those benefits to be available to all... as long as I could still try to build something new and receive benefit from that. I have a 50% tax rate in mind as a psychological figure I would be comfortable with. I half work directly for me and half work for a stable, productive, happy society to live in.
If you were going to go "basic income" route, you would also have to have forced labor of some minimal level to guarantee sufficient production. And if you did that... well, now you're in a totalitarian regime very reminiscent of several communist countries... and it didn't work so well.
I'm not a fear mongering anti-socialist I hope I have established. But I don't think outright communism works either. I do think a strongly regulated, capitalistic system with extensive social support is the right way to go... we just haven't found the right balance point yet.
I might go for your "basic income" idea... but only if "basic income" were subsistence level wage only.
I just saw this post and it's very interesting. In fact I find most of your posts very interesting.
but there is a critical flaw in your reasoning. GDP is based on the productivity of a population. If you give everyone a basic income, such that they do not have to work, many simple won't. I would daresay most. why would I work when I could instead stay home with my kids?
and thus, GDP falls. i would expect far below the level required to sustain the basic income.
right? People aren't just going to work 30 or 40 hour weeks for fun. Not when they could instead be having fun with their families.
hey I like solar thermal more than most, and I'm a greenie. but the previous poster was right on PV. Currently... unless you are avoiding a massive infrastructure expense (or at the residential scale, and expensive power line buildout), PV has no payback if you're easily accessing the grid, not without subsidy.
maine has a beautiful energy loan program... 1% interest. that's nice. at that level, it's possible to get a loan that is paid with the energy savings. but without it... well, we're getting CLOSE, but it's still not economically justifiable to go PV. also the upfront cost and space limitations are significant barriers for most consumers to go all or mostly solar electric.
close may be good enough and it also means pricing doesn't have to go up too much before it does make sense. but payback/economic improvement is not yet there for solar. luckily though it's not the only reason to use it.
not really. presume the factory had wind turbines (industrial sized, net gains) and/or other renewable forms of energy.
this battery could take more energy to build then those items could ever produce "out in the wild" for it to us and still make sense. this is a BATTERY. not a source of power. it only allows you to use existing transmission lines, and energy sources more effectively. And that can have great value whether it is a 'net positive' or not. Batteries solve portability and timing problems, not generation problems.
From the article:
"Escalante's open admission policy, a major reason for his success, also paved the way for his departure. Calculus grew so popular at Garfield that classes grew beyond the 35-student limit set by the union contract. Some had more than 50 students. Escalante would have preferred to keep the classes below the limit had he been able to do so without either denying calculus to willing students or using teachers who were not up to his high standards. Neither was possible, and the teachers union complained about Garfield's class sizes. Rather than compromise, Escalante moved on."
Escalante had the class sizes in question. He wouldn't turn away kids when he was obviously already successful, but left in part over the issue. I don't believe "in decline" describes the state of his math program while he was there. Certainly the "10 percentile" bump class size reduction can bring in some cases did not apply to his students since they were already in the top 10 percentile or damn near.
rather than carve out an exception for exceptional performance, slavish devotion to ill fitting rules crushed a major educational opportunity for hundreds, or thousands of kids over the years just in that school. Sad. But Sadly, not rare.
you say it's a good thing, except these guys were churning out mold-breaking scholastic powerhouses in classes with 50+ kids in them.
in other words; they proved that class size was not a limiting factor (to the bounds they went to) in providing a good education, in their environment. and the union was totally wrong.
in Maine, you can easily clear $4k a year for not a very good plan.
got a family? I'm middle of the road with about $9600/year in annual premiums.
yahoo!
are they going to have a fillibuster-proof majority by then? If not, they aren't repealing anything.
is that an important metric?
Our economy is actually 40x larger than it was in 1953. Does it follow that manufacturing should be 40x bigger as well?
I don't know where you live that people who are poor live at the same standard of living as people who make $60k/year. I can say here in maine, there is a gap where you wouldn't be able to afford the health care you get as a poor person WITH A CHILD as you would on your own for quite a range of payscales. That sucks, and it's primarily because health insurance is ridiculously expensive. but otherwise, really, it's not such a sweet deal being poor.
the idea of penalizing people with kids though... as much as it might be nice if it made sense... just doesn't. If you don't get the kids well fed and taught while they are young, you will just end up supporting them as adults. either by welfare or in prison, your pick. the research is voluminous and thorough. You can pay now, or pay more later. You don't get to choose not to pay.
the best bet is to make sure the kids are fed and taken care of. then you stand a chance of breaking the cycle. parenting classes are good too.
I like Jimmy Carter.
and I see idiots with engineering degrees every day.
I think you're missing the motivation that draws many people to herbalism.
an herbal remedy would be preferred by a line of thought that says: a drug distilled from something that I can't even injest on its own may, in fact, have some side effects that a whole, edible plant might not, on the basis that I may have come from hundreds of thousands of generations of people eating the plant and maybe two to four who took the synthetic variant.
this may or may not be true and on the basis of how severe your symptoms are you may or may decide to take the risk either way.
but simply because the drug is "pure" does not mean it is safe, without side effects, or better than all available natural remedies for the same problem. and in many cases, while it may in fact be, it is still not good for you, simply better than whatever ailment you are suffering from, for awhile at least.
ask any pharmacist you know. people have to take drugs to fix problems caused by the drugs they took originally all the time. it's in unnatural dosage levels, in unnatural delivery mechanisms, and may be completely unnatural to find in an isolated form at all.
Imagine someone found out all the great protein in eggs was in the yolk, but we hadn't discovered cholesterol yet. so we just ate concentrated yolks.
I'm on antibiotics right now and decongestants to boot, and I'm probably going in for a cortizone shot soon. first time in 15 years I've done more than ibuprofen, but hey, it's the first time I've needed them. I am not saying that modern medicine is bad. Just that herbalism is not necessarily bad, and just because a medicine in modern, that doesn't make it good. there is a lot to be said for consistency of dosage for sure. but you would be pretty hard pressed to point at the last two hundred years of modern medicine and say "modern medicines are safe". that would be a spin on equal with the fearmongering on "safety checks" for herbs in your previous post, which is just a tad hysterical. you can avoid the pesticides just by getting organic herbs. problem solved. while you may place lots of faith in the modern medical system, the track record would seem to indicate that people are actually taking their chances either way, and lambasting people for taking chances differently than you is just a bit judgemental, and frankly misguided.
all that said, homeopathy is total bullshit, without even the barest shred of performance. I'm not defending that junk.
hey, home ownership is not a requirement for life. choosing to do so is indeed a choice. choosing not to live near your job is a choice. for thousands of years people had to work close to home. now we have cars, so you can CHOOSE to live differently, but that is still a choice.
let's not pretend that there is a gun to any commuter's head. before any holier than thou comments are made, I will note I am in the same boat, stuck with what I now consider to be an unwise house decision and no way to sell, and a 30 minute commute by car with no public transit option. all I can do is carpool. I just don't pretend I was forced to buy the house where I did, or to buy a house at all.
yes, I understand the concept of herd immunity, but the threshold for that is something like 75%-80% successful incoculation rates.
so what is the efficacy of most vaccines? I understand that with flu vaccines it's fairly low in many cases; low enough that we don't even hit "herd immunity" stage even if everyone got the shot. so the argument doesn't hold much water there. Certainly with new vaccines there is no way to know the efficacy of the treatment "in the wild" and people choosing to avoid vaccination for reasons that HAVEN'T been totally debunked is less a selfish and irrational act and a slightly more reasoned one.
but with other vaccines, I don't know what the rates are. I assume that since, say, measles is nearly nonexistent amongst vaccinated people that it's fairly effective. So really you should be concerned if (arbitrary guess) more than something like 10-15% of people choose not to vaccinate. Less than that, and it shouldn't really matter much.
right?
what is this "all of us" stuff?
I'm vaccinated. Aren't you? So who cares if some yahoo decides not to?
Some small percentage of people who are vaccinated are not protected, true, but then... those people still exist even if someone doesn't choose to emulate them. so what?
I have never understood this "you're putting all of US at risk" argument.
I don't think that phenomena is restricted to homeschoolers. You should see the special needs fights occurring in rural schools here in maine, amongst simply regularly enrolled kids. I hear the same thing from mass as well (via my special needs education teacher aunt there). I think that issue is simply part of special needs education nationwide. Parents want their kids to be treated as special... big shock.
Excuse me, but exactly what does being the "grown son of two parents who are currently teaching in rural public schools" mean in the context of this discussion? That certainly doesn't give you any qualification whatsoever to discuss the status of homeschooling, unless your parents are also driving the countryside polling homeschoolers as a part of some strange school program.
There are plenty of religious wingnuts out there, no doubt. A quick wiki on homeschooling shows 72% cite religious reasons as an important factor in choosing homeschooling. that's a significant majority and I as a secular people think that sucks. But, I also think they have a right to choose how to live their own lives including how to raise their children, even though I totally disagree with it.
Also why shouldn't public schooling still foot the bill for their kids' educational needs to some degree? It's not like homeschooling allows you to save the 75% of your property taxes that go to local schools.
yes, he had no alternative: he was a dead man and his country conquered no matter what at that point. that is called having your "back against the wall".
Now, if he had nukes (AND we had them, of course) we couldn't invade him, and he'd have been pretty unlikely to just let his country die rather than continuing to rule it.