Whoops! I think you mean, "It is like saying Americans have more money than the Vietnamese." Germans have, in general, more money. If you take GDP and subtract debt, they are much wealthier.
I said have more money, not more net worth. A person with $1000 and $500 in debt has more money than a guy with just $750 bucks. I would have a much worse car and house if I didnt have any debt.
And anyway, Americans make about $42.0k a year compared to the $33.8k of Germans. I doubt Americans spend $8k a year more in debt payments than Germans. An average debt to income ratio in America is about 30%, which means that about $12,600 goes to debt payments each month. That includes mortgage, car payments, student loans, etc. I doubt that Germans have an average debt to income ratio of less than 13%. That would mean about $350 a month for rent/mortgage, car payments, etc.
Throw all the statistics at me that you want, you're still wrong
Well this just makes you stupid. Why not just say "I dont care what research you have done, the world is FLAT DAMNIT!!"
you think that poor = crime. WRONG.
Being poor does not make you a bad person. But being poor does mean you are far more likely to live in an area surrounded by crime. A person who grows up in a Catholic community is more likely to become catholic than methodist. Similarly, a person who grows up surrounded by crime is more likely to become a criminal, or at least be victimized by criminals. It isnt because they are bad people, it is simply because of their surroundings. If you want your kids to be surrounded by this then it is not just your problem, it is your children's problem.
Regardless of what you want to think, poor areas have far more crime in general. It isnt just a linear crime increase, it is an exponential increase. Looking at Boston median housing prices compared to their crime rate (2001 data), the bottom 50% income areas had crime rates 7 times higher than the top 50% income areas. The bottom 25% has a 12 time higher crime rate than the top 25%. You tell me where you feel safer having your kids?
anecdote: a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident
anecdote: a short account of a particular incident or event of an interesting or amusing nature, often biographical.
The standard usage of the word "anecdote" refers to biographical information (of or pertaining to a person's life). Such as "I work in Atlanta. There are only three native Georgian's in my company of 50 employees. You see this everywhere. "
My example, on the otherhand was not from my own life. I do not work for Toyota and I do not live in Canada or in a southern state. I wasnt bringing up a story of a few dumb southerners. I brought up a company publically stating that their research has shown that the education in southern states is not high enough to have a competent workforce. While I guess it could possibly fit under a rarely used usage of the word anecdote, only someone trying to change the subject and win a semantic argument would bring that up.
If you want more statistics, look to the Southern Education Foundation. They consider MD, WV, VA, KY, NC, SC, TN, FL, GA, AL, MS, LA, AR, OK, and TX as the "southern" states. When looking at 4th graders, 60% of the southern states have below average literacy (based on the national average). LA and MS have about half the literacy rates of the national average.
When looking at 8th graders, 80% of the southern states have below average literacy. 27% of the states have about half the literacy of the national average.
Overall, in 2003 more than 40% of 4th graders and 30% of 8th graders in the Southern Education States could not read at a basic level. And reading scores in these states are closer, generally, to the national average than for any other subject area. Education levels are raising in the south quicker than in the north, but that is simply because they have more room to grow.
In general I think that the education level of the entire country is pretty low. Your average college graduate has trouble even figuring out the tip at a restaurant. For so many southern states to be so far below the national average shows that the "New South" has a lot further to go.
Are you kidding me? A $14,000 car that I still owe $12500 on (just got it), $1500 in payments left on my fiance's engagement ring, and about $1000 in credit card debt is alot?
Don't tell me that people who live in trailer parks are more prone to drugs because that is pure bullshit.
Children in low income families are about twice as likely to have excessive amounts of unsupervised time. Unsupervised time is the single greatest cause of drug abuse and smoking. I had friends in high school from basically 3 different groups. One was the jocks, one the nerds, and the third was the stoners. I know those are fairly stereotypical groups, but simplicity makes this discussion easier. The "nerd" group and "stoner" group were very similar, and a few of my friends were in both groups. The only major difference between these two groups was the income level of their parents. Social misfits without money became stoners; social misfits with money became nerds. One group now work as assistant managers at KFC, and the other became engineers.
When you have low income, there are plenty of factors that inhibit your children's future. Lower quality childcare, lower quality schooling, less educated peer groups, etc. Poverty rates are linked to low educational achievement, increased narcotics abuse, increased juvenile drinking/smoking rates, and plenty of other failures.
I know plenty of people who grew up in trailer parks (me included) that have Bachelor degrees or higher
All of these are generalities. Studies have shown that 1 in 6 people born to poor families end up with income in the highest 25% of Americans. It is not rare for people to come from poor backrounds to achieve great things. But it is far more common for them to end up poor themselves (about 3 times as likely). I have two friends who did alot of pot in highschool that became a doctor and engineer, but I have dozens of other pothead friends that have made nothing of their lives. I also have friends from rich families that became stoners too, but in this case they are the minority.
I think you need to re-evaluate yourself - you are a snobby asshole.
So basically because I want our society to improve instead of stagnate I am an asshole? My dad is a farmer, but luckily my mom is an accountant. I had a very low level of motivation in my younger days, partly because of my group of friends. I was never effected by peer pressure (and have never done drugs or smoked), but when you are around burnouts it generally effects your own level of achievement. I was fortunate that my parents had enough money to be a safety net until I wised up. Now I only hope that I am responsible enough to be in a position to help out my children if they need it, instead of just sending them off into the world and hope for the best.
I dont agree with how that paper describes social mobility. According to the study in Britain and the U.S. a child's income is more directly proportional to their parents. But for their to be strong social mobility, a parent's accomplishments must help their children. If they cannot help their children then all of their accomplishments will fall apart after 1 generation.
Most immigrants came to America not to improve their life, but to improve their children's life. If I can make $150k a year throughout my life, I want my children to have ever possible opportunity. I would be disappointed in myself if my children are not at least in the upper middle class for most of their life. It could only be explained by poor parenting.
To adequetly measure social mobility, you should see if a first generation middle class family is able to pass that status on to their children. See if a parent's hard work is actually making life better for their children.
Also, America's top 25% income earners are more well off than most countries. That will also eschew the numbers.
The welfare reform signed into law a few years ago limits the number of children you receive benefits for to 3 if I recall correctly.
But that is still a problem. 2 poor people having 3 kids is still a big problem. 2 poor people having 1 kid is till a problem.
I also think at some point western society has to do more to encourage reproduction among it's middle and upper middle classes, perhaps in the form of offering more incentives to women who have children at a desirable age
I'm a little curious how you can't afford to have children and you make 55K. I make 47K and have a 9 month old daughter. My parents raised two kids on 35K not that long ago. I think you should visit lifehacker and re-evaluate your debts, dude.
Actually, I said that I make 60K a year and that I could afford a kid. I just said that I barely have enough to raise a child and adequetly provide for him/her.
First off, I do have a good handle on my expenses and I have almost do debt. My total debt is only about $15,000 dollars from my car/credit cards. I will soon be buying a house for probably about $180-$200k, which will increase my debt significantly (but still not a very high debt/income ratio).
$60k a year comes to about $3675 a month after taxes. I dont have my family budget on me, but with $1500/House + $750/2UsedCars w/insurance + $200/HealthVisionDental + $350/GasMaintenence + $500/Food + $50/Pets that leaves me with only about $300 a month in extra cash. $3600/yr is not enough for a child.
I could reduce the food cost by maybe $100/mth, and get cheaper cars ($200/mth less), but then that still only leaves $7200/yr. Child care alone can cost that much for 1 child.
I could live more poorly. I could own 2 10-yr old cars, eat cheap food, get bad daycare, and live in a small/old house; but that does not help my children. The lifestyle that I live has a direct consequence on the life my child will have. If I live near a trailer park, my kid is going to have trailer park friends. He is more likely to have stoner friends and do poorly in school. I may be putting him/her in danger by living in an area with higher crime. And the schools I send my children to may be worse off and not give them the same opportunities.
I will not have a child if I only make $60k/yr family income in Northern Illinois. Median house prices are about $200k here, so that should be good to compare my area to your area. If I lived in an area with median house prices of $150k, I would be comfortable having a child while only making $50k/yr. Housing/Property Taxes/Daycare/etc. would all be much cheaper.
It depends on where you live. Maybe in Alabama you can raise a child on only $47k, but in Illinois that kid would probably end up working at a fast food restaurant and/or having a kid at 17.
Actually most of the southern states economies are growing faster than the northern ones
Fast economic growth does not mean the economy is strong. Lets say a 400lb woman and a 160lb woman (both 5'4") both try to lose weight. The first woman loses 100lb and the second woman loses 30lb. Is the 300lb woman healthier than the 130lb woman just because she lost more weight?
It is easier to have strong growth if you have more room to grow.
There is a lot of imigration going on in the south. And by imigration, I don't just mean from other countries. I mean from all over the US.
Though I do agree with you that poverty can result in population growth. I just don't think that the high growth we are seeing in the south is due to more children or poverty.
Between 2000 & 2003, the nation's population of children aged 5-13 declined by 0.7%. The south's population of children that age grew by 1.5%.
The South's population growth of 4.34% is only 1% higher than the national average (3.34%). As you can see the main reason the South is growing is simply because they are having more children. With only a 1% higher growth rate, they are having 2.2% more kids. And that is accounting for the higher population of retirees in states such as Florida.
Also, your prejudices are apparantly based on what you've seen in Deliverance and on the Jerry Springer show. The south truly is a New South. Sure, if you go out to rural areas you'll find plenty of rednecks, but rednecks tend to not bother anyone and they basically just want to be able to live their lives without anyone messin' with 'em.
This shows another reason why problems such as poor education are difficult to fix. You cannot even mention the problem without someone calling you prejudiced. Here we have someone who is probably fairly intelligent, but is in denial that there could possibly be a problem is the society that he/she came from.
I have never seen Deliverance and I cannot stand Jerry Springer. If you want to use anecdotal evidence, there are plenty of rednecks in Illinois too. But I do not use anecdotal evidence, the truth is much more useful.
In the summer of 2005 Toyota passed up building a new plant to produce RAV4s in the south; passing up huge financial incentives to build in various southern U.S. locations (which are trying to build up their economy). Why did they do this? Because the educational level in the Southern United States was so low that trainers for Japanese plants in Alabama had to use pictorials to teach illiterate workers how to use high-tech equipment. Toyota passed up over $150 million more in incentives (to build a $800 million manufacturing plant) to have a workforce that could actually read.
Notice that in my previous post I did not call all southerners stupid. I just said that the average level of economy and education is lower. It is like saying Americans have more money than Germans. I know that their are alot of Germans with more money than me, but that does not mean my statement is false.
Seeing that my first post recieved the moderation of Flamebait it just shows how impossible this problem would be to fix. Political correctness has permiated American culture to the point where actual intelligent discussion of the problem is almost impossible.
It is WRONG and IMMORAL to have children if you are on welfare. It is WRONG and IMMORAL to have children if you are in poverty. But in today's society, it seams to be wrong and immoral to even mention that the poor citizens in our society are causing most of their own problems.
The reason that our society is having such a hard time giving opportunity to the lower class is because they are producing so many children. It is true that a poor child does not have the same opportunities as a middle class child. So why do parents that cannot provide for their offspring keep having children?
My fiance and I currently make about $60k a year in combined income. That is barely enough for a responsible person to even consider having a child in America (and I live in a small town of about 30k population in northern Illinois). My (soon to be) sister in law has two children with a family income of only $55k, but she has free daycare and inherited her house.
I have no problem continuing to help out the poor in our society. I think we should be improving their education to help the smart and hard working ones rise up to the middle class. But I hate it when people blame the rich and middle class for the lower class's problems. And when people even mention comments like these, our "politically correct" society just labels them as Flamebait.
There is plenty of room for growth in the northern half of america. The reason that southern states grow the most is because they on average have lower levels of education and have a weaker economy. The dumber you are and the poorer you are, the more kids you have.
It is a defense mechanism that all animals possess. When your survival is in jeopardy, start popping out offspring with the slim hope that some will actually survive to adulthood. In the animal kingdom all but the most fit just die off. But in our world of welfare, the rest of us keep them alive and make the problem worse.
It is just a problem of morality. I could never look at a 1 year old baby that is starving and say that we should just let it die. But to fix most of our societies problems, we shouldnt be helping them. But because most of us are not immoral monsters, the lowest class of our citizens will continue to reproduce rapidly.
Who the hell is going to buy a 600$ piece of electronic equipment out of spite with no intention of using it?
They dont have to buy NO games. But if they buy very few then Sony is still in trouble. If they are taking a $200 loss on each machine, that is alot of games that need to be sold. Hardware manufacturers make about 20% of each game's price in profit. So a $70 game would give Sony $14. A game like Spiderman where they get additional royalties might profit them up to $20. That means Sony has to sell about 13 games for each PS3 to recoup their losses.
That is alot of games to sell. Sony might be able to pull it off, but I dont think that they will be able to compete with Microsoft and Nintendo that well this time around. The PS3 is just too expensive and not much better. But I could be wrong of course, although it seams most of the marketing world is starting to agree with people like me.
You have to be retarded to think that $3.5Trillion is a "solid" lead.
You forget that our economy is also a moving target. While China is growing, so is America. With current rates of growth, that gives 8 years until China would theoretically surpass America. And if you think that China can make it another 8 years without a major depression you are now being retarded. Most economists think it might happen by the end of this decade. Their government cannot artificially prop up their economy forever.
And I am not talking a 2001-like recession. I am talking about a 1930s depression, which will put China back another few decades at least. Then once their government finally loses its grip on its population, its a fall just like Russia in the 80s. Just look how good Russia is doing even 20 years after its collapse. --
Have you been paying attention to the billion dollar tax breaks and incentives that the government gives out to the oil companies? Where do you think that money comes from? That's right, the taxpayers (of today and tomorrow)!
Have you actually ever thought about that statement, or are you just repeating something you heard on some radio station? In 2005, the Federal Government gave about $8 billion a year in tax breaks to energy companies, with a majority of it going to non-oil companies. Even if you assume $4 billion is going to oil companies, that is about $13 per U.S. citizen.
And taxes from income and sales tax doesnt even account for 1/2 of all taxes the government brings in. The rest is from companies, so each citizen is maybe paying $6 for these tax breaks.
That means if you are driving 15k miles per year at 25mpg, you are paying an extra $0.01 per gallon from those tax breaks. So instead of about $2.80 a gallon, it would be $2.81 a gallon.
This is a far cry from $6 a gallon. Even if you start tacking on other government costs, I doubt it will start to reach anywhere near $6 a gallon. $4 billion in tax breaks account for about a penny, so it would take another $1.2 trillion in yearly tax breaks to reach that amount.
We would go as far as to say to get rid of your DVD player and connect a media centre PC to your LCD television!'"
Well, not all of us would buy a $2000 DVD player. I still cannot see the reason to buy anything more expensive than the $250 one I have at home. What do these multi-thousand dollar DVD players do anyway?
According to the California Energy Commission, gas was at an average of $1.36 per gallon in 1999. That is $1.61 when adjusted for inflation. According to their statistics, gas prices were (adjusted for inflation):
That is an increase of 48% over 7 years. Or a 110% increase when not accounting for inflation. As I said before, it takes about 7 years for it to double. That is with years of America warring in the middle east.
And this is a drastic increase in gas prices. It will probably not continue for ever. Prices were very high during the 80s OPEC problems, but eventually stabalized and dropped 27.5% in 1986. And that was after a 218% increase from 1973-1980, about twice the price jumps that we are experiencing now.
Even though prices have jumped 110% in the last 7 years, it has only jumped 212% in the past 25 years (not accounting for inflation). That means that there have been more increases in the last 7 years than in the 18 years before that. We are in a bad time right now, but it will not continue forever. --
Well, actually gas prices tripled in about the last 10 years. That is about 11.6% raise per year. Even with it raising at quicker rates now, it will take at least 5-6 years for gas prices to hit $6 a gallon. And even at that point, that doesnt mean elecricity prices will double. It might take at least 10 years for elecricity prices to double, and probably closer to 15 years for it to double accounting for inflation.
So in all reality, by switching in 2006 you are still looking at at least 5 1/2 years instead of 6. If you switched your datacenter in 2015, it will still be more like 4 years. But when you start looking 10 years ahead, I am sure that further advances in technology will have a larger impact than rising energy costs. --
Actually, I bet it probably will make sense to do go DC for a new datacenter. Telecoms are doing that right now.
The only problem will be the cost of the hardware. There are far more manufacturers of AC powered systems, so the price is lower. And with new AC powered systems probably being within 5% efficiency of DC powered ones, it will be a close race to call. But if there are enough early adopters then the prices might drop and it will be better for everyone.
It will probably come down to one system having less than a 1% profit gain over the other, but if we are talking about millions of dollars a year then that is substantial. --
What the article didnt mention is what it would take to switch to DC power. You would need to replace all PDUs, UPSs and AC power cables. You would also need to convert each system on each rack.
Most AC power is 80% efficient, which is where the 15% gain is coming from (and remember, it is UP TO 15%, not 15% all of the time). But AC power supplies are becoming more efficient, with IBM claiming its BladeCenter power supplies are 90% efficient. That means that DC will probably only give a 5%-7% gain in efficiency.
A typical high density blade rack could use 24 killowatts of power. That would then require about 78k BTUs of cooling, which would take about 8 killowatts of power. That is 32 kWatts of power per rack, or about $2.56 an hour at $0.08 a killowatt. A saving of 7.5% on average would mean about $0.19 an hour, or $4.56 a day/$1664 a year.
The PDU/UPS for that single rack is going to be thousands of dollars. And if the blade rack has 80 blades, even a $50 per blade (probably very low) switch would be an extra $4000. The entire switch is probably going to be close to $10,000. That would take 6 years to recoup the initial cost.
I do not know what the lifespan of a server rack is, so maybe a six year turnaround would be good enough. I have dealth with enough banks and loan officers to know that American companies rarely look ahead that long for a ROI. Three years would be a little more like it. But maybe my calculations are far off, I have never worked with more than a couple of server racks before so I am not familiar with how the costs will scale for large datacenters. --
There are already booth babes at GenCon. And I do not mean the women walking around in skimpy chain mail shirts who have no business revealing that much skin.
I remember last year there being some card game that reminded me of Leisure Suit Larry is CCG form, and they had about 3-5 (hard to tell because they were spread out) very attractive women in revealing clothing walking around the main exhibition hall handing out flyers/samples. And they werent the only ones.
But as a whole they are very sparse at the current GenCon, and I wouldnt mind them becoming more abundant. Everything in life becomes better when you throw in attractive women. Maybe it will even get more people at GenCon to shower.
I for one am going to have a good solid three and a half days away from my girlfriend this year, so this will be a welcomed change where I dont have to worry about getting slapped for looking:-) --
Yes, I do believe that under most circumstances a car is much more efficient than a bike.
For starters, there are actually more than one technical definitions for efficiency. You posted one, but not another very valid one.
1) The ratio of the effective or useful output to the total input in any system 2) The production of the desired effects or results with minimum waste of time, effort, or skill
You ignored the second definition. If you can find some way to do things with less effort by finding an unused and otherwise useless form of "input", it makes your ability to produce your "output" more efficiently.
People rarely simply drive in a car just to drive, they usually have a purpose. So the energy output of simply moving from point A to point B is only one part of the equation. The next step is finding out what that person can do when he gets there.
Lets assume that a human being can do 8 hours of moderate to strenuous activity in any given day for an extended period of time (like 40 years). If you live 15 miles from work (average person lives farther than that), it would take you about 150 minutes round trip to bicycle at 12mph. It would take more like 40 minutes round trip in a car. The time in the car does not count towards the 8 hours, however, because it is not strenuous. That means you can work for 8 hours if you drove a car to work, but 5.5 hours in you bicycled. You could try to push yourself harder if you rode a bike, but then again you could do the same if you drove a car (and you would be less tired and more productive).
A 25 mpg car would use 1.6 gallons of gas to make the trip. That equates to 50,000 calories of energy. That is compared to only 1500 calories for the bicyclist. But the car driver has put in 2.5 hours of more work. I calculated in an earlier post that it takes 1 man-year of work to produce about 4 million gallons of gasoline. That equates to 2000 gallons per man-hour. If this worker was driving to his job at a refinery, his extra 2.5 hours of working would help produce 5000 gallons of gasoline, or roughly 156,250,000 calories of energy per day.
That means driving a car to work made that employee more efficient. He produced a net total of 156.2 million calories of work more than his bicycle riding buddy. Regardless of whether someone is a banker or bicycle repairman, that extra 2 hours of work is definetly worth the extra one and a half gallons of gas.
But lets use the farming example I used earlier. From my experience gardening (and more importantly, my parent's experience), it would take about 10 hours to till/plant a 25'x20' garden area. (that is without a motorized tiller) Lets assume that the average window to plant various crops is 3 months. That means that a single human can farm about 1 acre without motorized equipment. That is compared to 400 acres with tractors, combines, etc.
That one acre can feed about 12 people, while a modern farmer can feed 5000. Instead of needing 400 farmers per 5000 people, you only need 1. But the modern farmer needed an extra 24 million calories of energy to do it.
But lets look at the work those 400 people can do in a year's time because they are alive and not farming because of modern equipment. Lets say that they burn 250 calories/hour doing their jobs. They are now carpenters or machinists instead of farmers. That is 200 million calories of extra work.
That means since my dad spent 24 million extra calories farming, society in general was able to produce at least 200 million calories of extra output. Sounds more efficient to me. --
Yes, I am exactly equating efficiency with manpower. That is the case. Mankind has found ways to use resources that are not edible (gasoline, rubber, etc.) and use them to make us more efficient and productive. Primitive man had no use for oil or rubber or coal, which is why he could not be as efficient as my father is now. It isnt that my dad is any more skilled or smarter than primitive men, but he is a great deal more efficient.
In 10000 BC, very close to 100% of the population was involved with food gathering, preparation, or containment/distribution. Less than 20% of the population is involved with the food industry today in the US. That means that we are far more efficient. It doesnt matter if that is because we have found other resources to help us, it is still greater efficiency. --
but the amount that one person can farm is an irrelevant figure if you don't take into account the energy behind all of the technology that he uses.
It isnt irrelevant at all because the end farmer is the bottleneck for efficiency. A farmer averages 1.8 gallons of diesel fuel per acre of corn. For 400 acres that is 720 gallons of gas. That is the same amount of gas that a 20mpg car needs to drive 15000 miles per year.
Alaska only employed about 9000 people in their oil industry in 2002, but produced around 3 billion barrels of gasoline. That translates to roughly 57 billion gallons of gas. Extraction and refining only account for 65% of the manpower needed in the gas industry (the rest is in distribution, aka truck drivers and gas station attendants). That means 14000 people are needed to produce that gas, making it 4 million gallons per employee.
That means that 1 worker can produce gas for over 5000 farmers. That is why I did not include it in my calculations. Instead of producing enough food for 5000, I guess my dad only actually produces enough food for 4990 when you account of the the oil industry, feed industry, supermarket industry, etc. The farmers are definetly the bottleneck for efficiency, which is why everything else is irrelevant. --
First you have the farmers, who have to plant vast 10,000 acre fields of say, corn. They spend months and thousands of man hours maintaining these fields until they're ready to be picked, when huge machines expend thousands of gallons of fuel to harvest the field. Then, dozens of trucks transport the corn over thousands of miles (and another several hundred gallons of fuel) to distribution centers, where hundreds of people sort, run machinery, process paperwork, load and unload, etc.
Finally, the corn goes out on trucks to be delivered to grocery stores, to be unloaded and placed on shelves/bins/whatever.
Compare that to the measly 2000 calories your tribal ancestor burned, and wonder if our lives are really easier.. or if we're only burning 140,000x as much energy to make it APPEAR easier.
Wait one minute. Did you do any actual research for these numbers or did you just make them up?
It is IMPOSSIBLE for our current farming and distribution to be less efficient than our tribal ancestors. If it took 1 human calorie of work to output 1 calorie of food, 100% of the world's population would be farmers, truck drivers, or store clerks. A MUCH smaller percentage of our current population works in food related industries than in our hunter/gatherer past. That means we are FAR more efficient now than we used to be.
Today's farmer can produce about 180 bushels of corn per acre. A bushel of corn has 84,000 calories, so that makes 15 million calories per acre. That is 42 thousand calories per day. My dad is a farmer and have 400 acres that he can easily farm by himself (although 500-600 might be a stretch). That means that in any given year he could produce enough food to feed 11,000 people. And some foods like potatoes have a better calorie output than corn (although some foods like wheat have slightly less).
But that is not a fair comparision because grain is far more efficient than meat in calorie production. The US feeds 60% of its grain to livestock, but beef cattle for example only convert about 5% of that energy into their meat. So that means my dad probably can only feed about 5,000 people with his 400 acres.
Compare that to hunter-gatherer humans. Typically hunter gatherers live a population density of 1 per 10 square kilometers. That means that every acre of land can produce food for 1 person. Lets estimate that 20% of the world is arable land. That means that the average acre of land can produce food for 1000 people if it is farmed. That is 1000x more efficient.
I dont know about you, but it seams to me like we are burning a LOT LESS energy producing food than we did 10,000 years ago. Even when you factor in distribution, it is much easier to feed ourselves now than it was then. About 98% of our world's population is alive today only because we are more efficient. --
Wow, looks like someone must have just taken a "social problems" class in college last spring.
Because everyone knows all the minimum wage jobs are the easy ones...
Actually yes, minimum wage jobs are the easy ones. Minimum wage jobs are either for lazy people or stupid people. No one, under any circumstance known to man, should be making minimum wage in America if they are motivated at all. I worked with illegal aliens when I worked at KFC in high school, and they made around $8-$9 an hour (and overtime). Some made more than that. They did a job that most Americans would hate (expecially for that pay), but they are not making nearly minimum wage
I dont care if your parents were homeless, you still have just as many opportunities as your average illegal alien. Find a program that helps homeless get a first job. If your area doesnt have one, walk 100 miles to an area that does. Do some hard work. I did roofing for one summer in college, and worked with a guy who actually got the job while he was homeless in a shelter. It paid $14 an hour under the table (about 50-60 hours a week, no overtime pay). That was about $750 a week, but it was the worst work I ever did (and I grew up on a farm). You could afford an apartment in 2 weeks.
The ONLY people making minimum wage are LAZY, STUPID, or in highschool. I have known many people who made minimum wage, have known illegal aliens and homeless people, and have NEVER seen an exception. But in this "politically correct" world, we cannot call anyone what they are anymore. They are disadvantaged, not lazy. They are uneducated, not stupid. Survival does not require a high school education. Someone who cannot survive in this society (and at least can speak a language, any language) cannot blame anyone except themselves.
I still think we should be doing more to help disadvantaged people work their way up in society. But anyone who is still making minimum wage today is beyond help, because they are the problem. --
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Whoops! I think you mean, "It is like saying Americans have more money than the Vietnamese." Germans have, in general, more money. If you take GDP and subtract debt, they are much wealthier.
I said have more money, not more net worth. A person with $1000 and $500 in debt has more money than a guy with just $750 bucks. I would have a much worse car and house if I didnt have any debt.
And anyway, Americans make about $42.0k a year compared to the $33.8k of Germans. I doubt Americans spend $8k a year more in debt payments than Germans. An average debt to income ratio in America is about 30%, which means that about $12,600 goes to debt payments each month. That includes mortgage, car payments, student loans, etc. I doubt that Germans have an average debt to income ratio of less than 13%. That would mean about $350 a month for rent/mortgage, car payments, etc.
Throw all the statistics at me that you want, you're still wrong
Well this just makes you stupid. Why not just say "I dont care what research you have done, the world is FLAT DAMNIT!!"
you think that poor = crime. WRONG.
Being poor does not make you a bad person. But being poor does mean you are far more likely to live in an area surrounded by crime. A person who grows up in a Catholic community is more likely to become catholic than methodist. Similarly, a person who grows up surrounded by crime is more likely to become a criminal, or at least be victimized by criminals. It isnt because they are bad people, it is simply because of their surroundings. If you want your kids to be surrounded by this then it is not just your problem, it is your children's problem.
Regardless of what you want to think, poor areas have far more crime in general. It isnt just a linear crime increase, it is an exponential increase. Looking at Boston median housing prices compared to their crime rate (2001 data), the bottom 50% income areas had crime rates 7 times higher than the top 50% income areas. The bottom 25% has a 12 time higher crime rate than the top 25%. You tell me where you feel safer having your kids?
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anecdote: a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident
anecdote: a short account of a particular incident or event of an interesting or amusing nature, often biographical.
The standard usage of the word "anecdote" refers to biographical information (of or pertaining to a person's life). Such as "I work in Atlanta. There are only three native Georgian's in my company of 50 employees. You see this everywhere. "
My example, on the otherhand was not from my own life. I do not work for Toyota and I do not live in Canada or in a southern state. I wasnt bringing up a story of a few dumb southerners. I brought up a company publically stating that their research has shown that the education in southern states is not high enough to have a competent workforce. While I guess it could possibly fit under a rarely used usage of the word anecdote, only someone trying to change the subject and win a semantic argument would bring that up.
If you want more statistics, look to the Southern Education Foundation. They consider MD, WV, VA, KY, NC, SC, TN, FL, GA, AL, MS, LA, AR, OK, and TX as the "southern" states. When looking at 4th graders, 60% of the southern states have below average literacy (based on the national average). LA and MS have about half the literacy rates of the national average.
When looking at 8th graders, 80% of the southern states have below average literacy. 27% of the states have about half the literacy of the national average.
Overall, in 2003 more than 40% of 4th graders and 30% of 8th graders in the Southern Education States could not read at a basic level. And reading scores in these states are closer, generally, to the national average than for any other subject area. Education levels are raising in the south quicker than in the north, but that is simply because they have more room to grow.
In general I think that the education level of the entire country is pretty low. Your average college graduate has trouble even figuring out the tip at a restaurant. For so many southern states to be so far below the national average shows that the "New South" has a lot further to go.
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$ 15,000 in debt is alot.
Are you kidding me? A $14,000 car that I still owe $12500 on (just got it), $1500 in payments left on my fiance's engagement ring, and about $1000 in credit card debt is alot?
Don't tell me that people who live in trailer parks are more prone to drugs because that is pure bullshit.
Children in low income families are about twice as likely to have excessive amounts of unsupervised time. Unsupervised time is the single greatest cause of drug abuse and smoking. I had friends in high school from basically 3 different groups. One was the jocks, one the nerds, and the third was the stoners. I know those are fairly stereotypical groups, but simplicity makes this discussion easier. The "nerd" group and "stoner" group were very similar, and a few of my friends were in both groups. The only major difference between these two groups was the income level of their parents. Social misfits without money became stoners; social misfits with money became nerds. One group now work as assistant managers at KFC, and the other became engineers.
When you have low income, there are plenty of factors that inhibit your children's future. Lower quality childcare, lower quality schooling, less educated peer groups, etc. Poverty rates are linked to low educational achievement, increased narcotics abuse, increased juvenile drinking/smoking rates, and plenty of other failures.
I know plenty of people who grew up in trailer parks (me included) that have Bachelor degrees or higher
All of these are generalities. Studies have shown that 1 in 6 people born to poor families end up with income in the highest 25% of Americans. It is not rare for people to come from poor backrounds to achieve great things. But it is far more common for them to end up poor themselves (about 3 times as likely). I have two friends who did alot of pot in highschool that became a doctor and engineer, but I have dozens of other pothead friends that have made nothing of their lives. I also have friends from rich families that became stoners too, but in this case they are the minority.
I think you need to re-evaluate yourself - you are a snobby asshole.
So basically because I want our society to improve instead of stagnate I am an asshole? My dad is a farmer, but luckily my mom is an accountant. I had a very low level of motivation in my younger days, partly because of my group of friends. I was never effected by peer pressure (and have never done drugs or smoked), but when you are around burnouts it generally effects your own level of achievement. I was fortunate that my parents had enough money to be a safety net until I wised up. Now I only hope that I am responsible enough to be in a position to help out my children if they need it, instead of just sending them off into the world and hope for the best.
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I dont agree with how that paper describes social mobility. According to the study in Britain and the U.S. a child's income is more directly proportional to their parents. But for their to be strong social mobility, a parent's accomplishments must help their children. If they cannot help their children then all of their accomplishments will fall apart after 1 generation.
Most immigrants came to America not to improve their life, but to improve their children's life. If I can make $150k a year throughout my life, I want my children to have ever possible opportunity. I would be disappointed in myself if my children are not at least in the upper middle class for most of their life. It could only be explained by poor parenting.
To adequetly measure social mobility, you should see if a first generation middle class family is able to pass that status on to their children. See if a parent's hard work is actually making life better for their children.
Also, America's top 25% income earners are more well off than most countries. That will also eschew the numbers.
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The welfare reform signed into law a few years ago limits the number of children you receive benefits for to 3 if I recall correctly.
But that is still a problem. 2 poor people having 3 kids is still a big problem. 2 poor people having 1 kid is till a problem.
I also think at some point western society has to do more to encourage reproduction among it's middle and upper middle classes, perhaps in the form of offering more incentives to women who have children at a desirable age
I could not possibly agree more.
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I'm a little curious how you can't afford to have children and you make 55K. I make 47K and have a 9 month old daughter. My parents raised two kids on 35K not that long ago. I think you should visit lifehacker and re-evaluate your debts, dude.
Actually, I said that I make 60K a year and that I could afford a kid. I just said that I barely have enough to raise a child and adequetly provide for him/her.
First off, I do have a good handle on my expenses and I have almost do debt. My total debt is only about $15,000 dollars from my car/credit cards. I will soon be buying a house for probably about $180-$200k, which will increase my debt significantly (but still not a very high debt/income ratio).
$60k a year comes to about $3675 a month after taxes. I dont have my family budget on me, but with $1500/House + $750/2UsedCars w/insurance + $200/HealthVisionDental + $350/GasMaintenence + $500/Food + $50/Pets that leaves me with only about $300 a month in extra cash. $3600/yr is not enough for a child.
I could reduce the food cost by maybe $100/mth, and get cheaper cars ($200/mth less), but then that still only leaves $7200/yr. Child care alone can cost that much for 1 child.
I could live more poorly. I could own 2 10-yr old cars, eat cheap food, get bad daycare, and live in a small/old house; but that does not help my children. The lifestyle that I live has a direct consequence on the life my child will have. If I live near a trailer park, my kid is going to have trailer park friends. He is more likely to have stoner friends and do poorly in school. I may be putting him/her in danger by living in an area with higher crime. And the schools I send my children to may be worse off and not give them the same opportunities.
I will not have a child if I only make $60k/yr family income in Northern Illinois. Median house prices are about $200k here, so that should be good to compare my area to your area. If I lived in an area with median house prices of $150k, I would be comfortable having a child while only making $50k/yr. Housing/Property Taxes/Daycare/etc. would all be much cheaper.
It depends on where you live. Maybe in Alabama you can raise a child on only $47k, but in Illinois that kid would probably end up working at a fast food restaurant and/or having a kid at 17.
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Actually most of the southern states economies are growing faster than the northern ones
Fast economic growth does not mean the economy is strong. Lets say a 400lb woman and a 160lb woman (both 5'4") both try to lose weight. The first woman loses 100lb and the second woman loses 30lb. Is the 300lb woman healthier than the 130lb woman just because she lost more weight?
It is easier to have strong growth if you have more room to grow.
There is a lot of imigration going on in the south. And by imigration, I don't just mean from other countries. I mean from all over the US.
Though I do agree with you that poverty can result in population growth. I just don't think that the high growth we are seeing in the south is due to more children or poverty.
Between 2000 & 2003, the nation's population of children aged 5-13 declined by 0.7%. The south's population of children that age grew by 1.5%.
The South's population growth of 4.34% is only 1% higher than the national average (3.34%). As you can see the main reason the South is growing is simply because they are having more children. With only a 1% higher growth rate, they are having 2.2% more kids. And that is accounting for the higher population of retirees in states such as Florida.
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No, you are flat out wrong.
Also, your prejudices are apparantly based on what you've seen in Deliverance and on the Jerry Springer show. The south truly is a New South. Sure, if you go out to rural areas you'll find plenty of rednecks, but rednecks tend to not bother anyone and they basically just want to be able to live their lives without anyone messin' with 'em.
This shows another reason why problems such as poor education are difficult to fix. You cannot even mention the problem without someone calling you prejudiced. Here we have someone who is probably fairly intelligent, but is in denial that there could possibly be a problem is the society that he/she came from.
I have never seen Deliverance and I cannot stand Jerry Springer. If you want to use anecdotal evidence, there are plenty of rednecks in Illinois too. But I do not use anecdotal evidence, the truth is much more useful.
In the summer of 2005 Toyota passed up building a new plant to produce RAV4s in the south; passing up huge financial incentives to build in various southern U.S. locations (which are trying to build up their economy). Why did they do this? Because the educational level in the Southern United States was so low that trainers for Japanese plants in Alabama had to use pictorials to teach illiterate workers how to use high-tech equipment. Toyota passed up over $150 million more in incentives (to build a $800 million manufacturing plant) to have a workforce that could actually read.
Notice that in my previous post I did not call all southerners stupid. I just said that the average level of economy and education is lower. It is like saying Americans have more money than Germans. I know that their are alot of Germans with more money than me, but that does not mean my statement is false.
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Seeing that my first post recieved the moderation of Flamebait it just shows how impossible this problem would be to fix. Political correctness has permiated American culture to the point where actual intelligent discussion of the problem is almost impossible.
It is WRONG and IMMORAL to have children if you are on welfare. It is WRONG and IMMORAL to have children if you are in poverty. But in today's society, it seams to be wrong and immoral to even mention that the poor citizens in our society are causing most of their own problems.
The reason that our society is having such a hard time giving opportunity to the lower class is because they are producing so many children. It is true that a poor child does not have the same opportunities as a middle class child. So why do parents that cannot provide for their offspring keep having children?
My fiance and I currently make about $60k a year in combined income. That is barely enough for a responsible person to even consider having a child in America (and I live in a small town of about 30k population in northern Illinois). My (soon to be) sister in law has two children with a family income of only $55k, but she has free daycare and inherited her house.
I have no problem continuing to help out the poor in our society. I think we should be improving their education to help the smart and hard working ones rise up to the middle class. But I hate it when people blame the rich and middle class for the lower class's problems. And when people even mention comments like these, our "politically correct" society just labels them as Flamebait.
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There is plenty of room for growth in the northern half of america. The reason that southern states grow the most is because they on average have lower levels of education and have a weaker economy. The dumber you are and the poorer you are, the more kids you have.
It is a defense mechanism that all animals possess. When your survival is in jeopardy, start popping out offspring with the slim hope that some will actually survive to adulthood. In the animal kingdom all but the most fit just die off. But in our world of welfare, the rest of us keep them alive and make the problem worse.
It is just a problem of morality. I could never look at a 1 year old baby that is starving and say that we should just let it die. But to fix most of our societies problems, we shouldnt be helping them. But because most of us are not immoral monsters, the lowest class of our citizens will continue to reproduce rapidly.
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Who the hell is going to buy a 600$ piece of electronic equipment out of spite with no intention of using it?
They dont have to buy NO games. But if they buy very few then Sony is still in trouble. If they are taking a $200 loss on each machine, that is alot of games that need to be sold. Hardware manufacturers make about 20% of each game's price in profit. So a $70 game would give Sony $14. A game like Spiderman where they get additional royalties might profit them up to $20. That means Sony has to sell about 13 games for each PS3 to recoup their losses.
That is alot of games to sell. Sony might be able to pull it off, but I dont think that they will be able to compete with Microsoft and Nintendo that well this time around. The PS3 is just too expensive and not much better. But I could be wrong of course, although it seams most of the marketing world is starting to agree with people like me.
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You have to be retarded to think that $3.5Trillion is a "solid" lead.
You forget that our economy is also a moving target. While China is growing, so is America. With current rates of growth, that gives 8 years until China would theoretically surpass America. And if you think that China can make it another 8 years without a major depression you are now being retarded. Most economists think it might happen by the end of this decade. Their government cannot artificially prop up their economy forever.
And I am not talking a 2001-like recession. I am talking about a 1930s depression, which will put China back another few decades at least. Then once their government finally loses its grip on its population, its a fall just like Russia in the 80s. Just look how good Russia is doing even 20 years after its collapse.
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Have you been paying attention to the billion dollar tax breaks and incentives that the government gives out to the oil companies? Where do you think that money comes from? That's right, the taxpayers (of today and tomorrow)!
Have you actually ever thought about that statement, or are you just repeating something you heard on some radio station? In 2005, the Federal Government gave about $8 billion a year in tax breaks to energy companies, with a majority of it going to non-oil companies. Even if you assume $4 billion is going to oil companies, that is about $13 per U.S. citizen.
And taxes from income and sales tax doesnt even account for 1/2 of all taxes the government brings in. The rest is from companies, so each citizen is maybe paying $6 for these tax breaks.
That means if you are driving 15k miles per year at 25mpg, you are paying an extra $0.01 per gallon from those tax breaks. So instead of about $2.80 a gallon, it would be $2.81 a gallon.
This is a far cry from $6 a gallon. Even if you start tacking on other government costs, I doubt it will start to reach anywhere near $6 a gallon. $4 billion in tax breaks account for about a penny, so it would take another $1.2 trillion in yearly tax breaks to reach that amount.
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We would go as far as to say to get rid of your DVD player and connect a media centre PC to your LCD television!'"
Well, not all of us would buy a $2000 DVD player. I still cannot see the reason to buy anything more expensive than the $250 one I have at home. What do these multi-thousand dollar DVD players do anyway?
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According to the California Energy Commission, gas was at an average of $1.36 per gallon in 1999. That is $1.61 when adjusted for inflation. According to their statistics, gas prices were (adjusted for inflation):
2000 $1.93 +19.9%
2001 $1.85 -4.3%
2002 $1.68 -10.1%
2003 $1.99 +18.5%
2004 $2.25 +12.8%
2005 $2.24 -0.5%
2006 $2.86 +27.7%
That is an increase of 48% over 7 years. Or a 110% increase when not accounting for inflation. As I said before, it takes about 7 years for it to double. That is with years of America warring in the middle east.
And this is a drastic increase in gas prices. It will probably not continue for ever. Prices were very high during the 80s OPEC problems, but eventually stabalized and dropped 27.5% in 1986. And that was after a 218% increase from 1973-1980, about twice the price jumps that we are experiencing now.
Even though prices have jumped 110% in the last 7 years, it has only jumped 212% in the past 25 years (not accounting for inflation). That means that there have been more increases in the last 7 years than in the 18 years before that. We are in a bad time right now, but it will not continue forever.
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Well, actually gas prices tripled in about the last 10 years. That is about 11.6% raise per year. Even with it raising at quicker rates now, it will take at least 5-6 years for gas prices to hit $6 a gallon. And even at that point, that doesnt mean elecricity prices will double. It might take at least 10 years for elecricity prices to double, and probably closer to 15 years for it to double accounting for inflation.
So in all reality, by switching in 2006 you are still looking at at least 5 1/2 years instead of 6. If you switched your datacenter in 2015, it will still be more like 4 years. But when you start looking 10 years ahead, I am sure that further advances in technology will have a larger impact than rising energy costs.
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Actually, I bet it probably will make sense to do go DC for a new datacenter. Telecoms are doing that right now.
The only problem will be the cost of the hardware. There are far more manufacturers of AC powered systems, so the price is lower. And with new AC powered systems probably being within 5% efficiency of DC powered ones, it will be a close race to call. But if there are enough early adopters then the prices might drop and it will be better for everyone.
It will probably come down to one system having less than a 1% profit gain over the other, but if we are talking about millions of dollars a year then that is substantial.
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What the article didnt mention is what it would take to switch to DC power. You would need to replace all PDUs, UPSs and AC power cables. You would also need to convert each system on each rack.
Most AC power is 80% efficient, which is where the 15% gain is coming from (and remember, it is UP TO 15%, not 15% all of the time). But AC power supplies are becoming more efficient, with IBM claiming its BladeCenter power supplies are 90% efficient. That means that DC will probably only give a 5%-7% gain in efficiency.
A typical high density blade rack could use 24 killowatts of power. That would then require about 78k BTUs of cooling, which would take about 8 killowatts of power. That is 32 kWatts of power per rack, or about $2.56 an hour at $0.08 a killowatt. A saving of 7.5% on average would mean about $0.19 an hour, or $4.56 a day/$1664 a year.
The PDU/UPS for that single rack is going to be thousands of dollars. And if the blade rack has 80 blades, even a $50 per blade (probably very low) switch would be an extra $4000. The entire switch is probably going to be close to $10,000. That would take 6 years to recoup the initial cost.
I do not know what the lifespan of a server rack is, so maybe a six year turnaround would be good enough. I have dealth with enough banks and loan officers to know that American companies rarely look ahead that long for a ROI. Three years would be a little more like it. But maybe my calculations are far off, I have never worked with more than a couple of server racks before so I am not familiar with how the costs will scale for large datacenters.
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There are already booth babes at GenCon. And I do not mean the women walking around in skimpy chain mail shirts who have no business revealing that much skin.
:-)
I remember last year there being some card game that reminded me of Leisure Suit Larry is CCG form, and they had about 3-5 (hard to tell because they were spread out) very attractive women in revealing clothing walking around the main exhibition hall handing out flyers/samples. And they werent the only ones.
But as a whole they are very sparse at the current GenCon, and I wouldnt mind them becoming more abundant. Everything in life becomes better when you throw in attractive women. Maybe it will even get more people at GenCon to shower.
I for one am going to have a good solid three and a half days away from my girlfriend this year, so this will be a welcomed change where I dont have to worry about getting slapped for looking
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Yes, I do believe that under most circumstances a car is much more efficient than a bike.
For starters, there are actually more than one technical definitions for efficiency. You posted one, but not another very valid one.
1) The ratio of the effective or useful output to the total input in any system
2) The production of the desired effects or results with minimum waste of time, effort, or skill
You ignored the second definition. If you can find some way to do things with less effort by finding an unused and otherwise useless form of "input", it makes your ability to produce your "output" more efficiently.
People rarely simply drive in a car just to drive, they usually have a purpose. So the energy output of simply moving from point A to point B is only one part of the equation. The next step is finding out what that person can do when he gets there.
Lets assume that a human being can do 8 hours of moderate to strenuous activity in any given day for an extended period of time (like 40 years). If you live 15 miles from work (average person lives farther than that), it would take you about 150 minutes round trip to bicycle at 12mph. It would take more like 40 minutes round trip in a car. The time in the car does not count towards the 8 hours, however, because it is not strenuous. That means you can work for 8 hours if you drove a car to work, but 5.5 hours in you bicycled. You could try to push yourself harder if you rode a bike, but then again you could do the same if you drove a car (and you would be less tired and more productive).
A 25 mpg car would use 1.6 gallons of gas to make the trip. That equates to 50,000 calories of energy. That is compared to only 1500 calories for the bicyclist. But the car driver has put in 2.5 hours of more work. I calculated in an earlier post that it takes 1 man-year of work to produce about 4 million gallons of gasoline. That equates to 2000 gallons per man-hour. If this worker was driving to his job at a refinery, his extra 2.5 hours of working would help produce 5000 gallons of gasoline, or roughly 156,250,000 calories of energy per day.
That means driving a car to work made that employee more efficient. He produced a net total of 156.2 million calories of work more than his bicycle riding buddy. Regardless of whether someone is a banker or bicycle repairman, that extra 2 hours of work is definetly worth the extra one and a half gallons of gas.
But lets use the farming example I used earlier. From my experience gardening (and more importantly, my parent's experience), it would take about 10 hours to till/plant a 25'x20' garden area. (that is without a motorized tiller) Lets assume that the average window to plant various crops is 3 months. That means that a single human can farm about 1 acre without motorized equipment. That is compared to 400 acres with tractors, combines, etc.
That one acre can feed about 12 people, while a modern farmer can feed 5000. Instead of needing 400 farmers per 5000 people, you only need 1. But the modern farmer needed an extra 24 million calories of energy to do it.
But lets look at the work those 400 people can do in a year's time because they are alive and not farming because of modern equipment. Lets say that they burn 250 calories/hour doing their jobs. They are now carpenters or machinists instead of farmers. That is 200 million calories of extra work.
That means since my dad spent 24 million extra calories farming, society in general was able to produce at least 200 million calories of extra output. Sounds more efficient to me.
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Yes, I am exactly equating efficiency with manpower. That is the case. Mankind has found ways to use resources that are not edible (gasoline, rubber, etc.) and use them to make us more efficient and productive. Primitive man had no use for oil or rubber or coal, which is why he could not be as efficient as my father is now. It isnt that my dad is any more skilled or smarter than primitive men, but he is a great deal more efficient.
In 10000 BC, very close to 100% of the population was involved with food gathering, preparation, or containment/distribution. Less than 20% of the population is involved with the food industry today in the US. That means that we are far more efficient. It doesnt matter if that is because we have found other resources to help us, it is still greater efficiency.
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but the amount that one person can farm is an irrelevant figure if you don't take into account the energy behind all of the technology that he uses.
It isnt irrelevant at all because the end farmer is the bottleneck for efficiency. A farmer averages 1.8 gallons of diesel fuel per acre of corn. For 400 acres that is 720 gallons of gas. That is the same amount of gas that a 20mpg car needs to drive 15000 miles per year.
Alaska only employed about 9000 people in their oil industry in 2002, but produced around 3 billion barrels of gasoline. That translates to roughly 57 billion gallons of gas. Extraction and refining only account for 65% of the manpower needed in the gas industry (the rest is in distribution, aka truck drivers and gas station attendants). That means 14000 people are needed to produce that gas, making it 4 million gallons per employee.
That means that 1 worker can produce gas for over 5000 farmers. That is why I did not include it in my calculations. Instead of producing enough food for 5000, I guess my dad only actually produces enough food for 4990 when you account of the the oil industry, feed industry, supermarket industry, etc. The farmers are definetly the bottleneck for efficiency, which is why everything else is irrelevant.
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First you have the farmers, who have to plant vast 10,000 acre fields of say, corn. They spend months and thousands of man hours maintaining these fields until they're ready to be picked, when huge machines expend thousands of gallons of fuel to harvest the field. Then, dozens of trucks transport the corn over thousands of miles (and another several hundred gallons of fuel) to distribution centers, where hundreds of people sort, run machinery, process paperwork, load and unload, etc.
Finally, the corn goes out on trucks to be delivered to grocery stores, to be unloaded and placed on shelves/bins/whatever.
Compare that to the measly 2000 calories your tribal ancestor burned, and wonder if our lives are really easier.. or if we're only burning 140,000x as much energy to make it APPEAR easier.
Wait one minute. Did you do any actual research for these numbers or did you just make them up?
It is IMPOSSIBLE for our current farming and distribution to be less efficient than our tribal ancestors. If it took 1 human calorie of work to output 1 calorie of food, 100% of the world's population would be farmers, truck drivers, or store clerks. A MUCH smaller percentage of our current population works in food related industries than in our hunter/gatherer past. That means we are FAR more efficient now than we used to be.
Today's farmer can produce about 180 bushels of corn per acre. A bushel of corn has 84,000 calories, so that makes 15 million calories per acre. That is 42 thousand calories per day. My dad is a farmer and have 400 acres that he can easily farm by himself (although 500-600 might be a stretch). That means that in any given year he could produce enough food to feed 11,000 people. And some foods like potatoes have a better calorie output than corn (although some foods like wheat have slightly less).
But that is not a fair comparision because grain is far more efficient than meat in calorie production. The US feeds 60% of its grain to livestock, but beef cattle for example only convert about 5% of that energy into their meat. So that means my dad probably can only feed about 5,000 people with his 400 acres.
Compare that to hunter-gatherer humans. Typically hunter gatherers live a population density of 1 per 10 square kilometers. That means that every acre of land can produce food for 1 person. Lets estimate that 20% of the world is arable land. That means that the average acre of land can produce food for 1000 people if it is farmed. That is 1000x more efficient.
I dont know about you, but it seams to me like we are burning a LOT LESS energy producing food than we did 10,000 years ago. Even when you factor in distribution, it is much easier to feed ourselves now than it was then. About 98% of our world's population is alive today only because we are more efficient.
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Wow, looks like someone must have just taken a "social problems" class in college last spring.
Because everyone knows all the minimum wage jobs are the easy ones...
Actually yes, minimum wage jobs are the easy ones. Minimum wage jobs are either for lazy people or stupid people. No one, under any circumstance known to man, should be making minimum wage in America if they are motivated at all. I worked with illegal aliens when I worked at KFC in high school, and they made around $8-$9 an hour (and overtime). Some made more than that. They did a job that most Americans would hate (expecially for that pay), but they are not making nearly minimum wage
I dont care if your parents were homeless, you still have just as many opportunities as your average illegal alien. Find a program that helps homeless get a first job. If your area doesnt have one, walk 100 miles to an area that does. Do some hard work. I did roofing for one summer in college, and worked with a guy who actually got the job while he was homeless in a shelter. It paid $14 an hour under the table (about 50-60 hours a week, no overtime pay). That was about $750 a week, but it was the worst work I ever did (and I grew up on a farm). You could afford an apartment in 2 weeks.
The ONLY people making minimum wage are LAZY, STUPID, or in highschool. I have known many people who made minimum wage, have known illegal aliens and homeless people, and have NEVER seen an exception. But in this "politically correct" world, we cannot call anyone what they are anymore. They are disadvantaged, not lazy. They are uneducated, not stupid. Survival does not require a high school education. Someone who cannot survive in this society (and at least can speak a language, any language) cannot blame anyone except themselves.
I still think we should be doing more to help disadvantaged people work their way up in society. But anyone who is still making minimum wage today is beyond help, because they are the problem.
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