real wages are down from their peak (which occurred more than 35 years ago)
However real hourly compensation has been rising pretty steadily. More benefits are being passed through employers tax free, such as health care costs, which don't show up in wages. And the government pulls out more of your money in payroll taxes (of course, if you think Social Security and other taxes are a waste, then you might be able to argue that real compensation has not actually been going up).
minimum wage is just over half of its peak
Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Only 2% of workers over age 25 earn the minimum wage. About half of minimum wage earners are under age 25, and about one-fourth are age 16-19.
The minimum wage probably causes more unemployment (and for illegal aliens, informal employment) than it helps to reduce poverty. Most people in poverty earn more than the minimum wage, but are poor because they work fewer hours than those not in poverty. Often this is because they are single parents.
there are 12 million more Americans living in poverty today than 30 years ago
Of course, the definition of "poverty" has been raised during this time. 30 years ago, most people in poverty did not have microwave ovens or refrigerators or a car. See this article for a comparison of "the poor" from 30 years ago to today.
I'm not saying it is cool to be poor, but it is far easier to be poor in 2008 than 1978.
Keep in mind we have taken on about 30 million illegal immigrants over the last 30 years as well. They are doing a heck of a lot better in the US than they would have were they came from (where they would be truly "poor"), but they will pull down average wage numbers as they don't come in highly skilled.
millions are now losing their homes
That is true, but of course homeownership was at an all time high of 69% before the bubble burst. It still remains higher than most other developed countries. Plus while they may be defaulting on home loans, most are able to rent.
Unemployment is at 6 percent nationwide and 11 percent in my state of Michigan.
US unemployment is actually 5.7%, while Michigan's is 8.5%.
But this does make one think that Michigan is doing something wrong. According to the Economic Freedom of North America study, Michigan is ranked 39th of the states and provinces in terms of subnational level economic freedom. Thus, I suggest that Michigan improve its policies to enhance its economic freedom.
You might not be aware of this fact it if you come from a background of privilege, but that doesn't say good things about you.
Well I've done the taxes for many poor immigrants to help them get the Earned Income Tax Credit, which actually does something to reduce poverty.
As long as the tax rate is less than 100% on the additional income, there is still incentive to earn more.
You should not ignore the costs of working. For a family with children, moving both parents into working means paying for child care. Working generally involves a commuting cost and sometimes a clothing cost. A slight change in income and payroll taxes may cause a large number of people to leave the workforce.
The progressive tax system is necessary regardless of the effect it has on motivation, but because there are social costs that has to be paid. Costs which can not and are not internalized by market forces.
Of course, you assume that government has the ability to effect externalities. Sometimes it does. Often it does not. And when it fails to address externalities, even if well-intentioned, it may end up costing society more than the externalities it sought and failed to solve (one word: Iraq).
Taxation itself has a deadweight loss to the economy. Thus you should be careful before you tax, since you are inherently costing society in the process of taxing. What you do with the tax should have a proven ability to provide a return to society greater than its deadweight loss.
A better argument for progressive taxes is because "that's where the money is." In 2006, the top 50% of US income earners paid 97% of income tax dollars, and the top 1% of income earners paid 40% of all income tax dollars.
And, as far as I can tell, America still has the lowest overall tax rates in the West.
You can see for yourself here that US personal income tax rates are similar to that of Australia, Iceland, and Japan, with lower rates found only in Ireland, New Zealand, and South Korea. However US personal income tax rates are far below many European countries such as the UK, Norway, Spain, Italy, Germany, or France.
However the US corporate income tax rate is actually higher than almost any other country except Japan and Germany. This is one reason why US corporations would prefer to move out of the US if possible.
Did you know that South America has a gallon of gas priced under $1 USD? They're not losing money on it, and it's not subsidized. How are they doing it? Simple, they're turning coal into oil products.
This is BS. If anyone was producing gasoline or oil at below global market prices, they would sell it on the global market at the global market price to maximize profits. If they are not, then there are government price caps or subsidies going on.
For example Venezuela has a tremendous amount of gasoline subsidy, bringing the consumer price to 7 cents a gallon. The Venezuelan government pays more than $9 billion each year in gasoline subsidies.
Other Latin American countries also have huge subsidies: Mexico: $19 billion, Argentina: $11 billion, Colombia: $3 billion. Even otherwise fairly capitalist Chile has a $1 billion "fuel price stabilization fund."
It is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are the big spenders.
While it is true that the GOP has done little to reduce spending, keep in mind they are now in the minority in Congress, yet FY 2008 Federal spending will be at least $200 billion more than FY 2007 spending, a 7% increase. Or in other terms, FY 2007 Federal Spending was 19.976% of GDP, and FY 2008 spending will be 20.482% of GDP.
I'm sure Democrats will raise taxes when possible. I doubt they will reduce spending.
our regulatory structures may have been able to stop the sub-prime mortgage crisis,
Our regulatory structures creates the sub-prime mortgage crisis through the mortgage interest tax deduction, bank "community re-investment" requirements, the implicit government promise of backing Fannie Mae, local zoning rules that favored larger houses over higher density development, and some people argue an overly lose monetary policy.
Not to mention the moral hazard that government is now looking for ways to bail out silly mortgages, which will only result in more silly mortgages during the next housing bubble ('the government will bail us out").
Obviously the market failed badly in the housing bubble, but at the same time government didn't help. Markets can be silly, but the difference between them and government is that they are able to fix themselves quickly when things start going south (for example, no one is building new houses right now because of the market price signal). Meanwhile, government continues with the mortgage interest tax deduction, etc.
The folks at GMU Economics department say it best. Some people argue "markets fail, use government." However we know government can fail as well, often spectacularly, and are very slow to change. Thus "markets fail, use markets"
If your work contributed to or is a piece of code or software that your company relies on for revenue, what happens if he doesn't patent it? Someone else does. And then turns and sues your company for using "their" code.
This happened at a company I have worked for. The company had an idea for a technology and shared it with a vendor. The vendor decided not to go ahead and implement the technology. So the company worked with another vendor to implement the technology. The first vendor sued the company and the second vendor - unknown to everyone, the first vendor had patented the technology.
The company ended up winning in the end and proving they were the actual inventors, but only after tremendous legal bills. The company then adapted the policy that all new technology ideas should be patented pro-actively to avoid these potential problems.
Basically, thanks to globalization and the world being 'flat' and all that, our standard of living is going to get reduced to the lowest common denominator worldwide one way or the other.
Funny thing is that this isn't actually happening. Developed countries continue to grow their GDP, the entire world GDP is growing, while at the same time hundreds of millions of people are being lifted out of absolute poverty in developing countries.
It was Georgia, with support from USA and Israel, who first initiated the attack against Russian peace keepers.
Stalin divided Ossetia between the Russian and Georgian Soviet Republics in 1922 (part of a Communist "divide and control" plan). After the breakup of the USSR, South Ossetia desired to re-unite with North Ossetia, but Georgia sent troops in to crush the rebellion, sparking a war in 1991-92. Russia has been helping the rebels and has provided Russian passports to Ossetians in South Ossetia. Sporadic mortar fire between Georgians and South Ossetians has been going on ever since (which is why Georgia claims they had to "invade").
South Ossetia has voted overwhelmingly for independence (just like Kosovo). On the other hand, Russia didn't seem to be willing to let go of Chechnya.
All this ethno-nationalistic stuff is stupid and counterproductive. In a free country, people of many ethnicities should be able to live together in peace and work on making some $$$ together.
European taxes aren't much higher than in many US states.
Some European countries are worse than others. In France, top tax rates are 51% income, 60% for both sides of social security, and 20% VAT. Even California can't beat that.
The costs are lower, in part, because less treatments are provided.
Also US doctors make 50%-100% more than the OECD average (generalist versus specialist).
So all we need to do is cut doctor pay - oops, we just tried to do that with Medicare and it didn't get passed!
If you think socialized medical care is a good idea, just keep in mind the idiots we put into office in the US. Perhaps European politicians are smarter than ours....
like enormous savings on overall national spending on healthcare,
Of course, 50% of medical dollars spent in the US already come from the government, and we already have all kinds of government health regulations (tax benefits for employer but not employee paid for insurance, HIPAA, mandatory coverage elements for insurance that vary state-by-state, etc.). So maybe it would be better to de-regulate medicine to reduce costs?
The insurance companies are in it for a profit; they have to feed their shareholders and the insanely expensive CEOs, boards, etc.
Health insurance companies have a profit margin that averages 4%. That is how much more you are paying for profit. The question is whether that profit margin is more than the deadweight loss to the economy of Medicare taxes.
"plus the regulatory system will make investments in new medical technology more hazardous." today's mammoth insurance companies are every bit as bureaucratic as any government, perhaps more so.
It depends on your coverage. In a "strict HMO", you might not be able to get that MRI, but in a more expensive plan you could (at least for a co-pay), and if you are willing to do fee-for-service yourself you can always purchase it (LASIC, MRI, Body Scan, Genetic tests, etc.)
In the Canadian health system, you cannot get that MRI just by paying for it - privately paid for medicine is illegal. In the UK, there is a dual public/private model. So there are a lot of choices open.
Reagan National Airport is under 7 kilometers (as the crow flies) from the White House and Capitol. That works out to just about two minutes of flying time at landing speed (approx 200km/h for a 747). Do you really think our esteemed Government could react that fast if the hijacking was successfully kept a secret up until the plane was actually scheduled to land?
There are now specific areas around DC which are manned by ground-to-air missile batteries during "high risk" periods, in position that I think they could shoot down a plane flying over the Potomac towards the Capitol, but it would end up crashing on innocent people in Foggy Bottom office buildings or the State Department. I'll leave it to the readers discretion to determine the relative worth of "innocent people", "State Department workers", and "Members of Congress".
I'd rather they do away with medicaid and cover everyone under medicare regardless of age. I know quite a few old folks that make me look young by comparison, and have yet to hear a sinle one of them complain about their coverage
Keep in mind that Medicare only covers a small part of the population. Once it is expanded to the entire population, the total tax bill to pay for it will be much higher, and there will be typical government-initiated rationing moves. Even if Medicare remains "as is" today, the payroll tax would have to be raised to continue to pay for it, the estimates are about $34 trillion additional would need to be collected in payroll taxes over the next 75 years.
Something has to ration medical care: government regulations, private third-party insurance companies, or just consumer price levels if you are paying directly. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
I think the US could move to a fully socialized system, but it may mean a trade-off in terms of reductions in new medical technology because the government will resist paying for new technology, plus the regulatory system will make investments in new medical technology more hazardous.
I can only get insurance my employer provides. When the market isn't free, government SHOULD intervene.
Government did intervene, during WWII, to make employer-paid health insurance tax deductible, which lead to the near zero-availability of health insurance outside of your employer.
Meanwhile, government (state & federal) pay for about 50% of all medical dollars in the US today, so already the system is fairly socialized.
I say we should de-regulate medicine first - end special tax treatment for employer-paid plans, end state requirements on what health insurance should cover, etc. Medicare should be eliminated, and perhaps Medicaid should be kept for those under the poverty line (in terms of income & also assets).
The problem with the keyboard is not that it's unusable. I can type out words with it: usable. The problem is the lack of feedback, which leads me to pressing much harder than I need to, which leads to sore thumbs after more than just a few text messages. And I don't like that clicking noise either.
iPhone 2.0 software now makes the letter you press appear next to the key you press, which is a nice visual feedback.
(also for those who don't know, the key click can be turned off)
The Blackberries I had all had horrible web browsers compared to the iPhone. But they were a bit more sturdy.
Slashdot Mirror
real wages are down from their peak (which occurred more than 35 years ago)
However real hourly compensation has been rising pretty steadily. More benefits are being passed through employers tax free, such as health care costs, which don't show up in wages. And the government pulls out more of your money in payroll taxes (of course, if you think Social Security and other taxes are a waste, then you might be able to argue that real compensation has not actually been going up).
minimum wage is just over half of its peak
Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Only 2% of workers over age 25 earn the minimum wage. About half of minimum wage earners are under age 25, and about one-fourth are age 16-19.
The minimum wage probably causes more unemployment (and for illegal aliens, informal employment) than it helps to reduce poverty. Most people in poverty earn more than the minimum wage, but are poor because they work fewer hours than those not in poverty. Often this is because they are single parents.
there are 12 million more Americans living in poverty today than 30 years ago
Of course, the definition of "poverty" has been raised during this time. 30 years ago, most people in poverty did not have microwave ovens or refrigerators or a car. See this article for a comparison of "the poor" from 30 years ago to today.
I'm not saying it is cool to be poor, but it is far easier to be poor in 2008 than 1978.
Keep in mind we have taken on about 30 million illegal immigrants over the last 30 years as well. They are doing a heck of a lot better in the US than they would have were they came from (where they would be truly "poor"), but they will pull down average wage numbers as they don't come in highly skilled.
millions are now losing their homes
That is true, but of course homeownership was at an all time high of 69% before the bubble burst. It still remains higher than most other developed countries. Plus while they may be defaulting on home loans, most are able to rent.
Unemployment is at 6 percent nationwide and 11 percent in my state of Michigan.
US unemployment is actually 5.7%, while Michigan's is 8.5%.
But this does make one think that Michigan is doing something wrong. According to the Economic Freedom of North America study, Michigan is ranked 39th of the states and provinces in terms of subnational level economic freedom. Thus, I suggest that Michigan improve its policies to enhance its economic freedom.
You might not be aware of this fact it if you come from a background of privilege, but that doesn't say good things about you.
Well I've done the taxes for many poor immigrants to help them get the Earned Income Tax Credit, which actually does something to reduce poverty.
As long as the tax rate is less than 100% on the additional income, there is still incentive to earn more.
You should not ignore the costs of working. For a family with children, moving both parents into working means paying for child care. Working generally involves a commuting cost and sometimes a clothing cost. A slight change in income and payroll taxes may cause a large number of people to leave the workforce.
The progressive tax system is necessary regardless of the effect it has on motivation, but because there are social costs that has to be paid. Costs which can not and are not internalized by market forces.
Of course, you assume that government has the ability to effect externalities. Sometimes it does. Often it does not. And when it fails to address externalities, even if well-intentioned, it may end up costing society more than the externalities it sought and failed to solve (one word: Iraq).
Taxation itself has a deadweight loss to the economy. Thus you should be careful before you tax, since you are inherently costing society in the process of taxing. What you do with the tax should have a proven ability to provide a return to society greater than its deadweight loss.
A better argument for progressive taxes is because "that's where the money is." In 2006, the top 50% of US income earners paid 97% of income tax dollars, and the top 1% of income earners paid 40% of all income tax dollars.
And, as far as I can tell, America still has the lowest overall tax rates in the West.
You can see for yourself here that US personal income tax rates are similar to that of Australia, Iceland, and Japan, with lower rates found only in Ireland, New Zealand, and South Korea. However US personal income tax rates are far below many European countries such as the UK, Norway, Spain, Italy, Germany, or France.
However the US corporate income tax rate is actually higher than almost any other country except Japan and Germany. This is one reason why US corporations would prefer to move out of the US if possible.
Did you know that South America has a gallon of gas priced under $1 USD? They're not losing money on it, and it's not subsidized. How are they doing it? Simple, they're turning coal into oil products.
This is BS. If anyone was producing gasoline or oil at below global market prices, they would sell it on the global market at the global market price to maximize profits. If they are not, then there are government price caps or subsidies going on.
For example Venezuela has a tremendous amount of gasoline subsidy, bringing the consumer price to 7 cents a gallon. The Venezuelan government pays more than $9 billion each year in gasoline subsidies.
Other Latin American countries also have huge subsidies: Mexico: $19 billion, Argentina: $11 billion, Colombia: $3 billion. Even otherwise fairly capitalist Chile has a $1 billion "fuel price stabilization fund."
It is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are the big spenders.
While it is true that the GOP has done little to reduce spending, keep in mind they are now in the minority in Congress, yet FY 2008 Federal spending will be at least $200 billion more than FY 2007 spending, a 7% increase. Or in other terms, FY 2007 Federal Spending was 19.976% of GDP, and FY 2008 spending will be 20.482% of GDP.
I'm sure Democrats will raise taxes when possible. I doubt they will reduce spending.
For more info, see US Government Spending.com
our regulatory structures may have been able to stop the sub-prime mortgage crisis,
Our regulatory structures creates the sub-prime mortgage crisis through the mortgage interest tax deduction, bank "community re-investment" requirements, the implicit government promise of backing Fannie Mae, local zoning rules that favored larger houses over higher density development, and some people argue an overly lose monetary policy.
Not to mention the moral hazard that government is now looking for ways to bail out silly mortgages, which will only result in more silly mortgages during the next housing bubble ('the government will bail us out").
Obviously the market failed badly in the housing bubble, but at the same time government didn't help. Markets can be silly, but the difference between them and government is that they are able to fix themselves quickly when things start going south (for example, no one is building new houses right now because of the market price signal). Meanwhile, government continues with the mortgage interest tax deduction, etc.
The folks at GMU Economics department say it best. Some people argue "markets fail, use government." However we know government can fail as well, often spectacularly, and are very slow to change. Thus "markets fail, use markets"
Someone clearly hasn't taken a basic economics course.
You know, if you didn't start out with patronizing bullshit like this, you might have a better chance of convincing people of your position.
While that it true, I do kind of wonder what percentage of Slashdot users have taken a basic economics course....
So these plants will generate 800 MWe peak using 12.5 square miles.
For reference, Manhattan Island is 22.7 square miles, so they will be a bit larger than half of Manhattan.
If your work contributed to or is a piece of code or software that your company relies on for revenue, what happens if he doesn't patent it? Someone else does. And then turns and sues your company for using "their" code.
This happened at a company I have worked for. The company had an idea for a technology and shared it with a vendor. The vendor decided not to go ahead and implement the technology. So the company worked with another vendor to implement the technology. The first vendor sued the company and the second vendor - unknown to everyone, the first vendor had patented the technology.
The company ended up winning in the end and proving they were the actual inventors, but only after tremendous legal bills. The company then adapted the policy that all new technology ideas should be patented pro-actively to avoid these potential problems.
Basically, thanks to globalization and the world being 'flat' and all that, our standard of living is going to get reduced to the lowest common denominator worldwide one way or the other.
Funny thing is that this isn't actually happening. Developed countries continue to grow their GDP, the entire world GDP is growing, while at the same time hundreds of millions of people are being lifted out of absolute poverty in developing countries.
It was Georgia, with support from USA and Israel, who first initiated the attack against Russian peace keepers.
Stalin divided Ossetia between the Russian and Georgian Soviet Republics in 1922 (part of a Communist "divide and control" plan). After the breakup of the USSR, South Ossetia desired to re-unite with North Ossetia, but Georgia sent troops in to crush the rebellion, sparking a war in 1991-92. Russia has been helping the rebels and has provided Russian passports to Ossetians in South Ossetia. Sporadic mortar fire between Georgians and South Ossetians has been going on ever since (which is why Georgia claims they had to "invade").
South Ossetia has voted overwhelmingly for independence (just like Kosovo). On the other hand, Russia didn't seem to be willing to let go of Chechnya.
All this ethno-nationalistic stuff is stupid and counterproductive. In a free country, people of many ethnicities should be able to live together in peace and work on making some $$$ together.
How could our government monopoly socialized school system have allowed this to happen????
If China is the "factory to the world," I guess that would make the US the Wal-Mart of the world.
Well, my industry [entertainment media] is expanding its market selling into the new Chinese middle class...
European taxes aren't much higher than in many US states.
Some European countries are worse than others. In France, top tax rates are 51% income, 60% for both sides of social security, and 20% VAT. Even California can't beat that.
Would you consider health care for your parnets a "deadweight loss"?
Here is the definition of deadweight loss of taxes or subsidies.
How can the existing machines be too big?
Infant dialysis occurs in the US...Chronic dialysis in the infant less than 1 year of age:.
The costs are lower, in part, because less treatments are provided.
Also US doctors make 50%-100% more than the OECD average (generalist versus specialist).
So all we need to do is cut doctor pay - oops, we just tried to do that with Medicare and it didn't get passed!
If you think socialized medical care is a good idea, just keep in mind the idiots we put into office in the US. Perhaps European politicians are smarter than ours....
like enormous savings on overall national spending on healthcare,
Of course, 50% of medical dollars spent in the US already come from the government, and we already have all kinds of government health regulations (tax benefits for employer but not employee paid for insurance, HIPAA, mandatory coverage elements for insurance that vary state-by-state, etc.). So maybe it would be better to de-regulate medicine to reduce costs?
The insurance companies are in it for a profit; they have to feed their shareholders and the insanely expensive CEOs, boards, etc.
Health insurance companies have a profit margin that averages 4%. That is how much more you are paying for profit. The question is whether that profit margin is more than the deadweight loss to the economy of Medicare taxes.
"plus the regulatory system will make investments in new medical technology more hazardous." today's mammoth insurance companies are every bit as bureaucratic as any government, perhaps more so.
It depends on your coverage. In a "strict HMO", you might not be able to get that MRI, but in a more expensive plan you could (at least for a co-pay), and if you are willing to do fee-for-service yourself you can always purchase it (LASIC, MRI, Body Scan, Genetic tests, etc.)
In the Canadian health system, you cannot get that MRI just by paying for it - privately paid for medicine is illegal. In the UK, there is a dual public/private model. So there are a lot of choices open.
Reagan National Airport is under 7 kilometers (as the crow flies) from the White House and Capitol. That works out to just about two minutes of flying time at landing speed (approx 200km/h for a 747). Do you really think our esteemed Government could react that fast if the hijacking was successfully kept a secret up until the plane was actually scheduled to land?
There are now specific areas around DC which are manned by ground-to-air missile batteries during "high risk" periods, in position that I think they could shoot down a plane flying over the Potomac towards the Capitol, but it would end up crashing on innocent people in Foggy Bottom office buildings or the State Department. I'll leave it to the readers discretion to determine the relative worth of "innocent people", "State Department workers", and "Members of Congress".
I'd rather they do away with medicaid and cover everyone under medicare regardless of age. I know quite a few old folks that make me look young by comparison, and have yet to hear a sinle one of them complain about their coverage
Keep in mind that Medicare only covers a small part of the population. Once it is expanded to the entire population, the total tax bill to pay for it will be much higher, and there will be typical government-initiated rationing moves. Even if Medicare remains "as is" today, the payroll tax would have to be raised to continue to pay for it, the estimates are about $34 trillion additional would need to be collected in payroll taxes over the next 75 years.
Something has to ration medical care: government regulations, private third-party insurance companies, or just consumer price levels if you are paying directly. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
I think the US could move to a fully socialized system, but it may mean a trade-off in terms of reductions in new medical technology because the government will resist paying for new technology, plus the regulatory system will make investments in new medical technology more hazardous.
I can only get insurance my employer provides. When the market isn't free, government SHOULD intervene.
Government did intervene, during WWII, to make employer-paid health insurance tax deductible, which lead to the near zero-availability of health insurance outside of your employer.
Meanwhile, government (state & federal) pay for about 50% of all medical dollars in the US today, so already the system is fairly socialized.
I say we should de-regulate medicine first - end special tax treatment for employer-paid plans, end state requirements on what health insurance should cover, etc. Medicare should be eliminated, and perhaps Medicaid should be kept for those under the poverty line (in terms of income & also assets).
Much to my surprise, I have found that Los Angeles has a fairly significant geeky underbelly, for example:
Dorbot SoCal
Barcamp LA
LA G33k Dinner
Mindshare LA
Machine Project
Here is a calendar of LA tech events.
The problem with the keyboard is not that it's unusable. I can type out words with it: usable. The problem is the lack of feedback, which leads me to pressing much harder than I need to, which leads to sore thumbs after more than just a few text messages. And I don't like that clicking noise either.
iPhone 2.0 software now makes the letter you press appear next to the key you press, which is a nice visual feedback.
(also for those who don't know, the key click can be turned off)
The Blackberries I had all had horrible web browsers compared to the iPhone. But they were a bit more sturdy.
Lots of people commit suicide for reasons other than legal troubles.
Most people commit suicide because of clinical depression, regardless of their factual troubles/non-troubles, not due to any "reason".