What are the factors that lead towards labour being more expensive than capital? Well, in the so called 'developed' nations that would be government created inflation (paper fiat printing and interest rate manipulation), business regulations (which are taxes) and other income and wealth taxes.
Inflation tends to nail both labor and capital. Resources and materials hold their value, but wages don't track inflation. And capital gains tax is a problem for capital.
Regulations aren't taxes because for the most part the state isn't getting revenue from the regulation. There are ways to turn such things into an effective tax such as US police departments generating funding via civil forfeiture laws, but it's not the default state of regulation.
Various economic indicators in the USA are showing a significant slow down in the economy, it's systemic but the TV will make you think this is all weather related, which is pure nonsense. Weather happens, so do other things, these things shouldn't cause the so called 'economists' miss their targets all the time by such huge margins. The USA (and some other) economy is dying the death of trillions of cuts administered by the government and various 'progressive' agenda but also by the mix of corporate/state agenda that prevents free market from working. Free market is then blamed, the idiots say: 'free market fails' or whatnot, when the reality is that it is their system of government that fails to protect individual liberties and freedoms required for the free market to exist.
There is an obvious conflict of interest where public union can use their political power to extract more public funds from elected governments. In turn, their revenue is dependent on the amount of public funds they can extract. It's a built in incentive to steal as much as they can from the public.
There's the other possibility. That the professor is competent and some in the class do not deserve to fail. I can't think of an faster way to get a leave of absence without losing tenure.
You mean after the sun goes off the main sequence.
Sure. The mass of the Sun isn't going anywhere for a while. A near absolute zero mass white dwarf is pretty stable assuming it doesn't get gobbled by nearby blackholes. But we really can't call that the Sun any more.
The money teachers or public workers get paid is for the work they've done, not for "votes". They've earned that money. It's theirs. Once the money is in their pockets, how public workers use that money is their business.
Until it is used to get more money.
Remember Citizens United. Before they are members of a public union, or a corporation, or a church,or a non-profit, or whatever, they are individuals, with every right to spend the money they've earned for political speech they wished to express.
That doesn't give them a right to work for a government institution, particular public schools which are state operated and not subject to a number of constraints of the US Constitution.
If you don't want them to earn money off public funds, you have better chance asking for government to get out of public education completely (or whatever public program that puts public funds up for grabs). Blame your politicians, not the unions or the teachers.
Hence, why I support privatization of schools. Then it doesn't matter to me if they are unionized or not.
Teacher's unions aren't paid with tax dollars, they are paid with teacher salaries. Yes, I can hear your complaint that teachers are paid in tax dollars, but that's not the same thing.
But it is a votes bought with public funds situation. I think that public unions should be outright illegal.
I match that with teacher unions and piles of bureaucrats who don't have anything to do with education. In fact, that mostly explains the difference right there. We don't have to mightily strain our gullibility over imaginary cuts from imaginary resistance to education and just look at the large lump of parasites attached to the side of a typical school.
No, Germany doesn't export when they want to any more than France does.
They can always just turn off 2.5 GW of generating facilities or blackout 2 GW of their country's demand when they don't have enough to go around. So sure, they don't "need" to have a functioning country-wide grid.
And I see that you don't address why France's electricity costs less than Germany's electricity.
Those who state they hate public education impose costs on public education that don't apply to private, then laugh as people complain about the rising cost of public education.
They don't have the power to impose a factor of three multiplier on public education. You'll have to look elsewhere for that.
I disagree. of course. The reason is that these transactions all occur at France's convenience not Germany's. The Scandinavian countries with their high reliance on hydro are really the ones making a killing here.
Morons like yourself and the OP bleat on about how renewables can't be put in more than about 20% because (well, "because", really), but it's really nuclear that can't manage high fractional production.
We are already seeing the problems with Germany's system with huge arbitrary surpluses and deficits that have to be pushed into other countries and an electricity cost double that of France.
If your neighbour starts selling you electricity for nothing it makes your own plant less profitable, but you have to keep your own plant around because your neighbour is not a reliable resource.
[...]
For example Germany is exporting 2.46GW to France at the moment, but between midnight and 4am it was importing about 2GW of French nuclear because there wasn't much wind.
What is the price of the electricity that Germany exports versus what it imports? Sure, cheap power from Germany makes French power less profitable. But buying more expensive French power at other times on an impromptu basis makes French power more profitable. And from what I'm seeing, it's a net profit for France.
France seems to have been given the job of keeping everyone on an even keel.
Which is a typical market maker position and tends to be very profitable.
The true power of the public education system is that it gives teachers a great deal of independence in what they say in the classroom.
Unless it doesn't, of course. Let us keep in mind this 1984 experience would still be a public education system. There's already some crazy stuff in public school systems like zero tolerance policies and ideological contamination by political correctness that inhibits a teacher's independence.
And the data said that charter schools were failing and the testing was unscientific gobbledygook.
[...]
For example, she knows about the NAEP http://nces.ed.gov/nationsrepo... which actually did a good, scientific study of charter schools and found that they were on average worse than public schools.
No they didn't. On average, they found they were about the same. In some states, charter schools did consistently perform worse than public schools, but in some states, charter schools consistently performed better. Not an argument for charters schools, but not one against them either.
Empathy is a basic human emotion that refers to the capability to feel for other people. If you don't ever give a crap about anyone else, why should anyone else ever give a crap about you?
It's never been a problem before that most of the world doesn't care about me.
Social democracies, one person one vote, corporations one person billions of votes, the other person fucking none.
I get that corporations aren't social democracies. What I don't get here is why that is relevant here, especially in governance situations that are neither social democracies or corporations.
While I (vaguely) understand the notion that you are asserting, if the value of people can fluctuate (that is, human life has no intrinsic value), then what is the value standard in such a marketplace? Gold? dollars?
Whatever is traded in the market. I've found that even when there isn't a formal currency of trade (or the currency of trade is woefully inadequate for some reason such as a high rate of inflation or inability to use it for most trade in the market), markets tend to gravitate to a informal standard of trade.
And since human life is rarely traded directly, it is a tenuous connection in the marketplace, say to jobs that risk life and limb or in trade offs (such as where to live or what quality of tool to buy) which impose differing degrees of risk to a person's life.
This also leads to a rather dismal world in which some murders are ok, and some are slightly more ok than others. Of the choices of available dystopias, this one sounds less appealing than average.
It also happens to be the real world. Human life during a famine in Ethiopia is not as valuable as life in normal India (for example, the Thuggee cult, basically a small sect of serial killers, is supposed to have operated with near impunity for many centuries) which is not as valuable as a life in modern Sweden. This is also reflected in how crime is punished or not in these situations.
Ultimately, the poorer and more desperate a part of society is, the cheaper life becomes.
If an individual life has negative value, then the total number of lives worth saving is 0, and there's no reason to care whether a particular act causes an increase in suffering or not.
It's a marginal cost. Reducing the number of people can reach a regime where there is a positive value to people once again.
Slashdot Mirror
What are the factors that lead towards labour being more expensive than capital? Well, in the so called 'developed' nations that would be government created inflation (paper fiat printing and interest rate manipulation), business regulations (which are taxes) and other income and wealth taxes.
Inflation tends to nail both labor and capital. Resources and materials hold their value, but wages don't track inflation. And capital gains tax is a problem for capital.
Regulations aren't taxes because for the most part the state isn't getting revenue from the regulation. There are ways to turn such things into an effective tax such as US police departments generating funding via civil forfeiture laws, but it's not the default state of regulation.
Various economic indicators in the USA are showing a significant slow down in the economy, it's systemic but the TV will make you think this is all weather related, which is pure nonsense. Weather happens, so do other things, these things shouldn't cause the so called 'economists' miss their targets all the time by such huge margins. The USA (and some other) economy is dying the death of trillions of cuts administered by the government and various 'progressive' agenda but also by the mix of corporate/state agenda that prevents free market from working. Free market is then blamed, the idiots say: 'free market fails' or whatnot, when the reality is that it is their system of government that fails to protect individual liberties and freedoms required for the free market to exist.
I agree.
And that is the "conservative" argument against schools, but why doesn't that apply to the Military Industrial Complex?
Yes, it does Mark.
I see you're already failing to reign in this scenario despiting actually trying to do so. You prove my point more thoroughly than I ever could.
But don't let common sense reign in a scenario involving a crew piloting a stolen alien starship in poor condition.
You can't possibly reign in that scenario especially once it involves time travel and space whales.
There is an obvious conflict of interest where public union can use their political power to extract more public funds from elected governments. In turn, their revenue is dependent on the amount of public funds they can extract. It's a built in incentive to steal as much as they can from the public.
I can shoot around corners now?! Sweet. Hello Cool World, here I come.
No, fins can't do that. You'll need a little fancier tech for that.
There's the other possibility. That the professor is competent and some in the class do not deserve to fail. I can't think of an faster way to get a leave of absence without losing tenure.
You mean after the sun goes off the main sequence.
Sure. The mass of the Sun isn't going anywhere for a while. A near absolute zero mass white dwarf is pretty stable assuming it doesn't get gobbled by nearby blackholes. But we really can't call that the Sun any more.
Solar will last as long as the sun. How long do you think we will have the resources to build solar panels ?
Many orders of magnitude longer than the Sun will last.
The money teachers or public workers get paid is for the work they've done, not for "votes". They've earned that money. It's theirs. Once the money is in their pockets, how public workers use that money is their business.
Until it is used to get more money.
Remember Citizens United. Before they are members of a public union, or a corporation, or a church ,or a non-profit, or whatever, they are individuals, with every right to spend the money they've earned for political speech they wished to express.
That doesn't give them a right to work for a government institution, particular public schools which are state operated and not subject to a number of constraints of the US Constitution.
If you don't want them to earn money off public funds, you have better chance asking for government to get out of public education completely (or whatever public program that puts public funds up for grabs). Blame your politicians, not the unions or the teachers.
Hence, why I support privatization of schools. Then it doesn't matter to me if they are unionized or not.
Teacher's unions aren't paid with tax dollars, they are paid with teacher salaries. Yes, I can hear your complaint that teachers are paid in tax dollars, but that's not the same thing.
But it is a votes bought with public funds situation. I think that public unions should be outright illegal.
I match that with teacher unions and piles of bureaucrats who don't have anything to do with education. In fact, that mostly explains the difference right there. We don't have to mightily strain our gullibility over imaginary cuts from imaginary resistance to education and just look at the large lump of parasites attached to the side of a typical school.
No, Germany doesn't export when they want to any more than France does.
They can always just turn off 2.5 GW of generating facilities or blackout 2 GW of their country's demand when they don't have enough to go around. So sure, they don't "need" to have a functioning country-wide grid.
And I see that you don't address why France's electricity costs less than Germany's electricity.
Those who state they hate public education impose costs on public education that don't apply to private, then laugh as people complain about the rising cost of public education.
They don't have the power to impose a factor of three multiplier on public education. You'll have to look elsewhere for that.
It's ABSOLUTELY the opposite.
I disagree. of course. The reason is that these transactions all occur at France's convenience not Germany's. The Scandinavian countries with their high reliance on hydro are really the ones making a killing here.
Morons like yourself and the OP bleat on about how renewables can't be put in more than about 20% because (well, "because", really), but it's really nuclear that can't manage high fractional production.
We are already seeing the problems with Germany's system with huge arbitrary surpluses and deficits that have to be pushed into other countries and an electricity cost double that of France.
If your neighbour starts selling you electricity for nothing it makes your own plant less profitable, but you have to keep your own plant around because your neighbour is not a reliable resource.
[...]
For example Germany is exporting 2.46GW to France at the moment, but between midnight and 4am it was importing about 2GW of French nuclear because there wasn't much wind.
What is the price of the electricity that Germany exports versus what it imports? Sure, cheap power from Germany makes French power less profitable. But buying more expensive French power at other times on an impromptu basis makes French power more profitable. And from what I'm seeing, it's a net profit for France.
France seems to have been given the job of keeping everyone on an even keel.
Which is a typical market maker position and tends to be very profitable.
The true power of the public education system is that it gives teachers a great deal of independence in what they say in the classroom.
Unless it doesn't, of course. Let us keep in mind this 1984 experience would still be a public education system. There's already some crazy stuff in public school systems like zero tolerance policies and ideological contamination by political correctness that inhibits a teacher's independence.
When you look at it with those constraints, private should be about 1/3 the cost of public.
You shouldn't. A two-thirds overhead on your education costs is relevant.
...for almost nothing. It's good to be a neighbor of Germany these days.
And the data said that charter schools were failing and the testing was unscientific gobbledygook.
[...]
For example, she knows about the NAEP http://nces.ed.gov/nationsrepo... which actually did a good, scientific study of charter schools and found that they were on average worse than public schools.
No they didn't. On average, they found they were about the same. In some states, charter schools did consistently perform worse than public schools, but in some states, charter schools consistently performed better. Not an argument for charters schools, but not one against them either.
Empathy is a basic human emotion that refers to the capability to feel for other people. If you don't ever give a crap about anyone else, why should anyone else ever give a crap about you?
It's never been a problem before that most of the world doesn't care about me.
Why wouldn't it be relevant to governance situations?
Because there aren't any corporate governments out there aside possibly from some local ones.
What governance you get is directly or indirectly shaped by your democracy.
Let's stop the glib bullshit here. The NSA isn't beholden to corporations. It even acts wildly counter to their interests.
Social democracies, one person one vote, corporations one person billions of votes, the other person fucking none.
I get that corporations aren't social democracies. What I don't get here is why that is relevant here, especially in governance situations that are neither social democracies or corporations.
While I (vaguely) understand the notion that you are asserting, if the value of people can fluctuate (that is, human life has no intrinsic value), then what is the value standard in such a marketplace? Gold? dollars?
Whatever is traded in the market. I've found that even when there isn't a formal currency of trade (or the currency of trade is woefully inadequate for some reason such as a high rate of inflation or inability to use it for most trade in the market), markets tend to gravitate to a informal standard of trade.
And since human life is rarely traded directly, it is a tenuous connection in the marketplace, say to jobs that risk life and limb or in trade offs (such as where to live or what quality of tool to buy) which impose differing degrees of risk to a person's life.
This also leads to a rather dismal world in which some murders are ok, and some are slightly more ok than others. Of the choices of available dystopias, this one sounds less appealing than average.
It also happens to be the real world. Human life during a famine in Ethiopia is not as valuable as life in normal India (for example, the Thuggee cult, basically a small sect of serial killers, is supposed to have operated with near impunity for many centuries) which is not as valuable as a life in modern Sweden. This is also reflected in how crime is punished or not in these situations.
Ultimately, the poorer and more desperate a part of society is, the cheaper life becomes.
If an individual life has negative value, then the total number of lives worth saving is 0, and there's no reason to care whether a particular act causes an increase in suffering or not.
It's a marginal cost. Reducing the number of people can reach a regime where there is a positive value to people once again.