The issue I'm raising isn't the state of the federal budget and the associated tax/spending debate, but rather the state of the American middle class. Honestly, I think policy changes would be more effective than trying to throw dollars at the problem. Somehow our economy has changed to the point that we think it's acceptable that the CEO makes 40 times an average worker. The problem isn't that the rich aren't being taxed enough, it's that they're earning too much.
This isn't a problem with an easy solution, but we should be able to come up with some way to exert pressure of firms to have more equitable salary grades. Like I said, collective bargaining might help, but the labor movement brings it's own baggage from years of mismanagement. And even if we had an efficient and revitalized labor movement, you still have to find a way to deal with industries like financial services that are vastly over payed for the services they perform.
sure, it's a good rule of thumb, but it's completely unworkable. Just because an ingredient is identifiable, doesn't mean it's healthy (think lard) and really unhealthy ingredients can be disguised, I know what beef is, but I have know idea how/good bad this beef is for me.
I know what those are, and know they're not bad, but they're hardly readily identifiable. Now, I've got some Breyer's ice cream in the freezer, contains: milk, cream, sugar, and chocolate. I assure you, the bread is considerably healthier.
I prefer to avoid processed foods too, but it's not really possible, and not everything chemical-sounding is bad for you, like niacin and beta caraotene.
How do you ensure that people know what they're consuming? Government mandated labeling requirements.
You're not going to find me defending this stupid salt ban, but look, we are a nation of fatties, and when an uninsured 300 lb walmart employee gets rushed to the hospital in cardiac arrest and needs a quadruple bypass at age 37, who do you think pays for that? Perhaps it's worth looking at why processed food is so much cheaper than healthy foods and considering ways to rectify the situation. I don't think the answer is a ban either, but I do think the answer is in government, specifically public health targeted taxes, like on cigarettes. But when it comes down to it, if you're going to tax pork rinds at a level that affects behavior, you've probably just banned them.
This is an illustration of a politician not understanding what he's talking about, but the idea of regulating food ingredients is actually pretty important, and why we have the FDA. Yeah, you can't ban salt, that's a no brainier, but but cooking is chemistry, and having oversight in what chemicals are involved is important. You consume a fair amount of propylene glycol, but ethylene glycol is cheaper and does pretty much the same thing - it's also poisonous. Remember the melamine tainted milk in China? Well there are (not-health related) reasons you might want to put melamine in milk, and at low doses you probably won't even notice, so we probably want someone regulating our food so that doesn't happen here. Heck, there's a wikipedia page about foodadulterants.
And you can't only use "traditional" ingredients, as there are advances in food science all the time. Xanthan gum has only been around for about 40 years, and is an important food additive, then you've got food colors, preservatives etc.
All that said, there are public health reasons we might want to consider regulating food content. There is an obesity epidemic which has enormous associated public health costs. Regulating things like high-fructose corn syrup, sugary drinks, and what type of fry oil you use might be good for society, but it has to be very carefully thought out - unlike this bill.
I think a few of them have some pretty serious merits. I'd pick "Intermittent access to beer promotes binge-like drinking in adolescent but not adult Wistar rats" as having the most value.
Well billionaires are at about seven nines, but millionaires represent a full 3-6% of the population (according to wikipedia).
The reason I'm making this point is that for those in the 95th percentile the American economy is fantastic and has been through stagflation, through the dot-com bust, even through the "great-recession". For those sitting at the median, the economy is stagnant or falling and has been for decades.
I don't begrudge people who work hard and earn good money. I'm not advocating a 90% top marginal tax rate (which is where it was during the red scare) - though really a marginal rate of 45-55% on income over $500,000 is hardly draconian. I just get irritated when people claim that the rich are paying "more than their share." Well yeah, that's because you have more than your share.
The US needs to find a way to revitalize the middle class, we've been spending far too much time, attention, and money on the rich. This is a recipe for disaster in an economy driven by consumer spending. I'd suggest finding a way to make organized labor work better - more collective bargaining, less bureaucratic nonsense and protecting people who don't do the job.
The 95th percentile (household) income is about $160,000. So while it contains a few engineers and CS guys, it is populated almost entirely by business people (even most of those engineers are now managers.) And yes, I did mean that the 95th percentile has increased exponentially. The 99th percentile and the 99.9th percentile may have increased even more rapidly, but the problem is that the blue collar labor market has failed to keep up with both the economy and management.
I know you're a self-righeous capitalist, but please read what you responded too. The problem isn't that he's getting rich, the problem is that he's doing it by extracting monopoly rents. A few people getting rich is a good thing, because it spurs investment. One person getting rich by cornering the market is a bad thing, whether your a Marxist or an Austrian, it doesn't result in re-investment, it results in impoverishment of everyone - except that one guy.
Billionaire is a much poorer proxy for "really wealthy" than medicare and social security are for "not wealthy." The fact of the matter is that the top quartile controls ~90% of the wealth in the US, the remaining 10% is contained almost entirely in the upper reaches of the second quartile. (the bottom quartile has negative wealth)
So the real effect of the fortunes of the 403 billionaires in this country is less keeping people poor and more keeping rich people from becoming super-rich. It's the top 10% as a whole that is keeping other people poor. More troubling is the direction of the trend. Real median income has decreased since the '70s, whereas the income of the 95th percentile has risen exponentially.
Jimmy Hendrix was primarily a cover artist, and if he were alive today, I wouldn't be willing to guess what he would and wouldn't cover.
Second, Jimmy Hendrix was a pop artist, just a very innovative pop artist from a different era.
Third, I don't care what kind of music you like, some of your favorite musicians have assuredly covered some crappy pop artist - and probably done a good job too.
The most likely cause of the Airbus crash was iced over pitot tubes. This is a mechanical, not a software problem.
The problem can happen anywhere, from software to broken brake cables, severed hydraulics, floor mats covering gas pedals, to crusty throttle plates.
Software is hardly unique in that it it prone to failure, and an intermittent mechanical problem is no easier to diagnose than an intermittent software problem. Software should be treated like any other system, mechanical, hydraulic, or electrical - well tested. But no matter what you do, some things are going to escape your notice until your product is in the wild - sometimes things like resonance frequencies stack under strange circumstances, and won't get tracked down in the lab.
It's not as if nothing ever failed catastrophically before we started using computers.
Alcoholics typically don't' get hangovers, so if the scientists have been studying this subject rigorously, they may actually have discovered that drinking booze won't give you a hangover.
As a mere hobbiest, you probably know better than I, but isn't it desirable to oxygenate the wort for the beginning of the fermentation process - you aerate after boiling don't you? I don't have any literature in front of me, but I seem to recall that the yeast like to start off aerobically - can't remember why at the moment.
more than a little of an exaggeration sure (model T brakes were a wad of cloth that pressed against the axle - so that's why I used that example) but suffice to say, if you have disc brakes, even just in front, your car will stop. Even if you drive a car with 4 drum brakes - and none of the cars in the toyota recall do, you shouldn't have a problem if your car was built after 1990.
Would you say that humans have become more violent or less violent since we stopped living in tribes? Would you say that's a good thing or a bad thing?
Violent crime went up pretty dramatically from 1970-1990 and has been dropping since. I don't think the reason is video games, but as I prefer not to be mugged, I'd like to know why this happened so that we can install social programs to curb future violence.
Throwing up your hands and saying "violence happens" isn't helpful, because we know there are things we can do about it (like education.)
Would you ask me to cite my sources if I said that Stalin wasn't a nice guy? Some things are pretty well established, the fact that poor people with violent parents are more likely to be violent is one of those things.
maybe if you're driving a model T. Modern brake pads (that typically last ~50,0000 miles) are more than up to the task of stopping a car traveling 70mph with WOT. Sure, if you're observant you'll notice that they fade a bit as they heat up, but they'll stop your car just fine.
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Everyone who's alive today's ancestors have survived thousands of years of persecution.
As I understand it, that's more or less what the Swiss do.
The issue I'm raising isn't the state of the federal budget and the associated tax/spending debate, but rather the state of the American middle class. Honestly, I think policy changes would be more effective than trying to throw dollars at the problem. Somehow our economy has changed to the point that we think it's acceptable that the CEO makes 40 times an average worker. The problem isn't that the rich aren't being taxed enough, it's that they're earning too much.
This isn't a problem with an easy solution, but we should be able to come up with some way to exert pressure of firms to have more equitable salary grades. Like I said, collective bargaining might help, but the labor movement brings it's own baggage from years of mismanagement. And even if we had an efficient and revitalized labor movement, you still have to find a way to deal with industries like financial services that are vastly over payed for the services they perform.
sure, it's a good rule of thumb, but it's completely unworkable. Just because an ingredient is identifiable, doesn't mean it's healthy (think lard) and really unhealthy ingredients can be disguised, I know what beef is, but I have know idea how/good bad this beef is for me.
An example, I'm looking at my healthy whole wheat bread, contains: whole wheat flour, unbleached enriched wheat flour, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, water, sugar, wheat gluten, whole rolled wheat flakes, cellulose fiber, rye, oats, yeast, corn grits, soybean oil, salt, sunflower seeds, cultured dextrose and maltodextrin, molasses, brown rice, triticale, barley, buckwheat, flaxseed, millet, soy grits, mono- and diglycerides, calcium sulfate, datem, citric acid, grain vinegar, calcium carbonate, soy lechtin, nuts, whey, nonfat milk.
I know what those are, and know they're not bad, but they're hardly readily identifiable. Now, I've got some Breyer's ice cream in the freezer, contains: milk, cream, sugar, and chocolate. I assure you, the bread is considerably healthier.
I prefer to avoid processed foods too, but it's not really possible, and not everything chemical-sounding is bad for you, like niacin and beta caraotene.
How do you ensure that people know what they're consuming? Government mandated labeling requirements.
You're not going to find me defending this stupid salt ban, but look, we are a nation of fatties, and when an uninsured 300 lb walmart employee gets rushed to the hospital in cardiac arrest and needs a quadruple bypass at age 37, who do you think pays for that? Perhaps it's worth looking at why processed food is so much cheaper than healthy foods and considering ways to rectify the situation. I don't think the answer is a ban either, but I do think the answer is in government, specifically public health targeted taxes, like on cigarettes. But when it comes down to it, if you're going to tax pork rinds at a level that affects behavior, you've probably just banned them.
big fan of jam, huh?
This is an illustration of a politician not understanding what he's talking about, but the idea of regulating food ingredients is actually pretty important, and why we have the FDA. Yeah, you can't ban salt, that's a no brainier, but but cooking is chemistry, and having oversight in what chemicals are involved is important. You consume a fair amount of propylene glycol, but ethylene glycol is cheaper and does pretty much the same thing - it's also poisonous. Remember the melamine tainted milk in China? Well there are (not-health related) reasons you might want to put melamine in milk, and at low doses you probably won't even notice, so we probably want someone regulating our food so that doesn't happen here. Heck, there's a wikipedia page about foodadulterants.
And you can't only use "traditional" ingredients, as there are advances in food science all the time. Xanthan gum has only been around for about 40 years, and is an important food additive, then you've got food colors, preservatives etc.
All that said, there are public health reasons we might want to consider regulating food content. There is an obesity epidemic which has enormous associated public health costs. Regulating things like high-fructose corn syrup, sugary drinks, and what type of fry oil you use might be good for society, but it has to be very carefully thought out - unlike this bill.
I think a few of them have some pretty serious merits. I'd pick "Intermittent access to beer promotes binge-like drinking in adolescent but not adult Wistar rats" as having the most value.
Well billionaires are at about seven nines, but millionaires represent a full 3-6% of the population (according to wikipedia).
The reason I'm making this point is that for those in the 95th percentile the American economy is fantastic and has been through stagflation, through the dot-com bust, even through the "great-recession". For those sitting at the median, the economy is stagnant or falling and has been for decades.
I don't begrudge people who work hard and earn good money. I'm not advocating a 90% top marginal tax rate (which is where it was during the red scare) - though really a marginal rate of 45-55% on income over $500,000 is hardly draconian. I just get irritated when people claim that the rich are paying "more than their share." Well yeah, that's because you have more than your share.
The US needs to find a way to revitalize the middle class, we've been spending far too much time, attention, and money on the rich. This is a recipe for disaster in an economy driven by consumer spending. I'd suggest finding a way to make organized labor work better - more collective bargaining, less bureaucratic nonsense and protecting people who don't do the job.
The 95th percentile (household) income is about $160,000. So while it contains a few engineers and CS guys, it is populated almost entirely by business people (even most of those engineers are now managers.) And yes, I did mean that the 95th percentile has increased exponentially. The 99th percentile and the 99.9th percentile may have increased even more rapidly, but the problem is that the blue collar labor market has failed to keep up with both the economy and management.
I know you're a self-righeous capitalist, but please read what you responded too. The problem isn't that he's getting rich, the problem is that he's doing it by extracting monopoly rents. A few people getting rich is a good thing, because it spurs investment. One person getting rich by cornering the market is a bad thing, whether your a Marxist or an Austrian, it doesn't result in re-investment, it results in impoverishment of everyone - except that one guy.
Billionaire is a much poorer proxy for "really wealthy" than medicare and social security are for "not wealthy." The fact of the matter is that the top quartile controls ~90% of the wealth in the US, the remaining 10% is contained almost entirely in the upper reaches of the second quartile. (the bottom quartile has negative wealth)
So the real effect of the fortunes of the 403 billionaires in this country is less keeping people poor and more keeping rich people from becoming super-rich. It's the top 10% as a whole that is keeping other people poor. More troubling is the direction of the trend. Real median income has decreased since the '70s, whereas the income of the 95th percentile has risen exponentially.
Jimmy Hendrix was primarily a cover artist, and if he were alive today, I wouldn't be willing to guess what he would and wouldn't cover.
Second, Jimmy Hendrix was a pop artist, just a very innovative pop artist from a different era.
Third, I don't care what kind of music you like, some of your favorite musicians have assuredly covered some crappy pop artist - and probably done a good job too.
You know, when I first heard of this (or a similar) program, it was emulating Bach...
They're starting to roll out brake-by-wire
toyota
mercedes
This SNAFU is sure to put it off a few years though.
The most likely cause of the Airbus crash was iced over pitot tubes. This is a mechanical, not a software problem.
The problem can happen anywhere, from software to broken brake cables, severed hydraulics, floor mats covering gas pedals, to crusty throttle plates.
Software is hardly unique in that it it prone to failure, and an intermittent mechanical problem is no easier to diagnose than an intermittent software problem. Software should be treated like any other system, mechanical, hydraulic, or electrical - well tested. But no matter what you do, some things are going to escape your notice until your product is in the wild - sometimes things like resonance frequencies stack under strange circumstances, and won't get tracked down in the lab.
It's not as if nothing ever failed catastrophically before we started using computers.
Oh yeah, IAAME(mechanical engineer).
Mature beer is another way to say spoiled beer.
Alcoholics typically don't' get hangovers, so if the scientists have been studying this subject rigorously, they may actually have discovered that drinking booze won't give you a hangover.
white lightening = moonshine = immature whiskey, right?
I kind of doubt it's possible to get to 190proof in a home still, and I know you can't buy that wretch.
As a mere hobbiest, you probably know better than I, but isn't it desirable to oxygenate the wort for the beginning of the fermentation process - you aerate after boiling don't you? I don't have any literature in front of me, but I seem to recall that the yeast like to start off aerobically - can't remember why at the moment.
more than a little of an exaggeration sure (model T brakes were a wad of cloth that pressed against the axle - so that's why I used that example) but suffice to say, if you have disc brakes, even just in front, your car will stop. Even if you drive a car with 4 drum brakes - and none of the cars in the toyota recall do, you shouldn't have a problem if your car was built after 1990.
Would you say that humans have become more violent or less violent since we stopped living in tribes? Would you say that's a good thing or a bad thing?
Violent crime went up pretty dramatically from 1970-1990 and has been dropping since. I don't think the reason is video games, but as I prefer not to be mugged, I'd like to know why this happened so that we can install social programs to curb future violence.
Throwing up your hands and saying "violence happens" isn't helpful, because we know there are things we can do about it (like education.)
Would you ask me to cite my sources if I said that Stalin wasn't a nice guy? Some things are pretty well established, the fact that poor people with violent parents are more likely to be violent is one of those things.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, I just wouldn't be surprised.
maybe if you're driving a model T. Modern brake pads (that typically last ~50,0000 miles) are more than up to the task of stopping a car traveling 70mph with WOT. Sure, if you're observant you'll notice that they fade a bit as they heat up, but they'll stop your car just fine.
The brakes will still win - you'll just want to apply the brakes slowly so you don't lose control.