brc
Joined 18 years ago
Joined 18 years ago
Of course, we don't know what happened to mh17, which might have also glided into the ocean.
You have an extra word in there.
Land, labour and energy are the basic inputs. You could argue capital as well. Technology is a productivity multiplier. Some things are getting cheaper - much cheaper. But other things are getting heavily regulated, which drives flow-on price increases.
The problem is those flow on increases have swamped the price reductions from automation. Technology price reductions are gradual and incremental, whereas regulation can be applied on thickly at the stroke of a pen.
Where I live, heavy regulation on land use causes shortages, which drives up the price of everything. To sell tech in a shop requires silly rent, and paying someone to mind the cash register has been regulated to be high. So while the price of a 8Gb isn stick has crashed, the shop and the employee have rocketed up.
If you placed sever restrictions on car production you'd find the surviving brands would be the luxury brands.
I think adding high rise is the right choice, as long as it is accompanied with increases in transport links. It's all very well to add in a couple of thousand people, but they all have to get in and out and buy groceries etc. you don't want each of those people owning a car and making the traffic worse.
I think there should be mor emphasis on making other parts of the Bay Area more like the things people want from the city / peninsular proper. Whether that is transport, cultural or liveability, it should all be possible.
Take a land mass the size of the lower 48 states, and take out all the people except for Oregon on the west coast and Florida on the east coast. Remove nearly all the interstates and all but three of the railroads. That is Australia.
Modern visa granting can be done electronically like the U.S. ESTA and could easily be achieved with little disruption. It could also prove a handy earner for a small fee.
I think it is misrepresenting the majority of brexit supporters to say they don't want any immigration. All the ones I talked to just wanted to have a say, and the EU did not give them that.
The first point is debatable. There is a lot of political power to be gained by the person who pulls the trigger if they do it succesfully. I think it is 50:50, but there is a lot of upside to be had if it is done well and with plenty of stability and adjustment time. Anyone in the Conservative party who refuses to pull the trigger will be subject to endless criticism and undermining from the significant base of people that wants it done.
Of course outliers exist and some very successful people come from very dysfunctional families. But if you look at enough people, they come out in temperament and attitude very similar to their family. The really surprising thing is how often one family will produce two top level musicians or sports players.
Leaving aside heritability, the environment in which the child will grow up is more or less set in concrete by the time they are born. This includes the parents socio-economic level, but more importantly to that, their attitudes towards relationships, learning, critical thought, reading, victim vs control personality and plenty more. A house without books doesn't fill with books when the child arrives.
Pretty much by the time the first cry is made, a huge chunk of their future is already written. The margin is small, but, having said that, small changes at the margin can make a big difference in individuals.
It's a good thing for these to be spread out - otherwise those who don't have kids are free riders on those that do. A healthy educated child not only supplies a lifetime of taxes paid, they also provide the labor to care for the ageing who didn't have children.
I find there is a benefit to being alone with your thoughts for half a day or so, in a physically inactive state. How many people honestly ever spend that time 'switched off'.
It's all in how you approach it really, glass half full/empty