jeza

I'm in Australia and I don't think I've ever heard of it (except maybe glossing over American recipes online). I've always measured butter in grams. The packaging often has markers so you can roughly estimate to the nearest 50g but that is it as far as I know. If anything I might have assumed it was something approximating these 50g slices.

Where I live, pubs were hellbent against smoking bans. Not a single pub was brave enough to go smoke free alone. They all scrambled to install outdoor beer gardens, but not all could do so for lack of outdoor space. Then when the smoking bans were introduced their patronage went up, as did their profits. Sure all their customers before the ban were smokers, but that was putting off non-smokers from becoming new customers.

The article said their visas were expiring.

At least when the snow melts it returns to the rivers and streams where it came from.

I agree that student loans don't do the student much justice and there must be a smarter way of funding education. In Australia our HECs loan system essentially funds research which may benefit society as a whole but hardly benefits students when course content is in some cases years out of date. As it's a loan system that graduates don't repay until their income reaches a certain threshold (essentially an extra tax), with government approval this has allowed course fees to creep upwards.

I don't agree with the general comment on inflation. For instance, I'm not aware of Australia's medicare system leading to higher medical treatment costs. If anything it provides a base level of care and limits the amount that any private medical provider could provide.

In any case I'm certain that private insurance companies facilitate the same kind of inflation as they don't seem too concerned about the cost of services rendered when they can simply pass that onto their customers as a higher premium (which they in turn benefit from). At least where government spending is concerned, inflation can be managed.

> So Polaris would be pretty close to being a polar star for Mars as well.

Poris is only useful if you're in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere on earth we use the southern cross. It's a bit trickier if you're using a quadrant because you have to align it with a blank area of sky. Though the 17th century explorers managed it.

Two companies. It's more duopoly rather than monopoly but they track each others prices to ensure they aren't offering anything cheaper than the other.

Rent is already quite high in capital cities, generally based on what high income earners can afford. I think a basic income is more likely to match an average wage so shouldn't result in higher rent. If anything it should take some pressure off housing in the capital cities if one doesn't have to live there so they can gain some mediocre form of work. Though this might result in higher rent in regional areas, as people discover that the basic income would allow them to live comfortably there. The government in turn would have to ensure there is affordable quality housing available close to employment.

I gather you could still have something like Medicare (Australia) with a basic income. It's administrated entirely separately from welfare.

I find it hard to believe that someone could live off $12k. Then again I live in Australia where cost of living on the whole is fairly expensive. But given rent is a big component of cost of living I'd hazard a guess that this will vary quite significantly in different parts of the USA. Furthermore I'm sure there are many different ways to define the poverty line. Even if the basic cost of living is met, there are additional costs that one may have to bear before gaining employment, including education, appropriate clothing, transport and the additional costs of accommodation close to employment.

The argument for a basic income is that one should be able to live comfortably and not just cover bare essentials. This means that people shouldn't be living at the poverty line but well over it. This shouldn't be a disincentive to work because most people need to live their lives around some kind of structured activity. Though it does mean that if there is a shortage of jobs then the unemployed won't be left to rot and the option exists to do some meaningful volunteer work.

That would hardly keep people without jobs out of poverty, which I read in another article is just over $20k.