jhaglund
Joined 17 years ago
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181
Submissions
92
Member since
Sep 28
Recent submissions
Comment · 11 years ago
Comment · 11 years ago
Comment · 11 years ago
> Also interesting is the Marathon Supercharger in the Florida Keys: it clearly makes a big difference in the route whether you can fly over water or not :)
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Highway
Which replaced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Railroad
Comment · 12 years ago
Considering that a penny in 1909 had the buying power of about $0.25 today, I wish they would have attached a quarter. (death to pennies!)
Comment · 13 years ago
Paragraph 1 states 46.2 million people lived below the official poverty level, and 10.4 million of those were working, so you conclude that the remaining "choose not to work". But the next line states that that first number includes children (at least 14 million http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_912.html) and adults (including those unable to work for legitimate reasons).
Your other link doesn't show its math either. I'm feeling trolled.
Comment · 13 years ago
It is absurd to say that because someone augments their benefits with $300 a month in child care, their problems are over.
Can you point to where in that PDF you got that 80% number? Like, if you're going to cite a link, could you use a number I can ctrl+f? instead of "about 80%"? Because I suspect this number includes children and people who may be better off not working due to medical or other problems.
Comment · 13 years ago
What about this labor drop? http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CIVPART?rid=50&s...
Comment · 13 years ago
I think you should reconsider the assertion that poor in the US usually don't work. Minimum wage jobs leave you just above the poverty level if you're single, below if you are supporting someone. Considering cash based, under the table, transient work that poor people accept is under reported (for fear of loosing benefits which fall off steeply as a recipient's income increases) I think even finding statistics on this would be difficult.
There are sociopaths on welfare (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2013... ) as surely as there are sociopaths in power. But what this article is saying is most people who need assistance are going to do good things with the assistance.
Comment · 13 years ago
If we can have an increasing GDP while most of America experiences stagnation (as with the recent recovery) who's to say we can't have decreasing GDP coupled with improving quality of life? (at least for a short period) As you point out, machines are doing far more of the work that workers once did.
Another policy of FDR's New Deal was the creation of the 8 hour day (many people still worked 12-14 hour days until then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_Day#United_States). Perhaps reduced hours allowed more laborers to move into the workforce, and could be a more competitive and cheap way of supporting a broad middle class.
Comment · 13 years ago
Can't tell if sarcasm, considering that Thatcher's move was to privatise, until she ran out of public assets.
This pithy quote is also wrong because it assumes the economy is a zero sum game and misses the point that this article is trying to make -- that giving away money would be cheaper and have better results than the current system of welfare.
Comment · 13 years ago
California has cheap community colleges. It's $99 per credit (a class is 3 or more credits) where I grew up, plus books. http://www.ccac.edu/default.aspx?id=137210
$400 for a life skill might sound like a great deal, but it can be hard to afford.
Comment · 13 years ago
Do we call money made from investments or inheritance Welfare? In a post agrarian society, work and income are not related.
Comment · 13 years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Railroad
In 1905, they built 128 miles of railroad connecting the Florida keys. Since then, engineering has advanced significantly. Overland is still easier than overseas.
It also says I'm smarter than just 49% of the population, while IQ tests say at least 80%. Maybe I'm just good at taking tests and Facebook is the real me?