Citing Rebekah Jones in your argument is the opposite of convincing. She forged documents related to her firing to make her appear more sympathetic. She has been adjudicated guilty of cyberstalking and misuse of the state’s emergency notification system, and I haven’t seen a credible defense against those accusations. She’s a fraud, and many in the media uncritically boosted her claims because they shared her political aims. That people still cite her is proof of the old adage that a lie can travel across the world before the truth can lace its boots.
In my experience, grocers always do include unit prices…at least in the USA. I’ve lived in Florida, Indiana, California, and New York, and in 35 years of life, I can’t remember ever not seeing the price per oz, per pound, per fl oz, etc. right next to the total price for food/drink and most home goods.
There may be some exceptions, but I’m struggling to think of any except things where weight/volume aren’t really relevant to the value — e.g., a sponge.
It is...kind of. But we're talking about severely limiting the ability of insurers to distinguish high risk parties from low risk parties and price accordingly. When the insured parties have limited agency over the risk they present — as with, e.g., health insurance for congenital diseases — this kind of regulation can make sense. But when insured parties can control the risk, such regulation usually makes insurance markets much less efficient. Essentially, it takes away the incentive for insured parties to avoid risky behaviors, creating moral hazard. This is a well-understood mechanism for market failures.
The way I read it, it’s actually the opposite of what you wrote. You suggested that the Fed relied on inflation numbers that it knew to be too low — i.e. that inflation was understated due to failure to account for substitution effects and the like. In fact, the Boskin commission concluded the opposite — i.e. that inflation figures were overstated in aggregate due to failure to account for things like quality changes and the substitution effect.
I have nothing to contribute but this video from comedian Rob Paravonian It's probably 20+ years old, but it frequently pops into my mind when I think about the apartments I lived in during my 20s. The materials were shoddy, but the price was right!
It wasn’t clear to me from the article itself, but for those familiar with research in this area: has anybody attempted to disentangle differences caused by genetics vs. by environment per se?
The proposal in the article is to tax wealth at an annual rate of 2%. Not realized gains. Not unrealized gains. Wealth.
Under such a system — unless I've badly misunderstood something — if a billionaire's assets decreased in value over the course of a year, they would still pay 2% on their assets. I can't think of any sense in which a decrease in the value of one's assets would be defined as income.
I have an opinion of the wisdom of a wealth tax, and I could be wrong. Regardless of my opinion, I think it's indisputable that a wealth tax and an income tax are different and that conflating the two makes a debate on the merits much more difficult.
Sure, but I think this is an example of markets working well. Customers don’t want to have to adapt to a new platform every year and are willing to pay for that service. Microsoft recognizes that desire and provides backward compatibility. Microsoft charges a price above what it costs to provide the service but below what their customers are willing to pay. Both parties win. Seems like a good thing.
I’m sorry, but your description of a relationship with an employer doesn’t match mine at all.
I don’t feel anxious. I feel comfortable.
I don’t accept as little as possible. I negotiate with the knowledge that I have options.
I don’t toil in the mines for 80 hours a week to barely afford to feed myself. I spend 40-50 hours a week doing something I rather enjoy, and for that, I’m paid a salary that affords a lifestyle few could have imagined even fifty years ago.
I understand that my employer would pay me less if they could. Then again, if I could find a plumber who could fix my shower for $200 instead of $250, I’d patronize the former, all else equal. Does that make the plumber my “subject”? I don’t think so.
I understand that my boss is not my friend, but to describe oneself as a “subject” is not something I relate to. In fact, I think it’s absurdly dramatic.
Is being on call really a sign of low status? I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure most doctors have an on-call schedule. And if you think doctors aren't in a high-status profession, I reckon your standards are wildly different from my own.
Long hours and little respect probably will vary from one employer to the next. However, I've been working as a developer for about ~10 years - most of it with a mid-size insurance company but the last couple with a large bank. I work longer hours than most of my colleagues, but I've rarely put in more than 50 hours in a week, and my average is probably closer to 45. And my non-engineering colleagues have always treated my fellow engineers and me with respect and an appreciation for the difficulty of what we do. If anything, they've usually been a bit too deferential.
YMMV, but I think our profession is probably among the best in the world for workers. If my child were about to enter the working world and had the ability + interest, I'd absolutely recommend this as a career.
> The researchers can't say whether the absence is a cause or an effect of the illness
My immediate thought was that people suffering from depression might eat more “junk food” due to the depression and that their poor diets might lay waste to their gut biomes. Of course, there may be other studies that contradict my hypothesis.
In this particular case, do you think non-US governments could protect the interests of consumers in their jurisdictions in a way that is less unfriendly to the businesses that want to sell to them?
We do have the Associated Press (AP), which seems similar to what you describe. That said, even such sources can be guilty of ideological bias if they choose to report certain facts and not others. In practice, I think AP is pretty even-handed, but I think that is as much a result of their editorial process as it is of their focus on factual reporting over opinion/analysis.
I think that's what the GP means by centralized control becoming worse. That is, information is less centralized now, and the sources that used to be at the center are now complaining about the issue.