PG seems be becoming more and more disingenuous. People using the word "earn" almost always mean "you can't get this from wages." This doesn't mean that the effect of growth isn't real - almost any business that scales even moderately, but none the less scales, and is profitable, can make its owners millionaires or better. But this does not mean that those riches were "earned." Or that the person who started the business had more glorious suffering than some rando who works 80 hours a week of part time jobs to keep a roof over their kids' heads. Rather, it is inherent to finding a scalable business and not screwing it up.
In general there aren't many great couch keyboards. FN keys aside, some keyboards have dedicated power, sleep, or other keys that are just annoying and dangerous for a couch keyboard.
So there are two issues: (c) shouldn't be able to sell without the restriction, and (b) knowing of the restriction made decisions in good faith believing it would be followed and hence have been harmed by it not being followed, no? If (b) doesn't have standing, nobody does and deed restrictions are de facto useless.
Motorcycles are somewhat like this - they're both more dangerous than cars in terms of whether you might get into an accident of any sort. But however bad they are in that sense is amplified by how many people use them like utter idiots: I've lost count of the people I've seen on them in shorts and flip-flops, let alone without a helmet, not to mention people racing them and popping wheelies at racing speeds on 35mph streets.
The thing is there's such a breadth of circumstances and behaviors involved that pigeonholing it under one giant banner is questionable. Like the people who leave loaded guns in random drawers around their houses are doing something very different with a different risk profile. Whereas once you get to teens in households that have guns and generally practice some level of safe storage it's a much more complex issue IMO. Because as a society we want teens to become responsible enough to handle things like cars, or power tools, or guns. But we also know that they're not adults yet. And we know that infantilization of teens isn't going to do anyone favors in the long run. So it's probably not as simple as ban cars and ban guns or whatever else.
The problem I have with "safetyism" is it comes across as something you can say about cars, knives, power tools, skis, hang gliders, and so many other things. Like do I buy that even though ski deaths are lower in non-skiing households, just like gun deaths are in non shooting ones, that it's less impactful and important than the same effect with guns? Sure. But it's also a conversation that is soooo patronizing in a ridiculous way that it really seems like a double standard. And so much of it seems disingenuous. Like do we focus on enabling safe storage and mental health safety with guns or making it harder? On making kids and families more knowledgeable and safer around guns or just amping up the anxiety and fear?
I think with younger shooters there are many people who enjoy 3 gun and other modern match style sort of tactical shooting or cowboy action without obsessively carrying or planning for defensive use. But I don't think these folks overlap with the hunter-type sportsman. And do overlap with the "tacticool" folks. Don't know if that translates to rural though.
What's funny about this to me is that I tried to sign up for insta once and could never get past their automated ID check that would fire after signup despite using a real ID. (So never did sign up. I suspect maybe they just really don't want you using web on mobile devices but ymmv.)
So just to be clear, I guess the issue isn't so much SAT or placement tests as it is that there's no functional baseline level of knowledge without some kind of entry exam, and without that there's no functional boundary on the starting place or length of time it will take to get a degree. So some level of entry exam is needed to avoid rebuilding a new remedial version of K12 education inside of every four year college?
I think the focus on the SAT as a mechanism for this detracts from this as the SAT isn't really an designed to sus out topical placement, right?
Putting the financing debt on the books of the thing that's bought instead of the purchaser's shouldn't be legal IMO. Imagine if you could buy houses and leave the mortgage on the house's book instead of your own. It's a total farce.
While this is true, I think the bar should be lower - the real question should be "and how does it compare to renting" - there is very possibly a universe where owning is cheaper than renting even if your home depreciates. Because paying some amount for years to be left with a fraction of what you put in is better than getting none of what you put in.
However many of us knowingly exceed that point. For example we pay ~$500/mo over that point. Though there is no really comparable rental, we definitely could have chosen a more cookie cutter rental to be about +$6000 / year.
In all fairness they also have very little in the way of very low population density areas compared to the US. For example, Montana is bigger than Germany and has like 7 people per square mile overall.
I suspect this is probably more complicated. My family members who live in small towns and rural areas have been having larger health issues and more trouble getting care even if they want to for years if not decades compared to my relatives who live in major urban areas, and particularly those who live in more affluent areas. Like I'd go so far as to estimate that affluent areas metro adjacent are +7 years vs. non-affluent metro areas, which are also like +7 years vs. rural/small town areas or slum/poor metro areas. But I also think the kind of care and non-care my relatives in smaller/rural areas leads to exhaustion, loss of faith in the system, and interest in alternative options.
But I also don't doubt that adding the modern conservative delusions and paranoia on top of it all only worsens everything.
There are probably good argument for it being lower (maybe circa $10 or $12 million. But I have a feeling they do want to try and not hit land-rich-but-otherwise-maybe-not "family farms" that have hundreds or thousands of acres.
You obviously didn't read the thing. 20% is not on wealth. The argument in the piece is that 1% on wealth is the same as 20% on income, and therefore 1% on wealth is obscene.
Please read before making replies that don't make sense in context. When I refer to 20% I'm referring the PG's characterization of a 1% wealth tax as an effective 20% income tax, not a 20% wealth tax.
Lol, that's still totally feasible for normal FIRE/retirement situations, my understanding is that most proposals only start at $50 million or more. You can still have a super cushy retirement with $3mil+ and 3% withdrawal forever.
On top of that it seems to imply that a 20% effective tax rate is outrageous even though that's totally normal for most. Maybe it's not what you're used to as really wealthy person who avoids realized income and has a 0 or 5 or 10 percent effective rate. But it's totally normal for most middle and median income folks who actually pay income taxes.
The argument is plausible - that you can treat wealth taxes as equivalent to income taxes if you treat wealth taxes as a tax on the ostensible income generation of the wealth.
Of course there's more complexity than this, but that aspect is a plausible reductive lens.
But the conclusion is silly. We all know the extremely wealthy who'd be subject to a wealth tax basically don't pay taxes and that a 20% tax is totally right around what the typical overall tax burden is for the middle class or median households. The 1% example equating to 20% is basically saying the wealth tax would be in line with a flat tax, not even with a progressive rate tax. The wealthy have turned the tax system into one that's functionally regressive for the most wealthy and then PG complains that a proposal that makes it more like a flat tax is "not understood" by lawmakers?
That people don't realize full test coverage just means every line is hit, not that everything is correct is always funny to me. (I don't view as an argument against tests, but with AI it's especially important as if you're aren't careful it'll be very happy to make coverage that is not quite right.)