TheBeardKing

The US also has to keep the USD a just-safer investment than other world currencies, held by other governments with their own issues. As long as USD is the safest investment, the US will never default. Don't outswim the shark, just the slowest swimmer and all that.

Not necessarily true. Look at Wal-Mart, which out-competes local businesses offering better salaries by cutting labor costs to the bone.

You could argue that poverty is a negative externality of a low wage business model, and business is responsible for covering that negative cost to society. It's in line with a factory paying for the costs of controlling its own pollution. But the argument really only holds true if you have a deterministic view of people's careers - are some inevitably committed to a low wage career because of external factors? Or are they stuck in those jobs by choice?

Poverty is not justification to excuse bad or illegal behavior. If you follow your line of thinking, you'd have to give someone a pass for just about any sort of environmental abuse, archaeological pillaging, improper waste management, poaching of endangered animals, etc.

At some point you have to draw a line. Must we solve global poverty at 100% before we enact environmental protections? Or should we allow the only habitable planet we have for generations to continue on a death spiral and explain to our great-grandkids "well people were poor..."

I'd like to see the new reddit vs the old reddit.

I used to think more laws would be the answer to so many enviromental issues, surpassing the effects of individual choice. But the habitat loss described in this article is mainly attributed to illegal logging, which means personal greed drives up the price on the black market for things such as rare animal and plant species and exotic woods. Maybe the penalties for contraband aren't high enough? Or maybe we should completely block the import of rainforest species of wood, regardless of whether it was legally harvested. Outside of a massive armed defense from illegal loggers, what can stop them?

We're obviously talking about higher education here. We all agree basic functioning citizens need 12 years of education. Educational attainment beyond that varies depending on occupation requirements and personal interest.

See also the re-branding of FAO Schwarz: https://www.businessinsider.com/fao-schwarz-reopening-after-...

The main difference there being subject to persistent and total authority vs a high degree of freedom requiring personal initiative.

The assumption being that it's the government's job to invest in individuals. I'm not here to argue either way, but at least half the country would disagree that it is.

Learning to do things for yourself in general is a huge step towards living within your means, which is a struggle for a majority of Americans. My family has plenty of money to no longer do most things for ourselves - clean, cook, yard work, house maintenance, car maintenance, etc., but I refuse to contract out anything I don't have to because 1) I usually have the free time to do it and am essentially earning money in my free time and 2) that added money goes towards experiences we could not afford if we paid for services we could easily do ourselves.

I much prefer saving the money to use how I want than enjoy extra free time I likely would not use productively.

It's all about routine. Brush your teeth, PJs, brush hair, get it done and in bed because the lamp is on a timer and it's going off regardless.

No need for implants once we're all wearing AR glasses/lenses.

Keep in mind Reason is a libertarian site and approaches every topic with the goal of portraying the modern government always as a roadblock with never any benefit. Every article will be totally one-sided to not mention positive aspects of any government program or agency.

edit: They actually did quickly mention FDA fast-track:

>There have been some moves in the right direction. Between 1992 and 2002, the FDA launched three special programs to allow for faster approval of drugs for certain serious diseases, including cancer. And current FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb shows at least some appetite for further reform.

Right, it would make much more sense to talk about cancer diagnosis or survivability by a certain age, like 50 or 60. By 70-90 most people have been exposed to so many carcinogens the likelihood of some sort of cancer is near guaranteed.

TLDR: Warming oceans lead to the decline of sand eels which they feed to their young.

Seriously, what's with the AC-shaming in this thread and in this article, which doesn't once mention the energy required to heat homes, and that it's several times that to cool [1]. Must be some northern elitism.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=10271

It's market forces at work with little regulation, especially in places like Houston. Real estate prices are much more appealing in places with extreme temperatures. We all couldn't afford to live in temperate climates like the bay area without some extreme zoning density regulations.

TLDR: Minneapolis uses 3.5x the energy of Miami for climate control.

Western US is considerably more expensive than the southeast, but I can understand your desire to not live in the hell-hole which is the deep south.

I meant a webhost or VPS isn't free. And yes, that was directed more towards the general populace using services which are currently free, such as Tumblr and other blog platforms.

It's also not free, and people are getting pretty used to free.

I don't think addiction or overuse is a problem for regular CBD users. I think this article is referring to addiction to the pyschological effects of THC.

It's hard, as a straight male my whole life, to tell whether personal anti-homo feelings are completely natural or the result of an ingrained societal bias. I wonder if there's some sort of pyschological test for that.

The most interesting statistic I found in this article is that nearly three times as many women as men have had a same sex encounter according to a 2016 survey of 10k US adults - 17% vs 6%.

If the vacancies drive away business, which weakens street life, then would not the low street life drive down real estate prices?

Isn't land as personal property kind of a gray area though? After all, eminent domain exists. Just because the US Government allowed settlers to claim land in South Dakota a hundred years ago, doesn't relinquish any and every right to the land and its features/resources.

It's ok to editorialize the title when it's this click-baity, right?

So pro-consumer regulations = harming business = increased inequality. Got it.

How anyone could argue that the benefits of the gig economy actually improves worker lives is beyond me. I tend agree that it's better for the consumer in terms of price and service, which I guess you could say reduces inequality because more consumers can afford access that used to be cost-prohibitive. But by and large, if more and more workers don't have a steady and liveable wage, health care, and retirement benefits, this leads to drastically increased inequality.

I tend to think that pointing fingers to anywhere but the tax code and resulting social services or UBI to reduce inequality is barking up the wrong tree.

Why are pensions not based on base salary? That seems like an easy and obvious fix.