charwalker

That's great, but the environment doesn't care about the cost to offset just that it has less CO2/etc in the air from humans.

> Music may be beneficial for non-cognitive constructs in children such as prosocial behavior and self-esteem.

Learning music, incuding an instrument to play on, teaches a ton of skills (focus, effortful practice techniques, managing failure and your limits, adapting what you have learned to different but similar music, work with other musicians on duets and more, etc) that you can learn through other mechanisms (athletics, LEGO/FIRST robotics, regular schoolwork). If anything, the ability to encounter a new piece of music (say jazz), connect it to styles or pieces you already understand, then to improvise off the style and make it your own is a process many developers do week to week with reading and adapting old code. You can't master one then immediately excel at the other but the base skills related to patience and effort connect.

Anecdotally, I learned a few instruments growing up and although I resented part of the process I think it benefited me a ton. I felt like I had a drop off in focus and effort applied to tasks after I stopped paying after high school. I met and kept a ton of awesome friends through music and playing in school bands. I have a lot of memories and success stories that come from learning an instrument and how music works. That was compelling when learning about physics and sound or how in tune notes are created based on a mathematical equation. It was super helpful to connect with others who learned an instrument growing up, like a few of my friends I see (not anymore) or talk to weekly. So I can be a data point for the prosocial argument as well as self esteem. I think the process helped me get to where I am today, even if I don't play anymore.

UBI is not a silver bullet, nothing is. We need a complex net of programs like Universal Healthcare to reinforce a UBI like system, or really any system. One comment here made the argument that people can still spend all the money on whatever and be out of luck for necessities. Making some of those necessities included in citizenship (healthcare) could lessen that issue. Universal Healthcare on its own might lead to a massive boost new entrepreneurs now able to build their own business vs stuck at a job for the healthcare. It's been a key part of my job searches as I could not afford much without good insurance and company contributions.

What about those unable to work, are disabled, stay at home parents, or otherwise unable to be self reliant?

No, but that isn't the only tool or lever to pull. It's an idea around a rising tide lifts all boats where an extra $1k a month or baseline income could bridge gaps so instead of choosing between food, car, and insurance this month the household can cover all 3 and maybe get out for some ice cream and have a human experience.

There are fair criticisms of UBI but it would not be acting in a vacuum. There could be policy and actions to support the goals of UBI. Everything is more complicated than it seems.

Perhaps proper education and examples of personal finance and budgeting, even in the face of celebrity promos and sales sales sales, could prevent some of the next generation from doing the same. I'd argue that you're oversimplifying those that got themselves stuck. They possibly lacked caring or supportive parents, stable childhood, stable role models that aren't rich, quality education on issues like personal finance, etc.

When things are simplified it's often easier to draw conclusions, but the method of simplification and how far you go will induce bias. Maybe someone's car was hit and totalled. They couldn't afford to insure it while working 2 jobs with no healthcare/benefits and trying to support a kid they can't afford (or legally abort). They now have a medical bill for $2000 due to injuries sustained, no car to commute to work, no job if they can't commute, and no way to afford an incoming baby regardless. They jump to a dealership the next morning and have a car loan signed by 10am, then back to work having missed hours (that they won't get paid for). Then they had to decide between food and the car loan before even considering the medical debt. Maybe they had medical debt from a prior issue that tanked their credit score and left them with a 20%+ loan they just signed. Maybe they have a concussion or the pregnant woman needs time off work to heal (Paid? Unpaid? will there be a job to return to?) Regardless, they didn't have the resources, time, money or energy to respond to the crash and it sunk them into thousands of debt before they got their test results back from the medical appointment.

Sucks, but is a very real issue for many Americans. With proper regulations (with teeth) for:

benefits/sick leave or PTO/wiggle room to deal with emergencies outside of work,

laws to cut down interest rates or free people from bad/old debt that has them spiralling including higher education or Community College coursework in personal finance or budgeting (and better career/job prospects),

proper funding for universal healthcare to stop medical debts and increase use of basci services to prevent major cases and long term costly health issues,

support for families (including family planning) and greater access to (and no loss of pride from using) SNAP/food stamps,

a plan for childcare

education from a young age on personal finance and other useful practices

We could see improvements in many Americans daily lives. Often, edge case or minority groups feel the system has left them behind, forgotten them, or even betrayed them. In America, that's true. The system will help those who help themselves but life does not discriminate when dealing out misfortunes and it can be very expensive to be poor for reasons mentioned in other comments like the boots story. Citizens will continue fighting even if they are fighting for the right to die from lack of support, can't reason with it.

You're agreeing with their point with good evidence. Whatever set of metrics or filters are used to identify 'poor' needs to vary based on the context of the conversation. I think most metrics have been left as is for decades to have consistent reporting like how we can say 'Poverty has fallen X% in [COUNTRY] since [20 years ago]'

But that doesn't give a fair view for all nations. Food insecurity is a metric that would quickly show poor improvement over decades, at least compared to current metrics. Maybe access to affordable housing, water, power, and other items on the first 2 level of Maslow's Hierarchy would work better.

In the end, we may learn a lot about 'first world' economies like the US and the areas failed by capitalism. I think many of the metrics pulled out could be used to argue either way Numbers on food insecurity could be spun as "We need to fund and support our citizens and make this better" or "Look how far ahead we are so do nothing or cut programs to save money!"

That was OP being sarcastic and stating no further point other than they don't have one.

Once a business or service is built around it, yes. But This likely can be solved via something that doesn't have to be profitable, just successful. Universal basic income could cover the gap. Stronger unions and enforcement of stronger regulations like curbing interest rates, providing personal finance resources for free like a financial adviser or community college course, or shoring up meals programs for poor kids are all options. It doesn't have to be a business to work.

That's literally not how it works too. Agile has a robust and rigid structure that you then pull from and adapt to make your team and processes better. Few teams have the same implementation. It's important to understand the full scale of agile practices and tools but do not try to do it 100%, that's not the idea at all.

I don't have anything against that or moving to a location that meets your values.

It's more that I'd prefer to support schools and social programs, and have those open to me as best as possible, than get away from it all. I've been in a spot where if it wasn't for the ACA I'd be dead (specifically extension of parents insurance until child is 26) and if I didn't have strong local schools growing up I probably wouldn't have gone far. We do better when we work together and pool resources for all, including the next generation. It's hard for me to be a part of that by moving somewhere rural.

And I can't bring myself to move to a red state unless it's flipping purple and willing to basically pull a Virginia. The social rights differences between colors is serious and unfortunate.

3x is a wide margin. I remember seeing numbers at my last contract job that suggested it was close to 1.75x and was using that number in the process of getting hired directly. I knew the companies costs to hire could be under that 1.75x value but still be a pay bump for me especially as I didn't have any benefits through the contractor saving them costs with no return to me.

For the contracting agency the value of my labor to a third party is how they make money. Seemed simple enough to me but not a racket I wanted to bounce around in.

In the late 90s my state moved from local property taxes funding local schools to paying into 1 state fund and paying back out per student, along with base funding for each district and what the district could levy in their county. It was a massive boost for most districts but a major loss for my district. We went from 2 art teachers, 2 music teachers, 2 PE teachers, and a guy who did ceramics across schools to 1 art teacher and 1 PE teacher. Since then, more cuts have dropped quality even further.

This is a warning as much as a boon. When re-allocating funding more equitably, be sure to not let the process stop there and call it success. Monitor and respond to outcomes like boosting funding to equip all schools with the right set of arts and opportunities for their students even if 1 school in town is artsy and the other technical but students can go to either. Be prepared (and have a community that is up) for raising taxes to cover these costs. Recognize that well educated and employed kids today will be paying your medicare and social security (if you or those programs make it far enough). When these kids are growing the stocks your retirement is invested into you'll want them to have had the opportunities your tax dollars can provide.

I like paying for schools because I don't like living in a national of stupid people and the more smart people out there able to leverage their talent and abilities via remote or on site work the better we will all be. Maybe that means the FAANG employee living in Iowa needs to make 95% of their downtown Seattle counterpart, maybe not. There is a balance to be found to increase opportunity without depressing existing and future talent too.

At the same time, it sucks for friends and coworkers around here in 1 bedroom apartments with both partners working from home or 3 kids and no yard and social events to structure around. My manager is going insane working and sleeping in the same (high cost) room while locked into a lease. I was lucky to move to a place with 2 bedrooms recently so 1 is the office and I'm so glad to not have kids.

I've saved money but do miss the various options close to work. Taking an hour to jump offsite with music or a coworker for lunch was great. Today's lunch break is a shower and quick lunch. Very exciting.

Bose and Sony, 2 of the most expensive tech product companies, are the example here. The option is buy your sub $10 wired skull candy earbuds and ignore anything that's more expensive because it isn't an option. It's the same reason recent generations grew p on fast food, it's cheaper and easier and all some people have resources for.

The Jabra 85h is great in this regard. Totally fine without the app, the app itself has a ton of features and useful items including changes to side tone and auto noise cancellation. The app pulled in a firmware update when I first connected and ran that in a few minutes without me touching anything. I would like to compare my set to the top Bose and Sony sets but at almost double the price of the 85h, I can't bring myself to spend the money.

Personally, a fairly liberal set of laws in place to maintain my current set of rights and options let alone those for my female partner. I won't be moving to a state that insists in conservative social policies like banning abortion and cutting education or basic infrastructure under the guise of lowering taxes. I like living in a functional democracy, at as a state, and happy to pay taxes for things like better schools and roads.

From friends on the ground in Portland I will say it's largely still aggravated by police presence and the DHS/federal agents. If authorities did not step in with tear gas and kidnapping protests would have continue to be mostly nonviolent. Turns out that when you meet protests against police brutality with police brutality and disappearing citizens, nothing improves.

There are small groups and agitators causing issues not out of self defense but they are few and far between if not turned over by protesters when identified. Portland isn't on fire, civil rights are.

Potentially sponsored/edited by military personnel or at least done with their OK.

I think one component is 5 years ago there was little reason to doubt the official BLS numbers or even most reports from the federal government like FBI crime statistics. The official/headlining unemployment rates have always been based on data points that were not ideal or have evolved and need review. For example, the debate between U-2 and U-6 rates as the goto number in a post 2008 crisis economy to better count under-employment or those working 2-3 jobs or gig roles. Maybe we do need to overhaul reporting and weight given to certain unemployment types to align with these changes. Any updates need to be reviewed, tracked, and rolled out slowly as the monthly reports carry a huge impact.

The recent big change change is, of course, an administration that will replace career non partisan officials with yes men loyalists or simply comment on and politicise things that were left apolitical. You can see this most egregiously early on with how FBI crime data was withheld to (maybe) further political goals. Instead of letting the experts create and send out reports on the same data points as the last decade for easy comparison, or working on changes based on their expert decisions and long term studies, we have departments driven by optics and value or loyalty to the president above all else.

Has this impacted BLS and BLS data? I'm not sure. Has this corroded trust and reliability of BLS and other government reports? I'd say yes, absolutely. It took lawsuits by media to reveal who got PPP loans, trillions of taxpayer dollars, with millions going to administration friends and even cabinet members. It took lawsuits to get the same FBI crime data we got under Obama. Who is to say we don't need to sue BLS for the underlying data they report on to confirm it lines up?

As far as I know from my studies in economics and rabid news reading over the last decade, the BLS has never been a political department or had their reports used as more than statistics by the president. It has not had numbers criticized or called wrong by the president. It has been a wonderfully data oriented group left independent like the Fed. Trump has been unprecedented in his attacks against his own government. He also pulled a 180 after the election, railing on Obama for jobs numbers that were, of course, perfect once Trump was sworn in or vice versa.

U-3 vs U-6 unemployment: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-...

Trump and the BLS: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-23/trump-mov...

Changes to FBI reporting: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-first-fbi-crime-rep...

PPP data lawsuits: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/12/sba-foia-...

Although many regular people have stocks held until retirement, they don't make up a majority of stock owners: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-richest-1-own-50-of-stock...

And according to Wikipedia data, in 2016 84% of stock was owned by the top 10%. That leaves 16% of the market to everyone else, a very small %.

https://money.com/stock-ownership-10-percent-richest/

Depends on if the money saved on marketing and gained by white label sales (if the bottle cost more than $19.99 to make they probably wouldn't do so) minus the money from lost sales to the white label. The site below lists most 5ths (750ml) at under 3 pounds or under US$4, even for top shelf. Say that is doubled by transit costs or tripled after marketing/etc to about $12, it's still about half the white label cost so I'd argue they don't lose money making bottles for Costco.

For marketing, let's assume that cost of maintaining the relationship and dealmaking is written off and 0. If you consider Costco/Kirkland marketing at least in terms of buyer awareness it may be a net gain as for $0 they get that Kirkland trust.

For white label, they may split production/sipping costs with Costco or just provide the final bottle with split profit. Either way, each bottle may return 50-60% as profit or about $12. I can't find anything in detail on how brands split profits or if Costco takes a flat cut though so let's say 50% cut to Costco

I also didn't find anything quick on if white label sales cut into private label but as the white label is only Costco I'd guess the impact is not severe and if the private label is known might even be a boost at outside liquor stores. Even with

For their own sales, take a bottle cost of $30 - $12 to produce for a net of $18. For white label, $12/2 or $6 in profit. So perhaps their private label is 3x the profit ($18 vs $6) so as long as the white label sales don't eat more than 1/3 of the private label sales (and I'd say across the nation it won't) then they come out ahead. But either way they make money and have a huge partner with massive sales to produce for which I'd take as a win for long term revenue stability.

https://www.lovebrewing.co.uk/guides/still-spirits-liqueurs/...

I think they were addressing general mistrust of climate science and stubbornness to act against human driven climate change or even recognize its existence let alone prioritize environmental concerns like mine tialings and other pollution. In red states, run by conservatives who consider climate science a conspiracy and environmental regulations antithetical to business, this philosophy common. Many of these states (and blue ones too) have low population, no major urban sprawls or cities, and minimal pollution sources near people like chemical plants, refineries, and mines.

SLC is in a red state that generally follows GOP talking points on these issues and has not acted strongly to protect air quality in the area. Polling in the state suggests people do support climate science though. If the city took action like LA/CA to improve emissions standards, implement better public transit to replace commuter cars, and pressed local companies and industry to limit emissions it could get an early start and a rising taxable population to fund these programs.

Even if they rotate kids in and out to keep crowds down, they still need separate facilities or FEMA level decontamination daily with same day testing for employees like those working the cafeteria and would interact with all sets of students...

We need to double resources for schools and teachers anyway but even if we had the time and funding it would be less than ideal to combat the pandemic too.

For me, it's because private, religiously focused schools can receive federal aid to indoctrinate children into said religion, dictate what is taught to increase indoctrination rates, and skate oversight. They are welcome to do this on their own dime, but as soon as taxpayer funding is involved all religious specific focus and values must be dropped. The school must no longer refuse employment or punish students based on protected classes, benefits and other school affiliated programs must not have any religious based rules or policies, and the school must be transparent to audit and review to confirm students meet standards for their education including basic science and and history like the big bang and fact based origins of dinosaurs.

In this instance, it's a separation of church and state. You should not get a public dime if they do things like fire an LGBT teacher who had otherwise glowing reviews and successful students or refuse to teach basic science and history.

But the arguments against charter schools as a suck for public dollars as well as the way voucher programs can be abused (with support by the present Secretary of education, someone who has investments and connections to charter programs) is another huge issue.

It's not that the left opposes education, it's that they want actual education in schools. It's not that we shouldn't spend the money to improve education, it's that we need to invest in programs and schools that meet federal guidelines and respect federal law and constitutional rights.

And for me it's because the first amendment should guarantee freedom of and FROM religion. If the best school in town is the religious charter school my property taxes are supporting, we have conflicts.

A uniquely American view of independence and rights has become a uniquely american problem with helping our neighbor, unfortunately. Nations with more collective oriented values appear to have done much better.

Just sucks to not have a solution for people who spend their lives teaching (and babysitting, managing, mentoring, and more) our youth.

So 2 directions? The cheaper, easier, and far more deadly in person option or invest $$$ with a need for short term results. It's never that simple, but if the issue is spending the money then I don't see why it isn't a straight forward option given how much we've spent to buy bad debt and bail out administration cronies.

And billions of dollars looted from the PPP and US treasury while the media conflated protesters with the bad actors running amok. If you weren't in the protests, read accounts of those who were like the recent overview in the New Yorker. When a movement that starts with taking a knee is vilified, attacked, and denied legitimacy what other options are there to make their voices heard?

Meanwhile, taxpayers have been robbed blind by the damage to our infrastructure by looters yes but also corruption, greed, and abuse of power not seen at this scale in the entire history of our democracy. Even the Secretary of Transportation and Husband, Mitch McConnell, made off with millions in loans paid for by your tax dollars. The current USPS head, who may be slowing delivery to damage the agency, may be taking direction from a guy whose old company received $700 million in bailout even though it is only worth 1/10 of that.

You and I might have seen $1200. Millionaires got $135 Billion in tax loopholes. That's more than hospitals were allocated to deal with the virus.

So do go ahead and complain about looters at protesters. It's important their bad behavior be recognized and flushed out. But don't lose sight of the larger issue, billions of taxpayer dollars going to the rich, donors to the current administration, and even directly to members of the administration and GOP party leadership. The corruption is obscene.

A New Yorker in Minneapolis: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/22/the-heart-of-t...

USPS issues: https://www.salon.com/2020/07/15/disturbing-memo-reveals-tru...

Millionaires: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaharziv/2020/04/27/proposal-u...

QM2 is one of the fastest cruise ships but:

> 41 feet for every gallon

Not great fuel economy either. When multiplied by the 3000 people on board at max capacity that extends efficiency but only to a point.