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The threshold can be a problem- you don't want the threshold to be too low, or else the brake lights come on when even slight deceleration is occurring. This would give an annoyingly too-common signal that would possibly be disregarded/ not be an effective form of visual communication.

I disagree with regard to Hale County. Freeloading behavior became tolerated. The tacit endorsement of it became a cultural norm and it further discouraged productive economic behavior. They have the good fortune of living within a country large enough that one lagging region can be supported by the economic productivity of the country- something that comes at the expense of the other taxpayers. If they generally have the capability to support themselves but are instead choosing not to because it's easier, then they are freeloading.

If Hale County existed as an independent economy with no transfer payments to it, I wouldn't judge its population negatively. Or, if they were using the system of unemployment benefits as intended (as opposed to the system of disability benefits), then I wouldn't judge its population negatively. These systems were each established for their own purposes and twisting the intent of disability benefits to achieve personal gains is shameworthy. The fact that the people interviewed have to rationalize it is evidence that they are aware that what they are doing is shameworthy.

I think your arguments still are relying on misdirection around certain words- especially words that come with negative judgements against people that are suffering. i.e. the poor cannot act upon moral hazard, or the poor cannot be freeloaders. Well-intended moral judgements can still cast shame upon the poor- if you are poor, yet capable of working to improve your lot, and choose in the long term to rely on the involuntarily-given (taxed) aid of others, that is shameworthy. The preferable outcome would be to adapt, and to make your own way in life without taking from community resources. The whole community does better this way.

My main intention in my argument was to convince you that moral hazard exists in current social welfare programs. Judging by your statements, you were already aware of this, but rely on discussion points that deny it exists. Starting off an argument with such a clearly untrue line of discussion sets up pretty poor grounds for an honest talk.

That's all I intend for this. There's room for agreement on some other points, but I doubt it would be a productive conversation when you deny the existence of the downside tradeoffs of your preferred policies.

Your method of argument relies on lumping all persons into one category. The annoying detail about designing public policy is that policy changes happen on the margin, and it is the marginal cases where moral hazard presents itself first. If you continue to boundlessly extend your empathy for everyone that walks into their doctor's office to anybody that says they have back pain, you will clearly have fraud. And Hale County is clearly a case where this fraud is broadly present. You have presented your argument in the best way to try to lump the fraudsters in with the rest of the empathy-deserving recipients.

When Hale County has 1 in 4 adults on disability, it is beyond evident that the system is not working as intended. Yes, it is distinctly clear that some of those adults should be getting jobs. Your question "What do you want these people to do, manifest new jobs?" implies that this must be some unthinkably cruel thing to believe.

>If your model of this problem is "there's a bunch of people too lazy to work who are freeloading on the public dole" you will be unsuccessful at solving it, because your model is wrong.

Even if freeloading is unsolvable, the moral hazard exists. My primary claim prior to this comment has been limited to the fact that the moral hazard is present. Your argumentative strategy to claim that because the problem isn't solvable, it must not exist, strikes me as dishonest.

Aggregating statistics regarding age has very little explanatory value in regards to fraud and is a non sequitir. I would not be surprised if the average age of a convicted insurance fraudster has remained relatively constant over time either.

The example in linked materials of 1 in 4 adults in Hale County receiving disability payments is a clear example of a situation where individuals and healthcare providers have both contributed to widescale fraud. This is an obvious case where moral hazard is present and you continue to deny it.

You swept the issue of fraudulent social security disability claims under the rug. It seems apparent to me that your attitude toward individual level accountability is one that denies agency of the individual and ascribes their moral failures as a result of societal-level problems. After all, there is no moral hazard when individuals have no moral agency to begin with.

The median voter theorem does some work to dampen the rocking.

If you were comparing gasoline in a car to an EV I would maybe see what you are talking about- engines are like 30% efficient so the conversion to useful energy requires a large multiple of potential energy.

But in the case of an oil- or gas- fired furnace, their thermal efficiency is at least 80%, and often more, so their potential energy usage is close enough to directly comparable to their heating value.

in the 5 fatalities, we have:

-The crazy man who loaded his cybertruck up with fireworks and killed himself in front of the Trump hotel in las vegas -A cybertruck that ran into a tree, killing 3 people and catching on fire -A cybertruck that ran into a culvert, killing 1 person and catching on fire

It's a lot cheaper to cut the blades out of flat sheet metal and affix the injection molded plastic handles to give a nice 3d sculpted ergonomic handle than it is to cast/forge/machine the ergonomic handle out of steel. For 90 percent of users it will be just fine to use plastic, and the plastic will last for decades without issue.

what a silly idea. Never gonna be economical.

Pump water uphill for gravity energy storage. Dont use traincars or elevators or human-built elevated structures.

I don't know entirely why the Isle of Man TT course is so deadly, but it took another life in 2024.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Isle_of_Man_TT_Mountai...

Aluminum foil HVAC tape- super awesome tape for sealing air leaks. It is somewhat rigid and formable at the same time. With the way it is formable, it tends to stay in place better than a lot of other tapes when put into strange shapes.