oarla

Couple of issues I have when I see such graphs or scale of inequality. I'm referring to those wealthy people who want to use their good fortune for benefit of society, not all of them.

1. Usually these comparisons imply that the super rich have a major chunk of their wealth sitting as cold hard cash. That's hardly the case. Most of the wealth is in assets or illiquid forms. Take Bezos for ex, a good chunk of his wealth is in AMZN stock. If he sells all of it to fund a philanthropic scheme, that'd trigger a massive selloff in the stock market and impact a lot of people negatively. Not saying that they're helpless, but I think they may be doing some good with all the excess cash that we may not be aware of.

2. From a logistics point of view, it's hard to ensure that money intended to help someone reaches them. Unless you are personally delivering the money, there'll be middle men who take their cut. If a billionaire decides to spend a billion dollars on charity, I'd think a bunch of orgs would want that money, to do charity as well as run their non-profit operation. Which would make it appear that not enough is being done by the billionaire, when it is employing a few and benefiting some more.

For someone already in USA on H1B, I expect there won't be much impact other than added delay, as the processing of H1B within USA is done over mail and not involve interviews.

The article touches on this a bit, but I've always wondered what is defined as life. As noted in this article, source of complex organic compounds on Earth is most likely biological, but on other planets, the odds are pretty low for that. If life is self sustaining complex organics, then I guess the bar is pretty low to find it in the universe.

However, if life is defined as adapting complex organics(evolution), where the errors in replication of cells triggers different combinations then it gets more interesting as that is in a nutshell how life started evolving on Earth.

I am not sure I understand why this is a win for Uber drivers(genuine question). Is it considered a win because now they are treated as employees, so they will have benefits like sick pay, vacation days etc? What was the policy when they were not employees? Would they be penalized(financially) if they took a sick day? France already mandates some of these for contractors, so not a huge benefit, I think.

I doubt it'll mean more earnings, since employees are generally paid lower than contractors. This being in France, universal health care already covers everyone, so don't think that drivers are going to get a better healthcare coverage.

Maybe now the drivers will have to be compensated for wear and tear of their vehicle, which I can see is a win.

Why is there no mention of the initial cost to lay down fiber? I expect that would be quite significant compared to wireless links and I am not even thinking of the costs that might be associated with maintenance of the fibers once it is laid down and operational.

There's no evidence to prove that diverting funds to social programs instead of silly space missions will benefit the needy in the long run. Rather, investing in science and technology might solve these social problems. See response from NASA scientist to a nun for similar question.

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html?...

This article makes it sound like Apple and Intel and poor victims of Qualcomm's bullying. That is hardly the case. Both are much bigger than Qualcomm, and have been bullies in their own way. Funny to see them cry wolf

Pay a nominal amount to read just the article and not have to buy a subscription.

Not a physicist, but I recall reading that there is enough empirical evidence to support the current model of expanding universe.

It is theorized that the laws of Physics can be different in different parts of the universe. Maybe elsewhere speed of light isn't an issue

Doesn't have to be a signal with meaningful data, just something that can be identified as not noise.

I am from India, and I have experienced the kind of pressure that this article is talking about. Personally, I feel that the root cause of this kind of pressure placed on teenagers is the abject fear of failure that is prevalent in India, especially in the middle class population. If one cannot crack these exams with flying colors, then society(most part of it at least) writes them off as losers who are doomed to a low paying job with no prospects of success in life, financial and personal.

A lot of people equate academic brilliance with intelligence and build up on that logic that it'll lead to financial prosperity, which in turn will lead to a good image in society and hence happiness. Don't have good marks, you are worthless. Never bother if you are a great athlete, singer, artist or any of the other vocations.

Even within academics, if you can't make it into one of the areas which pay a lot, like CS/EE/Medical science etc, then society views you with pity about your wasted talent. Doesn't matter how skilled of a Civil/Mechanical engineer or architect you are.

I feel lucky to have been exposed to the western system to get out of such a though process and hope that India can pick up some good things from the west in the field of education.

The IRS doesn't always know everything. For example, they don't know how much medical expenses were incurred in the tax year. If there's a centralized place where all relevant expenses and incomes are logged, then maybe they should do it for everyone. Else, it's going to be a problem going back and forth with IRS over the right amount of taxes to be paid.

Population of: USA: 325 million Germany: 81 million France: 65 million UK: 65 million Australia: 21 million New Zealand: 4.7 million

The problem with completely ignoring the discoveries of the past are that we may miss out some solutions to current problems. No harm in learning things from the past

Why should critical thinking be an effect of literacy? There are people who are not literate by western standards, but pretty sharp(Michael Faraday) and those who are literate but not that clever

Pride in the past or present is a personal choice. Facts about the past/present should not be twisted or ignored for that sake.

This article is very weird. It's written by someone in a first world country, presumably USA, for companies based in West(Amazon, Starbucks , IKEA etc) on how to monetize in India. The primary complain is that India doesn't have enough people who can spend money on certain luxuries, when compared to China.

I find it hard to believe that companies had to make only minor tweaks to their business model to succeed in China.

For ex, Amazon is making a "killing" in China, by doing exactly what it did to bolster it's business in USA. http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-is-struggling-to-find-...

It's no wonder that businesses have to adapt to local markets. Lamenting that there are too many poor people is a bad idea, because as many comments here have mentioned, it's a different mindset in India when it comes to spending than the West.

If companies can adapt to break into the market, let them. But claiming that its not worth it, would be a bad choice.

I've always wondered this about insurance company's business model. How is it fair or legal for them to pass on the increased costs to their customers? Providing insurance is a risk that companies take, for which they get rewarded if there is more inflow of cash (premium) vs outflow (payouts). If they have a bad year where more customers are to be paid out, then how can they increase the premium on everyone, just to ensure that their profits grow or remain same?

Hopefully the indigenous market for these skills develops for those affected to develop a career into.

Seems early to declare demonetization as a failure.

It's more than just accepting the current data.

In order to verify if the current data can predict temperature or other key metrics accurately, more data needs to be collected, which needs time, in the order of a few decades. But a wait of that long, may bring more changes, which would render the model inefficient or incorrect. A very tricky systems optimization problem!

Paris accord hasn't been around for long enough to see if it'll actually produce meaningful results. Kyoto Protocol was around longer, and would you call it a success? If it was, then why have a Paris accord? The examples you have listed are things where the benefits are pretty immediate, not a couple of generations away.

To get to the level of co-operation needed, a significant investment needs to made in educating people of all mindsets, about the benefits of this co-operation. That itself is going to take a couple of generations.

My guess is that most people who deny climate change, may actually mean that humans are not the primary reason for climate change. Since this topic has been politicized a lot, it has shifted the meaning of what people mean when they deny climate change.

Regarding the data, it's not very conclusive. Given the scale of time over which data has been collected, is it sufficient to create a reliable model and predict the future changes in climate?

Even if we were to assume that everyone agreed that human activities are the cause of climate change, it would still require huge amount of participation and co-operation among countries across the globe to fix it. That is impossible.

By growth, I meant increase in wages to at least keep up with inflation. Janitorial jobs haven't kept up with inflation. Nowadays, rent increases by about 10% YoY. But wages don't increase by that much.

As a society, if we figure out an economic system which doesn't lead to inflation, then all would benefit by not having to grow their net worth, and in turn, have a job that doesn't have any growth prospects.

I got the impression that the author is blaming her father's decision to stay behind, as the root of all her issues in life, including who she has become over the course of her life.

Maybe a dumb question, but I have always wondered this.

Won't UBI just shift the poverty line to a value above whatever it is now(0 maybe), without changing the income inequality/wealth difference. In a hyper-simplistic hypothetical scenario, if it's assumed that a person is poor if he has $0, with UBI, he'll have $X/month, making him above the poverty line. But now the entire country, rich and poor, have at least $X/month, which might translate to an increase in cost of all goods/services by $X, rendering the poor as poor and rich as rich.

What does backing the existing lawsuit mean? From the article, I don't see that they have filed their own suits. Isn't this more of a media stunt to show Qualcomm as the bad guy here?

Isn't there FreeFile on IRS's website which allows someone with a simple return (no capital gains, only standard deductions etc) to file for free. It would be as simple as described in this article.