$10,000 a semester is cheap. The current price at the university I attended is $73k a year.
1,349 karma · joined October 20, 2007
1) Their climate sucks 2) They have very little arable land and lack water 3) Production of electricity is expensive 4) A lot of interior cities - not a lot of port access
So, from a geographical perspective, what is SA supposed to produce that gives them a comparative advantage against the rest of the world? Then you move into the political/religious aspects:
1) Uneducated workforce, despite offering scholarships to study abroad for every one of their citizens 2) They import most of their labor from other countries, ergo, their labor costs are higher with respect to the rest of the world. A factory in India will be cheaper than a factory in SA, all else being equal.
These disadvantages make the only real route to a viable economy a service-based one. This is what Dubai has done - Dubai has done their damndest to establish free trade zones, a legal framework, and a tax regime to get companies to establish their MENA HQ's there (and they've done so accordingly). SA is WAY behind on this (I would argue irrecoverably behind).
It feels like a destination for the hyper-wealthy to Americans because our tourist offerings here are so much better - but not everyone can come here. My best analogy for Dubai is that it's like Vegas without the gambling - and while that may suck for some people, it can definitely be done. Vegas is also done at every price point!
Ex: During the Arab Spring, Kuwait handed out $500k checks to all Kuwaiti males above 18 years old. He also told the citizenry that he would forgive all car loans - population went and bought ferraris, range rovers, etc. and got the loans all forgiven by the government.
I worry more about the Arab countries that have high populations and cannot afford to pay everyone off - Saudi is on that list.
China, on the other hand, did not do this, and they were forced to shut down schools for 6 months.
These moves are HARD and painful, but the key to stopping a pandemic is acting overly aggressive and far-reaching. The USA is not doing nearly enough. We're going to be Italy in about 2 weeks.
You're right, though, that what insures promise to do and what they'll do are two different things - its hard to price that in upfront. I don't think the insurer in question, State Farm, is exceptional in that regard either. They dropped a family members coverage after 2 hail storms. They dropped a friend's company's policies after a single claim.
State Farm makes its money by bilking people with it's solo agent model. "Talk to your friendly neighborhood State Farm agent"...who only gets quotes from State Farm.
We would not do that in any other industry. Insurance is a commodity. It's like electronic items. We price hunt Amazon vs. Newegg vs Monoprice because we're nerds, we should do the same thing from our insurance providers.
You don't have to settle on some no-name insurance agency - you can set a high bar, but expanding your marketplace of options from 1 to 5 or 6 can only mean good things for you as a consumer.
Go check out an independent insurance agent. It's not "gaming" it literally takes 20-30 minutes, and could save you $1500 over the whole year (especially if you have multiple cars).
To "nudge" you in the right direction, buy not switching, you're basically saying, "I make money at $1000/hour, so it's okay that I don't expend the mental budget to compare quotes".
Additionally, the costs of goods and services is much higher than in the states. GDP per capita doesn't measure purchase power parity, and your dollars in PR don't go nearly as far as they do in the USA. Energy costs, water costs, shipping costs, are all much higher in other countries, and legislation (such as the Jones Act) that helps mainland USA hurts PR.
PR is trapped, and has a perpetual brain drain of people escaping. It has a negative population growth of -2% a year (in a heavily Catholic country), and GDP growth has been negative for 13 years in a row. More austerity measures are not going to help the situation.
Using GDP per capita (which is the wealth per person) is a very poor measure for the overall size of the economy.
This is akin to saying a SV silicon valley engineer who makes $250k a year should be able to pay his $2 million mortgage when he all of a sudden gets hit with $300k in medical expenses because he got hit by a bus while riding his scooter without a helmet - fuck it, he's wealthy. He just needs to budget better.
Hurricane Maria has caused $140 billion of damages to a country with a GDP of $100 million. What would the U.S. look like if it had a natural disaster that cost $20 trillion in damages?
It sounds like you need to make a visit and drive around. Some parts of the island still don't have power, even today.
One easy way to bring these people out of poverty is to provide them with good economic opportunities (like factory jobs!). High-tech factories would demand cleaner, more stable power (natural gas, nuclear instead of coal, wood, cow dung).
2) India's totally overpopulated, agreed. One way to decrease the population growth is to bring these people out of poverty. Every developed country has seen their birth rate decline once they move to the middle class. These guys need jobs, college, etc, and people will start having less kids!
If he were copying and pasting the images, that's one thing, but what he's doing has no losers - it amplifies the original user and falls within acceptable instagram practices.
That doesn't mean that I don't feel slimy about the whole thing.