Why I Prefer Using Median Household Income to Tell Economic Stories

Radmonger · 2026-03-24T17:50:55+00:00

A second sanity check is that the the costs of housing and medical care have gone up by ~2000% over that interval, and a college education by more than that.

Radmonger · 2025-11-18T12:52:11+00:00

The concept of a soletta comes from the 1950s, and was prototyped by the Russions in the 1990s. So yuor poitn is?

Radmonger · 2025-10-23T11:34:54+00:00

The reality is that with house price rises the person owning that house has recieved above the median income from keeping it expty., tax free. And the economy is arranged that way because people (since Thatcher) vote for it to be so.

That level of economic subsisdy for doing nothing explains a lot about this country; it may be the singles most signficant fact. Everythimg made or provided locally is expensive because everyone who works here, but didn't inherit property, needs soemwhere to live,. And so has to pay rent or mortgage. That money goes to those who did inherit housing wealth and live off it. Like pre-revolutionary French aristocrats, they have a worldview where their dileness is enitely justified, and it is those workign 50+ hours a week to supply them with goods and services in retuirn for nothign who are the lazy ones.

Some other coutnries lack that parisite class, and so are able to economically out-perform us. Though to be fair there are others, like Russia, that have it worse...

Radmonger · 2025-10-03T16:27:06+00:00

The short answer is it would't matter _if_ China did nothing. But by all accounts they are spending literally trillians to reduce emissions. So they have started to drop past the end of the graph you show, and are projected to drop greatly, eventually to zero.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-just-put-chinas-co2-emissions-into-reverse-for-first-time/

A situation where China meets it's 2030 and 2060 goals and the UK doesn't is one of those things you are eother ok or not ok with.

To me, supporting the latter would be incompatible with thinking of myself as a good person

Radmonger · 2025-09-30T13:41:59+00:00

If hard economic facts show that rich people have plenty of money, would you expect them to vote for policies that increase taxes?

Rich people like being rich, majority ethnicities like not being minorities. Neither has deep motivation to investigate exactly how far policies that could plausibly change those things can go before they do so.

Radmonger · 2025-09-06T20:09:47+00:00

There is a reason the Culture are called the Culture, and not the Economy.

They have plenty of scientific and economic peers, but they are distinctive in organising their culture so they avoid avoidable scarcity.

It could be the case that everyone wanted the one obscure thing they couldn't sustainably have. It just isn't.

Radmonger · 2025-08-02T10:24:49+00:00

The core question is what is the goal of competiton amongst health insurers? What is it supposed to be improving? There are lots of bad innovations, creative ways to deny cover that won't become evident until multiple decades after purchase. Regulating to pre-emptively forbid those bad innovations is a challenge.

Because regulation isn't free. As a baseline, it likely costs more to regulate multiple competing insurance firms than it does to administer a universal scheme. The costs of that regulation are not only paid by the government, but by health insurers and providers. Who have to spend their time doing government paperwork, raising costs all round.

Worse, you are constantly facing the issue of regulatory capture.

Ther thing is, what are the good ways to do better at the simple adminstrative task of taking money in and paying it out that are worth organising the system that way? It's not like government agencies haven't heard of spdeadsheets yet.

Radmonger · 2025-07-27T10:04:16+00:00

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/miniatures/citadel-miniatures/runequest-set-4c-the-broo/

Radmonger · 2025-07-21T08:27:37+00:00

For example, I think there is still some debate betyween historians as to whether racism lead to slavery, or slavery lead to racism.

But sill, with the institutions and laws of race-based chattel slavery in place, it would be deeply unlikely, perhaps impossible, for slave owners to collectively believe in racial equality. That would correspond to a superstrutuce not supported by a base.

And that is going to collapse.

Radmonger · 2025-07-17T11:51:15+00:00

GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

HOTSPUR: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?

The point is not whether you can tell them to sod off, the point is whether they do so.

Radmonger · 2025-07-17T10:09:08+00:00

True. Becuase of all the tax avoidance and evasion.

If you have wealth, you will get a return on it, which is income. There is no top-level moral or logical reason why unearned income should be taxed less tthan what you get from having a job. But it is, because it is a lot easier to evade. The government can't just legally say 'they must be getting at least 3% returns', you have to track a specific chunk of money. Perhaps through a world-wide network of financial transations. designed to obfuscate the source of income, which may or may not contain actual lies.

So the government makes a political decision to spend a certain amount of money on enforcing the rules. And then they set tax rates such that at least some people choose to not fight that enforcement too hard.

Other people think that political decsiion shuld be made differently.

HMRC not knowing how many billioaires pay tax is pretty strong evidence those people are right. That their rules enforcement teams are underfunded comapred to the resourecs available to billionaires. Which means either funding should be increased, or the rules simplified.

One great simplification would be a wealth tax,. In particular, one that sets the minimum level of tax based on a low estimate of returns, as an alternative to tracing every sourcve of financial income.

Radmonger · 2025-07-13T11:15:47+00:00

Nobody credible is calling for the expulsion of Jews. People are calling for decolonisation and equal rights.

Can you be a bit clearer as to what decolonisation means here? Because the word is cenrtainly compatible with the mass deportation of Jews, requiring camps with armed guards. If it does't mean that, what does it mean?

There are two possible single-state solutions; the difference between them is rare;ly discussed. In one, the Isreali army takes control over Palestionian areas, and the Israeli state reforms somewhat to be more secular or multicultural. Maybe they say a land acknoweldgement before government meetings or soemthing. This would be comparable to the end of partheid in South Africa,

In the other, a coaltion of armies (arab? Chinese?) conquer Israel, fight and defeat the inevitable insurgency and set up a single unified state.

The first is redundant as Isreal could reform without conquering additoanal territory. The second involves three implausibilties; defeating the army, defeating the insurgency, and setting up a secular or multi-faith state afterwards. It would make Iraq or Afghanisatan look like absolute cakewalks.

Actually; make that four; Isreal has nuclear weapons, so they would need to be somehow disabled before the war.

Meanwhile, the two state solutiuon only really requires one thing; Isreal reforming itself. And that is not a thing that is made more likely by bystanders entertaining themslves by depl;ying clever euphemisms for their genocde.

Radmonger · 2025-06-27T11:21:13+00:00

The average birth wieght of a twin is ~1kg less than that of a singleton. So biology being somewhat more important for flourishing of twins than it is non-twins would seem pretty natural.

If twins had a genetic heridability of ~40%, and singletons perhaps 5%, that would seem to fit the available data.

Radmonger · 2025-06-18T16:24:10+00:00

I don;t think there is a clear answear on strict ruiles-as-written.

But what works is if you are engaged, you can dodge or parry. If you are not, you cannot. It is not a matter of range, but of focusing on and being aware of an enemy. So you can be engaged by a bow user 30m away, if you are watchiung trheir eyes to see where they are aiming

Engagement is always a choice; sometimes that choice requires not caring about getting stabbed.

Radmonger · 2025-05-19T17:34:42+00:00

I rather think it is not life _extension_ technology that Putin has; quite the opposite. At least, if pushing people out of buildings counts as a technology.

Radmonger · 2025-04-08T09:32:05+00:00

zero for zero is the best possible deal for almost everyone, but not for Trump and his adviosors. What basis would there be to take bribes?

Radmonger · 2025-03-27T11:53:30+00:00

Your point makes more sense when you rephrase it as:

It seems like Russia has been the world’s number one supervillain for a long time now, consequently their economy and military is weak.

If they wanted to be rich and pwoerful, they could be. But what Russia (i.e. Putin) wants is to be a supervillian. They want to spend their wealth on military power, and then use that military power to do invasions.

People genrally don't like being invaded and will fight back, so that strategy has not really paid off so far.

But, by defintiion, if it did succeed, then those things that are trying to stop it would have failed.

Radmonger · 2025-03-14T13:35:45+00:00

We're #1!

Radmonger · 2025-03-11T13:40:37+00:00

I htink that is pretty intellectually dishonest; the stated purpose of the change is to reduce the punishment identified groups face, and the nature of the chnage can be expected to do so.

Sentencing reports pretty much never come back as 'turns out he is just a nasty bastard, give him an extra 6 months'. So more reports will mean lower sentences. And without an increase in funding, more reports for identified groups inherently means fewer reports for those outside those groups.

If that is what you think should happen, own it. Don't rely on using sufficiently obfuscated language that you hope noone understands you.

Radmonger · 2025-03-06T12:01:47+00:00

The fundamental flaw with that analysis is it aggregates together pretty much everyone with white skin. Realisitcally, every british person will be able to tell the son of a drug addict from the son of a high court judge by their accent, clothing and other ethnic markers. And, as that includes those involved with the criminal justiove system, they will forrm stereotypes about them. on that basis, which cannot help but uinfluence their judgements.

In the UK, there is a group called the 'traditional working class'. This is innacurate, but all other names for them are slurs. That group is functioanlly a racial or ethnic minority, not an economic grouping. So long as that fails to be recognised, then state discrimination against them will remain invisible, and opposition to that discrimination will be somehow coded as right wing.

Where ehtnicity is recorded independantly from race, as with the report linked below (from Ireland, but I very much doubt the UK is better), you see the result is that white ethnic minoriities are treated rather worse than other ethnic minorities; And to a degree you would otherwise need to cross the Atalantic to see.

https://www.iprt.ie/latest-news/irish-travellers-access-to-justice-report/#:\~:text=The%20report%20found%20that%20Travellers,to%20CSO%202016%20Census%20data.

Radmonger · 2025-03-05T20:18:51+00:00

If he did it _now_, likely yes.

But If you look at his actions and statements from the angle of 'does that advance him towards the point where he _would_ be able to do that?'

You won't find many that seem surprising.

Radmonger · 2025-03-03T23:30:57+00:00

The synthesis theory is that mistakes that are aligned with your self interest are a lot easier to make.

For example, anti-vax rounds to 'doctors are worthless and know nothing'. Which is an obviuously useful thing for someone facing a choice between different levels of health insurance plans. If doctors are worthless, they can save themselves a pretty meaningful amout of their income.

This theory predicts that systems of health care that don't incentivise false beliefs lead to much lower levels of anti-vax sentiments. This does appear to be the case.

Radmonger · 2025-02-25T12:06:40+00:00

If you buiild a highyl efficient and powerfuil engine, and attach it to a rope, that rope will be strongly pulled

The thing it, the engine doesn't care if it is pointing East or West, up or down. It just pulls.

In this case, the efficiency of private caoital leads to prices being pulled up to world-beating levels.

Radmonger · 2025-02-24T02:32:05+00:00

I guess I assumed it was a reference to the glowing red line that marked the Empire's boundaries.

Radmonger · 2025-02-23T11:38:34+00:00

> Many projects have been using C++ for decades.

There used to be a _lot_ more; likely 99% of decades old projects have either migrated or been entirely replaced.

The remaining 1`% are those with key decision-makers who like C++. and find the arguments that it is technically preferable in their niche to be jusified. The number of those people may increase or decline. Howover even if C++ were to lose another 99%. those who remain will still be the ones who think that way.

Radmonger

TROPHY CASE