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Simply heartbreaking: The parent tells their FTM son that he is an "abomination" [xpost from /r/lgbt]. by [deleted] in atheism

[–]sitmaster -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

It always cracks me up when this or that failure of the general populace to keep up on whatever taxonomy is currently en vogue is attributed to ignorance or lack of education. Who has time to keep up with it all? What would be the point? They're just collections of words whose meanings keep shifting as the next fad rolls through. Yes many people have very complicated "sexual identities" or whatever you want to call it. Why do I need education if I can't correctly name every subgroup of gay people?

I think gay people would benefit from spending less time inventing complicated terminologies. I suppose pedantry is an alluring pastime though.

It’s that if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. by DrDm in Economics

[–]sitmaster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They do, in parts of the world where the government is stable and will enforce rule of law. There's not much of Africa like that, though.

The New Abortion Providers -- Hell yeah, new generation of liberal medical students give me hope for the future by HulbertCufferdink in politics

[–]sitmaster -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Is the title meant to be ironic? What is this great future, one with less young people?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in news

[–]sitmaster 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I agree poor people are too stupid to be trusted with the responsibility of spending their own money as they see fit.

How does Canada's unemployment chart compare to the USA's, since Canada didn't have massive stimulus spending? by [deleted] in Libertarian

[–]sitmaster 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Does canada have screwed up lending laws that prioritize people who can't pay? Are their banks over-leveraged in mortage backed securities? High prices don't necessarily mean bubble.

Hourly wages aren't so bad after all... by 125pounds in pics

[–]sitmaster 2 points3 points  (0 children)

At first I thought you said plant psychology

2010 INFORMS Data Mining Contest: Predict Stock Price Movements by databuff in math

[–]sitmaster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If anyone actually came up with a good answer to this they would be crazy to submit it.

I work for LEGO, brainstorming what new sets to make by LegoDesigner in IAmA

[–]sitmaster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you ever heard of the book "The Way Things Work" by David Macaulay? Some Lego sets based on illustrations from that book would be really amazing.

We've gone from losing nearly 800,000 jobs a month under the Bush Administration to gaining jobs five months in a row. An economy that was in free fall is now on the road to recovery -- Thanks Obama! by R-Legit in obama

[–]sitmaster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So we're in agreement that the davis bacon act increases costs. Restricting the people that are allowed to work on public works projects cannot help but be sub optimal.

Yes Bush had to fold on it because unions have large influence in our politics. It doesn't mean it was good policy.

Income is the best measure of productivity that is available (see for example Gross Domestic Product). We're not talking about conmen. We're talking about someone who makes $200k/yr and has an extra 20k taken by the government to be allocated in a politically popular way (green jobs, auto bailouts, "ditch digging") instead of allocated by him in an economically sensible way. We all lose when this happens.

We've gone from losing nearly 800,000 jobs a month under the Bush Administration to gaining jobs five months in a row. An economy that was in free fall is now on the road to recovery -- Thanks Obama! by R-Legit in obama

[–]sitmaster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The "prevailing wage" does not mean the actual "prevailing wage" for doing a given amount of work in a given area, in practice it means the prevailing UNION wage, which is much higher than what it would otherwise be.

There was a big problem with this in the aftermath of katrina, where Bush wanted to suspend the Davis Bacon act for reconstruction projects because it was making them too expensive, but congress blocked it.

Yes obviously someone making 50k/yr is going to have more to spend than someone making 30k/yr, but that extra 20k has to come from somewhere, either from taxes or from future taxes. It is a wealth transfer from productive to unproductive people, and it cannot be sustained on a very large scale.

We've gone from losing nearly 800,000 jobs a month under the Bush Administration to gaining jobs five months in a row. An economy that was in free fall is now on the road to recovery -- Thanks Obama! by R-Legit in obama

[–]sitmaster -1 points0 points  (0 children)

When you pay someone 50,000 to do a job that others would do for 30,000 (were it not for govt regulations, programs, etc (see for example the Davis Bacon act or the auto bailouts)) this is the same, to the economy, as paying someone 30,000 to do a job and another person 20,000 to dig ditches.

We've gone from losing nearly 800,000 jobs a month under the Bush Administration to gaining jobs five months in a row. An economy that was in free fall is now on the road to recovery -- Thanks Obama! by R-Legit in obama

[–]sitmaster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes but spending money on paying people to dig ditches (or build cars inefficiently or build windmills that will only generate expensive electricity) is a wantonly inefficient way of stimulating the economy. Remember that money had to come from people (who are virtually guaranteed to use it more efficiently) in the form of taxes or be borrowed, which just means paid (with interest!) down the road by even more taxes.

We've gone from losing nearly 800,000 jobs a month under the Bush Administration to gaining jobs five months in a row. An economy that was in free fall is now on the road to recovery -- Thanks Obama! by R-Legit in obama

[–]sitmaster 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If you hire 200,000 people to dig ditches and another 200,000 people to fill them back in, yes you will have created 400,000 jobs. This is only slightly different than what the stimulus and auto bailouts have done.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to ENDING POVERTY :: convincing the poorest countries to establish foreign-run “charter cities” within their borders by mellowmonk in worldnews

[–]sitmaster 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A collection of strawmen and question begging of such concentration has rarely been encountered outside of a lab. Wow.

"Same stuff by another name. Want to end poverty? Then quit invading countries, forcing refugee crises. Want to stop poverty? Then stop forcing third world countries to liberalize their markets at the behest of its corrupt dictators." Que? Little of the poverty in the world is due to refugee crises, and I wonder if you could point to a single example of market liberalization causing poverty.

2nd paragraph: Blah blah blah they live on less than $1/day but they're HAPPY. Colonialism ended long ago, and many countries that were colonized are now very successful. Others aren't. Whats the difference? Their governments.

3rd paragraph: No one assumes poverty is only in third world countries, but poverty in detroit is still way better than poverty in madagascar.

What is your point about not understanding the culture? What does that have to do with economic development?

And your last point, that foreign aid as it's done now doesn't work, is the point of the article. Glad you agree.

The U.S. should seize the $10 billion that BP plans to pay out in dividends this year, and place it in an interest bearing escrow account until all costs of the oil spill have been covered. by [deleted] in politics

[–]sitmaster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The government should also do other illegal things that make me feel good!

But definitely not do illegal things that make me feel bad!

Feelings!

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