Who would be tempted to stop working, reduce their work hours, take longer breaks between jobs, plan gap years from work, or simply retire early if they could count on a UBI check of, say, $1000 a month? Some candidates….
…
As if Trump were so bad, it’s okay to downplay the shortcoming of “anyone but Trump”. I don’t share that sentiment. So thank you FactCheck.org for combing through the Democrat debates and calling out candidates who spoke less than the truth.
Per FactCheck.org (and in their own words), here are questionable statements made by Pete Buttigieg during the Democrat debates…
Per FactCheck.org (and in their own words), here are questionable statements made by Elizabeth Warren during the Democrat debates:….
The news media tend to focus on President Trump’s exaggerations, misstatements and false claims - not a hard task, given the president’s tendency for loose talk. No such due diligence with the current crop of Democrat candidates. No ongoing catalogue of lies, ala CNN, of anyone other than Donald J. Trump. As if Trump were so bad, it’s okay to downplay the shortcoming of “anyone but Trump”. I don’t share that sentiment. So thank you FactCheck.org for combing through the Democrat debates and calling out candidates who spoke less than the truth.
FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. According to its website, FactCheck.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. It monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.
The ASBI I’m proposing would cost around $567 billion a year. Unfortunately, “savings” from government programs downsized or eliminated as a result of the ASBI would not be enough to fund the entire $567 billion program. How to fund the balance? Here’s an idea…
May I propose a modest alternative: the Adult Student Basic Income (ASBI). The ASBI would provide a basic income (say, $1,000/month) up to six years total (minimum one month at a time) for adults enrolled at least part-time in postsecondary training and education programs, from ESL classes to apprenticeships to graduate school. Like the UBI, the ASBI benefit would not be means-tested, so recipients could work without jeopardizing their payments. The ASBI would also effectively combat poverty, income volatility, job instability, and lack of social mobility by subsidizing incomes while recipients increase their earning potential. Unlike the UBI, the ASBI is time-limited and would not subsidize a permanent way of life. And while the ASBI is conditional, the required adult education and training is not so onerous as to preclude working at the same time. Plus, it’s affordable.
The primary fuel reduction method used by the DOI was “vegetation treatment”, which includes thinning and timber harvest; controlled burns, chemical treatments; targeted grazing; mechanical removal; mowing or cutting; logging; and fuel breaks, or gaps in vegetation that limit fire spreading or speed of spreading. Vegetation treatment is still an method in progress.
The Pursuit of Happiness requires a bit more unpacking. The contemporary sense of happiness mixes "lots of positive emotions" with life satisfaction. That's too small, too trivial, for me. I'm looking for a sense of happiness that is less about feeling good and more about having a sense of meaning and purpose. As it turns out, my way of thinking about happiness is pretty close to that of the Founding Fathers….
So what does matter to Americans? That is, what are the essentials of their own version of the American Dream? Allowing that the American Dream means different things to different people, there are some things that most Americans care deeply about: freedom, family, and a comfortable retirement (followed by contributing to the community and then owning a home). That’s according to a survey conducted by Pew Research a couple years ago. Check it out:
This is a Reblog of “The toxic rhetoric of climate change” by Judith Curry. Posted on December 14, 2019 (link here). I highly recommend you check out the comments on original blog and to explore Judith Curry’s other posts.
Of course, not all optimism is good. Per Haynes , Perry & Stupnisky (2009), over-optimism is actually a risk factor in college. Overly optimistic college students tend to base their optimism on uncontrollable factors, such as innate ability and luck. Think of people who like to repeat self-affirmations or are prone to saying things like “I can do it!” and “I know it will all work out!”, without taking concrete steps to actually make the good thing happen. Time and again, they fall, pick themselves up, repeat their affirmations, then fall again.
Then again, the right kind of optimism is associated with academic success…
“Optimism is naively believing that everything will be all right, when we know that reality is far more complex and messy…. Optimism is like a sugar high that quickly fades…” - “Why to choose hope over optimism for 2020” by Kevin O’Brien
Some might object that Study 1 did show a decline in median income. However, the authors of Study 1 were also Study 4 authors and that study (published 15 years after Study 1) showed a substantial increase in median income. Bottom line: US median income has risen a lot over the past 40 years. And, yes, that’s controlling for inflation (no matter how inflation is calculated).
I was speaking recently with a City of Oakland policy director about the negative press the city was getting due to all the luxury housing units being built there. One news article even claimed these new units were increasing the area’s cost of housing, because they were more expensive than the existing luxury housing stock. The policy director explained that the point of all that luxury development was not to lower the cost of luxury housing (although in time it would) but to increase the supply of affordable housing. Say what?!
“…A new report by the Global Commission on Adaptation, a group convened by 20 advanced and emerging economies, identifies $1.8trn in potential adaptation investments which, if realised between 2020 and 2030, would yield estimated net benefits of $7.1trn.” The Economist Humanity will find ways to adapt to climate change. September 19, 2019…All the adaptations in the above list would be good ideas even if the climate stopped warming today. Meaning that even climate change skeptics could get behind these adaptations because they address current threats to humanity and the environment.
…
Third, despite months of hearings, endless media coverage and the impeachment itself, Americans are cooling on the idea of removing Trump from office…
Gallup has been asking the open-ended question “What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?” every month for decades. And the answers have indeed been revealing. Here are the latest poll results:
Point is, for most Americans, principal residence is the primary sources of wealth. After that: pensions and retirement accounts. But nobody expects younger adults to have much in the way of pensions or retirement accounts. So the question becomes: why are younger adults delaying home ownership? The next two charts tell a big part of that story…
“…it was not until the 1920s, four decades after Thomas Edison’s first power station, that manufacturers embraced [his] killer app for electricity, designing factories to accommodate dynamo-powered assembly lines…. Genuine innovations are inherently difficult to spot in advance. So the game is more about creating the right conditions for companies to press ahead and to seize on breakthroughs when they arrive. Asian-tiger governments are steering their economies with a lighter touch