gwright

89 ms·

931.
by gwright 8y ago
For all the situations in which you feel like the US was not justified in its actions, have you considered all the ramifications of alternative actions? And what about all the situations where its actions were justified but would not have
932.
by gwright 8y ago
> Also, only 7.5% comes out of your paycheck, the employer pays the other half This just means that paychecks are 7.5% lower then they would otherwise be. It is a mistake to think that the employer paid benefits are "free". T
933.
by gwright 8y ago
Of course it means that it stays out of the way by default. We have a legal system based on blacklisting things that aren't permitted not a legal system based on whitelisting things that are allowed. And furthermore we have a meta-bla
934.
by gwright 8y ago
So you think that if I find someone willing to do data entry for $10/hour that there is some danger to the "general interest"? Where does that end? How does $15/hour protect the general interest but $14.50 doesn't
935.
by gwright 8y ago
Well, I just chose not to tackle all your points but... * the default position in the US is that the government should stay out of things (limited government), not that the government should regulate things (although we are rapidly moving a
936.
by gwright 8y ago
So I did get a little carried away, but the point is that once you've decided the it is OK for the government to regulate at this level, there is no room for complaining when government wants to intervene in anything else. We are in t
937.
by gwright 8y ago
We also have numerous laws regarding speech (fraud, libel, slander, threats, incitement, etc). I'm not sure it is useful to attempt to "rank" individual rights. I think it could be argued that the freedom to enter into contra
938.
by gwright 8y ago
So you are OK with all those employees losing their job because the government decided the minimum wage was too low? How do you justify calling those businesses "under-performing"? What is the limiting principle here? How do you i
939.
by gwright 8y ago
> As a leftie, I don't care that much about the right to enter into a contract What is your limiting principle then? Our social contract is based on the idea that government does not have unlimited power and that there are individua
940.
by gwright 8y ago
I feel like you are making a category error here. I'm arguing that minimum wage restrictions are an unwise restriction on contracts and you in turn are objecting to that argument by pointing to the fact that we do indeed have restricti
941.
by gwright 8y ago
I don't know about French poverty stats, but in the US the typical stats regarding poverty are terrible misleading. The basic problem is the highly publicized poverty rate from the Census bureau excludes huge amounts of assistance (tri
942.
by gwright 8y ago
I'm not sure that is true (all laws are about contracts), but your comment suggests an indifference to the notion that laws should be evaluated based on how burdensome they are to individual liberty. My comment was intended to illustra
943.
by gwright 8y ago
It is almost as if there isn't a single hourly wage that balances supply and demand for all types of jobs in all locations for all types of workers. Hmm.
944.
by gwright 8y ago
It seems strange to say that Google is the "authority" here. They are making a choice on how to run their business. There is no "authority" involved in that decision. But what makes you think the government should decid
945.
by gwright 8y ago
I make no claims on the reliability of the data. I just tend to get a bit suspicious when problems are described as being particular to the US or worse in the US than in other places. I find that in many cases that is just not true. So I te
946.
by gwright 8y ago
The situation seems a bit more nuanced than that: https://daliaresearch.com/the-countries-with-the-longest-and...
947.
by gwright 8y ago
As a taxpayer, I want you to pay also. I also want the government out of the educational loan business and think that some of the financial risk should be borne by the educational institutions. Making educational loans dischargeable in bank
948.
by gwright 8y ago
Power generation must match demand very closely and in real time. Demand is very predictable. As for supply, the generation capacity of fossil or nuclear power plants is known ahead of time and can be managed to provide power in a predict
949.
by gwright 8y ago
All the studies I've read about indicate that much more storage is needed.
950.
by gwright 8y ago
It is not an analogous situation at all and it is mainly due to the highly intermittent/variable nature of wind and solar. If I have to provide 100 units of energy (peak) a wind/solar farm that produces 100 units of energy (max) d
951.
by gwright 8y ago
Ok, I was a bit too blunt there, but the fact remains that presenting the marginal generation capacity cost of solar or wind as the total cost to deliver that capacity in a 24x7 system is simply wrong. If the cost for the next wind turbin
952.
by gwright 8y ago
Yes. You need that much storage because of the seasonal nature of sun and wind. You can't just assume a buffer of a couple of days or even weeks!
953.
by gwright 8y ago
Sure if you imagine some future technology that doesn't exists. We don't have storage mechanisms that have the capacity and are cost efficient.
954.
by gwright 8y ago
At best you are ignorant of the real costs of renewables. The only way you (and that Forbes writer) can come to your cost conclusions is to ignore the intermittent nature of renewables, but then you no longer have a 24x7 power grid. https:
955.
by gwright 8y ago
Renewables are not the cheapest when you add in the backup base load generation systems that are required to run a grid 24x7. The sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow 24x7.
956.
by gwright 8y ago
It is not possible (with today's energy tech) to operate a power grid 24x7 on renewables alone (no storage). See https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-3-14-how-much-... for a good overview
957.
by gwright 8y ago
One of the tensions between federated services (DNS, SMTP, HTTP, etc.) and non-federated services (Twitter, Slack, Facebook messenger, Signal, etc.) is that quite a bit of control (perhaps all) is delegated to the single operator in the non
958.
by gwright 8y ago
How do you define exploitative? Your usage suggests an extremely broad scope ("nearly every aspect"). What is the limiting principle in your mind? What is the difference between living via exploitation (as you conceive it) and liv
959.
by gwright 8y ago
I'd like to understand why the 14th Amendments provisions for due process and equality under the law aren't applicable. Seems to me that whatever taxing regime a state designs should be applicable equally to all legal entities (p
960.
by gwright 8y ago
The salient part of that story was the unfair reimbursement policy. My point was that it would have been unfair regardless of the age of the manager or age of the employee. Where did I suggest that anyone "take on" the company?

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