spangry

97 ms·

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by spangry 11y ago
Do you truly believe American democracy is so far gone that it's comparable to 'democracy' in the former Soviet Union? For me, I honestly couldn't say with any certainty (I'm not an American). From an outsider'
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by spangry 11y ago
Huh, that link didn't turn out as planned... It's from this page http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics/ (3rd chart on page). I think the charts were made using data found here:
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by spangry 11y ago
I realise I'm replying to a fairly old thread now, but just wanted to say thanks for the insightful comments. After giving it some though, I agree that the scenario you've outlined is the most likely one. I hope the 'eurocrat
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by spangry 11y ago
It's interesting that you relate better to your grandfather's generation. Assuming you're a Gen Y, and he's part of the 'G.I. Generation', then you're both of the same generational archetype (see Strauss-H
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by spangry 11y ago
Seems we're at maximum comment depth.. In answer to your question: no. I'm not blaming anyone who turned up to vote. I'm blaming those who didn't turn up to vote. http://www.electproject.org/home/v
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by spangry 11y ago
Nukes probably play a large part in this too. It's unthinkable at this point for any of the large nuclear powers (e.g. the permanent members of the UN security council) to engage each other in direct military confrontation. Barring an
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by spangry 11y ago
Ah, sorry. I misread your post. At least in Australia, the really expensive 'contingent liability' (i.e. future tax burden on Gen Y) comes from health care expenditure, which tends to sky-rocket as one grows older. Might be differ
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by spangry 11y ago
I honestly wonder if this does more harm than good. By which I mean it leads to more of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#Effect_on_inf... and this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki&#x2F
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by spangry 11y ago
The graph on that page seems to say otherwise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law#/media/File:U.S... Just eyeballing it, from 1975 to 2005 the tax to GDP ratio in the US was always above 24% and pea
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by spangry 11y ago
I guess the Allies also learned from previous experience (the Treaty of Versailles), and thankfully listened to Keynes the second time around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economic_Consequences_of_t... "Keyn
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by spangry 11y ago
I agree; currency wars are certainly not the answer as they most likely make everyone poorer in the long-run. I'm more talking about a 'nation level' currency/floating exchange rate (to act as an automatic stabiliser) an
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by spangry 11y ago
I'd say more difference than connection. China is facing a terrifying 'demographic cliff' due to the previous 1 child policy, much more so than western nations. This also skewed gender towards males in the Chinese Gen Y cohor
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by spangry 11y ago
That's not really the case in the US: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-113... Gen Y is more than 1 quarter of the US population and outnumber the baby-boomers. We're the chil
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by spangry 11y ago
Just to provide the counterpoint (perhaps from a less biased position than Soros): the EU was doomed from the start due to member countries (excluding GB) losing sovereignty over monetary policy (i.e. common currency) but retaining sovereig
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by spangry 11y ago
I just read the PG essay and have to agree with the parent post. From what I can see, his argument boils down to this: increasing wealth concentration is caused by many things. Some of these things are 'bad' (e.g. rent-seeking, br
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by spangry 11y ago
And this figure only covers government IT procurement... When you look at how government has traditionally interacted with citizens, it's indistinguishable from a monopoly service market. In the past, this was the only feasible way to
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by spangry 11y ago
I'm very much in this category of depression. I have what is unfortunately termed 'melancholic depression'. I should note that I'm very sceptical of the DSM 'disease model' of mental illness, and am glad to see
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by spangry 11y ago
The phenomenon you're talking about is known as 'depressive realism' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism ). The evidence is fairly inconclusive, but it's an interesting (and IMHO, plaus
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by spangry 11y ago
As you point out, it's interesting how this problem is amplified by the dunning-kruger effect. I've also observed this issue to be worse in environments when success or failure is difficult to measure (or is only measurable far in
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by spangry 11y ago
Individual success anyway. Without leaders who have the ability to recognise competence in others (and incompetence, despite how confident a person sounds), the team/organisation/country has no chance of success. However, confiden
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by spangry 11y ago
Couldn't agree more: if people think team outcomes would improve "if only the smart people spoke more confidently", it's a sign of incompetent leadership to me. This problem is as damaging as it is pervasive, and scales
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by spangry 11y ago
Have you checked out iiNet's VDSL2 (using the fibre they acquired with TransACT)? I had no clue it existed and only recently stumbled across it. Getting about 60/20 now.
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by spangry 11y ago
Interesting that this debate always centres on current bandwidth capability. I think the two biggest economic advantages of 'fibre to the home' are actually lower latency and future upgradability. On latency, the round-trip time f
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by spangry 11y ago
Notwithstanding my above comment, this is a valid concern that governments need to address if they move to a 'untied rent subsidy' approach. In my opinion, the best way to address this problem is to take measures that increase the
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by spangry 11y ago
Social housing schemes are very inefficient and, ironically, further entrap their participants in poverty. I can't speak for Germany, but in Australia most state social housing schemes are heavily oversubscribed, and so are rationed. A
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by spangry 11y ago
Although I agree it doesn't result in increased supply of land, an LVT results in more efficient allocation of existing supply, which is economically equivalent to an increase in supply holding allocative efficiency constant. And I 100
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by spangry 11y ago
For the US specifically (I'm an Australian), I'm not entirely sure. I must admit I'm a few months out of date information-wise as I stopped reading the news about half a year ago. It was just too damn depressing to watch thes
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by spangry 11y ago
"The solution? Dissolve land-use regulation, pay residents to allow developers to build new structures, and distort the market in favor of the renters by levying a land-value tax." Small nitpick. Land markets are generally distort
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by spangry 11y ago
You wouldn't need to force higher densities as it would naturally occur for high-value inner-city land. If the government taxes your economic land rents, it increases the opportunity cost of using high value land in unproductive ways.
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by spangry 11y ago
"The real problem with land [and property taxes] is the fact it tends to flow into the cost of rent and homeownership." That's simply not true in the case of rent payments to landlords if we're talking about a land-value

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