Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

Dr. Smeed wrote:we should realize that the Lord instituted a flat tax...

...of 100%.

So I decided to do a little research (I'm not very far) on why the heck, if economic incentives are there, segregation would have lasted a hundred years after the slaves were freed. I found this article on the economics of civil rights . I'm literally only one article in, but here's an interesting q...

But what if your highest-paying customers are racists?

In response to Marguerite's wealth distribution graph, I thought it looked wrong, but I couldn't find a response until now. Lo and behold, here's an interesting response by the (conservative!) tax foundation, explaining how that chart is terribly deceptive. The tax foundation's pulled their article ...

I speak from my own experience, as someone who has not been on the good side of the odds. If my parents — in the high middle class — had not had health insurance, we would have gone bankrupt and lost our house (at least twice), and my dad would not be alive. If my wife and I had not had health insur...

Wired: You're right, I don't think I believe in natural rights. Rights are socially, institutionally, ideologically, AND legally defined. So (in a democracy) rights only exist legally AFTER representatives legislate socially-agreed-upon values. For instance, in Canada, health care for every one was ...

DL: You're right on all counts, I'm just speaking from our own experience. And, like you said, you should still have insurance in case you have to be transferred to a hospital. Our first child could not have been born at a birthing center, and the C-section cost $16,000. Our deductible was $5,000. E...

You're misreading DeLong, and actually proving his point. DeLong is saying that since property rights are defined and enforced by the government, the terms of private property is in fact a government issue. Hence, you can't say that the government should not be involved in private property since by ...

Good old 1850, when the average life expectancy was 39 years, where the infant mortality rate was only 21% (34 if you were black), and when maternal mortality was just more than 100 times what it is today.

Ron Paul, presidential candidate, says he would have voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, saying that it violated property rights and the free market alone would have brought about civil equality. Here's the original video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26sprb4Vi44&feature=player_embedded#a...

What I'm saying is that basic health insurance is a necessary part of providing for one's family. We can argue about the other little things or definitions or whatever, but poor people thinking of having children need to plan to have health insurance for themselves and for their children. If they wa...

Nerdgirl: First, I recommend one of these kits: http://eshop.macsales.com/search/DIY+Express You'll want at least 500GB, and it's up to you whether you think you need more. 5400 rpm should be fine - 7200 gives you a faster drive (important if you're doing really intensive tasks like video or audio e...

in that case, just replace your internal drive with a bigger one - and then you can use your old internal drive as an external drive. It's easy; you just need a few tools, and your new hard drive will have exactly the same data as your old one. If you're interested, I can point you to directions for...

Yes - you need everything on two drives.

I suggest getting an external drive to backup to and replacing your internal drive with a bigger one.


I know it's expensive, but you have to think of it this way: if your hard drive died, how much would you be willing to pay to get it all back?

For that matter, people also go without shelter. One in five homeless people is employed.

Hmm... I think Tao's lower estimates on financial things and W&S's higher estimates have to do with rural vs. city dwelling and different standards of living. Some people... don't have health insurance. 1. I was using numbers from when we were living in provo. Cost of living where we are is 2-3...

You are correct, I was not outlining a complete budget, taxes alone cut heavily into such a proposal. I included Social Security and Medicaid taxes. A family this size would not be subject to income tax (and could actually get a "rebate" from the government for tax credits.). But what I w...

especially since babies are born bald. that's a lot of pressure on that kid.

SMP - my advice would be similar to NerdGirl's. Though your program may not be really what you want to do, you can use your status as an enrolled university student as an opportunity to do what you want to do. Think of it as "dating the ugly sister to get at the pretty one." Use your grad ...

Because debt is very easy to take on these days, I wonder how definitions of "poor" need to change. We go deeper and deeper into debt every month and try to minimize expenses. We have access to $10,000 to $20,000 more a year in loans, but we live inside a pretty lean budget. We don't feel ...