171–180 of 192 posts
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and spent by them as well.
Rich people spend much less of their money on stuff than poor people do. Another thousand to a millionaire goes on the pile. Another thousand to a single mom goes on kids' shoes and car repairs.
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Our tax code needs reform, but taxing gains in productivity is a perverse incentive.
> but taxing gains in productivity is a perverse incentive. Not at all. The end goal should not be productivity onto itself. If those gains are being scooped up by a sliver of the population, we change the rules to benefit all. One person, one vote. As automation automates away more jobs, the cohort of people without jobs grows, forcing regulations (through democracy) to change to move towards a citizen's dividend fu…
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Rich people spend much less of their money on stuff than poor people do. Another thousand to a millionaire goes on the pile. Another thousand to a single mom goes on kids' shoes and car repairs.
Shareholders aren’t all ‘rich people’ - pension funds, insurance funds, and regular old retiremt funds all hold a lot of stock.
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I don't think a rail train could detach a car from the middle without stopping and park it on the side of the track.
From the middle no, but it's been done from the end - you just have to plan the makeup of your train.
The approach that Starsky ( http://starsky.io/ ) is taking seems to be a promising one. They employ truck drivers as remote pilots for the "first and last mile", i.e. the local roads and loading dock work that autonomous vehicles struggle with most. Other advantages include lower fuel costs (driving slower because AVs aren't subject to operator-hour limits) and probably also lower labor costs (you don't need to pay t…
I really don't see why autonomous vehicles couldn't handle the first/last miles soon after mastering the open road. I think only regulation would made this a requirement.
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The long haul stuff should go on rails anyway. It's very wasteful to run it on the interstates. The majority of the fatigue damage to the highways comes from trucks, then there's all the rubber dust, fuel inefficiency, etc. The trailers should just be picked up and dropped on flatcars, and trucks used for intracity last mile stuff.
This is Stefan, from Starsky Robotics. I hear this all the time, and honestly in many cases a truck is the transportation of last resort. If you need 5 shipping containers of goods going from A->B all arriving at Time X; it's probably going by train. An issue with rail (as pointed out by others) is how to haul the freight from the rail head (rail yard) to the end warehouses, and the extra time it takes to have goods…
I believe WalterBright meant that even at the legal weight limit, trucks cause 10,000x as much damage as cars. In 2005 this amounting to a $60b taxpayer subsidy.[1]
This isn't to criticize Starsky Robotics (this inefficiency predates it), which is just operating in the environment it finds itself. And in general, inefficiency begets opportunity.
[1] https://truecostblog.com/2009/06/02/the-hidden-trucking-indu...
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Nobody throws their money into a pile. Rich people predominantly invest their money which is still paying people to perform work, just like repairing shoes and cars.
Yes. They invest it. Not spend it as you claimed above. And while both keep money moving, they have very different effects on the spender/investor.
All I'm saying is that the money will be moving, and still providing employment.
Interestingly, doubling the throughput of the trucking network would also halve the average lifetime of road surfaces. "The federal government has estimated that a 40-ton, 18-wheel truck causes the same damage as 9,600 midsize cars." http://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-le-0215-sunda...
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Don't worry about doctors. Political power wins out in the end, and they have tons of it. For example: for decades they've managed to resist entry of decision-support systems(which were not perfect, but still, an improvement), even though their own error rate is ~1/8.
Pretty much the reason I don't go to the doctor unless I need stitches or am experiencing intolerable pain.
Health care industry is a cartel that optimizes for profit.
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The long haul stuff should go on rails anyway. It's very wasteful to run it on the interstates. The majority of the fatigue damage to the highways comes from trucks, then there's all the rubber dust, fuel inefficiency, etc. The trailers should just be picked up and dropped on flatcars, and trucks used for intracity last mile stuff.
This is Stefan, from Starsky Robotics. I hear this all the time, and honestly in many cases a truck is the transportation of last resort. If you need 5 shipping containers of goods going from A->B all arriving at Time X; it's probably going by train. An issue with rail (as pointed out by others) is how to haul the freight from the rail head (rail yard) to the end warehouses, and the extra time it takes to have goods…
Right or wrong, I don't think you have to defend that point. The government sets these parameters under which you (or truckers) do business. It's not your responsibility to maintain the highway as long as each truck complies with regulations. And it's not your fault.
American taxpayers subsidise many other things that don't quite make sense (to me), like corn production. You don't see people blame farmers for doing what's best for their farm and family.