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The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

conradbastable.com

111–120 of 269 posts

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#111
post #2

> Google tells me that the most common reason for hospitalization in the US is childbirth. Thankfully, here in San Francisco, that would only set me back $15,000 Surely this is not true? Does having kids just bankrupt ordinary people in the US or what? I'm not asking about exceptional cases, like what is the normal way of dealing with having to pay $15,000 just to have a baby climb out of your body, when I'm assuming…

That is correct. To corroborate: my health insurance contract states I must pay $13,600 towards my medical expenses (this is AFTER premiums) per year, before they will begin paying on my behalf.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OP's article made a strong case for tertiary education (as the only group seeing wage growth If wages are growing for this group, then it stands to reason that costs of joining this group should also be also rising. Economically speaking, there cannot be a disparity where simply having a tertiary education leaves you better off than not having it. If there is, then people will join that group, driving up costs and…

We have fundamentally different beliefs about the world. I don't believe access to education needs to be controlled by ability to pay, for example. (And costs of education are rising faster than wages, as demonstrated in the article. Also, some people enjoy living in the city.)

> I don't believe access to education needs to be controlled by ability to pay

Education is accessible to everyone for free. Not to be confused with schooling, which is presumably what you are trying to point to here. The government already provides all of the schooling one needs to be a useful member of society for free.

If someone wants to attend guitar school to learn how to play guitar on top of that, I am not sure why it cannot be controlled by the ability to pay. Learning how to play the guitar is a useful skill and all, but the time of guitar teachers is a limited resource. There has to be some way to manage that.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#113
post #87
post #56

Here’s a controversial perspective. Maybe most people’s expectations are too lofty, and their abilities much lower than the think they are. In 2000, less than 25% of the working popultion had a bachelors degree. Today, every young person I talk to expects to finish a Phd, JD, and MBA. And, now everyone wants to live in the trendiest (highest-cost areas). There are plenty of places in the US where a house can be purca…

Isnt that just reflectin of who you talk with? I am pretty sure that 100% of young americans do not plan PhD nor MBA.

The parent poster has a very skewed opinion. My observations are similar to yours, in fact I’m not sure of anyone outside medical professions who did graduate schools right after a bachelors.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have fundamentally different beliefs about the world. I don't believe access to education needs to be controlled by ability to pay, for example. (And costs of education are rising faster than wages, as demonstrated in the article. Also, some people enjoy living in the city.)

> I don't believe access to education needs to be controlled by ability to pay Education is accessible to everyone for free. Not to be confused with schooling, which is presumably what you are trying to point to here. The government already provides all of the schooling one needs to be a useful member of society for free. If someone wants to attend guitar school to learn how to play guitar on top of that, I am not su…

Ok, I'm out of this conversation. I'm not interested in playing games.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#115
post #45

Does anyone know why wages aren’t increasing? Unemployment is almost at a 50-year low.

Civilians think unemployment means people don't have a job. Reality is its a measure designed in the 30s and heavily gamed and politicized to not mean very much.

A somewhat more realistic measure would be something like FREDs EM ratio. About a decade ago 62% of the population was employed, and after the great recession we've slowly climbed back up to 60%. Flat at 58% from the great recession until 2014, then continuous growth since. Sure theres boomers dying off, but that means demand dying off too, in theory the ratio should be fairly constant. FRED is an online product of the St Louis Federal Reserve; at least semi-trustworthy, surely more trustworth than unemployment stats.

Its not so much intentional dishonest as changing the definitions of what it means to be unemployed with all kinds of moral and ethical boundaries for welfare services etc. On the other hand, the percentage employed is reported honestly as a simple percentage of the population with a job. To have a job is a honest observational result; to be in the legal and welfare state of qualifying for unemployment benefits is a totally different kind of subjective observation. We could have 0% unemployment simply by not providing benefits anymore, which is kinda what we're doing.

Anyway the point is the last time the employment percentage was as low as 60% was after the 1983 recession; the graph is surprisingly not very dramatic and the percentage of employed americans post WWII has never been below 55% and never above 65%. None the less, the current stat of 60% is 3% below the peak in '07, almost 5% below the peak in '99, 3% below the peak in '90... For most of the 80s, all of the 90s, all of the 00s, employment was higher than it is now. Admittedly its better now than at the end of '09, but hardly at a high number.

As such, given that about 3% of the population was very recently working and now is not, we have a long way to go before any wage pressure.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#116
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you don't have healthcare insurance, which 90% of Americans do, it would set you back around $3000, according to: https://www.parents.com/pregnancy/considering-baby/financing...

it would set you back around $3000 That's an average. The problem is the huge variance. Also just because you have heath insurance doesn't necessarily mean your insurance will pick up the tab.

There are health plans that don't cover a childbirth?

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#117
post #95

What happened around 2000 that caused the accelerated growth in tuition?

I do not know about all jurisdictions, but in my region of the world, the high school completion rate jumped by approximately 20 percentage points right around that time (from ~60% to ~80%). Assuming that holds true elsewhere, it stands to reason that with more people graduating high school, more people are likely to be accepted into higher levels of schooling. With more people attending higher level schools, the increase in demand (without an immediate increase in supply – it takes a long time to build new schools and even longer to recognize them as respected institutions), means price is going to rise.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't believe access to education needs to be controlled by ability to pay Education is accessible to everyone for free. Not to be confused with schooling, which is presumably what you are trying to point to here. The government already provides all of the schooling one needs to be a useful member of society for free. If someone wants to attend guitar school to learn how to play guitar on top of that, I am not su…

Ok, I'm out of this conversation. I'm not interested in playing games.

I am not sure which game you are referring to?

You are quite welcome to explain why everyone should have equal access to guitar school, schooling provided beyond the schooling the government provides to everyone. It is not clear to me why that is beneficial. What do we, as a society, gain by allowing everyone a chance to learn how to play guitar, irrespective of how much money they have?

I suspect the game here is that you are staring to realize that it is not actually beneficial to provide schooling to everyone beyond the schooling we already provide to everyone.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason for the saying: "The Rich get Richer and the Poor get Children". Perversely having children is a "luxury" many people simply cannot afford. The happiness a "bundle of joy" should bring to the family is often replaced by additional stress of having to work a "better paying" (but often soul-destroying) job to be able to afford the bigger house, school/education, extra curricular activities like sports/…

Apologies if this unsolicited advice comes off as rude, but consider easing up on the italicizing and "quoting" of random words. It makes your writing style hard to read and waters down the effect when you do each once per paragraph.

@berberous, it's good advice and welcome feedback. Thank you.

I just tend to write the way I talk and using punctuation, speech marks and italics/bold is the only way I can think of to convey intonation/meaning. I will try harder to avoid the excessive use of emphasis, as you say it detracts from the writing/reading.

PG almost never uses any sort of emphasis in his essays: http://paulgraham.com/articles.html so I'm going to wean myself off it.

I am genuinely grateful for the feedback. =)

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source? I did a quick google for the Netherlands, but couldn't find any information about the real costs (without insurance).

I do, the Czech laws regarding health insurance - and pricing will be sent on request to the hospital.

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