301–310 of 394 posts
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A older friend of mine who structured financial products said that the worst thing we did for the healt of the Social Secuirty fund was the war on cigarettes. He said it in jest... but he wasn't wrong.
Oh, I'd love to hear more detail on this if you remember any?
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the-uncomfortab...
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A older friend of mine who structured financial products said that the worst thing we did for the healt of the Social Secuirty fund was the war on cigarettes. He said it in jest... but he wasn't wrong.
Oh, I'd love to hear more detail on this if you remember any?
The story I remember hearing (and couldn't find a specific citation) was that anti-smoking groups made up a bunch of big numbers about smokers' high medical costs to scaremonger. To fight back Phillip-Morris did a study and legitimately found that smokers died sooner and total costs were lower. Unfortunately, that's not something you really want to publicize, so anti-smoking people can keep making up scary numbers and cigarette companies can't really fight back.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.97488...
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Seconded. That stood out to me too in his post. Disability seems to be widely abused in the western world. I'm for social welfare, but I'm not for mismanagement and abuse. Disability as it exists today is a concern that needs to be addressed.
You guys have the advantage of being able to work. Your minds and bodies are healthy. Man up and take care of those less fortunate, even if it means a minority game the system.
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You guys have the advantage of being able to work. Your minds and bodies are healthy. Man up and take care of those less fortunate, even if it means a minority game the system.
Your mind will change once a "disabled" driver with no insurance runs their car into you at 50 mph and gets off scott free while you are stuck with the bill and repercussions. I know someone who is literally blind and he works just fine. Even know a guy with ALS who can barely move who still works. I could probably qualify for legit disability as well but I choose not to be a degenerate leech and actually work.
> but I choose not to be a degenerate leech and actually work.
Your viewpoint is disappointing. It is not okay that someone who has ALS must work. You are not a leech if you are physically disabled and cannot work because of it. I'm not even mad man, I just feel sorry for you. Push the keyboard away and spend time cultivating some empathy.
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Isn't this article/this thread explicitly what we have been told not to discuss this week? I am really confused as to what is considered political or not. I suppose it actually means "politics we disagree with"?
The week-long experiment was terminated early. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133855
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The sense of entitlement is a lot higher these days. I grew up in a 900 sqft house with 1 bathroom. Yet all my peers (myself included) seek out homes 2x, 3x or bigger. Same with cars.... my parents bought used, reliable cars. Today we want fancy things. Growing up we had cable tv and a phone line. Probably spent $50/month total. The family cellphone bill, home broadband, various tv services easily top out over $300/m…
This. US home ownership has gone up and down between 64% and 69% in the past 30 years, currently at the low end of that. But at the same time, the average new house went from 1,600 to 2,500 sqft. Thirty years ago, how many people plopped down $5k for a TV? $700 for a phone? $150/month for telecom? Life expediency has increased by 6 years from 1975 to 2010. And to top it off, we're working less than we ever have. Aver…
This really struck me. I am going to assume your numbers ar correct, but if you could point me to a source I would love that. (did a quick search on the web, couldn't find exactly what I would like)
My first thought was that it is fascinating that we would be working 12% less hours per person. I wonder how that break down by gender. The number I keep finding is per day men @ 8.4 vs women @ 7.7 which doesn't match your number because it is only talking about full time employment. Hence if you can help me find better numbers that would be great.
Then I realized the horrible truth residing in your numbers: in 1950 it was almost exclusively men who worked. Today women make up almost half of the workforce. On a per capita basis we are working much, much more than we used too. From this Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#United_States:
The average working time of married couples – of both husband and wife taken together – rose from 56 hours in 1969 to 67 hours in 2000
The middle class has disappeared and it is not because they became wealthy, lazy or demanding.
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The week-long experiment was terminated early. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133855
Personally, I'm thankful for that. This is exactly the sort of article I like to see on HN amongst the general tech stories, especially for the comments and insight shared by peers. I consider HN readers on the whole to be intelligent and, for the most part, to have insightful things to contribute.
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Wow! Most 30-year-olds are making more than their parents did at the same age! --- I'm more worried about the near universal editorializing of real news than the less common totally fake variety.
Have you ever noticed that the only people who talk about fake news all the time are the people who lost nearly all of the recent elections? "Don't worry, the reason we lost is because everyone who's on the other side is really stupid and believes fake news"
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Personally, I'm thankful for that. This is exactly the sort of article I like to see on HN amongst the general tech stories, especially for the comments and insight shared by peers. I consider HN readers on the whole to be intelligent and, for the most part, to have insightful things to contribute.
Likewise. I'm now just very confused. What is going to be the next censored topic of the week?