The era of reduced expectations

[Les Cargill]

Clearly they were okay with illegals and indentured laborers- consider
Hop Sing... prohibited entry under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

it is my fondest wish that Wm. Randolph Hearst is being tortured for
all eternity in Hades for that one.

In reality, Ben Cartright was played by a Canadian and they reportedly
grossly underpaid the Chinese-American actor who played Hop Sing.

Wouldn't be surprised. The guest actors usually got scale.

 

[[email protected]]

Hi James, CIS is most likely a partisan organization.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies

There aren't any non-partisan figures I know of. Officially, the
people don't exist (unless being counted for electoral votes in the
Census), but just try strolling through Santa Ana, CA.

At one time I heard a report that said immigrants were a net win for
the economy.
(paid more in taxes than took out in benefits.)  But you can find
whatever you are looking for on the web.  (Everyone’s got a hat in the
ring.)

Here’s wiki’s take,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_illegal_immigrants_in...

If you scroll down to the bottom there is a section titled,

Weighing Benefits against Costs

The CBO’s take is a bit negative.... But at the moment that’s true for
(almost) all groups of Americans.  (sigh.)

Personally I think we should let ‘em all in. (And keep wages low.)
One easy (short term) way to grow the economy is to grow the
population.  They all have to buy house’s and hamburgers.  :^)

Well of course such an effort is well under way, and decades old. Is
it working?

As a California refugee, whose SIL teaches classrooms packed with the
kids of illegal aliens--who receive a public education that costs
California taxpayers >$12.5k a year each--it's just hard to see who
ever repays anything close to that. Sure they pay state income taxes
(we hope), but not anything close to $25k a year for two kids, or
(easily) $100k per kid.

Under the progressive tax system, they're likely to pay virtually
nothing. In addition, they receive housing subsidies, free medical
care, food, and other support. And, there are other costs, such as
criminality, etc.

Another social cost: my SO's teenagers couldn't get jobs--couldn't get
that initial work training and experience--because regulations made
them much less employable, more expensive, more burdensome than
(subsidized) illegal aliens. Their classmates weren't getting jobs
either.

Is there any other country that deliberately lures the world's least-
skilled and poor with benefits, and expects a return? Shall we import
all of India's poor?

On the other hand, America gets the benefit of illegals' production,
whatever that is, and they get to send money home. (It's the same as
exporting jobs to Mexico etc., but more convenient for the employer).

So, here's my proposal: a lot of the controversy and ill-effects are
because the true costs of everything are hidden by the welfare state.
Strip those away, put all costs out in the open, then decide what's in
America's interest.

I've certainly no objection to hard-working people wanting to
contribute.

 

[[email protected]]

[email protected] wrote:


This is one of those corner cases where the subsidy and the
cost benefits balance out, from what I have read.

Well then, let's import all the world's poor people and subsidize
them. Or better, why not send the subsidies directly to them? That
surely will make them work harder, and more productive.

It's analogous
to corn subsidies in that way - keeps the prices stable and down.

That just causes people to use corn instead of more suitable products,
and reduces the supply of everything that isn't corn. We then have an
oversupply of corn, which we correct by artificially demanding it be
used for ethanol, driving the price back up.

Wrt jobs, it distorts the job market, displaces youth, and replaces
our population with people of completely different values and history.

Rwanda had a genocide not long ago--would millions of Rwandans fit in
here, understand capitalism, a republican form of government, due
process, and civil rights?

I know; that's not the reason to be offended ( I am not offended,
the historical path dependence on Hispanic immigration causes me
not to be able to take a strong position one way or the other;
read about Hearst's ranch in Chihuahua province some time ).

But it all comes out in the wash.


I don't agree. There's a pretty bright line in reality. I do suspect
that a motel chain could possibly *advertise* "we are illegal free"
and get a small bump in price for it. I see "ethanol free" gasoline;
I suppose the mechanism is the same.

It has nothing to do with advertising. If you're an indigenous worker
without subsidy, how can you compete with an illegal one who is
subsidized? How can you possibly work for as little as he can, when
he doesn't have your same expenses?

So it goes. Why is this a problem? If the marginal product in the
marketplace is less than what it costs to do it...

You don't think removing all rewards for working harder--trapping
people in poverty--is bad? How is that good for them, or society?

James Arthur

 

[George Herold]

There aren't any non-partisan figures I know of.  Officially, the
people don't exist (unless being counted for electoral votes in the
Census), but just try strolling through Santa Ana, CA.

Yeah, I guess I tend to trust the CBO more than other sources.

Well of course such an effort is well under way, and decades old.  Is
it working?

As a California refugee, whose SIL teaches classrooms packed with the
kids of illegal aliens--who receive a public education that costs
California taxpayers >$12.5k a year each--it's just hard to see who
ever repays anything close to that.  Sure they pay state income taxes
(we hope), but not anything close to $25k a year for two kids, or
(easily) $100k per kid.

Sure, I'm just doing the numbers for my kids in my head... I think our
school taxes are ~$2.5-3k/ year. I've got two... don't know what the
cost per is, but $10k/ year may be close. So I 'get' ~ $200k, if I
pay $3k/yr that's ~66 years to barely break even. And I'm an above
average tax payer in my school district. There's some families living
in what are close to 'tar paper shacks'. (tyvek paper shacks :^)

Under the progressive tax system, they're likely to pay virtually
nothing.  In addition, they receive housing subsidies, free medical
care, food, and other support.  And, there are other costs, such as
criminality, etc.

Another social cost: my SO's teenagers couldn't get jobs--couldn't get
that initial work training and experience--because regulations made
them much less employable, more expensive, more burdensome than
(subsidized) illegal aliens.  Their classmates weren't getting jobs
either.

Is there any other country that deliberately lures the world's least-
skilled and poor with benefits, and expects a return?  Shall we import
all of India's poor?

On the other hand, America gets the benefit of illegals' production,
whatever that is, and they get to send money home.  (It's the same as
exporting jobs to Mexico etc., but more convenient for the employer).

So, here's my proposal: a lot of the controversy and ill-effects are
because the true costs of everything are hidden by the welfare state.
Strip those away, put all costs out in the open, then decide what's in
America's interest.

Yup, I agree with you more than I disagree. I'm particulary PO'ed at
the HSA's at the moment. I went and had all this 'somewhat unneeded'
health stuff done at the end year to fill out my HSA. We were mostly
healthy this year, and guessed wrong. Next year my daugther may start
braces... how should I guess?

I've certainly no objection to hard-working people wanting to
contribute.

I guess that's my basic premise, I assume people want to work for a
living.

George H.

 

[Bill Sloman]

You don't know that because I don't think it.  If you send all the Mexicans
from the southwest to NY, as Jim said, then there wouldn't be enough local
jobs.  It was in that context.  Without social programs they'd haveto head
back.  In spite of the inadequacy you perceive in our national social
programs, NY City and NY State have their own as well.

These folks estimate 71% of households with children headed by illegal
aliens are on our dole:
 http://www.cis.org/immigrant-welfare-use-2011

There goes our safety net.[/QUOTE]

Why? The data doesn't say what proportion of households are headed by
illegals, or what proportion of households headed by legal immigrants
or native-born residents are also "on the dole", both bIts of
information that happen to be essential before you can make that
claim.

In fact, it is the usual right-wing alarmism, and is one more example
of your selective use of alarming statistics to create a rhetorical
effect.

And, it's not from unwillingness to work
generally, but is used by low-skill, low-education workers to
supplement their wages.  The subsidies actually drive wages down--
subsidized workers can work for less.

Legal and illegal immigrants and native born workers in low paid jobs
all share this advantage, not to mention the employers who end up
paying less for the unskilled work they buy.

The employers may not like paying the extra taxes that cover the cost
of the welfare, but that's spread over the whole of society, not just
the employers who benefit from the cheap labour.

Not only do subsidies make it possible to work for less, lowering
wages, but it becomes progressively impossible to compete for work
without subsidy.  That progressively sucks more and more people into
welfare's net, trapped.

The welfare is being targetted at families with kids - entirely
rationally - so are you claiming that the illegals and non-illegals
alike are having extra kids to qualify for welfare? And need to do so
to be able to afford to hang onto their jobs? You'd need to adduce
extra data to support this implausible claim.

<snipped the usual right-wing nonsense about the dependency culture>

Badly constructed welfare programs have been known to include "poverty
traps" and disincentives to work. When UK sociologists looked at what
the unemployed and the marginally employed actually did, they found
that the sane majority of the unemployed would take work even if it
cost them in terms of visible income, mostly because being in work
provided additional satisfactions and occasional advantages (fiddles)
that didn't get figured into the poverty trap calculations.

Can't let those O votes off that federal plantation...

As if the low paid are going to see any advantage in voting for the
Tea Party who want US income inequality to rise from it's already high
levels - higher than ex-communist Russia, and not far behind Communist
China. The Communist Party isn't the only self-serving oligarchy
around.

 

[Bill Sloman]

There aren't any non-partisan figures I know of.  Officially, the
people don't exist (unless being counted for electoral votes in the
Census), but just try strolling through Santa Ana, CA.

In other words, honest commentators are aware that they can't put
together the reliable figures that a honest peer-review process would
accept as publishable, but the parrtisan propaganda machine has no
such inhibitions.

Well of course such an effort is well under way, and decades old.  Is
it working?

Despite the best efforts of the banking system that you so
uncritically admire, the US economy is still growing, if not all that
fast.

As a California refugee, whose SIL teaches classrooms packed with the
kids of illegal aliens--who receive a public education that costs
California taxpayers >$12.5k a year each--it's just hard to see who
ever repays anything close to that.  Sure they pay state income taxes
(we hope), but not anything close to $25k a year for two kids, or
(easily) $100k per kid.

Investing in educating kids is a long term investment. It pays off
over their entire working life. At the moment the US system seems to
be investing less than it profitably could.
One of the weaknesses of the US system is that expenditure per student
varies from district to district, and children from low income
districts end up with lower educational outcomes. This also happens in
countries where the expenditure per student is determined by region or
across the country as a whole, but the differences in outcome tend to
be less dramatic in these countries.

http://edr.sagepub.com/content/38/1/5.full

Under the progressive tax system, they're likely to pay virtually
nothing.  In addition, they receive housing subsidies, free medical
care, food, and other support.  And, there are other costs, such as
criminality, etc.

Educating the children of the poor is a long term investment, but it
does pay off in a variety of different ways. Lower criminality and
better health outcomes are part of the payoff when you do it right.

Another social cost: my SO's teenagers couldn't get jobs--couldn't get
that initial work training and experience--because regulations made
them much less employable, more expensive, more burdensome than
(subsidized) illegal aliens.  Their classmates weren't getting jobs
either.

Interesting. How exactly did that work? The people who might have
employed your SO's teenagers were getting subsidies to employ the
children of illegal aliens? How did those employers prove to the
subsidy-givers that the teenagers that they did employ were the
children of illegal aliens? And why didn't the immigration service use
this information to deport the illegal aliens involved?

Is there any other country that deliberately lures the world's least-
skilled and poor with benefits, and expects a return?  Shall we import
all of India's poor?

Only after the Indian education system has picked out the particularly
educatable poor and given them degrees in computer science.

In fact the US doesn't deliberately lure poor immigrants (not the
least-skilled, since immigrating illegally takes tenacity and
enterprise) any more than the European Economic Union does.
Many EU countries did import "guest workers" but now the EU is big
enough to include a lot of sources of low-paid labour, and the illegal
immigrants from Africa are being discouraged.

On the other hand, America gets the benefit of illegals' production,
whatever that is, and they get to send money home.  (It's the same as
exporting jobs to Mexico etc., but more convenient for the employer).

So, here's my proposal: a lot of the controversy and ill-effects are
because the true costs of everything are hidden by the welfare state.
Strip those away, put all costs out in the open, then decide what's in
America's interest.

I've certainly no objection to hard-working people wanting to
contribute.

But you are less open to the idea that their children - or the
children of low-paid US citizens - might be educated well enough to
maximise their eventual contribution to the US economy. That would be
a long term investment, and the right-wing lacks the wit to perceive
the advantage of any long term investment, not in education nor in
averting climate change.

 

[Bill Sloman]

Well then, let's import all the world's poor people and subsidize
them.  Or better, why not send the subsidies directly to them?  That
surely will make them work harder, and more productive.

That's called "foreign aid". A lot of it ends up in the pockets of
corrupt politicians. Organisations like "Practical Action" do better.

http://practicalaction.org/

That just causes people to use corn instead of more suitable products,
and reduces the supply of everything that isn't corn.  We then have an
oversupply of corn, which we correct by artificially demanding it be
used for ethanol, driving the price back up.

Wrt jobs, it distorts the job market, displaces youth, and replaces
our population with people of completely different values and history.

Looking at you and Jim Thompson in action, this may not be a bad
thing.

Rwanda had a genocide not long ago--would millions of Rwandans fit in
here, understand capitalism, a republican form of government, due
process, and civil rights?

Probably better than you, but you aren't in a position to understand
that.

It has nothing to do with advertising.  If you're an indigenous worker
without subsidy, how can you compete with an illegal one who is
subsidized?  How can you possibly work for as little as he can, when
he doesn't have your same expenses?

None of the welfare benefit that you are complaining about paying for
wouldn't be available to an indigenous worker. How could they not be?

You don't think removing all rewards for working harder--trapping
people in poverty--is bad?  How is that good for them, or society?

The existence of welfare benefits doesn't remove all rewards for
working harder. In an ill-constructed system it may reduce - and at
some specific thresholds - completely eliminate the officially
recognised financial incentives. Financial incentives aren't the only
rewards that encourage people to work harder - and better - and
welfare certainly don't trap people in poverty.

You may not have the wit to recognise that working reliably for an
employer for a low wage is a way of learning more about the job and
improving your chances of getting moved to a better-paid task that
calls for more skill and a better grasp of what's going on, but low-
paid employees get reminded of this from time to time.

 

[Bill Sloman]

So, Professor Sloman's contention is that illegals flock
overwhelmingly to the US because they prefer and seek America's
illegally low wages, abusive conditions--and lack of benefits--over
those offered by Canada?

Genius.

Thanks for the promotion. I hope I can live up to the honour by
educating one of my slower students.

My contention was that if the illegal immigrants from Mexico were
primarily interested in the benefits of the - inadequate - US welfare
system, they would keep on going to Canada, which offers a slightly
less inadequate welfare system.

In fact they do seek America's illegally low wages and abusive
conditions because, bad as they are, they are better than they can get
where they come from. They might do even better in Canada,if they were
aware what Canada had to offer, but staying alive through a Canadian
winter is a moderately skilled job, which may put them off.

In my professorial mode, I should point out to you that constructing
straw man arguments may be fun, but since you seem to have done it to
evade the point I was making, it does make you look both dishonest and
stupid.

 

[[email protected]]

it is my fondest wish that Wm. Randolph Hearst is being tortured for
all eternity in Hades for that one.



Wouldn't be surprised. The guest actors usually got scale.

"Hop Sing" wasn't a guest actor. Guest actors used such appearances
for resume enhancement not to live on.

 

[Les Cargill]

Well then, let's import all the world's poor people and subsidize
them. Or better, why not send the subsidies directly to them? That
surely will make them work harder, and more productive.

I actually have an answer for that! When a person crosses the Rio
Grande, their marginal product goes up by ... six, ten, something times
( don't remember the exact figure ).

So there's no point. I realize you were not being serious, but as it
happens...

This is a big deal, because we can underpay them by our
standards and overpay them by their home standard. And eventually things
equalize out...

That just causes people to use corn instead of more suitable products,
and reduces the supply of everything that isn't corn. We then have an
oversupply of corn, which we correct by artificially demanding it be
used for ethanol, driving the price back up.

Sorry, I meant the *main* corn subsidies, not the ethanol mess. I mean
the general Earl Butz programme and what it's evolved into.

Basically, we overproduce, and that margin means people can make
more relaxed estimates of shortage risk. The paradoxical result is
that things are actually cheaper. I don't know what happens to the
surplus but it's not apparently a major problem.

I won't argue that the ethanol boondoggle is disgusting.

Wrt jobs, it distorts the job market, displaces youth, and replaces
our population with people of completely different values and history.

It might. It might not. it depends. There is actually a writer who
apparently, in a fit of Steinbeck-ism, endeavored to become
a lettuce cutter in the California Central valley. Turns out it takes
years to make a good lettuce cutter. It's not like logging
for a summer.

And the "history" includes basically being run off in parts of our noble
country. That's not their fault, and it's really not ours - the Mexico
City regimes could not hold El Norte. We stole it fair and square
( or as close as anybody could get to that ).

This is a little harder to swallow for those from South America,
although there were plenty of 19th century "filibuster"ers* who
made an godawful mess down there that's still giving dividends. .

*the William Walker type, not the parlimentary type.

Rwanda had a genocide not long ago--would millions of Rwandans fit in
here, understand capitalism, a republican form of government, due
process, and civil rights?

Probably not. But we let a lot of Russians in at critical times in the
past. If you look at why we don't any more, it's mostly because of
people like Hearst.

My parents have sponsored two families to come to this country. So i
am biased in favor of immigration.

It has nothing to do with advertising.
Okay.

If you're an indigenous worker
without subsidy, how can you compete with an illegal one who is
subsidized?

You usually don't have to.

How can you possibly work for as little as he can, when
he doesn't have your same expenses?

You can't. But it generally doesn't create many problems - Manuelo* is
not gonna show up to work at a retail place or a Starbucks because he
doesn't have the cultural and social capital.

*of the Robert Earl keen song of the same title.

You don't think removing all rewards for working harder--trapping
people in poverty--is bad? How is that good for them, or society?

Work is nothing more than a necessary evil. Consumption comes
first - demand leads production. As we continue to "progress",
more and more stuff that used to be a living will not have the marginal
product necessary to support people doing it. It'll get automated or
it'll go away - or people will make hobbies of it.

We choose cheaper stuff that's basically the same all the time. Even
if we wnated to change that, I doubt we could.

"People getting trapped in poverty" is a big, complex thing. I've
gone on enough for now. Basically, we are not trees - when it's
1928 and you can leave Greenville, Ms to go to Detroit, you
probably ought to.

if we're serious about the dual mandate ( I think we are not ) then
there's an entire other thing that has to happen, and IMO, that's
about monetary policy.

 

[[email protected]]

Work is nothing more than a necessary evil.

Hence there has to be a reward for it, or people won't.

Consumption comes
first - demand leads production.

No it doesn't. Were people lined up to buy iPods before Apple
invented them? I've got a notebook full of any number of
advancements. Investment, production, and marketing all come before
demand for a product.

Unless you're following old-line marxist thought, which recognizes
only existing, big industry, and tries to accommodate that. (That's
what we're doing today.)

As we continue to "progress",
more and more stuff that used to be a living will not have the marginal
product necessary to support people doing it. It'll get automated or
it'll go away - or people will make hobbies of it.

That's irrelevant to whether [people will work considerably harder
without any reward]. They don't.

That's the trap--we've created a huge deadband where there's no reason
to work harder, and within which people can live comfortably as they
are, on the dole.

Only the most disciplined of people can survive that uncorrupted.

James Arthur

 

[Bill Sloman]

Hence there has to be a reward for it, or people won't.

Not strictly true. It's also a large part of many peoples social
lives, and sociological studies of the unemployed and the recently re-
employed show that the motives for wanting get back into work are by
no means entirely economic. People will opt for work when they are
stuck in a welfare trap which means that it actually costs them
( though not very much) to get back into work.

No it doesn't.  Were people lined up to buy iPods before Apple
invented them?  I've got a notebook full of any number of
advancements.  Investment, production, and marketing all come before
demand for a product.

This is no kind of counter-example.
Steve Jobs was unusually good at perceiving demand, so it lead to
development followed by production

Unless you're following old-line marxist thought, which recognizes
only existing, big industry, and tries to accommodate that.  (That's
what we're doing today.)

Who is we? You are your small coterie of non-investors?

As we continue to "progress",
more and more stuff that used to be a living will not have the marginal
product necessary to support people doing it. It'll get automated or
it'll go away - or people will make hobbies of it.

That's irrelevant to whether [people will work considerably harder
without any reward].  They don't.

Not for you. Obviously, working for you isn't the socially rewarding
experience that working for other people can be,

That's the trap--we've created a huge deadband where there's no reason
to work harder, and within which people can live comfortably as they
are, on the dole.

Comfortable, but isolated. For most people, work is a social
experience, and sharing the experience of doing things for other
people is valued as an additional benefit beyond the wages earned.

Only the most disciplined of people can survive that uncorrupted.

And some people go mad, and obsessive, and see themselves as
disciplined when everybody else can see that they've lost it.

At least I'm aware that I'm not disciplined ...

 

[josephkk]

We make modular control systems for microscope automation.
Job listings in the area are just about nil and can't move.

I do not quite believe in can't move; just the same, i am beginning to
consider really onerous commuting (rent a studio to sleep in sunday/monday
nights through thursday nights and drive 100+ miles home for the
weekends). I really do not want to have to sell my house.

YMMV

?-)

 

[josephkk]

@ BS You sanctimonious idiot. The US is a welfare state, i have direct
experience living here. Moreover, i have met and even worked with persons
that originally came here illegally. Some turned out to be hard workers,
and some turned out to be welfare con artists, and some turned out
otherwise but not many. The two major types often intermarry, resulting
in continuous marriage friction. I have seen too much of it to doubt its
reality.

?-)

 

[Les Cargill]

Hence there has to be a reward for it, or people won't.

Most people barely work for enough to cover expenses.

No it doesn't.

Sure it does. If you make stuff nobody wants, it
goes in the landfill.

Were people lined up to buy iPods before Apple
invented them?

The iPhone/iPad are a blip, a consumer fad object. it's hype.
They're not *completely* that, but a lot of them are sold as fetish
objects, not as computers/phones per se. They're a marketing triumph
and to an extent a good package design, but either is substitutable-for
by something half the price and twice the function.

I've got a notebook full of any number of
advancements. Investment, production, and marketing all come before
demand for a product.

To be sure, but most stuff never really makes it to market.

Unless you're following old-line marxist thought, which recognizes
only existing, big industry, and tries to accommodate that. (That's
what we're doing today.)

Old-line capitalist thought ala America has always been that way, too.
There's always been a significant emphasis on consolidation and
incremental improvement.

We *are* doing that today but only because wages aren't supporting
demand properly. Companies are regressing to "core competencies">

As we continue to "progress",
more and more stuff that used to be a living will not have the marginal
product necessary to support people doing it. It'll get automated or
it'll go away - or people will make hobbies of it.

That's irrelevant to whether [people will work considerably harder
without any reward]. They don't.

That's the trap--we've created a huge deadband where there's no reason
to work harder, and within which people can live comfortably as they
are, on the dole.

"Dead band" is the perfect term for it. But you can't exactly be
comfortable on the dole. You can be more comfortable with the right
sort of dead-end corporate job, though.

 

[[email protected]]

I do not quite believe in can't move; just the same, i am beginning to
consider really onerous commuting (rent a studio to sleep in sunday/monday
nights through thursday nights and drive 100+ miles home for the
weekends).

I just got done doing that for a year, except I bought a house at the
new location half way through, after it was clear the new position was
going to be permanent. I moved my wife to the new place in October.
We spent the last two months commuting on weekends to finish the
projects that needed completion and move the remainder of our stuff.

I really do not want to have to sell my house.

That's next. It went on the market last week.

 

[josephkk]

You don't know that because I don't think it. If you send all the Mexicans
from the southwest to NY, as Jim said, then there wouldn't be enough local
jobs. It was in that context. Without social programs they'd have to head
back. In spite of the inadequacy you percieve in our national social
programs, NY City and NY State have their own as well.

[snip]

New York already has such a problem. When I was doing that project
last year on Long Island, EVERY maid in the hotel (*) was Mexican.

(*) Extended Stay America, Melville.

I will bet at least some were from Caribbean islands or central America.

?-)

 

[Bill Sloman]

@ BS  You sanctimonious idiot.  The US is a welfare state, i have direct
experience living here.

But none of living in country with a welfare system that actually
works properly. Neither the UK nor the Netherlands is actually a
Welfare State in the terms that the immediate post-war British Labour
government had in mind, but - as Will Hutton pointed out in his 2003
book "The Wordl We're In" - they've both got good enough welfare
systems to make the labour force flexible enough to be reasonably
mobile and productive. You haven't got there yet.

 Moreover, i have met and even worked with persons
that originally came here illegally.  Some turned out to be hard workers,
and some turned out to be welfare con artists, and some turned out
otherwise but not many.  The two major types often intermarry, resulting
in continuous marriage friction.  I have seen too much of it to doubt its
reality.

We've seen how James Arthur's selective vision works. You may have the
unique knack of seeing the world as it really is, but somehow I
suspect that what you notice is conditioned by what you expect to see.
Putting it another way, anecdotal evidence sucks.

 

[josephkk]

Yup, I agree with you more than I disagree. I'm particulary PO'ed at
the HSA's at the moment. I went and had all this 'somewhat unneeded'
health stuff done at the end year to fill out my HSA. We were mostly
healthy this year, and guessed wrong. Next year my daugther may start
braces... how should I guess?

From personal (direct) more or less successful experience with braces;
before age 14 they may well be a semi-futile choice. The mouth and teeth
are still growing a lot. At ages below that it is increasingly a vanity
issue.

I guess that's my basic premise, I assume people want to work for a
living.

Sane people do, extreme religious left and right whinge types do not.

 

[Fred Abse]

'The Ponderosa' & 'Ben Cartwright' are both fictional.

And fictionally located in Nevada, not AZ.

Close to Virginia City, which actually does exist. East of Reno/Sparks.