Yeah, the $3,500 ones are super-lightweight with hidden components. If you don't try to conceal the functionality of your e-bike, there are plenty at much lower price points.
1) If you put all of your money in exactly 17 years ago, then, yes. You would be at the same place.
2) It still would've been paying you dividends that entire time
3) If you, rather than investing an imaginary lump sum at the top of the market 17 years ago, invested slowly as your savings accumulated over time, you would be ahead.
The FTSE hasn't exactly been sitting still all those 17 years.
It lowers risk making returns and/or losses less volatile. It does not increase returns. Of those dumping a lump sum in some lose more some win more and averaging them smooths it out. It's not a magic have your cake and eat it.
>most politicians have private meetings where they talk about what they actually think is going on, and then translate it into brain-deadening messaging for the public
Yes, sort of, but the reality of these things are so well understood all politicians that there's not often that much of a reason to discuss these things outright.
When a politician (and by "politician," I do not mean a single person. I mean an amalgam of the politician, their staffers, and their advisers) are weighing an issue, the actual merits of the arguments are just a part of the equation. They're weighing the interests of various groups and constituencies, they're considering coalitions and alliances and favors, and making a pragmatic decision. Usually a mix of their conscience, their constituents, their fundraisers, and their party.
Rand is a bit of an outlier on this front because he is a legitimate True Believer, but he's still a pragmatic true believer.
Then they hire someone like me to turn it into the soul deadening messaging.
But, yes, these people understand both sides of the issue. They are usually very smart. And if they don't understand the other side of the issue, their close advisers do.
It's too bad, really. The general public gets more engaged for presidential elections, and they start caring about the actual issues, but then there's no resource to allow the citizen to drill down into the actual argument as deeply as they'd like, so they can try to understand it to the depth that a close adviser would. So instead they hear a bunch of bull and they get disillusioned and go back to voting while uninformed. Which is really what the politicians want, anyway.
> there's no resource to allow the citizen to drill down into the actual argument as deeply as they'd like, so they can try to understand it to the depth that a close adviser would.
There are tons of resources [one example: http://www.vox.com/cards]. But the reason we have a republic is so that individuals don't need to become policy experts. They can rely on heuristics and the system is robust enough to handle it. This usually works pretty well
>go back to voting while uninformed. Which is really what the politicians want, anyway.
Most pols don't want this. Politicians want informed voters so people will be aware of the extreme efforts they go through to make their constituents happy. Election positions are determined based on polls, and extreme rigorous scientific effort goes into shaping candidates who are able and want to represent the policy desires of their constituents. (sure, the politicians might not actually believe these things, but to me that's usually irreverent. They want to be hired to do a job, which is representing the views of other people) The problem is, uninformed voters are more willing to switch sides based on emotion, ruining the math.
Informed citizens would be bad for some politicians (for example, blue state republicans who have to walk the line between the demands of their extremely conservative donors and their more moderate constituents). While some would do better with more informed voters (conservative red state democrats, for example, would be more able to shed the reputation of their national party and run on their conservative values if fewer people voted on policy as opposed to heuristics)
As a professional liberal, it pains me to have to do this. But since nobody else is, here's the conservative take. Because, seriously, there are real debates about this stuff.
Imaginary Cato institute position: "Leaving higher education to the free market is always more efficient. People naturally make the most rational economic decisions in their journey to achieve maximum happiness. Government interventions, such as confiscating money through the threat of violence (this is what they call taxes) to support free higher education will always distort this market, leading to inefficiencies on the path to maximum happiness. Governments are incompetent and inefficient because of the lack of market incentives, while markets are ruthlessly efficient."
Imaginary Mitt Romney position: The financial support I have received from for-profit colleges is immense. Seriously, those places basically print money. We need more of them.
Distortion n.1: offering student loans. "Ah but the unprivileged don't have the resources to go to school!" Then give scholarships. Or cap limit student loans (to 10k for example), yes, to a lower number.
Distortion n.2: fscking textbooks. Really, if I'm paying an absurd amount for tuition, everything needed should be included. Nowhere else in the world people are made to buy scantrons for example.
Distortion n.3: people shooting for "the best schools". I understand the connections a good school offers, etc but 1) courses can only go so far (even STEM courses), 2) after around 5 years of professional experience your education becomes less and less important
As a retort to the conservative theory, the biggest flaw I see in that argument is
> "People naturally make the most rational economic decisions in their journey to achieve maximum happiness"
Current economic thinking of the financially illiterate maximizes happiness on local, and not absolute maxima. You can see this in the everyday ethos of American culture: we want what satisfies us now; we want what is quick and easy. This comes at the cost of it being the best for us, which is oftentimes irrational.
An example of this would be buying fast food over healthy (natural) food. Rationally it's better to buy fast food as it is cheaper than healthy food (on a pure cost basis) and it sates local maxima for immediate happiness in the taste of food. However, it is not a rational economic choice in the long run, as unhealthy food choices correlate with increase disease, and thus higher long-term medical costs, and that sickness leads to an overall (absolute) maxima being lower.
The Nordic countries have a combined population of 26 million, less than a tenth of the US 318 million.
So, assuming similar abilities and a naive random model, out of every research area's top labs, the US should have twelve fold representation compared to the Nordic countries.
There is some concentration in some niches in these countries, as there is probably elsewhere as well.
I think in general the US society and atmosphere is much more stratified than here. Also because of the larger "pool", the "peak" is bigger. The top research labs or top companies get the top people and give almost unlimited resources. But that is relevant to only a small percentage anyway.
Discussion about limiting freedoms and state guidance is quite hard.
In my view, basically anything the state (or city or your neighbordhood council or whatever) does, limits your freedom in some way. Hence we can start from the fact that our freedoms are already limited.
It's an interesting philosophical question, but intent is something that judges are much better at deciding than computer programs. And laws are generally written to be executed by judges (or, by extension, the threat of litigation).
Fun to think about, though. Especially if you start thinking about writing alternate endings, etc.
I use duck duck go as my default in my search bar, but I rarely actually use it to search the web directly. Instead, I use the !bang features to get where I need to go faster without taking my hands off the keyboard. Some examples:
ctrl-t !w cyclocross
ctrl-t !g site:ohio.gov filetype:pdf economic development
