Elerond

https://judithcurry.com/2021/02/18/assigning-blame-for-the-blackouts-in-texas/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Yeah, Facebook is still private company and US based company which allows them to decide what to publish, which includes foreign governments and news organizations, without fearing closure of their business or retribution from their government. US government cannot force them to publish anything because of US constitution, but US constitution of course don't protect them outside of US if they want to do business in countries that aren't US (I mention this because previous discussion about this was about social media companies blocking US politicians and organizations). As in this case Facebook decided not to publish any of Australian news sites because of change in Australian law which they welt were such that they didn't want to even try to comply with it and decided draconian measure of blocking all the content which the new law impacts.

Wind turbines seem to work fine here in -23 degrees of Celsius (-9.4 degrees Fahrenheit), also Gas, Coal and Nuclear plants work, so I would guess that Texas' problems are caused them saving in cold resistance of their infrastructure

Isn't that wrong way, I mean your choice of heating should be effected by your GPU 😋

Does that include transfer or do you pay it separately to company maintaining electrical grid? Like I pay for electricity 0,04€/kWh, but then I pay 0.06€/kWh for transfer plus 4€ per month as base price. It is so nice that you can bid price of electricity (and get that 0.01€/kWh cheaper electricity), but with transfer, grid maintain company has monopoly so there is nothing you can do except to move area where grid is controlled by another company

No, I get my income by making software for public sector, more efficient public sector means less money to me 😋 But in real I have campaigned long time for more efficient public sector, and which is why UBI experiments as good as they bring in light how cumbersome current system is and that there is clear need to fix it. And it brings fresh outlooks how system could work.

It is simple bureaucracy + infrastructure to run social security system cost much more than the money that is distributed to people. As officials need to know that nobody who should not get money will not get money even if it adds couple billion per year in the bill

Point of UBI is that everyone gets it and everyone gets same amount. 30% tax for $1000 salary seem extreme high even from Finnish stand point and especially from USA point of view. And $1000 for 40 hours with 30% tax including $300 child care + $200 to travel will make many people opt out even if other option is no income at all. Because that just is not worth it. Lets look Finnish example UBI was 630€ with 0% tax and you can earn your taxes are kept to 0% until you reach 1000€. then it increases bit by pit until you reach 2000€ when you overall tax rate is about 15% Public transportation inside of city cost about 250€ per year and you can travel as much you like. Child care, schools, hospitals, etc. are paid from taxes, so they doesn't cost anything extra over your taxes. So almost all that person earns over 250€ is extra income until they reach salary numbers that are considered high enough to motivate people to work Yeah there should be consideration if UBI should cover living expense or should there be another benefit for low income households, in FInland's UBI experiment later was the option that was tried. As I said 7.2% is the number of people in Finland who live on social security which you get if you don't have any other income even if you actively refuse to take any jobs. That social security is about same size as tested UBI. Finland is still one of the riches countries in the world and its economy has grown quite lot in past 40 years when our social security systems has been in effect. Finland's UBI experiment showed that people in social security were more likely to take job if one was offered them, among unemployed (not including people on social security) there was not indication that UBI any way impacted likelihood that them getting new job. Unemployed people on UBI reported higher happiness than those unemployed people who received unemployment benefit. UBI experiment was too small to make conclusions of its impact to state finances

I am pretty sure that over 90% of population will not do that, at least if about of UBI is about minimum that you need to get by. Playing games all day isn't that nice when buying one means that you don't have money to eat in next two days. I mean that we have system where you get money even if you don't do anything and still only 7.2% of Finland's population lived with our social security in 2019. UBI would improve current system as it would mean that people could take any job without fearing losing their social security, where in current system all income that you get is deduced in amount of social security you receive, meaning that there is no point to take job where you earn less than what social security is.

borrowed money on housing market that increases price of house such speed that it is better to keep house empty than rent it for somebody, as renters lower price that you get from selling the house. Many of the big cities have tens of thousand empty apartments where nobody never lives just for housing markets to make money from selling them around.

Each city has their own system where they either own apartments that rent, or own company that rents apartments or they have deal with private companies that rent houses (or all the above) to homeless regardless of their history. Rent is paid directly from social security and housing assistance

Economic reality is that it has been cheaper Finland to get homeless people homes than deal with problems that rise from people living in the streets. Home first policy has dropped number of homeless people in Finland from 18k (4000 living in streets/shelters) in 1987 to 4600 in 2019. From those 4600 less than 739 has slept one or more nights on streets and number of people who have been homeless more than year is 987 from which 177 people have slept mainly on streets or shelters. Most homeless people currently live temporally with their family members or friends, meaning that they don't have permanent residency in the place where they are currently living. Cost of public assistance for homeless people has drop to less than quarter from what it was in 1987 when you include inflation. Yeah, there are people who for some reason prefer to live on streets and there are always new people who end up to streets, so getting number of homeless people to zero is almost impossible, but by minimizing that number society can safe quite lot as it decreases crime, ensures that people have stronger ties to society which increases change that people get job and pay taxes.

We can see from Venezuela's oil exports that 2002 law changes and PDVSA's workers strike and 2003 firings started the destruction from which PDSVA never recovered. Trade deal with China brought short recovery, but after that it has been just down hill. I don't doubt that Venezuela buying those development projects from foreign companies (excluding ConocoPhillips ) and forcing ConocoPhillips give their share didn't help, but in that point Venezuela's oil industry was already pretty much doomed, because of bad trade deals all around that worsened PDVSA's debt year after year.

"Venezuela has been one of the leading proponents of a new international economic order. As a major oil producer it was instrumental in the creation of OPEC. It has also realized a basic element of a NIEO — the nationalization of basic economic resources. The oil industry was nationalized on January 1, 1976, while the second-ranking export industry, iron and steel, had been expropriated one year earlier. " https://www.jstor.org/stable/422789?seq=1 President Carlos Andrés Pérez was one who nationalized Venezuela's oil industry Chávez set law in 2002 that big sunk of Venezuela's oil money needs to be put in social programs in such extent that oil industry could not sustain itself, which lead 12000 PDVSA's workers to go in strike and Chávez firing them and replacing them with people who didn't know anything about oil industry (Chávez referred to regaining control of the industry as "re-nationalization". ) and then in 2005 he started to sell oil to China in price that could not sustained for long period of time and then 2007 he also started to sell oil to Brazil under market value again, all these interesting decision lead Venezuela's oil industry fail to produce enough money to pay the social programs that made Chávez popular and losing big sunk of Venezuela's oil reserve in ridiculously low price.

If half of the effort that is put to prevent homeless sleeping in public places would be put in getting homes for them you would not have to worry homeless people sleeping in benches in metro stations. I mean there are estimated 4000 people in New York who live on streets, so even with New York's apartment prices it would not be that expensive for the city to find them place to live. EDIT: Although there are also ~80k people who live in city's shelters, so there is higher need for homes than I first thought "Home first then other issues" is probably best money saving policy that our government has ever invented.

More there are infections more there are possibility for new mutations which may cause more severe symptoms and which vaccines are less effective against.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/08/oxford-covid-vaccine-10-effective-south-african-variant-study "The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine offers as little as 10% protection against the Covid variant first seen in South Africa, researchers have suggested. Scientists who conducted a small-scale trial of the vaccine’s efficacy said it showed very little protection against mild to moderate infection, though they expressed hope that – in theory – it would still offer significant protection against more serious infection." 10% is worrying low, even if it gives 50-80% protection against serious infection, as it will not help to bring over all infection rate down.

It is estimated that EFSA will approve cultured meat this year or at latest 2022. Cultured meat plants are estimated to be able to tenfold current meat production before 2040 and same time drop price of meat to fraction what is now. Bugs as protein source isn't most likely lowering price of food in next decade, because mass producing lines for bugs and bug food and food safety testing doesn't appear from thin air. Cricket products were pop here couple years ago, but farmers weren't able to produce enough crickets to produce non-niche products and prices of products were two to three times higher than other options, so currently cricket products have mostly died, even though people mostly gave positive reviews for the products, because people didn't want to pay so much extra after initial try. "No one talks about it yet, but there will be a breaking point in the debt driven permanent growth based economy," beauty of the system is that you can do it as long as no-one questions it, as amount money existing is just numbers in central banks' databases and that number can always be larger.

We have similar pension contribution system, where 7.15% of your salary is taken and put in pension fund (to pay current pensions) and amount that you contribute before retirement determines how much you get pension when you retire (although there is minimum pension, which is higher than social security and you don't need to apply it for each month, even if you have been freeloader for whole your life).

Unemployment benefit is for 2 years and social security is permanent, although you need to seek benefit each month and in case of social security you need to show that you don't have any other income We don't actual food program, but in case of alcoholics and other addicts and other people who are determined to be able to handle their finances, benefits are paid as payment tickets that work only to pay food and some other specified stuff and rents are paid directly to the landlords. There are private charities that get governmental assistance distribute food to poor (or at least people who are willing to wait hour in line to get couple breads, couple cans of pea soup and packet of macaroni and oat meals)

Yeah I know it isn't communism (I lived next to great communist state USSR for long time before it collapsed, so I have pretty good knowledge how our system differs from theirs), even though that is what people always yell in internet discussion when welfare system are brought up as solution to societal issue. And I know that government pointing jobs for everybody will most likely lead much worse situation than just paying social security, like kolkhozy in USSR work as warning example that still causes economical issues in Russia and Ukraine.

Yes, you can that is point why they exist here (as that is what our constitution decrees, although there is constant political debate what is the minimum acceptable living standard ) Social benefit is 502.21 € ($601.78) + 70% of your rent or housing expenses (recipient "socially mandatory" things like telephone subscription, news magazine subscription, mortgage payments, funeral expenses for family member, ticket to job interview etc. are usually either partially or fully paid addition to basic benefit). Unemployment benefit is depends on your salary before you lost your job and which union you are part of. As for extreme example unemployed pilots get over 5000€ per month for two years, although usually number of unemployed pilots is 0, but that changed last year. Typical unemployment benefit is 40%-70% of you salary depending how long you have been employed. If your unemployment benefit is less than 1000€ ($1 198.64) you also get housing support up to 70% of your rent or housing expenses up to to 1200€ ($1 438.36) total in month. Maximum housing support depends on which city you live.

Remove minimum wage entirely, increase unemployment benefit and social security and then leave it for market to decide what is correct minimum wage to get people come to work instead staying home reaping the benefits. That is how it is done here in Communist Finland, where US system is seen as the capitalist dream 😋

It depends on business, most of that cost increase goes to other business with employees with higher wages and markets where there has not been changes so lots of that cost would most likely be compensated by not giving raises in salaries to said employees with higher salaries. And as almost all minimal wage workers spend all their salary just get by, even if it is increased to $15, end result of such increase would be that it will for short while stimulate economy by cutting amount money that middle class workers can save and move it back to circulation and therefore increasing profits of top 10%, from where that money will of course trickle down 😉.

Store that operates with 1-2% margin is already in financial trouble and will most likely go in bankruptcy year or two as most likely inflation will eat their margin faster then they can get it back. In most businesses that use minimum wage workers, workers salary isn't usually in their top 2/3 expenditures, which is why businesses using minimum wage, margins don't usually decrease when there is increase increase in minimum wage, as they sell services that other business depend on or they sell services also to those minimum wage workers (meaning that people that buy stuff from shops restaurants, etc. have more money to spend, which brings more cash in than wage increase takes out) and any of their competition doesn't get advantage as increase in the workers wage concerns all the minimum wage workers, meaning that business are able to increase their prices to other business without fearing competition that much.