Elerond

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.

$20 sound bit scare tale considering that hamburger in McDonalds in FInland cost at most $11 and McDonalds workers have $15.65 per hour salary here and we have 24% VAT

“When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t trying to buy smashed avocado for $19 and 4 coffees at $4 each.” Whole meme is based on some media quoting (bit wrongly) that interview that young people can't afford buy houses because they spend so much in avocado toasts and coffee. So whole meme is based on people listening hour long interview and picking most irrelevant detail and making it their point why young people aren't able to afford houses in today's market

BlacKkKlansman 2?

It seems that Hedge funds have been stupid with their money and shorted so much that market stunts like this cause them to fall badly

Market itself

Matthew 19:16-26 The Rich Young Man 16 And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” 17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” 18 He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, 19 Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 20 The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” 21 Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. 23 And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” All you need to do is nothing, as all is possible for God

Clearly it is better let people die on hunger and cold than just letting them out of their misery and accepting that both will lead to same result

lets put those unwanted people on consecration camps and burn them, and world is saved

Yeah human rights are just bad for people Article 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality. Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

One example of problems with US data protection laws is that we can't use US based cloud providers like Microsoft's Google's and Amazon's services for certain data, because there is no guarantee that those services and US follows EU's data protection laws. Which has sometimes forced us to change architecture how our SAAS services work or/and where they are hosted or ways to obfuscate data before it is loaded to cloud platform services. And it isn't just personal data, but also security of critical supply like food production

US don't have clear cut legislation but patchwork of federal and state laws which means that it is quite obfuscated what is data which privacy should be protected. This goes both for private and public sectors