Bonam

Who cares? It's a forum. You're here for fun, of your own free will. Respond to things you feel like responding to, don't respond to things you don't feel like responding to. Your posts may or may not be there at some point down the line... why does it matter? Were people hoping their posts would be carved forever into cyberspace as their gift to humankind or something?

While understanding the availability of resources on a global scale and how to manage them is important, I don't think most ordinary people know or care about this topic. Nor is it as immediately harmful to themselves to not know anything about this topic, as being ignorant about basic personal finance. I don't think most people suffer from any "incredulity or disbelief" regarding the "pool of natural capital".

The debate regarding the long term viability of a growth-based economic system is tangential to the issue of financial illiteracy which msj brought up, which simply refers to people being unable to competently understand and take care of their own financial situation.

Have you looked into Cruz's positions? He scares me far more than Trump. Trump is all bombast but there is no indication that he wants to turn America into a theocracy. Cruz, on the other hand... Also, the fact that Trump is leading in the Republican polls suggests he quite likely is rational in the way he presents himself. The way he presents himself is working for him, so why would he do it differently?

Those mostly arise from the illiteracy.

Here is a good Q&A on the issue. It answers a lot of the questions being discussed in this thread: http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-versus-the-fbi-why-the-lowest-priced-iphone-has-the-us-in-a-tizzy-faq/ Sorry, going back and looking into the article, it sounds like Apple provided all the data up to the last iCloud backup. And Verizon provided the call logs. But data after the last backup and not included in the call logs was not provided. Specifically: As the government has confirmed, we’ve handed over all the data we have, including a backup of the iPhone in question. But now they have asked us for information we simply do not have. That's from the Apple letter here: http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/answers/

A nice sentiment. Any evidence? My observation has been that most members of any ideology, movement, or even political party are usually much more invested in their ideology/movement/party identity than they are in a national identity.

Well... you know, men can take their shirts off in public and women usually can't, so they can adapt to higher temperatures. And disabled people can't run away from the rising waters fast enough to avoid drowning. And people of color mostly live around the equator where the temperatures are hottest. So there. Disproportionately affected! Straight white males, on the other hand, are immune to climate change... the sun reflects off their white skin so they can reduce the radiative forcing they experience at will.

I am aware that the rockets are technologically inferior. You may also note that I said nothing about settlements (I do not support settlement expansion). Nonetheless, even though the rockets are primitive, that does not mean they can simply be ignored. Would you agree? Or is your position that Israel should simply ignore rocket attacks so long as the rockets are primitive enough? You still haven't answered the question. What do you think would have been the appropriate response?

Given that the Arab-Israeli conflict wasn't gonna be resolved right then and there, what do you think would have been the more proper Israeli response to the barrage of rocket attacks directed at it from Gaza in 2014?

Why? Why shouldn't a person be allowed to end their own life for any reason of their own choosing, so long as they are of sound mind to make such a decision?

I have seen Argus post suggesting we should try to source immigrants from countries more culturally similar to Canada, such as Europe. And I've seen him post that we should reduce immigration from countries where the predominant cultural beliefs/practices are antithetical to what we have in Canada, such as many Islamic countries. But I've never once seen him state or imply that skin color should be a factor.

Hopefully by being a saver your whole life you don't mean you've been keeping all your money in savings accounts all your life. Presumably, what you mean is you've spent less than you made, and put the surplus into a diversified set of investments including yourself (education, business, etc), stocks, bonds, etc. If this is the case, you won't be hurt by negative interest rates because stocks and dividends should not be adversely affected by lower rates (if anything, negative interest rates would further inflate the asset bubble, causing stocks to reach higher valuations).

That's not how negative interest rates work. No individual person is ever going to get paid money to borrow. Rather, it is that the central bank will charge other banks money to stash money at the central bank or for keeping excess reserves on hand. Paying this extra cost means banks will need to make up this cost in other ways, generate more revenues... such as charging depositors fees to keep their money in the bank. So no, individuals won't see negative rates on their mortgages, but what they will potentially see is negative interest rates (or fees, or simply deposit caps) on their savings accounts.

I've seen longitudinal studies following groups of individuals and they all universally and unambiguously show income growth over the course of careers. I agree there is likely some bottom % of people (not the majority though) who probably spend their lives going back and forth between various minimum wage jobs and periods of joblessness and don't see their incomes grow much over their lives. But that is not the average person. In any case, the point being discussed here was the already overworked and overstretched analogy between individual budgets and national budgets. Individual incomes grow over time as do national revenues (even if this is not true for all individuals or for all nations), but neither is a case for loading up on debt and hoping for it to become trivial over time.

A lot can happen in a lifetime, both for an individual and a country. But sure, if you say so. They'll be in a world of hurt when interest rates go up. And yes, Canada is in a relatively strong economic position compared to many other countries. That doesn't mean now is the time to relax and party, it means it's time to work to strengthen that position even more and get further ahead. By all means, build infrastructure... that almost always has a positive return on investment, in any case, even if debt financed. But your larger argument that running deficits is fine because expected economic growth will eventually make today's debt tomorrow's pocket change doesn't convince me at all.

Err... you're talking about the 4 number pattern thing to unlock a phone, right? There's only like 10000 possible combinations. Wouldn't take much luck if the phone didn't have a lockout after N failed attempts. 10000 possibilities is like nothing in cryptography.

Aren't you like 30 or something? You've got plenty of time for your earnings to grow over the course of your career. Also, your statement about the average earnings growth not happening for all people also applies to countries... not all countries will experience continual economic growth either. Consider Japan, which has been stagnating for decades. If they had borrowed with the assumption that the typical 3% economic growth would kick in and grow the debt away, they would long ago have gone bankrupt. Why would it not happen to a country? Historically, many countries have experienced economic contraction prior to dying.

Have you really never heard of how earnings change during an individual's career? You're not aware that people get entry level jobs in their 20s and then move up into higher level jobs, on average? Sigh, I guess we have to belabor this point because most people have never looked at any income stats other than what makes it into news headlines. Here, this is income vs age in Canada: The average person with a university degree starts with an income of ~15k in their 20s and peaks with an income of ~75k in their 50s. That's a factor of 5 in 30 years. Even for people with not even a high school diploma, there is a factor of 2 increase in earnings throughout their careers. Do you get it yet or do we need to keep belaboring this?

Your quote is all messed up so I won't requote it, but, average incomes only growing slowly misses the point, which is about individual people. An individual typically starts their career at an entry level job and then works their way into higher jobs over the course of their 40 year career. Their income grows over their lifetime. You can easily confirm this for yourself by looking at data that shows income vs age. A 2-4% annual increase in income is probably about average for individuals over the course of their career as they move up through various jobs, just as it's about the average rate of economic growth for countries. As for adapting when it happens... you have a lot less capability to adapt when you are already burdened by debts from before that you were hoping would fade to irrelevance due to perpetual economic growth. And yes, governments die just like individuals do. The average lifespan of governments is only about 250 years, only about 3 times longer than individuals in advanced countries.

Cite? Most people have their income grow throughout their life. Over the course of a 40 year career, most people will see their income at least double. This is comparable to the ~2% rates of real economic growth that are typical in advanced countries. The future is foreseeable until it's not. Conditions change rapidly. Few foresaw the financial crisis in 2008. Few will foresee the next contraction, as well. Investing in critical infrastructure is always a good idea. Maintaining deficits for many years because social programs cost more than taxes provide is not.

And your income could grow too and old debts could shrink to the point of irrelevance. Or, they might not. Continuous uninterrupted economic growth and an environment of continually zero interest rates is not assured.

Who cares? It's fairy tales whether you have a new one or an old one.

This is the guy they (along with other youths and other people of all ages) should admire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson

Which all too sadly is a very large chunk of the Republican party now. Fiscal conservatism, libertarianism, and the like have all taken a back seat to the religious nutjob wing of the party. Much like the socialist and social justice wings of the Democratic party seems to be gaining a lot of steam now, too. The middle is being hollowed out. Perhaps America needs a centrist party?