I feel like the project of "replace all the pipe everywhere in Flint, Michigan" would employ a lot of people.
I feel like this is the sort of thing that would surprise people with how few it would employ and mostly people who already know how to do that sort of thing.
To be fair, our water infrastructure is not just a problem in Flint.
A lot of those pipes follow along under roads that need to be replaced too...
+6
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
There is an infinitum of infrastructure work to be done, pouring money at that not only will generate jobs it will also improve overall economic health. Why no one is interested in doing so is baffling.
There is an infinitum of infrastructure work to be done, pouring money at that not only will generate jobs it will also improve overall economic health. Why no one is interested in doing so is baffling.
Because the people in charge of the agencies and businesses that could help are already rich so who cares
There is an infinitum of infrastructure work to be done, pouring money at that not only will generate jobs it will also improve overall economic health. Why no one is interested in doing so is baffling.
None of which requires a jobs guarantee, just long term budgeting.
Addressing the real costs of infrastructure would expose the lie of the American suburban dream. I’m all for this, mind, but putting together a real budget for this stuff is going to break many brains, on top of the challenge of getting a 30-year budget out of a group that has to kick the can for 4 months to get a 1 year/8month budget...
There is an infinitum of infrastructure work to be done, pouring money at that not only will generate jobs it will also improve overall economic health. Why no one is interested in doing so is baffling.
Because the people in charge of the agencies and businesses that could help are already rich so who cares
Can't infrastructure only be done with government approval? That kind of thing is constantly being sidelined because America has one party thinks government jobs aren't real jobs, and it takes a bill through congress to get rolling RE: TARP.
The way to do it is the way the DOT does it. Fed covers 50-75% of cost, local municipalities apply for grants until the money runs out. You generally get efficiency as some Muni money is in there and they care about their budget, but shit gets done in a widely dispersed way.
There is always a road somewhere that needs fixing, and it does not need years of training to do (well, some parts of it might, but always use for someone who can hold a shovel and listen orders).
Daycare is somewhat harder, but there is way more need for that than there is provided (especially if sbusidized by the state).
There is no such time that there is no work to be done, problem is that often nobody is willing to pay for it to be done.
Fix roads, fix bridges, build railroads, sweep the streets, build/maintain public parks and playgrounds...
If you have the money to hire people, then there is work to be done by those people.
Don't forget elderly care. As boomers retire our population will continue to trend older
Jesus no kidding. My mom is getting released from a nursing facility this friday after having a stroke earlier this year. The costs of everything involved are daunting. And there clearly need to be more nurses giving the staffing issues all the nursing facilities seem to be under.
Bill Gates seems to have come up with the solution to the "too much money" problem by becoming a philanthropist, but space exploration is interesting too.
Because investing is a gamble, which is why there is always warnings saying as much when you buy any stock.
He was the founder of the company, though. But founding a company is also a bit of a lottery ticket - you can lose your shirt unless you are born into big money, which judging from his Wikipedia page, Bezos wasn't.
Yeah, that's a truly shitty statement by Bezos. There's a thousand things you could do with that money which offer a lot more cost benefit to society because SpaceX is already doing great things in the 'let's bring back space exploration sector'. You only really need one successful private company to give others a kick in the rump and get them working on it. You just want Blue Origin because it is cool, and might make you billions more dollars.
Go and buy art supplies and music supplies for every student in the world.
Set up a fund to provide full scholarships to 500000 students to attend college over the next ten years
Replace every lead pipe in America with a lead free alternative
Give every penny to ITER
Remove all the plastics from the worlds oceans
Provide a fund to give education and integration to felons
Voluntarily pay it all in taxes
And so on and so on
Yeah, that's a truly shitty statement by Bezos. There's a thousand things you could do with that money which offer a lot more cost benefit to society because SpaceX is already doing great things in the 'let's bring back space exploration sector'. You only really need one successful private company to give others a kick in the rump and get them working on it. You just want Blue Origin because it is cool, and might make you billions more dollars.
Go and buy art supplies and music supplies for every student in the world.
Set up a fund to provide full scholarships to 500000 students to attend college over the next ten years
Replace every lead pipe in America with a lead free alternative
Give every penny to ITER
Remove all the plastics from the worlds oceans
Provide a fund to give education and integration to felons
Voluntarily pay it all in taxes
And so on and so on
Just do right by your damn employees seems like a start (same goes for you Musk)
Yeah, that's a truly shitty statement by Bezos. There's a thousand things you could do with that money which offer a lot more cost benefit to society because SpaceX is already doing great things in the 'let's bring back space exploration sector'. You only really need one successful private company to give others a kick in the rump and get them working on it. You just want Blue Origin because it is cool, and might make you billions more dollars.
Go and buy art supplies and music supplies for every student in the world.
Set up a fund to provide full scholarships to 500000 students to attend college over the next ten years
Replace every lead pipe in America with a lead free alternative
Give every penny to ITER
Remove all the plastics from the worlds oceans
Provide a fund to give education and integration to felons
Voluntarily pay it all in taxes
And so on and so on
Just do right by your damn employees seems like a start (same goes for you Musk)
Well sure...
"Change your pay rewards scale so that you earn ~50x as much a year as your lowest paid full time employee, 15x your median rather than 10000x/2000x as much"
Is an excellent plan too.
So, bump up Maria in the cleaning crew from 25K to 40K , Laura in Engineering goes from $125k to $150k and bring down Bezos from $250 M to $3 M to pay for it all.
Yeah, that's a truly shitty statement by Bezos. There's a thousand things you could do with that money which offer a lot more cost benefit to society because SpaceX is already doing great things in the 'let's bring back space exploration sector'. You only really need one successful private company to give others a kick in the rump and get them working on it. You just want Blue Origin because it is cool, and might make you billions more dollars.
Go and buy art supplies and music supplies for every student in the world.
Set up a fund to provide full scholarships to 500000 students to attend college over the next ten years
Replace every lead pipe in America with a lead free alternative
Give every penny to ITER
Remove all the plastics from the worlds oceans
Provide a fund to give education and integration to felons
Voluntarily pay it all in taxes
And so on and so on
Just do right by your damn employees seems like a start (same goes for you Musk)
Yep. Profits are by definition the excess value produced by exploiting the difference between your employees' market production/productivity above the rate of their compensation.
But I'd be a lot more okay with that if every billionaire decided to eradicate a different disease. Rotary and Gates are so close with polio.
Yeah, that's a truly shitty statement by Bezos. There's a thousand things you could do with that money which offer a lot more cost benefit to society because SpaceX is already doing great things in the 'let's bring back space exploration sector'. You only really need one successful private company to give others a kick in the rump and get them working on it. You just want Blue Origin because it is cool, and might make you billions more dollars.
Go and buy art supplies and music supplies for every student in the world.
Set up a fund to provide full scholarships to 500000 students to attend college over the next ten years
Replace every lead pipe in America with a lead free alternative
Give every penny to ITER
Remove all the plastics from the worlds oceans
Provide a fund to give education and integration to felons
Voluntarily pay it all in taxes
And so on and so on
Just do right by your damn employees seems like a start (same goes for you Musk)
Yep. Profits are by definition the excess value produced by exploiting the difference between your employees' market production/productivity above the rate of their compensation.
But I'd be a lot more okay with that if every billionaire decided to eradicate a different disease. Rotary and Gates are so close with polio.
Do you mean malaria?
Cause wasn't polio already done? Or has it made a resurgence despite the Salk vaccine?
I know it's off topic, but I can't find anything on this stupid phone.
Yeah, that's a truly shitty statement by Bezos. There's a thousand things you could do with that money which offer a lot more cost benefit to society because SpaceX is already doing great things in the 'let's bring back space exploration sector'. You only really need one successful private company to give others a kick in the rump and get them working on it. You just want Blue Origin because it is cool, and might make you billions more dollars.
Go and buy art supplies and music supplies for every student in the world.
Set up a fund to provide full scholarships to 500000 students to attend college over the next ten years
Replace every lead pipe in America with a lead free alternative
Give every penny to ITER
Remove all the plastics from the worlds oceans
Provide a fund to give education and integration to felons
Voluntarily pay it all in taxes
And so on and so on
Just do right by your damn employees seems like a start (same goes for you Musk)
Yep. Profits are by definition the excess value produced by exploiting the difference between your employees' market production/productivity above the rate of their compensation.
But I'd be a lot more okay with that if every billionaire decided to eradicate a different disease. Rotary and Gates are so close with polio.
Do you mean malaria?
Cause wasn't polio already done? Or has it made a resurgence despite the Salk vaccine?
I know it's off topic, but I can't find anything on this stupid phone.
No, we have only ever eradicated Smallpox (and rinderpest, but I am not a cow). Polio is 99.9% of the way to being eradicated after the decades long work of Rotary, helped in part by massive cash from Gates (and various health organizations and governments), but it still exists.
Yeah, that's a truly shitty statement by Bezos. There's a thousand things you could do with that money which offer a lot more cost benefit to society because SpaceX is already doing great things in the 'let's bring back space exploration sector'. You only really need one successful private company to give others a kick in the rump and get them working on it. You just want Blue Origin because it is cool, and might make you billions more dollars.
Go and buy art supplies and music supplies for every student in the world.
Set up a fund to provide full scholarships to 500000 students to attend college over the next ten years
Replace every lead pipe in America with a lead free alternative
Give every penny to ITER
Remove all the plastics from the worlds oceans
Provide a fund to give education and integration to felons
Voluntarily pay it all in taxes
And so on and so on
Just do right by your damn employees seems like a start (same goes for you Musk)
Yep. Profits are by definition the excess value produced by exploiting the difference between your employees' market production/productivity above the rate of their compensation.
But I'd be a lot more okay with that if every billionaire decided to eradicate a different disease. Rotary and Gates are so close with polio.
Do you mean malaria?
Cause wasn't polio already done? Or has it made a resurgence despite the Salk vaccine?
I know it's off topic, but I can't find anything on this stupid phone.
No, we have only ever eradicated Smallpox (and rinderpest, but I am not a cow). Polio is 99.9% of the way to being eradicated after the decades long work of Rotary, helped in part by massive cash from Gates (and various health organizations and governments), but it still exists.
Not at all helped by the CIA boasting about using vaccine campaigns as a way of getting DNA samples to track down Bin Laden. It instantly caused a lot of people in the tribal areas of Pakistan/Afghanistan to distrust vaccinators, and that just happens to be where the last pockets of polio hang out.
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
Profit and or Legacy.
Either or they are both vanity at that level of wealth.
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
That's not the way capitalism works. In a capitalistic enterprise, competition helps speed progress.
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
That might be taking it a bit far, competition being good for innovation among other things.
Replace "SpaceX" with "Comcast" and see if your assertion holds up.
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
That might be taking it a bit far, competition being good for innovation among other things.
Replace "SpaceX" with "Comcast" and see if your assertion holds up.
Well. In a profit space maybe. But it’s more likely to result in price competition. But in a non-profit space I don’t see it.
Space exploration is cool and great (and useful) but fuck me is that statement scummy, especially knowing how Bezos treats his employees/contractors/whatever
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
That might be taking it a bit far, competition being good for innovation among other things.
Replace "SpaceX" with "Comcast" and see if your assertion holds up.
Well. In a profit space maybe. But it’s more likely to result in price competition. But in a non-profit space I don’t see it.
what gave you the impression these companies were in space exploration not for profit?
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
That might be taking it a bit far, competition being good for innovation among other things.
Replace "SpaceX" with "Comcast" and see if your assertion holds up.
Yes, but Bezos is trying to argue that he is serving some grand and noble public good with Blue Horizon, for which we should respect and honor him. Equivalent to Gates and his work with literacy and disease etc.
Building space rockets when NOONE is building space rockets and advancing the science is a good and noble thing, which you can sell as something virtuous. Because we need to push the tech forward enough to get governments going at it again.
SpaceX is not good because it builds and innovates with cheap reusable rockets. it is 'good' because noone else was doing that effectively. A second company entering the same space may show economic viablility, but it is not 'morally good', since if the activity is profitable it doesn't require an eccentric billionaire who can do whatever he wants to drive it along. A regular group of people can just raise money from the bank.
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
That might be taking it a bit far, competition being good for innovation among other things.
Replace "SpaceX" with "Comcast" and see if your assertion holds up.
Well. In a profit space maybe. But it’s more likely to result in price competition. But in a non-profit space I don’t see it.
what gave you the impression these companies were in space exploration not for profit?
Yeah, but that just means neither billionaire can get the moral high ground. Not that both of them do.
I still think I'll give some props to the first mover/risk taker (SpaceX) here, and say that Bezos can't just jump in and say "ME TOO!" and claim he's doing it to be righteous.
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
That might be taking it a bit far, competition being good for innovation among other things.
Replace "SpaceX" with "Comcast" and see if your assertion holds up.
Well. In a profit space maybe. But it’s more likely to result in price competition. But in a non-profit space I don’t see it.
what gave you the impression these companies were in space exploration not for profit?
Musk has gone on record many times stating that SpaceX is not publicly owned because he wants to get to Mars, and doesn't want to have to turn a profit on that or have shareholders breathing down his neck.
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
That might be taking it a bit far, competition being good for innovation among other things.
Replace "SpaceX" with "Comcast" and see if your assertion holds up.
Well. In a profit space maybe. But it’s more likely to result in price competition. But in a non-profit space I don’t see it.
what gave you the impression these companies were in space exploration not for profit?
Musk has gone on record many times stating that SpaceX is not publicly owned because he wants to get to Mars, and doesn't want to have to turn a profit on that or have shareholders breathing down his neck.
I also think it not being public also helps prop up Telsa because of hype.
Space research could be important long-term, and governments have been neglecting it recently.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
That might be taking it a bit far, competition being good for innovation among other things.
Replace "SpaceX" with "Comcast" and see if your assertion holds up.
Yes, but Bezos is trying to argue that he is serving some grand and noble public good with Blue Horizon, for which we should respect and honor him. Equivalent to Gates and his work with literacy and disease etc.
Building space rockets when NOONE is building space rockets and advancing the science is a good and noble thing, which you can sell as something virtuous. Because we need to push the tech forward enough to get governments going at it again.
SpaceX is not good because it builds and innovates with cheap reusable rockets. it is 'good' because noone else was doing that effectively. A second company entering the same space may show economic viablility, but it is not 'morally good', since if the activity is profitable it doesn't require an eccentric billionaire who can do whatever he wants to drive it along. A regular group of people can just raise money from the bank.
I find this to be a weird premise for a lot of reasons.
The first company to enter a specific market vertical isn't inherently good just because no one else was filling the need, and the second company isn't automatically greedy or barred from "moral" motivations just because they didn't get there first.
I can fill a need that no one else was filling because I know I can make bank doing it. I can enter an established market with noble intentions.
And I'd argue that if you go to a bank and ask for a loan because you want to start a rocketship company, unless you are already pretty fucking rich they'll tell you to go pound sand.
A general proposition in the biography of Amazon is that it was basically built to fund Bezos' dreams of space travel. Alexa even has an option so you can call it "Computer" after the Star Trek computer.
Posts
To be fair, our water infrastructure is not just a problem in Flint.
It's not just Flint. Lead pipes weren't banned until '86. There are buildings/towns younger than I am that have lead pipes in them. And I'm not old.
The real problem is lead services not lead mains.
Because the people in charge of the agencies and businesses that could help are already rich so who cares
None of which requires a jobs guarantee, just long term budgeting.
Can't infrastructure only be done with government approval? That kind of thing is constantly being sidelined because America has one party thinks government jobs aren't real jobs, and it takes a bill through congress to get rolling RE: TARP.
If someone wants to make a thread about jobs guarantee and/or universal income, go for it.
Jesus no kidding. My mom is getting released from a nursing facility this friday after having a stroke earlier this year. The costs of everything involved are daunting. And there clearly need to be more nurses giving the staffing issues all the nursing facilities seem to be under.
He was the founder of the company, though. But founding a company is also a bit of a lottery ticket - you can lose your shirt unless you are born into big money, which judging from his Wikipedia page, Bezos wasn't.
Yeah, that's a truly shitty statement by Bezos. There's a thousand things you could do with that money which offer a lot more cost benefit to society because SpaceX is already doing great things in the 'let's bring back space exploration sector'. You only really need one successful private company to give others a kick in the rump and get them working on it. You just want Blue Origin because it is cool, and might make you billions more dollars.
Go and buy art supplies and music supplies for every student in the world.
Set up a fund to provide full scholarships to 500000 students to attend college over the next ten years
Replace every lead pipe in America with a lead free alternative
Give every penny to ITER
Remove all the plastics from the worlds oceans
Provide a fund to give education and integration to felons
Voluntarily pay it all in taxes
And so on and so on
Just do right by your damn employees seems like a start (same goes for you Musk)
Well sure...
"Change your pay rewards scale so that you earn ~50x as much a year as your lowest paid full time employee, 15x your median rather than 10000x/2000x as much"
Is an excellent plan too.
So, bump up Maria in the cleaning crew from 25K to 40K , Laura in Engineering goes from $125k to $150k and bring down Bezos from $250 M to $3 M to pay for it all.
Yep. Profits are by definition the excess value produced by exploiting the difference between your employees' market production/productivity above the rate of their compensation.
But I'd be a lot more okay with that if every billionaire decided to eradicate a different disease. Rotary and Gates are so close with polio.
Cause wasn't polio already done? Or has it made a resurgence despite the Salk vaccine?
I know it's off topic, but I can't find anything on this stupid phone.
No, we have only ever eradicated Smallpox (and rinderpest, but I am not a cow). Polio is 99.9% of the way to being eradicated after the decades long work of Rotary, helped in part by massive cash from Gates (and various health organizations and governments), but it still exists.
Not at all helped by the CIA boasting about using vaccine campaigns as a way of getting DNA samples to track down Bin Laden. It instantly caused a lot of people in the tribal areas of Pakistan/Afghanistan to distrust vaccinators, and that just happens to be where the last pockets of polio hang out.
Very true, but, SpaceX is already doing a fine job of moving things along there. Bezos entering the fray too clearly states that he thinks it is a profit making opportunity, not altruism, since you don't need more than SpaceX unless you want to make money.
Profit and or Legacy.
Either or they are both vanity at that level of wealth.
MWO: Adamski
That's not the way capitalism works. In a capitalistic enterprise, competition helps speed progress.
Plus I assume they *do* want to make money.
That might be taking it a bit far, competition being good for innovation among other things.
Replace "SpaceX" with "Comcast" and see if your assertion holds up.
Well. In a profit space maybe. But it’s more likely to result in price competition. But in a non-profit space I don’t see it.
what gave you the impression these companies were in space exploration not for profit?
Yes, but Bezos is trying to argue that he is serving some grand and noble public good with Blue Horizon, for which we should respect and honor him. Equivalent to Gates and his work with literacy and disease etc.
Building space rockets when NOONE is building space rockets and advancing the science is a good and noble thing, which you can sell as something virtuous. Because we need to push the tech forward enough to get governments going at it again.
SpaceX is not good because it builds and innovates with cheap reusable rockets. it is 'good' because noone else was doing that effectively. A second company entering the same space may show economic viablility, but it is not 'morally good', since if the activity is profitable it doesn't require an eccentric billionaire who can do whatever he wants to drive it along. A regular group of people can just raise money from the bank.
Yeah, but that just means neither billionaire can get the moral high ground. Not that both of them do.
I still think I'll give some props to the first mover/risk taker (SpaceX) here, and say that Bezos can't just jump in and say "ME TOO!" and claim he's doing it to be righteous.
Don't ever count on the rich to look out for you
Musk has gone on record many times stating that SpaceX is not publicly owned because he wants to get to Mars, and doesn't want to have to turn a profit on that or have shareholders breathing down his neck.
I also think it not being public also helps prop up Telsa because of hype.
I find this to be a weird premise for a lot of reasons.
The first company to enter a specific market vertical isn't inherently good just because no one else was filling the need, and the second company isn't automatically greedy or barred from "moral" motivations just because they didn't get there first.
I can fill a need that no one else was filling because I know I can make bank doing it. I can enter an established market with noble intentions.
And I'd argue that if you go to a bank and ask for a loan because you want to start a rocketship company, unless you are already pretty fucking rich they'll tell you to go pound sand.