That’s a meaningless data point without a comparison to a state with similar weather, nature, and economic momentum from a time less onerously regulated.
It may not be logical, but money effectively turns into a scoreboard at a certain point. The ultra-wealthy care whether they show up to the yacht club in a 100m or 150m yacht.
That individuals won’t optimize their wealth beyond $100m, $1b, or really any number just doesn’t square with observable behavior.
Starting a business self-selects for people that desire money (over other benefits).
The purpose of a business is money (otherwise you start a hobby or charity or something non-businessey).
Being very successful at business is a selection bias for people that are highly competitive at chasing money.
There's a bunch of traits in very wealthy self-made people due to the filter they have run through.
Tax too much, and we kill the golden geese of the economy. Examples abound around the world of crappy economies that can't afford good socialist stuff because they've demotivated the rain makers.
YouTube sponsor segments are not subtle “place a Coke can facing the camera” integrations. They are dedicated ad segments with scripted (typically by the advertiser) promotions, often entirely unrelated to the video or channel.
To the end user they are indistinguishable from other video ads on the platform except the ad read is often (not always) done by the creator.
I don’t have hard data on the ratio but it’s not uncommon for a 10 minute video to have 1-2 minutes of full-interrupt ad segments embedded in the video.
It’s hard to find an authoritative source with perfect data but it seems unanimous the US is in the bottom quintile in terms of share of GDP from tourism.
Almost all countries below the US have much more immediate concerns about physical safety.
Having this surveillance done by human beings rate limits the process to, in theory, focus it on actual criminals. Requiring warrants for the more invasive and persistent techniques adds another layer of accountability.
You're bootstrapping your argument with an assumption that there's something to account for. Public activities are public. You're shifting the accountability from the actor to the observer.
Every entrance to my neighborhood has a Flock camera from my local police department. Tracking the exact time I enter and leave my home is at the very least right at this line you’re trying to draw.
Publications must love they can now pump out an article every time someone creates a new account to place a large wager on a prediction market.
Having been a semi-pro sports bettor for a short stint as it went through legalization in the U.S., I’ve personally had tens of thousands wagered on sports teams I’ve never heard of before. Over the course of thousands of bets it becomes statistically inevitable that you have wagers placed right before major news (both for and against you).
It’s even entirely possible this individual has some or all their position hedged on another platform effectively capture a tiny arbitrage in the market.
There’s tons of upstart market makers on these prediction markets doing hundreds of thousands in volume a week as they provide liquidity, grinding out small edges in a way you’d never be able to know their true exposure to any one market across platforms.
It’s of course entirely possible this is an insider, but as a journalist you need something more than a large bet + good timing. Out of millions of wagers there will inevitably be plenty of random people who bet on a football game 5 minutes before the quarterback gets injured purely out of dumb luck.
Exactly. I suspect part of the issue here is that people without some exposure to this type of probabilistic thinking are SO BAD at reasoning about market actors and uncertainty.
"A ceasefire looks very unlikely, why they hell would anyone bet on that? That's very suspicious" is obviously a completely fucking idiotic statement to you and me ("why would you buy this ugly empty lot in Manhattan? There's no buildings on it!"). Maybe to a 25 year old Guardian journo with a history degree from Oxbridge it's just common sense.
People are living in entirely different cost of living realities outside of NYC and the Bay Area.
Within 5 miles of me with 2 adults and 2 kids and $100, you could go to a trampoline park, ropes course, bowling, hours at an arcade, water park, race go-karts, several months of pool membership, or 5+ museums. Possibly 2 of those activities.
For free there’s dozens of playgrounds, courts and fields for any sport, community and religious-sponsored events, and after you can get a nice sit down meal with money leftover from your $100 budget.
$100 would be above many families entire entertainment budget for a week.
Are you suggesting libertarians believe the government should not build infrastructure?
I realize libertarians by nature have unique viewpoints but that feels like a bit of a mischaracterization. In general libertarians support a smaller government that increases focu on areas where societal collaboration is strictly necessary like roads, police, and firefighters while by default opposing government involvement in other areas beyond baseline rule of law (like NIMBY zoning).
I wasn't suggesting such things. But the juxtaposition amuses me. On the one hand, Ammon Bundy says he can do anything he likes, on public land, because freedom. But on the other: zoning. Which are ideologically opposites.
There are a lot of libertarians that would argue against all 3 of these things. They'd solve roads with tolls, police with private militia, and firefighters with private companies.
I agree that libertarian ideology is all over the board and that a broad generalization is impossible. That said the majority, and especially the load majority, are against basically all public spending and taxation. To the point where you'll find prominent libertarians arguing for things like private judicial systems.
The problem is that by being reasonable, you eventually arrive at a government that isn't considered libertarian by most libertarians. That's why I call libertarianism dumb. There are basic requirements and regulations needed. We've had governments without them, particularly in the US.
For example, libertarians have no solution to what the USDA solves. Go read up about the quality of milk in early america before the foundation of the USDA. That was a libertarian government. The best solution I've heard from libertarians is reviews and 3rd party verification that you pay for but, as we can see on amazon, those are very easy to manipulate. The force of law is the only thing that really solves problems like people selling unpasteurized and diseased milk. With raw milk we are already seeing the rollback of the enforcement of those laws and the impact of that rollback [1]
Sure this seems to have worked in high-trust homogenous society with similar values and goals. They have a very high baseline of wealth given abundant natural resources that'd need active mismanagement to not have a strong economy.
Extending their taxation or economic system to a larger, more populous, diverse, and economically fractured society would lose most of the reasons they're succeeding.
The question is still circumstantial correlation or causation with these factors. What you can conclude is that high taxes do not impede happiness or economic prosperity.
reply