A post about mis-generalization seems to make a huge mis-generalization, seemingly from a lack of diversity.
The author recognizes that laundromats exist, but doesn't believe that washing machines are a luxury good (his yacht example of 60% owned by the top 1% likely applies somewhere around 60% to the top 30%). This indicates the author generalizes that high density living with shared appliances don't exist or apply to a large part of the population (that density doesn't shift statistics).
A few thoughts, instead of taking 340m people, you need to account for 2% homelessness, another 8% as housing insecure, 30%+ as high density possibly sharing at the apartment/condo building or laundromat level. A small upper 1% that outsource to services.
The infamous Mitt Romney, 47% of Americans don't pay income tax quote can be really shocking when you start thinking about the average American, and the wages that they earn compared to a higher income segment you might be in.
Laundromats exist, but there are 100 million according to my web search which puts his estimate in the right area even if he is off by 30 million.
Most Americans would not call a washing machine a luxury good. Even in much poorer Mexico there are a lot of families living on $100/week that have a washing machine - they are an affordably luxury to many poor people.
Per a quick search, that's 0.2%, not 2%. Not sure about what "housing insecure" means, so that's harder to check. Also, that is just a one-night snapshot, and many of those won't be homeless if you check back later.
Stock "trading" is statistically against the odds. "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" was published nearly 50 years ago and remains generally true. No YouTuber or perfect instruction following would make you 100% likely to be profitable.
The most profitable (and effort efficient way) is to routinely invest in a broad basket of stocks over a long period. Ie Voo and Hold.
Moreover if you can get an edge that is even 2-3% over a coin flip all you need is risk management to make money.
Not understanding this is how you go broke. I traded for a number of years and did well. It was not hard to regularly beat the market, especially in futures and options.
I've seen people on tiktok that exclusively trade options. It's not something I've looked into but my take after 6 months is that you basically find an approach that works for you, whether that be trading stocks, commodities, options etc and the time-scale that you trade.
Personally I like to do primarily tech stocks and mix it up doing swing trading (holding multiple days) with a bit of scalping as well (buy / sells over minutes).
At first I lost a lot of money scalping but now I seem to have a much higher success rate - you start to notice certain patterns in the way stocks move if you watch the charts long enough, and I've been learning to have more conviction in my positions.
Yes, I might consider doing this but need to consistently feel confident doing it manually first. I did set up a docker instance to connect to my broker, so perhaps a goal for this year!
The biggest pro of a bike is it teaches you to read the road and traffic ahead for energy conservation (and defensive driving).
On a bike, this mostly reduces pedaling; in a car this can reduce unnecessary braking, safer driving distances, which make you a more predictable driver.
It also gives you a lifelong respect for people so if you do drive you won't treat humans like annoying obstacles that might ruin your paintwork if you hit them.
I believe 100% that nobody should be allowed behind the wheel of a motor vehicle before obtaining cycling proficiency.
The alternative is the tradesmen can now apply their trade for 30 minutes more each way rather than sit in traffic (probably better overall) That, and apparently they and their kids can breathe easier.
Be careful what you wish for. Having health insurance doesn't equate to having access to care. Especially in the mental health space, fewer and fewer providers will even accept new patients on government-sponsored health plans due to low rates.
Lol, in 3rd grade algebra, a teacher called 2 of us in for cheating. She had us take the test again, I got the same exact horribly failing score (a 38%) and the cheater got a better score, so the teacher then knew who the cheater was. He just chose the wrong classmate to cheat of of.
I assume that the cheating student didn't know that he was copying answers from someone who was doing poorly. It was third graders after all; one wouldn't necessarily expect them to be able to pick the best target every time.
Oh. That would have never crossed my mind! So the cheater student was copying from GP who had worse results, and when they both redid it all by themselves the cheater answered correctly, and GP did not.
> Which, in a subject like algebra, is extremely suspicious ("how could both of them get the exact same WRONG answer?").
In Germany, the traditional sharp-tongued answer of pupils to the question "How could both of you get the exact same WRONG answer (in the test)?" is: "Well, we both have the same teacher." :-)
My son is learning algebra in 2nd grade. They don’t call it “algebra” yet nor mention “variables”, but they’re working on questions like solving “4 + ? = 9”.
He just goes to our local public elementary school.
Yeah I guess technically that's algebra but at that age it is based on memorization (you just learn that 4 + 5 = 9) and you're not actually using algebra to solve the problem e.g. "subtract 4 from both sides of the equation."
Minor: Given the examples depend on healthcare and childcare, people aged 65 and older (Medicare, outside average child raising age) fall outside this analysis, and currently a significant part of us population.
(And Medicare, even without additional supplements would have significantly better health outcomes than 1960s)
And if you take the average social security benefit being $48k per household/year, subtract those 2 expenses, either the $31k poverty line is way off or social security is way off
I feel like the author addresses most of your points well with his comparison of a survival line vs a crisis line.
But re the "people in poverty don't have" a few caveats, in comparison to the 60s, "public" transportation is generally of lower availability and higher priced, single earner households were the norm, and housing was cheaper (addressed).
And while <$100k is pointed to as the line of dimished marginal benefits, in the context of the US median household income being $66k is an indictment of a broken system.
The author recognizes that laundromats exist, but doesn't believe that washing machines are a luxury good (his yacht example of 60% owned by the top 1% likely applies somewhere around 60% to the top 30%). This indicates the author generalizes that high density living with shared appliances don't exist or apply to a large part of the population (that density doesn't shift statistics).
A few thoughts, instead of taking 340m people, you need to account for 2% homelessness, another 8% as housing insecure, 30%+ as high density possibly sharing at the apartment/condo building or laundromat level. A small upper 1% that outsource to services.
The infamous Mitt Romney, 47% of Americans don't pay income tax quote can be really shocking when you start thinking about the average American, and the wages that they earn compared to a higher income segment you might be in.
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