trout007

Everyone here is missing the damn point. The real question you should be asking is why a person working a low skiled job can't make ends meet? I was a teenager in the late 80's early 90's. I never had a minimum wage job. Minimum was around $4/hr but I always made $6-$9/hr for things like store clerk, fast food, or amusement park. Gas was $1 and a Extra Value Meal with a gallon of soda and 5 pounds of fried was $1. But what we didn't have was a war on terror, war on drugs (at least not as bad), police state, surveilence state, etc. All of these things divert resources and production away from what people want. Less production and more people not involved in production getting state $$'s means higher prices for everyone. The solution is eliminating these programs. Get rid of the Empire and War on drugs and a low skilled job will be able to support you.

I think there is a danger with many atheists that think all that religion teaches are lies. But from an evolutionary stand point it seems that the morals that religions profess are mostly correct. I happen to believe that there is a Natural Law similar to laws of economics. If your societies laws align with these laws your society will be healthy and if you go against them you will decline. Evolution does not only act on a personal level but on societies. I consider it similar to empirical models. There are models used in engineering that may or may not express the true phenomenon but they predict the results close enough to be used for engineering purposed. The same with most religious morals. While there may not be a scientific reason discovered yet the empirical evidence that these rules have caused these societies to survive and prosper give them weight. These should not be tossed away lightly as relics.

Like most things in medicine the reason this issue is so complex is there is no one answer for all people. Surprise people are different! What works for me might not work for you. The real advances in the future is going to be individualize a diet. I think the best we have right now is to try one of the extreme elimination diets that slowly add items back into your diet to see how your body reacts. I do great on fatty or cultured dairy. Some people have terrible responces. I do fine on nuts. Other people not so much. Sweets cause me inflamation but some people are fine.

If you truely beleive animals have rights then the first thing you would do is go and hunt down all of the predatory animals and either kill or capture them. Just like people you have the right to act in someone's place for self defense. If you don't it would be equivalent to having open murderers walking around society. Now once you capture them you couldn't feed them meat and since they can't digest plants they would soon die. Same goes for the ocean.

Compared to what? What we have today is even worse. There is an entire industry based on NOT finding a permanent home for children. The foster care system exists only because of the state. Imagine if they actually just found homes for the kids. They would be out of a job. In the old days with private (church) run orphanages the kids cost money so they got them adopted as soon as they could.

Is this statistic collected anywhere? I've tried various search engines and only get one website but no links to official statistics.

Here is an interesting concept for a crypto currency that has the one thing bitcoin is lacking, utility. See http://www.bitcloudproject.org/. The basic idea is instead of uselessly mining the blockchain which really doesn't do any useful work for anyone why not do something useful like provide cloud storage and bandwidth? You will get paid for providing storage and bandwidth. Interesting concept.

Failsafe doesn't mean guarenteed. It means when something fails it does so in a safe way. The idea here is to not allow one or two events wipe you out. Failsafe doesn't mean guarenteed. It means when something fails it does so in a safe way. The idea here is to not allow one or two events wipe you out.

I'll give you my example. I had treasuries that were yielding 6+% prior to the 2008 crash. As the fed dropped rates the price of those bond rose. So not only was I making interest income but the price appreciated as well.

What did you get since 2003? That is when I started and I've averaged over 10% since then using this method not adjusted for inflation. I don't think that is correct. Let's look an example. Assume for this argument that we have two investments that vary inversely and linearly. I know that's not reality but it's good for a simple example. You start with $20k with $10k in each of two investments as follows 100 shares of A at $100 = $10,000 100 shares of B at $100 = $10,000 Let's say A drops by 20% and B rises by 20% 100 shares of A at $80 = $8,000 100 shares of B at $120 = $12,000 You rebalance by selling $2000 worth of B at $120 = 16.6 shares and buy $2000 of A at $80 = 25 shares. 125 shares of A at $80 = $10,000 83,3 shares of B at $120 = $10,000 Let's say the prices go back to where they were. 125 shares of A at $100 = $12,500 83.3 shares of B at $100 = $8,330 Your total is now $20,830 vs $20,000 if you didn't rebalance.

They respond well when the fed drops rates or during a crisis as people flee stocks.

I think a great place for new investors to start is with former libertarian presidential candidate Harry browne's book Failsafe Investing. I will provide a summary but you can get the pdf online somewhere I'm sure. Basically you put your money in the following categories in 25% each. S&P 500 fund with dividends reinvested, 30 year treasury bonds, gold bullion coins, money market fund. The idea is to diversify. Each will do well during certain economic conditions and help prvent wild fluctuations like you get if you are all in stocks. Every few months check the portfolio and if any category goes above 35% or below 15% rebalance. This helps you buy low and sell high. During the 2008 crash gold and bonds did well so I had money to buy more S&P 500 when it was in the tank. Recently stocks have performed well and gold has gone down so I've been selling stocks and buying gold. The beat thing is the peace if mind knowing even if stocks drop by 40% you are OK.

When talking about the genetics of parents that give kids up for adoption I think Stefan missed one thing. Empathy. With the availability and social acceptance if abortion I think any woman that takes a baby to term and gives it up for adoption will have an extreme amount of empathy. And since Stefan says this is the one of the most important traits if it was genetic adopting a baby would almost guarantee an empathetic child.

Has anyone made a change to peaceful parenting? At what age were your children? Can you give some insight on how things changed and how long it took for your children to change?