vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
"1. As I said, the above is not actually anything like a genuine history of how money emerged, it's an explain-it-to-a-five-year-old parable to answer ""where does the money go in an economic contraction?"" 2. It's also not defense/endorsement/apology for any particular set of policies or historical theory of money. It's a picture-book describing the workings of an internal combustion engine using cartoon characters, not a treatise on the social and environmental implications of American car-culture. That said, in the parable, the reasons why the simplified caricatures in the town chose to accept the fiat currency are pretty straightforward, and are actually explained: - They were previously using a system of a whole bunch of separate, privately-issued currencies, each with complex and hard-to-evaluate credit risks (Bob's potato certificate versus Jane's Potato certificate versus your apple-certificate versus my deer certificate). This was causing problems and confusion about how much any given certificate was actually worth. - The system proposed was proposed in a way that was *at least* as credible as the best existing system. - Last but not least, they accepted the new currency for *exactly the same reason* that you accept dollar, euros, or whatever: because everyone else does. There was no law preventing any of them from still trading apple IOUs (in fact, we still traded them, later in the example, except denominated in loddars). I could have asked you for the last note to denominated in apples, but that would probably have been harder to trade than the currency that everyone else is using. I said I wouldn't get into the gold-standard debate, and I won't, and here's why: the debate hinges entirely and solely on whether you believe that a ""good"" fiat currency is possible and realistically sustainable. If you do, then fiat currency makes a lot more sense in every respect. If you don't, then fiat currency is always just a catastrophe waiting to happen. My parable shows the mechanics of how money works.
I can't find the video, but Mark Cuban was on one of the late shows, and the host asked him this question. His first response was I have no idea, then he took a wild guess of about $175K, or so.  I am a tax accountant that works on a couple of very very weathly people. I very seriously doubt they keep up with knowing how much is in their checking account. They are given a card, and accountants handle the rest. Then their advisor gives them a run down every month or so.
"The simplest, most convenient way I know of to ""move your savings to Canada"" is to purchase an exchange-traded fund like FXC, the CurrencyShares Canadian Dollar Trust, or a similar instrument. (I identify this fund because I know it exists, not because I particularly recommend it.) Your money will be in Canadian currency earning Canadian interest rates. You will pay a small portion of that interest in fees. Since US banks are already guaranteed by the FDIC up to $250,000 per account, I don't really think you avoid any risks associated with the failure of an individual bank, but you might fare better if the US currency is subject to inflation or unfavorable foreign-exchange movements - not that such a thing would be a direct risk of a bank failure, but it could happen as a result of actions taken by the Federal Reserve under the auspices of aiding the economy if the economy worsens in the wake of a financial crisis - or, for that matter, if it worsens as a result of something else, including legislative, regulatory, or executive policies. Read the prospectus to understand additional risks with this investment. One of them is foreign-exchange risk. If the US economy and currency strengthen relative to the Canadian economy and its currency, you may lose substantial amounts of purchasing power. Additionally, one of the possible results of a financial crisis is a ""flight to safety""; the global financial markets still seem to think the US dollar is pretty safe, and they may bid it up as they have done in the past, resulting in losses to your position (at least in the short term). I do not personally recommend moving all your savings to Canada, especially if it deprives you of income from more profitable investments over the long term, but moving some of your savings to Canada at least isn't a stupid idea, and it may turn out to be somewhat profitable. Having some Canadian currency is also a good idea if you plan to spend the money that you are saving on Canadian goods in the intermediate future."
I know this is heresy but if you have funds for significantly more   than 6 months of expenses (let's say 12 months), how risky would it be   to put it all into stock index funds? Quite risky as if you do need to dip into it, how fast could you get the cash? Also, do you realize the tax implications when you do sell the shares should you have an emergency? In the worst-case scenario, let's say you have a financial emergency   at the same time the stock market crashes and loses half its value.   You could still liquidate the rest and have sufficient funds for 6   months. Am I underestimating the risks of this strategy? That's not worst case scenario though. Worst case scenario would be another 9/11 where the markets are closed for nearly a week and you need the money but can't get the funds converted to cash in the bank that you can use. This is in addition to the potential wait for a settlement in the case of using ETFs if you choose to go that way. In the case of money market funds, CDs and other near cash equivalents these can be accessed relatively easily which is part of the point. A staggered approach where some cash is kept in house, some in accounts that can easily accessed and some in other investments may make sense though the breakdown would differ depending on how much risk people are willing to take. If it truly is an emergency fund then the odds of needing it should be   very slim, so why live with near zero return on that money? Something to consider is what is called an emergency here? For some people a sudden $1,000 bill to fix their car that just broke down is an emergency. For others, there could be emergency trips to visit family that may have gotten into accidents or gotten a diagnosis that they may pass away soon. Consider what do you want to call an emergency here as chances are you may not be considering all that people would think is an emergency. There is the question of what other sources of money do you have to cover should issues arise.
This is the problem. There are plenty of hard working union members and non union members just like there are decent cops. We just see the minority make everyone else look bad. With a union even people in the union don't like the slackers but they have to stand up for them. I've never been a union member (though most of my family are union construction workers) but I believe that they are responsible for a majority of improvements to our working conditions and safety.
&gt;First, federal labor law bars even non-union employers like Google from punishing an employee for communicating with fellow employees about improving working conditions. The purpose of the memo was to persuade Google to abandon certain diversity-related practices the engineer found objectionable and to convince co-workers to join his cause, or at least discuss the points he raised.  Google can come back saying something along the lines of he didn't take correct steps or what have you to do this.  I haven't seen a confirmed story about how his manifesto got leak or that he made it well public.    &gt;In a reply to the initial outcry over his memo, the engineer added to his memo: “Despite what the public response seems to have been, I’ve gotten many personal messages from fellow Googlers expressing their gratitude for bringing up these very important issues which they agree with but would never have the courage to say or defend because of our shaming culture and the possibility of being fired.” The law protects that kind of “concerted activity.”  If this true, then he does have a lawsuit om hostile work environment.  &gt;The employee was also fired after making a complaint to the NLRB.  Your article doesn't say that.  Only says he made a complaint then he got fired and not because he made the complaint.
"Considering land mass, natural resources, population, tech and a thriving free market, this country could be heaven. It's just good. If not for corruption in Washington that legalized a bribing system that allows politicians to be owned by corporations that through lobbying write themselves laws that favor them instead of the majority of the people, this country would be in a much, much better place.   Since most laws have to benefit the richest people first, and those are the greediest of people, it reflects on society. You have the Walton family worth hundreds of billions of dollars through a company that makes hyndreds of billions of dollars, but refuse to pay their employees decent wages. On top of that, many billionaires get tremendous tax cuts or don't pay at all. The burden is all on the middle class. People are angry.   And don't give me that redneck ""leave the country"" argument, I am discussing a topic posted on a public forum. It's what I think and I am sure a lot of Americans agree with me. Are you going to tell them to leave as well? I have a house in three continents, you can't tell me shit."
WTF yourself!  Results matter.  Billions of dollars are changing hands, women are trying to be a part of that, and the result is that women are getting a share that is according to most statistical analysis insignificant.  You are getting all defensive as if this could only have happened if some nefarious persons at the top decided it must be so, but the reality is that persons at the top do not dictate results as you fantasize.  Results are more what we end up with as the result of processes more complex than any of us fully understand, and reality most women get excluded early on because of various issues like the intense harassment that they experience at almost every level.  You say nothing stops women, but analysis of available data appears to show that something is stopping women and that oddly enough we also find grotesquely inappropriate behavior is endemic to all involved institutions.  A lot of people get harassed?  You better believe it.  I am a gay man and you would not believe some of the shit that I get in  supposedly open minded tech industries.  The big difference there is that most straight women have a lot of options open to them while as a gay man I can pretty much thrive and make a lot of money or starve to death in a world that is still festering with irrational spite that isn't even typically acknowledged.  We can all do better.  I am sure of that.
I think many of you are making unrelated comments and taking unjustified conclusions from the news, without reading the research. Many of the mentioned share provisions are not exclusive to Silicon Valley, technology firms, or the rest of Private Equity (i.e. ex-VC).  The paper says:  &gt;These generous terms are not necessarily evidence of active post-money valuation manipulation and could simply be due to a difficult fund raising environment.  And:  &gt;Importantly, our discussion does not imply that these terms were given for the purpose of manipulating SpaceX’s value.  That is not to say that I am not skeptical of many of the business models and valuations of the companies in the sample, but that is off the research topic.   What the authors suggests is that valuation is often miscalculated by many people in the industry, and provides some relevant cases: from mutual funds who market those shares at the value of the most recent funding round, regardless of share provisions; to employees that wrongly perceive their wealth.  I have some trouble accepting Brownian Motion to model exit prices (or pretty much anything else), it seems a bit off from reality, but nevertheless I think the paper is worth the read.
eallan already touched on this, but generally speaking there is a tendency in this country to lump unions together and put the shortcomings of one local or one unit or one member onto all of them. An example would be the issue of corruption; many people cry about rampant corruption in unions when in fact only somewhere between 1-2% of locals have ever had any corruption charges, whereas I'd be willing to bet that the corruption rate is much higher in the corporate world.  &gt; Honestly, I cant think of any reason for minimum wage paying jobs to have a union. If you think the wages are too low for cost of living then the minimum wage should be raised. These people have no special skills, little to no training, and usually no education.  Genuine question: What reasons do you think someone would/could have for joining a union? Why would base pay/education/skill level of the job be a consideration?    Just so we're on the same page: Collective bargaining came about because workers in certain areas were pissed-off enough that they realized that to improve their situation they had to come together as a group, because only as a group did they have any leverage. All workers have the right to collective bargaining, rights which were signed into law because pissed-off workers were doing it anyway, and the regulation of the practice helped smooth it out and drastically cut down on violence and debilitating drops in production.    It takes quite a feeling of injustice and exploitation when not friends, not family, but colleagues, some of which may not even like each other, start seeing that they share common problems, and decide to tie the fate of their working lives to one another. And give up like 1-2% of their paychecks. Especially in a country with an individualistic culture like the US.   So if workers at certain Wal-Marts feel like working conditions are that bad for them, then I can't see why they shouldn't organize.
I'm pretty sure my dog is better at catching balls than I am, also dogs don't think that the alignment of the stars during their birth had any affect on how happy they are.   I read a book called *The Drunkard's Walk* and in it they talk about a experiment where humans and rats were shown a deck of cards that was 2/3 red and 1/3 black. When humans were asked to guess the cards, they guessed black 1/3 of the time, and red 2/3 of the time, while rats picked red every time. Humans were right about 60% of the time, rats were right 2/3 (66.7%) of the time. Rat brains are more correct than human brains.
"I appreciate the detailed responses, truthfully however I feel like at least half of your points are either just argumentative for its sake alone, display a deep lack of understanding of unions, collective bargaining, and the histories of both, or ignore pragmatism and cling to an uncompromising and ultimately self-defeating ideology. &gt; Collective bargaining is an ambiguous term that could refer to many concepts. There is voluntarily agreed to collective bargaining, which has nothing wrong with it, and then there are laws that FORCE the employer to collectively bargain with a union if a union requests it, which is a mandate and violates the employer's contract liberty. The law forces the two parties to sit at a table. The law forces the two parties to discuss a few core things, like wages. The law *doesn't* force anyone to agree to anything, and very often they don't. I don't see how this is a violation of anyone's ""contract liberty"" (a term I've actually never heard before). The idea is since these worker-employer disputes exist naturally, making them at least sit at a table together and talking is helpful in avoiding ego and testosterone fueled disruptions where no one benefits. If this you see this as a violation of one's liberty, I really don't know what to say to that. &gt; The prevalence of child labor was decreasing long before any law was created prohibiting it. Child labor is necessary in poor countries because people are far less productive per hour worked. I'm not saying I don't believe you, but citation needed. &gt; As productivity increases, parents can afford to send their children off to school instead of working, since their own work is enough to support the family. Wouldn't educating children first lead to an increase in productivity? Also, what if the owners of the means of production, only a few in an given area, have incomes 100x greater than the workers? They seem to be producing enough wealth to support themselves, only they're not the beneficiaries. What's the solution here?
NOTE: This is my opinion, so please have respect- I am not trying to insult or put down anyone. I merely want to play the devils advocate and contribute to the dialogue in a constructive manner. Thanks. You're better trying to short magazines or the publishing industry. The reason why the music industry fell was because they were disorganized even before iTunes came around. The internet has a fantastic distribution system, I agree. But many of these streaming websites are trying to eat TV and Cable's lunch. Many of the people who under-estimate TV do not realize the amount of money, talent, research, staff and infrastructure needed to produce top-level high-quality shows and programming. It is easy to stream a TV show or movie AFTER it's been already produced and broadcast, but do you really think the internet will give us a Mad Men, LOST, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones? I highly doubt it, and that's a big reason why TV is here to stay. Yes there is talk of Netflix trying to buy the rights to some shows, but it's only in the initial phase and you can be damn sure that TV/Cable is testing the waters on their part too. If they decide that the relationship with Netflix isn't working then they are not obligated to work with Netflix. In this case, Netflix needs TV more than TV needs the Netflix or Hulu. What makes Netflix/Hulu any more right than a Viacom or Comcast? You seem to think a future of Netflix and iTunes is utopia, when in reality it would be an oppressive dystopian closed system with NO competition. At least with TV and Cable, you have networks actively competing with each other- they are literally tripping over themselves working as hard as they can to PLEASE you- the audience. You talk about how a future without TV is a good thing, but you fail to realize that it would actually be a bad thing for American culture. People seem to think that sitting in front of the 20inch computer monitors at a table for one is preferable to a 50 inch LCD screen with dolby surround in the den. I am not surprised because the internet is comprised of people who mainly dwell on the internet, where people who watch TV are probably watching TV right now.
That seems like bad math to me. UPDATE: There is some discussion of this point in the comments; all I'm saying here is that this is a clumsy and possibly misleading way to characterize the situation. The linked report has the actual data, but let's try to summarize it here in a more meaningful way. Let's suppose that we make buckets for how dependent on SS is a retirement-age household to avoid starving to death, being homeless, and so on? Maybe these buckets are not ideal, and we could move them around a bit. The takeaways here are that the ratios of nothing:inadequate:barely adequate:comfortable is about 40:30:20:10. That only the top decile of retirement-age households can fund a comfortable retirement without help illustrates just how dependent on SS American households are. how do 50% of old Americans survive in their old age? Social Security and Medicare. As the cited GAO report indicates: ""Social Security provides most of the income for about half of households age 65 and older."" Do most old Americans rely on their children for financial support? One day I met a woman at a party and we were making small talk about her kids. She had a couple already and one more was on the way. ""I want to have lots of children to support me in my old age"", she said. ""Do you support your parents?"" I asked, which frankly seemed like an entirely reasonable question. ""Of course not! I can't afford it. I've got a baby on the way and two more kids at home!"" I left her to draw her own conclusions as to the viability of her retirement plan."
"No it isn't. The argument behind the OP's post is that success is attributable to your ""luck"" to be born as a white, middle to upper class American. Even if you replace the word ""luck"" with ""random chance"" success is still far more dictated by your own actions. I have plenty of friends from high school who had far more privilege than I and have been far less successful. Our school's valedictorian was from a middle class family, but our salutatorian was poor white trash, both have become immensely rich, like sailing yacht and E-Class rich.    Something I haven't mentioned yet, I didn't figure this shit out until I was 23. It took me another two or three years to dig myself out of the hole I dug waiting around trying to get ""lucky."" If I had taken responsibility for my life at age 18, or hell at age 12 like my wife, I would be driving a god damned Lamborghini by now. Because of my own stupidity the best I'll probably do now is a M3, we'll see. I personally *love* cars, but you can insert whatever personal aspirations you have, material or otherwise, into that sentence. On that note, I don't suggest that financial success is the only kind of success. When I was younger I dreamed of moving someplace very remote and surviving off the land. It would have taken responsibility and hard work to achieve that goal, not luck.      It's best to take some responsibility for your life and stop going through it like a pinball bouncing from random event to random event. But don't do so on my account, I want you all to be successful. I want to work with people who are responsible and hard working. I want to be friends with people who are responsible and hard working. I'm proud of my friends who are more responsible and hard working than I am, not jealous."
"Primerica's primary value proposition is that switching from whole or universal life to term life, and investing the difference is a good idea for most people. However, there are a number of other important factors to consider when purchasing life insurance, and I would also be wary of anyone claiming that one product will be the ""best"" for you under all circumstances. Best Insurance? Without getting into a much larger discussion on how to pick insurance companies or products, here are a few things that concern me about Primerica: They have a ""captive"" sales force, meaning their agents sell only Primerica products. This means that they are not shopping around for the best deal for you. Given how much prices on term life have changed in recent years, I would highly recommend taking the time to get alternate quotes online or from an independent broker who will shop around for you. Their staff are primarily part-time employees. I am not saying they are incompetent or don't care, just that you are more likely to be working with someone for whom insurance is not their primary line of work. If you have substantial reason to believe that you may someday need whole life, their products may not suit you well. Primerica does not offer whole life as far as I am aware, which also means that you cannot convert your term life policy through them to whole life should you need to do so. For example, if you experience an accident, are disabled, or have a significant change in your health status in the future and do not have access to a group life policy, you may be unable to renew your individual policy. Above Average Returns? I am also highly skeptical about this claim. The only possible context in which I could find this valid would be if they mean that your returns on average will be better if you invest in the stock market directly as compared to the returns you would get from the ""cash value"" portion of a life insurance product such as universal life, as those types of products generally have very high fees. Can you clarify if this is the claim that was made, or if they are promising returns above those of the general stock market? If it is the latter, run!