Half of it is built out of unicorn dust and human imagination.
Economics is applied psychology at scale hiding behind the idea of math and using “businesses” and “markets” to depersonalize their findings and play pretend at describing natural laws. All it’s really describing is the behavior of people, and a wildly nonrepresentative subset of people at that.
One of the most surreal experiences in my life was riding in an ambulance in Norway and having the EMT sheepishly explain that while the ambulance ride was free, the ER visit was going to come with a bill. He was equal parts embarrassed and indignant about it. The bill was the equivalent of $25.
And the more you dig into it, the worse it gets. That price discrepancy exists at the provider level too.
And it gets worse.
This video is a nice little primer about how the insurer might not even pay that $300 they agreed to, how that let’s them profit further on the treatment while creating financial pressure on healthcare providers, and how your Dr may end up being owned by the insurer, further reducing the ability of a new co-op to compete.
If you have an employer that does the right thing, you should have a union that doesn’t need to do much. But you should still unionise, because it’s niave to think the company will always continue to behave that way. If anything, they naturally drift away from that state and it’s only a matter of time until it changes. The union is about having a level playing field with the company when you need it.
Glasses usually have obscene markups. Imo, the most cost effective way is often lasik (or similar), but it’s an up front cost.
I think I paid 4k usd for both eyes, but that was something like 10 years ago and with no assistance from insurance.
I still get an eye exam every few years just to make sure everything is okay, but I am expecting another 10 years before I need too start thinking about vision correction again. Also, I’m fairly certain the provider that performed my lasik offered a warranty and would perform additional corrections as I age, but I don’t live anywhere near the location anymore.
When I compare that to the combined cost of insurance, exams, glasses, contacts, and prescription sunglasses that my wife pays… lasik was a significant cost savings for me (and that’s not counting any quality of life benefits).
Oatly oat cream is a staple in my fridge at this point. It’s basically better than cream (or milk if diluted) in many recipes because it’s more heat resistant and flavour neutral.
10 years… how refreshingly optimistic…
In 2007, Congress passed the increase to 7.25 to take effect in 2009. The minimum wage change 15 years ago was passed 17 years ago.
Not an expert here, but given the differences in measurement scales, I suspect there is a difference in intensity.
If my reading of this Hong Kong Observatory reference is correct, a no 8 is classified as wind speeds between 63-117 km/h.
When we talk about hurricane strength, we’re using this scale. Unless they are measuring different metrics, a no 8 is the equivalent of a tropical storm. Which is to say, we don’t even rate that as hurricane strength.
Helene hit land at around 220 km/h (Cat 4). Milton reached speeds of 260km/h (Cat 5), but might weaken to 190-200km/h (Cat 3) by the time it reaches land.
I moved out of the USA about 10 years ago. There are many reasons, both big and small. When people ask why, I’ve learned to boil it down to one overarching idea: I believe we should live in a society where the people are primarily treated as the definition of the society and not where the people are primarily treated as a resource belonging to the society.