Is it bad to be rich?

[The Nehor]

On 12/22/2021 at 9:27 PM, rongo said:

I know this is what most people think (hence the rarity of one income families now), but this article seems so foreign to me. "$100,000 can't achieve the American Dream any more" . . .

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-far-does-six-figure-salary-go-house-college-kids-2021-12?fbclid=IwAR1akLes6GP6hH25FHU0lQ8c4WPO0Ar2joDQ4V5FZK6Cnm175K2AV6zhxCw

Points from the article:

1) Very hard to buy a home for less than $100,000. [True. Point conceded]

2) $100,000 income not enough to pay for college. [Pure baloney. Your kids might need to attend where they can afford, but even then --- our two oldest haven't paid a cent for college (they work, but that's for savings. School, housing, etc. itself is paid for by scholarships and grants). Bootstrap mentality and excellence can provide education, even for the low income].

3) Childcare costs are through the roof [Which . . . can be offset by mom staying home with the kids. Yes, this limits the household income, but it has exponential benefits in testimony, child development, etc.].

4) American Dream defined as "not living paycheck to paycheck." [It's a great feeling to have security and savings, but I would define the American Dream in different terms from mere financial security]

2. Assuming they qualify or are bright enough to get that help.

3. Unless you are not a single parent in which case you are royally screwed.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, rodheadlee said:

It's the start of colonizing the solar system and then the stars. If we wait for the government China will beat us to all of those resources. 

What resources? With current tech even towing a platinum asteroid to earth would cost more than exploiting ‘busted’ mines on earth to harvest similar amounts. The real advantage of space economically is zero-g manufacturing which has a number of advantages but only when manufacturing very specialized equipment.

Colonization would mean terraforming or developing specialized and very dependent environments. The former would probably take centuries at least and the latter is more a vanity project than a practical method of expansion. As to going to the stars we don’t have any way to get there or even a workable theory on how to get there. There are plausible stardrive theories but they all rely on things we aren’t sure exist and even if they do work require such prodigious amounts of power that short of finding a way to create, store, and control antimatter there is no way to utilize them.

If history has taught us anything then a new space race with China would be the way to get government funding into space travel. Then we make one big achievement (landing on  moon equivalent) and lose all the rest of the achievements (first satellite, first man in space) and declare victory. USA! USA!

The Space Race did have positive effects and a lot of neat stuff came out of it from what we developed for it but pretending the profit motive is going to run the next space race requires us to find something we need out there that is cost-effective to harvest and ship home. We haven’t found it yet. China’s program is focusing on space-based solar power devices and is worrying because they could easily militarize space. The threat is military and not economic.

[rodheadlee]

3 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

Star Trek is science fiction and nobody has the finances to support these adventures.  Unless we can find propulsion systems that can make space ships travel near the speed of light or above, we are not ever going to colonize the stars.  The distances are too great even for any space ship traveling a million miles per hour. 

It's not going to happen overnight, it's a process we have to go through. There are new propulsion systems being invented. The methalox engines in Musk's Starships are a new development. He didn't invent them, to the best of my knowledge, but he is the first to put  them into mass production. 

[Calm]

4 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

It's not going to happen overnight, it's a process we have to go through. There are new propulsion systems being invented. The methalox engines in Musk's Starships are a new development. He didn't invent them, to the best of my knowledge, but he is the first to put  them into mass production. 

When this kind of work becomes commonplace, then maybe I will consider he is not wasting money by not studying more earth based tech first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company

And I would be more impressed with $100 million (though that is even just a beginning of what is needed) as funding for research rather than offered as a prize for climate change or investing in cost efficient desalination techniques or other technologies that could make earth life better.

The appeal of space travel is great, but if the world is crap and we use it to escape the earth rather than healing it, how sad would that be?  Let’s solve problems at home rather than running away from them.

Edited December 25, 2021 by Calm

[rodheadlee]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

What resources? With current tech even towing a platinum asteroid to earth would cost more than exploiting ‘busted’ mines on earth to harvest similar amounts. The real advantage of space economically is zero-g manufacturing which has a number of advantages but only when manufacturing very specialized equipment.

Colonization would mean terraforming or developing specialized and very dependent environments. The former would probably take centuries at least and the latter is more a vanity project than a practical method of expansion. As to going to the stars we don’t have any way to get there or even a workable theory on how to get there. There are plausible stardrive theories but they all rely on things we aren’t sure exist and even if they do work require such prodigious amounts of power that short of finding a way to create, store, and control antimatter there is no way to utilize them.

If history has taught us anything then a new space race with China would be the way to get government funding into space travel. Then we make one big achievement (landing on  moon equivalent) and lose all the rest of the achievements (first satellite, first man in space) and declare victory. USA! USA!

The Space Race did have positive effects and a lot of neat stuff came out of it from what we developed for it but pretending the profit motive is going to run the next space race requires us to find something we need out there that is cost-effective to harvest and ship home. We haven’t found it yet. China’s program is focusing on space-based solar power devices and is worrying because they could easily militarize space. The threat is military and not economic.

Yeah never mind, I guess I read to much sci fi. I do know we can't get there if we don't get started. I would think Manufacturing in space would be better than trying to tow an asteroid home. Let's go ahead and tax Elon Musk out of business and see how that works.

[rodheadlee]

7 minutes ago, Calm said:

When this kind of work becomes commonplace, then maybe I will consider he is not wasting money by not studying more earth based tech first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company

And I would be more impressed with $100 million (though that is even just a beginning of what is needed) as funding for research rather than offered as a prize for climate change or investing in cost efficient desalination techniques or other technologies that could make earth life better.

The appeal of space travel is great, but if the world is crap and we use it to escape the earth rather than healing it, how sad would that be?  Let’s solve problems at home rather than running away from them.

He is on the cusp of either going broke or launching 2500 times per year.

Also space technology is directly related to use on earth. There is a huge list out there somewhere that are all the things that we use today that came from the space program.

[rodheadlee]

8 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

He is on the cusp of either going broke or launching 2500 times per year.

Also space technology is directly related to use on earth. There is a huge list out there somewhere that are all the things that we use today that came from the space program.

I want to add that we are also having a program for solar collectors in space and to beam power to the Earth. If Elon Musk is successful with Starship the cost of launching solar collectors into space will drop dramatically. This could eventually end the need for fossil fuel power generation here on Earth. 

Edited December 25, 2021 by rodheadlee

[carbon dioxide]

1 hour ago, rodheadlee said:

It's not going to happen overnight, it's a process we have to go through. There are new propulsion systems being invented. The methalox engines in Musk's Starships are a new development. He didn't invent them, to the best of my knowledge, but he is the first to put  them into mass production. 

I would say it will not happen within the next 1000 years.  Right now, the closest star is about 4 light years away.  Even at 1% of the speed of light it would take a space ship 400 years to reach it.  We are not even remotely close to 1% of the speed of light.  As of this time, the fastest spacecraft we have put up is the one that is traveling closest to the sun.  It will go up to 125 miles per second as it passes the sun and that is a special case.  Not even 1% of 1% of light speed for that one.  Overall getting a space craft to go 20 miles per second is hard.   We might one day be able to reach Saturn or Neptune in a reasonable time frame but solar systems beyond ours no way. 

[The Nehor]

30 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

He is on the cusp of either going broke or launching 2500 times per year.

Also space technology is directly related to use on earth. There is a huge list out there somewhere that are all the things that we use today that came from the space program.

This is true. It does have all kinds of benefits. I am all for space programs. I just don’t see it as being driven by economic necessity unless things change in some major way. I would prefer it to be driven to feed our desire for knowledge, our lust for challenges, and to feed the soul with wonder.

38 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Yeah never mind, I guess I read to much sci fi. I do know we can't get there if we don't get started. I would think Manufacturing in space would be better than trying to tow an asteroid home. Let's go ahead and tax Elon Musk out of business and see how that works.

I am thinking there might be a happy medium between taxing everyone out of business and a top individual tax rate of 37% which despite propaganda to the contrary is very low. The lowest is about 35% though there was some fuzzy accounting back in the 80s when the effective rate was lower. Elon Musk specifically is not a fan of the tax dodges used by many others.

In any case I would target corporate tax reform first if I was trying to fix things. 

[The Nehor]

1 minute ago, carbon dioxide said:

I would say it will not happen within the next 1000 years.  Right now, the closest star is about 4 light years away.  Even at 1% of the speed of light it would take a space ship 400 years to reach it.  We are not even remotely close to 1% of the speed of light.  As of this time, the fastest spacecraft we have put up is the one that is traveling closest to the sun.  It will go up to 125 miles per second as it passes the sun and that is a special case.  Not even 1% of 1% of light speed for that one.  Overall getting a space craft to go 20 miles per second is hard.   We might one day be able to reach Saturn or Neptune in a reasonable time frame but solar systems beyond ours no way. 

For a while I played a game called High Frontier that basically has a “map” of the solar system and how you can use flybys to speed up and/or save fuel on trips to the outer planets. There are two problems. The ‘horizontal’ problem is getting far distances and basically everything beyond Jupiter is VERY hard to get to efficiently. The ‘vertical’ problem is getting out of gravity wells. For example it is not that hard to get to Mars or Mercury. It is just difficult to get back off again and the kind of propulsion you would use to get from place to place is a long continuous sustained burn but what you need to get off of a planet or a moon is a shorter burst of more intense thrust so in practice you need two different types of engines if you are going to Mars or any of the larger moons of Jupiter or Saturn.

We are very lucky we know as much as we do. It is a bizarre coincidence or divine providence that at the time that we could build the voyager probes we hit a once every two century alignment where we could reasonably send probes to all four of the Outer Planets in sequence. Or five if you are still angry about Pluto.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, rodheadlee said:

There is a huge list out there somewhere that are all the things that we use today that came from the space program.

And how much other tech do we not have or had to wait for because money was taken from that research to give to the space program?

I am not saying we wasted money.  I am just saying it is not an easy calculation of cost benefit.

[Calm]

54 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

. I would prefer it to be driven to feed our desire for knowledge, our lust for challenges, and to feed the soul with wonder.

It is a mountain to be climbed.

[rodheadlee]

13 minutes ago, Calm said:

And how much other tech do we not have or had to wait for because money was taken from that research to give to the space program?

I am not saying we wasted money.  I am just saying it is not an easy calculation of cost benefit.

But we are talking about billionaires. It's his money. He earned it with pay pal and Tesla. That's what this whole discussion is about. He pays his help well. I know someone that works for SpaceX and he makes great money.  He employs a lot of people. I think Elon has earned the right to do what he wants to do with his money.

[rodheadlee]

Last year's NASA budget was 0.48% of our budget. All of the rest is private enterprise and defense spending. 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

He pays his help well.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90411122/elon-musk-makes-40668-times-more-than-a-median-tesla-employee

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/09/tesla-worker-long-hours-low-pay-and-unsafe-conditions/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hayleycuccinello/2020/05/05/elon-musk-700-million-payday-tesla/?sh=d71b65e1fff6

Edited December 25, 2021 by Calm

[rodheadlee]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90411122/elon-musk-makes-40668-times-more-than-a-median-tesla-employee

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/09/tesla-worker-long-hours-low-pay-and-unsafe-conditions/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hayleycuccinello/2020/05/05/elon-musk-700-million-payday-tesla/?sh=d71b65e1fff6

And he is paying 11 billion in taxes this year while reinvesting in a Germany Tesla factory and Space x among other things 

https://spacenews.com/spacex-vs-the-world/

https://spacenews.com/falcon-9-launches-cargo-dragon-lands-100th-booster/

 

https://spacenews.com/ksc-to-study-potential-new-starship-launch-pad

Edited December 25, 2021 by rodheadlee

[The Nehor]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

And how much other tech do we not have or had to wait for because money was taken from that research to give to the space program?

I am not saying we wasted money.  I am just saying it is not an easy calculation of cost benefit.

I suspect but cannot prove that the investment in space research has paid off in our daily lives beyond what investing that money directly into research for our betterment has generally. There are just a ton of hand-me-down effects that solving a bunch of problems regarding space flight gave us just because it forced some very inventive solutions.

Without NASA we would probably be at least a generation behind in computer tech.

I am also in favor of a lot of research that does not have any direct tangible benefits. Learning things is often its own reward even if it doesn’t help improve our lives beyond just the thrill of knowing things. Then there are also the weird studies and fields that seem generally useless until suddenly they aren’t. Some animal studies have been turned back to to figure what is going on when something odd is having in a population of that animal or a related animal. The field of Boolean logic seemed like a bunch of Greek nerds inventing a system of logic that is so self-evident why would you need to codify it and work out the interactions? Then computers come along and the language was already mostly figured out.

[The Nehor]

8 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

Last year's NASA budget was 0.48% of our budget. All of the rest is private enterprise and defense spending. 

I want it back up to the roughly 3 or 4% we had back in the space race. Then again some of that money is going to DARPA which is the BEST government research program/mad scientist organization in the world. That is one area where the USA is unambiguously #1 in the world. Seriously, there is a lot to justly criticize in government spending but DARPA needs more money to pursue more insane concepts. Many don’t work out but some do and they have given us a lot of benefits plus they make the future exciting.

[rodheadlee]

46 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I want it back up to the roughly 3 or 4% we had back in the space race. Then again some of that money is going to DARPA which is the BEST government research program/mad scientist organization in the world. That is one area where the USA is unambiguously #1 in the world. Seriously, there is a lot to justly criticize in government spending but DARPA needs more money to pursue more insane concepts. Many don’t work out but some do and they have given us a lot of benefits plus they make the future exciting.

DARPA is doing the solar collector experiment. They converted solar power to radio waves, beamed them to earth and reconverted to electricity. 

[rodheadlee]

Merry Christmas everyone. The James Web telescope launched this morning successfully. In about 6 months we will be seeing things. 

[Peacefully]

1 hour ago, rodheadlee said:

Merry Christmas everyone. The James Web telescope launched this morning successfully. In about 6 months we will be seeing things. 

Merry Christmas!

[mfbukowski]

17 hours ago, The Nehor said:

 Very hard to buy a home for less than $100,000. [True. Point conceded]

Not really.

It's easy! With rates what they are?

You may not want to live there, but... 

 

[Tacenda]

27 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Not really.

It's easy! With rates what they are?

You may not want to live there, but... 

 

I don't know where this would be, because it looks darn near impossible right now. I'm trying to help my son get into a manufactured home, let alone a home. It's crazy out there. And his rent just keeps going up and up. Utah is another California, I believe. I feel for the younger generation, I don't think we older ones had it this tough. 

Edited December 25, 2021 by Tacenda

[mfbukowski]

41 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I don't know where this would be, because it looks darn near impossible right now. I'm trying to help my son get into a manufactured home, let alone a home. It's crazy out there. And his rent just keeps going up and up. Utah is another California, I believe. I feel for the younger generation, I don't think we older ones had it this tough. 

Markets I am familiar with for rental houses include LA, Houston, and Indianapolis, San Bernardino Ca.  One community I know near Houston has mfg'd homes, nice area. In the 50k range. Arkansas is hot right now 

Go to zillow.com and pick any town, any state and search, and they are out there.

Again the issue becomes if you want to move cross country, or stay with a starter home.

In the Houston area, third biggest city now in US, if you have a down payment you can buy a house with payments lower than what the rent for the same house would be

I don't know why anyone rents there!

But don't tell anyone else, ok? 

 

 

[Stargazer]

22 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

It's the start of colonizing the solar system and then the stars. If we wait for the government China will beat us to all of those resources. 

Yeah, but China's economy is, in my opinion, a house of cards. I doubt they could do it.