Describe regional differences in settlement patterns,family structure, labor systems, and cultural adaptation and explain why they arose.
Posts Tagged ‘about’
a story about a martians view of the USA what do you think..?
02
Jun
… also learned that human well being matters to health and to earnings as well. Healthier people are happier, but happier people are also healthier and more likely to earn more money in the future. Yet happiness matters more to future income for those with less income, while money matters more to future income (and happiness) to those with more money. “Aha,” thought the Martian again. “Maybe they are giving tax cuts to the rich and increasing inequality because money seems to matter more to them.”
…learned that countries with more inequality have lower life expectancies, and that citizens in more equal societies, like Sweden, live longer. A recent National Academy of Sciences study finds that the inadequate medical care received by the uninsured in the United States translates into a poorer quality of life and a shorter lifespan. The study calculated the “hidden costs” of lack of insurance in terms of lost wages and benefits and in the value of what would…
http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/graham/20030806.htm
Worried about diagonal wall cracks in my house due to settlement.?
02
Jun
Hi,My house is single story without basement and nearly 12 years old There was structurally no problem but 5 years ago my neighbor made a 4 storey building with basement just next side by side immediately adjoining to my house after it diagonal cracks started developing on the those walls(load bearing, load is of slab only) which are at right angle to wall which is adjoining to my neighbors structure or you can say on the walls which are at right angle to my neighbors new built up structure .They start from the joint of ceiling and wall(adjacent to the new built up structure) and goes diagonally throughout the wall and ends at the floor almost 10 feet in length and seems(not sure)also cracking the foundation as the crack also travels for few inches in the floor where it ends in the wall. The width of crack in each wall is nearly 1 mm and more wide upside i.e. near ceiling than floor I have repaired them twice in these 5 years every time they were nearly 1 mm wide .Last time I repaired them 2 years ago but after few months they again resurfaced and seems to be widening again. it. Although it is clear that they are due to settlement only .And I have read somewhere that sometimes it takes nearly ten years for the soil to fully settle but I am really worried and so please tell is there any serious problem involved with the stability of wall or what I have to do to overcome or what should be the repairing procedure of it..Although I am also a civil engineer but for Highways so if there is something that I should have to take care of or should be watched please suggest me and I will do that.Thanks
Assume that rocket taxis of the future move about the solar system at half the speed of light.?
29
May
For a one-hour trip as measured by a clock in the taxi, a driver is paid 10 stellars. The taxi-driver’s union demands that pay be based on earth time instead of taxi time. If their demand is met, what will be the new payment for the same trip?
A question about Ebay?
22
May
ok so i bought a xbox360 on ebay i sent the payment and the seller sent the money back ???? i asked the seller why he has done this action he replyed: things have came up and i cant sell the console now.
sorry for wasting your time and good luck in your future bidding
OMG!!!!! what he mean he cant do that can he ??
Any thoughts about AIG Million $ exec BONUSES after they recieved billions of your money?
22
May
WASHINGTON – Leaders of the White House economic team and the Senate’s top Republican bellowed about bonuses at a bailed-out insurance giant and pledged to prevent such payments in the future.
From one Sunday talk show to the next, they tore into the contracts that American International Group asserted had to be honored, to the tune of about $165 million and payable to executives by Sunday — part of a larger total payout reportedly valued at $450 million. The company has benefited from more than $170 billion in a federal rescue.
AIG has agreed to Obama administration requests to restrain future payments. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pressed the president’s case with AIG’s chairman, Edward Liddy, last week.
“He stepped in and berated them, got them to reduce the bonuses following every legal means he has to do this,” said Austan Goolsbee, staff director of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
“I don’t know why they would follow a policy that’s really not sensible, is obviously going to ignite the ire of millions of people, and we’ve done exactly what we can do to prevent this kind of thing from happening again,” Goolsbee said.
Added Lawrence Summers, Obama’s top economic adviser: “The easy thing would be to just say … off with their heads, violate the contracts. But you have to think about the consequences of breaking contracts for the overall system of law, for the overall financial system.”
Summers said Geithner used all his power, “both legal and moral, to reduce the level of these bonus payments.”
Thoughts about excerpt from this article??
1. What do you think should be the be the consequences for this company? (or should there be consequences?
2. What should the Obama team do if other companies follow this companies lead in continuing to give bonuses?
3. Any other thoughts?
Future Fate
You make an excellent point. I also only thought you give out bonuses of the company makes money or an employee does an great job. Neither has happened here!!
Should we forget about sustainability?
21
May
The story of stuff video (link below) talks about
the materials economy or in other words natural resources, and how we abuse them. Our system is in crisis, the limit is that it is a linear system on a finite planet. Natural resources are not just valuable in their own right they are essential to our survival too, we depend on having fresh water, plants, clean air etc.
The conflict lies in the two very different systems; the natural world and man’s economy. We pretend we are a capitalistic society, yet, we do not pay in money terms (we do not recognize the value) of natural resources, so we exploit them; the environment, other people, living things, natural systems and resources all over the world.
The Wiki definition of sustainable is:
‘Sustainability, in a general sense, is the capacity to maintain a certain process or state indefinitely. In recent years the concept has been applied more specifically to living organisms and systems. As applied to the human community, sustainability has been expressed as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.[1]‘
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability
So if we are talking about maintenance ‘the capacity to maintain a certain process or state indefinitely’ or meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ sustainability is not really sustainable because:
A) the human population is rapidly growing
B) we are paying nothing back.
Animals pay back (by eating seeds, pollinating, providing fertilizer etc) plants pay back, humans don’t pay back, we take more from the natural environment, we pollute (flush feces) rather than enrich the soils, we willfully damage food plants, habitats and natural systems and we do this under the name of SUSTAINABLE living. We do not even pay in monetary terms for natural resources resources or if we do it is because their ‘owner’ is doing so to exploit them, again under the name of sustainability. For example water is being sold to re-fill already exploited and drained water systems but this time the ‘owners’ of the water are receiving payment.
So…. should we forget about sustainability and think beyond sustainability to actually paying back? If so how?
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
Edited to Add:
Have I misinterpreted this: is it in fact, opposite to ‘paying back’? Evolution results when the various parties in a system take advantage of available resources. Which means that there is actually no pay back as such. The tree has evolved a system to make birds eat fruit and spread seeds. The tree is taking advantage of the bird. Not vice versa.
Therefore, throughout the natural world there is no altruism required for the system to work.
Human disturbance is when human activity is greater than the natural world has evolved to be be able to cope with it. The scale of human disturbance is the problem.
It is natural for us, humans, to take advantage of available resources. The system is shaped by fluctuations. For example the shape of a river is created by a flood situation and not the ‘normal’ flow of the water. So a system can continue to run in it’s normal state until such an event as the flooding. (continued)
Then it would shift to a new ‘normal’ state. What is happening is that human activity is removing the possibility of shifting to a new normal state.
So is sustainability an illusion on our modern timescale. Things are changing faster than systems can evolve to cope with the disturbances.
The problem is that time moves in a forward direction. We can not even consider how for instance we are going to rebuild the Amazon Rainforest when we finally realize it’s value.
Most natural systems are irreversible. They ONLY move in a forward direction.
In a world of irreducible complexity (the basis of holistic thinking) can we design our way out of this situation?
We talk about sustainability when there is absolutely no way of knowing the outcomes. Everything is moving forward we assume, but can’t know the outcomes, yet still predict sustainability.
The only rational suggestion is to employ the precautionary principle wherever possible.
*************
So does anybody have anybody have any thoughts or should we just go down the pub?
I really am finding this impossible to award best answer. You all provide such valid and interesting points I want to give several best answers. Thank you all for your great answers. I am going to put it to my family to vote tomorrow!
How do you feel about AIG giving its executives tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses?
18
May
They receive taxpayer bailout money, and now they’re giving these executives bonuses? What’s up with this?
WASHINGTON – American International Group is giving its executives tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses even though it received a taxpayer bailout of more than $170 billion dollars.
AIG is paying out the executive bonuses to meet a Sunday deadline, but the troubled insurance giant has agreed to administration requests to restrain future payments.
The Treasury Department determined that the government did not have the legal authority to block the current payments by the company. AIG declared earlier this month that it had suffered a loss of $61.7 billion for the fourth quarter of last year, the largest corporate loss in history.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has asked that the company scale back future bonus payments where legally possible, an administration official said Saturday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090315/ap_on_bi_ge/aig_bonuses
My hubby to be and I are arguing about house shopping. How can I solve the issue?
11
May
We have one child and are trying for another. We live in a condo and we have a cat. He has a dog that lives at his parents house. They are selling and we need to take the dog. We need a bigger place with a yard so we can keep the dog. My future in-laws have offered to sell us their house cheaper than what it’s worth, but I absolutely hate the house. They built it themselves and then added a couple of new “wings” to the house that don’t match the house that was before. It’s very impractically organized and we would have to take down several walls, a whole wing, put up other walls, enlarge doors, bathrooms etc to make it suitable for a family with small children. The floors are also badly done and the house is ugly. Even if we get this discount from the house payment from them it’s still going to be extremely costly to fix it up so it’s going to end up being at least as expensive as a similar house, if not more. My hubby to be has had no time at all to fix up the place we currently live in, so I sincerely doubt we’ll be able to fix the new house the way we want. He knows the house needs work, but it has been his lifelong dream to buy it and he has promised to fix it, but I don’t trust it. My lifelong dream has been to build my own house but he won’t hear of it. I’ve tried to compromise by suggesting other houses to him, but he won’t hear of it either. In his eyes they can never compare to his parents’ house and even if they are perfect we are not getting as much for our money as with the one he wants. I think it’s really unfair to only want one house in the world and no other. How can I get him to compromise? I’m not going to budge and move into a house I hate.
Question about how mortgage prepayment affects amortization schedule.?
10
May
So I’m buying my first house, its an FHA loan, and the biggest thing on my mind is figuring out how to pay as little interest as possible over the years. I’m buying a less expensive house that I could afford, so that I can have money left over to prepay on the principal as often as possible, and get the house paid off much quicker than 30 years. ( I know alot of people probably think, its my first house, I’m going to move soon, upgrade, etc, but I doubt it. I rarely move, I’ve been in the same 5 mile radius my whole life, I plan to be in this house for a long time)
Right now I’ve already got my minimum down payment/closing costs. I’ve also got enough money for an emergency fund. Then on top of that I’ve got around $4K extra that I can apply to the principal. Now since I’m not completely familiar with how the whole amortization schedule works, I’m wondering which way I’d be better off.
A) Just applying that extra directly to my down payment up front, which will lower my monthly payment by about $20 a month, but will still be amortized at 30 years (as far as I know).
B) Just putting down the minimum down payment, and then in about a month applying that $4K to the principle. That way the loan has already been amortized, and (if my thinking is right), I’ll be getting a jump start through the amortization schedule, so that on all my future payments, more of the payment will be going straight to principal and less towards interest. And in effect taking a year or so off the end of the loan. (that’s how i think it works, although I don’t fully understand how the ammortization works, so that’s why I’m asking the question)
So with overall interest savings throughout the years in mind, which is a better option, or are they both going to pretty much be the same?
Where can I find more information about the Asbestos Cancer Mesothelioma?
08
May
Where can I find a good personal injury lawyer or a good lawyer who specializes in Mesothelioma and personal injury structured settlements?
does any one know about rent to own homes ,, my husband is a vet but our credit isn’t good due to credit theft?
08
May
i keep seeing rent to own homes is this for real and if so how do you find legit ones thanks so much .. i know buying a house right now would be next to impossible due to out credit which we would have about 15,000 to put down from my husbands annuity,, any suggestions …houses are so cheap now i hate to miss out
A question about money in an estate account?
06
May
All of the money aside from my Grandfathers house is in an estate account. I received an annuity that my Grandad had set up for me back in January. The money from the House and property is to be divided amongst us in the same manner as the rest of his money (bonds, stocks, bank accounts that have all been put in to one bank account). Ok so we are having trouble selling my Grandfathers property with the market the way it is and i am starting to get worried about the money that is in the estate account. It is quite a bit above 100,000 dollars and is in a Washington Mutual account.
My Uncle has told me that we cannot touch any of the money until the property sells and the money from it is in the estate account. Is this true?
It seems odd that i would be able to cash in my annuity in January but that we cannot get the estate money out of the Bank until the property sells.
My Uncle is an ultra conservative Christian who believes that the end of the World is coming soon and so he does not really care what happens to the money. He has told me this.
Thank you for your answer Tmess2. I am actually listed as an executor if my Uncle is unwilling or unable to do so. I would hate to cause family problems but the other two people in the Will (my sisters) feel the same way that i do. That is to say that our money is not safe and that he is not making an attempt to keep it safe. Would it be easier for me to take control of where this money is deposited being that i am listed as an executor? It is not greed driving my feelings on this so if it is possible to split the money into more than one account in order to make sure that it is all FDIC insured that would be the option i would choose.
Question about 8453-OL form?
04
May
for the part 2, 6c, which says;
I authorize the U.S. Treasury and its designated Financial Agent to initiate an ACH electronic funds withdrawal entry to the financial institution account indicated in the tax preparation software for mayment of my federal taxes owed on this tax return and/or a payment of estimated tax. I further understand that this authorization may apply to future federal tax payments that I direct to be debited through the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System. In order for me to initiate future payments, I request that the IRS send me a personal identification number (PIN) to access EFTPS. This authorization is to remain in full force and effect until I notify the U.S. Treasury Financial Agent at 1-888-353-4537 no later than 2 business days prior to the payment (settlement) date. I also authorize the financial institutions involved in the processing of the electronic payment of taxes to receive confide~ bla bla bla….
Do I have to check the box??
Question about house deeds?
04
May
House originally bought in his name in the deed and also in mortgage payment. Then after 2 and half years his wife name and his 2 adult sons (age 23 and 26) name added to the deed.
1.What happens to the house, if some thing happens to the main owner and the owner has no will? Does his wife gets the house or his 2 adult sons get the house
2.Is the main owner sells the house does he has to get consent from his wife and 2 adult children (name added in the deed) to sell the house.
3.In the future can he change the house deed like adding names on the deed and removing above names on the deed?