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Political Calculations
Personal blog · politicalcalculations.blogspot.comeconomicsdata
Political Calculations is a personal blog at politicalcalculations.blogspot.com about economics and data. Since 2010, 37 different Hacker News readers have linked it 67 times, most often “The Price History of Campbell's Tomato Soup”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Most-linked posts?
- The Price History of Campbell's Tomato Soup3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-22
- /2021/01/the-price-of-campbells-tomato-soup-in.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-03-24
What Hacker News says?
Poverty may always be a relative phenomenon (even in Cuba) but there has been no better system to lift people out of the life-threatening effects of abject poverty than capitalism. In fact, you cannot have a success with socialism without a large number of wealthy (or well-off) people to tax, and a society cannot tax itself to prosperity. > I live in a smaller house and have no car. But I have no financial worries l…
Comment linking /2012/12/the-discovery-of-unseen.html
on “What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?”Submitted How Lucky Is Too Lucky in Minecraft? as a story · 114 points
HN discussionNot in the US it wasn't? Costs for higher education have tripled in the past couple decades, to say NOTHING of costs in the 80s or 90s. Note that I already knew this, having a free ride thanks to the U.S. Pell Grants, however I DID to a basic google search. Among many other sources, this one is eye opening. Curious as to what your thoughts are: https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-ongoi... In case…
Comment linking /2014/04/the-ongoing-inflation-of-higher.html
on “People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows”Submitted The Price History of Campbell's Tomato Soup as a story · 78 points
HN discussionRe/ medicare for all ... Canada has universal health care yet a very similar suicide rate to the USA.[1] Canada doesn't have a livable minimum wage either. Each province sets its own. There is talk of UBI experiments. [1] https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/02/us-vs-can...
Comment linking /2011/02/us-vs-canada-suicide-edition.html
on “For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests”Submitted July 2018 Median Household Income in the U.S. as a story · 78 points
HN discussionShort version. A member of the San Jose teacher's association thinks one of two academic studies is wrong, because... we already have a consensus. The one point raised in the article about multi-site employers is acknowledged by the article's favored Berkeley study: "some multi-site businesses report payroll and head counts separately for each of their locations, while others consolidate their data and provide infor…
Comment linking /2017/06/the-most-surprising-finding-of-seattle.html
on “Seattle’s higher minimum wage is actually working fine”Submitted Game Theory and Settling the Debts of the Deceased in Ancient Times as a story · 60 points
HN discussionTell-tales are all over the place. From explosion in asset prices world wide and cross-industry to micro-signals, such as goods coming in smaller packaging (for the same price) or slightly increasing grocery prices[0]. In my bubble, its mostly tinfoil-hat-wearing crypto-enthusiasts pointing at examples of how toiletpaper comes in smaller packages-for-the-same-price, so my view is skewed. But its safe to consider all…
Comment linking /2020/01/the-price-history-of-campbells-tomato.html
on “Stock Market Returns Are Anything but Average”Submitted Philadelphians Drink a Lot More Alcohol Since the City's Soda Tax Was Imposed as a story · 59 points
HN discussionNice to meet someone with my exact policy views! :-) There's another huge problem that it solves besides just administrative costs. Currently marginal tax rates near the poverty line are very high due to loss of access to need-based programs like foodstamps (exactly how high depends a lot on individual circumstances). It's a horrible burden on the working poor that nobody seems to understand. More discussion here: h…
Comment linking /2012/12/the-flat-tax-us-effectively-already-has.html
on “Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network”Submitted Atmospheric CO2 Trend Reverses on China's Coal Panic as a story · 16 points
HN discussionNot true. In 2014, the 99th percentile of personal income was was $240k, and the 99th percentile of household income was $330k. http://i.imgur.com/cCmRisG.png source http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-is-yo... $250k is a realistic number for the upper tier of software engineers to make in Silicon Valley. If you work for one of the big companies, your stock options will get you pretty close to tha…
Comment linking /2014/09/what-is-your-income-percentile-ranking.html
on “Yahoo ex-employee sues, alleging performance review manipulation, gender bias”Submitted Correlating Federal Spending and College Tuition as a story · 5 points
HN discussionYes and no. With regard to spreading, just prior observation that adjustments tend to spread. With regard to housing, the observation that the median home price : median income ratio is now above 5.2x, while at the last peak it was only at ~5x. The rate of growth is lower this time, but I don't think it matters because the ratio is still really bad. http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-curren...
Comment linking /2015/04/the-current-trend-for-us-median-new.html
on “Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers”Submitted Estimates of World GDP Lost to the Global Coronavirus Recession as a story · 4 points
HN discussionYou're not an underachiever. Class is all relative. "Middle class" in America translates to "extremely wealthy" for the average human being. My wife and I were just in Newport Beach, CA over the weekend, and we felt very poor. But back here in Nevada, we feel very blessed. Here are some links to make your wife feel better: http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2010/12/whats-your... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H…
Comment linking /2010/12/whats-your-us-income-ranking.html
on “Many don't have $2,000 for a rainy day”Submitted Pace of Atmospheric CO₂ Accumulation Falls to Great Recession Levels as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe US is hitting new record highs in median income: https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2018/08/july-2018...
Comment linking /2018/08/july-2018-median-household-income.html?m=1
on “Amazon Camper Force”Submitted It's a Wonderful Life in the Universe as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThey have updated it for 2021: https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-price...
Comment linking /2021/01/the-price-of-campbells-tomato-soup-in.html
on “The Price History of Campbell's Tomato Soup”Submitted The S&P 500 at your fingertips as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere's the update for August 2018: http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2018/10/august-201...
Comment linking /2018/10/august-2018-median-household-income.html
on “July 2018 Median Household Income in the U.S.”Submitted U.S. Life Expectancy Rebounding After 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe amount of information doesn't remain constant - technology enables bureaucrats to invent yet more bizarre and arcane legislation. For example,the U.S. tax code was 504 pages long in 1939, 8,200 pages in 1945, 67,000 in 2008 and 75.000 pages today. http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2010/03/growing-co... I work for an insurance company, and we spend far more time writing code to comply with regulations tha…
Comment linking /2010/03/growing-complexity-of-us-federal-tax.html
on “Why Cities Keep Growing, Corporations and People Always Die, Life Gets Faster”Submitted Dividends by the Numbers in October 2022 Send Recessionary Signal as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMy mistake, I linked the wrong thing. Here is the right one https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-price... .
Comment linking /2021/01/the-price-of-campbells-tomato-soup-in.html
on “This real estate bubble won't pop”Submitted Campbell's Soup to See Third Wave of Price Increases as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIIRC 15% for Campbells Tomato Soup. https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-price...
Comment linking /2020/01/the-price-history-of-campbells-tomato.html
on “This real estate bubble won't pop”Submitted Falling Trends of Affordability for New Homes as a story · 2 points
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