cbayram

There was no concept of vacation. Notion of a vacation is very nascent in many cultures.

You are implying that their attempts at defense and self-preservation against violent tyranny and genocide is a conscious collective choice of the people for more conflict rather than a reaction to their inhumane circumstances under such conditions. Everyone is capable of resisting arrest if you bend their arm back at a certain angle.

Kurds have been continuously in that existential conflict long before the gulf wars. Their identity has been systemically under attack by brutal military dictatorships and nationalism for over a century now. Self-determination, survival and freedom from tyranny has always been their motivation. One does not have the option to choose when homicide knocks on one's front door.

Kurds, most people of the Middle East and humanity in general want peaceful coexistence, progress, freedom and live productive lives. However, inorganic oscillations due to oppressive force and might wreak havoc in reaching any sustainable equilibrium.

Because you aren't dealing with the competent willing who can pull off such projects. Instead, you are dealing with crooks who take their cut and pass the irresponsibility to the next. Taxpayer money is the true lottery.

Few weeks back, while commuting to work the E and M lines weren't running. There were 3-5 MTAs finest per platform exit, hallways instructing riders "The E and the M lines are not running!" I took another route only to find same amount of MTA agents at the other station. You count the number of stations. The overtime paid that day would have gone a long way paying for a decent electronic information boards that rest of the world seems to have. As a taxpayer, this abuse of tax funds infuriates me.

"The US seems to get less of everything for its money than its peers."

Exactly my sentiment. However, my take away is there are too many middlemen dealing with middlemen dealing with ... Everyone's gotta get greased with before each blow by the the worker carrying out the physical labor.

I'm trying to keep an open mind. Can you please elaborate on these key qualifications and these delicate times?

Currently, my take away is a sizable risk-free bonus for holding the company's hand to imminent bankruptcy.

Same here. It was my first episode of econtalk. There were thought provoking points; i.e. focusing more on systemic mistakes rather than small ones as a result of permitting decision making at the local level (a la N. Taleb). However, it could've been told in 1/3rd the duration. I'll give it another go given this episode might have been one off.

You are contradicting yourself. First you oppose class warfare evoked by the headline. Later, you recreate it on your own terms.

Wanting clean air or medical advances isn't exclusive to the elite. Nor is the "misery" of others due to size of their wallet. The elite have political and fiscal means of dictating and incentivizing others to work towards a common goal; some positive and some negative. As decision makers in our capitalism, they need to be held responsible and accountable proportionally to the benefits and accolades they reap; you gotta take the bad with the good. Fwiw all things equal, we are all responsible for the air pollution and its cleaning.

You make an interesting point. Society needs leadership to initiate and orchestrate the big projects.

Kudos to Bill Gates for pursuing cleaner air.

Long time lurker. First comment at HN. Apologies if this sounds too HR.

I had a year stint at Cloudera working remotely, meeting up with our distributed team 3-4 times/year. I was smitten with the approach they took in implementing 18 different open source project into enterprise big data offerings. They had proper software development lifecycle. There was/is lots of talent and maturity. I absolutely loved my team, the maturity and the culture at Cloudera.