An "interest"ing pollFollow

This topic sounds like it won't bring debate at all.
MOVE THREAD

That being said, I think interest rates are retarded. I think companies to whom you owe the money should be able to rape it from you if needed if you are one of those charge it up and file bankruptcy types. With all the blame on the national debt being tossed around to different parties, I blame it on "people buying sh*t they can't afford". Extra money incentive to buy a new house and/or car didn't help that.

As much as is sustainable, I'll probably never have children just because I see how things are headed atm.

Health care is a sham as is. Without insurance, an ace bandage will come up as 43$+ on your statement. Minor commercially available pain killers like Tylenol? 48$. Pharmaceuticals and care givers are raping us for every dollar they can, and then using a little of that money to keep politicians, doctors, and pharmacists (Both my parents are pharmacists and attend the annual McKesson/Whoever wants you interests tropical getaway/conference thing each year. Not to mention the private subsidizing of sh*t like they do here in NM. I was in the hospital, full blue cross/blue shield premium insurance, and I get two bills later from two private companies that aren't covered by my (or most, really) insurance for CT scans and an ambulance ride. Because the hospitals contracts out, doesn't let you know that part isn't covered until under your plan and then.. since THEY don't provide the care, they get a cut when the other company sends you the bill.

Edited, Nov 27th 2010 8:14pm by Tarub

1. 10% EDIT: OK, 10% APR
2. 2.5 live births/death
3. 0:0 ratio



You're welcome!

Edited, Nov 28th 2010 5:23am by Bijou

1) If it's revolving, the stanard major CC's are usually 19-19.99%. If this is debt you'll br holding for a while, look for a card with 10.5-11.5% and pay the annual fee that comes with it
2)5%
3) I don't understand the question. What are medical costs? If we're speaking any costs period, then 0. If you're speaking randomly, I'd be ok with up to 2% over inflation.

Fair enough. That makes it a retarded question then, as no card is calculated monthly.

ok allegory i won't have a kid

will that make you happy?

3%



Anything, it's Canada, we've got plenty of room and resources. And, my city is currently shrinking, so growth would be nice.



I get my health care for free.

I think the problem with that request is that these numbers are all going to be relative to some other factors. There's an interconnection between interest rates and inflation, for example. So a rate that would be quite reasonable in one economic situation may be either highway robbery by the credit company in another, or result in guaranteed losses for them in the other direction.

Ideally, inflation should be in the sub 3% range (yearly, not sure why you asked for monthly rates). A reasonable interest rate for a "normal" loan should reasonably be 4-5% higher than than. However, what is normal depends on the risks involved. Credit cards are considered high risk. Very high risk. There's a ton of fraud and people who just don't pay their bills and then walk away from the debt. When you look at a credit card charging you 20% interest on your debt, that's because you are paying for all the people who rip off the companies and/or declare bankruptcy on the debt.

A more reasonable question to ask is: What should the yearly net profit ratio for lending institutions be? An a "reasonable" amount would be around 5-10%. Some of them make more than this, some don't. I don't recall the industry rate at the moment, and don't feel like looking it up, but IIRC, the highest profit rates were for technology companies, the lowest were retail, and banking was somewhere in the middle.

The population question is flawed because you're asking people about growth in their town, but then equating that to total planetary population growth. Most of the posters here are going to be from 1st world nations, which traditionally have reasonable population growth rates and are not suffering from overpopulation. It's the same sort of mistake we see all the time when people talk about implementation of environmental regulations in the first world, while ignoring how this fails to address (and in many cases make worse) the situation in the rest of the world where the real problems potentially are.


But yes. Global population growth needs to be slowed down. The trick is how one goes about doing that. It's particularly hard to tell people not to breed. And one of my own pet theories is that breeding rates of all creatures tends to increase when they feel their resources are limited (survival instinct. Outbreed the competing species for the same food/water/whatever). So we're potentially doing exactly the wrong thing with all the food and assistance we provide to regions that physically cannot sustain their own populations. We're allowing them to live in those resource limited conditions instead of suffer the "normal" population limiting factors (yes, I know how this sounds), and additionally they respond to this by increasing their procreative output when they should be decreasing it.


I'm not sure how the medical costs question factors in at all. Obviously, costs should not become relatively higher over time. But just as you can't look at "acceptable" values in specific places and times in terms of population growth needs, you can't look at single trends here either.

"An "interest"ing poll" is a great subject. It inspired my interest. However, this topic is too hard for me. :)

Someone needs to hurry up and invent Mr. Fusion so we can turn our garbage into energy. That and developing underwater cities and/or outposts on the moon would help.

Practical.

Angel of death, time of purification at hand etc etc.