MC7447a

You do realize that in those other Western countries developers make far less than in the US? Even in the richer Western European countries like Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, etc, $50-$90k is pretty typical for 5yr+ experienced software engineers. Yes, that's total, not base, and before taxes which are higher than in the US.

Don't know about Switzerland, but in the Netherlands where there's also a wealth (or rather, net worth) tax, most property held for personal consumption (art, jewelry, cars, boats) are exempt. Their value in the aggregate is relatively low (compared to real estate and financial property), so the lawmakers decided it was not worth the hassle to tax those.

Real estate is taxed separately, and municipalities run yearly appraisals. But I think that's pretty routine in most developed countries?

Text only version:

http://pastebin.com/raw/A8T4MRGD (without text blurb)

http://pastebin.com/raw/t0CG2tzg (with text blurb)

http://pastebin.com/raw/Ud4Vc2hp (python code used to extract this)

bugs (won't fix):

- text blurb is not printed for items without g-secondary-name

- character encoding is wrong

> once you have proper, fresh eggs you won't go back to store-bought.

Placebo

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/08/what-are-the-best-eggs-ca...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06...

> What do you expect is causing this?

- enormous reduction in child mortality - increased female emancipation and economic opportunities - (direct and opportunity) costs of child-raising becomes relatively larger when societies get richer

I don't expect any of those trends to reverse itself

> If the reasons are social rather than biological, then there's no reason why birth rates can't increase in the future.

Sure, and there's no reason why the worldwide decrease cant' accelerate further either. The only question is, why do you think some scenario is more likely than the other?

> The view that overpopulation is a non-problem seems to be based on wishful thinking and/or short-sighted analysis.

To me the view that population increase is/will be some huge problem seems to be continuously redressing the Malthusian nonsense that's been wrong for over 2 centuries

Overpopulation is a non-problem. Fertility has fallow to near- or below-replacement rate everywhere in the world, except Afrika (which will likely follow in the next decades.)

A nice talk from Hans Rosling on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA5BM7CE5-8

Scott Adam's take on "passion":

http://www.businessinsider.in/Dilbert-creator-Scott-Adams-il...

> So, are we trying build some communist utopia where private ownership of the building is forbidden,

No, the building is private property.

> all land belongs to government which rents it to a citizens?

Yes. The idea is that taxing land (not: buildings or property!) is less distortionary than taxing income or consumption. Hyper-capitalistic Hong Kong operates on that model. Property is expensive, but income tax is around 15% and consumption/sales tax is 0%.

there is no Nobel prize in economics

http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-04-02

If the loans are so profitable, why wouldn't more and more competition drive the interest rates lower and lower to "normal" levels?

Yeah, because running Facebook isn't hard at all. Maybe you should clue them in how they don't actually need all these positions at all https://www.facebook.com/careers/teams/infrastructure

You don't have to pay your mortgage if you get laid off in Poland?

A economic blogger's retort from a few years ago:

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.nl/2012/11/murphys-law.html