I see, I did misinterpret your point somewhat. The situation is still relevant to individual would be claimants, though. Even though Egypt and Sudan don't want to claim the region I don't think they're too keen on random third parties staking a claim either. You'd be surrounded unfriendly governments.
Chilies are pretty simple to grow yourself, even just by using the seeds from a dried one. A happy plant produces lots of chilies and the freeze fine for most uses. They don't like the cold, though, so depending which part of Germany you're in you might need to keep it indoors (but still with access to a few hours of sun a day).
Planning to do that chili con carne next Sunday, so no time to grow the plants... Also electricity is super expensive in Berlin, so any artificial growing lights will break my monthly budget.
I'd love to visit (or work in) Berlin. Can you find whole dried chili peppers, or canned? They're obviously not as good as fresh, but they'll still be delicious.
Dried chiles are very lightweight, so probably not very expensive to have shipped to you in bulk. They're easy to rehydrate (and you can use hot stock instead of water for extra flavor):
Germans don't like spicy food in general. There are a handful of restaurants serving something that actually burns in your mouth, but you have to beg them to actually cook it for you. For chiles in supermarket, you get the basic jalapenos and if you're really lucky, habaneros with a premium price.
Exactly. It's analogous to the difference between big bang integration and continuous integration. The lesson there is: if something hurts, do it more often. Little steps let you know exactly what changed when something breaks.
Indeed, Freecycle have been operating in Australia for a long time. There are several other competitors too, the article doesn't make clear what Curbit's advantage/angle is. I'm all for the general idea and wish them well regardless, the amount of cheap stuff we buy and waste is astonishing.
That is until you get some idiot ringing you 20 times asking you to deliver the free item to them. They seem surprised when you say no that you aren’t going to spend 2 hour driving to give them the item for free.
Hey jsankey, the advantage of Curbit is simplicity. All existing solutions require a fair amount of effort of the person wanting to get rid of something. Freecycle is solving the exact same issue, but I feel that the burden that comes from having to manage pickup / messaging / condition reports all from a very rough web UI deters a huge portion of the population. We shouldn't have to work to get rid of something for free :)
Compared to classifieds in general, it can be much simpler to use, because money isn't changing hands.
Thanks for the reply Dean. It seems there is room to make this easier, although it can be hard to find and convince the market of that when there is something "good enough" out there. Hope you have some luck.
An idea, to take or leave: a very active niche for this kind of thing is parents of young children. Very young kids (babies/toddlers) in particular churn through a lot of "stuff" by growing out of it before it wears out. Parents are very active on a range of Facebook groups trading this stuff (though not usually for free, just cheap). In fact the groups are so active that I know people using them daily, and the biggest issue with offloading stuff is posting are lost in the noise. If you're looking for a nice to focus on this is a strong one.
Thanks jsankey, I agree. One of our key target demographics are parents home with children. From anecdotal experience, they are a good fit to both the supply and demand of temporary use items, and also more likely to be working on restoration projects or DIY that will benefit from free materials.
The previous federal government in Australia introduced something along these lines: a carbon tax designed to be revenue-neutral. Compensation for lower income earners was worked into the income tax system (some also went directly to certain highly-exposed export industries).
Unfortunately thanks to incompetence in how this plan was sold by the previous government and an aggressive campaign against it by the opposition, that government lost the following election and now we have the worst of all worlds: carbon tax repealed (the only country going backwards in this regard AFAIK), compensation retained (the incoming government being too spineless to scrap it, despite themselves declaring a budget emergency) and a new braindead "direct action" policy where we now give tax dollars to polluters to encourage them to tone it down (stupidly inefficient and another hit to the budget).
You state things with conviction but no evidence. There is a big difference between the brain and therefore needs of a 4-5 year old and a 0-3 year old. I'm not sure why you assume you can infer anything about the needs of a toddler based on the way school works for older kids.
Here in Australia child care is also very expensive, and I agree this is a problem for disadvantaged families (there is some means-tested subsidisation but it only helps to a degree). However: the government has recently lowered the required educator:child ratios, despite the extra cost, because research shows it is important for education (and health, not just when young but into later life). More than this: the research suggests these improvements are most significant for disadvantaged kids.
I took away something completely different. The OP gives herself permission to fail not because she doesn't want to put in the effort, or has any less desire to succeed.
The point is she doesn't want to be driven by fear. Fear is a powerful motivator but not necessarily a constructive one. Some people may find they lack drive without the fear of failure, but to me it seems the OP feels it more of a drag. Without the burden of fear she may feel more clarity and actually make better decisions, e.g. decisions that carry more personal risk but are better for the company/customers.
I don't think the GP was claiming it was more challenging. The point is making the tax flat doesn't help solve this key problem, so all you get is a less progressive system overall.
That's the problem, too -- it applies equally to necessities and luxuries. Sales taxes are regressive because there is a certain amount of non-discretionary spending everyone has to make, regardless of income, just to live.
Most sales tax proposals include a "universal rebate", which is a fixed monthly amount given to everyone that's intended to cover the tax on necessities.
It doesn't necessarily need to. We could have a `digit-sales tax', i.e. count the number of digits in the item cost and add a tax at that percent. Something less than $10 only has a 1% tax, while something costing $10,000 has a 5% tax.
Clearly the numbers should be adjusted if someone wants to turn this into a serious tax proposal, but it seems possible to design a progressive sales tax.
It's not quite so simple. Many non-essential things are cheap (e.g. iOS games), and many essential things are expensive (e.g. housing, transport). The line between essential and luxury is also subjective. So you have to start categorising, and things get messy.
Yachts were more expensive and due to highly elastic demand, the industry plummeted. Companies went under or laid off thousands.
But don't worry. Guess who works at yacht manufacturing plants? Not rich people. They weren't hurt, and they were fine with taking their money elsewhere.
