An interesting counterexample is the Colorado cannabis industry. No bank will do business with them so they are forced to operate on a cash basis. They largely accept only cash, pay for all expenses in cash, and have been such an explosive growth industry it has created thousands of good jobs and rich business owners.

I sell on ebay, I don't have time to deal with meeting people in person. The few thousand is total sales, I usually give the money to whoever minus a bit for fees and shipping. I don't really seek business, but my friends keep upgrading their phones and telling their friends so there is a steady stream coming in, a few phones a month on average.

It is surprising how much they hold their value. Old blackberries, iphones, android phones typically go for $50 and up, even dumb phones sell. I like helping divert some of the river of waste back into productive use.

Set an alarm or install an app.

I was surprised there wasn't an option for selling them. I make a few thousand dollars a year selling old phones for friends and coworkers.

I feel a little trapped in my job. Pay is OK, hours are 9-5, and in my mid 40s I'm scared of trying something new that might turn into 60 hour weeks or go belly up.

I've been through enough pointless death marches and had enough employers go under. Sometimes I think about pursuing something more exciting or lucrative but stability wins out for me when it comes to paychecks.

Bunkers aren't for using, they're like a pacifier for paranoid types. They don't have to be logical or work, they've never been needed before so they might as well be full of action figures and styrofoam peanuts.

Before somebody pipes up with their "this time the world's really gonna end part 32767" if the shit really hits the fan, your bunker ain't gonna help you.

That's just Denver. All the other cities in the metro area have their own fleets, plus CDOT has maybe a hundred plows.

You are so right, thank you for expressing in words what thousands of truckers expressed with jackknifed rigs. Truckers are professional drivers and if they are crashing conditions are officially undriveable.

Phosphorus shortages have already happened. A lot of farms suffered a few years ago when an intentional shortage spiked prices to 10x normal. There really aren't many places left where you can cheaply shovel high grade ore.

Aside from the supply, which is large but has already been manipulated, lets look at the pollution. If we can recover phosphorous from rivers for anything close to the cost of mining it this will be a huge benefit. We could reduce dead zones and improve river ecosystems which would have an enormous economic benefit.

If drifting piles of socks made giant areas around cemeteries uninhabitable and people remember paying $100 per sock a few years back maybe coffin-mining would be studied. I don't see any reason it is a bad idea to recover a valuable resource that is doing harm downstream.

You're wrong, excise taxes and tolls only cover about a third of road spending. General taxes pay for the other 2/3. It varies quite a bit by state, you can see the numbers here.

The big reason for this is the fact gas taxes haven't been raised in many years and are a flat rate, not a percentage of the cost. Every year the gas taxes aren't raised to keep up with rising prices roads fall further behind.

You're both right. It's 3 to 5% in the general population, 25% in cases where genetic testing was done because of doubts about paternity. Lots more details here

Precisely! Sure, when a plane crashes it is pretty dramatic. Makes the news every time. However, logically speaking for every person that dies in a plane crash or an earthquake many thousands die from things nobody freaks out about. People are so bad at identifying relevant risks and so "good" at fixating on irrelevant ones.

Traffic accidents kill more people than natural disasters by orders of magnitude, and "lifestyle" diseases such as cancer and heart disease dwarf all else.

Logically, the safest place to life is somewhere you are happy and able to stay physically active and don't have to drive much. If it happens to be earthquakey or spidery don't waste your time worrying because it'll be lost in the statistical noise.

Honest question, I keep hearing this advice but have never personally used it. I've been stopped by law enforcement many times over the years, things like taking photographs, exploring abandoned buildings, launching model rockets, setting off illegal fireworks, etc. Each time I am respectful and fairly honest with the officers, with the goal of going about my business in the minimum amount of time and expense. I've never once been detained, and am rarely cited.

I suspect that if I don't talk to them at all they will take me downtown, bring me my precious lawyer, and after spending the night in jail be let go without charges or an apology. I don't know for sure that this is the case, but my personal experience has been that talking to police lets me go about my business.

If I were ever in a situation where things dragged on more than about 5 or 10 minutes I'd probably reconsider my approach, but I honestly question if this advice is sound.

OK, I'll play. I pirate a movie. They lost $1 that I would have given redbox, of which they get maybe $.50

Why are damages for this infraction set at many thousands of dollars?