Not getting a serious illness that your insurance won't fully cover is luck. Not being sued into oblivion by some asshat is luck. Not retiring during a major world recession is luck.

Also, if you hadn't noticed, there are a lot of rip-offs, scams and ponzi schemes going on in the investment market. Supposedly skilled and knowledgeable investors fell for them because the crooks are good at what they do. Would be nice if you could get by with just safer, guaranteed return investments rather than having to become some kind of financial expert.

Do most people expect to carry on earning the same amount in retirement? Usually by that point your expenses are much lower, since the kids have left home and the mortgage is paid off. No need to commute five days a week, and you can take holidays outside of peak times when everything is cheaper. You could downsize your family size home to get a lump sum too.

Dude, I can only dream of buying a house and paying it off in 30 years! In the UK the average wage buys you a kennel. I'm on well above that, but even so I can only afford a fairly shitty 1 bedroom flat on a 35 year mortgage and a government "help to buy" scheme.

We reached the point where to buy even a small house you need two people earning a well above average wage.

It goes by many names, most common the American Dream or Thatcherism. The idea that you can make it big if you work hard, and should only support policies that will be good for you when that time comes. Of course for most people it never comes, but it doesn't stop them voting against their own interests.

Most of the local discussion groups seem to have moved to G+ or Facebook. You can always sign up with a pseudonym if you really want to participate, but yeah... Nothing like the good old days.

What make and model? Why withhold these details?

Many modern Japanese cars offer MirrorLink support so you can use your phone for navigation. For a long time some have offered two double DIN slots (older Nissans for example) and I can't think of any that integrate AC control into the head unit. I've been looking at new Japanese cars myself recently so I'm keen to know which one has this deficiency.

We tried a simplified version in the 60s with tower blocks. Shops at the bottom, flats on top, all the amenities anyone would need within walking distance. They quickly turned into ghettos where no-one wanted to live. Turns out that for a successful community you need space, diversity and people travelling around to interact with outsiders. Otherwise it turns into a medieval village pretty quickly.

You may be productive but your houses suck. They are poorly insulated and you waste a lot of energy heating and cooling them. Compare them to German homes that need only a fraction of the energy to maintain a pleasant environment.

The reason for this is that the US hates socialism. Germany mandated that new homes are well insulated and low energy, and provided improvements at little or no cost to existing ones. In the US such things are expensive extras and since energy is extremely cheap most people don't seem to care about them much.

Just do what the EU did and demand better quality. We introduced RoHS for a reason, and now are looking at ways to make manufacturing cleaner in China too. They need to sell to us, we are massive market (bigger than the US) so what we say they have to abide by. If we say only so much CO2 and PM2.5 per product they have no choice but to clean up and meet those requirements.

Just to be clear, RoHS wasn't just about protecting us from harmful stuff, it was about eliminating it from the manufacturing process and from recycling/landfill (which also often happens in China).

In the end prices haven't really gone up due to it, they just fell at a slightly lower rate. Very slightly lower.

It's amazing how many people seem to think they can assault people and damage property without consequences. All that will happen is you will be arrested and hauled before a judge, and the glasshole will buy a new pair with the money you were forced to pay them in restitution. No-one will applaud you, they will just be shocked that you are such a violent asshole and hope you never come back.

Science will never be able to play back memory because it doesn't work like video. It works by association. When you remember seeing that car it's actually just a reference that says something like "blue sedan, modern shape" and your brain fills that in. If you like Subaru's modern shape it will tend to look more like a Subaru if the memory is positive, or more like a crappy Ford if it's negative.

The thing is we already reached the point where almost everything that happens in public is on tape somewhere, all Glass and mobile phones are doing is making it easier to access the recording and upload it to YouTube.

Be honest, do you really think that owning a gun protects you in any meaningful way from the government? If your local police force, let alone the feds, decided to persecute you would it help maintain your freedom? Would even a few hundred armed militia be enough against them?

The reason it works in Switzerland is that they have low poverty rates. Actually their definition of poverty is way above the US one. They also have good mental healthcare. Therefore there is very little reason for most people to commit crimes, and thus being armed isn't a problem.

In the US there is much more poverty and desperation, and a shocking lack of mental healthcare. Therefore it is a problem that so many people have guns. Unfortunately US politics are not conducive to fixing those two issues.

Actually there was no increase due to the restrictions on gun ownership, and in fact there was no noticeable effect of any kind on crime.

The only thing that did change was a fall in the number of suicides by gun, although it is questionable how much effect the ban itself had. The thing is Australia never had mass gun ownership or high crime like the US did.

The problem is that while lethal self defence is sometimes necessary the stats clearly show that if you own a gun the increased chance of accidentally shooting someone (including yourself) or the increased danger of being shot because you produced a weapon when confronted outweighs the benefit.

I get it. Guys like to feel they are in control, and think that is they are armed and can do something they will defeat the other guy coming at them. The reality is that if someone points a gun at you the best thing to do is run. Cowardly perhaps, but sensible. If you want your family to live, run. If you can't run, don't resist. Most criminals have little reason to add murder to robbery or trespass unless you are trying to kill them, and your valuables can be replaced where as your kids lives can't.