Latin America style, the slums are mixed in to the "high class" areas. They end up being our maids and security guards, gardeners, waiters and mechanics. Seriously, a $20 chicken breast for lunch is the norm at a restaurant - that's just for the main course. Does not include drinks or 13% tax, nor 10% gratuity. $50 if you want steak. A pizza from Pizza Hut will cost you $26, delivered. A 2 litre bottle of Coke will cost you $3 at the supermarket, more at the convenience store. A Honda Accord will set you back $50k. Land prices are crazy even in the suburbs, and people are now building vertically to offset the cost. There are 10 and 20 storey buildings everywhere when before the tallest building in the country was 12 floors.

We have all the name brands, all the big chains. I moved here 30 years ago and there was nothing. If you wanted something, you had to import it yourself. Now, I only use Amazon and order stuff from the states because I'm too lazy to go shop for stuff, but I can find anything I want. I have to pay 50% tax on everything I import - but then again so does everyone else.

Yeah, the growth has been unbelievable, and it's not cheap to live here anymore. 20 years ago I could go into one of the few "good" restaurants and have a nice steak and a beer for about 8 hours' worth of local minimum wage (maybe $5, just over an hour of minimum wage in the US at the time). Now the same meal will cost me 35 hours' of the local minimum wage - about 7 hours' minimum wage ($50) in the US. But there are restaurants everywhere.

Certainly not the foundation of an economic thesis, but I'm not joking when I say Latin America has boomed, and it's now expensive to live here.

No, the version I am talking about is you probably can't afford to live here.

Oh ok. Yes. I bow to your "you're wrong because soon --- ALIENS ---" argument. You obviously win this round.

Fear comes from within. Others can manipulate people with their own fear, but only if they are fearful people. Things that increase fear: Something new, something sudden and unexpected, vanity. Things that decrease fear - repetition, training, understanding. I could drop a flash bang in the middle of a crowd, and there will be a gauss curve worth of reactions. Most people will panic and run. Some will go hysterical. Others will actually work out what's happening and be calm. The amount of "fear" applied is the same, but individuals express fear differently.

Sure it is, it's just not happening where it used to happen. Been to Latin America lately? Hell of a boom down here. We're not that poor anymore.

You don't understand - it's the position that corrupts, not the person that is corrupt. You could "elect" the most honest person, and end up with the worst tyrant. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is a reason this is not a new saying.

Yep, sounds like one of these trust fund baby Marxists. I will grant the GP the following: the saying "easy come, easy go" is true. Things worked hard for are valued relatively much higher in the eyes of the person who did the work. HOWEVER it doesn't follow that therefore the whole point of life is to suffer, nor that by making your fellow man suffer needlessly you're doing him a favor. Of course most employers/managers seem to believe this, but that is sadism not compassion.

The world is a big place. Deal with it. These kinds of errors don't bother me as much as the obvious spelling or grammar mistakes by native English-speakers who really should know better. Ensure vs insure, affect vs effect, lose and loose, and of course many other creative spelling attempts that are blamed on auto-correct but rather should be blamed on lousy education or the willful butchering of words.

Nothing has changed because basic human nature is the same. This is the way it will always be. So you get to choose whether you want to be part of the herd near the edge looking for the wolves, or oblivious somewhere the middle, or if you want to be a wolf. Being near the edge isn't a problem because you see the danger coming, so you get a head start. Being in the middle, you don't even realize the danger is there until the whole herd is moving.. And of course being a wolf has its own unique advantages: you get to eat mutton and you get to watch the whole herd fear you. But you have no herd for protection and in trying times, the other wolves don't mind eating wolf, too.

No, it's a failed character assassination attempt. It backfires, and proves just how stupid 20 odd NSA employees can be. The goal was obviously to try to taint Snowden to show that he "broke the law" to get the data he later released. What it ends up showing is how readily alleged "security officials" are willing to hand anyone the keys to the operation.

I'm sure Snowden is no saint, however his agenda was to either confirm what he suspected and/or let the "cat out of the bag" about flagrant abuse of power by government. Even if his method was wrong, it does not make governments' behavior any less wrong. And the fact that government is trying to use its power and influence to minimize, trivialize, ignore or otherwise deflect attention from the revelations (with NO intention to change their behavior) is far, far worse than Snowden asking someone for their password who should have known better than to give it to him in the first place.

The storm isn't killing anyone or making them homeless. Poor planning, over population, and lack of education are.

The preceeding post clearly demonstrates factual points in a real manner.

I'm wondering if this is some weird new invocation of Godwin's law...

Hell I had a Chevy catch fire going up a hill in reverse. No debris required.

Call me when someone is actually injured by these fires.