From Sen. Elizabeth Warren to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, some of the most prominent progressive politicians in the country are pushing hard for widespread student debt cancelation. So, it’s fascinating to see a new study show that forcing taxpayers to pay down the roughly $1.5 trillion in government-held student debt is not a “progressive” policy by any stretch.
Note that just one in three American adults over age 25 actually has a bachelor’s degree. This population, naturally, holds almost all student debt. Yet college graduates typically make 85 percent more than those with only a high school diploma and earn roughly $1 million more over a lifetime.
So any government policy that forces taxpayers to pay off loans held by a relatively well-off slice of society is actually regressive, meaning it disproportionately helps the wealthy. You don’t have to take my word for it—this is the finding of a new University of Chicago study.
Economists Sylvain Catherine and Constantine Yannelis crunched the numbers to conclude that full student debt cancellation would be a “highly regressive policy” and award $192 billion to the top 20 percent of income earners, yet just $29 billion to the bottom 20 percent.
The study also examines other proposals to have taxpayers pay off $10,000 or $50,000 in debt per person, rather than all debt. It finds similarly regressive outcomes for these proposals as well.
“Outstanding student debt is inversely correlated with economic hardship,” study co-author Sylvain Catherine writes. “So it is difficult to design a forgiveness policy that does not accentuate inequality.”
This finding is not an outlier.
In fact, other research from left-leaning institutions like the Urban Institute has reached the same conclusion. So, we’re left with the simple fact that one of the Democratic Party’s top agenda items is a taxpayer-financed handout to the wealthy. And, of course, student debt cancellation ignores the real reason college is so expensive in the first place. There is no such thing as a just and fair method of exercising the tremendous power that interventionism puts into the hands of the legislature and the executive.
I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These are pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. These came to me second hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are several thousand...maybe as many as 10,000. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity.
Apparently, getting your pictures processed as slides used to be a fairly common thing but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides (circa late 1950s) that I acquired after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a somewhat decent flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.
This set continues a rather large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a friend or family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo/
Many of these slides had the date they were processed stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, either because a more specific date was hand written or there was something to specifically date the photo in the photo itself, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date.
Click on one of the images or the link below to also see versions processed with color restoration and Digital ICE which is a hardware based dust and scratch remover, a feature of the Epson V600 scanner I am using. There are also versions processed with the simpler dust removal option along with color restoration.
All of the photos in this set appear to have been taken in the late 1950s. Most of these were labeled so see below for more info. The second photo must have been taken in Denver, Colorado as Heiland Research Corp. was purchased by Honeywell in 1954 and this was where they were based.
At Bayview with Bernard Peak?
Heiland Factory - 2/24/58
Aug 10, 1957 - putting celotex ceiling on the beams
Leo + Lil
The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can be found here.
The Games Machine (December 1987)
The Games Machine was a video game magazine that was published from 1987 until 1990 and covered both consoles and home computers. The second issue from December 1987/January 1988 includes:
Features
Violence In Software - Mel Croucher accuses the industry
Graphics Matter - Robin Candy paints with Degas Elite (ST)
Not A Penny More - An adventure story to get you in the mood, specially written for The Games Machine by Robin Waterfield
Heavens Above - Getting into Satellite TV with Mel Croucher
Licensed to Kill - John Gilbert looks at licences, how they get them, do them and how they turn out
The Advertising Game - There's more to games than playing, as Ocean's Steve Blower explains
Regulars
News - What's been happening lately
Readerpage - The first of The Game Machine's readers' letters
Previews - Ocean's Christmas bundle, plus all the important games for tomorrow
Reviews - An incredible 38 pages of latest games across the formats rated - sorry, we couldn't fit all of them in!
Getting Adventurous - With Rob Steel and two from Infocom among others
Fantasy Games - John Woods rounds up some of the best role-playing games, and explains how the system works
Music Matters - Jon Bates starts a series on the 'tapeless music studio' by going to the top - the Fairlight CMI
Endpiece - Mel's infinitely trivial quiz, and details of next issue's contents
Win!
Win A Sports Outfit - Gremlin Graphics have a massive collection of clothes and equipment suitable for Alternative World Games (which you can win as well)
Win Yogi Bear Shirt 'N' Shorts - No need to be bear - look smarter than the average in Piranha's natty boxer shorts and T-shirts; and there are copies of the game too
Re-Shades - Re-run of the Micronet Shades competition from last issue due to the error made in the copy. Two modems and free subs plus free time on Shades
Win A Joystick - Courtesy of Britannia, we have 20 super new hand-held joysticks to give away
Amiga Computing was one of a number of Amiga specific magazines published in the U.K. the first issue from June 1988 includes:
Amiga Scene
Latest News - Commodore announces details of new machines. Better graphics for 2000s. New games on the way. And all the Amiga gossip from around the world.
Symposium
New Amigas Revealed - Commodore took part in a conference to make sure that developers keep on the programming straight and narrow - and unveiled its exciting plans.
Games
Amiga Adventures - Let David Ericsson take you into the land of the Bard's Tale with great advice to newcomers for the role-playing game from Electronic Arts.
Competition
Win An Amiga And Software - Scour the magazine for the missing lines to qualify for one of over 170 prizes ranging from a game to an Amiga.
Business
Word Perfect - The word processor which toppled WordStar as the world's best selling program is even better now it has been made available for the Amiga.
Superbase Professional - A database program which is as easy to use as a video recorder and flexible enough to store text, graphics and sounds without breaking the bank.
House Call
J. San and the Argonauts - Argonaut Software is famous for Starglider. Now the Egrons strike back. Simon Rackman finds out the company's plans for the future.
Music
Musical Machinations - The Amiga makes far better sounds than any other micro. Christopher Humphries explains how it works without straining the processor.
Hardware
Camera Comrade - High speed frame grabbing, cut in price by clever hardware design and made easy with well written software. Well worth taking a close look at.
Epson LQ-500 - The people who set the standards for electronic printers win back their crown with a 24 pin printer that is solid and very reasonably priced.
Discourse
Max Toy Speaks - Max Toy left IBM to become the President of Commodore. His aim: To make the Amiga number one. Him Groneke listened and took notes.
Feature
Test Drive - Lamborghini or Ferrari? Lotus or Porsche? Corvette - are you joking? David Vivian has driven the real machines. Now he tests the game.
Reviews
Amiga Arcade - Our fearless reviewers put seven games under the microscope: Xenon, Tetris, Sidewinder, Gee Bee Air Rally, Arkanoid, Star Wars and Bonecrusher.
Supplement
Free 12 Page Buyers' Guide - The most comprehensive list of Amiga products yet published. What they do, how much they cost, and full details of all relevant manufacturers.
Interface
Using The CLI - Real programmers don't use icons. Faster control of your Amiga is possible through the keyboard. Phil South decodes the technicalities.
Utility
Digital Director - A program which offers you the chance to be the next Stephen Spielberg? Not quite - it's more a language for very special effects.
Software
Work Bench 1.3 - Faster hard disks, better printer drivers, better math routines, bells and whistles. Workbench 1.3 will be here soon. We look at what it offers.
Survey
Help Us to Help You - Right from the start - your chance to shape the future of Amiga Computing. By telling us what you want we'll strive to fulfill all your wishes.
Advice
Questions and Answers - This is your direct line to our panel of Amiga experts. Whatever you use your Amiga for, our team will try to help you make the most of it.
At some point, when the election chaos is finally settled, Congress will likely turn to passing another COVID-19 stimulus/relief bill. (Despite the last one being plagued by rampant fraud and dysfunction). One starting point for negotiations will be the “HEROES Act,” a $2.2 trillion bill the House passed in October on a party-line vote by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats.
One of the most significant aspects of the HEROES Act is that it allocates nearly $700 billion in federal money for state, local, and tribal governments.
Proponents say this gives localities the funds they need to pay emergency responders and fund programs necessary to protect their communities. Critics point out that much of this money is used to “bail out” blue states that were already mismanaging their budgets and running up large unfunded pension programs before the pandemic.
Indeed, the left-leaning Brookings Institution has projected that “state and local government revenues will decline $155 billion in 2020, $167 billion in 2021, and $145 billion in 2022.” Simple math shows us that the CARES Act gives states and localities hundreds of billions more in federal money than they are actually projected to lose due to pandemic-related decreases in revenue.
This alone should be a red flag. Yet a new analysis also reveals that Pelosi and her fellow “progressives” snuck millions of dollars in cash for some of the nation’s wealthiest zip codes into their emergency COVID-19 package.
Watchdogs from OpenTheBooks.com inspected the fine print of the HEROES Act and found that it allocates $350 million to the 50 richest communities in America. The average annual income in these areas ranged from $262,988 to $525,324.
“It’s unclear why such wealthy neighborhoods need so much money to weather the storm,” Adam Andrzejewski of OpenTheBooks.com wrote.“Should American taxpayers from lower-income areas be subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous?Pelosi and her fellow 'progressives' snuck millions of dollars in cash for some of the nation’s wealthiest zip codes into their emergency COVID-19 package.
Some might reasonably look at a figure like $350 million and conclude that, in the context of a $2.2 trillion bill, it is a relatively small amount of money. But we mustn't forget that this figure is only looking at a tiny sample size. It is not all the money this bill allocates to wealthy zip codes, just a snapshot.
We can extrapolate from this figure that the HEROES Act would dole out many hundreds of millions if not billions more to other wealthy towns and cities.
Join us in preserving the principles of economic freedom and individual liberty for the rising generation
It’s not even the only provision of the bill that can be fairly characterized as a handout for the rich. The package also includes items such as student debt relief, which further burdens cash-strapped taxpayers yet only helps a relatively well-educated and well-off subset of society.
But wait: Aren’t Democrats supposed to be the progressive party fighting for the working class? That’s certainly what their rhetoric would suggest. Yet the Democrats included cash handouts for wealthy constituents in predominantly liberal areas such as Wellesley, Mass., Malibu, California, and Old Greenwich, Conn. in their emergency response package nonetheless.
This offers another painful reminder that government officials—no matter their professed partisan or ideological principles—will always and inevitably end up wielding their power in a manner prone to favoritism and clientelism.
“There is no such thing as a just and fair method of exercising the tremendous power that interventionism puts into the hands of the legislature and the executive,” Austrian economist Ludwig von Miseswrote. “In many fields of the administration of interventionist measures, favoritism simply cannot be avoided.”Government officials—no matter their professed partisan or ideological principles—will always and inevitably end up wielding their power in a manner prone to favoritism and clientelism.
Humans are fallible beings—and power corrupts. This is why, from tax loopholes to crony regulations to spending bills, sweeping government interventions will always end up skewing in favor of powerful constituencies. However, when power is left to the individual level rather than government, that decentralization helps limit abuses.
It’s not a matter of electing the right people. Fundamentally, progressive and conservative government officials alike face the same incentive structures.
The only way to really prevent the abuse of government power and expenditure of taxpayer resources in favor of the well-off and well-connected is to limit the scope of the government itself.
I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These are pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. These came to me second hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are several thousand...maybe as many as 10,000. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity.
Apparently, getting your pictures processed as slides used to be a fairly common thing but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides (circa late 1950s) that I acquired after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a somewhat decent flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.
This set continues a rather large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a friend or family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo/
Many of these slides had the date they were processed stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, either because a more specific date was hand written or there was something to specifically date the photo in the photo itself, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date.
Click on one of the images or the link below to also see versions processed with color restoration and Digital ICE which is a hardware based dust and scratch remover, a feature of the Epson V600 scanner I am using. There are also versions processed with the simpler dust removal option along with color restoration.
The first shot shows someone riding a horse and carriage down a neighborhood road. The second photo was processed in June 1960 and shows someone giving a speech but I can't tell what the event is. The third photo is undated but shows a Christmas tree so I would guess it is from circa Christmas 1959 or 1960. The final photo was processed April 1961 and shows a dog mauling what looks to be Santa Claus. A leftover Christmas decoration perhaps?
June 1960
April 1961
The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can be found here.
In Miner 2049er, you play the role of Bounty Bob, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as he searches for the villain Yukon Yohan. This search occurs in an abandoned Uranium mine. Miner 2049er is a sort of juxtaposition of past and future. While the theme and even the title reflect gold mining in the 1840s, this is a Uranium mine and the obstacles you face are futuristic in nature. things like matter transporters and jet-speed floaters among other odd items. In addition, you will have to face various creatures that have mutated due to radiation. Only in video games and sci fi does radiation make you stronger.
Game play is pretty straightforward. You must walk over all sections of the mine in order to "claim" it. Each screen consists of platforms and ladders. Along the way you'll find weapons and other objects to help you in addition to the mutated creatures you must fight.
Miner 2049er was first developed for the Atari 800 and then ported to a wide variety of other systems. Miner 2049er was unique for its time in terms of size. It was much larger than normal, especially for a platform game. Miner 2049er consisted of 10 separate screens at a time when most other similar style games only had 3 or 4. Because games for the Atari 800 were typically released on cartridge, this meant a cartridge size of 16K instead of the more typical 8K.
The large size of Miner 2049er led to a fairly high priced game for the time. Miner 2049er initially sold for $49.99 which adjusted for inflation would be about $133 today. The Atari 2600 version was released as two separate games and in total still encompassed barely more than half the levels: Miner 2049er contained three levels and Miner 2049er Volume II contained three levels. Other computer ports were a bit easier because they were mostly on disk. Sure, you may have a bit of a load time between levels but it was much cheaper to produce that way.
Despite the high price, especially for the Atari 8-bit cartridge version, Miner 2049er was a very popular game. It received outstanding reviews and even though the graphics were really only mediocre, even for the time, the playability was excellent. It's truly one of the classics that every gamer should at least try. Without games like Miner 2049er, there may never have been games like Super Mario Bros.
In addition to the Atari 8bit and Atari 2600 versions, Miner 2049er also made its way to the Commodore 64, Atari 5200, VIC-20, ColecoVision, Intellivision, Apple II, IBM PC, TI-99/4A and a variety of other platforms. There were also a couple of later re-releases on the Game Boy, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and iOS. There was even an official emulator released of the Atari 8-bit version but it only worked with older versions of Windows (pre Windows 7). If you want to play it today and don't have original hardware, the best way is probably to emulate your favorite version.
Screen shots above are from the Commodore 64 version...because the Commodore 64 is my favorite retro platform. The ads above are from the Fall 1983 issue of Video & Arcade Games.
Compute!'s Amiga Resource was one of many of Compute!'s spin-offs. And like many of them (Compute!'s Gazette for the Commodore 64 being one notable exception), this one really didn't last all that long. As the name suggests, this one covered the Amiga exclusively. The December 1989 issue includes:
Features
Pacific Motion - An interview with Hollywood's Amiga design studio
Weird Software and Strange Peripherals - And now for something completely different
Amiga BASICs, Part 2 - What's right (and wrong) with these BASICs
Quick Switch - Build your own mouse/joystick switch
Departments
The Window - Commodore's best-kept secret
Readers Feedback - Hemi-Syncs, memory, and Amiga Logo Readers and Editors
Spotlight on Professional Page and Professional Draw - Desktop-publishing tricks
CLI Clips - Names and editors
Trends - News, new products, and rumors
Ask Rob Peck - Animating Bobs
Best of the Boards - NewZap - confessions of a Zapper
Amiga Art Gallery - Computer art on display
Columns
Just for Fun - Amigas with coin slots
Abstractions - Lies computer dealers tell
Taking Sides - Commodore Amiga game machine?
Reviews
Digi-Paint 3
Pen Pal
Music-X
Mini Reviews - Amiga Resource looks at the caped crusader, telecommunications, strategy and arcade games, a word processor, a programming language, and more
