(no subject)

Average wages rose 22% over the course of the past ten years.

Inflation was 28% and some change.

The gap is bigger for minimum wage workers because their wages only rose 20% when the law was passed increasing it from (two decades?) of $5.15/hr to $7.15/hr. Realistically the minimum wage worker is suffering a whole lot more from the gap (it is far more significant for them.)

Couple that with unemployment that some estimate is in the arena of 20%, and I'm not quite sure what to think.

And as a secondary thought, it would be nice to know if the social security average wage calculation takes into account those who didn't have any taxed income at all. Somehow I doubt it.

According to SS, average wage was $40,711/y (Before or after taxes? Another obfuscation, but probably before.)

(no subject)

Does energy perfectly convert from one form to another? Is truly no energy lost?

The importance of the question is high, indeed - if, for instance, there were a net loss of nutrients from life to death and recomposition into the soil, then eventually there would be no nutrients left for new life to arise from, and all life as we know it would cease to exist. This is because our planet is finite, and without some kind of way to generate additional energy to make up for any lost in conversion, eventually a barren wasteland will be all that remains. A hardened rocky surface, beaten by asteroids - with vicious dust storms, and a thin atmosphere, just like our brother Mars.