I mean, argument for argument's sake -- what's not to love?

Bwahahaha.

Maximum salary is $30,000.

Only until someone proves different ...

$30,000 was picked because that's the point after which the benefit most people get from an extra dollar isn't as great as the benefit other people with less money would get from it.

To take an exaggerated example: Imagine you and Bill Gates are walking down the street, and at the same time you both notice on the ground a lottery ticket that gives $100,000 to its possessor. Who would get more use out of it: you or Gates? Surely most of us would agree that almost anyone on this board would get more use out of it than Gates. Similarly, if you make $30,000 a year, $1,000 for you is very nice, but for someone who makes $400 a year, it more than doubles her standard of living.

if you make $30,000 a year, $1,000 for you is very nice

I live in LA. It's more than very nice.

I live in LA. It's more than very nice.

But I think the reverse is the point -- an amount that may not even be a month's rent is way less significant to you than to someone for whom it's five years' rent. Or whatever.

Not on-topic, but...

Harold Evans editorial on the BBC website about the hostility of the Bush White House towards science: [link]

Professor Neal Lane at Rice University was the science adviser reporting directly to President Clinton, but as a former director of the National Science Foundation he cannot be dismissed as partisan.

Like others I spoke with, he is less concerned with the international league tables and the familiar salami processes of the budget, than the well-documented readiness of the Bush administration to manipulate and suppress scientific findings - manifestly to appease industrial interests and religious constituencies.

This is not just on global warming and stem cells, currently in the news, but on a whole range of issues - lead and mercury poisoning in children, women's health, birth control, safety standards for drinking water, forest management, air pollution and on and on.

"It's disturbing," Professor Lane told me. "This is the first time to the best of my knowledge through successive Republican and Democratic administrations, that the issue of scientific integrity has reared its head."

...For more than a year, the nationally well-regarded Union of Concerned Scientists - a non-partisan body - has been receiving hundreds of signatures backing the Union's call for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to policy making. To date no fewer than 7,600 scientists have signed, including 49 Nobel Laureates.

I think the reverse is the point -- an amount that may not even be a month's rent is way less significant to you than to someone for whom it's five years' rent. Or whatever.

It depends on whether you have next month's rent or not, doesn't it? I'm just snarking that the $30,000 break even point isn't breaking so much as broke in my neighbourhood. Any given amount of money will be valuable to the person with the least of it, but it's only a useful suggestion that I donate it if I can keep surviving without it myself.

it's only a useful suggestion that I donate it if I can keep surviving without it myself.

The guy figured out or decided or pulled out of his ass that $30K is the number where more people could lose it with less bad consequence than the good consequence for the person who gets it. Not that anyone could live in any way on $30K.

I mean, all I know about this is what I read in Bob's post, but theoretically it makes sense to me.

I mean, all I know about this is what I read in Bob's post, but theoretically it makes sense to me.

Same here, but I was going on the assumption that "most" here:

$30,000 was picked because that's the point after which the benefit most people get from an extra dollar isn't as great as the benefit other people with less money would get from it.

is an average, and that if you got local, say to LA or NY, the number would be higher, and if you took it to Jamaica, it'd be lower.

I think there's some kind of study where the happiness you get from each additional dollar declines significantly once you've made $30,000.

In economics it's called the "decreasing marginal utility of income."