amiabletemplar
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Posts posted by amiabletemplar
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If I did go for assassin Gaius!Yarne what skillset would work? I'd likely have lancebreaker and sol (and beastbane is not going to be of any use here) at least as a starting point.
Yeah, Lancebreaker is your friend with Yarne, regardless of dad. Assuming you keep him in the back as support most of the time, you'll prioritize passive benefits: Swordfaire and Lucky Seven stand out among his options; Sol and Astra (his two procs) won't be necessary if he's mostly in the back. Gamble isn't a bad choice since we're looking for filler passives, and while running two breakers isn't great, Axebreaker is among the better remaining purely-passive choices. All the other things (more or less) require him to spend *some* time in front, which is probably unwise.
So, pure passive Gauis!Yarne @Assassin : Lancebreaker, Swordfaire, Lucky Seven, Gamble, Axebreaker.
If you decide you want him to get some time in front, drop Axebreaker for Astra (put that Skl to work!), and if you're concerned that that might get him killed, drop Gamble for Sol (conflicting procs, but if survival is a huge concern it's all you've got).
I was thinking of Gregor!Severa having this set up:
~Sol
~Axefaire
~Galeforce
~ could have anathema or vengence or limit breaker even
~Armsthrift
Not the best set up, but it could theoretically work? I haven't tried it before myself.
For Gregor!Severa, I'd swap Sol for Lifetaker. Unless you have a lot of trouble killing enemies in one attack (which would make Galeforce useless too), Lifetaker is a straight-up better option--it can get you 100% healing every round when paired with Galeforce. It also avoids the problem of conflicting procs.
If you have access to Limit Breaker, always put it on every character's list. Grinding up the manuals for it (and the stat growths) may be tedious, but there is literally no better passive skill in the game. Period. +10 to all stats is insanely good--10 extra damage with all attacks (compounded by procs and crits), higher hit/crit/avo/etc., getting Armsthrift and Vengeance to a 100% proc rate, far greater chance to double enemies...because it does everything stat-wise, it does everything important effect-wise too. I had thought you didn't have it, which is why I wasn't including it.
If you do have LB, I'd give Gregor!Severa @Hero: Limit Breaker, Axefaire, Galeforce, Armsthrift, and Vengeance. Any damage you take just becomes more fuel for the fire. Lifetaker is a valid alternative to Vengeance if you really need the healing, but I should stress that HP are just like they are in most other games: as long as you still have 1, it doesn't matter how many you have. (In fact, running with Vengeance as your damage-boosting proc, the less HP she has, the better this Severa will do!)
Incidentally, with LB in play, Yarne can change as follows:
Assassin: Limit Breaker, Lancebreaker, Swordfaire, Lucky Seven, Gamble (if supporting; use Astra if he's going to lead the attack more often than 'almost never').
Should you get access to the Dread Fighter class, Aggressor would absolutely displace Gamble, as it's a fantastic passive skill (it's equal to the base damage boost of Limit Breaker). If, for some reason, maps reliably start taking more than 7 turns to complete, you can drop Lucky Seven for Axebreaker (or Gamble, if you have Agg available).
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I think some useful general ideas for skill sets might be in order. Not that it's bad to come looking for advice on them--that's what brought me here, too! But there are just a handful of things to keep in mind that will get you straightforward, competent skill sets--perhaps not the very ultra best, but perfectly adequate for most players' needs (especially in for-fun runs).
Long story short, there's a loose preference list for all skills characters can have. Galeforce and Limit Breaker sit at the top. Everyone that *can* get them, should. Two moves and two actions a round is an insane boost, but not everyone can have it; LB is unisex and makes everything you would want to do straight-up better: more procs, more hits, more Dual Guards/Strikes, more damage, more healing...literally more *everything.* Below that, Aggressor is wonderful for all male units, but especially for those that will mostly sit in back supporting, because it's a passive damage boost.
In the next "tier," below the first but still important, is proc skills. These have limitations that the very best passive skills (counting GF as "passive") don't: they have a priority list, they may not always hit, and they're useless for units in the back of a pairup. The in-game priority goes like this: Lethality > Aether > Astra > Sol > Luna > Ignis > Vengeance. That is, Vengeance is the lowest-priority skill, so if you roll for it AND any other skill e.g. Astra, then only Astra will take effect. However, their order of in-game priority doesn't have much to do with which is best. Lethality guarantees kills, but procs very rarely (Skl/4% means no better than ~18% chance) and is useless in Apo, so few people will recommend it. On high-level maps (like Apo), enemies have very high Def/Res--which means Astra (lots of low-damage attacks) is less useful than Luna (one high-damage attack), even though Astra has higher priority. In terms of Apo strength, from best to worst, it seems most people go for: Aether > Luna > Ignis > Vengeance >= Astra, though since Aether and Ignis are heavily restricted (Chrom, Lucina, and Lucina!Morgan, and Avatar+children, respectively) most characters are only looking at Luna > Vengeance >= Astra.
Once you have a proc (or two, if the stack is worthwhile e.g. Aether/Luna or Luna/Ignis) on a unit that will play in front, the remaining skills should be key basic passives. A core Faire that you'll use a lot (e.g. Tome for Sages), a useful Breaker (e.g. one that counteracts a weakness), and/or a hit/avo booster (e.g. Lucky Seven) or enemy hit and/or avo reducer (e.g. Anathema). For units that will spend most of their time in the back (esp. non-Gale units), you want to focus on heavier support and ignore procs completely. Any of the Dual [Thing]+ options are good, but Dual Support+ gets special mention, as it's a Hit/Avo/Crit booster for the *front* person.
If, after working through all of that, you still have a slot or two open? Then we get into the mass of situational skills. Pass, for instance: useful for archer units on maps with lots of enemies, but otherwise kinda meh. Deliverer: bonus Mov is always nice, but it's distinctly less nice than killing things better most of the time. Armsthrift: Great skill for saving forged Brave weapons, but doesn't actually make the character 'better' per se. Not very many characters will reach this point, though; non-GF Manakete Nah is probably the only one, since she won't get 3 of the 4 'always take this' skills (not male so she can't get Agg, no GF, Faires are useless for Manaketes), and she may not have access to any useful proc skills
Healing skills also fall into this category; as long as you survive, it doesn't matter how much HP you end the map with. This is a lesson I struggled with early on--I hate feeling like my units are a single shot from death, even if they aren't ACTUALLY going to die.
You'll note that the above ignores the existence of particular offensive combinations, like VVW. This is intentional. Such things are rare and, often, a bigger risk than the consistent benefits provided by the recommended stuff above.
And for a TL;DR summary:
Give GF, Limit Breaker, and Aggressor to all units that can get them.
Give one proc skill to every unit fighting in front; consider giving a second in some cases, especially with Aether. Preference order: Aether, then Luna, then Ignis, then Vengeance/Astra. Avoid all proc skills for support characters that will always stay in the back (e.g. non-Galeforce spouses).
Give one easily-used Faire to every unit, except Manaketes and Taguels (who get no benefit).
If a unit has a particular weapon weakness, consider giving them the associated Breaker skill.
Fill remaining slots with passive benefits like hit/avo bonuses, such as Lucky Seven/Outdoor Fighter/Dual Support+, or enemy debuffs like Anathema.
If you STILL have slots left after looking over all of that, you can choose anything you think would be useful on a case-by-case basis.
Anyway, hope that's helpful.
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I think I might have Yarne end as a Taguel now that I think about it. A shame that they're only meelee, but I suppose that it would be for the best. Other than that what would be a good ending class for him? I wonder if Gaius!Yarne is any good as a Swordmaster?
Also thinking of having Gregor!Severa ending as a Hero. Is axefaire a viable skill to give her once I get her?
Assassin is a good choice, as it gives nearly identical stats to Taguel, but adds bows. Berserker is favored for supporting guys with Str-based girls, as it gives a juicy Str bonus, throwing axes, and high Spd. Swordmaster sacrifices Str for Skl, but since Gaius!Yarne is better in the back, the extra proc chance is largely wasted (and even if he does go out front, his ranged options are limited to Levin Swords, which he isn't very good with, or Ragnell, which will run out if you don't have the Regalia DLC.) I'd go for either Assassin or Berserker, they both make decent use of the modifiers Gaius passes down.
Gregor!Severa doesn't look bad; I don't have enough experience to say it's good, but the stats look more or less reasonable. A first Faire is always desirable, and Axefaire means getting that bonus even with indirect attacks, so I'd definitely go for that. The only really competitive alternative I can see is Wrath, as Gregor!Severa can get the full VVW triad. But you've presented yourself as a more cautious/conservative player, one who doesn't care for the risky business required for VVW, so Axefaire seems eminently appropriate. So for her overall set, you'll probably want something like GF, Axefaire, Astra(/Veng), and then a couple of utility skills like DSp+ (if her beau doesn't have it), Anathema, Armsthrift, etc. Swap out one for Lifetaker or Sol if you find she needs healing.
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I like how you still give us pros and cons with each relationship gameplay wise. What interests me is how nobody mentions the supports that these characters have particularly. I wonder if that doesn't matter in Awakening? Still, knowing a little bit about Fire Emblem gameplay does help.
This is a min/maxing thread mostly.
Seconding CKC's answer: this thread focuses on mechanical analysis, because that is about as close as we can get to "objective." I definitely think the narrative behind the supports matters, I just balance that desire for satisfying narrative against a desire for effective play. The two can't always be satisfied perfectly, but that doesn't mean one is universally more important than the other.
I know I've seen at least one thread in this subforum specifically asking about "favorite" or "best" pairs in a narrative sense. I, for example, think Virion makes the most sense as Inigo's father--it's where Inigo picked up the flirty behavior. Or that Sumia is the shoe-in for Lucina's mother (unless the Avatar is female--Lucina's reaction to the close relationship between Chrom and a FeMU that marries someone else being an in-story demonstration). But such things are a matter of sentiment and appeal heavily to taste. Which pairs give classes, or stats, that a character can really use? Those are very close to purely objective. It's a brute fact that some fathers are poor choices for some children, due to overlap,* or weak modifiers to key stats. Conversely, some fathers are fantastic, e.g. Donnel and Gaius giving Pegasus Knight to a daughter that wouldn't get it.
In the end, "best pairings" in a narrative sense are too much in the eye of the beholder. "Best pairings" in a mechanical sense, while still somewhat subject to taste and preference, rely heavily on numerical analysis. This, plus the large amount of information you have to remember when evaluating such things, makes for a ripe discussion environment: enough wiggle-room to allow debate, but enough concrete fact to allow (contextually) objective statements.
*Consider Fred!Kjelle or Gregor!Inigo: they get literally nothing from their fathers, class-wise. What a terrible waste! You also have some pairs that add *nearly* nothing, e.g. Libra!Laurent, who only gets Priest and War Monk--both provide nothing of note.
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I think for Yarne Lancebreaker is a given, even without his paralogue. I guess it would be better if I gave him sol from Gaius because survivability does matter and health recovery could be mildly useful...that and I seem to have a thing where healers are over used...yeah self healing skills could be much needed
Sol's not bad for hedging your bets, especially while grinding, so if that fits your expected risks, go for it. Out of curiosity, what's your destination class for Yarne? Taguel, like how Nah was going Manakete, or something else? (As Czar_Yoshi was kind enough to explain to me, Taguels with a Beaststone+ have fair stats, almost identical to an Assassin, but the lack of Brave weapons *and* being melee-only hurts their potential severely.)
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What skill should I have Gaius give Yarne? I know that Gaius is not the best father, but he's the one that I have left and I think he might actually give some speed to Yarne...at least I'm hoping so.
Actually, for Yarne it's less a matter of what he inherits from his father (who will never have anything truly special to offer) than from his mother: Yarne is one of the few children who fails to inherit a non-gender-exclusive class, getting Barbarian instead of Wyvern Rider. Since Gaius!Yarne doesn't get that class line, you'll want to pass down one of its skills; generally Lancebreaker is favored to deal with Beast Killers. (For a Yarne that spends most of his time in the back row, though, you could get away with Quick Burn, or maybe Deliverer if you really need the extra Mov.) Given that one of the factions in his recruitment chapter specifically *has* Beast Killers for their fight with the other faction, it's probably a really good idea to go with Lancebreaker, if you have any concerns about his survival--+50 Avoid is *huge.*
As for what Gaius can give him: Yarne starts in a dangerous position, so something that helps save his bacon can be really useful. Vantage is a possibility, but risky, so I wouldn't do that. I'd go for Lucky Seven, personally: it's a solid boost, you'll have it for more than long enough to get him to safety, and works for everyone, regardless of weapons or stats. Alternative possibilities: Astra (weapon-agnostic, offensive proc) or Sol (healing). But my money is still on Lucky Seven. If you go for the grand prize (fighting both merc groups), you'll want that extra safety net. Combined with Lancebreaker, you're looking at +70 Hit/Avo against lances for the first 7 turns--should be enough to keep him safe. :P
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I'm so depressed that no thread like this is going to exist for Fates... :(
I still think there will be a use for such a thread, even with the new system. There are still pairing choices (theoretically more of them?). I don't want to say anything in-depth because Czar_Yoshi has already requested that we avoid revealing anything before he gets a chance to see it personally.
For the topic of the thread at hand, I'm just about at the point where I can start pairing up the kid generation. I have some characters I already know the role I want for them, but others I'm less sure about. When I'm not dog-tired from having failed to sleep, I'll try to post something more substantive.
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I haven't really decided Nah's role in the amry yet and could just as easily switch out for Donnel (for galeforce/underdog) though I am not so sure.
It sounds like you've already got Tharja married (to a non-GF-providing father), so it sorta depends on whether Kjelle will or won't get GF. If Sully isn't already paired (or betrothed in your headcanon :P), Donnel!Kjelle may be the better choice. He gives Kjelle a slightly better selection of classes (Troubadour, Merc, and Pegasus, as opposed to Thief/Peg that Gaius would give), and none of their male-only inheritance skills is especially compelling for Kjelle. Aptitude is the best from Donnel, and Donnel!Kjelle can learn Sol/Axebreaker on her own (instead of inheriting one like she'd need to from Gaius). And if you do go Donnel!Kjelle, there's always the possibility of Gaius!Nah, which offers many of the benefits of Gregor!Nah while also providing Galeforce, while doing something to offset the Manakete's low Spd (it's only a difference of +3, but given that that's nearly a 10% increase, you take what you can get!)
The one really solid thing to be said in favor of Donnel!Nah is that the "special classes" (e.g. Manakete and Taguel) count as un-promoted but have the stat caps of promoted units, so Underdog becomes plausibly viable as a skill once you're facing exclusively promoted units. Even a max-level special class gets the bonus for promoted enemies of level 11 or higher (and you'd Second Seal to reset her level at that point anyway). Although Underdog isn't as big a bonus as Lucky Seven, it has no time limit, so it's better than Quick Burn if you can have it activate consistently. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of removing the one offensive proc that Gregor!Nah and Gaius!Nah possess, Astra (well, and Lethality too, but it hardly counts), meaning Donnel!Nah@Manakete is even more relegated to a pure-support role than she was before and, thus, sort of a waste of GF. That is, Donnel!Nah@Manakete can't get Brave weapons, will struggle to double enemies, and gets neither offensive procs nor a Faire to boost damage, so killing enemies is far less guaranteed--which means GF may not even activate.
So if Gaius is available, he's probably the better choice to get GF on Nah, and Donnel is pretty clearly better for Kjelle, if none of them are married yet. I also find the Donnel/Sully supports rather endearing; the two are cut from similar cloth, and Sully's belief that she should earn her knighthood rather than receiving it meshes well with the Donnel/Sully epilogue (she becomes, more or less, the Knight of the Farfort, while remaining close to the people of 'her land.') That's neither here nor there in terms of optimization, of course, but since much of this is 'for fun' it's worth considering.
One of the things I love about the dark mage class is Mire shenanigans, which is why I plan to use it as Robin's finishing class, it's a whole lot easier to chip away at the enemy from a distance to allow the weaker units an easier time in killing said enemies.Understood. Sniper fulfills a similar role, then, so it's more a question of whether you already have *enough* Mire users on your team. Having a unit that can chip away at low-Def units the way Mire Sorcerers chip away at low-Res units can be useful.
Sounds like a plan for Inigo then, that will make my life easier for his paralogue that's for sure (also because someone wants to play hero
)I remember finding his paralogue an unexpected challenge, though TBF it was also one of the first I completed on my most recent file (because the shop there sells Second Seals and I had nearly run out). Good luck!
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I have a couple of questions for my +def -lck run (which I am posting progress as I make it) and was wondering what skills would suit Gregor!Nah if I want to keep her a manakete. I know that is not the best class for her, but I wanted to keep everyone in their base class promotions (Save F!Robin, Lucina and M!Morgan because I want to play with my head cannon a little bit
).Of course I will be putting everyone through their reclass options because I can do grinding to get needed skills. Also would like to know what suits Noire!Henry that will allow her to make use of her magic or will she be better off as a physical sniper unit?
Aside from those two I am thinking of working with Libra!Inigo, so what should Libra hand down to save the grinding time on Inigo?
In that case, the usual go-to inheritance skill (Axefaire) won't be useful. Your main alternatives: Despoil (gold farming), Counter (minimal use), Wrath (risky like Vantage), or Rally Strength (only useful if you make her a Rally unit). So what would help you most? I'd probably go Despoil (slowly beginning to love that skill) or Wrath; Gregor!Nah can't get Vengeance, which is disappointing, but Wrath+Vantage might work out alright. If you really want a Rally unit, though, and aren't interested in one of the alternatives from SpotPass, Nah might work, since few of the skills she can get will improve her offense much as a Manakete.
For more general skills, simple procs and always-on benefits are the best bet. In addition to the skills mentioned above: Dual Support+, Quick Burn, Deliverer, Swordbreaker (to deal with Wyrmslayers), Astra (her only offensive proc besides Lethality), Armsthrift. Maybe a second Breaker if you're real worried. Pretty much everything else is either inefficient, weapon-specific, or unreliable (e.g. Lethality).
It looks like Noire's stats aren't dramatically different between being Henry's daughter and Gaius', mostly just switching from +5 Mag/+2 Spd (Henry) to +3 Mag/+4 Spd (Gaius). [Edit: just using Gaius for comparison since he's usually picked so she gets GF; the pertinent differences between them really just boil down to classes provided and 2 more Mag vs. 2 more Spd.) It probably won't make a lot of difference which direction you go with her. Henry!Noire@Sniper still hits 50 Skl (just like Gaius!Noire would), which is pretty good. Sadly, Henry!Noire won't get Tomefaire, though she can get Vengeance+Wrath which could make Sorcerer (Nos-tank) an interesting path to take. I honestly don't know enough to speak to Sniper being better than a magic unit (though, if you can live without the Nos-tanking/Mire shenanigans, Valkyrie is nice.)
Libra!Inigo should almost certainly inherit Renewal for least overall grinding--you're basically guaranteed to get it on Libra, and it's the only really worthwhile skill in Priest or War Monk (excluding Sage, for hopefully obvious reasons). You won't need to grind Libra to get it, and it'll save Inigo a slog through an otherwise not-so-great class. (Obv. he should get GF from Olivia.) If you're concerned about losing him in the recruitment chapter, Renewal is probably your best bet simply because you're almost guaranteed to have it and it works every turn. Alternatively, if you aren't concerned about healing (which, TBH, you probably shouldn't be too worried about it), Vengeance isn't a bad choice, to speed up acquisition of the full VVW triad, and you can just ignore Priest/War Monk entirely.
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On Morgan: Seems alright to me, though for the first (pure-offense) set you might want to run Luna instead of Rightful King. The 10% extra chance for Ignis is inferior to the combined chance of having either one of two skills activate, which adds about 24% chance for something to proc.* For the other, you probably wouldn't want to run Apo with it, but literally anything else should be just fine. And if you're not running Gaffe or Apo, you might even drop...something, not sure what (I guess RK?) for Armsthrift, since AT + Despoil means a unit that's not only generating money, but it's also not spending any (assuming a support unit with at least 30 Luck, which is trivial to get). "A bullion saved is a bullion earned," right? :P
For your Avatar: If you're facing a lot of problems landing hits, set 3 (Ig/Ven/Hit/Ana/GF) is your best choice of those five. In general, Lethality is considered an inefficient slot use, since it is worthless in Apo, and too low a probability anywhere else (typically 10% before any stat boosts, and without Limit Breaker you're unlikely to get above 15%)--which means you're only expecting to see it proc 2, maybe 3 times per map. You've already got enormous mobility and flexibility because of Galeforce, and the most consistent offense combo the Avatar can get is Ignis+Luna. Without clear front-runner skills like LB or even All+2, it seems to me that everything else is situational.
So what I'd recommend is a core set of skills, like ~@Ignis/Luna/Galeforce, plus 2 skills of choice. Pick your skills of choice based on map concerns. If you're worried you'll get boxed in a lot, take Pass**; if you just want mobility, take Acrobat (if the terrain is a serious concern) or preferably Deliverer (if it's mostly plain). If you need extra offense, take Tomefaire, possibly Vengeance if you expect to take some actual hits, otherwise DSp+ or Lucky Seven. If you need survivability, Lifetaker is better if you can kill everything in one turn (= 100% HP restored every player phase due to GF), while Renewal is better if you can't reliably do that (=guaranteed 30% at start of player phase). If you need a hit boost, take Hit +20 and one of DSp+, Lucky Seven, or Anathema (DSp+ is more defensive; L7 is the biggest hit/avo buff if you can win before it ends; Ana is an aura so it helps everybody), though if L7 can be kept up consistently, dropping Hit +20 for one of the other two skills may be worth it (slight drop to hit for a boost to avoid, or avoid/crit/crit avoid).
Of course, as with everything I say in this thread, I defer to the more-experienced members on all of this.
*Ignis + RK = (Skill + 10)% proc. For a +Def/-Lck Chrom!Morgan as a Grandmaster, that's 52%. Ignis + Luna = two mutually exclusive procs, so we have to pull out the probability addition formula, P(I or L) = P(I) + P(L) - P(I and L). Since both are (Skill)%, it works out to 2*(.42)-(.42)^2 = .6632 = 66.32%, of which 42% is Luna and (66.32-42) = 24.32% is Ignis. So even though RK makes Ignis individually much more likely to proc, two distinct procs gives a substantially higher chance of *something* happening. Of course, if you aren't interested in grinding to pick up Luna, I'd completely understand, and that would make RK a good alternative choice since Chrom!Morgan starts with it. Note that these calcs are specifically for the +Def/-Lck version; it's slightly tweaked for the +Mag/-Str version (Ignis+RK = 51%, Ignis+Luna = 65.19%). Support bonuses etc. will affect these probabilities, but it's highly unlikely that you can get the Skill to make RK better than adding Luna--it pretty consistently gives more than double the extra chance of SOMETHING happening. If you could get up to ~70% chance, then RK + some other skill that benefitted (like Despoil) would probably be worthwhile, but barring that, two offensive procs is better than one.
**I wouldn't take Pass unless you have trouble making it to Talk-able characters in time, personally. It's only really useful in middle turns of combat, when the enemy still has lots of units close to your units--and even then, if you don't take a path through any of them, it isn't doing anything. Even Acrobat is more reliably useful, since most maps are sprinkled with difficult terrain. Deliverer still seems best though.
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Generally, I find my inspiration comes in one of two forms.
1) A particular word, phrase, or metaphor comes to me, which I find deeply compelling. Such a thing does not happen often, but when it does, I usually produce something pretty good as a result. Often it's a matter of alliteration/assonance (e.g. "a softly-shifting, sand-filled hourglass") or a striking conceit that feels new to me ("to trust love's vow in frail but stronger speech").
2) I experience a thing--a sight, a smell, a texture--that sticks with me long after the initial stimulus is gone. For example, one time I was at a pumpkin patch and, for just a fleeting moment, I saw a man with the most intensely blue eyes I've ever seen. Blue so vivid you'd think he was Fremen. The experience didn't produce a specific impulse, but that visual of a slightly dark-complected (he was white, but very tanned) face with brilliantly blue eyes has stuck with me ever since--and I'm talking over a decade now.
Sometimes, the two intertwine; one time while taking the public transit train home from class, there was a particularly vivid sunset that evening, and I imagined the sun and moon like dancers, and the ember of day slowly turning cold, but pleasantly, gently. The image combined with the way of seeing it meant I banged out a poem, that I'm rather proud of now, in about the space of half an hour.
Edit:
And that's what I get for not reading the whole of the post in question. The above is my primary means of writing fiction (poetry or prose both). I find just about all topics of learning fascinating, so in the sense of being inspired to do something in general, rather than the specific case of writing creative fiction, it would probably be most accurate to say "anything goes." It's very difficult to find an academic subject that I can't quickly find a deeply interesting thread. Pattern recognition--which, I suppose, could be responsible for #1 above, recognizing a striking pattern--is a Big Thing for me. Similarly, suddenly breaking a pattern in an unexpected and profound way can also be hugely inspiring--which, I think, would explain #2.So...yeah. I find joy in discovering a pattern I didn't previously know about, and in finding curious exceptions to patterns I already knew about.
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why isn't it clear?
Well, there are two sides to the coin, more or less. One says that profits and high-level pay have risen much faster than median-level (to say nothing of bottom-level) pay over the last several decades, so something needs to be done to see that workers get a (slightly) bigger portion of the benefits that growth entails. The other side says that, because small businesses employ a large segment (sometimes the majority, depending on how you define "small business") of the private labor force *and* are more likely to be financially harmed by these requirements, we should avoid any increases to the minimum wage (or even scrap it) so that more startup/entrepreneurial businesses get off the ground and employ more people. In other words, the two sides are talking past each other and focusing on completely different criteria, which is pretty much par for the course in any political discussion.
If I had to present an argument for the first side, I'd probably say that while small businesses (to my surprise, my intuition of "less than 100 employees" is a commonly-used standard!) often run a very tight ship and have little room for paying the owner/CEO/etc. much more than their lowest-paid employees, there's a huge discrepancy for many of the largest corporations, who will also be among the largest individual employers. According to the small-business advocacy group Small Business Majority, approximately 42% of US employees (not sure what year these statistics are from) work for a business with less than 100 total employees. So "large" businesses (for the given definition of "large") employ a majority of people in the workforce. I suspect--but cannot prove, too tired to do the research right now--that a majority of the lowest-paying jobs are found at large corporations as well. For such large corporations, the best-paid employees (chief officers, board members, etc.) may make hundreds or even thousands of times what the lowest-paid employees make--consider the salary difference between an entry-level McDonald's employee, or a cashier at a supermarket/one-stop-shopping place like Walmart or Kroger, and the CEO for that company?
At current minimum wage, 40 hour work week, even if we assume the equivalent of 53 work weeks (to account for overtime pay on holidays, which many low-income people feel they have to take), that's ($7.25/hr)*(40 hr/week)*(53 week-equivalents/year) = $15,370/year before tax. According to this analysis of CEO payment from last year (so presumably using 2014 statistics), the equivalent hourly pay--even using 60-hour work weeks--for the CEOs of big chain-restaurants like Panera, Dominos, and Chipotle is hundreds or even thousands of dollars an hour (for 60-hour weeks, Panera: $862/hr, Dominos: $2381, Chipotle: $8993 and $8981--not sure why Chipotle has two CEOs, but whatever).
Point being: there are some pretty substantial pay discrepancies between the best-paid and even the average, i.e. median, worker (McDonald's reported a ratio of 644:1 for their median employee salary, which means the lowest salary ratio would be even more dramatic). While I am absolutely fine with the idea that companies need to provide adequate, and competitive, compensation in order to keep qualified people in important positions like that, discrepancies of that magnitude simply in ratio, even without knowing the precise dollar value, make it a little hard to argue that large companies are floundering for cash. As that last link notes, "Average CEO pay at the 350 largest U.S. companies by revenue surged 997 percent from 1978 to 2014, while the compensation of non-supervisory employees rose 10.9 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a research group that advocates for workers." (I assume this is after accounting for inflation, because there's no way in hell that a 10.9% increase in pay kept up with inflation over a 36-year span--the Bureau of Labor Statistics says $100.00 of 1978 money was worth $363.09 of 2014 money.)
Which is why I, personally, would like to see some wage-related stuff that specifically avoids targeting small businesses--those with less than X employees. It's gonna be an arbitrary number, but just because it's arbitrary doesn't mean it can't have some statistical analysis behind it (to make it more meaningful than simply picking a nice round number like 100). Of course, such things then make an interesting dilemma on the employee end, when things are already a little dicey for small-business employees (as the SBM link notes, the smaller a business is, the more likely it is to not offer medical benefits), but it seems pretty clear to me that *something* should address those discrepancies.
For me, it's a little hard to argue for the other side. Entrepreneurial/small-business jobs are super important, no question, but they're also highly ephemeral--many small businesses don't last more than a couple of years, and the majority don't make it to 10 years or more, statistically speaking. So while they can (at times, but apparently not now) employ a majority of the workforce, at the same time that also means that the majority of the workforce is experiencing a very high job turnover rate due to their employer folding, something like a new job every 3-6 years from my (exceedingly) rough estimate, which seems pretty damn fast to me. I'm not saying small business jobs are bad--they're great, and pretty much every business starts off as a small one!--but they're also very volatile. In other words, I see them as being the equivalent of a high-risk, high-reward investment: a small business that does well potentially grants employees access to MORE pay, BETTER benefits, than a large business job would. But it also exposes the employee to greater risk--on a variety of scales. That such "higher employee risk" jobs get crimped by a law that is specifically making reliable alternatives more attractive seems, to me, to be precisely what the law is intended to do. Whether it increases employment seems like a secondary issue; minimum wage laws aren't about getting more jobs regardless of quality, they're about trying to improve the quality of the jobs that already exist, even if that means a slower gain (or even temporary reduction) in quantity.
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It was more of a prediction than anything, although I may yet have been proven wrong. Regarding Mosquitos, apparently there's actually a way this guy developed to kill all mosquitos, by developing a mosquito with a kill gene in it and having it fuck all the other mosquitos. Then, the kill gene is activated and the next generation of mosquitos who all have the gene, all die.
Yeah, I heard about that. An interesting application of genetic engineering--and, at least in *theory,* a safe one, because it's inherently self-terminating. Given that the mosquito responsible for this is an invader anyway, there seem to be relatively few arguments against employing such stuff, unless someone is just overweeningly anti-GMO (which has always seemed silly to me). Being concerned about the proliferation of lab genes into the environment? Valid concern. Getting freaked out by inherently self-sterilizing changes? Kinda silly.
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http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/06-october-2014/en/
(Removed text, emphasis in original post:
No evidence that viral diseases change their mode of transmission
Moreover, scientists are unaware of any virus that has dramatically changed its mode of transmission.)
Good to know. There is, however, the flipside: how often do largely-harmless viruses become grievously lethal? We have flu seasons every year, for example, but a pandemic of disastrous proportions (rather than the relatively tame, but still terrible, 2009 pandemic) hasn't occurred in nearly a century, despite dramatically higher human populations. Specifically, the last time we had a "Category 5 Pandemic," using the relatively-new grading scale patterned after the hurricane category scale, was the 1918 "Spanish" flu. Every flu since then has been either Category 2 (the "Hong Kong" and "Asian" flu outbreaks) or on the upper end of Category 1 (the recent 2009 "Swine" flu). Even the 1918 flu only had a case-fatality ratio of, at the very highest, 20%--making it less lethal than even the best-case estimates for ebola (25%).
So, sure, changes in method of transmission are unheard-of. That's good! But dramatic changes in lethality appear to also be unheard-of. Given the distinct mildness of the zika infection, e.g. around two-thirds to four-fifths of all infected people showing no symptoms whatsoever, I stand by my assertion that, barring new developments, this is not something to be overly concerned about. It's a thing to keep in mind, and (as I've said more than once) definitely something we should be doing research on so we can treat/forestall it, but distinctly less alarming than most viral outbreak problems.
So, you're going to have to take the words of someone who's a woman and has seen what the want of children (or lack theroef) can do to a family. . .multiple families.
Planned pregnancies take some foresight - someone in my position, for example, would need to seriously start looking for a boyfriend (or in my case, husband, because I'm gonna need all the financial help possible to raise a kid). Actually trying for a kid is stressful, and adding an uncontrollable time factor isn't going to make things better. So while it's not a big deal to you, I can understand why it's a big deal to a lot of other people, and I will respect that.
Here's the advisory for pregnant women. The CDC advises women who travel to a country with a Zika outbreak to wait about a week before getting pregnant. So what about those who are in a place where Zika is active? Do both sides wait a week between mosquito bites? Where I am, it's not always easy to do that, especially if you're in one of the rainier areas.
I took a look at the outbreak map, and I'm not liking my odds. Hawaii may not have a lot of people that commute to South America on a regular basis, but I know there's a nontrivial section of the population from Samoa/America Samoa/Tonga (never mind the people who go there for business). I feel like it's a matter of time, instead of a matter of "if".
Er, no, that's...not what it recommends? That is, I cannot see even a single mention of the CDC recommending that women postpone pregnancy. It's all about postponing travel. To whit:
"Until more is known, CDC recommends special precautions for pregnant women and women trying to become pregnant:
Pregnant women in any trimester should consider postponing travel to the areas where Zika virus transmission is ongoing. Pregnant women who do travel to one of these areas should talk to their doctor or other healthcare provider first and strictly follow steps to avoid mosquito bites during the trip.
Women trying to become pregnant or who are thinking about becoming pregnant should consult with their healthcare provider before traveling to these areas and strictly follow steps to prevent mosquito bites during the trip."
The closest it gets to actually recommending a delay in pregnancy, again without actually saying so, is:
"We do not know the risk to the infant if a woman is infected with Zika virus while she is pregnant. Zika virus usually remains in the blood of an infected person for only a few days to a week. The virus will not cause infections in an infant that is conceived after the virus is cleared from the blood. There is currently no evidence that Zika virus infection poses a risk of birth defects in future pregnancies. A women contemplating pregnancy, who has recently recovered from Zika virus infection, should consult her healthcare provider after recovering."
As for the "should both sides wait," you can't be meaningfully re-infected with zika much like how once you've had chicken pox, you (usually) are immune for life. It's not like influenza, which continually mutates and thus prevents lasting immunity. Talking to your doctor, if you think you've been bitten again, would probably be the best answer. Using insect repellent appears to be an effective countermeasure as well, to prevent new bites if there is a concern.
In other words, as I've said several times, their core recommendation in every case is: "Talk to your doctor if you think you might have contracted zika." And waiting a week after you think you've had the flu seems like hardly a terriblehorrible burden. In fact, I'm getting a distinct feeling of moved goalposts here: the first argument was that it was inappropriate for the CDC to be making recommendations to governments about extreme, long-term postponement of pregnancy. Now the argument is, or seems to be, "it's not fair to tell women to talk to their doctors, and to note that it takes at most a week for the virus to be cleared from their bodies." Any woman seriously considering pregnancy should be paying close attention to her own health, and ideally should be keeping in relatively close contact with her healthcare provider(s) to forestall problems and complications later down the line. Yes, this is a clear frustration, and yes, it's a problem that we SHOULD do something about...as I've said twice now. But I cannot see any justification for painting this as an onerous burden. There's a disease, which is thought to cause problems for fetal development, and the CDC is giving sound, common sense medical advice in response. I don't see it as any more onerous or unfair than telling a woman, say, to avoid exposure to secondhand smoke (whether tobacco or...other materials) while pregnant--it will mean inconvenience and potentially significant changes to her routines and such, but stuff like that is a concern when you're growing a new person inside you!
I also noticed that you excised the very important edit to my original post, where I noted that the "wait 2 years" thing was exclusively from the government of El Salvador and had exactly nothing to do with the CDC. Perhaps that was simply because you had no comment on it, I don't know. But it would have been nice to at least recognize that your original argument, about the two-year no-pregnancy thing, had nothing whatsoever to do with the CDC, and thus any aspersions cast on their ethical character were specious at best.
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Are you aware of any virus that changed its mode of transmission in a very short period of time? (Less than 10,000 years)
Not that it doesn't happen, just that it usually takes a very long time.
Nope, I've done exactly zero research on the subject. But doing something as simple as acquiring a cough-related effect (probably by horizontal gene transfer from another virus, like influenza) seems a lot more reasonable than going from almost always asymptomatic to viciously lethal in a short time span. I have very little informational basis for making the claim. But I suspect that nobody in this conversation is going to have anywhere near the education to make informed statements about it.
Yes, ebola sucks. Zika also sucks, but in a different way. I explained why I think it's pretty bad earlier, and I'd like you to read it and consider that thought, along with the fact that there's women out there who are on a biological clock in regards to kids. Telling them to stop trying for two years may be the difference between having their own child and being incapable of having one. . .along with a giant plethora of other issues that come with a strong suggestion from a regulatory body regarding reproduction.
I did read it. And I already responded to it: it is a truly terrible thing that we have discovered a virus, which can be sexually transmitted*, and which can lead to birth defects. Not being female myself, it's difficult for me to fully appreciate the issues involved for them. I can't help being a little skeptical of the "biological clock" argument. I certainly understand that menopause is a thing, and that the older a woman is (after maturity), the higher the risk of complications both during pregnancy and after birth. But my mother had no problem giving birth to either me or my sister--and she was in her 30s (33 for me, 36 for my sister). Yes, there will be a segment of, say, 38-40 year old women who have delayed having children (intentionally or not), and I can understand their frustration. I just don't see that frustration as reason for me, or people in general outside the affected areas, to be alarmed or distressed. It is unlikely to become a globe-spanning threat; it causes zero symptoms for most affected people; it appears to be a thing that passes after a mere couple of weeks. The vast majority of people, even if infected, will suffer exactly zero negative consequences. And as I said, we absolutely should be looking for an actual answer to this thing--such as a vaccine, or at least some kind of prophylactic steps that can be taken.
But...I'm really not sure what you're talking about, with the whole reproductive rights thing. The CDC is hardly passing laws. They're doing their job: providing medical advice. Pregnant women are practically the only people who experience any significant negative consequences of zika infection--consequences that will linger, not for their lifetime, but for someone else's lifetime. Until more information is available, "avoid doing the thing that causes problems" seems like sound medical advice. Yes, it's advice that is unfortunately gender-based...because pregnancy is unfortunately gender-based. What would you have them do instead, as their very first response? Say nothing, and thus theoretically be liable for concealing important medical information from the public? Merely reporting it at all is going to make some women reconsider.
Furthermore, in digging deeper, I actually haven't found a single reference to the CDC suggesting that women completely avoid having children for two years. Nothing of the sort, in fact. It has been, in absolutely every case, "if you live in or travel to one of the affected areas, consult your healthcare provider" or some variation thereof. Nothing at all about advocating or advising a blanket ban. Perhaps, instead of immediately leaping to questions of gender politics and/or aspersions, it would be better to actually look at what the CDC has said or done? The strongest pieces of advice I've seen have been "Wear body-covering clothing or use approved insect repellant" and "If you're pregnant, consider postponing travel to these countries."
*Though we don't know the rate of transmission. Thus far, two cases have been reported--not nearly enough data to draw any conclusions except that it can happen.
Edit:
In fact, it sounds like the OP got confused. El Salvador (not Brazil) has issued a formal advisory not to get pregnant for two years. But this was not at the prompting of the CDC. Experts around the world have, in fact, been shocked by it. So yeah. When you hear an extreme and eyebrow-raising claim, check it out. Google is your friend.
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My current run has Chrom/Avatar; I passed down Veteran and felt it was a very worthwhile choice. But I don't really think Discipline is the best choice for Avatar!Lucina. If you're going to swing through DF and GM, that should get you plenty of Tome training, and having double-digit stats to start with is pretty good to begin with. I had no trouble maxing Lucina's Tome rank before finishing GM.
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Ebola required contacts with human fluids to spread. (Or fluids from fruit bats or some apes)
Avoiding mosquitoes bites is way harder than avoiding contacts with an infected person.
At the same time, zika (and all these other things) don't have a supermassive death rate like ebola does (average 50% fatality rate, ranges from 25% up to 90%).
And although these viruses can be spread by a nonhuman disease vector, that vector--at least for now--is confined to tropical latitudes. Otherwise, zika is exactly the same as ebola--requires contact with body fluids in order to transmit. Yes, it's terrible that we now have a disease that causes infant deformity and which can spread by sexual contact. But, while this is a serious issue, it really isn't cause for alarm at this point.
The bigger concern: how long does a person remain a carrier of the virus? Is it something you'll always have with you, like HSV-1 (which causes cold sores), or is it like influenza, just a passing thing? If the former, then definitely something like the upcoming Olympic games could be a major concern, because it will create lots of lifelong carriers. On the other hand, if it's just a temporary thing, then it will peter out in the same way a regular flu outbreak does, just faster (because only the very sexually active and currently infectious can spread it). Nothing I've seen suggests that the virus remains in the body after the initial infection is fought off. So, like I said: a serious issue, in the sense that it should be addressed and finding a treatment/vaccine (especially for women of child-bearing age and interest) would be a Good Thing. But not a pants-wetting scenario, not a human-race-ending problem.
Honestly, ebola scares me a hell of a lot more than this, because flipping from "may cause birth defects, 60%-80% of non-fetal cases have no symptoms" to "hideously lethal" seems like a much bigger jump than "only spreads by direct contact with body fluids" to "spreads by aerosol droplets from coughing/sneezing."
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Are we doing "too much" handholding?
Well, the question is pretty damn loaded, since "handholding" is an inherently negative, pejorative term. Any amount of "hand-holding" is "too much," the way most people use the term.
However, in general I would say no, we are not "babying" our society that much. What we have, generally speaking, is a cultural shift that we're still progressing through. The Baby Boomer generation grew up with a subtly different set of values than the ones we have today. America was a lot more culturally homogeneous, people could leave their doors unlocked at night, people trusted the President to have the nation's best interests in mind (this was before Nixon, remember!), etc. Politically, economically, philosophically...in a lot of ways, the US of the 50s was almost a completely different country.
Also, I'm sorry but...are you seriously using video games as an example of "babying" people? You're absolutely right that video games often have a different kind of challenge today than they had 30 years ago. Some of it is a matter of technology--we can do so many more things than we could before. Some of it is a matter of genuinely better design: it's now easier to figure out what you've done wrong, and a lot fewer things depend on completely arbitrary, unalterable chance. Some of it, yes, is seeking an audience that merely wants to be entertained, rather than challenged...and there's nothing wrong with that. But we also have the "Souls" series, and the spinoff Bloodborne. We have a greater variety than ever before of difficulty possibilities (and sometimes they get hilarious names, like the Galactic Civilizations difficulty levels). We have the absolute profusion of "roguelikes" and procedurally-generated worlds, that in no way "hold your hand" unless you ask them to, and which are immensely popular (Minecraft, anyone?)
Yes, we're facing challenges of how to conduct education (something that will always need a personal touch) across a vast and populous nation (therefore needing a comprehensive system to be even remotely manageable). We're facing cultural issues, like how to balance the need for universities to be places of free expression with the need for them to fight predation (of all kinds--sexual, economic, political). We're facing economic issues, like the blunt reality that people 40 years ago could easily pay for college and a place to live, while now the majority of students continue to live with their parents because there is no economically viable alternative while they go to school.
Things change. New issues rise. Old issues rear their ugly heads in new ways. Pointing fingers, or wailing and gnashing teeth in lament of how awfulhorribleterrible our society has become, accomplishes exactly nothing. You see a problem? Find a way to fix it. Your problem, right now, seems to be that your students were not as enthusiastic about a technique as you were. The correct response is not to pout and complain that "KIDS THESE DAYS" are so ungrateful, so lazy, so lackadaisical that they don't respond the way you want them to. The correct response is to learn what does motivate them, and find ways to engage with them on that level. Stop characterizing modern children as impatient idiots. Why should they care? Sure, you think this technique is awesomesauce, but to them, it may very well be no more exciting than being shown how to compute an integral on a calculator, just a mechanical motion without context or significance. It's your job to try to do that impossible thing: to get someone else to be motivated about something. I don't know your students, so I cannot hope to provide anything but platitudes for how to treat them, but I definitely think there's an old saying that applies quite well to your situation. "It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools." Though, in this case, it would be the materials he works with.
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In a word? Yes.
But since I'm not one for answers succinct to the point of smarmy, a little more detail.
Every economic choice, absolutely every single one, is a question of trade-off. There are always costs and benefits associated with any choice, be it those made by each individual participant in the market, all the way up to choices made by boards of directors and legislatures. It is completely impossible to speak in absolutes about any individual tool of influencing the market, because we use tools in a context of some kind. So trying to fork the reader into a binary answer--helpful or harmful--is itself a fallacy, that of black-and-white thinking.
I am, generally speaking, in favor of minimum wage laws at the conceptual level. It's absolutely true that employment is a contractual arrangement between employee and employer; that much is inarguable. However, to stop there, without saying anything more about the nature of that relationship, is in my opinion deeply deceptive. People need income in order to survive, and furthermore, there is an enormous social pressure on the unemployed to find jobs (believe me, I know this quite well). When combined with population sizes as they are today, employment is absolutely a "buyer's" market (in the sense that labor is "bought" from workers at a price): supply is high, demand is low, alternative markets exist, etc. What this means is that the buyer, the employer, has a massive coercive ability. They can offer nearly anything and someone will go for it. I mean, bloody hell, not even a decade ago there were states that HAD a $0 minimum wage for tip-earning employees, and even where there is a "split" minimum wage (that is, a minimum after tips have been taken into account) there is a massive incentive for businesses to coerce their employees into falsely reporting their tip earnings.
I'll be honest: I didn't read all of the first post. It suffers from a similar problem to a lot of my own writing: taking a lot more words than necessary to make the point. From having read the first few paragraphs and skimming the rest, what I gathered was:
- In Seattle, where a recent large spike in the minimum wage occurred, restaurants have been closing in higher numbers than expected, and some think this is a causal relationship.
- Assumptions about the future progression of wages vs. productivity which would indicate that restaurants may cease to be a profitable business altogether.
- Restaurants, especially entrepreneurial/small-business ones, are hardest hit. Repeated over, and over, and over again.
- One offhand example of a small business which does not take advantage of its employees, and in fact does the opposite.
- One offhand example of a country with a high minimum wage where other economic factors counterbalance it (without actually making use of statistics which take these factors into account).
- The anti-poverty effects may not be happening as expected.
But there are some serious problems with all of these points, in order:
- It is a fallacy (post hoc ergo prompter hoc -- "after this, therefore because of this") to assume that a past event caused a future event solely because it happened in the past. Further, even if we can demonstrate a clear correlation, that does not imply causation either. Proving that this was in fact causative would be an extremely difficult task, even if it is causative. Leaving it to the mind of the reader is somewhat disingenuous rhretoric.
- Firstly, the data shown here has diddly-squat to do with changes to the minimum wage, since it doesn't even cover the last three years--and seems to have been rising at more or less the same rate even with other, nationwide minimum wage laws coming into effect. Secondly, productivity in a restaurant setting is effectively fixed: food takes a fairly set amount of time to cook, so productivity will need to remain more-or-less constant, yet wages even without a minimum wage "should" go up approximately in step with inflation under the perfect, ideal free market economy. This means that of course wages over productivity will go up, even without minimum wages. Without meaningful units, and having no idea if it is adjusted for inflation, we cannot actually draw any meaningful conclusions from the data presented. Extremely shoddy statistical presentation. And, in fact, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' information about inflation, if these values are not adjusted for inflation, then in fact the cost of food service labor has gone down since 2002 ($1 in 2002 would be worth approximately $1.29 in 2013, a 29% increase, while there was only a 20% increase in wages over productivity!)
- To be blunt, your over-reliance on a single subset of a single market sector (entrepreneurial/small-business restaurants) hurts your argument a lot. Yes, we know restaurants often ride a narrow line between profitability and unprofitability. At the same time, many of them also resort to some rather dirty business as well. Should we repeal food safety laws, because keeping clean for inspection is a financial burden? Should we repeal OSHA compliance, because that is a financial burden? Simply demonstrating that this will create a new burden for employers is not enough to explain why we shouldn't do it: there are lots of burdens we place on businesses, restaurants or not, because we believe some other good (preventing disease, avoiding injury) is more valuable than the good of highly profitable businesses. What you have is a good start for an argument, but it simply doesn't go far enough--otherwise you'll be on board with removing a huge host of other regulatory burdens that you may or may not actually want to get rid of. I may be setting an unfair burden, but I definitely think your position would be much stronger if you could cite at least one (and, of course, preferably more) non-restaurant business categories that are plausibly experiencing undue burden because of this new law.
- That you can demonstrate that at least one--or even some--businesses do not resort to coercive or oppressive labor practices, does not mean that many, to say nothing of most, will do the same (this is an example of hasty generalization, also a fallacy). Of course, this doesn't mean that all other businesses are horrible terrible monsters who will ruthlessly exploit their employees and begrudgingly pay them as little as they can justify, either. Only that giving us one example of a "noble" business does nothing to demonstrate the commonness of such businesses (in fact, the only thing it can do, logically, is prove false the claim that no such businesses exist. Which is useful, but not really what you were going for, I suspect.)
- Your choice of Australia as an example was very poor, because a quick--not even five-minute--check through Google demonstrates that Australia's minimum wage is in fact better than that in the United States. When you actually do take into account the Purchasing Power Parity differences between Australia and the United States, Australia's minimum wage is more valuable than that in the US. It's not by a lot--if the US min wage is taken to be $7.25, then Australia's PPP equivalent wage is $9.77 (USD-equivalents, NOT AUD), or an increase of approximately 34.8% (note that these numbers were reported in 2013, so they must have been gathered before that, and thus may not be perfectly accurate today), as opposed to the expected 100*(16 - 7.25)/7.25 = 121% increase from the pre-adjusted (non-PPP) wages. Additionally, when comparing average wages to minimum wages, the United States is tied with Japan for last place among those countries which have legally established minimum wages (many Scandinavian countries cannot be evaluated this way, for instance, because minimum wages are set by extremely strong collective bargaining groups, rather than by legal mandate--it's essentially the same effect, but harder to directly evaluate).
- Jumping the gun a bit on those claims. That is, from reading the Fox News article, they're literally comparing the number of people seeking ANY form of financial assistance the month before, and the month after the law came into effect. That's...well, okay? I'm not entirely surprised that the decrease was small at first. Economic changes often take time. Expecting a near-instantaneous response seems a bit foolish. If it had been, say, a year-over-year thing, or even a five-year retrospective (which I know is impossible at this point), that would be dramatically more convincing. More or less, I don't think your claim even can be substantiated (nor disproved, for that matter) at this point--we just don't have enough data because there hasn't been enough time to evaluate it. It would be like making a change to the curriculum at a school and then using the next semester's grades as "proof" that the change didn't work--more time is needed for such things to play out.
Now, all of those problems aside? I don't necessarily disagree with you. $15/hour minimum wage seems very drastic to me--where I live, that would be nearly doubling the minimum wage, which very easily COULD be catastrophic to perfectly legitimate, above-board businesses. However, the idea that an extreme minimum wage is (potentially) bad does not, in itself, demonstrate that all forms of minimum wage are bad. You've go a much, much bigger hill to climb if you want to go from "15/hour is crazy!" to "ANY minimum wage is crazy!"
Particularly when real (not nominal) wages have been effectively static for all but the top 10% of earners over the past 40 years (while those in that top 10% bracket have enjoyed a 9.7% growth in real wages), while the profits going to corporations (probably pre-tax) have climbed dramatically faster than inflation. In fact, in 2013, corporate after-tax profits hit a record percent of GDP not seen since the 1942, while corporate revenue going to employee salary (also as a percent of GDP) was the lowest on record, while the total employee compensation (including things like insurance, Social Security, etc.) was also lower than it had been since the 40s (1948, to be specific).
So yeah. Small businesses get squeezed hard by some of this stuff--and that's genuinely unfortunate. If I knew more about economics, finance, and corporate law, I would try to propose something that could alleviate the pressure on small businesses while maintaining the pressure on big business--because that's where the real problems lie. But I don't know those things, so I'm not going to even try to propose a solution. Anything I did would almost surely be riddled with flaws and inconsistencies. But something needs to be done--and, at least in the short term, I am okay with entrepreneurial restaurants closing, if it means getting some corporate fat cats to begrudgingly share a tiny slice of their pie with the rest of us. It sucks, to be sure. But every economic choice is a trade-off.
(While you probably know this, for those who don't: "real dollars" are those that have been adjusted for inflation, while "nominal dollars" are the numbers that would've been reported in whatever specific year you look at. So "real dollars" tell you how much things have "really" changed, while nominal dollars tell you what prices/values actually looked like in the past.)
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You know I married Sumia with Henry in my first awakening playthrough. Of course that is because Chrom was taken by F!Robin (a total accident I must admit).
An understandable accident though--the Avatar and Chrom have every reason to be close regardless of the former's gender. The two of them got married in my female Avatar run by the end of the third or fourth chapter, it was ridiculous.
I plan of course to do a playthrough to follow my very first one complete with pairings of old. Here were off the top of my head the pairings I had:Chrom/F!Robin (+Def/-Mag or it should have been +Str/-Mag but meh)
Frederick/Panne
Lissa/Ricken
Sully/Stahl? (I am not so sure on this one, but it seems more than likely given how much I adore their supports and still blush at Stahl's confession to Sully every time because it's so darn cute!)
Sumia/Henry
Nowi/Gregor
Virion/Cherche
Alright. Some of these will pretty obviously lead to children geared for certain focuses (Ricken!Owain will be geared for magic, frex). Are you flexible on your Avatar's stats? Because -Def is usually the preferred choice, so +Str/-Def might be better. Beyond that, many of these pairs seem decent. I would of course defer to Czar_Yoshi, Radiant head, or other much more well-versed users.
Now then in light of the fact that I killed Gaius and Tharja I will be pairing them up in this run for the sake of what would have happened had I known that I could have recruited them.Sounds good to me, and that's a commonly-recommended pairing anyway (since it gives Noire Galeforce, and Gaius's stats are pretty good for any Noire).
So my next best question is who would I have had left over? I think it would be Kellam and Libra since I don't think I used Lonnie that much after I got him (and again in the spirit of the original run to go with who would be the most likely pairings).A bit unfortunate that, since Lon'qu is a good dad, especially for Severa. The super-dark hair is a bit surprising compared to her red-haired official art, but I found the Lon'qu/Cordelia supports oddly compelling, and Severa will receive both an interesting selection of classes and huge Skill and Speed (+6 each!). For completeness, your unpaired fathers are Lon'qu, Kellam, Libra, Vaike, and Donnel; your unpaired mothers are Miriel, Maribelle, Cordelia, and Olivia. Presuming you want to get all the children, that means you'll need to pick (or remember, I guess?) which one won't get married, because you'll need exactly four dads.
Of the four other dads: Donnel can no longer pass Peg Knight to a daughter that wouldn't get it normally (Sully, Tharja, and Nowi are already taken), so you should use him carefully, only where that Luck boost is really worthwhile (probably Brady, definitely not Severa). Libra is your best remaining Magic dad, with Henry and Ricken already taken, but that also means using him as father for a magic-leaning child, i.e. Brady or Laurent, will do almost nothing for that child's class pool, as the former gets only Dark Mage and Sorcerer and the latter gets only Priest and War Monk. Kellam is generally reviled by the community--he is Worst Dad--so I can't in good conscience recommend him for anyone, but he gives Laurent a not-terrible Mag (+4). And finally Vaike is your best +Str dad, so you almost certainly would want to use him for Inigo or Severa.
So my main question is (of course) if I did give skills to the children (galeforce for the galeboys of course) which ones should their fathers give them? I know I'm in for RK Morgan *snickers* but what should I have the others inherit. I ask this because I flat out do not remember what I did in my first run (which got deleted :/ damn I'm an idiot).Aw, don't beat yourself up--shit happens. For most children, inheritances are based on either lack of access, or on convenience to you. For the first, Panne gets Wyverns but doesn't pass them down to Yarne, so if he doesn't get it from his dad, Panne should pass one of those skills down (obv. this doesn't apply to you, since Fred!Yarne does get Wyvern Rider). But with Gregor!Nah, for example, you should pass down a Barb-line skill; your choices are Wrath, Axefaire, Rally Strength, and Counter. She could be a Rally unit (Strength, Magic, Skill, Heart, and your choice of Luck or Res?), a supporting War Cleric with Axefaire, or just about any class using Vantage+Wrath. Counter's probably not worth it.
For other characters, like Fred!Yarne, there are no skills you can't get if you're willing to do some grinding, so it's more a matter of what would be easier or more useful to you. Discipline, Luna, Lancebreaker, and Quick Burn are all good for Fred to give Yarne. Any kid that can inherit Armsthrift or Despoil gets decent benefit (saving/making money). Also, consider skills that are useful, but come from classes that really, really aren't useful. For example, Renewal is a great HP-restoring skill, if that matters to you...but for a Mag-heavy character (like Brady), that means slogging through a Str-based class for 15 levels. Passing down Renewal means you never need to take War Cleric to get its biggest benefit, which is nice. So consider whether skills you already have (or can easily get) will save you some time grinding a poorly-fitting class, too.
Also on another front thinking about it some more if Miss Morgan is a DF then who if she's married is the best mag boost? May or may not go for a galeboy, but I am not entirely sure. I mean I was thinking sorcercer as her finishing class to see how she goes (I don't have lb yet D: damn not having DLC that is needed). I have a thing for dark mages...Er...I'm kind of confused. Miss Morgan? Do you mean Morgan's sister (since Morgan will be male if the Avatar married Chrom), or do you mean Morgan's wife?
The thing with Galeboys, as I understand it, is that it's not as big a deal to get a second Galeforce proc as it is to add Galeforce to a pair that wouldn't have it otherwise. So it's better to have (say) Gregor!Nah supporting a Galeboy and Lucina (with GF) supported by (say) Laurent, than it is to have Gregor!Nah/Laurent and Galeboy/Lucina.
Highest +Mag bonus is Mage/Sage at +4. Dark Mage and Sorc give +3. Assuming A/S support and 30+ Mag, that's 4+2+3 = +9 for Sage, vs. +8 for Dark Mage/Sorc. The other big reason for taking Sage over Sorc is Rescue staves, because repositioning your units is always valuable (and if "Miss Morgan" has GF, you can both attack *and* reposition units).
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Count me as another in favor of it just being random soldiers, support staff, observers, or something else like that. Remember that Validar is essentially granting an allied Ylisse/Ferox army full access to their navy and free rein on the Plegian treasury...for paying for the war. Validar is being incredibly, almost recklessly generous here. He would be well within his rights to have representatives there to make sure that the Plegian treasury is being used for the war itself, rather than for personal ends, and to make sure that any bills of credit are properly transmitted back to the capital for payment (since it's unlikely that they would cart the treasury off with them to war).
Morgan also strikes me as an unlikely candidate for a few other reasons.
1) It is entirely possible to complete the game without picking up Morgan. Additionally, while Morgan's recruitment will always come after Carrion Isle, it's a little...weird to say that Morgan was there "since" the Isle, even if she is recruited immediately thereafter.
2) While it's a bit of a weak reason, the Morgan who comes back claims to remember the Avatar perfectly clearly, but never mentions the whole "possessed by an evil dragon god" thing. Which, y'know, seems like a kind of important feature to mention at some point.
3) Morgan is pretty damn heavily under cover, since he can participate in slaying Grima, or aiding Naga/the Awakening, without betraying the Shepherds. Not a very good spy!
4) Morgan's overall behavior doesn't seem consistent with someone maintaining a facade of interest over time. In fact, given how silly Morgan can be, it's a little hard to believe anyone would *trust* her with such a fantastically important mission deep in "enemy" territory.
5) The timing actually seems like it would be pretty complicated, if Morgan is reporting to Validar. It's also weird that Grima would rely solely on the Blood call, rather than trying to exploit a more direct connection through Morgan.
So...yeah. It's not impossible for Morgan to be a spy. But it just seems highly unlikely.
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Well, strictly from my own observations, the characters who participate in the most fights almost always get it, but I haven't really been focused on it.
There are a few discussions on other boards, but nothing conclusive. One interesting proposed answer was that the "heroes" designation is based on who has the highest "kill score" at the end of the chapter. "Score" is the sum of the unit rating numbers of each enemy a particular character fights--including if they fought paired up as the rear unit. So pairs rack up points much faster than individuals, especially Galeforce pairs--which would explain why my Avatar and Chrom (S rank) frequently take it. I generally prefer to have Chrom fight the last enemy to see the unique dialogue it produces, and bosses often have high stats and thus a higher unit rating.
Would be interesting if someone were to put in the time to research it, even if it's a very minor thing.
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Ah, that really sucks. At least my dog died when it was her time to go.
I appreciate your condolences--and the only other thing I can say is that while being somewhat prepared is better than not being prepared at all, no amount of prep can ever really "fix" it. In a sense, all preparation does is get you a running start.
One thing that very slightly helps ease the pain, at least for me, is remembering that, in a certain sense, it is good for grief to hurt, even terribly. If grief did not hurt, we would be as cold as ice, as tender as stone--because grief is the feeling of loss, and you can only feel loss if you lost something that mattered to you. As C.S. Lewis put it, in The Four Loves (p 112):
"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation."
We accept--perhaps unknowingly--the possibility of grief, because it demonstrates that we are still humans, rather than cognition machines or digestion machines. And as long as it hurts, but we keep seeking such love anyway, we never will be such machines.
been there too, my grandparent on my dad's side died when I was 11, so I was pretty confused with the whole thing.
All of my grandparents are now dead (my parents were very late kids, and they waited until they were older than usual to have me). My paternal grandfather died before I was born; my maternal grandfather died when I was young, probably 7 or 8, so I didn't really understand it either. My maternal grandmother died a few years after I graduated high school--and that one really got to me. But, as is usual for me, I cried very little at her funeral--only once, for a few minutes right in the middle. I don't really know why I don't usually cry because of grief, and it feels weird, since I feel like I should cry, should show some kind of external symbol of my grief.
But, as I said before: everyone faces grief their own way. The only thing to really worry about is whether you respond with something healthy, or something unhealthy. In that sense, it is like all human instincts and urges. That is, it is always healthy to have them and feel them, but how we deal with and respond to them is another story.
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That's...very odd, because I've never actually had Windows 10 do that. Windows 7 (my previous OS) would occasionally spring the "TIME TO UPDATE, NO YOU CAN'T DELAY THIS" message. But I've ignored/not seen the update popup in Windows 10 several times, and it's never restarted my computer without numerous warnings.
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My gut response is, "Not with any reliability." You can hazard some educated guesses, but without real statistical investigation, they'll be no better than "just-so stories"--myths told to explain something you, personally, have seen. Again, as a pure gut feeling, I suspect that even if there were some correlation, it would be very weak, too weak to have useful predictive value.
Now, if all you're asking is if there possibly could be some correlation between clothing preferences and voting preferences? Well sure. There is a potential correlation between any two variables. But we must always remember that correlation doesn't imply causation. Coincidence and confounding variables may also apply. As an example of the first: "No nuclear weapons were used to attack other nations before the advent of women's suffrage"--purely coincidental, since there were no nuclear weapons to be used (nor even the science or materials to develop them) before then either way. And for the second: "Ice cream sales are strongly correlated with shark attacks, therefore eating ice cream must increase your risk of being attacked by sharks!"--both things increase at the same time, not because they have any link to each other, but because they are both linked to a third thing--increased sunlight, which makes people heat up more and thus seek cool foods more, and also leads to greater volumes of people going to beaches where sharks can thus attack them.
A really good statistical study would be extremely difficult to pull off, because it would require something like consenting to a photograph taken immediately after the voter exits the voting booth, which can then be linked to and correlated with the actual votes taken. A LOT of people aren't going to consent to having their picture taken, and even more would object to having it linked with their voting preferences even if all other "personal"/identifying information were scrubbed out. I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with people doing that to me (not that you even could, in my state--ALL votes are mail-in here).
While I don't think there's a piece of clothing that would make someone be idenfitied as a conservative, the combination of the so-called problem glasses plus brightly colored hair tends to identify a radical leftist.
The closest thing to a "conservative-identifying" garment/style would probably be flannel shirts and blue jeans. The kinds of stuff you expect a rural farmer to wear. I suppose that very severely "anti-sexual" clothing (that is, the whole "floor-length dresses, women never wear pants" kind of thing) might work as well, since highly circumspect clothing correlates with conservative attitudes on sex, which in turn correlates with conservative attitudes generally (including political ones).
The Pairing Thread
in Fire Emblem: Awakening
Posted · Edited by amiabletemplar
I admit, I probably have an irrational love for Armsthrift. This set will provide a more well-rounded character.
Well, going purely by the numbers, Vaike!Brady has unfortunately low modifiers for both Str and Mag (only +1 each)--he ends up being not strong at anything, which isn't great, though it does mean his Str and Mag are only 4 points apart as a DF. However, skill-wise, he has everything he could want: Galeforce, Aggressor, Luna, Axefaire (or Tomefaire), and of course Limit Breaker. The class's provided Pair Up bonuses aren't bad (Str/Res +5, Mag/Spd +3, counting support level but not base stat bonuses), though not quite as optimized as Berserker would be (Str +7, Spd +5); the +Mag is a bit of a waste, but that's the price you pay for Brady being versatile like that.
I have no direct experience so I can't really say how it works in practice, but in theory it's fine. Not gonna rock anyone's socks off, but it shouldn't disappoint you either.