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I'm sorry, but you're off base here. The dollar being the world's reserve currency helps the US government, certainly, but not to an extreme degree. This column helps explain why. The Fed goes to a lot of effort to keep inflation low, especially recently. Hyperinflation isn't an issue for the dollar right now partly because of that, but also because people want dollars (at the moment) and the US government is seen as fairly stable and backed by a massive economy. People like dollars because they're stable. That being said, they can't borrow as much as they want to, nor can they just start printing more when they need it, because that would cause hyperinflation.

Saying that the US "never has to worry about the cost of anything" is ludicrous. The US hasn't funded lots of programs because they would be too expensive, and a lot of the Presidential candidates talk about the budget and making sure it doesn't grow too unbalanced. It has lots more money than other countries, but that's largely because it has a pretty good economy (compared with other First World countries) and the third largest population of any country. It also prioritizes military spending, as you pointed out, so it's easier to get more money for that (although another trillion would be a difficult sell).

For a site supposedly for nerds the nerds sure are short sighted when it comes to technology

I think you are missing the point here. My comment was to not say that this is impossible, but exactly what I said: the technical problems are immense. If he can get over them, that's great, but it is worth appreciating how difficult this is likely to be.

Actually, when you look at after-tax compensation, average wages have risen. Not to mention that adjusting wages for inflation without taking into account how much better a lot of goods are than they used to be is silly. In addition, there are more women working now, and basic supply and demand says that when you have more people entering the workforce, wages go up more slowly than they would otherwise.

I think people don't understand what the Pulitzer Prize is for these days. Once upon a time, it was given to inspire journalist excellence, but these days it is just a back-patting that says, "we endorse and agree with your leftist views." Just look at the prizes for Investigative Reporting - seven years into Obama's term and not a single Pulitzer has been awarded for investigating corruption and criminal behavior in his administration. Not one. And this from a scandal-ridden Presidency that is ripe for old-fashioned, shoe-leather, crusading journalists to expose to the light of day.

I don't see anything condemning any leftists at all. You have to go back 20 years ago to find a Prize awarded for an investigation of the Nation of Islam's questionable business dealings. Can you imagine this sort of thing going on today? A journalist would never receive a Pulitzer for doing this sort of story, in fact they'd probably be publicly shamed, fired, and rendered unemployable. So, let's all remember what the Pulitzer Prize actually is and what it stands for.

Its nice to see that the wall street journal is working on raising the quality level of articles they publish

We could spend less than 1% of our GDP on defense and still have a larger military than most countries out there.

Thanks for making my point.

Second, what infrastructure? Be specific.

Is "public" a specific enough modifier for you?

I was a truck driver for years, and if you're going to mention highways and bridges - don't bother. You're wrong.

I don't find your personal anecdotal experience very compelling. I find multiple reports from credible sources far more convincing.

We are responsible for quite a few things, military-wise...[blah blah blah]

I asked for accomplishments, not responsibilities. Care to try again?

Did you even read that link?

No. Why would I? All I did was accurately observe that you didn't add anything to the discussion.

I defined "threat" by the only measure it should be defined: based on the actual reality of the situation [...] Is that the reality? Yes.

Uh huh. Another prick on the internet who claims to know the true reality of the situation.

We face a much larger threat from people who can't use their brain properly.

I assume that would that include people who claim that North Korea "shot a missle over Japan", right?

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs...

Prove it.

Given the number of times they've been caught lying in the past — including very recent past — the burden of proof is on Iran — and its apologists. The same apologists, who have no problems protesting Iran's innocence, while at the same time arguing for their right to have nuclear weapons...

Oh, and TFA itself is proof — the argument, that Iran are doing it "for energy" is defeated by the simple Math presented here.

It is admirable, that you wish to apply the "innocent until proven guilty" principle even to foreign regimes, but it is also naïve. Even in the legal system and offender on probation has to continuously prove innocence...

But realize that the propaganda machine is using the WMD line to trance you into gearing up for war, just like they did for Iraq.

So, your argument for Iran's innocence is our attack on Iraq? I fail to see a connection... The above-enumerated lies are totally independent of whether or not I am unduly influenced by some ominous propagandists — whom you would not even cite.

Have you considered the possibility, that it just might be you, who are a propaganda-victim? A "deal" with Iran (and Cuba) is the only good legacy Obama can have: despite all the Statist interventions (like the "Cash for Clunkers" flop) the economy is contracting, the Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia should've been Georgia-related and tightened instead of abolished in 2010, Obamacare is increasingly unpopular.

Bringing "peace for our time" with the mullahs would be — he foolishly thinks — something he could point a finger at. The way Clinton can point to his — equally foolish deal with North Korea. This is why they push for the "deal" — the same inept morons, who tried to befriend Putin with a plastic button...

I have noticed that the teachers with M.Ed.s' and Ed.D.s' are, in fact, better teachers.

There is plenty of research showing that advanced education degrees add NO value to the classroom. From the citation: The fact that teachers with master’s degrees are no more effective in the classroom, on average, than their colleagues without advanced degrees is one of the most consistent findings in education research.

Wind is cheaper than coal, since a decade more or less.

Citation needed

Wait, how about I provide one:

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs...

"Wind power is the second most expensive. It costs nearly 6 cents more per KWH (than coal)"

solar is about to become cheaper right now.

Not even close...

From the above: "Adding up the net energy cost and the net capacity cost of the five low-carbon alternatives, far and away the most expensive is solar. It costs almost 19 cents more per KWH than power from the coal or gas plants that it displaces."

You are wrong about the power bill, you are also wrong about the heat or coldness of germany. The summer here is more or less like yours.

What parts of Germany regularly hit 40c and spend about a month at that temp?

Last time you talked about your bill you said you spent like $300 per month. I spend 120EURO per month.

So despite the fact that my price per kWh is higher, I pay less ... and yes you already told me your house/flat is much bigger. Does not change the fact about our bills and that you likely waste a lot of energy.

My house is 353 sqm, how big is yours? The total bill doesn't matter nearly so much as the cost per sqm.

So I'm paying about 85 cents per sqm per month in power, on average. What is your per-sqm average?

And I'm not even taking into account that I work from home, thus use more power than the average person does anyway, since I'm here all day.

Regarding the standard of living, only the upper 5 or 10 percent of the americans have a comparable living standard of an average european.

Citation needed.

When have government ever gotten science right?
Really? The fact you would even ask that shows your ignorance.

Setting aside crank politicians who pass laws saying "abortion is reversible", or bring snowballs to show and tell on the floor of the Senate, the answer is "nearly always". The majority of research in this country is backed by the government in some way.

We know how and why aircraft fly because of extensive research by NACA (and no, it's not that stuff you were taught in school about Bernoulli), who then became NASA. the same NASA that then perfected spaceflight, put us on the moon, and is even responsible for a large share of the research and data gathering on climate thanks to their extensive collection of science satellites.

There's the National Institute of Health, the CDC, and other medical research entities of the government.

There's the Pie in the Sky crazy projects division we know as DARPA. That would be the same DARPA responsible for the internet you are now using, space based data sensors to monitor the planet, GPS, nuclear launch detection, extensive material science breakthroughs, and computer science, and a few thousand other things we now take for granted. In fact, a large portion of the science and engineering occurring even in private industry in the 70's occurred as a result of a "brain drain" from DARPA, when many of its engineers and researchers left the agency as a result of budget cuts; those people went on to push the limits at Bell Labs, Xerox, 3M, and others.

Really, the list is HUGE.

Airplanes, cancer, space, lasers, computers, networking, cryptography, robotics, cars, agriculture, genetics, climate science, physics, chemistry, materials science, artificial intelligence, molecular biology, archaeology, medical imaging, data storge methods....and I've probably only covered less than 1% of the achievements of government led research.

Government rarely gets science right you say?
No son, Government rarely gets it wrong.

And when it does, it's usually because of undue influence and meddling like this here "secret science" bill.
---

Government's Greatest Achievements of the Past Half Century: http://www.brookings.edu/resea...
Why Do Basic Research: http://publications.nigms.nih....
The High Return on Investment for Publicly Funded Research: https://www.americanprogress.o...

The cost of living in San Francisco is 68% more than Kansas City (source: http://www.bankrate.com/calcul...). According to Brooking's Institute report the average salary for a tech job is 96% more (source: http://www.brookings.edu/resea...). So it all depends where you fall in that spectrum. I wouldn't be surprised if some one-percenters are skewing the San Francisco average. Last time I compared salaries, it was less than a 50% increase for me to work at Apple, but I didn't compare any other companies.

The vast majority of people have no problem affording a college degree in the US.

http://www.brookings.edu/resea...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/je...

People ending up with high student loan debts and an inability to pay it back are a small number of people who made a series of bad choices, like going to Harvard or Brown, majoring in Women's Studies or Journalism, and paying for it with student loans. If you do something that stupid, you should have to suffer the financial consequences yourself.

Google and Apple can help them by making the encryption breakable.

Nope, that battle has already been fought. That would constitute compelled speech.

They can compel the company to provide information (such as source code) for their current data. Subpoenas have been doing that for decades.

They can compel the company to help them perform certain research.

They can even use NSLs to compel the company to intercept certain communications.

But at least so far, they cannot compel the company to modify their product to become defective.They still need to do that themselves, commonly by intercepting shipments or less commonly modifying chips inside the supply chain. Note that both routes are considered clandestine, they don't compel the business to intentionally release a faulty product, instead they just sabotage the results.

While I agree, there is another interrelated effect hidden there: Women with more money are typically older (obviously more time to acquire it and have often delayed childbearing).

People who are older (more mature on average?) when they marry have lower divorce rates.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs...

It was not your over a regulated banking system that prevented the problem It was good business sense.

I disagree. I don't think Canadian bankers have any more business sense the US bankers. If they could have gone on the wild subprime mortgage ride, they probably would have. But strict government regulations limited what they could do. So our banks had "dismal" profits in 2007 compared to US banks, but at least they were all still standing in 2009. See this analysis for example.

Did you know that we actually have done economic studies that show the impact of raising the minimum wage, and how little it actually helps the impoverished? According to a study published in the Southern Economic Journal in 2010, raising the federal minimum wage from then $7.25 to $9.50 would only benefit11.3% of those living in poverty, if you ignore any possible negative repercussions. However, coupled with negative employment effects, the conclusion is that it'd be a net loss.

I haven't seen a study yet that looked at raising the rates over 100% to $15, but I suspect that'd it'll end up even worse.

One of the concerns is that new unskilled workers - high schoolers and college kids - will be disproportionally targeted. After all, if your employment costs double, you can't risk someone with no proven work history when there's older, experienced individuals with responsibilities who can't afford to mess up a job around.

Another impact is that non-national chain stores will be severely impacted. Sole proprietorships - the Ma and Pa stores of mythical Main Street USA - will take great hits. These businesses usually lack the flexibility to provide employment as a loss-leader, and often don't have the option of doubling their employment budget. They'll have to make do with less, or simply not operate as a business.

So where's the fix?

What a lot of this comes down to is what I feel is an incorrect assumption; that minimum wage jobs are life-long careers, and that we intend for someone to work as an unskilled laborer for their entire life. The Brookings institute did a study/a - which does not prove causation, you know the drill - that showed that if a person could graduate highschool, get a full time job, and avoid marriage until after 21, they had only a 2% chance of living below the poverty line. In other words, analyzing the current population, that 15-20% that are living below the poverty line, 98% of them did not do at least one of those things.

There's heavy selection bias here, where the lifestyles that lead to success may coincidentally include these 3 goals, but that's part of the point.

We need to focus on education and long term planning - especially financial - and encourage a strong work ethic. Reducing the ability for highschool-aged folks to get jobs is almost the direct opposite direction. We need to focus on providing a path to skilled labor, blue or white collar, and realize that unskilled labor is primarily the domain of those just entering the workforce, not someone who's been in it for years.

I've been seeing the opposite data. Wages have increased in areas with high H1B demand: http://www.brookings.edu/~/med... Could you please quote sources to justify your position, in case I've been drinking the wrong koolaid.

entire program will be dead by years end.

- and so will many businesses and so will many lower prices.

USA needs the H-1B entries to lower prices, USA needs to start competing on lower labour prices, because it clearly can't compete on business climate, the business taxes are highest in the world, the business regulations are most expensive in the world (and /. geniuses want more and then get upset when it is pointed out to them), the inflation is highest in the world, the trade deficit is highest in the world, the labour participation rate is lowest since 1978, the business creation rate is lower than business destruction.

USA inflation is insane, the Fed's chairwoman is as ignorant and pretty much as dumb as a doorknob or at least she is pretending to be and the crowd cheers as the Fed is actually driving economic policy via the monetary policy of self destruction.

More government regulations? Sure, a little salt on that gangrene invested wound wouldn't hurt much more at this point.

Right, because the government did such a fantastic job setting up AT&T that way (PDF, pp 56-58), except it destroyed all competition in that sector for almost hundred years, preventing prices from falling and choices from being created, technology from moving forward, people from having freedoms as well, by the way, not that somebody like you would care.

According to this data from the Brookings institute, more businesses are shutting down than are being created and this is interesting, given the latest fake employment numbers by the government, which boasted that 288,000 jobs were created completely failing to mention that 234,000 of them were not actually created but assumed, because government assumed that new businesses started hiring last month, that's the so called 'birth-death' model. ASSUMED that 81% of the jobs were created, not counted them. That's in the month that saw near 1,000,000 people leaving the labour force, so now the labour participation rate in USA is lowest since 1978. This is on top of the 44+ BILLION USD / month trade deficit.

So now tell me, do you think that new businesses will be created in the USA with more regulations or will there be fewer businesses created (if any)? Do you think that more regulations will cause lower prices given what we know about government created monopolies, such as AT&T, which did by the way have the common carrier title? That was the POINT of creating that gigantic barrier to entry into the telecommunications business, creating that title to prevent competition from entering the field and from lowering prices.

Given what is going on with the USA economy, trade deficits, labour participation rates, basic inflation (money printing), I am wondering how can you not see that anything that you can come up with that government could do in order, supposedly to reduce your costs will only take the costs higher?

It's an interesting dichotomy, you are not looking beyond your nose and you are clearly oblivious to everything, history, economics, politics.

They did that up until the 1970's.

Here is the AEC putting "low level waste" in cardboard boxes in a trench. http://www.brookings.edu/about...

in fact, the cluster bombs and fuel-air explosives we've been using in Iraq and Afghanistan have considerably more explosive power than tactical nuclear weapons.

There is no sensible need to have tactical nuclear weapons. They do nothing for MAD, since they are not all that destructive, and they just encourage proliferation.

Your position differs with that of some of the best games theorists and strategic thinkers on the planet:

http://www.brookings.edu/~/med...
http://www.brookings.edu/~/med...
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/fi...

I'll trust them, until I see your equivalent credentials.

in fact, the cluster bombs and fuel-air explosives we've been using in Iraq and Afghanistan have considerably more explosive power than tactical nuclear weapons.

There is no sensible need to have tactical nuclear weapons. They do nothing for MAD, since they are not all that destructive, and they just encourage proliferation.

Your position differs with that of some of the best games theorists and strategic thinkers on the planet:

http://www.brookings.edu/~/med...
http://www.brookings.edu/~/med...
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/fi...

I'll trust them, until I see your equivalent credentials.

This articles looks at marriage rates by income levels. Given that technology professions typically pay above averages wages, perhaps it's not surprising that geeks have marriage rates that are similar to other white collar professionals.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/jobs/posts/2012/02/03-jobs-greenstone-looney

First, the development of "The Bomb" had been horrendously expensive

"The Bomb" was a mind-bendingly cheap and awesomely rapidly developed piece of world-changing technology. Anecdotally, it has been known for a long time that the total cost of the project during WW 2 was about $2 billion in contemporary dollars.

A detailed audit of nuclear weapons costs was completed in 1998, and the part from pre-Manhattan-Project research beginning in 1940, after 1939's Einstein-Szilard letter, through FDR's formal approval of the program in October 1941, through and past the end of the war until December 31, 1945 determined the total cost to be:

$1,889,604,000 in contemporray dollars, corresponding to
$21,570,821,000 in constant 1996 dollars

That compares to a total outlay for WW 2, for the US alone, of:

$296,000 000 000, corresponding to
$4,114,000,000,000 in constant 2008 dollars

In other words, the Manhattan Project accounted for 0.6% of all US WW 2 spending. More was spent on small arms alone (NOT ammunition) than for the Manhattan Project.

Parenthetically, the absurdity of post-9/11 domestic security enhancements alone (Operation Noble Eagle) saw about 50% more real dollars spent than the Manhattan Project! That's $33 billion spent to counter an outlay of well under a million dollars by Al Qaeda - a few airline tickets, living expenses for 20 people for a few months to a few years, and elementary flight training. Is a minimum of three million percent of differential asymmetrical enough to impress?

At least in the context of the whole world. The fact that the process has broken down, especially in America, is as a result of previous exclusion of large parts of the world's population from economic growth. Now that the factors that were preventing their sharing in the benefits have been removed, we are seeing a RAPID reduction in rates of absolute poverty around the world. See http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2013/ending-extreme-poverty for the data. Which is not to claim that capitalism is perfect; the tendency for monopolistic behaviour is a major danger, but the potential for effective relief of poverty, is, according to world experience in the past 60 years, clearly in favour of capitalism.

If they don't focus on making money, their shareholders can sue them. Companies are there to make money, they can't be twisted into innovation factories. If they could we'd probably have free energy and plentiful drinking water by now.

Anyone can sue anyone for anything. (Whether or not they can do so successfully, or without being sanctioned, is another story -- I just won a nice attorney fee award from a father (lawyer) son (douchebag) team that sued a client of mine in state court, and then dismissed when we filed the Anti-SLAPP Motion to Strike I'd warned them repeatedly was coming... sigh...)

That said, the "must increase shareholder value" trope is a myth: "This common and widespread perception lacks any solid basis in actual corporate law." http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/6/18%20corporate%20stout/stout_corporate%20issues.pdf (p. 4)

If a business wanted to spend three years on R&D, as long as the directors embarked on that path in good faith, with appropriate consideration and care, and reasonably believed that they were acting in the best interests of the company, they'd be able to do so under, e.g., the Business Judgment Rule.

Class-size reduction has been shown to work for some students in some grades in some states and countries, but its impact has been found to be mixed or not discernable in other settings and circumstances that seem similar. It is very expensive. The costs and benefits of class-size mandates need to be carefully weighed against all of the alternatives when difficult budget and program decisions must be made.

Fine, then feel free to present your evidence. Oh wait, you don't have any.

Just for fun, here are some other reports
from 2012: http://milescorak.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/inequality-from-generation-to-generation-the-united-states-in-comparison-v3.pdf
from 2010: http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/02/moving_on_up_and_hitting_a_wall_social_mobility_in_the_us_and_europe.html
from 2009: http://search.oecd.org/officialdocuments/displaydocumentpdf/?doclanguage=en&cote=eco/wkp(2009)48
from 2008: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2008/2/economic%20mobility%20sawhill/02_economic_mobility_sawhill_ch3.pdf
Or some historical numbers:
http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/working_papers/2005/wp2005_12.pdf

That last study finds that "mobility increased from 1950 to 1980 but has declined sharply since 1980". I guess the economy must have entered a sharp decline since 1980.

Oh wait....it didn't.

Nobody cares enough about Africa to listen in on them. The only thing Africa has is resources, and China already is buying them. Is the infrastructure subject to surveillance? Sure, but every infrastructure is, even heterogeneous ones like the US.

So, nothing to see in Africa? Just move along? I don't think so.

Just like Europe, South America, and Asia, Africa is an entire continent of nations, some of which have drawn considerable attention in the last couple of years. I assume you've heard of Libya? Egypt? Algeria? South Africa? There is a lot going on in Africa, and the Chinese are heavily involved. There are plenty of things they might want to listen to.

Africa has more mobile phone users than the U.S. or E.U.
How mobile phones are making cash obsolete in Africa
European Rocket Launches 2 African Satellites

China and Africa: What the U.S. doesn't understand

Seven out of the world's 10 fastest growing economies are African. According to a 2010 report by consulting firm McKinsey & Company, the rate of return on foreign investments in Africa was, in the first decade of this century, higher than in any other region. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected that Africa is now growing faster than Asia.

Sino-African trade volumes have grown accordingly. Negligible in 2000, trade hit $198.5 billion in 2012. By comparison, U.S.-Africa trade volume was $108.9 billon, and is slated to fall further behind: Research from Standard Chartered estimates that trade between China and Africa will hit $385 billion by 2015

MAP: Here Are All Of The Big Chinese Investments In Africa Since 2010
China’s Increasing Interest in Africa: Benign but Hardly Altruistic

South Africa Could Have a Spaceport

The Republic of South Africa has considered using Israel's Shavit space booster to send a satellite to orbit. The South Africans have tested the Israeli Jericho 2 intermediate-range ballistic missile which converts to the Shavit space rocket.

International Effort Seeks to Counter Jihadists in Africa

China To Establish A Naval Base Around Somalia

As the threat of piracy continues. And as Somali pirates continue with their awkward trade to kidnap foreign ships, a Chinese Admiral has revealed China’s proposal to establish a naval base in the region in its commitment to thwart piracy and finally end this tragedy in the gulf of Eden. The lazy pirates who have no intentions to pursue an education or employment see piracy as an easy way to make money. About 75% of piracy in the region is being masterminded by terror groups to finance their illegal activities.

Rear Admiral Yin Zhou’s, a senior Chinese naval officer has suggested that China will establish a permanent base in the Gulf of Aden to aid its anti-piracy operations. The proposal was posted on China’s Defence ministry website. The Admiral went on to say that supplying and maintaining the fleet off Somalia was challenging without such a base, and said other nations were unlikely to object. The Chinese navy curr

States are spending more than ever.

Which is false, like most Republican talking points. Yet moderated 5 Interesting because it has truthiness to it: "yeah, we are paying too much taxes, [takes swig from beer]".

States today are spending less than they did in 1990 if you consider local revenues only and the same as they did in 1974 if you add federal grants:

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Articles/2012/12/state%20local%20budgets%20gordon/state%20local%20budgets%20gordon%20fig%201.jpg

The fraction of government-employed workers is not that high in US, relative to other countries. And it has been dropping consistently, currently down to the lowest levels in the past few decades. So you're barking up the wrong tree.

Preface: For the record, I didn't vote for either of the last two Presidents (or their major opponents), but I can and will defend another's record if I feel it is misstated.

I not only searched for but I RTFAs to research this... Obama's military history, before this bit of research, was passe to me, no really big news like wars, no unusually high troop deaths or such.

First, from what I can find, the PDF below (military intervention in Arab Spring uprisings, published in 2011) below shows US military intervention in the Arab Spring has consisted of:
  * Bahrain – None.
  * Libya – UN forces led by France and the UK (with UAE and Qatar air force involvement), US involvement involved some naval assets firing Tomahawk missiles to disable the Libyan air defenses. After that we provided aid to our European allies but no combat forces.
  * Syria – Some aid to the rebels up to this point.

http://cdn.www.inss.org.il.reblazecdn.net/upload/(FILE)1359898292.pdf

As well, looking over the various Arab Spring movements, there are many that didn't have any external military intervention (more countries than I thought):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Arab_Spring

And for a summary, from late 2011, it's a good summary that opines his military intervention record isn't bad:
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2011/10/26-obama-ohanlon

In no way am I disparaging your comment, my intent is to determine the true measure of Obama's military intervention history, and we can certainly have differing opinions as of things that have happened. I know my sources are a couple of years old, so I could be missing something (even something obvious that I already know....), is there more to the story than this?

Oh, and Congress was the problem with Guantanamo Bay, it is the most blatant bit of human indignity and torture in our recent future. I'm sure it has created 100 times the number of terrorists as their are captives. Solution: Send everyone to the country of their citizenship, or birth. No returns accepted. Give Cuba the base for free, they'll probably make a museum out of it...

6th degree of Bacon related, open up relations with Cuba for heaven's sake...

In fact you can quantify the effect that the rich tend to stay rich in the US and the poor are stuck in poverty using something called the "intergenerational mobility index". Basically, the US is one of the worst countries in this regard and it has gotten that way mostly over the last few decades. Here is a summary from "The Price of Inequality," by J. Stiglitz, p. 18.

"It is at the bottom and the top where the United States performs especially badly: those at the bottom have a good chance of staying there, as do those at the top, and much more so than in other countries. With full equality of opportunity, 20 percent of those in the bottom fifth would see their childen in the bottom fifth. Denmark almost achieves that - 25% are stuck there. Britain, supposedly notorious for its class divisions, does only a little worse (30%). That means they have a 70% chance of moving up. The chances of moving up in America, though, are markedly smaller (only 58% of the children born to the bottom group make it out)."

Data on these claims:
"Some 62% of the children of those in the top quintile wind up in the top 40%"
from "Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America:" http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2008/02/economic-mobility-sawhill

You seem to not have read the part of my post where I mention the subsidies, but your point is valid. We can then take the true cost of the electric car and compare it to the true cost of the gas car. This study found the total costs borne by both consumer and taxpayer for every gallon of gasoline burned to be $15.14 in 2007 (if you don't follow the link, they include medical, environmental, and military costs as well). A 2012 study and a 2011 study both found the total cost of dirty coal-fired electricity to be less than 9 cents per kilowatt hour.

Now take your average new compact gasoline car at 28 mpg, and a Nissan LEAF which gets about 3.6 mi/kWh. To go 1000 miles on gas, you burn 35.7 gallons, which equals $540.71 in total societal costs. Now to go those same 1000 miles in the LEAF, on 277.8 kWh of electricity, it costs society $25. The electric car costs just 4.6% of an equivalent gas car when all these factors are taken into account. Over a 100,000 mile life span, the electric car saves $51,571, more than five times the typical production subsidy. The conclusion, then, is that the taxpayer gets an incredible return on investment for electric vehicle subsidies.

If you can find numbers that contradict mine, please post them. I could not find any concrete facts on sites with opposing biases, so I must assume they have motivations other than scientific accuracy.

If you click through to the article that makes the 70% claim, you realize that it says "An analysis of data from 371 transit providers in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas reveals that: Nearly 70 percent of large metropolitan residents live in neighborhoods with access to transit service of some kind."

So, it's not that 70% of Americans have access to public transportation; it's 70% of the people that live in the top 100 largest metro areas. What is the percentage overall, and what is the percentage of people that don't live in the top 100 metro areas? It's probably pretty low.

From the article you linked:

Chinese business culture values interpersonal over institutional relationships, and business decisions are often oriented towards short-term profit. There is also a lack of transparency and oversight, which has been linked to a high degree of corruption.

Right, because stuff like that would never happen in the United States...

You should go occupy a street and send someone a message......

From the article you linked:

Chinese business culture values interpersonal over institutional relationships, and business decisions are often oriented towards short-term profit. There is also a lack of transparency and oversight, which has been linked to a high degree of corruption.

Right, because stuff like that would never happen in the United States...

The Chinese policy is not really one to emulate. Here are some resources explaining why:

1. China’s Population Destiny: The Looming Crisis. This explains the demographic changes (way to many men due to the excessing aborting of girls), and an aging population that will likely cause much of China to become old before they become rich. If that proves to be true and Chinese economic growth stalls then the policy may even prove to be counter productive over a longer time frame since poorer people have higher birthrates.

2. Encourages Voluntary Limits, A June 1998 report from U.S. Embassy Beijing.. This explains that China's policy is not that effective as compared with voluntary efforts.

All this is well explained in the recent Ted talk by Hans Rosling: Hans Rosling: Religions and babies

Rosling's talk also makes it clear that religion has very little effect if any. The main consideration is the economic well being of the population. A prosperous people will have fewer children because they do not rely on the children for their "social security", so there is no need to have as many children as possible to ensure their own future welfare. Also, the children of economically well off people are also well cared for, and expensive, so people have fewer of them.

Of course global waning cannot be denied. A few years ago I was more open minded regarded climate skepticism, but the berkeley study(skeptical science finds evidence for global warming), plus this recent weather has removed all my doubts regarding climate change.

EMP testing trestle with B-52:

http://www.brookings.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/trestle.jpg

Threats to cabinet-level officials aren't overblown... a nuclear bomb hidden in a suitcase detonated in Washington could leave a headless government.

No, not overblown in the slightest.

That's right, it isn't. The gentleman on the left is pointing to the warhead of an atomic demolition munition.

Specifications of W54

All four variants share the same basic core: a nuclear system which is 10.75 inches diameter (270 mm), about 15.7 inches long (400 mm), and weighs around or slightly over 50 pounds (23 kg).

Ativa® Mobil-IT Ultimate Workmate, 14"H x 14.25"W x 14.25"D, Black

It looks like the only thing that might save us is that there isn't luggage that is 1.5" longer than the Ativa® Mobil-IT Ultimate Workmate. Apparently it is physically impossible to build luggage as large as 11"x16" since the above is the "Ultimate".

Oh oh, bad news! Although we might not be at risk from suitcase nukes until they can breach the 1.5" barrier in suitcase length that protects us, it appears that tuba case nukes look like a sure thing. So, maybe we aren't safe after all?

The U.S. has joined Iran, North Korea etc. on my list of "Places that are too dangerous to visit right now."

This makes me believe that you've never been to any of those places, and that you spend too much time listening to lunatics on-line/in print/on television.

Sure, we've passed some wacky laws recently, but for 99.999999999999999% of people here, life hasn't changed a ton since the 90's (except maybe a bit less financial stupidity). That opinion might not be popular if you live in Detroit or any other large, industry based city, but it's true.

The closest center for urban decay to my geographical location is Chicago. Even its worst neighborhoods are startlingly safe compared to what the media would have you believe. SURE, don't walk around flashing money, but that rule applies in every urban center, regardless of crime rate.

This tells me that crime rates are dropping across the nation. There are more out there, a quick search turned up two other sites to support my claims.

It has been my experience that the people that bitch the loudest about how terrible it is here are the people who have never really traveled outside of their county, let alone state, or (God forbid) country.

Or, I could be all wet on this one, but I doubt it.

Sadly, it has to be scrapped. Removing the reactors requires cutting out decks from the flight deck down to all eight nuclear reactor compartments. The hull gets towed to Bremerton, WA for disposal. The reactors, less fuel, go to a trench in Hanford, Washington.

There are many different tasks and functions for which the military and government agencies use the public/commodity internet. There are also various levels of private networks for more sensitive requirements.

None of that, however stops the NSA from operating under the assumption that its networks are compromised.

Brookings just put out a great paper on a related topic, Cybersecurity and U.S.-China Relations (PDF). It's worth a read.

It's a good idea. See:
"How to Do Agent-Based Simulations in the Future: From Modeling Social Mechanisms to Emergent Phenomena and Interactive Systems Design "
http://www.santafe.edu/media/workingpapers/11-06-024.pdf
"Since the advent of computers, the natural and engineering sciences have enormously progressed. Computer simulations allow one to understand interactions of physical particles and make sense of astronomical observations, to describe many chemical properties ab initio, and to design energy-efficient aircrafts and safer cars. Today, the use of computational devices is pervasive. Offices, administrations, financial trading, economic exchange, the control of infrastructure networks, and a large share of our communication would not be conceivable without the use of computers anymore. Hence, it would be very surprising, if computers could not make a contribution to a better understanding of social and economic systems. While relevant also for the statistical analysis of data and data-driven efforts to reveal patterns of human interaction, we will focus here on the prospects of computer simulation of social and economic systems. More specifically, we will discuss the techniques of agent-based modeling (ABM) and multi-agent simulation (MAS), including the challenges, perspectives and limitations of the approach. In doing so, we will discuss a number of issues, which have not been covered by the excellent books and review papers available so far. In particular, we will de- scribe the different steps belonging to a thorough agent-based simulation study, and try to explain, how to do them right from a scientific perspective. To some extent, computer simulation can be seen as experimental technique for hypothesis testing and scenario analysis, which can be used complementary and in combination with experiments in real-life, the lab or the Web."

And also:
http://www.brookings.edu/topics/agent-based-models.aspx

Or what I started almost a decade ago, but then had a kid and left on the back burner:
  http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/simulchaord
"This project is mainly to develop simulations of chaordic organizations, processes, and systems under the GPL license, with "chaordic" used as defined by Dee Hock at http://www.chaordic.org/ and in his book "Birth of the Chaordic Age"."

Something on the idea of a campaign to get more free software written about manstream and alternative economics:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2356864&cid=36936914

No.

Just birthrates of the population susceptible to financial inducements.

Meanwhile...
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2003/03middleeast_taspinar.aspx

Muslims in Europe and Hispanics in the US are reproducing at high rates. They will come to dominate the population and then their high population values will continue population growth in those areas.

I've looked at this also, one apparently scholarly source Road Work mentions the 4th-power rules, but then asserts that it is really only the cube. Either way, it's a big number. Road Work is all about setting an appropriate tax policy for maintaining roads; they advocate taxing trucks more, but spending that money to build more durable roads (that minimizes the total based-on-damage tax).

Erm, looks like I grabbed the wrong spectrum. 420-440, not 400-420. Let's see: I found a different page that lists "satellites, Pave Paws radar systems, radio beacons, military and Amateur Radio operators." I double checked PAVE PAWS (the radar system designed to detect and track ICBMs and satellites), and indeed, it's 435mhz. The radar installations are bloody huge, so I hope that if this passes, they can be reconfigured.

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2008/02_economic_mobility_sawhill/02_economic_mobility_sawhill_ch1.pdf

Using the data from the second link, which you claim valid.
Read the section titled:
RELATIVE MOBILITY:
CHILDREN’S PROSPECTS
ARE LIMITED BY FAMILY
BACKGROUND

But you'll probably dismiss the brookings institute as biased.

As the Federal CIO sang the praises of Amazon.com-backed Animoto's use of the Amazon Cloud, the Chairman of the Recovery Board decided giving Amazon the contract to host Recovery.gov was the right thing to do, and called on the public to 'imagine if other, much larger federal agencies were to follow our lead.'

Credit for deciding to tap Amazon was given to government contractor Smartronix, who reportedly used AWS in the development and testing of recovery.gov, but did not go live with it in the initial roll-out.

The government planned to find another home for the more than $1 million in computer hardware and software that were previously purchased to host the (apparently) relatively low-traffic Recovery.gov site, but were no longer needed after hosting was switched to Amazon.

"Yup. Why use tactical nukes when MOABs & Daisy-cutters work just as well".

In what alternate universe do these little weapons with _tons_ of yield work "just as well" in destroying hard military targets compared to devices that yield in _kilotons_?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/blu-82.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/moab.htm

http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/b61.aspx