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Agreed that the refrigerator (along with birth control) is one of the most disruptive technologies in the past 100 years. However, this is not yet the case for the world at large. Only 27% of people in India own a refrigerator. In the West we take things like refrigeration and toilets for granted...

Unlike Capitalism, Globalization is a giant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... WITHOUT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... AND http://worldif.economist.com/a...

The Economist is a very pro-business magazine. Here's what they said about patents and the TPP:

"The cost of the innovation that never takes place because of the flawed patent system is incalculable. Patent protection is spreading, through deals such as the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership, which promises to cover one-third of world trade. The aim should be to fix the system, not make it more pervasive."

-- The Economist, "Time to fix patents", 8 August 2015

If you look at how this law case started, it was initiated by a private citizen. Not by the EU executive branch. The EU justice branch made a decision that the EU justice branch is visibly not comfortable with, because it places a lot of companies in legal limbo. Read more here:

http://www.economist.com/news/...

Because the EU executive branch did nothing about it themselves . . . well, it shows that they were in cahoots with the USA/NSA folks.

So in this case, it is not a shakedown by the EU. The EU governments and Executive branch were perfectly happy with the way things were. It was a private citizen who appealed to the EU highest court that caused this.

It's harder than you're probably giving it credit for, especially for miles-long freight trains, where a hill can mean one segment of the train is accelerating while another is decelerating. We're just about there, though, insofar as we have software that automatically drives throttle, brakes, and other controls. Link:

Norfolk Southern, an American rail operator, now pulls roughly one-sixth of its freight using locomotives equipped with "route optimisation" software. By crunching numbers on a train's weight distribution and a route's curves, grades and speed limits, the software, called Leader, can instruct operators on optimum accelerating and braking to minimise fuel costs. Installing the software and linking it wirelessly to back-office computers is expensive, says Coleman Lawrence, head of the company's 4,000-strong locomotive fleet. But the software cuts costs dramatically, reducing fuel consumption by about 5%. That is a big deal for a firm that spent $1.6 billion on diesel in 2012. Mr Lawrence reckons that by 2016 Norfolk Southern may be pulling half its freight with Leader-upgraded locomotives. A competing system sold by GE, Trip Optimizer, goes further and operates the throttle and brakes automatically.

Notice all these shootings seem to be happening in "gun free zones"?

Yep, 'cause the shooters are 100% cowards. Arm more people? Wrong. There will ALWAYS be somewhere where you can't have guns, so the cowards will end up there. The answer my friend is to stop the cowards getting the guns.

"But we need them to be able to form a militia to keep our rights".
That worked out well:
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers

http://worldif.economist.com/a...

American college football does not have to make sense. Check out this book review from The Economist:

http://www.economist.com/news/...

Unlike Capitalism, Globalization is a giant Pyramid scheme and Zero-sum WITHOUT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... AND http://worldif.economist.com/a...

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?

Unlike Capitalism, Globalization is a giant Pyramid scheme and Zero-sum WITHOUT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... AND http://worldif.economist.com/a...

The fuel of the future
Environmental lunacy in Europe
The Economist
Apr 6th 2013

WHICH source of renewable energy is most important to the European Union? Solar power, perhaps? (Europe has three-quarters of the world’s total installed capacity of solar photovoltaic energy.) Or wind? (Germany trebled its wind-power capacity in the past decade.) The answer is neither. By far the largest so-called renewable fuel used in Europe is wood.

In its various forms, from sticks to pellets to sawdust, wood (or to use its fashionable name, biomass) accounts for about half of Europe’s renewable-energy consumption. In some countries, such as Poland and Finland, wood meets more than 80% of renewable-energy demand. Even in Germany, home of the Energiewende (energy transformation) which has poured huge subsidies into wind and solar power, 38% of non-fossil fuel consumption comes from the stuff. After years in which European governments have boasted about their high-tech, low-carbon energy revolution, the main beneficiary seems to be the favoured fuel of pre-industrial societies.

The Economist

See also:

Should American Wood Fuel European Power?
Growth of wood-fueled power generation in Europe spurs protests from Southern environmentalists in the U.S.
Scientific American
By Elizabeth Harball and ClimateWire | November 14, 2014

Europe's renewable energy targets drive demand for wood pellets. Other voices in the forestry sector, including Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, said that wood-based energy is renewable because the wood burned is replaced by other trees that take in carbon dioxide, making the process carbon-neutral.

Today, however, it is not U.S. policy that is driving the growth of the wood-fuel sector. Europe depends heavily on wood-based fuels to meet its goal of sourcing 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020.

-- Scientific American

A Diet To Die For
One bird feasts on food that would leave most other animals stone dead
Nov 29th 2014
The Economist

Among an average of 528 types of bacterium found on the heads of 50 turkey and black vultures were those that can cause botulism, gangrene, tetanus, septicaemia, blood clots and metastatic abscesses in other animals. And although these birds did not have it, another study found Bacillus anthracis in vulture faeces. It causes anthrax, except in vultures.

Vultures clearly have strong stomachs, in every sense. With an acidity at least ten times that of a human’s, a vulture’s gut destroys a large amount of any potentially pathogenic bacteria that is ingested. Indeed, when the researchers analysed the contents of each bird’s large intestine, they could not detect some 85% of the micro-organisms they had found on its facial skin.

But what remains is hardly benign. The microbial flora in a vulture’s large intestine is dominated by two types of anaerobic faecal bacteria, Clostridia and Fusobacteria, both of which can be deadly to other animals. Some Clostridia species have been responsible for periodic mass die-offs in birds such as ducks, geese and waders (although other species can be beneficial), while Fusobacteria nucleatum is associated with human colon cancer.

-- The Economist, November 29th, 2014

[Just because seagulls and vultures can do it, doesn't mean terns and albatrosses can]

.
The money I save via the solar panels, I'll probably lose due to the higher fire insurance premiums.

Why lithium batteries keep catching fire

...Lithium batteries are widely used because of their high energy density: in other words, their ability to store a lot of energy in a lightweight, compact form. But they have a tendency to cause expensive machinery to go up in smoke....

Unlike Capitalism, Globalization is Zero-sum; http://worldif.economist.com/a...

Similar issues have shown up in other fields.

Indeed. The biggest issue is statistical ignorance, but even people with a decent amount of training in stats can be fooled if they want to find a particular result. Anyhow, whenever things like this come out, everyone always thinks it's about scientists who manipulate data deliberately. While that happens, it's more often just researchers who "try things out" after collecting data and notice a pattern (unintentionally skewing things). If they have to declare methods and statistical tests beforehand, it's harder to make these errors.

A few months back, I happened upon a very useful guide to the problems in modern scientific publication, which can be found partly online here. I ended up buying the print edition, and the sheer number of examples of completely bogus research ending up being accepted in various scientific fields due to erroneous stats and various biases that creep into the publication process... well, it's just shocking. Seriously.

As the book notes, the other problem is that even finding these errors is incredibly time-consuming and labor-intensive. I specifically remember one case where a new oncology test was proposed by Duke researchers and seemed to have great results. This case eventually became so infamous that it was reported on in the popular media.

Anyhow, basically they had a couple independent statisticians analyze the work (where they found HUGE numbers of problems in mislabeled data, mistakes in analysis and basic computation, etc., which appear par for the course in many labs, if you believe the studies on this stuff in the book). Ultimately, estimates are that it took TWO THOUSANDS HOURS of work for these independent statisticians to complete their analysis and render a verdict.

And once they did this, the statisticians tried to publish it -- but major journals didn't want it. Groundbreaking results are much more interesting that tedious statistical analysis. The National Cancer Institute caught wind of the problems and initiated an independent review, which found no errors (probably because the review was done by cancer experts, not stats experts, and they hadn't been giving the stats analysis done by the other researchers).

The only reason any of this ever really got much attention is because one of the lead researchers was accused of falsifying some aspects of his resume, which led to people actually going back and questioning his papers.

The book is full of stories like this, though, as well as citations of analyses of how many journal articles in various fields suffer from serious statistical problems.

It's all really scary when you start realizing how much bogus research is out there... most of it completely unintentional, and most of it passing peer review because it follows the field's "standard methodologies."

That it was Nevada (mainly Las Vegas) that was coping well and that California was struggling.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21660546-why-las-vegas-has-coped-well-drought-so-far-concrete-oasis?zid=311&ah=308cac674cccf554ce65cf926868bbc2

A quote:

Water-conservation policies in Las Vegas are more advanced than in surrounding states, particularly when compared with California, ...people who insist on keeping their palm trees and lawns must pay hefty sums for that privilege. In California, laws prevent many municipal water suppliers from charging any more than enough to cover their costs--which means that high prices cannot be used to encourage more frugal behaviour.

Here's what The Economist had to say last week about patents and patent reform (August 8 2015):

"Today's patent systems have created a parasitic ecology of trolls who aim to block innovation"
http://www.economist.com/news/...

"Patents are protected by governments because they are held to promote innovation. But there is plenty of evidence that they do not."
http://www.economist.com/node/...

It's a well-researched and thoughtful position.

Here's what The Economist had to say last week about patents and patent reform (August 8 2015):

"Today's patent systems have created a parasitic ecology of trolls who aim to block innovation"
http://www.economist.com/news/...

"Patents are protected by governments because they are held to promote innovation. But there is plenty of evidence that they do not."
http://www.economist.com/node/...

It's a well-researched and thoughtful position.

Here's what The Economist had to say last week about patents and patent reform (August 8 2015):

"Today's patent systems have created a parasitic ecology of trolls who aim to block innovation"
http://www.economist.com/news/...

"Patents are protected by governments because they are held to promote innovation. But there is plenty of evidence that they do not."
http://www.economist.com/node/...

It's a well-researched and thoughtful position.

As to people getting by without a PC but having a console... I've never seen that and I frankly suspect you're talking about unicorns.

If people who don't own a PC and do most of their "computing" on a phone are unicorns, then my cousin is a unicorn, as is a former co-worker.

As to your comment about malware... I don't know what you're talking about. Clarify your position.

Get on a PC and try to watch a video that you found through a search engine, and if it happens to be on a sufficiently shady site, the site will require you to install what it calls a "codec update" or "Flash update". Except this purported update is actually a malware dropper.

As to cockfighting RPGs... there are literally pokemon games... same IP on the PC:

I can't publicly recommend use of blatant infringements lest I be accused of "inducing copyright infringement" per MGM v. Grokster.

there are zillions of the fucking things

Therein lies the problem: finding which of the "zillions of the fucking things" is any good and/or has any community around it. Unlike with consoles, I'm not aware of any review sites that aim to cover 100% of Steam releases. It's called the paradox of choice: with too many choices, the brain gives up and chooses "none of the above".

As to whether I want to dump a game cube for an emulator if I bought a game cube... yes. For the same reason I'd rather listen to an MP3 or a FLAC file than I would a CD or an LP.

By "dump" I mean take a disc and make an image of the data on the disc for use with an emulator, like ripping a CD to FLAC. How do you do that with Neo Geo AES cartridges or with GameCube discs?

Ever played NeoGeo on the android? Its great.

I tried playing NES on an Android tablet. I kept "whiffing", my term for accidentally pressing outside the range of the on-screen buttons. The same thing happened when I tried the free subset of Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure, a Mario clone on Google Play Store. I didn't get very far until I paired my Bluetooth keyboard. Because a flat sheet of glass has no tactile position cues, it's worse than playing on a Turbo Touch 360, and that's saying something. At least a Turbo Touch has physical trigger buttons, edges on the D-pad, and ridges inside the D-pad. True, emulators tend to support external gamepads, but a PlayStation Vita or Nintendo 3DS is far easier to carry than an Android tablet and a Dual Shock 3. If things like the Xperia Play (phone with slide-out gamepad) were still manufactured, or if JXD gaming tablets were sold in brick-and-mortar stores, it'd be different.

Seriously play around on the steam store for a minute and realize that the PC game market has about 10 times as many titles. Are all of them great? Obviously not. Lots of them are shit. But then lots of games on the console are shit as well.

I think the peasants' argument is that for any generation after the second, a random sample of 10 PC games will have noticeably more shit than a random sample of console games.

And then? If a wallet is lost, the bitcoin is lost forever? No way to re-mine it or anything? Because this would be bad for the future of bitcoin. 7% disappeared with the demise of MtGox. A large number got lost to some UK garbage belt. More will be lost to whatever causes. Over time there may be no bitcoin left!

Supply and demand, then the value of all other coins go up. Traditional currencies have inflation because they are printing money faster than old bills get destroyed. This causes the value of traditional currencies to go down over time. It's argued that some inflation is good as it encourages investment or spending (as opposed to keeping it under your mattress). Having a currency with deflation has never been really tested. At the least, some specter cannot decrease it's value by just creating more at will (no, mining bt is different).

http://www.economist.com/blogs...

Mr. Stallman, first I must thank you for The GNU Project, the gift the world doesn't yet appreciate. In a fifty years there will be a statue commemorating your achievement of preventing computers thirty years ago from becoming like iPhones are today. If there isn't I'll have to commission it myself. Thank you for buying us all this time to prevent 1984.

What I'd like to ask is whether you are concerned about how popular and business media conflate Silicon Valley start-ups and Apps with technology and software as a whole. As we all know, the internet has existed since long before MySpace and terms like "bloggers", "new media", "social networking", "big data", etc.

The cover of this week's Economist has a map, shaped like a brain, of various corporate entities which are dominating and strangling the web, entitled "Empire of the Geeks". Corporatization of web is killing communities as users become commodities to be sold to advertisers, or mined for valuable personal information. Users are thus taken for granted. For instance, Reddit is the only web-forum I've used that has a "Board of Directors" and a CEO, and I can't fathom how anybody can keep a straight face while contemplating such an absurdity.

The article in the Economist promises the tech-ignorant readership that, unlike 2000, there will be no web-bubble because start-ups are typically not purchased without demonstrating a potential to generate profit.

What all these suits seem to be missing is that Free Software exists, as a giant exit door, that could evacuate a large fraction, if not majority, from the surveilled, corporate web in a matter of months into a reactionary darknet built on, perhaps, webs of trust. The ephemeral and limitless nature of software, the virility of memes, the availability of encryption, and the well-established short-lifespan of internet communities all suggest that the current Facebook/Twitter empire is founded on sand.

Which is the likelier possibility: Tech-dumb investors are being fleeced by Silicon Valley which is well aware the clock is ticking on the current hegemony of monied websites? Or that the days of the free internet itself themselves numbered, and soon users will be shepherded into a locked-down, Compuservesque network which preempts the possibility of communicating online without using approved channels?

In either possibility, why is this not talked about more? All Free Software needs, at this point, is a Steve Jobs to bring our superior software ecosystem to the masses, and sell users on the benefits of direct, peer to peer communication omitting corporate in-betweeners. I am sure that day is coming, what clues have you seen in your long-time involvement in the software world which might affirm or relieve my concerns? Because either way, the information economy is in for a shock I don't think it is prepared for, and the results could be devastating.

GE had a long history of "managed earnings", where quarterly earnings would magically beat the targets by a few percent. They were finally busted by the SEC in 2009, but the practice is known to have gone on much earlier, when Jack Welch was running the company.

I read this in The Economist recently:

"Mr Putin and his associates know, from first-hand experience, that courts and judges in Russia are for the most part obedient puppets of their political masters. They also believe, wrongly, that the Western system works on the same principle, but just dressed up with more hypocrisy and flimflam."

I'm no fan of Putin, I think he's a corrupt oligarch. But I see things like this, shenanigans in the financial sector and various other regulations swayed by donations at all levels of government. And I have to wonder if Putin and his cronies are right.

You are talking about French Gaullist tradition (from Charles de Gaulle), and yes, French geopolitics was relatively independent from the US.

Since Sarkozy they have made a 180-degree turn. They are now one of the most pro-US countries in Europe, beating UK in some issues.

http://www.economist.com/blogs...
http://www.economist.com/node/...
http://fablognewsweeker.canalb...
http://www.economist.com/blogs...

Hollande, though from the rival socialist party, follows entirely the path paved by Sarkozy.

You are talking about French Gaullist tradition (from Charles de Gaulle), and yes, French geopolitics was relatively independent from the US.

Since Sarkozy they have made a 180-degree turn. They are now one of the most pro-US countries in Europe, beating UK in some issues.

http://www.economist.com/blogs...
http://www.economist.com/node/...
http://fablognewsweeker.canalb...
http://www.economist.com/blogs...

Hollande, though from the rival socialist party, follows entirely the path paved by Sarkozy.

You are talking about French Gaullist tradition (from Charles de Gaulle), and yes, French geopolitics was relatively independent from the US.

Since Sarkozy they have made a 180-degree turn. They are now one of the most pro-US countries in Europe, beating UK in some issues.

http://www.economist.com/blogs...
http://www.economist.com/node/...
http://fablognewsweeker.canalb...
http://www.economist.com/blogs...

Hollande, though from the rival socialist party, follows entirely the path paved by Sarkozy.

The even more disgusting thing is that the motor doesn't even need to be running to make a cross-channel flight.

The aircraft in question has a 15:1 glide ratio and a 16,000 foot service ceiling (per spec). That means it can do a 45 mile glide. At the Straights of Dover the channel is only 20 miles wide; that's a over a factor of 2 safety factor. Wind could be an issue, but if there are headwinds, they could run the engine to make the crossing against the wind, but abort backwards *with the wind helping them* if there were an engine failure.

I think this just confirms my dislike of Airbus; they've had a good number of shady dealings in the past, and given the extensive time period such things have gone on, I don't think that leopard is going to change its spots.

Today, on Krugman, he mentions back when we did bail Texas out

From the Economist, a fairly conservative magazine, we have this map of net state-federal transfers. Illinois,New York, and California all pay more in fed taxes than they get back. Oddly De la Ware (sorry, just had to spell it that way) has the highest net payment vs recieved payments. But those blue states you like to skewer did pay more than they got. No bailouts. (And texas' bailout was well before the window surveyed). The bottom half of the chart, the states that received the most net bailout, lean a bit red (though not exclusively - Maine's in there too).

So the duration is 12 days longer than the average, so what?

The problem is that while you are evaluating the job candidate, the candidate is evaluating your company, looking at other opportunities, and going to other interviews. It is the best candidates that are most likely to get other offers. You might think you are being more selective by dragging out the process, but the actual result is that you are losing the wheat and keeping the chaff.

There is little evidence that dragging out the process helps. Checking references doesn't really help, since you have no idea if you are talking to their ex-boss or their roommate. Even criminal records have been shown to have no correlation with job performance.

When I schedule an interview with a prospective hire, I prepare the paperwork to make a job offer at the end of the interview. If they look solid, and everyone involved gives a thumbs up, I make the offer. More often then not, they accept on the spot. Others sleep on it, and call and accept the following day. But we lose a lot fewer good candidates that way.

work extra hard to service that "privilege" which only exists due to a preexisting inequality ... And things like progressive tax structures and estate taxes are bandages over the problem of capitalism being rigged for people who already have capital.

Your premise is wrong: capitalism is not "rigged" for people who already have capital. If you're born rich, chances are you'll die a lot less well off than you were born.

Here is a longer discussion: http://www.economist.com/news/...

Lottery winners are another example that wealth is not self-perpetuating: few of them do well financially in the long run.

according to the whole set of articles in last TE (among others here and also here) that characteristic brings huge amounts of private investors money to the tune of $billions. What this means being an sociopath and disregard for law is what brings money.

As a side note - actual work does not bring this much money and if it does it gets automated.
I wonder where our journey will bring us - it must be a wonderful place but that is another thing really.

according to the whole set of articles in last TE (among others here and also here) that characteristic brings huge amounts of private investors money to the tune of $billions. What this means being an sociopath and disregard for law is what brings money.

As a side note - actual work does not bring this much money and if it does it gets automated.
I wonder where our journey will bring us - it must be a wonderful place but that is another thing really.

I don't have easy access to the raw stats, so here's some relevant news stories that do quote some stats. I doubt that the stats are cherry-picked as there's such a clear difference between the US and the rest of the world:

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-kill-citizens-70-times-rate-first-world-nations/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/08/armed-police/
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-do-us-police-kill-so-many-people-2014-8/
http://mic.com/articles/105036/here-s-the-shocking-tally-of-how-many-americans-die-from-police-shootings/

I blame the Montessori "educated" brats. Open-plan offices are largely their fault too.

http://www.economist.com/news/...

The average college graduate has around $30,000 of debt, hardly hundreds of thousands. The average trade school graduate has $10,000 of debt. Given that college grads have significantly higher salaries, and significantly more horizontal and vertical movement potential, I'd hardly say that a college degree is not worth it. ...

You must be talking about the US. In Europe I'd be surprised if the average university debt is even 1/4th of that. The last time I checked Oxford medical school had almost exactly the same tuition as MBTI (before their financial scandals saw daylight.) Asian, South American and African Universities cost even less and techies (unlike some tradesmen) are competing in this global market. Yes, your college degree is worth something but first consider that in India there are tens of millions of middle-class people with PhDs in whatever you think you're an expert at. In Spain, Brazil, China there are hundreds of millions of highly-educated and unemployed university graduates.

If I were a chancellor or comptroller of a state or alumni-subsidized university I'd be worried that people will find out that many US universities don't even give a fiscal ROI, much less a societal one. They are morphing into either trade schools or glorified country clubs.

Those with money focus on the fraternity aspect, rub elbows with wealth and push themselves into a cushy job with friends. They can major in some of the useless esoteric degrees (believe me, philosophy and psychology are quite practical compared to some college curriculum.) The others are channeled down the "trade- school" quick fiscal ROI path. They get a degree in Management Information Systems, Accounting, MBA or Computer Science and hope what they learned is relevant for at least as long as it takes to payoff their student loan.

Yes your college degree is worth something, so is a house, so are dot com stocks, beanie babies and tulips. But it isn't worth as much as most people believe it's worth.

More people don't understand how big Africa is.

http://www.economist.com/blogs...

The Sahara desert is almost as large as the whole of the USA.

This article has some more details on the specific error modes. The examples given in physics involve processing collider result data. When the researchers knew what they were looking for they found it reproducibly. When they didn't have any preconceived notions it was discovered that it was a false positive. Some of these biomed and psych studies were the basis of policy and went un reproduced for years. This is a real problem, we should look for solutions.
  http://www.economist.com/news/...

was this one of the links? http://www.economist.com/node/...

Well, well. The conservative argument is heard. Albeit, through five links to a website that is, guess what, the authors personal platform for his unique political rants. The links say one thing but the title on the web page is "Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog" Come on take credit where credit is due.

And, since this brand of conservatism is more interested in perceptions than facts., let's review some of those perceptions as they pertain to Greece's much maligned pension system . This article in the WSJ does a better job than I could; http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/....

To proclaim that it's all Greece's fault for their economic woes and deny the effects of the worldwide recession and its impacts on Greece is the view of a simple one track mind.

It's more obvious than ever who were the winners and losers during and after the recession. Which side did the banks fall on? Which side of the fence you fell on was and continues to be as easy to read as your yearly income.

As the article in the WSJ says, 15% of Greece's seniors were at risk of poverty in 2013. The figure is rising. Yet your comments impart a message that this doesn't matter The only thing that matters is cutting government spending, which I believe you think results primarily from pensions . Poverty isn't enough, the pensions are still too high. Age doesn't matter either. I think maybe we should hear your ideas about cutting a pension to someone already dwelling in poverty? Retire at 78 at 50% of the poverty level? Is that enough to satisfy the bondholders?. Have you ever given a thought to the reality of living in poverty and knowing your too old to work? Yeah, don't frazzle a hair over it. No big deal.

My question is this. When does the day of reckoning ever arrive for the bankers? The ones who continued through thick and thin to draw their bonuses. And probably deserved to shoulder much of the blame for the recession. The ones who begged for and received more money for their privileged companies and execs than Greece could ever dream of. At freaking zero interest. Now that's a deal I'm pretty sure Greece would be interested in. A zero interest loan. What's the odds. So Mr Capitalism, when and where has any country received a bundle of cash like the bankers got?

Yeah I guess you can see which side I lean to. I'm pretty fuc*ing sick of the unregulated pro-corporation welfare, while we do some sort of means testing on every dollar spent on a poor person or a broke country like Greece.

You have quotes about "Peopleâ(TM)s sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense." How about this for a quote. "How luck before the trickle down hogwash is dead and buried" A quick look at before and after tax Gini coefficient will tell you everything you need to know about current tax law. Yeah, I guess your system of disinformation is better than most. I mean, gee, here I thought we'd be anyplace but number one. It won't do you any good, but here's a link to a site that isn't your own; http://www.economist.com/blogs.... Yeah, I can punch in numbers too. Especially after I get one of the personal responsibility pitches from the right wing that insists on responsibility for everyone buy corporations and the wealth that own most of them.

For me I hope to God that Greece survives and thrives.

See the review over at The Economist - when even that venerable paper calls you "reactionary", that's a clear indication that this is excactly what you are.

Just because it's a nice place to live doesn't mean it's not insane. Uruguay manages to have all of Argentina's advantages without the BS exchange rate mechanisms, frequent fights with foreign businesses, etc.

As for social mobility, you're taking a very middle class view of both opportunity and poverty. The working class of Mexico did not have a lot of opportunities to work for a maquiladora prior to NAFTA. Now they've got those opportunities. The ones who don't want to do that can just do what their parents did, but make more money at it because you've got customers from the maquiladoras. Yeah Mexico's poverty rate is astronomical (45.5% according to google), but it's dropping (it was above 46% last year) because you have economic growth. Argentina's is lower, but is virtually impossible to quantify because government statistics are not trustworthy. It's probably above 20%.

Basically what's happened is that in about 1900 the Argentines had a great thing. They were rich. They had no troublesome ethnic or racial minorities (much of Mexico's impoverished 45.5% are descendants of what America would call Native Americans) to complicate their economic situation. And they've managed to maintain that. Meanwhile most of their neighbors, and even many countries that were desperately poor in 1913 (Italy is the most often mentioned, but all of Eastern and Central Europe was poorer then Argentina then, and France and Germany were both comparable to Argentina in per capita terms) have managed to catch up.

I'm not sure what point people who push that statistic are trying to get across.

Me neither. They are implicitly assuming that psychopaths make poor leaders, when the evidence points to the opposite. Psychopaths are able to look at the situation dispassionately, and make better utilitarian decisions, that bring the most benefit to the most people. We are too used to idealistic TV shows, where Captain Kirk risks his starship and the entire crew, at unfavorable odds, to save his friend, Dr McCoy. But in reality, that is stupid and irresponsible. A psychopath would have no problem abandoning one dispensable person for the success of the mission.

I marvel at the idiocy of our citizens, it's not the government's fault, in not having insisted on keeping and improving rail since the 40's.

Actually the US has the world's best rail system. But that system is for freight, not for passengers. You can't have HSR and freight on the same tracks, so the US railways chose freight.

In the long run it doesn't really matter. Renewables will win because... PHYSICS. Forget the fact that fossil fuels are finite, they are simply doomed by the plummeting price of solar and the ever-increasing price of petroleum. A glance at the long-term curve will be enough to settle the matter.

Google and the OEMS have an upgrade path. It is buying a new phone and profitable for device makers. This is troublesome for developing regions. If the past is a guide, it's going to take a major executed security exploit on millions of Android devices to see anything change. Realize that planned obsolescence is extremely profitable and practiced in multiple industries. See http://www.economist.com/node/... and wikipedia for more info. It's often practiced in our economy, especially for lower-end products. Everlasting gobstoppers, Greg Nelson www.greglnelson.info

Last time I checked, the Netherlands was in Europe. (See article)

Europe may have excellent social welfare programs, but when it comes to multiculturalism, Europe is a patent failure (not my view only; see below). Perhaps this has something to do with the limits on open speech and dialogue?

https://www.foreignaffairs.com...
http://realtruth.org/articles/...
http://www.economist.com/blogs...
http://www.abc.net.au/radionat...

I'm a little unsure why you would assume there is anything like a free market in producing food in the US. http://www.newrepublic.com/art... http://www.economist.com/news/...

The Google founders and many of the innovators we have today were taught under that system

Love open-plan offices? You know who to thank.

http://www.economist.com/news/...