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And why is that? Why should they jump out, in public, of their personal area of true expertise into something which is not their job?

Because they are jumping out in public now to advocate for various measures. I give you one Dr. Mann.

And then there are the nuts at the IPCC.

Of course, I think you are being rather disingenuous by retreating to the cover of objective science and claiming that they (you) are merely reporting the facts. It is plain to even the casual observer that Climate Science and schemes for fighting Global Warming are all part of the same group.

There is no separating the greater AGW community from the calls to impose limitations on CO2 through government policy that almost exclusively entail cut backs on energy use, rationing and taxes. Once you get past all the stupid sniping and name calling on Slashdot you inevitably find a call for these policies. Every major political figure/initiative I've heard of that is remotely related to AGW is sole focused on these kinds of policies. Maybe I missed the Nuclear Advancement and Energy Independence Act being introduce and discussed in a State of the Union addressed and Presidential speeches, but I doubt it.

And lastly, why wouldn't they? If, as Dr. Jones thinks, AGW is a threat to the world as we know it, why would he and his colleagues not all jump to endorse the one technology we have here and now that would do the most to mitigate CO2 emissions?

To compare a parking space to water is a poor choice as they are quite different.

The economic concept of scarcity applies to both -- and this is precisely what my argument hinges on.

High-demand parking spaces are also scarce. That the costs to produce them and maintain them are paid on a less-frequent basis and amortized over time doesn't make those costs disappear, no matter how much you might prefer to believe the contrary.

Indeed, buying a single private parking space in high-demand areas can be a six-figure investment... and cities routinely pay hundreds of millions for parking garages. Even amortized over the lifespan of the space, we're not talking about negligible expense... yet you're insisting you have an entitlement to get them for free.

Ignoring other factors, charging for parking will eliminate some portion of the customer base for businesses in that town or city, and result in less business.

Absolutely not, because increased turnover means more business from the same number of spaces.

Charging at all, or different rates at different times eliminates some portion of potential customers, like myself.

Sure -- but if it eliminated too many potential customers, the spots would be empty. So -- if it's even possible to get an 85% fill rate with paid parking (and there's no question that it is!), the minority of customers who object on philosophical grounds are moot.

Eliminating one reason is still a progress. What exactly makes you think that it makes all other reasons OK?

All that matters is whether the people in the hospital spread MRSA so whether or not any reason is "OK" or not is irrelevant.

Oh look, generalization pulled out of your ass.

Nope. Catholic health systems have been criticized, along with other nonprofit hospitals, as not dedicating enough resources to the communityâ(TM)s benefit. But surveys also show that, on average, they provide higher-quality performance than other hospitals and are more likely to offer specialty services that are not profit centers. ' https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/us/21nuns.html?pagewanted=all

Ah, " ... surveys also show that, on average ... " - generalization pulled out of author's ass.

What a meaningless drivel. Substitute Bible for any other book title (religious or not) and it is still right.

Really? That's the best you've got? With all your sputtering rage the best you can do is to ignore the fact that religious people look for direction from their scripture (part of your central criticism of such people) while most people don't look for direction from "any other book." Hypocrite.

Sputtering rage? At best mild amusement with a bit of pity and condescension. But don't worry, persecution complex is pretty much standard of any religious group. Why should I care if religious people look for direction in one book or another? They do stupid and irrational things, not surprise here. If they used "Hobbit" instead it would be exactly as much stupid. I wonder where you see any hypocrisy, probably you are just using a word you don't understand.

I really don't care what particular brand of brain damage they have.

Sure as shit sounds like you do. All of your arguments amount to nothing more than tarring an entire group with the actions of a handful of extremists.

So 'tarring entire group' somehow is the same as caring about differences between one bunch of religious nuts and another? Interesting, must be some kind of 'religious logic'.

What's really funny is that you are demonstrating exactly what you are condemning. Statements like, "I believe that anybody who is older than 25 and still believes in a god should be euthanized" is pure irrational zealotry.

Nice strawman. I hope it will be easier discussion opponent for you.

Yes, but it could also be worse, so, it is better to try to keep everything as-is, since we already know that is good enough for us. "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't".

I'm not sure if I can buy that one. Before cyanobacteria were able to put enough oxygen into the atmosphere in order to support animal life, that philosophy would've left the world a barren unevolved place. Can we even pretend that we know any of these devils sufficiently?

There is also the part that most likely because of human actions the species go extinct faster than new ones are emerging.

I know there's been a lot of talk about the rate of extinction increasing on the planet due to humanity, but nobody has actually observed it - it's all just theoretical calculations.

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/05/18/18greenwire-scientists-clash-on-claims-over-extinction-ove-96307.html?pagewanted=all

As they say, "where are the bodies?"

Eliminating one reason is still a progress. What exactly makes you think that it makes all other reasons OK?

All that matters is whether the people in the hospital spread MRSA so whether or not any reason is "OK" or not is irrelevant.

Oh look, generalization pulled out of your ass.

Nope.
Catholic health systems have been criticized, along with other nonprofit hospitals, as not dedicating enough resources to the communityâ(TM)s benefit. But surveys also show that, on average, they provide higher-quality performance than other hospitals and are more likely to offer specialty services that are not profit centers. '
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/us/21nuns.html?pagewanted=all

What a meaningless drivel. Substitute Bible for any other book title (religious or not) and it is still right.

Really? That's the best you've got? With all your sputtering rage the best you can do is to ignore the fact that religious people look for direction from their scripture (part of your central criticism of such people) while most people don't look for direction from "any other book." Hypocrite.

I really don't care what particular brand of brain damage they have.

Sure as shit sounds like you do. All of your arguments amount to nothing more than tarring an entire group with the actions of a handful of extremists.

What's really funny is that you are demonstrating exactly what you are condemning. Statements like, "I believe that anybody who is older than 25 and still believes in a god should be euthanized" is pure irrational zealotry.

This piece of news should cheer you up! http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/africa/in-scramble-for-land-oxfam-says-ugandans-were-pushed-out.html?_r=3&scp=3&sq=uganda&st=cse

Since you love tinfoil hat theories of why these lawsuits are happening, I think you might enjoy this story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/business/energy-environment/19unions.html

It's 1/500, and the more it's studied the worse it gets. well, it's not getting worse, the number is just getting more accurate.

As an example, in 1988, they where saying 1 in 5 billion chance if you used a condom

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/22/us/researchers-list-odds-of-getting-aids-in-heterosexual-intercourse.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

while other STDs have anywhere from a 10% to 50% transmission rate, AIDS is still a sexual transmitted disease.
"You probably have to have an open wound, scratch, or open sore from another STD to transmit the virus."
Also, and even if it was true, sexual transmitted would be the correct term.

while 1/500 doesn't sound bad, bear in mind tit's 1/500 for one(1) encounter. Most sexual active people have more then one encounter. When I was sexual active, I would have 5-15 partners a month.

That was in the late 70's to about '84. In '84 I found out about AIDS and pretty much stopped being sexual active with anyone I hadn't dated and got to know. Seriously, STD went from 'It may be painful to cure you..but probably not' to 'You will die'.
Because it's important to this conversation, they where heterosexual encounters.

So does this mean we will have a cure for this?

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/11/science/new-homosexual-disorder-worries-health-officials.html?pagewanted=all

Yes, Americans are all stupid. That must why we have shit like this going on in our country. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/28/business/main20112612.shtml OR http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8793243/UK-riots-dont-expect-sentences-to-be-cut-judge-tells-rioters.html OR http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8793269/China-population-to-become-worlds-biggest-polluters.html OR http://www.oneafricanow.com/ OR http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/world/asia/dozens-killed-in-attack-on-pilgrim-bus-in-pakistan.html?_r=1&ref=iran.

"[Y]ou can easily get a longer sentence for helping grandma read than kicking her down the stairs."

Anti-circumvention provisions being "bad law and bad policy" as Lawrence Lessig called them in his 2001 op-ed piece Jail Time in the Digital Age must be the reason why they get adopted the world over (Ayn Rand comes to mind). :-( It's a logical next step for him to have focused on corruption research.

There's a Times article available today on the subject.

Part of the media gap may be because such an ill-informed, ill-aimed and intellectually diffuse protest is meaningless. Here's an article from the left-leaning NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/nyregion/protesters-are-gunning-for-wall-street-with-faulty-aim.html

I would say that coverage in one of the major newspapers of record is hardly a big gap. Certainly less of one than these wastrels seem to deserve.

Maybe this will clear up the confusion.

This was discussed on slashdot in 2007:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/07/07/27/2312257/toyota-unveils-plug-in-hybrid-prius#comments

And it's not a very good idea:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/automobiles/02POWER.html
"The V2G potential of Honda’s full hybrid vehicles is unexplored, but the company is doubtful of using them to power homes. “We would not like to see stresses on the battery pack caused by putting it through cycles it wasn’t designed for,” said Chris Naughton, a Honda spokesman. “Instead, they should buy a Honda generator that was made for that purpose.”

Oh, so your boys get the privacy protections that you've spent the last 10 years undermining for all the rest of us plebs, huh? I tell you what, I'll be cool with your special phones if, in exchange, the President and NSA Director will issue a public directive to all NSA employees reaffirming the pre-911 NSA policy of not to spying on the phone calls or emails of any American citizen without a court order. You know that policy, right? It's the one we put into law in 1978--the law that you ignored just because the President said so.

I'll hold my breath.

Why is that? They're not the only source reporting this.

Not any more

Problem is there is this nasty thing called "religion" whose adherents keep on insisting that condoms are somehow wrong, and that sex is for procreation only.

A big part of the problem is all those religious jerks that are coming to those third world countries to insist on that. Fortunately they're not getting all that much traction in civilized places, but in third world countries it's devastating.

Add to that ridiculous notions held by people in some of those countries, like that sex with a virgin will cure you, and you have one horrible mess as a result.

Kicking out all those missionaries and bringing in some proper education would do wonders.

Good God y'all, let's continue to spread hate without looking it up!
Pope Benedict says that condoms can be used to stop the spread of HIV

The pope is saying that if you can prevent disease, the use of condoms could be permissible," said John Allen, senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. "But this has been in the mix for a while," he argued. "I think Benedict has been thinking this way since 2006, which is why he asked for the commission to look into it.

"The problem was not Benedict, it was others in the Vatican who argued that if you said using condoms was OK in certain situations, it would send out the message that they were approved. This was a PR problem."

Vatican Adds Nuance to Pope’s Condom Remarks

Yet it added that “those involved in prostitution who are H.I.V. positive and who seek to diminish the risk of contagion by the use of a condom may be taking the first step in respecting the life of another even if the evil of prostitution remains in all its gravity.”

But no, let's kick out all the missionaries and continue hating on religion. Nothing like kicking out charity organizations to solve the problem guys, am I right. Next you're going to say that all those people benefiting from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation attempting to do something about Malaria are all evil and should stop getting help from them since they're supporting the crazy shit Microsoft does at times.

Jesus H. Christ people. Just because you are against religion doesn't make it right to be both uninformed and rabid in your hate.

We do sell things to asia, but they don't require containers, they require bulk cargo holds...
And here lies the problem, we ship empty both directions, just with different types of ships.

Raw materials go one way, finished products go the other. empty container ships going back to asia pass the empty bulk carriers going back to north america.

In the case of agricultural products, some methods have been developed (using cardboard) to make a container suitable for shipping. Because of the rail system in the US, a lot of empty containers end up in the midwest where it just so happens that a lot of the US bulk agricultural products are grown.

Now, the price of container shipping is monitored and compared to bulk shipping rates and they just use whichever is cheaper at that particular point in time. There are many articles about this available with a quick Google search. For example, here is an article in the NY Times from about 5 years ago.

The following does not make it cheaper for Joe:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/07/24/business/0724-webBIZ-trading.ready.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html

And it happens a lot. There were some that had very long "winning streaks" (months?), which is impossible for normal traders. It's basically two classes of traders.

The ones in the right class get their trades rolled back if "stuff happens".

The ones who aren't in the right class get prosecuted for winning: http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3244186/norwegian-traders-convicted-for-outsmarting-us-stock-broker-algorithm/

The following does not make it cheaper for Joe:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/07/24/business/0724-webBIZ-trading.ready.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html

And it happens a lot. There were some that had very long "winning streaks" (months?), which is impossible for normal traders. It's basically two classes of traders.

The ones in the right class get their trades rolled back if "stuff happens".

The ones who aren't in the right class get prosecuted for winning: http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3244186/norwegian-traders-convicted-for-outsmarting-us-stock-broker-algorithm/

Exactly. The contractor gets paid twice as much, not the employees. In fact, profit motivations of the contractor put pressure on them to pay their employees as little as possible, and since most contracts are written in such a way as to absolve the contractor of responsibility if projects fail, the easiest way to maximize profit is to hire unqualified staff.

This is my firsthand experience. I was government contractor for 10 years. They hired me because I wasn't very qualified to write software (this was on a mission-critical aviation logistics system), but, lucky them, I worked hard and became one of their star programmers. I was the second highest-paid person on staff with our contractor in an organization of over 100 people. I found out from a leaked document that my company was making $150k a year off me after paying my salary. Since most employees were making less than half my salary, the contractor was pulling in about $15 to $20 million a year on our contract since the only overhead they had was covering our health insurance and 401ks (offices, computers, furniture, and other supplies were all provided by the government). That's $15 to $20 million a year to serve as a Human Resource department for 100 employees.

When the contract came up for recompete, the contractor used extremely heavy-handed tactics to try and force me to sign an exclusivity agreement with them, which was pointless in a right to work state. I objected on the grounds that the company provided no added value to the contract and that the employees, most of whom were just warming chairs, would get picked up by whoever won the contract (saw this happen many times over the years). It was a principle thing and I didn't appreciate being bullied. When they continued to pressure me (a manager actually blocked the door to prevent me from leaving without signing the document), I produced the leaked document and told them I would quit without a 10% raise. They let me go without a second thought.

Since I left, the software project I had spent the previous three years working on has completely failed without there being anyone qualified to work on it, but the contractor doesn't care because they get paid no matter what and it's cheaper to hire people with zero programming experience and pay them diddlysquat to struggle through their job than it is to reduce your profits and hire people who are educated software development. I'm not bitter about being let go, but I am bitter about the project failure. I was really dedicated to my job and felt I was making a difference in the organization, but the contractor, who honestly didn't really know anything about my job or the project I was working on (Government employees managed me directly), could only see the dollar signs.

I assure you, this is not about placing "blame." This is all about giving government employees the ability to put checkmarks next to items on their todo list. The department where I worked hired a contractor to build a LIMS for them so they could claim progress on a project the higher-ups were demanding. The government manager who started the project took credit for making progress on it after he got promoted elsewhere, the contractor got $15 million for producing a single webpage with a a phone number field that auto-focused to the next input after you filled it in, and the new government manager killed the project and took credit for eliminating waste.

"You need to go get rid of 250,000 contractors in the Defense Department, where you can really pick up some small change." ~ Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, February 16, 2011 on balancing the budget (source)

"The problem with Socialism is Socialism, the problem with Capitalism is Capitalists," as William F. Buckley once said. Government contracting combines the worst elements of socialism and capitalism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/education/15fifth.html?_r=2
http://consumerist.com/2011/09/private-colleges-starting-to-offer-four-year-degree-guarantees.html
Some place have this now and it's due to stuff like.

adviser hadn't erroneously told some one that a particular class would fulfill the math requirement. Unfortunately, for some reason the same class winter quarter was a different class that didn't fulfill the requirement, even though the fall and spring classes with the same course number did.

Classes that are too full to accept all the students that want/need to get in for their majors

Classes would either be full, or would be offered so infrequently that they'd have to wait, sometimes for two years, to take the class.

Considering how much tuition has increased at my local state schools over the last decade or so, I'm not sure they want *anyone*. I really feel sorry for kids today. It wasn't that long ago that I went to college. And tuition has almost tripled at my old school since then (while incomes have barely budged). If I had to do it over again today, there is no way I would have been able to afford it without crippling student loan debt. Sadly this rise has happened in a time when it has become almost essential to get a college degree if you want any kind of decent job.

There was an excellent article on this a couple of years ago in the NY Times.

Charlie Savage reports for the New York Times on intelligence gathering. He has an article today that dovetails nicely into this Wall Street Journal article. Savage reports that two senators are concerned that the government is using secret means to surveil US citizens based on a ruling from the FISA court -- rulings that are secret. This is tantamount to having a secret law; something that is anathema to the Constitution.

"Buy from us, we're more expensive" doesn't work, no matter which country you're from, sorry.

Oh really? Apparently no one told these guys

It's official - NY Times reporting Meg Whitman was named to lead Hewlett-Packard

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/technology/whitman-expected-to-be-named-at-hp.html?ref=business

Because we're talking about mines in context of the Ottawa Treaty, not UXO.

You keep bringing up the Ottawa Treaty, which bans land mines. Your support of clever designs in land mines violates the treaty you keep mentioning. Do you know the the US has not signed the Ottawa Treaty?

Killing people automatically is the problem.

Then we have no problem, because we don't do that.

1600-2600 people in Pakistan killed by drones from 2004 to 2011 (for a specific event: NY TImes).

Good point. Convince those people to stop trying to kill us, and we'll stop killing them.

Let's take Iraq as an example. No one from Iraq attacked the US. From 2003 to 2006 the US military killed some 600 000+ people in Iraq, mostly civilians. During which time Iraqis killed some 3000 US and UK soldiers. A reasonable interpretation of the sequence of events is that the US started the killing. This leads to the view that the Iraqis defended themselves against aggressors. A typical ethical position would be for the US to stop killing Iraqis, with the result that Iraqis would probably stop killing their attackers.

The policy is post-Vietnam. More recent policy is post-Desert Storm after we had experience with scatterable mines. Even then, policy says to not use them indiscriminately as in Vietnam, but for specific targets with specific tactical goals just as we would use artillery. We only shot about a thousand groups of these in Desert Storm, and none since.

So the US attacked Vietnam and used a huge number land mines, similar with some kind of policy modifications in 1990s Iraq, and "only shot about a thousand groups of these" during the 2003 invasion of Iraq (emphasis added). Therefore, by your own admission, the US kills people indiscriminately, automatically. The opposite of what you say above.

And the above would put the US is in violation of the Ottawa Treaty, which you and I agree is a pretty good treaty, if the US were a signer.

But I have a feeling all of these facts will fall on deaf ears/blind eyes. You've made up your mind that all of this is EEEEEEVILLLLL! and no facts will get in the way of that.

Comments like this show an emotional attachment to your position. Such attachments make you vulnerable to selecting data, misinformation, and opinions that agree with your position. Facts which disagree with your position make you feel even stronger that you're right. You would like me to consider your views, and reassess mine. I have done so and learned about mine history and policies, and am a little less ignorant thanks to you. Are you willing to do the same?

That's the lottery ticket mentality. For some reason people have no problem spotting it among inner-city youths neglecting their schooling in the hopes of becoming an NBA star - yet they're blind to the same syndrome among wanna-be plumbers who are just sure they'll be running a big prosperous business one day and want to slash taxes right now, just in case.

The problem with your argument is that there are far more self employed millionaires. Replace "NBA star" with "doctor" and the flaw should start to become apparent. Upward mobility exists.

"Who is the prototypical American millionaire? ... self-employed people make up less than 20 percent of the workers in America but account for two-thirds of the millionaires. Also, three out of four of us who are self-employed consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs. Most of the others are self-employed professionals, such as doctors and accountants ... About 80 percent of us are first-generation affluent."
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/stanley-millionaire.html

Instead of anecdotes, let's look at "Study: CEO pay negatively linked to profitability." That doesn't mean we shouldn't "allow" people to be Steve Jobs, it means we shouldn't let a bunch of overpaid pretenders ride his coat tails.

That is a different topic. However there is a flaw in that study. When a company is failing they often have to pay *more* for a highly qualified individual. Without extra compensation the potential CEO would not take on the extra risk. The study seems to be missing the classic requirement of statistical comparisons: "all other things being equal".

Blaming Wallstreet for an "information blackout" (and ultimately for the current economic situation, while simultaneously giving the government a free pass

The housing crisis, caused by lending institutions granting mortgages to unqualified applicants, wasn't the fault of large banking corporations? They knew they could shove their losses off on Fannie and Freddie, so they had no risk, took the money and ran. Not that the govt wasn't complicit as well, dishing out TARP funds did nothing but encourage this anti-social behavior.

If the economy falters, companies are bringing in less revenue

Seriously? What planet are you on?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/economy/24econ.html"Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/corporate-profits-q3-2010-_n_787573.html"Corporate Profits Hit New Record, U.S. Workers Still Struggling "

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2011/performers/companies/profits/"Top companies: Most profitable" # Note, you have to go to #27 before you find one reporting a loss, and out of the top 50, only 5 report a loss

http://www.economist.com/node/18073369"How much longer can corporate America keep on delivering bumper increases in profits?"

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph"It's the Inequality, Stupid" Sorry, their title, not mine. Anyway, this gives an idea where that profit is going. If you are NOT in the top 1% of income earners, your after tax income has likely gone down since 1979. If you are in the top 1%, it has gone up more than 120%.

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#the-last-two-decades-were-greatif-you-were-a-ceo-or-owner-not-if-you-were-anyone-else-5"15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America" # CEO pay up 298% from 1990 to 2005, while the average workers pay is up 4.3%.

I would go on, but I have to get back to my wage-slave existence so I can have a roof over my head and something to eat tonight. Crying and/or going postal in the office would probably get me marked down on my performance review.

>>Wow. That initial comment indicates another one (of many) who thinks mismanagement on a spectacular scale is all the fault of smelly hippies with no influence whatever.

Who said all? I lay equal parts blame on our politicians (as I said), hippies (as I said), and PG&E (as I said elsewhere). But dirty hippies are definitely a big part of our energy problem. When you have environmentalists suing solar companies out of existence, then, yeah, shit ain't going to get built. The fact that we haven't built a new large scale power plant here in California since the 70s isn't because we haven't been trying, but because they've all been sued out of existence by dirty hippies. I guess the Sierra Club prefers all our polluting, CO2-emitting natural gas plants to thermal solar?

Environmental Lunacy in California:
http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/Calico-Lawsuit.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/business/energy-environment/24solar.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.getsolar.com/blog/conservationists-sue-federal-government-over-california-solar-energy-plant/16136/
http://www.earthtechling.com/2011/01/green-vs-green-in-another-solar-lawsuit/

>>The huge capital cost of any sort of large project has kept solar thermal back just as huge capital costs have effectively buried nuclear.
>>Point 4? Looks like your government can't govern if that's an issue so I suppose whatever gets under the radar is easier than wasting time in court.

As I said, lawsuits. PV Solar has immunity, which makes all the difference in the world. Look at how much PV solar has rolled out in California (PG&E services more solar installations than any other company in America) compared to the theoretically more cost-efficient Thermal Solar. Though when you dump billions into a project only to have it scrapped, it perhaps isn't very cost-efficient at all.

>>Point 5 is interesting becuase I never really thought somebody would have a photovoltaic installation that is neutered in such a way.

It's not neutering, per se... batteries with enough capacity to power a Walmart for hours are expensive.

It's not a total media blackout. It's just not front page news.

Inexpensive homes like these can keep people in decent living conditions in rural areas.

Which part of 135% of per capita GDP did you not understand? $5,925 is NOT CHEAP for a Chinese rural family. Nor is a $1000.
And that's a booming economy.
1k house is hailed as a "low-cost home for the poor" - for most of the world's poor even that is an unattainable goal.

Actually, you are in Afghanistan because there are 700 BILLION in minerals to steal. And because you need a pipe to let that stolen Iraqi oil flow. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?pagewanted=all What else did you think? Every time the US starts a war, it's about resources. Every single time. And now they want to automate the process. About time the US gets a war on their own soil. Maybe they then they will learn that war is not so cool when it's their own kids and wifes being murdered and in some cases raped.

The writers created a competition, asking students, architects and businesses to compete to design the best prototype for a $300 house (their original sketch was of a one-room prefabricated shed, equipped with solar panels, water filters and a tablet computer). The winner will be announced this month. But one expert has been left out of the competition, even though her input would have saved much time and effort for those involved in conceiving the house: the person who is supposed to live in it [in Mumbai] We recently showed around a group of Dartmouth students involved in the project who are hoping to get a better grasp of their market. They had imagined a ready-made constituency of slum-dwellers eager to buy a cheap house that would necessarily be better than the shacks they’d built themselves. But the students found that the reality here is far more complex than their business plan suggested. To start with, space is scarce. There is almost no room for new construction or ready-made houses. Most residents are renters, paying $20 to $100 a month for small apartments. Those who own houses have far more equity in them than $300 — a typical home is worth at least $3,000. Many families have owned their houses for two or three generations, upgrading them as their incomes increase. With additions, these homes become what we call “tool houses,” acting as workshops, manufacturing units, warehouses and shops. They facilitate trade and production, and allow homeowners to improve their living standards over time. None of this would be possible with a $300 house, which would have to be as standardized as possible to keep costs low. No number of add-ons would be able to match the flexibility of need-based construction. In addition, construction is an important industry in neighborhoods like Dharavi. Much of the economy consists of hardware shops, carpenters, plumbers, concrete makers, masons, even real-estate agents. Importing pre-fabricated homes would put many people out of business, undercutting the very population the $300 house is intended to help. Worst of all, companies involved in producing the house may end up supporting the clearance and demolition of well-established neighborhoods to make room for it. The resulting resettlement colonies, which are multiplying at the edges of cities like Delhi and Bangalore, may at first glance look like ideal markets for the new houses, but the dislocation destroys businesses and communities.

A recent (PBS-affilliated POV) film, Good Fortune , expands further on the damage that can be done via good intentions when it comes to rehousing folks.

Many economists, journalists, physicians, and so forth have written extensively about the aid industry, and the White/Educated/Western/Elite-knows-best mentality. I certainly am no exception — I moved to Ghana with notions of making solar lights in my spare time, so that persons without grid-access could see at night, only to come to understand that this was a product that most people in the place I was living would have little interest in. It didn't matter that I'd spent months figuring out how to cram solar panels and LEDs into wire-bale jars, media blast them with garnet to diffuse the light better, and so on ... it wasn't something they would have wanted. I helped vaccinate kids, which was something they wanted, and everyone won.

For some more literature on this sort of thing, I'd recommend William Easterly's

Warren Buffet's whole article was disingeuous. He knew full well that most people would not notice the fact that in order for the tax code to be changed to increase his taxes to close to the same percentage as the middle class, it would require changing the capital gains tax rate, yet most people would think of it in terms of the income tax rate.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man[1]. Warren Buffett's conclusion doesn't mince words:

But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.

(emphasis mine). If he intended to hide the "loophole" of long-term capital gains, he could have just deleted the statement in bold and gone on his merry way.

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/quotes?qt=qt0464776

With nearly 50% of the US paying no federal income tax, they have no problem asking for "more". Want to be 'fair'? Get rid of the EIC -- or at least prevent it from giving back MORE money that was originally paid by the recipient.

Now that's what I call class warfare. And so unlike raising taxes on people who can afford them, it is indeed rotten economics.

Have you looked at the actual table? For a single person, the Earned Income Tax Credit isn't available if (s)he earns more than $13,460. That's comparable to the US Census Poverty Threshold of $11,344 (for a person younger than 65). If not for the Earned Income Tax Credit, people who have an income might actually starve, go homeless, etc. So when I say this is class warfare, it is only because it could actually kill the working poor.

In contrast, the wealthy really can afford it without noticing. There was an interesting New York Times article on this recently, which linked to this Citizens for Tax Justice fact sheet. If you read through it, you'll see that the revenue from increasing the tax rate on the top 1% by income would be similar to that of raising it on the bottom 60% by the same percentage. I assure you, there will be enough left over to provide basic necessities of life! (In fact, I'm not in the top 1%, but I certainly could pay more taxes without great hardship. It might mean it'd take me longer to afford a house, but I'm not exactly homeless in my 2-bedroom rented townhouse.)

If you're not swayed by arguments such as "don't kill people with taxes", then consider no taxes on poor people an investment. If they have all of a home, healthy food on the table, adequate medical care, a quality education, and available jobs, it's reasonable to believe that many of them will go on to become middle-class tax-payers: enough so to pay back your investment with far more than the nominal 1% tax rate you're suggesting. In fact, by effectively selling too soon, you're virtually guaranteeing you'll throw away what you put in with that government-provided K12 education and the like.

I'm saddened by the fact that society has somehow gotten to the point where the "logic" of "he has more so we can steal it from him!" some how is both morally and ethically justifiable. Hell, why stop at 50%? By your so called logic we surely can justify taking 95% of what they earn. They can afford it, right?

I believe the idea was at least to take away with is basically wealth redistribution at gun point. EIC is basically that. Take from everyone else, at gunpoint by way of threat of jail, and give it to someone else. Apparently if you do that as an individual, armed robbery, it is viewed as morally wrong. If you do it with the power of government then suddenly what was wrong is now right. How exactly can it be right for "all of us", in the form of the government, to forcibly take money from one party and give it to another when it would be wrong for any individual in that group to do so? How does the super class of "government" gain powers that the individual does not have?

Oh, and don't forget - right now, America puts virtually the entire tax burden on the upper middle classes, and the rest on the middle class. About 1/2 the population doesn't pay any taxes at all

That Republican lie again. About 1/2 the population doesn't pay any taxes "at all" if you define payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare to be "not taxes" (and ignore sales taxes, real estate taxes, and other local taxes that pay for schools, etc.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/opinion/the-new-resentment-of-the-poor.html?hp

Editorial
The New Resentment of the Poor
Published: August 30, 2011

The number of families not paying income tax has risen from about 30 percent before the recession to about half, and, suddenly, Republicans have a new tool to stoke class resentment.

First, the facts: a vast majority of Americans have skin in the tax game. Even if they earn too little to qualify for the income tax, they pay payroll taxes (which Republicans want to raise), gasoline excise taxes and state and local taxes. Only 14 percent of households pay neither income nor payroll taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution. The poorest fifth paid an average of 16.3 percent of income in taxes in 2010.

I found the infographics that illustrates the split nicely:

https://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/04/opinion/04reich-graphic.html

You're right in general, though getting jumped on for your hyperbole.

This will help you get an idea (it's not the real budget -- but it's not far off) of where the US tax money goes.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html

We do spend close to "more than the rest of the world (combined)" on our military (we certainly spend more than the other top 18 spenders combined). We should stop. Not just because it's a fifth of our expenditure (and it's more than that, really, the real costs of the military and the wars they fight are hidden elsewhere in the budget or in places which simply don't show up in the budget at all -- "supplementary appropriations") but because the military takes people out of society and turns them from people who'd earn money and enrich the state to people who cost us money.

If we took half our military budget and popped it into our education budget, we'd be spending roughly SIX times what we currently do on education. I suspect we could come close to promising everyone born in the US a PhD on that budget, if they wanted one. (Some argue that soldiers make better employees. If so, it's the least cost effective way you could imagine to accomplish that goal.)

And as world war one (and modern US history) teaches us, when you have a military, you find places to use it. Which makes all our other costs go up. If we cut our military budget in half, we'd STILL be spending more than the top five countries combined.

See https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures -- it's a little out of date but it gets you the general idea.

Hah. Me rich? Of my grandparents, 3 came to this country as children -- penniless. I'm the first one in my family to not only go to college, but to FINISH HIGH SCHOOL. I was effectively homeless for part of my 2nd term at the local community college -- living out of lockers and getting a $25 hotel 2 or 3 times a week until I got a better job and could afford a real room. I finished school with no debt and on my own blood/sweat.

Congratulations on your achievement. You obviously worked very hard...and, frankly, were a little bit lucky as well. What would have happened if you got a major illness during this time? Or your parents did and you had to drop out of college to support the family? Or any number of other scenarios...rags to riches stories like yours are inspiring but I don't think they're as common as you seem to be suggesting, even among smart people willing to work very hard. This infographic shows that the bottom 1/5th actually lost ground from 1980 to 2009.

My own luck was to be born into a loving, two-parent family who gave me healthy food, a stable home environment, medical care, and a college education. I now have an excellent job. Maybe I would have been able to pull it off without some of those things, but I'm sure glad I didn't have to.

With nearly 50% of the US paying no federal income tax, they have no problem asking for "more". Want to be 'fair'? Get rid of the EIC -- or at least prevent it from giving back MORE money that was originally paid by the recipient.

Now that's what I call class warfare. And so unlike raising taxes on people who can afford them, it is indeed rotten economics.

Have you looked at the actual table? For a single person, the Earned Income Tax Credit isn't available if (s)he earns more than $13,460. That's comparable to the US Census Poverty Threshold of $11,344 (for a person younger than 65). If not for the Earned Income Tax Credit, people who have an income might actually starve, go homeless, etc. So when I say this is class warfare, it is only because it could actually kill the working poor.

In contrast, the wealthy really can afford it without noticing. There was an interesting New York Times article on this recently, which linked to this Citizens for Tax Justice fact sheet. If you read through it, you'll see that the revenue from increasing the tax rate on the top 1% by income would be similar to that of raising it on the bottom 60% by the same percentage. I assure you, there will be enough left over to provide basic necessities of life! (In fact, I'm not in the top 1%, but I certainly could pay more taxes without great hardship. It might mean it'd take me longer to afford a house, but I'm not exactly homeless in my 2-bedroom rented townhouse.)

If you're not swayed by arguments such as "don't kill people with taxes", then consider no taxes on poor people an investment. If they have all of a home, healthy food on the table, adequate medical care, a quality education, and available jobs, it's reasonable to believe that many of them will go on to become middle-class tax-payers: enough so to pay back your investment with far more than the nominal 1% tax rate you're suggesting. In fact, by effectively selling too soon, you're virtually guaranteeing you'll throw away what you put in with that government-provided K12 education and the like.

Then you're actually in favor of a tax decrease for the wealthy. With our current tiered system, they pay a higher percentage than us.

No they don't, according to Warren Buffet: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

Sure he could be wrong and you could be right, but I'd prefer to believe Warren Buffet about this sort of stuff.

Of course, if you're not employed or earning very little, you'd be paying less tax than Warren Buffet. But I'm assuming the "us" means the average slashdotter.

Yup. The interesting thing is that even some of the rich people in question are effectively saying "please fuck us" - tax-wise at least.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

This winter, Amprion predicts its grid will have 84,000 megawatts of electricity at its disposal, to provide 81,000 megawatts needed for consumption - an uncomfortably slim margin of safety, Mr. Vanzetta said. In prior years, electricity was readily available for purchase on the European grid if the price was right. But exported German power is what helped keep France glowing in winter.

Two sources for the quote are ynet and Haaretz. The NYT passed it along too. The BBC reported on documents obtained by Gisha from the Israeli government detailing the blockade and containing estimates of the calories required by Gazans to stay alive.

It took five minutes to Google this up. Open your eyes and see that what has been happening for decades now is real and not just some "narrative." Of course, I'm sure you can cook up some explanation of why it's a military necessity to prevent food from entering Gaza.

The GP's comparison is over the top, but that link you posted is a ridiculous whitewash. Here some less happy pictures: link link link

I wouldn't but Hamas might:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/world/middleeast/20gaza.html

It's obvious what's going on here. The Interior Department, which under Bush/Cheney took cocaine and hookers from drilling, other oil and other energy corps who are supposed to pay (minimal) royalties to the Department, is totally corrupt. That is the agency that pretended to regulate BP and other drillers, allowing the Mocambo blowout to poison the Gulf last year (and generally, in less reported ongoing operations).

For what it's worth, two terms that apply to this phenomenon are iron triangle and regulatory capture.