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Wake the fuck up Windy
It's rich not poor people causing all the problems.

nonsense, there are no more elite now than there ever was. there were always elite... there is only capitalism as it ever was, no neo-capitalism.

I prefer this to be an impudent thrashing, but fear naivety.

The elite is much more rarefied now. According to Oxfam, just eight men own as much as half the world. 'The Economist' shows how that number can be stretched to 98 billionaires. Either way, the concentration of wealth comes from a capitalism different from that of the post WWII. https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/just-8-men-own-same-wealth-half-world. https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21715043-oxfams-headline-grabbing-comparison-has-some-flaws-are-eight-men-wealthy-half. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_economic_expansion

This new form of capitalism is the reason manufacturing moved overseas; why it's not really the products, but the logos that are marketed now; why Greece was forced to borrow money from lenders who did not expect Greece to be able to pay the loans back. It's the great economic experiment Augusto Pinochet tried in Chile. It's what Obama did in response to the 2008 Great Recession. And it is the ultimate cause of that Great Recession.

The ideas of Fredrick Hayek, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard and others in their school of thought are ubiquitous today, and the consequences have moved us from a relatively egalitarian "regimented capitalism" to a "new liberty" of power concentrated into the hands of a few private indivudals.

It's actually much more complicated. For Hayek, the marketplace knows more than anyone knows, more than anyone can know. I could go on but, needless to say, my own naivety is showing.

Fossil fuel companies spend $160 million every year just to lobby decision-makers in the US alone. So we can see who's paying to influence the debate here.

The event was already being criticized for "politicizing" science. "You're risking turning it from a non-partisan thing into a liberal vs conservative thing!" they say. "Conservatives will decide science is evil!"

While I think that's naive and stupid, thinking about how the message will be heard IS worthwhile.

"Science says you're having too many babies and that's contributing to climate change so stop!" Yeah, good fucking luck with that one. While you're at it, maybe sell republicans on the fact that taxes are necessary and can't always just be cut. Or Americans at large that Islamic terrorism is coming from our pointless defense of Israel and fighting wars on terrorism?

On top of that, it's a stupid fucking argument to be making. Carbon emissions are not evenly distributed. A handful of the worlds rich assholes (read: us) are doing the vast majority of the climate change (See figure 1). The fundamental problem is that you can get rich shitting in the water everyone is drinking, and there are also some shared benefits. All the birth control isn't going to do anything if people like those who run our government can still make a ton of money digging up carbon and the rest of us enjoy relatively cheap energy that everyone for generations to come is going to mostly pay for.

AND we can actually do something about that without doing anything unethical like forced sterilization. Carbon taxes. Nuclear or other clean energy. Those things you mentioned. Or burning fossil fuel industry people at the stake until no one is willing to do it anymore. All of those things make more sense, are more directly effective, and are less evil than prattling on about overpopulation.

In 2010, it took 388 people to represent the wealthy elite who owned as much as half of the global population. In 2016, it took only 62.

Your information is out of date. Turns out the wealth of the poorest people in India and China had been overestimated for 2016, and it's actually the eight richest people that own as much as the bottom half of the global population.

How about the wealthiest 6 Americans? Seems that 8 people own more wealth then the bottom 50% of humanity and they're acquiring more as quick as they can.
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press...

The reality is that, during the Obama Administration, income inequality has skyrocketed. That follows 8 years of income inequality falling, during the Bush years. Yes, the actual data is different than the oft-quoted meme - and the average working class person experiences that. Things aren't rosy as Obama claims. Income inequality didn't skyrocket during the Bush Administration. The media reported otherwise - and Joe Average knows otherwise. So they immediately discount anything said by the media, and will flock to someone who runs as the antithesis of the establishment and media favorite - Trump.

. Does the food that you purchase identify the conglomerate which entirely owns the folksy subsidiary whos name appears on the product?

That's because they're not required to. I presume most of the population would be shocked to find out that 99% of the stuff they buy at the supermarket comes from approximately 12 companies. All of them recognizable.

Companies behind the brands.

(That image was created as part of an Oxfam report, Behind the Brands).

Many of the wealthiest people in the world made their fortunes in the insurance industry.

http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/ib-wealth-having-all-wanting-more-190115-en.pdf

It's one of the primary funding sources for billionaires.

Here's a shocking stat I came across just yesterday: the richest 85 PEOPLE have as much wealth as the bottom HALF the world population. That's 85 == 3.5 BILLION. citation[PDF warning]

Almost HALF of the world's wealth is owned by one percent of the population.

In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer.

Unfortunately, I have somewhere to be, or I'd be writing a much longer epistle.

but damn.. europe be dense yo! or you are shopping in the city and paying 2x - 4x for everything.

And yet Western Europe appears to be the place to find affordable healthy food.

The only people I can think of who can stop this without causing even more bloodshed are Hamas leadership (proof: The west bank's leaders decided to mind their own business, and are experiencing both more freedom and more economic prosperity, despite the fact that, unlike the Gaza strip, Israel still occupies that region).

I certainly prefer the west bank to gaza (the availability of alcohol for one thing), however it's easy to see why people are unhappy with the Israeli occupation. Look at page 7 from thisOxfam Report, showing just how little of the West Bank is actually allowed to Palestinians.

I'd be a lot more sympathetic to Israel if they stopped expanding. Their politicians believe the entire land west of the Jordan river is theirs, and won't stop until they've driven the Palestinians out. The only question is, where will they go from there.

(I'd be a lot more sympathetic to Hamas if they got rid of the Salafists and Islamic Jihad, or at least stopped them from getting rockets)

"It grows in much of the two thirds of the planet that is underwater, so it wouldn't crowd out food crops the way corn for ethanol does. "

There is so much uneducated FUD about biofuel which only goes to show that the best of intentions among environmentalists and world hunger activists can have adverse environmental and social impacts. If use of corn for ethanol was an issue I would expect the vulnerable third world countries to be crying out for the US to sell them corn, but that isn't the case. The third world is attempting to curb the expansion of US production of corn. See e.g. http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/index.php/2010/04/nafta-and-u-s-corn-subsidies-explaining-the-displacement-of-mexicos-corn-farmers/ http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/truth.pdf

If people want to solve a problem, at least decide what the problem is. What is the greater evil, too much or too little corn?

As a side note, seaweed biofuels may be a better solution to bio-fuels - or it may not. Treating the environment and problems of world hunger as questions with such a simple answer is dangerous.

Yes, they will die from hunger, poor sanitation, wars (civil or otherwise) all of which are going to be made worse by climate change. The World Health Organization already attributes 150,000 deaths annually to the effects of climate change.

Climate change is widely expected to hit the poorest people hardest.

I think you need to consider the effect of making all those factors worse.

FTFA:

"Caputo: Here we are, a company founded on improving the quality of the experience of the internet and trying to make the world a better place."

Come on... The company is founded on maximizing revenue for ISPs. Who does he think his audience is? Oh, and I didn't realize bandwidth throttling was improving everyone's quality of life! And here I thought others were doing this. Congratulations on finding a way to make the world a better place and line your pockets at the same time!

The site they're talking about seems pretty harmless (and even a little immature), but I guess the case isn't about one particular site as it is about setting a precedent. Still, I think it's kind of silly that a bunch of high-powered lawyers spent so much time arguing about a Barney parody page.

I'm glad the EFF won, and I'm glad the EFF exists, but there have to be more important problems to spend time and money on than this one - like human rights and hunger, to name a few. Nothing against the EFF... it's just that this whole case rates a 9 on the WTF? meter.

Irony overload. Big Oil man doesn't like ethenol and questions opponents motivation. In the article he refers to the Energy Return on Investment and ethanol is only viable is because of the subsidies. This in relation to corn ethanol. Yet Brazil can manage to replace 40% of its forign Oil demand with ethenol. A viable long term solution that actually returns revenue to the local economy through the cultivation of sugarcane.

"I started off on the energy balance of ethanol versus gasoline. We went back and forth on efficiency versus EROI .. corn ethanol would be around as long as the subsidies were there."

"The Brazilian ethanol industry is based on sugarcane; as of 2004, Brazil produces 14 billion liters annually, enough to replace about 40% of its gasoline demand . Also as a result, they announced their independence from Middle East oil in April 2006"

"In my recent essay Vinod Khosla Debunked, I challenged Mr. Khosla to a written debate on his recent ethanol claims"

Why is it deemed necessary to 'debunk' Mr. Khosla. If wrong, then the Ethanol market will wither through the action of the market. I see here you dispute the 40% claim.

Oh, wait it gets even funnier. "Many so-called oil subsidies don't benefit the oil companies at all; they benefit consumers". And I suppose the reverse being that ethenol subsidies only benefit the companies"

Quite frankly I am confused with all these graphs and acronyms that I never heard of. I have a few simple question:br>
How much does it cost to produce a gallon of sugarcane ethanol?
How much does it cost to produce a gallon of oil?
What subsidies/tax breaks do the oil companies get?
What subsidies/tax breaks do the ethanol producers get?

Include the cost of drilling and Oil Rig construction
Include cost of clean up of any environmental damage

I'm sorry but this get even funnier. "I did indicate that as we continue to ramp up corn ethanol, our corn exports will fall and people in 3rd world countries will go hungry". The ethenol industry will steal food from the 3rd world. This is even more bizarre considering it is first world subsidies to the food industry that is currently destroying third world agriculture.

You're just one big shill for big OIL ... * assuming Big Oil actually pays for the oil and doesn't invade some country and liberate it. * EROI = Energy Returns on Ethanol Production.

then consider giving a bit of money to a set of fairly non-biased organisations such as...

This may sound common and like a cliche.. but oxfam do actually make a difference to the world and as such their motto "working to put an end to poverty world-wide" shows. http://www.oxfam.org/

Wikipedia also offer a.. well.. biased but ultimately helpful list of possible causes to give your money to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_to_donate_sites

Also giving your money to your family through presents and to people you like and such is a worthy cause in my opinion, christmas is supposed to be a time of giving and sharing and joy,enjoy it. :)

Nevertheless, you began this by stating how generous the USA was in its foreign aid. This is not really the case.

Regarding Israel, which you say is the largest single recipient, re-read my post and find that this is what I said. Given that Israel is hardly an impoverished nation and spends a goodly proportion of that aid on importing US weapons, it starts to look like nothing more than a money laundering operation for the Pentagon. Regarding donations to the rest of the Middle East dwarfing the donation to Israel which is 12.5% of the pie, you'll find that the rest of the Middle East gets almost nothing, unless you include Egypt at 9.5%.

Egypt is a frequent ally of the US and 2/3rds of the aid is in the form of military hardware. So I wouldn't worry about not getting anything in return for your aid, the US arms industry does fairly well out of it. The rest of the aid to Egypt does help shore up its economy and so contributes to some stability in the middle east.

I'm not sure how you can interpret the financial sink-hole that is Iraq as being an aid recipient. The money pouring in for "reconstruction" is not being put into the local community but into US contractors. There have been many cases where Iraqi companies are forbidden to tender and undercut the US companies.

I'm not sure how you say its easy for Denmark to be high in donations because of low internal aid. If you mean welfare (in US terms) then Denmark provides a much better social benefit for the deprived or unemployed than the US, along with funding many programs to help people.

Note that nothing I have said contradicts your final point about "giving money to a bum" but if you want to make that case, do it seperately from trying to imply that the US is massively generous in its aid. If you yourself earned $30k per annum then you personally would have donated $30 to those less fortunate than yourself, if the GDP was entirely generated by the public's taxes that is, but which, of course, it isn't.

However, if you want to see some positive outcomes of aid, you could try here and explore the rest of the site too for a lot more details about what aid can do. When properly applied it can changes people's lives.

Just to be complete was this your article, I think that you will find the complete publication more informative than the story based on the Press Release. I did a quick read of the material, and while the publication is really slick they don't do any footnoting, nor do they seem to tell you specificly where they got the figures or what those figures include and exclude (I might have missed it, I'll read the rest later). I wonder if it includes personal giving, or is some kind of 'net' figure (elimating say the amount payed to US farmers for grain). In fairness there is a list of unqualified references at the bottom of the report, which makes fact checking only marginally easier. Also, I find it interesting that they harp on the percentages, in the middle of the paper they say that the best way to improve the encomomy is an increase of the exports from the country (but that doesn't show up in the press report or the executive summary. Kinda like the old saying "give a man a fish...teach him to fish...". In that case you can consider our trade deficit as part of the aid!

All the whining aside, those poor people need our help today. Since you seem to be keeping track, right now, we (the U.S.) lead Japan by 5 million, Germany by more than $32 million, and that is jut what the Feds are putting up.

Just to be complete was this your article, I think that you will find the complete publication more informative than the story based on the Press Release. I did a quick read of the material, and while the publication is really slick they don't do any footnoting, nor do they seem to tell you specificly where they got the figures or what those figures include and exclude (I might have missed it, I'll read the rest later). I wonder if it includes personal giving, or is some kind of 'net' figure (elimating say the amount payed to US farmers for grain). In fairness there is a list of unqualified references at the bottom of the report, which makes fact checking only marginally easier. Also, I find it interesting that they harp on the percentages, in the middle of the paper they say that the best way to improve the encomomy is an increase of the exports from the country (but that doesn't show up in the press report or the executive summary. Kinda like the old saying "give a man a fish...teach him to fish...". In that case you can consider our trade deficit as part of the aid!

All the whining aside, those poor people need our help today. Since you seem to be keeping track, right now, we (the U.S.) lead Japan by 5 million, Germany by more than $32 million, and that is jut what the Feds are putting up.

Check out:

http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pr030827_corn_dumping.htm

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/wto/20 04/0909useusubsidies.htm

The post I found really interesting in this thread was the one saying, go to the Oxfam site and see what ten bucks can do. I scoped around the site for a few minutes and couldn't find a "Here's what ten bucks can do" page. I'm sure they could create one rather easily. They also don't have a "Make an anonymous donation via Paypal" page. If there were a way to give ten bucks right now without putting my name and address in their database, I'd do it.

From the article, "Maybe, in the end, it's enough to be aware of what's happening behind the scenes as we enjoy this cornucopia of bargains."

This seems to be a rather apathetic and cynical closing statement. Awareness by itself can't do anything. It is not enough to simply be aware of it if someone is in need of help. I would say that while it's likely impossible to avoid products with hidden costs in the modern world, one thing that anybody can do is help support your favorite non-profit, non-governmental organization that is working on behalf of people in dire need, worldwide. Examples include:
Amnesty International , Human Rights Watch , and Oxfam International .

It's no overstatement to say that if you can afford a twenty-dollar DVD player, you can afford to give twenty dollars to charity. You can donate online, with your credit/debit card, right now. So what is stopping you from helping out?

There's more than enough injustice in real life, and you're wasting your time whining about this?!?!

• Amnesty International
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• American Civil Liberties Union
• Oxfam International
• Doctors Without Borders
• Habitat for Humanity International

> Yes, but those 50k Win2k licenses aren't worth as much

Yes, you are right, they are worth *more*. Let's see.. I get a usable, secure, stable desktop OS, which can run tons and tons of real usable apps. Not alpha-grade crapware that tells me, sure, it'll get better, and why don't you donate $5000 so we can all enjoy.

Bleh. I'd rather donate $5000 to oxfam (my charity of choice) so that some poor fella in the third world could get vaccines, medicine and food. I do _not_ count my charity money well spent if some moronic geek buys beer and hardware with it, so that he can re-implement a freaking *word processor* or *windowing system*. (That's what GNU does anyway -- reimplements every darn thing under the sun, so what if it sucks and my mom will never use it, it's free! come, comrades, rejoice!).

Seriously though, at least GNOME has got the right idea -- if you *have* to develop open source products, leech off the finances of a large corporation like Sun, who can at least bankroll you. Just don't expect me -- Joe User -- to.

You could use these to establish a massive network of weather monitoring stations. Put one station in the center of each 10,000 square mile grid and get constant updates for an array of environmental data:
temperature, windspeed, CO2 concentration, Ozone level, humidity, precipitation, pH of precipitation, barometric pressure, seismic activity, InfraRed radiation, etc.

Feed the data collected over the remaining life of the satellites into NOAA's new supercomputer and maybe we could develop a weather model that predicts hurricanes, typhoons, droughts, (maybe even earth quakes and volcanoes) etc. weeks, or even months in advance. This would help prevent the loss of tons of crops and thousands of lives a year. And perhaps indentify potentially harmful longterm trends (like global warming or ozone depletion) in time for corrective action to be taken. The large re-insurance companies like Lloyds of London would likely provide a substantial amount of funding for such a venture.

All this could be done with very little bandwidth. Just because you can't stream video, or play Quake over an data connection doesn't mean its worthless. NASA is still getting data back from satellites it launched in the 70's that only transmit at around 2400 bps, it doesn't mean they no longer bother to listen.

----

Another idea would be to give free phones to UN and NGO workers (For example, Doctors without Borders (MSF), or Oxfam) in isolated locations. They could then request supplies specific to a given crises based on what they find in the field like the need for seeds of a specific crop, or vaccines for a specific disease.