"immigrants" isn't a homogenous group, any statement that lumps them all in is likely to shine no light at all on the issue.
In Norway we have two main groups of immigrants. The two groups have pretty close to -nothing- in common.
Group 1, the smallest group, are fugitives, or people who claim to be fugitives. They are often unskilled, sometimes lacking even basic schooling, don't know any language common in Norway, these are indeed a drain. Particularily the first year, sometimes much longer, particularily if the integration fails to work.
Group 2, the largest group, come to Norway -because- they have gotten a job here. They are overwhelmingly from the EU, with a few from North-America thrown in. They come to Norway already-educated, having already had their upbringing and education financed by another nation, here they move right in and start working the day after. These also tend to speak atleast one language common in Norway (though seldom norwegian), most know english or german or a scandinavian language. These are DEFINITELY no drain, quite the oposite infact, we couldn't do without them.
Lumping these two groups into one sack is unlikely to enligthen anyone.
Compared to what ?
The coast of Norway has a moderate climate due to the gulf-stream. It is seldom HOT, but it is also seldom COLD. For example, here in Stavanger anything above say 70F counts as a normal summerday, and much above 80 is rare.
On the other hand, a typical winter has only a handful of days with below-freezing daytime temperature. Some inland-states in USA have a lot colder winters than that.
The reason is another. Infact there are 3 reasons:
1) We have a LOT of mountains. (2/3rds of norway is mountain over 3000 feet, hardly anyone lives there)
2) We have a LOT of rainfall in many of these mountains.
3) We aren't a lot of people. 5 million is not much. We do have a lot of power-hungry industry (aluminum-mills for example) but nevertheless our power-needs are moderate for a country this size.
You're silly. Offcourse people want to live here. Net immigration last year was aproximately 1%. (i.e. if we ignore births/deaths then the population of Norway would've grown by 1% last year due to immigration outnumbering emmigration). This is on-par with other most-popular countries.
Few people move here from the US, logical because as an American you -CANT- go here, unless you've got qualificaitons we're lacking, are marrying a Norwegian or similar circumstances. (the reverse is also true: immigration to usa is restricted for norwegians)
Last year 780 people moved from Norway to USA. 3201 moved from USA to Norway. (have a look yourself at www.ssb.no don't take my word for it !)
These numbers are, as I said, artificially low (in both directions) because of restrictive immigration-policies in both countries. My guess is that both numbers would be 5-10 times as high if immigration was unrestricted. In any case, many more people move USA - Norway compared to the oposite direction.
1) True. If you aren't prepared to learn the language of a new country, don't bother moving there in the first place. Most norwegians speak english, nevertheless learning the language really is a requirement for your longterm happiness.
2) True. Except if you have a qualification we're lacking. Engineer, technical education or medical education of some sorts, say. Or unless you happen to be married to a Norwegian, for example.
3) The IRS only tax you for -1- year after you move abroad. And there are deals such that taxes paid in one country for that year is subtracted in the other. Nevertheless yes, it's an extra hassle the first year to have to file taxes in two countries. After that you file taxes only in the country you live and work in though.
4) I personally wouldn't count people like that among people whose opinion matters to me. (I do know first-hand, I did move to germany for a period of 4-5 years before returning to Norway)
5) Nonsense. First, citizenship is distinct from where you live. You can live in Norway for the rest of your life and yet remain a US citizen. Second, that's no "if". Everyone who has lived in Norway for more than 6 years legally automatically qualify for citizenship, so it's not as if that'll happen anyway. (shorter if you're "more attached" to norway, for example if you live in norway AND are married to a norwegian, the time-limit is 3.5 years)
English is taugth compulsory from 1st grade, i.e. from age 6. So just about everyone (atleast those under 60) speak english. People will nearly universally understand you.
However, you will not understand -them-. Just because we know english doesn't mean we speak it constantly at home, in social settings or at work. So basically, you won't be happy living in Norway unless you're prepared to take the effort to learn the language. It's not very hard for a native english, afterall we're in the same language-family so many structures are the same and many words are similar enough that when you've heard it explained once you can easily remember it. Still, it does take effort.
Internet is good and fast, but like all services not cheap. Expect to pay from $40/month upwards for a permanent unmetered link. (expressing things in dollars make them sound more expensive than they are though, due to the dollar being low these days, let me put it differently: expect to have to pay from 2-hours-pay upwards for a permanent unmetered link.)
I've actually got the slowest connection offered by my carrier; 10Mbps symetrical. Carried in by single-mode fibre-to-the-basement. Other offered speeds are 25Mbps, 50Mbps or 100Mbps symetrical. Most people are satisfied with 10 though. The link costs me 4 hours of pay a month, but that also includes ip-phone with unlimited free calls inside Norway and basic television. (aprox 30 channels, the voip and tv-over-ip also flows over the fibre)
IT-work is very very good. Lots of open positions. The tricky thing is to get a immigration-allowance if you're not a EU-citizen. (inside of EU you're free to live and work where you want, and norway is part of that though we're not a EU-member)
True. If you're unskilled and not a EU-citizen your odds are relatively poor. You'd basically need to convince one of them aforementioned hot girls to marry you or something.
If you're skilled your odds are better. There are immigration-openings for people with desired educations. Say you're an engineer, a medical doctor or nurse or have atleast a bachelor in some technical education.
It's a bit full. We're 5 people already, in a 3-bedroom house. You can buy the house though if you like, we're planning to move to a somewhat larger one, say one with 4-5 bedrooms.
The plan is to suck up natural gas. Produce electricity from it. Export the electricity to less fortunate countries on the continent that today derive their power from stuff like coal and oil, and thereafter reinject the CO2 from the burning into the same gas-fields that used to hold the natural gas.
A process that, as it happens, has the side-benefit of INCREASING the amount of gas that can be extracted from a field.
It's the same with taxes: If you're RICH you're better of in the USA. If you're lower or middle class you're better of here.
Taxes are low for people with low income, and they're typically MORE than balanced out by the increased peace-of-mind that tends to come from knowing you and your kids WILL get full healthcare if sick, your children WILL all be able to go to the best schools and colleges (assuming they've got the grades offcourse, but MONEY won't be a barrier), you WILL get a pension to live from when old and so on.
If you're rich, taxes are high, but for middle-class I find them acceptable. My wife and I are fairly average middle-class by Norwegian standards. Gross earnings are aproximately $175K/year. (in sum for us two, not for each of us!) With that we pay 31% taxes. I personally don't find that excessive. Particularily not when you consider that that INCLUDES all stuff like healthcare, unemployment-insurance, pensions, government-sponsored daycare etc.
We're an ungrateful bunch and don't, infact, "appreciate" many of the US military interventions. We support some of them, like say Afghanistan (and send troops and monetary aid to those), but in general most Norwegians (hell make that "europeans") are of the opinion that the USA is overly agressive military, and should drop atleast half of its international operations.
I -don't- actually think I'm any safer as a result of say the Iraq war or the Gitmo-disaster.
What we do is what anyone with a high income now, but less in the future, should do. We SAVE.
In practical terms, we have a fund that invest globally, to be able to pay for future pensions and the like. Currently the value of the fund stands at 2 trillion nok. Which is quite a decent chunk of cash for a nation of less than 5 million inhabitants. It's on the order of $100.000 for every inhabitant in the country.
This compares favourably with the US government having aproximately $35.000 in DEBT for every inhabitant. It also helps that at current prices the fund is growing like insanely crazy. (as in it'll be doubled in 3-4 years at current rates...)
For example, if you work for McD (not that I'd recommend it, they're among the poorest employers), you'll need to flip burgers for something like perhaps an hour to be able to afford a standard BigMac menu. I imagine this is similar to the US. Which is logical: for services salary and prices tend to follow eachother.
You're still better off here though. Because while the burger may cost 60 minutes of burgerflipping in both countries, there are also plenty of goods with near-constant global-prices. So if our hypothethical burgerflipper wants say an average laptop, then he'll be able to pay for it in half the time in Norway, compared to USA.
It's accurate and fully informed. It was however tongue-in-cheek. I don't actually think that Norway is heaven on earth, or anything even remotely close to that.
What you say about high prices is true. When even unskilled work is decently paid, it follows that the products that these unskilled people make costs more. End-result is you're probably better of (materially anyway) as rich in the USA, whereas if you're middle or lower-class, you'll probably be better of materially in Norway.
It also means that local-labour-intensive stuff (a haircut, a restaurant-meal, a car-repair) is expensive (relatively speaking) whereas easily transportable goods with a more-or-less constant world-price are cheap. (laptop, ps3, freezer, leather-jacket)
That's a natural consequence of decent entry-level wages. If you're upper-class and earn well, offcourse it's cheaper to get a haircut, or a burger, from someone that earns $5/hour rather than from someone who earns 2-3 times that.
*shrug* Not in the near future. To the contrary, we're kind of dependant on people wanting to move in and start working, since we've got more jobs needs doing (and money to pay for the doing) than we've got people for the doing. That's going to get worse the next 20-30 years as the huge wave of old people born directly after WW-II leaves the ranks of the working.
1) Oil-crisis ? What crisis ? We export shitload of oil and are steeenking rich as a result.
2) Healthcare costs money ? Guess so, never saw a bill (see 1) (universal healthcare)
3) Energy ? We get 95% of our electric power from hydroelectric already, planning to be completely carbon-neutral as a country in a decade or two.
4) Comfortable lifestyle ? Flipping burgers earns you $12/hour or thereabouts here, and unemployment is like 2% perhaps, so got that pretty much covered. (the main unemployed are -unemployabe- more than unemployed; if you are incapable of showing up at work, the problem ain't with the economy: it's with you!)
They obviously do not. But it -is- rational that car's need more power in short bursts than it needs on the average.
A car that can only deliver 50HP continously, but which can do 3-minute-bursts of 100HP is going to outperform a car that delivers 75HP all the time in practical usage. And it's -also- going to save fuel.
3 minutes of 50 extra HP requires storing 6750 kJ, or about 1.9kwh. Todays flywwhels can store up to about 1000kJ/kg, so you'd need about 10kgs of flywheel-storage to be able to do that. But you save some weight because of the smaller combustion-engine required. (a 50HP engine ain't -that- much lighter than a 75HP one though)
The hill up to the toll-plaza coming from the south ?
That climb is aproximately 600 feet of climbing in aproximately 2.5 miles (starting from the viaduct over the valley to the south), which is aproximately a 5% grade on the average. (some sections are obviously somewhat more, others somewhat less)
A 15% grade is -3- times as steep. And not particularily common. Even less so on roads where you can go 70-80.
How large a part of the time your car is moving is spent driving 70mph up a 15% grade ? It can't be more than a miniscule percent of the time, thus your loss if the car could only manage 70mph for the first 300feet of climbing, and thereafter only 50mph would be ignorable.
Sure. If you try hard enough you can justify anything. You can say that once every workday you spend 5 minutes going 70mph up a 15% incline (which implies that in those 5 minutes you drive ~6miles and climb ~4500 feet - windy ridge ain't that high, is it ?), and that if your weaker-engine+flywhhel could only do 70mph for the first 3 of those miles, and thereafter only 50mph, you'd lose -1- minute a day. (50mph rather than 70mph over a distance of 3 miles)
Thus having a gaz-guzzling muscle car ain't a luxury but a nessecity. It's a stretch though. Most people -don't- climb 4500 feet every day in order to get to work. And most of the people who -do- climb 4500 feet don't do it along such steep grades at such high speeds. How high -is- the Windy Ridge toll-plaza ? How much higher than where the steep climb starts ?
I don't know exactly, but from a short look in Google Earth, it appears the toll-plaza is at aproximately at 1200 feet, and the viaduct 2.5 miles to the south is at 600 feet. This gives a climb of only 600 feet (not 4500!), and an average grade of only 5% (not 15% !) Is there a larger climb ? If so, where ?
15% grade is insanely steep. 70mph up such a grade is VERY fast. Consider that the start putting up signs warning about steep grades at anything above like 7-8% (depending on the length though, a very short grade may have no signs even if steeper) At that speed and grade you're climbing 900 feet/minute. Yeah 15-20 may be a little low, but certainly much less than 100hp should do for a 1 ton car.
It depends, now doesn't it ? Things -do- look a little bit different for a family of 5, like say mine. That being said, huge american cars are wasteful, we drive a Skoda Fabia, works just fine. But I won't claim the thing ain't -full- once you've put in 5 people and even just the stuff needed for a weekend-trip.
I agree in practice: there's no good reason to download major-label-crap anyway.
But I disagree with the theory; that I should not do something -because- it is illegal. It's not as if laws are infallible sources of moral guidance. There are lots of laws which are flat-out wrong.
You shouldn't do stuff that is WRONG. You should however apply your own head to the problem of right and wrong, and not let your morals be dictated by whomever wrote the laws of your country.
It's quite likely to hurt. Not as in damage the planet. The planet doesn't care in the sligthest what we humans are up to (and would be fine at -100 or +300 degrees).
But hurt as in cause increased human suffering. Not because the conditions are nessecarily worse, that may or may not be a tossup. But simply because they are DIFFERENT. Lots of stuff that we do is adapted to local sealevel, rainfall, wind, sun etc, so a big CHANGE will disrupt a lot.
It wouldn't have been a problem settling Norway (say) at 3 degrees higher temperature, 10 meters higher sealevel, 100-year-storms every 10-years and 10-year-storms every year. Not in the sligthest, migth even have been easier than it was.
But nevertheless it -IS- a problem if we get these things now, or within a few decades. A significant portion of all buildings and infrastructure needs to be moved or secured to deal with that sealevel, for example.
I don't see any cause for bitterness, we're materially richer than humanity has ever been, and up until now we've spent a completely IGNORABLE part of our richness for dealing with climate change.
40 trillion is a number out of thin air. (by whom, over which time-frame ? How much would the damage of the alternative cost ?), but I do note that paying my part of that bill would mean, in essence, one year of zero pay-raise. Or if I was supposed to pay that over the next 2 decades, it'd mean my average pay-rise would be something like 3.1%/year rather than 3.2%/year. Cry me a river. (yeah, yeah, I do realize the average Chinese can't pay as much as the average Norwegian)
Probably sane, short-term. But that's unlikely to change anything long-term. So something is needed in addition. I personally think the best aditional thing to do is to make noise about the problems of your so-called "democratic" system.
Very many Americans truly, honestly believe that the democratic system you have is the best in the world, and are thoroughly shocked when they discover this ain't so.
Any kind of political system where you select -one- or a low count of people from one region suffers from many of the same problems:
If you live in a region where you know 80% is going to vote A, your vote GENUINELY doesn't matter.
A party that has 20% of the votes everywhere gets zero representation. One that has 60% in a tiny part of the country DO get representation.
If you live in a region where it's a close-race, you're forced to vote the "lesser of two evils" rather than your true preference.
Much better is reasonably sized regions with proportional representation. The region could be the entire country, but then you'd get poor geographical spread, probably better to have regions such that 10-20 people get elected from each region. (this then also applies that you need 5-10% support in atleast some regions to get represented, which is more reasonable)
Also an improvement is to let you RANK choices, rather than choose one of them. That way you could safely vote: 1) Green, 2) Democrat, 3) Republican, even if you lived in a state where you knew the two majors where in a close race.
Problem is, these changes will only come if those in power decide to enact law which will diminish their own power. Anyone can guess what the odds of -that- is....
Or move to Scandinavia. Our system ain't perfect either, not even close. But it's a hell of a lot BETTER.
Slashdot Mirror
"immigrants" isn't a homogenous group, any statement that lumps them all in is likely to shine no light at all on the issue.
In Norway we have two main groups of immigrants. The two groups have pretty close to -nothing- in common.
Group 1, the smallest group, are fugitives, or people who claim to be fugitives. They are often unskilled, sometimes lacking even basic schooling, don't know any language common in Norway, these are indeed a drain. Particularily the first year, sometimes much longer, particularily if the integration fails to work.
Group 2, the largest group, come to Norway -because- they have gotten a job here. They are overwhelmingly from the EU, with a few from North-America thrown in. They come to Norway already-educated, having already had their upbringing and education financed by another nation, here they move right in and start working the day after. These also tend to speak atleast one language common in Norway (though seldom norwegian), most know english or german or a scandinavian language. These are DEFINITELY no drain, quite the oposite infact, we couldn't do without them.
Lumping these two groups into one sack is unlikely to enligthen anyone.
Like hmm, the u in "but" aproximately.
Compared to what ? The coast of Norway has a moderate climate due to the gulf-stream. It is seldom HOT, but it is also seldom COLD. For example, here in Stavanger anything above say 70F counts as a normal summerday, and much above 80 is rare. On the other hand, a typical winter has only a handful of days with below-freezing daytime temperature. Some inland-states in USA have a lot colder winters than that.
Uhm, no. That's not it. The hydropower is PROFITABLE. Infact it's INSANELY profitable. I know because I own stock in one of them.
Production-costs for hydroelectric power is something like 1cent/kwh. Current average market-prices here are aproximately 10cent/kwh. You do the math. Or alternatively have a look at this: http://uk.ichart.yahoo.com/z?s=AFK.OL&t=5y&q=l&l=on&z=l&p=s&a=v&p=s
The reason is another. Infact there are 3 reasons:
1) We have a LOT of mountains. (2/3rds of norway is mountain over 3000 feet, hardly anyone lives there)
2) We have a LOT of rainfall in many of these mountains.
3) We aren't a lot of people. 5 million is not much. We do have a lot of power-hungry industry (aluminum-mills for example) but nevertheless our power-needs are moderate for a country this size.
Like I said: We got lucky.
You're silly. Offcourse people want to live here. Net immigration last year was aproximately 1%. (i.e. if we ignore births/deaths then the population of Norway would've grown by 1% last year due to immigration outnumbering emmigration). This is on-par with other most-popular countries.
Few people move here from the US, logical because as an American you -CANT- go here, unless you've got qualificaitons we're lacking, are marrying a Norwegian or similar circumstances. (the reverse is also true: immigration to usa is restricted for norwegians)
Last year 780 people moved from Norway to USA. 3201 moved from USA to Norway. (have a look yourself at www.ssb.no don't take my word for it !)
These numbers are, as I said, artificially low (in both directions) because of restrictive immigration-policies in both countries. My guess is that both numbers would be 5-10 times as high if immigration was unrestricted. In any case, many more people move USA - Norway compared to the oposite direction.
1) True. If you aren't prepared to learn the language of a new country, don't bother moving there in the first place. Most norwegians speak english, nevertheless learning the language really is a requirement for your longterm happiness.
2) True. Except if you have a qualification we're lacking. Engineer, technical education or medical education of some sorts, say. Or unless you happen to be married to a Norwegian, for example.
3) The IRS only tax you for -1- year after you move abroad. And there are deals such that taxes paid in one country for that year is subtracted in the other. Nevertheless yes, it's an extra hassle the first year to have to file taxes in two countries. After that you file taxes only in the country you live and work in though.
4) I personally wouldn't count people like that among people whose opinion matters to me. (I do know first-hand, I did move to germany for a period of 4-5 years before returning to Norway)
5) Nonsense. First, citizenship is distinct from where you live. You can live in Norway for the rest of your life and yet remain a US citizen. Second, that's no "if". Everyone who has lived in Norway for more than 6 years legally automatically qualify for citizenship, so it's not as if that'll happen anyway. (shorter if you're "more attached" to norway, for example if you live in norway AND are married to a norwegian, the time-limit is 3.5 years)
English is taugth compulsory from 1st grade, i.e. from age 6. So just about everyone (atleast those under 60) speak english. People will nearly universally understand you.
However, you will not understand -them-. Just because we know english doesn't mean we speak it constantly at home, in social settings or at work. So basically, you won't be happy living in Norway unless you're prepared to take the effort to learn the language. It's not very hard for a native english, afterall we're in the same language-family so many structures are the same and many words are similar enough that when you've heard it explained once you can easily remember it. Still, it does take effort.
Internet is good and fast, but like all services not cheap. Expect to pay from $40/month upwards for a permanent unmetered link. (expressing things in dollars make them sound more expensive than they are though, due to the dollar being low these days, let me put it differently: expect to have to pay from 2-hours-pay upwards for a permanent unmetered link.)
I've actually got the slowest connection offered by my carrier; 10Mbps symetrical. Carried in by single-mode fibre-to-the-basement. Other offered speeds are 25Mbps, 50Mbps or 100Mbps symetrical. Most people are satisfied with 10 though. The link costs me 4 hours of pay a month, but that also includes ip-phone with unlimited free calls inside Norway and basic television. (aprox 30 channels, the voip and tv-over-ip also flows over the fibre)
IT-work is very very good. Lots of open positions. The tricky thing is to get a immigration-allowance if you're not a EU-citizen. (inside of EU you're free to live and work where you want, and norway is part of that though we're not a EU-member)
True. If you're unskilled and not a EU-citizen your odds are relatively poor. You'd basically need to convince one of them aforementioned hot girls to marry you or something.
If you're skilled your odds are better. There are immigration-openings for people with desired educations. Say you're an engineer, a medical doctor or nurse or have atleast a bachelor in some technical education.
It's a bit full. We're 5 people already, in a 3-bedroom house. You can buy the house though if you like, we're planning to move to a somewhat larger one, say one with 4-5 bedrooms.
The plan is to suck up natural gas. Produce electricity from it. Export the electricity to less fortunate countries on the continent that today derive their power from stuff like coal and oil, and thereafter reinject the CO2 from the burning into the same gas-fields that used to hold the natural gas.
A process that, as it happens, has the side-benefit of INCREASING the amount of gas that can be extracted from a field.
It's the same with taxes: If you're RICH you're better of in the USA. If you're lower or middle class you're better of here.
Taxes are low for people with low income, and they're typically MORE than balanced out by the increased peace-of-mind that tends to come from knowing you and your kids WILL get full healthcare if sick, your children WILL all be able to go to the best schools and colleges (assuming they've got the grades offcourse, but MONEY won't be a barrier), you WILL get a pension to live from when old and so on.
If you're rich, taxes are high, but for middle-class I find them acceptable. My wife and I are fairly average middle-class by Norwegian standards. Gross earnings are aproximately $175K/year. (in sum for us two, not for each of us!) With that we pay 31% taxes. I personally don't find that excessive. Particularily not when you consider that that INCLUDES all stuff like healthcare, unemployment-insurance, pensions, government-sponsored daycare etc.
We're an ungrateful bunch and don't, infact, "appreciate" many of the US military interventions. We support some of them, like say Afghanistan (and send troops and monetary aid to those), but in general most Norwegians (hell make that "europeans") are of the opinion that the USA is overly agressive military, and should drop atleast half of its international operations.
I -don't- actually think I'm any safer as a result of say the Iraq war or the Gitmo-disaster.
We thougth of that.
What we do is what anyone with a high income now, but less in the future, should do. We SAVE.
In practical terms, we have a fund that invest globally, to be able to pay for future pensions and the like. Currently the value of the fund stands at 2 trillion nok. Which is quite a decent chunk of cash for a nation of less than 5 million inhabitants. It's on the order of $100.000 for every inhabitant in the country.
This compares favourably with the US government having aproximately $35.000 in DEBT for every inhabitant. It also helps that at current prices the fund is growing like insanely crazy. (as in it'll be doubled in 3-4 years at current rates...)
For example, if you work for McD (not that I'd recommend it, they're among the poorest employers), you'll need to flip burgers for something like perhaps an hour to be able to afford a standard BigMac menu. I imagine this is similar to the US. Which is logical: for services salary and prices tend to follow eachother.
You're still better off here though. Because while the burger may cost 60 minutes of burgerflipping in both countries, there are also plenty of goods with near-constant global-prices. So if our hypothethical burgerflipper wants say an average laptop, then he'll be able to pay for it in half the time in Norway, compared to USA.
It's accurate and fully informed. It was however tongue-in-cheek. I don't actually think that Norway is heaven on earth, or anything even remotely close to that.
What you say about high prices is true. When even unskilled work is decently paid, it follows that the products that these unskilled people make costs more. End-result is you're probably better of (materially anyway) as rich in the USA, whereas if you're middle or lower-class, you'll probably be better of materially in Norway.
It also means that local-labour-intensive stuff (a haircut, a restaurant-meal, a car-repair) is expensive (relatively speaking) whereas easily transportable goods with a more-or-less constant world-price are cheap. (laptop, ps3, freezer, leather-jacket)
That's a natural consequence of decent entry-level wages. If you're upper-class and earn well, offcourse it's cheaper to get a haircut, or a burger, from someone that earns $5/hour rather than from someone who earns 2-3 times that.
*shrug* Not in the near future. To the contrary, we're kind of dependant on people wanting to move in and start working, since we've got more jobs needs doing (and money to pay for the doing) than we've got people for the doing. That's going to get worse the next 20-30 years as the huge wave of old people born directly after WW-II leaves the ranks of the working.
Move to Norway :-)
1) Oil-crisis ? What crisis ? We export shitload of oil and are steeenking rich as a result.
2) Healthcare costs money ? Guess so, never saw a bill (see 1) (universal healthcare)
3) Energy ? We get 95% of our electric power from hydroelectric already, planning to be completely carbon-neutral as a country in a decade or two.
4) Comfortable lifestyle ? Flipping burgers earns you $12/hour or thereabouts here, and unemployment is like 2% perhaps, so got that pretty much covered. (the main unemployed are -unemployabe- more than unemployed; if you are incapable of showing up at work, the problem ain't with the economy: it's with you!)
Did I mention we've got hot girls yet ?
They obviously do not. But it -is- rational that car's need more power in short bursts than it needs on the average.
A car that can only deliver 50HP continously, but which can do 3-minute-bursts of 100HP is going to outperform a car that delivers 75HP all the time in practical usage. And it's -also- going to save fuel.
3 minutes of 50 extra HP requires storing 6750 kJ, or about 1.9kwh. Todays flywwhels can store up to about 1000kJ/kg, so you'd need about 10kgs of flywheel-storage to be able to do that. But you save some weight because of the smaller combustion-engine required. (a 50HP engine ain't -that- much lighter than a 75HP one though)
The hill up to the toll-plaza coming from the south ?
That climb is aproximately 600 feet of climbing in aproximately 2.5 miles (starting from the viaduct over the valley to the south), which is aproximately a 5% grade on the average. (some sections are obviously somewhat more, others somewhat less)
A 15% grade is -3- times as steep. And not particularily common. Even less so on roads where you can go 70-80.
How large a part of the time your car is moving is spent driving 70mph up a 15% grade ? It can't be more than a miniscule percent of the time, thus your loss if the car could only manage 70mph for the first 300feet of climbing, and thereafter only 50mph would be ignorable.
Sure. If you try hard enough you can justify anything. You can say that once every workday you spend 5 minutes going 70mph up a 15% incline (which implies that in those 5 minutes you drive ~6miles and climb ~4500 feet - windy ridge ain't that high, is it ?), and that if your weaker-engine+flywhhel could only do 70mph for the first 3 of those miles, and thereafter only 50mph, you'd lose -1- minute a day. (50mph rather than 70mph over a distance of 3 miles)
Thus having a gaz-guzzling muscle car ain't a luxury but a nessecity. It's a stretch though. Most people -don't- climb 4500 feet every day in order to get to work. And most of the people who -do- climb 4500 feet don't do it along such steep grades at such high speeds. How high -is- the Windy Ridge toll-plaza ? How much higher than where the steep climb starts ?
I don't know exactly, but from a short look in Google Earth, it appears the toll-plaza is at aproximately at 1200 feet, and the viaduct 2.5 miles to the south is at 600 feet. This gives a climb of only 600 feet (not 4500!), and an average grade of only 5% (not 15% !) Is there a larger climb ? If so, where ?
15% grade is insanely steep. 70mph up such a grade is VERY fast. Consider that the start putting up signs warning about steep grades at anything above like 7-8% (depending on the length though, a very short grade may have no signs even if steeper) At that speed and grade you're climbing 900 feet/minute. Yeah 15-20 may be a little low, but certainly much less than 100hp should do for a 1 ton car.
It depends, now doesn't it ? Things -do- look a little bit different for a family of 5, like say mine. That being said, huge american cars are wasteful, we drive a Skoda Fabia, works just fine. But I won't claim the thing ain't -full- once you've put in 5 people and even just the stuff needed for a weekend-trip.
I agree in practice: there's no good reason to download major-label-crap anyway.
But I disagree with the theory; that I should not do something -because- it is illegal. It's not as if laws are infallible sources of moral guidance. There are lots of laws which are flat-out wrong.
You shouldn't do stuff that is WRONG. You should however apply your own head to the problem of right and wrong, and not let your morals be dictated by whomever wrote the laws of your country.
It's quite likely to hurt. Not as in damage the planet. The planet doesn't care in the sligthest what we humans are up to (and would be fine at -100 or +300 degrees).
But hurt as in cause increased human suffering. Not because the conditions are nessecarily worse, that may or may not be a tossup. But simply because they are DIFFERENT. Lots of stuff that we do is adapted to local sealevel, rainfall, wind, sun etc, so a big CHANGE will disrupt a lot.
It wouldn't have been a problem settling Norway (say) at 3 degrees higher temperature, 10 meters higher sealevel, 100-year-storms every 10-years and 10-year-storms every year. Not in the sligthest, migth even have been easier than it was.
But nevertheless it -IS- a problem if we get these things now, or within a few decades. A significant portion of all buildings and infrastructure needs to be moved or secured to deal with that sealevel, for example.
I don't see any cause for bitterness, we're materially richer than humanity has ever been, and up until now we've spent a completely IGNORABLE part of our richness for dealing with climate change.
40 trillion is a number out of thin air. (by whom, over which time-frame ? How much would the damage of the alternative cost ?), but I do note that paying my part of that bill would mean, in essence, one year of zero pay-raise. Or if I was supposed to pay that over the next 2 decades, it'd mean my average pay-rise would be something like 3.1%/year rather than 3.2%/year. Cry me a river.
(yeah, yeah, I do realize the average Chinese can't pay as much as the average Norwegian)
Very many Americans truly, honestly believe that the democratic system you have is the best in the world, and are thoroughly shocked when they discover this ain't so.
Any kind of political system where you select -one- or a low count of people from one region suffers from many of the same problems:
Much better is reasonably sized regions with proportional representation. The region could be the entire country, but then you'd get poor geographical spread, probably better to have regions such that 10-20 people get elected from each region. (this then also applies that you need 5-10% support in atleast some regions to get represented, which is more reasonable)
Also an improvement is to let you RANK choices, rather than choose one of them. That way you could safely vote: 1) Green, 2) Democrat, 3) Republican, even if you lived in a state where you knew the two majors where in a close race.
Problem is, these changes will only come if those in power decide to enact law which will diminish their own power. Anyone can guess what the odds of -that- is....
Or move to Scandinavia. Our system ain't perfect either, not even close. But it's a hell of a lot BETTER.