But the main point here is to reduce the fuel demand and pollution from power generation, not to eliminate power plants entirely. The lowered fuel usage does effect these benefits.
But eventually, if distributed power generation becomes widespread, most buildings will generate at least a portion of their own power requirements, and the overall demand on the grid will be reduced to the point that not as many power plants will be necessary.
It looks like they were converting from linear meters to linear feet in the article. 800 ft does equal 244 m. But it's square measure, so your values are correct.
...I asked if I could get the photo without a little overlay of the Ollan Mills logo. The photographer said that I couldn't have the photo without that mark as they copyright all their photos by including the logo (which does include a (C)).
Doesn't the copyright of a work-for-hire belong to the hiring party? If so, wouldn't the copyright for your photo belong to you or your church as opposed to the photographer?
The main issue here is the control of the money supply by a single institution; the government can artifically create inflation and deflation by manipulating the money supply and is able to affect the economy in ways that far exceed its legitimate authority.
Gold and silver, being commodities, and products of nature, are a much more decentralised and freer basis for currency. Granted, there are real problems with having a stagnant money supply -- the gradual natural deflation would certainly create disincentives for investment.
The best solution would probably be for the value of the currency to be determined by a fixed, relaiable formula that ensures that the money supply grows exactly proportionally to the economy at large.
This may not be possible, though, and the best practical solution might be to have a multiplicity of currencies under a system of free banking, where the money supply would be generated in a decentralised manner, so the aggregate money supply would be created out of all of the disparate microeconomic factors that aggregate to form the whole economy.
Employee: "I want overtime for working 60 hours a week!"
Employer: "No overtime. You work 40 hours."
Employee: "But I need the money! I'd be willing to work 60 hours at my normal rate, even."
Employer: "I'd let you work 60 hours at your normal rate, but the government won't let me, and I can't afford to pay you overtime. Sorry. You can only work 40 hours."
Not in politics it isn't. Your analogy to the thermostat is flawed: thermostats aren't sentient beings with conflicting worldviews and goals. Humans are, and there are people at every extreme for any political question. A small step in the direction of a particular faction emboldens the extremists and enhances their ability to describe the world in accordance with their philosophy.
Small movements that engage in gradual, incremental advances -- leveraging each move in their direction into another -- have generally had much success in the past, for this very reason.
The people of this country, through their elected representatives, voted themselves certain minimum requirements in their employment contracts with all employers.
That's funny... I don't remember giving "the people of this country" any sort of fiduciary power to negotiate private contracts on my behalf.
Okay. Let's say without...where do you get that plot of land?
In yesterday's capital-based society, you had to have money to get land.
Actually during the era you describe, land was actually being given away for free. The governemnt still owns vast amounts of land in the US which could easily be privatised by giving lots to people in need.
But the government doesn't do that today because their interest is in maintaining dependency on the state -- and by extension, maintaining the power of politicians -- rather than helping people become self-reliant and strengthening civil society. Doing that would put them out of a job, after all.
Well, the discovery of gold and silver created a monetary mess in places like Spain, which didn't really have a sound economic foundation to begin with, and wasted much of their American riches on projects that created no useful value. On the other hand, look at what the New World did for countries like England and the Netherlands.
Also look at America itself in the nineteenth century: the Gold Rush in California added tremendous amounts of specie money into circulation, but there was no runaway inflation at all during the 1800s. This might be because economic development at the same time outpaced the expansion of the monetary through the new gold, so the money supply as normalized to the size of the economy didn't actually increase. In fact, there was a deflation crisis at the beginning of the 20th century in the US (what with the "Free Silver" people demanding that the government artificially expand the money supply) so it seems pretty clear that economic development significantly exceeded monetary expansion in that era.
But that begs the question: to what extent did the gold rushes themselves spur economic development? California itself was largely populated because of the rush of 1849, and new technologies and organizational methods were developed in order to facilitate mining and satisfy the demands of the miners. All this adds up to a large GDP boost.
If you apply that thinking to the asteroids, look what a gold rush in space might inspire: a viable mass market for space travel, with all of the concomitant technologies and organizational methods that would facilitate widespread space travel; a serious need for viable permanent human-habitation and support structures in space; and the basis for the colonization of the solar system itself. I think that in the long run, the benefits of all of these would probably far exceed the inflationary cost of introducing the mineral wealth of the asteroids into circulation.
In fact, depending on the average density of precious metal concentrations throughout the universe, it may even be that the economic expansion spawned by any gold rush will generally always exceed the inflationary cost of the resulting monetary expansion. So you might view the gold-rush mentality as one that uses the future value of specie excavation as collateral to finance the R&D that creates the very wealth the specie represents.
That's all hypothetical, of course, but entirely plausible, so I don't think we can say with any certainty what access to asteroids would do to the market price of gold and platinum.
As another poster on this thread said, I'd much rather take my chances with hard money and deal with the consequencies of asteroid mining - which may be enormously beneficial - and eschew fiat currencies which allow governments to tax by stealth through inflationary policies.
If you are going to fly yourself and perhaps friends and family, then a private license is good enough. If any money is changing hands, then the commercial license is needed.
You're begging the question. Why is it that the exchange of money necessitates more stringent safety precautions? Or conversely, why is it that the lack of the money being involved makes laxity more acceptable?
I haven't heard much cursing in children movies, but it wouldn't be against the law.
It isn't against the law here, either, it's just a cultural convention.
The entire movie-ratings system in the US is totally voluntary and operated by a private organization, because a government-mandated ratings system would be against the law.
Acquiring something of value while giving nothing exchange is not the definition of theft. This is in itself morally neutral; there's nothing inherently wrong with acquiring value without paying for it, and in some circumstances (such as with open-source software), it's entirely appropriate.
"Theft" is actually the removal of physical property from the posession of its owner without the owner's consent. This is impossible with all of your examples (a string of bits, an idea, etc.) because these items cannot be physically posessed; the concept of theft in the context of intellectual goods is a non-sequitur.
the GPL is like "Civilisation for Software" - it may mean you lose some freedoms, but in return the freedoms it gives are protected.
Yes, and just like real Civilization, you have a major trade penalty and decreased production when you try to switch governements, and you have to spend a few turns under Anarchy before you can choose a new government type, and you start getting civil disorder in all your large cities, so you have to turn workers into entertainers, which further eats up your production. Which doesn't matter, anyway, since you can't actually complete any improvements under Anarchy. So, er, switching to a different license type would slow Linux development. Yeah.
You're mistaken. The constitution grants powers to the government; it does not grant rights to the people. The Bill of Rights recognises certain rights posessed by individuals and restricts the government from violating them in all circumstances; it equally protects the rights of all individuals within the jurisdiction of the United States.
No, Donald Trump cannot declare bankruptcy without having his posessions seized.
Trump, Inc. can declare bankruptcy without Donald Trump having his assets taken, because Donald Trump and Trump, Inc. are legally distinct entities.
Setting up a corporation is incredibly easy: in most states it can be done by filling out one or two forms and paying a registration fee of at most a few hundred dollars. Anyone can have access to the same liability protection.
The purpose of the limited liability corporation, by the way, is to protect the owners -- that is, the shareholders -- from staking more than their actual investment in the company. Without limited liability protection, if you own stock in XYZ Inc. and they go bankrupt, your personal assets are subject to be seized to cover the company's debts. In other words, the purpose of limited liability is to protect the public from risking everything whenever making an investment.
It is the very intentional market manipulation and domination that has occurred in American business from the days of Rockefeller to those of Ken Lay.
Distorions deliberately introduced into the economy in order to further one set of interests at the expense of another are the antithesis of a free market. But this can only be done by government. Whether governments are being influenced by private interests is immaterial; remove the power from the government, and it can't be done.
As far as people like Ken Lay, he deliberately defrauded his shareholders; it's an instance of an employee stealing from his company, and ought to be punished as theft. There's no meaningful economic principles at work here, though.
The only thing that makes the hand invisible is the ability of corporations to obfuscate their own identity.
Obfuscate their identity? What exactly are you referring to?
No, no it's not. The "invisible hand" concept doesn't apply at the moment, because our economy more closely resembles old-fashioned mercantilism -- precisely what Adam Smith was arguing against -- than free-market capitalism.
They'd be full-blown mercantilists, actually. Cooperation between the state and business interests to further each other's goals is basically the definition of mercantilism.
The essence of Fascism is supremacy of the state over all other interests. Though nominally retaining the instututions of a free society, such as existing corporations, a fascist state usurps effective control over their resources through regulations, laws, and bureaucracy, and does not recognise any area of society as off-limits to political control.
I'll admit that fascism has a tendency to gradually develop towards mercantilism due to 'agency capture', however.
Look at your male profs, see if excell at their jobs and then see whether they have a life or not.Having a job you excel at and not having a life would seem to be mutually exclusive.
Slashdot Mirror
But the main point here is to reduce the fuel demand and pollution from power generation, not to eliminate power plants entirely. The lowered fuel usage does effect these benefits.
But eventually, if distributed power generation becomes widespread, most buildings will generate at least a portion of their own power requirements, and the overall demand on the grid will be reduced to the point that not as many power plants will be necessary.
It looks like they were converting from linear meters to linear feet in the article. 800 ft does equal 244 m. But it's square measure, so your values are correct.
The main issue here is the control of the money supply by a single institution; the government can artifically create inflation and deflation by manipulating the money supply and is able to affect the economy in ways that far exceed its legitimate authority.
Gold and silver, being commodities, and products of nature, are a much more decentralised and freer basis for currency. Granted, there are real problems with having a stagnant money supply -- the gradual natural deflation would certainly create disincentives for investment.
The best solution would probably be for the value of the currency to be determined by a fixed, relaiable formula that ensures that the money supply grows exactly proportionally to the economy at large.
This may not be possible, though, and the best practical solution might be to have a multiplicity of currencies under a system of free banking, where the money supply would be generated in a decentralised manner, so the aggregate money supply would be created out of all of the disparate microeconomic factors that aggregate to form the whole economy.
The way it is now, it's more like this:
Employee: "I want overtime for working 60 hours a week!"
Employer: "No overtime. You work 40 hours."
Employee: "But I need the money! I'd be willing to work 60 hours at my normal rate, even."
Employer: "I'd let you work 60 hours at your normal rate, but the government won't let me, and I can't afford to pay you overtime. Sorry. You can only work 40 hours."
Small movements that engage in gradual, incremental advances -- leveraging each move in their direction into another -- have generally had much success in the past, for this very reason.
But the government doesn't do that today because their interest is in maintaining dependency on the state -- and by extension, maintaining the power of politicians -- rather than helping people become self-reliant and strengthening civil society. Doing that would put them out of a job, after all.
Well, the discovery of gold and silver created a monetary mess in places like Spain, which didn't really have a sound economic foundation to begin with, and wasted much of their American riches on projects that created no useful value. On the other hand, look at what the New World did for countries like England and the Netherlands.
Also look at America itself in the nineteenth century: the Gold Rush in California added tremendous amounts of specie money into circulation, but there was no runaway inflation at all during the 1800s. This might be because economic development at the same time outpaced the expansion of the monetary through the new gold, so the money supply as normalized to the size of the economy didn't actually increase. In fact, there was a deflation crisis at the beginning of the 20th century in the US (what with the "Free Silver" people demanding that the government artificially expand the money supply) so it seems pretty clear that economic development significantly exceeded monetary expansion in that era.
But that begs the question: to what extent did the gold rushes themselves spur economic development? California itself was largely populated because of the rush of 1849, and new technologies and organizational methods were developed in order to facilitate mining and satisfy the demands of the miners. All this adds up to a large GDP boost.
If you apply that thinking to the asteroids, look what a gold rush in space might inspire: a viable mass market for space travel, with all of the concomitant technologies and organizational methods that would facilitate widespread space travel; a serious need for viable permanent human-habitation and support structures in space; and the basis for the colonization of the solar system itself. I think that in the long run, the benefits of all of these would probably far exceed the inflationary cost of introducing the mineral wealth of the asteroids into circulation.
In fact, depending on the average density of precious metal concentrations throughout the universe, it may even be that the economic expansion spawned by any gold rush will generally always exceed the inflationary cost of the resulting monetary expansion. So you might view the gold-rush mentality as one that uses the future value of specie excavation as collateral to finance the R&D that creates the very wealth the specie represents.
That's all hypothetical, of course, but entirely plausible, so I don't think we can say with any certainty what access to asteroids would do to the market price of gold and platinum.
As another poster on this thread said, I'd much rather take my chances with hard money and deal with the consequencies of asteroid mining - which may be enormously beneficial - and eschew fiat currencies which allow governments to tax by stealth through inflationary policies.
Was Alyssa Milano's character's lawyer played by Joe Pesci?
The entire movie-ratings system in the US is totally voluntary and operated by a private organization, because a government-mandated ratings system would be against the law.
Sort of ironic though; if his manuscripts had been destroyed, we wouldn't even know what you meant!
Acquiring something of value while giving nothing exchange is not the definition of theft. This is in itself morally neutral; there's nothing inherently wrong with acquiring value without paying for it, and in some circumstances (such as with open-source software), it's entirely appropriate.
"Theft" is actually the removal of physical property from the posession of its owner without the owner's consent. This is impossible with all of your examples (a string of bits, an idea, etc.) because these items cannot be physically posessed; the concept of theft in the context of intellectual goods is a non-sequitur.
A license is a contract.
You're mistaken. The constitution grants powers to the government; it does not grant rights to the people. The Bill of Rights recognises certain rights posessed by individuals and restricts the government from violating them in all circumstances; it equally protects the rights of all individuals within the jurisdiction of the United States.
No, Donald Trump cannot declare bankruptcy without having his posessions seized.
Trump, Inc. can declare bankruptcy without Donald Trump having his assets taken, because Donald Trump and Trump, Inc. are legally distinct entities.
Setting up a corporation is incredibly easy: in most states it can be done by filling out one or two forms and paying a registration fee of at most a few hundred dollars. Anyone can have access to the same liability protection.
The purpose of the limited liability corporation, by the way, is to protect the owners -- that is, the shareholders -- from staking more than their actual investment in the company. Without limited liability protection, if you own stock in XYZ Inc. and they go bankrupt, your personal assets are subject to be seized to cover the company's debts. In other words, the purpose of limited liability is to protect the public from risking everything whenever making an investment.
Distorions deliberately introduced into the economy in order to further one set of interests at the expense of another are the antithesis of a free market. But this can only be done by government. Whether governments are being influenced by private interests is immaterial; remove the power from the government, and it can't be done.
As far as people like Ken Lay, he deliberately defrauded his shareholders; it's an instance of an employee stealing from his company, and ought to be punished as theft. There's no meaningful economic principles at work here, though.
Obfuscate their identity? What exactly are you referring to?
No, no it's not. The "invisible hand" concept doesn't apply at the moment, because our economy more closely resembles old-fashioned mercantilism -- precisely what Adam Smith was arguing against -- than free-market capitalism.
Err... but "invisible hand" is a metaphor for the spontaneous order established via unconscious cooperation.
They'd be full-blown mercantilists, actually. Cooperation between the state and business interests to further each other's goals is basically the definition of mercantilism.
The essence of Fascism is supremacy of the state over all other interests. Though nominally retaining the instututions of a free society, such as existing corporations, a fascist state usurps effective control over their resources through regulations, laws, and bureaucracy, and does not recognise any area of society as off-limits to political control.
I'll admit that fascism has a tendency to gradually develop towards mercantilism due to 'agency capture', however.
Look at your male profs, see if excell at their jobs and then see whether they have a life or not.Having a job you excel at and not having a life would seem to be mutually exclusive.