In all seriousness, Germany's early solar efforts are impressive but China (& India) should catch & pass them within 5-10 years. And then there's solar water heating where China has led not only Germany but ALL of the EU combined and accounts for more than 1/2 the global total. America has long been a laggard in the adoption of this tech but made significant gains after 2008. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
About 12,000 years ago, a mass extinction event occurred that eliminated 75% of the world’s large mammal species. Fortunately, a handful of cheetahs managed to survive this extreme extinction event and were able to restore the world’s population of cheetahs.
This event caused an extreme reduction of the cheetah’s genetic diversity, known as a population bottleneck, resulting in the physical homogeneity of today’s cheetahs. Poor sperm quality, focal palatine erosion, susceptibility to the same infectious diseases, and kinked tails characteristic of the majority of the world’s cheetahs are all ramifications of the low genetic diversity within the global cheetah population
In America, Charity is a 350 billion dollar industry! source [givingusa.org].
The American wealthy LOVE supporting noble charities. We are the largest supporter in the world!
The notion that American rich people are all selfish assholes is perpetuated by teeming masses of American poor people who don't like the fact that they might have to do unpleasant work, and dial back their preferred level of luxury, in order to make ends meet. So they stamp their feet and demand free money. It is actually quite disgusting.
I make well above the median annual income of ~$50,000 but I feel I don't have nearly enough put away for my golden years and I'm getting long in the tooth. So my New Year's Resolution for 2017 is to cut my discretionary spending by 1/3rd for as long as I can. I wonder what would be the economic impact of everyone at $50,000 and below doing the same from January 1st to July 4th, 2017?? Imagine that many consumers spending 1/3rd less on fast food / dining out - yes including Starbucks / coffee, movies & snacks, cigarettes, alcohol, lotteries & gambling, airline flights, vacations, clothing and fuel. My guess is it would trigger a collapse to rival 2009. Thoughts?
Everything always comes back to politics with you people for some reason
Can you explain how you managed to forget that this started when YOU wanted ONLY employed people to be able to vote? And now you're crying "politics"?? Just what was in the turkey stuffing this year?
Claim: Automation will displace human workers to the point that almost no one will be employed. Counter-argument: Automation is not nearly the force your think it is. Example: smartphones are hand-assembled by legions of human workers. Rebuttal: Argle-bargle-Trump-OBama. ?????
Let's break this down a bit. One - automation will cause job less in high-wage countries or high-wage industries Two - jobs that will be too difficult to automate and can't be outsourced will be fewer so lots of un- or under-employed people. Three- Loudmouths promising manual labor jobs will be brought back are largely deceiving you Four - Legions of manual labor workers in other countries don't get to vote here. They matter far less than voters who don't live in swing states; see USA Presidential Election 2016 results - popular vote vs electoral college for an example. Five - "Automation is not nearly the force your think it is" - correction, not YET. But Andy Puzder, who probably going to be Trump's labor secretary likes the idea of replacing fast food workers with robots, especially for the Hardee / Carl Jr chains he runs because "robots are "always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case" - and they don't form unions or vote for pesky social programs that corporations to which corporations may have to contribute. (sorry that was a bit long for your overworked tummy & brain but there's more)
Five B - Now you have Forbes, Harvard Business Review, billionaire Ray Dalio and giant hedge fund Bridgewater pursuing AI to replace managers. I don't think this will be easy and won't happen overnight but it's going to happen and probably well before I can retire.
So in 10, 15 or 20 years, that'll be a lot of disenfranchised & disgruntled workers waiting for the next populist blowhard to stand on the soapbox and since your preferred scenario means no ballot box for them, they'll reach for the one holding ammo.
Disagreement is treason: From silencing conservative opinions on Twitter and Reddit to assaults and threats against Trump supporters, this one fits the left like a glove
The GOP base was doing a great job of smacking down Trump critics doing the primaries. And ask Russell Moore who's been trying to shut him up & cut his Baptist funding. Hint: It's not Hillary, the Dems, socialists or feminists http://www.redstate.com/sweeti...
The cult of tradition: The left achieves this by replacing old traditions with their own
So is it Merry Xmas or Io Saturnalia where you live?
Life is permanent warfare: This sounds like the continuous revolution of the left
This sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. The GOP has been telling us for a long time to be afraid of you-name-it, Russians, Mexicans, gaytheists, black welfare recipients, Muslims, Cubans, the War On Christmas and anything French.
The obsession with a plot, possibly an international one: Claims of patriarchy & "good old boys club" fit.
Really? More than the many murders supposedly committed by the Clintons, that the Rothschilds sank the Titanic or rule the world (or is that George Soros??), that the ominously named Agenda 21 strip America of its power and make it a vassal state of the UN - or should we be more afraid of Shariah Law replacing the Constitution?
The appeal to a frustrated middle class: Given that many revolutionaries of the left come from the middle, they definitely fit.
And on the flip side there's rightwing populism and the racist supremacists cockroaches who rebranded themselves as the alt-right. Is that better?
"Automation my ass. You smartphone is still hand-assembled. Just 'cause the work doesn't happen here where you can see it doesn't mean that nobody does it." Except that *those* people don't vote where you or I live so they may as well be machines, or slaves
Trump's been saying loudly he's going to bring those jobs back? Talk is cheap. I've heard a lot of crap come out of his mouth in the past 40+ years. I don't recall any of it being about rescuing the working man and he's never bothered to make sure the stuff he puts his name on is all made in America.
But clothing manufacturing has been having something of a resurgence in the USA in the past few years - during the same period & under the same person whose birth certificate hunt was such a preoccupation for Donald Trump
If you live in society, you have skin in the game. The government should guarantee the right to have rights, even if you're unemployed. There are lots of people who don't or can't work, some for very good reasons, some for bad ones. But they still all have rights including the right to vote. Most of them do pay taxes, even if it's not payroll taxes. Let's not forget that a lot of the "work" that many do, especially women, isn't and has never been paid. But it's still work.
The coming AI / automation / robotics revolution is going to disenfranchise a huge amount of people. By your critieria, they all get kicked to the curb in favor of silicon suffrage.
I'd offer whatever crown you think I have if only you'd learn to spell or type but I suspect I'm dealing with the Lord High Emperor of All Anonymous Cowards.
"It's what governments have been doing all along and it's what has been promised for the short term, changes to the business climate in the US will take at least 3 presidency cycles if not longer, regardless of what any candidate promises, you can't just change all that is wrong that quickly nor efficiently"
I'm glad you recognize that but let's face it, that's NOT what got Trump elected so harsh criticism is more than fair. Also the deal was initially supposed to save ~1,000 jobs but now it's only 300? I haven't read The Art of the Deal but this seems like the braggart got played for a chump. A most inauspicious pre-game warmup for one of America's most famous self-promoters.
Thank you for giving back. Or paying it forward or whatever. Far too many don't regardless of their belief system. Several times in my younger years, I had nothing & no one but the system to lean on & I know very well what it means to be "working poor".
My comment is only offtopic if Pharmboy's parent post is - please point that out to him when you have a moment; thanks in advance.
And your point about the net benefit is irrelevant even if correct which I'm not sure it is. Whatever the outcome, this is a government handout - from an administration that promised to "drain the swamp". Not exactly a shining start even if they've not yet taken control of the government.
Leaving aside the apparent hypocrisy, how many times can this be replicated to protect jobs? Does Carrier only merit this because they're the 1st to attract the incoming administration's notice?
That seems to something for the company board of directors to decide.
I guess that decision has already been made. In all my years in the workforce, I have never worked for a company, directly or otherwise whose board has ever opposed or overturned a significant decision by the CEO. I suppose it does happen but not in my experience.
it's true, but it would take someone with the experience and capability to start up that kind of company, and the know-how to start a price war. My guess is that in the ~200 people who are getting laid off, there isn't anyone who knows how to do that. It's not normal expertise among IT people.
It's not that hard and I'm sure they find a few managerial types, unemployed or not, to help them. Plus CarnivalIT has a HUGE advantage - they know the systems inside and out, history of upgrades & outages, and more importantly, the USERS, who has to have their hands held, spoonfed, who the smart ones are, who're quickest to escalate, who can be handled by e-mail, etc - assuming the support desk isn't outsourced. I've been through 3 IT support transitions in my career, one where I was part of the incoming support, taking over the Western hemisphere and English-speaking global IT operations for an oil company, and one where I was part of the group facilitating the transition between managed services providers for a healthcare conglomerate with 4 large hospitals, 10 affiliates, and dozens of clinics for a rough total of 20,000 users. Based on my experience, it's a *minimum* of 2 years for a large & complex organization - and the money you need to spend to make it happen that quickly & smoothly is staggering. More than 50 of just the internal people involved were working 25+ hrs overtime for a year.
There's no way Carnival is going to get save money in the face of resistance. They would be better off offering to help setup the IT department as a separate consultancy with a contract of say 5 years, with the understanding that is the way forward and with agreements for enabling a future transition to another company.
You idiots do understand that he isn't even in office yet, and you are already bitching about the job he is doing? How retarded is that?
Trump doesn't seem to be aware of that as he & Pence handed TAXPAYER dollars to Carrier to keep jobs local. And he's tweeting about nuclear escalation when Obama is still POTUS?? WTF is wrong with him?
"I'm saving my condescending remarks for about 3 years from now when nothing's changed"
While I did win several bets that Trump would beat Clinton - I'll be enjoying free lunches at the expense of several colleagues for all of January 2017 - I don't claim to have a crystal ball on how this will play out, but nothing I'm hearing or seeing from Trump so far fills me with hope. That said, I'll be very surprised if you have to wait 3 years and even more shocked if it's "nothing's changed"; I expect things to be worse overall but it's not something I'm wishing for.
"I am sorry that furthering the best interests of me and my clients means letting you go"
It's fine for a CEO to be acting in the best interests of the clients and the company - but NOT his own. I'm sure he can quickly find one who'll do his job for a fraction of the cost and for a much smaller golden parachute. If the company's performance declined on his watch, he should give up some or all of that up as well.
It's not a partisan issue, it's a money issue. If you could find a way to grease politicians with solar you might see them change their tune.
Then it's a partisan money issue - and if the elected officials of either party need "greasing" or oiling, I'd prefer frying them - with solar thermal, if need be. I'm all in favor of an end to the kind of high-dollar bribery that Congress dresses up & calls lobbying
Why don't you create a new article for this instead of forcing your way into Carrie Fisher's?
You're a fucking bastard and you should delete your account.
I was going to say that I'd care more about your opinion if you bothered to *create* an account. But I have a suspicion you're one of the many trolls I've smacked down over the years, probably quite recently. So have a Merry Xmas or FOAD, or both if you prefer
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps because Germany is so sunny? ;-) It must be true because I heard it on Fox News!!
https://youtu.be/fe3vxu9vxAQ?t...
In all seriousness, Germany's early solar efforts are impressive but China (& India) should catch & pass them within 5-10 years.
And then there's solar water heating where China has led not only Germany but ALL of the EU combined and accounts for more than 1/2 the global total.
America has long been a laggard in the adoption of this tech but made significant gains after 2008.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I don't know what a "diktat" is but it sounds very painful
http://cheetah.org/about-the-c...
In America, Charity is a 350 billion dollar industry! source [givingusa.org].
The American wealthy LOVE supporting noble charities. We are the largest supporter in the world!
The notion that American rich people are all selfish assholes is perpetuated by teeming masses of American poor people who don't like the fact that they might have to do unpleasant work, and dial back their preferred level of luxury, in order to make ends meet. So they stamp their feet and demand free money. It is actually quite disgusting.
I make well above the median annual income of ~$50,000 but I feel I don't have nearly enough put away for my golden years and I'm getting long in the tooth.
So my New Year's Resolution for 2017 is to cut my discretionary spending by 1/3rd for as long as I can.
I wonder what would be the economic impact of everyone at $50,000 and below doing the same from January 1st to July 4th, 2017??
Imagine that many consumers spending 1/3rd less on fast food / dining out - yes including Starbucks / coffee, movies & snacks, cigarettes, alcohol, lotteries & gambling, airline flights, vacations, clothing and fuel.
My guess is it would trigger a collapse to rival 2009. Thoughts?
Everything always comes back to politics with you people for some reason
Can you explain how you managed to forget that this started when YOU wanted ONLY employed people to be able to vote?
And now you're crying "politics"??
Just what was in the turkey stuffing this year?
Claim: Automation will displace human workers to the point that almost no one will be employed.
Counter-argument: Automation is not nearly the force your think it is. Example: smartphones are hand-assembled by legions of human workers.
Rebuttal: Argle-bargle-Trump-OBama.
?????
Let's break this down a bit.
One - automation will cause job less in high-wage countries or high-wage industries
Two - jobs that will be too difficult to automate and can't be outsourced will be fewer so lots of un- or under-employed people.
Three- Loudmouths promising manual labor jobs will be brought back are largely deceiving you
Four - Legions of manual labor workers in other countries don't get to vote here. They matter far less than voters who don't live in swing states; see USA Presidential Election 2016 results - popular vote vs electoral college for an example.
Five - "Automation is not nearly the force your think it is" - correction, not YET.
But Andy Puzder, who probably going to be Trump's labor secretary likes the idea of replacing fast food workers with robots, especially for the Hardee / Carl Jr chains he runs because "robots are "always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case" - and they don't form unions or vote for pesky social programs that corporations to which corporations may have to contribute.
(sorry that was a bit long for your overworked tummy & brain but there's more)
Five B - Now you have Forbes, Harvard Business Review, billionaire Ray Dalio and giant hedge fund Bridgewater pursuing AI to replace managers.
I don't think this will be easy and won't happen overnight but it's going to happen and probably well before I can retire.
So in 10, 15 or 20 years, that'll be a lot of disenfranchised & disgruntled workers waiting for the next populist blowhard to stand on the soapbox and since your preferred scenario means no ballot box for them, they'll reach for the one holding ammo.
Disagreement is treason:
From silencing conservative opinions on Twitter and Reddit to assaults and threats against Trump supporters, this one fits the left like a glove
The GOP base was doing a great job of smacking down Trump critics doing the primaries. And ask Russell Moore who's been trying to shut him up & cut his Baptist funding.
Hint: It's not Hillary, the Dems, socialists or feminists
http://www.redstate.com/sweeti...
The cult of tradition:
The left achieves this by replacing old traditions with their own
So is it Merry Xmas or Io Saturnalia where you live?
Life is permanent warfare:
This sounds like the continuous revolution of the left
This sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. The GOP has been telling us for a long time to be afraid of you-name-it, Russians, Mexicans, gaytheists, black welfare recipients, Muslims, Cubans, the War On Christmas and anything French.
The obsession with a plot, possibly an international one:
Claims of patriarchy & "good old boys club" fit.
Really? More than the many murders supposedly committed by the Clintons, that the Rothschilds sank the Titanic or rule the world (or is that George Soros??), that the ominously named Agenda 21 strip America of its power and make it a vassal state of the UN - or should we be more afraid of Shariah Law replacing the Constitution?
The appeal to a frustrated middle class:
Given that many revolutionaries of the left come from the middle, they definitely fit.
And on the flip side there's rightwing populism and the racist supremacists cockroaches who rebranded themselves as the alt-right. Is that better?
"Automation my ass. You smartphone is still hand-assembled. Just 'cause the work doesn't happen here where you can see it doesn't mean that nobody does it."
Except that *those* people don't vote where you or I live so they may as well be machines, or slaves
Trump's been saying loudly he's going to bring those jobs back? Talk is cheap. I've heard a lot of crap come out of his mouth in the past 40+ years.
I don't recall any of it being about rescuing the working man and he's never bothered to make sure the stuff he puts his name on is all made in America.
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/...
But clothing manufacturing has been having something of a resurgence in the USA in the past few years - during the same period & under the same person whose birth certificate hunt was such a preoccupation for Donald Trump
Some of us had nothing, no one, and no system to lean on.
And are you in favor of having such a system? Hard as it is when you're young & inexperienced, it can be disastrous when you're old.
If you live in society, you have skin in the game. The government should guarantee the right to have rights, even if you're unemployed.
There are lots of people who don't or can't work, some for very good reasons, some for bad ones. But they still all have rights including the right to vote.
Most of them do pay taxes, even if it's not payroll taxes.
Let's not forget that a lot of the "work" that many do, especially women, isn't and has never been paid.
But it's still work.
The coming AI / automation / robotics revolution is going to disenfranchise a huge amount of people.
By your critieria, they all get kicked to the curb in favor of silicon suffrage.
I'd offer whatever crown you think I have if only you'd learn to spell or type but I suspect I'm dealing with the Lord High Emperor of All Anonymous Cowards.
"It's what governments have been doing all along and it's what has been promised for the short term, changes to the business climate in the US will take at least 3 presidency cycles if not longer, regardless of what any candidate promises, you can't just change all that is wrong that quickly nor efficiently"
I'm glad you recognize that but let's face it, that's NOT what got Trump elected so harsh criticism is more than fair.
Also the deal was initially supposed to save ~1,000 jobs but now it's only 300?
I haven't read The Art of the Deal but this seems like the braggart got played for a chump. A most inauspicious pre-game warmup for one of America's most famous self-promoters.
If gainful employment were to be made a condition of being eligible to vote, I could get behind that.
Just bring back poll taxes and the land ownership requirement, too, right?
Thank you for giving back. Or paying it forward or whatever. Far too many don't regardless of their belief system.
Several times in my younger years, I had nothing & no one but the system to lean on & I know very well what it means to be "working poor".
My comment is only offtopic if Pharmboy's parent post is - please point that out to him when you have a moment; thanks in advance.
And your point about the net benefit is irrelevant even if correct which I'm not sure it is. Whatever the outcome, this is a government handout - from an administration that promised to "drain the swamp". Not exactly a shining start even if they've not yet taken control of the government.
Leaving aside the apparent hypocrisy, how many times can this be replicated to protect jobs? Does Carrier only merit this because they're the 1st to attract the incoming administration's notice?
That seems to something for the company board of directors to decide.
I guess that decision has already been made. In all my years in the workforce, I have never worked for a company, directly or otherwise whose board has ever opposed or overturned a significant decision by the CEO.
I suppose it does happen but not in my experience.
Since it's Xmas, I prefer to Always Be Cobbling - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
PUT THAT COCOA DOWN!!
it's true, but it would take someone with the experience and capability to start up that kind of company, and the know-how to start a price war. My guess is that in the ~200 people who are getting laid off, there isn't anyone who knows how to do that. It's not normal expertise among IT people.
It's not that hard and I'm sure they find a few managerial types, unemployed or not, to help them.
Plus CarnivalIT has a HUGE advantage - they know the systems inside and out, history of upgrades & outages, and more importantly, the USERS, who has to have their hands held, spoonfed, who the smart ones are, who're quickest to escalate, who can be handled by e-mail, etc - assuming the support desk isn't outsourced.
I've been through 3 IT support transitions in my career, one where I was part of the incoming support, taking over the Western hemisphere and English-speaking global IT operations for an oil company, and one where I was part of the group facilitating the transition between managed services providers for a healthcare conglomerate with 4 large hospitals, 10 affiliates, and dozens of clinics for a rough total of 20,000 users.
Based on my experience, it's a *minimum* of 2 years for a large & complex organization - and the money you need to spend to make it happen that quickly & smoothly is staggering. More than 50 of just the internal people involved were working 25+ hrs overtime for a year.
There's no way Carnival is going to get save money in the face of resistance. They would be better off offering to help setup the IT department as a separate consultancy with a contract of say 5 years, with the understanding that is the way forward and with agreements for enabling a future transition to another company.
You idiots do understand that he isn't even in office yet, and you are already bitching about the job he is doing? How retarded is that?
Trump doesn't seem to be aware of that as he & Pence handed TAXPAYER dollars to Carrier to keep jobs local.
And he's tweeting about nuclear escalation when Obama is still POTUS?? WTF is wrong with him?
https://twitter.com/realDonald...
"I'm saving my condescending remarks for about 3 years from now when nothing's changed"
While I did win several bets that Trump would beat Clinton - I'll be enjoying free lunches at the expense of several colleagues for all of January 2017 - I don't claim to have a crystal ball on how this will play out, but nothing I'm hearing or seeing from Trump so far fills me with hope.
That said, I'll be very surprised if you have to wait 3 years and even more shocked if it's "nothing's changed"; I expect things to be worse overall but it's not something I'm wishing for.
"I am sorry that furthering the best interests of me and my clients means letting you go"
It's fine for a CEO to be acting in the best interests of the clients and the company - but NOT his own.
I'm sure he can quickly find one who'll do his job for a fraction of the cost and for a much smaller golden parachute.
If the company's performance declined on his watch, he should give up some or all of that up as well.
It's not a partisan issue, it's a money issue. If you could find a way to grease politicians with solar you might see them change their tune.
Then it's a partisan money issue - and if the elected officials of either party need "greasing" or oiling, I'd prefer frying them - with solar thermal, if need be.
I'm all in favor of an end to the kind of high-dollar bribery that Congress dresses up & calls lobbying
Help me C3PR, you're my only hope!
Well played
Why don't you create a new article for this instead of forcing your way into Carrie Fisher's?
You're a fucking bastard and you should delete your account.
I was going to say that I'd care more about your opinion if you bothered to *create* an account.
But I have a suspicion you're one of the many trolls I've smacked down over the years, probably quite recently.
So have a Merry Xmas or FOAD, or both if you prefer
As much as I grieve for one and hope for the recovery of the other, I don't see how they're connected.
C'mon, it's not that much of a stretch, is it?
Vulovic' - Slashdot swallowed the Unicode, sigh