However, there's economic costs to every form of power generation. Coal, oil, and natural gas power plants should pay for each ton of CO2 and other pollutant they emit. Nuclear power plants should pay for the disposal of their fuel and the power plant itself when it is end-of-lifed.
BTW, nuclear power plants do pay for the complete disposal of their waste. Nuclear power is unique in that regard: it's the only major power source to pay the full costs of decomissioning its plants and disposing its wastes. In fact, Yucca Mountain was paid for using surcharges on nuclear power. As such, nuclear power is more expensive than it would be if it were on a "level playing field" with other sources of power generation.
I agree that coal, oil, and natural gas should be forced to pay for the pollutants they emit.
"When used correctly, nuclear power has no emissions and no leaked radioactivity". Sure, and when used "correctly" a coal plant doesn't emit anything much either. If we're comparing fantasies we can go on all day, each of us discounting anything we don't like about our preferred technology.
No. A coal-burning plant releases tens of thousands of tons of C02 per day, when it's used correctly. The fundamental principle of operation of a coal-burning plant is to produce c02 from oxygen and carbon using combustion. The plant does so when it's operating correctly. It's not a "fantasy" about which we can "go on all day."
Advanced pebble-bed designs fix some of this, particularly by taking most of the high-Z elements out of the core so you get much shorter lifetime low-level waste, but they are not yet a proven technology,
Pebble-bed designs do not burn transuranic actinides. They have the same waste issue as other nuclear reactors.
Also, the shorter lifetime waste is high-level, not low-level. High-level waste is short-lived because it's giving off alot of radiation so it decays very quickly.
But honest proponents of nuclear power should own up to the problems rather than making exceptions for them.
There are no serious problems with nuclear power. The chances of a chernobyl-style meltdown at a modern, western reactor are so unbelievably slim, that the risks to health from a coal-burning plant are more than 1,000,000 times greater. Also, disposing of waste is an extremely easy engineering problem. The only reason there's an argument over nuclear power is because of public ignorance.
I think some insights from the field of economics would be helpful in determining the net effects of offshoring.
First, there are many software development projects which are "on the margin" meaning they're not profitable if developers are paid $90k but become profitable if developers are paid $30k. As a result, reducing the cost of software development by hiring Indians will cause marginal software projects to become profitable, causing more software projects to be undertaken than otherwise would. In other words, just because someone is paying an Indian $30k to do something does not mean he would otherwise be paying an American $90k to do the same thing; instead, without the Indian, he might not pay anyone to do it.
Even if there is still a net loss of programming jobs to India, that would just mean that the embedded cost of software would go down, because companies like Wal-mart would have to pay less to Oracle, IBM and SAP in licensing fees etc. As a result, their prices would be lower in any competitive market. (Note that the cost of enterprise software is an "embedded cost" in many of the things you buy). Furthermore, consumer prices would be lower for things like computers and software. As a result, people would have more money to spend on other things, and employment would expand in other sectors.
Although demonstrating it would require several more steps, we can be certain that offshoring will not lead to a net loss of US jobs across all sectors, and that the average American worker will have his income increased rather than decreased by it.
Also note that Americans' programming skills would not "go to waste" when they're laid off and forced to take jobs at McDonald's. American programmers could simply get jobs at $60k/yr rather than $90k because they would be much more competitive relative to Indians at that salary, but would still make more than working at McDonald's. At the new salary, many offshored jobs would move back. Only when the average programming job pays $7/hr would a programmer be tempted to abandon his skills and work at McDonald's. That could only happen if programming talent were so abundant worldwide that an American programmer's skills would be nearly worthless anyway. At that point it would benefit both the economy and the programmer if he learned to do something else.
Although scientists often discover theoretical mechanisms whereby nuclear waste can escape its containment, it's important to consider the probability of those events and to consider the context provided by other facts.
Additional facts are as follows: 1) Although nuclear waste will remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years, it will lose 99% of its radioactivity within the first 500 years, after which it would only be toxic to a human if he ate a significant quantity of it. 2) The chances of an atom of waste buried in moving groundwater ending up in the human food supply are less than 1 in a trillion. 3) We intend to bury it in Yucca mountain (not moving groundwater) which is an extremely stable geological formation which hasn't moved for millions of years and almost certainly won't move for a long time. 4) There are many additional safety measures like dispersing the waste in synthetic rock, surrounding that rock in metal and ceramic layers, etc.
...To sum up. Although radiation from plutonium may corrode "barely a few hundredths of a millimeter" of glass and make it weaker, that does not imply that the waste is on the verge of entering the human food supply. It would also have to burst forth from the glass, eat through the metal layer, dissolve the ceramic layer, cause the massive rock formation at Yucca mountain to disappear, become soluble in water, cause rainfall in the Nevada desert, dissolve in the resultant groundwater, flow to the nearest agricultural area hundreds of miles away, and enter the food supply. All that would have to happen within the next few decades when it's still extremely radioactive. And even if those things happened, it would easily be detected, because the waste is monitored and radioactive leaks can be detected from a distance.
I realize a few people will read that a few hundredths of a millimeter of glass containment will be slightly weaker than expected thousands of years from now, and who will scream "PLANETARY DOOM AWAITS!" But it's important to keep these things in perspective.
Subduction zones are generally at continental boundaries, and the problem is, anything that's sitting on top of the subducting plate may very well get scraped up onto the edge of the continental plate, which would make for some interesting beach-front real estate.
Although true, some subduction zones are deep in the ocean and the idea was to bury the nuclear waste there. Nobody was suggesting burying the waste near the coasts of Japan or California. IIRC the proposal was to bury nuclear waste near the Marianas trench which is in the south pacific thousands of miles from land.
Additionally, subduction zones are geologically unstable, and the remote possiblity of volcanic activity spewing nuclear waste into the atmosphere should be taken into account
It should certainly be taken into account. However the chances are slim of a volcano forming at precisely the location where waste had been buried within the next 500 years when the waste is still quite dangerous. I don't know what the probability of that is offhand, but it's probably extremely small. Nevertheless, I'm not claiming that it would be a great idea to store nuclear waste in a subduction zone. There are many places in the crust of the earth that are in the middle of tectonic plates and are extremely stable for many millions of years and will likely be so for a long time to come. Yucca was chosen for that reason.
So you're talking about essentially land-mining a significant chunk of the planet, some of the most unstable parts of the planet, with the possibility that still-lethal material could suddenly, randomly, re-enter our parts of the environment, with catastrophic results.
It seems extremely unlikely that waste from a subduction zone could re-enter "our parts of the environment." Uranium and transuranic actinides are extremely heavy elements and they would be stored as enormous 1-ton+ spent fuel assemblies in synrock or passivated glass at the bottom of the ocean. They are heavier than water. Even if earthquakes fractured the fuel assemblies, they still would not rise to the top of the ocean somehow, then somehow heat up to 5000+ degrees celcius, then vaporize and spread through the air. In fact, recovering one of the sunk fuel assemblies would be very difficult.
However I have read one plausible scenario that small amounts of radioactive waste stored at the bottom of the ocean could re-enter our environment. Over long periods of time, it may break up, then small amounts of it could be consumed by ocean animals, then it could travel its way up the food chain and eventually be consumed by a human eating seafood. However, the chances of that are very small and the quantities consumed are very small, and it would be far off in the future when most of the radioactivity had already been lost. In other words it would not constitute "catastrophic results".
There was also some concern about the health of ocean animals in the immediate vicinity of waste.
Still, stable terrestrial storage would be more effective for various reasons, according to what I've read.
Finally, regarding the majority of your posting: While there are indeed alarmist/ignorant/self-serving 'environmentalists', as there are boobs and headline-graspers in every part of human endeavor, there are also arrogant self-righteous techno-weenies with equally poor understanding of the topics on which they opine. As much as you look down on those you deem ignorant, those who are informed can look down on your ignorance, which to a self-aware person would suggest an attitude-check would be in order. (Frankly you come off not much different then the stereotyped asshats you rail against.)
Strange. I found the tone of his post to be far more temperate than yours.
As much as you look down on those you deem ignorant, those who are informed can look down on your ignorance, which to a self-aware person would suggest an attitude-check would be in order.
Indeed, perhaps an attitude check is in order by a "self-aware" person.
For years the Right in America tried to argue that there was no global warming. Finally, what was merely overwhelming research showing that there was indeed warming became impossible to argue, so now the Right tries to argue that "OK, there's global warming, but it's not our fault".
That may be true. However, it was the left that caused the global warming, not the right. It was the left (not the right) that vociferously attacked and destroyed the nuclear power industry, which was (and is) the only viable competitor to coal-burning. Since coal-burning emits far more C02 than SUVs, I'm quite sure that the left is responsible for global warming. Indeed, if Greenpeace and UCS (Union of concerned "scientists") had never existed then the global warming problem would be far less severe than it is.
Note that France decided to ignore Greenpeace (largely because they have no domestic fossil fuels) and they built only nuclear power plants. As a result, their C02 emissions are 85% lower than ours, per capita. Of course, they drive less too, which is a contributing factor, however their lack of coal-burning plants is the largest factor.
China will soon (maybe a decade) have a bigger economy than ours and how are we supposed to tell them to back off from all the growth so we don't destroy our environment when we can't even get our own act together?
We must all hope that China ignores Greenpeace and follows the path that France has laid down. Only in that way can China be prevented from becoming an ecological disaster.
The Right-Wing in America is being used by multinationals to stall on any sort of effort to change things, so for the foreseeable future, it's going to be more of the same.
That's a preposterous conspiracy theory. Bear in mind that the nuclear power industry is owned by large multinational corporations and that has not allowed them to save the environment from Greenpeace.
There's just no more time to waste trying to convince people who believe the Earth is 6000 years old and that Jesus is going to come any day now to take them home that we have to act to protect the world for our grandkids.
There is no more time to waste trying to convince Greenpeace and similar organizations that modern civilization could not be sustained by the combination of windmills and gathering leaves. Already, Greenpeace and the left have done incalculable damage to the environment. They have drastically increased C02 emissions and have endangered us all.
Greenpeace and similar organizations publish "facts" about nuclear power that are off by a factor of a billion or more. I am not exaggerating. Several "facts" put forth by Greenpeace and other organizations (like the amount of uranium fuel remaining on Earth, or the health effects of small doses of radiation) are off by a factor of a billion or more. If the right-wingers wished to reach the same level of absurdity and crude scientific denial, they would have to claim that the Earth is only 4 years old.
I mean really: "What about the Martian icecaps?"?? Is that the latest Investors Business Daily meme to try to keep record profits flowing into the coffers of Shell?
Unfortunately, few people read the Investors Business Daily. On the other hand, Greenpeace goes door-to-door in its quest to destroy the environment.
Exxon ("Esso" here in the UK) are still, as the Greenpeace campaign from 5 years ago pointed out, "#1 Global Warming Villain".
No, the "#1 Global Warming Villain" is Greenpeace itself, by far. Greenpeace and similar organizations have done incalculable damage to the environment, far more than Exxon could ever hope to achieve. By relentlessly attacking nuclear power, Greenpeace has achieved nothing except to destroy the only viable competitor to coal. The result has been a massive increase in coal-burning over the last 30 years, with a corresponding increase in C02 emissions. That is what Greenpeace has achieved. Let Exxon envy them.
As an example, France decided to go ahead with nuclear power, ignoring Greenpeace and the like. As a result, France's carbon emissions per capita are now 85% lower than those of the US. Had the US and China gone the same route as France, which they probably would have done but for Greenpeace and similar organizations, then the global warming problem would be far less severe than it is today.
(Obviously the carbon emissions per capita would still be higher in the US than in France, even with nuclear power, because of automobiles. However the carbon emissions per capita in the US would be far lower than now.)
Hooray for Greenpeace! If they really work at it, perhaps they can increase carbon emissions by another 30% in a mere 10 years.
It seems that Greenpeace is some kind of shill for the coal industry, intentionally or not. In that regard, Greenpeace is far more effective than Exxon's fake scientific institutes. Exxon's fake institutes have fooled nobody, whereas Greenpeace has convinced many people that it's really a pro-environment group. Seriously! Exxon should take lessons.
The last few paragraphs of the UCS report have some problems:
Though solutions are available now that will cut global warming emissions while creating jobs, saving consumers money, and protecting our national security, ExxonMobil has manufactured confusion around climate change science, and these actions have helped to forestall meaningful action that could minimize the impacts of future climate change.
Any economist can tell you that switching power generation sources will not affect employment on net balance. Furthermore, alternative energy sources certainly won't "save consumers money" because all the oil alternatives are modestly more expensive than oil itself.
It's that kind of nonsense which discredits UCS.
There is one way we could greatly reduce carbon emissions, virtually for free: by replacing coal-burning plants with nuclear plants. Unfortunately, the UCS (author of the report) has waged it's own absurd disinformation campaign against nuclear power, and in so doing has contributed to global warming much more than ExxonMobil ever could. If anything, ExxonMobil should take lessons from UCS about how to falsify scientific evidence, how to sow doubt where none exists, and how to contribute to global warming.
In their opposition to nuclear power, groups like UCS and greenpeace have contributed to global warming to an extent that ExxonMobil could never hope to achieve. As an example, France ignored groups like greenpeace and UCS, and went ahead with nuclear, and their C02 emissions per capita are now 85% lower than ours. Had greenpeace and UCS never existed in the first place, then we probably wouldn't be facing this global warming problem now.
"ExxonMobil needs to be held accountable for its cynical disinformation campaign on global warming," said Meyer. "Consumers, shareholders and Congress should let the company know loud and clear [sic] that its behavior on this issue is unacceptable and must change."
I am not a constitutional lawyer (IANACL). But I think there's something in the constitution which forbids Congress from punishing Exxon for their spoken views. I don't see how Congress could pass a law declaring that some viewpoint is "unacceptable and must change." In fact, I doubt Congress could ban a point of view even if UCS believes it to be mistaken.
I also doubt that shareholders could be motivated to reform ExxonMobil.
That leaves consumers. Good luck!
...Of course, if we seek to reduce carbon emissions, the most economic and rational way to do so would be to grab the "low-hanging fruit" first; in other words, to reduce carbon emissions where they're completely unnecessary, like in power generation. The easiest way to do that is to reduce nuclear plant safety requirements (yes, REDUCE) and increase taxes on carbon emissions from coal-burning and gas-fired plants, until the aggregate risk is the same per unit of power for all power generation sources, but much lower than now. Doing so would make coal-burning completely uneconomic, causing coal-burning to cease.
By following that rational strategy, we would reduce carbon emissions in this country by almost 40% in the long run. And it would impose no additional expense on consumers, would greatly reduce risk, and would not require unspecified scientific breakthroughs to occur some time in the future.
But I won't hold my breath. We would never implement that solution. It would solve the problem of carbon emissions, pretty easily, because the problem of carbon emissions is easy to solve. But groups like UCS and greenpeace would never allow it. They're too caught up in promoting increased carbon emissions.
(btw, It's easy to see how reducing nuclear safety requirements would reduce the risk to consumers. Assume coal-burning causes 50,000 deaths per year (which it does) and additionally there's a.01 chance per year of catastrophic climate change leading to 10
Only if you can burn the product in current systems, otherwise you have to factor in the conversion costs. And you have to assume oil prices will still be insane when your production makes it online. I'd bet on oil remaining high for a while personally, not sure how many billions I'd bet though.
Biodiesel blend (10% biodiesel) can be burned in current cars with no modification, and pure Biodiesel (100%) can be burned in current cars with slight modifications. Newer cars could be built to accept 100% biodiesel with very little additional cost (less than $30).
Furthermore, the current gas stations and infrastructure could still be used.
How moronic do they make Greens these days? Yea that pond scum will absorb a lot of CO2... and release it right back when you burn it for fuel. So it is carbon neutral unless you plan to compact the algae into bricks and bury it.
No. Algal biodiesel is carbon neutral if you burn it, because burning it emits the same amount of carbon as was removed from the atmosphere by growing the algae. Algol biodisel would be carbon negative if you buried it, because that would be taking carbon out of the atmosphere.
Stories like this are why I don't worry about running out of oil or about global warming. Anytime the system begins to get unbalanced it forces a correction through the free market, and it works even faster and better when the government stays the hell out of things and allows nature to take its course. As oil becomes more expensive, potential replacements that used to be discarded as uncompetitive start looking viable.
We definitely don't have to worry about running out of oil. There are many alternatives which exist and which are practically inexhaustible and which become economical once gasoline is pricier than $4/gallon. $4/gallon would hardly spell the end of civilization. All of this crap about impending doom from oil exhaustion is so silly as not to merit further comment.
However, the market would not correct global warming, because CO2 emission is an externality. In other words, the cost of destruction from carbon emission is not charged to the emitter and therefore is not included in corporate balance sheets. Thus, the market pays no attention to it. In this case, the most appropriate response is a minimal government intervention of replacing income taxes with carbon taxes. By doing so, the gov't would internalize the externality, thereby causing it to be included in corporate balance sheets. At that point, the market would resolve the problem without further intervention.
The investors in algal biodiesel are probably assuming that the government will impose carbon taxes sometime soon. If the government did so, then biodiesel would be much cheaper (it could help coal plants reduce their taxes) and gasoline would be more expensive, thus biodiesel would suddenly become price-competitive.
Are the algae they are having success with compatible with salt water? Or are any salt water algae suitable for producing biofuel?
Yes. The fastest-growing and oiliest algae are diatoms, which are saltwater microscopic organisms.
One of the major advantages of biofuel from algae, is that it grows quickly in saltwater ponds in hot areas like New Mexico. As a result, no fresh water or farmland is wasted. Also the land wasn't being used for anything else. Also, algal fuel is carbon-neutral (it sucks up as much CO2 as is released by burning it) so it doesn't contribute to global warming.
I'm sure your physicians have already discussed this option with you, but you may consider an implant that injects morphine directly into your spine. The implant allows you to use only a tiny amount of morphine for a robust painkilling effect, and it greatly reduces the systemic effects and side effects of the drug. If you are taking large amounts of morphine everyday and will for a long time, the implant might be a good way to go.
If you have neuropathic pain, there are many drugs being developed to help with that condition...
"The VM needs some major upgrades, notably in the area of garbage collection, memory usage reductions, and speed improvements."..Amazing you guys say this now. Yesterday someone would have argued java is clean and fast and nothing could beat it. Now that, of course, it's happening, you're all for cleaning it up and admitting it's downsides. Sort of reminds me of Apple's switch to intel.
You shouldn't confuse the author of the parent post with the Java crowd in general. You used the term "you guys" (referring to the author) as if he were James Gosling and Josh Bloch.
The Java VM is still a memory hog (one VM per java process, shared nothing), however Java most certainly does not need "major upgrades" in garbage collection. Java already has a modern appel-style generational copy collector. That's about as good as gc can get. Already, typical Java programs spend only 1-2% of their time collecting garbage, so further improvements in the garbage collector would lead to very little overall performance gain.
The two remaining major enhancements needed for Java, are VM isolates and escape analysis for stack allocation. Those enhancements won't affect Java runtime performance much, since Java runtime performance is already pretty good. However they will greatly reduce memory usage, and isolates will get rid of that horrible startup lag.
...The author of the parent post also claimed "backwards compatibility requirements currently forced on Sun seem to have prevented [performance improvements] from happening." That is mostly incorrect, for two reasons. First, tremendous performance improvements in Java have already occurred--they have not been "prevented". Second, the optimizations which remain to be implemented are that way because it takes a long time for a compiler/VM combination to mature. It takes longer for a compiler/VM combination to mature than it takes C compiler to mature, because the VM attempts more and handles more tasks for the programmer, therefore more optimizations need to be implemented. Java requires not only compiler optimizations like hoisting and loop unrolling and all that, but also VM optimizations like garbage collection optimizations, escape analysis, bounds checking optimizations, etc, which C doesn't even worry about. Remember that C compilers have accumulated optimizations over decades, and the C compiler writers have much less to worry about and much less to optimize.
I have a BSIT degree with a 3.5 GPA, but without real world experience in an IT department, it's impossible for me to find anything in IT that pays above tech support!
I've often been involved with hiring decisions at the various companies at which I've worked.
I strongly recommend that you take a programming or IT job regardless of how much it pays. Take the job even if it pays nothing at all. The first job is about getting your foot in the door, not about pay. You can negotiate salary after you've had a job for a year.
You're right to avoid tech support jobs. Tech support doesn't count as programming experience; you may just as well have been a secretary. It's very important that you have relevant experience in the field.
Remember that your BSIT degree will grow "stale" after about 10 years, at which time it will count for little. It's important that you follow your education with experience. Take a programming or IT job regardless of pay.
But true competition would be necesssary, and that's what we don't have, because governments artificially restrict the number of schools allowed to train medical professionals, and medical cartels artificially limit entry into those professions, ostensibly to protect quality, but in reality to maintain their own artificially inflated incomes through the artificial lack of competition.
I believe that the most egregious example of this phenomenon is the field of psychology and psychotherapy. In the field of psychotherapy, you must acquire a Doctorate (or, in some states, a Masters plus a credential program) if you wish to gain a license to talk to someone for an agreed-upon sum. Bear in mind that a psychologist cannot prescribe drugs, but is only allowed to have a conversation. Nevertheless, a Doctorate is required--not a Doctorate in talking to people, but a Doctorate which emphasizes statistics and is unrelated to the practice of psychotherapy.
Bear in mind that research has repeatedly shown that the level of therapist training does not correlate at all with treatment outcome. A psychologist with a Doctorate is no more effective than someone who lacks any training at all. (Experience does correlate with success, but that's a different matter).
Also bear in mind that Psychotherapy (unlike surgery) is no different from something people do to each other all the time, like when they console friends. In fact, the only way to distinguish between "psychotherapy" and an everyday consoling conversation is whether or not money is exchanged. Other than that, there would be no way of distinguishing psychotherapy from what people have always done.
Since there is no way of distinguishing psychotherapy from conversation, it would be impossible for the state to restrict entry into it. Instead, the state outlawed the voluntary exchange of money after a conversation, unless the recipient of money has a Doctorate that mostly deals with statistics.
...When Freudian psychoanalysis became established in the U.S., it was required that every practicing psychoanalyst have a Medical Doctorate if he was to analyze dreams, etc. When Freud visited the U.S., he wondered out loud what could possibly be the point in that requirement. The reply was that the requirement was necessary to maintain the "prestige" of the field.
In a more socialist system, by contrast, higher taxes and moderate salaries means that everyone is working for each other, contributing to a community. They still have the same average spending power, which means that no one is "poorer" for their lack of resources.
But the problem is, in the socialist countries of Europe, they don't still have the same average spending power. Quite the opposite, the average salary is higher in the U.S. and the difference has grown steadily over the past 25 years.
For example, in the late 1970s the German average salary was rapidly approaching U.S. levels; but now, the average U.S. salary is ~35% higher and the gap continuously widens.
In fact, the U.S. economy grows about 2%/capita/year faster than the economies of W. Europe. At that rate, in ~25 years the average income in the U.S. will be double that of W. Europe. At that point, the European countries will be unable to provide their poorest members with a lifestyle anywhere near equivalent to the poorest Americans.
But they're happy, and together, they've built something: a society, where people feel wanted and protected and cared for
It's not clear that people in socialist countries are happier on average.
In fact, it's not clear that the socialist interventions of European economies have benefitted even the lowest strata of those societies. The minimum wage may be higher than in the U.S., but the chances of employment are much lower (chronic unemployment among the poor is extremely high in W. Europe). Health care may be free, but that is accompanied by long lines and denial of health care to people who aren't imminently dying (at least in the UK and Canada). People may have job protection, but nevertheless they feel only slightly more secure in their jobs than in the U.S. (according to surveys) and much less certain of finding another job should they lose their current one. There may be less wealth inequality, but that has been accomplished primarily by reducing high wages, rather than raising low ones. Higher education may be free, but neverhteless, higher education is far more common in the U.S. than in Europe.
It appears that the socialist interventions have accomplished very little, other than to reduce the growth rate by a few percentage points, increase unemployment significantly, and reduce the salaries of top wage earners. The reduction in salary for top wage earners may reduce the sense of envy and of relative deprivation, but it does not increase anyone's well-being absolutely.
...All of that said, I will grant that the transportation infrastructure is superior in Europe, which clearly is a function of government spending. And I will also grant that Europeans work fewer hours per week and take 2 more weeks of vacation per year, which accounts for part of the salary reduction compared to Americans.
so that they don't feel the need to sleep with guns in the drawer, or shoot their classmates.
On the other hand, Americans don't feel the need to light on fire 100 cars on an average night in their capital city, out of protest over poor treatment.
Probably gun ownership is more dependent on cultural factors than economic ones. The right to own a gun is guaranteed by the U.S. constitution, which is a document that is almost considered divinely inspired by Americans.
In fact, there are a few rural towns in the U.S. which require gun ownership. In towns like those, guns are often given to children as gifts (although not out of economic protest).
"But probably the biggest issue is that Kim Jong-il is a lunatic. Saddam Hussein was not a lunatic."
Where did you get this from? Was it just your humble opinion? I don't think anyone can say they know Kim Jong-il and what his true intentions are.
Personally I see little evidence that Kim Jong-Il is a lunatic. Thus far everything he has done suggests he is a rational actor, as was Saddam Hussein.
However, Kim Jong-Il presents enormous difficulties despite being a rational actor, insofar as he's a desparate rational actor. Let me explain. Right now North Korea's economy is in such disarray that it doesn't come even close to providing subsistence for its population. As a result N Korea is reliant upon subsidies from other countries, otherwise the regime may collapse. If the regime starts to collapse, what will the "rational actor" do?
That's the problem. Unfortunately it's very difficult to predict what N Korea will do if the regime starts to tumble, because it's impossible to deter a rational actor who's convinced of his own imminent demise anyway.
What North Korea has repeatedly said to the world is: "If we go down, we're taking some of you with us. On our way down, who KNOWS what we may do." Of course, the purpose of that gesture is to give everyone else an incentive to prop up the regime. As long as we prop up the regime, they remain non-desparate rational actors and can therefore be deterred.
In other words, N Korea knows that as long as they have nukes, it's in our interest to prevent N Korea from becoming desparate and therefore undeterrable. Perhaps that's why they acquired nukes.
Bread for the World: 20% of children in New York City rely on food handouts to survive...USDA: 11% of US households are food-insecure, meaning they do not have adequate food throughout a typical year.
I'm not meaning to be a senseless America-booster, however...
The 20% starvation stat you cited was gathered by an advocacy group and is extremely unlikely to be true.
The 2nd statistic about "food insecurity" refers to whether or not people have enough food before using assistance programs. It does not refer to actual undernourishment. In fact, the study you cited claims that only 0.5 to 0.8 percent of families have someone that actually goes hungry on a given day, meaning that the family didn't have enough money to buy enough food for everyone, and assistance programs were insufficient or unused.
One of the problems is that there appears to be tremendous under-utilization of assistance services, for reasons I don't understand at present. Perhaps people are ashamed of it or something. However the programs do exist. At present there is a food stamp program which provides $150/month in free food vouchers to anyone who lacks the ability to pay, plus additional amounts for each child. I know several people who rely upon it, and it's now distributed in the form of a credit card, so others in the store wouldn't know that a person is paying using food vouchers.
Before you condemn other countries for their lack of assistance to the poor, I suggest you look at your own country first. The US has a fairly high rate of poverty and starvation itself. The richest country in the world has over 10% of its population not able to meet basic needs, I consider that much more egregious.
I'm not meaning to be one of the senseless America-boosters, however...
You should bear in mind that gov't statistics use a very different definition of poverty than the one you're accustomed to. According the gov't definition, 'poverty' is relative to the country in which the impoverished person lives and is a measure of relative deprivation. Poverty is typically defined as less than 25% of the mean income of a country, whatever that is. As a result, countries with incomes averaging less than $400/yr may have very little poverty according to that definition.
For example, the article you cited states that an impoverished person in the U.S. has an income of ~$9,400. That is more than 3x the world average income and more than twice the average income if you use PPP-adjusted figures.
On the other hand, North Korea has an average per-capita income of ~$500, placing the average North Korean at 1/20th the U.S. poverty level. Even if you take into account that things are cheaper in N Korea, the PPP-adjusted average per-capita income there is ~$1700, which is still 1/5th the U.S. poverty level.
From an interview with OBL: Rather, it already, by the grace of God, exists. As for oil, it is a commodity that will be subject to the price of the market according to supply and demand. We believe that the current prices are not realistic due to the Saudi regime playing the role of a US agent
In that quotation, OBL did not exactly list globalization as being the major cause for his grievances. Quite the contrary, he even speaks approvingly of supply, demand, markets, and global sales of oil. Instead, he faults the US govt for interfering with the Saudi govt. It's not clear that he's talking about globalization in the typical sense of that word (global markets, reduced trade barriers, etc).
Although wealth disparity has been exacerbated within this country, wages in some 3rd-world countries (China for example) have converged somewhat with 1st-world wages, which tends to reduce the disparity... [WaPo's version the AP article ]
The article you cited didn't really contradict my point. Although wealth disparity within countries may have increased, wealth disparity between countries has gone down insofar as some Chinese have seen their wages converge somewhat with 1st-world wages. That was the point I was making: global wage disparity has decreased as a consequence of globalization and will continue to do so.
I should also point out that the issue of disparity is completely unimportant, IMO. The crucial issue is absolute poverty, not relative deprivation. Thus, in many circumstances, increasing wage disparity is desirable insofar as it may indicate that some peoples' wages have risen. Let me give an example. People in China who live near the coast have seen their wages quadruple. As a result, wage disparity increased. Whenever one group sees its wages increase, disparity will also increase unless everyone else sees exactly the same increase. Nevertheless it's desirable, because absolute poverty (rather than a sense of relative deprivation) has been reduced.
The correct response to wage disparity, is to introduce the techniques (such as globalization) which increased wages for some, into the still-impoverished population.
Note that absolute poverty is much more important than relative deprivation, because the tremendous suffering of crushing poverty--starvation, disease, and cold--are much more significant than the mild emotional suffering caused by envy and by not keeping up with the Joneses.
Actually, I (and other historians and politicians) find it depressingly easily to predict historical development from the past. The most notorious failures are people who insisted "history was over" in one way or the other, and that a given situation cannot possible be compared to other things: a view called exceptionalism. But human drives and emotions have remained unchanged for thousands of years. One can make some good predictions about given situations, and more importantly, history tells us what can work. (P.S., just about every major war in the 20th century was predicted -- ask Winston Churchil about WW2).
I'm not sure I believe you. Obviously some things are predictable. But it seems to me that many incidents in history are no more predictable than the weather. Take WWII as an example. Could anyone really have foretold 20 years in advance that an obscure painter from Vienna would gain ascendancy in Germany? Suppose FDR died of stroke earlier than he did? Suppose Stalin were assinated during the mid-1930's? Suppose Hitler had fallen ill for a short while, rendering him incapable of giving his military the disastrous instructions which led to the defeat at Stalingrad, and Germany's defeat in WWII? What if a few central bankers had decided to increase (rather than restrict) the money supply after the crash of 1929? In that case, almost all economists agree that the Depression would have been averted. As a result, the Japanese would not have needed to at
Osama bin Laden has been spreading the myth of Western economic exploitation as an explanation for why the Islamic world is still laging behind the West. Socialists are coming to power in South America fueld by popular movements (sometimes spilling over into violence) that feel they are being exploited by globalism and multi-national corporations.
I carefully read Osama's list of justifications for attacking America, and economic exploitation was not among them. His principal complaints were American military and political intervention in the Middle East--especially troops in Saudi Arabia, sanctions in Iraq, and occupation in Palestine.
And as other reports, including the Economist, have noticed, distribution of wealth is exarcebated by this new growth. Only a fraction of the population enjoys the new prosperity while the vast majority have not experienced a change in their living conditions for the last 30 years. Simply pointing out that some people have prosopered and that the whole GDP have prosopered does not mean everyone benefited.
Oddly enough, distribution of wealth has become more equitable since globalization. Although wealth disparity has been exacerbated within this country, wages in some 3rd-world countries (China for example) have converged somewhat with 1st-world wages, which tends to reduce the disparity.
India still has tremendous proverty and economic problems because most of their population lack the basic education to take advantage of the Bangalore boom. Poverty in China is still so horrible that illegal immigration from China has never been so high. Take the rose-colored filters off, my friend, that economists use to simplify a terrifying complicated world.
I'm not wearing any rose-colored glasses, and I'm certainly not saying the world is peaceful or pleasant. Obviously India and China still have severe problems, and will for decades. The average coastal Chinese worker now makes $5/day rather than $1/day, but he still is deeply impoverished. In fact, the most that Indian or Chinese workers could hope for in 15 years, is to have a standard of living similar to that of Mexico today.
And I'm not suggesting that the future is bright. I have no idea what the future will bring. Unlike the idiotic devotees of Marxism, I have no preposterous pretenses about laws of historical development which predict everything that will happen. There are no laws of history which we can discern that govern all of historical development. As an example, most of the 20th century was marked with crises and wars that were surprises to almost everyone and that cannot have been predicted by any theory that was then available.
Nevertheless, globalization presents a serious and realistic hope that many people in the world will enjoy a standard of living somewhat above the crushing poverty and desparation that had been the norm for almost everyone until recently. As such I find it amazing that so many people who claim sympathy with the poor would oppose globalization so vociferously. In my opinion, we have an ethical obligation not just to voice sympathy with the poor but to take steps which we have reason to believe could actually ameliorate their plight. As such we have an ethical obligation to be rational and effective, not just sympathetic. But any rational and serious consideration of globalization clearly shows that it's a tremendous benefit especially to the poor. Thus I don't see any basis for the rejection of globalization.
(Sorry about the rant, I'm getting carried away...)
From the perspective of someone who is not American, this is a good thing. It means that unions in rich countries are no longer able to keep the rest of the world poor. Poor people in Romania who have excellent IT skills have the freedom and opportunity to enter the capitalist system and compete on the global market.
Something rarely mentioned here in the USA is the impact of these measures on foreign workers. Obviously foreigners have some claim to a higher standard of living. Obviously a wage increase to people in sub-saharan Africa would benefit them.
Thus far, globalization has been a tremendous boon to foreigners. Since the mid-1990s, when globalization began picking up the pace, the world has had an economic growth rate of over 5% annually--more than in any prior time in history. As a result, wages in some very populous places (Coastal China, for example) have quadrupled. That increase in wages has had a dramatic and positive effect on poverty in countries that were previously extremely impoverished. Bear in mind that in the early 1970's China had a per-capita GDP that was scarcely higher than sub-saharan Africa.
I believe that capitalism and rising prosperity in those places will also greatly benefit world stability to the benefit of America. Obviously there will still be sources of instability (religious extremism and territorial disputes are two examples that may not be mitigated by prosperity) but we will no longer face violent confrontations over imagined "exploitation" or competing economic systems.
Looking at the IT landscape, it seems clear to me that the American IT industry is the most vibrant and resilient in the world. Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, HP, Wikipedia, Myspace, Youtube, etc. are organisations which saw the light of day in America. Please don't react in a spastic way when the rest of the world looks at what you're doing and tries to do something similar.
The American IT industry is doing fine. I work in it and I can say with confidence that demand for programmers is about as brisk as it has ever been, except during the anomalous dot com boom.
Please don't react in a spastic way when the rest of the world looks at what you're doing and tries to do something similar... The American president keeps talking about "freedom". For me, freedom includes the freedom to compete with American workers.
It's strange when American IT workers (a few of them, at least) react angrily to Indians and others who are trying to do the same things we do. It's the height of hypocrisy. We should never fault anyone for just trying to participate in the global economy.
The American president keeps talking about "freedom". For me, freedom includes the freedom to compete with American workers.
The vision which America has exported in recent years is that capitalism benefits everyone, and furthermore, that freedom includes economic freedom. So far, that policy has worked extremely well in the short time it has been given, in most places at least, contrary to what detractors claim. Even in the few places it has not worked well (like Russia), people still have regained most of what was lost during the messy transition from Communism.
...Right now the world is undergoing rapid economic growth similar to that experienced by Western Europe and America during the late 19th century and early 20th. It is quite feasible that in a few decades most people in the world will enjoy a standard of living approaching 1st-world standards. A world like that would benefit of everyone, including Americans, and it would be unbelievably stupid and cruel of us to prevent it.
I've never believed in the EMH, but I'm going to try to defend it anyway.
The EMH (Efficient Markets Hypothesis) is best lampooned by the following old joke. Two economists are walking down the sidewalk when one of them spots a $100 bill in the grass. The first economist starts to pick up the $100 when the second economist tells him, "Don't bother, if it were a real $100 bill, someone would have already taken it."
I've heard that joke many times, and it always seems to me like a false analogy. The EMH doesn't deny the possibility of luck; it denies the possibility of systematically beating a competitive market. The patch of grass is not a competitive market, and finding $100 there by luck is not beating it systematically. In other words, there are fundamental differences between equity markets and patches of grass. For example, shares of the grass are not being bought and sold, therefore information about the existence of the $100 is not being incorporated into prices, which is a fundamental assumption underlying the EMH.
A better analogy would be the following. Assume the existence of a patch of grass upon which a given amount of money falls according to some pattern. Assume also that there is a mature, well-developed industry to predict when the money falls. Assume also that the industry is competitive; ie, when one person takes the money from the grass, it's no longer there for another to take. Assume also that there is some monetary cost to visit the patch of grass and determine if there's any money there. Given all those assumptions, at some point, the grass would cease yielding abnormal returns--in other words, the cost of visiting the grass would equal the average amount found there, given the best available algorithm for determining how much money will be there.
Second, the price dynamics are not entirely caused by exogenous factors. Investors, speculators, the media, and government officials do watch the prices. People make buy and sell judgments without any fundamental basis such a stock being "expensive" just because the stock is $300/share (never mind understanding the relationships between price per share and capitalization). Humans also have instinctual beliefs in patterns such as trends or momentum that are self-fulfilling. If enough traders believe in trends or momentum, they will trade in a way that creates trends.
The EMH people would probably respond as follows. Granted, humans believe in patterns which can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Thus, they create a pattern. However other, more sophisticated traders are also aware of the pattern ("momentum") and will place trades that destroy the pattern. For example, if I (as an investor) recognize momentum then it would benefit me to buy shares at the beginning of momentum and sell short at the end, before the bubble bursts. If I do this profitably, then I (and other, similar investors) will control an increasing share of the money being invested, and "momentum" will no longer occur. Note that this pattern-destroying mechanism can occur with any pattern that could be recognized, including self-fulfilling prophecies of naive investors, and including momentum.
...Nevertheless, EMH aside, there are trends which can be identified. One example is the NASDAQ from 1997-2000, which is a particularly striking incidence of momentum. That trend persisted even though there was frank discussion by experts months beforehand that the NASDAQ was certainly in a tremendous bubble. The fact that momentum persisted for years despite publically available pronouncements by all experts that there was momentum, is difficult to reconcile with the EMH, since the EMH asserts that any such trend would automatically disappear.
I believe there's a fatal flaw with the EMH. I believe the EMH rests upon a number of assumptions, one of which is false. But this post is already long enough...
The drug was a monoclonal antibody, not a small molecule drug. I'm definitely no expert on these things, but IIRC monoclonal antibodies are extremely difficult and expensive to manufacture, even in very small quantities. Monoclonal antibodies are manufactured by implanting genetic sequences into the ovaries of live rodents, then extracting the resultant drugs which the rodent cells have produced. Given the difficulty of manufacture, monoclonal antibodies probably would never be used as a biological weapon. There are more effective and easier alternatives. For example, botulism toxin causes shutdown of organs at extremely small doses and, botulinum can be manufactured by any biologist...
There's just something special about someone who will ignore three links into to the census page, and instead insist on a community collaboration effort which says it's derived from the census. Your ability for self deception is fantastic.
You linked to the wrong census pages.
The population of Los Angeles is reported not only on wikipedia, but on many other sites. In fact the population of LA is painted on all the signs surrounding that city, if you happen to visit some time.
That you spend half of your response ranting about Juniper Serra - you should do less of your research on Wikipedia, which is just built by other people like you - is indicative of quite a bit.
I provided a link to wikipedia because that article contained the relevant information in the introductory paragraphs. I felt it would be accessible.
It's called "Los Angeles County." Not very interested in understanding, are we?
The topic being discussed was city planning.
I said monasteries for a reason. Get a history book.
You said "monasteries" because you didn't know what you were talking about. It would be better for you not to pursue the topic of history...
First you demand to know what I've done, then you act like I'm bragging to answer you. What a loser.
Once again, you've peppered your remarks with childish nonsense and silly insults.
...I never demanded to know what you've done. I'm not interested in knowing what you've done.
Snide comments don't make you any clearer. If people reading can't understand the writer, it's the writer's fault.
The sentence to which you were responding was perfectly clear. I imagine you understood it.
We're done here. Go try to impress someone else.
Indeed, we're done with this discussion. It wasn't very productive. Perhaps it could have been, but unfortunately your initial post was filled with puerile remarks of a kind which had been absent from this thread until you introduced them.
Under different circumstances, I would have simply ignored your gravely mistaken comments about urban history, rather than poking fun at them. Believe it or not, I dislike insulting people. However, I do respond to inappropriate remarks.
I'm unsure whether you know about software methodology, or not. Who knows, perhaps you know a lot. But that would be impossible to determine, since the discussion progressed no further than citing names. It could have been otherwise if you had expressed your disagreement with agile methods (or with the content of my post) in more appropriate terms.
If you do respond, then I hope you do so in a more appropriate tone.
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BTW, nuclear power plants do pay for the complete disposal of their waste. Nuclear power is unique in that regard: it's the only major power source to pay the full costs of decomissioning its plants and disposing its wastes. In fact, Yucca Mountain was paid for using surcharges on nuclear power. As such, nuclear power is more expensive than it would be if it were on a "level playing field" with other sources of power generation.
I agree that coal, oil, and natural gas should be forced to pay for the pollutants they emit.
No. A coal-burning plant releases tens of thousands of tons of C02 per day, when it's used correctly. The fundamental principle of operation of a coal-burning plant is to produce c02 from oxygen and carbon using combustion. The plant does so when it's operating correctly. It's not a "fantasy" about which we can "go on all day."
Pebble-bed designs do not burn transuranic actinides. They have the same waste issue as other nuclear reactors.
Also, the shorter lifetime waste is high-level, not low-level. High-level waste is short-lived because it's giving off alot of radiation so it decays very quickly.
There are no serious problems with nuclear power. The chances of a chernobyl-style meltdown at a modern, western reactor are so unbelievably slim, that the risks to health from a coal-burning plant are more than 1,000,000 times greater. Also, disposing of waste is an extremely easy engineering problem. The only reason there's an argument over nuclear power is because of public ignorance.
I think some insights from the field of economics would be helpful in determining the net effects of offshoring.
First, there are many software development projects which are "on the margin" meaning they're not profitable if developers are paid $90k but become profitable if developers are paid $30k. As a result, reducing the cost of software development by hiring Indians will cause marginal software projects to become profitable, causing more software projects to be undertaken than otherwise would. In other words, just because someone is paying an Indian $30k to do something does not mean he would otherwise be paying an American $90k to do the same thing; instead, without the Indian, he might not pay anyone to do it.
Even if there is still a net loss of programming jobs to India, that would just mean that the embedded cost of software would go down, because companies like Wal-mart would have to pay less to Oracle, IBM and SAP in licensing fees etc. As a result, their prices would be lower in any competitive market. (Note that the cost of enterprise software is an "embedded cost" in many of the things you buy). Furthermore, consumer prices would be lower for things like computers and software. As a result, people would have more money to spend on other things, and employment would expand in other sectors.
Although demonstrating it would require several more steps, we can be certain that offshoring will not lead to a net loss of US jobs across all sectors, and that the average American worker will have his income increased rather than decreased by it.
Also note that Americans' programming skills would not "go to waste" when they're laid off and forced to take jobs at McDonald's. American programmers could simply get jobs at $60k/yr rather than $90k because they would be much more competitive relative to Indians at that salary, but would still make more than working at McDonald's. At the new salary, many offshored jobs would move back. Only when the average programming job pays $7/hr would a programmer be tempted to abandon his skills and work at McDonald's. That could only happen if programming talent were so abundant worldwide that an American programmer's skills would be nearly worthless anyway. At that point it would benefit both the economy and the programmer if he learned to do something else.
Although scientists often discover theoretical mechanisms whereby nuclear waste can escape its containment, it's important to consider the probability of those events and to consider the context provided by other facts.
Additional facts are as follows: 1) Although nuclear waste will remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years, it will lose 99% of its radioactivity within the first 500 years, after which it would only be toxic to a human if he ate a significant quantity of it. 2) The chances of an atom of waste buried in moving groundwater ending up in the human food supply are less than 1 in a trillion. 3) We intend to bury it in Yucca mountain (not moving groundwater) which is an extremely stable geological formation which hasn't moved for millions of years and almost certainly won't move for a long time. 4) There are many additional safety measures like dispersing the waste in synthetic rock, surrounding that rock in metal and ceramic layers, etc.
...To sum up. Although radiation from plutonium may corrode "barely a few hundredths of a millimeter" of glass and make it weaker, that does not imply that the waste is on the verge of entering the human food supply. It would also have to burst forth from the glass, eat through the metal layer, dissolve the ceramic layer, cause the massive rock formation at Yucca mountain to disappear, become soluble in water, cause rainfall in the Nevada desert, dissolve in the resultant groundwater, flow to the nearest agricultural area hundreds of miles away, and enter the food supply. All that would have to happen within the next few decades when it's still extremely radioactive. And even if those things happened, it would easily be detected, because the waste is monitored and radioactive leaks can be detected from a distance.
I realize a few people will read that a few hundredths of a millimeter of glass containment will be slightly weaker than expected thousands of years from now, and who will scream "PLANETARY DOOM AWAITS!" But it's important to keep these things in perspective.
Although true, some subduction zones are deep in the ocean and the idea was to bury the nuclear waste there. Nobody was suggesting burying the waste near the coasts of Japan or California. IIRC the proposal was to bury nuclear waste near the Marianas trench which is in the south pacific thousands of miles from land.
It should certainly be taken into account. However the chances are slim of a volcano forming at precisely the location where waste had been buried within the next 500 years when the waste is still quite dangerous. I don't know what the probability of that is offhand, but it's probably extremely small. Nevertheless, I'm not claiming that it would be a great idea to store nuclear waste in a subduction zone. There are many places in the crust of the earth that are in the middle of tectonic plates and are extremely stable for many millions of years and will likely be so for a long time to come. Yucca was chosen for that reason.
It seems extremely unlikely that waste from a subduction zone could re-enter "our parts of the environment." Uranium and transuranic actinides are extremely heavy elements and they would be stored as enormous 1-ton+ spent fuel assemblies in synrock or passivated glass at the bottom of the ocean. They are heavier than water. Even if earthquakes fractured the fuel assemblies, they still would not rise to the top of the ocean somehow, then somehow heat up to 5000+ degrees celcius, then vaporize and spread through the air. In fact, recovering one of the sunk fuel assemblies would be very difficult.
However I have read one plausible scenario that small amounts of radioactive waste stored at the bottom of the ocean could re-enter our environment. Over long periods of time, it may break up, then small amounts of it could be consumed by ocean animals, then it could travel its way up the food chain and eventually be consumed by a human eating seafood. However, the chances of that are very small and the quantities consumed are very small, and it would be far off in the future when most of the radioactivity had already been lost. In other words it would not constitute "catastrophic results".
There was also some concern about the health of ocean animals in the immediate vicinity of waste.
Still, stable terrestrial storage would be more effective for various reasons, according to what I've read.
Strange. I found the tone of his post to be far more temperate than yours.
Indeed, perhaps an attitude check is in order by a "self-aware" person.
That may be true. However, it was the left that caused the global warming, not the right. It was the left (not the right) that vociferously attacked and destroyed the nuclear power industry, which was (and is) the only viable competitor to coal-burning. Since coal-burning emits far more C02 than SUVs, I'm quite sure that the left is responsible for global warming. Indeed, if Greenpeace and UCS (Union of concerned "scientists") had never existed then the global warming problem would be far less severe than it is.
Note that France decided to ignore Greenpeace (largely because they have no domestic fossil fuels) and they built only nuclear power plants. As a result, their C02 emissions are 85% lower than ours, per capita. Of course, they drive less too, which is a contributing factor, however their lack of coal-burning plants is the largest factor.
We must all hope that China ignores Greenpeace and follows the path that France has laid down. Only in that way can China be prevented from becoming an ecological disaster.
That's a preposterous conspiracy theory. Bear in mind that the nuclear power industry is owned by large multinational corporations and that has not allowed them to save the environment from Greenpeace.
There is no more time to waste trying to convince Greenpeace and similar organizations that modern civilization could not be sustained by the combination of windmills and gathering leaves. Already, Greenpeace and the left have done incalculable damage to the environment. They have drastically increased C02 emissions and have endangered us all.
Greenpeace and similar organizations publish "facts" about nuclear power that are off by a factor of a billion or more. I am not exaggerating. Several "facts" put forth by Greenpeace and other organizations (like the amount of uranium fuel remaining on Earth, or the health effects of small doses of radiation) are off by a factor of a billion or more. If the right-wingers wished to reach the same level of absurdity and crude scientific denial, they would have to claim that the Earth is only 4 years old.
Unfortunately, few people read the Investors Business Daily. On the other hand, Greenpeace goes door-to-door in its quest to destroy the environment.
No, the "#1 Global Warming Villain" is Greenpeace itself, by far. Greenpeace and similar organizations have done incalculable damage to the environment, far more than Exxon could ever hope to achieve. By relentlessly attacking nuclear power, Greenpeace has achieved nothing except to destroy the only viable competitor to coal. The result has been a massive increase in coal-burning over the last 30 years, with a corresponding increase in C02 emissions. That is what Greenpeace has achieved. Let Exxon envy them.
As an example, France decided to go ahead with nuclear power, ignoring Greenpeace and the like. As a result, France's carbon emissions per capita are now 85% lower than those of the US. Had the US and China gone the same route as France, which they probably would have done but for Greenpeace and similar organizations, then the global warming problem would be far less severe than it is today.
(Obviously the carbon emissions per capita would still be higher in the US than in France, even with nuclear power, because of automobiles. However the carbon emissions per capita in the US would be far lower than now.)
Hooray for Greenpeace! If they really work at it, perhaps they can increase carbon emissions by another 30% in a mere 10 years.
It seems that Greenpeace is some kind of shill for the coal industry, intentionally or not. In that regard, Greenpeace is far more effective than Exxon's fake scientific institutes. Exxon's fake institutes have fooled nobody, whereas Greenpeace has convinced many people that it's really a pro-environment group. Seriously! Exxon should take lessons.
The last few paragraphs of the UCS report have some problems:
Any economist can tell you that switching power generation sources will not affect employment on net balance. Furthermore, alternative energy sources certainly won't "save consumers money" because all the oil alternatives are modestly more expensive than oil itself.
It's that kind of nonsense which discredits UCS.
There is one way we could greatly reduce carbon emissions, virtually for free: by replacing coal-burning plants with nuclear plants. Unfortunately, the UCS (author of the report) has waged it's own absurd disinformation campaign against nuclear power, and in so doing has contributed to global warming much more than ExxonMobil ever could. If anything, ExxonMobil should take lessons from UCS about how to falsify scientific evidence, how to sow doubt where none exists, and how to contribute to global warming.
In their opposition to nuclear power, groups like UCS and greenpeace have contributed to global warming to an extent that ExxonMobil could never hope to achieve. As an example, France ignored groups like greenpeace and UCS, and went ahead with nuclear, and their C02 emissions per capita are now 85% lower than ours. Had greenpeace and UCS never existed in the first place, then we probably wouldn't be facing this global warming problem now.
I am not a constitutional lawyer (IANACL). But I think there's something in the constitution which forbids Congress from punishing Exxon for their spoken views. I don't see how Congress could pass a law declaring that some viewpoint is "unacceptable and must change." In fact, I doubt Congress could ban a point of view even if UCS believes it to be mistaken.
I also doubt that shareholders could be motivated to reform ExxonMobil.
That leaves consumers. Good luck!
...Of course, if we seek to reduce carbon emissions, the most economic and rational way to do so would be to grab the "low-hanging fruit" first; in other words, to reduce carbon emissions where they're completely unnecessary, like in power generation. The easiest way to do that is to reduce nuclear plant safety requirements (yes, REDUCE) and increase taxes on carbon emissions from coal-burning and gas-fired plants, until the aggregate risk is the same per unit of power for all power generation sources, but much lower than now. Doing so would make coal-burning completely uneconomic, causing coal-burning to cease.
By following that rational strategy, we would reduce carbon emissions in this country by almost 40% in the long run. And it would impose no additional expense on consumers, would greatly reduce risk, and would not require unspecified scientific breakthroughs to occur some time in the future.
But I won't hold my breath. We would never implement that solution. It would solve the problem of carbon emissions, pretty easily, because the problem of carbon emissions is easy to solve. But groups like UCS and greenpeace would never allow it. They're too caught up in promoting increased carbon emissions.
(btw, It's easy to see how reducing nuclear safety requirements would reduce the risk to consumers. Assume coal-burning causes 50,000 deaths per year (which it does) and additionally there's a .01 chance per year of catastrophic climate change leading to 10
Biodiesel blend (10% biodiesel) can be burned in current cars with no modification, and pure Biodiesel (100%) can be burned in current cars with slight modifications. Newer cars could be built to accept 100% biodiesel with very little additional cost (less than $30).
Furthermore, the current gas stations and infrastructure could still be used.
No. Algal biodiesel is carbon neutral if you burn it, because burning it emits the same amount of carbon as was removed from the atmosphere by growing the algae. Algol biodisel would be carbon negative if you buried it, because that would be taking carbon out of the atmosphere.
We definitely don't have to worry about running out of oil. There are many alternatives which exist and which are practically inexhaustible and which become economical once gasoline is pricier than $4/gallon. $4/gallon would hardly spell the end of civilization. All of this crap about impending doom from oil exhaustion is so silly as not to merit further comment.
However, the market would not correct global warming, because CO2 emission is an externality. In other words, the cost of destruction from carbon emission is not charged to the emitter and therefore is not included in corporate balance sheets. Thus, the market pays no attention to it. In this case, the most appropriate response is a minimal government intervention of replacing income taxes with carbon taxes. By doing so, the gov't would internalize the externality, thereby causing it to be included in corporate balance sheets. At that point, the market would resolve the problem without further intervention.
The investors in algal biodiesel are probably assuming that the government will impose carbon taxes sometime soon. If the government did so, then biodiesel would be much cheaper (it could help coal plants reduce their taxes) and gasoline would be more expensive, thus biodiesel would suddenly become price-competitive.
Yes. The fastest-growing and oiliest algae are diatoms, which are saltwater microscopic organisms.
One of the major advantages of biofuel from algae, is that it grows quickly in saltwater ponds in hot areas like New Mexico. As a result, no fresh water or farmland is wasted. Also the land wasn't being used for anything else. Also, algal fuel is carbon-neutral (it sucks up as much CO2 as is released by burning it) so it doesn't contribute to global warming.
I'm sure your physicians have already discussed this option with you, but you may consider an implant that injects morphine directly into your spine. The implant allows you to use only a tiny amount of morphine for a robust painkilling effect, and it greatly reduces the systemic effects and side effects of the drug. If you are taking large amounts of morphine everyday and will for a long time, the implant might be a good way to go.
If you have neuropathic pain, there are many drugs being developed to help with that condition...
You shouldn't confuse the author of the parent post with the Java crowd in general. You used the term "you guys" (referring to the author) as if he were James Gosling and Josh Bloch.
The Java VM is still a memory hog (one VM per java process, shared nothing), however Java most certainly does not need "major upgrades" in garbage collection. Java already has a modern appel-style generational copy collector. That's about as good as gc can get. Already, typical Java programs spend only 1-2% of their time collecting garbage, so further improvements in the garbage collector would lead to very little overall performance gain.
The two remaining major enhancements needed for Java, are VM isolates and escape analysis for stack allocation. Those enhancements won't affect Java runtime performance much, since Java runtime performance is already pretty good. However they will greatly reduce memory usage, and isolates will get rid of that horrible startup lag.
...The author of the parent post also claimed "backwards compatibility requirements currently forced on Sun seem to have prevented [performance improvements] from happening." That is mostly incorrect, for two reasons. First, tremendous performance improvements in Java have already occurred--they have not been "prevented". Second, the optimizations which remain to be implemented are that way because it takes a long time for a compiler/VM combination to mature. It takes longer for a compiler/VM combination to mature than it takes C compiler to mature, because the VM attempts more and handles more tasks for the programmer, therefore more optimizations need to be implemented. Java requires not only compiler optimizations like hoisting and loop unrolling and all that, but also VM optimizations like garbage collection optimizations, escape analysis, bounds checking optimizations, etc, which C doesn't even worry about. Remember that C compilers have accumulated optimizations over decades, and the C compiler writers have much less to worry about and much less to optimize.
I've often been involved with hiring decisions at the various companies at which I've worked.
I strongly recommend that you take a programming or IT job regardless of how much it pays. Take the job even if it pays nothing at all. The first job is about getting your foot in the door, not about pay. You can negotiate salary after you've had a job for a year.
You're right to avoid tech support jobs. Tech support doesn't count as programming experience; you may just as well have been a secretary. It's very important that you have relevant experience in the field.
Remember that your BSIT degree will grow "stale" after about 10 years, at which time it will count for little. It's important that you follow your education with experience. Take a programming or IT job regardless of pay.
I believe that the most egregious example of this phenomenon is the field of psychology and psychotherapy. In the field of psychotherapy, you must acquire a Doctorate (or, in some states, a Masters plus a credential program) if you wish to gain a license to talk to someone for an agreed-upon sum. Bear in mind that a psychologist cannot prescribe drugs, but is only allowed to have a conversation. Nevertheless, a Doctorate is required--not a Doctorate in talking to people, but a Doctorate which emphasizes statistics and is unrelated to the practice of psychotherapy.
Bear in mind that research has repeatedly shown that the level of therapist training does not correlate at all with treatment outcome. A psychologist with a Doctorate is no more effective than someone who lacks any training at all. (Experience does correlate with success, but that's a different matter).
Also bear in mind that Psychotherapy (unlike surgery) is no different from something people do to each other all the time, like when they console friends. In fact, the only way to distinguish between "psychotherapy" and an everyday consoling conversation is whether or not money is exchanged. Other than that, there would be no way of distinguishing psychotherapy from what people have always done.
Since there is no way of distinguishing psychotherapy from conversation, it would be impossible for the state to restrict entry into it. Instead, the state outlawed the voluntary exchange of money after a conversation, unless the recipient of money has a Doctorate that mostly deals with statistics.
...When Freudian psychoanalysis became established in the U.S., it was required that every practicing psychoanalyst have a Medical Doctorate if he was to analyze dreams, etc. When Freud visited the U.S., he wondered out loud what could possibly be the point in that requirement. The reply was that the requirement was necessary to maintain the "prestige" of the field.
But the problem is, in the socialist countries of Europe, they don't still have the same average spending power. Quite the opposite, the average salary is higher in the U.S. and the difference has grown steadily over the past 25 years.
For example, in the late 1970s the German average salary was rapidly approaching U.S. levels; but now, the average U.S. salary is ~35% higher and the gap continuously widens.
In fact, the U.S. economy grows about 2%/capita/year faster than the economies of W. Europe. At that rate, in ~25 years the average income in the U.S. will be double that of W. Europe. At that point, the European countries will be unable to provide their poorest members with a lifestyle anywhere near equivalent to the poorest Americans.
It's not clear that people in socialist countries are happier on average.
In fact, it's not clear that the socialist interventions of European economies have benefitted even the lowest strata of those societies. The minimum wage may be higher than in the U.S., but the chances of employment are much lower (chronic unemployment among the poor is extremely high in W. Europe). Health care may be free, but that is accompanied by long lines and denial of health care to people who aren't imminently dying (at least in the UK and Canada). People may have job protection, but nevertheless they feel only slightly more secure in their jobs than in the U.S. (according to surveys) and much less certain of finding another job should they lose their current one. There may be less wealth inequality, but that has been accomplished primarily by reducing high wages, rather than raising low ones. Higher education may be free, but neverhteless, higher education is far more common in the U.S. than in Europe.
It appears that the socialist interventions have accomplished very little, other than to reduce the growth rate by a few percentage points, increase unemployment significantly, and reduce the salaries of top wage earners. The reduction in salary for top wage earners may reduce the sense of envy and of relative deprivation, but it does not increase anyone's well-being absolutely.
...All of that said, I will grant that the transportation infrastructure is superior in Europe, which clearly is a function of government spending. And I will also grant that Europeans work fewer hours per week and take 2 more weeks of vacation per year, which accounts for part of the salary reduction compared to Americans.
On the other hand, Americans don't feel the need to light on fire 100 cars on an average night in their capital city, out of protest over poor treatment.
Probably gun ownership is more dependent on cultural factors than economic ones. The right to own a gun is guaranteed by the U.S. constitution, which is a document that is almost considered divinely inspired by Americans.
In fact, there are a few rural towns in the U.S. which require gun ownership. In towns like those, guns are often given to children as gifts (although not out of economic protest).
Personally I see little evidence that Kim Jong-Il is a lunatic. Thus far everything he has done suggests he is a rational actor, as was Saddam Hussein.
However, Kim Jong-Il presents enormous difficulties despite being a rational actor, insofar as he's a desparate rational actor. Let me explain. Right now North Korea's economy is in such disarray that it doesn't come even close to providing subsistence for its population. As a result N Korea is reliant upon subsidies from other countries, otherwise the regime may collapse. If the regime starts to collapse, what will the "rational actor" do?
That's the problem. Unfortunately it's very difficult to predict what N Korea will do if the regime starts to tumble, because it's impossible to deter a rational actor who's convinced of his own imminent demise anyway.
What North Korea has repeatedly said to the world is: "If we go down, we're taking some of you with us. On our way down, who KNOWS what we may do." Of course, the purpose of that gesture is to give everyone else an incentive to prop up the regime. As long as we prop up the regime, they remain non-desparate rational actors and can therefore be deterred.
In other words, N Korea knows that as long as they have nukes, it's in our interest to prevent N Korea from becoming desparate and therefore undeterrable. Perhaps that's why they acquired nukes.
I'm not meaning to be a senseless America-booster, however...
The 20% starvation stat you cited was gathered by an advocacy group and is extremely unlikely to be true.
The 2nd statistic about "food insecurity" refers to whether or not people have enough food before using assistance programs. It does not refer to actual undernourishment. In fact, the study you cited claims that only 0.5 to 0.8 percent of families have someone that actually goes hungry on a given day, meaning that the family didn't have enough money to buy enough food for everyone, and assistance programs were insufficient or unused.
One of the problems is that there appears to be tremendous under-utilization of assistance services, for reasons I don't understand at present. Perhaps people are ashamed of it or something. However the programs do exist. At present there is a food stamp program which provides $150/month in free food vouchers to anyone who lacks the ability to pay, plus additional amounts for each child. I know several people who rely upon it, and it's now distributed in the form of a credit card, so others in the store wouldn't know that a person is paying using food vouchers.
I'm not meaning to be one of the senseless America-boosters, however...
You should bear in mind that gov't statistics use a very different definition of poverty than the one you're accustomed to. According the gov't definition, 'poverty' is relative to the country in which the impoverished person lives and is a measure of relative deprivation. Poverty is typically defined as less than 25% of the mean income of a country, whatever that is. As a result, countries with incomes averaging less than $400/yr may have very little poverty according to that definition.
For example, the article you cited states that an impoverished person in the U.S. has an income of ~$9,400. That is more than 3x the world average income and more than twice the average income if you use PPP-adjusted figures.
On the other hand, North Korea has an average per-capita income of ~$500, placing the average North Korean at 1/20th the U.S. poverty level. Even if you take into account that things are cheaper in N Korea, the PPP-adjusted average per-capita income there is ~$1700, which is still 1/5th the U.S. poverty level.
In that quotation, OBL did not exactly list globalization as being the major cause for his grievances. Quite the contrary, he even speaks approvingly of supply, demand, markets, and global sales of oil. Instead, he faults the US govt for interfering with the Saudi govt. It's not clear that he's talking about globalization in the typical sense of that word (global markets, reduced trade barriers, etc).
The article you cited didn't really contradict my point. Although wealth disparity within countries may have increased, wealth disparity between countries has gone down insofar as some Chinese have seen their wages converge somewhat with 1st-world wages. That was the point I was making: global wage disparity has decreased as a consequence of globalization and will continue to do so.
I should also point out that the issue of disparity is completely unimportant, IMO. The crucial issue is absolute poverty, not relative deprivation. Thus, in many circumstances, increasing wage disparity is desirable insofar as it may indicate that some peoples' wages have risen. Let me give an example. People in China who live near the coast have seen their wages quadruple. As a result, wage disparity increased. Whenever one group sees its wages increase, disparity will also increase unless everyone else sees exactly the same increase. Nevertheless it's desirable, because absolute poverty (rather than a sense of relative deprivation) has been reduced.
The correct response to wage disparity, is to introduce the techniques (such as globalization) which increased wages for some, into the still-impoverished population.
Note that absolute poverty is much more important than relative deprivation, because the tremendous suffering of crushing poverty--starvation, disease, and cold--are much more significant than the mild emotional suffering caused by envy and by not keeping up with the Joneses.
I'm not sure I believe you. Obviously some things are predictable. But it seems to me that many incidents in history are no more predictable than the weather. Take WWII as an example. Could anyone really have foretold 20 years in advance that an obscure painter from Vienna would gain ascendancy in Germany? Suppose FDR died of stroke earlier than he did? Suppose Stalin were assinated during the mid-1930's? Suppose Hitler had fallen ill for a short while, rendering him incapable of giving his military the disastrous instructions which led to the defeat at Stalingrad, and Germany's defeat in WWII? What if a few central bankers had decided to increase (rather than restrict) the money supply after the crash of 1929? In that case, almost all economists agree that the Depression would have been averted. As a result, the Japanese would not have needed to at
I carefully read Osama's list of justifications for attacking America, and economic exploitation was not among them. His principal complaints were American military and political intervention in the Middle East--especially troops in Saudi Arabia, sanctions in Iraq, and occupation in Palestine.
Oddly enough, distribution of wealth has become more equitable since globalization. Although wealth disparity has been exacerbated within this country, wages in some 3rd-world countries (China for example) have converged somewhat with 1st-world wages, which tends to reduce the disparity.
I'm not wearing any rose-colored glasses, and I'm certainly not saying the world is peaceful or pleasant. Obviously India and China still have severe problems, and will for decades. The average coastal Chinese worker now makes $5/day rather than $1/day, but he still is deeply impoverished. In fact, the most that Indian or Chinese workers could hope for in 15 years, is to have a standard of living similar to that of Mexico today.
And I'm not suggesting that the future is bright. I have no idea what the future will bring. Unlike the idiotic devotees of Marxism, I have no preposterous pretenses about laws of historical development which predict everything that will happen. There are no laws of history which we can discern that govern all of historical development. As an example, most of the 20th century was marked with crises and wars that were surprises to almost everyone and that cannot have been predicted by any theory that was then available.
Nevertheless, globalization presents a serious and realistic hope that many people in the world will enjoy a standard of living somewhat above the crushing poverty and desparation that had been the norm for almost everyone until recently. As such I find it amazing that so many people who claim sympathy with the poor would oppose globalization so vociferously. In my opinion, we have an ethical obligation not just to voice sympathy with the poor but to take steps which we have reason to believe could actually ameliorate their plight. As such we have an ethical obligation to be rational and effective, not just sympathetic. But any rational and serious consideration of globalization clearly shows that it's a tremendous benefit especially to the poor. Thus I don't see any basis for the rejection of globalization.
(Sorry about the rant, I'm getting carried away...)
Something rarely mentioned here in the USA is the impact of these measures on foreign workers. Obviously foreigners have some claim to a higher standard of living. Obviously a wage increase to people in sub-saharan Africa would benefit them.
Thus far, globalization has been a tremendous boon to foreigners. Since the mid-1990s, when globalization began picking up the pace, the world has had an economic growth rate of over 5% annually--more than in any prior time in history. As a result, wages in some very populous places (Coastal China, for example) have quadrupled. That increase in wages has had a dramatic and positive effect on poverty in countries that were previously extremely impoverished. Bear in mind that in the early 1970's China had a per-capita GDP that was scarcely higher than sub-saharan Africa.
I believe that capitalism and rising prosperity in those places will also greatly benefit world stability to the benefit of America. Obviously there will still be sources of instability (religious extremism and territorial disputes are two examples that may not be mitigated by prosperity) but we will no longer face violent confrontations over imagined "exploitation" or competing economic systems.
The American IT industry is doing fine. I work in it and I can say with confidence that demand for programmers is about as brisk as it has ever been, except during the anomalous dot com boom.
It's strange when American IT workers (a few of them, at least) react angrily to Indians and others who are trying to do the same things we do. It's the height of hypocrisy. We should never fault anyone for just trying to participate in the global economy.
The vision which America has exported in recent years is that capitalism benefits everyone, and furthermore, that freedom includes economic freedom. So far, that policy has worked extremely well in the short time it has been given, in most places at least, contrary to what detractors claim. Even in the few places it has not worked well (like Russia), people still have regained most of what was lost during the messy transition from Communism.
...Right now the world is undergoing rapid economic growth similar to that experienced by Western Europe and America during the late 19th century and early 20th. It is quite feasible that in a few decades most people in the world will enjoy a standard of living approaching 1st-world standards. A world like that would benefit of everyone, including Americans, and it would be unbelievably stupid and cruel of us to prevent it.
I've never believed in the EMH, but I'm going to try to defend it anyway.
I've heard that joke many times, and it always seems to me like a false analogy. The EMH doesn't deny the possibility of luck; it denies the possibility of systematically beating a competitive market. The patch of grass is not a competitive market, and finding $100 there by luck is not beating it systematically. In other words, there are fundamental differences between equity markets and patches of grass. For example, shares of the grass are not being bought and sold, therefore information about the existence of the $100 is not being incorporated into prices, which is a fundamental assumption underlying the EMH.
A better analogy would be the following. Assume the existence of a patch of grass upon which a given amount of money falls according to some pattern. Assume also that there is a mature, well-developed industry to predict when the money falls. Assume also that the industry is competitive; ie, when one person takes the money from the grass, it's no longer there for another to take. Assume also that there is some monetary cost to visit the patch of grass and determine if there's any money there. Given all those assumptions, at some point, the grass would cease yielding abnormal returns--in other words, the cost of visiting the grass would equal the average amount found there, given the best available algorithm for determining how much money will be there.
The EMH people would probably respond as follows. Granted, humans believe in patterns which can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Thus, they create a pattern. However other, more sophisticated traders are also aware of the pattern ("momentum") and will place trades that destroy the pattern. For example, if I (as an investor) recognize momentum then it would benefit me to buy shares at the beginning of momentum and sell short at the end, before the bubble bursts. If I do this profitably, then I (and other, similar investors) will control an increasing share of the money being invested, and "momentum" will no longer occur. Note that this pattern-destroying mechanism can occur with any pattern that could be recognized, including self-fulfilling prophecies of naive investors, and including momentum.
...Nevertheless, EMH aside, there are trends which can be identified. One example is the NASDAQ from 1997-2000, which is a particularly striking incidence of momentum. That trend persisted even though there was frank discussion by experts months beforehand that the NASDAQ was certainly in a tremendous bubble. The fact that momentum persisted for years despite publically available pronouncements by all experts that there was momentum, is difficult to reconcile with the EMH, since the EMH asserts that any such trend would automatically disappear.
I believe there's a fatal flaw with the EMH. I believe the EMH rests upon a number of assumptions, one of which is false. But this post is already long enough...
The drug was a monoclonal antibody, not a small molecule drug. I'm definitely no expert on these things, but IIRC monoclonal antibodies are extremely difficult and expensive to manufacture, even in very small quantities. Monoclonal antibodies are manufactured by implanting genetic sequences into the ovaries of live rodents, then extracting the resultant drugs which the rodent cells have produced. Given the difficulty of manufacture, monoclonal antibodies probably would never be used as a biological weapon. There are more effective and easier alternatives. For example, botulism toxin causes shutdown of organs at extremely small doses and, botulinum can be manufactured by any biologist...
You linked to the wrong census pages.
The population of Los Angeles is reported not only on wikipedia, but on many other sites. In fact the population of LA is painted on all the signs surrounding that city, if you happen to visit some time.
I provided a link to wikipedia because that article contained the relevant information in the introductory paragraphs. I felt it would be accessible.
The topic being discussed was city planning.
You said "monasteries" because you didn't know what you were talking about. It would be better for you not to pursue the topic of history...
Once again, you've peppered your remarks with childish nonsense and silly insults.
...I never demanded to know what you've done. I'm not interested in knowing what you've done.
The sentence to which you were responding was perfectly clear. I imagine you understood it.
Indeed, we're done with this discussion. It wasn't very productive. Perhaps it could have been, but unfortunately your initial post was filled with puerile remarks of a kind which had been absent from this thread until you introduced them.
Under different circumstances, I would have simply ignored your gravely mistaken comments about urban history, rather than poking fun at them. Believe it or not, I dislike insulting people. However, I do respond to inappropriate remarks.
I'm unsure whether you know about software methodology, or not. Who knows, perhaps you know a lot. But that would be impossible to determine, since the discussion progressed no further than citing names. It could have been otherwise if you had expressed your disagreement with agile methods (or with the content of my post) in more appropriate terms.
If you do respond, then I hope you do so in a more appropriate tone.