The issue here is that the demand for electricity increased by a large percentage in the US, China and India.
That's not true.
US Electrical consumption has actually been flat for over a decade: https://www.vox.com/energy-and...
Per capita, we're declining in electrical demand.
You do know that the USA spends the most per capita on health insurance & has the worst healthcare outcomes, e.g. highest infant mortality rates in the developed world, don't you?
And you do know that the leading cause of bankruptcy in the USA is medical bills from getting sick & losing job/health insurance, don't you?
That's what a privatised healthcare system looks like: Predatory, brutal, & dysfunctional. People shouldn't have their lives & their families' lives ruined because they got sick.
Whatever makes you think we have privatized healthcare in the US? There is nothing free about this market. I can't shop around. I'm barely allowed to even choose my doctor since a bunch of middle men (either govt mandated insurers or govt entities set networks that I must adhere to) make those decisions. The _last_ thing I want is govt with more control of my healthcare. I want transparency and choice. No more middle men secretly negotiating arbitrary values I'm then responsible for paying.
Fuck, imagine if car purchasing worked that way: "No, you can't shop at that dealership offering a sweet 20k deal on the car you want. You have to go to one of these 3 dealerships we picked and pay 40k for the same model. And you can't negotiate with the dealer. We did that for you." You guys are nuts.
No you don't. Those 25,000 highly skilled workers are not going to sit at home unemployed. NYC has record low unemployment. They are going to work for other companies that will pay the full $30B in taxes.
You have a fundamental misunderstand of macroeconomics. New business increases migration into a state which increases the total GDP (and therefore revenue) of the state. It's not current jobs/population that matter, but future jobs/population. Just look what Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon did for Seattle: https://static.seattletimes.co...
New York is losing money not welcoming Amazon with open arms. 3B is a pittance compared to what it would have done for the state.
It's time for a tax revolution at the ballot box. Vote only for politicians who declare a willingness to make our tax code more fair and less protective of the wealthy.
So nobody then? I've yet to see a politician tackle tax code loopholes. They just move the deck chairs around. Even the democrats target the middle class instead of the wealthy. The latest bout of tax hikes under Obama hit upper middle class and small business. Rich people got off scot free via loopholes. I mean the Medicare ACA 1% tax hike hit joint incomes of 250k. Deductions and exemptions were also phased out at that level. Setting the bar there is a hell of alot different than setting it at 100M.
So basically, the Republicans don't want to tax anybody, and the Democrats want to tax the upper middle class. Pick one.
And yet, you want to tell other people what they are and are not allowed to do to their own bodies. I think you do not understand what owning someone means, since it seems you want to own everybody else.
Ain't it though? When it comes to abortion, it's all "My body, my choice." But with vaccinations, it's all "Your bodies, my choice." Hypocrites, the lot of them.
The "phase-out" of the PTC is irrelevant based on the way the credit is set up. As long as you "began work" before the phase out started, you still get 100% even if the construction takes a decade. They all basically just front loaded a bunch of turbine purchases years ago and sat on them.
The price of renewables is already low enough that private industry is installing it without incentives.
That's not true. Both the PTC and ITC are sizable. And PTC doesn't fully phase out until 2020 (and then you can still claim ITC until something like 2023). Wind for the most part is competitive without incentives, but it's still getting them for the time being. Solar isn't competitive yet. But it's expected to get there in time.
AOC knew this bill wasn't going to pass. She can't even get her own party on board with it. She just wanted to act smug and self-righteous and have something to tweet to all her cultists. It's what she does best. She's literally the left's version of Trump. A crazy, unhinged grandstanding narcissistic individual who cares more about ratings than sensible policy.
Yes, just like Obama's economic stimulus package did. Remember how it created hundreds of thousands of jobs while fixing the county's infrastructure? No, I don't either.
That's because it was a right-wing plan mostly composed of tax cuts, and the right-wing president at the time took any direct job creation programs off the table before any votes were cast.
It was written by Democratic congressional leaders and their staff and it passed in January 2019 when Democrats held all three branches of government (including the presidency). Only 2 Republican senators (the moderates) + Arlen Specter (who was a RINO at the time) voted for it.
In any case, it is certain I'll see those "women are bad at negotiating salaries" comments, from people who have zero understanding of how, well, anything works. If salary negotiation was haggling, women would be fine, they are fine hagglers. But when you apply for a job, the potential employer already has formed his opinion on how much you are worth to them and the job offer will be relative to that. There is some wiggle room, but not enough to cover a $13k discrepancy.
That's wholly incorrect. I'm a male in the computer science field and have routinely received lowball offers from companies that exceed 20k in "wiggle room." I know this because I've used competing offers to walk them up at least 20k with their offer. Maybe the difference here is that I was ready to walk if they stuck to their shit offer.
Moreover, is there really is a pay gap imposed by outside forces, why do female single business owners (namely, people without a boss) underpay themselves compared to male business owners? What excuse are they going to use there to get out of any kind of personal responsibility for the discrepancy? I'm sure they have some kind of bullshit lined up.
The origin of this trend was that there was a very real shortage of commercial video games with diverse characters in prominent roles, with the stereotypical character overwhelmingly being the strong male and the sexy female; and a great many of us craved for an increased presence of varied characters.
Uh, I'm pretty sure "sexy male" is the default as well. Nobody wants to roleplay as a hideous chud, be it male or female.
It's not just a difference of opinion, it's an objective difference in strategy. One undermines the traditional process and one doesn't. The ACA was a law passed by congress and signed by the president. Trump is shutting down the government to get something new as opposed to keep what was existing. That's really the crux of it.
Why do you feel this is "different"? To me, "grandfathered" policies should be treated no different than newly proposed ones. For instance, hypothetically what if the Republicans grabbed ahold of all 3 branches of govt and passes some new trillion dollar a year boondoggle defense program that drove up the deficit. Voters rebel and vote Blue Dog democrats into office who are concerned about spending. Are you saying that if the Republicans refused to budge an inch on reducing any spending in that massive program, Democrats would be in the wrong not to threaten a shutdown over it? I mean the Dems pretty much threatened a shutdown over the Bush tax cuts (with insistence on not cutting the highest marginal tax rate, which increased from 35% to 39.6%). Those tax cuts were "existing policy." I just don't see the difference.
Are you saying every law should be up for debate and re-passed every year when the funding is due? If you thought congress couldn't get anything done now...
I believe every law should be fair game every change of government at minimum. Otherwise, what's to stop someone from doing exactly what Obama did with ACA by just passing whatever he wants with zero support from the minority party? What are opposition politicians supposed to do then? Just accept it for eternity?
I'll assume you meant 2013 since in 2011 they just wanted short term spending bills. In 2013 they wanted to repeal the ACA entirely on principle.
No, I meant 2011. I even remember the back and forth debates over how much taxes should be hiked vs how much spending cuts should be present (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt-ceiling_crisis_of_2011#proposed_resolutions). The gist of it is that Obama flat out refused to pass a budget that didn't include new revenue, insisting that the deficit must be tackled be a "balanced" approach. This was at least mildly insulting to Republicans after just watching the Democrats skyrocket federal outlays 700 billion between 2009 and 2011 (primarily via TARP and the stimulus program...and that's ignoring ACA, most of which didn't have significant spending measures kick in until nearly 5 years later, by design). Obama also refused to accept a short-term deal. Though in that instance, it was holding a US debt default hostage, rather than a govt shutdown. Same basic premise though: the two sides couldn't come to a compromise agreement and Obama dug his heels in on those two key issues (the Republicans caved on the other hand, since their original sticking point was "all spending cuts with no new revenue").
Source? I think you're off by a trillion or so.
Is Time acceptable? http://time.com/money/4271224/...
You're making the same mistake everyone does by conflating cost/spending with budget deficit. ACA will add little to the deficit due to the fact it lumped in a ton of taxes and revenue increases into the bill to offset the spending. However, it will cost 1+ trillion over the next decade. Just because someone passes a law that lumps in revenue increases to offset the spending of said law does not make it "free" to taxpayers. Just because payroll taxes cover Social Security for instance doesn't mean we're not spending/losing that money from our paychecks. Similarly with ACA, we're still spending a shit ton of money every year. We just don't see it in the annual federal budget numbers. The wall on the other hand is a fixed cost, and a low one at that.
You do realize the difference between "wanting some wild pet project" and "funding government" is literally a matter of perspective and nothing more? To the conservatives, maybe ACA is the "wild pet project" and the wall is border security money that is being blocked? In the end, it's literally nothing more than a difference of opinion on where and how to spend money. The only variant here is that in 2011, Republicans wanted spending cuts to offset all the spending done in 2009-2010 that ran up the deficit, and Obama was insisting on unlimited debt ceiling hikes and more tax hikes instead so that he could continue to spend more. So you could effectively say he already got his pet projects when he controlled all 3 branches of govt. Then, he held the govt hostage in 2011 until the Republicans agreed to pay for it.
"Compromise" and "reasonableness" is perspective only -- for instance, Obamacare will cost the taxpayers 1.34 trillion over the next decade per the CBO. Trump is asking for 5 billion, once, for a wall. Yet you seem to find it perfectly reasonable that Obama would hold the govt hostage to resist and all changes in ACA whereas Trump is not reasonable to defend his own campaign promise for far less cost to the people. And I might add the country was basically 50-50 on whether or not to include ACA mods in the 2011 budget (so it's not like Obama had overwhelming public support on his side either): http://www.people-press.org/20...
The Democrats position is that the President shouldn't be able to throw temper tantrums and shut down the government.
As I said in another thread, Obama literally issued the same threat 3 distinct times (2011, 2013, 2015) when he wasn't getting what he wanted, one of which actually resulted in a shutdown. I don't see the difference, other than the fact you likely believe the wall isn't something worthy of drawing a line in the sand over (vs what Obama was fighting for): https://slashdot.org/comments....
I think Democrats have just come to the realization that any govt shutdown will always do more political harm to Republicans, so they refuse to compromise at all as a result.
Are you saying it's democrats that are responsible for not just agreeing to whatever the hell trump wants? They would get nothing in return. That's not how congress works.
Except it is. Obama threatened to shut down the govt no fewer than 3 times (one of which actually took place) to get "whatever the hell" he wanted. The first time was in 2011 when he pretty much wouldn't reduce spending: https://abcnews.go.com/Politic... The second time was in 2013 on ACA: https://www.politifact.com/fac... The third time was in 2015 on spending again: http://www.freedomworks.org/co...
So it is how Congress works, in these days of no-compromise.
Yes, Texas is loaded. But pipe it up to Maine and then export to Europe. We can send our excess northeast America and Europe. That would enable them to drop imports from russia.
Few things...there's no point to piping Texas gas to Maine since they could get it from the Marcellus at a shorter transport distance (pipelines have leaks, and transporting gas all the way across the country is non-ideal). Secondly, the northeast dependency on imported natural gas is a problem of their own making. They stubbornly refuse to install any natural gas pipeline infrastructure (https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2017/12/27/in-bad-trade-off-new-england-forsakes-natural-gas-for-petroleum/#e71d3de2bfa9) that would provide them incredibly cheap access to Marcellus gas. So instead, they import it and also burn polluting and expensive oil during cold winters. Buncha morons up there.
. Problem is, they might pull out a 120 MW coal plant and put in a 500 MW nat gas. Considering that nat gas emits less than 1/2 of the CO2 of coal (per BTU) means that you can double, even come close to 3x increase and still emit less. But this is 4x up. Way too much.
That's not the way plants work. It's not like they're burning 0 MW or "max capacity" MW. You could put in a 500 MW plant and have it burn 120 MW of energy. If they put in a plant that size and it was run anywere near capacity on its usage, it was because it was needed (maybe because it took the place of 3 coal plants), not because it was "overkill".
in the academic world? You do a research paper debunking other, badly written papers. That's what peer review is
Except it's not...peer review in the modern age is an attempt to affirm, not to debunk. People don't question, test, or challenge anything. They merely reaffirm that the math performed from the data (the data itself is merely accepted) is correct. If the data is all bullshit (and plenty of studies have been published with fabricated or fudged data), that never gets caught in "peer review".
You're wrong on the first case at a minimum (I didn't look up the others but I specifically remember how horrible the Milo thing was): https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01...
He had to cancel (and did not give the speech) due to violent protests that did 100k in damages and injured 6 people.
Texas needs to have not nat gas, but nuke power (or geo-thermal or hydro) to depend on. ALL nations have to stop using fossil fuels.
It is one thing to switch from coal to nat gas (cuts CO2 emissions by nearly 1/2), BUT it is foolish to ADD more nat gas plants.
No, that couldn't be further from the truth. Texas is rich in gassy oil fields from which it generates an enormous amount of associated natural gas while it drills for oil. They have so much natural gas in their market that they can't get rid of that producers are literally paying people to take it (that's right...it's selling for less than zero). Whatever gas they don't use, they "flare", which pretty just means "waste by lighting it on fire." Natural gas power couldn't be any more ideal for Texas.
The biggest chunk is social security, which is really just forced retirement savings (plus a bit of welfare on the side).
Except it's not...since you don't own the money, you don't control the money, and the rules could change at any time (including you getting absolutely nothing -- see what happened to pensions).
So, let's use your hypothetical situation on my home budget. My mortgage is the single largest cost I have month to month. Based on your logic, I should cut funds to that in order to free up funds for other more fun things that I would refer to as discretionary. Somehow I don't the bank would let me live in my house very long if I wasn't paying my mortgage...
You're looking at it the wrong way...when people retire, what's the first thing they do? They downsize, get a cheaper home/mortgage and/or relocate to a cheaper area. They don't keep the same McMansion in LA and look for savings in their food budget.
If you actually understood the need you'd know why they have to be as disruptive and obnoxious as they are. The system isn't designed to be delivering messages like "sorry to bother you, if you aren't busy or otherwise occupied, but here is a bit of information you might find interesting..." It's intended for a message that is critical enough that you need to stop what you are doing and listen.
Really? Then why has the current disruptive obnoxious usage been used to report things like heavy rain conditions? That's hardly "world war 3" levels of criticality.
Don't make it out to be something it's not. If you pardon the round numbers, about 63 million people voted for Trump. There were an estimated 250 million eligible voters for 2016, with about 325 million total population. So, the people who voted for Trump make up about 25% of eligible voters, and less than 20% of the total population. He won the election, but don't make it out like he has some sort of super-mandate from the general public
About 69 million voted for Obama in 2008, which by your logic is only ~20-25% of the total population, but they had no problem acting like they had some kind of mandate, just saying: http://content.time.com/time/p...
Except that our healthcare costs us several times more than it does in countries with socialized medicine.
That's a red herring. Everything in the US costs several times more than it does in other countries. Military expenses, education, healthcare, take your pick. You can't just expect a similar Euro implementation here in the US would just produce cheaper/similar results "because". One big glaring difference is that Euro countries are a hell of alot healthier than we are for one (we have boatloads of money going to pay for heart disease from a fat out-of-shape populace). You don't just implement a new system and "fix" those costs.
Meanwhile, try actually hanging out in a business office for a few days. Just watch and listen. Never again will you be able to claim that business is run efficiently with a straight face.
Uh, try the same in any government office and you'll rapidly get pissed about what your tax dollars are being used for.
Because of multiple insurance companies all with their own huge set of billing procedures, rules, and quirks, medical billing actually requires a 6 month course to absorb the specialized knowledge needed above and beyond being competent in managing accounts receivable
Most of the "procedures, rules, and quirks" you mention are standardized govt regs, like HIPAA protections. That doesn't just go away by swapping insurance companies for govt middle men. Tax law is streamlined to a single govt agency (the IRS). You think that doesn't require a 6 month course to understand? Tax compliance alone is costing us 400 billion a year: https://taxfoundation.org/comp...
That's what you get from govt. Red tape, bureaucracy, and massive overhead costs.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not true.
US Electrical consumption has actually been flat for over a decade: https://www.vox.com/energy-and...
Per capita, we're declining in electrical demand.
Whatever makes you think we have privatized healthcare in the US? There is nothing free about this market. I can't shop around. I'm barely allowed to even choose my doctor since a bunch of middle men (either govt mandated insurers or govt entities set networks that I must adhere to) make those decisions. The _last_ thing I want is govt with more control of my healthcare. I want transparency and choice. No more middle men secretly negotiating arbitrary values I'm then responsible for paying.
Fuck, imagine if car purchasing worked that way: "No, you can't shop at that dealership offering a sweet 20k deal on the car you want. You have to go to one of these 3 dealerships we picked and pay 40k for the same model. And you can't negotiate with the dealer. We did that for you." You guys are nuts.
You have a fundamental misunderstand of macroeconomics. New business increases migration into a state which increases the total GDP (and therefore revenue) of the state. It's not current jobs/population that matter, but future jobs/population. Just look what Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon did for Seattle: https://static.seattletimes.co...
New York is losing money not welcoming Amazon with open arms. 3B is a pittance compared to what it would have done for the state.
So nobody then? I've yet to see a politician tackle tax code loopholes. They just move the deck chairs around. Even the democrats target the middle class instead of the wealthy. The latest bout of tax hikes under Obama hit upper middle class and small business. Rich people got off scot free via loopholes. I mean the Medicare ACA 1% tax hike hit joint incomes of 250k. Deductions and exemptions were also phased out at that level. Setting the bar there is a hell of alot different than setting it at 100M.
So basically, the Republicans don't want to tax anybody, and the Democrats want to tax the upper middle class. Pick one.
Ain't it though? When it comes to abortion, it's all "My body, my choice." But with vaccinations, it's all "Your bodies, my choice." Hypocrites, the lot of them.
The "phase-out" of the PTC is irrelevant based on the way the credit is set up. As long as you "began work" before the phase out started, you still get 100% even if the construction takes a decade. They all basically just front loaded a bunch of turbine purchases years ago and sat on them.
That's not true. Both the PTC and ITC are sizable. And PTC doesn't fully phase out until 2020 (and then you can still claim ITC until something like 2023). Wind for the most part is competitive without incentives, but it's still getting them for the time being. Solar isn't competitive yet. But it's expected to get there in time.
AOC knew this bill wasn't going to pass. She can't even get her own party on board with it. She just wanted to act smug and self-righteous and have something to tweet to all her cultists. It's what she does best. She's literally the left's version of Trump. A crazy, unhinged grandstanding narcissistic individual who cares more about ratings than sensible policy.
What history are you looking at? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It was written by Democratic congressional leaders and their staff and it passed in January 2019 when Democrats held all three branches of government (including the presidency). Only 2 Republican senators (the moderates) + Arlen Specter (who was a RINO at the time) voted for it.
That's wholly incorrect. I'm a male in the computer science field and have routinely received lowball offers from companies that exceed 20k in "wiggle room." I know this because I've used competing offers to walk them up at least 20k with their offer. Maybe the difference here is that I was ready to walk if they stuck to their shit offer.
Moreover, is there really is a pay gap imposed by outside forces, why do female single business owners (namely, people without a boss) underpay themselves compared to male business owners? What excuse are they going to use there to get out of any kind of personal responsibility for the discrepancy? I'm sure they have some kind of bullshit lined up.
Uh, I'm pretty sure "sexy male" is the default as well. Nobody wants to roleplay as a hideous chud, be it male or female.
Why do you feel this is "different"? To me, "grandfathered" policies should be treated no different than newly proposed ones. For instance, hypothetically what if the Republicans grabbed ahold of all 3 branches of govt and passes some new trillion dollar a year boondoggle defense program that drove up the deficit. Voters rebel and vote Blue Dog democrats into office who are concerned about spending. Are you saying that if the Republicans refused to budge an inch on reducing any spending in that massive program, Democrats would be in the wrong not to threaten a shutdown over it? I mean the Dems pretty much threatened a shutdown over the Bush tax cuts (with insistence on not cutting the highest marginal tax rate, which increased from 35% to 39.6%). Those tax cuts were "existing policy." I just don't see the difference.
I believe every law should be fair game every change of government at minimum. Otherwise, what's to stop someone from doing exactly what Obama did with ACA by just passing whatever he wants with zero support from the minority party? What are opposition politicians supposed to do then? Just accept it for eternity?
No, I meant 2011. I even remember the back and forth debates over how much taxes should be hiked vs how much spending cuts should be present (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt-ceiling_crisis_of_2011#proposed_resolutions). The gist of it is that Obama flat out refused to pass a budget that didn't include new revenue, insisting that the deficit must be tackled be a "balanced" approach. This was at least mildly insulting to Republicans after just watching the Democrats skyrocket federal outlays 700 billion between 2009 and 2011 (primarily via TARP and the stimulus program...and that's ignoring ACA, most of which didn't have significant spending measures kick in until nearly 5 years later, by design). Obama also refused to accept a short-term deal. Though in that instance, it was holding a US debt default hostage, rather than a govt shutdown. Same basic premise though: the two sides couldn't come to a compromise agreement and Obama dug his heels in on those two key issues (the Republicans caved on the other hand, since their original sticking point was "all spending cuts with no new revenue").
Is Time acceptable? http://time.com/money/4271224/... You're making the same mistake everyone does by conflating cost/spending with budget deficit. ACA will add little to the deficit due to the fact it lumped in a ton of taxes and revenue increases into the bill to offset the spending. However, it will cost 1+ trillion over the next decade. Just because someone passes a law that lumps in revenue increases to offset the spending of said law does not make it "free" to taxpayers. Just because payroll taxes cover Social Security for instance doesn't mean we're not spending/losing that money from our paychecks. Similarly with ACA, we're still spending a shit ton of money every year. We just don't see it in the annual federal budget numbers. The wall on the other hand is a fixed cost, and a low one at that.
You do realize the difference between "wanting some wild pet project" and "funding government" is literally a matter of perspective and nothing more? To the conservatives, maybe ACA is the "wild pet project" and the wall is border security money that is being blocked? In the end, it's literally nothing more than a difference of opinion on where and how to spend money. The only variant here is that in 2011, Republicans wanted spending cuts to offset all the spending done in 2009-2010 that ran up the deficit, and Obama was insisting on unlimited debt ceiling hikes and more tax hikes instead so that he could continue to spend more. So you could effectively say he already got his pet projects when he controlled all 3 branches of govt. Then, he held the govt hostage in 2011 until the Republicans agreed to pay for it. "Compromise" and "reasonableness" is perspective only -- for instance, Obamacare will cost the taxpayers 1.34 trillion over the next decade per the CBO. Trump is asking for 5 billion, once, for a wall. Yet you seem to find it perfectly reasonable that Obama would hold the govt hostage to resist and all changes in ACA whereas Trump is not reasonable to defend his own campaign promise for far less cost to the people. And I might add the country was basically 50-50 on whether or not to include ACA mods in the 2011 budget (so it's not like Obama had overwhelming public support on his side either): http://www.people-press.org/20...
As I said in another thread, Obama literally issued the same threat 3 distinct times (2011, 2013, 2015) when he wasn't getting what he wanted, one of which actually resulted in a shutdown. I don't see the difference, other than the fact you likely believe the wall isn't something worthy of drawing a line in the sand over (vs what Obama was fighting for): https://slashdot.org/comments....
I think Democrats have just come to the realization that any govt shutdown will always do more political harm to Republicans, so they refuse to compromise at all as a result.
Except it is. Obama threatened to shut down the govt no fewer than 3 times (one of which actually took place) to get "whatever the hell" he wanted.
The first time was in 2011 when he pretty much wouldn't reduce spending: https://abcnews.go.com/Politic...
The second time was in 2013 on ACA: https://www.politifact.com/fac...
The third time was in 2015 on spending again: http://www.freedomworks.org/co...
So it is how Congress works, in these days of no-compromise.
Few things...there's no point to piping Texas gas to Maine since they could get it from the Marcellus at a shorter transport distance (pipelines have leaks, and transporting gas all the way across the country is non-ideal). Secondly, the northeast dependency on imported natural gas is a problem of their own making. They stubbornly refuse to install any natural gas pipeline infrastructure (https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2017/12/27/in-bad-trade-off-new-england-forsakes-natural-gas-for-petroleum/#e71d3de2bfa9) that would provide them incredibly cheap access to Marcellus gas. So instead, they import it and also burn polluting and expensive oil during cold winters. Buncha morons up there.
That's not the way plants work. It's not like they're burning 0 MW or "max capacity" MW. You could put in a 500 MW plant and have it burn 120 MW of energy. If they put in a plant that size and it was run anywere near capacity on its usage, it was because it was needed (maybe because it took the place of 3 coal plants), not because it was "overkill".
Except it's not...peer review in the modern age is an attempt to affirm, not to debunk. People don't question, test, or challenge anything. They merely reaffirm that the math performed from the data (the data itself is merely accepted) is correct. If the data is all bullshit (and plenty of studies have been published with fabricated or fudged data), that never gets caught in "peer review".
He had to cancel (and did not give the speech) due to violent protests that did 100k in damages and injured 6 people.
No, that couldn't be further from the truth. Texas is rich in gassy oil fields from which it generates an enormous amount of associated natural gas while it drills for oil. They have so much natural gas in their market that they can't get rid of that producers are literally paying people to take it (that's right...it's selling for less than zero). Whatever gas they don't use, they "flare", which pretty just means "waste by lighting it on fire." Natural gas power couldn't be any more ideal for Texas.
Except it's not...since you don't own the money, you don't control the money, and the rules could change at any time (including you getting absolutely nothing -- see what happened to pensions).
You're looking at it the wrong way...when people retire, what's the first thing they do? They downsize, get a cheaper home/mortgage and/or relocate to a cheaper area. They don't keep the same McMansion in LA and look for savings in their food budget.
Really? Then why has the current disruptive obnoxious usage been used to report things like heavy rain conditions? That's hardly "world war 3" levels of criticality.
About 69 million voted for Obama in 2008, which by your logic is only ~20-25% of the total population, but they had no problem acting like they had some kind of mandate, just saying: http://content.time.com/time/p...
That's a red herring. Everything in the US costs several times more than it does in other countries. Military expenses, education, healthcare, take your pick. You can't just expect a similar Euro implementation here in the US would just produce cheaper/similar results "because". One big glaring difference is that Euro countries are a hell of alot healthier than we are for one (we have boatloads of money going to pay for heart disease from a fat out-of-shape populace). You don't just implement a new system and "fix" those costs.
Uh, try the same in any government office and you'll rapidly get pissed about what your tax dollars are being used for.
Most of the "procedures, rules, and quirks" you mention are standardized govt regs, like HIPAA protections. That doesn't just go away by swapping insurance companies for govt middle men. Tax law is streamlined to a single govt agency (the IRS). You think that doesn't require a 6 month course to understand? Tax compliance alone is costing us 400 billion a year: https://taxfoundation.org/comp...
That's what you get from govt. Red tape, bureaucracy, and massive overhead costs.