Yes, local changes are currently unpredictable. "The stuff might change in some ways" includes issues like "you won't be able to grow food where you're growing it now", for example, because close to 2 billion in Asia are likely to suffer seasonal droughts, when their summer water supply melts away. So when they want to be growing food, the river they depend on for irrigation will dry up. If that happens, what do you think India and China will do when a billion rural farmers flood their cities looking for food and work?
That's in addition to "it's going to get hot and some people will have to move" not instead of.
Well, I guess any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from psychic powers to some people. Personally, I think the people who wrote "Al Gore" in the write in area and checked off his name intended to vote for Al Gore, but maybe I'm just guessing. Over 2000 votes of this type were discarded because "the voter's intent was unclear". It's your call: psychic or obvious.
Drinking more tequila to delay a hangover just makes the eventual hangover worse. Or leads to alcohol poisoning...
Interestingly enough, the wikipedia page on hangovers lists "Hair of the Dog" as one potentially useful remedy for reducing the effect of hangovers, so I don't think that's really a settled question. And, of course, that's assuming that the situation is even comparable.
The fact that there is a cost to trying to fix the issue by not overspending doesn't mean it's wise to use methods to reduce that cost that will make the overall situation worse.
Of course, that's true. Unfortunately, no one knows what methods will or won't make the overall situation better or worse. In Greece, the repeated rounds of austerity seem to be making the problem worse. They cut government spending, the recession deepens and the government goes further into debt and needs to cut more. It's a downward spiral. Meanwhile, several prominent mainstream economists are saying that severe austerity is obviously a bad decision and that the problems with this type of austerity were clearly demonstrated by Keynes 80 years ago.
The question is how long do you allow the disease to continue getting worse before deciding to try a different cure? If what I said about conservatives not changing their mind is true, that answer might be forever (or close enough for it to no longer matter because the patient is dead).
In any case, it's not looking good for the von Mises economists, but maybe Ireland will give them better results.
It's worth remembering that Reagan was on net a tax reducer, even if he did raise taxes at one point. And by the end of his term, per capita tax revenue adjusted for inflation was higher than it was at the start of it, despite an overall lower tax rate.
I did a little looking around and it looks like he lowered some taxes and then raised others. I'm not sure that anyone can say with absolute certainty what happened to the effective tax rate after he lowered taxes 2-3 times and raised them 13 times and removed many tax breaks. The net effect was that taxes as percentage of GDP stayed pretty close to the level of his predecessor, they dropped by about 0.1%, although they remained higher than the 40 year average. It's not the clear cut case that many conservatives like to pretend it is, that Reagan massively cut taxes and prosperity bloomed forth. Time and again, we have failed to see the promised economic growth from tax cuts. Keynsian economics would indicate that the Regan boom came from the relatively large amount of deficit spending that occurred. However, people like Grover Norquist, who don't believe in Keynsian economics, often seem to simply ignore the facts that are inconvenient to their pet theories.
The rate of change for individualists was much greater as more literacy was gained, so conservatives are clearly more open to adjusting their thinking as facts are gained. A little spin here, but it's still more accurate than your description of the paper.
The problem is that the individualists rate of change ran opposite to the facts presented. They took the facts that they learned and turned them around to mean the opposite thing of so they could support their pre-existing views. However, the egalitarians actually changed their views when presented with facts that conflicted with their pre-existing views. That's the point you missed, and it's very important. For example, it explains why when they failed to find WMDs in Iraq, many conservatives became more convinced that they existed. They decided it was proof that the WMDs were being deliberately hidden because that was a more acceptable answer than believing conservatives leaders had been wrong or mislead them.
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I don't think you understand what you're talking about:
It seems like you are make a reference to the Urban Heat Island effect, but "the Greenies" are aware of it, however, according to the Koch-funded BEST project, areas under the Urban Heat Island effect actually show a slightly lower global warming trend than other areas. See the important thing to now is that when the Urban Heat Island effect raises the temperature in an area by 2 degrees it does so continuously. So both the urban area and the rural area around it will show a very similar global warming trend.
It's not that "the Greenies" don't know about the effect, it's that it's probably not important in context. Frankly, I've never heard of an environmentalist denying that humans can change the local environment, maybe this is something you're projecting?
The ban would affect bottled drinks as well. Throwing a party or get-together? You can't buy the much cheaper 2-liter bottles.
Also according to the article:
It would not apply to diet sodas, fruit juices, dairy or alcoholic drinks. Sodas sold at grocery and convenience stores would be exempt as well.
I'm not sure why you would buy drinks for your party at the Theatre, Stadium or Restaurant, but I assure you it's much cheaper to get them at a grocery store.
You have to buy individually packaged beverages, like 12-packs of cans for 3-4 times the price.
Either the prices are really weird where you live or something's not right with your analysis. A 12 pack of 355 ml cans is 4.2 litres. You are claiming that you can buy 6-8 two litre bottles for the price of one 12 pack? Around here the 12 pack is around $6 and the two-litres around $2 (barring sales).
That's a 50% increase, not a 300-400% increase.
I am guessing the soda companies bought and paid for this ban with $ signs in their eyes.
Actually in theory, it should cost them a small amount of money, since this should mostly apply to fountain drinks and will reduce the rate at which most restaurants, theatres and stadium in New York city use both the flavouring and the carbonated water.
...and those who don't, won't buy one. Not my place to tell folks what or how they should buy something.
Did you read and understand the message you're replying to?
It's a psychological trick that influences people to buy the larger size. If you had a business, you could try this out. If you increase the price of the small and the medium drink then more people will buy the large size. It should be obvious that as the price difference decreases more people will opt for the larger size. For example, I doubt anyone would be surprised that if you charged the same for small, medium and large, most people would opt for the large size regardless of whether they actually wanted that size.
Part of the reason for the increase in obesity in America may be portion size. I remember seeing a graph that showed that the average portion size of a fast food meal has quadrupled over the last 60 years. The burger, the fries and the drink are each 4 times larger and probably contain 4 times the calories they used to. Combined the common "motherly" requirement that people finish everything on their plate if they want dessert and you have people programmed to get fat. It's not the whole story, but it is an issue.
Having said that, I don't think this is the right way to approach the issue.
So your prediction is that the unemployment rate will reach 220% among the general population and 500% among youth? Or are you predicting more of a Roadwarrior type situation where gangs of Greek punks roam the countryside pillaging and looting?
According to Wikipedia's page on the Florida Election Recount, in a state wide recount, Gore would have won. Additionally, the New York Times determined that poor ballot design cost Gore a little over 8000 votes, which is a big difference when Bush's victory margin was 537. In percentage terms Bush's victory margin was 0.009% of the Florida vote.
Now Gore had not (yet) asked for a state wide recount, although the Florida director of his campaign has said that they were about to request one when the Supreme Court ruling came down staying the recounts.
There facts seem clear that Gore should have won Florida and the presidency.
That's an interesting point of view, but it's not a very good proof. Greece has been following the "conservative" prescription to solve their economic problems. The result? Record levels of unemployment. If you think the American economy is doing poorly, consider that Greece now has hit a new record level of unemployment (22%) and over 50% unemployment for people aged 15-24. Given how well the "conservative" solution is working out, do you think it's any wonder they're looking for a "liberal" solution instead?
More importantly, you missed the entire point of the joke. The joke is that when reality disagrees with conservatives, they claim reality is biased. It's a sad commentary on the far right's rejection of facts and embracing of fictions to justify their views in the face of evidence to the contrary*. Liberals, while not immune, are currently much less prone to that type of behaviour as recently confirmed.
* Sometimes it manifests as an inability to accept some of the relevant facts. For instance, Grover Norquist is unable to accept that Ronald Reagan raised taxes, increased the size of the government and tripled the U.S. federal debt during his term in office. This colours his entire perception of government and it's role in the economy, since he credits the Reagan economic boom solely to the tax cuts that Reagan implemented without considering any of the other relevant factors.
It is very important to understand is that climate models don't make predictions, they make projections. The difference is that projections are based on "If A happens then B will be the result" whereas predictions are "B will happen". Most of the inaccuracies come from incomplete matches between A and actual events. For instance, climate models don't account for economic factors so they can't predict events that have had serious implications for the short-term amount of CO2 emissions (such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 2008 recession).
Secondly you should be careful about "what [you] have heard that the models have predicted". There are people who make a living from denying that climate change is occurring. They are partly funded for political reasons and partly privately funded by the popularity of their views (appearance fees and such). Obviously, it is therefore in their own economic interest to exaggerate and distort predictions to make themselves look smarter and to increase the size of the audience who is willing to pay to hear them speak. Unfortunately, it is rather common for some of these people to take a projection which least matches actual events and pretend that it is a prediction.
That's not to say that the models are in any way perfect, there is continual effort to improve the models so that they provide better and more accurate projections, however, the models are already reasonably accurate.
I think too many people confuse "pollutant" with "toxic". The danger of too much CO2 in the air is that it will shift global climates in unpredictable ways, thus because there is a significant danger to the release of CO2 it is a pollutant. It's not toxic at the levels it can reasonably reach in the atmosphere.
Greenland's glaciers are around 10,000 years old. They did not disappear 700 years ago and Greenland wasn't a green paradise. It was a barely subsistence level farming community, that collapsed when the local climate changed and it got a few degrees colder. Greenland is now warmer than it was 700 years ago.
I once had an argument with a friend, he insisted to me that using a broken ruler was foolish. The ruler was broken and bent, how could anyone possible get an accurate measure from it? He insisted that would be able to guesstimate the size and be much more accurate. After arguing a bit over whether that made any sense, we decided to test his hypothesis. So he guessed and I measured, then we got a tape measure and measured it accurately. I was off by 2cm and he was off by almost 30 cm. The lesson to learn is that even inaccurate instruments can be helpful in getting an answer that's close enough, particularly if you're aware of the inaccuracies.
The model are approximations of physical phenomena and when the assumptions are adjusted to match actual events, most of the models tend to do a rather good of model warming. In case you're wondering the assumptions have to be adjusted because they are based on certain scenarios of behavior. It's not reasonable to judge the accuracy of a forecast for a scenario which it doesn't apply. Unfortunately this is a common trick used by climate change critics.
You're pretty naive. The public opposition to AGW isn't science based and never has been (except selectively when the critics can take pot shots). It's about ideology and profit, specifically libertarian ideology and oil industry profits.
Actually no, it's a pretty standard definition of the concept of trade: mutual exchange to mutual benefit, with neither side subject to compulsion. Both sides are welcome to negotiate, to haggle, and try to get the best deal they can; but when either side declares that it's his "right" to take something he wants at any time with no consideration given to the creator, and then acts on that "right," that is not "trade" that is "pillage."
If I copy a recording of a song, what have I taken?
If I have purchased a recording and I copy it and play it for a friend, you would have me believe that this is somehow morally evil while if I play the original copy that is morally good. Does this not seem strange to you? That indistinguishable copies of a recording are somehow morally colored according to some arbitrary numbering.
I see, and are there magical "Song Trees" growing in your fairy tale world where there's no time, equipment, or money sunk into the creation of the song and its production?
In the case outlined, I'm paying for a copy of a recording. The song may or may not be original and may or may not be written by the performer.
Or are you just ignoring the weeks or months of time and material it can take to write, arrange, record, and produce it?
I fail to see why I should care about how inefficient the composer is at writing songs. If he can't write a single song in months, he is probably not cut out for the business.
And the fact that it costs very real money to *live* - you know eat, sleep, have shelter, electricity, running water - for those weeks or months of time?
Frankly, everyone faces those exact same problems. I see little reason to believe a musician is somehow more entitled to the necessities of life than everyone else.
Diagnosis: PHB syndrome - "That which I do not understand must be easy."
I said it doesn't take much work, not talent. I would have been more impressed if you hadn't delved into juvenile taunting. I can only conclude it's because you could not answer the question and have conceded the point that recording a song can take very little time. Even "days" of recording falls into the "not much work" category, to me. With an album of 12 songs, that would be, generously, 60 days of work a year. I'm not aware of many professions that allow people to work between 1 hour and 60 days of the year while still covering a decent middle class lifestyle. Why should musicians be any different?
Here's what I don't understand at all about this pro-piracy argument.
Don't be foolish, at no point in my argument did I mention piracy or downloading music. Disagreeing with you does not make me a criminal, no matter how much that would make you feel justified.
Unless you're running around downloading songs you hate that duplicate of a recording of that work is *CLEARLY* worth something to you. Why else would you go out of your way to install software to pirate the music and risk legal repercussions, only to download a bunch of music you hate? So you're receiving benefit from having a copy of the music, right? It means something to you, you enjoy it?
No, actually I'm not. I tried Napster a very long time ago because it was new and different. I have no special software to pirate music, I'm not spending any time looking for music and I'm not risking any legal repercussions. I'm not downloading any music at all, legally or illegally. Perhaps now you'll be prepared to actually address what I have written rather than what you wish I had written?
So why is the artist who created that song not entitled to some benefit in return? Leaving aside the question of "how much money for a single copy of an mp3" - if you get value out of the music, why do you feel no desire to give something back to the artist who has
Actually, it happens pretty rarely, in that I'm not actually aware of it ever having happened. The laugher curve is a theoretical model and I think most economists place the inflexion considerably higher than 50%. I think it may have happened when the U.S. reduced the top marginal tax rate from 98% to 70%. However, that wasn't Reagan, who is the commonly cited example. However, Reagan did a mix of tax cuts and tax raises. The actual evidence seems to indicate that the places he raised tax (for example, capital gains) accounted for all of the additional revenue.
Do you seriously think there is no connection between this desire to separate adult people from the consequences they earn, and all the idiots who are everywhere? How do you think they got to be that way? Do you really believe they were born that way? This is one of those organic common-sense questions, not so much of a "mystery of life" question.
According to my father-in-law, he had the job of nailing the severed thumbs and fingers of injured workers to a safety sign when he was a teenager. Again, according to him, on average two to four workers would loose a finger or thumb each month. Now safety legislation requires that those machines have plastic guards to keep hands away from the blades and there are far fewer accidents now. In your world view are the current workers, therefore more stupid because the safety system is in place? Because the "horrible example" system seemed to work for about a week, before it started breaking down again. However, adding a few dollars of molded plastic seems to have permanently reduced the problem.
Of particular issue is that the people who harm themselves this way, often end up costing society more than preventing their foolish behaviour would have cost. For example, if someone doesn't have health insurance and they get extremely sick from tainted milk, it's the rest of society that has to pay for their foolishness. Some people suggest simply refusing to treat those people, but that's a dangerous game to play with contagious pathogens.
But if you are trying to sell "recorded music" it's a very important point to understand. You have to compete with every musician who was alive at some point in the last 75 years. That's why most musicians make almost all of their music from live performances (and merchandise sold at live performances).
That's a questionable broadening of the concept of trade. I have no problem paying someone for work done, however, once we delve into "copies of music" suddenly we're talking about something which literally can be duplicated with the push of a single button. Performing the song doesn't actually involve much work, it could take as little as 5 minutes (or less) to record the music. How much money is a duplicate of a recording of that work actually worth? It seems to me it shouldn't be worth much at all. Live performance? That's worth money. Recording of a live performance? Now you're asking to get paid twice for the same work.
In the U. S. copyright is granted for the promotion of the arts and sciences. It does not exist to benefit artists except as far as benefiting artists serves to promote the arts and sciences. Recordings are "works" not "work", digital recording are ephemeral.
Copyright infringement seems to have very little impact on sales. A bigger issue might be that musicians now have to compete with every band ever recorded since the phonograph was invented. This is limited somewhat by changes in music style, for example not many people are listening to 1920s chamber music. However, many people still love Elvis and the Beatles (for example). So now every new music act competes with bands which are long gone. Even worse they have to compete with TVv, movies, video games, and social media. Some of these alternatives have been around for a while some are new. With the economic stagnation of the middle class from around the 1970s in the United States the amount of money being spent on entertainment is increasing like it did during the 40s, 50s and 60s. The real reason that "recording artists" are having a hard time making ends meet likely has a lot more to do with competition in the face of limited budgets.
Furthermore, many of the actions taken (supposedly on behalf of artists) by the industry are net negative for new entrants. Copyright extension increases competition for scarce entertainment dollars by artificially inflating the value of the great acts of years gone by. If the Beatles work, for example, was no longer covered by copyright, it would cost less and thus present less competition to other artists. The music industry has also been gradually tightening the wrench on bands, they have become more risk adverse and thus try to game the system so that increasing the band bears proportionally more of the risk. They've also reduced the number of groups they fund and limited the diversity of music they will fund. As time continues, more of consumer's music money seems to flow to "independent labels".
All the moaning and groaning over piracy is the tail waging the dog. It's overall economic factors and technological progression that are hurting the music business. I'm pretty sure the top 1% (the people who haven't had their wages stagnate for 40 years) don't buy enough music to make up for the 99% who have seen their entertainment budgets increasingly stretched by all the changes over the last 40 years.
Actually, I read an article that said it's closer to 198 times earnings. As I understand it, Apple, Google and Microsoft are each valued at around 10 times earnings.
You bet on an intangible product that overvalues itself (based on what I've read), spend BILLIONS on it, and are surprised when the people receiving the BILLIONS are trying to make as much money as possible, even if it's unscrupulous?
Surprised? No, not all, but then I didn't buy any Facebook stock. However, I'm not going to make excuses to allow these alleged white collar criminals to escape a federal prison stay, either. If they committed the crime, they can do the time.
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Yes, local changes are currently unpredictable. "The stuff might change in some ways" includes issues like "you won't be able to grow food where you're growing it now", for example, because close to 2 billion in Asia are likely to suffer seasonal droughts, when their summer water supply melts away. So when they want to be growing food, the river they depend on for irrigation will dry up. If that happens, what do you think India and China will do when a billion rural farmers flood their cities looking for food and work?
That's in addition to "it's going to get hot and some people will have to move" not instead of.
Well, I guess any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from psychic powers to some people. Personally, I think the people who wrote "Al Gore" in the write in area and checked off his name intended to vote for Al Gore, but maybe I'm just guessing. Over 2000 votes of this type were discarded because "the voter's intent was unclear". It's your call: psychic or obvious.
Drinking more tequila to delay a hangover just makes the eventual hangover worse. Or leads to alcohol poisoning...
Interestingly enough, the wikipedia page on hangovers lists "Hair of the Dog" as one potentially useful remedy for reducing the effect of hangovers, so I don't think that's really a settled question. And, of course, that's assuming that the situation is even comparable.
The fact that there is a cost to trying to fix the issue by not overspending doesn't mean it's wise to use methods to reduce that cost that will make the overall situation worse.
Of course, that's true. Unfortunately, no one knows what methods will or won't make the overall situation better or worse. In Greece, the repeated rounds of austerity seem to be making the problem worse. They cut government spending, the recession deepens and the government goes further into debt and needs to cut more. It's a downward spiral. Meanwhile, several prominent mainstream economists are saying that severe austerity is obviously a bad decision and that the problems with this type of austerity were clearly demonstrated by Keynes 80 years ago.
The question is how long do you allow the disease to continue getting worse before deciding to try a different cure? If what I said about conservatives not changing their mind is true, that answer might be forever (or close enough for it to no longer matter because the patient is dead).
In any case, it's not looking good for the von Mises economists, but maybe Ireland will give them better results.
It's worth remembering that Reagan was on net a tax reducer, even if he did raise taxes at one point. And by the end of his term, per capita tax revenue adjusted for inflation was higher than it was at the start of it, despite an overall lower tax rate.
I did a little looking around and it looks like he lowered some taxes and then raised others. I'm not sure that anyone can say with absolute certainty what happened to the effective tax rate after he lowered taxes 2-3 times and raised them 13 times and removed many tax breaks. The net effect was that taxes as percentage of GDP stayed pretty close to the level of his predecessor, they dropped by about 0.1%, although they remained higher than the 40 year average. It's not the clear cut case that many conservatives like to pretend it is, that Reagan massively cut taxes and prosperity bloomed forth. Time and again, we have failed to see the promised economic growth from tax cuts. Keynsian economics would indicate that the Regan boom came from the relatively large amount of deficit spending that occurred. However, people like Grover Norquist, who don't believe in Keynsian economics, often seem to simply ignore the facts that are inconvenient to their pet theories.
The rate of change for individualists was much greater as more literacy was gained, so conservatives are clearly more open to adjusting their thinking as facts are gained. A little spin here, but it's still more accurate than your description of the paper.
The problem is that the individualists rate of change ran opposite to the facts presented. They took the facts that they learned and turned them around to mean the opposite thing of so they could support their pre-existing views. However, the egalitarians actually changed their views when presented with facts that conflicted with their pre-existing views. That's the point you missed, and it's very important. For example, it explains why when they failed to find WMDs in Iraq, many conservatives became more convinced that they existed. They decided it was proof that the WMDs were being deliberately hidden because that was a more acceptable answer than believing conservatives leaders had been wrong or mislead them.
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I don't think you understand what you're talking about:
It seems like you are make a reference to the Urban Heat Island effect, but "the Greenies" are aware of it, however, according to the Koch-funded BEST project, areas under the Urban Heat Island effect actually show a slightly lower global warming trend than other areas. See the important thing to now is that when the Urban Heat Island effect raises the temperature in an area by 2 degrees it does so continuously. So both the urban area and the rural area around it will show a very similar global warming trend.
It's not that "the Greenies" don't know about the effect, it's that it's probably not important in context. Frankly, I've never heard of an environmentalist denying that humans can change the local environment, maybe this is something you're projecting?
If Google mentioned that it was due to China censoring the internet, China would censor the explanation.
The saying you are probably looking for is:
The ban would affect bottled drinks as well. Throwing a party or get-together? You can't buy the much cheaper 2-liter bottles.
Also according to the article:
I'm not sure why you would buy drinks for your party at the Theatre, Stadium or Restaurant, but I assure you it's much cheaper to get them at a grocery store.
You have to buy individually packaged beverages, like 12-packs of cans for 3-4 times the price.
Either the prices are really weird where you live or something's not right with your analysis. A 12 pack of 355 ml cans is 4.2 litres. You are claiming that you can buy 6-8 two litre bottles for the price of one 12 pack? Around here the 12 pack is around $6 and the two-litres around $2 (barring sales).
That's a 50% increase, not a 300-400% increase.
I am guessing the soda companies bought and paid for this ban with $ signs in their eyes.
Actually in theory, it should cost them a small amount of money, since this should mostly apply to fountain drinks and will reduce the rate at which most restaurants, theatres and stadium in New York city use both the flavouring and the carbonated water.
...and those who don't, won't buy one. Not my place to tell folks what or how they should buy something.
Did you read and understand the message you're replying to?
It's a psychological trick that influences people to buy the larger size. If you had a business, you could try this out. If you increase the price of the small and the medium drink then more people will buy the large size. It should be obvious that as the price difference decreases more people will opt for the larger size. For example, I doubt anyone would be surprised that if you charged the same for small, medium and large, most people would opt for the large size regardless of whether they actually wanted that size.
Part of the reason for the increase in obesity in America may be portion size. I remember seeing a graph that showed that the average portion size of a fast food meal has quadrupled over the last 60 years. The burger, the fries and the drink are each 4 times larger and probably contain 4 times the calories they used to. Combined the common "motherly" requirement that people finish everything on their plate if they want dessert and you have people programmed to get fat. It's not the whole story, but it is an issue.
Having said that, I don't think this is the right way to approach the issue.
So your prediction is that the unemployment rate will reach 220% among the general population and 500% among youth? Or are you predicting more of a Roadwarrior type situation where gangs of Greek punks roam the countryside pillaging and looting?
According to Wikipedia's page on the Florida Election Recount, in a state wide recount, Gore would have won. Additionally, the New York Times determined that poor ballot design cost Gore a little over 8000 votes, which is a big difference when Bush's victory margin was 537. In percentage terms Bush's victory margin was 0.009% of the Florida vote.
Now Gore had not (yet) asked for a state wide recount, although the Florida director of his campaign has said that they were about to request one when the Supreme Court ruling came down staying the recounts.
There facts seem clear that Gore should have won Florida and the presidency.
That's an interesting point of view, but it's not a very good proof. Greece has been following the "conservative" prescription to solve their economic problems. The result? Record levels of unemployment. If you think the American economy is doing poorly, consider that Greece now has hit a new record level of unemployment (22%) and over 50% unemployment for people aged 15-24. Given how well the "conservative" solution is working out, do you think it's any wonder they're looking for a "liberal" solution instead?
More importantly, you missed the entire point of the joke. The joke is that when reality disagrees with conservatives, they claim reality is biased. It's a sad commentary on the far right's rejection of facts and embracing of fictions to justify their views in the face of evidence to the contrary*. Liberals, while not immune, are currently much less prone to that type of behaviour as recently confirmed.
* Sometimes it manifests as an inability to accept some of the relevant facts. For instance, Grover Norquist is unable to accept that Ronald Reagan raised taxes, increased the size of the government and tripled the U.S. federal debt during his term in office. This colours his entire perception of government and it's role in the economy, since he credits the Reagan economic boom solely to the tax cuts that Reagan implemented without considering any of the other relevant factors.
It is very important to understand is that climate models don't make predictions, they make projections. The difference is that projections are based on "If A happens then B will be the result" whereas predictions are "B will happen". Most of the inaccuracies come from incomplete matches between A and actual events. For instance, climate models don't account for economic factors so they can't predict events that have had serious implications for the short-term amount of CO2 emissions (such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 2008 recession).
Secondly you should be careful about "what [you] have heard that the models have predicted". There are people who make a living from denying that climate change is occurring. They are partly funded for political reasons and partly privately funded by the popularity of their views (appearance fees and such). Obviously, it is therefore in their own economic interest to exaggerate and distort predictions to make themselves look smarter and to increase the size of the audience who is willing to pay to hear them speak. Unfortunately, it is rather common for some of these people to take a projection which least matches actual events and pretend that it is a prediction.
That's not to say that the models are in any way perfect, there is continual effort to improve the models so that they provide better and more accurate projections, however, the models are already reasonably accurate.
I think too many people confuse "pollutant" with "toxic". The danger of too much CO2 in the air is that it will shift global climates in unpredictable ways, thus because there is a significant danger to the release of CO2 it is a pollutant. It's not toxic at the levels it can reasonably reach in the atmosphere.
Greenland's glaciers are around 10,000 years old. They did not disappear 700 years ago and Greenland wasn't a green paradise. It was a barely subsistence level farming community, that collapsed when the local climate changed and it got a few degrees colder. Greenland is now warmer than it was 700 years ago.
I once had an argument with a friend, he insisted to me that using a broken ruler was foolish. The ruler was broken and bent, how could anyone possible get an accurate measure from it? He insisted that would be able to guesstimate the size and be much more accurate. After arguing a bit over whether that made any sense, we decided to test his hypothesis. So he guessed and I measured, then we got a tape measure and measured it accurately. I was off by 2cm and he was off by almost 30 cm. The lesson to learn is that even inaccurate instruments can be helpful in getting an answer that's close enough, particularly if you're aware of the inaccuracies.
The model are approximations of physical phenomena and when the assumptions are adjusted to match actual events, most of the models tend to do a rather good of model warming. In case you're wondering the assumptions have to be adjusted because they are based on certain scenarios of behavior. It's not reasonable to judge the accuracy of a forecast for a scenario which it doesn't apply. Unfortunately this is a common trick used by climate change critics.
You're pretty naive. The public opposition to AGW isn't science based and never has been (except selectively when the critics can take pot shots). It's about ideology and profit, specifically libertarian ideology and oil industry profits.
Actually no, it's a pretty standard definition of the concept of trade: mutual exchange to mutual benefit, with neither side subject to compulsion. Both sides are welcome to negotiate, to haggle, and try to get the best deal they can; but when either side declares that it's his "right" to take something he wants at any time with no consideration given to the creator, and then acts on that "right," that is not "trade" that is "pillage."
If I copy a recording of a song, what have I taken?
If I have purchased a recording and I copy it and play it for a friend, you would have me believe that this is somehow morally evil while if I play the original copy that is morally good. Does this not seem strange to you? That indistinguishable copies of a recording are somehow morally colored according to some arbitrary numbering.
I see, and are there magical "Song Trees" growing in your fairy tale world where there's no time, equipment, or money sunk into the creation of the song and its production?
In the case outlined, I'm paying for a copy of a recording. The song may or may not be original and may or may not be written by the performer.
Or are you just ignoring the weeks or months of time and material it can take to write, arrange, record, and produce it?
I fail to see why I should care about how inefficient the composer is at writing songs. If he can't write a single song in months, he is probably not cut out for the business.
And the fact that it costs very real money to *live* - you know eat, sleep, have shelter, electricity, running water - for those weeks or months of time?
Frankly, everyone faces those exact same problems. I see little reason to believe a musician is somehow more entitled to the necessities of life than everyone else.
Diagnosis: PHB syndrome - "That which I do not understand must be easy."
I said it doesn't take much work, not talent. I would have been more impressed if you hadn't delved into juvenile taunting. I can only conclude it's because you could not answer the question and have conceded the point that recording a song can take very little time. Even "days" of recording falls into the "not much work" category, to me. With an album of 12 songs, that would be, generously, 60 days of work a year. I'm not aware of many professions that allow people to work between 1 hour and 60 days of the year while still covering a decent middle class lifestyle. Why should musicians be any different?
Here's what I don't understand at all about this pro-piracy argument.
Don't be foolish, at no point in my argument did I mention piracy or downloading music. Disagreeing with you does not make me a criminal, no matter how much that would make you feel justified.
Unless you're running around downloading songs you hate that duplicate of a recording of that work is *CLEARLY* worth something to you. Why else would you go out of your way to install software to pirate the music and risk legal repercussions, only to download a bunch of music you hate? So you're receiving benefit from having a copy of the music, right? It means something to you, you enjoy it?
No, actually I'm not. I tried Napster a very long time ago because it was new and different. I have no special software to pirate music, I'm not spending any time looking for music and I'm not risking any legal repercussions. I'm not downloading any music at all, legally or illegally. Perhaps now you'll be prepared to actually address what I have written rather than what you wish I had written?
So why is the artist who created that song not entitled to some benefit in return? Leaving aside the question of "how much money for a single copy of an mp3" - if you get value out of the music, why do you feel no desire to give something back to the artist who has
Actually, it happens pretty rarely, in that I'm not actually aware of it ever having happened. The laugher curve is a theoretical model and I think most economists place the inflexion considerably higher than 50%. I think it may have happened when the U.S. reduced the top marginal tax rate from 98% to 70%. However, that wasn't Reagan, who is the commonly cited example. However, Reagan did a mix of tax cuts and tax raises. The actual evidence seems to indicate that the places he raised tax (for example, capital gains) accounted for all of the additional revenue.
Do you seriously think there is no connection between this desire to separate adult people from the consequences they earn, and all the idiots who are everywhere? How do you think they got to be that way? Do you really believe they were born that way? This is one of those organic common-sense questions, not so much of a "mystery of life" question.
According to my father-in-law, he had the job of nailing the severed thumbs and fingers of injured workers to a safety sign when he was a teenager. Again, according to him, on average two to four workers would loose a finger or thumb each month. Now safety legislation requires that those machines have plastic guards to keep hands away from the blades and there are far fewer accidents now. In your world view are the current workers, therefore more stupid because the safety system is in place? Because the "horrible example" system seemed to work for about a week, before it started breaking down again. However, adding a few dollars of molded plastic seems to have permanently reduced the problem.
Of particular issue is that the people who harm themselves this way, often end up costing society more than preventing their foolish behaviour would have cost. For example, if someone doesn't have health insurance and they get extremely sick from tainted milk, it's the rest of society that has to pay for their foolishness. Some people suggest simply refusing to treat those people, but that's a dangerous game to play with contagious pathogens.
But if you are trying to sell "recorded music" it's a very important point to understand. You have to compete with every musician who was alive at some point in the last 75 years. That's why most musicians make almost all of their music from live performances (and merchandise sold at live performances).
That's a questionable broadening of the concept of trade. I have no problem paying someone for work done, however, once we delve into "copies of music" suddenly we're talking about something which literally can be duplicated with the push of a single button. Performing the song doesn't actually involve much work, it could take as little as 5 minutes (or less) to record the music. How much money is a duplicate of a recording of that work actually worth? It seems to me it shouldn't be worth much at all. Live performance? That's worth money. Recording of a live performance? Now you're asking to get paid twice for the same work.
In the U. S. copyright is granted for the promotion of the arts and sciences. It does not exist to benefit artists except as far as benefiting artists serves to promote the arts and sciences. Recordings are "works" not "work", digital recording are ephemeral.
Copyright infringement seems to have very little impact on sales. A bigger issue might be that musicians now have to compete with every band ever recorded since the phonograph was invented. This is limited somewhat by changes in music style, for example not many people are listening to 1920s chamber music. However, many people still love Elvis and the Beatles (for example). So now every new music act competes with bands which are long gone. Even worse they have to compete with TVv, movies, video games, and social media. Some of these alternatives have been around for a while some are new. With the economic stagnation of the middle class from around the 1970s in the United States the amount of money being spent on entertainment is increasing like it did during the 40s, 50s and 60s. The real reason that "recording artists" are having a hard time making ends meet likely has a lot more to do with competition in the face of limited budgets.
Furthermore, many of the actions taken (supposedly on behalf of artists) by the industry are net negative for new entrants. Copyright extension increases competition for scarce entertainment dollars by artificially inflating the value of the great acts of years gone by. If the Beatles work, for example, was no longer covered by copyright, it would cost less and thus present less competition to other artists. The music industry has also been gradually tightening the wrench on bands, they have become more risk adverse and thus try to game the system so that increasing the band bears proportionally more of the risk. They've also reduced the number of groups they fund and limited the diversity of music they will fund. As time continues, more of consumer's music money seems to flow to "independent labels".
All the moaning and groaning over piracy is the tail waging the dog. It's overall economic factors and technological progression that are hurting the music business. I'm pretty sure the top 1% (the people who haven't had their wages stagnate for 40 years) don't buy enough music to make up for the 99% who have seen their entertainment budgets increasingly stretched by all the changes over the last 40 years.
Actually, I read an article that said it's closer to 198 times earnings. As I understand it, Apple, Google and Microsoft are each valued at around 10 times earnings.
You bet on an intangible product that overvalues itself (based on what I've read), spend BILLIONS on it, and are surprised when the people receiving the BILLIONS are trying to make as much money as possible, even if it's unscrupulous?
Surprised? No, not all, but then I didn't buy any Facebook stock. However, I'm not going to make excuses to allow these alleged white collar criminals to escape a federal prison stay, either. If they committed the crime, they can do the time.