By tailoring the price to discourage use when demand is high and encourage use when demand is low, you can dramatically reduce the amount of congestion at peak use
So, where is all that traffic going instead ? The problem is that people don't have a whole lot of options in the first place, otherwise they would have already chosen to avoid rush hour.
And where do you get your hundreds of dollars of cost per additional car ? Sounds like a lot to me.
If my computer does not heat up the room then the radiator has to do it.
Still, a radiator run by a natural gas furnace is more efficient than an electric heater. Where I live, electricity is about 4x more expensive per kWh compared to gas. Of course, if you live in an area with cheap hydro power, and no gas lines, things are different.
My kids have used 'Scratch'. I've no idea how this compares on details, but they were having a lot of fun with it, and from what I can see, it certainly creates an understanding of structured programming techniques.
I think it makes little sense putting assets in the books as a collateral if you're not willing to sell, or if the creditor isn't willing to buy for the stated amount.
After all, solvency needs to be satisfied in the eyes of the creditor.
No, I didn't mean that. I'm just pointing out that your argument is absurd. If you're not willing to sell the high priced land, that only leaves the cheap stuff. As far as selling good farmland and other useful land, that means also selling all future income from that land, unless you lease it back from the owner. Once you start that, it's a downward spiral.
It would raise import costs, and thus increase the trade deficit, or forcibly reduce imports, which would hurt for stuff like oil and other raw resources. That in turn would lead to higher amounts that need to be borrowed, at higher interest rates, to keep the loan attractive for foreign investors.
No, I got my house 15 years ago, just before the biggest boom. Prices have gone up a lot in the years after, and then down again, but current sale prices in the neighborhood are still well above the price I paid for mine.
Even so, I've already made a lot of payments, so the remainder of the mortgage is much less than the market value.
Uh... if they print money, my mortgage loses value, but my house won't.
Of course, they are free to print money to pay of the debt. But not without a price. How are they going to import oil, for instance, and pay with money that's still warm from the printing press ? At some point in time, the seller is going to refuse to make a deal.
The real (and only) solution is to make bridges in the US that are cheaper than Chinese-made bridges. Import tariffs are only justified if it's a temporary measure to accomplish that goal. Otherwise, they make no economic sense.
Immediately followed by the next questions: who is benefiting from Moody's and Fitch not downgrading their rating ? And who benefited from S&P waiting so long to downgrade ? And who's benefiting from only downgrading to AA+ ?
Or do you actually believe it is fundamentally sound for a concrete and lumber box to take 20+ years for a couple to pay ? Did it take two people 20 years to build ? No ?
Your argument is flawed. During those 20+ years, the couple only uses part of their paycheck to pay back the house, so you cannot compare 20 years of payments to 20 years of income.
For instance, my mortgage was for 30 years, but the total cost of the house only about 4 years worth of my income. That doesn't sound so unreasonable to me.
Liabilities to foreign debt holders are exceeding $3 trillion as well, and are projected to keep growing for the foreseeable future. So, even if you use that number, it doesn't look so good.
According to Bill Gross, the total US liabilities add up to about $60 trillion. At an average price of $5000/acre, the 600 million acres only add up to $3 trillion. That's not an order of magnitude more.
But then again, most mortgage owners have a reasonable plan to get out of debt in a certain time. For instance, my mortgage will be fully paid off in 15 years, and even assuming I default before that, the bank can sell the house and get their money back, so it won't disrupt anything else.
Probably the outage could be shortened by adding more accurate warning and measurement systems, so you only need to disconnect transmission lines when its really necessary.
Even if that means a few days, that's better than letting it fry out, and have an even longer blackout.
There is no need for hope. The storms passed and as you can see, nothing happened.
I wasn't just talking about this particular storm. We'll need the grid for the next couple of solar cycles as well, and it would be smart to take the necessary precautions before the next killer CME is already on its way to Earth.
So your solution is to duplicate every one of these?
My solution is to ask the power companies to take care of the problem, in the most efficient way possible. If there's a better way than buying double, they are more than welcome to use it.
For instance, the replacement could be a slightly different type, as long it could provide a reasonable service during the time it takes to repair it properly.
And of course, if the electricity bill must go up, then it must go up. It still beats a one-year power outage while they order a new transformer.
Maybe they can think of other solutions too. Perhaps the grid could be shut down and transformers removed from the power lines before they got ruined. Or built transformers with higher DC tolerance. But yeah, if there is no other option, keeping a large number of rotting transformers on spare is still a better idea than hoping another 1859 won't happen again.
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So, where is all that traffic going instead ? The problem is that people don't have a whole lot of options in the first place, otherwise they would have already chosen to avoid rush hour.
And where do you get your hundreds of dollars of cost per additional car ? Sounds like a lot to me.
That would be impossible, because the system itself needs to be paid too. There will be billions spent on development, hardware and maintenance.
There's already a penalty for driving in rush hour: you sit in slow traffic. People who can avoid it, will already do so.
This system adds a ton of complexity and costly overhead, while not providing much improvement over the current situation.
It may be a bad business model for Pepsi, but it would a good business model for a cheap supermarket brand.
Still, a radiator run by a natural gas furnace is more efficient than an electric heater. Where I live, electricity is about 4x more expensive per kWh compared to gas. Of course, if you live in an area with cheap hydro power, and no gas lines, things are different.
My kids have used 'Scratch'. I've no idea how this compares on details, but they were having a lot of fun with it, and from what I can see, it certainly creates an understanding of structured programming techniques.
http://scratch.mit.edu/
I think it makes little sense putting assets in the books as a collateral if you're not willing to sell, or if the creditor isn't willing to buy for the stated amount.
After all, solvency needs to be satisfied in the eyes of the creditor.
No, I didn't mean that. I'm just pointing out that your argument is absurd. If you're not willing to sell the high priced land, that only leaves the cheap stuff. As far as selling good farmland and other useful land, that means also selling all future income from that land, unless you lease it back from the owner. Once you start that, it's a downward spiral.
It would raise import costs, and thus increase the trade deficit, or forcibly reduce imports, which would hurt for stuff like oil and other raw resources. That in turn would lead to higher amounts that need to be borrowed, at higher interest rates, to keep the loan attractive for foreign investors.
No, I got my house 15 years ago, just before the biggest boom. Prices have gone up a lot in the years after, and then down again, but current sale prices in the neighborhood are still well above the price I paid for mine.
Even so, I've already made a lot of payments, so the remainder of the mortgage is much less than the market value.
Excellent. So all the government needs to do is relocate the cities to the 5K/acre land, and then sell the good stuff.
Well, it does have plenty of Nitrogen, which is something plants like. You may want to dilute it a bit, though.
Uh... if they print money, my mortgage loses value, but my house won't.
Of course, they are free to print money to pay of the debt. But not without a price. How are they going to import oil, for instance, and pay with money that's still warm from the printing press ? At some point in time, the seller is going to refuse to make a deal.
The real (and only) solution is to make bridges in the US that are cheaper than Chinese-made bridges. Import tariffs are only justified if it's a temporary measure to accomplish that goal. Otherwise, they make no economic sense.
See for this useful explanation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhD--UeRiOI
Immediately followed by the next questions: who is benefiting from Moody's and Fitch not downgrading their rating ? And who benefited from S&P waiting so long to downgrade ? And who's benefiting from only downgrading to AA+ ?
But then again, a forced auction sale usually lowers the price. Maybe the people living there could be sold as slaves ?
Your argument is flawed. During those 20+ years, the couple only uses part of their paycheck to pay back the house, so you cannot compare 20 years of payments to 20 years of income.
For instance, my mortgage was for 30 years, but the total cost of the house only about 4 years worth of my income. That doesn't sound so unreasonable to me.
Liabilities to foreign debt holders are exceeding $3 trillion as well, and are projected to keep growing for the foreseeable future. So, even if you use that number, it doesn't look so good.
According to Bill Gross, the total US liabilities add up to about $60 trillion. At an average price of $5000/acre, the 600 million acres only add up to $3 trillion. That's not an order of magnitude more.
But then again, most mortgage owners have a reasonable plan to get out of debt in a certain time. For instance, my mortgage will be fully paid off in 15 years, and even assuming I default before that, the bank can sell the house and get their money back, so it won't disrupt anything else.
Can the US government claim the same ?
Probably the outage could be shortened by adding more accurate warning and measurement systems, so you only need to disconnect transmission lines when its really necessary.
Even if that means a few days, that's better than letting it fry out, and have an even longer blackout.
Well, then we don't need all those silly warning stories either, if nothing is ever going to happen anyway.
I wasn't just talking about this particular storm. We'll need the grid for the next couple of solar cycles as well, and it would be smart to take the necessary precautions before the next killer CME is already on its way to Earth.
My solution is to ask the power companies to take care of the problem, in the most efficient way possible. If there's a better way than buying double, they are more than welcome to use it.
For instance, the replacement could be a slightly different type, as long it could provide a reasonable service during the time it takes to repair it properly.
And of course, if the electricity bill must go up, then it must go up. It still beats a one-year power outage while they order a new transformer.
Maybe they can think of other solutions too. Perhaps the grid could be shut down and transformers removed from the power lines before they got ruined. Or built transformers with higher DC tolerance. But yeah, if there is no other option, keeping a large number of rotting transformers on spare is still a better idea than hoping another 1859 won't happen again.