Federal and state governments could lose billions of dollars in revenue from regulatory fees if calls moved onto the Internet are no longer subject to the charges.
Bizzaro Slashdot:
Individual tax payers and stockholders of tax-paying corporations could gain billions of dollars now lost to federal and state governments if calls moved onto the internet are no longer subject to regulatory fees.
How about just sticking to the the facts without injecting a pro-government bias? Taxation is neither a net loss nor a gain of wealth. Taxation is a transfer of wealth.
When you portray tax reductions as loss you are not telling us facts. You are telling us your opinion. You are telling us that you think lower taxation is bad. You want government officials to control wealth. Lower taxes are a loss, in your opinion, becasue you lose what you want : control by government. Objectively there is neither loss not gain. The wealth is still there, but some other group (the tax payers) control it instead of government officials.
Re:iPods DO get you laid
on
iPod-Jacked
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Actually, my iPod has gotten me laid
CUPERTINO, California (API) --Apple Computer today announced a projected shortage of iPods this holiday season after an unexpected surge in sales beginning at 3:52 pm Friday, November 21. Representatives from Apple expressed puzzlement, saying they were not aware of any promotions or advertising which could have provoked the sudden rush of sales. According to Apple, inventories expected to last through the December were exhasted in the span of a few hours.
This controversy regarding nuclear power stems from fundamentally opposing beliefs of conservative/libertarian environmentalists and liberal/socialist environmentalists about what constites environment-friendly energy production.
Its true that waste from nucluear power plants is powerful concentrated evil. This characteristic makes it simultaneously the most desirable to conservative/libertatian environmentalists and the least desirable to liberal/socialist environmentalits. To a conservative environmentalist, concentrating pollution is a virtue: Spreading contaminitaion over the smallest possible area (The inside of a hollowd-out desert mountain) minimizes environmental disruption. Bury it deep in the earth and the forrest is still standing, the air is not filled with products of fossil fuel combustion. To a liberal, this poses the threat of the unnatural, whereas cutting down the forrests to heat our homes is "natural"; wood is a "natural" fuel source, the polluction is diffused throught the atmosphere for us to breath "naturally".
The conservative/libertarian faction believes that the more compact the fuel the more environmentally friendly it is. Choose sources of energy which give you the most energy/pound. Their reasoning goes that the less mass you deal with in generating energy, the less of the earth's surface area and natural environment you disrupt in its production. According to this doctrine, nuclear power is the best choice. The energy density of the fuel and concerntration of waste products is far higher than the alternatives.
Liberal/Socialist environmentalists, on the other hand , believe that the the more "natural" a fuel source the better for the environment. That is, the more a fuel satisifies an idyllic, Emersonian aesthetic the more environmentally correct it is. Hence heating a home with a wood-burning fire place is preferable to heating with electricity generated by a nuclear power plant. The environmental threat is distributed and diffuse: broad deforestation and air pollution. It won't cause cancer just by walking past it but it disrupts vast areas of natural habitat.
Because markets amble toward efficieny, and producing the most power with the least material is efficient, the more modern and efficient means of producing energy tend to be the least quaint and idyllic means. Hence not only are the conserative and liberal judements regarding the environmental correctness of energy production founded on different principles, but also these principles lead to opposing conclusions. Nuclear power lies at one extreme, it produces the most power with the most compact and concentrated environmental damage. It is higly unnatural. It is the most contoversial. Advocated most strongly by one group, opposed most strongy by the other.
then you wrote: " I merely pointed out that your analysis was a bit simplistic"
You did not merely point out that my analysis was a bit simplistic, instead you asserted the contradiction. Now you realize that you were mistaken, you dishonestly describe your earlier position of outright contraction as having "merely pointed out" that my "analysis was bit simplistic."
Having abandoned your point that oil will run out, you have switched to showing off that you know the definition path dependence. Path dependence has become, in your own words "The point", perhaps because you are in desperate retreat from your initial point.
Look at it this way. You began by contradicting me. I claimed that oil would not run out and gave a reason. You stated that it would run out. But nothing you have written since supports your point. You said that future alternatives to oil might be more expensive than the present-day price of oil in absolute terms. This is true, but does it imply that oil will run out ? No. You claim that the cost of alternatives depends on the development lead time. Sometimes true, but does it mean that oil will run out ? No.
Your strategy seems to be to state somethign and then "support" it by showing off that you know a bunch of unrealated facts. That sort of nonsense deserves a strong drubbing, hence the fuckwit comment. Abusing people when they say stupid things is good because it conditions them not to do it. Avoid obnoxiously misleading rhetorical strategy and you will be spared the abuse.
Pay close attention: The points is that as oil becomes more scarce, the price of oil increases relative to the prices of alternative sources of energy. Those alternatives thus become increasingly attractive substitutes for oil. Eventually nobody bothers with the oil and whatever is left in the ground at that point stays put.
You try to obfuscate the issue by mixing in any facts which pop into your head and tossing out $10 words like "externality" and "path dependence". Your tactic is to confuse by cluttering the debate with distracting detail. The only relevent points you could raise in disagrement are those which contradict my own, and those you have failed to supply.
You are skeptical that alternatives to oil could be developed. And yet they already exist ! Fission, wind, solar. These are available commercially today. So your argument depends on the unlikelyhood of developeing what already exists. Lay off the crack, fuckwit.
Trying to to discredit a statement by labeling it "first year eco" is just you showing off a smarty-pants attitude. In fact what is taught in first year eco is correct. You contract nothing with that label. What is taught after first year eco refines, but does not negate what is taught in the first year. More complex analyeses refine the simpler analyses, addressing subtleties overlooked. Otherwise what would be the point of teaching first-year eco ? You think at the end of the year the lecturer announces "What I said was wrong because this is first year eco" Nope.
Stupid snobs like yourself should just shut up and stop wasting our time with your pathetic atttempts at reason. Moron. Its always necessary when rebutting an idiot such as yourself to accompany that with ad hominem attacks. You will not recognize reason and require other means of discouragement; Too unintelligent to know your own stupidity, you must be informed of it directly.
I don't think you should worry about the gas running out
Oil will never run out. It will become increasingly scarce, forcing the price up until it exceeds that of an alternative such as solar, nuclear, wind, whatever. Consumption will switch to alternative uses as the difference in price rises.
20 years ago, oil was supposed to run out in 50 years. A few weeks ago, I read a report that said that oil will run out in 50 years.
Both figures are correct. The economic statistic called "oil reservers" refers to the total amount of oil in the ground which can be profitably pumped at current prices. As oil becomes more scarce the price increases and the amount of oil (which can be pumped at current prices) increases.
I live in Brooklyn. There is a supermarket down the street which provides electric trikes for the handicapped, though the only handicap of the riders I have seen is that they are too fat to walk. Super-fat women drive the electric carts around the store, stuffing the attached baskets to the brim with food and then pay with food stamps. (For those outside the US, foodsamps are government food vouchers for the poor).
You might think that funding obesity would be an area to cut back spending and save us tax payers some money. Not to mention, a cost insentive to restrict food intake could improve the health, happiness and employability of these fattties. The first whishper of government cutbacks in the foodstamp programs and accusations begin to fly about rich and irresponsible Republicans trying to escape their obligations to society by starving the poor.
In my opinon, most of the people who are against cuts in government spending are well intentioned but unaware of where the money actually goes. They imagine that tax dollars and the food stamps which they fund go to save the innocent street waifs from starvation. In fact, its helping that 300 pound welfare momma gain another 10.
Feeding starving steet waifs is a good thing, and I would back a tax hike if I could be sure that the funding went to that or some other worthy cause. But I can not be sure, because government is unaccountable to the public which is compelled to fund it. I want to know how many lard asses my tax dollars feed before I decide whether government needs to take even more of my income from me. But do you think the government is actually going to tell me that ? No.
I am not against fat people. Food is good, and if you enjoy it enough to offset the risks at costs of overeating, well that's your own personal choice. But it shold be only your own choice. What I don't agree with that that I am compelled by law to fund obesity.
I think the difference between conservatives and liberals on matters of social spending is not the difference between selfish and generous intentions, but between trust and distrust in government. Liberals believe that government spending should increase, because goverment spends money to good ends. Conservatives believe that increases in government spending are bad, because government spends wastefully and harmfully.
...I think that in the future a 'bandwidth tax' or some such thing may not be a bad idea.
Some people through the Internet have more access to information than others, this information makes their life better. They can look for better jobs, be better informed on what is going on in the world and make more productive decisions accordingly. This situation will get worse as more and more services move exclusively online. The info poor will have fewer opportunities.
So let's make if more difficult for the poor to get net access by raising its price with taxation. Riiiight...
Then let's create priveleged groups elibible for the government handouts which defray the high cost of net access. This will stigmatize the poor as recipients of the government handouts necessary to purchase what they could have afforded if it were not taxed by the government to pay for the handouts. Though stigmatizing the poor will not be a problem once politicians start giving the same handouts to corporations to promote technology growth in American Business and create American jobs and make America strong so the terrorists will not win. Then congressional candidates can extort campaign donations from a richer pool of special-interest groups by promising to grant them government-sponsored net access. These groups will then be be beholden to their rainmakers, the politicians and bureaucrats who hand out the favors. This will insure that politicians will have a threat to hold over the heads of wealthy lobby groups come election time. And let's fund a new government agency for administering the handout program. Or we could let the IRS take care of it by adding another exemption to the tax code because, lets face it, tax forms are just too simple.
Yes, that is sarcasm and I am a critic. But just ignore me. As we all know I am really against your plan because I hate the poor and I want the terrorists to win.
The reason all rockets, missiles, spears and yes, penises (penii?), look functionally similar is because they all do pretty much the same thing: they penetrate some medium, and streamlining is a necessity.
The majority of Amish agree that technology has benefits, but for their daily life and work it is better to not use it unless they can build it/understand it themselves.
Doesn't that also describe the geek mentality ? Like "If it's not broken then take it apart and find out why."
"...for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa."
This brief history of Wilson's role as Secretary of Defense sets the record straight:
Wilson's nomination sparked a major controversy during his confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee... During the hearings, when asked if as secretary of defense he could make a decision adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively but added that he could not conceive of such a situation "because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa." Later this statement was often garbled when quoted, suggesting that Wilson had said simply, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country."
After caving in to media interests and allowing further consolidation
That is a strange article to site in support of your belief that government should regulate broadcast communcations, which makes me think that you did not read it either. If you had, maybe you would have noticed the excerpts of congressional testimony. Democrats Byron Dorgan and Barbara Boxer site their own concern about the growing popularity of conservative political ideas in radio and TV broadcasting as justification for government regulation. It gives a good sense of their horror that the free speech permitted by under-regulation will allow conservative ideas to become even more popular. Boxer specifically uses the Fox News reference to France and Germany as the "Axis of Weasels" as an example of an undesirable political statement. Regardless of how the the public conceives of this issue of goverment regulation of communication, on the political level is not really about media consolidation, it is about censorship and free speech.
Let's face it: the only thing power companies compete on under deregulation is price. They have the same product, the same reliability, etc. This means the only viable business model is to cut every corner you can.
Wrong.
Competition creates an incentive to produce as efficiently as possibe, not to produce at the lowest cost possible. The goal is to maximize the ratio of output/input, not to minimize the abolute level of input, as you say, "cutting every corner that you can." In fact, one should cut wasteful corners and invest in productive corners.
So, to provide an example in direct contradiction to your own statement: Suppose that new turbine blades increase the effeciency of a generator, and that the boost is more than sufficient to recover the cost of the new blades. Would "cutting the corner" on a new turbine blade investment be more profitable or less profitable ?
Re:But is the reverse true?
on
The Diamond Age
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Due to wealth and size, corporations have the ability to impact and influence issues far more easily then any individual.
Your reliance on an abstract notion, the corporation, has led to confused thinking. In particular, you overlook the fact that corporations are groups of individuals. To restate your claim without concealing that fact: "Individuals who govern corporations have the ability to impact and influence issues far more easily then any who does not." That statement is simply false; Writers, television and movie celebreties, film directors, politicians and the independently wealthy command influence outside of corporate roles. Owning a ball-bearing factory in Iowa will not make me more influencial that President Bush. Those who own and operate business do not have unique and powerful unfluence, as you allege. Nor does everyone have equal influence. Some people are more popular and successful than others. Get over it.
A perfect example is the SLAPP (Strategis Lawsuits Against Public Participation) suit. These suits are generally baseless countersuits launched by corporations against non-profit organizations or individuals who speak out against, sue, or press charges against corporations who have violated the law or acted unethically, and the only purpose of these suits is to bankrupt the corporation's opponents until they shut up. So tell me how this benefits individual rights.
Nobody will argue for the right to bring illegimate suits because there is no such thing. There is only the right to bring suit and denial of that right. It if for the courts to decide if the suit is legitimate.
I think we can all agree that baseless lawsuits are categorically a bad thing and that they could be prevented by denying the right to bring suit. However, by denying the right to bring suit, we also deny the right to bring justifiable suit. You propose the right to bring justifiable suit be denied to an entire class because some members of that class abuse the right. Yet, that some members of a particular class abuse a right is no justification for denying that right to the entire class. If a black woman killls a homeless man with her car, should we deny all black women the right to drive cars ? If the CEO of a corporation brings unjustifiable suit on behalf of the corporation, should we deny all CEOs the right to bring suit on behalf of corporations ? You are using the misdeeds of particular members of a class to justify prejeduce and discrimination against the entire class.
"So tell me how this benefits individual rights," you ask. The simple answer is that by allowing corporations to bring suit the rights of corporate stakeholds are legitimately defended against threats of injustice. If I own fifty shares of Apple Computer I want Apple Computer to have the right to defend itself in court. I am an individual who stands to lose my right to property, the value of those shares, if Apple suffers financial loss because it is denied the right to legal defense. The collective rights of an organization ultimatley reduce to the individual rights of the its stakeholders and members. Whenver you take away corporate rights you are taking away the rights of individuals.
Another good example is the influence of said corporations on the political systems, internationally and particularly here in the U.S.
The right to free speech does not guarantee the right to be heard. Sean Penn can afford to take out a full page add in the New York Times to express his political views on Iraq. I can not. Some will inevitably have greater influence than others. To regulate speech in such a way that all speakers have equal influence is to supress free speech. The difference between us is that I favor free speech and you favor government-regulated speech.
Was it not Voltaire who said something like "I might disagree with what you are saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" ? You on the other hand seem to b
"Literally" is one of the worst. It really means the opposite of figurative, but most speakers mistreat it as a superlative, using it for emphasis. After the relationship ends bitterly a woman might say "My ex-boyfriend is not prince but a frog. I mean LITERALLY a frog." Here, the jilted lover believes that with the use of "literally" she heaps scorn upon a former paramour. In fact she has confessed to intimacey with something small and green which hops about catching flies in its mouth.
I believe that businesses (corporations) should have no 'rights' in the sense that individuals have.
To grant corporations rights is to allow individuals to retain their own rights when acting on behalf of corporations. Conversely, to deny rights to corporations is to deny rights to individuals.
Law is a body of abstract statement acting within the physical realm; Ultimately, law which applies to corporations bears upon human beings. Corporations are immaginary social constructs as non-material as the laws by which they are governed. Revocation of corporate rights in the abstract realm of law limits individuals in the physical realm of our existance. Revocation of corporate rights is revocation of individual rights in disguise.
By opposing corporate rights, Anticorporatists seek to deny rights to a specific group of individuals who hold views opposing their own: the representatives of corporations. Reborn in modern liberals, it is the age-old totatiltarian instinct to deny rights to those who think differently; Special rights for special classes, not equal rights for all.
Of course, along with this problem is the one of how such an infrastructure upgrade will be financed in the first place without a demonstration of existing demand. The only way I can really see this chicken-and-egg problem being overcome is massive government investment in infrastructure upgrades. Sorry, libertarians, but the free market is going to fail here.
Nobody will build hydrogen refuelling stations until there are hydrogen vehicles to be refuelled. Nobody will buy hydrogen vehicles until there are hydrogen refuelling stations to refuel the vehicles.
Nobody would build gasoline stations before there were gasoline-powered vehicles to be refuelled. Nobody would buy gasoline-powerd vehicles until there were gasoline stations stations to refuel the vehicles. Nobody would build a power grid until consumers owned electrical appliances. Consumers would not buy electrical appliances until there was a power grid. Nobody would sell software until there were computers to run the software. Nobody would buy computers until there was software available for the computers.
The industries which arose around those products and services succeeded without government investement. Markets solve the chicken-and-egg problem because investors are risk takers; They do not require that a market does exist, but instead invest on the chance that a market will exist in the future. Indeed, "capitalism" takes its name from "capital", the investement risked to solve chicken-and-egg problems.
The issue of private vs. government investment is not, as you portray it, a matter of government usefully solving problems which the market can not. Instead, it is an issue of how risks and benefits are distributed among private investors, tax payers and consumers.
With private investment, the private investor bears the risk of investement but also stands to receive profits. If the business is unprofitiable, the investor loses some or all of his investement. However, if the enteprise succeeds, he earns back his investment or more.
With government investment, so-called "industrial policy" (or as labelled by its detractors "corporate welfare") the tax-payer bears the risk of investement and private parties (the corporation or industry wich lobbied government) collects the profits. If the business is unprofitable the tax payer loses all of his investement. If the business is profitable, the tax payer also loses all of his investement. The private parties which lobbied to be assigned the profits benefit only when the business is profitable, but stand no loss if the business is unprofitable.
Socialism is another form of government investment. Taxpayers bear the risk of investment and a monopoly controlled by special interestes (usually employees of the monopoly) collects the profits (e.g. Amtrak, the U.S. Postal Service). If the business is unprofitable, the tax payer loses all of his investement. If the business is profitable the tax payer also loses all of his investement. Beneficiaries of the monopoly benefit regardless of whether the business is profitable because government will perpetually fund unprofitible enterprises (The U.S. Postal Service, Amtrak).
In all cases consumers stand to benefit from the availability of a product or service. Hower, individuals rarely fall into one class alone. For example consumers are often both consumers and tax payers. For any particular individual who benifits in his role as a consumer from the availability of of a product or service, that benefit can be more than offset by the cost paid by him in his role as tax payer.
tornados can... embed a piece of straw into a tree
Tornadoes do embed straw in tree trunks. However, the straw is not driven into the tree trunk by the force of impact. The limbs of the tree act as levers and the leaves, near the end of the limbs, catch the wind. The vortex torques the trunk, opening splits. Straw blows into the splits. When the tornado leaves, the tree unwinds itself, closing the splits and catching the straw within. If you are surprised that wood would do that, note that green wood is quite elastic, not brittle like the dried wood from which furniture is constructed.
The only people tariff[s] hurt are consumers, who have to pay more for the product.
FALSE. Tariffs hurt both producers and consumers. Tariffs increase manufacturing costs by increasing the prices which manufactures pay for equipment and supplies. Your error was that you failed to recognize that PRODUCERS ARE ALSO CONSUMERS; They consume the inputs to production.
This is not just theory. The Wall Street Journal a while ago featured an article about extremely pissed-off Republicans who own and work at companies which manufacture things out of steel and compete to sell in the world market. Bush restricted steel imports, steel prices increased, and anyone who manufactured anything from steel in the US is now at a huge disadvantage. In fact, the US has a comparative advantage in manufacturing many things from steel, and a comparative disadvantage in manufacturing steel itself, so the harm might have been targeted selectivley at the US. That is, we might be losing more profits in sales of manufactured steel goods than are gained by US steel manufactures at the inflated steel prices.
Looks like a direct shot to the foot. There might be some truth this rumor that Bush is moron. Chief Bush Apologist Peggy Noonan, in his defense, reported that Bush did not want to do it, it was congressional Democrats who wanted steel protection and W. traded that in exchange for fast-track trade negotiation. The fact makes him no less of an asshole for doing it, it does mean that the Democrats are assholes also.
The debate over trade protection might seem like a complex issue, but in fact it is resolved by recognizing one very simple an irrefutable fact. THE TOTAL NUMBER OF JOBS ON EARTH CAN INCREASE. Protectionists incorrectly beleive that the total number of jobs in the world is constant; If a programmer in India gains a job, then someone elsewhere in the world must lose their job. That is quite simply FALSE.
In fact everyone already knows that employment grows, even those who do not know that they know it. There is a statistic recited in the news, to the point of tedium, called the "rate of employment". It tells you what percentage of a population has jobs. That number changes. And what that change tells us is that the number of jobs is not constant. Yes, it really is that simple, yet totally unobvious to so many.
So refuting the arguments for trade protection is a trivial exercise. Just point out that it is not necessary for one person to lose a job for another to gain a job. End of debate and the protectionists lost.
How can so many be so wrong about something so obvious ? They way the human mind works is interesting, but even more interesting are the ways in which it fails. Protectionists believe in a conservation law where there is none, while those who invest in perpetual motion machines are unaware of a conservation law where there is one. (Energy, of course). While opposed with respect to their faiths in conservation, they are alike in getting the facts wrong. Both groups lack essential knowledge about the way the world works, operate on false convictions, mispredict consequences and outcomes and ultimately misadvocate.
The difference between a stupid investor funding Perpetual Motion Generators Inc. and a protectionist advocating tariffs is that, while a the investor loses only his own investment, a protectionist harms others by unnecesarily denying them employment. Furthermore, those denied work as a consequence of tarifs are often the ones most deperately in need of pay.
There is a saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" by I think in this case "misguided intentions" is more apt. Protectionists are out to protect their own jobs, at the expense of other people, so in the benevolent sense of the word, their intentions are not "good", but selfish. And they are indeed misguided, for we can identify the misturn exactly: The FALSE belief that the number of jobs on earth is a constant.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you trying to be funny ?
20nm would be the feature size of the die, not the wavelength of radiation emitted by the CPU.
Federal and state governments could lose billions of dollars in revenue from regulatory fees if calls moved onto the Internet are no longer subject to the charges.
Bizzaro Slashdot:Individual tax payers and stockholders of tax-paying corporations could gain billions of dollars now lost to federal and state governments if calls moved onto the internet are no longer subject to regulatory fees.
How about just sticking to the the facts without injecting a pro-government bias? Taxation is neither a net loss nor a gain of wealth. Taxation is a transfer of wealth.When you portray tax reductions as loss you are not telling us facts. You are telling us your opinion. You are telling us that you think lower taxation is bad. You want government officials to control wealth. Lower taxes are a loss, in your opinion , becasue you lose what you want : control by government. Objectively there is neither loss not gain. The wealth is still there, but some other group (the tax payers) control it instead of government officials.
Actually, my iPod has gotten me laid
CUPERTINO, California (API) --Apple Computer today announced a projected shortage of iPods this holiday season after an unexpected surge in sales beginning at 3:52 pm Friday, November 21. Representatives from Apple expressed puzzlement, saying they were not aware of any promotions or advertising which could have provoked the sudden rush of sales. According to Apple, inventories expected to last through the December were exhasted in the span of a few hours.
This controversy regarding nuclear power stems from fundamentally opposing beliefs of conservative/libertarian environmentalists and liberal/socialist environmentalists about what constites environment-friendly energy production.
Its true that waste from nucluear power plants is powerful concentrated evil. This characteristic makes it simultaneously the most desirable to conservative/libertatian environmentalists and the least desirable to liberal/socialist environmentalits. To a conservative environmentalist, concentrating pollution is a virtue: Spreading contaminitaion over the smallest possible area (The inside of a hollowd-out desert mountain) minimizes environmental disruption. Bury it deep in the earth and the forrest is still standing, the air is not filled with products of fossil fuel combustion. To a liberal, this poses the threat of the unnatural, whereas cutting down the forrests to heat our homes is "natural"; wood is a "natural" fuel source, the polluction is diffused throught the atmosphere for us to breath "naturally".
The conservative/libertarian faction believes that the more compact the fuel the more environmentally friendly it is. Choose sources of energy which give you the most energy/pound. Their reasoning goes that the less mass you deal with in generating energy, the less of the earth's surface area and natural environment you disrupt in its production. According to this doctrine, nuclear power is the best choice. The energy density of the fuel and concerntration of waste products is far higher than the alternatives.
Liberal/Socialist environmentalists, on the other hand , believe that the the more "natural" a fuel source the better for the environment. That is, the more a fuel satisifies an idyllic, Emersonian aesthetic the more environmentally correct it is. Hence heating a home with a wood-burning fire place is preferable to heating with electricity generated by a nuclear power plant. The environmental threat is distributed and diffuse: broad deforestation and air pollution. It won't cause cancer just by walking past it but it disrupts vast areas of natural habitat.
Because markets amble toward efficieny, and producing the most power with the least material is efficient, the more modern and efficient means of producing energy tend to be the least quaint and idyllic means. Hence not only are the conserative and liberal judements regarding the environmental correctness of energy production founded on different principles, but also these principles lead to opposing conclusions. Nuclear power lies at one extreme, it produces the most power with the most compact and concentrated environmental damage. It is higly unnatural. It is the most contoversial. Advocated most strongly by one group, opposed most strongy by the other.
I wonder what John Horton Conway thinks about this ?
It is unfortuante that Raymond chose to appropriate that symbol without appropriate attribution.
Let's recap:
I wrote: "Oil will never run out"
you wrote: " Oh yes it will"
then you wrote: " I merely pointed out that your analysis was a bit simplistic"
You did not merely point out that my analysis was a bit simplistic, instead you asserted the contradiction. Now you realize that you were mistaken, you dishonestly describe your earlier position of outright contraction as having "merely pointed out" that my "analysis was bit simplistic."
Having abandoned your point that oil will run out, you have switched to showing off that you know the definition path dependence. Path dependence has become, in your own words "The point", perhaps because you are in desperate retreat from your initial point.
Look at it this way. You began by contradicting me. I claimed that oil would not run out and gave a reason. You stated that it would run out. But nothing you have written since supports your point. You said that future alternatives to oil might be more expensive than the present-day price of oil in absolute terms. This is true, but does it imply that oil will run out ? No. You claim that the cost of alternatives depends on the development lead time. Sometimes true, but does it mean that oil will run out ? No.
Your strategy seems to be to state somethign and then "support" it by showing off that you know a bunch of unrealated facts. That sort of nonsense deserves a strong drubbing, hence the fuckwit comment. Abusing people when they say stupid things is good because it conditions them not to do it. Avoid obnoxiously misleading rhetorical strategy and you will be spared the abuse.
Pay close attention: The points is that as oil becomes more scarce, the price of oil increases relative to the prices of alternative sources of energy. Those alternatives thus become increasingly attractive substitutes for oil. Eventually nobody bothers with the oil and whatever is left in the ground at that point stays put.
You try to obfuscate the issue by mixing in any facts which pop into your head and tossing out $10 words like "externality" and "path dependence". Your tactic is to confuse by cluttering the debate with distracting detail. The only relevent points you could raise in disagrement are those which contradict my own, and those you have failed to supply.
You are skeptical that alternatives to oil could be developed. And yet they already exist ! Fission, wind, solar. These are available commercially today. So your argument depends on the unlikelyhood of developeing what already exists. Lay off the crack, fuckwit.
Trying to to discredit a statement by labeling it "first year eco" is just you showing off a smarty-pants attitude. In fact what is taught in first year eco is correct. You contract nothing with that label. What is taught after first year eco refines, but does not negate what is taught in the first year. More complex analyeses refine the simpler analyses, addressing subtleties overlooked. Otherwise what would be the point of teaching first-year eco ? You think at the end of the year the lecturer announces "What I said was wrong because this is first year eco" Nope.
Stupid snobs like yourself should just shut up and stop wasting our time with your pathetic atttempts at reason. Moron. Its always necessary when rebutting an idiot such as yourself to accompany that with ad hominem attacks. You will not recognize reason and require other means of discouragement; Too unintelligent to know your own stupidity, you must be informed of it directly.
I don't think you should worry about the gas running out
Oil will never run out. It will become increasingly scarce, forcing the price up until it exceeds that of an alternative such as solar, nuclear, wind, whatever. Consumption will switch to alternative uses as the difference in price rises.
20 years ago, oil was supposed to run out in 50 years. A few weeks ago, I read a report that said that oil will run out in 50 years.
Both figures are correct. The economic statistic called "oil reservers" refers to the total amount of oil in the ground which can be profitably pumped at current prices. As oil becomes more scarce the price increases and the amount of oil (which can be pumped at current prices) increases.
I can top that one.
I live in Brooklyn. There is a supermarket down the street which provides electric trikes for the handicapped, though the only handicap of the riders I have seen is that they are too fat to walk. Super-fat women drive the electric carts around the store, stuffing the attached baskets to the brim with food and then pay with food stamps . (For those outside the US, foodsamps are government food vouchers for the poor).
You might think that funding obesity would be an area to cut back spending and save us tax payers some money. Not to mention, a cost insentive to restrict food intake could improve the health, happiness and employability of these fattties. The first whishper of government cutbacks in the foodstamp programs and accusations begin to fly about rich and irresponsible Republicans trying to escape their obligations to society by starving the poor.
In my opinon, most of the people who are against cuts in government spending are well intentioned but unaware of where the money actually goes. They imagine that tax dollars and the food stamps which they fund go to save the innocent street waifs from starvation. In fact, its helping that 300 pound welfare momma gain another 10.
Feeding starving steet waifs is a good thing, and I would back a tax hike if I could be sure that the funding went to that or some other worthy cause. But I can not be sure, because government is unaccountable to the public which is compelled to fund it. I want to know how many lard asses my tax dollars feed before I decide whether government needs to take even more of my income from me. But do you think the government is actually going to tell me that ? No.
I am not against fat people. Food is good, and if you enjoy it enough to offset the risks at costs of overeating, well that's your own personal choice. But it shold be only your own choice. What I don't agree with that that I am compelled by law to fund obesity.
I think the difference between conservatives and liberals on matters of social spending is not the difference between selfish and generous intentions, but between trust and distrust in government. Liberals believe that government spending should increase, because goverment spends money to good ends. Conservatives believe that increases in government spending are bad, because government spends wastefully and harmfully.
So let's make if more difficult for the poor to get net access by raising its price with taxation. Riiiight...
Then let's create priveleged groups elibible for the government handouts which defray the high cost of net access. This will stigmatize the poor as recipients of the government handouts necessary to purchase what they could have afforded if it were not taxed by the government to pay for the handouts. Though stigmatizing the poor will not be a problem once politicians start giving the same handouts to corporations to promote technology growth in American Business and create American jobs and make America strong so the terrorists will not win. Then congressional candidates can extort campaign donations from a richer pool of special-interest groups by promising to grant them government-sponsored net access. These groups will then be be beholden to their rainmakers, the politicians and bureaucrats who hand out the favors. This will insure that politicians will have a threat to hold over the heads of wealthy lobby groups come election time. And let's fund a new government agency for administering the handout program. Or we could let the IRS take care of it by adding another exemption to the tax code because, lets face it, tax forms are just too simple.
Yes, that is sarcasm and I am a critic. But just ignore me. As we all know I am really against your plan because I hate the poor and I want the terrorists to win.
Form follows function.
The majority of Amish agree that technology has benefits, but for their daily life and work it is better to not use it unless they can build it/understand it themselves.
Doesn't that also describe the geek mentality ? Like "If it's not broken then take it apart and find out why."In fact the actual quote is:
"...for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa."
This brief history of Wilson's role as Secretary of Defense sets the record straight:
"I don't trust Michael Powell."
You didn't read the article. This has nothing to do with Michael Powell. The article regards comments made by Tim Muris, chairman of the Federal Trade Commision. Michael Powell is chairman of the Federal Communications Commision.
After caving in to media interests and allowing further consolidation
That is a strange article to site in support of your belief that government should regulate broadcast communcations, which makes me think that you did not read it either. If you had, maybe you would have noticed the excerpts of congressional testimony. Democrats Byron Dorgan and Barbara Boxer site their own concern about the growing popularity of conservative political ideas in radio and TV broadcasting as justification for government regulation. It gives a good sense of their horror that the free speech permitted by under-regulation will allow conservative ideas to become even more popular. Boxer specifically uses the Fox News reference to France and Germany as the "Axis of Weasels" as an example of an undesirable political statement. Regardless of how the the public conceives of this issue of goverment regulation of communication, on the political level is not really about media consolidation, it is about censorship and free speech.
Let's face it: the only thing power companies compete on under deregulation is price. They have the same product, the same reliability, etc. This means the only viable business model is to cut every corner you can.
Wrong.
Competition creates an incentive to produce as efficiently as possibe, not to produce at the lowest cost possible. The goal is to maximize the ratio of output/input, not to minimize the abolute level of input, as you say, "cutting every corner that you can." In fact, one should cut wasteful corners and invest in productive corners.
So, to provide an example in direct contradiction to your own statement: Suppose that new turbine blades increase the effeciency of a generator, and that the boost is more than sufficient to recover the cost of the new blades. Would "cutting the corner" on a new turbine blade investment be more profitable or less profitable ?
"I'm more concered about the reverse being true."
You must be from Soviet Russia.Due to wealth and size, corporations have the ability to impact and influence issues far more easily then any individual.
Your reliance on an abstract notion, the corporation, has led to confused thinking. In particular, you overlook the fact that corporations are groups of individuals. To restate your claim without concealing that fact: "Individuals who govern corporations have the ability to impact and influence issues far more easily then any who does not." That statement is simply false; Writers, television and movie celebreties, film directors, politicians and the independently wealthy command influence outside of corporate roles. Owning a ball-bearing factory in Iowa will not make me more influencial that President Bush. Those who own and operate business do not have unique and powerful unfluence, as you allege. Nor does everyone have equal influence. Some people are more popular and successful than others. Get over it.
A perfect example is the SLAPP (Strategis Lawsuits Against Public Participation) suit. These suits are generally baseless countersuits launched by corporations against non-profit organizations or individuals who speak out against, sue, or press charges against corporations who have violated the law or acted unethically, and the only purpose of these suits is to bankrupt the corporation's opponents until they shut up. So tell me how this benefits individual rights.
Nobody will argue for the right to bring illegimate suits because there is no such thing. There is only the right to bring suit and denial of that right. It if for the courts to decide if the suit is legitimate.
I think we can all agree that baseless lawsuits are categorically a bad thing and that they could be prevented by denying the right to bring suit. However, by denying the right to bring suit, we also deny the right to bring justifiable suit. You propose the right to bring justifiable suit be denied to an entire class because some members of that class abuse the right. Yet, that some members of a particular class abuse a right is no justification for denying that right to the entire class. If a black woman killls a homeless man with her car, should we deny all black women the right to drive cars ? If the CEO of a corporation brings unjustifiable suit on behalf of the corporation, should we deny all CEOs the right to bring suit on behalf of corporations ? You are using the misdeeds of particular members of a class to justify prejeduce and discrimination against the entire class.
"So tell me how this benefits individual rights," you ask. The simple answer is that by allowing corporations to bring suit the rights of corporate stakeholds are legitimately defended against threats of injustice. If I own fifty shares of Apple Computer I want Apple Computer to have the right to defend itself in court. I am an individual who stands to lose my right to property, the value of those shares, if Apple suffers financial loss because it is denied the right to legal defense. The collective rights of an organization ultimatley reduce to the individual rights of the its stakeholders and members. Whenver you take away corporate rights you are taking away the rights of individuals.
Another good example is the influence of said corporations on the political systems, internationally and particularly here in the U.S.
The right to free speech does not guarantee the right to be heard. Sean Penn can afford to take out a full page add in the New York Times to express his political views on Iraq. I can not. Some will inevitably have greater influence than others. To regulate speech in such a way that all speakers have equal influence is to supress free speech. The difference between us is that I favor free speech and you favor government-regulated speech.
Was it not Voltaire who said something like "I might disagree with what you are saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" ? You on the other hand seem to b
on the subject of misused words...
"Literally" is one of the worst. It really means the opposite of figurative, but most speakers mistreat it as a superlative, using it for emphasis. After the relationship ends bitterly a woman might say "My ex-boyfriend is not prince but a frog. I mean LITERALLY a frog." Here, the jilted lover believes that with the use of "literally" she heaps scorn upon a former paramour. In fact she has confessed to intimacey with something small and green which hops about catching flies in its mouth.
I believe that businesses (corporations) should have no 'rights' in the sense that individuals have.
To grant corporations rights is to allow individuals to retain their own rights when acting on behalf of corporations. Conversely, to deny rights to corporations is to deny rights to individuals.
Law is a body of abstract statement acting within the physical realm; Ultimately, law which applies to corporations bears upon human beings. Corporations are immaginary social constructs as non-material as the laws by which they are governed. Revocation of corporate rights in the abstract realm of law limits individuals in the physical realm of our existance. Revocation of corporate rights is revocation of individual rights in disguise.
By opposing corporate rights, Anticorporatists seek to deny rights to a specific group of individuals who hold views opposing their own: the representatives of corporations. Reborn in modern liberals, it is the age-old totatiltarian instinct to deny rights to those who think differently; Special rights for special classes, not equal rights for all.
Of course, along with this problem is the one of how such an infrastructure upgrade will be financed in the first place without a demonstration of existing demand. The only way I can really see this chicken-and-egg problem being overcome is massive government investment in infrastructure upgrades. Sorry, libertarians, but the free market is going to fail here.
Nobody will build hydrogen refuelling stations until there are hydrogen vehicles to be refuelled. Nobody will buy hydrogen vehicles until there are hydrogen refuelling stations to refuel the vehicles. Nobody would build gasoline stations before there were gasoline-powered vehicles to be refuelled. Nobody would buy gasoline-powerd vehicles until there were gasoline stations stations to refuel the vehicles. Nobody would build a power grid until consumers owned electrical appliances. Consumers would not buy electrical appliances until there was a power grid. Nobody would sell software until there were computers to run the software. Nobody would buy computers until there was software available for the computers.
The industries which arose around those products and services succeeded without government investement. Markets solve the chicken-and-egg problem because investors are risk takers; They do not require that a market does exist, but instead invest on the chance that a market will exist in the future. Indeed, "capitalism" takes its name from "capital", the investement risked to solve chicken-and-egg problems.
The issue of private vs. government investment is not, as you portray it, a matter of government usefully solving problems which the market can not. Instead, it is an issue of how risks and benefits are distributed among private investors, tax payers and consumers.With private investment, the private investor bears the risk of investement but also stands to receive profits. If the business is unprofitiable, the investor loses some or all of his investement. However, if the enteprise succeeds, he earns back his investment or more.
With government investment, so-called "industrial policy" (or as labelled by its detractors "corporate welfare") the tax-payer bears the risk of investement and private parties (the corporation or industry wich lobbied government) collects the profits. If the business is unprofitable the tax payer loses all of his investement. If the business is profitable, the tax payer also loses all of his investement. The private parties which lobbied to be assigned the profits benefit only when the business is profitable, but stand no loss if the business is unprofitable.
Socialism is another form of government investment. Taxpayers bear the risk of investment and a monopoly controlled by special interestes (usually employees of the monopoly) collects the profits (e.g. Amtrak, the U.S. Postal Service). If the business is unprofitable, the tax payer loses all of his investement. If the business is profitable the tax payer also loses all of his investement. Beneficiaries of the monopoly benefit regardless of whether the business is profitable because government will perpetually fund unprofitible enterprises (The U.S. Postal Service, Amtrak).
In all cases consumers stand to benefit from the availability of a product or service. Hower, individuals rarely fall into one class alone. For example consumers are often both consumers and tax payers. For any particular individual who benifits in his role as a consumer from the availability of of a product or service, that benefit can be more than offset by the cost paid by him in his role as tax payer.
tornados can ... embed a piece of straw into a tree
Tornadoes do embed straw in tree trunks. However, the straw is not driven into the tree trunk by the force of impact. The limbs of the tree act as levers and the leaves, near the end of the limbs, catch the wind. The vortex torques the trunk, opening splits. Straw blows into the splits. When the tornado leaves, the tree unwinds itself, closing the splits and catching the straw within. If you are surprised that wood would do that, note that green wood is quite elastic, not brittle like the dried wood from which furniture is constructed.Oh, ok. Well, I agree. Good point !
"Trade War" is an oxymoron. Trade is a form of cooperation, not a form of agression. Perhaps the term you meant to use is "Protectionism War" ?
FALSE. Tariffs hurt both producers and consumers. Tariffs increase manufacturing costs by increasing the prices which manufactures pay for equipment and supplies. Your error was that you failed to recognize that PRODUCERS ARE ALSO CONSUMERS; They consume the inputs to production.
This is not just theory. The Wall Street Journal a while ago featured an article about extremely pissed-off Republicans who own and work at companies which manufacture things out of steel and compete to sell in the world market. Bush restricted steel imports, steel prices increased, and anyone who manufactured anything from steel in the US is now at a huge disadvantage. In fact, the US has a comparative advantage in manufacturing many things from steel, and a comparative disadvantage in manufacturing steel itself, so the harm might have been targeted selectivley at the US. That is, we might be losing more profits in sales of manufactured steel goods than are gained by US steel manufactures at the inflated steel prices. Looks like a direct shot to the foot. There might be some truth this rumor that Bush is moron. Chief Bush Apologist Peggy Noonan, in his defense, reported that Bush did not want to do it, it was congressional Democrats who wanted steel protection and W. traded that in exchange for fast-track trade negotiation. The fact makes him no less of an asshole for doing it, it does mean that the Democrats are assholes also.
The debate over trade protection might seem like a complex issue, but in fact it is resolved by recognizing one very simple an irrefutable fact. THE TOTAL NUMBER OF JOBS ON EARTH CAN INCREASE. Protectionists incorrectly beleive that the total number of jobs in the world is constant; If a programmer in India gains a job, then someone elsewhere in the world must lose their job. That is quite simply FALSE.
In fact everyone already knows that employment grows, even those who do not know that they know it. There is a statistic recited in the news, to the point of tedium, called the "rate of employment". It tells you what percentage of a population has jobs. That number changes. And what that change tells us is that the number of jobs is not constant. Yes, it really is that simple, yet totally unobvious to so many.
So refuting the arguments for trade protection is a trivial exercise. Just point out that it is not necessary for one person to lose a job for another to gain a job. End of debate and the protectionists lost.
How can so many be so wrong about something so obvious ? They way the human mind works is interesting, but even more interesting are the ways in which it fails. Protectionists believe in a conservation law where there is none, while those who invest in perpetual motion machines are unaware of a conservation law where there is one. (Energy, of course). While opposed with respect to their faiths in conservation, they are alike in getting the facts wrong. Both groups lack essential knowledge about the way the world works, operate on false convictions, mispredict consequences and outcomes and ultimately misadvocate.
The difference between a stupid investor funding Perpetual Motion Generators Inc. and a protectionist advocating tariffs is that, while a the investor loses only his own investment, a protectionist harms others by unnecesarily denying them employment. Furthermore, those denied work as a consequence of tarifs are often the ones most deperately in need of pay.
There is a saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" by I think in this case "misguided intentions" is more apt. Protectionists are out to protect their own jobs, at the expense of other people, so in the benevolent sense of the word, their intentions are not "good", but selfish. And they are indeed misguided, for we can identify the misturn exactly: The FALSE belief that the number of jobs on earth is a constant.