OK, its time to put this theme to bed - it is a dumb plan to throw rocks at Earth from space.
There are two ways to throw rocks: slow and fast. If you are throwing slowly, that means you find a suitable asteroid and subtely alter its course so that it intersects Earth - specifically hitting your target country. First, lets point out that this is hard - you must apply huge forces for a long time very precisely. Second, by the time anyone is doing that it will be easy to look for large asteroids coming at us - and deflecting an asteroid that is pretty far out that already has thrusters on it should not pose much of a challenge.
So let's examine fast. OK, to get a rock currently in Earth orbit (as in on the moon, or on a space station, or just hanging around up there) to intersect the Earth, you need to deorbit it. In order for it to hit a target, you need to deorbit it without using the atmosphere for braking. So you have to apply roughly the same amount of energy to the asteroid as it would take to launch the asteroid into orbit in the first place! (And then the rock just hits the ground - it no longer has orbital velocity, the real killer)
Wait a minute, if we are doing that, why don't we just take a mountain, put nukes under it, and launch it at a neighbor? Same effect, far cheaper, and totally unstoppable.
Nuking from orbit really doesn't make any sense - why go to orbit when you can nuke from home?
Oh wait, theres no wings, no rudder, and the only airfoil is a blunt cone...
And it's a good thing, too. Wings are a really dumb idea for a spaceship - they are heavy during liftoff, hard to cool during reentry, and not big enough when you land. And these "blunt cone" airfoils can have over 100 miles of cross-range, and make pinpoint landings. (Think about it, they have about a 0.3 lift to drag ratio and fall through about 100 miles of atmosphere, trying to burn off the insane speed they have) All of the previous capsules landed within one mile of the target using 1960s technology! (Exception equipment failure, of course)
Really, it is hard to beat a capsule - and pointless to try at this point. You put wings on for convenience, when you don't care that you are throwing away design margins. We are not there in space vehicle...
The fact is that anyone with the will, and even a 90 IQ...
Well, I actually do agree somewhat with the problems of lying that you state - but this statement is obviously overstated by a mile. Half the posts in this very story are about "binary explosives are impossible" and "Hydrogen Peroxide cannot be made".
Your right in that these lies have no effect on real terrorists - but they do have an effect on me too terrorists. After a major event like that, there are a bunch of people that decide it would be great to copy them. In the US, we had a kid drive a Cesna into a building in Florida right after 9/11, for example. Some people have some really deep rooted needs to copy tragic stuff they see.
So, you have to wiegh the need of the government to remain trustworthy against the (relatively few) lives that will be saved (Percentage chance of a successful copycat*number of people likely to be killed). It all depends on your relative weights - and that is the real discussion to be had.
And of course, the US government can hardly "remain trustworthy" when no one trusts it now... sort of how if you treat a kid like a delinquent they will become one, delinquent or not. To be honest, I'm not sure it is even possible to create trust in a government that totally changes every 4 years.
About the S&P, I agree that an economic analysis would have used GDP, and subtracted the inflation rate out of the interest rate of the loan - but that still ends up with a 1% loan earning 3-4%. I guess the reason I chose the S&P is because I was using an investment analogy - and GDP growth is not as important to me personally. I agree, what you say is true. Thanks for pointing it out.
As for China, I agree that I could be wrong - in fact, I think most people would agree with you. I just don't like playing against insiders, in any case.
And I totally agree with what you said about the US... I think a Democrat Congress and a Republican President are the way to go...
Just FYI, it is easy to get 50-70% peroxide commercially - it is a common cleaning solution. In addition, you can buy fractional distillers that will safely take that up to 99%. This is not to uncommon of an amatuer rocket fuel.
Speaking of rocket fuels, I assume that all you naysayers know that most rocket fuels could pass as harmless liquids. And most would survive mixing long enough to explode nicely, as long as the mixer didn't mind dying.
What is amazing is that people actually expect the military/police to come out and say, "OK, this is how to make an undetectable explosive that will kill all your neighbors... fix take A and..."
Yes, you do need to apply a very strong discount to what you read here, but still it can be enlightening. If nothing else, working out exactly why a statement is incorrect can tell you things. Even your statement: "a perpetual trade deficit is indefinitely sustainable" can be argued either way coherently - there can be a perpetual trade deficit in an economy that is resource rich but run into the ground by a dictator, for example - and can still be taken the wrong way (the real reason it is normally unsustainable is because the exchange rates adjust to eliminate it, but many people believe it is like a personal checking account that will cause bankruptcy eventually).
But, just for the record, I am the real power behind the Fed - they actually just ask me what they should do; the US government doesn't make a move without checking my opinion; in my spare time, I create new life forms by splicing DNA; and my new rocket that will revolutionize sapce travel is almost done.
What's hilarious is that all those statements are (hopefully) true. And except the part about the rocket, they're probably true about you as well!
I'm interested in the source of this - surely noone can prove that they really know what they are talking about on Slashdot except through discourse. No one is going to look up my degrees, no one will check to see if I'm on the board at the Fed, etc. So here on Slashdot, logic (and showing sources, I guess) must rule.
And what makes that acusation even sillier is that in real practice, even the Fed will readily admit that they do not know how to make predictions. There technique (which has papers written about it and is verified as the best technique so far) is to ask a whole bunch of smart people that have studied the problem, and then to average the answers. (OK, maybe a little more complex than that, but not much). So if you really want to have a good idea of what is going to happen, you need to 1) listen to a LOT of people, and 2) use a weighted average of the opinions you get.
Obviously, everyone that pariticipates has different weights and so comes away with a different conclusion - but by talking about it we get closer to the "truth" than we were, even if we are not talking with experts.
I'll see what results I have for you on the "leading indicators" of Americans "kicking everyone's butts",
Have you got any, btw? So far the only one researched is the Nobel Prize recipients, where the US is ahead at 50% of the world recipients being from the US.
Just wondering if anyone found some disconfirming evidence.
Well, it is pretty common in some circles - it gets around the issue of "what is inflation"? If you dig deeply, our numbers for inflation are either too low (as in include the effects of product replacement) or too high (do not account for standard of living adjustments). The S&P numbers let you just use non-adjusted dollars, with a realistic history.
Everything I've heard from petroleum people...
That's what I've heard as well. I think this is a case of people not being terribly rational about the whole thing, but also it does take time to set up new infrastructure. I think we will see the price go down over the next few years. (Essentially it is not in the best interests of those that own oil to see it go down quickly, but the large profits will cause enough entry to overpower that eventually)
The shorter answer is that it's an inevitable result of the fixed echange rate..
Precisely the econ answer! But, if the fixed exchange rate is keeping the Chinese Yaun too high, why are the people with the best information (the insiders) buying up dollars as fast as possible? Supposedly if and when the exchange rate floats, they will lose billions - but that prediction has some assumptions that make sense in the US, but not in China (mainly dealing with stability). (This is one where I really wonder what will happen long term - my guess in that China will stabilize its financial systems and then they will stop investing - and then we either raise taxes or cut programs...)...they're making money in asset markets...
Well, to be honest I don't really mess around in the markets per se - they more mess around with me. I did study a lot of economics at the graduate level, but that's not my degree either. I do like being proved wrong, because it lets me learn quickly (and not very expensively). I just find the intracacies of international exchange to be interesting in general, and greatly misunderstood by pretty much everyone that says anything.
What is truely fascinating, though, is that the Fed is extremely good at this (and they do not apply typical "trade imbalance is bad" types of analysis) - but more amazingly, Congress seems to have a feel for this as well, in that they do not tend to do the truely bad things (like nationalization of companies - oil companies - by taking away excess profits; closing our borders to Chinese trade to "fix" the trade balance, etc). I am sure that there is a mechanism that explains that - possibly something akin to applying the unseen hand to politics. Any thoughts?
Well, technically they can - they just have to decide that the consequences are better than the alternative. Before continuing on about this, please review what happened in the 1970s - essentially the same thing as is happening now, just for different reasons and with less forsight. (The reason SA has to lower prices is that they will be losing the money anyway because the US will get oil from shale, not wells - but this time it looks like there are real constraints on well capacity). Of course in this discussion I am not really talking about SA, I am talking about oil producing nations in general.
Instead I have made a fortune of my own actually running businesses
Well, if we really must compare genetalia size, I'm starting my 8th business - although 5 of the previous businesses are still contributing to my finances. My businesses span 4 completely separate industries, and I work in 4 languages on 5 continents. But maybe you know more about international finance, what do I know!
I agree that many MBAs do not learn much about finance. But there are some that know a lot - and nowadays that is a very valuable commodity. And btw, supplying technology to Wall Street does not qualify you (in my opinion) to make claims about international finance. Sometimes I think Wall Street is about the dumbest group of people in the world (but maybe that's just the ones they choose to be on the news).
Want to be able to predict what Wall Street will say about any action? All you have to do is apply a "survivors rule": Before the crash, we were in a new market, never going down again (because people that thought that had large short term gains by increasing their lown term risk, as you mention). After the crash, we were in a new market, never going up again (again, those were the only people with any money left - they hadn't invested in the dot coms). In reality, the markets were behaving just like they had done countless times before- up, down, up, down, etc.
I think you caught me mixing units - I was referring to SP500 growth as a proxy for the economy - your probably thinking real GDP growth, but the loan is essentailly a zero interest rate in real dollars, so it ends up still being like I said.
if we can produce our own oil at $40:bbl, why aren't we
The short answer is that in order to do that, you need a large up front investment in infrastructure. It doesn't make sense to do that if Saudi Arabia can decide tommorow to lower the prices back to $20 per barrel. (Of course, there are ways around that using future contracts so we are slowly building up the capacity)
China's economy grows at 10-15%, so why are they buying our debt?
That is indeed the critical question - and the answer is also very interesting, though a little involved for a Slashdot post. The short version is that the people with the money do not trust that they will be allowed to keep it if it is in country.
Everything you're talking is pure theory
OK, but you are basically taking the best predictors we have and throwing them away - I bet you didn't go to business school...
Don't be silly! It was aliens, that came down and filled the passageways with ice. The block just slipped right in, and then the ice melted. Obviously aliens, because ancient Egyptians could not possibly have had ice yet....
Some other (serious this time) metrics might be: high tech companies started, high tech companies sucessful, economic growth, number of olympic medals won (although I would expect that this closely follows population, rather than anything else), economic stability, number of prayers said per capita per day;> , number of books written (that someone actually reads), number of paintings painted, world records held, etc., etc.
I would bet that the US is ahead in most of these measures - and that there is practically zero correlation between these measures and race, sex, and religion. (To put it another way, if you include the entire world the correlation between any measure that the US is ahead in and aetheisism/evolutionism is by definition negative).
Any economist with any input to any actual economy knows a sustained large negative balance of trade bankrupts the account holder.
Wow, and you say you are a professional? Um, lets see, if you have a large negative balance, what are the forces that counteract that balance? Well, obviously the exchange rate changes to the point that demand for external products goes down. I suppose that could bankrupt a smaller economy, or one that is heavily dependant on an outside resource - but the worst you could say about the US would be oil dependance, and long term we can produce all our own at about $40 per barrel. The US will be just fine. Really, the way to look at this is that China is loaning us money at 4%, and we are investing it in our economy - which grows at 10-15% - so we are making a killing on this deal. (Now what you said about government/individual is true, but basically doesn't matter. I was trying to keep it simple. The other area I am keeping simple is the "invest it in our economy" stuff - the way to look at it is that any money that is loaned to the goverment is money that the economy didn't pay as taxes, but will have to pay later. It all works out to be the same thing.)
As for some metrics, I suppose the most relevent would be something like number of nobel prize winners: in 1981-1990, the US had 51 winners out of a total of 99 worldwide recipients. So does the US have 50% of the world population. And since athletics was mentioned, I would like to point out that every winner of the world baseball series (since inception!) has been a US team! Take that, world!;-}
The data I have seen is in the same ballpark, 60% of scientists overall believing in deity, with far less in the life sciences. This is roughly in line with the general population - therefore, I believe that (outside of life sciences) there is no correlation between a person being a scientist and a persons religious beliefs. (Of course you cannot prove a negative, but the burden of proof would be high at this point)
As for evolution and this survey, answering no to this survey does not mean that you do not "believe in evolution", it means that you don't know about humans evolving. If you believe in thiestic evolution, which answer should you select? I would guess that most people in this case would choose dependant on exact wording of the question / emotions - because essentially you need to guess what the use that the survey will be put to in order to answer correctly. (In other words, many people seem to assume that evolution=aethiest. In order to avoid being incorrectly classified as aethiests, someone that believes in controled evolution (or something like that) may answer that man did not evolve)
I think it is very interesting that so many people who consider themselves "above the common man" because they don't believe in deity do not closely examine their own belief systems. (Not really refering to yourself here, because you do seem to be looking for real knowlege)
...are - not strictly, but more or less - disjoint sets
You say that without proof - and that is exactly what I disagree with. Using A as the set of people that increase science, and using B as the set of people that do not believe in evolution: My "proof" is that 1) in the US (proportionally), set A is large and set B is large; 2) in other countries, set A is smaller (proportionally) than the US and set B is smaller (proportionally) also; 3) People are assumed to be relatively just as smart no matter where you are born; therefore, set A and B have a coorelation. You may think that this coorelation is just chance (coorealtion is not causation, after all), but the coorelation must be explained - and in any case it does give lie to the premise of "stupid Americans don't believe in evolution."
Personally, I believe there is a causative relationship, based on what I know of people's motivations, etc. But then I also have other beliefs that you would disagree with as well... and that makes us stronger together, not weaker.
Well, I'll conceed that most people that are not economists see this as a bad thing. (As in, people that should not be commenting...) Ask an economist what is going on - and you'll find that essentially the "trade imbalance" is directly caused by our banking / financial system leadership. (The short version is that people with money in China invest in the US treasury bills, because their own financial system is so messed up. If someone offers you a couple billion dollars at 3%, you take it - need it or not!) Your point of view comes from a nationalistic misunderstanding of global economics - trust me, I make a ton of money on this stuff!
per capita academic, technical, and sports achievement.
Mentally deleting "sports achievement", which I think must be a misunderstanding of the word achievement;}. I doubt this claim, it would be interesting if you had data to support it. The US is not the most populous country by far, and perhaps a very small country could achieve more per capita by concentrating on a single area - but from an overall view, no way!
Your kind of complacency is the root of what's killing the American mind.
Personally I think that it is people that think they no best for everyone, and believe in implementing changes based on one sided analysis that are currently doing the most harm.
Noone with guns in Iran reports to him. So he is irrelevant.
In the US or pre-Hitler Germany, you would be correct. The only people in those countries ready to kill people are in the military - and they would need a plausible reason to do so. Iran is different - Ayotolla controls the armies, but the president controlls the terrorists through his retoric. And terrorism is the problem, not the Iranian guard.
You are a bigot, or at least an insightful troll. The majority of Islam does not believe in killing anyone, especially yourself, so the major tool of the terrorist -- suicide bombing -- is as appalling to a Muslim as it would be to anyone else.
If this is true, why do the Muslim polls show that the majority support or have sympathies for the terrorists? Why do we see film clips of dancing in the streets whenever a terrorist succeeds?
The fact is, the Muslim religion is set up in such a way that it empowers extremists. There are people that profess to be Muslims that think the way you describe, but they are in the minority. Virtually every Muslim leader refers to the US as "the great satan." Why is that? They also profess other inflamatory views. I propose that this is not just a coincidence - that in the Muslim culture people with extremist views are given power, because they are viewed as "more righteous," or whatever.
I think that this is because all Muslims know what the Koran says to do with infidels, but their conscience does not let them do it. They view this as a personal weakness, however - and so they give up power to those that they see as stronger in this area.
Certainly not all Muslims. Probably not most. But definately a large fraction.
Please also note that I am not saying that we are better in some way - I am just saying that this is a reaction to the existing environment, and that the environment has very little to do with US interference.
Really, why is an embargo a threat if you just want to be left alone?
If the majority of Muslims were appalled at Hezbolla firing random missiles into Isreal over the last couple years (while Isreal ignored them), then you might have a point. Where were the demonstrations against Hezbolla?
I think that in the end this will come down to a nuclear war, and millions of innocents on both sides will die. The US innocents will die first, as the US is attacked by nuclear terrorists. The US will try to reason for a while, invade some countries - but after New York, LA, and Chicago have been rendered unihabitable (and obviously Isreal will be long gone at this point), the American people will demand a final solution - just like Germany did - and we will erradicate 80% of the Muslim population. The remaining Muslims will "convert or die".
That is what we need to avoid - a Nazi being elected president. Only the Muslims can prevent that, but as I say, their power structures are not set up to handle that. Americans are not different than Germans - push anyone too far, and the response is genocide.
If you disagree, answer one little question: At what point will the Muslim extremists stop, and permanantly stop acs of terror? When we are all converted? To which sect?
They just want us to get out of their own affairs.
OK, so if this is true, why is an embargo a threat? I mean, if they just want us to leave them alone, surely instead of fighting the embargo they would be welcoming it?
So what you really mean is that they want our (the outside world's) stuff, but they don't want to have to do anything to meet us halfway. In addition to that, their stated aim is to kill everyone that is not Islam - "Convert or Die" I believe is the phrase they use. Even further, Islam is not enough - just must join their particular sect of Islam. And of course, there exists more than one sect saying that.
You probably think we should just trust that they only say that as a joke, or rallying cry, or whatever. Sorry, but if someone with a gun says they are going to kill you, you are forced to take them seriously and kill them first. If you do not believe that, you will die - and darwin will make a society without you that kills the guy with a gun that threatens.
Therefore, if we allow the Islamic radicals to decide the fate of the world, the world population will be culled until only one Islamic sect remains. If we let the "radical west" decide the fate of the world, Muslims will die until they stop trying to kill people. Fewer people die under the second set - and more importantly to me personally is that me and my family do not die under the second set.
You really just have no concept of the velocities involved. At these velocities, a piece of lightweight foam blew right through a few centimeters of the strongest material we can make, baring daimonds. (And it is a form of the same material as diamond!)
When rentering, the air touching the wings is several thousand degrees. But the air in front of the wings (as in the air being pushed away by the air in contact with the wings) is several tens of thousands of degrees. So any change in the wing, such as a deep pit which dusturbs the airflow, can move that ultra-hot air so that it touches the shuttle's wings. And there are no materials that can survive that! Not even solid tungsten! (As an example of how sensitive this is to details, a smooth surface will stay much cooler (about one tenth the heating) than a rough surface in this ambient).
The solution to rentry heating is to make sure that you spaceship never touches the hot stuff (thats why the shuttle has a round nose, not a sharp one), and then try to deal with the much cooler air (still thousands of degrees) that gets through.
Yes - you are right. I guess I just don't believe in short term investing, it is way more hassle than it is worth. I was only talking about long term investing - it's the only kind I do, or believe is rational.
Do you have a mortgage? Do you own stock? If the answer to both questions is yes, then you have invested money that could have paid off your mortgage - exactly what I described. This is true of almost everyone, and here is why:
Posit: Over the long term, the stock market makes 10% Your house mortgage costs you 6%, but you get 2% back in taxes, so really it is like 4% (actual numbers vary, of course) So if you keep the mortgage, and invest money in the market instead of paying down your mortgage, you earn 10% and lose 4% - for a net gain of 6%
I believe you are making a risk based argument - which is perfectly reasonable. But in that case, the optimal response is probably to make sure that you can afford your house in a worst case scenario, not to pay down the mortgage before investing.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, its time to put this theme to bed - it is a dumb plan to throw rocks at Earth from space.
There are two ways to throw rocks: slow and fast. If you are throwing slowly, that means you find a suitable asteroid and subtely alter its course so that it intersects Earth - specifically hitting your target country. First, lets point out that this is hard - you must apply huge forces for a long time very precisely. Second, by the time anyone is doing that it will be easy to look for large asteroids coming at us - and deflecting an asteroid that is pretty far out that already has thrusters on it should not pose much of a challenge.
So let's examine fast. OK, to get a rock currently in Earth orbit (as in on the moon, or on a space station, or just hanging around up there) to intersect the Earth, you need to deorbit it. In order for it to hit a target, you need to deorbit it without using the atmosphere for braking. So you have to apply roughly the same amount of energy to the asteroid as it would take to launch the asteroid into orbit in the first place! (And then the rock just hits the ground - it no longer has orbital velocity, the real killer)
Wait a minute, if we are doing that, why don't we just take a mountain, put nukes under it, and launch it at a neighbor? Same effect, far cheaper, and totally unstoppable.
Nuking from orbit really doesn't make any sense - why go to orbit when you can nuke from home?
Oh wait, theres no wings, no rudder, and the only airfoil is a blunt cone...
And it's a good thing, too. Wings are a really dumb idea for a spaceship - they are heavy during liftoff, hard to cool during reentry, and not big enough when you land. And these "blunt cone" airfoils can have over 100 miles of cross-range, and make pinpoint landings. (Think about it, they have about a 0.3 lift to drag ratio and fall through about 100 miles of atmosphere, trying to burn off the insane speed they have) All of the previous capsules landed within one mile of the target using 1960s technology! (Exception equipment failure, of course)
Really, it is hard to beat a capsule - and pointless to try at this point. You put wings on for convenience, when you don't care that you are throwing away design margins. We are not there in space vehicle...
The fact is that anyone with the will, and even a 90 IQ...
Well, I actually do agree somewhat with the problems of lying that you state - but this statement is obviously overstated by a mile. Half the posts in this very story are about "binary explosives are impossible" and "Hydrogen Peroxide cannot be made".
Your right in that these lies have no effect on real terrorists - but they do have an effect on me too terrorists. After a major event like that, there are a bunch of people that decide it would be great to copy them. In the US, we had a kid drive a Cesna into a building in Florida right after 9/11, for example. Some people have some really deep rooted needs to copy tragic stuff they see.
So, you have to wiegh the need of the government to remain trustworthy against the (relatively few) lives that will be saved (Percentage chance of a successful copycat*number of people likely to be killed). It all depends on your relative weights - and that is the real discussion to be had.
And of course, the US government can hardly "remain trustworthy" when no one trusts it now... sort of how if you treat a kid like a delinquent they will become one, delinquent or not. To be honest, I'm not sure it is even possible to create trust in a government that totally changes every 4 years.
What do you think?
About the S&P, I agree that an economic analysis would have used GDP, and subtracted the inflation rate out of the interest rate of the loan - but that still ends up with a 1% loan earning 3-4%. I guess the reason I chose the S&P is because I was using an investment analogy - and GDP growth is not as important to me personally. I agree, what you say is true. Thanks for pointing it out.
As for China, I agree that I could be wrong - in fact, I think most people would agree with you. I just don't like playing against insiders, in any case.
And I totally agree with what you said about the US... I think a Democrat Congress and a Republican President are the way to go...
Just FYI, it is easy to get 50-70% peroxide commercially - it is a common cleaning solution. In addition, you can buy fractional distillers that will safely take that up to 99%. This is not to uncommon of an amatuer rocket fuel.
Speaking of rocket fuels, I assume that all you naysayers know that most rocket fuels could pass as harmless liquids. And most would survive mixing long enough to explode nicely, as long as the mixer didn't mind dying.
What is amazing is that people actually expect the military/police to come out and say, "OK, this is how to make an undetectable explosive that will kill all your neighbors... fix take A and..."
Yes, they lied. I'm glad they lied!
Yes, you do need to apply a very strong discount to what you read here, but still it can be enlightening. If nothing else, working out exactly why a statement is incorrect can tell you things. Even your statement: "a perpetual trade deficit is indefinitely sustainable" can be argued either way coherently - there can be a perpetual trade deficit in an economy that is resource rich but run into the ground by a dictator, for example - and can still be taken the wrong way (the real reason it is normally unsustainable is because the exchange rates adjust to eliminate it, but many people believe it is like a personal checking account that will cause bankruptcy eventually).
But, just for the record, I am the real power behind the Fed - they actually just ask me what they should do; the US government doesn't make a move without checking my opinion; in my spare time, I create new life forms by splicing DNA; and my new rocket that will revolutionize sapce travel is almost done.
What's hilarious is that all those statements are (hopefully) true. And except the part about the rocket, they're probably true about you as well!
I'm just rankled by armchair economists
I'm interested in the source of this - surely noone can prove that they really know what they are talking about on Slashdot except through discourse. No one is going to look up my degrees, no one will check to see if I'm on the board at the Fed, etc. So here on Slashdot, logic (and showing sources, I guess) must rule.
And what makes that acusation even sillier is that in real practice, even the Fed will readily admit that they do not know how to make predictions. There technique (which has papers written about it and is verified as the best technique so far) is to ask a whole bunch of smart people that have studied the problem, and then to average the answers. (OK, maybe a little more complex than that, but not much). So if you really want to have a good idea of what is going to happen, you need to 1) listen to a LOT of people, and 2) use a weighted average of the opinions you get.
Obviously, everyone that pariticipates has different weights and so comes away with a different conclusion - but by talking about it we get closer to the "truth" than we were, even if we are not talking with experts.
I'll see what results I have for you on the "leading indicators" of Americans "kicking everyone's butts",
Have you got any, btw? So far the only one researched is the Nobel Prize recipients, where the US is ahead at 50% of the world recipients being from the US.
Just wondering if anyone found some disconfirming evidence.
Why on earth would you use the S&P 500 for that?
...they're making money in asset markets...
Well, it is pretty common in some circles - it gets around the issue of "what is inflation"? If you dig deeply, our numbers for inflation are either too low (as in include the effects of product replacement) or too high (do not account for standard of living adjustments). The S&P numbers let you just use non-adjusted dollars, with a realistic history.
Everything I've heard from petroleum people...
That's what I've heard as well. I think this is a case of people not being terribly rational about the whole thing, but also it does take time to set up new infrastructure. I think we will see the price go down over the next few years. (Essentially it is not in the best interests of those that own oil to see it go down quickly, but the large profits will cause enough entry to overpower that eventually)
The shorter answer is that it's an inevitable result of the fixed echange rate..
Precisely the econ answer! But, if the fixed exchange rate is keeping the Chinese Yaun too high, why are the people with the best information (the insiders) buying up dollars as fast as possible? Supposedly if and when the exchange rate floats, they will lose billions - but that prediction has some assumptions that make sense in the US, but not in China (mainly dealing with stability). (This is one where I really wonder what will happen long term - my guess in that China will stabilize its financial systems and then they will stop investing - and then we either raise taxes or cut programs...)
Well, to be honest I don't really mess around in the markets per se - they more mess around with me. I did study a lot of economics at the graduate level, but that's not my degree either. I do like being proved wrong, because it lets me learn quickly (and not very expensively). I just find the intracacies of international exchange to be interesting in general, and greatly misunderstood by pretty much everyone that says anything.
What is truely fascinating, though, is that the Fed is extremely good at this (and they do not apply typical "trade imbalance is bad" types of analysis) - but more amazingly, Congress seems to have a feel for this as well, in that they do not tend to do the truely bad things (like nationalization of companies - oil companies - by taking away excess profits; closing our borders to Chinese trade to "fix" the trade balance, etc). I am sure that there is a mechanism that explains that - possibly something akin to applying the unseen hand to politics. Any thoughts?
SA can't just "decide"
Well, technically they can - they just have to decide that the consequences are better than the alternative. Before continuing on about this, please review what happened in the 1970s - essentially the same thing as is happening now, just for different reasons and with less forsight. (The reason SA has to lower prices is that they will be losing the money anyway because the US will get oil from shale, not wells - but this time it looks like there are real constraints on well capacity). Of course in this discussion I am not really talking about SA, I am talking about oil producing nations in general.
Instead I have made a fortune of my own actually running businesses
Well, if we really must compare genetalia size, I'm starting my 8th business - although 5 of the previous businesses are still contributing to my finances. My businesses span 4 completely separate industries, and I work in 4 languages on 5 continents. But maybe you know more about international finance, what do I know!
I agree that many MBAs do not learn much about finance. But there are some that know a lot - and nowadays that is a very valuable commodity. And btw, supplying technology to Wall Street does not qualify you (in my opinion) to make claims about international finance. Sometimes I think Wall Street is about the dumbest group of people in the world (but maybe that's just the ones they choose to be on the news).
Want to be able to predict what Wall Street will say about any action? All you have to do is apply a "survivors rule": Before the crash, we were in a new market, never going down again (because people that thought that had large short term gains by increasing their lown term risk, as you mention). After the crash, we were in a new market, never going up again (again, those were the only people with any money left - they hadn't invested in the dot coms). In reality, the markets were behaving just like they had done countless times before- up, down, up, down, etc.
When did the US economy ever grow at 10-15%?
I think you caught me mixing units - I was referring to SP500 growth as a proxy for the economy - your probably thinking real GDP growth, but the loan is essentailly a zero interest rate in real dollars, so it ends up still being like I said.
if we can produce our own oil at $40:bbl, why aren't we
The short answer is that in order to do that, you need a large up front investment in infrastructure. It doesn't make sense to do that if Saudi Arabia can decide tommorow to lower the prices back to $20 per barrel. (Of course, there are ways around that using future contracts so we are slowly building up the capacity)
China's economy grows at 10-15%, so why are they buying our debt?
That is indeed the critical question - and the answer is also very interesting, though a little involved for a Slashdot post. The short version is that the people with the money do not trust that they will be allowed to keep it if it is in country.
Everything you're talking is pure theory
OK, but you are basically taking the best predictors we have and throwing them away - I bet you didn't go to business school...
Don't be silly! It was aliens, that came down and filled the passageways with ice. The block just slipped right in, and then the ice melted. Obviously aliens, because ancient Egyptians could not possibly have had ice yet....
Heh, teach me to post while on pain meds...
I kin supel jis fyne!
Some other (serious this time) metrics might be: high tech companies started, high tech companies sucessful, economic growth, number of olympic medals won (although I would expect that this closely follows population, rather than anything else), economic stability, number of prayers said per capita per day ;> , number of books written (that someone actually reads), number of paintings painted, world records held, etc., etc.
I would bet that the US is ahead in most of these measures - and that there is practically zero correlation between these measures and race, sex, and religion. (To put it another way, if you include the entire world the correlation between any measure that the US is ahead in and aetheisism/evolutionism is by definition negative).
Any economist with any input to any actual economy knows a sustained large negative balance of trade bankrupts the account holder.
;-}
Wow, and you say you are a professional? Um, lets see, if you have a large negative balance, what are the forces that counteract that balance? Well, obviously the exchange rate changes to the point that demand for external products goes down. I suppose that could bankrupt a smaller economy, or one that is heavily dependant on an outside resource - but the worst you could say about the US would be oil dependance, and long term we can produce all our own at about $40 per barrel. The US will be just fine. Really, the way to look at this is that China is loaning us money at 4%, and we are investing it in our economy - which grows at 10-15% - so we are making a killing on this deal. (Now what you said about government/individual is true, but basically doesn't matter. I was trying to keep it simple. The other area I am keeping simple is the "invest it in our economy" stuff - the way to look at it is that any money that is loaned to the goverment is money that the economy didn't pay as taxes, but will have to pay later. It all works out to be the same thing.)
As for some metrics, I suppose the most relevent would be something like number of nobel prize winners: in 1981-1990, the US had 51 winners out of a total of 99 worldwide recipients. So does the US have 50% of the world population. And since athletics was mentioned, I would like to point out that every winner of the world baseball series (since inception!) has been a US team! Take that, world!
The data I have seen is in the same ballpark, 60% of scientists overall believing in deity, with far less in the life sciences. This is roughly in line with the general population - therefore, I believe that (outside of life sciences) there is no correlation between a person being a scientist and a persons religious beliefs. (Of course you cannot prove a negative, but the burden of proof would be high at this point)
As for evolution and this survey, answering no to this survey does not mean that you do not "believe in evolution", it means that you don't know about humans evolving. If you believe in thiestic evolution, which answer should you select? I would guess that most people in this case would choose dependant on exact wording of the question / emotions - because essentially you need to guess what the use that the survey will be put to in order to answer correctly. (In other words, many people seem to assume that evolution=aethiest. In order to avoid being incorrectly classified as aethiests, someone that believes in controled evolution (or something like that) may answer that man did not evolve)
I think it is very interesting that so many people who consider themselves "above the common man" because they don't believe in deity do not closely examine their own belief systems. (Not really refering to yourself here, because you do seem to be looking for real knowlege)
...are - not strictly, but more or less - disjoint sets
You say that without proof - and that is exactly what I disagree with. Using A as the set of people that increase science, and using B as the set of people that do not believe in evolution: My "proof" is that 1) in the US (proportionally), set A is large and set B is large; 2) in other countries, set A is smaller (proportionally) than the US and set B is smaller (proportionally) also; 3) People are assumed to be relatively just as smart no matter where you are born; therefore, set A and B have a coorelation. You may think that this coorelation is just chance (coorealtion is not causation, after all), but the coorelation must be explained - and in any case it does give lie to the premise of "stupid Americans don't believe in evolution."
Personally, I believe there is a causative relationship, based on what I know of people's motivations, etc. But then I also have other beliefs that you would disagree with as well... and that makes us stronger together, not weaker.
As reflected in balance of trade, for example
;}. I doubt this claim, it would be interesting if you had data to support it. The US is not the most populous country by far, and perhaps a very small country could achieve more per capita by concentrating on a single area - but from an overall view, no way!
Well, I'll conceed that most people that are not economists see this as a bad thing. (As in, people that should not be commenting...) Ask an economist what is going on - and you'll find that essentially the "trade imbalance" is directly caused by our banking / financial system leadership. (The short version is that people with money in China invest in the US treasury bills, because their own financial system is so messed up. If someone offers you a couple billion dollars at 3%, you take it - need it or not!) Your point of view comes from a nationalistic misunderstanding of global economics - trust me, I make a ton of money on this stuff!
per capita academic, technical, and sports achievement.
Mentally deleting "sports achievement", which I think must be a misunderstanding of the word achievement
Your kind of complacency is the root of what's killing the American mind.
Personally I think that it is people that think they no best for everyone, and believe in implementing changes based on one sided analysis that are currently doing the most harm.
The people we're discussing in disgust while reading this story, because so many Americans are so ignorant.
And yet somehow those awfully ignorant Americans are beating everyone else's buts off in every field of endevour, including science!
Noone with guns in Iran reports to him. So he is irrelevant.
In the US or pre-Hitler Germany, you would be correct. The only people in those countries ready to kill people are in the military - and they would need a plausible reason to do so. Iran is different - Ayotolla controls the armies, but the president controlls the terrorists through his retoric. And terrorism is the problem, not the Iranian guard.
The pen is mightier than the sword, etc.
You are a bigot, or at least an insightful troll. The majority of Islam does not believe in killing anyone, especially yourself, so the major tool of the terrorist -- suicide bombing -- is as appalling to a Muslim as it would be to anyone else.
If this is true, why do the Muslim polls show that the majority support or have sympathies for the terrorists? Why do we see film clips of dancing in the streets whenever a terrorist succeeds?
The fact is, the Muslim religion is set up in such a way that it empowers extremists. There are people that profess to be Muslims that think the way you describe, but they are in the minority. Virtually every Muslim leader refers to the US as "the great satan." Why is that? They also profess other inflamatory views. I propose that this is not just a coincidence - that in the Muslim culture people with extremist views are given power, because they are viewed as "more righteous," or whatever.
I think that this is because all Muslims know what the Koran says to do with infidels, but their conscience does not let them do it. They view this as a personal weakness, however - and so they give up power to those that they see as stronger in this area.
Certainly not all Muslims. Probably not most. But definately a large fraction.
Please also note that I am not saying that we are better in some way - I am just saying that this is a reaction to the existing environment, and that the environment has very little to do with US interference.
Really, why is an embargo a threat if you just want to be left alone?
If the majority of Muslims were appalled at Hezbolla firing random missiles into Isreal over the last couple years (while Isreal ignored them), then you might have a point. Where were the demonstrations against Hezbolla?
I think that in the end this will come down to a nuclear war, and millions of innocents on both sides will die. The US innocents will die first, as the US is attacked by nuclear terrorists. The US will try to reason for a while, invade some countries - but after New York, LA, and Chicago have been rendered unihabitable (and obviously Isreal will be long gone at this point), the American people will demand a final solution - just like Germany did - and we will erradicate 80% of the Muslim population. The remaining Muslims will "convert or die".
That is what we need to avoid - a Nazi being elected president. Only the Muslims can prevent that, but as I say, their power structures are not set up to handle that. Americans are not different than Germans - push anyone too far, and the response is genocide.
If you disagree, answer one little question: At what point will the Muslim extremists stop, and permanantly stop acs of terror? When we are all converted? To which sect?
They just want us to get out of their own affairs.
OK, so if this is true, why is an embargo a threat? I mean, if they just want us to leave them alone, surely instead of fighting the embargo they would be welcoming it?
So what you really mean is that they want our (the outside world's) stuff, but they don't want to have to do anything to meet us halfway. In addition to that, their stated aim is to kill everyone that is not Islam - "Convert or Die" I believe is the phrase they use. Even further, Islam is not enough - just must join their particular sect of Islam. And of course, there exists more than one sect saying that.
You probably think we should just trust that they only say that as a joke, or rallying cry, or whatever. Sorry, but if someone with a gun says they are going to kill you, you are forced to take them seriously and kill them first. If you do not believe that, you will die - and darwin will make a society without you that kills the guy with a gun that threatens.
Therefore, if we allow the Islamic radicals to decide the fate of the world, the world population will be culled until only one Islamic sect remains. If we let the "radical west" decide the fate of the world, Muslims will die until they stop trying to kill people. Fewer people die under the second set - and more importantly to me personally is that me and my family do not die under the second set.
You really just have no concept of the velocities involved. At these velocities, a piece of lightweight foam blew right through a few centimeters of the strongest material we can make, baring daimonds. (And it is a form of the same material as diamond!)
When rentering, the air touching the wings is several thousand degrees. But the air in front of the wings (as in the air being pushed away by the air in contact with the wings) is several tens of thousands of degrees. So any change in the wing, such as a deep pit which dusturbs the airflow, can move that ultra-hot air so that it touches the shuttle's wings. And there are no materials that can survive that! Not even solid tungsten! (As an example of how sensitive this is to details, a smooth surface will stay much cooler (about one tenth the heating) than a rough surface in this ambient).
The solution to rentry heating is to make sure that you spaceship never touches the hot stuff (thats why the shuttle has a round nose, not a sharp one), and then try to deal with the much cooler air (still thousands of degrees) that gets through.
Yes - you are right. I guess I just don't believe in short term investing, it is way more hassle than it is worth. I was only talking about long term investing - it's the only kind I do, or believe is rational.
Do you have a mortgage? Do you own stock? If the answer to both questions is yes, then you have invested money that could have paid off your mortgage - exactly what I described. This is true of almost everyone, and here is why:
Posit: Over the long term, the stock market makes 10%
Your house mortgage costs you 6%, but you get 2% back in taxes, so really it is like 4% (actual numbers vary, of course)
So if you keep the mortgage, and invest money in the market instead of paying down your mortgage, you earn 10% and lose 4% - for a net gain of 6%
I believe you are making a risk based argument - which is perfectly reasonable. But in that case, the optimal response is probably to make sure that you can afford your house in a worst case scenario, not to pay down the mortgage before investing.