Of course, that was the situation discussed in the post I replied to. The US also has Medicare/Medicaid, the new health insurance subsidies, and tax write-offs for employer-based health insurance.
I don't know if the above poster was sincere or sarcastic, but this does illustrate a slippery slope. Nobody would care about bad eating habits, if they had decided, for example, to let everyone fend for themselves.
But having decided that free health care should be extended to people who have bad eating habits (and make other poor decisions), now the rationalization exists to regulate and control those peoples' eating habits. An act of tyranny follows a supposed act of charity.
It's never just accepted that some people will make bad decisions in a democratic society and to just suck up the cost of that.
The only reason combustion engines are so efficient is because they're supported by decades of research. Give it time, and renewable energy can be efficient enough to replace it.
Two things to observe. ICEs aren't that efficient. They are used for other reasons such as widespread infrastructure and high power density. Efficiency is not in itself enough of a benefit to end the use of fossil fuel engines.
Second, renewables have had many decades of R&D and vast sums of funding too. At this point, I think the fundamental obstacles are economical rather than a magic development that probably would have appeared some point in the past fifty years. Germany may well make it happen. But to be honest, I'm glad it's them taking the risks not the US.
You have a very funny way to interpret the English language. You seem to always pick the interpretation which makes the other guy the most wrong and ridiculous. That sort of attitude is not conductive to rational sincere truth-seeking individuals
I can only base my perception of you and your activities on what you write. And you corrected my mistaken impression of you in the normal way it is done. Drama averted.
It's an indirect way of telling you that you're the one of the insincere people on slashdot.
Maybe you should just stay with the direct methods.
You're saying nobody was unemployable before minimum wage laws were enacted?
I wouldn't say nobody is unemployable, just a very small portion of the adult population (I'm ignoring children). Instead, we have, for example double the number of African Americans being unemployed as Caucasian Americans and considerably higher unemployment among young adults than the general population. And for African Americans who also are young adults, the unemployment rate is around 25%. That huge difference is pretty nasty and I think, a direct result of minimum wage laws.
Some countries (probably most of them other than America) value things other than money.
I gathered from the discussion on Germany before, that the US wasn't bottom of the barrel when it comes to risk assessment and management.
but I'm even more for safer, renewable sources
It's been noted before that nuclear power kills less people than renewable power does and causes less land to be permanently unusable. But I guess nuclear power is scarier than windmills.
Not true. In the months from january to may 2013 germany actually exportet 30,79 billion kWhs.
What's not true about it? Electricity is hard to store. So when their renewable sources provide a surplus, yes, Germany exports power. And when those renewable sources don't, then they're importing. That latter situation is what creates the dependency.
Progress in what direction and to what end? The problem as I see it is that the benefits seem rather paltry compared to the effort put into achieving them. Remember one consequence was a doubling of German average electricity prices compared to most of its neighbors.
Another problem was the irregular supply creates adverse market conditions. You have to buy and sell on the international market based on what your irregular power generation does not when it is advantageous for you. I think there's a lot of foreign power generators and traders making bank off of the German market as a result.
That is not true if you're as hard of a worker as you make yourself to be. The coming tide lifts all boats.
That isn't true here since the alleged "rising tide" is caused by me willingly earning less (as a consequence of working and doing less). I sacrifice substantially so that certain Slashdot posters can slack off more? Doesn't work for me.
And why should people take you seriously?
This isn't a popularity contest. 40 hours isn't that much for a lot of work and I think the original research is absurd. Sure, if I'm doing original mathematical research (something I've done in the past), I won't get 20 hours of such work done in a week except in unusual circumstances. But on the other hand, working a moderately physical job like security, I could work 50-55 hours a week for months.
How do you get to decide you aren't?
Reason and awareness of the situation at the place where I work. Why do so many people think that I can't evaluate such situations?
To elaborate on my situation, I train and supervise a number of people who work overnight to process a bunch of paperwork for people who work in the daytime. If that work doesn't get done, then life sucks for the day people who have to work much harder. Similarly, there are problems which come at night which can lead to life sucking for the night people and for which, I happen to have dealt with before. Finally, I act as a reserve of manpower so that when a high labor problem shows up, I can work on it in place of the poor night person who stumbled across it so that they can finish their job.
Finally, I started the job rather recently and am working somewhat inefficiently as a result. I expect the hours to decline a little bit as I get more experienced with the job.
Currently, that work means 45-60 hours per week. I'll probably hit 60 hours this week.
You're free to do not take him seriously, but turn around is fair play. You don't take him seriously. He doesn't have to take you seriously. So why bother replying?
Debate and discussion are processes by which rational, sincere, truth-seeking beings can communicate with one another.
(and unlike you, I have time to deal with people who choose to argue insincerely
I don't know why you bothered to post that. If you're human, you can't have that sort of time. You can spend some of your copious free time, but there's far more insincere people here alone on Slashdot than time you could possibly have. After all, there's only 168 hours in a week to respond to all those trolls and such. And if you're not human, then you probably still can find something better to do with your time.
How is permanently cutting out a trade dependency a broken window fallacy?
Which hasn't actually happened, let us note. Germany remains dependent on nuclear power, it's just nuclear power from France now. They also remain dependent on natural gas from Russia and coal power from Eastern Europe. Buying relatively expensive energy from elsewhere and then selling them extremely low priced renewable in return isn't what I'd consider a good trade.
And they made this happen at the cost of doubling the price of electricity in Germany. Germany might pull it off, but I don't think they will.
With a really large economy, without losing much GDP.
Let's not get hasty with the judgments here. GDP can be gamed in a variety of ways, such as the broken window fallacy. Just because GDP hasn't yet declined significantly doesn't mean that the underlying economy is healthy. This may well work out for Germany, but I'd like to see some more years put in first.
Is it a public service when corporations under employ their workers and force them to work 'flex' schedules requiring them to rely on Welfare services to make ends meet?
According to the premise of the article, "Workaholism In America Is Hurting the Economy", yes. And why are employers "underemploying" workers? They have an obvious preference for workaholics.
Yep! We'd all be so much better off if we just let corporations have free and unrestricted reign over our lives.. nothing would possibly go wrong with that.
I guess we better not do that then, if it is so bad. Fortunately, this particular straw man is completely irrelevant to my argument.
And this is the same report which has a factor of three difference between the low and high estimate for carbon dioxide's effect on global mean temperature. Argument from obfuscation combined with confirmation bias is just as scientifically invalid as all the other games that get played with climate change arguments.
Either you decide that all this science is just crap (like many climate denialists seem to do) or you have to accept that global warming is a serious problem that is created by men for which the scientific comunity has provided huge amounts of evidence, warnings and pointers to possible causes of action.
No, I think I'll decide instead that the case just hasn't been made yet. All this verbiage from the IPCC wastes my time. Nail down the key problems and parameters, don't just merely assert that there are problems in a huge number of pages without any underlying evidence to back it up.
The energy program that the Solyndra loans were a part of has not only NOT lost money, it's turned a profit with the overwhelming majority of participating companies repaying their loans
Solyndra had loan guarantees from the US Department of Energy. Those guarantees inherently do not generate profit. The loan is taken from a private lender who reaps the profit of the loan. And when someone defaults on the loan as Solyndra did, that loss is applied straight to the federal government.
Again, corporations result in a lot of tax revenue and other public benefits. I don't disagree that governments do provide some services of value. But as you claim, when you use public services you should pay for them. So who is paying for the public services provided by corporations?
Here, by public services, I don't mean that the corporation is a public organization, but rather that the corporation is providing a beneficial externality. For example, by employing people, that means tax revenue and less need for social services.
You would make more money and get to do more things you want under a better economy.
What's good for the economy isn't necessarily good for me. There's that. But I never took seriously the premise that limiting our labor and productivity would improve the economy. Nor do I consider the presence of hard workers in the world a "problem".
And in my case, my hard work actually does mean that a fair number of people don't have to work so hard. How do you get to decide that is making the "problem" worse?
But you don't have a rebuttal to his point that you (well, people like you, he didn't specify you) make the problem worse for everyone else.
What is there to rebut? His opinion is more or less self-consistent. It's just not taking into account my actions or for that matter the actions of most of the world who simply aren't on that page.
Most fortune 500 companies haven't paid taxes in the US since Reagan.
From a report titled "The Sorry State of Corporate Taxes", we have this:
As a group, the 288 corporations examined paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 19.4 percent over the five-year period
And most of these companies paid taxes. 26 didn't pay taxes at all, but right there we have more than a majority of the Fortune 500 companies (262) who paid something in corporate taxes.
Now, this report in question does make other observations about the companies in question which indicate that these companies don't as a class pay much in corporate taxes, but that's a far cry from the claim you made.
Also, you haven't made a case for why most companies should pay taxes at all. As I note they also are responsible for considerable tax payments through indirect means. Sure, they use a lot of government services, some of which are actually worth paying for. But that doesn't mean that a good way to pay for those services is via a corporate tax.
And not only that, if you put up with it, you are making the problem worse for the rest of us.
So what are you going to offer me to work less? I don't care that you might in theory have to work a bit harder just because I do. What I care about is not being able to do the things I want to do, which including making more money than if I didn't do that extra work and doing things I would not otherwise get the chance to do.
I have a solution to your problem that doesn't involve any more work on my side. It comes right out of those pvp games with the whiners who complain because people who've learned to play the game, play better. QQ.
If you don't like it, quit. Pretty much what you suggest with the jumping positions. The problem solves itself. I might add that most of the people in my department don't have to work my hours. They have pretty nice jobs and I work hard to make sure it stays that way.
As I read your post it confuses me.
So while many in the US do not have healthcare, their tax dollars was used to fund a "carrier group" (sounds costly?) to provide healthcare to foreign nationals?
It's worth noting here that an area that just got hit by a disaster is a far more serious health care problem than someone who can't be bothered to pay for their health care with their own money. People might die for the want of something simple like a meal or a clean bandage.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, that was the situation discussed in the post I replied to. The US also has Medicare/Medicaid, the new health insurance subsidies, and tax write-offs for employer-based health insurance.
True. I should have said free or subsidized health care.
I don't know if the above poster was sincere or sarcastic, but this does illustrate a slippery slope. Nobody would care about bad eating habits, if they had decided, for example, to let everyone fend for themselves.
But having decided that free health care should be extended to people who have bad eating habits (and make other poor decisions), now the rationalization exists to regulate and control those peoples' eating habits. An act of tyranny follows a supposed act of charity.
It's never just accepted that some people will make bad decisions in a democratic society and to just suck up the cost of that.
The only reason combustion engines are so efficient is because they're supported by decades of research. Give it time, and renewable energy can be efficient enough to replace it.
Two things to observe. ICEs aren't that efficient. They are used for other reasons such as widespread infrastructure and high power density. Efficiency is not in itself enough of a benefit to end the use of fossil fuel engines.
Second, renewables have had many decades of R&D and vast sums of funding too. At this point, I think the fundamental obstacles are economical rather than a magic development that probably would have appeared some point in the past fifty years. Germany may well make it happen. But to be honest, I'm glad it's them taking the risks not the US.
You have a very funny way to interpret the English language. You seem to always pick the interpretation which makes the other guy the most wrong and ridiculous. That sort of attitude is not conductive to rational sincere truth-seeking individuals
I can only base my perception of you and your activities on what you write. And you corrected my mistaken impression of you in the normal way it is done. Drama averted.
It's an indirect way of telling you that you're the one of the insincere people on slashdot.
Maybe you should just stay with the direct methods.
You're saying nobody was unemployable before minimum wage laws were enacted?
I wouldn't say nobody is unemployable, just a very small portion of the adult population (I'm ignoring children). Instead, we have, for example double the number of African Americans being unemployed as Caucasian Americans and considerably higher unemployment among young adults than the general population. And for African Americans who also are young adults, the unemployment rate is around 25%. That huge difference is pretty nasty and I think, a direct result of minimum wage laws.
And if you had no solar panels, then you'd get all that from the grid. I'm not seeing what's supposed to make this low lying fruit.
Some countries (probably most of them other than America) value things other than money.
I gathered from the discussion on Germany before, that the US wasn't bottom of the barrel when it comes to risk assessment and management.
but I'm even more for safer, renewable sources
It's been noted before that nuclear power kills less people than renewable power does and causes less land to be permanently unusable. But I guess nuclear power is scarier than windmills.
Not true. In the months from january to may 2013 germany actually exportet 30,79 billion kWhs.
What's not true about it? Electricity is hard to store. So when their renewable sources provide a surplus, yes, Germany exports power. And when those renewable sources don't, then they're importing. That latter situation is what creates the dependency.
Progress in what direction and to what end? The problem as I see it is that the benefits seem rather paltry compared to the effort put into achieving them. Remember one consequence was a doubling of German average electricity prices compared to most of its neighbors.
Another problem was the irregular supply creates adverse market conditions. You have to buy and sell on the international market based on what your irregular power generation does not when it is advantageous for you. I think there's a lot of foreign power generators and traders making bank off of the German market as a result.
That is not true if you're as hard of a worker as you make yourself to be. The coming tide lifts all boats.
That isn't true here since the alleged "rising tide" is caused by me willingly earning less (as a consequence of working and doing less). I sacrifice substantially so that certain Slashdot posters can slack off more? Doesn't work for me.
And why should people take you seriously?
This isn't a popularity contest. 40 hours isn't that much for a lot of work and I think the original research is absurd. Sure, if I'm doing original mathematical research (something I've done in the past), I won't get 20 hours of such work done in a week except in unusual circumstances. But on the other hand, working a moderately physical job like security, I could work 50-55 hours a week for months.
How do you get to decide you aren't?
Reason and awareness of the situation at the place where I work. Why do so many people think that I can't evaluate such situations?
To elaborate on my situation, I train and supervise a number of people who work overnight to process a bunch of paperwork for people who work in the daytime. If that work doesn't get done, then life sucks for the day people who have to work much harder. Similarly, there are problems which come at night which can lead to life sucking for the night people and for which, I happen to have dealt with before. Finally, I act as a reserve of manpower so that when a high labor problem shows up, I can work on it in place of the poor night person who stumbled across it so that they can finish their job.
Finally, I started the job rather recently and am working somewhat inefficiently as a result. I expect the hours to decline a little bit as I get more experienced with the job.
Currently, that work means 45-60 hours per week. I'll probably hit 60 hours this week.
You're free to do not take him seriously, but turn around is fair play. You don't take him seriously. He doesn't have to take you seriously. So why bother replying?
Debate and discussion are processes by which rational, sincere, truth-seeking beings can communicate with one another.
(and unlike you, I have time to deal with people who choose to argue insincerely
I don't know why you bothered to post that. If you're human, you can't have that sort of time. You can spend some of your copious free time, but there's far more insincere people here alone on Slashdot than time you could possibly have. After all, there's only 168 hours in a week to respond to all those trolls and such. And if you're not human, then you probably still can find something better to do with your time.
How is permanently cutting out a trade dependency a broken window fallacy?
Which hasn't actually happened, let us note. Germany remains dependent on nuclear power, it's just nuclear power from France now. They also remain dependent on natural gas from Russia and coal power from Eastern Europe. Buying relatively expensive energy from elsewhere and then selling them extremely low priced renewable in return isn't what I'd consider a good trade.
And they made this happen at the cost of doubling the price of electricity in Germany. Germany might pull it off, but I don't think they will.
With a really large economy, without losing much GDP.
Let's not get hasty with the judgments here. GDP can be gamed in a variety of ways, such as the broken window fallacy. Just because GDP hasn't yet declined significantly doesn't mean that the underlying economy is healthy. This may well work out for Germany, but I'd like to see some more years put in first.
Is it a public service when corporations under employ their workers and force them to work 'flex' schedules requiring them to rely on Welfare services to make ends meet?
According to the premise of the article, "Workaholism In America Is Hurting the Economy", yes. And why are employers "underemploying" workers? They have an obvious preference for workaholics.
Yep! We'd all be so much better off if we just let corporations have free and unrestricted reign over our lives.. nothing would possibly go wrong with that.
I guess we better not do that then, if it is so bad. Fortunately, this particular straw man is completely irrelevant to my argument.
Either you decide that all this science is just crap (like many climate denialists seem to do) or you have to accept that global warming is a serious problem that is created by men for which the scientific comunity has provided huge amounts of evidence, warnings and pointers to possible causes of action.
No, I think I'll decide instead that the case just hasn't been made yet. All this verbiage from the IPCC wastes my time. Nail down the key problems and parameters, don't just merely assert that there are problems in a huge number of pages without any underlying evidence to back it up.
The energy program that the Solyndra loans were a part of has not only NOT lost money, it's turned a profit with the overwhelming majority of participating companies repaying their loans
Solyndra had loan guarantees from the US Department of Energy. Those guarantees inherently do not generate profit. The loan is taken from a private lender who reaps the profit of the loan. And when someone defaults on the loan as Solyndra did, that loss is applied straight to the federal government.
Again, corporations result in a lot of tax revenue and other public benefits. I don't disagree that governments do provide some services of value. But as you claim, when you use public services you should pay for them. So who is paying for the public services provided by corporations?
Here, by public services, I don't mean that the corporation is a public organization, but rather that the corporation is providing a beneficial externality. For example, by employing people, that means tax revenue and less need for social services.
You would make more money and get to do more things you want under a better economy.
What's good for the economy isn't necessarily good for me. There's that. But I never took seriously the premise that limiting our labor and productivity would improve the economy. Nor do I consider the presence of hard workers in the world a "problem".
And in my case, my hard work actually does mean that a fair number of people don't have to work so hard. How do you get to decide that is making the "problem" worse?
But you don't have a rebuttal to his point that you (well, people like you, he didn't specify you) make the problem worse for everyone else.
What is there to rebut? His opinion is more or less self-consistent. It's just not taking into account my actions or for that matter the actions of most of the world who simply aren't on that page.
It's all rather unfortunate, but also inevitable, given the way Wikipedians often behave.
I'd characterize it more as rather irrelevant. Wikipedia won't go anywhere just because some celebrities have opinions.
Most fortune 500 companies haven't paid taxes in the US since Reagan.
From a report titled "The Sorry State of Corporate Taxes", we have this:
As a group, the 288 corporations examined paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 19.4 percent over the five-year period
And most of these companies paid taxes. 26 didn't pay taxes at all, but right there we have more than a majority of the Fortune 500 companies (262) who paid something in corporate taxes.
Now, this report in question does make other observations about the companies in question which indicate that these companies don't as a class pay much in corporate taxes, but that's a far cry from the claim you made.
Also, you haven't made a case for why most companies should pay taxes at all. As I note they also are responsible for considerable tax payments through indirect means. Sure, they use a lot of government services, some of which are actually worth paying for. But that doesn't mean that a good way to pay for those services is via a corporate tax.
And not only that, if you put up with it, you are making the problem worse for the rest of us.
So what are you going to offer me to work less? I don't care that you might in theory have to work a bit harder just because I do. What I care about is not being able to do the things I want to do, which including making more money than if I didn't do that extra work and doing things I would not otherwise get the chance to do.
I have a solution to your problem that doesn't involve any more work on my side. It comes right out of those pvp games with the whiners who complain because people who've learned to play the game, play better. QQ.
If you don't like it, quit. Pretty much what you suggest with the jumping positions. The problem solves itself. I might add that most of the people in my department don't have to work my hours. They have pretty nice jobs and I work hard to make sure it stays that way.
As I read your post it confuses me. So while many in the US do not have healthcare, their tax dollars was used to fund a "carrier group" (sounds costly?) to provide healthcare to foreign nationals?
It's worth noting here that an area that just got hit by a disaster is a far more serious health care problem than someone who can't be bothered to pay for their health care with their own money. People might die for the want of something simple like a meal or a clean bandage.
It works. That's an effective rebuttal to your snide insinuations.
Then fuck off. I don't have time for people who choose not to argue sincerely.