They who can not keep businesses divided will surely be conquered.
Unless there is considerable value in vertical integration. Then they wouldn't. I would say that power generation and transport is one such integration with obvious value.
Fairness, because if they buy from you only at wholesale rates, they should also sell you at those rates.
That's not fair at all. The power company should be buying from the home generator at less than wholesale rates and selling at greater than wholesale rates due to the small sales volume.
Yeah, a couple/few years ago the energy to produce a panel fell blow the energy that it would produce over its lifetime.
It passed that threshold probably a couple of decades ago.
Googling around, it appears you are referring to actually generating more energy than it took to produce, which is a threshold which was achieved apparently both in 2000 and some point in the last three years. If there is a future, large surge in solar generation installation, then there might well be another period of net negative energy production until solar generation catches up with the cost of producing it.
but I'm going to have to tell you something else that will never pay off: running that circuit just to light a crawlspace. A head-mounted LED lamp will pay off in those few times you go down there.
It won't provide the same quality of lighting. And it doesn't work, if you don't have it on hand. I find it interesting how people will propose bad solutions merely to save a few dollars. It doesn't make any sense.
Your story doesn't take into account that the Fed doesn't set interest rates (except the Discount Rate which is set a fixed amount above the natural private rate). It can try to target rates, but the rates are ultimately negotiated by the private institutions themselves.
The Fed has very effective tools for targeting rates. A control system doesn't need to be perfect to be an effective control system.
Did you actually read what I posted? They faced a almost identical problem (idiots whining about something which can't be demonstrated to actually be harmful). Right there, we have the basis for a good analogy. And they solved the problem by throwing the idiots out of court.
Actually, I was referring to their proxies for solar activity. What else would they use? A time machine? Idiot.
There's another sort of time travel. You wait a year and you end up going a year into the future. Use this approach to travel a few decades into the future and see what happens. If there's substantial global warming, it will show up in data that is much harder to throw.
It's a good thing we don't need standing to express ourselves in public.
In case you haven't noticed, this whole discussion started because people had opinions on what someone should say or not say. You can complain about anything in public. I'm merely pointing out a common sense reason for not doing it in this case - namely that there is no one being harmed by the alleged speech.
Well to start with the whole sticks and stones things is a complete lie - words can strike far deeper than stones, and damage to the mind can be far slower and more difficult to heal.
I see no evidence for this. I've been called a lot of naughty things and it hasn't bothered me in the least. But I've also rolled a truck. That hurt.
Those who spread hate and intolerance are acting to create a culture where your admission could get you lynched, and I won't stand by and quietly let it happen, I have my own ideas as to what the future should look like, and it doesn't involve a bunch of self-important assholes lynching anyone who's different than them.
I have a suggestion here. Stop being the asshole you're trying to fight.
People suggested it, so they checked a millennium's worth of proxy data
Whoops. They are using proxy data not actual temperature data. That means heavy, subjective processing of the data right there. Just because these particular scientists see phenomena that they want and are paid to see, doesn't mean it actually exists.
For another model, I view recessions as large corrections of market perception. Recent recessions have been asset bubble driven, but there are other kinds of recessions such as the oil crises of the 70s (where suddenly the developed world realized that OPEC could manipulate oil supply and prices a huge amount and that resulted in all sorts of costly economic adjustments from changes in individual behavior up to national investments in alternative energy approaches).
In this light, when the central bank sets interest rates, it is actually paying the markets to see interest rates as being in a certain range. This primes the pump for putting money in any available high leverage investments since suddenly there's no low risk investments with good interest payments out there. And once money starts flowing into such a bubble, it develops an attractive short term trend which brings in more money.
My view is that it is better to just let the recession happen rather than go through all this effort to short circuit it and return to economic growth conditions. Recessions reduce the extent of bubbles (in large part by rewarding parties who didn't participate) and they cull poorly run businesses. If the recession is bad enough that it's going to destroy an entire industry, then limited intervention might be warranted just so a few survivors can pull through. This manipulating of the perception of future risk is IMHO a large part of the reason we currently have these large boom-bust cycles in developed world economies.
Well, a lot of people never figure it out. It's not my problem to fix. My view is that it's better to just ignore this non-problem than to coddle yet more people who aren't mature enough to handle insults.
OPEC psychology created the oil shocks. There was no production capacity problem. There was a psychological issue.
You don't get it. The existence of an effective cartel demonstrates in the first place that there was production capacity problems - namely that production capacity was highly concentrated in the hands of the cartel. And the oil shocks were profitable (in addition to increasing the political power of the OPEC members) - providing a straightforward market advantage for that choice.
The risk turned out to be liquidity risk, when money market funding dried up and they could not sell their AAA tranche.
Here we go. Liquidity risk that originated from the easy Fed money no longer being in the market.
So it wasn't a margin call.
Then why did they need to "raise funding"? Because they needed to have enough reserves to cover their investments.
As for interest rates being held low for a year, are you then predicting an imminent crash, since interest rates have been low for a number of years?
No, you get bubbles with easy credit. The crashes happen once they run out of borrowed funds with which to cover their leveraged bets. I think most of the current easy credit is being used to cover bad debt from the last recession and there are serious uncertainty issues (such as the anti-business environment in the US and the flaky EU nation-level bailouts) that are obstructing long term business activities like investment and hiring.
I'll note that there are some minor bubbles in green technologies, IT, and bitcoins, for example.
When will this crash occur, are you able to commit to a time period, since your "theory" is so fully supported?
No, because timing depends on things that haven't happened yet. First, I don't see a large enough outlet for the easy credit being provided by the central banks. For example, it took a couple of years for real estate loans to emerge as the primary credit sink in the post-911 period. Similarly, the high tech industry didn't become a significant credit sink after the Japanese and US recessions of 1990-1992 until about the middle of the decade.
Second, there needs to be substantial leverage. In the real estate crisis, this was provided primarily by easing reserve requirements to astoundingly low levels (like 1 part in 50 or worse).
In the dotcom bubble, there was a certain accounting method for expensing stock options (namely, that stock options were not listed as a liability until they were exercised). This method coincidentally was removed from the stock market in the same month that the stock market peaked. There was also leverage from outright fraud. Many dotcoms "stuffed the channel", that is, they reported goods shipped to retailers (the "retail channel") as "sold", which incidentally was illegal because those goods could and often were returned without generating a profit for the business. But they could pretend that they were generating higher revenue and profits than they actually had under more honest accounting systems.
There are classic ways to grow businesses using easy credit. For example, borrow against your assets to buy more assets which you then use as collateral in yet more loans. Then sell the business (either as a unit or via an issuing of stock shares) based on the revenue and asset numbers while downplaying the liabilities. As a pyramid scheme, this can last for a number of years before it comes down. Worldcom was one such example. I'd say that Abengoa S.A., a renewable energy provider is a current example of this approach.
Some amount of superexponential growth is common. When an industry experiences growth rates that actually increase over time, that's a sign that the market is disengaged from any real basis and trading more on short term speculators' ever increasing expectations.
That a lame, racist comment was made by a PR executive and created a media firestorm should surprise exactly no one.
I just wonder why people can't see that this is a really terrible way to "cause social change"? It's just a shuffling around of who's a legitimate target of bigotry. My view is that bigots are just as much human as anyone else. It should be just as wrong to discriminate against someone merely because they exhibit common human flaws like bigotry as the color of their skin.
This should especially be true for the people who believe that people by their inherent nature are bigoted. Why ostracize someone for exhibiting human behavior that alleged can't be eliminated?
What does any of this have to do with the law or a judge?
Analogy. They had to deal with this sort of crap in law and they solved the problem by throwing it out of court.
And to try to argue that a person shouldn't speak out against racism just because they aren't of that affected race is just absurd.
First, it's worth noting that the racism witch hunt just another form of ugly bigotry, just like racism. As long as those pointless accusations of racism aren't directed at me, I don't really care except to remind people that they're being hypocritical idiots.
Luckily not everyone has opinions like yours or there never would have been a Civil Rights movement in the first place.
Because that's how Jim Crow laws started in the 1870s. Slippery slope arguments work only when there actually is a slippery slope.
It might be graceless but why accept a forced apology if it does nothing to redress the hurt it may have inflicted.
No offense to the many idiots who think this is a big deal, but I think an apology is in line with the non-existent harm committed.
Now, this might just be the latest in a line of problems and infractions with this employee, so I don't know if the firing is warranted or not. But if it was an isolated event (well, the employee had posted a bunch of impolitic Twitters, but I mean here that the employee hasn't been warned about this sort of thing before) and not part of some pattern of being a problem for the employer, then I would give the employee another chance.
The problem is that things like racism, sexism, anti-atheism, etc. don't just harm the person saying them, they contribute to a tapestry of cultural biases which harms every member of the target group.
How about this little witch hunt? All just because someone said something naughty on Twitter? That's why I think standing is relevant here. There's a whole lot of people with zero stake making terribly bad judgments and causing considerable harm.
one comment can be shrugged off, thousands a year, not so much.
I assure you that thousands of comments don't take thousands of shrugs to shrug off.
So only the victims of racism should be offended by racism?
Well there is this thing in legal theory called "standing". The idea crudely is that for things that don't rise to the level of a crime, then one needs to demonstrate that one has been adversely affected by the behavior or activity. If one can't do this, such as would be the case with a whiny, anonymous person at a keyboard, then one doesn't have standing and hence, the judge can tell them to shut up and get lost.
I think this is an excellent way to deal with the endless, useless complaints of racism for behavior and opinions that harms no one aside possibly from the instigator. As a bonus, it gives you more time for your other odious habits.
Eh, it looks like she's done this before. I think the real difference is that her customers have higher expectations and are a lot more delicate than Duck Dynasty viewers.
Keep in mind also that the existing procedures and powers were adequate, there were several points at which the 9/11 attacks could have been uncovered and stopped. They weren't because of incompetent bureaucrats or lack of communication between agencies that legally should have been communicating. This is one of the more loathsome aspects of security theater - that the watchdogs are rewarded with more power for not doing their jobs.
There are also pols who genuinely understand the importance of a strong military.
As an aside, what does "strong military" mean here?
I agree that a society of shallow people who care more about government provided handouts than about freedom will have leaders who exploit that narcissistic ignorance.
But this phrase illustrates another route to governmental abuse of power. There are many ways to have a strong military. You can spend a lot. You can have a lot of dudes (particularly useful, if your goal is to put all your potential troublemakers in the military). You can have really shiny equipment. But these things need not actually help make your country become a better place to live.
Goals are another exploitable aspect. For example, current US strategic doctrine for the military is the "1-4-2-1" goal which means that the US can defend its borders while defending four strategic regions of the world with the capable to win two simultaneous regional-scale wars quickly including one "decisive" victory. How that translates into "we need this many guys and this much stuff" is rather arbitrary as this Slate article complains. And the potential tyrant can always change the goals to favor a military (or a military procurement system) that is more advantageous to them. It is then the work of a moment to label those undemocratic shenanigans a "stronger military".
Slashdot Mirror
They who can not keep businesses divided will surely be conquered.
Unless there is considerable value in vertical integration. Then they wouldn't. I would say that power generation and transport is one such integration with obvious value.
Fairness, because if they buy from you only at wholesale rates, they should also sell you at those rates.
That's not fair at all. The power company should be buying from the home generator at less than wholesale rates and selling at greater than wholesale rates due to the small sales volume.
Yeah, a couple/few years ago the energy to produce a panel fell blow the energy that it would produce over its lifetime.
It passed that threshold probably a couple of decades ago.
Googling around, it appears you are referring to actually generating more energy than it took to produce, which is a threshold which was achieved apparently both in 2000 and some point in the last three years. If there is a future, large surge in solar generation installation, then there might well be another period of net negative energy production until solar generation catches up with the cost of producing it.
but I'm going to have to tell you something else that will never pay off: running that circuit just to light a crawlspace. A head-mounted LED lamp will pay off in those few times you go down there.
It won't provide the same quality of lighting. And it doesn't work, if you don't have it on hand. I find it interesting how people will propose bad solutions merely to save a few dollars. It doesn't make any sense.
Your story doesn't take into account that the Fed doesn't set interest rates (except the Discount Rate which is set a fixed amount above the natural private rate). It can try to target rates, but the rates are ultimately negotiated by the private institutions themselves.
The Fed has very effective tools for targeting rates. A control system doesn't need to be perfect to be an effective control system.
If someone makes a hurtful remark, you can't prove how it affected you.
As I noted in the post that I replied to, this is a very strong indication that the hurtful remark wasn't actually hurtful.
Did you actually read what I posted? They faced a almost identical problem (idiots whining about something which can't be demonstrated to actually be harmful). Right there, we have the basis for a good analogy. And they solved the problem by throwing the idiots out of court.
They are all quantitative and thoroughly tested.
Not for the time periods that they are being used for.
Actually, I was referring to their proxies for solar activity. What else would they use? A time machine? Idiot.
There's another sort of time travel. You wait a year and you end up going a year into the future. Use this approach to travel a few decades into the future and see what happens. If there's substantial global warming, it will show up in data that is much harder to throw.
So nobody gives as hit about the top non-youtube video site and the largest dating site on the web?
That pretty much sums up the argument.
Maybe you don't do online dating, but those sites are turning over $700m a year.
Actual profit for all of IAC is allegedly $160 million in 2012.
It's a good thing we don't need standing to express ourselves in public.
In case you haven't noticed, this whole discussion started because people had opinions on what someone should say or not say. You can complain about anything in public. I'm merely pointing out a common sense reason for not doing it in this case - namely that there is no one being harmed by the alleged speech.
Well to start with the whole sticks and stones things is a complete lie - words can strike far deeper than stones, and damage to the mind can be far slower and more difficult to heal.
I see no evidence for this. I've been called a lot of naughty things and it hasn't bothered me in the least. But I've also rolled a truck. That hurt.
Those who spread hate and intolerance are acting to create a culture where your admission could get you lynched, and I won't stand by and quietly let it happen, I have my own ideas as to what the future should look like, and it doesn't involve a bunch of self-important assholes lynching anyone who's different than them.
I have a suggestion here. Stop being the asshole you're trying to fight.
People suggested it, so they checked a millennium's worth of proxy data
Whoops. They are using proxy data not actual temperature data. That means heavy, subjective processing of the data right there. Just because these particular scientists see phenomena that they want and are paid to see, doesn't mean it actually exists.
For another model, I view recessions as large corrections of market perception. Recent recessions have been asset bubble driven, but there are other kinds of recessions such as the oil crises of the 70s (where suddenly the developed world realized that OPEC could manipulate oil supply and prices a huge amount and that resulted in all sorts of costly economic adjustments from changes in individual behavior up to national investments in alternative energy approaches).
In this light, when the central bank sets interest rates, it is actually paying the markets to see interest rates as being in a certain range. This primes the pump for putting money in any available high leverage investments since suddenly there's no low risk investments with good interest payments out there. And once money starts flowing into such a bubble, it develops an attractive short term trend which brings in more money.
My view is that it is better to just let the recession happen rather than go through all this effort to short circuit it and return to economic growth conditions. Recessions reduce the extent of bubbles (in large part by rewarding parties who didn't participate) and they cull poorly run businesses. If the recession is bad enough that it's going to destroy an entire industry, then limited intervention might be warranted just so a few survivors can pull through. This manipulating of the perception of future risk is IMHO a large part of the reason we currently have these large boom-bust cycles in developed world economies.
An uncertain developing mind though?
Well, a lot of people never figure it out. It's not my problem to fix. My view is that it's better to just ignore this non-problem than to coddle yet more people who aren't mature enough to handle insults.
OPEC psychology created the oil shocks. There was no production capacity problem. There was a psychological issue.
You don't get it. The existence of an effective cartel demonstrates in the first place that there was production capacity problems - namely that production capacity was highly concentrated in the hands of the cartel. And the oil shocks were profitable (in addition to increasing the political power of the OPEC members) - providing a straightforward market advantage for that choice.
The risk turned out to be liquidity risk, when money market funding dried up and they could not sell their AAA tranche.
Here we go. Liquidity risk that originated from the easy Fed money no longer being in the market.
So it wasn't a margin call.
Then why did they need to "raise funding"? Because they needed to have enough reserves to cover their investments.
As for interest rates being held low for a year, are you then predicting an imminent crash, since interest rates have been low for a number of years?
No, you get bubbles with easy credit. The crashes happen once they run out of borrowed funds with which to cover their leveraged bets. I think most of the current easy credit is being used to cover bad debt from the last recession and there are serious uncertainty issues (such as the anti-business environment in the US and the flaky EU nation-level bailouts) that are obstructing long term business activities like investment and hiring.
I'll note that there are some minor bubbles in green technologies, IT, and bitcoins, for example.
When will this crash occur, are you able to commit to a time period, since your "theory" is so fully supported?
No, because timing depends on things that haven't happened yet. First, I don't see a large enough outlet for the easy credit being provided by the central banks. For example, it took a couple of years for real estate loans to emerge as the primary credit sink in the post-911 period. Similarly, the high tech industry didn't become a significant credit sink after the Japanese and US recessions of 1990-1992 until about the middle of the decade.
Second, there needs to be substantial leverage. In the real estate crisis, this was provided primarily by easing reserve requirements to astoundingly low levels (like 1 part in 50 or worse).
In the dotcom bubble, there was a certain accounting method for expensing stock options (namely, that stock options were not listed as a liability until they were exercised). This method coincidentally was removed from the stock market in the same month that the stock market peaked. There was also leverage from outright fraud. Many dotcoms "stuffed the channel", that is, they reported goods shipped to retailers (the "retail channel") as "sold", which incidentally was illegal because those goods could and often were returned without generating a profit for the business. But they could pretend that they were generating higher revenue and profits than they actually had under more honest accounting systems.
There are classic ways to grow businesses using easy credit. For example, borrow against your assets to buy more assets which you then use as collateral in yet more loans. Then sell the business (either as a unit or via an issuing of stock shares) based on the revenue and asset numbers while downplaying the liabilities. As a pyramid scheme, this can last for a number of years before it comes down. Worldcom was one such example. I'd say that Abengoa S.A., a renewable energy provider is a current example of this approach.
Some amount of superexponential growth is common. When an industry experiences growth rates that actually increase over time, that's a sign that the market is disengaged from any real basis and trading more on short term speculators' ever increasing expectations.
A significant symptom of the later stag
That a lame, racist comment was made by a PR executive and created a media firestorm should surprise exactly no one.
I just wonder why people can't see that this is a really terrible way to "cause social change"? It's just a shuffling around of who's a legitimate target of bigotry. My view is that bigots are just as much human as anyone else. It should be just as wrong to discriminate against someone merely because they exhibit common human flaws like bigotry as the color of their skin.
This should especially be true for the people who believe that people by their inherent nature are bigoted. Why ostracize someone for exhibiting human behavior that alleged can't be eliminated?
What does any of this have to do with the law or a judge?
Analogy. They had to deal with this sort of crap in law and they solved the problem by throwing it out of court.
And to try to argue that a person shouldn't speak out against racism just because they aren't of that affected race is just absurd.
First, it's worth noting that the racism witch hunt just another form of ugly bigotry, just like racism. As long as those pointless accusations of racism aren't directed at me, I don't really care except to remind people that they're being hypocritical idiots.
Luckily not everyone has opinions like yours or there never would have been a Civil Rights movement in the first place.
Because that's how Jim Crow laws started in the 1870s. Slippery slope arguments work only when there actually is a slippery slope.
It might be graceless but why accept a forced apology if it does nothing to redress the hurt it may have inflicted.
No offense to the many idiots who think this is a big deal, but I think an apology is in line with the non-existent harm committed.
Now, this might just be the latest in a line of problems and infractions with this employee, so I don't know if the firing is warranted or not. But if it was an isolated event (well, the employee had posted a bunch of impolitic Twitters, but I mean here that the employee hasn't been warned about this sort of thing before) and not part of some pattern of being a problem for the employer, then I would give the employee another chance.
The problem is that things like racism, sexism, anti-atheism, etc. don't just harm the person saying them, they contribute to a tapestry of cultural biases which harms every member of the target group.
How about this little witch hunt? All just because someone said something naughty on Twitter? That's why I think standing is relevant here. There's a whole lot of people with zero stake making terribly bad judgments and causing considerable harm.
one comment can be shrugged off, thousands a year, not so much.
I assure you that thousands of comments don't take thousands of shrugs to shrug off.
So only the victims of racism should be offended by racism?
Well there is this thing in legal theory called "standing". The idea crudely is that for things that don't rise to the level of a crime, then one needs to demonstrate that one has been adversely affected by the behavior or activity. If one can't do this, such as would be the case with a whiny, anonymous person at a keyboard, then one doesn't have standing and hence, the judge can tell them to shut up and get lost.
I think this is an excellent way to deal with the endless, useless complaints of racism for behavior and opinions that harms no one aside possibly from the instigator. As a bonus, it gives you more time for your other odious habits.
Eh, it looks like she's done this before. I think the real difference is that her customers have higher expectations and are a lot more delicate than Duck Dynasty viewers.
Keep in mind also that the existing procedures and powers were adequate, there were several points at which the 9/11 attacks could have been uncovered and stopped. They weren't because of incompetent bureaucrats or lack of communication between agencies that legally should have been communicating. This is one of the more loathsome aspects of security theater - that the watchdogs are rewarded with more power for not doing their jobs.
There are also pols who genuinely understand the importance of a strong military.
As an aside, what does "strong military" mean here?
I agree that a society of shallow people who care more about government provided handouts than about freedom will have leaders who exploit that narcissistic ignorance.
But this phrase illustrates another route to governmental abuse of power. There are many ways to have a strong military. You can spend a lot. You can have a lot of dudes (particularly useful, if your goal is to put all your potential troublemakers in the military). You can have really shiny equipment. But these things need not actually help make your country become a better place to live.
Goals are another exploitable aspect. For example, current US strategic doctrine for the military is the "1-4-2-1" goal which means that the US can defend its borders while defending four strategic regions of the world with the capable to win two simultaneous regional-scale wars quickly including one "decisive" victory. How that translates into "we need this many guys and this much stuff" is rather arbitrary as this Slate article complains. And the potential tyrant can always change the goals to favor a military (or a military procurement system) that is more advantageous to them. It is then the work of a moment to label those undemocratic shenanigans a "stronger military".
Suggesting they didn't notice the water depth would seem to be suggesting that something has severely impaired their sonar.
And there we go. I suspect it wouldn't be that hard to come up with ways, both natural and man-made which could impair whales' sonar.