I never saw numbers that high, but it's conceivable - financial information is not exactly reliable coming from there. Lord help 'em if their economy ever slows down. Isn't most of their debt local? That would be one big difference from Greece. They'd have a bunch of Detroits rather than have the national government in trouble like Greece.
I'm sorry - didn't mean to be condescending. Brevity is a difficult art, and I can't claim to be all that great at it, but I need to restrain my internet time!:)
I'm amazed at how poorly government can handle even modest changes in funding... and not just at the federal level. During the financial crisis, our local school system had a 5% cut, and you would have thought the world had ended. They zeroed out maintenance, fired teachers, cut programs, all to preserve a yet-to-be-negotiated pay raise for the staff. Meanwhile, in my job in the private world we all took a 25% reduction in pay for a while when the company's revenue went suddenly to nearly zero, so my sympathy was not exactly running high.
Mind you, cutting 5% returned them to the previous year's levels. No one could answer my question about how they managed to hold it all together the year before if the funding was "so bad".
By the way, what really sunk Greece was only partially debt. The crazy way the Euro Zone is set up contributed considerably. In the "good old days" the Greek currency would have lost value to inflation instead of triggering a debt crises. The Greeks cannot print money or control inflation - in a way the Euro is like being on a gold standard for them. Inflation can also turn into a crisis, but more likely it "just" would have depressed salaries and lowered the standard of living without completely halting the economy. While it is a true statement to say that the Greeks would not have been in such trouble if they hadn't let their debt get out of control, it is also true to say that the Greeks would not have been in such trouble if the Euro was set up as more of a fiscal union.
Right, the point of my snark was not to point at Europe and laugh, but to point out the hypocrisy of invoking "think of the children" when they are putting them in so much debt. The US is not in any better standing in this regard (well, maybe a little bit better), but I was not responding to an American.
Why would the US government care if you run diesel? The oil we import is mostly crap, so our refineries crack the crude anyway. Once you crack it, you can make any ratio of gasoline/crude that you want. Europe refines a lot of light sweet crude, which just uses regular fractional distillation. Because of this, you end up with a lot of diesel as a byproduct whether you want it or not. In the US, any car manufacturer can sell diesel engines, but they can't run dirtier than a gasoline engine. That's not protectionism, that's just uniform rules.
No, look at the Greek debt chart - they ran high debts to fuel their economy. They were running at a 1:1 ratio with GDP since at least the end of the millennium.
Yes, but with that "contribution" you are part of an organized effort. You are no longer acting as an individual. It is similar to standing in front of the US Capitol building with an anti-war sign all by yourself, or with a few other people who happen to be there vs. the same people setting up a meeting time and grouping together by the thousands.
If 1% of passengers stopped flying, British Airways might conclude that they can make 396 flights this year
In other words, collective action. Besides, unless the 1% reduction is in every service area, the planes will just shift to meet demand in the other areas. Again I return to the example of refineries in the US. Rather than close when US demand goes down, they export refined products. So while CAFE standards have been enormously successful at reducing US refined petroleum use and making us less dependent on oil imports, they have done very little for global warming. To do that, you would need a global policy.
Well, any mass action is comprised of individuals taking action for their own reason.
While I agree that disorganized individual action can have an impact, collective action is much more effective and easier to measure.
People "thinking green" is hardly a fringe activity these days
It is fringe. Maybe not in circles of affluent people, but most people are far more concerned with prices than how green a product is. Yes, the Prius is enormously popular in rich areas - but the Ford F-150 still outsells it by 3-4x each month. That's not even price sensitivity, that's just people with enough money to buy a truck or a Prius not giving a crap. The individual decisions of the millions who have purchased hybrids pale in comparison to the simple act of including trucks in CAFE a few years ago.
Individual decisions can make a much larger difference at the local level... the whole "think globally, act locally" platitude has some truth to it. But one person's stand against global warming by choosing not to fly? I'm sorry, but it has a lot less effect than random wind currents during the trip. Starting or contributing to an organization which urges people not to fly? Now that's more like it. But if you really want to see some creative and effective solutions, start mandating efficiency improvements for aircraft. If it is a global warming concern, then this would have to be a global effort.
The only reason Goldman could fuck over Greece is because Greece had something like 1-1.5x their GDP in debt. I firmly believe that debt spending should be reserved for things like infrastructure. That way, when the private market jacks up your borrowing costs, it just means fewer construction jobs instead of an economic collapse. It also is more moral, since you are not living high on the backs of your kids.
I agree with that statement. I think we are basically saying the same thing. A company with poor future prospects will have a low stock price, even if it is currently doing well. A company with bright prospects (like Google) will trade well above what it's current finances warrant. The true value of a company is quite obviously the current stock price.
It's not like you will buy a ticket, then wait until the last minute and cancel to take your $75 hit for the environment - you simply won't buy a ticket. That means they will adjust the ticket prices until the plane is sold out. Even if you did do that, it would not add significantly to the number of people who regularly miss the flight and then have to be rebooked on the next flight. The airlines already factor this in when they overbook flights.
Yes, I'm aware that their revenue is large for a services company - but note that MS and IBM also don't see much hardware relative to their revenue, and they are both larger.
I'm not sure what you mean by "judge them by revenue". I agree that it makes little sense to judge a company based on revenue alone, but if I see a market cap as big as Google has, you can bet I'm going to examine prospects for revenue growth before making an investment.
Market cap is a measure of how big/profitable the market thinks the company will be someday, not how large the company is now. The market may very well be right, and Google may someday swallow the earth - but today, the idea that they are this unprecedented or exceptionally large entity is a little exaggerated.
I see that you edited out the part where I said it likely made the price of the seat cheaper for someone else. In other words, the seat is unlikely to go empty.
Even if economics didn't work and the company were stupid and let the seat go empty, 3.2 gallons of Jet A is approximately 0.1 % of the fuel used on the 2-hour trip. So yes, you made a difference in strict numerical terms, but the difference is somewhere in the noise.
Market penetration? Yes, it's hard to do better than revenue vs. peers. Influence? That's much more nebulous. I'm definitely suggesting that Google has an influence much greater than it's revenue would seem to indicate. As I said, I was surprised at just how small it was.
US debt is ridiculous and unsustainable, but still not at European levels.
But that wasn't the point that I was trying to make. I was trying to point out that the "think of the children" argument rings hollow when you have indebted them so heavily.
I'm not saying that altruism is wasted - but (for instance) fleet reductions in fuel economy are only going to happen when something prompts collective action. Even a simple price increase may decrease usage - but it is just as likely to stimulate production. CAFE standards improve the situation by forcing all of us to buys lower-consumption cars - but even that has a limit, as excess production is exported rather than production getting the axe. In other words, buying a Prius is a statement - supporting fleet fuel efficiency standards is what actually reduces fuel consumption.
avoiding flying (or at least travelling long distances) for no sufficiently good reason.
But the plane would still fly without your single seat. Only collective action, in the form of many people not flying, can help in this case. It doesn't need to be organized, but it needs to be collective - and collective efforts seem to be more successful when organized. I think one could even argue that choosing not to fly would simply make the price lower for someone else.
In the case of your individual effort at maintaining a carbon-negative home, while laudable, probably makes heating costs slightly lower for my neighbors with giant, prewar homes. Their economic decision to insulate them might get put off as long as energy stays inexpensive. Without some collective action, your noble efforts are mostly wasted I'm afraid.
Slashdot Mirror
I never saw numbers that high, but it's conceivable - financial information is not exactly reliable coming from there. Lord help 'em if their economy ever slows down. Isn't most of their debt local? That would be one big difference from Greece. They'd have a bunch of Detroits rather than have the national government in trouble like Greece.
I'm sorry - didn't mean to be condescending. Brevity is a difficult art, and I can't claim to be all that great at it, but I need to restrain my internet time! :)
I'm amazed at how poorly government can handle even modest changes in funding... and not just at the federal level. During the financial crisis, our local school system had a 5% cut, and you would have thought the world had ended. They zeroed out maintenance, fired teachers, cut programs, all to preserve a yet-to-be-negotiated pay raise for the staff. Meanwhile, in my job in the private world we all took a 25% reduction in pay for a while when the company's revenue went suddenly to nearly zero, so my sympathy was not exactly running high.
Mind you, cutting 5% returned them to the previous year's levels. No one could answer my question about how they managed to hold it all together the year before if the funding was "so bad".
instead of just leaving it?
I could ask you the same question - I was enjoying the conversation. If you aren't, why continue it?
By the way, what really sunk Greece was only partially debt. The crazy way the Euro Zone is set up contributed considerably. In the "good old days" the Greek currency would have lost value to inflation instead of triggering a debt crises. The Greeks cannot print money or control inflation - in a way the Euro is like being on a gold standard for them. Inflation can also turn into a crisis, but more likely it "just" would have depressed salaries and lowered the standard of living without completely halting the economy. While it is a true statement to say that the Greeks would not have been in such trouble if they hadn't let their debt get out of control, it is also true to say that the Greeks would not have been in such trouble if the Euro was set up as more of a fiscal union.
Right, the point of my snark was not to point at Europe and laugh, but to point out the hypocrisy of invoking "think of the children" when they are putting them in so much debt. The US is not in any better standing in this regard (well, maybe a little bit better), but I was not responding to an American.
Why would the US government care if you run diesel? The oil we import is mostly crap, so our refineries crack the crude anyway. Once you crack it, you can make any ratio of gasoline/crude that you want. Europe refines a lot of light sweet crude, which just uses regular fractional distillation. Because of this, you end up with a lot of diesel as a byproduct whether you want it or not. In the US, any car manufacturer can sell diesel engines, but they can't run dirtier than a gasoline engine. That's not protectionism, that's just uniform rules.
No, look at the Greek debt chart - they ran high debts to fuel their economy. They were running at a 1:1 ratio with GDP since at least the end of the millennium.
Pretty much. I'm fairly confident that he still would have made this, even with a meager 3 decade copyright :)
Yes, but with that "contribution" you are part of an organized effort. You are no longer acting as an individual. It is similar to standing in front of the US Capitol building with an anti-war sign all by yourself, or with a few other people who happen to be there vs. the same people setting up a meeting time and grouping together by the thousands.
The worst I can say is that it sounds generic. If it had a Lil Wayne cameo, it would get plenty of airplay.
If 1% of passengers stopped flying, British Airways might conclude that they can make 396 flights this year
In other words, collective action. Besides, unless the 1% reduction is in every service area, the planes will just shift to meet demand in the other areas. Again I return to the example of refineries in the US. Rather than close when US demand goes down, they export refined products. So while CAFE standards have been enormously successful at reducing US refined petroleum use and making us less dependent on oil imports, they have done very little for global warming. To do that, you would need a global policy.
Well, any mass action is comprised of individuals taking action for their own reason.
While I agree that disorganized individual action can have an impact, collective action is much more effective and easier to measure.
People "thinking green" is hardly a fringe activity these days
It is fringe. Maybe not in circles of affluent people, but most people are far more concerned with prices than how green a product is. Yes, the Prius is enormously popular in rich areas - but the Ford F-150 still outsells it by 3-4x each month. That's not even price sensitivity, that's just people with enough money to buy a truck or a Prius not giving a crap. The individual decisions of the millions who have purchased hybrids pale in comparison to the simple act of including trucks in CAFE a few years ago.
Individual decisions can make a much larger difference at the local level... the whole "think globally, act locally" platitude has some truth to it. But one person's stand against global warming by choosing not to fly? I'm sorry, but it has a lot less effect than random wind currents during the trip. Starting or contributing to an organization which urges people not to fly? Now that's more like it. But if you really want to see some creative and effective solutions, start mandating efficiency improvements for aircraft. If it is a global warming concern, then this would have to be a global effort.
The only reason Goldman could fuck over Greece is because Greece had something like 1-1.5x their GDP in debt. I firmly believe that debt spending should be reserved for things like infrastructure. That way, when the private market jacks up your borrowing costs, it just means fewer construction jobs instead of an economic collapse. It also is more moral, since you are not living high on the backs of your kids.
I agree with that statement. I think we are basically saying the same thing. A company with poor future prospects will have a low stock price, even if it is currently doing well. A company with bright prospects (like Google) will trade well above what it's current finances warrant. The true value of a company is quite obviously the current stock price.
It's not like you will buy a ticket, then wait until the last minute and cancel to take your $75 hit for the environment - you simply won't buy a ticket. That means they will adjust the ticket prices until the plane is sold out. Even if you did do that, it would not add significantly to the number of people who regularly miss the flight and then have to be rebooked on the next flight. The airlines already factor this in when they overbook flights.
Yes, I'm aware that their revenue is large for a services company - but note that MS and IBM also don't see much hardware relative to their revenue, and they are both larger.
I'm not sure what you mean by "judge them by revenue". I agree that it makes little sense to judge a company based on revenue alone, but if I see a market cap as big as Google has, you can bet I'm going to examine prospects for revenue growth before making an investment.
Market cap is a measure of how big/profitable the market thinks the company will be someday, not how large the company is now. The market may very well be right, and Google may someday swallow the earth - but today, the idea that they are this unprecedented or exceptionally large entity is a little exaggerated.
I see that you edited out the part where I said it likely made the price of the seat cheaper for someone else. In other words, the seat is unlikely to go empty.
Even if economics didn't work and the company were stupid and let the seat go empty, 3.2 gallons of Jet A is approximately 0.1 % of the fuel used on the 2-hour trip. So yes, you made a difference in strict numerical terms, but the difference is somewhere in the noise.
Market penetration? Yes, it's hard to do better than revenue vs. peers. Influence? That's much more nebulous. I'm definitely suggesting that Google has an influence much greater than it's revenue would seem to indicate. As I said, I was surprised at just how small it was.
US debt is ridiculous and unsustainable, but still not at European levels.
But that wasn't the point that I was trying to make. I was trying to point out that the "think of the children" argument rings hollow when you have indebted them so heavily.
Yes, your children will be so appreciative of all that government debt they inherit so you can artificially prop up your current standard of living.
Well, like, that's your opinion, man. :)
I'm not saying that altruism is wasted - but (for instance) fleet reductions in fuel economy are only going to happen when something prompts collective action. Even a simple price increase may decrease usage - but it is just as likely to stimulate production. CAFE standards improve the situation by forcing all of us to buys lower-consumption cars - but even that has a limit, as excess production is exported rather than production getting the axe. In other words, buying a Prius is a statement - supporting fleet fuel efficiency standards is what actually reduces fuel consumption.
avoiding flying (or at least travelling long distances) for no sufficiently good reason.
But the plane would still fly without your single seat. Only collective action, in the form of many people not flying, can help in this case. It doesn't need to be organized, but it needs to be collective - and collective efforts seem to be more successful when organized. I think one could even argue that choosing not to fly would simply make the price lower for someone else.
In the case of your individual effort at maintaining a carbon-negative home, while laudable, probably makes heating costs slightly lower for my neighbors with giant, prewar homes. Their economic decision to insulate them might get put off as long as energy stays inexpensive. Without some collective action, your noble efforts are mostly wasted I'm afraid.
Like all other things, I'm sure you are paying for a superior product... ~
I prefer to restrict my emanation of the stronger greenhouse gas methane by igniting it or capturing it in a bottle.