I always thought you weren't a Terrorist until after found guilty by a trial of your peers. Or are we scrapping the whole innocent until proven guilty thing now?
If you think Peak Oil is scary, take a look at natural gas for North America. That isn't called "Peak", it's called the "Cliff Event". We need to build WAY more liquified natural gas sea ports to even make a dent in our current consumption before we use the local supplies up.
The scary thing with natural gas is that most fertalizers are made out of it. Heating homes and driving our cars only represent a fraction of what we use hydrocarbons for.
Mach 1.25 is a perfectly well-defined speed that does not violate any laws of physics, and what do you know--it's a dimensionless number.
From what I remember from my skool dayz, you can know a position or a speed but not both. So wouldn't any speed notation represent at least 2+1 dimensions? (x,y + time)
"If you think that free markets work, you haven't had much experience with reality. People who think free markets solve everything honestly don't understand the ramifications of the non-exclusive nature of public and common goods nor do they understand the net negative effects of the extreme poverty of others on oneself."
It works better than a room full of stuffy old coots deciding how the economy should work by making decisions on what to do with the fruits of my productivity. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but better than the alternatives.
"For the year 1982, assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons of thorium that year."
Great. Another "fund" (a.k.a. more taxation/debt) to combat something that may never come to pass. We can't even pay for all the government we got now. Why go looking for more things to throw money at? Given China's population density, along with their poor living conditions in their farming communities, the infection rate would have to be higher and the percentage of death less. Shouting "PANDEMIC!!!" is way over reacting at this point.
Want to protect yourself from the bird flu? Wash your hands more often.
In the dusty recesses of my memory, I seem to recall some experimentation where they sprayed benign bacteria on chickens. The theory goes that the competition for resources and the ample supply of non-harmful bacteria would reduce the sustainable population of harmful bacteria.
I find it interesting that being too clean of all bacteria can actually have harmful effects. We're really colony organisms after all. I wondered whatever happened with it?
Copper is an efficient conductor of electricity. Power companies will switch materials when the cost of the power transmission waste is less than the cost of the component used as the conductor.
I personally don't ever see that happening, since the fuel to generate that electricity is also going up in price. Environmental regulation and government taxes (permits, fees, etc.) are causing all mining products prices to go up. Fuel costs are hitting mining operations pretty hard as well.
Oh, and the rampant monetary inflation that the US undertaking right now to head off a credit crunch. Since commodities are generally priced in dollars, increased commodity prices can also indicate a slide in purchasing power for the US.
Bottom line is that there are many, many reasons for the current price increases. Scarcity isn't generally one of them.
Which translates to about 3% inflation per year. So what?
Losing $.03 of each dollar I earn from my labor in purchasing power every year is not acceptable. It is theft, whether it's by someone holding a gun to my head or inflation of the monetary supply.
And what the heck is a credit orgy?
The Federal Reserve allowing the banks to inflate the money supply using fractional reserve banking with a reserve requirement of way less than one percent. How about our historic debt levels? Rising percentage of debt servicing costs to income? Explosion of the M3?
. ..and predict how gov't policy will affect the economy.
Government shouldn't be influencing the economy. That's the hallmark of a free market - being free. The government's role is only suppose to be protecting us from force and fraud. What your advocating isn't a free market, but a political market. A "political market" rewards those with connections to the policy makers and political influence, rather than the free market which rewards innovation and productivity.
"A scientist asks if, given a set of measurable conditions, we can build a theory that shows how the system we are studying will behave."
There's one already by Adam Smith - it's called the invisible hand.
The US experience with private money during the first third of the 1800s was not all that happy.
That had to do more with the fraudulent issue of paper receipts, and didn't affect those that held the physical asset. This fraudulent system of over issue of credits in access of assets is exactly how our fractional reserve system does it today. It doesn't implode because there is no physical asset to redeem. With modern technology, 0's and 1's are easy to add to a balance. The consequence is monetary inflation, which steals purchasing power from all dollar holders.
You believe that central control of the economy will lead to prosperity. I believe that concentrating economic power into the hands of the few leads to misallocation of resources, corruption, and misery. Time will tell who is right.
Well, we have excellent data on the "value" of our Federal Reserve notes. Since 1913 the purchasing power declines, then accelerates downward in the 1970's after the gold link is broken, but drops off a cliff around 2001. We are currently in a credit orgy, with $1 in 1913 translating to just under $.05 today. That should speak volumes all by itself.
The gold standard isn't perfect, nor did I recommend it as the golden bullet. In fact, I'm much more for government getting out of the money business all together and letting the free market decide what to use as the standard of exchange. I personally favor hard currencies, but I'm not arrogant enough to tell the market what to use. The current Keynesian myth of modern economics (which isn't all that Keynesian when you get right down to it) is destroying our money. When was the last time M3 decreased during the good times?
Debt money is a horrible disease, and pumping credit into a bloated economy based on politics is just insane. Debt servicing destroys our ability to save, while inflation erodes the savings we do have. Not once in 5000 years of recorded human history from Rome to China has fiat money lead to anything but catastrophe.
Your rant only shows you don't understand "money" or markets any more than the current batch of economists. (or "greater fool salesmen" as I like to call them) Why should a state bank determine how fast or slow an economy grows? I thought we were supposed to be a free market. I find it infinitely amusing when folks think a group of bankers know more about the economy that the participants in that market. And FYI, I aced macro and micro while giving the prof. a run for his money.
Free markets aren't perfect (they do tend to produce boom/bust cycles just like the ones generated via central banks, just not as severe/long lived), but it is better than any alternative we have come up with. "Experts" can't protect you, but caveat emptor/venditor will.
Hence the term "overall". Things always swing back to the median, and the gold rushes was *extrordinary* one off events. Were things stable? No. Just like anything with humans involved, there were depressions and excesses. They always reverted close to the mean, and were nothing close to the order of magnitude fiat currency has bestowed on us.
This issue of greenbacks by Lincoln was the first steps into our current "money from debt". At the time the rich fought the "easy money" as a threat to their fortunes, while the poor liked it because it appeared to make funds much more accessable. The rich correctly forsaw the inflation caused by increasing the money supply. Their opposition was largely because they couldn't figure out a way to profit by it. It wasn't until the creation of the third central bank, The Federal Reserve, that a select few could they reap the rewards of easy credit while stiffing the taxpayers when credit excesses they manufactured overwhelmed the economy.
When using hard money, deflation of the money supply is a good thing. The holders of gold in those days found that their savings had a larger purchasing power than before. Inflation was the bad guy, as it eroded purchasing power. Only today in our Debt based monetary system is deflation a bad thing, but also inflation remains a bad thing too. Instead of having a stick with only one end full of poo, we made both ends full of poo.
The Free Market didn't cause the depression. The Fed did by creating "The Roaring Twenties" by inflating the money supply by making tons easy credit. The ensuing deflation (or "correction" to use modern lingo) was also deliberatly caused, again by the Fed. Yes, the same folks who's charter is to prevent this.
The US operated as a Free Market for over 100 years before the depression, with close to 0% inflation overall. "Designing Men" control the economy via the money supply (credit) and Regulation.
"I aprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. Our destruction, should it come at all, Will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of the government; from their carelessness and negligence I must confess that I do aprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct. That in this way, they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing."
--Daniel Webster
The definition of a free economy is one unencumbered by government. Is it perfect? No. However every problem you state (polution, waste, "brain drain") can be shown in the "government gone wild" environment that we have today.
Society is a word that doesn't mean anything. It's an arbitrary group of individuals. When individuals can decide what is best without pressure or artifical incentives from external entities (Gov't, big business) you'd see a much different world.
So what is good for society? Leaving others the hell alone and pay for your "services" out of your own pocket, not mine.
We haven't paid for the Iraq war though - we've been borrowing over 2 billion dollars a day for it in addition to what we've plundered out of the Social Security superfund. It would be bad enough if we paid up front, but instead we got our children (and their children ad infinitum) to foot the bill.
"Anyway, it doesn't matter where the tax is assessed, except to give preferential tax treatment to certain individuals or companies or industries"
And there is the problem. It moves the advantage to those folks who are connected to the political elite. Haliburton anyone?
Highways wouldn't exist without government taxes? Please. If there is an economic advantage to highways, they will exist. Same with every other "service" the government is supplying. That is how a free market is suppose to work. Folks like to extract taxes because it is far easier to raid the public coffers than to work for it.
Why is infrastructure more expensive? Maybe regulation and oversight adds to the cost of doing business? Not only are we taxed to manage and oversee, but also prices go up in response. It also raises an artificial barrier to entry for new businesses. Don't believe that? Try and start a small business.
In case you haven't noticed, we are already headed to the dark ages (in the US anyway) due to massive fiscal irresponsibility. Do you know what the US Treasury budget was for just November? Negative 80+ billion!! Just for November!
I don't blame taxes. I blame incompetent people that keep voting in Politicians with no clue about basic economics. As a FYI: taxing incomes didn't start until 1913 when Congress passed the Internal Revenue Act. If I remember correctly, we still had roads, police, etc before then.
Of course! We didn't have ANY of those things before 1913, did we? That was incidentally when the Internal Revenue Act was put into law by Congress. Other than for a few brief periods before then, our country had ZERO income taxes.
Taxes and regulation are killing American industry. Look at your paycheck and add up all the taxes. Then add the 15% (approx.) in taxes that your employer pays for the privilege of hiring you. Now add property taxes, car taxes, fuel taxes, etc., etc. I'd wager more than 50% of most peoples pay goes right into taxes. In other words, your employer could afford to pay you 50% less and have the same standard of living you do today if they could ax the taxes!!!
Where this really gets interesting is that everything you buy was inflated in price by added taxes too.
THAT is why the US is at a huge economic disadvantage when competing with Asia for jobs. Insane, out of control, treasonous spending levels by our government.
Yeah I'm cranky today.
To use "corruptability" to qualify what is the best social model, then I'd have to say anarchy is really what your looking for. Anarchy is a system of NO government, where the people mind their own business. There can be no corruption because there is no consolidation of power into the hands of the corruptable few.
It's the consolidation of power into the hands of a few that causes all the problems, not specific policy. In this case, the resource management of the spectrum by the FCC. Without the artifical scarcity of spectrum, we'd all have wireless everything with 10mb links. We don't have it today because that would screw the telcos and other middlemen of modern communications.
WildBlue just started rolling out their service in July. WI is one of the first lucky places on the rollout list. Unlike the huge continental signal footprint other services use, their footprint is relatively tiny. Multiple footprints will eventually cover their service area. Upside is that your dish can be much smaller, downside is that you can't hook it to your camper and go across the country and expect it to work. (acording to them anyway) While this was one of my "nice to have" requirements, the cost difference just didn't justify it.
I think they own the satellites, but I'm not positive. It'll be interesting to see how the service degrades with increased subscribers. So far, so good though. The installer in my area has been working like a madman from what I've heard.
So far it appears semi-static. I haven't tried to find out what ports are open from the outside yet, but they say it's a no, no in the policy. That might be a bad idea anyway bacause, like most satellite providers, they have a "fair access policy" that limits total bandwidth. Wildblue is pretty generous with the cap, but I don't want to waste any on viagra spam.
Slashdot Mirror
I always thought you weren't a Terrorist until after found guilty by a trial of your peers. Or are we scrapping the whole innocent until proven guilty thing now?
If you think Peak Oil is scary, take a look at natural gas for North America. That isn't called "Peak", it's called the "Cliff Event". We need to build WAY more liquified natural gas sea ports to even make a dent in our current consumption before we use the local supplies up.
The scary thing with natural gas is that most fertalizers are made out of it. Heating homes and driving our cars only represent a fraction of what we use hydrocarbons for.
Mach 1.25 is a perfectly well-defined speed that does not violate any laws of physics, and what do you know--it's a dimensionless number.
From what I remember from my skool dayz, you can know a position or a speed but not both. So wouldn't any speed notation represent at least 2+1 dimensions? (x,y + time)
Andy Sutton ;)
Physics dropout
"If you think that free markets work, you haven't had much experience with reality. People who think free markets solve everything honestly don't understand the ramifications of the non-exclusive nature of public and common goods nor do they understand the net negative effects of the extreme poverty of others on oneself."
It works better than a room full of stuffy old coots deciding how the economy should work by making decisions on what to do with the fruits of my productivity. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but better than the alternatives.
Nuclear power plants don't have a monopoly on generating radioactive waste. Coal burning power plants generate their share too:
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/tex t/colmain.html
"For the year 1982, assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons of thorium that year."
I've always been fond of checking "other" and putting "spawn of Cthulu"
Great. Another "fund" (a.k.a. more taxation/debt) to combat something that may never come to pass. We can't even pay for all the government we got now. Why go looking for more things to throw money at? Given China's population density, along with their poor living conditions in their farming communities, the infection rate would have to be higher and the percentage of death less. Shouting "PANDEMIC!!!" is way over reacting at this point.
Want to protect yourself from the bird flu? Wash your hands more often.
In the dusty recesses of my memory, I seem to recall some experimentation where they sprayed benign bacteria on chickens. The theory goes that the competition for resources and the ample supply of non-harmful bacteria would reduce the sustainable population of harmful bacteria.
I find it interesting that being too clean of all bacteria can actually have harmful effects. We're really colony organisms after all. I wondered whatever happened with it?
You must be new here.
Copper is an efficient conductor of electricity. Power companies will switch materials when the cost of the power transmission waste is less than the cost of the component used as the conductor.
I personally don't ever see that happening, since the fuel to generate that electricity is also going up in price. Environmental regulation and government taxes (permits, fees, etc.) are causing all mining products prices to go up. Fuel costs are hitting mining operations pretty hard as well.
Oh, and the rampant monetary inflation that the US undertaking right now to head off a credit crunch. Since commodities are generally priced in dollars, increased commodity prices can also indicate a slide in purchasing power for the US.
Bottom line is that there are many, many reasons for the current price increases. Scarcity isn't generally one of them.
Which translates to about 3% inflation per year. So what?
Losing $.03 of each dollar I earn from my labor in purchasing power every year is not acceptable. It is theft, whether it's by someone holding a gun to my head or inflation of the monetary supply.
And what the heck is a credit orgy?
The Federal Reserve allowing the banks to inflate the money supply using fractional reserve banking with a reserve requirement of way less than one percent. How about our historic debt levels? Rising percentage of debt servicing costs to income? Explosion of the M3?
. . .and predict how gov't policy will affect the economy.
Government shouldn't be influencing the economy. That's the hallmark of a free market - being free. The government's role is only suppose to be protecting us from force and fraud. What your advocating isn't a free market, but a political market. A "political market" rewards those with connections to the policy makers and political influence, rather than the free market which rewards innovation and productivity.
"A scientist asks if, given a set of measurable conditions, we can build a theory that shows how the system we are studying will behave."
There's one already by Adam Smith - it's called the invisible hand.
The US experience with private money during the first third of the 1800s was not all that happy.
That had to do more with the fraudulent issue of paper receipts, and didn't affect those that held the physical asset. This fraudulent system of over issue of credits in access of assets is exactly how our fractional reserve system does it today. It doesn't implode because there is no physical asset to redeem. With modern technology, 0's and 1's are easy to add to a balance. The consequence is monetary inflation, which steals purchasing power from all dollar holders.
You believe that central control of the economy will lead to prosperity. I believe that concentrating economic power into the hands of the few leads to misallocation of resources, corruption, and misery. Time will tell who is right.
Well, we have excellent data on the "value" of our Federal Reserve notes. Since 1913 the purchasing power declines, then accelerates downward in the 1970's after the gold link is broken, but drops off a cliff around 2001. We are currently in a credit orgy, with $1 in 1913 translating to just under $.05 today. That should speak volumes all by itself.
The gold standard isn't perfect, nor did I recommend it as the golden bullet. In fact, I'm much more for government getting out of the money business all together and letting the free market decide what to use as the standard of exchange. I personally favor hard currencies, but I'm not arrogant enough to tell the market what to use. The current Keynesian myth of modern economics (which isn't all that Keynesian when you get right down to it) is destroying our money. When was the last time M3 decreased during the good times?
Debt money is a horrible disease, and pumping credit into a bloated economy based on politics is just insane. Debt servicing destroys our ability to save, while inflation erodes the savings we do have. Not once in 5000 years of recorded human history from Rome to China has fiat money lead to anything but catastrophe.
Your rant only shows you don't understand "money" or markets any more than the current batch of economists. (or "greater fool salesmen" as I like to call them) Why should a state bank determine how fast or slow an economy grows? I thought we were supposed to be a free market. I find it infinitely amusing when folks think a group of bankers know more about the economy that the participants in that market. And FYI, I aced macro and micro while giving the prof. a run for his money.
Free markets aren't perfect (they do tend to produce boom/bust cycles just like the ones generated via central banks, just not as severe/long lived), but it is better than any alternative we have come up with. "Experts" can't protect you, but caveat emptor/venditor will.
Hence the term "overall". Things always swing back to the median, and the gold rushes was *extrordinary* one off events. Were things stable? No. Just like anything with humans involved, there were depressions and excesses. They always reverted close to the mean, and were nothing close to the order of magnitude fiat currency has bestowed on us.
This issue of greenbacks by Lincoln was the first steps into our current "money from debt". At the time the rich fought the "easy money" as a threat to their fortunes, while the poor liked it because it appeared to make funds much more accessable. The rich correctly forsaw the inflation caused by increasing the money supply. Their opposition was largely because they couldn't figure out a way to profit by it. It wasn't until the creation of the third central bank, The Federal Reserve, that a select few could they reap the rewards of easy credit while stiffing the taxpayers when credit excesses they manufactured overwhelmed the economy.
When using hard money, deflation of the money supply is a good thing. The holders of gold in those days found that their savings had a larger purchasing power than before. Inflation was the bad guy, as it eroded purchasing power. Only today in our Debt based monetary system is deflation a bad thing, but also inflation remains a bad thing too. Instead of having a stick with only one end full of poo, we made both ends full of poo.
The Free Market didn't cause the depression. The Fed did by creating "The Roaring Twenties" by inflating the money supply by making tons easy credit. The ensuing deflation (or "correction" to use modern lingo) was also deliberatly caused, again by the Fed. Yes, the same folks who's charter is to prevent this.
The US operated as a Free Market for over 100 years before the depression, with close to 0% inflation overall. "Designing Men" control the economy via the money supply (credit) and Regulation.
"I aprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. Our destruction, should it come at all, Will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of the government; from their carelessness and negligence I must confess that I do aprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct. That in this way, they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing."
--Daniel Webster
The definition of a free economy is one unencumbered by government. Is it perfect? No. However every problem you state (polution, waste, "brain drain") can be shown in the "government gone wild" environment that we have today.
Society is a word that doesn't mean anything. It's an arbitrary group of individuals. When individuals can decide what is best without pressure or artifical incentives from external entities (Gov't, big business) you'd see a much different world.
So what is good for society? Leaving others the hell alone and pay for your "services" out of your own pocket, not mine.
Well said.
We haven't paid for the Iraq war though - we've been borrowing over 2 billion dollars a day for it in addition to what we've plundered out of the Social Security superfund. It would be bad enough if we paid up front, but instead we got our children (and their children ad infinitum) to foot the bill.
"Anyway, it doesn't matter where the tax is assessed, except to give preferential tax treatment to certain individuals or companies or industries"
And there is the problem. It moves the advantage to those folks who are connected to the political elite. Haliburton anyone?
Highways wouldn't exist without government taxes? Please. If there is an economic advantage to highways, they will exist. Same with every other "service" the government is supplying. That is how a free market is suppose to work. Folks like to extract taxes because it is far easier to raid the public coffers than to work for it.
Why is infrastructure more expensive? Maybe regulation and oversight adds to the cost of doing business? Not only are we taxed to manage and oversee, but also prices go up in response. It also raises an artificial barrier to entry for new businesses. Don't believe that? Try and start a small business.
In case you haven't noticed, we are already headed to the dark ages (in the US anyway) due to massive fiscal irresponsibility. Do you know what the US Treasury budget was for just November? Negative 80+ billion!! Just for November!
"You think your government's social programs do nothing for you now?"
They take over 50% of my income and give it to others. Robbing Peter to pay Paul sucks when your Peter. The problem is more Pauls vote.
I don't blame taxes. I blame incompetent people that keep voting in Politicians with no clue about basic economics. As a FYI: taxing incomes didn't start until 1913 when Congress passed the Internal Revenue Act. If I remember correctly, we still had roads, police, etc before then.
Of course! We didn't have ANY of those things before 1913, did we? That was incidentally when the Internal Revenue Act was put into law by Congress. Other than for a few brief periods before then, our country had ZERO income taxes.
Seriously, read a book once in a while.
Sure, just as soon as you think of something that isn't taxed or regulated.
Taxes and regulation are killing American industry. Look at your paycheck and add up all the taxes. Then add the 15% (approx.) in taxes that your employer pays for the privilege of hiring you. Now add property taxes, car taxes, fuel taxes, etc., etc. I'd wager more than 50% of most peoples pay goes right into taxes. In other words, your employer could afford to pay you 50% less and have the same standard of living you do today if they could ax the taxes!!! Where this really gets interesting is that everything you buy was inflated in price by added taxes too. THAT is why the US is at a huge economic disadvantage when competing with Asia for jobs. Insane, out of control, treasonous spending levels by our government. Yeah I'm cranky today.
To use "corruptability" to qualify what is the best social model, then I'd have to say anarchy is really what your looking for. Anarchy is a system of NO government, where the people mind their own business. There can be no corruption because there is no consolidation of power into the hands of the corruptable few.
It's the consolidation of power into the hands of a few that causes all the problems, not specific policy. In this case, the resource management of the spectrum by the FCC. Without the artifical scarcity of spectrum, we'd all have wireless everything with 10mb links. We don't have it today because that would screw the telcos and other middlemen of modern communications.
Well, you know fickle this crowd can be! :)
WildBlue just started rolling out their service in July. WI is one of the first lucky places on the rollout list. Unlike the huge continental signal footprint other services use, their footprint is relatively tiny. Multiple footprints will eventually cover their service area. Upside is that your dish can be much smaller, downside is that you can't hook it to your camper and go across the country and expect it to work. (acording to them anyway) While this was one of my "nice to have" requirements, the cost difference just didn't justify it.
I think they own the satellites, but I'm not positive. It'll be interesting to see how the service degrades with increased subscribers. So far, so good though. The installer in my area has been working like a madman from what I've heard.
So far it appears semi-static. I haven't tried to find out what ports are open from the outside yet, but they say it's a no, no in the policy. That might be a bad idea anyway bacause, like most satellite providers, they have a "fair access policy" that limits total bandwidth. Wildblue is pretty generous with the cap, but I don't want to waste any on viagra spam.