The heat and pressures are so intense at the center of Jupiter there's really no way to say definitively what's there. It may be a spongy form of matter (semi-metallic hydrogen). It could be super-heated slurry of materials like our core. Or it could be a solid heated sphere of materials.
It depends on what the core is made of, the densities of the materials, the convection, etc. . That's a lot of unknowns to deal with to make the assumption that it has some sort of rocky core.
The point being, we're still getting a handle on the "likely" geophysical processes in our own core, let alone a gas giant like Jupiter.
You're imaging each bank as an island, which is far from the case.
It's quite simple. Banks lend to banks. Banks lend to businesses. Most businesses operate using short term credit facilities for operational expenses (you don't get paid until delivery, so you need funds in the meantime to operate). Credit card companies, defense contractors, etc. all use credit in one form or another every day. Chances are, whoever you work for has some sort of short term credit line for day to day operations.
The problem isn't A bank failing. The problem is when a number of major banks become unstable. Major banks failing have a significant impact on credit. Not your credit card, but the credit lines used by thousands of businesses everyday. Loans become harder to get, or at much higher interest rates. This in turn squeezes companies, which goes right on down the line. This also creates a feedback cycle, where banks don't make as much capital, thus reducing their ability to loan, so on and so forth. If enough panic spreads, you start getting runs on the bank, further depleting their capital pool and restricting loans. I'm not talking about Joe Sixpack pulling out his funds to shove under the mattress. I'm talking about major companies moving their assets out of banks.
Eventually, this comes down to impact average Joe. Job losses, loan availability, local bank failures., etc. The FDIC only has so much money to ensure against bank failures. If lots of banks start failing at the same time it wouldn't take long to drain it dry.
You cannot treat banks as a separate entity in the economy. Our whole economy relies on the availability for credit. Not just for your loans and credit cards, but for your employer. A problem with the credit markets is a problem for everyone.
This wasn't about a few banks failing. This was about a potential catastrophic credit collapse.
Oh yes, the problem would have indeed corrected itself. However, you'd have to consider the problems as a result of it.
Sure those banks would be in the toilet. And so would the deposits of thousands, perhaps millions of people. The big danger was a run on the banks and massive financial panic (yes, even more than we've had). Then all the major corporations who use short term liquidity to fund operations would have been shot. Any banks left standing would become extremely paranoid (massive credit freeze). So on and so forth.
All the big bad banks would learn their lesson, and everyone would suffer the consequences, not just the banks.
The bailouts were not the best decision, but given the timeframe for acting it was better than doing nothing.
"But we now have clear evidence that the real cost to society of these behaviors is not in billions but in trillions of dollars."
Don't confuse rapid trading on exchanges with the credit mess. They are different issues. While rapid trading could have possibly exacerbated the problem, the main culprit for the current economic crisis was stupidity and greed by banks trading in questionable debt obligations at insane leverages.
In the US, automated trading is not illegal, and retail investors can do it as well, albeit not with those latencies. Retail Forex accounts often provide interfaces that allow users to set up automated trading systems, for example. Other investing sites allow you to set up automated buy and sells by setting limit orders and stop losses.
Of course, the retail investors who try setting up trading systems most often get destroyed. For example, in the retail Forex arena 90-95% of all investors get wiped out (mainly due to trading desk activity, but that is another story).
Basically, if you don't have the modelling, computing power, financial reserves, and bandwidth trying to beat the market with your own custom automated system from your home PC will most likely end up in failure. Few traders end up being profitable, and even those who are now may not be so in a few months.
People who fear China will "call in" their treasury obligations don't know what they are talking about. First, China can't call in their treasury obligations as they are not callable. Second, all treasuries are denominated in dollars, thus it is impossible for the US to default (the US can always inflate its way out by printing more dollars, devaluing the currency and screwing China in the process).
So as long as debt instruments from the US are denominated in dollars, the US cannot, by definition, default on the debt. Sure, we could go the way of the Weimar Republic, become the economical equivalent of herpes, and collapse our own economy, but we won't default on the treasury debts.
The first point (the trade imbalance) hits closer to the mark, but doesn't cover the whole picture. You see, our imports only account for a fraction of the overall imbalance in trade. Many US corporations have facilities in China either directly or through third parties. So while goods imported represents a small portion of our overall economy, the economic transactions between the US and China a far more significant.
From that standpoint, we need China more than they need us. If China were to cut off all economic ties, it would take a lot of companies here down (a disadvantage of outsourcing). They'd be feeling it too to be sure, however they really don't outsource much of their manufacturing/production here.
Of course, the whole picture is a lot more complicated than that. At any rate, it is exceptionally unlikely to happen.
Difficult to cash a check when paid under the table. I'm pretty sure he's an illegal, but he works so well I don't want to fire him. He's a jovial fellow to boot.
But gold or silver don't grow, at least not appreciably. When you have growing wealth (an expanding economy) but only a fixed pool of assets to tie it too (gold), you still make yourself a target because now even a small amount of gold has an enormous value.
It makes far more sense to have money grow and shrink with the wealth than attempt to tie it arbitrarily to some limited commodity.
I know the gold standard guys like to spin a good yarn, but even when countries where on the gold standard there were painful economic crashes. Often in crashes, you got hoarding. There was still inflation. The gold standard has it's negatives (some of them quite bad), and fiat has it's negatives (not quite as bad).
Precisely. Everyone is for nuclear power but no one wants a plant near them. Everyone wants solar panels on their house but no one is going to fork of $50K for them (or a few who happen to live in high incentive states might). Basically, if something can/will benefit mankind it had better not be too damned inconvenient (or expensive) or no one will do it.
Antarctic ice has increased, but only very very slightly compared to the immense loss of ice in the north (which has a larger impact on overall global climate). The increase in ice in the south is actually an expected result of overall warming, since it increases precipitation (Antarctica is very dry and the cold temperatures prevents the air from holding much precipitation).
And scientists aren't just pointing to the melting ice. That's just the most glaring observation that the climate is changing. There's petabytes of data, both modeling results and observations that show the climate is warming and within the bounds of prediction.
The IPCC report contradicts your statement that many scientists say what were adding is not having an effect. We're outputing orders of magnitude more than volcanoes, and the system has no way to immediately absorb the excess. Atmospheric CO2 levels are approaching 400 ppm, a level never before seen within the last million years.
We ARE having an impact, and we will have to deal with the consequences both good an bad. It's not going to be the end of the world, but only someone naive would believe that we are not impacting the climate in any significant way. Anyone who thinks we can't impact our environment on a large scale obviously never heard of acid rain and the ozone hole.
"Your analysis of the checks and balances system is a good one."
Not quite. You see, the executive may be the enforcers, but they don't control the purse strings. That's congress.
So you have congress controlling the money, the executive with the power of enforcement, and you have the judiciary with the....um...er...power to say in a really stern voice "You can't do that."
Of the three branches, it's the Judiciary that is the weakest. If both the congress and the executive want to do something, they will regardless of what the Supreme Court says since they have the money and the might.
Chaos theory says pretty plainly that you will never have enough data to make an accurate prediction and for that reason, you have lost the ability to have a control.
Horseshit. Chaos theory says nothing of the sort. If such a ridiculous assertion was true why do we even have weathermen?
By comparison, climatology is much easier to deal with since it deals with averages instead of precise values. Predicting a temperature two weeks form now with exact precision is impossible. Predicting the average temperature for the month of August however is much easier and far less error prone.
I mean, the whole idea is that you can take a sort of an average of events and call that climate - like, sorta look at lorenz attractor and say "well, the average is this". But the thing is, that average is still pretty unstable and you can jigger it pretty easily, which is really where all the global warming alarm comes from.
I don't even know where to begin with this statement. Seriously, you need to get a solid book on climatology. You have no idea what you're talking about.
In fact, the thing is, that economics cannot make accurate predictions should be the canary in the coal mine for climate science.
No, it shouldn't. They are constructed in different ways and are completely unrelated in almost every aspect.
Economics is just about people, and its continually wrong, so, how could climate ever really be right.
Quoted for insanity.
You REALLY don't know what you're talking about. Before making bad analogies and sweeping statements, it does help to actually learn about what you're talking about.
Except there are no "global warming experts". There are climatologists. They study climate. And one of the results they are seeing in the data right now is an average global temperature increase.
The trend is downward, and it's been heading downward for more than just a couple of years.
There is no doubt that the evidence for a soon-to-be-ice-free Arctic is broken.
I don't know of a single peer reviewed scientific article that has ever made claims that the arctic will be ice free in a matter of years. Worst case predictions are on the scales of several decades.
Do not confuse wingnuts and media hype with scientific research.
However, there have been several articles on the fact that ice melt has increased faster than predicted.
Ergo, the plausibility of dramatic climate change effects in our near future has gone down, no matter what anyone's politics drives them to prefer.
Define "near future". I consider 50-100 years fairly near term. We are already experiencing effects. Just because they are not impacting you very much doesn't mean it hasn't been affecting others significantly. We're a highly developed nation with a lot of resources. It would take some pretty strong impacts before we became inconvenienced in any meaningful way. For example, a year of drought here isn't noticed. A year of drought in a third world nation means big problems.
The only robust signal for global climate change I'm aware of is global ocean heat content, which seems to be increasing.
O_o
Really. Out of all the scientific research, papers, and articles that is the only thing you've noticed. Wow. Just wow.
What I found was that neither the data nor especially the models stood up to professional scrutiny. There is good science being done, but it is not the kind of stuff you'd want to base public policy on.
Uh huh. And you're climatological credentials are what exactly? I would assume that, making such a statement, you have a Ph. D in atmospheric dynamics or related field, with decades of study in the field with at least a handful of peer reviewed articles on the subject showing the flaws and fallacies of said data and models.
No?
Then your "professional" opinion matters as much as a Wal-Mart greeter's opinion on advanced techniques in neurosurgery.
You see, scientists perform science. And that science is peer reviewed by others in their field who usually have A LOT of experience in the subject material. Therefore, unless YOU have submitted scientific research in contribution to that science that the experts in the field agree with or at least determine their is some merit of debate, then your personal opinions or beliefs or research means jack.
I don't go to a Food Lion grocery bagger for open-heart surgery. I go to a well experienced professional in the field. The same applies to climatological research; I'll go to the experts.
If you get your financial advice from Kramer you need help. The guy really is out there.
BTW, short sellers have nothing to do with banks going bankrupt. Short sellers are taking advantage of the stupidity of the banks who have bankrupted themselves.
You may argue that if shorters weren't shorting the banks they could sell more shares and raise capital. However, that is incorrect. Bank balance sheets were already decimated. Issuing more shares would have done (and in fact did nothing) even when a ban on shorting was in place. That is for the simple reason that people don't want to invest in shaky financial institutions. Whodathunkit.
The problem, as is usually the case, was caused by the banks themselves. The fact that people are profiting from their idiotic self-destructive behavior is a small plus in the general global cluster-f@ck that they managed to deal the planet.
Right now there is a treasury bubble as everyone is fleeing to security. This actually caused yields on short term treasuries to drop below zero for a while.
That's right. People where willingly and knowingly paying MORE for a treasury bond than it was worth.
There is no official Apple blessed 1.6 for Tiger. If you want a sanctioned version of 1.6, you have to upgrade to Leopard.
You CAN use Soy Latte, however good luck convincing your users to go through the same headache you did to get the JDK to work on Tiger in the first place.
Java support is definitely lacking when compared to other OS's support of the language.
And the sooner they drop XCode in favor of eclipse, the better.
At 15 kW, that beam is going to be able to damage almost anything you point it at. The cutting lasers used in industrial production are 3 kW or less, and are fairly effective in slicing through steel.
Slashdot Mirror
The heat and pressures are so intense at the center of Jupiter there's really no way to say definitively what's there. It may be a spongy form of matter (semi-metallic hydrogen). It could be super-heated slurry of materials like our core. Or it could be a solid heated sphere of materials.
It depends on what the core is made of, the densities of the materials, the convection, etc. . That's a lot of unknowns to deal with to make the assumption that it has some sort of rocky core.
The point being, we're still getting a handle on the "likely" geophysical processes in our own core, let alone a gas giant like Jupiter.
~X~
Go 'way! 'Batin'!
~X~
You're imaging each bank as an island, which is far from the case.
It's quite simple. Banks lend to banks. Banks lend to businesses. Most businesses operate using short term credit facilities for operational expenses (you don't get paid until delivery, so you need funds in the meantime to operate). Credit card companies, defense contractors, etc. all use credit in one form or another every day. Chances are, whoever you work for has some sort of short term credit line for day to day operations.
The problem isn't A bank failing. The problem is when a number of major banks become unstable. Major banks failing have a significant impact on credit. Not your credit card, but the credit lines used by thousands of businesses everyday. Loans become harder to get, or at much higher interest rates. This in turn squeezes companies, which goes right on down the line. This also creates a feedback cycle, where banks don't make as much capital, thus reducing their ability to loan, so on and so forth. If enough panic spreads, you start getting runs on the bank, further depleting their capital pool and restricting loans. I'm not talking about Joe Sixpack pulling out his funds to shove under the mattress. I'm talking about major companies moving their assets out of banks.
Eventually, this comes down to impact average Joe. Job losses, loan availability, local bank failures., etc. The FDIC only has so much money to ensure against bank failures. If lots of banks start failing at the same time it wouldn't take long to drain it dry.
You cannot treat banks as a separate entity in the economy. Our whole economy relies on the availability for credit. Not just for your loans and credit cards, but for your employer. A problem with the credit markets is a problem for everyone.
This wasn't about a few banks failing. This was about a potential catastrophic credit collapse.
~X~
Oh yes, the problem would have indeed corrected itself. However, you'd have to consider the problems as a result of it.
Sure those banks would be in the toilet. And so would the deposits of thousands, perhaps millions of people. The big danger was a run on the banks and massive financial panic (yes, even more than we've had). Then all the major corporations who use short term liquidity to fund operations would have been shot. Any banks left standing would become extremely paranoid (massive credit freeze). So on and so forth.
All the big bad banks would learn their lesson, and everyone would suffer the consequences, not just the banks.
The bailouts were not the best decision, but given the timeframe for acting it was better than doing nothing.
~X~
"But we now have clear evidence that the real cost to society of these behaviors is not in billions but in trillions of dollars."
Don't confuse rapid trading on exchanges with the credit mess. They are different issues. While rapid trading could have possibly exacerbated the problem, the main culprit for the current economic crisis was stupidity and greed by banks trading in questionable debt obligations at insane leverages.
~X~
In the US, automated trading is not illegal, and retail investors can do it as well, albeit not with those latencies. Retail Forex accounts often provide interfaces that allow users to set up automated trading systems, for example. Other investing sites allow you to set up automated buy and sells by setting limit orders and stop losses.
Of course, the retail investors who try setting up trading systems most often get destroyed. For example, in the retail Forex arena 90-95% of all investors get wiped out (mainly due to trading desk activity, but that is another story).
Basically, if you don't have the modelling, computing power, financial reserves, and bandwidth trying to beat the market with your own custom automated system from your home PC will most likely end up in failure. Few traders end up being profitable, and even those who are now may not be so in a few months.
~X~
People who fear China will "call in" their treasury obligations don't know what they are talking about. First, China can't call in their treasury obligations as they are not callable. Second, all treasuries are denominated in dollars, thus it is impossible for the US to default (the US can always inflate its way out by printing more dollars, devaluing the currency and screwing China in the process).
So as long as debt instruments from the US are denominated in dollars, the US cannot, by definition, default on the debt. Sure, we could go the way of the Weimar Republic, become the economical equivalent of herpes, and collapse our own economy, but we won't default on the treasury debts.
The first point (the trade imbalance) hits closer to the mark, but doesn't cover the whole picture. You see, our imports only account for a fraction of the overall imbalance in trade. Many US corporations have facilities in China either directly or through third parties. So while goods imported represents a small portion of our overall economy, the economic transactions between the US and China a far more significant.
From that standpoint, we need China more than they need us. If China were to cut off all economic ties, it would take a lot of companies here down (a disadvantage of outsourcing). They'd be feeling it too to be sure, however they really don't outsource much of their manufacturing/production here.
Of course, the whole picture is a lot more complicated than that. At any rate, it is exceptionally unlikely to happen.
~X~
Difficult to cash a check when paid under the table. I'm pretty sure he's an illegal, but he works so well I don't want to fire him. He's a jovial fellow to boot.
~X~
But gold or silver don't grow, at least not appreciably. When you have growing wealth (an expanding economy) but only a fixed pool of assets to tie it too (gold), you still make yourself a target because now even a small amount of gold has an enormous value.
It makes far more sense to have money grow and shrink with the wealth than attempt to tie it arbitrarily to some limited commodity.
I know the gold standard guys like to spin a good yarn, but even when countries where on the gold standard there were painful economic crashes. Often in crashes, you got hoarding. There was still inflation. The gold standard has it's negatives (some of them quite bad), and fiat has it's negatives (not quite as bad).
~X~
Precisely. Everyone is for nuclear power but no one wants a plant near them. Everyone wants solar panels on their house but no one is going to fork of $50K for them (or a few who happen to live in high incentive states might). Basically, if something can/will benefit mankind it had better not be too damned inconvenient (or expensive) or no one will do it.
~X~
Antarctic ice has increased, but only very very slightly compared to the immense loss of ice in the north (which has a larger impact on overall global climate). The increase in ice in the south is actually an expected result of overall warming, since it increases precipitation (Antarctica is very dry and the cold temperatures prevents the air from holding much precipitation).
And scientists aren't just pointing to the melting ice. That's just the most glaring observation that the climate is changing. There's petabytes of data, both modeling results and observations that show the climate is warming and within the bounds of prediction.
The IPCC report contradicts your statement that many scientists say what were adding is not having an effect. We're outputing orders of magnitude more than volcanoes, and the system has no way to immediately absorb the excess. Atmospheric CO2 levels are approaching 400 ppm, a level never before seen within the last million years.
We ARE having an impact, and we will have to deal with the consequences both good an bad. It's not going to be the end of the world, but only someone naive would believe that we are not impacting the climate in any significant way. Anyone who thinks we can't impact our environment on a large scale obviously never heard of acid rain and the ozone hole.
~X~
You can't sit back and relax and expect to be good. But you CAN sit back relax, be really bad, and not get fired.
Worked with civil servants have ya?
~X~
If your wife's pet name for you isn't "Quasimodo", then you shouldn't worry too much.
~X~
Agreed. As history has shown, if you can tell a good enough story you can get people to build their own cages.
~X~
"Your analysis of the checks and balances system is a good one."
Not quite. You see, the executive may be the enforcers, but they don't control the purse strings. That's congress.
So you have congress controlling the money, the executive with the power of enforcement, and you have the judiciary with the....um...er...power to say in a really stern voice "You can't do that."
Of the three branches, it's the Judiciary that is the weakest. If both the congress and the executive want to do something, they will regardless of what the Supreme Court says since they have the money and the might.
~X~
Actually, if you take a look at the world, it appears Satan is the far more popular character.
Or at the very least, people relate to him better.
~X~
Chaos theory says pretty plainly that you will never have enough data to make an accurate prediction and for that reason, you have lost the ability to have a control.
Horseshit. Chaos theory says nothing of the sort. If such a ridiculous assertion was true why do we even have weathermen?
By comparison, climatology is much easier to deal with since it deals with averages instead of precise values. Predicting a temperature two weeks form now with exact precision is impossible. Predicting the average temperature for the month of August however is much easier and far less error prone.
I mean, the whole idea is that you can take a sort of an average of events and call that climate - like, sorta look at lorenz attractor and say "well, the average is this". But the thing is, that average is still pretty unstable and you can jigger it pretty easily, which is really where all the global warming alarm comes from.
I don't even know where to begin with this statement. Seriously, you need to get a solid book on climatology. You have no idea what you're talking about.
In fact, the thing is, that economics cannot make accurate predictions should be the canary in the coal mine for climate science.
No, it shouldn't. They are constructed in different ways and are completely unrelated in almost every aspect.
Economics is just about people, and its continually wrong, so, how could climate ever really be right.
Quoted for insanity.
You REALLY don't know what you're talking about. Before making bad analogies and sweeping statements, it does help to actually learn about what you're talking about.
~X~
Except there are no "global warming experts". There are climatologists. They study climate. And one of the results they are seeing in the data right now is an average global temperature increase.
Nice straw man though.
~X~
Err... no. What I see looking at the data is two very low years: 2007 and to a lesser extent 2008.
You are incorrect. Try looking at one of the cryosphere tracking sites, like this one: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
The trend is downward, and it's been heading downward for more than just a couple of years.
There is no doubt that the evidence for a soon-to-be-ice-free Arctic is broken.
I don't know of a single peer reviewed scientific article that has ever made claims that the arctic will be ice free in a matter of years. Worst case predictions are on the scales of several decades.
Do not confuse wingnuts and media hype with scientific research.
However, there have been several articles on the fact that ice melt has increased faster than predicted.
Ergo, the plausibility of dramatic climate change effects in our near future has gone down, no matter what anyone's politics drives them to prefer.
Define "near future". I consider 50-100 years fairly near term. We are already experiencing effects. Just because they are not impacting you very much doesn't mean it hasn't been affecting others significantly. We're a highly developed nation with a lot of resources. It would take some pretty strong impacts before we became inconvenienced in any meaningful way. For example, a year of drought here isn't noticed. A year of drought in a third world nation means big problems.
The only robust signal for global climate change I'm aware of is global ocean heat content, which seems to be increasing.
O_o
Really. Out of all the scientific research, papers, and articles that is the only thing you've noticed. Wow. Just wow.
What I found was that neither the data nor especially the models stood up to professional scrutiny. There is good science being done, but it is not the kind of stuff you'd want to base public policy on.
Uh huh. And you're climatological credentials are what exactly? I would assume that, making such a statement, you have a Ph. D in atmospheric dynamics or related field, with decades of study in the field with at least a handful of peer reviewed articles on the subject showing the flaws and fallacies of said data and models.
No?
Then your "professional" opinion matters as much as a Wal-Mart greeter's opinion on advanced techniques in neurosurgery.
You see, scientists perform science. And that science is peer reviewed by others in their field who usually have A LOT of experience in the subject material. Therefore, unless YOU have submitted scientific research in contribution to that science that the experts in the field agree with or at least determine their is some merit of debate, then your personal opinions or beliefs or research means jack.
I don't go to a Food Lion grocery bagger for open-heart surgery. I go to a well experienced professional in the field. The same applies to climatological research; I'll go to the experts.
~X~
Jumping Jeebus on a camel hump.
If you get your financial advice from Kramer you need help. The guy really is out there.
BTW, short sellers have nothing to do with banks going bankrupt. Short sellers are taking advantage of the stupidity of the banks who have bankrupted themselves.
You may argue that if shorters weren't shorting the banks they could sell more shares and raise capital. However, that is incorrect. Bank balance sheets were already decimated. Issuing more shares would have done (and in fact did nothing) even when a ban on shorting was in place. That is for the simple reason that people don't want to invest in shaky financial institutions. Whodathunkit.
The problem, as is usually the case, was caused by the banks themselves. The fact that people are profiting from their idiotic self-destructive behavior is a small plus in the general global cluster-f@ck that they managed to deal the planet.
~X~
Right now there is a treasury bubble as everyone is fleeing to security. This actually caused yields on short term treasuries to drop below zero for a while.
That's right. People where willingly and knowingly paying MORE for a treasury bond than it was worth.
~X~
What to gamer zombies say? GAAAAAAAAAAMMMESS!
At least the gamer zombies are real.
~X~
Bullshit.
There is no official Apple blessed 1.6 for Tiger. If you want a sanctioned version of 1.6, you have to upgrade to Leopard.
You CAN use Soy Latte, however good luck convincing your users to go through the same headache you did to get the JDK to work on Tiger in the first place.
Java support is definitely lacking when compared to other OS's support of the language.
And the sooner they drop XCode in favor of eclipse, the better.
~X~
At 15 kW, that beam is going to be able to damage almost anything you point it at. The cutting lasers used in industrial production are 3 kW or less, and are fairly effective in slicing through steel.
~X~
Can we thank god for Bush then? Wait...oh...oh nooooo!
*HEAD ASSPLODES*
~X~