If a lot of those politicians spouting junk science instead started using science based reasoning they wouldn't get elected. The problem, unfortunately, isn't the politicians, it's their constituents. The politicians are a symptom of a greater problem.
You don't say, but I suspect you're talking about the gold standard or some similarly narrow definition of the value of currency.
I'm talking about linking currency to a much broader basket of useful resources (Au is actually NOT a very useful resource...just a rare resource) and useful human productivity (researchers and makers and teachers advance humanity; while bankers and insurers and middlemen and most politicians abuse humanity).
People having life time jobs make less than people willing to work on a day-by-day basis, with twice the hours, triple the productivity, working in any location the job requires? Really?
Having spent some years working on federal contracts, I can't say that I've noticed a real difference between government programmers and contractors in terms of productivity per hour and quality of work. I used to put in more hours than the government employees, but after a certain number of hours your productivity and quality falls off. Fifty percent more hours does not equal fifty percent more productivity. Sometimes it just means more bugs that get caught in test or corrections after the code reviews are done. Generally speaking, I wasn't on site at government locations five days a week. Most of the time I'd work from home, only showing up as needed. I still occasionally work on government contracts, but I don't have to travel for them anymore. Other people from my team do the onsite work, and I collaborate with them remotely.
It also doesn't hurt that outside contractors don't get nearly the same benefits or protections that government employees do.
What benefits and protections did you have in mind? I've been one of those government contractors, and my brother is a systems programmer for NOAA. We've compared pay and benefits. I make a good bit more than he does. We pay about the same amount for health insurance for comparable plans. We get about the same number of days off. He has more legal holidays but I get more vacation days that I can take when I want or take as half days. I get a better pension. Our 401k plans are comparable. I'm not sure who has better job security. We've got a backlog of work in my organization. He works in an organization whose budget the Republicans are trying to cut. Every time there's a threatened federal shutdown they have to prepare to mothball the facility's IT infrastructure. It gets stressful after while.
Sure, planes may be right out, perhaps shipping too, but trucking? No way. I don't know how much more efficient it would be, but what about a system like they use in diesel locomotives, and in ships (engine turns generator, electricity from generator turns wheels). IIRC someone in Oklahoma started refitting cars with a similar system, Neil Young was one of his first customers (classic Lincoln, I think), claimed it got 100 miles to the gallon. Can't be arsed with a link right now, but this is slashdot, I'm sure someone can find it.
This is the system the Chevy Volt uses. It doesn't get anywhere near 100 mpg when running on gas instead of its battery. However, if you drive less than 40 miles on most days it doesn't use much gas either.
Could this data be purchased by police departments to issue speeding tickets? Is there any legal impediment to using this data by a government entity for any purpose? If they can use it for enforcement of speed limits it seems like it would be a gold mine for any municipality that had an interstate passing through it. OnStar could even ask for a cut of the fines.
Totally with you on fascism. That's why I get sort of annoyed when people call the system found in the West "capitalism". It's not, it's corporatism -- also known as fascism, although that term carries baggage that doesn't currently apply to the West.
Corporatism is just one aspect of fascism. It also requires a degree of authoritarianism and single party rule not typically found in most western countries. Also typical of fascist movements is rhetoric that's strongly anti-union.
Without laws restricting the influence of concentrated wealth on government policy, capitalism has a tendency to evolve into corporatism.
Reminds me of Linus Pauling's advocacy of mega doses of vitamin C and other vitamins. Linus Pauling was a Nobel prize winner in chemistry. No doubt a smart man, but he somehow got fixated on the benefits of taking extreme doses of vitamin C. His position on vitamin C was supported neither by the research available at the time nor by subsequent research. It's quite a shame, as his advocacy of unfounded nutrition claims blemishes an otherwise outstanding scientific career. It is a classic example of a scientific Nobel prize winner being wrong in a big way
Your link about medical marijuana growers being robbed doesn't prove your point at all. Even though California has medical marijuana, the street price of cannabis products is obscenely high. If the only way you could obtain tobacco was through prescription you can bet armed robbers would be raiding tobacco farms to satisfy the very lucrative demand on the black market. Based on your perspective, robberies of Amsterdam coffee houses that sell cannabis products should be routine. But they're not, because there would be so little profit in it. Face it, legalization of cannabis, with the ability of anyone to grow it and market it in a sanely regulated manner, would cause the price to plummet and remove the incentive for criminal gangs to try to sell it.
A good assassination team would remove 100% of the cartel operatives in Mexico fairly quickly.
Quickly, as in the ten years it took to find and assassinate bin Laden? Considering that the heads of the cartels are trying to assassinate each other, and they employ very good and very ruthless assassins, what makes you think another team of assassins employed by Mexico or the US would clean up things?
Politicians, smart or not, are responsive to the constituency that elects them. Which means in a nation as diverse as the US that it's nearly impossible to get legislation passed that offers a clear path to an unambiguous objective. Everything gets muddled by conflicting interests.
Your second point is easily solved: don't park in their deck. You can always park in the lot of one of those little strip shopping centers that always surround malls, and simply walk across the street. Consider it as an opt-out.
None of the malls in my area have strip shopping centers near them that can be reached easily by pedestrians. Either there are physical barriers (streams, fences, or thorny brush) or getting from the strip shopping center to the mall involves walking along or across roadways that are arguably dangerous to be on as a pedestrian. And then there is the issue of needing to carry your purchases from the mall to your hard to get to vehicle. Throw in some inclement weather and it makes parking outside the mall parking lots even less attractive. Add a few young children into the mix and parking off mall would be out of the question.
Regulations eliminating lead in house paint and on toys were certainly a good thing and well worth the costs. The clean water act and its attendant regulations have been responsible for a great deal of the improved water quality in the US. The benefits of the clean air act far exceed its costs. Sulfur dioxide emissions declined 40 percent as a result of the Clean Air Act, nitrogen oxide 30 percent; volatile organic compounds 45 percent; carbon monoxide 50 percent, particulate matter by 75 percent; and lead by 99 percent. These reductions led to corresponding reductions in byproducts such as ground-level ozone and the sulfates and nitric acids that contribute to acid rain. Everyone who would like to live with Beijing's air quality raise their hands. To be fair to China, Beijing's air quality, while it has a way to go to be as good as Los Angeles, has been improving due to government regulation. Toy regulations produced by the CPSC have greatly increased the safety of children's toys. And speaking of the CSPC and children, regulations regarding cribs have improved cribs and saved children's lives. Mine safety regulations have resulted in much safer mines. Childhood labor laws have benefited children. Restaurant hygiene regulations safe guard the public health. Regulations requiring childhood immunizations have greatly reduced the toll of a number of diseases. The list goes on and on.
Who, specifically, would decide what constitutes the rules of insufficient care? Who are 'companies or industry groups'? Why can't consumers sue now? Who decides how much a breach is worth?
Whenever someone is promoting a law that is overly broad they always assure the public that it will only be used to go after the meanest, most terrible, and reprehensible people. Next thing you know the law is being used to prosecute small fry. My favorite example is teenage girls being charged with distributing child porn for sending pictures of themselves to friends.
I'm kind of confused too. Company A makes a deal with Union. Company A is running a profit on their operations with the union workers. Company A's competitors complain to congress members they contribute loads of money to that Company A needs to fund its employee pensions better or they won't be able to compete against it. Company A is required by congress to fund it's pension at an unrealistically high level, amounting to an overpayment that exceeds the losses the company is running. By some estimates as much as $25 billion. What confuses me is why some people think most of the problem is the union and not the congress members who did the bidding of Company A's competitors.
And when the Democrats had all 3 branches including 60 in the Senate throughout 2009 and 2010 what did they do to fix this problem?
Since every major democratic party initiative since 2009 was held up or killed by the threat of a republican filibuster, I'm not sure they could have done anything about it. The democrats never really had a filibuster proof majority in the senate. The death of Kennedy and the interminable series of re-counts in Minnesota effectively kept the democrats from controlling the senate for most of 2009 and all of 2010. Since all legislation has to pass through the senate it's difficult to argue that the democrats had free reign to pass whatever they wanted in 2009 and 2010.
There are so many things that Fedex isn't required to do that the USPS is that it doesn't seem useful to look at just labor costs as a percentage of operating expenses. Fedex isn't required by law to deliver packages six days a week. Fedex isn't required by law to maintain an office in every dippy little town in the US. Fedex isn't required by law to investigate cases of mail fraud, they leave that the the USPS. Fedex doesn't hold packages and mail when people are away from their residences. Fedex isn't required by law to fully fund 30 years of pensions and medical expense for retirees in a ten year time span as the USPS is. The USPS actually makes a profit on its operations. There are estimates that the USPS has been overcharged $75 billion in contributions to the Civil Service Retirement System pension fund. If it weren't for a 2006 law requiring it to over fund it's retiree pension and medical expenses it likely wouldn't be in the financial mess it's in.
So, because some groups that support EVs oppose some types of electrical generation in some situations, you think that most people who support EVs don't want any new power plants? That's quite the broad brush you paint with.
It's all relative. One area's once a century calamity is another area's semi-regular event. It all depends on what the local buildings and infrastructure are designed to handle.
Slashdot Mirror
If a lot of those politicians spouting junk science instead started using science based reasoning they wouldn't get elected. The problem, unfortunately, isn't the politicians, it's their constituents. The politicians are a symptom of a greater problem.
You don't say, but I suspect you're talking about the gold standard or some similarly narrow definition of the value of currency.
I'm talking about linking currency to a much broader basket of useful resources (Au is actually NOT a very useful resource...just a rare resource) and useful human productivity (researchers and makers and teachers advance humanity; while bankers and insurers and middlemen and most politicians abuse humanity).
An example, please.
People having life time jobs make less than people willing to work on a day-by-day basis, with twice the hours, triple the productivity, working in any location the job requires? Really?
Having spent some years working on federal contracts, I can't say that I've noticed a real difference between government programmers and contractors in terms of productivity per hour and quality of work. I used to put in more hours than the government employees, but after a certain number of hours your productivity and quality falls off. Fifty percent more hours does not equal fifty percent more productivity. Sometimes it just means more bugs that get caught in test or corrections after the code reviews are done. Generally speaking, I wasn't on site at government locations five days a week. Most of the time I'd work from home, only showing up as needed. I still occasionally work on government contracts, but I don't have to travel for them anymore. Other people from my team do the onsite work, and I collaborate with them remotely.
It also doesn't hurt that outside contractors don't get nearly the same benefits or protections that government employees do.
What benefits and protections did you have in mind? I've been one of those government contractors, and my brother is a systems programmer for NOAA. We've compared pay and benefits. I make a good bit more than he does. We pay about the same amount for health insurance for comparable plans. We get about the same number of days off. He has more legal holidays but I get more vacation days that I can take when I want or take as half days. I get a better pension. Our 401k plans are comparable. I'm not sure who has better job security. We've got a backlog of work in my organization. He works in an organization whose budget the Republicans are trying to cut. Every time there's a threatened federal shutdown they have to prepare to mothball the facility's IT infrastructure. It gets stressful after while.
Sure, planes may be right out, perhaps shipping too, but trucking? No way. I don't know how much more efficient it would be, but what about a system like they use in diesel locomotives, and in ships (engine turns generator, electricity from generator turns wheels). IIRC someone in Oklahoma started refitting cars with a similar system, Neil Young was one of his first customers (classic Lincoln, I think), claimed it got 100 miles to the gallon. Can't be arsed with a link right now, but this is slashdot, I'm sure someone can find it.
This is the system the Chevy Volt uses. It doesn't get anywhere near 100 mpg when running on gas instead of its battery. However, if you drive less than 40 miles on most days it doesn't use much gas either.
Could this data be purchased by police departments to issue speeding tickets? Is there any legal impediment to using this data by a government entity for any purpose? If they can use it for enforcement of speed limits it seems like it would be a gold mine for any municipality that had an interstate passing through it. OnStar could even ask for a cut of the fines.
Totally with you on fascism. That's why I get sort of annoyed when people call the system found in the West "capitalism". It's not, it's corporatism -- also known as fascism, although that term carries baggage that doesn't currently apply to the West.
Corporatism is just one aspect of fascism. It also requires a degree of authoritarianism and single party rule not typically found in most western countries. Also typical of fascist movements is rhetoric that's strongly anti-union.
Without laws restricting the influence of concentrated wealth on government policy, capitalism has a tendency to evolve into corporatism.
Reminds me of Linus Pauling's advocacy of mega doses of vitamin C and other vitamins. Linus Pauling was a Nobel prize winner in chemistry. No doubt a smart man, but he somehow got fixated on the benefits of taking extreme doses of vitamin C. His position on vitamin C was supported neither by the research available at the time nor by subsequent research. It's quite a shame, as his advocacy of unfounded nutrition claims blemishes an otherwise outstanding scientific career. It is a classic example of a scientific Nobel prize winner being wrong in a big way
I refuse to believe liberals and conservatives can interbreed. If there was a resulting hybrid offspring it would most certainly be sterile.
Arnold Schwartzenegger and Maria Shriver
It has not yet been determined if their offspring are sterile.
Your link about medical marijuana growers being robbed doesn't prove your point at all. Even though California has medical marijuana, the street price of cannabis products is obscenely high. If the only way you could obtain tobacco was through prescription you can bet armed robbers would be raiding tobacco farms to satisfy the very lucrative demand on the black market. Based on your perspective, robberies of Amsterdam coffee houses that sell cannabis products should be routine. But they're not, because there would be so little profit in it. Face it, legalization of cannabis, with the ability of anyone to grow it and market it in a sanely regulated manner, would cause the price to plummet and remove the incentive for criminal gangs to try to sell it.
A good assassination team would remove 100% of the cartel operatives in Mexico fairly quickly.
Quickly, as in the ten years it took to find and assassinate bin Laden? Considering that the heads of the cartels are trying to assassinate each other, and they employ very good and very ruthless assassins, what makes you think another team of assassins employed by Mexico or the US would clean up things?
Politicians, smart or not, are responsive to the constituency that elects them. Which means in a nation as diverse as the US that it's nearly impossible to get legislation passed that offers a clear path to an unambiguous objective. Everything gets muddled by conflicting interests.
Your second point is easily solved: don't park in their deck. You can always park in the lot of one of those little strip shopping centers that always surround malls, and simply walk across the street. Consider it as an opt-out.
None of the malls in my area have strip shopping centers near them that can be reached easily by pedestrians. Either there are physical barriers (streams, fences, or thorny brush) or getting from the strip shopping center to the mall involves walking along or across roadways that are arguably dangerous to be on as a pedestrian. And then there is the issue of needing to carry your purchases from the mall to your hard to get to vehicle. Throw in some inclement weather and it makes parking outside the mall parking lots even less attractive. Add a few young children into the mix and parking off mall would be out of the question.
Regulations eliminating lead in house paint and on toys were certainly a good thing and well worth the costs. The clean water act and its attendant regulations have been responsible for a great deal of the improved water quality in the US. The benefits of the clean air act far exceed its costs. Sulfur dioxide emissions declined 40 percent as a result of the Clean Air Act, nitrogen oxide 30 percent; volatile organic compounds 45 percent; carbon monoxide 50 percent, particulate matter by 75 percent; and lead by 99 percent. These reductions led to corresponding reductions in byproducts such as ground-level ozone and the sulfates and nitric acids that contribute to acid rain. Everyone who would like to live with Beijing's air quality raise their hands. To be fair to China, Beijing's air quality, while it has a way to go to be as good as Los Angeles, has been improving due to government regulation. Toy regulations produced by the CPSC have greatly increased the safety of children's toys. And speaking of the CSPC and children, regulations regarding cribs have improved cribs and saved children's lives. Mine safety regulations have resulted in much safer mines. Childhood labor laws have benefited children. Restaurant hygiene regulations safe guard the public health. Regulations requiring childhood immunizations have greatly reduced the toll of a number of diseases. The list goes on and on.
Who, specifically, would decide what constitutes the rules of insufficient care? Who are 'companies or industry groups'? Why can't consumers sue now? Who decides how much a breach is worth?
Whenever someone is promoting a law that is overly broad they always assure the public that it will only be used to go after the meanest, most terrible, and reprehensible people. Next thing you know the law is being used to prosecute small fry. My favorite example is teenage girls being charged with distributing child porn for sending pictures of themselves to friends.
I'm kind of confused too. Company A makes a deal with Union. Company A is running a profit on their operations with the union workers. Company A's competitors complain to congress members they contribute loads of money to that Company A needs to fund its employee pensions better or they won't be able to compete against it. Company A is required by congress to fund it's pension at an unrealistically high level, amounting to an overpayment that exceeds the losses the company is running. By some estimates as much as $25 billion. What confuses me is why some people think most of the problem is the union and not the congress members who did the bidding of Company A's competitors.
And when the Democrats had all 3 branches including 60 in the Senate throughout 2009 and 2010 what did they do to fix this problem?
Since every major democratic party initiative since 2009 was held up or killed by the threat of a republican filibuster, I'm not sure they could have done anything about it. The democrats never really had a filibuster proof majority in the senate. The death of Kennedy and the interminable series of re-counts in Minnesota effectively kept the democrats from controlling the senate for most of 2009 and all of 2010. Since all legislation has to pass through the senate it's difficult to argue that the democrats had free reign to pass whatever they wanted in 2009 and 2010.
You missed can't fund its pension plan at the same lower level as its private competitors.
Fedex labor cost is 32%, USPS is 80%.
There are so many things that Fedex isn't required to do that the USPS is that it doesn't seem useful to look at just labor costs as a percentage of operating expenses. Fedex isn't required by law to deliver packages six days a week. Fedex isn't required by law to maintain an office in every dippy little town in the US. Fedex isn't required by law to investigate cases of mail fraud, they leave that the the USPS. Fedex doesn't hold packages and mail when people are away from their residences. Fedex isn't required by law to fully fund 30 years of pensions and medical expense for retirees in a ten year time span as the USPS is. The USPS actually makes a profit on its operations. There are estimates that the USPS has been overcharged $75 billion in contributions to the Civil Service Retirement System pension fund. If it weren't for a 2006 law requiring it to over fund it's retiree pension and medical expenses it likely wouldn't be in the financial mess it's in.
So, because some groups that support EVs oppose some types of electrical generation in some situations, you think that most people who support EVs don't want any new power plants? That's quite the broad brush you paint with.
I think these are more like innerlords.
It's all relative. One area's once a century calamity is another area's semi-regular event. It all depends on what the local buildings and infrastructure are designed to handle.
Or if he's done in one minute it might explain why he can't keep a girlfriend.
Teachers in my school district in central NY start at about $27/yr. The median salary for high school teachers is $52k/yr. Yes, they're unionized.