Because they want to take away the ability to burn carbon based fuels without allowing for any form of reasonable replacement.
If they wanted to use the money from carbon taxes to fuel LFTR research and reactor production, then they would at least have a plan that doesn't involve starving half of Africa to death as an "unintended" consequence.
Actually, I work in a small business started with capital raised from local sources that produces radically advanced anti-microbial technologies. I guess you would prefer I work at my grandpa's clothing store selling clothing half the population couldn't afford.
I don't think you quite understand how the internet works. As long as it remains free, there will never cease to be competition, or the credible threat of such.
Even Standard Oil couldn't raise prices with a 90% monopoly. Prices when they were broken up were 1/10th of what they were when they started. They drove their few remaining competitors to become lean, mean, competitive machines that could survive SO's lowering of prices (which, incidentally, they rarely if ever actually lowered so much that they took a loss--they just lowered prices to show inefficient operations that they couldn't compete, and should sell out to them).
Also, I don't think you understand the concept of a "loss leader", which is a low priced item used to get people in the door, not a strategy for wiping out competitors.
Right, because free markets only work when perfectly implemented. Except that they actually work very well, and that it is only when you slide the scale almost all the way across to fascism that things actually start to break down. The free market IS people--people dealing with each other voluntarily, and without coercion. Regulated markets are driven by the dictates of a few, who claim to be able to make decisions for everyone, all at once, and are surely not corruptible in any way. They certainly don't pin their failures on unbridled free markets even as an outside observer would say "this system is now socialist with some vestigial capitalist features", or "this system is now fascist".
On the other hand, anything that has ever gotten close to Communism has failed dramatically, often leaving massive amounts of death and a slave-like mentality in its wake.
Yeah, in the same way that a clean room becomes a dirty one, a capitalist country becomes a fascist one. Clearly, we can avoid the slide by simply refraining for cleaning in the first place.
FYI, you can't have a corporation in a free market economy. If you have corporations, you have government interference (as the government shields shareholders from lawsuits). Free markets have companies, not corporations.
Really? Then why isn't my neighbor's candle making business being driven into the ground by hoards of evil Chinamen? Oh, because you just pull theories out of your ass and pretend they are fact? Ok, gotcha.
You just did. What do you think the requirments are to join the ranks of the skilled laborers? A four year degree in humanities, or 6 months HVAC training? Do you think you need a masters to work as a file clerk?
Right, because skilled labor requires FOUR years of college. Unskilled means NO degree, guy--or did you think the people coming over the Rio Grande are all high school grads? Also, you are right, it is impossible for just anyone to sell things on the internet. lol
Ok, I'll let you tell that to all the parents that can now afford to keep their children in shoes. Remember, it wasn't that long ago that poor kids didn't get to wear shoes. You really want to go back to that?
Sorry, I should have specified "in real terms", and specified significance levels. Thank you Professor Anonymous, I will revise my thesis and get back to you next week.
Dropping within 50 km is very, VERY easy. Dropping within 2 km is likely. Landing in a 100mx100m drop zone is not out of the question. It's called guidance. It's not like we have to shoot them off from Earth and hope for the best.
It would be cheaper to place a few LFTRs there to provide them with unlimited power for decades before they need more fuel. Don't even need a dedicated engineer, given the friendly design parameters and inherent safety. They could probably find the thorium there themselves if they had to.
Who says they "just die"? They have all the infrastructure they need. They can build their own independent lives there. Once they have the basics covered in a redundant manner, they can start expanding. They might send broadcasts encouraging others to come to Mars once they have enough infrastructure in place.
SOMEONE will fund other missions, once the pioneers show it is possible and make it easier for others to follow by blazing the trail.
Wait, wait. You are citing examples where they are raising prices outside of a monopoly. That doesn't fit your theory.
And did you look at the actual extent of the difference? 0.3%. Walmart prices rose by 8.9% vs 8.6 for everyone else. That's all of 3.5% faster, and for one year. In a competitive market. All this indicates is that, surprise surprise, a giant international chain isn't as good at keeping locally sourced items cheap.
Show me price rises where they don't have competition, or where the goods aren't locally sourced. Show me TVs going up in price. Show me expensive pants. Or hangers. Or lamps.
Uhhh, what? Have you ever shopped at a Mom and Pop store that wasn't in competition with a big chain like Walmart? I doubt if you have, because if you did, you would know that their prices aren't just a little higher, they are a LOT higher. Like double or triple. Shoes for $80. Pants for $90. Etc. You are comparing WalMart prices with prices of other small stores that you have shopped at recently, which has subjected you to survivor bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
I am old enough to remember life without Walmart. And I remember that it was shitty. So shitty that I would probably still be stuck in my hometown because I couldn't have saved money for college because things just cost too much.
In the same time period, the US government has gone from 20% of GDP to 45%. Lots of extra people who are given claims on goods and services while producing nothing of economical value. Further, the Federal Reserve gives out free claims on goods and services by the helicopter full to rich banker assholes. In addition to that, the private sector now must give claims on goods and services to people responsible for compliance with ever more complex regulation, further diluting the productivity gains we have seen among the productive workforce.
I can't imagine where we would be if the government were the same size it were forty years ago, and if the Fed didn't feed politicians or bankers (or themselves beyond basic wages of government employees).
Eh? You say that, yet nearly everyone in the US has a degree. 90% of the people coming into the workforce are perfectly qualified for skilled labor or office work of some type.
You are correct where many aren't. A lot of people claim that our manufacturing was stolen by China. It wasn't. Our manufacturing was destroyed by over-regulation, and China developed its own manufacturing base by liberalizing their regulatory structure. If we followed a similar path (you don't have to remove it all, but just decrease the cost of compliance), manufacturing would return here. There is still a premium around the world for items that were "made in America" if you can believe that. I know a nice Indian fellow who is opening a chemical manufacturing plant in my own town for that very reason (in addition to the fact that he hates dealing with Indian labor, which is apparently a pain in the ass to work with).
And it doesn't have to be just foreigners opening up shop here. There is still a lot of capital in the US. We just need a friendly, STABLE environment so that people feel safe taking some risks. Having the cost on your employees balloon by 10% because of some government edict is NOT conducive to that.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you really defending mass human sacrifice?
That is like defending the Khmer Rouge by talking about North Vietnamese war crimes.
Because they want to take away the ability to burn carbon based fuels without allowing for any form of reasonable replacement.
If they wanted to use the money from carbon taxes to fuel LFTR research and reactor production, then they would at least have a plan that doesn't involve starving half of Africa to death as an "unintended" consequence.
Unless the "water" was in the form of oxygen and hydrogen in minerals.
Actually, I work in a small business started with capital raised from local sources that produces radically advanced anti-microbial technologies. I guess you would prefer I work at my grandpa's clothing store selling clothing half the population couldn't afford.
I don't think you quite understand how the internet works. As long as it remains free, there will never cease to be competition, or the credible threat of such.
Even Standard Oil couldn't raise prices with a 90% monopoly. Prices when they were broken up were 1/10th of what they were when they started. They drove their few remaining competitors to become lean, mean, competitive machines that could survive SO's lowering of prices (which, incidentally, they rarely if ever actually lowered so much that they took a loss--they just lowered prices to show inefficient operations that they couldn't compete, and should sell out to them).
Also, I don't think you understand the concept of a "loss leader", which is a low priced item used to get people in the door, not a strategy for wiping out competitors.
Right, because free markets only work when perfectly implemented. Except that they actually work very well, and that it is only when you slide the scale almost all the way across to fascism that things actually start to break down. The free market IS people--people dealing with each other voluntarily, and without coercion. Regulated markets are driven by the dictates of a few, who claim to be able to make decisions for everyone, all at once, and are surely not corruptible in any way. They certainly don't pin their failures on unbridled free markets even as an outside observer would say "this system is now socialist with some vestigial capitalist features", or "this system is now fascist".
On the other hand, anything that has ever gotten close to Communism has failed dramatically, often leaving massive amounts of death and a slave-like mentality in its wake.
Yeah, in the same way that a clean room becomes a dirty one, a capitalist country becomes a fascist one. Clearly, we can avoid the slide by simply refraining for cleaning in the first place.
FYI, you can't have a corporation in a free market economy. If you have corporations, you have government interference (as the government shields shareholders from lawsuits). Free markets have companies, not corporations.
Really? Then why isn't my neighbor's candle making business being driven into the ground by hoards of evil Chinamen? Oh, because you just pull theories out of your ass and pretend they are fact? Ok, gotcha.
You just did. What do you think the requirments are to join the ranks of the skilled laborers? A four year degree in humanities, or 6 months HVAC training? Do you think you need a masters to work as a file clerk?
Right, because skilled labor requires FOUR years of college. Unskilled means NO degree, guy--or did you think the people coming over the Rio Grande are all high school grads? Also, you are right, it is impossible for just anyone to sell things on the internet. lol
Ok, I'll let you tell that to all the parents that can now afford to keep their children in shoes. Remember, it wasn't that long ago that poor kids didn't get to wear shoes. You really want to go back to that?
Sorry, I should have specified "in real terms", and specified significance levels. Thank you Professor Anonymous, I will revise my thesis and get back to you next week.
Sir Phobos and Sir Deimos.
Say, can I marry people under Martian Law?
Dropping within 50 km is very, VERY easy. Dropping within 2 km is likely. Landing in a 100mx100m drop zone is not out of the question. It's called guidance. It's not like we have to shoot them off from Earth and hope for the best.
Pretty sure their first flight isn't manned.
It would be cheaper to place a few LFTRs there to provide them with unlimited power for decades before they need more fuel. Don't even need a dedicated engineer, given the friendly design parameters and inherent safety. They could probably find the thorium there themselves if they had to.
Who says they "just die"? They have all the infrastructure they need. They can build their own independent lives there. Once they have the basics covered in a redundant manner, they can start expanding. They might send broadcasts encouraging others to come to Mars once they have enough infrastructure in place.
SOMEONE will fund other missions, once the pioneers show it is possible and make it easier for others to follow by blazing the trail.
This is analogous to taking the bus. No, it does not use more gas, because they make a lot of deliveries on a single route.
Wait, wait. You are citing examples where they are raising prices outside of a monopoly. That doesn't fit your theory.
And did you look at the actual extent of the difference? 0.3%. Walmart prices rose by 8.9% vs 8.6 for everyone else. That's all of 3.5% faster, and for one year. In a competitive market. All this indicates is that, surprise surprise, a giant international chain isn't as good at keeping locally sourced items cheap.
Show me price rises where they don't have competition, or where the goods aren't locally sourced. Show me TVs going up in price. Show me expensive pants. Or hangers. Or lamps.
Uhhh, what? Have you ever shopped at a Mom and Pop store that wasn't in competition with a big chain like Walmart? I doubt if you have, because if you did, you would know that their prices aren't just a little higher, they are a LOT higher. Like double or triple. Shoes for $80. Pants for $90. Etc. You are comparing WalMart prices with prices of other small stores that you have shopped at recently, which has subjected you to survivor bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
I am old enough to remember life without Walmart. And I remember that it was shitty. So shitty that I would probably still be stuck in my hometown because I couldn't have saved money for college because things just cost too much.
Cry a river for the buggy whip sellers. Some of us want to live in the future, not in a frozen parody of the present or past.
In the same time period, the US government has gone from 20% of GDP to 45%. Lots of extra people who are given claims on goods and services while producing nothing of economical value. Further, the Federal Reserve gives out free claims on goods and services by the helicopter full to rich banker assholes. In addition to that, the private sector now must give claims on goods and services to people responsible for compliance with ever more complex regulation, further diluting the productivity gains we have seen among the productive workforce.
I can't imagine where we would be if the government were the same size it were forty years ago, and if the Fed didn't feed politicians or bankers (or themselves beyond basic wages of government employees).
Eh? You say that, yet nearly everyone in the US has a degree. 90% of the people coming into the workforce are perfectly qualified for skilled labor or office work of some type.
People can do other things to make money. Produce things for sale, even.
You are correct where many aren't. A lot of people claim that our manufacturing was stolen by China. It wasn't. Our manufacturing was destroyed by over-regulation, and China developed its own manufacturing base by liberalizing their regulatory structure. If we followed a similar path (you don't have to remove it all, but just decrease the cost of compliance), manufacturing would return here. There is still a premium around the world for items that were "made in America" if you can believe that. I know a nice Indian fellow who is opening a chemical manufacturing plant in my own town for that very reason (in addition to the fact that he hates dealing with Indian labor, which is apparently a pain in the ass to work with).
And it doesn't have to be just foreigners opening up shop here. There is still a lot of capital in the US. We just need a friendly, STABLE environment so that people feel safe taking some risks. Having the cost on your employees balloon by 10% because of some government edict is NOT conducive to that.