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Jonathan Kirwan

Jan 1, 1970
0
"Put on trial" seems pretty unambiguous to me.

I didn't see that in the article I read. I'll have to go back and
look. But yes, if that is present also then I'd agree that he's being
more serious about lying at that level. I'm not sure how I'd come
down on it, then. I don't like it when very powerful people in
control of a very important common resource and able to influence the
global use of energy by pricing intentionally lie to the public, when
they know better. But I don't know that I'd lock up folks like that,
either -- I'd prefer we just ignore them.
If some people can be "put on trial for high crimes against humanity"
for expressing doubts about AGW, will scientists be exempt? How about
engineers?

Well, that's not my position -- locking folks up for expressing
doubts. So that's a strawman question, so far as I'm concerned.
These people are Nazis. Except that they are already killing more
people than the original Nazis did. When children start dying from
malnutrition, it's not a computer simulation any more.

I think you do a great disservice to the memory of a great many who
suffered by misapplying that term. But I agree with you that I
wouldn't want to even consider the idea of locking folks up for their
beliefs -- bad as they may be to me.

Biofuels are still just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic
and something only richer nations afford to attempt, besides.

Jon
 
R

Richard Henry

Jan 1, 1970
0
I didn't see that in the article I read.  I'll have to go back and
look.  But yes, if that is present also then I'd agree that he's being
more serious about lying at that level.  I'm not sure how I'd come
down on it, then.  I don't like it when very powerful people in
control of a very important common resource and able to influence the
global use of energy by pricing intentionally lie to the public, when
they know better.  But I don't know that I'd lock up folks like that,
either -- I'd prefer we just ignore them.



Well, that's not my position -- locking folks up for expressing
doubts.  So that's a strawman question, so far as I'm concerned.


I think you do a great disservice to the memory of a great many who
suffered by misapplying that term.  But I agree with you that I
wouldn't want to even consider the idea of locking folks up for their
beliefs -- bad as they may be to me.

Biofuels are still just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic
and something only richer nations afford to attempt, besides.

Jon

No need for a new law in the US. We already have the Sarbanes-
Oxley.Act, which penalizes CEOs personally for corporate lies.
 
J

James Arthur

Jan 1, 1970
0
Never mind that The Left's *Tax and spend*
is preferable to The New Right's *Borrow and spend*.

Agreed, reluctantly, because it's reduced to "tax
and borrow and spend" in practice.

Better still: don't borrow & don't spend so much.

But if you're going to spend it, you should collect it,
otherwise it's just a hidden tax, due later with interest.

Best regards,
James Arthur
 
J

James Arthur

Jan 1, 1970
0
But that's what Hansen is proposing.

And he's going to get a frosty reception on Capital Hill, a Nasa
scientist who arrives threatening political attacks on Congressmen.


He's well-protected, and by very big money--that's Al Gore's science
advisor (you know, the temperature-adjusting guy).

Cheers,
James Arthur
 
J

JeffM

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jonathan said:
Biofuels are still just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic
and something only richer nations afford to attempt, besides.

It's likely their potential impact has been overstated by many
but *if an enzyme can be found* to break down cellulose economically,
SCRUB plants grown on marginal land can be put to use
(switchgrass) and plant stalks and such that some consider WASTE
could have one more process applied before that eventuality.

....but, just like wind power (which isn't available all the time),
it's a part of the picture that shouldn't be poo-pooed
as a component of the eventual solution.

....and the LOCAL nature of biotech conversion
(with the resulting reduced impact of transport of fuels)
seems likely to be a doubleplus good thing.
 
K

krw

Jan 1, 1970
0
JeffM wrote:
Never mind that The Left's *Tax and spend*
is preferable to The New Right's *Borrow and spend*.

krw wrote:
While neither is a good thing,

Amen.

tax and spend drives the economy to zero,
reducing the ability to pay equally.

At least it's an honest approach.

No, it's really not.
Piling your debt onto your grandchildren is fundamentally dishonest.
It's a Ponzi scheme.

How does piling on more entitlements help "my grandchildren"?
When the economy turns down, the weenies simply spend more.

It doesn't seem to slow down the Borrow-and-spenders.

It does slow down the tax-n-spenders. At least there is an economy
left to *hope* to be able to pay the bills.
That doesn't make the Republicans. [NO CARRIER]

It's been mentioned here before that Progressives spend their terms
cleaning up the economic messes that NeoCons leave behind
--only to have the NEXT Republican screw it up again.
http://www.bartcop.com/natl-debt_Chart-2004.jpg

Hogwash. What about the economic and other messes
the progressives hero FDR made?
They're the granddaddy of all messes!

Yeah. That
getting-the-nation-through-the-Coolidge/Hoover-Great-Depression
thing was a real bad legacy. 8-|

Complete nonsense.
...though I'l concede that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme.

The Righties should just call their party what it is:
The Subsidize the Trans-Nationals and Send Jobs Overseas Party.

Funny. I didn't know Bill Clinton was a Republican.

...and George H.W. Bush said, "No new taxes".
Politics breeds policy aberations.

Silly statement. Even sillier to knuckle under to the DemonRATS and
go back on a silly statement.
Let me know when you see job growth under a Republican
even keep pace with population growth.

For the last 6 years there has been a lot of job growth.

"The Bush *job growth* record" is an oxymoron.

Only to a flaming weenie.
To repeat:
The rate of job creation hasn't even kept up with population growth.

Nonsense.

Yo, Jeff, Keith. Don't argue, post links to quality data.
Let 'im. He's the one that made the outrageous claims.
 
K

krw

Jan 1, 1970
0
[email protected]>, [email protected]
says...
Agreed, reluctantly, because it's reduced to "tax
and borrow and spend" in practice.

Better still: don't borrow & don't spend so much.

But if you're going to spend it, you should collect it,
otherwise it's just a hidden tax, due later with interest.

Disagree. If you kill the golden goose... We are on the negative
slope of the Laffer curve, so increased taxes mean *less* revenue to
spend. ...something only Obama is stupid enough to *admit* is a
good thing.
 
J

James Arthur

Jan 1, 1970
0
[email protected]>, [email protected]
says...





Disagree. If you kill the golden goose... We are on the negative
slope of the Laffer curve, so increased taxes mean *less* revenue to
spend. ...something only Obama is stupid enough to *admit* is a
good thing.


But if you deficit-spend you're effectively levying
an undeclared tax, accumulating a debt. That's my
point. You're stealth-taxing. It will still come due,
but with interest.

Meanwhile you've put the federal government in
competition with citizens for borrowing money,
raising interest rates, yadda yadda yadda.

Better is not to spend so much in the first place.

Cheers,
James Arthur
 
S

Simon S Aysdie

Jan 1, 1970
0
It is polluting the ground. We need to get it up into the air, where
it belongs.
Plants are probably the only practical way to extract 400 PPM CO2 from
the air. There's probably a lot of potential in eventually developing
super-efficient plants that use the increasingly abundant CO2 and
produce any chemical you happen to need. How about corn, but the
kernels are plastic nubs, various colors, ready to go into an
injection molding machine?

I think we need to grow a lot of hemp.
 
J

James Arthur

Jan 1, 1970
0
You mean the neo-Laffer curve.

"The neo-Laffer curve is a satirical construct created by Martin Gardner
to establish the fallacy of one of many "laissez-faire" ideas that
became collectively known as Reaganomics. It demonstrates a basic error
of mathematical confusion that held in its sway, among other things, the
executive office of the United States of America."

Google it

It's a peripheral issue, IMO, unless you think a government's chief
concern should be of increasing its return from its servants, rather
than providing services while presenting the lightest possible burden
on same.

Maximizing host yield is a parasite's calculation, not a government's.

Cheers,
James Arthur
 
S

Simon S Aysdie

Jan 1, 1970
0
It's a peripheral issue, IMO, unless you think a government's chief
concern should be of increasing its return from its servants, rather
than providing services while presenting the lightest possible burden
on same.

Maximizing host yield is a parasite's calculation, not a government's.

Exactly, except for government has become essentially parasitic and/or
serving special interests.

The Laffer curve has to have some truth to it /a priori/. The stupid
thing about using it as an arguing point is that it totally bypasses
the basic moral/justice question of "Should there be a tax for purpose
X and how much?"

If the question is "should government revenue be maximized," then the
answer to that question is always "no." And that is the way the
Laffer curve comes up in discussion. I have _never_ heard any of the
people arguing the point care at all whether a tax is justified ...
_never_. This was never Laffer's point and moreover, it was not even
an point that Laffer claimed as originally his. It has become an item
of "right-left" bickering rather than just a simple economic
proposition, which is what it really is. Marginal tax rates were high
when Laffer said this, so his timing was probably good as a reminder
that there are limits to the "benefits" of taxation.

Laffer was right in principle, but it is extremely hard to actually
know where some population and its "economy" (a nation, for example)
is on a taxRate/Revenue basis. An economy is not some simple toy to
experiment with -- to see how it acts. An international comparison is
fraught with perilous assumption making. It is not "chaos," as
Gardner says, it is too complex for people to understand. A lack of
rational understanding does not equate to an absense of orderly
behavior. A robin does not need a blueprint to build a nest.
 
J

Jonathan Kirwan

Jan 1, 1970
0
<snip>
No need for a new law in the US. We already have the Sarbanes-
Oxley.Act, which penalizes CEOs personally for corporate lies.

Well, I guess I'm ignorant of it. I'll have to look that up.

Jon
 
J

Jonathan Kirwan

Jan 1, 1970
0
Arresting people for telling lies presupposes that the AGW theories
and models are absolutely, unquestionably true, so true that it is
criminal to question them. This is the way "science" works nowadays?

Do what I intend to do, John. Work for it. Don't comment before you
at least check up on what someone else says. Like ... maybe, at least
look at Wiki?

"also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor
Protection Act of 2002 and commonly called SOX or Sarbox; is a United
States federal law enacted on July 30, 2002 in response to a number of
major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting
Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom.
These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the
share prices of the affected companies collapsed, shook public
confidence in the nation's securities markets. Named after sponsors
Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) and Representative Michael G. Oxley
(R-OH), the Act was approved by the House by a vote of 423-3 and by
the Senate 99-0. President George W. Bush signed it into law"

Then your comments might be more informed.

Jon
 
M

MooseFET

Jan 1, 1970
0
On Jun 22, 7:35 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote: [snip]
I haven't bought a Detroit product since 1977. (And I used to do a
lot of chip design work for all the American car companies.)
You designed the chips and you won't buy the product with it in it.
Is this a little like the Microsoft engineers who said they would
never fly on an airplane that was run by windows CE? :)

I designed a variety of ignition systems, turn signals and smog
controls.

That has nothing to do with lousy suspension systems, interior finish
quality, or poor reliability of engines and transmissions.

So basically, you made them misfire as they cornered on their
lids. :)

Can we also blame you for that guy in the left lane with his right
blinker on too?
 
M

MooseFET

Jan 1, 1970
0
[email protected]>, [email protected]
says...





Disagree. If you kill the golden goose... We are on the negative
slope of the Laffer curve, so increased taxes mean *less* revenue to

It has been discredited for over years now. People have been trying
to find proof of it in the real data and it never seems to show up.
Clinton raised taxes and the economy rocketed ahead. Bush cut them
and slow growth was the result. Clintons tax increase increased the
amount of money the government got and Bushes decreased it.

The real drag on the economy is nonproductive spending whether it is
funded by taxes or borrowing doesn't matter in the long run.
Nonproductive spending burns up wealth and produces nothing.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/10/whos-laffering-.html

http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/cgi-bin/res.pl?keyword=Laffer+Curve&offset=0
 
M

MooseFET

Jan 1, 1970
0
But if you deficit-spend you're effectively levying
an undeclared tax, accumulating a debt. That's my
point. You're stealth-taxing. It will still come due,
but with interest.

Meanwhile you've put the federal government in
competition with citizens for borrowing money,
raising interest rates, yadda yadda yadda.

Better is not to spend so much in the first place.

You got it nearly right. You have to cut the useless spending like
the bridges to nowhere etc. If you cut the productive part and
increase the nonproductive by less, you can make matters worse.

If the government builds a power plant, or useful highway bridge, it
can be good for the economy. If they make a bridge to an island in
Alaska or another bomb to drop on Iraq, the money is gone forever.
 
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