I don't speak for "the left", only for myself. I'm a freaking physics student; I have no problem with nuclear power.
But to understand the whole arguement you need to realize that this isn't just a discussion of some scientific principle. Governments will be given new powers, people's lives will be drastically changed, industries will rise and fall.
There are massive issues involved that touch every part of our lives.
The sooner you understand this, this quicker you'll understand the resistance and scrutiny.
People are fine with saying MMGW is a problem and I'll recycle and turn off lights to help. When you discuss a radical change to society that will make their current lifestyles obsolete, you have to expect some massive push back.
Well, people are just going to have to suck it up. What changes are going to happen, do you think, that are really so radical? The same argument could have been made when we decided to get rid of CFCs twenty years ago. I can picture it now - "radical change", "the economy will collapse", "if it was the right thing to do, Capitalism would have done it." Instead, we made a law, we changed over, it was a little more expensive at first, it fixed the problem*, and now everything's fine. No big freaking deal. This is, perhaps, bigger. But I see it as a member of the same class of problems.
----
* a problem I might note, that WAS caused by us, and that WE fixed. Kinda messed up the "there's no way we can change the Earth, it's too big" thing.
What, nothing on the today's signing of the Energy Bill?
wait what did we fix?
CFC's?
didn't that hole in the ozone thing turn out to be BS?
Well, people are just going to have to suck it up.
Well I insist you suck up more than me, Jeff.
Jesus bob.
Buzz off.
Bob, everytime you post, God kills a kitten.
I'm already sucking it up more than you, I'm pretty sure.
Um... no... the hole in the ozone thing turned out to be pretty much completely correct.
Jeff, your lack of age is showing.
None of what you said about CFC's occured. I working in a industry that used them and we switched without much bitching. Europe actually bitched more.
That "Suck it up" attitude is what makes your side so damned unlikable.
You are 100% sure you are right and they 100% sure that people have to suck it up?? Arrogant? Maybe a little.
Now think about this. You own a home in Woodbury with $200,000 in equity. The MMGW people put a $5 tax on gas, ban driving on odd days and pass a law that all homes must be accessible by LRT in 20 years. Your home is now worth almost nothing and you and ALL of your neighbors are screwed.
Can you imagine the anger? Can you guess how the next election might go for the party that supported this BS?
You need to be very careful because if your MMGW "solutions" start wiping out people's equity, they will stop supporting the left in a heartbeat.
Before you argue some pie in the sky solution, look at everything you agreed with yesterday and think of the ways that those plans could effect the economy.
Just look at the damage the sub-prime mortgages have had on global markets and you might get a clue as to how small changes can have big effects. Food prices are going up everywhere due to ethanol. Regardless of whether you like ethanol, food riots and more starvation will be caused by a 1/2 backed MMGW "solution".
Oh and the Ozone hole is bigger now than it was when we used CFC's.
$10 a gallon milk is the least we can do to help. Those po folk don't need to drink so much milk, anyhow.
If only I knew what MMGW stood for your rant might have made sense. I'm guessing something about Global Warming.
A good rule of thumb is to write out the acronym the first time.
Bob, everytime you post, God kills a kitten.
Fluffy no, NO!!!
I'm gonna get you, Bob.
You are 100% sure you are right and they 100% sure that people have to suck it up?? Arrogant? Maybe a little.
No, I'm about 95% sure I'm right and am concerned enough about the consequences that I'm 100% sure people have to suck it up. The real world doesn't involve many 100%s - those only exist in conservative fairy-land.
The banning driving on odd days idea is stupid and I don't endorse it. A tax on gas - say it was $3/gal so the price of gas doubles: if you drive 15,000 miles a year in a 30mpg car, that's $1,500 a year. Considering that you just bought a $200,000 house, and that the average new car costs people $30,000, I don't feel that bad - that's calling passing on the optional sunroof. I get a graduate student stipend and I can afford that.
However, if all 100 million of those suburbanites do this, in just a year we'll raise $150 BILLION that is, by the most conservative estimates, enough to buy down the cost of solar power to below that of oil.
And we can use $1 billion of that to build that nice light rail, which will raise the value of your house, not lower it.
Here's another way of thinking about it: I don't demand to know for 100% certainty that I'll be hit by a drunk driver to ask for a law against drunk driving - liberty crushing as though it may be. I weigh the costs and benefits against the probability. This is how you make decisions when you're not in conservative fairy-land, but instead inhabiting earth.
A tax on gas - say it was $3/gal so the price of gas doubles: if you drive 15,000 miles a year in a 30mpg car, that's $1,500 a year.
Leave it to Jeff to not look at the big picture. How do consumer goods make it to the store where you buy them? TRUCKS. Do these truck consume fuel to get from the distribution center to the the retailer? YES. Do wholesale price of goods factor shipping costs as a cost of business? NO. Wholesalers pass that cost on the the retailer, which in turn, passes that cost on to you, the consumer. A $3.00 gas tax will cripple the economy. Think about this Jeff, what do you consume that at one point or another has not been shipped in a vehicle that consumes fuel? The price of wholesale/retail consumer goods has gone up close to an average of 8% in the last year do to greater costs of fuel. Double the cost and see what happens to the cost of a bike or a soy latte.
Get out of your highchair and in to the real world Jeff.
And we can use $1 billion of that to build that nice light rail...
Jeff, that would build a ten mile or less line. So, that would help what, .0012% of the Twin Cities population? I thought you had to learn some math to be a physics student?
LRT lowers the value of single family homes for about 2 blocks. Try living by the L in Chicago.
I have come to the conclusion that you are just too young to unbderstand life with a mortgage and a job with an income above $35,000. I don't have kids but the changes I have seen tell me that they are even more sensitive to increases in food and fuel costs. (You do know that your plans hurt the poor the hardest)
$3 a gallon gas tax would cause a huge recession domestically and then globally. You really have no idea how sensitive our economy is do you? I'd tell you to ask some fellow graduate students, but the Econ dept at the U of MN is no Chicago school. I'd guess you'd get the liberal answer anyway.
Fine, just build it the next year.
I appreciate your thinking it out further, but you're missing the just of it, which is that we can fund this if we're willing to. Make it a $1 a gallon then, and some extra tax will be passed onto the consumer. I'm trying to present an idea, and you're trying to take it down by ignoring my larger point and nitpicking the stuff details I just quickly laid out. It was only an example.
Jeff, a confidence level, strictly speaking, is derived from a mathematical model of a phenomenon that has been tested against data.
Given that none of the 22 models currently used by the IPCC can even come close to matching the patterns of the past 25 years, there is no warrant for any true confidence estimate.
Unless, of course, we are running a "confidence game," one not exactly rooted in sound climatology.
LRT lowers the value of single family homes for about 2 blocks. Try living by the L in Chicago.
Given how Woodbury is laid out, you could probably run the entire track without coming within two blocks of any one house.
Somehow, by the way, in Europe that's what they pay for gas and their we're getting our asses kicked by the Euro right now.
Given that none of the 22 models currently used by the IPCC can even come close to matching the patterns of the past 25 years, there is no warrant for any true confidence estimate.
This is not true. As the you're the conspiracy theorist, I challenge you to show it.
I'll save you the trouble: this explains climate modeling clearly and has graphs with one of the models and the past 100 years.
Jeff has the same problem my 21 year old has: He doesn't live here, in the real world.
I did a post on this, but I'll give you the capsule version
Mortgage
Vehicle
Electricity
sewer + water
Heating your home
Groceries (eating)
Clothing
Federal income tax
Federal S.S. tax
Federal Medicare tax
State Income tax
Property tax
Gas tax
sales tax
And there are many, many more.
Real world, Jeff. Feel free to join us.
Don't mistake the strength of the Euro with sound European social policy. The US is spending too much money, keeping our interest rates too law and borrowing too much internationally.
Alomst everyone on this board wants lower federal budgets. The recent $1 trillion pork laden disaster is just the latest in a very long line of bloated budgets.
You can't compare the transit system in Paris to Minneapolis. They are too different in age and density.
Americans will not live like Europeans in small homes with no money. It just won't happen in my lifetime.
Somehow, by the way, in Europe that's what they pay for gas and their we're getting our asses kicked by the Euro right now.
Again you diplay your ignorance of economy. Please, when it comes to money talks, keep your nose out of it. You may know alot about science, but you know nothing about a neighborhood economy, let alone a world economy.
I live here too man. I'm on my own and I'm fine.
Mortgage - pay rent
Vehicle - own a crappy old one
Electricity - pay it
sewer + water - included in rent
Heating your home - pay it
Groceries (eating) - pay it
Clothing - yep need this too
---- pay these
Federal income tax
Federal S.S. tax
Federal Medicare tax
State Income tax
-----
Property tax - included in rent
Gas tax - barely drive because I make the intelligent decision to live close to my work
sales tax - on everything I buy, which I keep to a minimum
I'm a graduate student, not an undergraduate student. I live in a rented duplex, I get paid for my work, and I pay all my own bills. What's your point? Did you think I was somehow not incurred these costs?
Jeremy, if you all will take my word about science, I'm freaking happy to call that a truce. Why to you respect experts in economics but not in science? Especially when economists are much more swayed by politics. There are "liberal" and "conservative" economists but there are just climate scientists.
Anyways, even if I believe your statements about economics - which seem to boil down to, if we regulate anything or invest in anything, we're hozed, which seems a bit odd (and perhaps a bit convenient for you) but I'll roll with it for now anyways - I still look at potential outcomes and am much more concerned for the climate than the economy.
I think what Kermit and I are trying to say is that the payments you are making now are different than what you will be paying in 20 years when you are married with a family.
You have no vested interest in your apartment, so appreciation means nothing to you other than a possible rent increase.
If you marry and have kids, you will not always be able to chose to live close to work. A crappy car becomes a non-option sometime around 30 for a variety of reasons. Also, when you have someone depending on you making the payments, they get way more important.
If you told me at your age what my monthly break even point was going to be 20 years in the future, I would have laughed. I am still amazed at how much my house cost. You don't know what your finances will be in 20 years and we only know this because we didn't know either 20 years ago.
As for scientists, there are certainly liberals and Conservatove ones. You really need to take off those rose colored glasses and realize that your field is populated with people who are just like the rest of us. Science funding is hardly pure as the driven snow and competition for grant money can be brutal and corrupting.
Jeff, it's unfortunately true. Steve Milloy writes about (and links to) the peer reviewd studies.
http://www.junkscience.com/ByThe...n/
20071213.html
Yes, you can "predict" that hockey stick graph all you want, and the fact that key parts of it are based on the rings of a single tree ought to temper your enthusiasm a little bit.
Never mind the fact that light rail doesn't save any energy to speak of. Reality is that its weight (approximately 2.5 tons/rider) and its design (empty 75% of the time--think off-peak and against the flow of traffic) make it little more efficient than driving a Suburban to work.
It's not quite as bad as burning peat bogs in Indonesia to generate "environmentally friendly" "ecodiesel", while producing as much carbon dioxide as the whole continent of Europe, but it's not exactly an environmental win, either.
What's your point?
My point is every time I hear some knucklehead say "suck it up", "I don't feel that bad", or "it's only another $200 per year" I want to smack their idiot face.
You get paid to go to school (your welcome, by the way), and can ride your bike there.
You don't know shit about maintaining a middle class family of four in a fucked up, socialist state like Minnesota.
That's my point.
I still look at potential outcomes and am much more concerned for the climate than the economy.
Now, the truth has set you free. This is where you differ from 99% of the readers and contributers of this blog. You feel the good economy leads us to a wasteful use of resources. Therefore, by default, you belive that a good economy is bad for the enviroment. Were it up to you, for the greater good of "Mother Earth", we all be relegated to poverty or a socialist economy. Sounds like you prefer a place where healthcare is provided free of charge, there is no class seperation and everyone consumes and produces the same amount of waste.
Thats my take from your comment. Ofcourse, I too wish it were warmer the cooler, but thats just me.
Well, that is another way to say it!
Hell, I don't know shit about rasing a family of four in MN. But I do know that none of them want to pay an additional $1,500 for gas and $2,000 for other goods due to a carbon tax on gas.
Jeff might do well to read the posts where I get shit for my "budget". $1,000 bucks is a really big deal to some people.
Tracy, kids are expensive, we're talking six digit expensive over two decades. And that's without a goddam carbon tax.
Mortgage = Home is paid for
Vehicle = Cars paid for; 2005 Honda Odyssey, 2007 Honda Accord EX-L V6 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo and 1966 Buck Rivera w/ 466 wildcat V8! All paid for but insurace, gas and maintenance is a bithch.
Electricity = 189.00 last month
sewer + water = 86.00 last month
Heating your home = 229.00 last month
Groceries (eating) = family of five, about 500.00 per month
Clothing = an average of 300.00 per month
Federal income tax = close to 9600.00
Federal S.S. tax = close to 3000.00
Federal Medicare tax = close to 1300.00
State Income tax = 4000.00?
Property tax = 2285.00 for 2007
Gas tax = i have no idea
sales tax = if I were to guess, 1300.00 (20000 in taxable purchases this year time 6.5% -- seem kinda low though. Isn't booze taxed at like 12%)
I may live slightly better then most families of five. But lets look at this from a normal perspective:
$1400.00 typical mortgage on a 250K home (urban, three bedrooms).
$425.00 average car payment. One decent $30k car or van.
$200.00 fuel for the car(s)
$150.00 full-coverage insurance
$500.00 grocery shopping
$550.00 medical insurance
$300.00 kids school supplies and clothing for the kids and aftershool activities.
$150.00 Heat
$100.00 water
$45.00 garbage
$150.00 electric (from coal)
$99.00 cell phone
$45.00 land-line
$89.00 cable
$30.00 high-speed internet
=$4200.00 just to break even. Seems far fetched at 23 with a $30K income. But life moves fast. You could shave maybe $600.00 from the example above, but you would miss it.
My property taxes are close to $400 a month for the mansion.
You guys forgot life insurance at $250 a month, Tivo, DSL, NetFlix, the snow shovel's bill, the cigar budget and the scotch budget!
You feed 5 people on $500 a month?
Jeremy might be the best person to explain to Jeff why an additional $2,000 in taxes might upset his family a bit.
If you marry and have kids, you will not always be able to chose to live close to work. A crappy car becomes a non-option sometime around 30 for a variety of reasons.
No, I will always choose to live close to work and therefore be fine with a crappy car.
Were it up to you, for the greater good of "Mother Earth", we all be relegated to poverty or a socialist economy.
Were it up to you, we'd just keep messing up the planet for the indefinitely while you kept denying it.
$1,000 bucks is a really big deal to some people.
If you're concerned about the income gap, perhaps you should be a Democrat. If it were reduced, this wouldn't be as much the case.
Never mind the fact that light rail doesn't save any energy to speak of.
Because it's run on electricity, it can use renewable energy. It also lacks the social costs of cars, which pretty much created the suburbs as we know them.
As for scientists, there are certainly liberals and Conservatove ones.
In terms of personal beliefs, sure. But I don't see any arguments around my lab of the "conservative" cosmologists pushing one theory and the "liberal" ones pushing another. Since our science is the study of the natural world, the science is non-partisan in essence. Economics, which is a study of peoples behavior to a large extent, invites partisanship. Economists also tend to be policy-makers, which is a partisan thing - they might think one thing about economics but use other factors to make a policy decision.
I'm not saying that economics isn't a valid subject of study, or that I won't submit to their expertise - but it makes me wonder why you won't submit to the expertise of climate scientists if I'm admitting I don't know a lot about economics.
You don't know shit about maintaining a middle class family of four in a fucked up, socialist state like Minnesota.
A state that constantly ranks top in health, education, environment... because we pay for these things. If you want to live in Alabama, why not move there? Oh wait, because it's a shit hole.
I'll let you all in on something: if you're so worried about a thousand freaking dollars, you shouldn't go after the government. Go find your boss who works no harder than you and gets paid twice as much. Or maybe HIS boss, who just happened to be the cousin of the guy who started the business and makes twice as much as YOUR boss. It's not the government that's eating the money, it's the huge disparity we have between the rich and poor - a disparity that conservative economic policies consistently make worse.
$4200 times 12 divided by .65 is $77,538 a year in taxable income to just break even. That means you have better have a combined income of $100,000 or better to even think about making this deal work.
I just did a budget very similar to this minus gas and groceries to figure what I would have to make to take a full time job. Let's just say that the numbers get scary fast in your 30's and 40's. They should start to look better in your 50's if you're lucky.
"You feed 5 people on $500 a month?
Actually, I was thinking about that. I think my wife spends $250.00 every two weeks. But, we go out to eat twice a week too. It's gotta be close to a G a month. Netflix, TiVo, datapack for the cell. Lets not forget the upkeep of the cabin and boats. The damn motorcycle and the new kitchen. Good beer, good scoth and whiskey. Damn, I think I should add it all up. I bet the monthly nut is close to six g's. $72000.00 grand a year just to break even -- WTF? And we dont live a lavish lifestlye.
Jeff, there was a massive amount of ignorance in that last post but this one takes the cake:
No, I will always choose to live close to work and therefore be fine with a crappy car.
You are obviously not married, have no kids and have never worked at any significant level in private industry.
Let me give a bit of wisdom, if you are lucky your wife will let you pick one house at sometime in your life. If you are smart, you will let her decide!
I certainly hope you reach a level of personal success where you someday understand the crappy car deal. I'll try to explain it but I doubt you'll get it.
Imagine 5 years from now and some company is paying you $80,000k plus bonus. You have a 7:30 meeting across town at plant B with the new guys from Japan. Your boss, his boss and the VP will be there. At 7:00 your car doesn't start. You are 1 hour late for the meeting and everyone notices. You tell your boss about the car problem and he mentions that you might want to get a new one or think about working for another company. Your new wife just had a kid, so unemployment ain't gonna cover the baby bills.
I give you 80/20 odds that your on a car lot by the end of the week.
Go find your boss who works no harder than you and gets paid twice as much. Or maybe HIS boss, who just happened to be the cousin of the guy who started the business and makes twice as much as YOUR boss. It's not the government that's eating the money, it's the huge disparity we have between the rich and poor - a disparity that conservative economic policies consistently make worse.
I think we have the ignorant comment of the week!
I can assure Jeff than none of my bosses are related to the orginal owner of this company. He died on October 18, 1931.
If I got paid $80,000, I could afford to upgrade to a $3000 1996 Toyota Camry, which would start every time.
There are what, 800,000 people living IN Minneapolis. Do you think they all live far from work? No, I'll bet most live very close to work - one of the reasons why they choose to live here. From where I'm at, I could easily take public transportation to almost any company within Minneapolis or St. Paul. I can get to downtown Minneapolis in 15 minutes. These 800,000 have just chosen not to buy into the whole "kids = suburbs" thing.
Wow, so what was obviously supposed to be a generalized comment is wrong because it's not exactly correct for your specific case.
You need to stop before you embarass youself even further.
There were 382,618 living in Minneapolis in 2000. There are 2,945,831 people living in the Mpls./St. Paul metro area. (Unless you plan to work for a law firm, you probaly won't be working in downtown)
Let me list the large corporations I have worked for with no mass transit.
St. Jude Medical
Medtronic
Boston Scientific
Guidant/CPI
3M
Imation
Plus each of these companies has multiple sites that they often expect you to be able to go to for your job. In short, a car is an expectation for everyone making more than $35,000 a year. Now if you want to work in production, you might be OK with car pooling.
I hope you plan on living in a Condo downtown as all the bus connections are made there. Or you could take LRT to the MegaMall, they hire tons of Grad students!
Actually, the popualtion in Minneapolis is shrinking. Currently it's down to about 374,000 from it's peak of about 500,000. But, who is keeping track?
Minneapolis supposedly stopped shrinking in 2005, but you are correct that it has been shrinking for decades.
While the liberals have been talking about higher density, people have vited with their feet for lower density housing.
O kay.
A state that constantly ranks top in health, education, environment... because we pay for these things. If you want to live in Alabama, why not move there? Oh wait, because it's a shit hole.
I was born here you frigging....(deep breaths)
You are so fucking clueless that you missed everything we were saying to you. I've been paying for your wonderful state for longer than you've been alive.
Then you belch this piece of absolute stupidity I'll let you all in on something: if you're so worried about a thousand freaking dollars, you shouldn't go after the government. Go find your boss who works no harder than you and gets paid twice as much.
What the fuck do you know about generating wealth? Income? Money? Running a business able to pay taxes? You know, the kind that pays for your fucking university? Not a damn thing.
I'll let you in on something: go get a real job in the real world, and try and make living with a parasitic government attached to your neck. Get back to me after that.
Douche.
"You feel the good economy leads us to a wasteful use of resources. Therefore, by default, you belive that a good economy is bad for the enviroment. Were it up to you, for the greater good of "Mother Earth", we all be relegated to poverty or a socialist economy. Sounds like you prefer a place where healthcare is provided free of charge, there is no class seperation and everyone consumes and produces the same amount of waste."
How about the fact that the free market does not deal with externalities well? Under a pure free market, positive externalities are underproduced and negative ones are overproduced. Perhaps the external costs of our current, mostly single auto passenger commuting to and from work are not being fully accounted for.
Or maybe they are? Everyone agress that environmentalism increases with affluence.
Our car-centric system worked just fine until the late 60's. Then our government started to divert funds away from the common good to individuals. There was suddenly no more money for roads.
Now we have the debatable specter of CO2, which helps plants grow.
People make raitonal decissions based on the data and personal needs and choices. Government should support these decissions. Most Americans are happy with the environment and pissed about congestion. That shows me that government has swayed too far in one direction.
This is one of my problems with Objectivism--as much as I might wish it were so, I don't believe people are always rational creatures. If they were, you can bet there would be a lot fewer ad agencies.
Your timeline also seems a bit short. From what I can remember off the top of my head, the big heyday for increases in auto purchases was after WWII, because of the Depression and gasoline rationing during the war.
So it sounds like the car-centric system worked okay for about 20 years, or until just about every household had at least one car.
So what of we aren't rational? The framers included "the pursuit of happiness" on purpose.
There is no changing the massive investments made in the burbs over the last 60 years. Why don't liberals spend more time trying to make the city more attractive to families and let them come back on thier own?
What would the $770 million wasted on LRT have done if it was invested in Minneapolis' infrastructure and resources? What could we do with 1,500 cops? What about making the schools the best in the state instead of the worst?
Kermit, your comment does nothing at all to address the issues that I raised. I don't see what you're so pissed about. Basically you accuse me of not knowing anything but ignore the fact there's a strong correlation between conservativeness and shittiness, and we call it "the south". I resent your attempts to turn my home state into one of those.
As for the 17 people that noted I mistakenly remembered the population of minneapolis off by a factor of two; still has nothing to do with my point. A mistake to be sure, but the important part of what I was saying - that there are many thousands of people who live here in town and therefore live close to their work, and I intend to do the same - stands.
Tracy, the LRT has been a huge success that has seen double the riders that were expected. We can have that, the cops and the schools too if we just tax the people that sleep on top of huge piles of 50s.
Our car-centric system worked just fine until the late 60's.
Our car-centric system didn't really exist until the late 50's - so I take this to mean that it never really worked.
Jeff, you just lost a lot of the respect I had for you. I couldn't figure out whether to laugh or cry at your posts...
First, I am a boss. The reason that I make more than the peeps that work for me is that I have gained experience and knowledge in my field. The people that work for me could not make the decisions that take into account the rest of the business in the way that I do. I am worth more to the company than the people that work for me. At the same time, the people that I work for are worth more for the same reason. Plus the fact that I am responsible for more of the business capital... I have meetings in Eagan, Mpls, and north of St. Paul, all in the same day. FIND ME A BUS ROUTE THAT WILL DO THAT. Kids in school: Your daughter is sick, you need to pick her up. I work in White Bear, I live in Anoka, Bus to Rosedale, then to Mpls, then to the Foley blvd park and ride. Shouldn't take me more than THREE HOURS to pick up my sick kid... Is this making sense, or am I wasting finger pressure trying to explain this?
Second, You may be able to work at the same place for the rest of your life (at the U?). But most of us don't have that luxury. If you have kids, and have to change jobs, you may not have a choice in the matter. Do you want to move to a place close to work where the school district sucks and find a nice private school ( that you have to drive or cab or... Yeah, I can see your 7 year old on the Metro Transit bus to school), or stay where you are AND DRIVE???
Sure, let's just add a gas tax. The single mother that lives in north Mpls will love that when the price of bread hits $4, Milk is $5 per gallon, and she still has to drive to two different jobs... Way to go, buddy. You just Fucked her bigtime. Do you realize that taxes on essentials hit the poor much more than the rich? and whether you like it or not, gasoline is an essential.
Life is simple when it is you. Wait til you have a beautiful bride, and two crumbcrunchers. Your outlook will change. Most men it happens in their early 30s.
by the way, your '96 Probe is about 30-40% more fuel inefficient and puts out around 40% more CO2 than a new SUV (per mile)
FWIW, $4800/month fixed expenses (Not counting taxes).
My wife and I pay about $22K in Federal taxes per year. I max out the SS, my bride comes very close. State income tax is only about $8K. Taxes on gas? I shudder to think. Sales tax, ditto... It is about 10.5 or 11% on booze, so that adds quite a bit. I have a serious Laphroig habit.
There would be no increase in emissions with the global construction of nuclear plants.
100% FALSE!
Nuclear power plants DO pollute, and I don't mean the spent fuel rods...I am referring to the MASSIVE amounts of water vapor that is released into the air for the steam driven turbines and the water that is used to cool the reactor.
And...as we all know, but some refuse to admit, water vapor is a MAJOR "greenhouse gas".
There are CERTAINLY ways to deal with this...but I just wanted to make sure that we were being honest here.
sanders, I'd hate to see you lose respect but I don't think there were any surprises here. Early in the post, I made it clear I don't speak for "liberals", but obviously I could roughly be described as a "liberal". So my not seeing the government as the demon and instead seeing wage disparity is typical of such a person.
I think it would help to remove the personal aspect. I have no doubt you work hard for what you're paid. I assume that anyone commenting on a local political blog is probably more worthwhile than most people. But when you think about it in general terms, you see that there are many circumstances in which two people work a hard, eight-hour day and one gets paid $40 and the other $5000 and to me, that's not right, and it being a consequence of capitalism doesn't make it right. And it is most definitely something that has gotten significantly worse in the last fifty years. So to demonize the government constantly - which is what HELPS people that have less - and everyone else - by providing education and other essential services, and also acting as the way in which citizens can cooperatively plan their communities, and cooperatively take stands on environmental issues, rather than just letting the free market have its complete way with things, is something I never understand.
A middle-class person gets much more from the government than they put into it. If you had your taxes back and had to pay for everything the government provides, you'd be much worse off. And that's not to even mention the things that are hard to put a price on, such as clean drinking water and the fact that there are still a few acres of prairie left in Minnesota.
I seem to have really hit a sore spot by pointing out that the conservative experiment has been done, and it's given us some of the shittiest places in this country - and the liberal experiment has been done, and that's given us Sweden. I know where I'd rather live.
I have found the various examples of how it's hard to live without driving 50,000 miles a year interesting. But we've planned our way into this - or more specifically, this is what we get when we're too scared of government to plan. We were free to design our cities and communities however we wanted, and instead we opted for little regulation and weird zoning laws, and this is what we got. I'm sure there are people who would be hard-pressed to give up their car tomorrow, and I wouldn't ask it. But there are also people who live without often having to travel more than a mile, and if this is something that's prioritized in the future, the situation will improve. On the other hand, if we're totally unwilling to ever change anything, then we'll continue to sprawl all over freaking everything, and eventually everyone will have to get in their car and drive two miles to get a gallon of milk. We can have it either way.
"and the liberal experiment has been done, and that's given us Sweden. I know where I'd rather live."
Once you graduate, please by all means... LEAVE.
Here are some interesting FACTS about Sweden:
1. No new net jobs have been produced in the Swedish private sector since 1950.
2. "None of top 50 companies on the Stockholm stock exchange has been started since 1970."
3. "...well over 1 million people out of a work force of around four million did not work in 2003 but lived on various kinds of public welfare programs, such as, pre-pension schemes, unemployment benefits, sick-leave programs, etc."
4. "Sweden has dropped from fourth to 14th place in 2002 among the OECD countries (i.e., affluent industrialized countries) in terms of GDP per capita since 1970."
Above info provided by, Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics. http://swopec.hhs.se/ratioi/abs/.../
ratioi0034.htm
— Sweden’s average tax bill (incl local and municipal taxes) is 56 per cent
— In 1970 it was the world’s fourth-richest country (GDP per capita); in 2000 the fourteenth-richest
— Official unemployment rate is 5.7 per cent; Eurostat estimates it at 7.1 per cent
— Since 1995 the number of self-employed people in the EU has risen 9 per cent; in Sweden it has fallen by 9 per cent
— State spending has almost doubled from 31 per cent in 1960 to 60 per cent in 1980
— Between 1975 and 2000 per capita income rose in the USA by 72 per cent, in Western Europe by 64 per cent and in Sweden by 45 per cent
— Average number of patients seen by a Swedish doctor daily has fallen from nine in 1975 to five in 2006
Source: European Commission; Eurostat, OECD, Swedish Office of National Statistics
Going through all that will take longer than just changing to Western Europe in general.
More on Sweden:
"As the standard of living has fallen over the past ten years, it has become evident to almost all observers that the Swedish system no longer works." http://www.fee.org/publications/...le.asp?
aid=1213
One last thing about communism/socialist countries (it's a long read):
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=c...lnk&cd=25&
gl=us
Jeff, if they run the death train on so-called renewable power, it actually probably increases pollution. The simple fact is that the cost of a project is proportional to the effort, energy, and yes, pollution required to create it, and hence when coal electricity costs 4 cents/kWH and other modes cost twice that, we know that there is something there that isn't renewable in the least.
Specifically, massive amounts of concrete to house nuclear, massive castings for wind, and massive dams for hydro power. TANSTAAFL, remember?
The point Jeff, is that every time socialism has been tried, it fails. The reason it fails is because humans in general, have a desire to succeed and create a better life for for their loved ones.
You cant legislate humanity.
Jeremy, perhaps I chose a bad example but all of Western Europe is "socialist" compared to us and they have things pretty damn good.
Bubba, are you actually claiming that somehow, renewable power pollutes more than coal? Because I gotta tell you, that's not the sort of claim you make without backing it up.
Jeff, western Europe is working very hard to put their utopian socialist rule behind them. Perhaps you should read about the emerging Euro "capitalist" climate. They (western Euro contires) are shifting towards an more American free-market structure.
While we're are at it, so is eastern Europe for that matter.
I'm not sure if that's true or not, but it doesn't change the fact that Western Europe is currently an example of semi-socialist democracies that have succeeded perfectly well. And Alabama remains an example of the costs of conservatism.
Jeff, you just keep getting worse.
You have no idea how the free market / real world works and you spout the class warfare rhetoric that your liberal tenured profs spout out of absolute ignorance.
I have made $50 a day and I have made over $5,000 in one day. I can assure you that the risks and skills required to hit a $5,000 pay day are beyond many people. Making $1.3 million a year ($5,000 every day) isn't easy and usually requires a ton of experience and risk.
We were free to design our cities and communities however we wanted,
You seem to keep ignoring my 2 points about the burbs: Zoning and deteriorating cities.
The suburbs are the result of the central planning that you seem to love. If they had been allowed to grow more organically, like my neighborhood, they would be more walkable.
Why do you always want to force people to do what you want, Comrade? If the city were more attractive, people would flock to it.
Western Europe is currently an example of semi-socialist democracies that have succeeded perfectly well.
So you don't read the paper either?
Your geek status is getting pretty scary.
Unbelievable! All this chatter about finding the "best" solution for a problem which DOES NOT EXIST?!
How about if we look at the studies which prove conclusively:
-- CO2 does not cause global warming, regardless of where it comes from. Even if it did, Mankind produces only a tiny fraction of it.
-- The predictions of the computerized climate models are vastly in error-- backwards in fact-- from the observed data on temperatures in the upper atmosphere. There is no greenhouse-caused global warming taking place.
-- The computer predictions that DO show MMGW taking place talk about 2 degrees rise in 100 years. Look outside. We can live with it.
-- of course, those same climate models cannot tell you what the weather will be next week plus or minus 20 degrees, so it's doubtful they can tell you what it will be 100 years from now to the nearest tenth of a degree.
-- the "hockey stick" is a proven fraud. When random data is fed into the algorithm, it produces the same hockey stick graph.
-- even the IPCC says that cutting CO2 "drastically" would only reduce temperature increase by 10% (0.2 degrees) and that temperatures wouldn't start down for another 200 years. Sometimes "things" change in 200 years.
-- The global temperature hasn't risen since 1998. The seas are cooling. Arctic ice is refreezing at a record clip. There are more penguins and polar bears than there were 20 years ago. There is no problem!
There are dozens of other facts like this, all of which lead to the inescapable conclusion that anything done to prevent MMGW is the wrong thing to do. If it's a good idea on any other basis and coincidentally reduces CO2, there's nothing wrong with that. Just don't tell me you're saving the planet, because you would be lying through your teeth.
To your point, nuclear power is a great idea. The US has uranium in abundance, as much as coal. Used in breeder reactors, we have several THOUSAND years worth of it. The nuclear waste from 100 reactors, if recycled, would fit in a space the size of an office desk.
Left unfettered by the socialists, capitalism will solve this problem. The cost of new solar cells is 1/10 of what they were a year ago and going lower. The new garbage burners produce 20 times the electric power it takes to run them, with hydrogen and/or "gasoline" (plus slag bits that can pave roadways) as byproducts. Smart cars will eliminate the need for mass transit by tripling the capacity of our freeways without adding lanes. If we can keep the socialists in their box a little longer, the future looks bright. Brighter than the average socialist.
"Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore."
http://epw.senate.gov/public/
ind...teReport#report
A quick word about Alabama. Hurricane Katrina hit Alabama and Louisiana. Which state recovered faster? It sure wasn't the Socialist one.
You mean Mississippi and Lousiana.
Mississippi is run by a Republican, Louisana by a Democrat. NOLA is addicted to welfare and has bred the culture of dependance for years.
Jeremy,
Our local MMGW fanatic is working on that article. It seems that the tide is turning and many are coming to understand that MMGW is at worst 1 to 2 degrees and may not even exist.
We can live with a 2 degree temp rise without any problems at all.
J. Ewing, I've dealt with all of that before. You can go read old threads if you want to.
Tracy, you can keep calling me a moron and telling me I don't understand, but you've yet to tell me why it's not a problem that we have huge income disparities. Earlier in the thread, there was pissing and moaning over what a big deal a gas tax would be to all these apparently struggling families, yet you're ok with the fact that the real problem is we have people working two jobs, 12 hours a day, and not being able to make ends meet. That's not the government's fault, that's the result of the free-market spiraling towards more or less infinite disparity, which is what it always seems to do.
The suburbs sort of represent planning - but they represent awful planning. I won't begin to argue with that. But now we're stuck in this mode of expansion, and fixing it requires planning, or it will just continue. Perhaps your neighborhood was grown "organically" without intervention and it's great - I don't know the history of it. But fixing the current pattern of growth requires effort, planning, and incentives, not a complete lack of rules.
You mean Mississippi and Lousiana. My bad.
...but you've yet to tell me why it's not a problem that we have huge income disparities.
Jeff...are you trying to tell us that you think that it would be ok for you to make the same amount of money, per year, as Skippy the bus-boy at the local Embers?
That's not the government's fault
The Hell it isn't.
"...but you've yet to tell me why it's not a problem that we have huge income disparities."
Because the last time I looked a poor person has never paid me a paycheck. The only people who have a problem with, 'income disparities', are the one's at the very bottom. Those in the middle and upper-middle aren't offended if their neighbor make three or even 20 times as much as them.
I had a very nice pre-tax chunk of change left to me. After taxes, it was just ok.
Remember, evny is one of the seven deadly sin's.
Jeff...are you trying to tell us that you think that it would be ok for you to make the same amount of money, per year, as Skippy the bus-boy at the local Embers?
That's a straw man. I want the disparities to be to the point, ideally, where a person on the bottom end can survive. I didn't suggest that everyone was paid the same.
Jeremy, what does that even mean?
Kermit, I think I've provided some reasons why it's not the few thousand dollars in taxes that kills people, it's the fact that they get paid dogshit.
Jeff, that is due to your not understanding home economics and the impact of taxation.
You probably think corporate taxes are a good thing, too. The problem with this thinking is corporations do not pay taxes. The people who buy the goods and services pay them.
You can't "push" actual earnings. It does not work. They must be "pulled" up through improved profits. Telling Starbucks to pay baristas $15 an hour will not create that extra margin. It's like telling one of those stars you observe to increase it's energy output by 20% because it the right thing to do.
And if you manage to force industry to artificially increase labor costs two things result.
1) fewer workers earning, more unemployment
2) higher costs for the lucky ones that still have jobs
Jeff, it means that those who get educated, get a job and do well in this world dont care about income disparities. I can tell you that a middle manager, who often times does more work then an upper-level mangaer, dont care if they make 40K less per year then his boss. Because, sooner or later, he too will be making that kind of money. Good work is always rewarded. You get paid for research work as a grad student. Do you think it's fair that your professors earn 15 times more then you? All of your research may one day lead to a great discovery. A discovery that your Prof or department will take credit for and you'll be mentioned in the footnotes. No credit to your your hard work, is that fair? No. Thats just the way it is.
Remember, the rich create jobs and wealth for the rest of the country. Dont belive me? Look at Microsoft or WalMart or Home Depot or even a print shop in NE Minneapolis. All of these companies have created wealth for people who rose through the rank and file.
Try to get a poor guy to create wealth. I'll be wating.
Jeff, it's best advised you stick with science, not the economy. Mostly because at this point in your life you contribute little to the economy and very little world. Not a personal attack. Once you leave the ivory halls of education you'll be expected to get a job and start earning some money. Maybe you'll meet a nice girl (or guy, I dont care which and shouldn't assume your straight, thats not P/C) start a family and then, you will understand why people left the city to larger homes and better schools. It's then you will begin to understand economics, as it will play a roll in your day-to-day life, rather then something you read in a class as an undergrad.
Jeff shows the egotism of the left by assuming that he is of course worth more than some guy at Starbucks, but that no CEO could be worth that much more than him.
Jeff, you have shown many times in the past few days that you don't have the skill set to be a boss, let alone a business owner.
Try telling an employee to suck it up because $1,500 isn't a big deal. You will be the one in HR for long talk.
PS. I never tell my employees that $1,500 is nothing and many of them are over paid at $15 an hour. Some people really don't work hard enought to be worth much. Become a General Contractor and hire some labor and your views will change quickly.
Jeff, I did back up my contention by pointing to the costs of those renewable technologies. The ugly reality is that making "green" technologies generally involves a lot of steps that are not "green" by any stretch of the imagination.
Examples include the foundry work for windmills, the masses of rock removed to mine uranium, and the destruction of fisheries caused by hydroelectric projects.
More or less, if you need to subsidize an "ecologically sensitive" product to get it to sell, you've got to ask serious questions about how "ecologically sensitive" it really is.
That's a straw man. I want the disparities to be to the point, ideally, where a person on the bottom end can survive. I didn't suggest that everyone was paid the same.
How exactly is that a straw man?
If worker X decides not to go to school, learn a trade, or have bad work habits, then who's fault is it that they don't make enough to live on?
You are naive to think that the VAST majority of those on the bottom don't have themselves, and their choices to blame for "not being able to survive".
In fact, you're even naive to think that those on the bottom DON'T make enough to survive.
How many dead bodies or dusty bones did you pass on your bike ride to work/school today?
I'm willing to bet it was the same number as me...ZERO. That's because they DO survive.
To add to Bubba's comment's...
Wind generation tends to kill birds by the HUNDREDS!
Jeff, if you've dealt with the "facts" on MMGW before, then how can you possibly defend ANY effort to fight MMGW, a problem which does not exist? If you apply the same logic to income disparities as you do MMGW, I would be inclined to discount your solutions in the same fashion. In fact, they are basically the same question: Why do you want to cede extraordinary dictatorial powers to government, just to solve a problem that does not exist?
Income disparities exist, sure, but so what? If I don't make "enough" to suit me, am I more inclined to work harder and smarter than I would if government simply hands me part of somebody else's paycheck? If I'm doing really well, and government takes some of it to give to somebody who isn't trying, am I inclined to earn still more, or to just lean back? You see, there's nothing wrong with your theory in theory, but for real human beings, it's Mudville.
Besides, the math is wrong. First of all, most people don't stay in the same part of the income distribution for long. The poor get some ambition, experience, education, or something that gets them more pay. The rich get tired of paying the high taxes, or just tired, and slow down. What is mathematically certain is that the least income one can make is always going to be zero, while the most anyone can make is limited only by, well, it's not. Forty years ago there were quite a few millionaires, but very few billionaires. Today, it takes Billionaire status to crack into the top 400 list. The difference between a million and zero is less than the difference between a billion and zero. So what?
bubba, I'm fine with the fact that everything we do - whether it's burn coal for power or mine ore to make windmills - has some environmental effect. It's a matter of assessing HOW MUCH. Building a windmill takes resources, but then when you're done you get renewable power. You have to work it out.
Brent, I didn't mean "survive" literally. I meant have a basically decent life.
Jeff, it means that those who get educated, get a job and do well in this world dont care about income disparities.
It's not important what one individual does. What's important is we have a system where there will be, unless we change something, individuals who work long hours and can hardly hold a life together. I'm not ok with this.
I'm not arguing about economics. I know the basics; I know that the unemployment rate will be higher if you set a minimum wage. I'm simply unwilling to accept that wage, and those disparities. During every Democratic regime, policies have been implemented to decrease this disparity. During every Republican one, the disparity has increased. Obviously it is possible, or has been in the past, to decrease this disparity without hozing the economy - it's been done.
I find it so ironic that you trot out the "hey, you don't understand economics, so why don't you defer to someone who does" from people who won't accept expertise from scientists. And the worst part is I'm not really even talking about economics - I'm simply talking about priorities. And I'm arguing from the evidence that in our "liberal" states in this country, everyone's better off. So despite whatever economic theories you're talking about - and I don't know much about them - we see that states with more progressive histories have done the best.
J Ewing, stop with the climate change stuff. You're covering old territory.
What would happen if every ditch-digger in the country all of the sudden decided he was going to dig ditches twice as hard? Nothing. He'd still get paid $4 an hour. What if they all decided they would go get their AA? Nothing. Now they'd have to pay it back with their ditch digging money.
Talking about the possibilities for one individual when you can't see the whole picture is pointless.
Further, imagine this ditch digger. Say maybe he makes $20,000 a year to try to support his family. He pays $2000 in taxes. If he's reasonable, which is he more pissed off about: that he has to cough up $2000 to the government, which educates his children, subsides his housing, and provides a bus to take to work? Or should he just be pissed off that he's breaking his damn back for crap pay? The government is not his enemy.
...from people who won't accept expertise from scientists.
If you want J Ewing to stop with the climate change stuff, then you also need to stop this...last week I provided a letter of over 100 scientists...key word there...SCIENTISTS...that say that the MMGW deal is a SCAM. So we DO listen to scientists...we just choose to listen to the ones who don't have a financial interest if there is a problem like you do.
Talking about the possibilities for one individual when you can't see the whole picture is pointless.
And looking at, and trying to fix the "bigger picture" without understanding what is making it up, is ALSO pointless.
A ditch digger made his choices...he decided that he wasn't going to go to school...he decided he wasn't going to learn a trade...he decided that he was ok with manual labor. They are HIS choices...now he needs to live with them, and it isn't unreasonable for the rest of us to say that we don't want to pay for his mistakes.
Mommy and daddy sent me off to college when I was 18, and paid for my tuition, room and board, and books. Anything beyond that was my responsibility. So I had a pretty sweet deal going...but I screwed up. I drank too much, smoked too much weed, my grades suffered, and my parents said "enough".
So THEN they said that I would have to pay for everything on my own, and then after proving to them that I got a "C" or better in class, they would reimburse me. So all I had to do was come up with one quarter of tuition money, buckle down, and get a "C" in all my classes, and I could continue to go to school.
Dummy me, I screwed up THAT too...and had to drop out of work.
So...I head "home" where my father told me that I had 2 weeks to get my shit together and then he was going to start to charge me rent...that I was an adult and that I would have to live with my actions.
So...I said I'd be DAMNED if I was going to pay rent for a room in their house...I went out, got a job working the night shift as a security guard at a hotel, moved in with a friend in his 1 bed room apartment, splitting the rent with him but sleeping out in the living room, and that was my life for a few years.
It didn't take long for me to realize that I really screwed the pouch. So, I buckled down at work, sometimes pulling 16+ hour shifts...worked ALL holidays (double time) and saved up enough money to go to Metro State to finish my degree...on my own dime.
I am now a Sr. Buyer for a
Mfg. company making a DAMN good living. And never ONCE did I have government help me out.
My point is...I made my own situation, and rather than let myself become dependent and complacement, like your ditch digger did, I did something about it...and it didn't cost the tax payer a dime.
You want us to feel sorry for those who make 20,000 a year...I've got news for you...that was ME...I just accepted the fact that I did that to myself, and worked my way OUT of that situation.
THIS is part of why we give you such a hard time about being a career student and collecting a government check...because you constantly come across as naive to the workings of the real world.
Jeff, in your example of the ditch digger would have a zero tax burden (other then sales tax on goods purchasecd). Infact, he would end up getting a REFUND. Little things like the EIC and standard deductions will make his tax burden ZERO!!!
His AGI would most likely be around 12K, after tax credit he would get $2500 BACK from the fed and the state.
Try again, I'm sure you can come up with a good example (that either Tracy or myself will crush). Good luck 
Brent, I didn't mean "survive" literally. I meant have a basically decent life.
That word, "survive", I don't think it means what you think it means.
First, they are now called backhoe operators and they make a hell of a lot more than $20,000 a year.
But it is a good analogy for how wrong Jeff is. Few people decide to operate, let alone own a backhoe. The guy that digs for me is a farmer that started using his farm equipment for other shit and pretty soon had a pretty busy side business.
Most guys start on a construction crew doiong shit work. The boss, who makes way more then them, tells them to get their ass in tech school so that they can be licensed to operate heavy machinery. If the guys has 1/2 a brain, he goes to Dunwoody at night and gets his license and doubles his pay.
After learning on the job for 3 to 5 years, all the while doing continuing ed and not getting a DWI, the smart ones start to figure out how to by or lease their own equipment and double thier pay, again.
If everything works out, in a few years they will be hiring douchebags to work for them and they are now the "overpaid" boss who makes too much according to Jeff.
That is what happens in the real world.
And the guy that started at the same time that's still making shit pay. He drinks, misses work alot, never works late and has never been to Dunwoody. I know these guys too, they always need a ride to work as they have no license to drive. Talk to one of them for 10 minutes and you'll knwo why they aren't cutting it and it ain't the system.
And I'm arguing from the evidence that in our "liberal" states in this country, everyone's better off.
Wealth breeds liberalism, liberalism doesn't breed wealth.
Also New York ahs a Republican Mayor and California has a Republican Governor.
Poly Sci isn't your strong point. You need to get out of the lab more.
last week I provided a letter of over 100 scientists...key word there...SCIENTISTS...that say that the MMGW deal is a SCAM. So we DO listen to scientists...we just choose to listen to the ones who don't have a financial interest if there is a problem like you do.
You listen to a tiny minority of scientists that suit your needs. Scientists don't have a financial interest in this, but YOU have a political one. You know I could whip out a handful of minority economists who disagree with the economics lesson I've been getting in this thread, but I would recognize that they do NOT represent the consensus view of their discipline. Being able to find a small amount of scientists who happen to have a convenient political conclusion is NOT the same as listening to what our best knowledge of the science is. There will ALWAYS BE a minority. It doesn't mean, as someone who doesn't understand the science, you should listen to them.
They are HIS choices...now he needs to live with them, and it isn't unreasonable for the rest of us to say that we don't want to pay for his mistakes.
The game is rigged. We need ditch diggers; which means there will always be people who "made mistakes". Which means there will always be people breaking their backs for five bucks an hour. And you're ok with that. And I think it's very wrong.
Your personal anecdote is not significant in the scheme of things. Way to make it! Good for you! But the system we have will still have people suffering, because it's set up such that not everybody can make it. It's impossible, so you're tacitly saying that it doesn't bother you.
Jeff, in your example of the ditch digger would have a zero tax burden (other then sales tax on goods purchasecd). Infact, he would end up getting a REFUND.
I wasn't sure but this further helps my point.
I'm just using the "ditch digger" example to make a point. I know they use backhoe now. Why must you always distract from the point at hand with stupid digressions?
Jeff, you need to hire some people to find out that some people don't work very hard, others don't show up and some just plain steal from you.
I have a painter that shows up and works hard and he makes $20 a hour, over $1,000 a week as he works 10 hour days and weekends when I have work. Do you know how many people can paint? Almost everyone!
I updated your story because it is the kind of out-of-date BS that they teach in college these days. There are no more ditch diggers.
I can list numerous entry level positions and show you the path to advancement. Show up every day for three months at SA and you'll be assistant manager, ditto for McDonald's. Work your way up to Manager at Mickey D's, turn in good numbers and I know people that will back you opening your own store.
Your view is not only of date, it is colored by ignorance and the liberal bias of people that know nothing about the real world.
Never argue with someone that does construction about entry level labor, we're looking for it all the time. We also pay pretty damned well if you work hard and listen. But most of the labor we hire are losers. There is not government program that will get them to stop being losers. Some of them like being a losers.
It's impossible, so you're tacitly saying that it doesn't bother you.
My buddy has 2 Mexicans working for him. One speaks pretty good English, the other guy isn't as fluent. They both bust thier asses everyday. They have been with him for about 3 years. They each own houses, have decent trucks and a wife and kids. These guys are illegal and they are making in the US. It's not impossible, it just takes work.
You plan to get ahead, why would you assume that other people can't? It's either arrogance or ignorance at work there, you choose.
Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. dissenter
Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. dissenter
Climate Scientist Dr. Ben Herman, past director of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics and Head of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona. dissenter
Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo - Rio Grande do Sul - Brazil. dissenter
Ocean researcher Dr. John T. Everett, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administrator and UN IPCC lead author and reviewer, who led work on five impact analyses for the IPCC including Fisheries, Polar Regions, Oceans and Coastal Zones. Everett, who is also project manager for the UN Atlas of the Oceans, received an award while at NOAA for "accomplishments in assessing the impacts of climate change on global oceans and fisheries." dissenter
Physicist Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, the former director of both University of Alaska Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute and International Arctic Research Center who has twice been named in "1000 Most Cited Scientists". dissenter
Physics Professor Emeritus Dr. Howard Hayden of the University of Connecticut. dissenter
Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes. dissenter
Impressive list. I have about 400 more very credible scientest to add to the list.
BooYa!
Jeff, the problem with your argument is that government programs to "help" the poor generally create a "moral hazard" by covering over the ordinary adverse consequences of bad behavior.
To use your example of a man doing hard work for $5/hour due to a mistake in his life (say coming to work drunk), is it kinder to let him learn a lesson and perhaps sober up, or is it kinder to force his old employer to keep him and let him drink himself to death?
Now consider that it's exactly this kind of government action that people are proposing to deal with the climate. Consider that there is only one nation that even comes close to reducing carbon emissions.
Hint; it's one that refused to sign the Kyoto treaty, and Algore is haranguing or doing so.
And you propose the tactics of those who are making the problem, if it truly exists, far worse? Hello?
The MMGW scam is collapsing, along with the MYTH of "scientific consensus".
Israel: Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. “First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!”
Russia: Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a 2006 paper titled “The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth.” “Even if the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ double man would not perceive the temperature impact,” Sorochtin wrote.
Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made climate fears in 2007. “There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried,” Uriate wrote.
Netherlands: Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes, “I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting – a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number – entirely without merit,” Tennekes wrote. “I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."
Brazil: Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo – Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil declared himself a skeptic. “The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming,” Hackbart wrote on May 30, 2007.
France: Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon, is a climate skeptic. Leroux wrote a 2005 book titled Global Warming – Myth or Reality? - The Erring Ways of Climatology. “Day after day, the same mantra - that ‘the Earth is warming up’ - is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts’ and ‘sea level rises,’ the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless acceptance. ... Non-believers in the greenhouse scenario are in the position of those long ago who doubted the existence of God ... fortunately for them, the Inquisition is no longer with us!”
Norway: Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the UN IPCC: “It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.”
Finland: Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological Survey of Finland and former professor of marine geology at University of Helsinki, criticized the media for what he considered its alarming climate coverage. “The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases. “
Germany: Paleoclimate expert Augusto Mangini of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, criticized the UN IPCC summary. “I consider the part of the IPCC report, which I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong,” Mangini noted in an April 5, 2007 article. He added: “The earth will not die.”
Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling: “To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process.”
Czech Republic: Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at University of Columbia expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid,” Kukla told Gelf Magazine on April 24, 2007.
India: One of India's leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles.”
USA: Climatologist Robert Durrenberger, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and one of the climatologists who gathered at Woods Hole to review the National Climate Program Plan in July, 1979: “Al Gore brought me back to the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about climate change I have decided that ‘real’ climatologists should try to help the public understand the nature of the problem.”
Italy: Internationally renowned scientist Dr. Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists and a retired Professor of Advanced Physics at the University of Bologna in Italy, who has published over 800 scientific papers: “Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming."
New Zealand: IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001: “The [IPCC] ‘Summary for Policymakers’ might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain't so.”
South Africa: Dr. Kelvin Kemm, formerly a scientist at South Africa’s Atomic Energy Corporation who holds degrees in nuclear physics and mathematics: “The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming.”
Poland: Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw: ““We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels.”
Australia: Prize-wining Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia: "There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation.”
Britain: Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant: “To date, no convincing evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior is not consistent with AGW model predictions.”
China: Chinese Scientists Say C02 Impact on Warming May Be ‘Excessively Exaggerated’ – Scientists Lin Zhen-Shan’s and Sun Xian’s 2007 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics: "Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated." Their study asserted that "it is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate change.”
Denmark: Space physicist Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen is the director of the Danish National Space Centre, a member of the space research advisory committee of the Swedish National Space Board, a member of a NASA working group, and a member of the European Space Agency who has authored or co-authored around 100 peer-reviewed papers and chairs the Institute of Space Physics: “The sun is the source of the energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate. Any chang
Well, since you're including basically every type of scientist in these little reports, I imagine there's a solid 1,000,000 at that level of qualification world-wide. So when you get to 50,000, tell me, maybe I'll care.
You won't care Jeff. your mind is closed tight.
But the scam is unraveling.
Jeff, if you're going to rely on those 2500 scientists or so who participated in the IPCC, then there are several other things that you accept with the package. First, the IPCC summary report wasn't written by those scientists, it is a political document. There are a fair number of scientists listed in the report who have renounced the "findings" in the summary and in a few cases, sued to have their names removed.
The IPCC report is based on data up to 2005. Since then we have discovered that global warming has ceased, that the climate models do not match the actual atmospheric temperature data, and that CO2 does not cause global warming. In formulating policy, these little facts matter.
Also, the IPCC report is the one that predicts 2 degrees increase over 100 years-- barely noticeable-- and that curbing manmade CO2 would only reduce that by 10%-- even LESS than noticeable-- and that ASSUMES CO2 will double and that CO2 causes global warming! It is patently absurd to believe that government action is required when this international body ADMITS that the problem is trivial and that the proposed solutions are essentially worthless (but very expensive).
Jeff, quit trying to say that the facts, regardless of what "authority" you want to cite, say something that they clearly cannot and do not say. Even the UN doesn't have the facts and the science to support coercive government action.
It's the same problem with your economic theories. Those most in favor of income redistribution refuse to implement it, knowing full well it will fail. Given the chance to increase the minimum wage, for example, why do we never solve the problem and increase minimum wage to $90,000/ year? How about $250,000 per year? Heck, if we're going to pay people to do nothing, let's all be millionaires! Don't complain, this is called "reducto ad absurdum," which means taking your proposals to their logical and absurd extreme. You probably knew that. So why the debate?
Income redistribution has worked, J. Ewing. It's happened during every Democratic administration in the past century, slowly, without causing economic harm.
And if you have read this blog for long, you'd know that on a number of occasions I've gone fact-for-fact, spend an unfortunate amount of time debunking myths. I never ceased to be amazed that the odd conservative with no science training whatsoever can be so convinced he's onto something major that has been mysteriously overlooked by thousands of professionals that have come before him, but yet I've often played a good sport and looked up the answers the various charges brought upon climate scientists.
And yet, every time we go down this road, it becomes clear that we lack the level of expertise to really evaluate the situation. Inevitably, we counter the spot in the conversation where many, many hours of research would be required on the part of either person. I've asked before: would you "debate" Stephan Hawking on the intricacies of black holes? Then why "debate" climate scientists?
So I plead and beg that instead of make fools of ourselves and insult the work of professionals by trying to debate a topic we know nothing about, we rest assured that an easy 90% of scientists accept more or less the gist of the anthropomorphic global warming theory and roll with it.
Our choices are always one of two: either we accept a majority science opinion or we fight it our ourselves. And being that the latter requires nothing short of years of serious study to make worthwhile.
Also, the IPCC report is the one that predicts 2 degrees increase over 100 years-- barely noticeable-- and that curbing manmade CO2 would only reduce that by 10%-- even LESS than noticeable
This only demonstrates your epic ignorance of climate science. 2 degrees - which isn't significant in regards to, say, tomorrow's weather - is massively significant if you compare it to historical global averages.
Income redistribution has worked, J. Ewing. It's happened during every Democratic administration in the past century, slowly, without causing economic harm.
I question your sanity. You are so clueless.
Found it.
http://www.russellsage.org/publi...artels/
document
There's not much to dismiss here; the graphs are at the bottom.
Boy, has this gone far afield since my post last night...
Jeff, you keep mentioning that you have argued these points before... I am fairly new to Anti-Strib, so I haven't found a whole lot of your links. Do you have a few that you could throw my way? The only ones I have found over the last couple months had to do with defending Hansen (NASA dude) and his income, and the link for the guy with the carbon fibres (which I still think is a great capitalist idea)...
As for the economics, you do realize that most of the people through their lives move through the quintiles of earnings. (It is almost as complex a system as the climate, with only hundreds of thousands of variables, instead of millions.) You get the people that start at the bottom, and move to the 4th or 5th quintile during their earning life, and then when they slow down or retire, they fall back down to the bottom 2 quintiles... In earnings, anyway. They have the assets to relax.
Your guy making 5 bucks an hour 'digging ditches' (flipping burgers/cashier at SA/waiting tables at Embers, [you know the one just down University from where Washington meets? Is that still there?]) has the dream of making more and more, and eventually getting to the 3rd or 4th quintile. They actually LIKE the disparity, they know that with a little hard work and a few years, they can get to the big bucks... IF THEY HAVE ANY DRIVE! and that is where the war on poverty has failed a lot of the population. The gov't is giving away the fish, not teaching to fish.
If you had your taxes back and had to pay for everything the government provides, you'd be much worse off. At 35K a year in taxes (just from Fed income, state income, property, and SSI/Medicare), I think I am paying for the services I receive from the gov't... and probably yours as well.
So to demonize the government constantly - which is what HELPS people that have less - and everyone else - by providing education and other essential services, and also acting as the way in which citizens can cooperatively plan their communities, and cooperatively take stands on environmental issues, rather than just letting the free market have its complete way with things, is something I never understand.
Geez, what would we do without big brother to help us out. Charities/churches/family used to be the safety net below people, as recently as 1935. It worked as well, if not better, than having the bureaucracy that comes with the gov't performing these tasks. Schools could perform better without the NEA giving tenure to teachers after three (yes, THREE) years... Private schools do more with less, and, despite what you hear in the press, they DO take the hard cases. The main problem with gov't is that it doesn't really help people as much as you seem to think. I do agree with the military protecting the country, the cops protecting our roads and investigating the crimes (after the fact), and keeping the roads (more local than federal would be good there), and the firefighters (again, local). The feds have really no business in redistribution of wealth, education, agriculture, guns, abortion, or smoking... And let Andover and Anoka and Hopkins and Woodbury and Robbinsdale figure out what is best for them. Don't dictate it from St. Paul or (worse) Washington...
(Just a plug for my school district, Anoka-Hennepin #11. We have a budget of right around $8K per student. While it isn't great, it is good, compared to the $11K and $12K I have heard about. AND, I went to my daughters CHRISTMAS choir concert this week. We heard carols from the US, Britain, and Africa. We had a Hannukah song, and some secular tunes as well. end plug)
And Jeff, you do realize that the more affluent the society, the more they pay attention to the environment. We have the leisure to deal with things like that. That's why our carbon footprint has increased LESS than most of the rest of the world, even the hypocrites that signed the doomed Kyoto treaty...
And, Our poor are so much better off than even the middle class in the European countries that you are praising. Look at the picture from Tim's post this morning... The lady is complaining, and she has at least a 42" wide screen TV sitting in her living room. (I don't have anything like that, I am watching ESPN on a 32" 12 year old Zenith...) Most of the people in Europe have refrigerators and washer/driers that are smaller than her television. (trust me, in England you may be able to get 4 pairs of slacks through the wash in one load...) PRIORITIES. Life is a bitch, then ya die.
Sorry for the long post. The ale is flowing agin', the fingers just keep moving, and there is so much more to say. Ah, well, for another day.
I'll look over that link tomorrow Jeff. It looks interesting. Tracy may have some input into it as well...
Hope you have a Merry Christmas. I get to spend a week at the in-laws. Mackinac bridge around 5PM on Sunday, hope the SUV handles it better that I do!
[2 degree rise in temp]"...is massively significant if you compare it to historical global averages.
HAHAHAHAHAHA, as we left the mini iceage the Earths mean temp was found to be about six degree's higher then today.
So yes, it is significant, we need to warm up some more before we get to our mean temp.
"Income redistribution has worked, J. Ewing. It's happened during every Democratic administration in the past century, slowly, without causing economic harm." OK, so what are you complaining about? Problem solved, right? Or do we still have income inequality? Do you see any inconsistency whatsoever between this statement and your previous statement that, every time the minimum wage goes up, unemployment increases? Just because a bad thing happens slowly does not make it a good thing. How many trillions of dollars have we spent on the War on Poverty, only to have Poverty win?
"I never ceased to be amazed that the odd conservative with no science training whatsoever can be so convinced he's onto something major that has been mysteriously overlooked by thousands of professionals that have come before him, ..." It so happens I have a graduate degree in Engineering Science, 6 credits short of minors in Math, Physics, and Chemistry. I was an adjunct professor of Computer Science at University for a time. And with the 1000s of scientists now weighing in, pointing to errors in the MMGW theory or to real contradictory data, I'm hardly a pioneer in this. What I am not is a "True Believer" in MMGW, and that gives me some ability to recognize the evidence against it, which you do not, apparently, share.
"So I plead and beg that instead of make fools of ourselves and insult the work of professionals by trying to debate a topic we know nothing about, we rest assured that an easy 90% of scientists accept more or less the gist of the anthropomorphic global warming theory and roll with it." Actually, the majority of scientists with knowledge of the subject are probably, in light of the latest evidence, turning away from the MMGW theory. The last I saw, the list of scientists saying MMGW was a hoax numbered over 18,000. Even if your statement WERE true, though, science is not put up for a vote. There were times when "90% of scientists" thought the earth was flat, or the sun moved around the earth, or that light always travelled in a straight line. Just 30 years ago, "90% of scientists" were absolutely convinced that the earth was cooling. All theories are great until one lone scientist proves that the truth lies elsewhere. MMGW theory is a house of cards.
"Our choices are always one of two: either we accept a majority science opinion or we fight it our ourselves. And being that the latter requires nothing short of years of serious study to make worthwhile." Again, science is not up for a vote. There are multiple facts to be weighed, to the degree one is able, and you get to form your own opinion, based on the evidence you find most consistent with your own knowledge, observation and reason. If someone wants to take away my freedoms because they have some unfounded "theory" which requires it, they had best engage the debate! I also think you're wrong about how difficult this is. I wager I could find a 10-year-old that could look at a graph of the ice-core data and state conclusively-- at least tentatively-- that CO2 does NOT cause global warming, but rather it's the other way around. Temperature goes up, and THEN CO2 goes up. The whole fundamental theory of MMGW is not only false, but backwards. QED.
"This only demonstrates your epic ignorance of climate science. 2 degrees - which isn't significant in regards to, say, tomorrow's weather - is massively significant if you compare it to historical global averages." Considering we have already lived through a roughly 1-degree rise in the last century (and done fairly well with it, if I may say so), that past interglacials were as much as 5 degrees warmer than present and that all of these warm periods occurred WITHOUT MMGW, tells me that any effort to curb CO2 is just a complete waste of time, energy, and an incredible amount of human freedom and prosperity. There is a crime against humanity about to be perpetrated. It isn't the burning of fossil fuels.
Income redistribution works without causing economic harm? On what planet are we talking about here?
On this planet, income redistribution harms both those who are taxed, and also those who receive the largesse. The ugly reality is that the horrendous problems of illegitimacy, crime, and joblessness that we see in virtually every inner city date back to the Great Society. It just isn't healthy to get money for doing nothing.
Wealth redistribution works just great in the American university system.
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