http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kcFYUXtYS8&feature=user
That's pretty low and far fetched, even for Fox News.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kcFYUXtYS8&feature=user
That's pretty low and far fetched, even for Fox News.
damn Rupert Murdock...
Actually the argument is far from far fetched.
He plans to raise capital gains taxes.
In 20'ish days investors will take a bigger hit for selling stocks (actually in January - right? Or whenever he actually gets that legislation passed)
The market is dropping now...
So simple formula - should an investor get cash out of the market today or wait until after Obama makes cashing out cost them even more...
It's a good fear-mongering story.
I'd say it's full o' bull. I would be surprised if either candidate has some solution that will erase the credit issue and make the whole world sunny and bright. Does anybody feel otherwise? Is the market actually ignoring the real issues with the economy and just reacting to what some candidate is saying on the campaign trail? That's absurd. The market isn't reacting to any particular candidate, it's reacting despite the candidates.
That is ridiculous fear-mongering. Not to mention an obscene attempt to throw obama's campaign off the field. Fox has just shat all over journalistic standards.
Like any network is getting props for not being obviously in support of one candidate or the other?
They all make me sick.
I think I might just take my political inclinations from Saturday Night Live!
I've got XM radio in the car - I can bounce back and forth between two stations - America Right and America Left - if I do that often enough they net to zero and I get a big pile of nothing...
The fiscal crisis we are living was created by both parties in the Clinton administration - he voted for it - and lobbying and partying was a big part of that...
I live in CT where we have to stomach Senator Dodd - chairman of the banking committee. You would think that he would be apologizing for missing the behemoth of bad debt that he was managing. No not quite - he's marching around the state taking credit for helping write the 700-billion dollar "bonus to wall-street execs" that us poor folks are about to finance with money we don't have anyway :sick:
Niether candidate can fix this problem - it's going to take a complete re-structure or what we allow institutes to do and how they account to us and their shareholders. Enron was nothing compared to this :eek2:
Actually, it was created in the Reagan administration, then continued by Bush Sr., Clinton, and W. As far as regulatory policy is concerned, they all shared the same views, and whether the contribution of one was the ultimate last straw is pretty hard to say.
Hold on. I figured out who caused it. I read this article in Time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Basically some bankers from JP Morgan got together and created a new system where after they approve the mortgage, they can sell the mortgage to a second party (Financial Institutions), and have it's risk insured by a third party (AIG mostly).
So what happens? The bank making the loan holds no risk, so those banks loaned money to EVERYONE.
The Financial Institutions buying the Mortgage Securities bought them without question, because those mortgages are insured by AIG.
AIG for some reason is stupid enough to believe housing prices will never stop rising, and agrees to insure all these bad loans and continued to collected their Insurance Preimuims.
Until 10/2008.
Yeah, that had a hand in it. But then again, so did we all. I remember examining my 401K options about two years back and noticing that one fund was returning around 38% annual! That's utterly insane. As you might guess, it was a real estate fund. Those securities were a serious cash cow, and everybody could get a steak. I didn't trust real estate at the time, and stayed away, but how many people jumped in? The fund is now pretty much worthless.
I also seem to remember a book with a title something like "DOW 2100" that was based on the idea that the DOW was just going to keep rising like a rocket to unprecedented heights where everybody would be rich and happy, or something like that. Humans have a tendency to look at recent trend lines, project them forward indefinitely, and act as if those projections were likely. In any chaotic or cyclic system that is simply not the case.
I agree. Deep down all of the people involved in the market know that they don't know. The financial system is so complex that only a fool thinks they know what it is going to do, especially short term.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
A lot of people wanted something for nothing. I knew people that bought homes, and were shocked when their mortgage payments went from $1,000 to $6,000.
$50,000,000,000,000
We came keep buying in to the system and keep getting manipulated by fear. Global warming anyone. The lie is that we are at fault and that something that happens every 100,000 years or so can be stopped.
Maybe it is time for the Second Continental Congress.
Are we ready to form the VB-forum militia?
Would that it were so. I fear that a bunch of the people directly involved actually believe that they understand a chaotic system even though they ignore the chaotic nature of the system. I see this plenty, even amongst otherwise competent scientists.Quote:
Originally Posted by dbasnett
That's a big number, but what is it? Fifty trillion dollars? I haven't heard that number in association with anything.Quote:
$50,000,000,000,000
Naturally, I don't agree with that. I would have to say that a priori reasoning would suggest that human caused global warming should be happening. Since global warming IS happening, and the only real debate is as to whether we caused it, then I would hold that the burden of proof stands with the side saying that we are not causing it. My reasoning is roughly this: We can determine empirically that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We know that CO2 is one of the results of burning any carbon based...well...anything (heck, even diamonds burn). We also know that in the past century the population of the world has gone from about 1 billion people using x amount of fuel per person, to six billion people using nx amount of fuel per person where n > 1, though possibly only very slightly greater than 1. Some of that fuel is readily renewing carbon sources, such as wood, but in the last century, an amazing amount is from solid carbon forms that have been out of the carbon cycle for millions of years. The US alone is consuming somewhere above 300 million gallons of gas a day (not to mention other petroleum and coal consumption). To say that this is not increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere requires that the extra CO2 go somewhere.Quote:
We came keep buying in to the system and keep getting manipulated by fear. Global warming anyone. The lie is that we are at fault and that something that happens every 100,000 years or so can be stopped.
Therefore, I would say the burden of proof is on the doubters who need to establish where the carbon is going and how. Many theories have been put forward, none have held up.
this or a similar chart was in Big Al's book
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki...rature_Rev_png
Looks like it happens periodically to me. Or maybe all the talk of previous Ice Ages was false.
I believe we will have global warming. If you believe it is our fault then why plan for the periodic event, because we can fix it, right along with the economy, that is much simpler by comparison.
Or we stop being arrogant and realize it is going to get warmer, then much colder.
By saying this you should not assume that I think we should be pooping in the living room. We should be as eco friendly as possible.
It was just a couple of years ago that the government predicted (oxymoron) the worst hurricane season ever. Then nature had the nerve to have one of the mildest.
If you haven't read 'State of Fear' by Michael Crichton do so.
$50 trillion is our real debt, 40 of it being off balance sheet, our governments way of turning a turd into a fart.
Wait...are you saying that pooping in the living room is a bad thing? What kind of a waco wingnut are you, anyways!?!?!?
I really liked a few of Crichton's books, until he wrote that autobiographical one (was it time travels, or was that the one about going back in time to fight a bunch of knights). At that point I realized he was a total loon. Still, his writings are usually a bit better than he comes across as a person.
The hurricane predictions don't come from the government exactly. There is one professor, who may be at the University of Colorado, who came up with a fairly tight correlation between the rains in sub-saharan Africa and the subsequent number and intensity of hurricanes. I believe that all the hurricane predictions in the last decade or two have been based on that model. As with any model that predicts chaotic systems, actual results may vary. It doesn't necessarily mean the model is wrong, you just have to have the prediction plus or minus the confidence interval. People who report the news are either too dumb to understand confidence intervals, or they expect that their audience is, which is quite a reasonable expectation, unfortunately.
My point is not that periodic cycles don't occur. The entire rise of human civilization has taken place during a warm period in earths history. However, I do think we are altering things simply because we are taking carbon that was solid and releasing it as a gaseous, heat trapping, form. Any one person would have little impact. Six billion people....well, if we aren't doing anything, I'd be curious to know why not.
By the way, I'm glad to see you're still active. Are things going better for you?
Sure, we have an impact, and not a good one. The question is, if we had no, or much less impact, would it stop "GLOBAL WARMING"?
If the answer is no then we better quit messing around with electric cars and figure out where all the people that live in coastal FL, CA, NC, GA, VA, etc. are going to live.
I go to the Doctor's next Tuesday. Hopefully we will schedule stents / angioplasty.
I have no energy and if this is it I will go crazy.
Go ahead, admit it, this line "...our governments way of turning a turd into a fart" was good.
Using this logic I can make any wild, outrageous claim and it's everyone else's responsibility to prove me wrong...Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
http://asecondhandconjecture.com/wp-...balwarming.jpg
There you go, Shaggy. Prove to me that global warming is not caused by a lack of pirates. :wave:
:lol: All I want to know is where you got the information for the Global Average Temperature in 1820... :afrog:
I don’t think most people understand just how large the planet it. Sure 300 millions of gallons of gas sounds like a like to be burned every day. But just how much carbon is that and how much extra CO2 gets added to the atmosphere every day? First we have to take into account the billions of trees and plants that absorb carbon, so it can’t be that all carbon that gets burned makes it into the atmosphere. Next, just how much of the atmosphere is made up of CO2? I bet most people would figure around 20% to 30%, I mean after all we are burning up all this Carbon here on the planet so the atmosphere must be full of it right? Nope. In reality CO2 only makes up .038% of the atmosphere, far less than 1%. And of that .038% that is presently in the atmosphere just how much of that is man made? Being generous perhaps .005% or so? So we are to believe the earth is headed for some catastrophic climate disaster because we have managed to add another .005% of carbon to the atmosphere? Sounds absurd to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
The earth has stopped warming since 1998. Not only that the ice sheets and glaciers in Alaska have increased for the first time in a decade or so. Much to the surprise of some scientists the earth seems to actually be entering into a global cooling phase. Of course if you believed in man made global warming this should be impossible simply due to the vast increases of carbon being released into the atmosphere, especially by China who is building non-clean burning coal plants at the rate of about 2 a week. Please explain to me (a man made global warming doubter) how it is possible for the globe to cool with such increases in carbon being released into the atmosphere? Could it possibly be that the earth is far more complex and susceptible to other factors than just CO2?
So before you raise my taxes and take all my money for carbon taxes and make me change my lifestyle drastically the proof should be on those who feel global warming is man made, not on those who think it is not happening. Scientists have been wrong so much in the past about global climate change, saying in the 70’s that we were headed for another ice age and how we should spread soot on the polar ice caps in an effort to retain heat. Until scientists can accurately predict what the weather is going to be like tomorrow then maybe they can begin to make such predictions on a global scale. Baby steps…
X
Is the concern over global warming summed up in the final paragraph? Is it just a concern that accepting global warming means being forced to pay higher taxes and force a change?
I've wondered where the resistance arises from. However, I have consistenly stated my belief that we cannot remain static. We are out over the abyss with technology, and have to keep moving forwards. If higher taxes on fuel force the innovation that we are well capable of, then I feel that we MUST tax fuel because stagnation will be our demise. We can't return to a simple agrarian existence, but instead we need to continue to advance and reduce waste.
But leave that aside. Your figures for CO2 are fine. You state that the human contribution of CO2 is about one seventh of the total. No other animal contributes even 1%. There is a natural carbon cycle which would absorb carbon as it is produced such that the net contribution of all other species is 0%, yet we can boost it significantly. The fact that it is the third most common gas, yet contributes no more than a fraction of a percent to the total is hardly relevant. We need oxygen for life, yet we wouldn't be alive if oxygen was the majority of the atmosphere. Put another way, everything is a matter of dosage. If a substance is lethal at minute amounts, it doesn't matter that it is present in minute amounts, it matters that it is lethal.
As for the statistics of global cooling and the increase in the glaciers, that's dubious science indeed. I don't remember if that was a valid, local, phenomena or just a flat distortion coming from anti- groups, but glaciers everywhere else in the world are retreating. I used to talk to people about the ice cave that formed in a high valley near me, but the permanent snowfield that formed the cave, and was 20' thick in 1998, is nearly all gone now. The cave caved in a few years ago, and it's all melted away by now. Is that global warming? No, it's just a local phenomena, but it's as valid as one statistic about any other one region in the world.
You're right that correlation is generally used as evidence for causation. The correlation, such as you show, cannot stand alone. If you have a valid hypothesis as to how pirates cause global warming, then state that, as nobody can dispute the correlation unless they can show that the data the correlation is based on is false. However, disputing the correlation is also unnecessary. What is essential is proposing a valid hypothesis as to how there is a causal link between the two, and that step you have not done with that graph. The hypothesis, once stated, can NEVER be proven to be definitively correct. The best you can do is make predictions based on the hypothesis and test the predictions, ideally in controlled settings (which is why economic theory has always only been theory, but with the rise of e-societies such as Second Life, that may actually change).Quote:
Originally Posted by homer13j
The same problem remains with any scientific theory. Anybody who wants to dispute the findings for any reason only has to say: "Prove it." Since you can only support or refute, but never prove, this leaves a group of people who refuse to accept the hypothesis because it is unproven. In the extreme cases, you have people who doubt gravity, the spherical nature of the earth, etc. A more telling case is the one of HIV. For decades after the discovery of the virus, and the hypothesis that it was the cause of AIDS, there were distinguished virologists who fiercely defended their assertion that HIV was NOT the cause of the disease. This continued even beyond the point where treating the virus treated the disease. Whether those virologists have conceded that HIV does cause AIDS, or still are searching for the true cause, I don't know. I haven't heard of them since the late 90's.
Global warming is being debated, not in stodgy scientific journals like the HIV debate, but in the global arena by people motivated by profit, ideology, or fear, as far as I can tell. Some 99.9% of all climate scientists agree that the earth is warming (heck, even Bush agrees with that assertion), but only about 80-90% of climate scientists believe that humans are a primary cause. That remaining 10-20% are being used to keep governments from taking action, and leaving action voluntary for the populace, where ideological positions are almost certainly a better predictor than any other as to whether or not they take action. Why is this? HIV is controlable now because of drugs that were developed. Would those drugs have been developed if the eminent doubters were used to flog people into non-action? Must we convince even the staunchest flat earth supporter of the spherical nature of the planet before we can launch a single satellite into orbit?
There isn't a good answer. I believe that global warming is logical. If the majority of scientists also assert that it is occuring, that is good enough for me, as the assertion agrees with my expectations. Am I right? Nobody can say for sure, but I also feel that the acceptance of the hypothesis will spur technological innovation much like the acceptance of HIV as the cause of AIDS spurred the search for a treatment. It is the innovation that is important, though, because I will be contributing to the growth in the worm population before global warming is resolved.
All the proof for both sides is in the geological record. The record says that the earth warms up, the glaciers recede. The earth cools off, the glacier cover increases.
Maybe man's existence is going to make it warmer than normal, but mother nature will take care of that. Like I said, where will all the people that live in coastal regions go if the ocean levels rise?
Like I have said previously, we are arrogant in our believe that we can control this cycle, and fools for that believe.
Shaggy - are you saying that if we take all the "technological innovation" available and apply them right now that the planet will stop warming? What stopped it 100,000 years ago? Why is this instant in time different?
Actually, I don't care whether we succeed or not, I'll be long dead. Unfortunately, our greatest technological progress has always come as a result of perceived threats, whether it be wars, the space race, Japanese auto makers, etc. Global warming, just like all scientific hypotheses are mererly academic conjectures. When I look at my own views, I'd have to say I really don't care so much as to whether or not it is true, I care about how we respond and where it steers us. Whether the US addresses it's oil consumption through the threat of global warming or global terrorism really doesn't matter to me. I happen to believe we are contributing significantly to global warming, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, an ice age would be far harder on us as a species than global warming. Eventually the sun will burn out, but that's billions of years in the future, and no larger vertebrate has lasted that long, so we, too, should be gone. The truth is that we need to address global warming because the technological solution to that problem is necessary for the continued prosperity of humanity. Give me a viable electric car, and it will: 1) Reduce my costs. 2) Create more jobs (somewhere). If global warming will motivate the masses, so be it. If it won't, then I still believe we are doing it, but it is as much an academic topic as whether or not there is a black hole at the center of this galaxy.
As to the belief that Mother Nature will provide....that has been the belief throughout all time, so far. It has never been true before, and won't be true this time. In many cultures and many locations we have poisoned our own wells content in the belief that nature will provide, and it will...for a time and up to a point. Beyond that, the degradation becomes sufficient that we must move or die. This has happened many times in small areas. To think that we cannot affect the whole world as we have affected local regions would also require that you deny the theory of nuclear winter, as that, too, contained the belief that we can destroy our entire environment (that is, the elements necessary for our continued existence). If you accept that we can do it in a day, why do you not accept that we can do it over the course of centuries?
I wasn't saying mother nature would provide. If it gets a lot warmer the planets population will decline because of the effects.
Sure, we can add or detract from the cycle, but control it?
My guess is that your answer to "are you saying that if we take all the "technological innovation" available and apply them right now that the planet will stop warming?" is yes. I think it may or may not and that no one really knows. Is the innovation a good thing? Sure it is, for a lot of reasons.
Wow, we've been promoted to World Events....time to stop posting and let the thread die like everything else in here.
My answer to the question would be no. I don't believe current technology could reverse our impact on the earth any more than I believe current technology would give us any realistic hope of an alternative to gasoline. I do believe that the technology to solve these problems is either on the near or middle horizon, but it isn't here yet, and the major single reason is this: Batteries required!!!
Ultimately, I have little or no faith in a Hydrogen economy. Perhaps it could eventually be constructed, but it is no more than a vague pipe dream at this time. However, some of the issues with hydrogen could be solved via electricity. Heck, even Homer with his gocart racing would be happy with switching to electric if a battery with sufficient energy density existed. After all, electric motors can run FAR faster than gas engines, but that's meaningless if significant acceleration would suck most batteries dry in seconds.
I believe electricty could replace gasoline in our economy, and thereby solve all kinds of problems, including greenhouse gasses. This is especially true as I believe there is a viable plan in existence that could generate all of the electricity we use without resorting to coal, natural gas, or nuclear. However, since we have no viable means to store electricity, we are currently stuck. We simply don't have batteries with any reasonable energy density. I was just reading an article about the new GM electric car, and it was all about the battery. The rest of the technology is no big deal, but they need a battery that will be reliable over 150,000 miles, many recharge cycles, non-explosive, and small enough to fit into a reasonable car. They do have two batteries that they are currently testing, and they may give them all of those features, but the car will have a range of only 40 miles on a charge. That's enough that a large percentage of the country could use such a vehicle as a commuter car with no gas at all, but....forty miles??? The battery costs 10k, and will be substantial in size. That volume of gas could take a crappy car over ten times as far.
Batteries. Batteries are the key. Any means to store large amounts of recoverable energy in a small package would solve the oil issue, global warming, and the heartbreak of psoriasis, but that one technology doesn't exist. So, no, we can't apply what we have and solve anything.
On the other hand, there are some interesting developments on the horizon in other areas, and a few in batteries.
There are several organisations who are currently working very hard to improve batteries (and/or alternatives) for electric cars, and generating energy to top them up based on actions where the energy is currently wasted (such as braking), which should improve the distance quite dramatically.
Not only are the batteries etc and energy collection being improved, but the motors are being combined with conventional engines, so that the technology can be integrated into standard road cars.
The organisations I'm referring to are not the car manufacturers or companies that exist to promote a green agenda etc (although they are doing it too), but some of the most hi-tech R&D companies that are around, who have in the past created things like ABS brakes in a much shorter time than the more normal counterparts - namely the teams in Formula 1. There are several rule changes for next year, including the use of renewable energy under the name of KERS (kinetic energy recovery systems).
There was a TV program(natGeo???) that showed a electric generator that was placed on a river in NYC. It used the tides to turn the turbine. It only needed 4MPH to work. When I saw it I thought of the Mississippi and the Missouri littered with the turbines.
I would, but in kart racing weight is a key factor. A heavily modified 125cc two-stroke motocross engine puts out 45 horsepower in an absurdly small package which is the main reason we are reluctant to follow the motocross world in embracing cleaner (but heavier) four-stroke engines. If you could get me equvalent electric power for a full 30 minute race and do it with less weight than my CR125 with a full 2-1/2 gallon fuel tank and give the whole package a reasonable price tag I'm sure it would be a hit. With current technology we could do it, but our karts would end up weighing 500+ pounds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Railways have been doing this for years. On electrified lines like in Europe & Japan when the brakes are applied the locomotive's electric motors are reversed and become generators sending the excess electricity back into the overhead wires/third rail for other trains to use. Diesel-electric locomotives here in North America do the same, but burn off that excess electricity in the form of heat through a large bank of resistors - very wasteful and alternatives to this have been sought for half a century now.Quote:
Originally Posted by si_the_geek
Boy, this thread has more twists and turns than the Nurburgring!
The difference is that the "best and brightest" are on the case, many of whom are on excessively large salaries for members of their career (some engineers earn millions of USD per year).
I can't remember the details, but I think for ABS brakes they made the development process about 20 times faster, and have done similar for automatic gearboxes (apparently the gearbox on the McLaren SLR is better than a manual).
Only time will tell how good the various implementations of KERS will be, but I suspect that they will reap big benefits for road cars (new and/or after-market modifications) within about 5-10 years.
The one technology that I am watching for batteries is the use of nanotube based capacitors. I don't see them as a viable car battery system, but they may prove to be viable appliance batteries in the next four or five years. The advantage, if it could be accomplished, would be batteries that would never get "memory", and might recharge in minutes or less. That would revolutionize portable electronics. However, it's just one of several cutting edge technologies that may or may not show up in the market.
If we can switch to electricity, the options for power sources become legion. There was even a proposal to harness the power of jiggling breasts to generate electricity for personal appliances. Seriously! I'm not making that up, but I'm not feeling like googling that, either. The point being that any kind of heat or motion can theoretically generate electricity, so there are loads of potential sources. The problem is largely one of storage. We need a reliable, high energy-density battery. Given that, we can harness the obesity epidemic by powering the entire nation off strippers and fat guys with man-boobs.
If you're going to Google "jiggling breasts" make sure to do it with SafeSearch turned off.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Just a suggestion...
That's one of the reasons I hadn't searched on it. The other was that I don't really want to know more about it.
remind me to tell you about the ipod accessory i found when searching. OMG!