Re: Climatology: a wonderful science

On Sat, 9 May 2009 10:43:42 -0700 (PDT), bill.sloman@xxxxxxxx wrote:

On May 8, 10:50 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 08 May 2009 17:44:45 GMT, Jon Kirwan





<j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 08 May 2009 16:29:30 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabd...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
On Fri, 08 May 2009 15:19:47 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabd...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
On Fri, 08 May 2009 05:14:47 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabd...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
On Fri, 08 May 2009 02:14:47 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabd...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
Rich's belief that it has anything to do with harm caused by climate
scientists is totally misplaced.  It was instead just a disingenuous
plan from the outset.  A kind of bait and switch, where agri-business
and the Bush administration conspired with malice aforethought.  They
never cared about AGW or CO2, then or ever.  Whatever harm was caused,
was caused because of greed and disingenuousness by an administration
that had nothing but the heights of disdain for climate scientists and
was willing to go to any insincere and divisive extent possible for
their patrons and themselves.

Never for a second did I ever imagine this to be the fault of climate
science informing sound governmental policies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/us/politics/23ethanol.html?_r=3

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124148381997685649.html
I'm not an unbridled supporter of Obama.  More of a conditional
support type.  And this isn't the only issue where we may yet part
company.

Big business is... well... big business.

There is only one party here -- kind of a wealthy, private property,
business party.  Corporate ownership holds power over most assets and
doesn't embrace a true two-party political system in the US.  So we
don't really have one.  Instead, it's more of a narrow system where
the capture and control of popular anger and energy is managed by
ping-ponging from one business party to the other when this or that
business party momentarily falls out of favor.  The Democrats and
Republicans are just the two boundaries of the constrained public
debate we are allowed to have.
Ironically, 'progressive' taxation inevitably concentrates
power in the hands of the few who pay the bills--a plutocracy.
Regardless of how it has happened, corporate ownership appears to
already transcend any ability by governments.  I got an earfull on
this subject back when the BBC brought together key international
bankers from around the world to discuss, for hours literally, the
February 28th, 2007, disaster in China's stock market.

This wasn't some agreeable group, by the way.  One of them was a key
banker from the Chinese gov't, for example.  And they argued about
most things.  One thing I did take note of, though, was that they
didn't argue about the fact that countries no longer have the ability
they once had to move unilaterally forward without the explicit
cooperation of private capital.  They all agreed that today private
capital holds the lion's share of power and that most of the capital
was now fully under control of private interests.  They seemed to just
take the point in stride and continue on, while I was forced to sit
back for a moment's consideration of what I'd just heard.

And yet the middle class still pays the bills.
By my counting the fat cats pay most of the freight, and naturally,
get most of the favors in return.

And, paradoxically, the more we rely on higher burdens placed on
the top to pay all our bills--'fairness'--the more we /have/ to
ensure their success.

Regulation also favors the large, the entrenched, as they're best
able to afford it.

It all leads to fewer, bigger players, receiving favors and
consideration from above because they're too big to fail...
which makes them grow bigger still.

Positive feedbacks overwhelming otherwise stabilizing negative
feedbacks will eventually lead to new territory where a phase shift or
sudden jump from one state to another happens.  This is part of the
reason why stronger rather than weaker regulation of industries such
as the investment bankers of recent reputation can be important.  We
are seeing a phase change right now because of a positive feedback
that went largely unchecked.

Jon

To me, it seems that in an effort to punish and "control" large
entities, we're increasing our reliance on them.

Well, like I said elsewhere in this thread, "There is only one party
here -- kind of a wealthy, private property, business party.... The
Democrats and Republicans are just the two boundaries of the
constrained public debate we are allowed to have."

The wealthy - individuals, institutions, businesses - don't constitute
a party. They mostly compete with each other. The idea that fat cats
meet in swanky resorts and conspire to rule tha world is mostly
fantasy. Antitrust laws and plain old self-interest prevent that.

There wouldn't be anti-trust laws if the fat cats were as deeply inot
mutual competition as you seem to think.

Of course. Laws exist to restrain human instincts toward the public
good. Laws keep individuals from stealing from one another, too.



Trade unions and governments *do* meet and conspire to take advantage
of the rest of society. And there's no laws against it.

In the same way that Chrysler negotiated with you government recently;
trade unions exist to give the unionised workers the capacity to
negotiate with goverments. Indiviual employees are easy to defeat if
they let themselves be tackled one by one.

If you don't like your job, walk. If you do good work, employers must
pay you what you're worth and treat you well. That's simple greed on
both parties' part. They should teach this in school, to both future
workers and future managers.

Unions, by coercing above-market pay and restraining innovation and
productivity, just steal from the rest of the public. Well, in the
short term they do. In the long term, they kill off their own jobs.
That's why, in the US, the unions are increasingly concentrated in
government and service jobs, things that are inherently
non-competitive or non-exportable. We engineers profit by designing
automation that kills union jobs.

But why are you concerned with labor issues? You don't work.


Most of the day-to-day business of trade unions is protecting
individual workers from arbitary decisions made by individual
employers who are too busy to take the time to treat individual
employees fairly.

Employers must treat workers well if they want to keep good employees.
The best thing a worker can do is elevate their skills and work ethics
so that they are a net asset to their employer; such an employer will
want to keep them.

Everybody has the power to make their own deals. Unions concentrate
and take away that power. And then kill off the jobs.

John

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Something for nothing: GM and the unions
    ... idea labor unions can get their members something for nothing. ... If you are working at a non-union company along with 10 other workers, ... than, unionized workers for the same jobs, just to be free of red tape ... employees who aren't doing their jobs right. ...
    (rec.autos.makers.chrysler)
  • Thanks Ted for injecting some sane balance .........
    ... idea labor unions can get their members something for nothing. ... If you are working at a non-union company along with 10 other workers, ... than, unionized workers for the same jobs, just to be free of red tape ... employees who aren't doing their jobs right. ...
    (rec.autos.makers.chrysler)
  • Re: Government Unions vs. Taxpayers
    ... In an era of deep economic anxiety, unions stood up ... manufacturing or "strong back" jobs. ... Federal employees receive an average of $123,049 annually in pay and ... at every level of government, the pattern is the same: ...
    (alt.gathering.rainbow)
  • Re: UAW BS Hurts America
    ... Big 3 UAW plays a part in keeping a major component ... would say to the unions that either be part of the solution or risk ... So all non-union jobs are low paying with no benefits? ... They do not make employees make better products. ...
    (rec.autos.sport.nascar)
  • Re: Climatology: a wonderful science
    ... trade unions exist to give the unionised workers the capacity to ... workers and future managers. ... continue to pay their employees. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)