Re: Climatology: a wonderful science

On May 8, 9:57 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 08 May 2009 16:55:01 GMT, James Arthur





<bogusabd...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 08 May 2009 16:05:18 GMT, Jon Kirwan
<j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 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

Agreed. Clinton's deregulation of the banking system reduced
stability. The other killer was enormous amounts of private, business,
and institutional dollars looking for a place to roost. Given the
declining opportunities to invest in genuinely productive enterprises
- not that many are left - they invested in "financial" instruments
which are basically hollow bubbles.

Differential taxation would help a lot: lower taxes on genuine
productivity, higher taxes on empty investments; lower taxes on
longterm earnings, ruinous taxes on quick flips.

We actually have enough food and housing and stuff in the USA. What
people need, for social stability and self-worth, are good jobs.

John

And one pretty good definition of a "good job" is: a job making
or doing something that people want, at a price they're willing
to pay, better than the other guy does it.

Such a job has the security of providing something in demand,
and can pay a commensurate wage.

Oh dear, that formulation sounds a lot like...supply and demand.
Profit and pay, ultimately, on average, reflect society's
judgement that something is worthwhile, and worth its price.

With increasing automation and information processing (thanks to us
engineers) an increasing fraction of the population is being left out,
because they haven't the skills to be productive. It would be better
to spin the tax and welfare systems to encourage their employment,
even if they aren't especially productive. Too bad that's politically
impossible.

This is a variation on the thirties joke, where one worker complains
that a bulldozer was replacing a hundred men with shovels, and another
responds - or a million men with tea-spoons.

The answer is that workers whose jobs have been automated out of
existence need to be retrained to do jobs that haven't yet been
automated. Ours isn't the first generation that has had to deal with
this problem.

European social security systems see that as part of their job.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
.

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    ... There is only one party here -- kind of a wealthy, private property, ... ping-ponging from one business party to the other when this or that ... By my counting the fat cats pay most of the freight, and naturally, ... people need, for social stability and self-worth, are good jobs. ...
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