BFF(thurs) is off to a hell_of_a start for July!

What about the infamous 19 who have been backstopped to timmy and ben?

FDIC should accelerate the failures by hiring up and training some unemployed former financial sector lackies.

I'm hoping that this is exactly what they are doing anyway.

Save some pizza for me Sheila. I'm sure I'll be next in line with a resumé.

Continued rom the last thread:

Lucifer, the notion of 'regulatory capture' pressuposes a distinction between government and business.

Even 'revolving doors' is a poor analogy to describe the totalitarian American system of governance.

Hannah Arendt has described the spirit perfectly:

"Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda."

"28 Weeks"? Interesting...

I'd posit that the FDIC is still ramping up to handle greater numbers, and although they may not rival the S&L days in count they will overwhelm it in dollars.

Did you see my last comment on that thread?

//Lucifer, the notion of 'regulatory capture' pressuposes a distinction between government and business.//

If they were close to paying it off, then it's a good idea. It was a good idea when we did it; now I hesitate to tell people that, even if they already have lots of equity to burn.

Gonna try to log on to earlier threads, if I don't come back, it's because the Merritt Island computer is having a snit.

What happened to green shoots.. supply and demand ..

‘Rogue broker’ blamed for oil spike
FT.com / Companies / Oil & Gas - ‘Rogue broker’ blamed for oil spike

By Javier Blas and Izabella Kaminska in London

Published: July 2 2009 12:07 | Last updated: July 2 2009 20:26

The startling spike in oil prices to their highest level this year on Tuesday was caused by a rogue broker who placed a massive bet in the Brent oil market, triggering almost $10m (€7m) of losses for his company. PVM Oil Associates, the world’s largest over-the-counter oil brokerage, said on Thursday it had been the “victim of unauthorised trading”. The privately owned company said that as a result of the unauthorised trades it had been forced to close substantial volumes of futures contracts at a loss.

The failure by assets numbers are interesting - looks like WAMU beats the previous records all by itself. It will be interesting to see what the cumulative [edit] ultimately numbers look like. I think the data/curve will be noisier this time, precisely because of the comparatively greater concentration in the market. Not exactly a radical or deep insight!

In case you missed this one.

Schwarzenegger puts case for IOUs
FT.com / US / Politics & Foreign policy - Schwarzenegger puts case for IOUs

By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles
Published: July 2 2009 19:41 | Last updated: July 2 2009 21:35

Arnold Schwarzenegger has made a personal overture to the heads of America’s largest banks to persuade them to accept the IOUs being issued by California in lieu of cash. With a budget deficit of more than $24bn, California has started its new financial year deep in the red and has been forced to issue the IOUs because it has run out of money. Mr Schwarzenegger has spoken with the heads of several banks. So far, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have confirmed they will accept the IOUs.

CR:
are you equating S&L closures with bank closures? ... different animal in my mind.
back in the late 80s as you know I handled top 100 commercial banks (corp fixed income research) and
never paid much if any attention to S&Ls, for one, they had a completely different accounting
system - esp how they handled losses to loan portfolio, and politically they were kept alive in DC after de-regulation
in a bi-partisan manner when they should have died a dinosaur death...

Think about the losses to entities other than his company.

//I think to qualify as a "rogue-trader" the losses have to be in the Billions, sorry./

(pigged from previous thread):

YTL: welcome to the dark side

thanks Volker.

I haven't been posting much these last few months simply because I am literally speechless half the time.

I've felt for many years (at least since joining CR 2-3 years ago) that this would be a very very rough downturn, and that things would go very poorly. I knew that mama govt would step in and bail out a lot of people. I knew that many firms would make record profits and that they would say "waaah... government is always the problem... waaaah government can't do anything right". I knew that a lot of this garbage would get dumped onto Fannie and Freddie and that they would collapse.

what I WASN'T expecting was that almost all govt support would go directly to the financial elite in a Frankenstonian version of trickle down economics. I was not expecting such a blatant takeover of our govt by Goldman Sachs, with nary a peep from the peanut gallery. I was not expecting full zombification of our banking sector while still allowing record bonuses/pay packages.

I can almost stomach a completely nationalized financial system run by our politburo superiors. almost.

what I can't stand is this puppethead government whose strings are being pulled overtly by a soul less financial system that continues to suck off the taxpayer like the bloated fetid putrid pustular pimple that it is.

aacck.

Couldn't get on to the previous thread.

But it let me back here.

I'm all for ratios being low, 'n' all, but why should one class of investor be
treated differently than another, Luci.

bloated fetid putrid pustular pimple --- wow, couldn't have said it better.

A BFPPP.

If they were close to paying it off, then it's a good idea. It was a good idea when we did it; now I hesitate to tell people that, even if they already have lots of equity to burn.

UK mortgage debt is a recourse loan, jingle mail is not an option as the difference from sale price to loan(plus bloated expenses) is recoverable for 7 years

Byz,

Great CC rant!

I was not expecting full zombification of our banking sector while still allowing record bonuses/pay packages.

My favorite excuse is that the bonuses/salaries are justified to protect the government's equity in the company...

volker the viking

two threads down you made the claim that government has never created a job

" volker the viking (profile) wrote on Fri, 7/3/2009 - 5:50 am

Government has not created a single job. Not once, not ever. Government exists for its own purpose and that purpose runs counter to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. "

i strongly disagree

government has historically been a huge job creator

taxes like investors who start up a company, put people to work to produce a good or service

the nasa space program, the building of grand coolee dam and the interstate highway system are just a few examples of government creation of jobs

one may argue government shouldnt do some of these things,

one may argue that government often does not creat jobs as efficiently as the private sector

but to deny gov creates jobs is not supported by history

My fav is that it is to prevent a brain drain!

Maybe FFDIC went back to FDIC and feels he can't comment.

Juvie: Never underestimate the number of people here in any particular
place before Columbus. The Post Columbian die-off was staggering.

See 1491.

I wonder if they actually go after the people in GB for the difference?

Yes they do plus all expenses are thrown in and interest from the original default. They can chase for 7 years and even declare you bankrupt.

Byzantine_Ruins,

But won't burning witches and heretics please the god of climate? I read about your meso-american example, and that is what we are trying to do- for both CC and the current crisis of financialism.

liz,

Most aboriginal Americans passed away from our various diseases...

About 90% of the 2,000 indians that lived here for around 1,000 years passed away from Measles in the 1860's, as they had no immunity to something that lays us down for a few days when we are young, but seldom kills us.

Have you heard of "Ghost Dances"?

They were 5 day-long continual dances put on by the indians, trying to conjure back all those that passed away en masse.

Why don't the FDIC employee's give CR a shout out? We know that you are reading this site. Come on, tell us what you're up to! Your secrets are safe here.

The 19 hijackers get a pass, because they already hit up the ATM (Automatic TARP Machine)

So far, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have confirmed they will accept the IOUs.

Just what they want - more level 3 assets.

overseas markets don't seem quite as concerned...

guess I need to go back into the shop and make a new Bernanke vid mash-up... shocked I could get as many hits as I did for BB?
maybe he has star qualities we just can't see? or maybe it was that damned monkey!
for anyone that missed it : YouTube - No Country for Old Ben: Javier Bardem Tells Bernanke he's a Fool!
....
have new footage of Ben, plus lots of marching ducks this time... smells like a winner

Byz:
If we don't try and "solve" the cc situation, we will not have created the space for the alternative energy bubble we so desperately need.

Government jobs have their place, problem is they require taxes to support and the jobs provide just a partial recirculation of taxes. Private jobs produce taxable products along with a lot of tax revenue to state local and fed coffers. The real value is private jobs, government jobs are more of a major drain. This is why the economy will not respond and drag out the recession.

you argued last night that the life span of europeans exceeded usa only because of the greater infant mortality in the usa
can you give me a link on that? if true, how is that a negative for single payer, universal health care?
mock, I didn't see your conversation with charles kiting about mortality rates, but I'd like to make a few cautionary remarks nonetheless.

1) you must remember that different countries compile mortality statistics differently. This changes the data SIGNIFICANTLY.
some countries have limitations on what they will call a "live birth" which then leads to "infant mortality"

an example:
in the US, we routinely deliver and care for fetuses/infants born at 23 weeks gestation (6 months). we even sometimes go down to 22 weeks. fetuses/newborns are not viable without extensive medical intervention at these ages.

If we deliver a 23 week infant we call that a "live birth". 23 week infants have very high infant mortality rates for reasons I won't go into.
thus, later when that 23 week infant dies, we call it "infant mortality" and then it also counts as part of "average life span"

in other countries (yes even many western countries), they do not resuscitate 23 week infants. So if a woman delivers at that time it is called a "still birth" which counts under "fetal mortality" and NOT 'infant mortality' and then it does NOT count as part of "average life span"

2) I don't know that this will relate to single payer one way or another. it is not y et clear.
we clearly need to "ration" health care. the rationing can come either from mama govt or through private enterprise (ever had a prescription turned down by your insurance company? that's rationing!)

my guess is that if we socialized then we would see less coverage for some of the very high cost low outcome diseases.... like terminal lung cancer and 22 week premature infants.

Byzatine Ruins wrote just above
But... my concern over the well-being of our ecosystem does not mean that I think we are mentally or scientifically equipped to jimmy the global thermostat. It seems to me that a major go at this is likely to produce the same kind of "solution" that built housing projects in the 1960s and early 70s. Great intentions, but oops, bad assumptions....What people are talking about is terraforming our sole planet of residence as our first experiment in the subject."

isnt that what we are doing already??? pumping 6 thousand million tons of CO2 into the air each year

doing nothing in the face of mounting evidence is an even bigger risk and a more frankenstienian experiment

besides whats wrong with building safe nuclear power plants, solar, wind etc and cutting way back on the importation of foreign oil which accounts for nearly half our current account deficit

mock turtle (profile) wrote on Fri, 7/3/2009 - 11:47 am

YTL

some things...not all.. are best done by "we the people"

I would be careful choosing my examples. Building the pyramids bankrupted an empire so that one person could have a grand tomb. The space program got to the moon and died there, and smothered private space exploration for decades. Giant dam projects generate power for a comparatively short period of time while inflicting massive ecological damage -- it's just that the silting-up and the dead ecosystems happen on a longer scale than the photogenic bulldozer and cement-pouring phase.

Not that I am adverse to government flood control, or government research, or public works, but the kind of monumental projects you're talking about are often cited as the worst things about centralized planning: socialization of costs for massive private hobby-horses, smothering entire fields of endeavor because the state hasn't gotten done exercising its monopoly and never shall, undertaking projects with massive forward consequences while being concerned only with the immediate-term scope.

Centralization leads to humanity confronting one of its worst weaknesses, which is its tendency to embrace capability without undue concern about consequences.

Byz, as you've been byzzy, did you happen to see . . .

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

Despite the "reasons . . . is because" syntax meltdown, not a bad read.

The Climate Change Climate Change - WSJ.com

Have you ever considered that the pyramids were a work program?

There were at least 3 dynasties that built large pyramids.. 4th, 5th and 6th.. over 300 years! The US has been around for less than that.

//Building the pyramids bankrupted an empire so that one person could have a grand tomb.//

YTL

thanks for the lucid argument regarding infant mortality...i see your point

as for the issue of universal health care

i recall the EU pays an average of between 2 or 3 k dollars per person per year

and here in the good ole USA we pay more than twice that

btw the private insurance industry eats up 5 times the amount of health care dollars in administrative costs as does the public sector (medicare...tri-care etc)

my solution is let the people choose...run a public and private health care system side by side...competition

let those who want and / or can afford, layer premium coverage on tho of a basic public health care system

Recovering ABS may relapse if TALF support pulled
| Reuters

Somebody linked this article earlier on calls for the Fed to extend TALF support of ABS past Dec 31st. This is worth reading as it illustrates the problem the Fed is going to have pulling back these "temporary liquidity measures". The Fed will be THE key player in a lot of debt markets for the foreseeable future. Making those markets all the more subject to calvinball rule changes.

We know he was right because? He had no personal agenda to promote?

//check the latest Nat Geo for the trendiest theory on the Khmer's demise//

Yearning to Learn,

That is all fine, but what is the numerical effect on lifespan! If the effect is a week or less.. it is worthless.

//you must remember that different countries compile mortality statistics differently. //

But seriously, Chainsaw has an excellent point, not least also that the calvinball starts before the programs are even formally initiated. Here's another version, per bloomie, alt headline "PPIP In Not Dead Shocker!"

Treasury’s Distressed Debt Plan Said to Begin With $20 Billion - Bloomberg.com

C

mock turtle (profile) wrote on Fri, 7/3/2009 - 11:57 am

isnt that what we are doing already??? pumping 6 thousand million tons of CO2 into the air each year

doing nothing in the face of mounting evidence is an even bigger risk and a more frankenstienian experiment

Shock doctrine, pure and simple. step 1, Name a staggering number or terrifying fact, step 2, wave hands, step 3, do what I say.

You are having a totally simian response. Something went wrong, so you are freaking out and trying this, that and the other thing. It's called "overcontrol" or "chasing the needle" and is an awesome way to crash a plane. It doesn't work any better for other complex systems either.

Sorry, the "bigger", "more frankenstinian" experiment is developing a new policy in a state of hysteria and trying to ramrod it into place during the panic. Admit it or not, it's the Axis of Evil / War on Terror approach to policy and no, like you though I do, I'm not going to endorse it. And once you've gotten a response in place, you'll have your reputation invested and the credulous observer convinced of a one-sided version of the argument, and you'll have the modern version of Keynesian economics, where you spend in good times to enhance growth, and spend in bad times to offset downturns, and otherwise walk around with a hammer in search of a nail.

Seriously, look around you. Really. Do you see a social-government structure capable of meeting this challenge rationally and responsibly? I sure don't. You're gonna be really earnest and really well-intentioned, and you're going to kill millions or billions and be all like "oops, my bad, how was I to know the sun would keep coming up even if we didn't feed it blood, it's not like we could stop feeding it blood and see what happened."

Lucifer,
long term life expectancy is still nil past 125.
So who cares? One can even contemplate universal health care as a welfare program keeping all of the undereducated masses employed as bed pan emptiers to the boomers.

I am sure folks are so excited at that prospect!

Someday this war's gonna end...

Try 6 million years.

//my timeline is 1/4 of a million years, oxygen isotopes in greenland ice cap cores//

Lucifer,
personal agenda? the study group behind the theory? don't know, haven't really tried to see the weaknesses in the arguments, yet...
if I am able to at all... usually, I don't think much of what I read in Nat Geo unless said copy is given to me by a person driving a UNDP black SUV,
then I know it's legit.

Juvenal- note the Gov has not signed anything that the idiot legislature sent her except the crippled budget.

On Monday, the leg is back to find that all of the conservative wet dream issues are sitting on her desk with a veto stamp poised over them.

What I find funny is the little dictators of the legislature just don't seem to understand the power of the gov- she now has all the cards.

What pisses me off is this could have been done back in April- the late June grandstanding just pisses off the voters needlessly.

Someday this war's gonna end...

We've celebrated people turning 100, because in the past it's been hard to do, with all the diseases and such...

But imagine if it becomes much more common for Baby Boomers to make it to the century mark?

That's gonna throw a spanner in the works~

Lucifer, if that came to pass, the rich part of the world would have to bail out into space pronto.
Six billion having mucho kids even with just small proportion living for a thousand years would be dang near suicidal, especially as the masses realized their masters got to live forever.

Well, I guess we have the inside track on terraforming Mars- if you live a thousand years, what's a 100 year project?

Someday this war's gonna end...

More miscellany:

Tokyo Stock Exchange lowest volume in 4 months: http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/e/fr/tnks/marketlive.aspx

ECB in cruise control. Pound crisis brewing. Sweden's CB tries negative wholesale rates (viz last night's thread). Monkey business with Austrian CB and eastern europe exposure. Equities look lousy in most regions, and where positive are now inciting top talk and selloffs.

Doesn't look that great. And anyone know why the 10yr and 30yr bonds got a chunky bounce to round up early this morning?

C

Citizen AllenM,

we will have to do that anyway. But it won't be the west that will do that.. The west has become too full of itself, to consumed by self delusional fantasies.. just like asian countries were a 1,000 years ago.

///Lucifer, if that came to pass, the rich part of the world would have to bail out into space pronto.//

We started adding people like mad to this good Earth once we entered the Industrial Age, when there were around 700 million of us hanging around, and now we have 9x as many folks, and it looks like the Industrial Age is kaput.

Mock, thanks for raising the financial crisis parallel re climate change. Very apt. People like Byz sound an awful lot David Lereah a few years ago.

Man ate the fruit of knowledge and had to leave the garden of eden.. sounds familiar?

//We started adding people like mad to this good Earth once we entered the Industrial Age//

Byz: You are having a totally simian response. Something went wrong, so you are freaking out and trying this, that and the other thing. It's called "overcontrol" or "chasing the needle" and is an awesome way to crash a plane. It doesn't work any better for other complex systems either. (edit: add italics)

Mr. Ruins: Why are you conflating terraforming with basic climate science?

I don't know any/many actual climate scientists who think terraforming is a good idea.

Has anyone here read any climate papers, anywhere, ever?

All I see is people doing basic geoscience.

Perhaps you don't like the political framework growing out of an increasingly accurate body of work?

If only our leaders were that clever.

//The current guess is that pyramid construction proceeded during the months of Nile flooding, keeping an otherwise idle agricultural work force occupied and out of mischief. Good for dynastic stability. The nice tomb was just there to make future J6Ps see red.//

Start predicting something that can be measured.. then we will call it "science".

//basic climate science//

They're called thermometers, Lucifer.

Yearning to Learn,
That is all fine, but what is the numerical effect on lifespan! If the effect is a week or less.. it is worthless.

//you must remember that different countries compile mortality statistics differently. //

I don't know if the effect is a week or less, and neither do you.

My point is not to argue that Americans do or do not have higher/lower lifespans than those in other countries. Instead it is to tell you that you must be careful with analysis of some of these lifespans because the data is collected differently.
infant mortality is even more difficult to compare cross country due to the definition of "fetus" and "infant"

some data sets EXCLUDE infant mortality from overall lifespan measurements as example. Some don't.

You really need to dig into the SPECIFIC data (and not just the headline number) to understand this stuff.

having been on CR for some time you know that I speak the truth.

Do you blindly act on the Bloomberg/NAR headline in July that states: "house prices and sales are increasing month over month, signalling a bottom!"
of course not, you realize that it is important to look at the actual data (SA vs NSA, mom vs yoy etc) to get an accurate picture.

====

That said, I've been of the opinion for nearing a decade that we WILL get single payer healthcare whether or not we like it.
I also think that it is a much more efficient system (BY FAR) than the private mess that we have now
there is also little question in my mind that the care can be delivered far more cheaply than it can be done in the private sector, due to decreased costs.

I'm 100% for single payer with supplemental voluntary private insurance

however I also know that most Americans are going to be disappointed with single payer.
"what do you mean I can't get an orthopedic surgery evaluation for my bruised pinky toe within one hour! I'm an AMERICAN! I need an MRI stat on my pinky hangnail".

I've said this before: but the #1 diagnosis for our orthopedic surgeons 3 years ago was sprained ankle.
why pay a family practice doc $160k/year and no test to diagnose sprained ankles when you can pay an orthopedic surgeon $350k/year and get a $600 MRI to do the same thing?

why pay "bloated" govt workers to do your health insurance when you can pay the executive staff at UHG $200 million per year to do it?

the private system of the US is filled with waste.

you argued last night that the life span of europeans exceeded usa only because of the greater infant mortality in the usa

if true, how is that a negative for single payer, universal health care?

I'm sorry, I said infant mortality when I meant live births. A newborn that lives for two seconds is counted as a live birth (and issued a certificate) in the US, in some European couintries the certificate isn't issued if the newborn dies withn 24 hours and isn't counted.

US life span is also decreased by our higher murder/manslaughter rate (thanks to the Nixon/Reagan War On Drugs) and by our incessant needs to send troops to get killed in foreign countries, capital punishment, etc.

My point is that government life expectancy numbers have a lot more involved in them than simply the quality of the health care system.

Yearning to Learn: I'm 100% for single payer with supplemental voluntary private insurance

Sign me up. Or do we have to wait until health care is 25% of GDP?

Actually, given the demographics, perhaps this is the next bubble.

40 year mortgages on titanium hips?

I don't know if they actually go after them, but legally they can, as they can in most of the other European states I know a bit about. Having said that, I admit IANAL. I always enjoy your comments.

You are deliberately conflating what can be measured and tested with what cannot be measured and tested.

//and magic 8 balls are just as accurate in performing complex calculations as computers
and their are no experts...newtonian mechanics and palmistry are on the same plane//

It stands to reason if we have Government health care the amount of health care GDP will rise.

Anyone remember Brian Deese, assistant undersecretary to the janitor's mop squeezer for auto industry restructuring? Turns our he's committing a political faux pas, namely driving a Honda, and an actual offense by doing so, namely not changing his CT plates over... Ah rules, so harsh are thee for little people.

The Sleuth
- New Car Czar Deese Doesn't Drive American

c

For your viewing pleasure, Terminal lacunae of the Intertubez:

• Teh Warming Is a Communist Conspiracy
• You are Teh Hilter
• ALL EXPERTS ARE ALWAYS WRONG!!!!!
• Lucifer is extremely suave and very intelligent and always correct
• Kennedy anything
• Clinton anything
• anything with helicopter blades or sounds
• 9/11
• Global Wierding

Byzantine-

Just read your post re the environmental politics on the last thread. Great post.

SD

Our every sperm is sacred society took a mammoth hit when octomom did her thing, and people realized that quality is much more important than quantity...

.........You want to put the FedGov in charge of everyone's health? OK. How about I compromise with "I want the same healthcare plan as the House of Representatives and US Senate", or better yet, they can have the same care as I.

mock turtle (profile) wrote on Fri, 7/3/2009 - 12:19 pm

im not trying to use the "shock doctrine"
and by the way the author who popularized that theory is a "greener"

I like Naomi Klein's illustration of this policy mechanism. I am not trying to make myself attractive to her as a potential date / mate. As I said, I am in fact quite green too but probably not in the same way.

im trying to appeal to you intelligence

Thus flattering me if I agree (this is what a "reasonable" / "intelligent" person would say) and making me "unintelligent" if i disagree.

if using an accurate measurable verifiablke number to indicate the quantity of CO2 being pumped into the air is not part of a rational debate than we are in bigger trouble than even i supposed

It's a figure. My problem is not with any particular figure, it is with the fact that you do not have a real understanding of how the global climate works as a holistic system. Yes, we are doing terrible things to the planet with our industrial waste and our overpopulation. In fact, I think I have made it clear i think the human race is headed for a massive die-off.

No, I am not going to endorse some concerted global policy regime to "fix" it or even addle-pated patches like cap-and-trade.

but hey, i get it

50 years ahead CO2 levels in the atmosphere twice as high

That's right, I'll never understand the threat of Islamic terror. Not until there is a mushroom cloud over an American city. Clearly, the evidence of 9/11 is not enough for the willfully blind. We should all get our daughters ready for life under sharia law. The left learned entirely the wrong lesson from the Bushite scum.

NYC, the netherlands, bangladesh underwater

And other places warmer and more habitable than they are now. Are you going to compensate the Siberians and Canadians for their diminished economic prospects under your proposed regime? Ice-out on the north pole is going to lend fantastic economic impetus to the northern regions of Canada and Russia. Why are you crying for Bangladesh, and not rejoicing for Russia? Because you want to convince me.

and those on the right will still argue that burning organic matter had nothing to do with it

Ah, and of course, those who disagree with you are rightist scum.

there are so many parallels between the impending financial crisis and and the impending environmental crisis...many claimed, there was no problem,,,many claimed we cant do anything about it

That's the great thing about rhetoric. It does what an able hand commands it to. I can likewise draw a parallel between mortgage securities and cap-and-trade, about making marketplaces for the sake of enriching speculators out of things that make up the fundamental economic underpinnings of a society. Hey, let's subject another key component of the culture to the market mechanism, because housing and energy weren't enough. Or we can talk about failed "public goods" of the past like housing projects that destroyed communities or flood control / swamp draining programs that destroyed ecosystems.

"Yes, and we use the same ones that were used a 100 years ago.. same weather stations, same sampling techniques... right?'

Ah, I see what you're driving at...No, climate scientists have never considered the possibility of measurement discrepancies, nor the statistical means to correct them. It's all part of their devious plot to serve the "coastal elites." They've even duped the Micronesians into going along with them. Or are they part of the cabal too?

They're called thermometers, Lucifer.

Gerrymandered thermometers.

....perfect, mock.......and have them READ out loud on the floor EVERY spending bill they consider - AND, it must be televised.

SD,
That was not a great post, that a Rush Limbaugh-type post: I am right because I am Louder!. It is terrible logic to equate the idea of reducing human impact on the Earth with terraforming, in fact those two actions are diametrically opposed. Be careful Byz, you sound just as pompous as those you accuse.

NervousRex (profile) wrote on Fri, 7/3/2009 - 12:23 pm

Mr. Ruins: Why are you conflating terraforming with basic climate science?

An altimeter and airspeed measurement do not a control system for an airplane make.

Gerrymandered Temperatures

What does our country do with all the convicts, when we can't afford to keep them in the style they've become accustomed to?

I'd send em' all to Palmyra Atoll, deep in the South Pacific and let em' play Lord of the Flies with each other...

It will serve as quite the deterrent to future scofflaws.

POIC,

Under limits I would be dead. Thanks for thinking so highly of others who pay for health care. I totally understand the cost of my personal limited insurance subsidizing government mandated no pays. That is why it is a joke about no access to heath care. They just want gold card coverage with out the effort in real life. Lunch time see ya later!

In terms of ranking the current economic crisis, I find it interesting how age is playing a factor in people's perceptions. I personally am in full chicken little mode watching the sky fall. My father while thinking things are bad, doesn't think we have reached 1974 levels yet. I have a great aunt in her 90s (still lucid and going strong) who says she feels like this is 1930 all over again. One thing we all agree on is that a jobless recovery is a joke.

"Under limits I would be dead."

And you know that for a fact how? What disease do you have? Have you spoken to others with your condition in Canada or elsewhere. How much did your health-issue cost? BTW there are no limits to coverage in Canada, so once being treated you wouldn't hit an upper limit.

Just the facts please, not assertations.

I'm of that wacky school of people who believe that one of the things that separates a 1st world country from a 3rd world is access to affordable health-care. Not gold-plated coverage, but decent coverage. So yes I do regard a living standard of health-care as an entitlement.

the scientific community is better than most (NOT PERFECT) at peer review and weeding out false data and bad theories

LOL! How naiive can you get? There's as much religion and politics (and economics) in science as any other field.

poic,

We, the public are getting all the bad parts of health insurance already (limited access) and non of the benefit (30% mark up for profits)...So what's the problem?...If you accept that we are currently being screwed from a service standpoint, why should we pay for top notch coverage?

EDIT
Apology, I misunderstood your argument. I thought you were against single payer plan...

So let me ask again. We already have a system that limits health-care. We already have a system that is proven to expend a minimum of 8% more on over-head than government run health-care systems.

I'm still trying to understand the difference between our system and socialized medicine other than the for-profit characteristic.

+1.

I constantly find it amazing that people have the audacity to talk about "waste" in medicine while ignoring the enormous pay packages of REDUNDANT administrative staff across all the big health care companies, health insurers, and so on.

it it not cheap for large hospital/clinic systems to negotiate contracts with countless insurers to come up with many plans. nor is it cheap then for the medical staff to bill each place appropriately.

For instance, my clinic has 2 coders whose full time job is to look at the doctor's billing and try to improve it, since there are so many rules and exceptions that all change by insurer. not to mention the hordes of administrators who typically make between 1 and 10 and sometimes 50 or more times what a doctor makes. a single payer system is far simpler. those coders would not be necessary.

Atlanta area job fair cancelled due to lack of companies hiring
No Jobs Forces Cancellation Of Cobb Job Fair - News Story - WSB Atlanta

a single payer system is far simpler.

People said the same thing about the federal income tax system back in the 30's. Now we have people who's entire careers are devoted to dealing with the evermore-confusing tax system. Confusion creates jobs, a government-controlled single-payer health system will fall into the exact same confusion.

If I understand Byz's argument, stripping away the layers of imagined pedantry, he feels any attempt to seriously confront climate change will over-correct. The cure will be worse than the disease. What's laughable about this position is that most of the current policy prescriptions - e.g. cap and trade - are by nearly all accounts small initial steps in curbing emissions. And even these measures are having difficulty getting off the ground.

So the Byz's of the world are winning. But he would have you believe the enviros are about to declare one-world government from their Greenpeace aircraft carrier.

Again, the financial industry meltdown is an appropriate metaphor. There are lots of complexities that make it hard for John Q Public to understand, about derivatives, cds, mbs, etc. etc. But at the end of the day, a bit of prudence, mixed with regulation, could have reduced the severity of the crisis. Same with CO2.

There is no chance of the gasoline engine being banned anytime soon, for instance. But prudence says we should try to improve fuel economy, reduce emissions, etc. This is not a radical idea -- in fact it's inherently conservative given the scope of the problem.

Confusion creates jobs, a government-controlled single-payer health system will fall into the exact same confusion.

you ignore the current state of Medicine (or you don't know anything about it)

As it is we ALREADY have a government controlled system (medicare/medicaid) which is dominant. and yes it is unwieldy and confusing and lots of rules etc etc etc.

AND THEN IN ADDITION we have equally confusing private health care rules. and let me tell you, the private health care rules are NO LESS CONFUSING.

so we currently have MANY confusing health care systems.

going to single payer leaves ONE confusing health care system.

thus, it is simplified.

for some reason people persist in PRETENDING that the private beaurocratic systems are any less confusing or redundant. hahahahaahahahahaha.

come to my office and I'd be happy to show you the Blue Cross Blue Shield rules, then the Cigna rules, then the Kaiser rules, then the United HealthGroup rules, then the HealthSouth rules then Humana then Wellpoint, then Medica and so on.

they're all simple, riiiiiiigght.

it will SURELY be much much harder to deal with ONE government insurer as opposed to the current system of dealing with that SAME govt insurer AND all the ones above AND all the little ones too....
especially at the 1st of the year when people CHANGE insurances in the middle of getting care
or when they change jobs and CHANGE insurances in the middle of getting care

hahahahahahahah

Charles Kiting,

Mortality at birth-

Care to Comment!

From Wikipedia links..

Yearning to Learn (profile) wrote on Fri, 7/3/2009 - 1:14 pm

Byz:
I follow your argument until you say this.

How does trying to reduce our emissions count as "trying to control the weather and choose the earth's temperature"????

Presumably you are going to establish a mechanism for measuring the outcome, right? Not really a good program without objective measures of success or failure. And if the needle keeps moving away from where you want, you will "not be doing enough" and you will do more. That's active management, dude. It might be through indirect mechanism, but you are still picking a point and chasing it.

for instance, if I landscape my front yard them I am "controlling" nature and I am "terraforming"
but if I leave my front yard to go wild I'd hardly call that "terraforming"

Depends, what is wild enough? Is wild enough devoid of invasive species? Time for some active intervention, right? But that's different than pulling up dandelions from your trimmed kentucky bluegrass, right? You bring your perceptions to the game and impose them. People want wildness and so wildness will be framed and pursued, just like a lawn that resembles a putting green.

"Chicken Big"

Just like Chicken Little, but the sky isn't falling, it's rising...

CA (State cuts off applications for tax credit on home purchases)

"If you were hoping to cash in on the state income tax credit for new-home purchases, you're out of luck, at least for now."

NET WORTH PLUS (sfgate.com/blogs/pender) / State cuts off applications for tax credit on home purchases

tranches of lager,

The biggest problem with any effort to address to imaginary AGW is that most non-western and non-white countries see this as "dog in the manger" type behavior. The bad news is that you are on a rapid decline, they are on the up.. and you cannot win a war against them- economic or military.

What happened to the 'free market' and the 'wisdom of the marketplace'

Free Marketeers are the truest of 'true believers', until 1 second after the market gives them the bad news.

U.K.: Britons Pay Down Mortgage Debt in Q1

"

So far, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have confirmed they will accept the IOUs.

Just what they want - more level 3 assets."

No problem. The Fed will take them as collateral for treasuries. This will be the back door bailout of CA

• anyone with the temerity to joust with Byzantine_Ruins is literally tilting at a windmill.