When I was working up in the Shamattawa Reserve we would run the hot water and be able to light a lighter beside the faucet and have it burn as long as the water was running....this was natural Methane gas coming out of the permafrost . At one point we discussed a capture method with some engineers surveying the lagoon, and actually roughed out a capture process for heating.....nothing ever came of it.....
US Economy
- Thread starter a_majoor
- Start date
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 430
And on another note:
2021
barackobama.com
Friend --
Earlier today, a whole bunch of us who have already made a donation to the 2012 campaign decided something.
We decided we're ready to give for a second or third time -- if and only if you're willing to make your first donation to the campaign right now.
Your gift will be matched by a real person. You'll be able to see their name and town, and even exchange a message with them. Right now there are thousands of folks willing to match whatever amount you decide to give.
You'll have double the impact if you decide to make your first donation of $5 or more to the 2012 campaign now.
How about it?
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/o2012-june-match-matchees-nd?match_campaign_id=22&source=20110601_jm_nd1
2021
barackobama.com
Friend --
Earlier today, a whole bunch of us who have already made a donation to the 2012 campaign decided something.
We decided we're ready to give for a second or third time -- if and only if you're willing to make your first donation to the campaign right now.
Your gift will be matched by a real person. You'll be able to see their name and town, and even exchange a message with them. Right now there are thousands of folks willing to match whatever amount you decide to give.
You'll have double the impact if you decide to make your first donation of $5 or more to the 2012 campaign now.
How about it?
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/o2012-june-match-matchees-nd?match_campaign_id=22&source=20110601_jm_nd1
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 410
And with the inspiring Republican slate lined up against him, I don't want to sound cocky, but he's practically going to coast to the finish.
Baden Guy said:And on another note:
2012
barackobama.com
Friend --
Earlier today, a whole bunch of us who have already made a donation to the 2012 campaign decided something.
We decided we're ready to give for a second or third time -- if and only if you're willing to make your first donation to the campaign right now.
Your gift will be matched by a real person. You'll be able to see their name and town, and even exchange a message with them. Right now there are thousands of folks willing to match whatever amount you decide to give.
You'll have double the impact if you decide to make your first donation of $5 or more to the 2012 campaign now.
How about it?
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/o2012-june-match-matchees-nd?match_campaign_id=22&source=20110601_jm_nd1
- Reaction score
- 5,484
- Points
- 1,260
Redeye said:
I'm not so sure. Americans seem, to me, to be highly disapproving of him. It's not that his approval rating is so low, others have been lower, but his negatives are reported (CNN, most recently) to be very, very high ... so high that no politicians with similar numbers has been re-elected.
I'm afraid that The Republicans will have trouble finding an attractive candidate, not least because sane men and women are unwilling to participate in a "race" that is being refereed by Sarah Palin even as she plays from an offside position. But, while the race is Obama's to lose, he might just manage that feat.
By the way, the same caution applies to Canadians politics: another Comnservagtive majority is far from a sure thing; ditto another
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 410
They appear - at least in their media - to be highly polarized, but at the same time I think the Democrats will get a whole lot of mileage out of the fact that while the economy has not roared back to life as strongly as they might have hoped, the GOP has failed not only to do anything about it - but to even try. Most of their efforts in the House of Representatives have either been Quixotic attacks on healthcare reform, or attacks on reproductive freedom and access to healthcare. That is something that will likely show up in advertisings when the time comes. Additionally, the ongoing squabble about the (utterly pointless, IMHO) debt ceiling is getting traction.
I have to agree, the GOP is going to be in trouble when it comes to candidates. You've got the likely unelectable Mitt Romney, the non-politician Herman Cain (whose problems include an absolutely insane fiscal policy and no grasp whatsoever of foreign policy), the ignorant lunatic twins in Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, and well, that's pretty much it it looks like at this point. None of them are particularly attractive.
I have to agree, the GOP is going to be in trouble when it comes to candidates. You've got the likely unelectable Mitt Romney, the non-politician Herman Cain (whose problems include an absolutely insane fiscal policy and no grasp whatsoever of foreign policy), the ignorant lunatic twins in Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, and well, that's pretty much it it looks like at this point. None of them are particularly attractive.
E.R. Campbell said:
- Reaction score
- 5,484
- Points
- 1,260
Redeye said:
We, Canadians, need to put the blame for the failing grade of the American economy where it belongs: on about 95% of Americans, be they Democrats, Republicans, Tea-Partiers or Independents, who all want the budget balanced provided only that their interest, be it the Pentagon or Obamacare or tax increases (or cuts) are not touched.
Democrats are equally, arguably more, fiscally irresponsible than Republicans and the denizens of the Tea Party. But very, very few Americans can claim any degree of fiscal responsibility.
But we shall hear Canadians scream louder than Americans when the government is cut - as it must be - and when, finally, the Canada Health Act is revised to allow for multi-tiered health care
- Reaction score
- 5,484
- Points
- 1,260
If we needed it, here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is further proof that the US political professionals are bent on driving the sound, sane people out of Washington, presumably to make way for the assortment of village idiots, like Palin and Limbaugh, who clutter up the horizon:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/daily-mix/fed-nomination-fight-a-new-low-in-partisan-politics/article2048730/
The US is shooting itself in the foot - apparently intentionally, as the culture wars rage on over issues, like abortion and gay marriage, that have neither moral nor political importance for either side but which serve to rally the faithful for endless, pointless political and social divisons sub-divisions.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/daily-mix/fed-nomination-fight-a-new-low-in-partisan-politics/article2048730/
The US is shooting itself in the foot - apparently intentionally, as the culture wars rage on over issues, like abortion and gay marriage, that have neither moral nor political importance for either side but which serve to rally the faithful for endless, pointless political and social divisons sub-divisions.
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 410
E.R. Campbell said:
There is no better description I've seen yet than your last paragraph.
It's getting more ridiculous now that the Republicans are trying to decide who they will choose to lose to Barack Obama next year (and given the crop, there should be little challenge in that task). I'm particularly enjoying both the laughable ignorance of Sarah Palin (I'm Canadian, and even I know the story of Paul Revere's Midnight Ride), and the kooks coming out as candidates.
They keep going on about the US economic recovery hinging on business having "certainty" about taxes etc. How do they not? Taxes are going to rise. That's a certainty, that's basic economics, they have to. Regulations on things like the financial sector are a certainty. Now that the fog is clear, get on with business.
A liberal commentator who was interviewed on CNN this morning hit the nail on the head. It doesn't serve the GOP's interests to do anything to positively impact the US economy right now, because that will only make Obama stronger. People need to realize that, and demand better.
- Reaction score
- 7,927
- Points
- 1,160
While I am surprised that the US allows Congress/Senate to vet Central Bank appointments I do have a problem with the concept of allowing "experts" into decision making positions.
Experts are marvellous advisors. But I don't believe it necessarily follows that they should be placed in decision-making capacities. Often they are so wrapped up in their own specialty that they are unable to understand the implications their decisions have on the rest of the system. The may make the best decision possible to, in this case, reduce unemployment, but concurrently and as an unintended consequence, cause great harm to some other aspect of the economy. This is not an unknown phenomenon here in Canada......
Experts are marvellous advisors. But I don't believe it necessarily follows that they should be placed in decision-making capacities. Often they are so wrapped up in their own specialty that they are unable to understand the implications their decisions have on the rest of the system. The may make the best decision possible to, in this case, reduce unemployment, but concurrently and as an unintended consequence, cause great harm to some other aspect of the economy. This is not an unknown phenomenon here in Canada......
- Reaction score
- 35
- Points
- 560
More numbers:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-job-market-far-worse-than-it-appears/?print=1
The most damning thing that can be said in the 2012 election will be to simply replay the promises of TARP, QE II and other Keynsian economic voodoo to keep unemployment from rising above 8%. Note too that these numbers exclude huge numbers of Americans who have given up searching for jobs (but are still unemployed) and there are also large numbers of Americans who are unwillingly working part time or otherwise underemployed. Added to the 9.1% official unemployment rate and you have real trouble.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-job-market-far-worse-than-it-appears/?print=1
The most damning thing that can be said in the 2012 election will be to simply replay the promises of TARP, QE II and other Keynsian economic voodoo to keep unemployment from rising above 8%. Note too that these numbers exclude huge numbers of Americans who have given up searching for jobs (but are still unemployed) and there are also large numbers of Americans who are unwillingly working part time or otherwise underemployed. Added to the 9.1% official unemployment rate and you have real trouble.
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 430
An excellent summation of on the current political state in the US:
This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now.
June 13, 2011
Pundit Under Protest
By DAVID BROOKS
I’ll be writing a lot about the presidential election over the next 16 months, but at the outset I would just like to remark that I’m opining on this whole campaign under protest. I’m registering a protest because for someone of my Hamiltonian/National Greatness perspective, the two parties contesting this election are unusually pathetic. Their programs are unusually unimaginative. Their policies are unusually incommensurate to the problem at hand.
This election is about how to avert national decline. All other issues flow from that anxiety.
The election is happening during a downturn in the economic cycle, but the core issue is the accumulation of deeper structural problems that this recession has exposed — unsustainable levels of debt, an inability to generate middle-class incomes, a dysfunctional political system, the steady growth of special-interest sinecures and the gradual loss of national vitality.
The number of business start-ups per capita has been falling steadily for the past three decades. Workers’ share of national income has been declining since 1983. Male wages have been stagnant for about 40 years. The American working class — those without a college degree — is being decimated, economically and socially. In 1960, for example, 83 percent of those in the working class were married. Now only 48 percent are.
Voters are certainly aware of the scope of the challenges before them. Their pessimism and anxiety does not just reflect the ebb and flow of the business cycle, but is deeper and more pervasive. Trust in institutions is at historic lows. Large majorities think the country is on the wrong track, and have for years. Large pluralities believe their children will have fewer opportunities than they do.
Voters are in the market for new movements and new combinations, yet the two parties have grown more rigid.
The Republican growth agenda — tax cuts and nothing else — is stupefyingly boring, fiscally irresponsible and politically impossible. Gigantic tax cuts — if they were affordable — might boost overall growth, but they would do nothing to address the structural problems that are causing a working-class crisis.
Republican politicians don’t design policies to meet specific needs, or even to help their own working-class voters. They use policies as signaling devices — as ways to reassure the base that they are 100 percent orthodox and rigidly loyal. Republicans have taken a pragmatic policy proposal from 1980 and sanctified it as their core purity test for 2012.
As for the Democrats, they offer practically nothing. They acknowledge huge problems like wage stagnation and then offer... light rail! Solar panels! It was telling that the Democrats offered no budget this year, even though they are supposedly running the country. That’s because they too are trapped in a bygone era.
Mentally, they are living in the era of affluence, but, actually, they are living in the era of austerity. They still have these grand spending ideas, but there is no longer any money to pay for them and there won’t be for decades. Democrats dream New Deal dreams, propose nothing and try to win elections by making sure nobody ever touches Medicare.
Covering this upcoming election is like covering a competition between two Soviet refrigerator companies, cold-war relics offering products that never change.
If there were a Hamiltonian Party, it would be offering a multifaceted reinvigoration agenda. It would grab growth ideas from all spots on the political spectrum and blend them together. Its program would be based on the essential political logic: If you want to get anything passed, you have to offer an intertwined package that smashes the Big Government vs. Small Government orthodoxies and gives everybody something they want.
This reinvigoration package would have four baskets. There would be an entitlement reform package designed to redistribute money from health care and the elderly toward innovation and the young. Unless we get health care inflation under control by replacing the perverse fee-for-service incentive structure, there will be no money for anything else.
There would be a targeted working-class basket: early childhood education, technical education, community colleges, an infrastructure bank, asset distribution to help people start businesses, a new wave industrial policy if need be — anything that might give the working class a leg up.
There would be a political corruption basket. The Tea Parties are right about the unholy alliance between business and government that is polluting the country. It’s time to drain the swamp by simplifying the tax code and streamlining the regulations businesses use to squash their smaller competitors.
There would also be a pro-business basket: lower corporate rates, a sane visa policy for skilled immigrants, a sane patent and permitting system, more money for research.
The Hamiltonian agenda would be pro-market, in its place, and pro-government, in its place. In 2012, on the other hand, we’re going to see another clash of the same old categories. I’ll be covering it, but I protest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/opinion/14brooks.html?hp
This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now.
June 13, 2011
Pundit Under Protest
By DAVID BROOKS
I’ll be writing a lot about the presidential election over the next 16 months, but at the outset I would just like to remark that I’m opining on this whole campaign under protest. I’m registering a protest because for someone of my Hamiltonian/National Greatness perspective, the two parties contesting this election are unusually pathetic. Their programs are unusually unimaginative. Their policies are unusually incommensurate to the problem at hand.
This election is about how to avert national decline. All other issues flow from that anxiety.
The election is happening during a downturn in the economic cycle, but the core issue is the accumulation of deeper structural problems that this recession has exposed — unsustainable levels of debt, an inability to generate middle-class incomes, a dysfunctional political system, the steady growth of special-interest sinecures and the gradual loss of national vitality.
The number of business start-ups per capita has been falling steadily for the past three decades. Workers’ share of national income has been declining since 1983. Male wages have been stagnant for about 40 years. The American working class — those without a college degree — is being decimated, economically and socially. In 1960, for example, 83 percent of those in the working class were married. Now only 48 percent are.
Voters are certainly aware of the scope of the challenges before them. Their pessimism and anxiety does not just reflect the ebb and flow of the business cycle, but is deeper and more pervasive. Trust in institutions is at historic lows. Large majorities think the country is on the wrong track, and have for years. Large pluralities believe their children will have fewer opportunities than they do.
Voters are in the market for new movements and new combinations, yet the two parties have grown more rigid.
The Republican growth agenda — tax cuts and nothing else — is stupefyingly boring, fiscally irresponsible and politically impossible. Gigantic tax cuts — if they were affordable — might boost overall growth, but they would do nothing to address the structural problems that are causing a working-class crisis.
Republican politicians don’t design policies to meet specific needs, or even to help their own working-class voters. They use policies as signaling devices — as ways to reassure the base that they are 100 percent orthodox and rigidly loyal. Republicans have taken a pragmatic policy proposal from 1980 and sanctified it as their core purity test for 2012.
As for the Democrats, they offer practically nothing. They acknowledge huge problems like wage stagnation and then offer... light rail! Solar panels! It was telling that the Democrats offered no budget this year, even though they are supposedly running the country. That’s because they too are trapped in a bygone era.
Mentally, they are living in the era of affluence, but, actually, they are living in the era of austerity. They still have these grand spending ideas, but there is no longer any money to pay for them and there won’t be for decades. Democrats dream New Deal dreams, propose nothing and try to win elections by making sure nobody ever touches Medicare.
Covering this upcoming election is like covering a competition between two Soviet refrigerator companies, cold-war relics offering products that never change.
If there were a Hamiltonian Party, it would be offering a multifaceted reinvigoration agenda. It would grab growth ideas from all spots on the political spectrum and blend them together. Its program would be based on the essential political logic: If you want to get anything passed, you have to offer an intertwined package that smashes the Big Government vs. Small Government orthodoxies and gives everybody something they want.
This reinvigoration package would have four baskets. There would be an entitlement reform package designed to redistribute money from health care and the elderly toward innovation and the young. Unless we get health care inflation under control by replacing the perverse fee-for-service incentive structure, there will be no money for anything else.
There would be a targeted working-class basket: early childhood education, technical education, community colleges, an infrastructure bank, asset distribution to help people start businesses, a new wave industrial policy if need be — anything that might give the working class a leg up.
There would be a political corruption basket. The Tea Parties are right about the unholy alliance between business and government that is polluting the country. It’s time to drain the swamp by simplifying the tax code and streamlining the regulations businesses use to squash their smaller competitors.
There would also be a pro-business basket: lower corporate rates, a sane visa policy for skilled immigrants, a sane patent and permitting system, more money for research.
The Hamiltonian agenda would be pro-market, in its place, and pro-government, in its place. In 2012, on the other hand, we’re going to see another clash of the same old categories. I’ll be covering it, but I protest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/opinion/14brooks.html?hp
- Reaction score
- 5,484
- Points
- 1,260
This, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is a dangerous escalation:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/top-republican-quits-us-budget-talks-as-debt-ceiling-deadline-looms/article2072424/
Let me be clear: the United States is, already, a deadbeat. It has been since May, some accounting tricks have been used to delay the final, deadly phase: default.
Everyone with the brains the gods gave to green peppers knows that the US must make massive spending cuts to entitlements and to the Pentagon, too, and there must be tax increases – ideally a national value added tax à la Canada's HST. The political problem in the US is that Obama wants the US Congress to share the blame for any and all tax increases and the Republicans want to lay all the blame at Obama's feet. With the election campaign sputtering to life that matters.
There are, to be sure, some people who oppose all tax increases but they all failed Economics 101 – even the ones with PhDs in Economics.
This matters to Canada because we hold a huge amount of the US debt – not as much, in absolute terms, as China but, proportionately, more, I think than anyone else. When, if, the US formally defaults we will take a real beating.
Q: What's the difference between the Boy Scouts and the United States of America?
A: The Boy Scouts have adult leadership.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/top-republican-quits-us-budget-talks-as-debt-ceiling-deadline-looms/article2072424/
Let me be clear: the United States is, already, a deadbeat. It has been since May, some accounting tricks have been used to delay the final, deadly phase: default.
Everyone with the brains the gods gave to green peppers knows that the US must make massive spending cuts to entitlements and to the Pentagon, too, and there must be tax increases – ideally a national value added tax à la Canada's HST. The political problem in the US is that Obama wants the US Congress to share the blame for any and all tax increases and the Republicans want to lay all the blame at Obama's feet. With the election campaign sputtering to life that matters.
There are, to be sure, some people who oppose all tax increases but they all failed Economics 101 – even the ones with PhDs in Economics.
This matters to Canada because we hold a huge amount of the US debt – not as much, in absolute terms, as China but, proportionately, more, I think than anyone else. When, if, the US formally defaults we will take a real beating.
Q: What's the difference between the Boy Scouts and the United States of America?
A: The Boy Scouts have adult leadership.
- Reaction score
- 7,927
- Points
- 1,160
E.R. Campbell said:
It will be interesting to see the impact of the withdrawal of the "World's Policeman" from the street corner. Will the rest of the world come to understand the value of such an entity? Will they set up an alternative UN Police Force ( I can't hold my breath that long)? Will they hire the US Military to continue doing the job they are doing and thus improve the US balance of payments? Or will we come to love the freedom known as anarchy and head back to the great days of the VOC, the HEIC and the HBC when your employer guaranteed your security? (And how far removed from accepting the Queen's Shilling is accepting the HBC's Shilling?)
Stay tuned.....
- Reaction score
- 5,484
- Points
- 1,260
Kirkhill said:
That's a really good point. At a very conservative estimate the US pays something like $250 Billion (more than 10 times Canada's total defence spending or four time's the UK's total defence spending) on being the "world's policeman," that is to say providing security to other countries - including Canada and Europe and Japan and, and and ...
China will want to move to "police" parts of East Asia and India may want to "help" in South West Asia - to threaten Pakistan, China's (sometime) friend, but no one will want to pick up all or even most of the pieces.
- Reaction score
- 5,484
- Points
- 1,260
Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen, is more about some of the global impacts when, not if, the USA must reduce and retreat:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/America+turns+away+from+world/4996358/story.html
At the risk of repeating myself: failing to solve its long term, structural, fiscal problems is national suicide for the USA, and while I may think that too many American legislators, including President Obama, are too long of partisan politics and too short on intellect and strategic vision, I doubt they want to destroy America. To avoid destroying America politicians must, sooner rather than later:
1. Cut spending on entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, etc) - a move which is opposed by 85%+ of Americans;
2. Cut defence spending - a move which is also opposed by most Americans; and
3. Raise taxes - another move which is opposed by about ⅔ of Americans.
Two out of three will not work - America must and will make a strategic withdrawal and will, once again, embrace isolationism for, at least, a generation.
Van Praag is right - that move will sow the seeds for more, bigger and dirtier wars. China will not be willing, not until some long time after 2050, I think, or able to take up the mantle of the world's policeman.
Edit: deleted repeated words
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/America+turns+away+from+world/4996358/story.html
At the risk of repeating myself: failing to solve its long term, structural, fiscal problems is national suicide for the USA, and while I may think that too many American legislators, including President Obama, are too long of partisan politics and too short on intellect and strategic vision, I doubt they want to destroy America. To avoid destroying America politicians must, sooner rather than later:
1. Cut spending on entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, etc) - a move which is opposed by 85%+ of Americans;
2. Cut defence spending - a move which is also opposed by most Americans; and
3. Raise taxes - another move which is opposed by about ⅔ of Americans.
Two out of three will not work - America must and will make a strategic withdrawal and will, once again, embrace isolationism for, at least, a generation.
Van Praag is right - that move will sow the seeds for more, bigger and dirtier wars. China will not be willing, not until some long time after 2050, I think, or able to take up the mantle of the world's policeman.
Edit: deleted repeated words
- Reaction score
- 35
- Points
- 560
The only other realistic contender is the Anglosphere nations acting in concert, raising Canada, Australia and India to the front ranks of the world's nations (and perhaps honouraries like Japan and the Netherlands also raising their profiles as well).
We will live in interesting times
We will live in interesting times
- Reaction score
- 5,484
- Points
- 1,260
I'm not sure the Anglosphere, or even an Anglosphere+, is willing or able, either. Britain is broke, too. India has some global strategic ambitions but it, like China, is focused on its home region, and is likely to remain so for a generation or more.
I'm wondering if the US would be interested in privatizing some services - like strategic sea and air lift and (stocked) supply depots - and allowing them to be used by some 'clients' who are conducting approved missions. (Approved by whom? The UNSC?) It would lower O&M costs - which are always greater than capital and bring in a small, one-time capital infusion and it would keep people on someone's payroll.
I'm wondering if the US would be interested in privatizing some services - like strategic sea and air lift and (stocked) supply depots - and allowing them to be used by some 'clients' who are conducting approved missions. (Approved by whom? The UNSC?) It would lower O&M costs - which are always greater than capital and bring in a small, one-time capital infusion and it would keep people on someone's payroll.
