2014, hottest year on record!

[allardjd 1,853]

The US senate has decided that mankind is not responsible for Climate Change!

 

 

 

OK, what actually happened, is this...  

 

A minority senator attempted to add a resolution to a bill under consideration for a pipeline to bring Canadian oil to the US without having to use rail shipment.  His resolution stated that climate change is real and that human activity significantly contributes to it. It was very likely introduced as a delaying tactic, an obstructive measure and as a means to force Senators to go "on the record" on the topic.  His resolution, which required 60 votes to pass was defeated 50-49. It really had no direct bearing on the original bill being considered.  

 

The vote, specifically was not whether there was agreement with the specific wording of his proposed resolution, but whether to attach it to the bill under consideration. What the Senate did was to decline that attachment to the original pipeline bill.

 

By the way, the public approval rating for the US Congress (available statistics don't allow me to split out the Senate) is about 15%, about a third that of the President. If you're bashing the US Senate, you're carrying coals to Newcastle.

 

[MartinW 0]

You mention some countries in the red, forgetting that the USA is in the debt to the tune of around $18 trillion, more than all the countries you named combined.

 

In the red means liabilities/debt exceeds assets.  Yes, US public debt is about $18 Trillion.  No, we're not in the red.

 

 

I guess you mean that's my share of the public debt?  My assets exceed that - I'm not in the red either.

 

Here's a very interesting article from Forbes for you to read then...

Is America Bankrupt?

 

The yield on the U.S. ten-year treasury dipped below 1.40% this morning, the lowest in recorded history. Why does money continue to flow into this perceived “safe haven?” Is America really financially stronger than the rest of the world or are we bankrupt? To illustrate, allow me to introduce, “The Satirical World of Bob.”

Bob was an articulate, charismatic guy with a decent paying job. He did, however, possess a penchant for the good life and was motivated enough to do whatever it took to achieve it. When his first credit card application arrived in the mail – along with the normal circulars and other advertisements – he quickly grabbed a pen, filled it out and sent it in. Within two weeks, Bob had received his first plastic money machine. Machine I say, because in Bob’s mind, a credit card was like creating money out of thin air. Shortly thereafter, he had acquired 3 additional cards. After an extended shopping spree, Bob was the proud owner of a new state-of-the-art boat complete with all the requisite fishing gear, a few HD-TV’s, computers, various kitchen appliances, and whatever else he desired. Without much effort at all, his cards were soon maxed out. What did Bob do? Why, he got more credit cards, that’s what. In fact, in a few months, Bob had 24 credit cards, each at their limit, putting him exactly $1,200,000 in the red. With an annual income of only $75,000, his debt-to-income ratio was a staggering…..well let’s just say he was having trouble paying the minimum payment. What did Bob do? More credit cards? No! Bob figured he needed more income so he went job hunting.

Bob had always been an avid news buff and enjoyed a good political debate from time to time. In fact, this congenial chap always fancied himself as the consummate soft-hearted, social minded sort. To him, the government seemed like a perfect fit for his spending proclivities. After all, he felt the massive federal debt was as necessary as mother’s milk is to a newborn babe. He also fancied the way the government could print new money without anything to back it up anytime it so desired. To him, deficits were just a normal part of life.

Before we return to our story, let’s exit our “Satirical World of Bob” and focus on a most pressing matter. FACT: The U.S. government is bankrupt! Yes, bankrupt. Skeptical? Ok, I’ll provide some facts and you decide.

The government has an “official” debt of $15.8 trillion and mounting. But wait, there’s more. This doesn’t include the liability from Social Security and Medicare. When you factor these in, the amount according to some, exceeds $120 trillion. With U.S. Federal tax revenue of just over $2.3 trillion, that puts our debt-to-income ratio somewhere around 5,082%. Now let me ask you. If you, as an individual, entered your local bank and asked for a loan with a similar debt-to-income ratio, what do you think the loan officer would say? Would they give you the loan? Now let’s return to Bob.

Bob ultimately found employment in Congress where he became one of the biggest spenders on the hill. He was re-elected several times by his constituents as they especially liked how Bob could “bring home the bacon.” In fact, Bob became rather wealthy in the process. From his vantage, there was no problem. Besides, as long as the boat remained afloat, everything was fine. However, when the children and grandchildren of his constituents became adults, their tax rate exceeded 75% and lost the desire to work hard since they could only keep about 25 cents of every dollar they earned.

Are we bankrupt? You decide.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2012/07/23/is-america-bankrupt/

[MartinW 0]

Just for the record, I haven't defended that alleged situation, at least not yet. I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth.

I didn't "put words in your mouth"... I said and I quote, "I suspect you don't have a problem with". I always reserve the right to suspect.

 

At the moment, I'm more inclined to think the statistic itself might be a bit contrived - or maybe it's not

If it's only a "bit" contrived, rather than a "lot" contrived...then do you agree it's s serious issue, and the trend damaging. Yes? No?

[MartinW 0]

Phew...did you hear?

The US senate has decided that mankind is not responsible for Climate Change!

Man, I bet that allays the concerns of 9 out of 10 climate scientists...and vindicates the 1 out of 10 deniers.

I think I might just go buy me a monster truck and take advantage of all this cheep fracking gasoline.

 

Morons...fracking morons.

 

One of the wealthiest countries in the world pays the stupidest, most self-centered, power mad morons to Lead a country by making decisions about things they know Nothing about.

 

This is why I live on a sail boat. Always read to head out on the clean air before the shit hits the fan.

 

 

 By the way, the public approval rating for the US Congress (available statistics don't allow me to split out the Senate) is about 15%, about a third that of the President. If you're bashing the US Senate, you're carrying coals to Newcastle.

 

 

 

Johns reply to you is interesting given that for what has seemed like an eternity, over and over again, the US Senate has refused to accept humanity's role in climate change. Not surprising though given that the major political parties are funded by the greedy, predatory ultra rich... and always at the back of their minds the politicians are worried their policies might annoy their backers. Mega rich win. Democracy loses.

P.S. Has a US presidential election ever been won by the campaign with the least money? Can't recall. Don't think so, not very often. The death of the democratic process!

US Senate refuses to accept humanity's role in global climate change, again!

 

And this is no less than 27 years after science spelt it out to them!!!

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/22/us-senate-man-climate-change-global-warming-hoax

 

It is nearly 27 years now since a Nasa scientist testified before the US Senate that the agency was 99% certain that rising global temperatures were caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

And the Senate still has not got it – based on the results of three symbolic climate change votes on Wednesday night.

The Senate voted virtually unanimously that climate change is occurring and not, as some Republicans have said, a hoax – but it defeated two measures attributing its causes to human activity.

 

 

I agree with you Captain Coffee... some of them are morons, but the majority are scared poo'less to annoy their super rich backers.

 

 

A quote from the infamous Inhofe...

 

 

"“Climate is changing and climate has always changed and always will,” Inhofe told the Senate. “The hoax is that there are some people who are so arrogant to think they are so powerful they can change climate. Man can’t change climate.”

 

 

Staggeringly stupid!

 

It's not about "arrogance" Mr Inhofe, it's about 1000+ pier reviewed scientific papers.

[allardjd 1,853]

 ...forgetting that the USA is in the debt to the tune of around $18 trillion, more than all the countries you named combined.

 

 

 

 ...and you are forgetting that our GDP dwarfs those of all the countries I named combined, including the one that happens to be an OPEC member.

[allardjd 1,853]

Here's a very interesting article from Forbes for you to read then...

 

Is America Bankrupt?

 

 

 

Well, the article is 2-1/2 years old, and we're still going, as are most of the world economies who all do much the same thing at one level or another.  We're not much different from the rest; the size of our debt is more or less proportionate to our GDP/wealth when compared against other nations and significantly better than some (e.g. Japan).  Don't assume, however, that I'm in favor of the status quo.

 

The world is beginning to realize the inherent fallacy of sustained deficit spending.  Almost every country in the world issues bonds and increasingly does so to generate the funds needed to pay the interest on the bonds issued last year or last decade.  Each government is at risk that some economic, political, natural or human calamity will reduce confidence in their ability to meet future bond redemptions and consequently drive up the interest rate that must be promised in order to sell the bonds.  At that point the death spiral has begun and you're well on your way to being Greece.  Unless you can break the downward spiral of ever decreasing confidence and ever increasing interest rates on your bonds, you will have no choice but to eventually default on legitimately owed bond payments, the dreaded "haircut".  That's what bankruptcy of a nation looks like.  The smaller a county's GDP, the less cushion they have from that event.  The US enjoys a pretty big cushion.

 

For the record, I vehemently disagree with current US fiscal policy and believe every country should be implementing defecit reduction at a rate the populace can stand and should be working toward balanced budgets.  Our current president has raised our debt from $10 trillion to $18 trillion in seven years.  The former one, George W. Bush, raised it from about $5 trillion to $10 trillion in his eight.  Both were wrong to do that.  There are some things even we can't afford and we need to begin acting like it.

[allardjd 1,853]

Has a US presidential election ever been won by the campaign with the least money?

 

 

I don't know, and it's a pretty murky statistic because spending by the party and spending by the candidate and spending by PACs are all intertwined.  It's hard to get to a bottom line. 

 

In one sense, the quest for campaign contributions may be as much a measurement of the contest as the election itself.  If a candidate's persona, policies and promises resonate with people and groups he will generate contributions from them.  If he bores them, they'll keep their wallets closed.  If his rhetoric is abhorrent to some others, they may well choose to contribute to his competitor.  Is that bad?  Is it inherently unfair?  Is it fundamentally  different from other democratic countries? 

 

In the article linked below, what the author writes is fluff, but the three included responses by people who seem to be heavyweights does cast some credible doubt on the assertion that contributions are the sole determining factor.

 

A very simplified argument is that the more popular and charismatic candidate will generate more contributions AND will win the election.  Did he win because of the contributions, or because he was more popular and charismatic?  Put another way, are the contributions cause, or effect?  

 

http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/17/how-much-does-campaign-spending-influence-the-election-a-freakonomics-quorum/

[allardjd 1,853]

If it's only a "bit" contrived, rather than a "lot" contrived...then do you agree it's s serious issue, and the trend damaging. Yes? No?

 

 

I don't know if the statistic is bogus or not and apparently, neither do you.  I question its basis.  I strongly suspect that the statistic is contrived, or worse - like the infamous Mann Hockey Stick graph, framed in a way to provide the desired result.  (He assigned a weighting factor of about +290 to datasets that were hockey stick-shaped.), but I can't seem to get any information on how the numbers in the 1%/48% claim were derived. 

 

Yep, a lot of very rich people are accumulating wealth.  The wealthy are accumulating wealth faster than the less wealthy.  If I had more wealth, I'd be accumulating it faster too.  You may have heard that it takes money to make money.    

 

Some regimes have railed against economic inequality in the past and have set up governments to help the poor and downtrodden - from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs, they said, but it turned out that some animals were more equal than others.  Socialism and Communism don't work very well, primarily because of a) inevitable corruption, and b) the disincentive of confiscatory taxation (or outright seizure) of the fruits of an individual's hard work and ingenuity.  If the entrepreneur cannot keep the lion's share of what his work and acumen allowed him to accumulate, why should others emulate him?  It removes a major incentive to produce.  As they said in the Soviet Union, we pretend to work; they pretend to pay us.  Or to put it more simply, as one of your great statesmen (I use the term in a genderless fashion) once said, "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." 

 

For the sake of argument, lets assume that, oh, say 1% of the people in the world have, well, let's make it 48% of all global wealth.  

 

What would YOU propose to do about it?

[allardjd 1,853]

US Senate refuses to accept humanity's role in global climate change, again!

 

And this is no less than 27 years after science spelt it out to them!!!

 

Two points....

 

1) Twenty-seven years in which almost none of the predicted dire effects have occurred and which have seen downward revisions of those frenzied predictions by many of the alarmists in spite of the continued acceleration of the rate of CO2 going into the atmosphere. The North Pole was not ice free during the summer months.  Polar bears are doing fine, thank you.  The Himalayan glaciers are not melting away.  The environmentalists who went to Antarctica to document the dearth of sea ice became trapped in near-record levels of sea ice and had to be helicoptered out. Sea level trends are not accelerating. Frankly, with the likes of Mann, Santer,  Jones, algore, Greenpeace and the UN IPCC on their side, I'm finding it pretty hard to be alarmed about anything except their frantic attempts to spend other people's money and to significantly reduce other people's standard of living by attempting to bar the use of the most economically feasible energy sources by regulation, taxation or by subsidizing the so-called "alternatives".

 

2) As I indicated above, the US Congress, including the Senate, have made themselves a well-deserved public opinion whipping-boy over the past few decades.  If you'd like to have a turn at them, wail away, but you'll have to bring your own whip.  Ours are pretty much all in use, or worn out.

[allardjd 1,853]

It's not about "arrogance" Mr Inhofe, it's about 1000+ pier reviewed scientific papers.

 

 

How does reviewing a scientific paper on a boat dock help?  Is reviewing them on a pier superior to reviewing them on, say a sidewalk or on a teeter-totter or on a unicycle or on the head of a pin?

 

I would think a Brit would know about Peers.

 

I don't believe Senator Inhofe is reading this thread, so addressing him here doesn't help.  You might try here....

 

http://www.inhofe.senate.gov/contact

 

Yawn... I guess that's enough fun for one day.  I have some airport diagrams to do.  Those are my real contribution to this community, not this waste of electrons. I do enjoy this however, and it keeps the little grey cells busy to stave off the Devil. The Devil's name is Alzheimer's and I fear him.

[MartinW 0]

I'll be back with a very interesting response later. But just a quick reply to ask you not to make fun of grammatical errors.

[MartinW 0]

allardjd, on 23 Jan 2015 - 11:37 PM, said:

...and you are forgetting that our GDP dwarfs those of all the countries I named combined, including the one that happens to be an OPEC member.

$18 trillion, but if we include the liability from Social Security and Medicare the amount according to some, exceeds $120 trillion.

Okay... GDP! Another interesting article for you...

 

 

Forget Debt As A Percent Of GDP, It's Really Much Worse

 

When central bankers, macroeconomists, and politicians talk about the national debt, they often express it as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP) which is a measure of the total value of all goods produced in a country each year. The idea is to compare how much a country owes to how much it earns (since GDP can also be thought of as national income). The problem with this idea is that it is wrong. The government does not have access to all the national income, only the share it collects in taxes. Looked at properly, the debt problem is much worse.

I collected national debt, GDP, and tax revenue data for thirty-four OECD countries (roughly, the developed countries worldwide) for 2010. The data are a bit old, but that is actually the last year available for government tax revenue numbers. The debt figures are for central government debt held by the public (so the debt we owe to the Social Security Trust Fund does not count) but the central government tax revenue includes any social security taxes.

Some people hate the notion of comparing a country’s financial situation to a family, but I think it is useful in many cases with this being one of them. For a family, debt that exceeds three times your annual earnings is starting to become quite worrisome. To picture this, just take your home mortgage plus any auto, student loan, or credit card debt, then divide by how much you earn.

If the answer is two or less, you are in great shape. If you are between two and three, you are pretty normal. Over three and you probably are feeling some financial stress with debt payments absorbing much of your paycheck.

When we look at national debt as a percent of GDP, we see few signs of danger by this rule. Debt-champion Japan is over 180 percent, Greece is just under 150 percent, with Italy in third place at 109 percent. The U.S. is in eleventh place (out of 34) with debt equal to 61 percent of GDP.

Economists and central bankers know this is not the same as the family debt to income concept, which is why they warn of danger at the level of 100, 90, or even 70 percent depending on which economist you talk to or exactly how you define the total amount of debt. The reason for the different standard is that the government cannot claim all your income as taxes or we would all quit working (or emigrate

A better comparison is to examine each country’s debt to government tax revenue, since that is the government’s income. This also offers a better comparison because different countries have very different levels of taxation. A country with high taxes can afford more debt than a low tax country. Debt to GDP ignores this difference. Comparing debt to tax revenue reveals a much truer picture of the burden of each country’s debt on its government’s finances.

When I compute those figures, Japan is still #1, with a debt as a percentage of tax revenue of about 900 percent and Greece is still in second place at about 475 percent. The big change is the U.S. jumps up to third place, with a debt to income measure of 408 percent. If the U.S. were a family, it would be deep into the financial danger zone.

To add a bit more perspective, the countries in fourth, fifth, and sixth place are Iceland, Portugal, and Italy, all between 300 and 310 percent. In other words, these three are starting to see a flashing yellow warning light, but only three developed countries in the world are in the red zone for national debt to income.

 

The U.S. is one of those three.

This does not factor the several trillion dollars owed to Social Security, yet it includes the Social Security taxes collected. If Social Security taxes are not counted, the U.S.’s debt to income ratio rises to 688 percent (still in third place). This tells you something about the likelihood of increasing Social Security taxes in conjunction with declining Social Security benefits.

Politicians do not enjoy spending funds on debt payments as it produces no photo ops and no grateful voters. Yet without quick and significant action on the federal budget, as soon as interest rates begin to rise toward normal the burden of the national debt on the federal budget will become heavy indeed. Something will have to give.

Measuring the national debt as a percent of GDP may be a common international norm, but it makes little sense since not all national income is collected in taxes. Looking at debt to government tax revenue, more akin to a family’s comparison of its debt to its income, the story of our national debt becomes much scarier.

Somebody needs to drag the President and Congress to a credit counselor quick to begin repairs on the government finances. Otherwise, one day sooner than we think, the creditors will be knocking on the door.

http://www.forbes.co...-need-to-learn/

[MartinW 0]

 

Nice video for you to watch...

[MartinW 0]

or worse - like the infamous Mann Hockey Stick graph, framed in a way to provide the desired result.  (He assigned a weighting factor of about +290 to datasets that were hockey stick-shaped.), but I can't seem to get any information on how the numbers in the 1%/48% claim were derived.

I can't believe you said that. Not after a previous MMGW debate. The original hockey stick graph was never intended to be 100% accurate, that was made clear at the time, It was a first attempt. Since then of course a plethora of other hockey stick graphs have pretty much matched the original.

[MartinW 0]

Some regimes have railed against economic inequality in the past and have set up governments to help the poor and downtrodden - from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs, they said, but it turned out that some animals were more equal than others. Socialism and Communism don't work very well, primarily because of a) inevitable corruption, and b) the disincentive of confiscatory taxation (or outright seizure) of the fruits of an individual's hard work and ingenuity. If the entrepreneur cannot keep the lion's share of what his work and acumen allowed him to accumulate, why should others emulate him? It removes a major incentive to produce. As they said in the Soviet Union, we pretend to work; they pretend to pay us. Or to put it more simply, as one of your great statesmen (I use the term in a genderless fashion) once said, "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money."

For the sake of argument, lets assume that, oh, say 1% of the people in the world have, well, let's make it 48% of all global wealth.

What would YOU propose to do about it?

 

 

 

I have absolutely no idea what I'd do about it. There are others far more qualified to provide a solution than me or you. But what I do know is that the current system is doomed. The trend is clear. Yes, you may argue about the 1% or the 48%, you may continue, like you have throughout most of this thread, to desperately search for something, anything to excuse the current state of affairs, or find evidence for the statistics lack of validity...  but the direction we are heading is quite clearly untenable long term.

 

We can start by making sure hyper greedy, predatory billionaires pay the tax they are supposed to pay, we can take measures to reduce the frightening influence the super wealthy have over the political process, there is no democracy when billionaire contributors to political parties can unduly influence the political process.

 

 

 

 

[MartinW 0]

US Senate refuses to accept humanity's role in global climate change, again!

 

And this is no less than 27 years after science spelt it out to them!!!

 

Two points....

 

1) Twenty-seven years in which almost none of the predicted dire effects have occurred and which have seen downward revisions of those frenzied predictions by many of the alarmists in spite of the continued acceleration of the rate of CO2 going into the atmosphere. The North Pole was not ice free during the summer months.  Polar bears are doing fine, thank you.  The Himalayan glaciers are not melting away.  The environmentalists who went to Antarctica to document the dearth of sea ice became trapped in near-record levels of sea ice and had to be helicoptered out. Sea level trends are not accelerating. Frankly, with the likes of Mann, Santer,  Jones, algore, Greenpeace and the UN IPCC on their side, I'm finding it pretty hard to be alarmed about anything except their frantic attempts to spend other people's money and to significantly reduce other people's standard of living by attempting to bar the use of the most economically feasible energy sources by regulation, taxation or by subsidizing the so-called "alternatives".

 

2) As I indicated above, the US Congress, including the Senate, have made themselves a well-deserved public opinion whipping-boy over the past few decades.  If you'd like to have a turn at them, wail away, but you'll have to bring your own whip.  Ours are pretty much all in use, or worn out.

 

 

Come on John, really? After  that other huge global warming debate we have had, you know, the other thread you vacated.

 

Over that 27 years a huge amount of scientific evidence has been made available to Congress. And that includes over a 1000 PEER reviewed scientific papers that categorically state that mankind is making a significant contribution to global warming. Over that 27 years Congress has had more scientific evidence at their disposal than any reasonable individual or organisation would require... and still they deny, still they deny that mankind has anything to do with it. I suggest you go back and peruse our previous debate, look at the multitude of links I gave you, look at the graphs and think again.

 

To use the fact that some of the more extreme "predictions, possibilities, worst case scenarios" have yet to come to fruition, to justify ignoring a huge scientific consensus that mankind is making a significant contribution makes zero sense, in fact it's bizarre.

You ignore the fact that many of the predictions made have actually been underestimates, for example...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-ipcc-underestimated-climate-change/

The IPCC themselves underestimated our emissions, under estimated temperature rise, underestimated summer sea ice loss, Greenland and Antarctica are melting despite the fact that the IPCC projected little change for the next 50-100 years. They have even underestimated sea level rise. All of these parameters are in excess of predictions.

It's quite clear of course why Congress ignores such a huge amount of evidence, the obvious scientific consensus. And it's nothing to do with your erroneous reasoning above.

[allardjd 1,853]

At some earlier point in this useless thread, I anecdotally noted that, "Some governments are probably in the red, e.g. Greece, Venezuela, Argentina, Egypt, to name a few."

 

Since then you've spent some considerable effort and text trying to create the impression that the US is bankrupt or at least on the verge of it, which really seems to be off on a tangent and arguably is a pretty far-out idea (even though I agree US fiscal policy is wrong-headed and have acknowledged that in this thread).

 

To put this sub-thread to rest, let me offer this, which is less than six months old....

 

Not just Argentina: 11 countries near bankruptcy

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/07/31/countries-near-bankruptcy/13435097/

 

To save you the trouble of reading it, the 11 they list are:

 

Ecuador; Egypt; Pakistan; Venezuela; Argentina; Belize; Cuba; Cyprus; Greece; Jamaica; Ukraine

 

You'll note the US is not on the list and that the four that I named earlier are.

 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

 

Now how about a quick review of the US credit rating, as listed by the major credit rating agencies...

 

China Chengxin

30 Countries listed.

US Rating AAAg - 1st palce - 1st tier (tied with 5 others)

 

Dagong (China)

100 Countries listed.

USA Rating A- - 31st place - sixth tier (tied with 7 others)

Note: China is rated is rated AAA by this rating service, the only one to rank China so high, casting some doubt on their objectivity and motives.  Take it for what it's worth. With respect to the current topic it seems to be an outlier.

 

Dominion Bond Rating Service (DBRS)

31 Countries listed.

US Rating AAA - 1st place - first tier (tied with 13 others)

 

Fitch

104 Countries listed. 

US Rating AAA - 1st place - first tier (tied with 12 others)

 

JCR (Japan)

33 Countries listed.

US Rating AAA - 1st place - 1st tier (tied with 12 others)

 

Moody's

114 Countries listed.

US Rating Aaa - 1st place - first tier (tied with 14 others)

 

Standard & Poors

129 Countries listed.

US Rating AA+ - 13th place - second tier (tied with 6 others, below 12 rated as AAA)

 

[allardjd 1,853]

Nice video for you to watch...

 

 

 

I watched it all, all 5:49 of it - it seemed like hours.  I thought my head would explode.  Only Donald Trump's facial expression in the fleeting clip of him offered any relief.

 

Here's an equally "nice" one for you.  It's 2:17 but you only really need to see it to 0:36 to get the punch line.  She, her staff and her supporters have been back-pedaling, spinning, re-defining words and attempting to explain or bury the gaffe ever since the day she made it.  It's patently ridiculous; if it were not, they would be standing by it, not doing backflips to distance her from it.

 

 

Invested money, put at risk to build a factory, start a trucking company, open a bakery or drill an oil well, with the intent of turning a profit is what creates jobs.  

 

A healthy middle class does help create the demand and generate the sales that make companies thrive.  It's a vital component of a good economy and is essential, but it's kind of like a chicken and egg argument.  They have to have jobs to be economically healthy.  Who will build the factories, trucking companies, bakeries and oil field projects to employ them? They can demand all they want, but if they have no jobs they cannot buy what they'd like to have, unless of course the government gives it to them but then they are no longer the middle-class, are they?

 

The biggest employer in the US right now is GOVERNMENT in all its forms.  It produces nothing toward GDP except by what it spends with private companies.  Take away the private companies and GDP goes to essentially zero.  Take away investment and the employers dry up and blow away.  Investment builds new companies and expands existing successful ones and there's no substitute for it.

[allardjd 1,853]

It was a first attempt. Since then of course a plethora of other hockey stick graphs have pretty much matched the original.

 

 

 

In which he used every statistical trick in the book, and made up a few, to get the pre-conceived result he wanted.  

 

The others created since have probably used the same "adjusted", "corrected" and "improved" data he did and probably have all been PEER reviewed by his colleagues, in circular firing squad fashion. The system is rigged with respect to MMGW.

 

Do you know what happens to a climate scientist who dares to publish something that is not in alignment with the MMGW mantra?  It's not pretty, it's not professional, it's not fair, it's not science, it's not a very good way to get at the truth and it's certainly not a very good way to convince people that there is much integrity remaining in the scientific community.

[allardjd 1,853]

...you may continue, like you have throughout most of this thread, to desperately search for something, anything to excuse the current state of affairs...

 

 

 

If, by the current state of affairs you mean your original claim that 1% of the people own 48% of all global wealth, I believe you are mistaken about my actions.  I have not made any attempt to excuse that.  What I have done is question the basis and validity of the claim.  That's not the same thing.

[allardjd 1,853]

We can start by making sure hyper greedy, predatory billionaires pay the tax they are supposed to pay...

 

 

How do you separate out the hyper greedy, predatory ones from the others, or do you paint all of them with the same brush?  I'd love to see your list of those who are not - is algore on it?  Is Bono?  They're both very green you know.

 

Have they evaded taxes legally owed, or have they used the mechanisms within the law (including philanthropy) to shelter some of their wealth from the tax man?  If the former, prosecute them.  If the latter, well, the law is still your answer.  If you don't like the laws, elect people who believe as you believe and who will make the laws the way you want them to be.  Anything else is anarchy.

 

Hollande, the Socialist President of France, ran on a a platform that included taxing the rich at 75%.  He tried it.  They mostly left in droves, many to London.  Tax revenue plummeted.  After revising details of it two or three times he has had to have it suspended altogether.  His current popularity rating is about four points lower than the 15% that the US Congress now enjoys and you've got to work really hard to be perceived as worse than them.

 

Much the same has happened in New York state, which has very high taxes and recently increased them mightily on the very rich.  Thousands of former New York upper-class people are now Florida residents, where, by the way, we have NO state income tax.

 

The business climate in New York is similarly stifling, besides being one of the most corrupt places in the US (or maybe the world), and many businesses, including manufacturing, are fed up and leaving. 

 

Businesses and upper and middle-class people are fleeing California, which never saw a tax (or a public-employee sweetheart pension deal) that it didn't like.  Texas, with a robust, business friendly economy and low taxes is one of the big winners. 

 

Here are some stats for the US...

 

Taxpayers whose income exceeds $100,000 a year earn 60 percent of the nation’s income and pay 95.2 percent of the income taxes in the United States.

 

Those earning over $200,000 make up about 5 percent of the nation’s taxpayers, earn 32.3 % of the income, but pay 46.7 percent of total federal taxes and 70 percent of federal income taxes.

 

Those making between $100,000 and $200,000 a year make up 15.6 % of all taxpayers, earn 27.7 percent of income, pay 29 percent of total federal taxes and 25.2 percent of federal income taxes.

 

Those with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 make up about a quarter of the country, earn 23.6 percent of all income, pay 18.6 percent of federal taxes and 11.3 percent of federal income taxes. 

 

Taxpayers making less than $50,000 a year represent about half of the country, earn 16.4 percent of the nation’s income, pay 5.6 percent of taxes and have a negative share of income taxes because they receive more back in tax refunds than they pay out (largely due to refundable tax credit programs).

 

[allardjd 1,853]

2014, hottest year on record!  (Thread Title)

 

 

 

This is a great example of how the alarmists use every opportunity to spin the facts, give biased tidbits of information, keeping people, well, keeping them alarmed about things that the alarmists are not really certain about but want ever so much to be true.

 

Does anyone think that if the satellite global temperature data was incrementally higher than the surface data, that we wouldn't be reading about that data instead?

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2915061/Nasa-climate-scientists-said-2014-warmest-year-record-38-sure-right.html#ixzz3PiDaUaTG

 

"The claim made headlines around the world, but yesterday it emerged that GISS’s analysis – based on readings from more than 3,000 measuring stations worldwide – is subject to a margin of error. NASA admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all.

 

Yet the NASA press release failed to mention this, as well as the fact that the alleged ‘record’ amounted to an increase over 2010, the previous ‘warmest year’, of just two-hundredths of a degree – or 0.02C. The margin of error is said by scientists to be approximately 0.1C – several times as much.

 

As a result, GISS’s [Goddard Institute for Space Studies, an arm of NASA] director Gavin Schmidt has now admitted NASA thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 is just 38 per cent.

 

Another analysis, from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, drawn from ten times as many measuring stations as GISS, concluded that if 2014 was a record year, it was by an even tinier amount."

 

By the way, "...on record...." only means back to 1880.

 

= = = = = = = = = = =

Here's another view. 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11337317/Was-2014-really-the-hottest-year-ever.html

 

 

"But such “anecdotal evidence” apart, what none of these excitable accounts mention is the startlingly different picture given by the two main official records of world temperatures measured by satellites, as published by the RSS (Remote Sensing Systems) and the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH). These are much more comprehensive than the surface records, which have been increasingly questioned for the gaps in their global weather station coverage and for the regular one-sided “adjustments” made to their data, invariably downgrading earlier temperatures and raising those for recent years.

 

Both RSS and UAH agree that 2014 was far from being the hottest year ever, ranking it only sixth in the past 18 years, and that there has been no upward trend in world temperatures since 1997. This discrepancy between the surface and satellite records is now so glaring that it should be the subject of a full-scale scientific investigation. But this is no more likely to happen than that the warmists will get that treaty they are dreaming of, committing the world to a devastating reduction in CO2 emissions. India and China, who call the shots, are not taken in by all this nonsense."

 

[allardjd 1,853]

Here's something else to chew on. 

 

RENEWABLE ENERGY: SO USELESS THAT EVEN GREENIE GOOGLE GAVE UP ON IT

 

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/11/22/renewable-energy-so-useless-that-even-greenie-google-gave-up-on-it/

 

"Ross Konigstein and David Fork, both Stanford PhDs (aerospace engineering; applied physics) were employed on a Google research project which sought to enhance renewable technology to the point where it could produce energy more cheaply than coal. But after four years, the project was closed down. In this post at IEEE Spectrum they tell us why.

 

[We came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.]"

 

For the technical minded, I recommend following the link to IEEE Spectrum within the linked article.  If you don't, here's their bottom line....

 

"This realization was frankly shocking: Not only had RE<C failed to reach its goal of creating energy cheaper than coal, but that goal had not been ambitious enough to reverse climate change."

[allardjd 1,853]

This thread is a lot like serving sardines at dinner - nobody eats them but it keeps the flies off the rest of the food.

 

John

[MartinW 0]

 

2014, hottest year on record!  (Thread Title)

 

 

 

This is a great example of how the alarmists use every opportunity to spin the facts, give biased tidbits of information, keeping people, well, keeping them alarmed about things that the alarmists are not really certain about but want ever so much to be true.

 

Does anyone think that if the satellite global temperature data was incrementally higher than the surface data, that we wouldn't be reading about that data instead?

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2915061/Nasa-climate-scientists-said-2014-warmest-year-record-38-sure-right.html#ixzz3PiDaUaTG

 

"The claim made headlines around the world, but yesterday it emerged that GISS’s analysis – based on readings from more than 3,000 measuring stations worldwide – is subject to a margin of error. NASA admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all.

 

Yet the NASA press release failed to mention this, as well as the fact that the alleged ‘record’ amounted to an increase over 2010, the previous ‘warmest year’, of just two-hundredths of a degree – or 0.02C. The margin of error is said by scientists to be approximately 0.1C – several times as much.

 

As a result, GISS’s [Goddard Institute for Space Studies, an arm of NASA] director Gavin Schmidt has now admitted NASA thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 is just 38 per cent.

 

Another analysis, from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, drawn from ten times as many measuring stations as GISS, concluded that if 2014 was a record year, it was by an even tinier amount."

 

By the way, "...on record...." only means back to 1880.

 

= = = = = = = = = = =

Here's another view. 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11337317/Was-2014-really-the-hottest-year-ever.html

 

 

"But such “anecdotal evidence” apart, what none of these excitable accounts mention is the startlingly different picture given by the two main official records of world temperatures measured by satellites, as published by the RSS (Remote Sensing Systems) and the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH). These are much more comprehensive than the surface records, which have been increasingly questioned for the gaps in their global weather station coverage and for the regular one-sided “adjustments” made to their data, invariably downgrading earlier temperatures and raising those for recent years.

 

Both RSS and UAH agree that 2014 was far from being the hottest year ever, ranking it only sixth in the past 18 years, and that there has been no upward trend in world temperatures since 1997. This discrepancy between the surface and satellite records is now so glaring that it should be the subject of a full-scale scientific investigation. But this is no more likely to happen than that the warmists will get that treaty they are dreaming of, committing the world to a devastating reduction in CO2 emissions. India and China, who call the shots, are not taken in by all this nonsense."

 

 

 

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

 

This is the problem John. If you continue to access sources like the Daily Mail [or as we call it in the UK The Daily FAIL] who spend most of their time illegally hacking into celebrities phones, or printing rubbish like this, or that dreadful website WhatsUpWithThat, or Rupert Murdoch's dreadful propaganda machine Fox News... you will always be on the wrong track. 

 

Okay, so what really happened in terms of the 2014 temp record, lets see...

 

Well the climate sceptics, sorry deniers, are panicking like hell because their precious warming hiatus "might" be over. Of course, they are doing everything they can to deny that this might be the case. And that includes misinterpreting what a range of uncertainty actually means!

 

As I keep saying, don't listen to your dodgy denier websites, go to the scientists, attempt to learn even a semblance of what climate science is all about. I'm wasting my breath of course, beacuse despite a multitude of posts, graphs, links, over quite a few years now, you still deny, just like the US Congress.

 

 

 

Sorry, skeptics: NASA and NOAA were right about the 2014 temperature record

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/01/23/sorry-skeptics-nasa-and-noaa-were-right-about-the-2014-temperature-record/

 

So taking all of this into account, I can only conclude that once you dig into what NOAA’s and NASA’s scientists actually did, and why they did it, you realize that their conclusion is perfectly reasonable.

2014 was the hottest year on record. Not with absolute certainty — just with enough of it for an imperfect world.

 

 

 

Arndt also said some critics and some news media missed, or misconstrued, that the odds of each year being the warmest are expressed in different ranges, not single numbers, but this still can reveal a clear leader. He alluded to this helpful graph produced andtweeted by Gavin Schmidt at NASA:

 

Photo

A NASA graph showing the likelihood of estimates for global temperature in record cold and hot years since 1880.Credit

 NASA

 

 

 

Climate scientists rebuff skeptics' arguments against 2014 'warmest year' claim

 

 

But NASA did no such thing.

NASA and NOAA scientists say they have not changed their tune about 2014, since the data clearly shows that it was most likely the warmest year to date since instrument records began in 1880. Furthermore, they argue that climate skeptics are twisting the meaning of uncertainty ranges and making it seem like there is far less confidence in temperature data than there actually is.

 

 

Schmidt told Mashable that NASA is not backtracking from its conclusion that 2014 was the warmest year in its records, and that climate skeptics — (some prefer to call them "climate deniers") — misunderstand the characterization of uncertainty that NASA provided on Friday.

Schmidt says there is, of course, some uncertainty in the global temperature data, which NASA has long acknowledged. But even when these uncertainties are considered, the data still shows that 2014 was most likely the warmest year.

"No-one disputes that there are uncertainties in estimating the global mean temperature anomaly — issues of spatial coverage, measurement practice changes over time, movement of stations etc. and we estimate that any one year's value comes with an uncertainty of about plus or minus 0.05 degrees Celsius, or 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit," Schmidt said in an email.

"2014 *is* the warmest year in the GISTEMP, NOAA and Berkeley Earth analyses," he said, referring to different data sets kept by different groups of scientists, including the one kept by his center and known as "GISTEMP."

 

 

 

Arndt says many journalists and skeptic bloggers in particular are making a basic mistake in interpreting what a range of uncertainty means.

"The entire community of journalists, well-meaning colleagues, bloggers would do well to remember that a "range of uncertainty" has a shape of its own," Arndt said.

An uncertainty range "does ***NOT*** mean" that each temperature within the given range is "equally likely," Arndt says.

"It resoundingly and definitively means something fundamentally different. Gavin's slide from the presentation shows this pretty beautifully," he said.