Ok, this global warming shit is getting out of hand...

[frorider]

Speaking of free markets and govt intervention, this fucktarded administration is dead set on national grid policies that increase the price we pay for energy while also preventing carbon footprint reductions. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...zation/615433/

And doing it via Cancel Culture/censorship tactics.

[stuckathuntermtn]

The free market is a quaint idea from when horses were state of the art and most people lived and died within 100 miles of where they were born. Even then, it mostly meant the same small town bullshit where 1 or 2 big property owners made all the rules.

[old goat]

The free market is a quaint idea from when horses were state of the art and most people lived and died within 100 miles of where they were born. Even then, it mostly meant the same small town bullshit where 1 or 2 big property owners made all the rules.

This. The free market concept is only valid when buyers and sellers are numerous, have equal power, possess equal information and nobody cares about anything but money--ie things like the environment don't factor in. We have nothing resembling a free market. We have regulated capitalism with a touch of socialism. The means of production (eg factories are owned by private parties, not the govt), but the govt makes a lot of rules to protect weaker parties and non economic interests. The socialism comes in in things like public utilities, the VA hospital system, etc. Anyone who has had both private and public power and water knows that socialism has certain benefits--ie you get raped less.

[basinbeater]

Don't you love how republicans elect people who are intent on privatizing things for their buddies, and sabotaging government, then they say government can't solve problems? Yeah no shit, not when you elect people who don't believe the role of government is anything other than enriching their donors.

sent from Utah.

[Bunion 2020]

^^ That did need to be pointed out.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

This. The free market concept is only valid when buyers and sellers are numerous, have equal power, possess equal information and nobody cares about anything but money--ie things like the environment don't factor in. We have nothing resembling a free market. We have regulated capitalism with a touch of socialism. The means of production (eg factories are owned by private parties, not the govt), but the govt makes a lot of rules to protect weaker parties and non economic interests. The socialism comes in in things like public utilities, the VA hospital system, etc. Anyone who has had both private and public power and water knows that socialism has certain benefits--ie you get raped less.

You forgot Medicare and SS. Largest socialized programs around.


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[jono]

I know it's fashionable to blame things the other side likes to champion, but "free market" is not a term owned by politicians. The theory of a free market has actual and specific meaning in economics. Despite the myth of "free market capitalism" a free market is not capitalism--capitalists specifically seek to create asymmetric bargaining power which voids the freedom of any market.

Wikipedia says it pretty well:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market

In economics, a free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are self-regulated by the open market and by consumers. In a free market, the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government or other authority, and from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and artificial scarcities.[1] Proponents of the concept of free market contrast it with a regulated market in which a government intervenes in supply and demand through various methods such as tariffs used to restrict trade and to protect the local economy. In an idealized free-market economy, prices for goods and services are set freely by the forces of supply and demand and are allowed to reach their point of equilibrium without intervention by government policy.

Scholars contrast the concept of a free market with the concept of a coordinated market in fields of study such as political economy, new institutional economics, economic sociology and political science. All of these fields emphasize the importance in currently existing market systems of rule-making institutions external to the simple forces of supply and demand which create space for those forces to operate to control productive output and distribution. Although free markets are commonly associated with capitalism within a market economy in contemporary usage and popular culture, free markets have also been advocated by anarchists, socialists and some proponents of cooperatives and advocates of profit sharing.[2]

Criticism of the theoretical concept may regard systems with significant market power, inequality of bargaining power, or information asymmetry as less than free, with regulation being necessary to control those imbalances in order to allow markets to function more efficiently as well as produce more desirable social outcomes.

[old goat]

You forgot Medicare and SS. Largest socialized programs around.


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I thought about those--I guess you could say that they are socialized health insurance, but the actual providing of health care is largely private. And Medicare and Medicaid are actually very efficient in terms of low administrative expenses compared to private insurance and of course no profit. Some nongovernmental non profit health plans--eg Kaiser--do about the same. How about the Postal Service--having its problems now because DeJoy wants to turn it into a profit making or at least break-even business, but if we had to rely on private businesses like Fedex to deliver the mail it would be unaffordable for many. The post office is seen as a public good--at least by thinking people--that should be supported by the govt. so that it is available and affordable for every American. Public transit systems are another example. (In Ecuador there are multiple private bus companies competing on the same routes. Public buses aren't the only way to do it.)

The point of all this is that socialism in certain sectors seems to work better than capitalism, Those sectors seem to be those that involve things--water, electricity, transportation, health care, mail--that everyone must have. And Americans seem to like it that way, as long as nobody tells them it's socialism. Even the Democratic Socialists don't advocate public takeover of industries and businesses. They're not really socialists. Neither were the National Socialists.

(Even our military is socialism--we could have private warlords like Somalia, Iraq, and plenty of other places.)

[xyz]

Don't you love how republicans elect people who are intent on privatizing things for their buddies, and sabotaging government, then they say government can't solve problems? Yeah no shit, not when you elect people who don't believe the role of government is anything other than enriching their donors.

sent from Utah.

Yeah ok, that’s unique to conservative platforms. Up here in Canukistan, we elected the wokest of the woke Liberal government. They’ve been in power for over 5 years and it’s been non-stop corruption, scandals and favours to insiders, all cloaked behind climate virtue signalling.

[jono]

I thought about those--I guess you could say that they are socialized health insurance, but the actual providing of health care is largely private. And Medicare and Medicaid are actually very efficient in terms of low administrative expenses compared to private insurance and of course no profit. Some nongovernmental non profit health plans--eg Kaiser--do about the same. How about the Postal Service--having its problems now because DeJoy wants to turn it into a profit making or at least break-even business, but if we had to rely on private businesses like Fedex to deliver the mail it would be unaffordable for many. The post office is seen as a public good--at least by thinking people--that should be supported by the govt. so that it is available and affordable for every American. Public transit systems are another example. (In Ecuador there are multiple private bus companies competing on the same routes. Public buses aren't the only way to do it.)

The point of all this is that socialism in certain sectors seems to work better than capitalism, Those sectors seem to be those that involve things--water, electricity, transportation, health care, mail--that everyone must have. And Americans seem to like it that way, as long as nobody tells them it's socialism. Even the Democratic Socialists don't advocate public takeover of industries and businesses. They're not really socialists. Neither were the National Socialists.

(Even our military is socialism--we could have private warlords like Somalia, Iraq, and plenty of other places.)

The thing everyone needs most is food. We subsidize a lot of things there to try to stabilize prices and markets by not bankrupting producers or letting monopolies take over. I think we might get that the most right--because left and right are both a little afraid of what would happen if they actually implemented their most socialist or capitalist approaches and we wound up starving.

At the end of the day, all problems can be solved by producing enough and no problems can be solved by anything that just changes who gets more and who doesn't. The first thing we (should) do is kill all the lobbyists.

[Mazderati]

121f in Woodland Hills CA yesterday.


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At what point do cars and houses and shit start melting. Crazy.

[Mazderati]

[old goat]

At what point do cars and houses and shit start melting. Crazy.

Don't worry about it. We'll all be dead before that happens so it won't matter.

Ella has the better voice, by a mile, but I'll take this one


Martha's voice teacher in HS was Abe Silver, my best friend's dad, at Detroit Northeastern HS. He coached a lot of Motown singers. (And his daughter Lisa, the first girl I ever kissed--age 5--went on to play fiddle and sing backup for Elvis. Shoulda kept in touch.)

[WMD]

"How climate change is fueling record-breaking California wildfires, heat and smog"

California is being pushed to extremes. And the record heat, fires and pollution all have one thing in common: They were made worse by climate change. Their convergence is perhaps the strongest signal yet that the calamity climate scientists have warned of for years isn’t far off in the future; it is here today and can no longer be ignored.

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...nia-west-coast

[PB]

But, but, but ....... RAKES mf'ers!

[WMD]

[old goat]

But, but, but ....... RAKES mf'ers!

California has 33,000,000 acres of forest and 41M people. If everyone raked 3/4 acre every year (and chainsawed the excess trees and brush and somehow managed to dispose of it all) that would deal with the forest fire problem. (Wouldn't help with the grass fires and brush fires in the coast range, foothills and Socal canyons--I'm still working on that problem.) Also, maybe letting babies use chainsaws might not be a great idea.

[rideit]

Bwahahaha

Is this RJ?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...e-b448017.html

[rideit]

[PB]

But RJ sez yer graph is upside down.

[dan_pdx]

But RJ sez yer graph is upside down.

Yeah, and the climate scientists who created it have a vested interest in lying about global warming!

[Rideski]

That graph is a little disingenuous with all of the tiny red spikes being too faint to see. Would be nice to have years on those as well. Scary af nonetheless.


In related news:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/...mate-emergency

[KQ]

It's snowing in Brazil.

[m2711c]

[Bunion 2020]

It's snowing in Brazil.

That's only cause you are looking at it upside down.