waitforufo

Interesting. My reply was a comeback to your post on the wonderful environmental regulations in China's solar panel manufacturing industry. You counter with a comment on economics. I guess you wish we handled the environment like China does?

Perhaps 2007 seems like ancient history to you, but a quick check on Google found this NYT article. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?pagewanted=1 Perhaps I simply understand that in China the people that write the pollution regulations and the people that pollute are one in the same. It's easy to write regulations that no one follows. Again I have no problem from benefiting from the expenditures of " nearly every major advanced nation" if, and that is a big if, solar power because a major supplier of electrical power. They are also building and operating lots of coal power plants as well. I have been to both Shanghai and Beijing, so I don't need any further source on how well they scrub there smokestack emissions. Several decades ago our economy had a much larger manufacturing base. Thanks for making my point. When these similar things succeed in China, we will be able to compete more effectively with them and manufacturing jobs will move back to the US.

Whether a refinery or a solar panel manufacturing plant these same regulatory, safety and approval requirements add to the cost of operating a business. Well, unless you put that business in a place that doesn't have such regulatory, safety or approval requirements. You know, like China. So I guess it comes down to the lifestyle choice differences that nations like China and the US choose to make. In the US we choose to enjoy clean water and air while watching our manufacturing base decline. In China, where they run power plants with anything that will burn, clean water an air take a back seat to employment. Still our choice is not a bad one. We get to enjoy the advantages of low cost goods which spawn significant employment in the service sector while enjoying the benefits of a better environment and safer working conditions. Yes, we pay the price of having fewer manufacturing jobs, but you have to pay for what you want. China on the other hand values human life less than we do, so the political stability of improving employment, to the political elite running China, seems worth the cost of a poor environment and reduced work place safety. This choice by China improves our standard of living by providing goods a significantly lower cost. We can then choose to spend these savings on leisure, or perhaps installing one of those new fangled cheep Chinese solar panel arrays on the roofs of our homes. I, of course, will choose to spend mine burning gasoline in my many internal combustion engines while also enjoying the comfort of cheep natural gas. Isn't it great to live in a free country where we can choose for ourselves?

What you are talking about is generally called "the cost of money." You have to add the borrowing cost to the system cost to find the true cost. If you have the money, you have to add the lost opportunity cost of not investing the money in something else. At the moment both cost aren't too high since interest rates are low. Well that is if you can get a loan to improve your home / business. Such a calculation is however made more difficult when considering the 30 years you mention. What will interest rates be in five years? As an investor do you really want to lock your money up for 30 years, particularly when you consider how much natural gas they are discovering right here in the USA. On another note, I'm glad to hear that iNow thinks that transferring assembly jobs to China is a "whatever."

If you want solar power to be successful, you need to have cheap solar panels. If the Chinese want to subsidize the production of solar panels, and build them while paying their citizens at slave wages, so we can purchase them on the cheap, I say let them. If you think that employment in solar power generation will be dominated by solar panel manufacturers you're wrong. If that were true, solar power would never succeed. Employment in solar power will be dominated in installation and maintenance of both the panel arrays and the power distribution systems to which they are connected. There is no way that employment can be exported to China. It has to be done here. The cheaper solar panels are, the more of them there will be, and the more local employment there will be. Look at the cell phone industry as an example. All that equipment is made in China. Because it is, we all have cell phones, cheap service, and lots of domestic employment. Local people build the cell sites, install and maintain the equipment, run the operating center, manage the billing, etc. Wishing you could pay more so we can produce all of our own products will only produce less employment not more. If solar power can't succeed with cheap Chinese solar panels and domestic subsidies for solar power generation, well then it will never succeed.

That seems like a strange way to look at the problem to me. Refinancing and the resulting spending of equity was the compressor pumping air into the bubble. Yeah, the banks were complicit, but so was the government through their encouragement and or intentional lack of oversight of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac. The big culprits however were the people borrowing the money. You let those individuals off way to easy. I and most Americans will never see those people as victims.

When the housing bubble burst, the economic impact was much greater than construction employment and the multiplier effect associated with that construction employment. Homes are the primary asset of middle class citizens. As their home equity grew, they refinanced their homes and spent the equity. This equity spending fueled the economy. Well now people have negative home equity. No refinancing and no associated spending. So the economy is out of gas. Construction employment could have continued unchanged and we would still be in the same boat as we find ourselves today. This should not be a surprise. We all watched the Japanese do this same thing to Japan in the 80’s. Perhaps they were worse. They created 100 year mortgages.

Okay, imagine this. Let’s say you are taking a political science class on communism. The class is required as part of the core curriculum of the collage you are attending. On the first day of class the professor informs you and your classmates that in the spirit of communism all performance scores will be averaged together and all students will receive a collective grade on all assignments, tests, and at the semester final regardless of their individual contribution. The professor encourages high performing students to help the low performing students so that all students can achieve a higher grade at the semester completion. If you were in such a class, and another professor was teaching the same class but with a standard individual performance based grading system would you switch professors? If you couldn’t switch, would you drop the class and in the hope that in the luck of the draw you would get a different standard grading professor next time? If you couldn’t drop the class, would you strive to be a high achiever or would you kick back and become a freeloader? Would you be surprised at the end of the semester if the collective grade was F? Would you enjoy your short personal experience with communism or hate it?

Also ignored is that before European colonialism, the primary system of government in the lands of discussion was feudalism. Moving from feudalism to colonialism to dictatorship sounds like a recipe for poverty.

Just a failed attempt a humor on a Friday.

See what I mean.

Every place that tried communism tried it in its most pure idealistic form. Every time communism failed so rapidly that communist ideologues could claim it hadn’t been properly tried. Perhaps the question should be why do communist or those sympathetic to communism think they are morally superior or more mature than those that know communism is a human disaster?

What a wonderful product. Not only does oil vastly improve nearly every aspect of my life, but the product is used to as a means to deliver the product to me. Gasoline runs my car, boat, and motorcycles. I have used propane to heat my home. I have a propane grill and barbeque that produce delicious food. I cant imagine a world without oil. I just hope that when they expand the keystone pipeline they use a big enough diameter pipe.

Prior to the 17th amendment I believe US Senators were selected by the State Senators of each state. Generally they selected a State Senator to serve in the US Senate. What impact did this have? Well, State Senators are elected from state districts which are determined by geography not population. This means that each State Senate is dominated by people from rural areas. So consider California or New York. These are States with high populations in dense urban areas. Yet their State Senate is dominated by people from rural areas. So now consider what happens when US Senators are selected by and from the ranks of State Senators. Well each State is likely to pick a person from a rural area regardless of the State’s population. So New York and California are going to send people from their farming areas, country gentlemen if you will, to the US Senate where they will work with Senators from Kansas and Wyoming. You think George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both from the landed gentry, thought that was a good idea? My guess is yes. I’m sure many of the other wealthy land owners of the time thought it was a good idea as well. Personally I think going back would be a good idea. But I live in a rather rural area.

In electrical engineering Edwin Howard Armstrong would definitely be on the top 10 list. His bio is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstrong

Six Days of War (June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middles East) Michael B. Oren, ISBN 0-345-46192-4

What, no timeline? No, shucks this isn't worth it if we can't get it done by a date certain? And no complaints from the peanut gallery?

With exception to your comment about running the country into the ground, I couldn't agree with you more. As president however, Mr. Obama represents all the people. Even those curious about his birth documents. Why not put their concerns to rest. Their request to view his birth documents is trivial. This would all come to an end if the President sent his family friend the Governor of Hawaii a letter giving the Governor permission to publicly release all state held document relating to his birth. It wouldn't take him any more time than it took me to write this post. By not doing so, one has to assume that he has something to hide, or he enjoys the attention paid to this issue.

There is no doubt that Obama has every legal right to be president based on his certificate of live birth. But this other document, this birth certificate, does indeed exist. There is no doubt that it does. I'm sure the President signs lots of documents every day. Why not sign the document that releases this birth certificate? What could possibly be the harm? Why not put this fringe group at ease? Make one wonder what exactly is written on that birth certificate document. Why not end the speculation?

The goal is regime change. http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/151191-white-house-suggests-regime-change-is-goal-of-libya-mission?page=1 Oil always makes the regime change go down easy.

Did our top military leaders determine that was a flying military compound?

Gadhafi's Tripoli compound hit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42177894/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

Well at least some democrats aren’t hypocrites. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51595.html

When was the last time Gadhafi invaded one of his neighbors? What corruption did Gadhafi inflict on the UN similar to "Food for oil." He violates one messily UN resolution and is attacked? I thought the limit was at least 16. In fact, I didn't think even 16 was enough. Obama said yesterday that "I want the American people to know that the use of force is not our first choice.." When did "not our first choice" become the test? I thought war was supposed to be the last possible option. Isn't that the test we have held our past presidents to? Then on the same day of the attack Obama is in Rio telling the Brazilians how he wants Brazil to become a more important energy partner with the US. Yep, war for oil. Really, no one out there but me sees the irony in all of this. A man that promises to extract us from two foreign wars with Muslims gets us involved in a third one. Wow, his domestic policy must really be in the tank.

So Obama now has his own war for oil. Let' not pretend this is a great humanitarian effort. There are plenty of countries with leaders who treat their citizens worse than Gadhafi. You don't see us bombing Yemen, or the Ivory Coast. No oil you can treat you citizen however you like. Sure, Obama has France, the UK and other European countries on board. They need that Libyan oil more than we do. Heck, that's why they didn't think they needed Iraq. They had Libya. Europe and the UK even forgave Libya for Lockerbie for that sweet Libyan oil. Obama even signed a deal to sell Gadhafi arms to keep the oil flowing. Oh, the irony is so sweet.