npts2020

Well, GDP in 1803 was a little over $1 billion (~$200/capita from wikipedia X 5.3 million population from 1800 census), so the La. Purchase was about 1.5% of GDP. The other expenditures are over more than one year and a little harder to figure out but I can say with certainty that none come even close to the 30% of current GDP that $4.6 trillion represents. Even if taxpayers only end up losing 10% of that money (an exceptionally optimistic figure imo) these bailouts will have cost us more than nearly any expenditure in our history. Look for those same corporations to be asking for debt forgiveness in a couple of years or sooner to keep them from failing once more. The biggest question is how long can you shovel money into a black hole with no plan for ever getting it back before your currency becomes worthless? IMO this bailout is just a scam to siphon as much money from the federal government as possible before it goes completely broke, the scale of this rip-off should even make the Pentgon blush. p.s. I apologize for not having the link sooner but that isn't where I originally read it either.

Well, I have heard supposedly reputable economists claim that reducing taxes actually increases government revenue. Therefore if we reduce taxes all the way to zero won't we have just maximized revenues as much as is possible?

ParanoiA; The reason I think my ideas of logic and reason apply to the "real" universe, is because they explain things in a manner I can understand and relate to what I see in my life. It is also how I can predict future events when given enough relevant facts. Even though there are many incomprehensible (to me anyway) things in the universe, I have enough hubris to believe that my understanding of it is greater than that of any human of 1000 years ago and probably only a fraction of many humans 1000 years hence.

Well psychics can be unequivocally be sown to be wrong, how about AGW proponents?

The $4.6 trillion was from the article, I will research it further for accuracy, but it doesn't seem far off. Also the numbers do not seem so far off that the point of it being an expenditure of historic proportion is invalid. I believe the time frame is since the AIG bailout. The article was written by Barry Ritholtz and there is more discussion of the article here ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/big-bailouts-bigger-bucks

You can and should attempt to track where all weapons are going in order to help keep them out of the hands of psychopaths and criminals imo.

Other than our money instead of the corporate money being sent down the railway into oblivion, what has changed? I agree 100% with Phi for All that it is a great time for those who profit with no regard for the future. Just was reading this at Boing Boing, called "Bailout Nation", about how expensive the bailouts in the past year or so have been compared to other large government expenditures in the past. The first number is original cost, the second adjusted for inflation. Louisiana Purchase..........$15 million...............$217 billion New Deal.......................$32 billion (est)........$500 billion Marshall Plan..................$12.7 billion.............$115.3 billion Korean War....................$54 billion................$454 billion Vietnam War...................$111 billion..............$698 billion Moon Race.....................$36.4 billion..............$237 billion NASA's alltime spending....$416.7 billion............$851.2 billion S & L bailout of the 1980's.$153 billion..............$256 billion Current Iraq War..............$551 billion..............$597 billion ____________________________________________________ grand total..................................................$3.92 trillion Current corporate bailout money given..............about $4.6 trillion Just for a little perspective on our present situation.

Maybe you could get funds for a National Institute of Evolutionary Studies or something similar and do several ongoing experiments using different species. Someone might be doing something along those lines right now but I don't know about it. It would be worth looking into so you can design your experiment to not exactly duplicate someone elses work. It would also be worthwhile to have a discussion with an evolutionary biologist or someone in a related field about likely ways of producing speciation.

iNow: I am neither angry nor particularly frustrated. What I am trying to point out is the fallacy of continuing to do business as usual and expecting a positive result. What economists do a very good job of is justifying why things are the way they are. What they do a very poor job of is explaining how things work the way they do. Unfortunately, I don't know much about the bailouts in other countries except that many are doing similar things to what the U.S. is trying to do and on a similar scale. Where is all of the money going? My bet is that it is not going toward any of the things I mentioned near the end of post #87. If it only goes to making more bad real estate loans or to entice people to go into further credit card debt where has it gotten us? BTW I think the automakers are as (un)deserving as the banks and should be treated no differently.

I see, but couldn't you do the same sort of thing with drosophila in much less time?

Uh 5 seconds per mile. (gotta do that now I dont often see you make that kind of mistake)

1)True but they still make money mostly in one way, loaning money. 2) see 1), Diversification is their only hope, but if the downturn is nearly universal, even that might not help. Are there any new regulations in place about who they can loan the money to or under what terms? 3)We could argue till the cows come home about the causes but where in this are the ideas of market risk and moral hazard? 4)What is a multiple of zero? Now they want to infuse $200 billion into consumer credit markets as well, $600 billion for home credit, $100-150 billion for freddie mac and fannie mae, just for starters. I could ask where all of the money is coming from but I can hear the money machine cranking out dollars. The real question is how will all of it ever get paid back? You can only have so much currency backed by nothing other than Isayso before people begin to wonder if their dollars are actually worth anything. The levels of leveraging and debt are very similar to those preceding the Great Depression but you don't hear much discussion of it. IMO the only further debt (national) worth incurring is investment in things that push technology into the future like, automating the transportation system, greener energy production, better sustainable agricultural techniques, and better education to name a few.

Why would that prove evolution any more than breeding already does? (It would be an interesting experiment though)

We always guestimated about 1000 ft/sec (its actually about 1200 ft/sec).

I wonder what Citigroup's "plan" is?

Aw, man. Now we gotta wait till spring for the end of the world? Seriously though, I thought now they had to wait till then anyway because of the amount of electricity it draws from the grid?

If only this had been done with the money handed out so far......

Will happen: Unprecedented amounts of money handed over to business interests in form of loans and bailouts. Judges at all levels appointed who favor business interests over societal and individual interests except when absolutely compelled not to. Continuation of wars on terror, drugs, illegal immigration and anything else we can make enough people paranoid about to siphon big $$$$$ out of the federal government for. The budget deficit will increase. None of the chronic problems of the world conflict, famine, pestilence etc. will be solved. Might happen: Some reduction in dependence on oil for an energy source. Some reduction of the chronic problems mentioned above. More transparency in government. More investment in science, especially energy, materials, and health. A plan for national health care. Will not happen: A comprehensive listing of business ethics required to be followed by every corporate entity, individual, or country trading with or in America. Reduction of the military budget. Significant transferral of the tax burden from individual income taxes. Economics becomes enough of a science to accurately predict future events to the point of being able to avoid calmities such as our current predicament......and I almost forgot end of the world with a successful start of the LHC.

I say put them to work building vehicles for an automated transit system. If there is a bailout of some kind there needs to be very explicit instructions about what is to be done with the money. Unfortunately, it is just handing more money to those who couldn't manage it to begin with to keep on doing the same things. Are Toyota and other manufacturers in line as well? I agree 100% with Captain Panic and Phi for All

Well you can't really walk on water either. My guess would be that you wouldn't sink to the center of the sun, until you were vaporized and some of the heaviest atoms in your body arrived there, as some strata before the center seems likely to be where you would be neutrally bouyant. I don't think anyone has really answered if any gas could possibly be bouyant enough to float a human, it seems probably not.

A dish like a plate will not work as well because it has no volume to contain air but if you could get a bowl to stay upright it would likely float. The difference being the amount of fluid like soup (air in previous discussion) you could pour into it, a plate not so much because whatever gets poured on flows over the side, whereas a bowl will hold much more because of its depth. Now change that soup to air and you can see why there are not steel ships shaped like a plate, they wouldn't hold a large enough volume of air to float.

Also there are people who do not ever experience physical pain but still experience temperature.

Think they can spend (or give away) $700 billion by mid-January?

True. I wasn't thinking about phase change under pressure. Would you accept me specifying any gas that didn't undergo phase change? Or are you saying that all gases would phase change before reaching sufficient density?

One could just as well ask; What causes thoughts or language or music? It is the desire to explain and bring to order the world around us. Beyond that you are delving into the natures of consciousness and intelligence, areas science still seems to have contentious debate over. How would one go about definitively showing where any cognitive process begins?