npts2020

If there were no vested interests involved, the plan would have already been completed or at least be substantially underway. I advocate automating the roadways and powering the whole system with solar and wind energy. That alone would convert about 1/4 of Americas energy use (almost all petroleum at that) to renewables.

In any other part of this forum, a discussion of something like a Laffer Curve would be immediately moved to pseudoscience and speculations. It is an interesting observation that seems to fit some of the data but imo does very little to explain why things might act that way in reality. I would be willing to bet that a majority of those advocating tax cuts couldn't tell you what a Laffer Curve is, at any rate. I don't mind paying taxes if I get something tangible for those taxes. The problem is that Americans get the least for their tax dollars of any developed country in the world. Tax cuts would be great but we need to better utilize what we have before cutting that amount.

Try to find out who is getting how much money. You would think you asked for a detailed CIA budget. Various news organizations and NGO's are having to go to court in an attempt to get this information. -------- I agree that competition is a good thing but unless you want anarchy it must be directed toward a specific goal (besides maximizing profits). The down side is that you will have failures from time to time. If the government didn't shell out a single dollar, there would still be a stock market, banks, insurance companies, and automobile manufacturers even if at a reduced level. There might not be any Ford, AIG, or Citigroup but there would be a major opportunity for other corporations who managed themselves better to step in, people are not going to stop banking, driving cars, or buying insurance. Why should I, who has steadfastly refused to put myself into debt, be giving one penny to corporations who willingly overextended themselves and would rip me off in a heartbeat, given the chance? Nobody, in any discussion I have had about this, can tell me how anything has changed so that we can expect things to improve. The biggest problem is not so much the "loss" of wealth but that the world cannot afford a prolonged period of low economic activity at this point in human history, without dire consequences for many. If the federal government wants to start its own bank and compete with commercial banks, then we would have a bank truly too big to fail and one not beholden to making a profit for shareholders. (It's really too bad there isn't an economics forum here)

Captain Panic; I agree the challenge can and ought to be reached. This would be a far better investment than any bailout of corporations "too big to fail". IMO the main reason it isn't being done already, is that many renewable forms of energy production are not easily controlable by a centralized entity.

Herbie Hancock would be proud. (for those womdering.....he wrote a great song called Rock It

.....or at least admits to it.

Well, I don't think any corporation is too big to fail but there are definite consequences for allowing or not allowing it. IMO our economy cannot be sustained by bombs, hospitals, automobiles, and bad lending practices, making investments in those sectors as they exist tenuous at best. If there is a plan to replace the automobile (besides the automated transit system I like to pontificate about), I am all for helping the industry retool but I see no reason to be giving money to corporations even banks with funny money and shady lending practices are unwilling to lend to. If the gov feels some corporation is "too big to fail" then it should be running that corporation itself to insure it doesn't fail, imo. Pangloss; I agree that scale and context are very difficult to establish for this, especially with as little transparency as there seems to be. This lack of transparency is also what makes me very skeptical about any solution being realized in the short term, I mean how has anything changed other than the risk has been transferred? I have a very difficult time visualizing exactly what is happening to all of the money we are spending and how it is going to help our collective situation one iota.

Pangloss; Well I totally misread the article if the bailout was over 205 years, I had the understanding that the $4.6 trillion was only what the federal government had guaranteed to corporations since the AIG bailout (it does include ~$2.9trillion of FDIC and Federal Reserve liability, however). Keep in mind the $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 is in addition to other obligations already undertaken and is likely to be a low figure if the Fed continues on its current course. It is very difficult to get good numbers for all of this but I don't think anyone can deny that the giveout is of historic proportions. Currency value (especially where there is nothing backing it) is only worth what a large majority of people think it is worth. Even people who do not have the time and wherewithal that I have to read about and try to put into perspective our national finances, are beginning to realize something major is wrong and they are not being told the truth by their leaders (the ones who know anyway). You have yet to give me a single reason why the current situation will change for the better, other than it always does. While I would tend to agree with you, I believe our time frames are probably very different. I do not think the current bailouts will do anything other than prolong things as they are. They will certainly not address any issues of sustainability or fairness that might exist as part of the problem and are likely to put us right back where we are if left that way. In order to leave this at a readable length I will stop except to say.... I am not trying to show that the bailouts are business as usual, in fact they are very unusual. What they are attempting to achieve is keeping afloat the unsustainable business as usual that got us into this mess to begin with.

Everyone could ignore the psuedoscience section of the forum but I personally rather enjoy it even if it doesn't seem to advance my scientific knowledge much.

Wouldn't 2 protons plus 2 antiprotons add up to zero because you are really adding 2+(-)2=0. Unlike the color of a rock, charge is an intrinsic property of a proton or antiproton and cannot be changed without changing the particle.

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?