USA & World Economics

First let me state that I am in no way saying cease all coal mining immediately. I am saying there are many disadvantages to coal and we should move away from it. Even the industry itself, in the form of the World Coal Association, concedes,"Coal mining, particularly surface mining, requires large areas of land to be temporarily disturbed. This raises a number of environmental challenges, including soil erosion, dust, noise and water pollution, and impacts on local biodiversity."

So let me cite, first, a sort of beginner's version of the issues:

[url]http://www.environment911.org/160.12_Environmental_Effects_of_Coal_Mining[/url]

Then I will follow with a very well-known study that got bipartisan funding:

[url]www.catf.us/resources/publications/files/Cradle_to_Grave.pdf[/url]

And because I know Toymann is a Harvard alumnus and loves academic studies:

[url]http://chge.med.harvard.edu/resource/mining-coal-mounting-costs-life-cycle-consequences-coal[/url]

Finally, the following article is quite well-sourced:

[url]http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Environmental_impacts_of_coal[/url]

[QUOTE=Dickhead; 429938]First let me state that I am in no way saying cease all coal mining immediately. I am saying there are many disadvantages to coal and we should move away from it. Even the industry itself, in the form of the World Coal Association, concedes,"Coal mining, particularly surface mining, requires large areas of land to be temporarily disturbed. This raises a number of environmental challenges, including soil erosion, dust, noise and water pollution, and impacts on local biodiversity."

So let me cite, first, a sort of beginner's version of the issues:

[url]http://www.environment911.org/160.12_Environmental_Effects_of_Coal_Mining[/url]

Then I will follow with a very well-known study that got bipartisan funding:

[url]www.catf.us/resources/publications/files/Cradle_to_Grave.pdf[/url]

And because I know Toymann is a Harvard alumnus and loves academic studies:

[url]http://chge.med.harvard.edu/resource/mining-coal-mounting-costs-life-cycle-consequences-coal[/url]

Finally, the following article is quite well-sourced:

[url]http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Environmental_impacts_of_coal[/url][/QUOTE]I will be happy to review your references and respond. That said, you're couched comment about " temporarily disturbing" the soil kinda sends a message. What the heck do you think mining is professor? Does common sense even exist in your world. Please review google map coordinates for Gillette Wyoming and Colstrip Montana. I am betting that you are not aware, as a result of years of government regulation, that once the coal has been extracted from the ground that the site must be almost immediately returned to its original condition, right down to the number of sage bushes, once the mining has been completed. Right down to the number of sage bushes! Talk about over regulation professor! You wonder why we are dependent on foreign sources of energy. I repeat, right down to number of sage bushes! Of course, in your silly academic world I suppose you would be in favor of mining as long as it didn't "temporarily disturb the soil". Although I graduated from the equivalent of an Ivy League university I am guessing that your cv might not look that impressive, but I am just speculating and may be wrong. LMAO!"Temporarily disturbing" the soil. That is just too damn funny. Monger on Dick. Toymann.

Ps. What a revelation Dick, the world coal association conceded that mining temporarily disturbs the earth. Wow, I am speechless! LMAO dude! That considered in itself, I reconsider, you are right, coal is bad! Windmills are good! What was I thinking!

Your references 1, 2 and 4 are nothing but political spew cites without any engineering or scientific basis what so ever! Come on, we are all not that stupid.

Your Harvard reference is laughable at best, totally agenda driven without any scientific credibility at all. Check out the About Us tab on the site.

About Us.

The Center was founded in 1996 to study and promote a wider understanding of the human health consequences of global environmental change.

The Center is an official Collaborating Center of the U. N. Environmental Programme, and is one of the most trusted sources of information on this subject in the world.

Just ask them, they are totally on point! IALOTFLMAO! Your research paper gets a D minus at best professor. Sadly, you need to at least find some scientific basis for your statement. Your basis for your opinion is just as hollow and lacking in science as our current presidents position. Totally, political driven without even the slightest founding in science or engineering. Your agenda is now out for all to see brother. You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found WANTING! Better luck next time and thanks for playing. If I have hurt your feeling please forgive me. I am under strict orders from Esten and the newly reformed politically correct El Jeffe to neither offend nor insult board members. Please take my banter with a grain of salt! I apologize in advance if I have offended any liberal betchs sensibilities! Monger on Dichhead. Toymann.

Ps. As we say when playing bridge, never send a boy to do a mans job! LOL!

[QUOTE=Dickhead;429938]And because I know Toymann is a Harvard alumnus and loves academic studies:[/QUOTE]If that's true, it explains an awful lot about Toymann's internet persona. But it doesn't explain how the Admissions office in Cambridge let their standards slip so far.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;429950]If that's true, it explains an awful lot about Toymann's internet persona. But it doesn't explain how the Admissions office in Cambridge let their standards slip so far.[/QUOTE]I believe Toymann referenced going to another school below, not Harvard.

Aside from tman though, out of curiosity what do you mean re: being a Harvard grad explaining a lot about his internet persona? Are you saying for the most part or all Harvard grads are as Tman's internet persona portrays?

[QUOTE=Mpexy; 429954]I believe Toymann referenced going to another school below, not Harvard.

Aside from tman though, out of curiosity what do you mean re: being a Harvard grad explaining a lot about his internet persona? Are you saying for the most part or all Harvard grads are as Tman's internet persona portrays?[/QUOTE]Certainly not ALL Harvard grads, no. Just an unusually large percentage of them out of the overall population of Harvard grads. For example, Mitt Romney, but not Barack Obama.

In the interest of disclosure, I am a Brown and University of Chicago graduate. One might even contend that as such, I am biased against Harvard grads. If so, it would only be because I have interacted with an inordinate number of them.

I was joking about Toymann being a Harvard grad. There are many ways to get an education and fucking a lot of hookers from an early age is certainly one of them so that is what I did and it may indeed have left some gaps in my own education, similar to being sick the day they covered that subject. Now, as far as world economics go, you have two tools: monetary policy and fiscal policy. Libs want a contractionary fiscal policy and Dems say that will lead to recession right now. What specific steps do you fucks, I mean folks, want to take?

[QUOTE=Dickhead;429976]Now, as far as world economics go, you have two tools: monetary policy and fiscal policy. Libs want a contractionary fiscal policy and Dems say that will lead to recession right now. What specific steps do you fucks, I mean folks, want to take?[/QUOTE]I actually took a stab at this in post #94 of this thread. I was surprised to see that all of the discussion which followed stemmed from my almost offhand comment about heading toward energy independence down the road, and nothing else I mentioned garnered any comments at all.

I know. Republicans' and Libertarians' grasp of basic economics is just embarrassing on any level. It's like you took a whole bunch of home schooled Mormons and put them in charge of the economy. All I can do about that is apologize.

But here's an interesting bit of data about the economic disaster Obama inherited, and the recovery ever since:

You will note that the major inflection point in the graph and article below corresponds to the implementation of Obama's stimulus package in Q1 of 2009:

[url]http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/record-corporate-profits/[/url]

Apparently, Obama has failed at socialism and communism, but is doing pretty well at capitalism.

You know a lot more about economics than I do. So explain something. Are / were Milton Friedman, Glenn Hubbard, Martin Feldstein, and half of economists working in the private sector idiots? Was Alan Greenspan (Libertarian/Republican economist) a big believer in contractionary monetary policy? Have Republican presidents and Congresses since World War II starved the economy during recessions? Do Libertarians, who are about ½ of 1% of the electorate, count for anything in the USA? Was a short term increase in profits of corporations and decrease in unemployment worth trillions in additional debt? Do scale and efficiency count for anything, or if you see a problem (like recession) do you just throw as much money as you can at it and hope some will stick, with little thought to how you're going to pay it back?

[QUOTE=Tiny12;430029]You know a lot more about economics than I do. So explain something. Are / were Milton Friedman, Glenn Hubbard, Martin Feldstein, and half of economists working in the private sector idiots? Was Alan Greenspan (Libertarian/Republican economist) a big believer in contractionary monetary policy? Have Republican presidents and Congresses since World War II starved the economy during recessions? Do Libertarians, who are about ½ of 1% of the electorate, count for anything in the USA? Was a short term increase in profits of corporations and decrease in unemployment worth trillions in additional debt? Do scale and efficiency count for anything, or if you see a problem (like recession) do you just throw as much money as you can at it and hope some will stick, with little thought to how you're going to pay it back?[/QUOTE]Well, Milton Friedman has been dead since before the financial crisis occurred, so we don't know what he would have thought about it. But much of what happened from late 2006 through early 2009 was stuff that he believed would not have happened as markets self-corrected. So, while he was not an idiot, significant aspects of his world view were discredited during the last financial collapse. And Greenspan proved to be much more of a political hack. Going against quite a bit of what he supposedly stood for to pump up the economy while he was at the helm at the Fed. But the fact is, as long as there is a Democrat in the White House, we DO see Republicans pushing to starve the economy during recessions. Which, for some reason, they never have done when there has been a Republican President - but they did it when Clinton was President, and have done it under Obama - of course they did not do it when George W. Bush was in the White House, nor did they do it under Reagan or Bush Sr.

Supply side policies, normally associated with Republicans and with tenets such as Say's Law and the quantity theory of money, will work eventually. It is just that Keynesian or demand side policies, associated with Democrats, work faster. So the essential difference is what happens in the meantime. It seems to me that Republicans are kind of mean and don't give a shit about two or three years of privation while their 'laissez-faire' or 'free market' policies go to work at the speed of frozen snot. There is ample research that agrees with what I just said, and I've posted much of this evidence, including conclusive proof that real GDP is higher and unemployment is lower under Democratic regimes. Libertarians won't be taken seriously until and unless their economic 'policy' becomes much more clearly defined. Specifically, if you want to advocate a flat tax you had better come up with a [B]rate[/B].

[QUOTE=Dickhead;430044]Supply side policies, normally associated with Republicans and with tenets such as Say's Law and the quantity theory of money, will work eventually. It is just that Keynesian or demand side policies, associated with Democrats, work faster. So the essential difference is what happens in the meantime. It seems to me that Republicans are kind of mean and don't give a shit about two or three years of privation while their 'laissez-faire' or 'free market' policies go to work at the speed of frozen snot.[/QUOTE]Again, I don't know much about economics. But didn't Keynes believe lower tax rates would stimulate demand? And, like some Republicans, didn't he believe the national debt should be actually paid down when times are reasonably good, instead of always running budget deficits? So why is Keynes' name associated with Democrats instead of Republicans?

[QUOTE=Dickhead;430044]There is ample research that agrees with what I just said, and I've posted much of this evidence, including conclusive proof that real GDP is higher and unemployment is lower under Democratic regimes.[/QUOTE]You posted evidence that they were higher/lower, not that they are higher/lower. And you didn't show evidence for cause and effect.

[QUOTE=Dickhead;430044]Libertarians won't be taken seriously until and unless their economic 'policy' becomes much more clearly defined. Specifically, if you want to advocate a flat tax you had better come up with a [B]rate[/B].[/QUOTE]I don't have a problem with a progressive tax system. It would be better for most if tax reform occurred, to lower rates, improve economic efficiency, and decrease compliance burdens, and eliminate certain deductions and credits, regardless of whether that meant that the wealthy would pay a somewhat larger share of the income tax burden. Or, better yet, replace the income tax with a progressive sales or consumption tax. Jackson has pointed out that a large exemption or payment to those with lower incomes would make it progressive. Because of your posts I believe the corporate tax rate should be "0". And I believe the tax rate on unincorporated businesses should be reduced. But it's all a mute point though isn't it. None of this will happen. And the USA will become like France, then like Greece.