The Totally Useless, Non-Scientific BBO Opinion Poll for Current Events

[hrothgar]

I gather that some of that flooding has a lot to do with green efforts to degrade the flood control systems to meet EU requirements. The recent alarmist warnings from RCP scenarios produce increased insurance premiums or reduced coverage despite being based on unrealistic conditions. Warren Buffet is happy so...?

 

I'm willing to bet a lot more has to do with an increase in the amount of water vapor in the air...

 

(Same thing that lead to that 1,000 year flood in Louisiana...)

[Cyberyeti]

I gather that some of that flooding has a lot to do with green efforts to degrade the flood control systems to meet EU requirements. The recent alarmist warnings from RCP scenarios produce increased insurance premiums or reduced coverage despite being based on unrealistic conditions. Warren Buffet is happy so...?

 

Err what green efforts to degrade flood control ? and a lot of flood control on rivers just moves the problem somewhere else.

 

The actual problem is a lot more rain falling in a shorter time plus a bit of building on flood plains. We are getting rain events that are "once in 150 years" about every 2 years atm.

[Al_U_Card]

Err what green efforts to degrade flood control ? and a lot of flood control on rivers just moves the problem somewhere else.

 

The actual problem is a lot more rain falling in a shorter time plus a bit of building on flood plains. We are getting rain events that are "once in 150 years" about every 2 years atm.

 

On July 25-26, 1979, Tropical Storm Claudette dropped 43 inches of rain on Alvin, Texas. [CO2] was at 350 ppm or so IIRC and that wasn't quite 1000 yrs ago or even 100...

 

As for the recent flooding in the UK, a start

 

Building on flood plains is a cause of increased losses but 150 yr events usually happen every 150 yrs on average.

[Cyberyeti]

On July 25-26, 1979, Tropical Storm Claudette dropped 43 inches of rain on Alvin, Texas. [CO2] was at 350 ppm or so IIRC and that wasn't quite 1000 yrs ago or even 100...

 

As for the recent flooding in the UK, a start

 

Building on flood plains is a cause of increased losses but 150 yr events usually happen every 150 yrs on average.

 

It was well explained by the experts here that lack of dredging in most cases was not because of any EU directive, it was because it was thought it wouldn't help and was also not cost effective if weather was normal.

 

Several places have received many months rain in a couple of days more times in the last few years than in the previous several hundred. The Cumbria one in 2015 Some places got 405mm in 2 days where average monthly rainfall is 20-40% of that (and this was not the first such incident in the last few years, there was one 6 months before and another a year or two before that).

 

Don't go by a single event, and we don't get tropical storms over here in the same way.

[Al_U_Card]

It was well explained by the experts here that lack of dredging in most cases was not because of any EU directive, it was because it was thought it wouldn't help and was also not cost effective if weather was normal.

 

Several places have received many months rain in a couple of days more times in the last few years than in the previous several hundred. The Cumbria one in 2015 Some places got 405mm in 2 days where average monthly rainfall is 20-40% of that (and this was not the first such incident in the last few years, there was one 6 months before and another a year or two before that).

 

Don't go by a single event, and we don't get tropical storms over here in the same way.

So we are talking weather events and regional effects. Didn't they predict barbeque summers and snow being a thing of the past a few years back based on the model projections?

 

The CET values for temperature go back several hundred years and show no big change over time. I wonder what they show for precip?

[Cyberyeti]

So we are talking weather events and regional effects. Didn't they predict barbeque summers and snow being a thing of the past a few years back based on the model projections?

 

The CET values for temperature go back several hundred years and show no big change over time. I wonder what they show for precip?

 

I'm not sure we're actually getting more rain overall, but it's coming in more extreme events. Britain is not used to getting several inches of rain in a few hours very often, but now it seems to be happening much more frequently.

 

A lot of the upland Cumbrian flooding has been all to do with the volume of rain, and nothing to do with dredging or building on flood plains. In the towns and the York/Somerset events it's more difficult to clearly assign blame.

[Al_U_Card]

I'm not sure we're actually getting more rain overall, but it's coming in more extreme events. Britain is not used to getting several inches of rain in a few hours very often, but now it seems to be happening much more frequently.

 

A lot of the upland Cumbrian flooding has been all to do with the volume of rain, and nothing to do with dredging or building on flood plains. In the towns and the York/Somerset events it's more difficult to clearly assign blame.

When I go over the precip records for NA, despite lots of wiggles, it is mostly flat for just about every location on the continent for the last century or so. Observed (unadjusted) temperatures are pretty much the same except for the peak in the 1930s.

This speaks to the divergence issue with plant-based proxies, to say nothing of the statistics side of selection and analysis.

I barely remember some 50 years ago there being long hot summers with big storms in July and dry heat in August. Round these parts, we had our coldest winter 2 years ago and it was coldest since 1934 (which had the hottest summer on record here as well).

It also seems that gardens and lawns are greener and lusher than I remember but is that age, CO2 increase or ...

[Vampyr]

Good, we needed another climate change thread. The single denier cannot possibly function with only one.

[kenrexford]

The funny thing is that the hijacking of the thread is proving a point that I made earlier. I mentioned at one point that I thought environmentalism was the explanation behind a particular decision. Tada!

[Winstonm]

It is true.

97% of climate scientists believe humans are causing global warming.

By the way, not less then 97% of priests believe in existence of God. Could we consider it as a proof or closer look maybe useful?

 

Why is it that the religious seem to religiously rely on this apples and oranges comparison as some kind of vindication of their blind faith in legend?

 

Science=our best guess based on current evidence and knowledge.

Religion=faith in the reliability of word-of-mouth

[Al_U_Card]

The funny thing is that the hijacking of the thread is proving a point that I made earlier. I mentioned at one point that I thought environmentalism was the explanation behind a particular decision. Tada!

It may be where all those communists and Markist-Leninists have gone, realizing that political action was not appealing to the masses where environmentally saving the planet was a sure thing.

[Vampyr]

Why is it that the religious seem to religiously rely on this apples and oranges comparison as some kind of vindication of their blind faith in legend?

 

Science=our best guess based on current evidence and knowledge.

Religion=faith in the reliability of word-of-mouth

 

Also, "belief" in a god is not the same as accepting scientific evidence of a phenomenon. I recently spoke to a friend who believes in God, and he confirmed what I had always thought, which is that believers believe because they prefer to believe. If believing in a god enriches your life, then does it really matter whether that god is in some way or another "real"? I am pretty sure that many priests take this pragmatic approach. Their belief in God is something important in their lives, so why bother about existential questions which are anyway unanswerable?

[Vampyr]

The funny thing is that the hijacking of the thread is proving a point that I made earlier. I mentioned at one point that I thought environmentalism was the explanation behind a particular decision. Tada!

 

LOL what nonsense! Moving factories to countries where fuel is dirtier, plants operate less efficiently and environmental standards are laxer accelerates climate change, not the opposite.

[Winstonm]

Also, "belief" in a god is not the same as accepting scientific evidence of a phenomenon. I recently spoke to a friend who believes in God, and he confirmed what I had always thought, which is that believers believe because they prefer to believe. If believing in a god enriches your life, then does it really matter whether that god is in some way or another "real"? I am pretty sure that many priests take this pragmatic approach. Their belief in God is something important in their lives, so why bother about existential questions which are anyway unanswerable?

 

I don't care if people choose to believe in a god - but I do object when they make the false equivalency of acceptance of scientific understandings with belief without testable evidence.

[Vampyr]

I don't care if people choose to believe in a god - but I do object when they make the false equivalency of acceptance of scientific understandings with belief without testable evidence.

 

Yes, quite. I was just noting how very different the things are, since believing in a god does not necessarily (and perhaps not usually) include accepting that the existence of a god is an objective fact.

[kenrexford]

LOL what nonsense! Moving factories to countries where fuel is dirtier, plants operate less efficiently and environmental standards are laxer accelerates climate change, not the opposite.

I agree completely.

[mike777]

"mpyr, on 2016-August-26, 20:34, said:

LOL what nonsense! Moving factories to countries where fuel is dirtier, plants operate less efficiently and environmental standards are laxer accelerates climate change, not the opposite.

 

I agree completely."

 

-----------------------------

 

Do either of you actually work in a factory. For starters factories dont move and for the most part the workers dont move. If you want to take over the factory and workers do it...dont just bitch about it. The factory and the workers stay put. If you want to buy them then do it. A new factory is built and new workers are hired, jobs and a life for them is created.

 

 

To follow your logic no factory should ever be built in tha vast majority of poor countries because it creates climate change.

 

Good grief! Talk about living in a rich protected bubble and not the real world. Talk about being entitled.

[Vampyr]

I have worked in factories. But it is obvious to any person with half a brain that factories don't physically move.

[Trinidad]

I have worked in factories. But it is obvious to any person with half a brain that factories don't physically move.

My wife's an engineer (I am too, but I don't do much engineering anymore). One of the things she does for her job is ... move factories. One of my very best friends (who is not my wife) does the same thing (but for a different firm and a different type of factories).

 

Engineers can do pretty amazing stuff... but, then again, engineers have more than half a brain. :)

 

(The trivial equipment will be built new. But more often than you would think essential complicated equipment is physically moved.)

 

Rik

[nullve]

Do either of you actually work in a factory. For starters factories dont move and for the most part the workers dont move.

 

I have worked in factories. But it is obvious to any person with half a brain that factories don't physically move.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_ship

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_meth_lab

[kenrexford]

Free trade is not really free trade. Is country a makes a potato for a dollar but taxes that potato $0.40 and has an additional $0.10 Environmental Protection cost then the end result is that the potato cost a dollar fifty to make.

 

If country B cost the same a dollar to make a potato but has a $0.10 tax and no environmental costs then that potato cost them $1.10 to make. Free trade then makes country a on an unequal playing field.

 

Country I could put a tariff on the potatoes to ensure that there is an equal playing field. That might seem unfair. But perhaps the end result is the country be should increase their tax rate or the country a should decrease their tax rate to have an equal playing field. One could say them that the free-trade causes a tendency toward lower tax rates. It also causes a tendency to competitively lower environmental costs.

 

Those who want to reduce taxes and those who want to increase environmental expenditures but do not want to have tariffs to equalize the playing field end up creating a problem. This will only work if country a has incredible Machinery that maximizes the productivity of its workers or if country a find a way to pay his workers less. Free trade offers the ability however for the corporations to not worry about country a or country B and just make the potatoes in Country b.

 

The end result seems to be that the thing/person harmed to equalize the quote free trade is the country b environment and the country a workers.

 

This seems so obvious and it should have seemed obvious from the get-go. We as a country have known this for a long time as have all countries. So why do this?

 

It's A Dance with the Devil. The Democrats get to appease the environmentalists by blaming other countries for environmental problems but bragging about how good they do in their own country. They also enable the corporations to make lots of money off of the foreign workers so that the tax rates can be kept at a high level. Big kid votes because they provide goodies to the displaced workers even though the goodies are not as good as what they would get if they had a real job. Then they get to yell at the Republicans for making this so bad.

 

The Republicans get to have their corporation to make lots of money and appease the displaced workers with lower priced products.

[hrothgar]

No offense, but none of you has a clue what you're talking about

 

Classic Ricardian trade models hinges on whether the exchange ration between products in country A is the same as in country B.

Absolute advantage does matter.

 

Let's suppose that we leave in a simple world in which only two goods exist: Fish and Cloth

 

Assume a case in which country A can produce any convex combination of 100 Fish or 100 Cloth.

Country B can produce any convex combination of 20 Fish and 20 cloth.

There is no benefit to trade

 

In contrast, if country A can (once again) produce any convex combination of 100 FIsh or 100 cloth but

Country B can produce any combination of 20 fish and 10 cloth then there are benefits to trade

 

Talking about potatoes in isolation is meaningless

[PassedOut]

These days anyone with access to the internet can learn the basics of the classical trade models, if really interested.

[kenrexford]

You're still missing the point. Let's take a simple example of trading potatoes for bananas. Obviously if I can make potatoes cheaper than you and you can make bananas cheaper than me then we should trade. No kidding.

 

The problem comes in however when the price of making a product is not determined by natural things but by artificial things. Tariffs obviously are artificial things. When tariffs are designed to protect domestic manufacturers because of a natural disadvantage then that does not make economic sense. Obviously.

 

However economies are not left alone. Environmental standards differ. Workplace standards differ. Tax rates differ. These create artificial affect on the economic system.

 

The micro and macro are parallel. If a worker cost more because they take maternity leave for example the new economic incentive is to not hire the person who would require maternity leave. Therefore we pass laws to ensure that that does not happen because we make a societal choice to not let that happen.

 

Suppose then that you could hire workers and have no standards for safety or have high standards for safety. The high standards are more expensive perhaps. In that case you will hire the people with no safety standards involved. We avoid that by requiring that all people have high standards. But if another country has lower standards that defeats the purpose of the regulation. More importantly though it affects the economics. When you do not have the same laws across borders money flows toward the place with the lowest or cheapest laws. Whether it be worker safety or environmentalism or taxes the money flows away from the place with the higher standards and higher taxes.

 

Anyone with internet access can see that this is what is actually happening.

 

There is a perception that it is not happening that is false. The perception is based upon a review of not the average individual butt of the collective. You might have total wealth in country a for example increase. The reason for that however is that the ability of the ultra-wealthy and of the corporation to be global means that the money flow to those individuals and those corporations is not governed by borders.

[PassedOut]

Suppose then that you could hire workers and have no standards for safety or have high standards for safety. The high standards are more expensive perhaps. In that case you will hire the people with no safety standards involved. We avoid that by requiring that all people have high standards. But if another country has lower standards that defeats the purpose of the regulation. More importantly though it affects the economics. When you do not have the same laws across borders money flows toward the place with the lowest or cheapest laws. Whether it be worker safety or environmentalism or taxes the money flows away from the place with the higher standards and higher taxes.

 

Anyone with internet access can see that this is what is actually happening.

Let's take a look: America is the richest, and most unequal, country

 

The U.S. — with $63.5 trillion in total private wealth — holds the largest amount of any country in the world. But that wealth is unevenly distributed, and nowhere is that more evident than in the U.S., which also has the largest wealth inequality gap of 55 countries studied, according to the report.

So US safety standards and maternity leave, and so on, haven't left the US destitute.

 

There is a perception that it is not happening that is false. The perception is based upon a review of not the average individual butt of the collective. You might have total wealth in country a for example increase. The reason for that however is that the ability of the ultra-wealthy and of the corporation to be global means that the money flow to those individuals and those corporations is not governed by borders.

The solution to income inequality in the US is not by reducing the overall pie by damaging our trading relationships.