“Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

The biggest factor in creating debt loads by US government entities is economic policy.
...
Think about the federal reserve bank mandate to push cash into the economy to hold inflation at 2%+ and maintain a modest GDP growth rate. There is no consideration for what the money is used. They just hand out money to prevent deflation. They hand the money to the US treasury and banks. They then control how the money is spent. That is the source of a huge percentage of the present debt load. In other words, we owe the money to ourselves.

Google "fiat currency". They don't "hand out money", they set the prime rate and make money available at that rate to prime lenders and it ripples out from there.

The free market isn't totally free; the US government uses levers like interest rates (basically, the money supply) and special treatment (eg subsidies, incentives and tax breaks to the fossil fuel sector to depress energy prices) to keep the US economy running as steadily as possible, or to juice it to make it seem hotter than it really is. Remove these actions, and it will either sputter, or overheat and some people would just find a way to break it again (think 2008).

Originally Posted by senormechanico

To put a fine point on the project, it was to sleeve four creosote pilings on my dock, drive them below the oxygen layer in the bottom, fill inside and seal with mortar til full, and cap them with a vinyl topper. This effectively removes a known carcinogen and pollution source from the water column.

In my opinion, the government should have PAID me to do it !

Someone needs to be paid to do something properly and responsibly? This is why there are permits and inspections.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Google "fiat currency". They don't "hand out money", they set the prime rate and make money available at that rate to prime lenders and it ripples out from there.

Google QE1 and QE2. They just handed out money. In fact, they forced banks to take money at the point of a gun even though the banks didn't want it. They also made banks hand over hundreds of billions in paper assets which the Fed later sold back to banks at a profit. Mel Brooks was wrong. It's not good to be the King. It's good to be the central banker with a printing press and lots of fluorescent green ink.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Google "fiat currency". They don't "hand out money", they set the prime rate and make money available at that rate to prime lenders and it ripples out from there.

The free market isn't totally free; the US government uses levers like interest rates (basically, the money supply) and special treatment (eg subsidies, incentives and tax breaks to the fossil fuel sector to depress energy prices)

:

don't forget the subsides that are given to the renewables sector.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by newhaul

don't forget the subsides that are given to the renewables sector.

I won't.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

I won't.

very narrow view there Skippy . Those numbers in the graph are misleading .
We have had that discussion so many times.
You seem to forget the subsidy placed for the purchase of alternative vehicles that amounts to about a third of the purchase price . Where's the subsidy/ tax break for the purchase of gasoline or diesel powered vehicles.

Or the subsidy on renewable produced electricity. Actual Man hour production cost per MW
https://youtu.be/RNcveCvb_tc
It is definitely not cheap to produce but is subsidized to compete with the others

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Exile

... The upside to the regulatory policies of the Canadian patent board are obvious for consumers. The potential downside is it lessens the incentive for pharma cos. to expend the capital to research & introduce new drugs and/or improve existing ones. So, as in most complex areas, it requires a well considered balancing.

Indeed. As always, the devil is in the details.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by newhaul

You seem to forget the subsidy placed for the purchase of alternative vehicles that amounts to about a third of the purchase price . Where's the subsidy/ tax break for the purchase of gasoline or diesel powered vehicles.

In the unrealistically low fuel prices.

It is definitely not cheap to produce but is subsidized to compete with the others

Why do you hate clean industries that provide good jobs for Americans?

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Why do you hate clean industries that provide good jobs for Americans?

Maybe because the clean claim is specious, the jobs are paid for with imaginary money, and such an arrangement is not economically sustainable. Maybe he's worried about American children instead of American adults that can't get their act together or something.

[john61ct]

I count the tax-funded wars in the middle east as fossil fuel subsidies above and beyond the massive explicit ones.

And the "price" paid in human lives, damage from air pollution, degradation of our home mother Earth, really ends up outweighing what we pay at the pump, by a **lot**.

[john61ct]

Fiat money is all imaginary money.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/o...columnist.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntha.../#15264da45852

https://truthout.org/articles/but-ho...15153656154571

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by john61ct

I count the tax-funded wars in the middle east as fossil fuel subsidies above and beyond the massive explicit ones.

And the "price" paid in human lives, damage from air pollution, degradation of our home mother Earth, really ends up outweighing what we pay at the pump, by a **lot**.

Yet I'm going to guess that you drive a car, or that your boat is powered by fossil fuels.

But you're right, we really should be paying more for fuel. It's just that we don't want to.

[john61ct]

I'd be happy to if it meant we could start leaving it in the ground more quickly.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Fiat money is all imaginary money.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/o...columnist.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntha.../#15264da45852

https://truthout.org/articles/but-ho...15153656154571

Somehow, I just KNEW that a statement like that would end up with the proposal that all healthcare and college should be free, but that ultimately it would be some kind of redistribution argument.

So it's not so much that fiat money is imaginary, but that the wrong people have it.

And certainly there's an argument to be made for that, but why hide it behind something else?

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by john61ct

I'd be happy to if it meant we could start leaving it in the ground more quickly.

If only the people who believed that stopped driving SUVs, we'd be halfway there. They're waiting for someone else to do it. It gets reduced to a campaign slogan for a political party.

There's a little bit of irony when a good bit of owning a sailboat (financially and energy-wise) is ensuring that the motor is in good shape and that it's full of fuel.

But this is the world we live in.

[john61ct]

Silly to think effective solutions can be at the level of individual behavioural choices.

Political action to drive systemic changes at the governmental level, coordinated internationally is the only hope,

slim as that may be.

More likely the Earth will just shed us like the pathogen we are, and do just fine after we're gone.

Shame, if we just fulfilled our role as caring custodians, could've lived in a paradise of supportive garden communities forever. . .