More WaPo nonsense
Last week, a large group of economists, including 27 Nobel Prize winners, 15 former chairs of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and two former treasury secretaries-- Democrats and Republicans -- issued a manifesto endorsing what's been called a "carbon dividend" plan. This would be a good start.
Here's how it would work. The government would tax CO2 emissions. The idea is to prompt Americans to use less fossil fuels and to prod businesses to focus on renewables and energy efficiency. That's a standard carbon tax. What defines the "carbon dividend" plan is that all the money collected would be rebated to households.
Under one proposal, the government would slap a $43 tax on each ton of CO2. That would equal about 38 cents on a gallon of gasoline, says economist Marc Hafstead of Resources for the Future, who studied the plan. It would raise about $180 billion in the tax’s first year, he says. If the "dividend" -- the tax rebate -- were distributed evenly, that would be about $1,400 per household.
Meanwhile, if the tax were increased 3 percent annually, there would be (according to the estimates) a dramatic reduction in U.S. fossil fuel use and greenhouse gases. Without the tax, projected CO2 emissions would be 5.4 billion metric tons in 2035. With the tax, the total would be 3.6 billion metric tons, a 33 percent decline. Still, this would hardly eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions. Replacing that fossil fuel with exactly, what? Not nuclear. Oh, you mean the little people should do without. How about higher food prices? Oh, the little people should just starve.
Yellow vests coming to an American town near you. Where is my pitchfork?
More jobs for federal bureaucrats. $180 billion pays for a hefty payroll increase and lots of extra benefits... but sadly would leave nothing to send back to the citizens.
#2
If the "dividend" -- the tax rebate -- were distributed evenly, that would be about $1,400 per household.
Woo woo! Free money! What's not to like?
(aside from the fact that you sucked $1,400 per household out of the economy in the first place)
One thing never mentioned in these schemes is the overhead. Even when they are "revenue neutral" - meaning that for every dollar collected, a dollar is given back - you still need a new army of bureaucrats to manage the whole mess. They need buildings and forms and computers and electricity and cars and pensions. Don't forget the cost of compliance. How much time does it take *you* to fill out your annual forms? Free stuff ain't free.
#4
Climate history over the past 500 million years, with the last three major ice ages indicated; there have been others. These ice ages were followed by periods of warming. Had these Congresscritters existed in these times, they would been running around yelling “The Sky is Falling” Instead of doing something useful. Of course, “Climate Change” involves spending large amounts of boodle that we don’t have with much of it going to cronies.
#6
Snowball Earth. Deccan Traps. Siberian Traps. Ice Ages galore and these twits are all a twitter about. Runaway. Global. Warming. Caused. By. Man-made Carbon Dioxide.
Spend the money on adapting and maybe, just maybe, raising the standards of the poorest people. Making a better life for poor people instead of starving them with indirect taxes ... what a concept!
#7
Climate history over the past 500 million years,...
One of the premises of 'global warming' is that a small rise in temperature will trigger a run-away greenhouse effect. Looking at our climate over geological time, we see periods where it was hotter or colder, with more CO2 or less, varying amounts of oxygen and so on. But at no time did the climate get stuck in one state. It constantly cycles from warm to cold and back and has done so for millions of years. I suspect it just ain't gonna happen. Not until the sun burns out, and then, all bets are off.
[Twominds.com] The social media/search giants have mastered the dark arts of obfuscating how they're reaping billions of dollars in profits from monetizing user data, and lobbying technologically naive politicos to leave their vast skimming operations untouched.
I've been commenting on the cancerous disease that's taken control of the Internet-- what Shoshana Zuboff calls Surveillance Capitalism--for many years. Here is a selection of my commentaries:
If you've followed any of my analyses, it will come as no surprise that I've concluded the only way to restore the health of the Internet is to ban all collection of user data. That's right, a 100% total ban on collecting any user data whatsoever.
We need to distinguish between customer/supplier data and user data. If a social media or other corporation wants to collect data from people who pay it money for services rendered, or from suppliers that it pays for services, then that process of data collection should be 100% transparent.
A customer pays for a service in cash; a user pays nothing. A company might want to collect data from its paying customers in order to upsell them or serve them better, and corporations who produce goods and services might want to collect data from the suppliers they pay.
Banning the collection of any data from users would of course destroy much of the revenues of companies such as Facebook, Google , Twitter, Instagram et al. It would also destroy the perverse incentives these corporations have institutionalized and excused as "garsh, you can't stop the advance of technology," as if their pursuit of Surveillance Capitalism were somehow an inevitable outcome of the Internet rather than a malign disease that's undermining democracy and the free flow of diverse opinions and dissent that is the foundation of functional democracy.
By banning the collection of any and all user data, the social media/search giants would become quasi-public utilities, providing whatever service they offer for free and collecting revenues from other businesses for services such as display advertising--advertising which cannot be targeted at specific groups of users because there is no data on users to exploit.
If you think this is unrealistic, look at craigslist. Craigslist is free to individual users, and it doesn't collect and sell user data to make billions of dollars. It sells adverts to businesses such as auto dealers and companies placing employment ads. These income streams are more than enough to fund the operational expenses and reap the owners a substantial profit.
Surveillance Capitalism is all about creating the illusion of privacy controls. The social media/search giants have mastered the dark arts of obfuscating how they're reaping billions of dollars in profits from monetizing user data, and lobbying technologically naive politicos to leave their vast skimming operations untouched.
Keep it simple: ban all collection of user data--no exceptions. That will be easy to enforce and easy for all participants to understand.
#2
There was a story a couple years ago about a spec ops guy who said "Here's a list of 25 people, who, if I could whack them, all the political turmoil around us would cease."
I suspect pretty much the same could be said for the World Wide Web.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/23/2019 15:24 Comments ||
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#3
Ban stateful internet! Not even sure that's possible lol.
[Reason] There's no better sign of success than an escalation in attacks by your enemies. Based on such evidence, homeschooling is enjoying a boom, as growing numbers of families with diverse backgrounds, philosophies, and approaches abandon government-controlled schools in favor of taking responsibility for their own children's education. As they do so, they're coming under assault from officials panicking over the number of people slipping from their grasp.
There's little doubt that homeschooling is an increasingly popular option. "From 1999 to 2012, the percentage of students who were homeschooled doubled, from an estimated 1.7 percent to 3.4 percent," reports the National Center for Education Statistics. While the government agency suggests that growth has leveled off since then, other researchers say data is hard to come by, since many states simply don't count people who homeschool.
"While the overall school-age population in the United States grew by about 2.0 percent from spring 2012 to spring 2016, data from 16 states from all four major regions of the nation showed that homeschooling grew by an average of about 25 percent in those states," counters the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), in response to NCES figures. "If the data from these states are representative of what happened in the other states during those four years, then homeschooling is continuing to grow in both absolute numbers and as a portion of the overall school-age population."
Just shy of eight percent of North Carolina students are homeschooled for example, in a state in which traditional public schools are bleeding students year after year to charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling.
#2
No wonder that parents are increasingly waking up to the problems of government-controlled schools. They started to fear schools that were indoctrinating their kids to PC, cockamamie theories, social engineering, screwed-up accounts of history and a lack of freedom of religion. Moreover, violence has increased in schools. At one time socialization was considered important in schools but now the importance of that notion is being questioned by parents.
#3
the home schooled kids I deal with have zero social skills and are very reluctant to do anything anyone who isnt Mommy tells them to, a strange bunch, these home schoolers
#4
....the home schooled kids I deal with have zero social skills and are very reluctant to do anything anyone who isnt Mommy tells them to, a strange bunch, these home schoolers
I recommend hanging with a more mature crowd. Six and seven year olds can be like that at times.
#9
we know anecdotes are not evidence... True, it is also interesting how they can be used to suck the air out of a discussion, by seeming to invalidate everything that has been said prior to that time.
#10
Young children are subjected to news media that is liberal bias as you can imagine. Question answer sessions afterward about orange hair. Raise your hands if you disagree with orange hair. Pier pressure and basically bulling to conform to the group thought. Public school of course if you can call it that.
[Free Beacon] Pharmaceutical firms' direct marketing to doctors continues to cause prescription opioid deaths, a new study argues.
The study, released Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, uses publicly available data from Medicare, Medicaid, and the Centers for Disease Control to match prescribing rates with prescription opioid overdose rates. Deaths from "Natural or semisynthetic opioids"‐the CDC code which generally refers to deaths from prescription opioids like Vicodin or Dilaudid‐totaled just under 15,000 in 2017.
The study's authors note that while prescription pills are not the primary cause of opioid-involved overdose deaths‐that distinction belongs to fentanyl, as well as heroin‐they are usually the first opioids encountered by subsequent users of heroin/fentanyl. There were still almost 200 million opioid prescriptions issued in 2017, which the authors claim results in a rate three times higher than 1999.
Further, they note, "Direct-to-physician marketing by pharmaceutical companies is widespread in the United States and is associated with increased prescribing of the marketed products." One in 12 doctors received opioid-related marketing between 2013 and 2015; that figure rises to one in five among family physicians.
Direct-to-physician marketing was a key component of pharmaceutical firms' strategy to push pills to patients in the lead up to the current opioid crisis. The practice involves sales representatives approaching physicians, all-expenses paid trips to pharma-sponsored seminars on the benefits of prescription opioids, and even lucrative speaking gigs for those doctors who do the best job pushing a given drug.
Purdue Pharma, the creator of OxyContin, reportedly compiled comprehensive profiles of physicians to better target them and offered enormous bonuses, up to a quarter of a million dollars, for sales representatives who sold directly to major prescribers. A Senate report released last year found that five opioid manufacturers in five years alone spent $9 million in support of "patient advocate" groups responsible for downplaying the dangers of opioids to physicians.
#1
Glad they had to do yet another study for this information.
Posted by: Chris ||
01/23/2019 7:33 Comments ||
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#2
"The study's authors note that while prescription pills are not the primary cause of opioid-involved overdose deaths..."
There are legitimate uses for opioids in pain management and most prescription users take them responsibly. The few who buy/use the illegal stuff are ruining the quality of life for those that do not by driving the statistics.
#3
Prescription opioids continue to contribute to more than 17000 deaths from overdoses annually in the United States. The study reported that this number represents 40% of all the annual opioid deaths in the U.S. That would mean that 60% of the deaths are from non-prescribed opiates.
The following report states there were 72,000 drug-related deaths in 2017. This was from all drugs, opiates, cocaine, meth, heroin, fentanyl and any other drugs.
The study results (17,000) are the tip of the iceberg of the drug problem in the U.S. Some of these drugs are stolen and others smuggled into the U.S. The drug problem is good reason to better control our borders (particularly the southern border). Judicial Watch published an article about illegal drugs coming in to the U.S. titled " DEA: Most Illegal Drugs Enter via Mexico, Cartels Greatest Criminal Threat to U.S. (Nov. 2015)" Here.
#5
The majority of deaths are STILL due to non-prescribed opiates.
What galls me the most is that the USA continues to subsidize small package shipments from China to the USA, without inspecting each & every one for illegal drugs. This should have already been done years ago, and damn the cost. Pres. Xi told Trump he would make fentanyl a controlled subtance in China, but those were just words.
#6
A wild proposal: reguire all US manufacturers of opiates to produce and then donate opiate blockers like Narcan to first responders & hospitals. The mathematics of how much Narcan will block how many mg of morphine or fentanyl has already been worked out. Any company able to produce fentanyl is fully able to produce naloxone, Donation of the drug will slash its price on the market to very little. There is virtually no use for opiate blockers outside of opiate overdoses and treatment of addiction. Naturally this cannot be done or even considered by our representatives.
#7
Purdue is the major manufacturer of Oxycontin. They also market treatment for addiction. Purdue is a company owned by the Sackler family of Connecticut. The state of Kentucky has sued Purdue. The State of Massachusetts has also gone after them. NYTs story about Purdue. The attorneys smell big bucks.
[Motherboard] On Monday morning, Senator Kamala Harris announced that she’s running for president. This was no surprise‐Harris’s run has been rumored for months.
As the daughter of immigrants, with a record of upholding rights for marginalized communities on several occasions, Harris should be an ideal progressive candidate. Many sex workers and sex worker rights advocates, however, vehemently disagree.
Last year, Harris, the former Attorney General of California, helped champion the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), a piece of legislation sex workers and advocacy groups warned would have a disastrous impact on sex workers’ lives‐and they were right. FOSTA passed in April 2018 with Harris’s support, and she released a statement touting how proud she was to have helped move this bill through Congress, saying she has "witnessed firsthand the difficulty of charging sex trafficking sites‐even for crimes as egregious as pimping minors."
Harris and other FOSTA supporters claimed its passage would allow authorities to shut down websites like Backpage.com‐an escort advertising site that was an alleged hotbed for trafficking activity. It was also a primary source of income for many independent sex workers. Backpage and other advertising sites allowed sex workers to be financially independent and find and screen work for themselves, off the streets and away from actual traffickers or abusive "managers" and pimps.
[Gateway Pundit] A former Democrat and current Trump supporter unloaded on Democrats. Jeffrey Peterson says the reason the Democrats will never support the border wall ‐ the reason is that they are being paid off by the Mexican cartels.
Jeffrey Peterson states in his profile on Twitter that he is a former Democrat who ’walked away’. He now is a Trump supporter! He claims that the Democrats will never give in on a wall due to the Democrats being funded by the Mexican mafia. He says he has connections with Arizona politics and says Mexico is the main reason the wall is not supported by the Democrat Party!
#2
I've come to suspect everything the Dems do after observing them for a long time. It's all about obtaining power (and money) via legal and/or illegal means.
#9
OK, we need proof but this is all too easy for me to believe. Peterson would be wise to watch his back.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/23/2019 12:29 Comments ||
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#10
Hillary's State Department ALSO sold export-controlled weapons to Mexican cartels. I wonder if their meddling in Syria and Libya were also about opening up drug routes... all those "refugees" could have carried tons of who-knows-what into Europe.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
01/23/2019 19:39 Comments ||
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Good read by Stephen Moore, formally of the WSJ.
[Townhall] On Saturday, Donald Trump shrewdly flipped the table on Nancy Pelosi in the government shutdown standoff. He has now proposed a grand bargain on immigration: legalization of some 1 million so-called Dreamers -- the foreigners who were brought into the U.S. illegally by their parents -- and an immediate end to the shutdown, if she agrees to expand funding to $5.7 billion for the wall.
It's the kind of checkmate political maneuver that may guarantee his re-election.
It's smart because it now puts the onus on Pelosi to open the government. It also puts the pressure on Pelosi to act on immigration reform. For 25 years, Democrats have preferred to politicize the immigration issue -- and treat Hispanic voters as political hostages -- rather than agree to a bipartisan solution to deal with the 10 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S.
#1
Doubtful... Pelosi will just keep repeating "Orange Man bad", like a modern day Goebbels, and the MSM will echo it. In six months it will have been "All Trumps Fault!"
#4
Frankly I don't care who "owns" it. Get your act together already.
I just had to cancel an urgent order worth 75,000 US$ because nobody in the U.S. processes the papers for customs and the order can't be shipped. That's ridiculous.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
01/23/2019 9:09 Comments ||
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#5
Sorry, not sorry, EC. The border security concerns override your parochial economic interests.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/23/2019 10:21 Comments ||
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#6
Trump understands the left's game (Saul Alinsky strategies) and is better at it than them. He lived and did business in NY.
#7
Trumps approval among Latino's is going up. If that continues Pelosi will scramble to find an excuse to end the stalemate without looking like she was totally played.
#12
We can pretty well guess Iran didn't fill the complainer's order, so that pretty well leaves China. Enjoy the quality, whatever you bought...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/23/2019 10:48 Comments ||
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#13
Democrats doan need no steenking precedents, EC. They make shit up as they go. SCOTUS needs RBG gone and one more constitutionalist replacing her
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/23/2019 10:55 Comments ||
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#14
M. Murcek
Taiwan actually. My deadline is February 1st, so I had no choice.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
01/23/2019 11:05 Comments ||
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#15
It could happen in two years.
The way the hate is being fanned, we may be Yugoslavia in two years. It's beyond so many peoples comprehension how likely that is. Just look at the hate. How long till enough is enough?
#18
Here's what happened the last time the government shutdown. This link goes to ABC which I do NOT regard as a reliable source of information but the bottom line is correct: Republicans caved during the last government shutdown and Baraq got his way. Why is it that the Republicans are always the ones who are expected to blink? Baraq did not blink but he did not endure any scorn from the mainstream media like Trump is enduring now. Why? Let the donks blink this time.
European Conservative, you can blame anybody you want. You can place your order in Taiwan. This is national security for us. We need a wall. Unlike Merkel, we believe our borders must be secured because without them we will cease to be a nation.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/23/2019 12:41 Comments ||
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#19
#10 I don't think Trump will get re-elected. I don't say it's impossible, but just not very likely.
IMO, it's very possible for a DJT re-election. How many Dems are either running or considering running? There will likely be much carnage in the Dem primary getting to the main election. Trump has accomplished many of his promises already. The Dems don't have anyone running who can beat Trump at this time. I don't think Mueller has anything that will change things. The Dems have the Albatross of the Obama's administration's criminalty hanging around their necks. Obama is probably off the campaign trail. Hillary and others may be under indictment.
#22
we may be Yugoslavia in two years. It's beyond so many peoples comprehension how likely that is. Just look at the hate
My late father did some kind of cultural & business related promotion for the Rotarians in eastern Europe shortly before Yugoslavia blew up. He could speak Polish well & could somehow communicate with other speakers of Slavic tongues. He told me he thought Yugoslavia was a beautiful place, its people were very capable even if burdened by their form of government, but he was puzzled and concerned by how desperately unhappy most of the people he met seemed to be. It alarmed him. When civil strife later broke out, I understood what he meant.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Twominds.com] The social media/search giants have mastered the dark arts of obfuscating how they're reaping billions of dollars in profits from monetizing user data, and lobbying technologically naive politicos to leave their vast skimming operations untouched.
[Reason] There's no better sign of success than an escalation in attacks by your enemies. Based on such evidence, homeschooling is enjoying a boom, as growing numbers of families with diverse backgrounds, philosophies, and approaches abandon government-controlled schools in favor of taking responsibility for their own children's education. As they do so, they're coming under assault from officials panicking over the number of people slipping from their grasp.
[Free Beacon] Pharmaceutical firms' direct marketing to doctors continues to cause prescription opioid deaths, a new study argues.
