Here's my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 2 pm in association with NZ Mint.
As always, we welcome your additions in the comments below or via email to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz.
See all previous Top 10s here.
My must read is #1. I need to get out more. Merry Christmas to all. This is my last Top 10 for 2012. I'll be back from January 22.
1. It's all about the productivity, stupid - Here's the Economist with a useful discussion about how the developed world is going to ramp up real growth to dig itself out of the demographic hole it's with ageing populations.
Some say these ageing populations will be less productive (or at least not grow productivity as fast as in the past), and others say they may become more productive.
The doomsters argue we haven't been very good lately at inventing new ways to be more productive, and in particular, channelling the fruits of that productivity to consumers at large.
The optimists say the presence of all these older people will force capitalists to use capital more intensely to cope with looking after all these old people with a shortage of young people.
That's the argument in favour of more robot nurses and doctors.
We'll see.
Here's the Economists' report on the thinking:
AMERICA and Europe face a troubling demographic future. Declining birth rates will probably result in an older population and a smaller share of the population working to pay for their retirement. Does this necessary spell doom and gloom?
Megan Mcardle reckons so, but Dean Baker dismisses such arguments as “nonsense”. He shows that if productivity continues to increase (even at a lower rate than we’ve experienced historically) then we can still expect rising levels of prosperity. But which factor will dominate, aging or productivity, is uncertain. History is on Mr Baker’s side. Since industrialisation, each new cohort was more productive than the last. The productivity of labour depends on capital and innovation.
There are diminishing returns to capital, so sustainable increases in productivity come from new innovation. Ms McArdle, channeling endogenous growth models, is concerned there will less innovation in the future. Younger workers are more innovative and entrepreneurial; an aging labour force might mean much less or no productivity growth. Future productivity of labour will also depend on capital-intensity. An old population requires more people to work in labour-intensive jobs like elder care, there's not much scope to improve productivity of labour in such sectors—at least not in a humane way.
2. Print baby print - Hard on the heels of the US Federal Reserve's decision to print an extra US$40 billion a month, the Swiss National Bank has pledged to print more to defend its currency, or more correctly, repress its currency.
The SNB’s foreign-currency reserves have surged almost 70 percent over the past year to 424.8 billion francs ($459 billion) at the end of November as policy makers stepped up euro purchases to curb flows sparked by the region’s debt crisis. While the franc has weakened 0.8 percent since the European Central Bank pledged to purchase government bonds in August, Jordan said today the central bank doesn’t exclude any measure, when asked about possible negative interest rates.
“Global uncertainty will persist for the foreseeable future and drive demand for secure investments,” he said at a briefing in Bern. “As a result, the exchange-rate situation will remain fragile, despite the calmer environment that has come about as a result of the measures taken by the ECB. We cannot exclude the possibility that we will have to intervene substantially again.”
3. Don't blame the Romans - The legend of gold bugs everywhere is the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was caused by 'money printing' of its day, whereby the value of the 'nummi' was halved overnight.
Here's Izabella Kaminska at FTAlphaville defending the Romans.
The Roman hyperinflation period — constantly referred to by debasement obsessives — post-dates actual debasement by about 60 years. Using it as a justification for the hyperinflation is like suggesting that a hypothetical debasement in the 1950s could in some way be responsible for today’s economic woes.
Secondly, the Roman debasement was not a one off affair. History tells us that the Romans were “debasing” their currency successfully for many decades with no hyperinflationary consequences. What changed ahead of the hyperinflation period of the third century, however, was that the Empire’s political stability was being threatened.
4. The end of Independence? - ABC reports Glenn Stevens, the Reserve Bank of Australia's Governor, has warned central banks risk losing their independence if they get heavily into the money printing game.
Mr Stevens said central banks might face political obstacles as they tried to wind back such programs.
"The problem will be the exit from these policies," he said. "Ending a very lengthy period of guaranteed cheap funding for governments may prove to be politically difficult.
"There is certainly history to suggest that if we look back. And it's no surprise therefore that some people worry that we are heading a little bit at least back towards the world of the 1920s and the 1960s where central banks were captured by the government of the day for public debt interest reasons."
5. Libor - Here's a great Bloomberg piece on the scandal.
The detail is truly scandalous. Here's a piece detailing an easy way to make US$250,000 with the punch of a computer key. Sounds a lot like money printing...
This sort of stuff explains why so many are now so angry with banks generally. These banks have paid their fines and are continuing on their merry way, unhindered by regulators or any serious attempts to break them up. America even decided not to prosecute HSBC over money laundering failings because they feared it would damage the global financial system... Captured regulators and moral hazard.
“We need to bump it way up high, highest among all if possible,” Tan, known by colleagues as “Jimmy,” wrote in an instant message to Danziger, according to a transcript made public by a Singapore court and reviewed by Bloomberg before being sealed by a judge at RBS’s request.
The trader typically would have swiveled in his chair, tapped White on the shoulder and relayed the request, people who worked on the trading floor said. Instead, as White was away that day, Danziger input the rate himself.
The next morning RBS said it paid 0.97 percent to borrow in yen for three months, up from 0.94 percent the previous day. The Edinburgh-based bank was the only one of 16 surveyed to raise its rate. If it had lowered its submission in line with others, the cost of borrowing in yen would have fallen one-fifth of a basis point, or 0.002 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Even that small a move could mean a gain of $250,000 on a position of $50 billion.
6. Keep an eye on this - The WSJ reports Chinese banks are ramping up their sales of 'Wealth Management Products'...also known as Ponzi schemes.
To boost their deposit levels ahead of an expected year-end regulatory review, Chinese banks have recently accelerated their sales of high-yield investment products to customers, raising new concerns about the financial system and spurring the government to step up its oversight of the products.
Since late last month, banks of all sizes have increased their competition to attract deposits from middle-class savers by offering so-called wealth-management products. These WMPs, typically investment vehicles maturing in one year or less, pay much higher interest rates than regular bank deposits. Executives at some Chinese banks say they are now launching new WMPs daily, much more frequently than prior to the recent push.
Chinese bankers say there were similar races in the past, ahead of scheduled regulatory reviews of their loan-to-deposit ratios, but this year the competition is fiercer because banks are facing tighter funding conditions. Both bank lending and the broadest measure of money supply, M2, came in below analysts' expectations for November, data released Tuesday show, adding to concerns about a liquidity crunch as the year draws to a close.
The rapidly growing WMP market is causing concern among regulators. WMPs are pools of stocks, bonds, currencies or loans, repackaged by banks and marketed to their customers, much as mortgages were repackaged into securities for investors in the U.S. before the financial crisis.
7. Totally Jon Stewart on the war on Christmas
8. Totally Jon Stewart on how he celebrates the Christmas season.
9. Totally Jon Stewart on the Mayan prophecy of the end of the world on December 21.
10. Totally one of my favourite videos and songs ever. This one goes out to Gummy, in particular.
11. Bonus video - Hadn't seen this before. A cracking speech for the ages.
98 Comments
So after 5 years, where is the inflation? NZ I think recorded 0.9%.....down and dropping.
US core inflation is also a non-event.
Un-employment is 7~14% depending on where you look....and youth seems easily double that. With all that labour where is the wage pressure? Id suggest heavily down...
Now im sure manufacturers want to put up prices, but when they put in 8% rises they lose 7% sales. The biggest indicator of the lot is ppl simply cant pay more so there wont be inflation....
5 years ago I decided that floating was the best way depite many saying its going to go up so fix....that decision has saved me over $4.5k....and it will continue to save me $ for 2 or more years...maybe even 2 decades.
regards
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/12/12/bc-chinese-miners-documents.html
Interesting story.....and I thought Canadians were better at protecting what is theirs.....
Cheers
Matt Taibbi spits tacks at the War on Drugs with a look at HSBC's Too Big To Jail plan:
Outrageous HSBC Settlement Proves the Drug War is a Joke | | Rolling Stone
#1 - "The productivity of labour depends on capital and innovation".
Where do they get this shyte from? It's come from throwing exponentially more energy into the systen per-head - after all, that was what 'labour' was. Energy can be had sans capital - that's an artificial proxy - and 'innovation' is a bad choice of word to describe 'efficiencies'.
#2 - and drive demand for secure investments,”
Ain't that the truth. How many chairs will be missing when the music stops?
#3 - http://baobab2050.org/2010/10/24/the-economist-eroei/
" So The Economist conludes that the “old world” economy is already facing an ongoing negative productivity shock caused by the declining EROEI of fossil fuels, just when it will need a productivity boost to offset adverse changes to its demographic mix"
No bull, that's about the Roman decline, but it's straight back to #1!
. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested
"Since the invention of agriculture, humans have increasingly used exogenous sources of energy to multiply human muscle-power. Some historians have attributed this largely to more easily exploited (i.e. higher EROEI) energy sources, which is related to the concept of energy slaves. Thomas Homer-Dixon [5] demonstrates that a falling EROEI in the Later Roman Empire was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Western Empire in the fifth century CE".
When will they ever learn.....
The growth of energy use over hundreds of years has been close to exponential. That, in itself, should ring alarm bells for any informed person.
No matter how successful we are in developing new forms of energy (and solar power progress is on a roll) such growth will not continue for very long. Even if we economically harness nuclear fusion we still hit a thermodynamic wall.
If we employ the reductio ad absurdum route, at the historical 2.5% growth rate in energy consumption, to meet our needs we would be using an entire galaxy's energy output in 2500 years.
Tom Murphy does the maths:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
Hi Alan,
This idea might interest you. The Kardashev scale. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Imd_0iCucg
Please ignore the crappy music and terrible england, it's an important idea.
As Stephen Hawking keeps on saying, we've got to get off world if we are going to survive as a species.
Regards,
Bruce
OK, BH, read this and get back to us 'deniers"
IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/13/ipcc-ar5-draft-leaked-contains-ga…
I hate the tendency on the Net for commenters to resort to abuse and anonymous slagging. Doesn't mean I'm not tempted now and then.
OMG you are wrong.
In the not-too-distant future the ill-informed views you promote will leave you exposed to contempt and worse from the victims of our collective inability to accept the reality of basic thermodymnamics and chemistry.
The following link sums up the situation. There is scientific consensus. Unfortunately the media give equal weight to the ignorant and prostituted mischief-makers.
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/11/chart-only-017-percent-p…
Alan - it depends on what you call abuse.
He's had it put to him. I explained - without being too condescending, I hope - that whether we are or aren't doing the damage ourselves, the only valid action is the precautionary one; the lead-times are too long to allow any other approach.
If it turns out we didn't need to stop, we can continue burning the stuff; it'll still be there. If it turns our we had to stop, we did the right thing. So the only folk wanting to go full-steam ahead are the vested-interests, and their lackeys. I have no respect, and dwindling tolerance, for either.
But I reckon playing that kind of russian roulette with the whole planet, transcends abuse, heads in the direction of criminality.
Alan,
Can't say I'm down with ad hominum attacks either. It shows a serrious lack of intellectual capasity to resort to child like name calling.
However to my mind the climate change debate is still alive and well.
There was, for example, a scientific concenus that heavier than air flight was impossible which with great irony a certain bicycle mechanic named Wright though his weight behind.
PDK,
I'm afraid I tend to side with the so called 'deniers' such as OMG, or as they refer to themselves, realists, these days. This after being a concenus type for years, after all why would I not be, it is the only prespective taken serriously in the academy or the media, then being challenged to investigate the science and arguement of the realist side by a classmate last year.
What follows is a re-post of a comment I left on a local blog and puts forward the realist point of veiw as I understand it with a liberal dose of Hayek in response to a post about the marriage of Labour and The Greens.
Just wondering if you’ve checked out what’s happening with the test case the coalition of climate change realists are taking against NIWA for flasifiying data to fit the ‘concensus’ on global warming.
I was talking to Dr Jock Allison, amoung other climate realists recently, and they point out, quite rightly, that past global warming periods that have vailidating supporting science correspond with increased agricultural production and a subsequent high point in civilisation.
For example the Minoian, Roman and Midieval warming periods.
Unfortunately, as I understand it, children are still being brainwashing in the pinko-leftie brainwashing department, or public schools as they are more commonly known, with data and conclusions from Steve Hanson et al even though their predictions and science have been proven to be flase and flasified respectively in court.
Dr Allison, the pioneer of Texel sheep breeding in New Zealand, has been using all of his recent public speaking engagements, such as the inaugural Beef and Lamb Sheep Awards in Invercargill, to slam green aguments with hard science to the applause of attending farmers.
He points out the likely effect of two degrees of aggregate warming and the infinitesimally small increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide which is predicted will have the effect of raising export earnings for New Zealand by increasing raw agricultural output with near no damage other than glacial melt.
Temperate glaciers are an historical anominally brought about by the little ice age, which corresponds with the Dark Ages in Europe.
After seeing Metiria Turei speak at last weeks CTU orgainised Southland Economics Debate where she wasted half her allotted time formally introducing herself in Maori then dropped planning, quanitative easing, and social responsibility bombs every few seconds I would agree with what, presumably, F.A. Hayek would have said of her, and as co-leader of the greens, presumably their entire party, that these kind of policies are those which lead to fasicism in Germany in the 1930′s.
The marriage of our two most socailist political parties may seem laughable, but it is in reality no laughing matter.
Liberally,
Bruce
Even weaker than playing the man and not the ball, is obfuscation, and dragging out the National Socialist association. But perhaps that is the true extent ofthe understanding of Liberals, mega bulls, and spenders of other's money ? Maths, an appreciation of the exponentail function, and knowing just how much stainless steel is left, well, perhaps its just beyond them ?
You are dead on. I think the term is spoilt.
I think an abundance of energy for several generations have left many not realising (and me included, thogh less so, maybe) just how dependant we are on it for our "lifestyle". By that I mean even with wonky; economics, outlook or decisions the cost to correct in energy terms is not significant or absorbed elsewhere when energy is cheap. Now ppl think, especially those with money can just buy what they want, it can be got no matter what the price....they dont want to understand or listen to the geologists, or engineers.
The problem for spoilt brats occurs when they run foul of the law....in this case thermodynamics and not police....
regards
If you actually bothered to read the section in context you would see,
a) They looked at many aspects or possibilities for reasons apart from CO2
b) it says they looked at solar forcing and concluded............it was not significant.
Meanwhile the report was given in confidence, says something about the authors lack or morals.
regards
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/12/14/deniers-reach-for-cherry-come-up-wi…
Peter Sinclair does a nice job on this one. Anthony Watts is usually a bit more careful about which nonsense he makes up, in this case it appears to be an 'own-goal' because the speculative mechanism that is so 'shocking' (appart from being marginal in terms of influence) is actually cloud creating, meaning its a cooling mechanism. If the effect of cosmic rays is to seed more cloud then that and a current low in the solar cycle, mean that some more substantial climate increase is being partly offset by this temporary effect.
Of course this also shows that various marginal theories do actually get considered by the IPCC, but typically don't make it beyond the review process because the evidence is not there. Seems highly likely this statement will not be there because there is a massive coverup, erm.. sorry, because its based on speculative and un-proven science.
Don't NEED it?
Anything that occurs or is created via a natural process IS very much needed. Too believe NOT is willfully ignorant
Nitrous oxide is emitted by bacteria in soils and oceans, and thus has been a part of Earth's atmosphere for millennia. Agriculture is the main source of human-produced nitrous oxide: cultivating soil, the use of nitrogen fertilizers, and animal waste handling can all stimulate naturally occurring bacteria to produce more nitrous oxide. The livestock sector (primarily cows, chickens, and pigs) produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide.[3] Industrial sources make up only about 20% of all anthropogenic sources, and include the production of nylon, and the burning of fossil fuel in internal combustion engines. Human activity is thought to account for 30%; tropical soils and oceanic release account for 70%.[4]
Nitrous oxide reacts with ozone in the stratosphere. Nitrous oxide is the main naturally occurring regulator of stratospheric ozone. Nitrous oxide is a major greenhouse gas. Considered over a 100-year period, it has 298 times more impact per unit weight than carbon dioxide. Thus, despite its low concentration, nitrous oxide is the fourth largest contributor to these greenhouse gases. It ranks behind water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Control of nitrous oxide is part of efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.[5]
context and facts
We dont need N2O to laugh with we have the antics and denial from the likes of OMG.
We are not releasing huge amounts of N2O every year into the atmosphere....CO2 on the other hand....so yes sure worry about the other vapors/gases, but CO2 is the major and preventable and the main one to prevent.
NB the next one is methane, and its in the tundra if thats released and its not self-controlling humans are extinct inside 200 years.
regards
Nitrous oxide ? ..... don't make me laugh ..... if we got a few hundred more nuclear reactors up and running , we could close down all the dirty coal fired power plants around the globe , and seriously cut back on CO2 emissions .....
... clean , green nuclear power , the way of the future ..... bloody sight more environmentally friendly than those daft wind machines ...... 20 000 Japanese died in the tsunami , not one died from the Fukushima melt-down , not one !
Damn right GBH!
Gwynne Dyer had a nice opinion peice on the nuclear boggyman recently.
http://www.straight.com/news/gwynne-dyer-nuclear-power-debate-amid-japa…
Japan, as a steel producing nation reliant on cheap energy, is insane to be shutting down it's nuclear plants & much of Europe seems to be jumping on the greenie nukes-are-inherently-evil-luddite band wagon which will see a huge spike in coal fired plants.
Has anyone seen the math on energy budgets for alternative energy production?
By this I mean (megajoules per unit in production plus r&d cost plus installation) vs (lifespan times megajoules produced per annum less maintainance). Not this equation is in Megajoules, not dollars so can not be artifically altered as easily as dollar equations by green policy incentives.
I keep asking but no one in the industry seems to know, or care.
I deeply suspect the number is negative largely because if it was positive the greens' Gareth Hughes would be wacking us over the head with it every other speech.
maybe try another piece by Gwynne,
/Gwynne Dyer:/ Slim chance obesity will last
Friday October 6, 2006
Being fat is the new normal, but it won't last. The global surge in overweight people is concentrated among lower-income city-dwellers, and some may choose to slim down as they climb further up the income scale. But the real guarantee of a slimmer world, unfortunately, is climate change.
"Obesity is the norm globally, and undernutrition, while still important in a few countries and in [certain groups] in many others, is no longer the dominant disease," Dr Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina told a conference in Queensland.
Dr Popkin studies "nutrition transition", the changes that accompany the shift from a traditional rural diet to a modern urban diet, and he has concluded that - because of high-speed urbanisation - the fat now outnumber the starving.
We have grown accustomed to Americans who look almost perfectly spherical, and we are seeing more Europeans who seem to aspire to the same goal.
Dr Popkin's point is that this is not caused by moral failure in American and European populations, but to the changes that come with urbanisation: higher incomes, mass-marketing of processed foods, and work patterns that require less physical labour.
His proof is that the rates of obesity in developing countries undergoing rapid urbanisation are rapidly catching up with the levels in the rich countries.
Mexicans of all ages and both sexes are now on average as fat as Americans. In Kuwait, Thailand and Tunisia, 25 to 50 per cent of the population are suffering developed-world levels of obesity.
In some places, specific local factors play a role as well. In much of Africa, for example, fatness in women was traditionally seen as testimony to the wealth and generosity of their husbands.
Research in South Africa has revealed a new, additional factor: the fear that being slim will make people think you have Aids.
But the shift in dietary patterns and the consequent rise in obesity among the urban population affect the great majority of lower and middle-income countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
Moreover, this is happening at a much earlier point in the economic and social development of these countries than was the case in the "old rich" countries.
The typical pattern in 19th-century Europe was that the high-income groups put on weight first. Only much later, when cheap fats and sweeteners became generally available to the working class, did the urban poor start to bulk-up as the rich slimmed down.
But this pattern is now kicking in at a point in countries' development where malnutrition is still widespread.
In urban Brazil, for example, the poor are now on average significantly fatter than the rich. Urban adults in China and Indonesia are twice as likely to be obese as rural adults. In the Congo, city-dwellers are six times more likely to be fat.
It's not a pretty picture - a world full of Michelin men and women. The alternative is worse - a world of very hungry people
That alternative, alas, is far more likely by the end of this century. Cheap and plentiful food for the urban masses of a multi-billion-population world is an astonishing achievement, but it is probably in its last few decades.
Most of the world's great fisheries are nearing collapse because of overfishing and pollution. Some, including the Grand Banks, off Newfoundland, have already died.
More worrisome still is the likely impact of global warming on the great agricultural regions that feed most of those billions of people, such as the Chinese river valleys, the American Midwest, and the north Indian plain.
Two years ago, Dr Jyoti Parikh, director of Integrated Research for Action and Development, a New Delhi-based non-governmental organisation, did a detailed study for the World Bank about the probable effects on Indian agriculture of a an average temperature rise of 2C.
She concluded that overall Indian food production would be about 25 per cent less than at present.
The world is probably going to get considerably hotter than that and most of the other great breadbaskets of the world will be similarly affected. Obesity is not our long-term problem.
* Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
LOL, you are right to measure things in energy, money is a proxy for energy or work, nothing more.
Once you understand that and I see you understand the second thing also...."Has anyone seen the math on energy budgets for alternative energy production?"
The answer is, yes I have...and so has PDK, hence his identifier.
The "industry" (I take it you mean oil, coal etc ) is a vested interest.....so as a journalist, keep digging....
Try ASPO.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-12-14/the-peak-oil-crisis-deep-i…
and generally,
"Negative" indeed hence we will be powering down....there is no other science/engineering option.
Gareth Hughes, he's pretty good as an MP, but he doesnt discuss/debate this and neither will the Green party ppls Ive talked ot. I dont know exactly why but I suspect its because no one ie the voter wants to hear the bad news. So the decision is I suspect to work "behind the scenes" as it were.
regards
Hi Steven,
By industry I mean all the people involved in promoting abandoning gas, oil, etc. Such as all the power companies I have spoken to at energy confences.
The only people at the last one I attended who made sense to me were a realestate broker who pointed out that on aggergate people sold their houses before a photovoltic array, even a heavily subsidised one, would generate then any real yeild on investment.
That and a wonderfully enthusiastic bloke from NIWA with an incrediblely simple system for bio-massing dairy effulent ponds which could easily be retrofitted and did the math rather quickly in terms of time to yeild for investment.
Thanks for the links.
Bruce
You miss or ignore many things as per normal,
1) The huge quantity of cement / energy etc to build new plants, then dispose / contain / treat the waste.
2) Uranium is limited so PWRs / BWRs have limited "life"
3) The 8 year time frame to build per plant.
4) Its not a transport energy, ie petrol and deisel, so mostly useless.
Sorry but how many ppl have died from wind turbines?
regards
Steven,
Nukes are a stop gap. Can be used to create hydrogen & electricity untill we get this sort of tech http://courseware.eduwest.com/sharecourse/jpkc/0067/content/ziyuan/pdf/… though development.
Main problem decomission, not construction. Need to built around the time capasity of concrete, 100 years to fully harden, 100 more to weaken to uselessness. Old design based on speed of construction for weapons I'm guessing. Could be much better.
All reasourses are limited by the economics of extraction. That is a given. Only need to be made explict to utter fools.
Wind turbines kill birds. As do big arsed stupid glass office buildings. Many birds rare. Killing them bad, all species have a right to exist. People not rare & very few killed by nukes in accidents. More in accidents in dam construction. Wind turbine instillation very risky. Possibly killed people there.
Excuse poor style, shite to do today.
Bruce
steven : You seem oblivious to the fact that the world has no shortage of uranium , abundant supplies of energy , and a surplus of cement !!!
...... unlike you , I believe that shutting down the dirty coal fired electricity plants is imperative , and that siting clean state of the art nuclear reactors nearby to the world's most populus cities is essential ...
If the guys from Boral come looking for extra cement , I shall suggest they investigate the inside of your cranium for a vast untapped resource ...
Regards .
Great links - especially Delingpole! Thanks.
Now since you lot quote the IPCC endlessly, what is your reaction to the graph produced by them which shows no warming for 15 years and a total disconnect from their ridiculous computer models?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell…
Do let us know which option you vote for in the poll.
So BH, will this graph from the IPCC make into the top 10 for Monday, or will you post another daft cartoon?
This whole CAGW farce has been about shifting resources, mostly to the 1% while the man in the street pays for it all. It seems some posters above sure don't want the public to know the truth, how "moral" of them!
Labour had better seriously think through the consequences of an alliance with the Greens. It could spell the death of a party I once belonged to.
Thank goodness the govt is walking away from this ETS nonsense.
15 years ago is conveniently the 1997/98 mega-El Nino which was exceptionally hot. Temperatures are still increasing.
Skeptical science does a good job explaining the confusion OMG wants to proffer. Why are you still using this meme? As discussed several times its not something the IPCC or the UKMO have said, its somebody elses claim and they are not credible.
"Lets say there has been an observed warming trend of 1 degree with an uncertainty of 2 degrees, or in math terminology 1 +/- 2 degrees. In this example the warming trend is not statistically significant (the uncertainty is larger than the trend). Quite obviously, this does not mean the temperature trend is zero; rather this means its most likely value is 1, and the possible values range from -1 to +3 degrees.
We cannot say for certain that this temperature trend is positive in this example, but its most likely the case, and it would be very wrong to claim with any certainty that the true trend is zero."
But thats exactly the mistake made in claiming there has been no warming.
http://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-lesson-for-monckton-and-co.h…
Nic,
Hang on a minute mate. Are you asking me to accept the IPCC as credible after the Hanson debacle?
I agree this whole 'game changer' is a load of bollocks, however my points about the history of humanity remain irrefutable. It was a lot warmer than contemporary predictions for warming in the roman period for example. In the mideval period it was nearly as warm as the roman. Greenland was, well, green. Vinland grew wine.
The enitre massive publically funded totalitarian nightmare that is the IPCC was started by demonstrably false arguement and flasified science.
But lets just regulate it anyway that way we can construct a huge publically funded orifice to employ a heap of useless buracrates and scientists that won't actually test a hypothesis.
Oh no, wait, we all ready have.
I wonder what good old Al Gore has to say about it?
"Ah ha ha ha! I made tens of millions in carbon trading before the market collapsed," he said.
" So did all my mates in the Club of Rome."
"Now though the ICCP we'll pressure governments to put a flase bottom on the market and stimulate growth in the market for hot air, hot air! Which we control! We'll make billions!!!"
"WAhaha aaahaha ha ha , hahahahahahazhaaaaaa!!! *coughing fit*."
"Now if you'll excuse me *puff wheeze* some university or other wants to give me an honourary chair and doctorate in finance then Ben Bernake wants to talk to me about making a movie about how quantitative easing will save us all from the fisical cliff."
Mr Gore then ironically flew away in his hydrocarbon fueled private jet, showering carbon futures certificates to the thronged masses below, a truly postmodern superhero.
I suppose you also support the great idea put forward by public health experts on 3 news last night to regulate resturant portion sizes and ban fast food because people refuse to control their own tongues? And accept their contention that obesity kills more globally than malnutrition?
They are after all a panel of experts with a consensus opinion. They must be right.
Those policy wonks should spend some time in the Horn of Africa. Maybe public money could be used to fund them a one way ticket?
I'ld support that.
Regards,
Bruce
Say 50 years ago people lived, on average, to the age of 60 and today they live to the age of 80.
Then BH and Alex have a belief system that everyone over 60 is a dead person clinging to life at their expense. When in reality a 70 year old today has the body of a 50 year old back then.
So why can't people like BH and Alex grasp that.
Maybe they have some right wing agenda. Hey, Bernard, why cant all your staff come clean and declair their political beliefs. You must know that journalists who hide their true beliefs and pretend they are reporting facts when in reality they are reporting propaganda. They are snake oil.
If journalists want a future and to be paid then they have to become transparent and throw all that snake oil away.
You are incorrect...look at the socio-economics groups, the "poor's life expectancy has I think risen by only a few years, say 65 to 68. The middle and top has risen several fold.....think its now about 85 or so....
The second aspect is that retiring at 65 measn its not that unusual to be dead at 70....retire at 60 and its not that un-usual to live to 80....those last few years extra working (in some jobs) can severly cutain our life expectancy.
So when the well educated and well off say raise the retirement age to 67 what they are doing is all but handing out a death sentence.
Oh no we cant raise taxes of course....oh no....
I guess after many decades of listening and watching ppl its pretty clear to me many never reach maturity...ever...
regards
You are correct , the demographic-gloomsterisers are peddling a false cause . Folks at 70 y.o. now , are fitter than 50 y.o.'s of the bygone era ...... one of the greatest boons to our health has been simply the rapid decline in smoking . And 2012 has been a stellar year in medical research . As I've reported , there's been some eye-popping studies emerge , from bionic eyes , breast-cancer , malaria research , spinal cord regeneration , cold laser eye therapy .... it has been momentous.....
... and this points towards us not so much living longer , but living in better health with the time we have .. which may indicate fewer , not more , retirees requiring specialised home and hospitals in the future ......
Down at my local chainsaw shop there are guys of 78 and 82 still happily doing a 40 hour week , repairing mowers and chainsaws ... they are totally brilliant , a pointer to a positive futrue for us ...
Hi GBH,
You may be right about the aggregate fitness level moving up as people age over time but it does depend alot on occupation.
I come from an agricultural background. Farmers tend to die young, as do other people in physical employment. Those people that weld the chainsaws in the bush cutting down trees, those that pull in the crayfish pots, and those that shear the sheep? Well in their culture it's still considered a noble thing to die on the boards in your fifties or sixties and plenty still do.
Cybernetics and other high end medico treatments are all very well for the wealthy few but I can't see them being rolled out for the general public who still languish on enormous waiting lists with an ACC system that will not even deny a claim in order for you to go private, if you can afford it, without harassing their university educated callcenter imbeciles for around a year, or two, or more.
Regards,
Bruce
Bruce , many die at their computer keyboards in their 50's & 60's too .... victims of a sedentary lifestyle and a junk food diet ...
... the choice belongs to the individual ....
But I dispute the commonly held assumption that the demographic bulge of babyboomers will place excess strain upon our health care services and upon retirement villages .... the future may be for us to keep fit and strong up until near our death , rather than sufferring through years of a slow , lingering decline .
Remember, as you said earlier wealth (money) = energy?
So energy is more or less a fixed amount on the planet, plus what is coming from the sun, minus whats lost on conversion/use....so,
a) With more of us every year, each has to be poorer.
b) or some have to take more than their share.
and your cage is amongst the worst....self imposed political chains.
regards
look at the times. Not the position of comments kid and see below.
http://bigthink.com/dangerous-ideas/5-stephen-hawkings-warning-abandon-…
Hi Mike.
Yep I've got a massive right wing agenda, which is much the same as my left wing agenda, lock them all up. The department of croney capitalism, or the Government as some people like to think of them, aren't really any better. All neo-liberal polititcians and their neo-classical economists have two big things in common, they are wrong, and they practice a variant of socialism.
The right likes the truth just as much as the left. Juith Collins' reaction to Justice Binnie's report on the David Bain case is a great example of the right in action. They set parameters to get the result they want, just as they did with the innummerable green and white papers over there past term & a bit, and if the reports author(s) attempts to go outside these parameters to speak the truth as they see it, the report is decleared invaild. As for our Dear Leader he should be impreached and tried as the leader of a vast criminal conspiracy for his illegal handling of the SIS and other secret police agencies during the Dotcom fiasco.
I don't beleive I need to point out the erronious nature of oil your snake oil claim, but given the juvenilia above, I'll do it. I use my full name, unlike nearly everyone else here who are apparently too terrified of the Government, or their employeers, or their partners, thought police, try googling my name.
On to my beleif system then, as you inquired so politely. You may have infered from my presumption of A.H. Hayek's opinion that I'm a Libertarian. To pharaphase Hall, paraphasing Voltarie, I don't believe your shite, but ya'll can say what ya like.
Regards,
Bruce
Sorry all! I meant of course F.A Hayek.
In my defense when I wrote this it was rather early on Saturday morning.
I've enjoyed reading the various rants and luscious links of the community on Bernard et als site for a couple of years now and it has helped me alot in forming an understanding of what the hell is going on out there from an economic prespective.
Thanks everyone and have a merry christmass, a high high summer and a happy new year.
Cheers,
Bruce
I say, in all sincerity, that i hope you have an enjoyable summer break, and that goes out to everyone else as well. Even though we disagree we must remain united because without that we are all loosers.
I don't recall attacking you personally, yet your words make it sound as though i had, and you are retaliating. Have i missed something?
It must be apparent by now that i have a loathing of governments, and may even give the impression, to some, as almost being an anarchist. I believe we need good government and at the moment that is lacking. Successive governments have allowed greed and corruption to be rewarded and, as you say, all this crony capitalism that goes on.
As for the news media. How can anyone not be annoyed at the news. Look at all that publicity for the Hobbit. That rubish was passed off as news when it was an infomercial. I don't believe for one moment that TVNZ and TV3 gave Warner Brothers, a private company, all that advertising at the TV's expence "Free Of Charge".
Then look at the behavior of the press in England.
Then look at these people quietly getting special treatment from the Casino.
Then look at the behavior of the press leading up to the last election. They told everyone "dont bother voting Labour because National is going to romp in" and all the fools didnt vote.
Then look at the way the news media treated Winston.
There are also many, many, other bad behavior from the press and if you listen to Media Watch you will find out.
How can anyone have any confidence in them, they are as bad as politician's.
Sadly the good ones suffer that is why i am in favour of paying, not for a publication where the badies can hide behind the goodies, but for the journalists themselves. Then we can hopefully get rid of those unscrupulouse journalists.
Finally i might add that although i get angry at times, i find BH and most of the reporters, on this site, very good and that is why this site is so popular
Let's hope next year we get some good news and can cheer up
Mike,
Nah mate you've never had a go at me personally. I just can't stand grubby name calling. It's pointless.
Your right that the contempoary media is awful, particulary tv. A former tutor discribed them as "Bottom feeding scum," which is about right too much of the time.
As a journo' myself the feild suffers from low pay, massive stress, under reasoursing, zero job security, crowd sourcing by untrained and unprofessional amatuers such as Stuff('s) The Nation, and, of course, the all important time pressure.
People with the best will in the world quickly can become disillusioned and then apathtic and lazy. Much print media is therefore what ever is easist, which is cutting and pasting PR from former journo's who have crossed over to 'the dark side' because at least there they stand a better chance of being able to support their families. I don't blame them but am determined not to submit to the demands of the all mighty dollar.
Tv news tends to follow the following formula, shock, horror, celebrities, a quick sound bite, probably taken out of context, from a politician, business for halfwits, "the economy/ dollar did really well today on news that..." as if the economy is a household pet, and then sports followed by the weather and quick recap of the daily shock and horror. Unless it's a slow newsday or a Monday in which case half the news will be about a country which really has very little real importance to us, the US or Britian.
Interest normally has very good stuff from it's team which is also why I come here, well that and the bloody amusing comments section.
As for political veiws, if we all agreed then we would live happilly together in the gulag our society would have become. I like people disagreeing with me. It shows they are thinking independantly rather than mindlessly following a consensus opinion.
Finally I don't work here. I wouldn't mind at all, but doubt very much that even if Bernard offered me a job that I would relocate to Auckland, just to clear that up.
Have a good one mate,
Bruce
As a former employee of the bottom feeding scum company par excellence , unFairfax , I can tell you , that the media are no different than carnival barkers of old ..... screaming at the top of their lungs , " hear me , hear me " , and bawling out some half arsed diatribe to amuse the masses , to titlillate the plebs , anything designed to garner the attention of the great unwashed .... and to pour shillings / sheikels / and wampung into our pockets .........
Bernie operates on a formulaic system of " bellow out some fear mongering headlines , and the proles will be suckered in . " ....
...Sorry Bernie , 'cos I think you're a brilliant chap , in need of Warren & Tarquin's salon ... but the truth will out ... but these fine bloggers are correct : Shock horror / Soundbites / Snippets taken out of context ...
.. tomorrow : Rinse / Wash / Repeat ..
The IPCC are nothing more than a lobby group:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/about-that-overwhelming-98-number…
The old CC debate continues I see.
I just love the views of those who claim (this IS what you are claiming) we humans lived on a 'status quo' planet where climate never changed until we arrived on the scene burning fossil fuels!
Ignorance of an entire 4.5 billion year Earth VARIABLE climate history must be right up there as one of the most ridiculous things humans have ever tried to claim
Many factors infuence climate:
Earths magnetic field vs Cosmic and Solar radiation vs Solar cycles vs Cloud formation vs annual precipitation vs water vapor at sea level.......................and eventually........... you get to a tiny little amount of atmospheric CO2.............which is apparently the ONLY PROBLEM!
naive much?
Sorry, YOU ARE. You are claiming via ICCP computer modelling (their only evidence) that can't even handle or predict or project realistic 'cloud formation' a projected ENTIRE 100+ year on year record including sea level rise!
That MAY happen, but where's the PROVABLE, TESTABLE (in the real world) link to humanity?
Do they consider Super volcanism into the equation like Yellowstone National park or Lake Taupo for instance? It Is a very real possibility ALSO yet...........overlooked because we just can't blame that on anyone for financial gain can we!
The science...............has become "science of fiction" . As I reported in the above article the ICCP only claim consensus:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/about-that-overwhelming-98-number…
I sell and manufacture 'green' products ( garden related) and I know a thing or two about climate, I also sure as hell know when I'm being given political spin and ulterior motives to try and push an ZEALOT agenda.
CO2 is one of the poorest conductors of GH, hence we heat our greenhouses during winter with wood, we don't pump in CO2 which would be way cheaper!
Unbelievable!
Justice, your total lack of understanding of the science is breathtaking.
It has sweet FA to do with CO2's conduction or that of any other greenhouse gas. You may know a thing or two about climate, but I fear it's only a thing or two.
A worrying fact that we must forever cope with is that 50% of the human race are of below average intelligence.
The IPCC doesnt really prove anything as such, ie do much in the way of science directly. They simply collect all the evidence, present it and suggest outcomes, its for Govns and organisations to decide what to do.
Its not for Alan as such to educate you but for you to educate yourself off the thousands of scientists.
You wont bury the scientists...these are the experts, all you really do is show yourself as an ignorant fool.
regards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeYfl45X1wo&noredirect=1
Don't worry Justice this ones got pictures. Thats the link between CO2 and atmospheric warming, and you could even repeat this if you wanted.
A worrying fact that we must forever cope with is that 50% of the human race are of below average intelligence.
Are you sure about that? Every moron comment I see on this site appears to have about 5 times the number of thumbs up compared to the comments which are non-moron. Certainly true judging the scientific (and pseudo science) moron comments by scientific merit, though there is probably no way to test the non-scientific comments.
PS, I think you might be talking about median intelligence. But I also think Justice has an above average education in psedo science so good luck to anybody trying to change his opinions (including himself).
Hullo Nic : Only sorry that I couldn't give you 5 thumbs-ups for that scintillatingly brilliant observation ......
... but look on the bright side , if it wasn't for us 50 % with below average intelligence , the truely cranially resplendent , such as Justice & your good self , would not be able to demonstrate your towering intellect to an eagerly awaiting world ....
I have a theory , Nic , as to why the " moron comments " as you call them , garner so many thumbs ups here .....
... the " moron comments " are utterances from guys on the political right , business and entrepreneur types , productive citizens ...... so they get busy , and give a vote to those comments that they agree with ....
Whereas the " un-moron comments " are from the lefties ... and these folk by comparison , see no need to bother with voting for comments they agree with , 'cos they know that someone else will do it for them .....
So the productive citizens don't have time to do the research, don't generally have the time to have any real idea of what is going on, and then engage in reactionary hit and run voting and policy?
You might just be onto something there!
But last complaint we heard from you about the left you were trying to claim that they were highly motivated to vote, all the goodies showered from above, got to vote to get those or you might miss out on the showering. Please do try to maintain a consistent fantasy at least, people will think you generally speak out of some other orifice.
I have a theory on that , Nic ...... the productive folks are at the coal-face of industry and entrepreneurship , and as such , report back from the front-lines as soldiers of old did during war time ...
..... whereas the lefties sitting back in their ivory towers have ample time for government funded research , quangos , and trips to Kyoto .... No risk of them ever copping the bullet ....
It's just s theory , mind you , it may be less than 100 % correct in some places , but no more than 100 % wrong in most ...
Hi again Alan,
Quite right.
The greenhouse effect has to do with the reflection of light & energy and conduction in my limited understanding does not pay a measurable part.
The biggest contributor to the greenhouse effect by far is of course water vapour which conducts quite well which is perhaps where Justice got confused.
Being that water vapour is the biggest greenhouse gas contributor by a huge margin and the fact that anybody that has ever drank water has died, pointing to it's poisonious nature, maybe the ICCP should look at taxing water vapour emissions.
This could be done by attaching a spincter like measuring device to the face of all humans & animals with the acronym ICCP and prehaps Morgan Stanley's logo also printed on it so we would all be reminded exactly who's prosterior we are kissing.
We could then also get an accurate indicator of human intelligence. Anyone wearing the Hotwetarsekisser (tm pending) would demonstrably be of sub par intelligence. Those rioting in the streets would be above average intelligence and actually pocess some moral courage, the lack of which in the broad population concerns me more than their lack of intelligence.
Cheers,
Bruce
You are in fact incorrect, and climate models don't actually provide any evidence for climate change. The purpose of having a climate model is to forecast where the climate is heading, but not to prove anything about why its heading there.
The basis for evidence for climate change comes from the physical sciences of Chemistry, and Physics. Even the first Physicist to realise that CO2 exhibits a green-house effect realised that this could have global implications for the planets temperature and climate. The physical properties of greenhouse gasses are proven in lab conditions so I gather you are not disputing that these gasses have these properties. This includes the evidence that about 330PPM is sufficient CO2 to have a significant effect on the physics of the atmosphere, though obviously the actual effect in terms of extra energy trapped depends on the amount of light coming in, and the reflective properties of the planet where it arrives.
The evidence that human produced CO2 is raised in the atmosphere is also pretty hard to dispute. Fortunately there is a very long record of atmospheric content in ice core records, this and the unique fingerprint of man-made CO2 makes it possible to identify changes in the atmospheric content. I gather you are not disputing this.
The final piece of evidence is in the global temperature analysis. This is done using various temperature proxies (again ice core properties are used for some lines of evidence) and from satellite and surface temperature recordings. When aggregated into a global temperature anomaly this shows the observed increase in the temperature. This increase in temperature confirms what would be expected from the greenhouse properties of these gasses which are being pumped into the atmosphere. No computer models required.
One thing we can be sure of, if you think that we can continue to increase the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and expect the temperature to stop rising, your preaching madness.
One thing on the models, they actually backdated them and then ran them against actual data.....they found a very high correlation, ie the models did quite well.
Actually two things.
In the last few years the models seem to be starting to under-predict the speed of change, so actually they are possibly unduely optimistic.
lol thrid thing,
IPCC report contains reports that are not the latest science at time of publication as they have a dutoff date. The 2007 report didnt show much sign of the second item, the acceletrating change.
Past 4degC society as we know it becomes unlikey....these days 5 to 6 seems assured....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1aFoJSBJF4
6.5 is considered an extinct event for us and most species
This is a great lecture series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyuKOtIryis
`This talks about the effects,
regards
Naive, no blinkered in your case, yes. Lets look at the basics.
1) Our planet rejects heat via radiation, specifically infra red, basic scientific fact.
2) co2 blocks infra red, increase co2 content, block more, basic scientfic fact.
3)
a) Take global temperature from 1800s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.svg
From this point on its determine why....
b) Take CO2 ppm and plot in from 1800, (we'll use this graph as it has methane and your fav giggle n2o,
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/greenhouse-gas.html
plot them look at the correlation, basic maths.
c) Now look at anything else that could cause this.....things like solar, magnetic, changes in some other gas/vapour....
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/AttributionAll50.jpg
Nothing else cuts the mustard as they say but CO2.
4) Determine if we need to worry,
a) Proxies saying yes, insurance claims and this is one of the biggest short term, far more volitile and violent weather.
b) Damage to the big o2 emitters like the northern pine forests, amazon.
c) RElease of trapped greenhouse gases...Tundra melting, amazon rotting.
d) acidification of oceans and bye bye plankton, bye bye food chain.
All this adds up to we have a problem. Anyone prepared to look at this stuff with non-political mindset and / or sufficient scientific education should be left wondering.
regards
If the Ghaia hypothesis is correct, and I believe it is, this giant biosphere we call home has already started to adapt and counteract the effects of the biggest infestation ever to ocurr since time begun.
We have nothing to worry, and there is nothing we can do. Life will prevail!!
Don't worry, be happy! And stop driving if you can... Or flying... Or having lights on overnight... Or hot water cylinders... Or television... Computers... Toasters... Water jugs...?
OMG!!!!! Help us... And please, don't take my cold beer away!
HGW
That's exactly why Science also looks at things like attribution and fingerprinting.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/AttributionAll50.jpg
Hugh, i wonder how long Aucklanders will have to wait to settle their insurance claims after the tornado? as they will have to join the back of the queue. Now they will have first hand experience of how bad Chch people have had it.
Please don't tell me they queue jumped as that would be so unfair.
I heard a very good and graphic explanation of the importance of cheap fuel to our "world". Empty all the fuel out of your car. Then put in two liters of fuel. Drive, in any direction, with any load, away from your home until the fuel runs out and the vehicle stops. Now push your vehicle home. Driving away from home is what life is like with cheap, abundant fuel. Pushing the vehicle home again is what life is like without it.
It makes me sick seeing a sucession of lonely people driving into town, one car after another. Fart better if we had free, or almost free public transport and used what fuel remains to build bicycle paths, organic gardens and sailing ships
Why I use public transport and walk....Though actually its not really that simple.
Philbest bless his little cotton socks is right that public transprt needs density. In the morning my train has 300+. After the OAP rush at 9am, I dont think the train has more than 10 ppl per trip and probably <5......So 73tonnes of weight to transport 5 ppl makes no sense what so ever in energy and co2 terms
Our problem so far is energy is still to pleniful and cheap....so we are really not addressing how we do things. We run huge trains for 18 hours a day when we should only be running them for 4 hours a day. In between those times we should be running small single driver light rail units or small buses..we dont because its too complex managerially, that has to and will change.
The above takes a lot of investment and duplication which uses co2...ouch...The only way to get off fossil fuels then is to look at trolley buses and not light rail...
Bycle paths, yes we have roads, they can be multi-use unlike rail......other things like UFB mean many ppl simply dot have to commute.....its just convention we do....manager slike to see us sitting at a desk they provide to know we deserve to be paid. Im quite lucky Im paid for acheving the gaoas im set with no fixed attendance hours just as long as its done on time and done well.....I think that is something that will happen more and more.
Organic, yes we will be...
Keep up the poetry (or maybe spacey rants LOL) btw.....its great.
regards
um....where to start.
Lets say the cheap and abundant energy is non-fossil fueled or in anyway detrimental to the eco-system.
In the short term then, it isnt a problem.
Where the problem starts is cheap and abundant energy allows our population to increase....eventually we will consume the entire planet, then what do we do?
Maths, do you understand the doubling time problem? Take a great example, china. Its growing at 10% per annum mostly via exporting "finished" goods.
70/10 = 7 years doubling. So in 7 years its economy will have doubled.
The qs to ask are,
1) Who / where are the (monied) people for it to sell finished goods to in 7 years time when markets are already at saturation?
2) Where do the inputs come from?
Take 2 billion of us are "rich" ie in developed nations....so 5 billion left....lets get them to our level....
So 7 years from now 4billion "rich" ppl.............Ok china has expanded at 10% for 7 years.
The next doubling requires 8 billion ppl 7 years later..........
21 years from now requires 16billion ppl.
The raw materials input?
Oil wont increase, in fact decrease....steel? iron ore production on that scale alone is dubious...
"pre-industrial" I concur, no one does least of all me, however I also dont want to die....I cant stop that either, at most delay it.
regards
Great!
Thanks for asking!
As you may know I borrowed a mates MIG which he had sitting round in the farm shed and shot down that damned UFO which had been upsetting the old mans cows.
It was a bit difficult to get the shot as the MIG had been dearmed when it was brought into the country, but a lifetime of duckshooting and using my knees to steer while rolling smokes and driving served me well as I popped the canopy and opened up with a converted semi automatic 12 gauge Benelli winging that foreign devil.
In the best traditions of WWI fighter aces I followed him in and landed as close as I could to render assisstance to the fellow flyer who I think was planning on claiming refugee status although it was hard to tell. Only one of his mouths spoke English and mostly bastardised Americain slang, the double layer of corruption over the Queen's fair toungue made it difficult to intuitate what he was saying but I tended his wounds and sent him on his way to get behind his own frontlines which were some were near Proxima Centauri.
Since then I have been bust reverse engineering and am nearly ready to stun the world.
Bruce
Scientific Mumbo Jumbo!
What we need ia a few more environmental summits all over the world such that all this 'brain power' can get together and discuss more useless theories whilst polluting our planet up close to the ozone layer.
That's what one gets when one lives in the Ivory Tower... Atmospheric rarification! (...so high they are!) Oooh, and too much hot air...
Summers in antartica, everyone...? I hear batches on the beach are dirt cheap...
HGW
Then try economics...
http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/Turn_Down_the_he…
regards
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/bleeding-the-patient-a-dram…
Funny thing, but substute banker for leech and you get the picture far better....meanwhile record profits continue while pattient withers away.
8><-----------
[Scene: A spacious drawing room in Frankfurt. A patient is strapped to a table. M Drachet in attendance, plus admirers]
M Drachet: Our diagnosis for this fellow is an excess of partying, too much of the punch-bowl, a surfeit of humours, grass corpulence and a palpable debt overhang. Our remedy? Leeches!
[Enter Mr deKrugman, a plain talking Yankee]
Mr deKrugman: Hold your hand, sir! The patient is week. Leeches will only distress his condition further.
M Drachet: Oh that annoying fellow. Even your fellow Americans agree that leeches are the cure.
Mr deKrugman: Not any more they don’t. They’ve changed their minds.
M Drachet: Really? Never mind – bring on the leeches.
Mr deKrugman: Rather than leeches, this fellow needs an infusion of fresh blood to recover.
M Drachet: Are you volunteering?
Mr deKrugman: You, sir, can create all the blood you wish and you know it.
M Drachet: Balderdash.
[A fop whispers in M Drachet's ear]
M Drachet: Well that’s news. But you forget, our medical charter expressly forbids it. And you miss the nicer point, if we were to do so, this fellow would learn nothing from his foolishness and return to his profligate ways.
Mr deKrugman: Are you trying to cure the fellow, or teach him a lesson?
M Drachet: A soupcon of A and a morsel of B. Now, the leeches.
[The leeches are applied, and the patient becomes noticeably paler]
Mr deKrugman: Told you.
M Drachet: You really are the most arrogant fellow.
Mr deKrugman: Says the man with the leeches.
M Drachet: But this is part of the cure! You see he is being purged, in in being purged he will ultimately return stronger.
Mr deKrugman: Or dead like that poor Greek fellow.
M Drachet: And anyway, you quite misunderstand. It is not the leeches that make him pale, but, er, that, that and la bas!
Mr deKrugman: You’re pointing at a bunch of random things.
M Drachet: Not at all, I’m pointing at fetid air! Contagion I tell you. Stop looking at the leeches.
Mr deKrugman. Look, are the leeches to teach a painful lesson or to help the patient get better?
M Drachet: Can they be both?
Mr deKrugman: No.
M Drachet: To be honest monsieur, we do it because we’ve always done it.
But our meticulous research shows that if the patients have, er, died in the past – it wasn’t the leeches fault! It was, um, something else!
Mr deKrugman: I strongly recommend an infusion of fresh blood.
M Drachet: But if we tried something new and it proved better, why our reputation for competence would be in tatters – you laugh sir?
Mr deKrugman: No sir, I weep. I weep.
[They continue to bicker as the bloated leeches suck happily at the patient]
regards
Does a certain bank really live in our world or are they just saying that ??
But The Real Word Is Full Of Poor People, Say Bankers
BANKERS last night rejected calls to live in the real world insisting it was full of badly-dressed poor people with only one house.
Senior ministers launched a stinging attack on the banks yesterday insisting they had to act more responsibly if they were going to let them invest the profits they made on all the houses they bought with taxpayers' money.
But the British Banker's Association hit back, claiming it would be impossible for its members to inhabit the same world as people who do not own cliff-top property in Sardinia and float around on a cushion of air.
Tom Logan, head of equity distribution at Donnelly-McPartlin, said: "I got into investment banking because I'm actually allergic to the real world and my doctor says that if I live in it I could die.
"None of this is real. If I stop imagining it we would plummet the equivalent of 50 storeys to our certain deaths."
He added: "Allow me to explain. Yesterday I used exchange-traded derivatives to buy 140% of a property development that hasn't been built yet – and, crucially, will never be built. I then converted the hypothetical profits into ratio-spread bond futures and invested it in oil that hasn't been discovered yet – and, crucially, will never be discovered.
"At no point did I come within 200 yards of anything resembling reality – and that's why I get the really big bonuses."
Julian Cook, chief economist at Madeley-Finnegan, said: "There are, essentially, two universes existing in parallel at the same point in the space-time continuum.
"This means that we can see all of you – queuing for things, eating out of packets and coughing violently – and sometimes you can even see us – but you can't touch us. And of course we live with the constant fear that if we touch you, we could become one of you. Our tans would fade, our teeth would separate and we'd forget how to order wine."
He added: "All this talk of reality is very dangerous. It would be like forcing Peter Pan to work at Carphone Warehouse and share a flat above an off-licence with his chubby, flatulent mate from university. It would kill him.
"Do you want to kill Peter Pan? Is that what this is all about? What's wrong with you?"
Fairfax will announce today that they have sold out of TradeMe , reducing their shareholding in the company from 51 % , to 0 . ... the vast majority of these shares have already been placed with overseas institutional investors ....
...... having purchased TradeMe from the Morgan family & friends in 2006 for $NZ 700 million , Fairfax has now released a total of $ 1.38 billion from this investment ....
... and as prudent as it is to appease the bankers by reducing your debtload , Fairfax is selling the one jewel in their crown , and their only serious internet presence ..... oh dear , dearie me !
Old cliche "you cant go broke making a profit"
The art of making a profit is knowing when to take it.
Fairfax have made an $800 million capital gain, doubling their original investment. Tax Free in New Zealand. If accounted for in their homeland it would be taxable. That money will be taken out of NZ for sure. They aren't stupid. I'd put the money in the bag too. Not a bad earn. Thanks for coming NZ
UBS was offering a tempting price of A$3.05 per share (about NZ$3.80), a discount of 24c on Trade Me’s New Zealand closing price on Friday of $4.05 and A17c to the Australian close.
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