Newsgroup sci.econ 57847

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On 15 Nov 1996, Mike Asher wrote:
> Yuri Kuchinsky  wrote:
> > 
> > : It would also be my guess that at the turn of the century there were
> > : 800 million hungry out of a population of a billion.
> > 
> > How do you know this? The number of hungry people on the planet is now 
> > greater than ever!
> > 
> 
> The FAO figures you quote indicate "malnourished" people.  FAO classifies
> people with sufficient caloric intake, but with a diet 'insufficiently
> varied' as malnourished as well.   Still a problem, of course, but please
> define it properly.
> 
> In Medieval times, 90+% of the population was chronically malnourished.  A
> man was deemed well off if he ate meat once a week.  Most children suffered
> from rickets and other defiency conditions.  Many castles and manor homes
> tossed trenchers (crusts of bread) and other dinner-table scraps to hungry
> people who clustered outside, who fought bitterly for line rights.  Often,
> a government official would, upon their yearly visit to a village, find
> that starvation and disease had wiped out the entire populace sometime in
> the past year, with none the wiser.
> 
> Beer was widely consumed, by children and adults, as water was too
> dangerous to drink.  When you did drink river water, you were taught to
> "strain" it between your teeth to remove the larger creatures found
> naturally in it.
> 
> Even the wealthy had their problems.  Food poisoning was endemic, fruits
> and vegetables were unknown out of season, seafood was impossible unless
> you lived near the coast, and at thirty-five, you needed soft food as your
> teeth had all rotted out...unless an abcessed tooth killed you, as was
> quite common.
> 
> This is the true world of 'organic' farming, biomass power, and
> deindustrialization many environmentalists would have us return to.  I'd
> prefer to work out our problems and stay here.
Mike, your description of medieval times was interesting, but does nothing
to buttress your last paragraph. It is complete fabrication.  The question
is, why do yuo persist in such poor attempts at propaganda? Is every issue
merely entertainment for you? Are you surprised that you get a lot of
replies that are all sarcasm and invective? Did you laugh when Bush called
Al Gore "Captain Ozone"? Do you want anyone to take you seriously outside
of a small circle of ideologically rigid compatriots? Do you see that I am
reduced to asking rhetorical questions, becasue substantive debate with
you is apparently impossible?.
		Dave Braun
> 
> --
> Mike Asher
> masher@tusc.net
> 
> "We must make this an insecure an uninhabitable place for capitalists and
> their projects.  This is the best contribution we can make towards
> protecting the earth."
>    - Environmental organization 'Ecotage', Earth First! offshoot.
> 
> 
> 

In article <56iigs$ms9@elaine38.Stanford.EDU>, jgadams@leland.Stanford.EDU
(Joseph G. Adams) writes:
>>>  wrote:
>>>
>>>>jgadams@leland.Stanford.EDU (Joseph G. Adams) writes:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Groups that are traditionally considered leftist are responsible for 
>>>>>censorship initiatives on a number of fronts. 
>>>>>
>>>>>The best generalization I can make is that the desire to censor
>>>>>doesn't have any clear relationship to one's ideology.
>>>>>
>>>>Coming from nerdom, listening to moralists, watching the activites and
>>>>monies spent by various non-profits and their endorsements of the
>>>>republican party, it seems to me naive of anyone not to realize where
>>>>the greatest strength and hopes of the censors lie.
>>>>
>>>That helps explain things.  Whereas censorship may have been more the
>>>province of the right in the past, it looks as if the left is claiming 
>>>its fair share and will continue to do so.  Things are changing, Jack.
>>>I've spent the last six years on college campuses, where the censorship
>>>has been mostly the tool of the left, not the right.  Moreover,
censorship
>>>has been increasing on the left, where a number of people are seeking
to 
>>>protect women and minorities from what they see as harmful material.
>>>Most of the relevant court cases over the past ten years deal with
>>>whether racist or sexist speech may be banned or punished.
>>>
>>>Your comments more accurately describe the past than the present or
>>>the future.
>>
>>Joseph, there are colleges and universities and there are colleges and
>>universities!
>>Some approach material from the right and others from the left!  While
you
>>speak, and study, and argue, and attain your truths from one side,
others
>>do the opposite.
>
>The academic approach of universities is a separate question from looking
>at which "side" has recently been supporting censorship and which has
not.
>
>From your comments, I doubt that you're familiar with what's been going
on
>in academia recently.  The rise of censorship on the left has become a
hot
>topic in the last 10-15 years.  Take a look at what's happening at the 
>colleges and universities in your area.  You might be surprised.
>
>>The position you take will find support within all political parties,
>>except, perhaps  splinter groups.   When push comes to shove, I still
>>think (when it comes to rights supporting freedom from censorship)  you
>>will find less suppport in the republican party than you will in the
>>democrat party.
>
>This statement doesn't become any truer through repetition. 
I think it does just that, Joseph.  As a matter of fact challenges to
conservative thought have been too slow in coming over the past number of
years.  Liberals are just too nice a group of people, for the most part,
to play the game the propagandists from the right play everyday of the
year.  Anyone listening to radio talk shows over the past ten years would
have to be a real dunce not to realize the truth of that statement!!!
>You're living in the past, Jack.
I expected no less from you, Joseph,  than the impudence that many young
men, from the right, display when they lack experience with life.   When
you are no longer comforted by the ways of the world within the safety net
first provided by your  parents, and then by academia, you'll change.  
Perhaps, when you come to have tasted more of the sweetness of having
lived, you will at last struggle for liberal causes.  I know that you can
acknowledge the fact that there is liberal thought and there is
conservative thought.   Historically, the Democrats are the liberals.  If
you're trying to say that the republican party is the liberal party,
fighting for the abolishment of censorship, I am having a very difficult
time digesting the validity of the statement!!   In the meantime, as I
said before, the best we can hope for is to agree to disagree, hopefully
without malice!!!
Regards,
:)"Jack":)
John H. Fisher  -  TaxService@aol.com
Philadelphia, Pa. - Atlantic City, NJ - West Wildwood, NJ
Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise!!

William Royea  wrote:
>Mike Asher wrote:
>> 
>> Michael Turton wrote:
>> 
>> >>Unfortunately, this is true.   Risk analysis studies rate solar
>> >> power as more dangerous than coal or nuclear.
>> >
>> >This is hilarious!  Solar power more dangerous than
>> >nuclear power.  Bwa-ha-ha-ha!
>> 
>> My source is "Energy Risk Assessment" Herbert Inhaber, 1983,  Gordon &
>> Breach.  Solar power is rated far more dangerous than nuclear, and even
>> more so than coal, with its deaths from lung disease and mining accidents.
>> 
>> --
>> Mike Asher
>> masher@tusc.net
>Can you please elaborate on the argument presented in this reference?
>William Royea
Oh my God.  I remember the Inhaber article from 1983 and it was flawed
then and even more so now.  As I recall (and I may be wrong) it based
part of its assumptions on the fact that solar would need fossil fuel
back ups when it was not in operation.  that was assumed to be heavily
coal fired and thus a lot of the deaths were attributed to that.  
With uitlity competition coming as well as some future greenhouse gas
restrictions,  most of that article would be obsolete
Regards,
Joel N. Gordes

bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK ) wrote:
>David Lloyd-Jones (dlj@inforamp.net) wrote:
>: Which reminds me: if we've got a population surplus, howcome the price
>: of labour is going up _everywhere_?
>
>In the Thai toy industry, it is going down, due to competition from
>China.  At least that was the case at the end of 1994.  China has
>hundreds of millions of itinerant surplus laborers.
This word "everywhere" is a great troll for instructive exceptions,
innit?  Anyway, I stand corrected, though not on Thailand.  Toy
assemblers will just move over to the next expanding industry, and
Chinese peasants will start oving up pretty soon.
>Labor cost has also dropped significantly in both the US and UK, due to
>erosion of social protection.  At least that is true for people who
>produce things.  I don't know about the service industry, but the
>anecdotal bits I hear from the US are not inspiring of hope.
Here I stand corrected, and it's a fun example: America does not have
a population crisis in anybody's books.  The white working class,
whose incomes were dropping in real terms for the decade ending second
quarter '96, are not even breeding at replacement rates.
                                    -dlj.

Fred Williams  wrote:
>Bill MacArthur wrote:
>> 
>> dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>> >
>> I don't think that anyone can argue that Canada hasn't benefited
>> tremendously from the Auto Pact.  Canada has some of the best high tech
>> companies in the world and some of the most efficient plants.  How many
>> of those would have been built and how many jobs would be missing without
>> it?
>
>But didn't NAFTA do away with the autopact?  In the three years that
There is a provision in the autopact that guarantees production in Canada 
which Lyndon Johnson agreed to because he felt he owed Canada one.  
Naturally Canada didn't want to give that up.Otherwise, everything under 
the autopact is traded freely.
>followed free trade, Canada lost 1/3 of it's manufacturing industry and
>a total of over half a million jobs.  
Do you honestly believe that this was due to NAFTA?  By the way NAFTA was 
passed in in 1993 and unemployment has dropped since then.  Now if you 
are referring to the FTA in 1989, then you can talk about lost jobs.  The 
question to ask though is whether the Canadian situation is a unique 
phenomenon.  What was the job picture in the rest of the world?  I think 
that you will find there was a world wide recession.  George Bush lost 
the 1992 election because of that recession even after he had won a war!
Also, between 1989 and 1992 the core manufacturing areas of Ontario and 
Quebec had interventionist governments that raised taxes and discouraged 
investment.  Bill 40 in Ontario was a job killer and of course having 
Quebec threaten to separate helps no one.
The lack of growth in Canadian manufacturing productivity has been a 
problem for years.  One of the main causes of this has been a lack of 
competition.  Ultimately, these plants would have closed with or without 
FTA.
>The American multinational
>corporations 

>> >The 100 most profitable businesses in _any_ country are mostly under
>> >foreign ownership.  If this is not yet true of the US itself, it
>> >eventually will be.
>
>	Where do you get this from?  Is there some rule which says it's easier
>to make profits in a foriegn land?
Not my post but just look where multinationals have headquarters.
>	
>> I also read an article a couple of years ago in which the author compared
>> the working conditions of multi/transnational companies with home growns.
>> Typically, multis offered better pay, benefits and working conditions
>> than homegrowns.  IIRC this was a worldwide phenomenon.
>
>	Yes!  That's part of the propaganda.  First the CIA, and often the
>marines go in and destroy a countries economy creating widespread
I live right across from the US border and I have never seen a marine.  
Of course, I wouldn't recognize a CIA operative if I saw one but the rest 
of this doesn't dignify a response.

- agriculture ng's trimmed -
On 15 Nov 1996 18:38:59 GMT, dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
wrote:
>This is false.  Genocide is the result not of any "economism,"
>whatever that may be, but of reversion to pre-economic racisms. In
>Rwanda as in Germany, it is the expression of ancient tribalism.
> 
>                                     -dlj.
As in Germany? Hitler was elected with the mandate that he 'get rid
of'  those who people blamed for taking their jobs and losing the war,
(thereby driving them into economic turmoil). The rise in popular
support for these racist actions was definitely economically driven.
Sound familiar?
As far as Rwanda, do you think the Hutus systematically murdered
hundreds of thousands simply out of hatred, or was it out of greed for
the land, resources and the benefits of a smaller population?
The fact that Mobutu, Zaire's dictator, has gradually built up a $7
billion personal empire from his country's wealth is reason enough to
spark rebellion. Rebellion which Mobutu has attempted keep down in
part by supporting the Hutus genocide. Just another expense of
maintaining his empire I guess.
Jason McGinnis

In article <328ce6fa.2606136@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, masonc@ix.netcom.com 
(Mason A. Clark) wrote:
>
>On 15 Nov 1996 17:23:22 GMT, jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) 
wrote:
>> The amount of steel required to make cars is indeed linear in the
>> number of cars being made.  Linear relationships dominate the economy,
>> except in a few areas like semiconductor memory which are dominated by
>> capital costs and design costs.
>> 
>  Here lies the most common fallacy in economics:  linearity.
Of course, this is only a fallacy that nono-economists interpret into
economics when mouthing off about it without the merest factual
knowledge.  After all, economics seems to be the one professional 
area that anybody knows perfectly well without any qualifications.
>  Linearity is valid ONLY for short time intervals.   And time is of 
>  the essence, e.g. "the number of cars being made" is a time variable.
>
>  There are NO linear relationships in economics over long time 
intervals.
Congratulations, you have just invented the wheel.
>   Classical and neo-classical economics are polluted with linearity 
>   assumptions.
Do try to immerse yourself in economics a little bit more than leafing
through a textbook used for introducing concepts to absolute beginners
via greatly simplified figures.  You may find that the models that 
economists actually use are far from all being linear.
George Antony

On 14 Nov 1996 17:19:23 GMT, jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
wrote:
>Yuri Kuchinsky includes:
>
>     World Food Organization reports that over 800 million people
>     are starving on this planet right now. Get rid of your pink
>     glasses.
>
>I'm sure that "starving" isn't the word that was used by the World
>Food Organization.  If 800 million were starving, and the report was
>from last year, we would expect them to be dead by now.  Would
>Kuchinsky tell us what actually happened or will happen in the next
>year or two?
You want to know what's happening? Can you face the truth?
U.N. World Food Council documents:
-------
Every day around the world 40,000 people die of hunger. That's 28
human beings every minute, and three out of four of them
are children under the age of five.
The number of hungry people increased five times faster in the 1980s
than in the previous decade. By 1989, 550 million people filled the
ranks of the malnourished or hungry.
-------
This shows quite plainly that things are not getting better. Since
1989 the number of people facing famine has almost doubled. These
people are not simply upset that they have to live on swill instead of
a Big Mac and fries, they're dying.
If everyone produced and consumed food as North Americans do, there
would only be enough food on the planet to feed 2.5 Billion people. On
the other hand if Americans reduced their meat consumption by just
10%, it would free up 12 million tons of grain anually - more than
enough to feed all those facing famine.
Jason McGinnis

Les Cargill wrote:
> 
> Hi, all.
> 
> I'm looking for a good, comprehensive resource on the causes of the
> Great Depression. Is there a good consensus as to what really
> was the cause? I've read Ravi Batra. good book, but wrong ( so far ).
> Hi,
I don't know of any one complete source on this. The reason, I think is 
that there are many different theories, and each author explains only the 
one he supports.
If you are interested in this, you could do us all a service by compiling 
a list of references to as many theories as you can find and putting them 
on a web page. (I would be glad to link to it--or even host it if you 
don't have a page.)
I have heard the following: the stockmarket crash, the fall of the Bank 
of England, poor monetary policy (contraction of the money supply), the 
Smoot-Hally tariff, the sun spot cycle, and the Hoover tax hike. 
Prohibition is a new one (for me). 
Most of there are not complete, with "but what caused THAT" still open, 
and they are not mutually exclusive.
Could make an interesting resource page. 
-- 
                     ,,,,,,,
_______________ooo___( O O )___ooo_______________
                       (_)
         jim blair        (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu)
for a good time, call http://www.execpc.com/~jeblair/

Michael Hodges wrote:
> 
> You made very excellent points, Donald. Difficult to disagree with reality...
Hi,
I think he is off base on several of his comments. But they require more 
of a response than I can do justice to now. Maybe next week I can compose 
an adequate reply.
-- 
                     ,,,,,,,
_______________ooo___( O O )___ooo_______________
                       (_)
         jim blair        (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu)
for a good time, call http://www.execpc.com/~jeblair/

On 15 Nov 1996 06:39:04 GMT, jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
> In their fixation with energy as the measure of value, they were
> precursors of the energy religion of today.  I don't think they
> imagined that there was a shortage, however, so they weren't quite as
> dumb.
  All are dumb but me and ye, and I've doubts about ye.
---------------------------------------
Mason A Clark      masonc@ix.netcom.com
  www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210    
or:    www.netcom.com/~masonc (maybe)
Political-Economics, Comets, Weather
The Healing Wisdom of Dr. P.P.Quimby
---------------------------------

I must admit a prejudice against "alternative farming systems" based
on arguments that they must be good because the present system is bad.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.

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Bill MacArthur wrote:
> 
> dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> >gillies@cs.ubc.ca (Donald Gillies) wrote:
> >
> >>                                       In recent years the Financial
> >>Post has not been publishing this bleak statistic regularly, but you
> >>can read "The Betrayal of Canada" (Mel Hurtig) for a whining Canadian
> >>account, laced with lots of economic statistics proving the bankrupcy
> >>of Canada, and complaining of how the USA pulls all the (purse-)
> >>strings in Canada today...
> >
> >This was written before the US-Canada Auto Agreement.  Mississaugua
> >was a green field, and the industrial ring around Toronto did not
> >exist back then.
> >
> I don't think that anyone can argue that Canada hasn't benefited
> tremendously from the Auto Pact.  Canada has some of the best high tech
> companies in the world and some of the most efficient plants.  How many
> of those would have been built and how many jobs would be missing without
> it?
But didn't NAFTA do away with the autopact?  In the three years that
followed free trade, Canada lost 1/3 of it's manufacturing industry and
a total of over half a million jobs.  The American multinational
corporations now have privileged access to Canada's natural resources. 
In time of shortage, the Canadian government can ration supplies to
Canadians, but it is not allowed to place any restrictions on exports to
the United States, ever.  Our forests have all but disappeared, and the
companies that are "raping" Canada often do so with money from Canadian
taxpayers, because our officials and politicians hae been bought out by
the International corporations.
	
> >The 100 most profitable businesses in _any_ country are mostly under
> >foreign ownership.  If this is not yet true of the US itself, it
> >eventually will be.
	Where do you get this from?  Is there some rule which says it's easier
to make profits in a foriegn land?
	
> I also read an article a couple of years ago in which the author compared
> the working conditions of multi/transnational companies with home growns.
> Typically, multis offered better pay, benefits and working conditions
> than homegrowns.  IIRC this was a worldwide phenomenon.
	Yes!  That's part of the propaganda.  First the CIA, and often the
marines go in and destroy a countries economy creating widespread
unemployment, disrupting commerce, etc., literally turning democracies
into third world, tin-pot, military dictatorships, whose leaders take
their orders from Washington.  Then the multinationals move in playing
on the desparation of the people, and offer starvation wages in exchange
for long hours of labour, often by children. Then they turn around and
say, "Gee aren't we nice for offering these poor people jobs?"  and,
"How come there's so much anti-American sentiment in the world?"
	I have some transcripts of speeches by people in the peace movement and
some ex-CIA people who testify that this is indeed what is going on, and
has been going on for decades now.  They are long files, so I won't post
them all at once, but over the next few week I'll try to get them on
.
	If anyone wants them directly, email me and I'll attach them to an
email in return.  I can send a self-extracting ZIP file if you've got
the PC compatible to unzip it.
-- 
To fight evil, we must first confront it where it can do us the greatest
harm: In our own hearts, minds and souls.
					Peace, Siblings,
					Fred Williams,
					Fred@acbm.qc.ca

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dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>gillies@cs.ubc.ca (Donald Gillies) wrote:
>
>>                                       In recent years the Financial
>>Post has not been publishing this bleak statistic regularly, but you
>>can read "The Betrayal of Canada" (Mel Hurtig) for a whining Canadian
>>account, laced with lots of economic statistics proving the bankrupcy
>>of Canada, and complaining of how the USA pulls all the (purse-)
>>strings in Canada today...
>
>This was written before the US-Canada Auto Agreement.  Mississaugua
>was a green field, and the industrial ring around Toronto did not
>exist back then.
>
I don't think that anyone can argue that Canada hasn't benefited 
tremendously from the Auto Pact.  Canada has some of the best high tech 
companies in the world and some of the most efficient plants.  How many 
of those would have been built and how many jobs would be missing without 
it?
>>Last year the financial post published an article claiming that of the
>>?100? most profitable businesses in Canada, nearly all were under
>>foreign ownership...
>
>The 100 most profitable businesses in _any_ country are mostly under
>foreign ownership.  If this is not yet true of the US itself, it
>eventually will be.
This may be true but it misses a much bigger picture.  The vast majority 
of people work for small companies.  In Canada, the average no.of 
employees is 11.  Multinationals don't typically own these businesses; 
Canadians do.
I also read an article a couple of years ago in which the author compared 
the working conditions of multi/transnational companies with home growns. 
Typically, multis offered better pay, benefits and working conditions 
than homegrowns.  IIRC this was a worldwide phenomenon.

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David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
> 
> "Speak English Or Die!"  wrote:
> 
> >- you have a higher assault rate than america
> 
> This could very well be true. A cop who can't get himself assaulted
> five times on Saturday night between the time the bars close and the
> 3:30 a.m. donuts isn't doing his job.  Assault in Canada is shouting
> at somebody across the back fence as often as it is knifing somebody
> in the US>
> 
> >        - you have a higher burglary rate than america
> 
> This could also very well be true.  My house was burgled six times in
> a year one of the times I lived in Washington.  After the police
> staged a alrge phoney "stolen goods" bust, and displayed the obviously
> bought-for-the-occasion junk that they put on display ("sold to buy
> thousands of dollars worth od drugs," they said of pile of trash which
> you could buy for $200 or sell for $25 at any flea market in town),
> they made their theft records open to the public.  I looked at mine,
> and it turned out I had been burgled once, and the IBM Selectric I had
> reported at $660, its actual cost, was listed as a $60 item.
> 
> Canadian burglaries, by contrast, are reported, and stay reported.
> 
> >        - you can learn it from any pair of almanacs
> 
> And if you think carefully enough you can sometimes distinguish truth
> from fiction.
> 
>                                     -dlj.
> Dear Friends,
I am a brazilian student of art, and I would like to know the address of 
Mr. Werner Herzog (the director of movie) in Munich.
If you know how can i find him, please e-mail me.
Best Regards,
Danielle Busko
rsj4318@pro.via-rs.com.br

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"Speak English Or Die!"  wrote:
>- you have a higher assault rate than america
This could very well be true. A cop who can't get himself assaulted
five times on Saturday night between the time the bars close and the
3:30 a.m. donuts isn't doing his job.  Assault in Canada is shouting
at somebody across the back fence as often as it is knifing somebody
in the US>
>        - you have a higher burglary rate than america
This could also very well be true.  My house was burgled six times in
a year one of the times I lived in Washington.  After the police
staged a alrge phoney "stolen goods" bust, and displayed the obviously
bought-for-the-occasion junk that they put on display ("sold to buy
thousands of dollars worth od drugs," they said of pile of trash which
you could buy for $200 or sell for $25 at any flea market in town),
they made their theft records open to the public.  I looked at mine,
and it turned out I had been burgled once, and the IBM Selectric I had
reported at $660, its actual cost, was listed as a $60 item.
Canadian burglaries, by contrast, are reported, and stay reported.
>        - you can learn it from any pair of almanacs
And if you think carefully enough you can sometimes distinguish truth
from fiction.
                                    -dlj.

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ANNA MARIA PY DANIEL BUSKO wrote:
> 
> David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
> >
> > "Speak English Or Die!"  wrote:
> >
> > >- you have a higher assault rate than america
> >
> > This could very well be true. A cop who can't get himself assaulted
> > five times on Saturday night between the time the bars close and the
> > 3:30 a.m. donuts isn't doing his job.  Assault in Canada is shouting
> > at somebody across the back fence as often as it is knifing somebody
> > in the US>
> >
> > >        - you have a higher burglary rate than america
> >
> > This could also very well be true.  My house was burgled six times in
> > a year one of the times I lived in Washington.  After the police
> > staged a alrge phoney "stolen goods" bust, and displayed the obviously
> > bought-for-the-occasion junk that they put on display ("sold to buy
> > thousands of dollars worth od drugs," they said of pile of trash which
> > you could buy for $200 or sell for $25 at any flea market in town),
> > they made their theft records open to the public.  I looked at mine,
> > and it turned out I had been burgled once, and the IBM Selectric I had
> > reported at $660, its actual cost, was listed as a $60 item.
> >
> > Canadian burglaries, by contrast, are reported, and stay reported.
> >
> > >        - you can learn it from any pair of almanacs
> >
> > And if you think carefully enough you can sometimes distinguish truth
> > from fiction.
> >
> >                                     -dlj.
> > Dear Friends,
> I am a brazilian student of art, and I would like to know the address of
> Mr. Werner Herzog (the director of movie) in Munich.
> If you know how can i find him, please e-mail me.
> Best Regards,
> Danielle Busko
> rsj4318@pro.via-rs.com.br
Dear Ana Maria:
Eu também sou brasileira e entrei de gaiata nesse grupo de discussão. 
Pensei que fosse algo sério em termos de política. Sou formada em 
Ciências Sociais ( o que inclui Ciência Política ) Nunca li tanta sandice 
, arrogância e ignorância ( da parte de djl ) Não perca seu tempo. Essa 
gente lá sabe quem é Werner Herzog? Acho que voce pode procurar por seu 
nome ou em outro setor de cinema. Ainda estou muito crua nessa maquininha 
para poder ajudá-la. Boa sorte.
                           Circe
P.S If Mr Lloyd is interested, I may give him some lessons of economics; 
pehaps he would be able to understand something about "having a big 
profile working in other countries, especially underdeveloped 
countries.It would be very interesting for you try to translate wath a 
wrote in portuguese about you. Sorry for my english.
                           Circe

On Fri, 15 Nov 96 15:29:54 GMT, charliew@hal-pc.org (charliew) wrote:
> In article <3287C39C.2FA0@ilhawaii.net>,
>    Jay Hanson  wrote:
> >jw wrote:
> >
> >-> >If you define "gained in performance" as:
> >-> > "Filling the dump truck with dead babies faster",
> >-> >   then you are right.  See:
> >-> 
> >http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/zaire_goma_dead_30.m
> ov
> >
> >-> (2) as for your horrible phrase
> >-> "Filling the dump truck with dead babies faster" -
> >-> you couldn't be more wrong factually.
> >
> >Why don't you watch the movie?  They are
> >tossing dead babies into a dump truck.
> >
> >This is what you call "progress".
> >
> >Jay
> 
> Does this movie appear on Showtime, HBO, Cinemax, or some 
> other movie channel?
  Such a comment makes me almost give up hope for humanity.
---------------------------------------
Mason A Clark      masonc@ix.netcom.com
  www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210    
or:    www.netcom.com/~masonc (maybe)
Political-Economics, Comets, Weather
The Healing Wisdom of Dr. P.P.Quimby
---------------------------------

The absolute number of malnourished people is down slightly - from 800
million to 700 million.  The objective is to bring it down to 400
million by 2015.
	      This week an expected 100 heads of state and
     government gather in Rome for the U.N. Food and Agriculture
     Organisation's (FAO) World Food Summit to pledge to reduce
     the number of under-nourished to 400 million by 2015.
	      They will agree that the world, with some 800
     million people lacking enough food to meet their basic
     nutritional needs, must act to increase production
     significantly.
The source on which I read it was down slightly is not in accordance
with the above extract from a news story about the Rome food meeting
going on at present.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.

It is certainly true that China will provide cheap products for a long
time, but the money China is getting for cheap products will go into
building up its economy, and then Chinese labor won't remain cheap.
It will probably take longer for China than for the four tigers of
East Asia, because the Chinese population is so much larger.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.

In article <328c7ceb.419297@news2.ibm.net>, behambu@ibm.net (Berthold 
Hamburger) wrote:
>
>"Mike Asher"  wrote:
>
>>It's a matter of scale.  The chances of an injury while washing one 
glass
>>pane are minor.  The chances of injury from washing 5 million square 
meters
>>of glass, all of it elevated and tilted at odd angles, are high.  The
>>chances of injury for ten million homeowners to climb onto their roofs
>>every week are enormous, which is why falls are ALREADY responsible for
>>twenty thousand deaths per year in the country.  
>
>I think one important aspect is completely left out here. 
>
>If I decide to climb on my roof for whatever reason, than this is MY
>business and problem. Unless I fall on anyones head, I will not affect
>the life of other people by falling from my roof.
Wrong, unless you pay fully for your medical expenses.
The way the current health system works in most developed countries 
is that medical costs of people are cross-subsidized by others.  This 
spreads risks, everybody pays an average contribution whether using the 
system or not, and people in need get healed without having to pay the
actual costs.
Now, if people start falling off rooftops in significant numbers, this
will increase total medical costs and push up the contributions collected
even from those who have no part in this nonsense.  
So, potential roofcleaners should stay put on their bums, since I find
having to pay larger health contributions merely to bring a warm inner 
glow into their hearts very objectionable.  
George Antony

mross@goldengate.net (Michael King Ross) wrote:
>liberty@airmail.net (LQuest) delighted us all with:
>>dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>>>This major category of regulation apart, there are many areas in which
>>>regulation is the basis for freedom: at the most obvious level,
>>>regulation of which side of the road you drive on makes possible the
>>>freedom to drive.  
>>This is called "live and let live".  Every individual has a self-interest
>>motive to drive on the agreed side of the road.  If you think government
>>regulation at gun point is needed to enforce common sense traffic laws, you
>>are living in a dream world.  I GUARANTEE you that if that were the only thing
>>keeping most people on the correct side of the road, traffic mortality rates
>>would be lethal to human survival on a global scale!
>I love it!  I just had some Libertarian denying (in another thread)
>that anybody would make this argument (even though I first read it in
>Libertarian campaign literature), and here it is again!   We don't
>need traffic laws 
You have difficulty with reading comprehension don't you.  Please notoce the
word "AGREED" in my paragraph you so graciously included.  I believe we DO
need traffic laws -- for exactly the same reason we need theater seats
differentiated from theater aisles  -- for the same reason we need street
signs and addresses on buildings, etc.  I simply assert that those conventions
meet with little resistance necause their value as organizational tools are
obvious to most sane individuals and NOT because they are gun backed laws.
>because people will drive correctly just out of
>self-interest.  Of course, that's why there are no traffic tickets
>issued in this country (backed up at the point of a gun).
>I can only assume you to be Libertarian.  You make my point against
>Libertarians very eloquenty.
Actually I am NOT a libertarian, leftist, rightist, communist, socialist,
republican, fascist, democrat, fundamentalist Christian, or anarchist.
Libertarians are sad, deluded people who think think the solution to America's
problems can be achieved via the very corrupted system that got us into our
current mess.
-Mike
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Did you really think we want those laws observed? said Dr. Ferris.
We WANT them to be broken.  You'd better get it straight that it's 
not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against.... We're after power 
and we mean it .... There's no way to rule innocent men.  The only 
power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.  
Well, when there aren't enough criminals one MAKES them.  One 
declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible 
for men to live without breaking laws.  Who wants a nation of law
abiding citizens?  What's there in that for anyone?  But just pass 
the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or 
objectively interpreted--and you create a nation of law-breakers--
and then you cash in on guilt.  Now that's the system Mr. Reardon, 
that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier 
to deal with."  --Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK ) wrote:
>David Lloyd-Jones (dlj@inforamp.net) wrote:
>: Which reminds me: if we've got a population surplus, howcome the price
>: of labour is going up _everywhere_?
>
>In the Thai toy industry, it is going down, due to competition from
>China.  At least that was the case at the end of 1994.  China has
>hundreds of millions of itinerant surplus laborers.
This word "everywhere" is a great troll for instructive exceptions,
innit?  Anyway, I stand corrected, though not on Thailand.  Toy
assemblers will just move over to the next expanding industry, and
Chinese peasants will start oving up pretty soon.
>Labor cost has also dropped significantly in both the US and UK, due to
>erosion of social protection.  At least that is true for people who
>produce things.  I don't know about the service industry, but the
>anecdotal bits I hear from the US are not inspiring of hope.
Here I stand corrected, and it's a fun example: America does not have
a population crisis in anybody's books.  The white working class,
whose incomes were dropping in real terms for the decade ending second
quarter '96, are not even breeding at replacement rates.
                                    -dlj.

masonc@ix.netcom.com (Mason A. Clark) wrote:
>On 15 Nov 1996 18:38:59 GMT, dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>
>> bg364@torfree.net (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:
>> >Precisely my point. Genocide has zero economic benefit. But the
>> >"economism" of people like you is what brings this about. 
>>  
>> This is false.  Genocide is the result not of any "economism,"
>> whatever that may be, but of reversion to pre-economic racisms. In
>> Rwanda as in Germany, it is the expression of ancient tribalism.
>>  
>>                                      -dlj.
> 
>This is simply not correct, sorry.  The problem in Bosnia, Rwanda, 
>Burundi, Azerbajan, Los Angeles and many other places is that a 
>relatively affluent minority rules.  As in the French and Russian 
>revolutions, a point comes when the majority revolts and sets about
>killing off the minority.  This is political economics, not tribalism.
>The tribal differences are historic and lie behind the minority rule 
>but are not the cause of the revolt.
This is clear as mud.  I still don't know what the hell Yuri's
economism is, but Mason's "political economics" has nothing to do with
politics and economics.  It is just another word for tribalism as far
as I can see from the, uh, explanation above.
                                   -dlj.

Reposting article removed by rogue canceller.  See news.admin.net-abuse.announce
for further information.
Fred Williams  wrote:
>But didn't NAFTA do away with the autopact?  
No.
>                                            In the three years that
>followed free trade, Canada lost 1/3 of it's manufacturing industry and
>a total of over half a million jobs.  
Hunh?  Where did you get that bit of weirdity from?  
>                                     The American multinational
>corporations now have privileged access to Canada's natural resources. 
This is not true.  They have the same access as Canadians or Mexicans.
>In time of shortage, the Canadian government can ration supplies to
>Canadians, but it is not allowed to place any restrictions on exports to
>the United States, ever.  
Again not true.  Where do you get this stuff from?
>                         Our forests have all but disappeared, and the
>companies that are "raping" Canada often do so with money from Canadian
>taxpayers, because our officials and politicians hae been bought out by
>the International corporations.
Our forests have disappeared?  To the contrary, our lumber industry is
so prosperous the Americans spend half their time trying to cheat to
keep our exports out.
>> >The 100 most profitable businesses in _any_ country are mostly under
>> >foreign ownership.  If this is not yet true of the US itself, it
>> >eventually will be.
>
>	Where do you get this from?  Is there some rule which says it's easier
>to make profits in a foriegn land?
It doesn't have to be easier to make profits in a foreign land.  It
just has to be difficult to everybody to start their own steel mills,
chocolate factories, car assemblers, etc. etc. down to the last bit of
industry.  Of course it also helps that the most capable people are
going to want to go where the most interesting opportunities are.
                              Cheers,
                                 -dlj.

jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
>The amount of steel required to make cars is indeed linear in the
>number of cars being made.  Linear relationships dominate the economy,
>except in a few areas like semiconductor memory which are dominated by
>capital costs and design costs.
John,
Hogwash.  The amount of steel required to make cars declines with
number produced: the factories are largely made out of steel,
remember?  Even if this were not so, higher production would bring
about economies of scale in the recycling of scrap.
Linear relationships do not "dominate" the economy.  Sheesh, they are
entirely absent from any economy. This starts at the level of "buy
two, get one free" and goes clear through every function in the entire
joint.
The reason linear algebra is more true to economics than calculus is
that it allows you to flush new sets of parameters through whole
matrices of arguments, to look at nearby realities. This occurs in
functions which are themselves anything but linear. "Linear" is a
misnomer for the style.
                                    -dlj.
[On the earlier question, what ever happened to the input output
matrices of Leontieff, I suspect the answer is they died of irrelevant
categorism.  Once when I was an auto parts manufacturer I sat
surveying my factory floor and added up the services going on: the
fork lifts carrying out transportation services, the stockers working
in warehousing services, the machinists doing polishing and grinding
services, etc. etc.  For any economy larger than a chemical plant, the
categories on an input-output matrix don't mean a goddam thing. -dlj.]

On 16 Nov 1996 02:53:37 GMT, dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> masonc@ix.netcom.com (Mason A. Clark) wrote:
> 
> >On 15 Nov 1996 18:38:59 GMT, dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> >
> >> bg364@torfree.net (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:
> >> >Precisely my point. Genocide has zero economic benefit. But the
> >> >"economism" of people like you is what brings this about. 
> >>  
> >> This is false.  Genocide is the result not of any "economism,"
> >> whatever that may be, but of reversion to pre-economic racisms. In
> >> Rwanda as in Germany, it is the expression of ancient tribalism.
> >>  
> >>                                      -dlj.
> > 
> >This is simply not correct, sorry.  The problem in Bosnia, Rwanda, 
> >Burundi, Azerbajan, Los Angeles and many other places is that a 
> >relatively affluent minority rules.  As in the French and Russian 
> >revolutions, a point comes when the majority revolts and sets about
> >killing off the minority.  This is political economics, not tribalism.
> >The tribal differences are historic and lie behind the minority rule 
> >but are not the cause of the revolt.
>  
> This is clear as mud.  I still don't know what the hell Yuri's
> economism is, but Mason's "political economics" has nothing to do with
> politics and economics.  It is just another word for tribalism as far
> as I can see from the, uh, explanation above.
>  
>                                    -dlj.
OK, I'll need to expand a bit.  Take Bosnia.  The muslims, descendants
of the Ottoman empire, occupied the cities, the Serbs the countryside.
OK, OK, many exceptions.  But the overall pattern was and is as stated.
When Yugoslavia broke up and the Slovenes, Croats, and then the 
Bosnians (Muslims) (tribe) ceceded, the Serbs countryfolk (tribe) found 
themselves threatened by the dominance of the relatively affluent Muslim
(tribe) minority in Bosnia.  These tribes had been living in peace together 
under the control of Tito.  During that time the Muslim minority did not rule 
Yugoslavia or Bosnia.  The new Bosnia would have been ruled by that 
minority (and still may be). 
The revolt of the Serbs and attempt to drive the Muslims was revolt of 
the majority against the ruling minority.  The rule was political; the 
consequence of that rule was economic in the relative affluence of the
Muslims.  Politics and economics are Siamese twins - not separable.
Too often this is forgotten in theories of either, hence I much prefer the
term "political economics" and it has an honorable history.
I will post more examples of political economic revolts and the history 
of the term if there is need here.  Always eager for an opening.
---------------------------------------
Mason A Clark      masonc@ix.netcom.com
  www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210    
or:    www.netcom.com/~masonc (maybe)
Political-Economics, Comets, Weather
The Healing Wisdom of Dr. P.P.Quimby
---------------------------------

Alastair McKinstry wrote:
> 
> Matter-Antimatter annihilation would require a convenient source of
> antimatter. We would have to make it (or recover it from somewhere) for
> less energy than its annihilation would generate. Any ideas as to how we
> would do this ?
> 
Only one idea so far: Continue to create antihydrogen (an antiproton
orbited by an antielectron) by bombarding xenon gas with protons, until
we figure out how to achieve energy breakeven -- similar to what's going
on with nuclear fusion.  
And, because we stupidly sacrificed the superconducting supercollider on
the altar of deficit reduction three years ago, we'll have to relegate
this process to the tiny CERN accelerator for a while.  
(Sorry, I failed to give you a complete answer to this in my last post.)
-- Steve
*-----------------------------------------------------------*
 "The problem of the economists is that despite years of 
  effort to predict economic change, they remain nearly 
  oblivious to the vital processes of innovation and new 
  company formation that constitute economic development."
  --George Gilder
 "Nothing is more conducive to progress than the widespread 
  belief that it can occur."
  --Charles Van Doren
*-----------------------------------------------------------*

On 15 Nov 1996 22:57:10 GMT, jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
> 
> It relieves me that in arguing with Mason Clark I am not arguing with
> the economics profession as a whole. 
> 
Again I must protest a misconception.
There is NO "economics profession as a whole" !
If there was, we wouldn't be here.
---------------------------------------
Mason A Clark      masonc@ix.netcom.com
  www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210    
or:    www.netcom.com/~masonc (maybe)
Political-Economics, Comets, Weather
The Healing Wisdom of Dr. P.P.Quimby
---------------------------------

On Fri, 15 Nov 1996 16:32:51 -0800, jim blair  wrote:
> Les Cargill wrote:
> > I'm looking for a good, comprehensive resource on the causes of the
> > Great Depression. 
> 
> If you are interested in this, you could do us all a service by compiling 
> a list of references to as many theories as you can find and putting them 
> on a web page. (I would be glad to link to it--or even host it if you 
> don't have a page.)
> 
> I have heard the following: the stockmarket crash, the fall of the Bank 
> of England, poor monetary policy (contraction of the money supply), the 
> Smoot-Hally tariff, the sun spot cycle, and the Hoover tax hike. 
> Prohibition is a new one (for me). 
> 
Great idea.  Let's start a list.  I'll add to Jim's and seed a bibliography:
----------------------------------------------
1   the stockmarket crash
2   the fall of the Bank of England
3   poor monetary policy (contraction of the money supply)
4   the Smoot-Hally tariff
5   the sun spot cycle
6   the Hoover tax hike
7   Prohibition
8   The bursting of a speculative bubble (#1) followed 
      by loss of confidence: refusal to buy and refusal to produce.
9   Aggravated by budget balancing by Hoover and again in
     1937-38 by Roosevelt
10  Aggravated by Fed Reserve's tight money
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1  The Great Crash, 1929;  John Kenneth Galbraith; 1954
---------------------------------------
Mason A Clark      masonc@ix.netcom.com
  www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210    
or:    www.netcom.com/~masonc (maybe)
Political-Economics, Comets, Weather
The Healing Wisdom of Dr. P.P.Quimby
---------------------------------

Karen or George wrote:
> 
....
  After all, economics seems to be the one professional
> area that anybody knows perfectly well without any qualifications.
I note:
That and ecology...

sync@inforamp.net (J McGinnis) wrote:
>On 15 Nov 1996  dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>>This is false.  Genocide is the result not of any "economism,"
>>whatever that may be, but of reversion to pre-economic racisms. In
>>Rwanda as in Germany, it is the expression of ancient tribalism.
>
>As in Germany? Hitler was elected with the mandate that he 'get rid
>of'  those who people blamed for taking their jobs and losing the war,
>(thereby driving them into economic turmoil). The rise in popular
>support for these racist actions was definitely economically driven.
>Sound familiar?
The fact that something is familiar does not make it true.  Hitler did
not invent German or Polish antisemitism, and the Holocaust took place
mainly in 1938-42, when the economy was in fine shape, thanks to the
war build-up and Nazi victories.  Even the late stages, the Hungarian
Holocaust of 1944-45, took place in a country spared from both war and
depression at the time.
                                  -dlj.

Reposting article removed by rogue canceller.  See news.admin.net-abuse.announce
for further information.
>- you have a higher assault rate than america
>        - you have a higher burglary rate than america
>        - you can learn it from any pair of almanacs
I was away for a while, so I thought this was a statement about Russia
but it seems we are comparing Canada with some other country. 
Well, guys, there were so many myths and misconceptions that 
I enjoyed hearing about life in Canada (there is 100 million 
people living here, we have wild animals walking through Toronto, 
there is snow here 11 and a half months in a year so we only drive 
snowmobiles, etc etc) but this one beats them all. I guess the
american press (was this Forbes?) did not have almanacs available 
to look these hard facts up, so they went and voted Toronto 
the best city to live in the world. This was based apparently on a 
low crime rate (little did they know), education, standard of 
living etc. We should write to them and
straigthen them out.  anna. 

Rod Adams wrote:
> Please tell me, where are solar power systems (no matter which
> configuration you choose) most effective?  Answer: they are most
> effective in areas where there is a lot of sunshine and minimal
> rain, aka deserts.  Please do not tell us that you think that
> such places do not have any problems with dust or sand storms.
Solar power systems are most effective under conditions of high light
intensity. However, even under heavy cloud cover and pollution, the
incident radiation that is accessible to silicon-based photovoltaics is
80% of the irradiance accessible from the full solar spectrum, since the
band gap of silicon is small enough to absorb even low-energy radiation.
> Will, do you really think that the rooftops of New York City, (or
> Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington D. C. or any
> other large city) would be an appropriate place for massive solar
> power development?  Do you really think that they are properly located
> in sunbelts or in areas where the sun is direct and not filtered by
> pollution and clouds?  
Yes. See above.

Reposting article removed by rogue canceller.  See news.admin.net-abuse.announce
for further information.
In article <564pn9$bv4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, gld@prairienet.org says...
>
>David Lloyd-Jones (dlj@inforamp.net) wrote:
>  
>: This is a myth passed around by the dopier of Canadian nationalists,
>
>Also anti-Canadian whiners ... like those who aren't good enough to
>go to those greener pastures they keep whining about (and believe
>that they deserve).
>
>: This did not, however, mean that US investors "bought" Canada; it
>: means they set up a whole lot of new businesses and some industries,
>
>When someone wants to invest in you, and show up at your door with
>money, that's a good sign.
>
  Gary,
I presume that you know what "je me souviens" means.
Could you please enlighten us...I've ask scores of Quebecers and they seem to 
have forgotten what to remember...
For the anglos out there...souviens=remember-- 
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Gary L. Dare                            gld@prairienet.org
>                                        gld@ripco.com
>Vive le Quebec libre - in Canada!     (formerly gld@columbia.edu)
-- 

On 16 Nov 1996 02:53:54 GMT, dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> sync@inforamp.net (J McGinnis) wrote:
> >On 15 Nov 1996  dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> >>This is false.  Genocide is the result not of any "economism,"
> >>whatever that may be, but of reversion to pre-economic racisms. In
> >>Rwanda as in Germany, it is the expression of ancient tribalism.
> >
> >As in Germany? Hitler was elected with the mandate that he 'get rid
> >of'  those who people blamed for taking their jobs and losing the war,
> >(thereby driving them into economic turmoil). The rise in popular
> >support for these racist actions was definitely economically driven.
> >Sound familiar?
>  
> The fact that something is familiar does not make it true.  Hitler did
> not invent German or Polish antisemitism, and the Holocaust took place
> mainly in 1938-42, when the economy was in fine shape, thanks to the
> war build-up and Nazi victories.  Even the late stages, the Hungarian
> Holocaust of 1944-45, took place in a country spared from both war and
> depression at the time.
>  
>                                   -dlj.
David is right.  This WAS tribalism, with economics as a mask - an excuse - 
a propaganda tool.  Quite unlike Bosnia, Rwanda, Los Angeles, Azerbajan etc.
Come to think of it Afghanistan today is probably another example, the 
majority country Talibans against the city rulers.
---------------------------------------
Mason A Clark      masonc@ix.netcom.com
  www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210    
or:    www.netcom.com/~masonc (maybe)
Political-Economics, Comets, Weather
The Healing Wisdom of Dr. P.P.Quimby
---------------------------------

On 16 Nov 1996 00:45:37 GMT, gakp@powerup.com.au (Karen or George) wrote:
> In article <328ce6fa.2606136@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, masonc@ix.netcom.com 
> (Mason A. Clark) wrote:
> 
> >   Classical and neo-classical economics are polluted with linearity 
> >   assumptions.
> 
>  You may find that the models that 
>  economists actually use are far from all being linear.
> 
I realize the difficulty of reading off of a computer screen, and I was 
careless to use an expression like "polluted with."  The word "polluted"
is pejorative and "polluted with linearity" mislead George into thinking 
I wrote "all being linear."  I'll be more careful.  Economists are SO sensitive.
---------------------------------------
Mason A Clark      masonc@ix.netcom.com
  www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210    
or:    www.netcom.com/~masonc (maybe)
Political-Economics, Comets, Weather
The Healing Wisdom of Dr. P.P.Quimby
---------------------------------

D. Braun  wrote:
> > 
> > In Medieval times, 90+% of the population was chronically malnourished.
 A
> > man was deemed well off if he ate meat once a week.  Most children
suffered
> > from rickets and other defiency conditions.  Many castles and manor
homes
> > tossed trenchers (crusts of bread) and other dinner-table scraps to
hungry
> > people who clustered outside, who fought bitterly for line rights. 
Often,
> > a government official would, upon their yearly visit to a village, find
> > that starvation and disease had wiped out the entire populace sometime
in
> > the past year, with none the wiser.
> > 
> > Beer was widely consumed, by children and adults, as water was too
> > dangerous to drink.  When you did drink river water, you were taught to
> > "strain" it between your teeth to remove the larger creatures found
> > naturally in it.
> > 
> > Even the wealthy had their problems.  Food poisoning was endemic,
fruits
> > and vegetables were unknown out of season, seafood was impossible
unless
> > you lived near the coast, and at thirty-five, you needed soft food as
your
> > teeth had all rotted out...unless an abcessed tooth killed you, as was
> > quite common.
> > 
> > This is the true world of 'organic' farming, biomass power, and
> > deindustrialization many environmentalists would have us return to. 
I'd
> > prefer to work out our problems and stay here.
> 
> Mike, your description of medieval times was interesting, but does
nothing
> to buttress your last paragraph. It is complete fabrication.  The
question
> is, why do yuo persist in such poor attempts at propaganda? Is every
issue
> merely entertainment for you?
I'm sorry if the reality of the Middle Ages doesn't agree with your copy of
Robin Hood, Dave.  Have you read any serious history of, say, the 15th
century? 
> .. Do you see that I am
> reduced to asking rhetorical questions, becasue substantive debate with
> you is apparently impossible?.
Please, introduce a fact, or at least a logical construction.  Your
incessant name-calling is starting to wear thin.  Even the radicals in this
group manage civility; you, though, are an exception.
--
Mike Asher
masher@tusc.net
"I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy.
Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy. I was
deprived. (Oh not deprived but rather underprivileged.) Then they told me
that underprivileged was overused. I was disadvantaged. I still don't have
a dime. But I have a great vocabulary." 
-Jules Feiffer (1965) 

shepherd@alfred.tds-eagan.lmco.com (Bob Shepherd) wrote:
>
>:Please tell me, where are solar power systems (no matter which 
>:configuration you choose) most effective?
>
>I believe that solar and wind power systems are effective in sparsely
>populated areas.  They are obviously most effective where wire runs are
>prohibitively expensive.
Wow!! A pro-solar comment that I can agree with.  I guess my bias is 
that I am a suburban dweller and I tend to think about how to supply 
large power needs of cities and suburbs.
BTW, I happen to like living in or near cities.  I also think it is 
best for the planet if humans do not work to hard on spreading
themselves out over too large an area.  By concentrating ourselves in
places where the natural environment is already significantly altered,
we make less of an overall impact.
>However, I believe they can also be effective in
>less remote rural areas.  Even though it may not be reflected in the bill,
>the cost of providing electricity in these areas is probably more than the
>cost of providing it to city users or factories, due to the cost of
>maintaining the wires.
There is no probably about it.  It is far cheaper to deliver power in
massive quantities to a concentrated customer base than it is to 
deliver dribs and drabs to a dispersed customer base.  In this respect
electricity has a lot in common with all other commodity products.
(The price of wheat to ConAgra is far less than the price of a pound
of flour in a rural grocery store.)
Distribution systems always cost money and it is often not much more
expensive to deliver large quantities over the same path than it is
to deliver small quantities.  Therefore the delivery cost per unit of
product always favors larger deliveries.
(Yes, I am implying that the city dwellers and
>especially factories may be subsidizing the rural users.)
>
Factories not only subsidize rural users; they subsidize their
residential neighbors.  A factory using thousands of dollars worth
of electricity every month pays an identical cost per kilowatt hour
(at least here in Florida) with little old ladies who turn off every
light that is not in use.  However, the cost to bill those those little
old ladies is about the same as the cost to bill the factory.  It also
does not cost much more to maintain a high voltage line than it does
to maintain a low voltage line.
>Should New Mexico be covered with photovoltaics and the energy be shipped to
>New York City?  Probably not.  High concentrations of people require high
>concentrations of power, which are difficult for AE sources to produce.
>
>Bob Shepherd
Again, Bob, I could not agree more.  Urban areas need highly 
concentrated sources of power.  Even considering trying to collect
solar power in the desert southwest for transportation to the 
countries population centers in the form of hydrogen (which is 
considerably less energy dense than natural gas, coal or oil) or
on electric wires (which are measurably less efficient than a coal
train or a pipeline for carrying energy over long distances) 
demonstrates to me the ideological nature of the attititude of many
pro- alternative energy people.
For them, solar is "good", nuclear is "bad" so solar is always 
preferable, no matter what the numbers say.
For me, both sources of power are philosophically neutral.  Both
are natural, both have certain characteristics which make them 
advantageous in some situations and less advantageous in others.
On a sailboat needing a few watt-hours of energy each day for navigation
equipment a solar panel or a small wind-mill might be just the ticket.
For a moderately sized factory needing a few hundred kilowatts of power
24 hours per day, 7 days per week, centrally generated electricty 
is probably the most logical option.  For a moderately sized city
located well away from other population centers and located well away
from coal, oil or natural gas, a small nuclear reactor might be an
economic option.  It all depends on where you are, how much power you
need and how important it is to always have that power available.
Rod Adams
Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.