US Elections 2020 (geopolitics, informed debate, no ad hominems)

Biden

14 (66.7%)

Trump

7 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 21

Voting closed: November 02, 2020, 06:25:59 pm

[Alan Klein]

That seems like a good idea. I think I'll do the same. Except that if Trump wins, I will probably cancel my cable TV. But I think I have already told you that.

Don't do that.  CNN will need.

[LesPalenik]

They should clear away the brush between the trees in the forest.  Then they stop forest fires and use the wood to generate electricity solving two problems they have.

Another benefit would be a job creation for thousands of forest rangers and loggers. Responsible forestry in North America is way behind the Europe.

[Alan Klein]

I think I mentioned earlier that I think Trump would have farted around until mid-March even if he had know about it six weeks earlier.

Stop obsessing over Trump.  What about the rest of the world?  Is Trump responsible for the increase now in Europe?  Don' t you think Europeans are pissed off as well at them.  They're dying too. 

[Alan Klein]

The facility are not close to bats though, it is location over a 100 miles away from bat habitats. 

Once again, you failed to explain this away. 

Maybe they flew to the lab?  Or to the market?

[JoeKitchen]

Stop obsessing over Trump.  What about the rest of the world?  Is Trump responsible for the increase now in Europe?  Don' t you think Europeans are pissed off as well at them.  They're dying too.

And that is the thing no one on the left can answer! 

It's like as if when Biden is sworn in, he will flip the magic switch to stop the virus that Trump has been refusing to do.  LOL.  If you fall for that you're a sucker!

Biden has no plans to do anything other then what Trump has done and more lock downs.  Well I can tell you right now, if Biden wins and he somehow convinces my state to enforce another lock down, I'll be moving to a state that scoffs at him.  I'll even flip him the bird without a mask on as I drive by DC. 

The fact is the only thing we can do is protect the elderly and encourage everyone else to catch it so we get herd immunity. 

NYTs: Vilified Early Over Lax Virus Strategy, Sweden Seems to Have Scourge Controlled

"After having weathered high death rates when it resisted a lockdown in the spring, Sweden now has one of Europe’s lowest rates of daily new cases. Whether that is an aberration remains to be seen."

There is nothing Biden has suggested that Trump has not already done, or that Biden could do legally.  Although I would really like to watch him call every municipality in the country and beg them to enforce mask mandates like he suggested in a recent interview. 

[Alan Klein]

Those first-generation turbine blades that are /s polluting landfills worldwide /s are complex composites.  Agreed.  Not easily recyclable. Yet.
Wind turbine systems are frequently in the black financially within a year.  The first gen blades are replaced after twenty.  Not a bad rate of return.

The amount of blades dumped is underwhelming:

“Wind turbine blades at the end of their operational life are landfill-safe, unlike the waste from some other energy sources, and represent a small fraction of overall U.S. municipal solid waste,” according to an emailed statement from the group. It pointed to an Electric Power Research Institute study that estimates all blade waste through 2050 would equal roughly .015% of all the municipal solid waste going to landfills in 2015 alone.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills-1.1385125#:~:text=Feb%205%2C%202020-,Wind%20Turbine%20Blades%20Can't%20Be%20Recycled%2C%20So%20They',re%20Piling%20Up%20in%20Landfills&text=(Bloomberg)%20%2D%2D%20A%20wind%20turbine's,t%20just%20be%20hauled%20away.

 

Wind turbines at the end of their lives and at other times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nemy4TD4I3A

[Alan Klein]

Heating is another big issue when we remove fossil fuels.

This source shows only 34% of homes are heated by electric.  Thats a lot of homes that will require all new heating systems. And a lot of people who won't have the money to do it.  Most likely the poor.


https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-and-cool/home-heating-systems

Electric heating is many times more expensive than oil or natural gas.  Decades ago, the electric companies paid people to install electric heating in new homes.  Biggest mistake homeowners ever made.  They paid for it in higher electric bills many times over.

[LesPalenik]

"After having weathered high death rates when it resisted a lockdown in the spring, Sweden now has one of Europe’s lowest rates of daily new cases. Whether that is an aberration remains to be seen."

Yes, in comparison to other European countries Sweden has now relatively low infection count, but in September and October the infections have been rising steadily.

[JoeKitchen]

Yes, in comparison to other European countries Sweden has now relatively low infection count, but in September and October the infections have been rising steadily.

Well then, just goes to prove my point even more, there is nothing you can do to stop this!

You can only mitigate the effects, but it is going to spread regardless of what you do. 

Italy had a national mask mandate even if you were outside, then went on lockdown again, and they are see a surge. 

I am not pausing my life again.  I have no plans to remain in a state that goes down that road, and I think most, or at least the productive of society, will agree with me. 

[Alan Klein]

Have you studied the oil industry lately?  BP and Royal Dutch Shell have both announced restructurings amidst a move to more renewable resource approaches.  Exxon has reduced exploration.  Oil prices have dropped worldwide.  Chevron (disclosure I am a shareholder probably to your surprise) is focusing on natural gas exploration and just bought the company that holds most of the eastern Mediterranean Sea fields.  Solar panel installation and wind farm increase yearly with more jobs in that area.  Coal production continues to decrease and under President Trump another 30K jobs were last in that industry.

Energy jobs will ebb and flow, moving to areas of opportunity.  The US will continue to produce oil and natural gas and coal will gradually disappear as a major energy source.

Increasing the number of jobs to produce a product decreases productivity and raises prices. You want the number of jobs to decrease, not increase.  You want to be more efficient, not less so. What you're suggesting has raised electric prices in Germany so they pay 2 1/2 times what we pay in America.  That's expensive and the Germans are "rioting" over it. 

Look at it this way.  Adding a tractor to a farm reduces farm hands by 90% let's say.  So if it once took 100 farm hands to reap the produce, and it now takes only 10 using tractors, you decreased the labor by 90 workers or 90%.  THat reduces the price of food since the cost of labor went down 90%.  Same with electricity.  Producing the same amount of electricity and let's say tripling the number of workers required over gas, oil or coal to produce it, just raises the cost of each KWH so you pay more for it.  Why don't we throw our computers away and go back to the abacus?

This also reminds me of the broken window theory of economics.  The way it goes is you break all the windows in a building complex. Then go out and hire people to replace them.  All sorts of work for glaziers you can hire.  Of course, that's just silly.  The windows that were there were perfectly ok.  All you've done is waste precious resources that could be spent for let's say repairing bridges that are in fact falling down.  Same with electricity.  We are already making it.  Why tear perfectly productive plants down and build new ones?  Spend the money on repairing broken bridges. 

[LesPalenik]

Well then, just goes to prove my point even more, there is nothing you can do to stop this!

You can only mitigate the effects, but it is going to spread regardless of what you do. 

Italy had a national mask mandate even if you were outside, then went on lockdown again, and they are see a surge. 

I am not pausing my life again.  I have no plans to remain in a state that goes down that road, and I think most, or at least the productive of society, will agree with me.

Avoiding or minimizing contact with others will most definitely stop or reduce the infection numbers.

[Craig Lamson]

Avoiding or minimizing contact with others will most definitely stop or reduce the infection numbers.

Thats my plan....

[faberryman]

Look at it this way.  Adding a tractor to a farm reduces farm hands by 90% let's say.  So if it once took 100 farm hands to reap the produce, and it now takes only 10 using tractors, you decreased the labor by 90 workers or 90%.  THat reduces the price of food since the cost of labor went down 90%.

Where do you get free tractors? And then there is the ongoing maintenance, and fuel and stuff. Then one year you might need fewer workers because of drought or pestilence, or you shift to a less labor intensive crop because Trump is screwing around with tariffs and the Chinese won’t buy the stuff you used to grow, and while you can fire half your workers, you can’t fire half your tractor, and so maybe your net actually goes down. I mean if you shift from soy beans to corn, you need a combine not a tractor. So what are you going to do with your tractor? Nobody wants it because everyone is growing corn now. So you lose you shirt on the trade-in. People have lost family farms from buying tractors and such. I am not saying don’t buy tractors, but you have to really crunch the numbers and take on some risk, so it is not as easy as it looks. It's got government bailouts written all over it. They call it the Farm Bill. It's really the Farm Subsidy and Bailout Bill. Willie Nelson had some really big concerts called Farm Aid because farmers bought too many tractors.

This also reminds me of the broken window theory of economics.  The way it goes is you break all the windows in a building complex. Then go out and hire people to replace them.  All sorts of work for glaziers you can hire.  Of course, that's just silly.  The windows that were there were perfectly ok.  All you've done is waste precious resources that could be spent for let's say repairing bridges that are in fact falling down.  Same with electricity.  We are already making it.  Why tear perfectly productive plants down and build new ones?  Spend the money on repairing broken bridges.

I don’t ever remember reading about anyone breaking windows or whatever. I mean that is so crazy even I wouldn’t do it. My dad didn't go around the house knocking out windows so I could earn my allowance or anything.  Maybe he should have been an economist given that insight. So I looked it up. Guess what? It’s called the broken window fallacy, not the broken window theory. Nobody won a Nobel Prize or anything. Basically it means don’t do stupid stuff, except if you have a really good reason. Like all of the make-work projects during the Depression. That worked out pretty well. Kind of the right tool for the right job. Nothing wrong with a few broken windows now and then when you have the need for them, like now, with twenty or thirty million people out of jobs because of the pandemic and our less than award-winning response. Something to think about anyway.

I am not an economist or anything, but some of this stuff is obvious if you think about it for a minute.

[JoeKitchen]

Avoiding or minimizing contact with others will most definitely stop or reduce the infection numbers.

Only for a time, then as soon as you open up, it spreads again. 

That is not to say you cant minimize contact if you choose, but to force others against their will, sorry, but I will never be for that. 

I am for liberty over safety and truly believe "those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

I'd rather get it over with and move on then linger in an economic depressions for years. 

Your choice, but I'll fight for my side, even if just scoffing the edicts, or move.  Eventually the areas that adapt this will suffer immensely.  History has shown this. 

There is a good documentary on Prohibition in which, at the end, one of the narrators, who is a sober alcoholic, states that if someone told him he could not have a drink he would do so on Pennsylvania Ave in front of congress just to prove a point.  If Biden mandates masks, I'll be on Pennsylvania Ave doing the same. 

[JoeKitchen]

But anyway, I literally cant think of a better person to handle the ceremony! 

Clarence Thomas to administer constitutional oath to Amy Coney Barrett

[Craig Lamson]

The other thing is I learned the hard way that if your gas contains ethanol, you'll wear yourself out trying to start your chain saw, and it is actually less effort to cut down the tree with a regular saw. Then this friend of mine told me about this place where the tree trimmer guys go to get gas that is all gas. I like using my chain saw now.

It's also cheaper because you no longer slam your chain saw down on a rock and have to go out and buy a new chain saw that you can't start either. Do that a couple of times and it is cheaper just to hire the tree trimmer guys to do it, and you can sit on the back porch sipping lemonade, and telling your wife how you would have gladly done it yourself, but it would have been more expensive.

Go electric.  ROFLMAO.  No really I love my battery powered light chainsaw.

[JoeKitchen]

My God, really, you guys are sissies. 

I'd used a scythe to cut my lawn, well, if I had a lawn. 

[LesPalenik]

Where do you get free tractors? And then there is the ongoing maintenance, and fuel and stuff. Then one year you might need fewer workers because of drought or pestilence, or you shift to a less labor intensive crop because Trump is screwing around with tariffs and the Chinese won’t buy the stuff you used to grow, and while you can fire half your workers, you can’t fire half your tractor, and so maybe your net actually goes down. I mean if you shift from soy beans to corn, you need a combine not a tractor. So what are you going to do with your tractor. Nobody wants it because everyone is  growing corn. So you lose you shirt on the trade-in. People have lost family farms from buying tractors and such. I am not saying don’t buy tractors, but you have to really crunch the numbers and take on some risk, so it is not as easy as it looks. It's got government bailouts written all over it. They call it the Farm Bill. It's really the Farm Subsidy and Bailout Bill. Willie Nelson had some really big concerts called Farm Aid because farmers bought too many tractors.

In absence of free tractors, the farmers could switch back to oxen and horses. Cubans did it.

HAVANA TIMES – Cuba will employ thousands more oxen to plough sugar cane fields and pull farmers’ carts due to lack of fuel for ploughing machines and transport vehicles. Horses will also be used for transport, the ruling Communist Party’s newspaper Granma quoted party official Jose Ramon Machado as saying.

Cuban farmers are already using some oxen, though agriculture had become largely mechanized. The government will now add about 8,000 oxen to those already in use, the presidency on Wednesday quoted the president of the state sugar cane monopoly Azcuba as saying. “In the face of the current fuel shortage, measures have been adopted such as incorporating about 4,000 pairs of oxen into sugar cane work and food production

https://havanatimes.org/news/as-tractors-grind-to-a-halt-cuba-returns-to-oxen/

[faberryman]

Go electric.  ROFLMAO.  No really I love my battery powered light chainsaw.

I have a rechargeable one now. It's great. The thing is the battery runs down pretty quick and takes a couple of hours to recharge. So you work a little bit and then go take a nap - or go work in the darkroom - while it's recharging. Sorry honey, the battery's recharging. I like it. I'll share a tip with you. Don't buy an extra battery.

I no longer had a need for a gas powered one because I cut down most of the trees in the backyard. We use to have a lot of trees in the backyard, but this tornado came through one night. I was down at the office working on a deal and it was pretty late. I got a call from my wife who said a tree fell through the bedroom ceiling. I rush home and it was raining like no tomorrow and so I was up on the roof pulling the branches out and patching the roof, and my wife was out there with a flashlight yelling at me to be careful and not fall off the roof, and, well, everything worked out okay, but it was quite the experience. Trees in the backyard are nice, but you have to be smart about it. Ended up with new carpet in the bedroom for the cost of the deductible, so I'm not complaining.

[Craig Lamson]

I have a rechargeable one now. It's great. The thing is the battery runs down pretty quick and takes a couple of hours to recharge. So you work a little bit and then go take a nap - or go work in the darkroom - while it's recharging. Sorry honey, the battery's recharging. I like it. I'll share a tip with you. Don't buy an extra battery.

I no longer had a need for a gas powered one because I cut down most of the trees in the backyard. We use to have a lot of trees in the backyard, but this tornado came through one night. I was down at the office working on a deal and it was pretty late. I got a call from my wife who said a tree fell through the bedroom ceiling. I rush home and it was raining like no tomorrow and so I was up on the roof pulling the branches out and patching the roof, and my wife was out there with a flashlight yelling at me to be careful and not fall off the roof, and, well, everything worked out okay, but it was quite the experience. Trees in the backyard are nice, but you have to be smart about it. Ended up with new carpet in the bedroom for the cost of the deductible, so I'm not complaining.

Too late I have extra batteries😎