Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[Peter McLennan]

from the Wall Street Journal today: ...

Yes.  And from Forbes today:  The USAF has pretty well admitted that the F-35 is a failure.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/02/23/the-us-air-force-just-admitted-the-f-35-stealth-fighter-has-failed/?sh=77247a5f1b16

Pierre Sprey, co-designer of the F-16 and the A-10, called it "a turkey"

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x203cgj

Consider that the F-35 cost (so far) USD $1.8T.  Yes, trillion.  And it doesn't effing work.

Mars 2020, a program termed "exhilarating" by the NYT and a demonstrably more successful PR operation, cost less than two billion.

Straighten up and fly right, America.

[Peter McLennan]

The deregulation created competition like the airlines. That lowered prices.

Hoooooray for that!  What could possibly be better for the flying customers than dirt cheap prices?
/s

An interview I saw on TV with a 30 year Pan-Am cabin attendant said "When I started, they issued me with a pair of white gloves.  Now, they issue a pair of handcuffs."

[Alan Klein]

Hoooooray for that!  What could possibly be better for the flying customers than dirt cheap prices?
/s

An interview I saw on TV with a 30 year Pan-Am cabin attendant said "When I started, they issued me with a pair of white gloves.  Now, they issue a pair of handcuffs."[/b]

Well, some people are into that stuff.   

[faberryman]

Actually, power utilities are opposed to deregulation.

I don't know if that is true or not, but if deregulated power companies in Texas were able to bill their customers $28 billion more than if they had been regulated, it is easy see that your statement might not be true. Competition does not always lead to lower prices. Are you familiar with the concept of "conscious parallelism" in antitrust law? Did you ever noticed that with respect to fungible goods the price doesn't vary all that much. Businesses act in their own self interest. One of the ways that they do so is not to get sucked into price wars in a race to the bottom. Competition is not only about price.

Let me give you an example. It used to be I could only buy inkjet cartridges for my printer from HP. They were expensive. So along came the generic cartridge. I bought a few and they were both unreliable and didn't last as long. So I went back to the HP cartridges. I could swear that they are now more expensive that ever because customers will pay a premium for a product that isn't crap. Of course, my anecdote could be unique. I wouldn't want to make a hasty generalization. Did I mention my experience with generic catsup? Do you always buy the generic? Do you always buy whatever is cheapest? Of course, some people drive all over town to get the lowest possible price on a gallon of gas. People do all sorts of things. Meanwhile the two gas stations closest to me are winking and nodding at each other and charging the same price. One guy raises his price two cents a gallon and the other guy is more than happy to raise his price two cents a gallon too. They've been doing this for years.

[Alan Klein]

As I predicted earlier.  I felt common colds would also drop significantly for the same reasons. Masks and isolation.  It's going to be interesting to see what other diseases have dropped when the studies are done.  STD's? 

Amid COVID-19 pandemic, flu has disappeared in the US
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/25/amid-covid-19-pandemic-flu-has-disappeared-us/6812687002/

[Alan Klein]

I don't know if that is true or not, but if deregulated power companies in Texas were able to bill their customers $28 billion more than if they had been regulated, it is easy see that your statement might not be true.

Can you imagine the photography industry being regulated?  Depending on where you live, you have to buy a Nikon here, a Canon there, and a Fuji somewhere else.  What do you think the prices for the cameras would be?  I'd say they'd charge a lot more, just like my single service cable company where I'm stuck with their high pricing and services.   Why should electricity, airlines, or any other industry operate that way? How does the customer benefit?

[LesPalenik]

Maybe, but I don't think so. I looked into this, and the batteries don't last as long as you'd think, or at least as long as I thought.

https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/is-the-tesla-powerwall-the-best-solar-battery-available#tesla-powerwall-cost

"With the ability to hold 13.5 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity, the Powerwall has one of the highest usable capacity ratings of residential solar batteries on the market. That’s enough energy to cover about half of the average U.S. home’s daily energy usage."

I think, but I'm not sure, that if you turned off everything but an electric-start gas heater (which most people have) and a refrigerator, and strictly limited the use of things like large TVs, two or three power walls might last several days, and if connected to a solar panel and if you had sunshine, could possibly get you through a week on a greatly limited basis.

Some Texas residents reported how they used the Powerwall batteries to get them through the cold spell. Search on youtube for "Texas winter powerwall".
Here is one of the youtube videos:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT3u4_9G6Fs&t=803s

[Alan Klein]

Some Texas residents reported how they used the Powerwall batteries to get them through the cold spell. Search on youtube for "Texas winter powerwall".
Here is one of the youtube videos:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT3u4_9G6Fs&t=803s

The guy's fortunate he could afford Tesla batteries and power backup.   

[Robert Roaldi]

Can you imagine the photography industry being regulated?  Depending on where you live, you have to buy a Nikon here, a Canon there, and a Fuji somewhere else.  What do you think the prices for the cameras would be?  I'd say they'd charge a lot more, just like my single service cable company where I'm stuck with their high pricing and services.   Why should electricity, airlines, or any other industry operate that way? How does the customer benefit?

Generating and delivering electricity isn't anything like the photographic industry. Drawing a parallel is silly.

[Alan Klein]

Generating and delivering electricity isn't anything like the photographic industry. Drawing a parallel is silly.

It's very smart. Competition reduces prices and improves products and services.  Practically everything we buy is competitively sold.   Why should electricity be exempt from the laws of economics? We do it here in New Jersey.  I'm saving money. While storms still knock over trees and power, that happened before deregulation as well.

They deregulated the airline industry.  Most people thought it would be unsafe, including me.  As it turned out, accidents and crashes went down.  And the cost to fly is just a small fraction of what it cost before deregulation. 

If there was a problem with the design for operating in cold, blame the government.  They regulate those things. That's public policy, not deregulation. If the government wasn't involved, there would be no sovereign protection of the utility.  Then people could sue the eclectic company that injured them.  That would encourage individual electricity companies to do a better job protecting themselves from such things happening.  Now they can claim in court they were just following government policy.  So government control prevented the system from having greater safeguards.  Without government control, they would have done a better job. 

[faberryman]

They deregulated the airline industry.  Most people thought it would be unsafe, including me.  As it turned out, accidents and crashes went down.  And the cost to fly is just a small fraction of what it cost before deregulation.

As long as you don't want to take a piece of luggage or fly during regular business hours or have to change or cancel your trip. Let's face it; they're going to get your money one way or another. I get email all the time from an airline who shall remain nameless which lures me in with $50 fares, so I go over to the website and the $50 fares are for flights in the middle of the night to places I don't want to go. They are just trying to get bodies on planes. Some people will fly in the middle of the night to places they don't want to go to save money. I was pricing out trips to Europe a while back. Did you know you can get pretty good prices on flights that only take three days to get there?

[Alan Klein]

As long as you don't want to take a piece of luggage or fly during regular business hours or have to change or cancel your trip. Let's face it; they're going to get your money one way or another. I get email all the time from an airline who shall remain nameless which lures me in with $50 dollar fares, so I go over to the website and the $50 fares are for flights in the middle of the night to places I don't want to go. They are just trying to get bodies on planes. Some people will fly in the middle of the night to places they don't want to go to save money. I was pricing out trips to Europe a while back. Did you know you can get pretty good prices on flights that only take three days to get there?

Don't be so cheap.

[Peter McLennan]

Can you imagine the photography industry being regulated?

It IS regulated.  If I want to take advantage of cheap US prices for my new Nikon, I can’t, unless I’m willing to forego the warranty.

Like I keep saying, Alan, “Outside nature, there is no such thing as a free market.”

[faberryman]

Don't be so cheap.

I was coming back from a photographic workshop in Iceland and had a two hour layover in NY. Well, there were some clouds in the sky or something so they kept delaying the flight for an hour at a time until all the pilots had finished for the day and even though the clouds went away they didn't have any pilots to fly the plane. So I had to get on a bus to go to the other terminal to book a flight on another airline. Why did I have to take a bus to another terminal? Because I had been waiting so long my cellphone ran out of juice. I couldn't find an electrical outlet to save my life. It's not like I didn't look. Anyway, while I was waiting for my new flight they announced that they had found a pilot for my original flight, so I had to cancel my new flight and take the bus back to the other terminal and book myself back on the old flight again. So I finally got home about ten hours late. I bet you can guess which airline I'll never fly again. I think they were the cheapest so I guess I saved a couple of bucks. They probably gave me a generic Coke too.

[JoeKitchen]

At least TRYING to and more than once:
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/04/700163118/democrats-planning-another-public-rebuke-of-rep-ilhan-omar

Steve King was removed from all commette positions almost instantly after his remarks, and was primaried by someone who had little chance of winning. 

So, please let me know when the Dems actually follow through like the Republicans. 

[faberryman]

Steve King was removed from all commette positions almost instantly after his remarks, and was primaried by someone who had little chance of winning. So, please let me know when the Dems actually follow through like the Republicans.

Instantly? My memory is that Steve King had been saying all kinds of despicable stuff for years.

"For years, King was a source of headaches for Republican party leadership. He has tied immigrant children to being drug mules, questioned whether minorities have contributed anything valuable to western civilization and displayed a Confederate flag on his desk. He has wondered why it is offensive to be called a white nationalist. He has also associated with far-right figures including the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, and once argued to a far-right Austrian publication that elites were trying to reduce the white population and increase minorities. Even the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, suggested that King seek other careers."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/02/steve-king-loses-re-election-iowa

So I guess the question I have for you is, if the Republicans are such saints, why did only 11 out of 211 Republicans vote to censure Marjorie Taylor Greene?

[Alan Klein]

It IS regulated.  If I want to take advantage of cheap US prices for my new Nikon, I can’t, unless I’m willing to forego the warranty.

Like I keep saying, Alan, “Outside nature, there is no such thing as a free market.”

Free market does not mean private companies can't run their business the way they want to.  That's the very essence of a free market. The seller can sell to anyone it wants, however it wants to, at whatever price it decides.  And the buyer can buy from anyone it wants.  If you don;t like the way Nikon does business, don;t deal with them.  No one is twisting your arm.   They aren't obligated to sell their products in the way you want.

It's when the government gets involved with its own regulations that you lose the free market or it's not as free. The less government involvement, the more free and effective it is.  Here's a definition of free market.

The free market is an economic system based on supply and demand with little or no government control. It is a summary description of all voluntary exchanges that take place in a given economic environment. Free markets are characterized by a spontaneous and decentralized order of arrangements through which individuals make economic decisions.


https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/freemarket.asp

[Alan Klein]

I was coming back from a photographic workshop in Iceland and had a two hour layover in NY. Well, there were some clouds in the sky or something so they kept delaying the flight for an hour at a time until all the pilots had finished for the day and even though the clouds went away they didn't have any pilots to fly the plane. So I had to get on a bus to go to the other terminal to book a flight on another airline. Why did I have to take a bus to another terminal? Because I had been waiting so long my cellphone ran out of juice. I couldn't find an electrical outlet to save my life. It's not like I didn't look. Anyway, while I was waiting for my new flight they announced that they had found a pilot for my original flight, so I had to cancel my new flight and take the bus back to the other terminal and book myself back on the old flight again. So I finally got home about ten hours late. I bet you can guess which airline I'll never fly again. I think they were the cheapest so I guess I saved a couple of bucks. They probably gave me a generic Coke too.

Stuff happens.  I was flying United before covid from Newark to San Diego.  The plane had mechanical problems, fortunately not like that one yesterday that blew the cowling off the engine that was burning.  I wonder if they got their money back.  In any case, we were diverted to Chicago where it was freezing.  Then we took those internal trams from one end of the airport to the other and back again finally leaving from the same place we landed in another plane, fortunately not the one with the bad engine.  I just remember, United gave us a $100 credit on our next flight for the inconvenience.   Had I thought of it, we could have gone round trip for two to Florida during COvid for that $100.  I wonder if we still have the credit?

[faberryman]

It's when the government gets involved with its own regulations that you lose the free market or it's not as free. The less government involvement, the more free and effective it is.

In your opinion, are there any areas in the economic life of a nation where a little regulation here and there is not the spawn of the devil?

[Alan Klein]

In your opinion, are there any areas in the economic life of a nation where a little regulation here and there is not the spawn of the devil?

The constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce.  I think that's generally good when they create level playing fields to allow free trade between states.  They also set up a legal system so that enterprises and people have the ability to sue in court when there are disputes among parties.  When trust among parties breaks down, there is a way of resolving those disputes in a pretty fair manner.  Of course, the Supreme Court has allowed the government to expand into all areas using the commerce clause as an excuse - areas such as education which is up to the states, not the government in Washington.