'Free
markets' are like unicorns; no one has ever seen one but it doesn't
stop the credulous from believing.
Big
Whoop:
The Nairobi agreement on hydrofluorocarbon emissions is garnering a
lot of self-congratulatory praise by those involved. It's a joke.
An unenforceable
joke. Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are widely used in fridges, air
conditioning and aerosol sprays. They make up about 1% of greenhouse
gases. But like CO2 they have an atmospheric lifetime of 100 years or
more and are
10,000 to 20,000 times worse than CO2. The agreement calls on the
richer countries (US, Canada, Europe) to “cut back within a few
years” and reduce
their emission of HFCs by 10% from the level reached in 2019. [See
the problem? Add like crazy now so there's a high mark to cut from.]
Developing countries are irsupposed
to build like crazy
now and freeze there use at 2024 levels. India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq
and the Gulf states will not freeze their use until 2028. China, the
world's largest producer of HFCs, will not actually start to cut
their production or use until 2029. A spokesman explained that the
agreement followed the Pattern set in Paris and that “by agreeing
to an early HFC phase down schedule, we've bought ourselves a bit
more time to
put off doing anything about global warming
to shift to a global low carbon economy.” Actually cutting HFC's
now and outlawing them within a decade would be worth all the hoopla.
Freezing them for a decade or two and then cutting them by 10% is a
PR gimmick. Letting China and India kill the rest of us is
inexcusable.
Crass
Act:
Fox's Lou Dobbs, showing his usual good sense, tweeted the pone
number and address of one of those accusing Trump of sexual assault.
Makes you wonder why
more women don't step forward.
The
Important Stuff:
A study by scientists from Cornell and Columbia Universities and
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies [Jim
Hansen's old home] published in Science
Advances says that a megadrought lasting decades is 99% certain
to hit California and the American Southwest this century.
Historically, such megadroughts have occurred about once in a
thousand years; now theyare expected to become “commonplace.” How sure are they this is
going to happen? If you put “Major California Earthquake in next
decade” at one end of the scale and “The Sun will rise tomorrow”
at the other, the megadrought would be right up there next to the sun
coming up.
Spot
On: “The
Cashless Society Is a Creepy Fantasy”
Clandestinely:
The CIA put out a press release saying the Obama administration was
“contemplating” “an all-out cyber war with Russia.” Not the
NSA, whose field of expertise this is, but the CIA. Its aim will be
to “embarrass the Kremlin leadership” more
than it does ours. Anything,
of course, to
protect Hillary.
Win,
Place and Show:,
Most Americans (62%) think the economy is rigged in favor of the
already rich, their bankers and their Wall Street lackeys. Trump
supporters (by definition not “most Americans”) say it is rigged
in favor of the poor who get government assistance. Go figure.
Boy
Scout:
Donald, preparing for the inevitable, says the election will be
stolen from him, that he will not concede, and will never accept a
Clinton victory. Neither Trump nor his supporters are going to go
quietly – his advance troops are already garrisoning at
Democrat
offices. About
25% of the nation's electorate will have immense amounts of anger
towards the elected government in particular and society in general.
Big Fun.
Food
For Thought:
The German government has ruled out state support for Deutsche Bank.
How do you say “not
too
big to fail” in German?
Two
Pence Worth:
The loyal Mike Pence says “I don’t understand” why Michelle
Obama denounced Trump’s “sexually predatory behavior”.
A
Parting Shot:
5 comments:
Letting China and India kill the rest of us is inexcusable.
Ummmm lets see that again. China building crap, mostly for the US big box stores & consumers, so it's still mostly the USA doing the environmental murder.
All crime (especially corruption) is 'cash and carry'...Ms. Ou is correct that all crime won't vanish in a cashless world but it would be so greatly reduced as to make the comparison void.
Who needs cash? Only those who want to buy and sell illicitly. For someone doling out free 'financial advice' she appears quite ignorant on why taxes exist in the first place.
It is the, er, 'mis-direction/confusion' surrounding the whole medium of exchange concept that places us in the world we wake up to every day.
"crime won't vanish in a cashless world but it would be so greatly reduced . . ." wow, there's an unsupportable assertion if I ever saw one!
I really doubt a chashless economy is about controlling crime in any case. Seems to me the real purpose of a "cashless" system is to allow big biz and our gubment to simply take what they want from the rest of us. Now there's the big crime.
George, never forget that it's that government that you curse every day that decides who is or isn't a criminal, and you don't mind handing them the keys to make you completely uneconomically viable.
I agree with G-fan, George; regardless of high moral intent, the cashless society would nearly immediately turn into yet another form of control by the government - the one you want to go away. And the corruption that really counts isn't done with cash - ask the drug cartels and Wall Street banks and dictators and soccer honchos.
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