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Old 02-09-2009, 08:46 PM   #41
Bob.Kerns
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Bob, since there isn't a current suggestion for cutting back on federal government spending (as far as I know), I think your your #1 Worst Thing We Could Do comes off the board.
Fortunately, it's not much talked about at the Federal level. Unfortunately, at the state level, generally due to constitutional balanced budget provisions and declining tax revenues, it's what's being implemented!

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This moves "Spending our Way Out" up to #1. I think you'd get some agreement on this board that this should be #1. However, consider that there has already been a real cost of TRILLIONS of dollars in net worth in the US due to the fall of confidence. There could be much more. Is it it worth spending some money to prevent those real losses? Consider also the loss in tax dollars and the increased outflow in public assistance. In addition, the time cost of money makes spending in today's dollars relatively cheap to repay tomorrow. At a modest 3% rate of inflation, $1 today becomes $0.50 in 20 years, and that doesn't consider increases in the GDP.

Will spending work? I don't know. Nobody knows. As you say, Bob, there's no sure thing here. However, I believe there is technology and infrastructure spending that will 1. Pump cash into the economy and help restore confidence by demonstrating that somebody is working to fix the mess, and will keep working until it's fixed, and 2. Fix damaged infrastructure that we desperately need for productivity, but is easy to ignore on any given day (roads, power transmission, etc) and 3. Fund technologies that are most likely to provide economic leadership for the US in the future. Clean power, supercooled transmission lines <(FYI Karl, this is not scifi), and hydrogen fuel, just for instance.

Spending on stuff like that yields a payoff for the US, no matter what.

"Do nothing" seems to be the mantra of some here, but I fully agree with you Bob that it's darned close to the top of the "likely to cause a disaster" list.
Spending on roads is an investment, so long as it's not frivolous (e.g. bridges to nowhere). Spending on alternatives to roads, is an even better investment.

I'm not sure to what extent supercooled transmission lines, specifically, are a WISE investment. To be sure of that, you need a cost/benefit analysis, on a case-by-case basis.

But it's definitely NOT science fiction. Existing high-power transmission techniques are amazingly complicated. I tried (but failed) to locate a piece written a number of years back by a friend who watched the power company rebuild a high-power underground line, with all the complications of oil temperature monitoring, pressurization, and trying not to blow it up. Supercooled transmission lines can potentially be combined with hydrogen transport, and the economic picture changes if we have significant hydrogen usage.

But it doesn't matter -- it's not the choice of technology that is important, it's supplying enough capacity in the right places to manage load and make efficient use of available power sources (such as excess capacity in one time zone needed in another, or from rural wind or solar sources to urban consumption).

The problem comes in pure consumptive spending. Bailouts of companies with flawed business models. Unemployment benefits aren't nearly as good for the economy as retraining.
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Old 02-09-2009, 09:39 PM   #42
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ZPM's are the size they are because of the shielding, as a "small" singularity isn't any smaller than a "large" singularity. Power cells for small mobile platforms might be a little smaller because of reduced space needed for tapping the power.

Unfortunately, the technology isn't ready for mass production, but with sufficient investment, it could be ready soon.

Actually, ZPMs do not exist, and you made up the stuff about them being powered by a singularity.

I asked a legitimate question, as the first reference was to a ZPM, which is a fictional item on tv, but there are many items in science fiction that actually do exist in theory, or even often times in prototype. I was not sure of what was being discussed... Once it came to the actual Zero Point Module, then the refusal to civally answer a simple question became moot...

I did start to join the sillyness when I asked about the power to the puddle jumpers, which do not use ZPM power...

Bob,

No we do not agree on several of the points that you said we could agree on. You need not presume my mind. I am happy to explain myself if treated civally. I do agree that poorly done, even the right thing can have collateral damage, but that does not mean that doing the wrong thing is justified. And the government has never been known for doing anything the right way anyway...

I happen to believe that when credit is tight, and people are unsure, then lenders will look for a sure thing. They will only want to loan money to those whom they feel are layoff proof. They will want a higher level of security, and since the real estate market is in the toilet, real estate is not the best security... At this time, I do not think it is prudent for the federal government to declare it intends to borrow on trillion dollars... Where do you think that money will come from? It will come from the people who have money to loan. Which is a sure bet? The guy who is upside down in his car company or the federal government? Who is a better risk? The guy who is upside down in his house who just got layed off, or the federal government?

You cannot have it both ways... The global market is in a mess. Our theives and liars in Washington want people to do what they are not willing to do all the time... We should tighten our belts while they take a chartered train to the spa, on my dime. You cannot complain about tight credit markets, then go and borrow more money at one time than has ever been borrowed in the history of the world. Do you feel that the feds borrowing huge sums of money will not affect the rest of the credit market? I do think it will.

I did not say that government should fold up and stop spending. There is a large jump from that and spending a trillion dollars more than we were planning to spend yesterday. This package is not designed to replace the normal operation of government, this package that the president is talking about as I type, is over and above the day to day...

I have not gotten any answers to the fact that this was tried in the 30s and it did not work for a decade. Government did not solve the Great Depression, and no one will address that, because it proves my point, and undermines the concept of spending our way out...

Since these kinds of giant spending programs were tried several times after 1933, years into the depression, and we were still in a depression 8 years later...

So, are you guys saying that we spend a trillion dollars today, and we will still not be whole in 8 years? This is a trillion dollars today, after 750 Billion dollars last fall. And this depression is only a few months old, even though many things have been on the decline for years.

The bottom line is that what will happen will happen. These guys don't even pay their taxes, much less listen to the 45% that did not vote for them. Because they will do what they do, the only ones who will know if it works or not are historians... We can say woulda, coulda, shoulda forever. Only one path can be taken at one time, and those who are inchage have no desire to hear about another path... Such is life.
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Old 02-09-2009, 10:46 PM   #43
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Bob,

No we do not agree on several of the points that you said we could agree on. You need not presume my mind. I am happy to explain myself if treated civally. I do agree that poorly done, even the right thing can have collateral damage, but that does not mean that doing the wrong thing is justified. And the government has never been known for doing anything the right way anyway...

I happen to believe that when credit is tight, and people are unsure, then lenders will look for a sure thing. They will only want to loan money to those whom they feel are layoff proof. They will want a higher level of security, and since the real estate market is in the toilet, real estate is not the best security... At this time, I do not think it is prudent for the federal government to declare it intends to borrow on trillion dollars... Where do you think that money will come from? It will come from the people who have money to loan. Which is a sure bet? The guy who is upside down in his car company or the federal government? Who is a better risk? The guy who is upside down in his house who just got layed off, or the federal government?

You cannot have it both ways... The global market is in a mess. Our theives and liars in Washington want people to do what they are not willing to do all the time... We should tighten our belts while they take a chartered train to the spa, on my dime. You cannot complain about tight credit markets, then go and borrow more money at one time than has ever been borrowed in the history of the world. Do you feel that the feds borrowing huge sums of money will not affect the rest of the credit market? I do think it will.

I did not say that government should fold up and stop spending. There is a large jump from that and spending a trillion dollars more than we were planning to spend yesterday. This package is not designed to replace the normal operation of government, this package that the president is talking about as I type, is over and above the day to day...

I have not gotten any answers to the fact that this was tried in the 30s and it did not work for a decade. Government did not solve the Great Depression, and no one will address that, because it proves my point, and undermines the concept of spending our way out...

Since these kinds of giant spending programs were tried several times after 1933, years into the depression, and we were still in a depression 8 years later...

So, are you guys saying that we spend a trillion dollars today, and we will still not be whole in 8 years? This is a trillion dollars today, after 750 Billion dollars last fall. And this depression is only a few months old, even though many things have been on the decline for years.

The bottom line is that what will happen will happen. These guys don't even pay their taxes, much less listen to the 45% that did not vote for them. Because they will do what they do, the only ones who will know if it works or not are historians... We can say woulda, coulda, shoulda forever. Only one path can be taken at one time, and those who are inchage have no desire to hear about another path... Such is life.
Have I not treated you civilly?
As for the only thing I see that I said we could agree on, it seems you agree:

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I do agree that poorly done, even the right thing can have collateral damage
Color me puzzled.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I share all the concerns you mention.

There are things we should do. I am not sure how much of them we should do.

There are things we should NOT do. I'm not sure how much of them we can survive doing.

I think I made it clear I don't believe we can spend our way out. I think we have to be slow, careful, balance the costs of any steps we take against their benefits -- including, as you rightfully point out, their effect on the credit markets! Excellent point, and a big part of my beef with the policies that got us here in the first place.

I'm pretty liberal, as you guessed by now, but I do believe in economics. I think that, taken en masse, the individual economic decisions made by individual families and companies and divisions within companies, far outweigh those made by government.

Government has a definite role to play. Some of that role is to stay out of the way. Some is to keep the lights on, as it were. Some is even a safety net, but that's not a very sustainable type of spending.

I have grave doubts about the spending package (let's call it what it is). I'm arguing for a specific focus for any stimulus which IS done. Your point about credit markets is a constraint on how MUCH stimulus we can afford to even attempt. I freely admit, I don't know how much we should attempt; I've limited myself to trying to sort out the direction, not the magnitude.

I'm probably more liberal than you on the question of magnitude, but I really don't think our concerns as as different as you seem to think.

You probably wouldn't much like about 60% of my opinion about who's to blame, and applaud the other 40%, but I don't much want to go there. But if you have any ideas about how to prevent it from happening again, I'd love to hear it.

I suspect Obama feels that dramatic action is the only way, from a psychological point of view. Often, that might be the case. I'm not sure it works here. I don't think psychology trumps fundamentals, and I've been seriously worried about the fundamentals for a long time -- especially about the size of the government debt.

I guess I didn't make the story all that short...
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Old 02-09-2009, 10:51 PM   #44
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ZPM's are the size they are because of the shielding, as a "small" singularity isn't any smaller than a "large" singularity. Power cells for small mobile platforms might be a little smaller because of reduced space needed for tapping the power.
Quote:
I asked a legitimate question, as the first reference was to a ZPM, which is a fictional item on tv, but there are many items in science fiction that actually do exist in theory, or even often times in prototype. I was not sure of what was being discussed... Once it came to the actual Zero Point Module, then the refusal to civally answer a simple question became moot...
Gosh, Karl. I suggest you do your homework before posting. The first reference was to a "zero-point-module, not a "ZPM", and you asked "Fantacy or reality?" AFTER I said they are powered by singularities. Everybody else either ignored it or had a little laugh.

If your intention was to test me, then it kinda backfired.
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Old 02-10-2009, 11:41 AM   #45
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As all this is getting off topic, I've posted some of my thinking on this to my fledgling blog.

The Spend-Our-Way-Out-Of-Trouble Plan

As a lot of people here have overlapping concerns but different viewpoints, I welcome comments.
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Old 02-10-2009, 07:01 PM   #46
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Bob,

I explain my opinions to you all the time. I did not mean for you to think that I was saying you were uncivil. That is other people.

Back on point... I believe that cars are not selling for many reasons, but any large investments like that are especially difficult right now...

I believe that many new cars are sold with a larger than justified value going toward image and 'keeping up with the Jonses syndrome'. That is not the reason that people get new cars, but often a major factor in just which car they get...

Now, the big american makers have their hands out, and are whining to the feds about how they are tetering on the brink.

Think about the comments that people often associate with segways... "That is cool!" "How much did it cost?" "How fast does it go?"

Now, think about the likely comments a person may get from their neighbor about their new caddy, as they show it off in the driveway... "Nice car, I always wanted one!" "Do you think they will honor the warrenty after they go belly up?" "Nice show, flying in on private jets to ask the feds for money, Huh?" "Boy, GM sure has fallen off the wagon, the top of the heap, their glory days... Whatever!" and more like that...

Couple that with the real difficulty in getting loans, new cars are just not selling much these days...

Think about it from the equity line... Houses usually always increase in value, from the time you buy them... In 10 years, it is unlikely you will loose money on a house, even today. If you buy a house on less than a 10 year plan, (This is not to say that things cannot change your plan) then you did not use good judgement to buy the house... Houses were only a good short term investment on the edge of a bubble, they are a mainstay in long term investments...

Anyway, your house right now, is not increasing in value.

Now, your car will almost always loose value. In 10 years, it is unlikely you will have nearly the value in your car that you have now. Most everyone who buys a car realizes that it will loose value. (With the exception of some collector's pieces)

So, if that which is stable and always increases in value is now unstable and decreasing in value, it makes sense that items that are never stable and always loose value will be even lower on the list...

The only savings grace is that cars do wear out, and do need to be replaced...

I have a friend with a repair station, and he tells me that business is good, as many people are fixing problems on cars that in years past, they would have bought a new car instead of the repair...

So, I would guess that car repairs are up, used cars are holding their own in sales, and new cars ... What new cars?
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Old 02-10-2009, 07:35 PM   #47
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Bob,

I explain my opinions to you all the time. I did not mean for you to think that I was saying you were uncivil. That is other people.
I suspected that was the case, but didn't want to miss it if there was an issue.
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