Automation is not the only problem, true. But here is the funniest part. Everything in a free market is commodified. That is for sale. This includes life saving services even. I.e., a free market. And yet people somehow complain when corporations invest in politics. They claim that investments should not be made in that sector, which I laugh at...

But anyways, to suggest that corporations will lower prices (I.e., profits) just because transportation costs go down is ignoring traditional responses. Lets say grocery stores--which have enormous competition and have been failing let and right--jacked up prices because of rising fuel costs...then fuel went to 1.70 a gallon. Whew, those (lack) of savings are rolling on in... When the labor becomes 0 dollars, we shall see exactly that back...

Now, with that said, hell yeah automate driving. I never implied we shouldn't. Just the 39,000 lives saved, insurance costs, etc are worth it. But I am pointing out a cumalative stacking of bad effects coming up (which have already been slowly hitting.)

Apologies, I got carried away... wall of text incoming.

@RedSky

I agree, monetary policy at low rates has very little to offer in terms of economic stimulus. Then again, the focus almost solely on monetary policy is part of the problem. Fiscal policy can have a massive impact, both directly (government purchases of goods and services) and indirectly (increase in automatic stabilizers). But for that you either need to be in control of your central bank, so that you can engage in Overt Monetary Financing ("printing" money). Or you need the blessing of the private banks, which is particularly true for a Vollgeld system.

The budget is the core of a parliamentary democracy, and to be at the whim of the folks at Deutsche Bank, HSBC or Credit Suisse -- no, thank you very much. We saw how that played out in Greece.

Anyway, the central bank can do miraculous things: if it provides funds to the democratically elected body in charge of the budget, aka parliament/the government. Trying to "motivate" the private banks to stock up on cheap reserves to stimulate lending is just a sign of ideology.

The great Michal Kalecki, in his essay The Political Aspects of Full Employment, summarized the general issue of government spending quite clearly. The industrial leaders stand in opposition to government spending aimed at full employment for three distinct reasons: a) dislike of government interference in the problem of employment as such; b) dislike of the direction of government spending (public investment and subsidizing consumption); c) dislike of the social and political changes resulting from the maintenance of full employment.

I'd say control over your currency is too great a tool to leave it in the hands of unelected managers. Clement Attlee knew very well why he had to nationalize the Bank of England in '46.

Back to the issue of inflation, I'd like to make two points. First, how big a role should inflation really play when talking policy. Second, what's the influence of a central bank on inflation.

Where does it come from, this focus on inflation. People usually talk about government spending when discussing inflation. Private spending is rarely brought up, even though it can be just as inflationary. So let's ignore private spending for a moment and talk purely government spending: should a deficit/surplus not be judged primarily by how well it helps us achieve our macroeconomic goals? Or more clearly, why should we sacrifice full employment or our general welfare on the altar of inflation? Yes, that's over the top. But so is the angst of inflation.

I'd say let's stick with Abba Lerner's concept of functional finance and judge deficits/surpluses purely by how well they help us achieve our macroeconomic goals. Besides, the US has run massive deficits during the GFC, so much in fact, that a great number of monetarists saw hyperinflation just around the corner. Still waiting for it. Same for Japan. Massive deficits... and deflation.

As long as spending, both private and government, doesn't push the economy beyond its limits (full employment, real resources, production capacity), out-of-control inflation just doesn't materialize. Plus, suppressing inflation is actually one thing central banks can do quite well. Unlike causing inflation, which both Japan and the EU are showcases off. Draghi can dance naked on the table, monetary policy (QE, mainly) won't push inflation upwards.

Which brings me to the second point: what's inflation, what's the cause of inflation, how can central banks manipulate it.

CPI is often used as a measure of inflation, but I prefer the GDP deflator. CPI doesn't account for externalities that you cannot influence, whatever you do. Prime case: the price of oil. Monetary policy of the Bank of Sweden has no influence on the price of oil. The GDP inflator, however, accounts for every economic activity within your currency zone -- much more useful.

General theory says, this measure of inflation goes up when demand surpasses supply. And vice versa. The primary factor of demand is domestic purchasing power, therefore wages. If you suppress wages, you suppress inflation. If you push wages, you push inflation. More specifically, you can see a direct correlation between unit labour costs and the GDP deflator in every country at any time. Here's a general graph for multiple countries, and the St. Louis FED provides a beauty for the US.

That's why it's easy for central banks to combat inflation, but almost impossible to fight deflation.

I think it may be a combination of the two. I don't think if you just held the ball underwater a few feet it would launch that high when letting it go.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/41fpzm/water_shoots_ball_into_air/

I decided to ask in a science forum. Hopefully i can get some serious sciency explanation

Also made me think of this although dont know if it applies at all http://videosift.com/video/Stacked-Ball-Drop

As was mentioned above, the cost of the fuel is a non-starter. Currently SpaceX uses a Kerosene / Liquid Oxygen fuel mix.

After the anomaly (the space industries way of saying accident) in June SpaceX did a complete vehicle review. They are now using a more advanced technique to cool the LOX which means for a denser LOX liquid in their tanks, which ultimately means they have more oxidizer on board for their flights now.

Coupled with the LOX improvements they have made upgrades to the engines which means 30% greater efficiency. Basically the horsepower per engine has increased.

This means they can get their payloads to orbit plus have more then enough fuel left over in stage 1 to return it to land.

The greatest efficiency comes from returning the stage(s) and then reusing them in future launches (not proven yet). ALL launchers (u.s, soviet, indian, ESA, Japan, etc) ditch ALL of their hardware into the ocean when getting payload to orbit. Bye, bye multi million dollars worth of engines and hardware.

If SpaceX can turn that scenario on its head and reuse those stages and MORE importantly the engines they will cut their costs per launch by a substantial amount. Ultimately that means cheaper per pound cost to get material into orbit.

All of the media uses the word "explosion" when describing the June anomaly which is funny because there was never an ignition of onboard fuels.

The LOX tanks have smaller Helium tanks inside them. The helium is released during launch. The helium rises in the LOX quickly, expands and pressurizes the tank to ensure the LOX is "squeezed" into the pipes in order to keep up with the turbo pumps.

One of the struts holding a helium tank inside the LOX tank failed. The helium tank shot up and blew threw the top of the LOX tank and took a good part of the top of the stack off. The engines actually fired for a few seconds after the anomaly and then sputtered out. The rest of the vehicle at this point is still fairly intact.

Without proper structural integrity the vehicle started to veer off course, dynamic pressures built up and the vehicle was essentially ripped apart by those forces.

At 3:20 the Helium tank rips off its struts. At 3:27 the remainder of the vehicle disintegrates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNymhcTtSQ

SpaceX mentioned that in June, the dragon capsule continued to relay telemetry until it smacked into the ocean. If the Dragon had better software onboard it would have detected the anomaly and recovered with chutes. Elon said that software would be active on Dragons from now on.

While the Blue Origin vertical landing is difficult and an accomplishment in its own right comparing it to Spacex is a little unbalanced:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/24/9793220/blue-origin-vs-spacex-rocket-landing-jeff-bezos-elon-musk

Twice the speed, twice the height, more burns, a more complex flight path and a much larger, thinner vehicle to name a few differences.

You may want to watch this video on what Spacex has planned for the remaining stages of its stack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSF81yjVbJE

To be fair that stack has the Dragon capsule on top and not a satellite delivery bus but the goal to return multi stages is part of the Spacex vision.

"If" Spacex can get the "heavy" version of their vehicle up and running with stage return they will be a force unequalled in launch across the entire industry. That is if they can turn around their stages without compromise to structural integrity.

And if they run out of hookers then they stack dead actors, stacked to the rafters line up the bastards all I want is the truth. And a perfect segue into tonight's musical guest, the Foo Fighters.

I had a theory once. It had to do with multi verses. What if bodies of gravity, such as galaxies reacted and multiplied the effects of gravity on they're prospective planes. It would be as if several millions if not billions of Milky Ways were stacked up on each other. Sure there would be "infinite", but the idea is that a number of galaxies would have moved in a different direction or some particular Milky Way didn't form properly...

the side surface (looks like butts stacked on butts) looks like the designs on the Pluto planum. Suggest theory that giant nickle ball is on reverse side of Pluto unseen by probe ever.

I've watched much of the clip at 1/4 speed and learned a little. SPOILER ALERT.

The marker vanishes are now definitely obvious. The first time he slips it into his vest. The second time he flips it to the back of his fingers then drops his hand behind him and discards it.





So, the vest definitely does come into play a lot. He also pushed a card into the lower opening in his vest at about 3:45 while misdirecting by spinning a card in his other hand.



That's all good and fine, but other things are not simple sleight of hand.

At 5:10 with his back turned he shows us the signed card with the hand behind his back. Then in full view he simply turns the card against his back. Then his other hand raises up from the other side of his body to reveal the "same" signed card. (The one that was in view, btw, he tucks up into his vest at this point, keeping in hand the blank that was paired with it.) The only possible explanation for the same card being in two places at once is there must be multiple copies of each signed card, which means he has stooges who sign the exact same way every time or he has a technological advantage like others have mentioned (tiny scanner and printer).

The other thing that confounds is how he has a signed card in one hand and a stack of cards in the other. Then in full view the tall stack shrinks down to (approximately) one card and the single card grows into a stack instantaneously. I guess there must be some kind of technological solution to this as well, but I don't know how a functional stack of cards (and not just the appears of a stack of cards) could collapse and appear... unless they aren't functional and it's a trick deck that can easily expand or shrink to look like a deck or single card.

At 6:00 when he just shakes the bag and the signed card inside changes to the other signed card, I think he just flips the bag around with his shake motion and that the single card is printed on the front with one signature card and the other signature card on the back.

That's the only thing that makes sense... which again requires a special scanner and printer setup... I guess.

Thank you for posting this. I watched and rewatched the routine a few times on my DVR and am still blown away by it.

I cannot imagine how he could possibly have done some of the things he's done, like making two cards switch hands at a distance in full view. Or making a functional stack of cards swap hands with a single, signed card... *WTF?!

Anyone have any reasonable explanations for how this could at all be feasible?

Just as good is the magician who fooled Penn & Teller by getting Penn's signed card in new-deck order inside a wrapped box of playing cards, while his hands were in full view the whole time.

Mind = blown.

Stack height is declining towards the back to match the chassis, so the last pair is hidden from sight by the casing at this angle.

*carporn
I get hot and bothered for any car that would look at home on the track with the Mach5. This totally qualifies.

Odd to me that it's a V12, but has 10 velocity stacks.

Ah Asmo, this is humorous. Not in a way that has me thinking less of you, but due to the fact that even the smartest people make the most indefensible arguments. Stewart always has a joke when Republicans (and sometimes Democrats) do the same thing Chaos just did and which you defended--which is to ignore the "implied" in a statement. Usually Republicans use hate speech or such, but they just don't say the hate literally (Often when Obama's policies were compared to Nazi Germany's policies, for example.)

I.e, "Hey, I'm not saying Obama is like Hitler, but look at the smoke stacks coming from the White House?! They look like Jew smoke to you?!"

Another, but this one in more relation to our conversation.

I.e., Hey Lawdeedaw, when you have dick in your mouth does it taste good? WOAH, I DIDN'T SAY YOU SUCK DICK! YOU IMPLIED THAT! I just asked, you know, when dick is in your mouth...

See how utterly indefensible that above statement is? Or why Stewart gets so pissed, rightly so, when people make that argument? People can hide behind the most obvious statements and it's bullshit. Or people can be ignorant of the statements you make, and it's just as bullshit.

If you can't see the sense that makes, don't respond to this post please. I don't argue with ideology that blinds people to clear points and I have agreed with my fair share of points over the years when I have been wrong...so I expect it returned in kind.

Second, you do have a point about me being judgmental. I am jaded because every marriage I observed growing up was toxic. "Dad can't divorce mom, even tho she abuses us kids." Was a wonderful house I lived in. My wife was beaten for years by her husband, until she took poverty and destitution over that, and then met me. The list goes on and on, yada yada, no more need to explain my own life history because it isn't necessarily what happens in all of America. So I look at the worst aspects of marriage. Aspects that are as universal as the fact that we eat, breathe, shit and die.

Of course I also use history and stats to back up my judgment. So; marriage is a civil contract based on liberty and property (At least the part of marriage that matters to the government insofar as the rights they give you.) If the world's population of homosexuals is around 2.5% or so, depending on the estimates, then cheating (seeking out more than one relationship at a time) is much more naturally inherent to humans than sexual orientation by far. This is also natural in regards to the homosexual relationships as well. Cheating causes so much grief, repercussions, and yet it is only one bad aspect of being tied into a contract that many societies make difficult to break either through legal means or cultural taboos. Furthermore, abuse, divorce, long-term separation for business matters, much of these things kind of lend credence to the fact that marriage is created by society and has nothing to do with the "apparent" definitions we apply to it.

And Asmo, naughty naughty Asmo, you implied something...I am in no way shape or form telling other people what "their relationship is about." Just because I say something is inconvenient for damn near everyone (For some it is not) doesn't really mean much of anything. Shoes are inconvenient because you have to tie their laces. Is that me telling you how to shoe? No. How about kids? Kids are a hell of an inconvenience, but if you said I was degrading parenthood, especially my own, I would tell you to fuck yourself with that bold-faced lie.

If you are focused on the "property" aspect of that comment, well, you have an issue with my definition of the government's hand in marriage.

I think it'd almost have to be fake grass, otherwise you'd wind up with bits of grass and earth finding their way into the pool. Plus you wouldn't be able to leave the pool open for extended periods or the grass would die. Fake grass will also be lighter and while it looks like it's a single platform here, you could theoretically build one that coils/stacks away to save space.