fears well-founded...

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/11/901219097/how-are-postmaster-general-dejoys-changes-affecting-workers

Question: removing sorting machines ordered by a former c.e.o. of a supply-chain business? anti-tayorism?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/house-panel-calls-new-postal-chief-to-explain-mail-delays

Note: can't be heard until september?

no sorting machine and no overtime? smells like a boatful of mackeral. or put another way...

https://youtu.be/y1KAtnpVcPE?t=26

Hopefully supply chains are starting to catch up again, I actually saw TP in the wild yesterday.

@newtboy,

If North America is to adopt the Amish lifestyle, how many acres of land can the entire continent support? The typical Amish family farm is something like 80 acres is it not? I believe adopting this nationwide as a 'solution' requires massive population downsizing...

If you want to look at the poorest conditions of people in the world and advocate that the poverty stricken regions with no access to fossil fuel industry are the path forward, I would ask how you anticipate selling that to the people of California as being in their best interests to adopt as their new standard of living...

You mention overpopulation as a problem, then invent the argument that I think we should just ignore that and make it worse. Instead I only pointed out that immediately abandoning fossil fuels overnight would impact that overpopulation problem as well. It's like you do agree on one level, then don't like the implications or something?

The massive productivity of modern agriculture is dependent on fossil fuel usage. Similarly, our global population is also dependent upon that agricultural output. I find it hard to believe those are not clearly both fact. Please do tell me if you disagree. One inescapable conclusion to those facts is that reducing fossil fuel usage needs to at least be done with sufficient caution that we don't break the global food supply chain, because hungry people do very, very bad things.

Then you least catastrophic events that ARE NOT supported by the science and un-ironically claim that it's me who is ignoring the science.

You even have the audacity to ask if I appreciate the impacts of massive global food shortages, after having earlier belittled my concern about exactly that!

The IPCC shows that even in an absolute worst case scenario of accelerating emissions for the next century an estimated maximum sea level rise of 3ft, yet you talk about loss of 'most' farmland to the oceans...

Here's where I stand. If we can move off gas powered cars to electric, and onto a power grid that is either nuclear, hydro or renewable based in the next 50 years, our emissions before 2100 will drop significantly from today's levels. I firmly believe we are already on a very good course to expect that to occur very organically, with superior electric cars, and cheaper nuclear power and battery storage enabling renewables as economical alternatives to fossil fuels.

That future places us onto the IPCC's better scenarios where emissions peak and then actually decrease steadily through the rest of the century.

I'm hardly advocating lets sit back and do nothing, I'm advocating let's build the technology to make the population we have move into a reduced emissions future. We are getting close on major points for it and think that's great.

What I think is very damaging to that idea, is panicky advice demanding that we must all make massive economic sacrifices as fast as possible, because I firmly believe trying to enact reductions that way, fast enough to make a difference over natural progress, guarantees catastrophic wars now. Thankfully, that is also why nobody in sane leadership will give an ounce of consideration to such stupidity either. You need a Stalin or Mao type in charge to drive that kind change.

I like carrots, and if eating a full serving a day increased my lifetime risk for one cancer from 5-6%, I would eat exactly the same amount of carrots, but if I could reduce that risk increase based on the soil I grow them in or other factors under my control I would.
...and there aren't 800 studies saying bacon CAUSES cancer, there are studies that indicate eating it regularly increases your risk slightly....but I know, that's too advanced a concept, better to just fudge it and lie by telling people it's conclusive that each slice of bacon increases your cancer risk by 18% and insult anyone who corrects you. Fuck.

I drive, that's risky. Walking is risky. I use my bathroom....risky. I weld, super risky, use power tools, risky, breath in America, that's far more risky than bacon, drink water here, risk, go outside in public, all kinds of risks. If a 1% increase in one area of risk stops you, you would be dead already. You choose your risks, you just want to choose other people's risks too, because they aren't getting scared of what you want.

Plenty could make me quit bacon. Again, you spout nonsense you know nothing about. A simple lack of curing would make me not eat it, proof the supply chain is contaminated with human parasites or certain diseases. A slightly higher risk factor for one type of cancer, fuck no, you know that's not enough to dissuade most people from things they enjoy, that's why you exaggerate.

I don't claim to know what made you that way, but you are hyper biased towards all things vegan and against all things non vegan which results in constant dishonesty. No question at all.

I've been in the medical field service business for 30 years. Fixing / installing Cathlabs, Vascular labs,X ray, Mamo and Ultrasound systems.

The battery or such does not cost an arm or a leg. Its the R&D that goes into it. Its the supply chain warehousing parts and the tax on inventory and all that other stuff like profit.

As far as 3rd party servicing. Apple will loose and have to make their service documents/ tools available. Those tools can be different - but come to the same results.



It is in the OEM interests to keep 3rd party service away for many reasons, not just to hoard more business.

We do provide service manuals and parts to 3Rd party. no problem. They are on the web just to get them.



As far as ripping the customer off. That's wrong. Apple will need to address this. I would not think that is common.

Food waste has different causes in different places.

For instance, 45% of tomatoes harvested in Nigeria are lost due to poor Food Supply Chain management. In Kenya 15-35% of their crops are wasted due to the high specifications on appearance by European Union supermarkets. In other places food is wasted because there's no easy way to transport it to markets. In most African nations most of the losses occur early in the food supply chain, but in Europe and North America the losses are more likely to occur much closer to home.

According to http://www.worldfooddayusa.org/food_waste_the_facts consumers in industrialised countries waste almost as much food every year as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (222 million vs. 230 million tons).

Australians discard 20% of the food we purchase (total waste is 4.06 million tonnes of food every year). This works out fairly similar to the 10kg per person per month in the link above for the USA.

There is no new technology required to dramatically improve on these figures, it mostly just requires a desire to do better (and perhaps a bit of education).

Looks to me like the only benefit they're claiming is that the mechanism is mechanically simpler. That's probably a reasonable benefit, but they've had 100 years to perfect more traditional guns so I imagine there would need to be a pretty substantial advantage to be worthwhile, particularly since it needs special ammunition and all the faffing about with supply chains and inventory that it would necessitate.

It's possible the open chamber would help heat-wise by preventing the bullets from "cooking off" which is a problem with some machine guns that happens when the chamber gets hot enough to ignite the propellant making the gun run away, firing without the trigger being pulled. That wouldn't apply to an electrically (or whatever) driven gun like this, though.

So... yeah, it's probably just one of those "let's try it and see what comes of it" sort of things, because I don't know why you'd want a gun with funky ammunition that takes up more space because it might be slightly more reliable than the otherwise very reliable existing guns.

My own take on this is that I shouldn't just buy more expensive clothes...

I can do things to make my clothes last longer and that they aren't treated as a disposable commodity by reducing the number of washes (always bugs me when people wear a pair of trousers for a day or even just a few hours and then chucks them in the washing machine) as well as picking appropriate clothing for whatever task I'm currently doing.

I can help recycle clothes by making better use of charity shops, both in giving clothes to them and by purchasing from them.

I can buy clothes from retail stores that audit their entire supply chain. I'm fed up of retailers who have one or two lines of responsibly sourced clothing that they use for marketing and advertising purposes, but the rest of their stock does not receive such diligence. It doesn't seem right that they can paint a fair image of themselves by only selling one or two garments of clothing that come from sources where employees are treated and paid decently.

Most importantly I can do something simple like ignoring fashion trends. I am comfortable with my choice of clothing, I don't need to buy what everyone else is wearing. Unfortunately it's hard to make this point stick with others when our culture is so heavily dominated by consumerism and we're made to feel 'uncool' because we're not buying into the latest trends.

Totally understand your cynicism @deathcow, in all likelihood it's what'll probably happen. I guess I'm just gonna focus on what little I can do to make a difference

There is a demonstrated bias towards equity investment domestically which is probably what Adam Smith was talking about, which is rather different to tax havens and global supply chains which would not have been as feasible back in the 18th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_bias_puzzle

Chomsky is also not really correct as Adam Smith does use it in the more general sense that it is referred to today in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. That it took me a couple of minutes to contradict this video with wikipedia does not bode well for the fact checking of TYT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand#Other_uses_of_the_phrase_by_Smith

I think it's also worth pointing out that Smith's position wasn't that of unrestrained market activity. The general principle of the invisible hand is sound if you accept that point. As far as his actual position on the role of government, it's open to interpretation. It's also worth pointing out that you can't expect a concept to not need some adjustment after 250 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith#As_a_symbol_of_free_market_economics

The Russians and Syrians do it too.
In order to decrease insurgent/rebel confidence in their weapons, they let bullets in the supply chain that have too much powder/power and which then cause jams/explosions.

However, it's just as likely that this gun was poorly maintained and blew its slide off.
Of course, being an AK-47, I bet you could just blow the sand off, put it back together again in the correct way/clean it and it would work fine lol

I broadly agree with what he's saying but he's wrong about Africa. Africa is different because the west's supply chains and the gimping of local resistance to this is already very strong and much more well established (also Somalia was in Africa last time I checked Wes).

The global supply of Gold, Diamonds, Cocoa and Coltan (used to make micro electronics) amongst others are all heavily based in African countries.
Were their supply to be jeopardised (especially Coltan) by local politics you can be assured that the relevant African country would swiftly become a scorching political hot potato.
Unfortunately such a good job as been done over the last 100 or so years of suppressing African development that such problems (with a little encouragement) tend to take care of themselves before they become a big deal. Then western interests can just back whichever co-operative warlord/corrupt regime comes out on top, quietly and without fuss.

The spice must flow!

Simply put, Africa has been beaten around by the west for that bit longer and harder than the middle east. The exploitation of Africa goes back 100's of years and around 100 years ago when western powers began to cede their direct control they made sure to fuck up the local cultural politics so badly that most countries have still yet to recover from the fallout.

The middle east only became a candy store about 60-100 years ago with the oil boom. Before that western attempts to control the middle east were largely religious in nature (though no less brutal I suppose).

I assume the "powers that shouldn't be" are well aware of this and as such the plan to which Mr. Clarke is referring represents a scheme to try and break the back of the middle east financially, politically and culturally while they still can.

That said old ideologies die hard and I suspect the old western religious motivation is still not to be downplayed. The Christian ideologues and Jewish Zionists may not use words like "Kafir" but in some way their beliefs demand that they think of outsiders in the same way.

If the God of Abraham does really exist I'm sure he finds this whole arrangement greatly amusing (I imagine nothing pleases an ego maniac more than watching sycophants fighting and killing each other for your affection).

God must die. God must remain dead. And we must kill him.

You're right - this is all mostly speculation.

I believe that if the GM and Chrysler had failed, consumer confidence would have collapsed and Americans would have deferred their new vehicle purchases or bought used cars. As it was, auto sales were down 18% in 2008.

The failure of GM and Chrysler would have removed something like 33% of U.S. vehicle production, and 4% of all U.S. manufacturing. Everyone else would have maximized their production to make up for the loss, but it would have taken years to replace that amount of production.

Meanwhile, the 1 in 30 Americans residing in the State of Michigan start living in Mad Max times.

I think it is one of the functions of government to provide a buffer between the people and the wild throes of relentless progress inherent in free-market capitalism. The government bans things like slavery and child labor, not because it makes financial sense, but because it is the right thing to do. I think there is a similar justification for the automotive bailout. The bailout prevented human suffering on a massive scale. That is why we should care about saving those jobs.

IMHO

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^NetRunner:
People also forget that it wasn't just people who work for GM and Chrysler whose jobs were saved. There's a whole supply chain to think about.
Do you believe that the demand for cars would have decreased if the big 3 went under? If so, please explain how and why....
... So the question I pose (and I know we can only speculate on the answer) is what effect have the bailouts had on Toyota, Honda, etc? Or do we not care because they don't employ as many Americans as the domestics?

>> ^NetRunner:

People also forget that it wasn't just people who work for GM and Chrysler whose jobs were saved. There's a whole supply chain to think about.

Do you believe that the demand for cars would have decreased if the big 3 went under? If so, please explain how and why.

I think, if the big 3 tanked, people who would have bought those cars would still need cars and would have bought cars from other manufacturers. That means increased business for those other manufacturers which means they place more demand on the material manufacturers, the parts suppliers, etc. Some of that demand would have manifested overseas, but I believe much of it would have gone to the same businesses that Ford, Chrysler and GM use. After all, as I said above, there's lots of other manufacturers that do assembly here and it's easier and cheaper to have your suppliers nearby.

All the independent analyses that I read back in 2008 concluded that the cost of the bailouts vs letting the big 3 tank was close to a wash. That, at least, made me feel a little bit better about the horrible message that we sent by going forward with them.

There's also a cost to other businesses that comes with these sorts of bailouts that is rarely mentioned. I used to work at a small property insurance company. When the economy got rough, they played things smart. They minimized their risk, invested heavily and were one of the only companies of their kind to maintain a profit through the whole debacle. AIG, on the other hand, bet on high risk business and lost fortunes. They got a government care package and put themselves back together and now, as a result, are destroying the insurance market. My old company is struggling to stay in business (next year is their 100th anniversary) and AIG is swimming in ill gotten money.

So the question I pose (and I know we can only speculate on the answer) is what effect have the bailouts had on Toyota, Honda, etc? Or do we not care because they don't employ as many Americans as the domestics?

People also forget that it wasn't just people who work for GM and Chrysler whose jobs were saved. There's a whole supply chain to think about. Ohio's job market was helped out a lot by the auto bailout because we have a lot of companies who supply parts to GM and Chrysler here.

And of course those effects just keep rippling out, because people who kept their job at the parts supplier also spend their paycheck in the local economy. They buy houses here, eat in our restaurants, shop in our stores, etc.

People seem to have this notion that economic growth is all about profits, but really, it has more to do with making sure money keeps turning over in the economy. You want people to spend money on things, so people selling things have money to hire people to make more things, which gives those people money they can use to spend on things. You want money to flow in a circle, so everyone's kept employed making more stuff which over time makes us more prosperous.

Something like the liquidation of Chrysler or GM would've been a major disruption to that flow, right at a time when the financial crisis was creating a giant disruption of its own.

The bailouts prevented those disruptions, and the amount of money it saved us versus the alternative is much, much greater than the costs of lending the money to GM and Chrysler would be, even if we never got a dime back from either one.

I'm a bit surprised at the general level of debate about Jobs. I don't really care about whether he was nice to people or not. I don't measure him on that basis, and I couldn't hope to know the truth of it.

To me, that whole discussion smacks of tabloid driven fantasy. You know, the whole pretence that we might actually know what celebrities are like. Oh, Angelina Jolie's a bitch, Steve Jobs was an arsehole, Tom Cruise is craaaaaaazy!

For me, the debate seems to have been about canonising a 'genius' or demonising a capitalist pig. Neither of these comes close to capturing how I think he should be remembered.

I confess, I'm not an Apple fan. I'm not an early adapter, I'm not into gadgets and I tend to wait until something is proven before I buy in. I'm not blown away by Apple products, but I did buy an Ipod when the dust settled and they seemed like a useful product. I still have it, and it's been worth the purchase. I don't see anything worthy of a genius tag on an Apple product, but they are beautifully designed, intuitive products.

Similarly, I don't think of him as an evil capitalist any more than any other business owner, and no less. Like any other manufactured product, Apple uses cheap Asian labour, but that doesn't offend me greatly. They appear to control the supply chain, and they have differentiated their products, managed supply, and achieved margins that are higher than their competitors - this is good business, and I respect it.

I don't believe he's 'changed' anyone's life dramatically - certainly not my own. I think he was a very smart guy who delivered very good products to a generation of people with high disposable incomes and an interest in technology. Well played.

I will never know what he was like as a person, and I'm ok with that.