Get this guy in general population once he's sentenced ....

Professional economist here (hence, perceived as right wing) who began studying economics due to concern about climate change (hence, perceived as left wing).

[1] The classic statement of when markets 'work' is the 'first fundamental theorem of welfare economics'.

[2] 'work' in this sense means 'leads to a Pareto-optimal outcome', which means an outcome in which no one can be made better off without making someone worse off. This is a low standard: an outcome in which I have everything is Pareto-optimal.

[3] the conditions for the welfare theorems are generally not satisfied in practice. Here, as alluded to in the ad, carbon emissions are 'externalities': if an oil company sells you gas, which you then use, both of you are better off, because you're assumed to have taken into account the effects of your exchange, and decided to proceed; other parties have not, so may be worse off.

[4] in general, failure of the welfare theorem conditions isn't enough to make the case for government intervention: the outcome may still be 'constrained' efficient - meaning that, given the inherent constraints in the problem (e.g. asymmetric information), the market outcome is Pareto efficient.

[5] again, even if it is, you may not like the particular constrained efficient outcome the market yields (e.g. I get everything).

[6] in the case of externalities, the theory is pretty well established - if we want efficient outcomes, we need to align the private and social costs. There are two basic market-based tools for doing that: quantity tools (e.g. carbon permits) and price tools (e.g. carbon taxes). Which performs better depends on the sort of market imperfections.

[7] obviously, we will never have a perfect estimate of the efficient price or quantity of carbon to emit in a given year. Equally obviously, to me at least, this is a classic case of an externality with a well developed body of theory pointing in the direction of some level of controls.

[8] in my experience: people familiar with the economic theory tend not to be 'pro-market' or 'anti-market': they tend to want to understand how the market can be used to deliver societal objectives and, when it can't, how to correct its imperfections.

Oops this turned into a semi rant. But I am legitimately open to discussion here, and am curious to get your thoughts on a few points Bob. That is, IF you're willing to actually think about them beyond the level of repeating talking points.

I find it interesting how divergent the two overall "sides" are in this country, in terms of where they focus. None of the issues brought up in this video are really on the radar of most progressives, beyond being aware some on the right are talking about them. And I'm guessing a lot of the concerns progressives discuss rarely come up in your chosen media landscape. A lot of the issues in the video are largely off of my radar, and I have to wonder how you feel they should be addressed - like, actual proposed solutions rather than just complaining about / worrying about them.

We only dedicate one day to remember our fallen soldiers

How many should there be? Arguably we have more than one already: there's Memorial Day and Veterans Day, and it seems that Sept 11th is often used for the purpose as well.

I'd argue we should spend more time acknowledging and understanding the principals behind WHY our soldiers died in the various conflicts which caused them to fall in the first place. Let's make sure our citizenry appreciates what we collectively rejected in the Revolutionary war. Why it was important that we kept the country together rather than allowing the south to split off in the mid-1800s. Why we chose to honor our diplomatic agreements and support our allies in WW1. Why we fought against the countries and governments we did in WW2. What our goals were in Korea and Vietnam, and what lessons we learned from those conflicts and from the Cold War in general. Commemorating and remembering those we've lost absolutely matters, but if we're ONLY doing that while forgetting why they fought OR ignoring what we learned then we're doing them an equal or greater disservice. Remember that America was built on the idea of forming "a more perfect union" - not a perfect one, a MORE perfect one - a work in progress. We're striving towards an ideal, not assuming we're already there. Learning from our past successes, failures, and our struggles around both outcomes is vital. If our self-analysis is no deeper than hero worship we'll never make real progress towards that theoretical perfect union.

The only mask that's gonna save us is duct tape on their mouths

Yeah, sound medical advice and evidence-based science is terrifying. Better to shut up those whose words we dislike, because we're reactionary authoritarian babymen. I truly do not understand being more afraid of reasonable safety measures than of a virus which has been shown to cause serious harm in the short and long terms. The only reason this "masks = liberal / maskless = conservative" crap came about is because politics has devolved to the level of team sports in the US, and one party has chosen "the opposite of whatever our political opponents say" as their entire governing philosophy. (And yes, ONE party - research and understand the GOP's 2020 platform if you want to argue the point.) This video even seems to reach a reasonable conclusion at the end, while coming up just short of that final logical leap to "maybe I should question what the public faces of MY side have been claiming in this Us vs Them madness." Seriously - keep going friend, you're almost there! George Washington was 100% right in wanting to avoid political parties being a force in the US, and it makes me immensely sad that his fears came true.

Big oil runs the world / the only wars to get fought are with the countries who have natural resources they want

Solid point here, no sarcasm. The US military has long been a tool of our profit-driven form of "free market" imperialism. A really great way to combat this, specifically with an eye to ending Big Oil's goddamn death grip on our foreign policy goals, would be an aggressive implementation of renewable energy projects. Remember the space race? America can be an absolute beast at clever engineering solutions when we dedicate ourselves to it. Fuck the petrostates, we have the available land and resources to absolutely kick ass in the realms of solar and wind power, and be leaders in the the post-hydrocarbon reality. We can certainly agree on that, right Bob? Left / Right nonsense fully aside, I think any reasonable American can agree on at least two points: let's stop sending heaps of cash to buy oil off of the Saudis (etc), and Fuck Cancer.

But if a white man acts too white he's white trash / he's a racist he's a bigot he's a monster

What the fuck is this horseshit? What does "acting too white" even fucking look like? Watching NASCAR on a sailboat while listening to polka? Typically when I see racism from white people it's in the form of denying that brown-hued people deal with any additional difficulties in life due to their skin tone, or denying that there have been structural obstacles for them through history, or lamenting that their white children are being burdened with a broader lens on culture or with (gasp! shock!) an accurate accounting of actual US history, including the ugly bits that we shouldn't be proud of (but MUST learn from). I'm progressive / lefty as fuck and there is no aspect of "white culture" or "acting white" which upsets me in the slightest. UNLESS one counts "denying racism exists / has ever existed" as a fundamental value of being white. Which... why would anyone want to claim that nonsense? If you want to listen to classic country music in a rusty pickup truck while driving to an evangelical church, then discuss hockey over Buds after 18 holes with the rest of your tractor pull team, then absolutely go nuts my fellow caucusoid! Just recognize and understand that your life experiences may not be the same as those of others. Further, if we care about trying to avoid unnecessary, avoidable unfairness in life (recognizing that life will never truly be fair, for anyone), then it might be reasonable for some governmental / legal / structural recognition in furtherance of that notion. There is absolutely room for legitimate policy disagreement here without being accused of racism. It's denial of others' reality which tends to garner the label of racist (sexist etc) - steer clear of denying the lived experiences of other people, allow for the possibility they may have encountered difficulties you haven't / won't, and we've room for further discussion.

Edit / final point: I voted the video back up to 0 from the -1 where I found it. Because while I disagree with a lot of the positions taken by the performer, they may have reached them through no fault of their own and with no true malice. Misinformation / disinformation is a devious shit of a motherfucker, and the rot it causes can run deep. It is painful to abandon deeply-held beliefs, on a fundamental level. If nothing else, the video gives us room to discuss some specific viewpoints held by people who think of themselves as good, but which can lead to harm.

Just because transmissibility-reduction-effectiveness wasn't studied before the (emergency use authorization) release of the vaccine doesn't mean that it wasn't also (somewhat) effective at doing that, but just became known after-the-fact because of a much larger "study" (the general population).
The point of the pre-release studies was to determine how effective it was at preventing severe-disease and hospitalization, and those were the numbers evaluated for the EUA decision (at least in USA)
I don't know who this politician is, but seems to be trying hard to create scandal and controversy. And sure, he did uncover a lie by government officials, sort of (preventing yourself from getting sick to the point of shedding less virus does help others around you too), if they made those statements and marketing materials before such data existed to back it up.
Maybe pfizer did make those claims before the EU rollout? That wasn't shown or discussed in this video, even though it would have helped his argument by presenting that.

Certainly I agree that the phrase "speed of science" is content-less, because the scientific method doesn't define speed. The time-to-marketable-solution might be a better measurement, and that largely depends on how much money you throw at a problem.

There's got to be more to this story...
Obviously the ordered withdrawal didn't happen in November/December 2020- so, was the order rescinded by Trump after being talked out of it? or the generals/Pentagon just ignored the order?

Only because generals refused Trump’s order.
Trump pulled the trigger, but misfired.

Trump “planned” the withdrawal (by which I mean agreed to it no strings attached, not that he planned on how), and released the captured Taliban fighters from prison by the thousands…utter failure, failed planning and leadership, didn’t involve the Afghan government in the plans but did involve the Taliban, explain that.

Biden made mistakes, but infinitely fewer that Trump’s attempted withdrawal, or his “plan” to pull out months before Biden did, with zero preparation or planning for the withdrawal unlike Biden that went through with Trump’s agreement with the thousands of Taliban fighters he had released from prison to leave.

LMFAHS!!

Bipartisan hearing. Mostly Trump republicans testifying. All corroborated with indisputable evidence despite the ever increasing attempts at obstruction, the intentional destruction of evidence under subpoena, the number of officials pleading the fifth making them undeniably guilty in the court of public opinion and offering no defense in the court of law . That’s why you’re told “do not watch, it’s just a show, don’t, whatever you do, learn some facts about the attempted coup and fraud Trump and his administration was personally involved in planning and directing”.

Investigations are generally one sided, especially since the “other side” here is firm that there’s “no crime to investigate, it was a picnic and normal discourse, not a failed coup, not attempted election fraud on unheard of levels from within the government, Trump is perfect, investigation over”.
Do you think Capone was allowed to be part of the police force investigating him?
How about El Chapo…was he on his own investigatory committee? We’re the officials he was known to have paid off? 🤦‍♂️

Only no insurrectionist MAGAs because the accused doesn’t get to be part of the investigation, and the non complicit Republicans mostly refused to cross Trump with 2 notable exceptions….two life long multi generational actual Republicans, not the new anti America, anti democracy, anti sanity Q brand MAGAts.

Even intentionally ignorant, head in the sand idiots like you can see this simple fact.

There was no gun. The man says “I’m recording” and the twice fired for cause officer just opens fire in a blind rage.
On the stand the cop admitted hiding his previous police jobs to hide that he had been forced out of both for misconduct including “ fanning his gun over an officer’s head and lying to his chief.”. Seems he learned nothing.

Police charged the victims with felony assault by panic attack, he was acquitted after spending 42 days in jail over a cop’s mistakes, she was convicted of misdemeanor attempted resisting. They were first held for weeks without even a preliminary hearing required within 10 days of arrest by law.

It turned out the cop had no reason at all to stop the woman either, none whatsoever, and no reason to stop her at gunpoint either. He claimed a general warrant alert for a “blond woman” had been issued (WHAT!?!) but produced no such alert in court.
Also his official report on this incident bore no resemblance to the recorded video at all, from the direction he faced to what he saw and heard, and absolutely no mention of his panic attack and hospitalization.
Turns out this trigger happy, lying, wife abusing, adulterous, false report filing, testifying, twice fired cop is a “preacher”. Why am I not surprised?

Also turns out his department did not investigate this shooting incident.

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/01/17/sevier-deputy-panic-attack-case-forced-resign-prior-law-enforcement-job/1034932001/

Ok @bobknight33….what did the guy 20+ yards away just recording do to warrant getting shot at 7 times, felony arrested (so beaten up) and put in jail for 42 days?
How was he not complying?
How was he “fucking around with cops” because he definitely got shot at, so did the woman and emt he very nearly shot, (that cop has absolutely no shot control at all, fired for poor gun safety before) the two were falsely charged with felony assault against a police officer (her too), a false charge that carries a 15 year sentence.

It's got potential. I like Pinhead's general ambiguity in particular.

The only thing that gets me is getting the cenobites' attention by just finishing the last few moves of the box. I always liked Pinhead's line that "It is not hands that summon us, it is desire".

"Two studies have found that at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10 percent of families in the general population. A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24 percent, indicating that domestic violence is two to four times more common among police families than American families in general."

and this dude for sure hits someone in his family.

Aggressive, abusive, power tripping, insulting, unprofessional, thin skinned thug with a gun and authority. Huge dick with a tiny prick.
What an out of control fuck wad, throw him off the bridge.

Bob’s kind of cop….unless he stops a Trumpist then defund him and harass his family.

I believe anyone that could, under any circumstances, act this way over a slight should absolutely never have been in authority. He shouldn’t be a mall cop with no power, much less a real cop with a gun. He should not wait until retirement and neither should his superiors, he needs to be fired today before he costs taxpayers tens of millions for losing his shit again.

This shows the kind of Assholes YOU are you thug and you wonder why people hate fucking pigs. This is exactly why people don’t respect police and call them lawless criminal thugs.
The police accounts supporting and applauding this in YT comments is almost as disturbing as the act itself. It seems, like I assume Bob does, they approve of policing based on contempt of cop and would clearly cover for it if needed.

It should be noted that this is such poor policing that any charges he levies will likely be tossed. He admitted he pulled him over for flipping off the cop, which has been determined by courts is a violation of the citizen’s civil rights. Anything else becomes fruit of the poisoned tree.
I only hope he gets fired for costing his department a few hundred thousand dollars for this armed tantrum. My wish is it would come out of police pension funds, not general funds.

More Right wingers go to congress as millionaires, spending their money to get the job than leftists. Trump is a prime example of spending millions intending to abuse his presidential power for personal familial gains in the billions….then repaying himself with campaign donor’s money. Also, it’s the right that refuses to consider campaign finance reform and consistently fights for more big money in politics. The left tries to close corruption loopholes, like requiring complete divestment instead of fake “blind trusts” like Trump who had his son do his insider trading while joined at the hip and called that a blind trust. 🤦‍♂️

Trump is fascist, his politics fit the definition nearly perfectly….had the military abandoned their duties and followed him into despotism as he expected it would be perfect. (He was ever so pissed his generals didn’t follow him blindly like Hitler’s generals, because he’s so ignorant he doesn’t know Hitler’s generals tried repeatedly to assassinate Hitler)

Is this finally an admission it was Trumpists committing treason by trying to overthrow the government with a violent coup on Jan 6, not ANTIFA or BLM? How long will that last I wonder. You just admit(ed) that this is true.

Again, because you never remember, 1 million Americans needlessly died from a vacuum of leadership encouraging them to ignore all public health as a divisive political move, and the right would have doubled that number of dead given their druthers.
I would also remind you a huge portion of the arsons in 2020 at BLM rallies were right wing false flag operations trying to blame BLM for Trumpist’s crimes, exactly like you did with Jan 6.
https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2020/10/07/white-people-make-up-90-of-arson-charges-and-75-of-property-damage-charges-stemming-from-portland-protest
s/

I would point out that one week of the Trucker blockades at the Canada border cost $360 million per day in lost production/undelivered goods alone, totaling over $2.5 billion in losses for the first week of that right wing nonsense that lasted weeks-months then traveled the nation disrupting business for almost a year. Jan 6 cost well over $500 million. All BLM damage (including the false flag damage) is ESTIMATED to eventually reach UP TO $2 billion in insurance CLAIMS, not actual losses and damage, not payouts.
Right wing riots are more costly by far, and the causes are ‘being viciously murdered by police’ on the left, and ‘having to wear a face mask’ on the right (often when there’s no mask mandate in place).

But isn't it kind of ironic that it's probably Americans (or at least its media) that's MORE enamored of royalty than people of countries that actually do have ceremonial monarchies?

You have your Queen B, GOATs real or imaginary, all the Yas Queens that Americans in general treat BETTER than actual royalty. Yes I know, the difference is talent instead of hereditary. But it's still a sort of human worship. The MAGA crowd elevate Trump to God-like level of royalty in terms of devotion for whatever f**k they believe.

There's not much a difference to me in terms of rationality.

Besides, the British monarch as a net money maker for the government. Bringing over 1 billion BP per "normal" (read: non-Covid lockdowns) year while costing a little over 100 millions supporting the Monarchy per year on average, from merch & tourism dollars the Firm brings into the government's coffer. It's more a Win to keep them than abolish the Firm... still. After Queen Elizabeth II's death... we'll see.

Perhaps even more concerning than nuclear secrets being exposed* is the possibility that intelligence sources were compromised. In fact, this seems extraordinarily likely, given that the CIA in October 2021 sent out a memo stating they'd been losing sources (via arrest, being compromised, or being killed) at a concerning rate. That's a rather major issue for national defense. Clearly something was the cause of that increased loss of assets, and TS/SCI documents are very likely to have included sources. Why would papers only meant to be stored or accessed within a specialized, secure facility be redacted?

The topics of the documents in question may not matter, in terms of how fucked FPOTUS might be. if Trump, for reasons of greed, malice, and/or gross negligence, caused the loss of sources useful to US security, that's legally a biiiig fucking deal.

And even being the cause of the murder of multiple intelligence assets may not really matter at all. Because, legally, being in possession of TS/SCI documents outside of a SCIF is a biiiig fucking deal all on its own. The jail term PER DOCUMENT runs multiple years.

Relevant legal mumbo-jumbo:
18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
(b) Whoever, for the purpose aforesaid, and with like intent or reason to believe, copies, takes, makes, or obtains, or attempts to copy, take, make, or obtain, any sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, document, writing, or note of anything connected with the national defense; ...
(f) ...Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(g) If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.

*Nuclear secrets being exposed also does seem plausible, but with so many countries having nukes and so many existing to be fucked with in some manner, I feel the much more exclusive knowledge of US intelligence asset identities is a larger problem, legally and probably morally. He probably directly caused multiple murders, and a general degradation of the US's intelligence capabilities. Not something one wants in a commander in chief.

I did. And I'm happy with the way things are going generally. At least, regarding Joe Biden.


Big picture: there's a lot of terrible things happening in the world. My own half-assed-survey based on personal experience: most people don't follow passing laws and what the executive branch really does with any kind of seriousness. They may self-proclaim they "like reading the news" But most people who say things like that are content with a surface understanding of what's happening.

I mean, you know inflation is up AROUND THE ENTIRE PLANET right? https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/15/in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world-inflation-is-high-and-getting-higher/


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Besides Israel, other countries with very large increases in inflation between 2020 and 2022 include Italy, which saw a nearly twentyfold increase in the first quarter of 2022 compared with two years earlier (from 0.29% to 5.67%); Switzerland, which went from ‑0.13% in the first quarter of 2020 to 2.06% in the same period of this year; and Greece, a country that knows something about economic turbulence. Following the Greek economy’s near-meltdown in the mid-2010s, the country experienced several years of low inflation – including more than one bout of deflation, the last starting during the first spring and summer of the pandemic. Since then, however, prices have rocketed upward: The annual inflation rate in Greece reached 7.44% in this year’s first quarter – nearly 21 times what it was two years earlier (0.36%).

Annual U.S. inflation in the first quarter of this year averaged just below 8.0% – the 13th-highest rate among the 44 countries examined. The first-quarter inflation rate in the U.S. was almost four times its level in 2020’s first quarter.

Regardless of the absolute level of inflation in each country, most show variations on the same basic pattern: relatively low levels before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in the first quarter of 2020; flat or falling rates for the rest of that year and into 2021, as many governments sharply curtailed most economic activity; and rising rates starting in mid- to late 2021, as the world struggled to get back to something approaching normal.

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The pattern of rising and falling inflation happened because that flu that "will just go away like a miracle" ended up affecting the whole world's economy in a somewhat predictable pattern when it comes to inflation. Maybe the people who only casually glance at the news when they are flipping channels don't know better, but come on - you know that inflation rates in the United States are not specifically Joe Biden's fault right?


You still think they are? OKAY - HOW? Exactly. Point to legislation passed or not passed and the timeline of inflation in the United States.

Something like "Here you can see inflation beginning to spike, and it's the result of XXXXXXXXX that Joe Biden did, here's exactly how what he did affects inflation in this way."


Who wants to bet $20 that I'll get some response like that? What should the odds be set at if I am 100% certain all I'll get is just some snarky bullshit from an old bullfrog.