A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing.
Well it might have been informative to have reported that the piece is from the Manhatten Institute. Which is ideologically opposed to social democratic programs like Obamacare generally. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/
And that they in turn are using reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
This doesn’t invalidate the reporting, but in these matters sourcing is pretty important. Particularly when the article title is suggesting some non-partisan technocratic expert consensus among ‘IT experts, outside and inside government’ with the implication that there is no particular reportorial bias.
Citing the Manhatten Institute or its economics21.org is not some cause for shame, I mean it is not exactly like channeling NewsMax or the National Enquirer. But readers would be well served by knowing the source is very much a free market anti-statist organization. Particularly if the goal is to start an informed discussion.
When you are directly quoting the lede of an article rather than say your reading of the whole article it is informative for the reader if you used quotes. Because otherwise it looks like this is RJS’s reasoned conclusion on evaluation of the argument presented. Rather than, as it may have been intended, simply an invitation to get a conversation going.
For example the combination of quotes around that lede and an open question like “What do you think about this” rather than the suggestion that we just missed actual definitive findings would have been a good idea.
Bruce, my cite was tongue in cheek, certainly not anything to be taken seriously…
it was just something i stumbled onto at the economics roundtable, and my own reading of it was as if i had encountered an article from the Onion, and it was in that spirit that it was shared..
The question being posed, and a valid one, is whether people should have access to the unsubsidized plan costs before having it made clear to them how much subsidy they will actually be getting. That is would easy access to the gross price really be as informative for the buyer of the product as the actual net price.
And the answer could go either way. But the title leaves the clear impression that it is the NET price which will be expensive and that Obama folk are feverishly trying to conceal some sort of cost control failure.
Given how few people will actually be buying unsubsidized plans in the end I would think that just giving people that gross price with the suggestion that it will be something like your list price is not useful. But maybe that lack of utility doesn’t excuse the lack of transparency, after all there are presumedly other ways of informing Exchange shoppers that their end price will likely be different that this equivalent of MSRP. Still the existence of that marketing ploy, if that is what it is, just doesn’t justify the hysterical conspiratorial tone of this piece.
At best it is an opinion piece masquerading as straight news.
Yeah I was wondering who had stolen the RJS I thought I knew.
Still insidery snark can be so inside as to not be perceived as snark. And Angry Bear, or at least Dan and some of the Bears, have presumptions that our intended audience extends beyond a couple dozen regular commenters.
That is there are blogs like Atrios’s Eschaton which get most of their traffic and actual raison d’etre from the ‘Community’. Which is why 80% of his posts are either ‘Thread’ or a video and the overall tone is that of a party host bringing out a new round of hor d’ouerves to keep the shindig going. On the other hand you have blogs like Digby’s where they ‘temporarily’ stopped comments weeks and weeks ago and show no plans for ever starting them up.
Personally I see AB as being somewhere in between those models. That is the posts are designed to be read beyond the ‘walls’ of the blog and ideally draw comments from the outside. Still there is a valued base of regular commenters that makes the place go. Some of whom end up being invited to contribute regular posts. For example I spent a long time here as a pest before Dan promoted me to host and I am not the only former commenter here like that.
Or maybe I am just tone deaf and should be apologizing for missing the obvious joke.
i took an open thread to be appropriate for what i intended as an inside joke, not thinking of a wider AB audience..maybe i should just leave such attempts at facetious humor to beverly…
Inflation is soaring, and basic staples are increasingly harder to find. Electricity blackouts are frequent, and crime presents an enormous problem for citizens and companies crazy enough to do business there.
The problem for Venezuelans is that their government has no clue as to what to do. …
Venezuela’s persistently high inflation has several root causes. Because of repeated elections and populist tendencies, the government continues to spend much more than it earns via taxes. Since it has few options to finance its deficit, it has been forced to devalue the currency twice this year, and this means producers – who mostly rely on imports to supply the market – are forced to pass this on to consumers.
Taming inflation would require the government to order their finances, but the administration seems reluctant to do so. For example, according to government sources, giving away gasoline for (practically) nothing costs Venezuelan taxpayers $24 billion in direct subsidies and lost revenues. This amount represents roughly a quarter of all spending included in the 2013 budget. But regardless of how dire the situation is, the government refuses to consider decreasing subsidies because it is fearful of a public backlash.
And for many years people have wanted a society where, like Julia, government takes care of you. Peak Oil has an article which describes the welfare system the Obama administration has victoriously managed to enshrine at the center of American life. Now it has the permission to expand indefinitely, via the removal of caps on the debt limit. To appreciate the magnitude of Obama’s achievement Peak Oil describes how the Food Stamp shutdown was averted.
… this past weekend when a “temporary system failure” caused food stamp cards to stop working in 17 U.S. states. Within hours, there were “mini-riots” at Wal-Marts and other retailers that rely heavily on food stamp users … if Congress had not pushed through a “deal”, the USDA would have started cutting off food stamp benefits on November 1st …
According to Reuters, the state of North Carolina had already cut off some welfare benefits for the month of November … And as Mac Slavo recently detailed, the USDA was already planning to cut off food stamp assistance to millions of Americans on November 1st … It may not happen this month, or even this year, but food stamp riots are coming to America.
But riots won’t come … if the Food Stamps can be kept flowing without interruption. Welfare is the oxygen of social peace. With it everything seems fine. Without it, asphyxiation begins almost immediately
there are 50 million holders of EBT cards. Imagine their predicament if the EBT system went suddenly dark.
Fifty million. Consider that for a moment. Most of those 50 million people live in high-density cities. Many are proud owners of Obama phones, Obama food stamps, Obama unemployment checks and Obama subsidized housing
they do not prepare for any future events other than more Obama handouts. Their entire “preparedness” plan is to vote for Democrats, because that’s who they know will give them the most handouts. And they will always win the popular vote, too, because any politician promising to restore responsible fiscal spending to the government by cutting programs will be viciously accused of being “mean” or involved in “hating poor people.” So the government handouts will only ratchet higher and higher, ensnaring more and more people, until the entire system is unsustainable and collapses under its own weight.
In extreme conservative and left circles there’s been some talk about Obama instituting marshal law and/or attempting to create an environment for a civil war. Sammy makes a point re: how progressive policies are a major possible cause of that need for marshal law.
For those not familiar with CoRev Angry Bear Open Threads were literally introduced to accommodate him. Because he had a tendency to turn any comment thread on anything into a Climate Denier thread and so this gave an outlet. Not enough of one in that Open Threads which started on any other topic were similarly turned into Climate Denier threads which lead to the creation of a NEW category of Open Threads for Climate Denial only. So we had ‘Non Climate’ Open Threads and regular (in practice Climate) Open Threads.
As such it is kind of refreshing to see CoRev branching out from Climate Change Denial to Conspiracy Theories about Obama introducing Martial Law.
Not that CoRev was ever really a One Trick Pony. He was a stalwart defender of Bush Iraq policy for quite a number of years until most people on the Right simply agreed to let that particular topic just evaporate. Probably about the time that Iraq turned into the marvel of secular democratic pro-American peaceful miracle that it is today and so didn’t need any more comment at all. Well except that Iraq is an Iranian and Assad friendly Shia fundamentalist dominated regime where people are getting blown up by suicide bombs at a rate fully equivalent to the period before the Bush Surge made everything good.
Oh wait? What? You’re right! That is Halley’s Comet right over there!!
CoRev: “In extreme conservative and left circles there’s been some talk about Obama instituting marshal law and/or attempting to create an environment for a civil war.”
Extreme left circles?? Can you provide a reference to such a claim? What constitutes extreme left in American political circles? I don’t think that even Chomsky qualifies for that description. And I’d be surprised if gun ownership amongst even slightly left of center folks was more than a couple of BB guns. No my friend, when it comes to American political madness in the 21st Century who comes even close to our right-wing reactionaries?
“Many are proud owners of Obama phones, Obama food stamps, Obama unemployment checks and Obama subsidized housing”
Every single one of those programs was in place under GW Bush II. And for that matter GHW Bush and Ronald Reagan. And except for subsidized ‘Lifeline’ phones under Eisenhower as well.
Calling them ‘Obama’ anytjing is just stupid. You might as well call it the Obama-gon because we still have the biggest defense budget in the world.
It is much like Reagan got credit for all the new Navy ship programs that were actually put in place under Carter and Ford. I was in the Navy when Reagan got inaugerated and every important new ship class was already being put into production. The only expansion Reagan was responsible for was keeping a bunch of obsolete ships due for decommissioning in the Navy (including my second ship, the then U.S.S. Decatur which never worked after overhaul and is mercifully razor blades today) and bringing back the fantastically expensive and totally worthless Battleships like the New Jersey.
Anyway this whole ‘Obama this’ and ‘Obama that’ schtick is sorta sad. I mean at least you can actually pin the existence of New Deal programs on FDR and Great Society programs on LBJ. But sticking Obama with Food Stamps and Subsidized Housing? When those programs date back at least to LBJ and often FDR? Geez Louse guys, can’t you keep your ‘Class Traitors’ straight here?
Because Free Republic is over there. At AB we at least like our commenters to maintain some small relation between fact and chronology.
Consider the effects of instigating civil disobedience from those red areas. Fear of those red areas may explain some of the policy decisions.”
Yes CoRev I will consider that ‘rationally’ once you re-weight that map for population. Because in our America acres don’t vote and in the final analysis don’t take up arms in insurrection.
NYC is barely a blip on that map and yet has 34,500 uniformed officers on the force. Throw in the rest of the police forces from all the blue metro areas represented on that map and I don’t expect many people are quivering in fear that fifteen yahoos in Idaho have decided to start a militia or that sixty others in Arizona have accepted Deputy Badges from Sheriff Arpaio to form their own Border Control.
CoRev the whole ‘Sagebrush Rebellion’ is an evocative phrase. But there is no real juice to be had in issuing actual firearms to actual sage brushes rolling across the mostly empty counties represented on that map.
The only hope your type has for an honest to god rebellion is that against all expectations the Oath Keeper Movement takes root and that sworn urban police officers and the U.S. Army just decide to stand aside or join in with your Red State Army. Because if they don’t your side will be crushed without mercy.
Seems to me that you took all the wrong lessons away from Ruby Ridge and Waco. Those in the end were not good outcomes for your professed side of this equation. Randy and David just ended up getting a bunch of women and children killed for nothing.
It takes a lot of nerve to apply the word ‘rationally’ to any of this. Because there is at a minimum a certain inabilty to do basic math.
You are much too modest regarding Obama’s accomplishments.
Food stamp recipients averaged around 25 million since the 70’s. Since Obamas election in 2008 they have soared to 47 million. So O has nearly doubled the dependent constituency.
Good God almighty! First of all correlation is not causation and this map is fully proof of that.
Now a rational person actually aware of the realities of increased food production over the period depicted might well attack the Left for being Luddites who dismissed the roles of introducing herbicides, pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and GMO crops in producing the whole Green Revolution that started in the 60s and to some degree brought food security to now billions of people who didn’t have it before. Now I have never actually endorsed the whole “Better living through Chemistry” pitch but we can’t ignore the reality that technology has directly and massively increased basic crop yields of the grains that keep the world fed.
But you have to be near insane to give the credit for that to increased CO2 production from burning fossil fuels. Nobody who knows anything would give the credit to the extra CO2 as opposed to say the extra Nitrogen or even the decimation of crop eating pests via massive chemical intervention/poisoning.
Feel free to attack the environmental movement for over-hyping the possibilities of chemical free and yet sustainable agriculture. Because while Monsanto maybe shouldn’t get credit for “Bringing Good Things to Life” there is not doubt that agricultural chemistry has allowed many many tens to hundreds of millions of humans to live that otherwise never would of. If you actually consider an extra couple billion mostly brown people to be a good thing to start with. And if you press the issue there is no doubt that some credit of this is due to the fossil fuel industry because after all many of those chemicals and fertilizers are to some degree produced from or with the help of petrochemicals.
But that doesn’t mean we would be doing the world a favor by piling up a quadrillion tons of coal and lighting it on fire to raise overall CO2 levels.
That may have been the stupudist line chart I have ever seen. If you know anything at all about anything in regards to this subject. Christ you could have used any proxy for the top line. Using this same logic you could prove that cell-phone usage is what is keeping the world fed. Because it slopes up the same way but even more so.
“Food stamp recipients averaged around 25 million since the 70′s. Since Obamas election in 2008 they have soared to 47 million. So O has nearly doubled the dependent constituency.”
Were food stamp recipients actually 25 million in the last year of the Bush Presidency per that chart? If not then Obama didn’t ‘nearly double’ the dependent constituency.
Now there are two ways you could adjust that chart data to give a real number for Obama’s contribution. One you could adjust it simply for population growth. For example you could use this table: http://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table
If so you would see that U.S. population in 1970 was 211 million as compared to 315 million in 2012 which would imply at a steady state of per capita usage of Food Stamps that you would get a 50% increase. That would take care of just about half of your already apples to oranges “25 million average” to “47 million today” number. Then if you liked you could correct the whole time series to account for unemployment, underemployment and if you were a shrieking radical commie like me for increasing income inequality.
Or you could just use unadjusted nominal numbers and look like an idiot to a comparatively informed and numerically trained AB readership. Your choice.
Numbers like fire make for powerful tools. Just watch out that you don’t burn your own fingers trying to put them to work.
OK Bruce, we’ll do it your way adjusting for population growth.
Jan 2008 (the last month of Bush) food stamp recipients made up 12% of the population. At the end of 2012 (4 years of Obama) the percentage of people receiving food stamps was 19%, or about a 50% increase in the dependent constituency.
And if we check the sourcing for the graph we get this:
Source: ZH, SNAP
Which isn’t much of a cite though we can guess that ZH might stand for Zero Hedge and of course SNAP is the official acronym for Food Stamps so by implication some Dept of Ag publication. But who knows.
In any event quite apart from the calender/presidential term error there is a lot of difference between ‘near doubling’ and ‘50% increase’, in that ‘near doubling suggests something like a 90-95% increase. Which is not supported by either your original or this new chart.
Plus in thinking about it there is a natural lag beween initial unemployment and food stamp eligibility in that most people on UI by that token alone make too much to qualify for Food Stamps, which suggest that the full impact of job losses already experienced by Jan 2009 (with Bush still in office and with the unemployment rate near peak) would not be felt on Food Stamp roles until 26, 52 or 99 weeks later depending on whether the State rate triggered the longest level of Fed extension.
So color me unconvinced that even the 50% increase on Obama’s watch was actually the result of anything his Administration did or didn’t do. (Except perhaps not pushing for the levels of stimulus that Krugman was advocating and Summers resisting. But I suspect that an extra $250 billion of spending in 2009-2010 would not have been your policy preference.)
Bruce also reminds us of why I was passionate about the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) issue several years ago. CAGW is almost a non-issue in today’s world. Global Warming Alarmists are today trying to find any warming with which to report. We are approaching 17 years without surface temperatures increasing.
BTW Bruce, what is this supposed to mean? ““http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/co2benefits/MonetaryBenefitsofRisingCO2onGlobalFoodProduction.pdf’
Good God almighty! First of all correlation is not causation and this map is fully proof of that.” They are not related subjects.
You also go on a rant claiming “correlation is not correlation” without obviously having read the paper. Early on you would have found this: “…Chief among such positive externalities is the economic value added to global crop production by several growth enhancing properties of atmospheric CO2 enrichment. As literally thousands of laboratory and field studies have demonstrated, elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 have been conclusively shown to stimulate plant productivity and growth, as well as to foster certain water conserving and stress alleviating benefits .For a 300 ppm increase in the air’s CO2 content, for example, herbaceous plant biomass is typically enhanced by 25 to 55%, representing an important positive externality
that is absent from today’s state of the art social cost of carbon (SCC)
calculations.” Note the ” literally thousands of laboratory and field studies have demonstrated,…”
You do make a good point re: science-based crop improvements, but this study is concentrating on the impacts of CO2. In it they conclude that increased CO2 results in increased resistance to pathogenic and insect impacts. (Also supported in multiple experiments, field tests and studies.)
I don’t think you are trying to deny a fundamental fact that CO2 is a biologic building block. Are you? Do you know that green houses often pump CO2 in to them for improved growth?
Furthermore this study is shining a light on a weakness in today’s current social cost of carbon (SCC) calculations economic analysis.
But its ‘martial law’ not ‘marshal law’. And the words don’t even have the same origin with ‘martial’ deriving from Mars the God of War and ‘marshal’ from ‘marechel’ and ultimately French and Celtic ‘march’ or ‘horse’.
So both your spelling and search skills are a little in question right off the bat.
I breezed through the paper and noticed a couple of things. Although there are multiple references to ‘thousands’ of studies, italicized for incidence in the original they are all backed by a single reference to a 2009 paper by Singer and Edso. The whole thing seems thin.
But what do I know from CO2. What I do know is that you have a single paper here itself referencing a couple of other papers and as far as I can tell not in a peer reviewed journal.
My initial comment referred just to that JPG because that is what the paper’s author chose to put on the COVER of his report which most readers would think was some hint as to his conclusions that the increase in food production and population was CAUSED at least to some degree by the increase in atmospheric CO2. But what the article seems to find is some positive effects on BIO-MASS which itself may or may not correlate to CROP YIELD in specific food crops.
No I am not denying the key role of CO2 in biologic processes, after all we science believers actually believe there was a Carboniferous Periodhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous a period so rich in plant and animal life that we may owe much of the world’s coal to it. Of course a lot of those plants were ferns and the animals amphibians and arthopods but heck the bio-mass was probably measured in the quintillians or maybe septtillians of tonnes.
Of course a lot of those amphibians would not be particularly bothered by a rise in ocean levels. I am not sure that current food crops and humans would be equally well served.
Oh my mistake. It is not Edso but Idso in those papers referenced. Who by an odd coincidence is that same Idso who wrote THIS paper and so referencing his own previous work and basing all that on his own database hosted at what appears to be his own website.
That is ‘thousands’ turns into ‘per a database maintained by me’ and doesn’t seem to mean actual research studies but instead a run of observations.
So basically one guy’s opinion from what looks like a one man ‘think tank’. Color me convinced.
Back to marshal or martial law. CoRev your original claims was this:
“In extreme conservative and left circles there’s been some talk about Obama instituting marshal law and/or attempting to create an environment for a civil war. Sammy makes a point re: how progressive policies are a major possible cause of that need for marshal law.”
First we should not that these are not calls FOR martial law but instead warnings AGAINST presumed attempts by Obama to impose it.
Now Jack asked if there was an evidence that the Left was actually issuing these warnings. Your reply was totally off point:
Jack insisted on no such thing. He essentially agreed that figures on the right were WARNING about an Obama led imposition of martial law but at no point said they were CALLING for that imposition. So your claim is upside down and backwards.
And it is not at all difficult to find Republicans like Gohmert explicitly WARNING that Obama is intent on imposing martial law, which of course is the context behind all those right wing fears of ‘FEMA reeducation camps’ and ‘Homeland Security buying 1.3 billion bullets’.
And if you actually read the article it appears that Congresswoman Lee is using ‘martial law’ in an obscure but apparently not unprecedented way to desribe CONGRESSIONAL fast tracking of a revenue bill. That is whatever Ms. Lee meant, if it meant anything, it had JACK SHIT to do with the President invoking some sort of actual martial law.
Now there seems to be some sort of link here that would have Congresswoman Lee maybe also asking for Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment but it would be fanciful in the extreme for anyone to apply the term ‘martial law’ to that. An usurpation of Congressional powers under the Constitution maybe, and in extreme formulations some basis for an attempt at impeachment. But the implication that any Democratic Congressperson has called for imposition of martial law will need lot better backing than that.
Maybe if you start over with the correct spelling of ‘martial’ you will have more luck.
As to CO2, the study was referenced on this economics blog because it highlighted problems in current economic thinking re: calculation of SCC.
You seemed to take off on the AGW theme, adding in later comments something about sea level rise. Which BTW, averages ~2.5MM/Yr. Are you trying to frighten the kiddies?
As to supporting science, it is common for scientists to continue a line of exploration on a subject and therefore write several papers. some of which may not appear in peer reviewed forms. Experts in fields quite often have to reference their own works and those others which support/confirm them. An amazing thought?
Your comment re: his self referencing seems to ignore the almost five pages of references, of which I only found one or two self references. Along those lines of references, you seem amused that he might maintain his own database of pertinent research materials instead of relying on some third party source. If it existed. You don’t keep your own reference materials on SS do you?
Another thought re: how much growth there may be in foodstuffs due to CO2 versus other chemi9cal and scientific gains. He repeated biomass expansion of 25 to 55% due to CO2, but the graph to which you took offense shows food stuff growth of ~125%. He explained in his graph explanation: “A data value of 2, therefore, represents a value
that is twice the amount reported in 1961.” The charts starts at 1 and ends at ~3.50+.
You assigned your own claims that were not there. That is often called a strawman argument.
As far as the map goes, I provided it as a representation of how extensive is the area where conservative thought predominates. You rightly called out the conservative concern of Obama calling for martial law. The map explains why it is quite unlikely.
The map also explains why progressives, locked in low production enclaves, fear a conservative majority.
BTW, correctly spelling martial in the search gives nearly identical results.
A comment on “Peer Review”. Bruce claims: ” What I do know is that you have a single paper here itself referencing a couple of other papers and as far as I can tell not in a peer reviewed journal.” Really!? ~ Five pages of refere3nces and it is self referencing a single RECENT paper? Perhaps the earliest reference I noticed, from 1918, was time traveled?
It says: “… But the real story is that a fair number of journals who actually carried out peer review still accepted the paper, and the lesson people should take home from this story not that open access is bad, but that peer review is a joke. If a nakedly bogus paper is able to get through journals that actually peer reviewed it, think about how many legitimate, but deeply flawed, papers must also get through. Any scientist can quickly point to dozens of papers – including, and perhaps especially, in high impact journals – that are deeply, deeply flawed – the arsenic DNA story is one of many recent examples. …”
just in case you all missed this:
A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing.
Obamacare’s Website Is Crashing Because It Doesn’t Want You To Know How Costly Its Plans Are
Well it might have been informative to have reported that the piece is from the Manhatten Institute. Which is ideologically opposed to social democratic programs like Obamacare generally.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/
And that they in turn are using reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
This doesn’t invalidate the reporting, but in these matters sourcing is pretty important. Particularly when the article title is suggesting some non-partisan technocratic expert consensus among ‘IT experts, outside and inside government’ with the implication that there is no particular reportorial bias.
Citing the Manhatten Institute or its economics21.org is not some cause for shame, I mean it is not exactly like channeling NewsMax or the National Enquirer. But readers would be well served by knowing the source is very much a free market anti-statist organization. Particularly if the goal is to start an informed discussion.
And just as a note of form.
When you are directly quoting the lede of an article rather than say your reading of the whole article it is informative for the reader if you used quotes. Because otherwise it looks like this is RJS’s reasoned conclusion on evaluation of the argument presented. Rather than, as it may have been intended, simply an invitation to get a conversation going.
For example the combination of quotes around that lede and an open question like “What do you think about this” rather than the suggestion that we just missed actual definitive findings would have been a good idea.
Bruce, my cite was tongue in cheek, certainly not anything to be taken seriously…
it was just something i stumbled onto at the economics roundtable, and my own reading of it was as if i had encountered an article from the Onion, and it was in that spirit that it was shared..
Plus it is a slanted title to begin with.
The question being posed, and a valid one, is whether people should have access to the unsubsidized plan costs before having it made clear to them how much subsidy they will actually be getting. That is would easy access to the gross price really be as informative for the buyer of the product as the actual net price.
And the answer could go either way. But the title leaves the clear impression that it is the NET price which will be expensive and that Obama folk are feverishly trying to conceal some sort of cost control failure.
Given how few people will actually be buying unsubsidized plans in the end I would think that just giving people that gross price with the suggestion that it will be something like your list price is not useful. But maybe that lack of utility doesn’t excuse the lack of transparency, after all there are presumedly other ways of informing Exchange shoppers that their end price will likely be different that this equivalent of MSRP. Still the existence of that marketing ploy, if that is what it is, just doesn’t justify the hysterical conspiratorial tone of this piece.
At best it is an opinion piece masquerading as straight news.
Yeah I was wondering who had stolen the RJS I thought I knew.
Still insidery snark can be so inside as to not be perceived as snark. And Angry Bear, or at least Dan and some of the Bears, have presumptions that our intended audience extends beyond a couple dozen regular commenters.
That is there are blogs like Atrios’s Eschaton which get most of their traffic and actual raison d’etre from the ‘Community’. Which is why 80% of his posts are either ‘Thread’ or a video and the overall tone is that of a party host bringing out a new round of hor d’ouerves to keep the shindig going. On the other hand you have blogs like Digby’s where they ‘temporarily’ stopped comments weeks and weeks ago and show no plans for ever starting them up.
Personally I see AB as being somewhere in between those models. That is the posts are designed to be read beyond the ‘walls’ of the blog and ideally draw comments from the outside. Still there is a valued base of regular commenters that makes the place go. Some of whom end up being invited to contribute regular posts. For example I spent a long time here as a pest before Dan promoted me to host and I am not the only former commenter here like that.
Or maybe I am just tone deaf and should be apologizing for missing the obvious joke.
or perhaps i didnt set it up right…
i took an open thread to be appropriate for what i intended as an inside joke, not thinking of a wider AB audience..maybe i should just leave such attempts at facetious humor to beverly…
Very thought provoking:
Inflation is soaring, and basic staples are increasingly harder to find. Electricity blackouts are frequent, and crime presents an enormous problem for citizens and companies crazy enough to do business there.
The problem for Venezuelans is that their government has no clue as to what to do. …
Venezuela’s persistently high inflation has several root causes. Because of repeated elections and populist tendencies, the government continues to spend much more than it earns via taxes. Since it has few options to finance its deficit, it has been forced to devalue the currency twice this year, and this means producers – who mostly rely on imports to supply the market – are forced to pass this on to consumers.
Taming inflation would require the government to order their finances, but the administration seems reluctant to do so. For example, according to government sources, giving away gasoline for (practically) nothing costs Venezuelan taxpayers $24 billion in direct subsidies and lost revenues. This amount represents roughly a quarter of all spending included in the 2013 budget. But regardless of how dire the situation is, the government refuses to consider decreasing subsidies because it is fearful of a public backlash.
And for many years people have wanted a society where, like Julia, government takes care of you. Peak Oil has an article which describes the welfare system the Obama administration has victoriously managed to enshrine at the center of American life. Now it has the permission to expand indefinitely, via the removal of caps on the debt limit. To appreciate the magnitude of Obama’s achievement Peak Oil describes how the Food Stamp shutdown was averted.
… this past weekend when a “temporary system failure” caused food stamp cards to stop working in 17 U.S. states. Within hours, there were “mini-riots” at Wal-Marts and other retailers that rely heavily on food stamp users … if Congress had not pushed through a “deal”, the USDA would have started cutting off food stamp benefits on November 1st …
According to Reuters, the state of North Carolina had already cut off some welfare benefits for the month of November … And as Mac Slavo recently detailed, the USDA was already planning to cut off food stamp assistance to millions of Americans on November 1st … It may not happen this month, or even this year, but food stamp riots are coming to America.
But riots won’t come … if the Food Stamps can be kept flowing without interruption. Welfare is the oxygen of social peace. With it everything seems fine. Without it, asphyxiation begins almost immediately
there are 50 million holders of EBT cards. Imagine their predicament if the EBT system went suddenly dark.
Fifty million. Consider that for a moment. Most of those 50 million people live in high-density cities. Many are proud owners of Obama phones, Obama food stamps, Obama unemployment checks and Obama subsidized housing
they do not prepare for any future events other than more Obama handouts. Their entire “preparedness” plan is to vote for Democrats, because that’s who they know will give them the most handouts. And they will always win the popular vote, too, because any politician promising to restore responsible fiscal spending to the government by cutting programs will be viciously accused of being “mean” or involved in “hating poor people.” So the government handouts will only ratchet higher and higher, ensnaring more and more people, until the entire system is unsustainable and collapses under its own weight.
72 hours: http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2013/10/17/seventy-two-hours/
And to explain some other misconceptions we have this: http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/co2benefits/MonetaryBenefitsofRisingCO2onGlobalFoodProduction.pdf
Dunno, just speculating.
In extreme conservative and left circles there’s been some talk about Obama instituting marshal law and/or attempting to create an environment for a civil war. Sammy makes a point re: how progressive policies are a major possible cause of that need for marshal law.
If anyone considers it rationally, take a look at this map: http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/screenhunter_1603-oct-17-16-21.jpg?w=640&h=366
Consider the effects of instigating civil disobedience from those red areas. Fear of those red areas may explain some of the policy decisions.
For those not familiar with CoRev Angry Bear Open Threads were literally introduced to accommodate him. Because he had a tendency to turn any comment thread on anything into a Climate Denier thread and so this gave an outlet. Not enough of one in that Open Threads which started on any other topic were similarly turned into Climate Denier threads which lead to the creation of a NEW category of Open Threads for Climate Denial only. So we had ‘Non Climate’ Open Threads and regular (in practice Climate) Open Threads.
As such it is kind of refreshing to see CoRev branching out from Climate Change Denial to Conspiracy Theories about Obama introducing Martial Law.
Not that CoRev was ever really a One Trick Pony. He was a stalwart defender of Bush Iraq policy for quite a number of years until most people on the Right simply agreed to let that particular topic just evaporate. Probably about the time that Iraq turned into the marvel of secular democratic pro-American peaceful miracle that it is today and so didn’t need any more comment at all. Well except that Iraq is an Iranian and Assad friendly Shia fundamentalist dominated regime where people are getting blown up by suicide bombs at a rate fully equivalent to the period before the Bush Surge made everything good.
Oh wait? What? You’re right! That is Halley’s Comet right over there!!
CoRev: “In extreme conservative and left circles there’s been some talk about Obama instituting marshal law and/or attempting to create an environment for a civil war.”
Extreme left circles?? Can you provide a reference to such a claim? What constitutes extreme left in American political circles? I don’t think that even Chomsky qualifies for that description. And I’d be surprised if gun ownership amongst even slightly left of center folks was more than a couple of BB guns. No my friend, when it comes to American political madness in the 21st Century who comes even close to our right-wing reactionaries?
“Many are proud owners of Obama phones, Obama food stamps, Obama unemployment checks and Obama subsidized housing”
Every single one of those programs was in place under GW Bush II. And for that matter GHW Bush and Ronald Reagan. And except for subsidized ‘Lifeline’ phones under Eisenhower as well.
Calling them ‘Obama’ anytjing is just stupid. You might as well call it the Obama-gon because we still have the biggest defense budget in the world.
It is much like Reagan got credit for all the new Navy ship programs that were actually put in place under Carter and Ford. I was in the Navy when Reagan got inaugerated and every important new ship class was already being put into production. The only expansion Reagan was responsible for was keeping a bunch of obsolete ships due for decommissioning in the Navy (including my second ship, the then U.S.S. Decatur which never worked after overhaul and is mercifully razor blades today) and bringing back the fantastically expensive and totally worthless Battleships like the New Jersey.
Anyway this whole ‘Obama this’ and ‘Obama that’ schtick is sorta sad. I mean at least you can actually pin the existence of New Deal programs on FDR and Great Society programs on LBJ. But sticking Obama with Food Stamps and Subsidized Housing? When those programs date back at least to LBJ and often FDR? Geez Louse guys, can’t you keep your ‘Class Traitors’ straight here?
Because Free Republic is over there. At AB we at least like our commenters to maintain some small relation between fact and chronology.
“If anyone considers it rationally, take a look at this map: http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/screenhunter_1603-oct-17-16-21.jpg?w=640&h=366
Consider the effects of instigating civil disobedience from those red areas. Fear of those red areas may explain some of the policy decisions.”
Yes CoRev I will consider that ‘rationally’ once you re-weight that map for population. Because in our America acres don’t vote and in the final analysis don’t take up arms in insurrection.
NYC is barely a blip on that map and yet has 34,500 uniformed officers on the force. Throw in the rest of the police forces from all the blue metro areas represented on that map and I don’t expect many people are quivering in fear that fifteen yahoos in Idaho have decided to start a militia or that sixty others in Arizona have accepted Deputy Badges from Sheriff Arpaio to form their own Border Control.
CoRev the whole ‘Sagebrush Rebellion’ is an evocative phrase. But there is no real juice to be had in issuing actual firearms to actual sage brushes rolling across the mostly empty counties represented on that map.
The only hope your type has for an honest to god rebellion is that against all expectations the Oath Keeper Movement takes root and that sworn urban police officers and the U.S. Army just decide to stand aside or join in with your Red State Army. Because if they don’t your side will be crushed without mercy.
Seems to me that you took all the wrong lessons away from Ruby Ridge and Waco. Those in the end were not good outcomes for your professed side of this equation. Randy and David just ended up getting a bunch of women and children killed for nothing.
It takes a lot of nerve to apply the word ‘rationally’ to any of this. Because there is at a minimum a certain inabilty to do basic math.
Bruce,
You are much too modest regarding Obama’s accomplishments.
Food stamp recipients averaged around 25 million since the 70’s. Since Obamas election in 2008 they have soared to 47 million. So O has nearly doubled the dependent constituency.
http://pronlinenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Jeff-Jacoby-Food-Stamp-Chart.jpg
“http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/co2benefits/MonetaryBenefitsofRisingCO2onGlobalFoodProduction.pdf’
Good God almighty! First of all correlation is not causation and this map is fully proof of that.
Now a rational person actually aware of the realities of increased food production over the period depicted might well attack the Left for being Luddites who dismissed the roles of introducing herbicides, pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and GMO crops in producing the whole Green Revolution that started in the 60s and to some degree brought food security to now billions of people who didn’t have it before. Now I have never actually endorsed the whole “Better living through Chemistry” pitch but we can’t ignore the reality that technology has directly and massively increased basic crop yields of the grains that keep the world fed.
But you have to be near insane to give the credit for that to increased CO2 production from burning fossil fuels. Nobody who knows anything would give the credit to the extra CO2 as opposed to say the extra Nitrogen or even the decimation of crop eating pests via massive chemical intervention/poisoning.
Feel free to attack the environmental movement for over-hyping the possibilities of chemical free and yet sustainable agriculture. Because while Monsanto maybe shouldn’t get credit for “Bringing Good Things to Life” there is not doubt that agricultural chemistry has allowed many many tens to hundreds of millions of humans to live that otherwise never would of. If you actually consider an extra couple billion mostly brown people to be a good thing to start with. And if you press the issue there is no doubt that some credit of this is due to the fossil fuel industry because after all many of those chemicals and fertilizers are to some degree produced from or with the help of petrochemicals.
But that doesn’t mean we would be doing the world a favor by piling up a quadrillion tons of coal and lighting it on fire to raise overall CO2 levels.
That may have been the stupudist line chart I have ever seen. If you know anything at all about anything in regards to this subject. Christ you could have used any proxy for the top line. Using this same logic you could prove that cell-phone usage is what is keeping the world fed. Because it slopes up the same way but even more so.
Sammy pull the other finger.
“Food stamp recipients averaged around 25 million since the 70′s. Since Obamas election in 2008 they have soared to 47 million. So O has nearly doubled the dependent constituency.”
Were food stamp recipients actually 25 million in the last year of the Bush Presidency per that chart? If not then Obama didn’t ‘nearly double’ the dependent constituency.
Now there are two ways you could adjust that chart data to give a real number for Obama’s contribution. One you could adjust it simply for population growth. For example you could use this table:
http://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table
If so you would see that U.S. population in 1970 was 211 million as compared to 315 million in 2012 which would imply at a steady state of per capita usage of Food Stamps that you would get a 50% increase. That would take care of just about half of your already apples to oranges “25 million average” to “47 million today” number. Then if you liked you could correct the whole time series to account for unemployment, underemployment and if you were a shrieking radical commie like me for increasing income inequality.
Or you could just use unadjusted nominal numbers and look like an idiot to a comparatively informed and numerically trained AB readership. Your choice.
Numbers like fire make for powerful tools. Just watch out that you don’t burn your own fingers trying to put them to work.
OK Bruce, we’ll do it your way adjusting for population growth.
Jan 2008 (the last month of Bush) food stamp recipients made up 12% of the population. At the end of 2012 (4 years of Obama) the percentage of people receiving food stamps was 19%, or about a 50% increase in the dependent constituency.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=percentage+of+people+on+food+stamps&FORM=HDRSC2#view=detail&id=3107E1908118CD5FE5F545CAFD5D526512A55619&selectedIndex=9
Bush’s 2nd term ended 10 months before the Nov 2008 election?
So that already gets us to 13.3% or so. But still in line with your 50%.
But it is a little lazy to just give a link to the .jpg So if we follow THAT back we end up here:
http://www.mybudget360.com/food-stamp-usage-record-high-dow-jones-record-high-national-debt-record-high/
And if we check the sourcing for the graph we get this:
Source: ZH, SNAP
Which isn’t much of a cite though we can guess that ZH might stand for Zero Hedge and of course SNAP is the official acronym for Food Stamps so by implication some Dept of Ag publication. But who knows.
In any event quite apart from the calender/presidential term error there is a lot of difference between ‘near doubling’ and ‘50% increase’, in that ‘near doubling suggests something like a 90-95% increase. Which is not supported by either your original or this new chart.
Sloppy on a couple of fronts.
Plus in thinking about it there is a natural lag beween initial unemployment and food stamp eligibility in that most people on UI by that token alone make too much to qualify for Food Stamps, which suggest that the full impact of job losses already experienced by Jan 2009 (with Bush still in office and with the unemployment rate near peak) would not be felt on Food Stamp roles until 26, 52 or 99 weeks later depending on whether the State rate triggered the longest level of Fed extension.
So color me unconvinced that even the 50% increase on Obama’s watch was actually the result of anything his Administration did or didn’t do. (Except perhaps not pushing for the levels of stimulus that Krugman was advocating and Summers resisting. But I suspect that an extra $250 billion of spending in 2009-2010 would not have been your policy preference.)
Jack insists it is the right wishing to implement Marshal Law, but this: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Congressman+calls+for+marshal+law&FORM=VIRE2#view=detail&mid=D732B155370B139C263AD732B155370B139C263A tells us otherwise. Note the search did not recognize any conservatives calling for it. Two “D”s have done so since Obama’s election. Perhaps your own search might find some.
Bruce also reminds us of why I was passionate about the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) issue several years ago. CAGW is almost a non-issue in today’s world. Global Warming Alarmists are today trying to find any warming with which to report. We are approaching 17 years without surface temperatures increasing.
BTW Bruce, what is this supposed to mean? ““http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/co2benefits/MonetaryBenefitsofRisingCO2onGlobalFoodProduction.pdf’
Good God almighty! First of all correlation is not causation and this map is fully proof of that.” They are not related subjects.
You also go on a rant claiming “correlation is not correlation” without obviously having read the paper. Early on you would have found this: “…Chief among such positive externalities is the economic value added to global crop production by several growth enhancing properties of atmospheric CO2 enrichment. As literally thousands of laboratory and field studies have demonstrated, elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 have been conclusively shown to stimulate plant productivity and growth, as well as to foster certain water conserving and stress alleviating benefits .For a 300 ppm increase in the air’s CO2 content, for example, herbaceous plant biomass is typically enhanced by 25 to 55%, representing an important positive externality
that is absent from today’s state of the art social cost of carbon (SCC)
calculations.” Note the ” literally thousands of laboratory and field studies have demonstrated,…”
You do make a good point re: science-based crop improvements, but this study is concentrating on the impacts of CO2. In it they conclude that increased CO2 results in increased resistance to pathogenic and insect impacts. (Also supported in multiple experiments, field tests and studies.)
I don’t think you are trying to deny a fundamental fact that CO2 is a biologic building block. Are you? Do you know that green houses often pump CO2 in to them for improved growth?
Furthermore this study is shining a light on a weakness in today’s current social cost of carbon (SCC) calculations economic analysis.
CoRev I’ll get back to you.
But its ‘martial law’ not ‘marshal law’. And the words don’t even have the same origin with ‘martial’ deriving from Mars the God of War and ‘marshal’ from ‘marechel’ and ultimately French and Celtic ‘march’ or ‘horse’.
So both your spelling and search skills are a little in question right off the bat.
I breezed through the paper and noticed a couple of things. Although there are multiple references to ‘thousands’ of studies, italicized for incidence in the original they are all backed by a single reference to a 2009 paper by Singer and Edso. The whole thing seems thin.
But what do I know from CO2. What I do know is that you have a single paper here itself referencing a couple of other papers and as far as I can tell not in a peer reviewed journal.
My initial comment referred just to that JPG because that is what the paper’s author chose to put on the COVER of his report which most readers would think was some hint as to his conclusions that the increase in food production and population was CAUSED at least to some degree by the increase in atmospheric CO2. But what the article seems to find is some positive effects on BIO-MASS which itself may or may not correlate to CROP YIELD in specific food crops.
No I am not denying the key role of CO2 in biologic processes, after all we science believers actually believe there was a Carboniferous Periodhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous a period so rich in plant and animal life that we may owe much of the world’s coal to it. Of course a lot of those plants were ferns and the animals amphibians and arthopods but heck the bio-mass was probably measured in the quintillians or maybe septtillians of tonnes.
Of course a lot of those amphibians would not be particularly bothered by a rise in ocean levels. I am not sure that current food crops and humans would be equally well served.
Oh my mistake. It is not Edso but Idso in those papers referenced. Who by an odd coincidence is that same Idso who wrote THIS paper and so referencing his own previous work and basing all that on his own database hosted at what appears to be his own website.
That is ‘thousands’ turns into ‘per a database maintained by me’ and doesn’t seem to mean actual research studies but instead a run of observations.
So basically one guy’s opinion from what looks like a one man ‘think tank’. Color me convinced.
Back to marshal or martial law. CoRev your original claims was this:
“In extreme conservative and left circles there’s been some talk about Obama instituting marshal law and/or attempting to create an environment for a civil war. Sammy makes a point re: how progressive policies are a major possible cause of that need for marshal law.”
First we should not that these are not calls FOR martial law but instead warnings AGAINST presumed attempts by Obama to impose it.
Now Jack asked if there was an evidence that the Left was actually issuing these warnings. Your reply was totally off point:
“Jack insists it is the right wishing to implement Marshal Law, but this: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Congressman+calls+for+marshal+law&FORM=VIRE2#view=detail&mid=D732B155370B139C263AD732B155370B139C263A tells us otherwise. Note the search did not recognize any conservatives calling for it. Two “D”s have done so since Obama’s election. Perhaps your own search might find some.”
Jack insisted on no such thing. He essentially agreed that figures on the right were WARNING about an Obama led imposition of martial law but at no point said they were CALLING for that imposition. So your claim is upside down and backwards.
And it is not at all difficult to find Republicans like Gohmert explicitly WARNING that Obama is intent on imposing martial law, which of course is the context behind all those right wing fears of ‘FEMA reeducation camps’ and ‘Homeland Security buying 1.3 billion bullets’.
Plus that link to that video is pure bullshit as well. A search of the actual text gets you to this:
http://www.infowars.com/dem-congresswoman-suggests-martial-law-to-end-government-shutdown/
And if you actually read the article it appears that Congresswoman Lee is using ‘martial law’ in an obscure but apparently not unprecedented way to desribe CONGRESSIONAL fast tracking of a revenue bill. That is whatever Ms. Lee meant, if it meant anything, it had JACK SHIT to do with the President invoking some sort of actual martial law.
Now there seems to be some sort of link here that would have Congresswoman Lee maybe also asking for Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment but it would be fanciful in the extreme for anyone to apply the term ‘martial law’ to that. An usurpation of Congressional powers under the Constitution maybe, and in extreme formulations some basis for an attempt at impeachment. But the implication that any Democratic Congressperson has called for imposition of martial law will need lot better backing than that.
Maybe if you start over with the correct spelling of ‘martial’ you will have more luck.
Bruce, I shad corrected on the spelling.
As to CO2, the study was referenced on this economics blog because it highlighted problems in current economic thinking re: calculation of SCC.
You seemed to take off on the AGW theme, adding in later comments something about sea level rise. Which BTW, averages ~2.5MM/Yr. Are you trying to frighten the kiddies?
As to supporting science, it is common for scientists to continue a line of exploration on a subject and therefore write several papers. some of which may not appear in peer reviewed forms. Experts in fields quite often have to reference their own works and those others which support/confirm them. An amazing thought?
Your comment re: his self referencing seems to ignore the almost five pages of references, of which I only found one or two self references. Along those lines of references, you seem amused that he might maintain his own database of pertinent research materials instead of relying on some third party source. If it existed. You don’t keep your own reference materials on SS do you?
Another thought re: how much growth there may be in foodstuffs due to CO2 versus other chemi9cal and scientific gains. He repeated biomass expansion of 25 to 55% due to CO2, but the graph to which you took offense shows food stuff growth of ~125%. He explained in his graph explanation: “A data value of 2, therefore, represents a value
that is twice the amount reported in 1961.” The charts starts at 1 and ends at ~3.50+.
You assigned your own claims that were not there. That is often called a strawman argument.
As far as the map goes, I provided it as a representation of how extensive is the area where conservative thought predominates. You rightly called out the conservative concern of Obama calling for martial law. The map explains why it is quite unlikely.
The map also explains why progressives, locked in low production enclaves, fear a conservative majority.
BTW, correctly spelling martial in the search gives nearly identical results.
A comment on “Peer Review”. Bruce claims: ” What I do know is that you have a single paper here itself referencing a couple of other papers and as far as I can tell not in a peer reviewed journal.” Really!? ~ Five pages of refere3nces and it is self referencing a single RECENT paper? Perhaps the earliest reference I noticed, from 1918, was time traveled?
As for Peer reviewed journals, this article reviews Peer Review in reality: http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1439
It says: “… But the real story is that a fair number of journals who actually carried out peer review still accepted the paper, and the lesson people should take home from this story not that open access is bad, but that peer review is a joke. If a nakedly bogus paper is able to get through journals that actually peer reviewed it, think about how many legitimate, but deeply flawed, papers must also get through. Any scientist can quickly point to dozens of papers – including, and perhaps especially, in high impact journals – that are deeply, deeply flawed – the arsenic DNA story is one of many recent examples. …”
Bruce you’re trying too hard!