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superiorsnapshot

Listed below are comments made by superiorsnapshot between Thursday, 12th November 2009 and Tuesday, 24th November 2009.

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Information: Have you ever paid for it? 10:50am on 24 Nov 2009 Cross Fertilized Synthetic Hybrid:

Both free and paid for, online and paper media - for me reading is a hyperlink cascade of interest.

The following are sources:

'free' online sources -beeb,blogs,newsites....
paid for - FT.com -basic subsciption - Alphaville, Tett, Wolf, Buitner...
books - amazon because it's so searchable - cheaper used copies too.
Scibd - online academic source very searchable.
Oxfam bookshop - serendipity rules - read and redonate.
Scroogle - search without spam.

So newscorp and Microsoft want to disappear up each others fundaments? - the space would be filled by competitors in milliseconds.
Tories tweaking their message 2:11pm on 23 Nov 2009 Maybe Dave and George could listen to IMF ?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d6be81e8-d81a-11de-8b04-00144feabdc0.html
Rare earth: The New Great Game 8:08pm on 22 Nov 2009 33 ~ Nature Bats Last.

Seems a long time ago since the 'Soddy posts ' but I still think your 'energy' discourse holds fast.

For me it was drawn into ever sharper focus for me by a guy called Sir Moses Finley :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_I._Finley

I was interested to read his discussion on the variety and subleties of ancient world slavery and its correlation with present day class divides.

But more profoundly I was impressed by his reasoning for the fall of ancient empire.

For Finley the economics were simple: the principle staple was grain, and this was transported overland by oxcart. Long overland supply chains were unsustainable - the ox and driver would literally eat the profits.

Given that the empire was defended at it's borders with standing armies, these had to be fed with locally grown grain. The upshot is that once the empire surpassed a critical size, and a critical number of enemies it's downfall was inevitable.

If we translate this thinking forward to 2009, then the price of oil becomes paramount- too high and the economy implodes.

Thus future of the dollar hegemony may well rest on a stream of new discoveries ( Brazil, Kurdistan, Ghana , Canada, Greenland.........) OR a new low carbon technology and Carbon Credits. However if that new technology is beyond it's control , then the US influence may be thrown into decline.

Peak Oil ? or Plateau Oil plus a synthesis of new Tech ?
Rare earth: The New Great Game 10:30am on 19 Nov 2009 If the subtext is that China has somehow cornered the world market in the successor to petroleum and the future of the automobile ?

1) "rare" earth presumeably because it's not common , and hence would be prohibitively expensive for mass market auto manufacturing.

2) Batteries are a store not a source of energy - mass production of electric cars requires mass building of power stations fuelled by what ?

3)Can you see this technology doing the heavy lifting of world trade - transcontinental freight movement and shipping ?

I would venture that whilst the "rare earth " technologies are increasingly important, and are a valuable component of "green" automobiles, they are not a realistic substitute to oil.

If the price warrants it, we will no doubt find alternative supplies of these minerals. In the meantime China will do what it's best at - cheap manufacturing.
When and how to squeeze the budget 7:21pm on 17 Nov 2009 Off the top of my head in no particular order

Vat rather than carbon tax.( Vat will effectively tax exported pollution too.)
Index link retirement ages to life expectency.
scrap child allowance/taxcredit to middlecass
Local income tax on every additional home not rented to tennants.
Wealth tax ( as France)
Scrap student loans, and reinstate means tested grants
Increase taxes on alchohol too cover social cost of excess drinking
Use death duties to recycle wealth through economy.
Tax banks relative to risk underwritten by taxpaying community.
Increase top level income tax.
legalise and tax drugs
Tough times ahead 4:18pm on 17 Nov 2009 130 ~ set fazers to dumb

Like many idealists JJ never really got irony :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6590411/Christians-would-rather-vote-BNP-than-Labour-pastor-claims.html

Let me know if you manage to jump in the same river twice ?
New name for a new economy? 4:35pm on 13 Nov 2009 name for current economy = fictocapitalism

name for the next economy = cryptoplutocracy
Cautious good cheer 8:18pm on 12 Nov 2009 147 - up your street ?

http://cliodynamics.info/

Peter Turchin also peddles a neat line in Secular Cycles too. (but not on Fleabay )
Cautious good cheer 5:35pm on 12 Nov 2009 133

searched the auction site:

genetic = 2917 items, racist=137,jaded jean=no results ?

Maybe he's relaxing with long term colonic irrigation therapy ? (=21 items)
Cautious good cheer 3:37pm on 12 Nov 2009 Is it true that JJ is too busy with part time day job at a jewish fertility clinic, whilst holding down post as classroom assistant at a Brixton special needs centre for Sub Saharan imigrants with learning difficulties?

Apparently it's getting in the way of the advisory work he does for Goldman Sachs and Liberty!

No doubt when things calm down a bit the usual service of crackpot genetics and pseudo-Quinian claptrap will continue

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