Zero Hedge
January 12, 2014
For the current administration, now with a fresh developer to fix all the problems (with the website), the reality of public perception over Obamacare has gone from worst to worster-er this week. AsGallup polls show, nearly half of Americans say the Affordable Care Act will make the healthcare situation in the U.S. worse in the long run.
When asked more broadly if they approve or disapprove of Obamacare, Americans come down on the disapprove side by 54% to 38% – a new record low for ‘approval’.
So despite the full court press marketing of this great new must-have product – and in light of the fact that the ‘risk-pool’ looks to be disastrous, things are not improving at all.
Perhaps not surprisingly though, Gallup concludes,
…remarkably, there has been little fundamental change in most of these attitudes over the past year or two — and especially in recent months, despite the highly contentious and visible introduction of the ACA’s major features. Americans’ views of the healthcare law seem to be fairly well established, and largely rooted in partisan politics.
Of course, we look forward to the next month as bills come due and people realize that “affordable” means something different than they were promised (i.e. not free)…
Shouldn’t Libertarianism be about righteous action. Doesn’t it need to be about more than: “we’re better than those other guys.”
Is it not a good act to produce things? To provide options and choices. To enrich? Certainly there is room for improvements, and the elimination of corporate veils is essential. But where else is their the seed and genesis of a freer future, if not among the makers and the doers?
Unilever – an association of men who make things… like an aerosol deodorant consisting of: Aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly, cyclopentasiloxane, ppg-14 butyl ether, stearyl alcohol, peg-8 distearate, hydrogenated castor oil, talc, and bht.
Aka as Axe Deodorant, the substance is sold at Walmarts and elsewhere as an antiperspirant, deodorant, and astringent.
Make love, not war: Axe Peace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63b4O_2HCYM
do: make love/ produce/ create
don’t make war/ destroy/ enslave/ prohibit
Unilver
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilever
How many different propaganda components are there in Axe commercials? Are commercials themselves immoral, they produce nothing of value, and they seek to mentally manipulate us?
Axe Anarchy – Unleash the Chaos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0avReuIACcs
“Are commercials themselves immoral, they produce nothing of value, and they seek to mentally manipulate us?”
Careful — you’re falling into a Galbraithian trap. To assert that commercials “produce nothing of value” is to identify the alleged fact that they produce nothing of value *to you* with the claim that they produce nothing of value *to anyone.* But clearly commercials produce value, else nobody would spend scarce resources creating them.
Commercials at the very least let people know about products or services they otherwise may not have known about. That is valuable. If you make the most useful widgets in the world, you’ve created no value for me if I don’t know they exist. Advertising informs me of them and enables me to access the value of your widgets.
Galbraith’s silly claims about advertising being “mind control” are nothing more than an overstuffed suit jacket complaining that other people don’t like the same things he does.
Interesting comment. Care should be taken. Refinements and retractions of my wrong pronouncements offered as they become evident. My tune, such as it is, changes as my understanding changes.
My sense is you are correct in what you say. But still most people should avoid watching commercials as much as possible. They seek to destroy far more than they intend to build. Don’t underestimate their effect. Their net impact is destruction, I believe. More people are harmed and misled, than are others informed and assisted.
I’m not backing any dogs in any of the usual fights. I consider libertarian critiques to be different than Marxian critiques, in that they advocate no collective action be initiated in response to perceived disharmonies and malinvestments.
The best outcome, is the greatest number of people use Axe body spray that want to, at the lowest possible price point. Commercials destroy more than they create. They build an irrational mystique around a few microleters of chemicals. They help enslave, not liberate. Perhaps in the future, we can totally opt out of advertisements for a price, and then they would truly be free market.
Commercials seek to subvert valuable reasoning faculties and inflate prices. They miseducate and mislead. In a more laissez faire system, it may be possible to enlighten and educate through advertisements, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near to that system.
If you took the various advertisers and sponsors out of American culture, there wouldn’t be much left.
Why is everyone in every show well off, have newer vehicles, spacious clean houses, nice clothes and impeccable grooming. We even do the rituals in their absence. We all project our best possible selves, even to strangers on the internet.
Who here has mentioned their messy ill-repaired home. Frumpy clothing and poor hygiene. Ugly and unremarkable physical appearances.
If we assign the aggregate of what we all claim to be as level 100, we all know that a subsequent audit of everyone here would reveal our true level as something around a 3 or so. The power of group delusion is strong in Merica. Our power of self-delusion is perhaps our greatest national power. And most destructive.
“Obi Wan has taught you well to delude yourself. Something something something, dark side.” ~ World Emperor Palpatine
Bakelite plastics, developed by Belgian-born chemist Leo Baekeland in New York in 1907.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite
Bakelite Plastics 1938 Documentary
Momentive Products (Current org with IP rights to bakelite)
http://www.momentive.com/ProductFamily/Home.aspx?id=8846
Momentive’s global commitment to EHS reflected in site certifications.
Momentive continues to demonstrate on a global scale its commitment to environmental, health and safety performance through site certification programs such as ISO 14001, EMAS, OHSAS 18001, and OSHA’s VPP.
Most of Momentive’s major manufacturing facilities and product lines have achieved certification or are working toward it—demonstrating the company’s global focus on EHS excellence and the consistency of its efforts.
As a leading global producer of specialty chemicals and performance materials, Momentive is committed to excellence in environmental, health and safety (EHS) performance. Excellence in EHS performance is an integral part of our business and is essential for our long-term business success. We will operate our business according to responsible EHS management principles, which will be the foundation of our global EHS management program.
Momentive’s policy is to:
Operate in an ethical, safe, and environmentally responsible manner that protects our associates, customers, and communities while benefiting society, the economy, and the environment.
Comply with all applicable EHS laws and regulations and partner with governments and other appropriate stakeholders to develop and implement effective and efficient EHS programs.
Assess the EHS and security implications of our operations and products and mitigate risks using effective risk management and Product Stewardship measures
Minimize the environmental impact of our operations and products in a manner that supports the sustainability of our business.
Foster a culture to continually identify, reduce, and manage associated EHS and process safety risks throughout all levels of our organization and ensure necessary support for individuals to carry out their responsibilities.
Establish meaningful EHS performance measures and self-assessment programs and employ them in driving continuous improvement of our business planning and operating processes in alignment with the Responsible Care® Management System and Guiding Principles.
Be prepared to respond appropriately to emergencies that might arise as a consequence of our operations and/or products.
Educate our associates and communicate with our contractors, customers, and the public on the safe and environmentally responsible use and handling of our products.
Be a good neighbor in the communities in which we operate.
Communicate openly about our risks, EHS programs, and performance in a process that encourages transparency and dialogue with all stakeholders.
All associates, contractors, and others working on Momentive’s behalf are expected to take the path of highest integrity. They are encouraged and expected to communicate any EHS concerns to enable prompt investigation and action and to understand and perform their jobs consistent with this EHS policy.
Deaths per trillion kilowatt hour production
Coal – global average, 170,000, (50% global electricity) [China 1.7x more deadly than average, US 18x less deadly than average]
Oil — 36,000, (36% of energy, 8% of electricity)
Natural Gas — 4,000, (20% global electricity)
Biofuel/Biomass — 24,000, (21% global energy)
Solar (rooftop) — 440, (< 1% global electricity)
Wind — 150, (~ 1% global electricity)
Hydro – global average, 1,400, (15% global electricity)
Nuclear – global average, 90, (17% global electricity Chernob/Fukush)
How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
Kirk Sorensen – Flibe Energy Development Strategy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TQkLRQxgyY
Kirk Sorensen on Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVSmf_qmkbg
We can win the battle of the future by increasing our marginal advantage over the predators and their disciples. Our advantage is knowing more about real things, not by merely out arguing them.
Obamacare is just a bunch of gibberish on a page at this point. There's no underlying integrity and substance to give it life. Jurisprudence and legislative dictations becomes meaningless when no one follows the agreed-upon rules. It has become impossible to even agree on what the rules are any more.
American politics is dead. It should be gathered into a great pile and all set on fire. What would be best is to burn every scrap and doodle of every founder and man of political pull who ever held office since the first Europeans settled here.
We may need an American Cultural Revolution much like the Chinese Cultural Revolution. This time only smashing the old pottery, documents, and cultural artifacts of the state, and not privately held property.
New American Motto – Every one makes stuff, provide services, or otherwise creates value. Like value is given in kind without exception.
If you try to stop us, or make us do shit against our will, we will fuck you up. We're learning to stop forcing each other to do things, we don't want to be those kind of people any more. You either take your force and mandate shit somewhere else or we will completely destroy you.
@Tor–a gem of a post!
And THAT, gentlemen, is original gen-you-eyne Americana!
Also: “American politics is dead. It should be gathered into a great pile and all set on fire.”
That is brilliant. My new personal motto. 🙂
You guys see this? http://bastiat.mises.org/2014/01/what-you-were-never-told-about-obamacare/
So basically Obamacare, in addition to all of its other evils, explicitly has declared than insurance companies will never lose money. Any time they do, they’ll get a big cash injection right out of your pockets and mine. Good job reining in those big evil insurance companies, Democraps!
Just like with cops, we know where insurance salesmen live, too….
Worldwide Cost of obtaining clean water will decline thanks to tax-slave supported Lockheed Martin and perforene. Drop in filters for existing water desalination and filtration systems should be available some time this year.
New method available to obtain cheap and clean water
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/13/us-usa-desalination-idUSBRE92C05720130313
Perforene Membrane
http://lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed/data/ms2/documents/Perforene-datasheet.pdf
Lockheed’s Better, Faster Way to Desalinate Water
http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/lockheeds-better-faster-way-to-desalinate-water-15216615
These new medical plans are so stupid, I can’t even read a sentence of any of this. Nobody can be this dumb. I think they’re just pretending. There’s no real scarcity anymore, and thus no need for government to do anything. Maybe they’ll manage to grind organized medicine to a complete halt, but who cares?
The guild of medicine, is not a real thing that needs to exist. I’d rather have direct access to the technology anyway, who really needs all these M.D. middlemen and sterile robed charlatans?
Take energy. Just with fracking and deep water drilling, there’s unlimited hydrocarbons that can be extracted right now.
Then consider nuclear. In a few years, enough nuclear power plants could be built to supply all the electricity anyone could ever need, at almost no cost. Teslas can already be driven for free through much of the western world. Tata can already put $20,000 eMos on the road. Theit nextgen will be even cheaper.
The two possibilities are government limited scarcity elimination, or complete free-market scarcity elimination.
Standing in the way of everything are some truly scary misanthropes. We’re undergoing a complete culture change.
They might be able to kill a few million and keep Americans enslaved and maybe a few other nations, but they won’t be able to stop everyone. For all the misery they will continue to inflict, it is already possible to completely tune them out and pay them no mind at all.
If they catch you, they catch you, but so what, why waste your life worrying about them? I’ve got nothing to say to them, they are the lowest filth imaginable. I’ll watch a few videos ever so often to keep my hatred of them fresh in my mind, but then I forget about them.
Everyone else can see what is happening to the US, and they will mostly be able to take action and prevent it happening to them. The middle class of India or China that’s taking America’s place will be every bit as demanding as we are, I am sure.
The spectacle of once privileged rich becoming tortured oppressed poor, no matter how far they degrade the US population, will only be a momentary blip of distraction from reality, and in the long run, of no lasting significance whatsoever.
There is absolutely no reason for any nuclear plants to exist. The risks far out way the benefit and there is still no way to really properly dispose of nuclear waste. Besides, tidal energy is completely renewable thanks to the moon and wouldn’t produce any harmful wastes as biproducts. Of course, with tidal energy, after the initial cost, energy could be virtually free.
Actually, tidal energy has higher capital and running costs and worse problems than nuclear energy, including worse environmental problems. Few locations are suitable for tidal energy, which makes huge distribution problems and running costs, and sometimes “stranded energy”; the huge and expensive generator systems cover vast areas and adversely affect the previous water flow, which harms wild life; and each unit has roughly four dead times each day when it generates no power (some locations have weirder patterns), times which shift from day to day, all of which means serious problems with smoothing out supply.
On the other hand, there are serious near future prospects that nuclear power developments will allow standardised and thus cheaper modules to operate safely near most built up locations, since most of those grew near water transport and the modules would be temporarily sunken barges (and water makes safety features very easy). That also makes waste disposal more practical, since the modules would be easy to move in and out, shifting the whole lot to disposal sites (and thorium breeder reactors would produce much less waste anyway). There’s a lot more, but for now just look at sites like http://energyfromthorium.com, with the work of people like Kirk Sorensen.
To start with, I never stated that the running costs themselves would be cheaper… merely that tidal energy is completely renewable. So don’t start a straw man argument.
Second, tidal turbines, must be strategically placed. Properly placed, there are few to any negative effects(that we know of) on the local wildlife.
Third, no where did I suggest that we use only tidal energy. There are other forms of renewable energy that can be utilized during a low energy production peak including but not limited to solar, geothermal, etc. Besides, it would be unwise to put all of your eggs in one basket.
Forth, there is no reason to continue to use weapons or energy plants that produce nuclear waste. It is highly toxic and deadly to multicellular organisms. There is no known way to ensure that nuclear waste can be successfully contained for the entire duration of nuclear decay. You bury it, an earthquake can unleash it you place it underwater, you risk contaminating the water supply.
Besides, money is a very fluid concept. The real question should be are there resources available to do a project. Not is there enough cash, e.g. the Federal Reserve can sit there and print trillions of dollars, but they can not conjure resources out of thin air. Then there is the whole concept of planned obsoletion, but that is a topic for another discussion.
So when you said “with tidal energy, after the initial cost, energy could be virtually free,” you were *not* saying the running costs would be lower? Then what, pray tell, did you mean?
Sorry–you got one of my rocking horses going. There is no such thing as renewable energy. Please reference the laws of thermodynamics to confirm this, but the short version is:
1) You can’t win.
2) You can’t break even.
3) You can’t get out of the game.
The term “renewable” strongly implies a system of perfect 100% efficiency. There ain’t no such animal. I only bring this up because the next assertion is an accucation against strawman arguments.
That being said, one of the greatest strengths (or outright blessings) of that mythical “free market” is that all of these avenues for power generation (e.g., fission, fusion, wind, tidal, geothermal, …) will be tried and perfected as long as the market will bear.
Then some twelve-year-old will come along and rent out a device that no one understands, couldn’t possibly work, is painted some eye-searing shade of green or pink, puts out no detectable radiation . . . but runs you whole house and all of your cars for 0.5 cents a month. And makes a huge profit doing it.
But that’s a pipe dream. Because the natural laws of living under a government are the same:
1) You can’t win
2) You can’t break even
3) You can’t get out of the game.
I have high hopes for thorium. It’s what we’d be using if the psychopaths hadn’t wanted to build nukes…and co-opted civilian generation to breed their plutonium.
But the sine qua non of the future is fusion–Mein Gott how desperately we need that!
I guarantee some small company or even basement tinkerer perfects it long before the Atlas Shrugged-like “multinational consortiums” like ITER get it. I’m very, very suspicious of Big Science–it’s always a boondoggle, and often an intentional distraction to actually prevent progress…
…”See? We tried and failed with billions of dollars. Can’t be done. Don’t even try.”
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it’s been done already–but carefully, ruthlessly suppressed because endless, distributed, practically free energy would destroy the Elites forever.
Oh another thought–with oil, the Elites have essentially created the next “water empire”. Water empires are supposedly revolution-proof; another reason they so jealously guard the oil spigots.
One of the things I’d like to do one day is go up the Dalton Highway to Deadhorse and the Arctic Ocean. Looking into this, what do I find? The Artcic Ocean is off-limits to civilians. They guard the *ocean!* The only way you’re allowed to go anywhere near the coast is on a supervised, government-sponsored “tour.” Is the reason for this:
A) To prevent walruses from sneaking into the country and stealing all my jobs
B) To protect America from Islamic fundamentalist polar bears
C) Because tourists would inconvenience Exxon
I remain mystified by the likes of you Chad. Technologies are in constant flux. You have no idea what is currently possible, instead you bleat like a sheep at imagined wolves in your mind.
Bleating that mostly encourages state force predations, rarely danger avoidance as intended. Who pretends to listen to you and why? What might they really be up to? Keeping the poor in their current weak and vulnerable state, is what I think.
I don’t really care how sufficient power generation capacity is achieved to completely meet current world demand. The point is that it’s achievable.
Molten salt reactors use up radioactive material. Whatever waste remains can be combined with blast furnace slag, glassified, and then shipped to Antarctica or whatever.
http://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/manufacturing-glass-could-reduce-nuclear-waste-90
With energy costs lowered, the cost of goods will greatly decline. The need for forced labor will decline.
Paradoxically, materialism will most likely decline precipitously. When all goods are within the common man’s reach, his tendency to endlessly purchase and consume will most likely abate, since there will be much less fear of want.
The only unanswered question of useless idiotism, is how many more millions will die because of sheeple, before they and their herders become fully obsolete? Before they either adapt or perish.
Tor – Right on! I work with a “Chad.” Always bleating about the damage “we” are doing to the environment. He refers to the human race as “a bunch of hungry rats gnawing on the planet.” I suspect that he believes what he reads in National Geographic and Scientific American to be the absolute unbiased gospel truth. The irony of it is this buffoon works (well, he sometimes works when forced to) in a coal fired power plant and drives a full size SUV! But boy he sure gives conventional energy and petroleum hell the whole time he’s collecting a paycheck from the very system he routinely denigrates. Does he drive a solar charged EV or even a hybrid? No. Does he have his homestead set up for sustainable “off grid” living? Heck no. Does he have the money to do so? Heck yes! As is typical of people who believe they have a right to other people’s money, like Chad here, thinking the Fed can just inflate us into Unicorn Fart and Faerie Dust energy solutions, my coworker wants everyone else to conserve, use renewable energy and subsidize it; but he doesn’t practice what he preaches.
This whole “renewable energy” fiasco would be funny if of this brand of stupidity hadn’t already gotten traction with the likes of the “Cuisinarts for birds” passed off as wind generators, showcase landfill gas projects to make municipalities look “green” and solar panels that not only blind commericial pilots on approach, but are paid for by people who won’t realize one red cent from the “investment” the were forced to make.
There’s a huge solar array near where I live that’s worth considerably more than the owner’s little cracker box farm house. It was 90% paid for with our tax money and the owner sells the excess power back to the utility. That would be fine if part of that money hadn’t come out of my and eveyone else’s paycheck. But if the free market had prevailed, that array wouldn’t be there until it is a good investment for the private sector. It apparently doesn’t matter to folks like Chad, that “resources” available from “the public” are stolen goods.
Yes, Chad, that’s correct; any way you slice it, taxation is theft. One of the most insidious forms of taxation is monetary inflation, stealing value from everyone, but disproportionately from the most vulnerable; those on fixed incomes. When you’re ready to put up your own money and organize capital with people like you, using their own money, you go ahead and build all the tidal generation you can afford. But until such time as you are able to do that, you leave everyone else’s money out of it, no matter how good an idea it seems like at the time.
I used to work with a guy who shared the idiotic Club of Rome mentality. He once ranted at me about how plastics are all evil because they don’t biodegrade, and thus they’re destroying the planet. I explained to him that petroleum, as it exists in nature, is a sticky, toxic black sludge that kills pretty much everything it touches, but once humans have refined it into styrofoam or what have you, it’s an inert solid that takes up space but otherwise ain’t hurting a thing. So even notwithstanding the benefits of plastics, how is that not an improvement in the environment?
He just got mad at me for being so “blind.”