Norway turns neoliberalism and neoclassical economics on its head. It does the opposite and yet it's the best place on Earth to live.

All the incentives we are told about in neoclassical economics are not apparent. The cost is living is higher, probably because the wages of the poorest are pretty good which will put will increase prices. On average, those at the top earn 4 x more than those on the bottom, so go for a meal and the restaurant staff will be earning a fairly good wage.

The  Norwegians don't mind because the welfare state means they have no worries. Life is good!

The oil helps a bit, though, but even here, it was invested very wisely, unlike in the UK.

FT - Manchester businesses agree to ban zero-hours contracts

Employers in city region sign charter aimed at improving wages and workers’ treatment

Employers in Greater Manchester have agreed to ban zero-hours contracts and pay above the minimum wage as founder supporters of its “Good Employment Charter”, launching this week.

A handful will sign the charter, the brainchild of Labour mayor Andy Burnham, with more than 60 pledging to do so soon. More than 100 companies are in talks to sign the charter.

FT - Manchester businesses agree to ban zero-hours contracts

Pappy Noor - ‘Satanic wombs’: the outlandish world of Trump’s spiritual adviser

A video has surfaced of Paula White saying ‘We command any satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now!’

How the human mind works can be pretty scary, just about anything can be justified!

2 She practices prosperity theology

White believes in a school of thought called “prosperity theology”, which sounds a lot like a pyramid scheme.

She believes that financial prosperity is a sign of God’s approval. Which means that God must really like her – she has a multimillion-dollar home in a gated community and a private jet. It follows that God must really like Donald Trump, too.

But she has also been branded a charlatan, perhaps because she proselytizes that God will bless those who donate to her church.

The Guardian 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/27/satanic-pregnancies-trump-spiritual-adviser-paula-white-outlandish-acts

KV - This made my day!

New Economics Says Prosperity Doesn’t Trickle Down. It Comes from the Middle-Out

Properly understood, the middle class is the source of all growth and prosperity in a modern technological economy.

There was six great Chinese civilizations and all of them collapsed for the same reason. Small rural villages would eventually become towns, and towns into districts, and districts into a country. The emperor would be benign and rule fairly. Small businesses prospered and and a well-off middle-class emerged. 

Some businesses grew larger and a new merchant class emerged, but they started forming semi-monopolies, lowering wages  and putting out of business the competition. They also influenced the emperor to lower taxes on themselves and shift them onto everyone else, while encouraging the emperor to start expensive wars of conquest. 

With the middle-class hollowed out and wages plummeting, the Chinese people lost their purchasing power and eventually their great civilization would collapse. Civil war would always follow. The Chinese knew why their civilizations collapsed, but could never do anything to stop it. 

Nick Hanauer and David Rolf say how in neoclassical economics it is considered that the rich drive prosperity through their innovation and entrepreneurship, but that's only part of the story, a prosperous middle-class is really the main driver of a healthy ecomomy. 

Many conservative and libertarians believe in the power of the individual, but if the masses have no security and are all on their own, how can they afford to spend when they need to save their money for a rainy day, because no one is going to help them out if it all goes wrong? 

Conservatives and libertarians believe fear is a big motivater for hard work, but punishment is never as effective as reward, as fear wears you down causing you to lose motivation. 

The American middle class is facing an existential crisis. For more than three decades, declining wages, fraying benefits, and the rising costs of education, housing, and other essentials have stressed and squeezed middle-class Americans. But by far the biggest threat to middle-class workers—and to our economy as a whole—comes from the changing nature of employment itself.

Gone is the era of the lifetime career, let alone the lifelong job and the economic security that came with it, having been replaced by a new economy intent on recasting full-time employees into contractors, vendors, and temporary workers. It is an economic transformation that promises new efficiencies and greater flexibility for “employers” and “employees” alike, but which threatens to undermine the very foundation upon which middle-class America was built. And if the American middle class crumbles, so will an American economy that relies on consumer spending for 70 percent of its activity, and on a diverse and inclusive workforce for 100 percent of the innovation that drives all future prosperity.

Economics

New Economics Says Prosperity Doesn’t Trickle Down. It Comes from the Middle-Out

Tim Shipton - Ex-MI6 spy ‘fabricated dossier on Trump and prostitutes’

The dossier on Donald Trump compiled by the former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, which accused the US president of being compromised by Russia, was a work of “fabrication”, according to a devastating report by a leading British spy writer.

Nigel West has revealed he was hired by a US Republican law firm to assess the dossier in 2017 and concluded that large parts of it were faked.

Sunday Times 

Tim Shipton - Ex-MI6 spy ‘fabricated dossier on Trump and prostitutes’

Links — 27 Jan 2020 — Part 1

The Grayzone
NY Times admits it sends stories to US government for approval before publication

Ben Norton

Reminiscence of the Future
At Least This Is Not A Lie.
Andrei Martyanov

Counterpunch ("Never again." Famous last words?)
A Historian Reflects on the Return of Fascism
Lawrence Wittner | Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany

Dances with Bears (Greater Galicia)
THE TRUTH & THE IRONY: CONSORTIUM NEWS AND THE CONTINUING TALE OF CHRYSTIA FREELAND’S GRANDFATHER AND HIS AND HER NAZI SCHEME FOR UKRAINE TODAY
John Helmer

Defend Democracy Press
Trump Sends a “Death Threat” to Iraq’s Prime Minister

Renee Parsons

Fort Russ News
PENTAGON: US to Match Current Russian Hypersonic Capabilities …in 2040

Drago Bosnic

Geopolitical Monitor

Give Me Religion that Does Not Polarize Society
Julia Suryakusuma

India Punchline
Russia stood by Iran in showdown with US
M. K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service

RT
OPCW cannot be influenced by outside actors, the watchdog needs to be salvaged, British general tells RT

Strategic Culture Foundation (Important)
Iran Becomes the Prize to America’s Warring Parties’ Rites of War
Alastair Crooke | founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, and former British diplomat and senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy

The Grayzone (Democratic socialism versus corporate oligarchy)

DNC’s Tom Perez nominates regime-change agents, Israel lobbyists, and Wall Street consultants to rig the game against Bernie
Kevin Gosztola

The Naked Hedgie ("In his statement, Mitchell said that the central aim of Administration’s foreign policy was to defend U.S. domination of Eurasian landmass as the foremost U.S. national security interest, and to prepare the nation for this challenge." Like I have been saying.)
CIA’s Mike Morell: the covert war in the Middle East is ongoing. It might escalate…
Alex Krainer,

The Unz Review
How Is Washington "Liberating" Free Countries?

Andre Vltchek

Zero Hedge (The four horsemen of the apocalypse–pestilence, war, famine, death)

'Biblical' Locust Plague With Mega-Swarms The Size Of Cities Descends On East Africa

Tyler Durden

Erald Kolasi and Blair Fix - Why we should abandon GDP

Gross Domestic Product is the most popular and useless quantity in economics

A suggested more accurate way of measuring GDP, which may set a standard for all countries. 

To measure the scale of the economy, we think it is appropriate to focus on energy. Physicist Eric Chaisson argues that energy is the universal currency of science. By measuring economic scale using energy, we put economics in line with the rest of science. And if we are concerned with sustainability, there is no better starting point than to focus on energy use. After all, the profligate use of fossil fuels under a capitalist economy is the primary driver of climate change.

Energy has many forms as it is flows through society. One possibility is to focus on primary energy consumption, and see how this relates to changes in social structure. Another possibility is to measure useful work – the consumption of end-use energy. Still another possibility is to measure the aggregate flow rate, which is a measure of all annual energy conversions in an economic system.

The Mint Magazine 

Why we should abandon GDP - Why we should abandon GDP

Peter Hadfield - The evidence for climate change WITHOUT computer models or the IPCC

This is excellent, but Peter Hadfield goes into how CO2 traps heat in more detail in another video.

Jonathan Franzen - What If We Stopped Pretending?

The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.

We could have averted the climate disaster, and investors could have made their fortune out of renewables. Green energy was not anti-capitalism, it was a new market for entrepreneurs. Oil companies would have had a lucrative business for many years to come as we needed the oil for fertilisers, plastics, and chemicals.

The billionaires who run the fossil companies didn't need anymore wealth, and the wealth tied up in the unextracted oil would have been passed onto to their offspring, maybe for generations. 

Scared of being called Alarmists, scientists have not spoken about the worst that can happen, which seems now is likely going to be the outcome. 

Also, if it's too late, the deniers will say, 'well, if everyone is going to die anyway, why worry about it, we might as well keep burning the oil until the party's over?'

Today, the scientific evidence verges on irrefutable. If you’re younger than sixty, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth—massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under thirty, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it.

The New Yorker

Jonathan Franzen - What If We Stopped Pretending?

Grahan Readfearn - Climate sceptics see a conspiracy in Australia’s record breaking heat

Bureau of Meteorology says claims from one climate sceptic that it has corrupted temperature data are false

The deniers like to call themselves skeptics, but they will believe without question anyone who comes along criticising the main body climate science, without doing any further research on this themselves. This is hardly skepticism.

Many of Australia’s climate observatories had to be moved because of the heat from expanding cities corrupting the data. This is science at work. None of the data has been 'hidden', as Tony Heller claims, and all the data is out in the open, as well as why the scientists moved the observatories and how this corrected the data.

When it comes to Australian weather conditions before 1910, what does the science tell us? 

The original raw data is all still there – it has not been corrupted. Anyone can go and get that original data.

Pre-1910 there was not much of a spread but also there was more uncertainty about how the temperatures were being measured. By 1910, most temperatures were being measured in a Stevenson Screen. A lot of measurements were taken at Post Offices but in many cases these were moved out to airports around the middle of the 20th century. That produces artificial cooling in the data.

Towns for example in coastal New South Wales originally had temperatures taken near the ocean because that’s where the town was. But as the town grew the observations would move inland and that is enough to affect temperature and rainfall.
Are we supposed to just ignore that? A scientist can’t ignore those effects. It’s not science to just go ahead and plot that raw data.

Here is the Bureau’s statement in full.

Contrary to assertions in some parts of the media, the Bureau is not altering climate records to exaggerate estimates of global warming. 

Our role is to make meteorological measurements, and to curate, analyse and communicate the data for use in decision making and to support public understanding.

To undertake these tasks, the Bureau employs highly skilled technicians and scientists and invests in high quality monitoring equipment.

The Bureau measures temperature at nearly 800 sites across Australia, chiefly for the purpose of weather forecasting. The Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) is a subset of this network comprising 112 locations that are used for climate analysis. The ACORN-SAT stations have been chosen to maximise both length of record and network coverage across the continent. For several years, all of this data has been made publicly available on the Bureau’s web site.

Temperature records are influenced by a range of factors such as changes to site surrounds (eg. trees casting shade or influencing wind), measurement methods and the relocation of stations (eg. from a coastal to more inland location). Such changes introduce biases into the climate record that need to be adjusted for prior to analysis.

Adjusting for these biases, a process known as homogenisation, is carried out by meteorological authorities around the world as best practice, to ensure that climate data is consistent through time.

At the Bureau’s request, our climate data management practices were subject to a rigorous independent peer-review in 2012. A panel of international experts found the Bureau’s data and methods were amongst the best in the world.

The Bureau’s submissions to the review were published on the Bureau’s website, as were the findings of the review panel.
The Bureau’s methods have also been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

 Both the raw and adjusted ACORN-SAT data and the larger unadjusted national data set all indicate that Australian air temperatures have warmed over the last century. This finding is consistent with observed warming in the oceans surrounding Australia. These findings are also consistent with those of other leading international meteorological authorities, such as NOAA and NASA in the United States and the UK MetOffice. The high degree of similarity is demonstrated in Figure 1 (above).

The Bureau strives to ensure that its data sets and analysis methods are as robust as possible. For this reason we place considerable emphasis on quality assurance, transparency and communication. The Bureau welcomes critical analysis of the Australian climate record by others through rigorous scientific peer review processes.

In this article you will read how big money from the fossil fuel industry tries to corrupt the science.

The Guardian

Grahan Readfearn - Climate sceptics see a conspiracy in Australia’s record breaking heat

Bill Mitchell — Britain continues to defy Project Fear

Regular readers will know that I have been following the path of the British economy post-Referendum in 2016 to see whether the doomsday that the Remainers predicted was likely. It became colloquially known as ‘Project Fear’ as mainstream economists, so-called progressive economists who had their snout in the Labour Party as advisors (and we know where that took the Party), institutions like the Treasury and the Bank of England, all pumped out a sequence of terrible predictions about what would happen to the British economy should the Leave vote succeed. The predictions started in the lead up to the June vote. Immediate recession was forecast. That didn’t happen. Then new forecasts came out – with longer term disasters predicted. As each prediction horizon passed without disaster, the predictions morphed, new horizons were introduced, more nuanced analysis was presented. And, as nothing much has happened to ratify their fears (and lies), the Project has abated somewhat. The latest data shows that the Project is as moribund as it ever was....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Britain continues to defy Project Fear

Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Dr Gary Novak Debunked About His Global Warming Denial

Is global warming impossible because of CO₂'s dilution?

Gary Novak argues (e.g. in his book, Science Errors and on his web site) that climate models are incorrect, because of a missing "dilution" 2factor.

Climatologists skipped over the dilution factor. Each CO2 molecule in the air would have to be 2,500°C to heat the air 1°C—an impossibility—because there are 2,500 air molecules around each CO2 molecule (400ppm). There cannot be greenhouse gases creating global warming for this reason. Novak

the collision frequency of a typical gas is about [1,000,000,000 times per second] at 1 atm and room temperature, so the time in flight in a gas is typically 1 ns [nanosecond]

So a given molecule (such as a CO2 molecule) can not have a higher kinetic energy than the other molecules in the gas for more than the nanosecond time scale. Instead, the energy is distributed among the molecules by collisions.

For more information see Properties of Gases.

Separately, the claim is wrong to compare the full 400 ppm of CO2 to only 1°C.

Instead, without a greenhouse effect, Earth's temperature would be -18 °C compare to the 1951 and 1980 temperature of 14 °C.

So the total greenhouse effect is about 32 °C, and CO2 is responsible for 9-26% of the effect. H2O is the main contributor, at 60%, according to the American Chemical Society, but humans do not control H2O concentration, except by otherwise changing temperature.

More particularly, the 32 °C of greenhouse effect, based upon the average 1951 and 1980 temperature of 14 °C, should be compared to the corresponding CO2 concentration of 320 ppm in 1965. Increase in temperature since then should be compared relative to increase in CO2 concentration since then, while considering any hysteresis effects (such as time for oceans and ice to equilibrate to new temperature).

Also, the claim is wrong to assess that only the air needs to be heated to the new temperature. The heat capacity of the ocean is much greater than the atmosphere.

the collision frequency of a typical gas is about [1,000,000,000 times per second] at 1 atm and room temperature, so the time in flight in a gas is typically 1 ns [nanosecond]

So a given molecule (such as a CO2 molecule) can not have a higher kinetic energy than the other molecules in the gas for more than the nanosecond time scale. Instead, the energy is distributed among the molecules by collisions.

For more information see Properties of Gases.

Separately, the claim is wrong to compare the full 400 ppm of CO2 to only 1°C.

Instead, without a greenhouse effect, Earth's temperature would be -18 °C compare to the 1951 axnd 1980 temperature of 14 °C.

So the total greenhouse effect is about 32 °C, and CO2 is responsible for 9-26% of the effect. H2O is the main contributor, at 60%, according to the American Chemical Society, but humans do not control H2O concentration, except by otherwise changing temperature.

More particularly, the 32 °C of greenhouse effect, based upon the average 1951 and 1980 temperature of 14 °C, should be compared to the corresponding CO2 concentration of 320 ppm in 1965. Increase in temperature since then should be compared relative to increase in CO2 concentration since then, while considering any hysteresis effects (such as time for oceans and ice to equilibrate to new temperature).

Also, the claim is wrong to assess that only the air needs to be heated to the new temperature. The heat capacity of the ocean is much greater than the atmosphere.

Skeptics Stack Exchange

Gary Novak Debunked About Global Warming 

KV vs Tony Heller - Climate Change Debate - Twitter Part 3

As I was looking for the other threads where I had debated with Tony Heller and I found they were all embedded within the tweets of Part 2. I started updating Part 2 but as these threads were in different branches it started to lose its flow. 

So here's another branch.

SM

The warming corresponds quite well with postal charges. That must be worth investigating? 🙄

MB

Correlation ≠ causation. 

KV

From our science is we know that is not a link, but CO2 is. 

Our science is very good, quantum physics, smart phones, Internet, etc 

World Economic Forum 

 Carbon dioxide makes up 0.041% of the Earth's atmosphere. Here's why that tiny percentage has big consequences

Carbon dioxide makes up 0.041% of the Earth's atmosphere. Here's why that tiny percentage has big consequences

MB


It’s never really worked that way in the geologic record, though. Previous warming events had nothing to do with CO2 emissions.

KV

As you can see in this graph, the sun output has been declining slightly over the last 50 years, while global temperature has gone up.

Tony Heller

People who refer to themself as plural, are not very convincing

KV

1. That's just your opinion 

So, 1000's of researchers all over the world are fiddling their data, but are unable to coordinate their data through electronic media bc it would get hacked 

FF co's could easily expose the scam by paying top whack for climatologists.

2. And their students would wonder what they were doing when the data they help collect gets changed. & the PhD's in other facilities would ask the climatologists how they are getting on, and they would say fine, but be secretly altering the data, unless they are all in on the scam

 3. Surely someone would speak up somewhere with so many people involved? 
And the FF co's wouldn't stand for a hoax, and so would hire the best private detectives to look into it, who would hack emails & pay people good money for facts, etc. But zilch, nothing. Just Lord Monkton.

 MB

They did get hacked a while back, and what we learned wasn’t pretty.

KV

Yes, they did get hacked, & that's why we know their emails are fine today, bc they would be hacked. Obviously everything is above board.
That hack you refer too, all of the scientists were cleared of wrongdoing by 8 different tribunals. It turned out there was no hidden data.

 MB

Making up and altering data to fit a narrative might be fine in climate science, which is why most unbiased scientists think that “climate science” is a joke. The same behavior in finance or medical research would have resulted in jail time.

KV

1. Secret documents get leaked to the media all the time. With 1000's of climatologists all over the world and their students, with PhD's of other faculties, secretaries, clerks, & computer technicians - who repair the scientist's PCs - you would think that someone would have

2. released damming documents by now?

KV

1. No one is answering by question : how do 1000's of climatologists all over the world coordinate their data when they can't use electronic communications?

2.  But the FF co's could easily afford to do the counter science to expose the 'scam'. It would be a v good investment. They could pay top money for climatologists who I'm sure many of whom would prefer to do 'real science'.

SM

When CO2 rises to its highest point in the non-man-made paleoclimate, Earth's temps stabilize and fall.
When CO2 falls to its lowest point in the non-man-made paleoclimate, Earth's temps abruptly rise.
Can you see where you're going wrong here? 🤔

KV

1) We use meta analysis of thousands of studies to find trends and averages. 
Meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analysis can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question,

 2) with each individual study reporting measurements that are expected to have some degree of error.

SM

 The "measurements" from the studies referenced in your link ALSO contain "some degree of error", but that didn't stop you presenting them as evidence to support your claim. 🙄
Your double-standards are quite impressive. 👏

KV

They use meta analysis from 1000's of studies to find trends bc there are always blips and anomalies..

Shown below is no ordinary pigeon. It's been specially trained, along with thousands of other pigeons, to fly secret messages around the world, so that climatologists can coordinate their data without having to use electronic communications which can easily be hacked. In this way, all the data is secretly synchronised: tree ring, surface, glacier, polar regions, oceans, and satellite, etc.

KV vs Heller - Climate Change Debate - Twitter Part 2

I've just found a whole load of embedded tweets, so I've updated it again.

Tony Heller 

This news makes no sense to me.  I read that Australia burned up and is now unlivable.

KV

In 2013, the CSIRO released a report stating that Australia is becoming hotter, and that it will experience more extreme heat and longer fire seasons because of climate change. ... Temperatures in Australia have also risen dramatically since 1910 and nights have become warmer.

MB

The trend is probably 100% due to urbanization (UHI) and data “adjustments”.

KV

The warming corresponds quite well with C02. That must be worth investigating? 

Tony Heller

The temperature graph is propaganda, not science.

Tony Heller

Very clever of them to cut off the years before 1910, when it was hotter. 

JD

They also cherry-picked 1961-1990 for the base temperature in KV's posted graph, how convenient that it's a cooler stretch. 

KV

Tony picked one chart out of 100's, maybe 1000's, surely that is cherry-picking par-excellence?

JD

Measures of average temperature changes over time. 
Is it hotter than at any time in the past in Australia? No. As proven by Tony’s chart. The chart you posted doesn’t show a full history (hides data) and is AVERAGE, not highs
Do you expect to see a flat line?

KV

But that's only one place, what we are talking about are average global temperatures, which clearly show global warming.

Like this -

Global mean surface temperature change since 1880. Baseline temperature[1] is about 14 °C. Source: NASA GISS 

 WB

Global mean surface temperature graphs are very inaccurate, and fraught with misinformation due to a lack of stations. Global temperature stations are sparse in many areas of the globe: 

KV

If looks like there are 1000's of them, so surely we can get averages? The statistics will show the trends, as they seem to do.

Tony Heller

There is very little high quality long-term temperature data outside of the US

KV

Does that include data from satellites which orbit the Earth?

Tony Heller

They’re weren't any satellites in 1920

 KV

That's right, as I said in a recent tweet. That's the reason this chart starts where it does.

Tony Heller

The vast majority of those stations are garbage, and do nothing but pollute the data set.  That is why they were excluded from earlier data sets like the 1975 National Academy of Sciences report.

KV

So why aren't these people exposing how the scam is done. They must know the methods as they worked in the industry?

 CMW

I agree, Tony. Folks have attempted telling me that there is more coverage in GHCN v4. They're correct, but as you and I both said, it pollutes the dataset. As Anthony Watts said, "When you mix good data with bad data, you get more bad data."

KV

But what about Satellite data which corresponds fairly well with the surface? 

CD

Regardless of whatever data is available, from a geologic-time perspective, temp and sea levels have been rising since the end of the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago. Moreover it's far from a straight-line increases. Any panic over current temps and sea levels ignores this.

KV

CO2 to temp to sea levels looks closely linked here.

Chart of 420,000 year history: temperature, CO2, sea level

CD

Large houses are linked with wealth. 

Therefore, large houses cause wealth.

EF

You didn't watch the video, so you're not really interested in what's happening. All of the records have been tampered with, as Tony has demonstrated time after time after time. 

 KV

There are 1000's of climatologists all over the world and they all specialise: glaciers, oceans, surface, trees, satellites, etc. If it's a hoax, how do they coordinate their data? They can't use email, phones, & post bc these would be hacked. Pigeons, perhaps?

Tony Heller

I post the massive contradictions in the data almost every day.  You should watch my videos and then get back to me with a better understanding.

KV

But the averages and trends match. Of course there are variations. 

If it was a hoax, the FF co's could easily prove it. They could hire climatologists by paying them excellent money & some would take it. The FF co's are v wealthy & could fund their universities too.

EF

And the vast, vast majority of climate change researchers are mere data scientists, or are working extensively as data scientists. Data science, regardless of the area of study, is an industry of fraud, projecting and extrapolating their opinion and twisting the data to fit.

KV

Surely there are some conservative leaning climatologists that would be up in a arms about such a hoax, especially if it was deemed that liberals were try to raise taxes? Where are they?

EF

They've all been excised from the scientific community and excommunicated. CC alarmism is a cult, complete with an enlightened clergy, dogma, sin, forgiveness, an apocalypse, faithful zealots, and heretics. If you can't see that, you might just be a cult member.

KV

Then they would expose the scam.

EF

And all of their work would immediately be dismissed by CC cultists as tainted. But CC research gets $80 billion a year globally to make sure there is still a problem to study. Big oil only spends around $100 million a year in CC research. BTW, averages goes up if the min does.

JK

Lord help us, you are just too dim to be argued with, unfortunately quite soon even the terminally dim will see the results of the forthcoming solar minimum, 'sgonna get colder pal, a lot, then even you might work it out

JK

 It's not a hoax, it's a scam and the perps are raking in big cash for not rocking the boat. I'm not a climatologist, I do stats and all the stats are rigged, they leave out massive amounts of data which don't fit their agenda, the peer review system is broken because of money

KV

But how do they rig it when they are 1000's of them all over the world, when they can't synchronise their data using electronic communications bc it would get hacked?

After this it goes quite, but it picks up again on another thread.

Potholer54 - The cause of Australia’s bushfires – what the SCIENCE says

This video by Peter Hadfield is really good because it's latest and so it's very up to date. He really hammers the deniers in this one.

Arson? Lack of hazard reduction? Nothing new? This video looks at what fire chiefs and scientists say is the REAL cause of the 2019-2020 fires in Australia, in response to amateur theories proposed by media commentators and bloggers.

KV vs Tony Heller - Climate Change Debate - Twitter Part 1

I had a debate with Tony Heller today on twitter. He didn't debate with me for long, although his followers did - all afternoon!


I will write a more detailed report about it one day because I think I did manage to exposed their conspiracy theory for what it is.

Tony Heller Tweet

With record cold in Alaska, rain in Australia, and normal sea ice extent,, where will the climate clown show move next? 

My tweet

Alaska needs several -40°F to -60°F outbreaks to have a normal winter — not one outbreak every few years

The Washington Post

Alaska to plummet to minus-50 degrees but is still a ‘near lock’ to see its warmest year on record

Tony Heller

Alaska is having one of their coldest years on record. 

My Tweet

That just a 10-day weather forecast! 

Bat Soup

No wonder they all want to leave and come here...

Coronavirus outbreak could be linked to bat soup sold at Wuhan market https://t.co/MMSQcY2Amo

— The Sun (@TheSun) January 23, 2020

What is hydropower and can it be the renewable energy source that replaces fossil fuels?

This video does sound like promotion for hydropower, but I have no problem with that. It says that we only have about 30 years of fossil fuel left, so why waste it by burning it when we need it for fertilisers, plastics, and chemicals?

The billionaires who run the fossil fuels companies are wealthy beyond belief, and the oil was never going to be wasted, because we would have just made it last longer, so oil was always going to be a good source of income for them.

Bank governor credits Liberal stimulus with stronger economy

This rather messes up neoclassical and Conservative economic theories.

OTTAWA -- Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz is crediting the Liberal government's Canada Child Benefit program with the country's strengthening economy, calling it "highly stimulative."

The federal government introduced the amended formula for providing money to parents of children under 18 years old as its first order of business in 2015. It wasn't promoted as a stimulus measure, but as part of a package to help middle-class families.

CTV News

Bank governor credits Liberal stimulus with stronger economy

Andrew Austin - How I See The US After Living In Sweden For 6 Years

Andrew Austin takes a non-partisan look at Sweden and much prefers it to the US. The pace of life is slower in Sweden with much lower stress levels. In the US everyone is rushing about all the time, he says.

In Sweden he says how people love to sit in coffea bars and socialise, but in America he would be drinking his coffea while driving to work.

As Andrew Austin is non-partisan so he then says what he likes about America, and he adds how great it would be if the Amazon model was applied to everything, including healthcare. But that means more stress and that people wouldn't have earn enough money to drive the economy. I think he's just trying his best to be balanced here, because he much prefers the Swedish model.

Adam Schiff Is a Dangerous Warmonger, BY LIZA FEATHERSTONE

Adam Schiff, the liberal hero of impeachment, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the military-industrial complex and a fervent exponent of permanent war.

I can't think is anything more disturbing than war. To think that some people want wars so they can sit back and make a lots of money out of it is horrendous. What could be more evil? 

Guess what these companies want? War with Ukraine. Why wouldn’t they? Last October, the United States approved a $39 million sale of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, a joint contract between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. The previous year, Ukraine bought $37 million worth of missiles from the same two companies. As a missile-maker, Zacks Equity Research has noted, Northrop Grumman also benefits richly from conflict in Ukraine, as missiles are heavily used in cross-border wars.

Jacobin


Adam Schiff Is a Dangerous Warmonger, BY LIZA FEATHERSTONE

Links — 24 Jan 2020

Asia Times (Historical and geopolitical backgrounder)
Why the New Silk Roads are a ‘threat’ to US bloc

Pepe Escobar

Kazakhstan (Think it's nowhere? Think again. Dimash is here to tell you it ain't so — and to prove it.)

Center for Citizen Initiatives (Background on Putin)
Shake-up in the Kremlin? Putin Selects a New Leader?

Sharon Tennison

Counterpunch (Historical backgrounder)
The Long History of Elite Rule: What Will It Take To End It?
Chuck Churchill

Counterpunch (Chapin as social critic)
Charlie Chaplin and Truly Modern Times

Daniel Warner

Counterpunch (more about the transition away from neoliberal globalization)
A Modest Proposal for Socialist Revolution

Chris Wright

Craig Murray Blog
The Troubling Decline of International Law
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Irrussianality
Striking back
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Mint Press News (Lula rats out Obama and HRC)
Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva: Obama, Hillary Ordered Me Not to Negotiate with Iran

Alan Macleod

Mint Press News (Duh.)

Houthis Anticipate US Assassination Attempts, Warn US Troops Will Be Targeted in Retaliation
Ahmed Abdulkareem

Mint Press News
Enormous Crowds at Iraq’s Million Man March Tell America to Leave for Good

Alan Macleod

Moon of Alabama
Associated Press Sees "Hundreds" Where Pictures Show Millions

Venezuelanalysis.com 

The New Society Will Emerge in the Commune: A Conversation with Angel Prado
Cira Pascual Marquina

RT (Trump said "headaches.")
34 US troops suffered brain injury in Iran’s revenge strike for Soleimani’s killing – Pentagon

SouthFront
Declassified CIA Documents Describe Kiev Regime’s Hero Stepan Bandera as “Hitler’s Spy” and Nazi

Sputnik International
Former US Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Dunford Joins Board of Lockheed Martin

Sputnik International
Iran's Fars New Agency Says Its Website Blocked Due to Recent US Sanctions Against Country

Sputnik International
Trump Administration Steps Up Efforts to Topple Venezuela's Maduro - Senior Diplomat

Productivity, Labor Complexity, and Wage Determination Procedures — Peter Cooper

This post concerns an implication of Marx’s treatment of productivity and labor complexity for the appropriateness of alternative processes of wage determination. For simplicity, it is assumed that all activity is productive in Marx’s sense (that is, productive of surplus value) and that conditions are competitive in the Marxian (and classical) sense that investment is free to flow in and out of sectors in search of the highest return. Introducing unproductive labor, including a substantial role for public sector and not-for-profit activity, and non-competitive elements would considerably complicate the analysis. The point of the exercise is to consider the incentive effects of alternative wage-determination procedures, from the perspective of Marx’s theory. It is suggested that Marx’s distinction between abstract and concrete labor implies that centralized wage determination, more than alternative wage-setting approaches, will be conducive to productivity growth....

heteconomist
Productivity, Labor Complexity, and Wage Determination Procedures
Peter Cooper

Tulsi Gabbard speaks out on $50M lawsuit against Hillary Clinton

It's shocking to hear Hillary's conspiracy theories, invented to knock the rivals out of the race.

Pat Buchanan - Hillary Puts Bernie Into Her Basket of Deplorables

I thought this was interesting. Pat Buchanan shows no fondness for Bernie, and neither does he defend him against Hillary's ludicrous claims that he is a sexist. In this way, it's quite a neutral report.

It sounds to me as if Hilary is playing the feminist card to garnish womens votes. I don't know that for certain, but I don't recognise Hillary's depiction of him. Politics is a dirty business.

From her own words, Clinton regards Sanders as a nasty man running a misogynistic campaign and a political phony whose achievements are nonexistent and who lacks the temperament to be president.

Unz Review 

Pat Buchanan - Hillary Puts Bernie Into Her Basket of Deplorables

Body Language: Putin & Assad In Damascus, Trump Joke

This person studies body language and has made an interesting video about Putin and Assad. She seems to like both of them, even though you're not supposed to say that in the West.

Fed Repo down $43B last week

Where are all the Fed repo doomsday d-bags reporting this policy change????  Where???

Repo down $43B from $229B last week to $186B this week.

TGA up $31B  to $411B.

Thus total Reserve Assets at the Depositories DOWN $64B from $1,673 to $1,609 in last week.

KV Tweet - Are climate change deniers like flat earthers?

I'm still arguing with the climate change deniers on twitter, but cut one head off and two come back. They are mad, and no matter what science you show them, they say it's a conspiracy. What's disturbing is that some people on the left seem to be deniers now, and even Richard Werner is liking denial tweets.

The Off-Guardian takes this position too, like many others I follow. They may accept global warming, but believe the 'Alarmists' are exaggerating climate change, so that the bankers can get governments to raise taxes, so they can make a lot on money.

I came across the site, What's Up With That, a denier site, and found the Off-Guardian and many others I follow were following it. These lefties believe that the corporations control the world and our media, which is mostly true in my opinion, but these lefties can't help but see conspiracies in everything. What's ironic, is that they follow What's Up With That which is funded by the Koch Brothers, via the Heritage Foundation. These so called lefties are being hoodwinked by the corporations and the powerful elite that they say they oppose.

They all hate Greta Thunberg, and call this little girl despicable names. The Denier industry saw a huge threat from Greta, and so set out in full gear to discredit her.

When I bring up NASA, the deniers shout, 'fake news - goverment agency!'. When I show them science articles, they shout, 'MSM!'. When I show them the scientific reports of the research, they shout, 'the climatologists lie!'. And so it goes on.

KV Tweet

1) Are climate change deniers like flat earthers?

Members of the Flat Earth Society claim to believe the Earth is flat. Walking around on the planet's surface, it looks and feels flat, so they deem all evidence to the contrary, such as satellite photos of Earth as a sphere, to..

2).. be fabrications of a "round Earth conspiracy" orchestrated by NASA and other government agencies, such as satellite photos of Earth as a sphere, to be fabrications of a "roundconspiracy" orchestrated by NASA and other government agencies.

Are Flat Earthers being serious?

Harry Dunn: Anne Sacoolas extradition request rejected by US

The US has turned down an extradition request for one of its citizens who was charged with causing the death of teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn.

Mr Dunn, 19, died after a crash in Northamptonshire in August which led to the suspect, Anne Sacoolas, leaving for the US under diplomatic immunity.

The Home Office had launched extradition proceedings on charges of causing the death by dangerous driving.

A spokeswoman said the decision by the US "appears to be a denial of justice".

Washington, however, said granting the request would "render the invocation of diplomatic immunity a practical nullity".

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo turned down the extradition request in an email to the UK Government on Thursday evening, family spokesman Radd Seiger said.

The BBC - Harry Dunn: Anne Sacoolas extradition request rejected by US