Friday, January 31, 2020

Link — 31 Jan 2020

Gold Goats 'N Guns
On Brexit Day the Times They are a’Changing

Ray McGovern
A MUST READ on Assange

The Vineyard of the Saker
China’s virus response has been ‘breathtaking’
Pepe Escobar

Zero Hedge
Now It's 64: Wounded US Troop Count From Iran Attack Still Growing
Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge
Hillary Tweets "No One Is Above the Law" Then Refuses To Accept Lawsuit Against Her
Tyler Durden

Tyler Durden


Saudis Boost Crude Oil Exports To China By 47% In 2019 — Tsvetana Paraskova

The world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, significantly raised its crude sales to the world’s largest oil importer, China, in 2019, boosting its exports to China by 47 percent and beating Russia for the top Chinese supplier spot for the first time in four years, according to Chinese customs data as carried by Reuters on Friday. While Saudi Arabia restricts production under the OPEC+ deal, it has prioritized shipments to the most prized markets, China and Asia, at the expense of exports to markets such as the United States....
Going where the future lies. It's also the reason that the UK and EU stiffed Trump on his demand to isolate Huawei, endangering the Chinese market for them.

Oilprice
Saudis Boost Crude Oil Exports To China By 47% In 2019
Tsvetana Paraskova

Karl Marx’s Law of Value in the Twilight of Capitalism — Murray Smith

Global capitalism, with humanity in tow, is now facing a triple crisis: a deepening structural contradiction of the capitalist mode of production, one manifested as a multi-dimensional crisis of ‘valorisation’ – that is to say, a crisis in the production of ‘surplus-value’, the very lifeblood of the profit system; an acute crisis in international relations stemming from the fact that the global productive forces are bursting the confines of the nation-state system, whose individual units continue to address their gravest problems in primarily ‘national’ ways; and a growing ‘metabolic rift’ between human civilisation and the ‘natural conditions of production’ – the ecological foundations of human sustainability. Together, these interrelated crises suggest that we have now entered a ‘twilight era’ of capitalism – one in which humanity will either find the means to create a higher and more rational order of social and economic organisation, or in which decaying capitalism will bring about the destruction of human civilisation....
Counterpunch
Karl Marx’s Law of Value in the Twilight of Capitalism
Murray Smith | Professor of Sociology at Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada

As Global Growth Stalls, The Russian Economy is Gathering Momentum — Jon Hellevig

There’s a lot going for the Russian economy as 2020 kicks into its second month. Russia’s government reshuffle is seen as removing austerity constraints and speeding up the financing of Putin’s ambitious national development programs. In his speech to the National Assembly, Putin signaled the end of austerity on social spending, Russia being the only country in the developed world, which is now seriously increasing social spending (among other things, increasing pensions double the rate of inflation and initiating massive child support programs) while everyone else is cutting. We expect that the Central Bank will have to follow suit and end its financial austerity in order to finally slash – Russia’s globally record high – real interest rates in line with the rapidly sinking inflation. Russia’s manufacturing industries will continue to grow above global averages fueled by the national development programs and on the strength of the now maturing import substitution programs. With new gas pipelines opened end of 2019 to China and Turkey, Russia’s energy exports will stay strong no matter what happens in the global economy. Because of the overall strong economy and the concurring huge reduction of influx of new young adults to the labor market due to the effects of the demographic crisis in the 1990’s, the labor market will be increasingly tight putting upwards pressure on wages, which will increase consumption....
Awara
As Global Growth Stalls, The Russian Economy is Gathering Momentum
Jon Hellevig

They Begin To Suspect Something — Andrei Martyanov

Now Russia's main strategic secret is out and some more-or-less competent observations are being made. About time. Of course people in Financial Times do not understand the real size and scale of Russian economy and repeat same ol' monetarist BS (accidentally, responsible for driving US and UK's economies into the ground) that Russian economy's size is $1.7 trillion, but let's forgive victims of Wall Street make believe world of virtual, zero value added, FIRE economics, and concentrate on what this establishment rag got right about Russia....
Far from destroying the Russian economy as expected and intended, the reverse has happened. For one thing, Russia cured itself of "Dutch disease" resulting from being "just a gas station" (John McCain). And that is only the beginning of the story. Andrei Martyanov hits some of the highlights.

And all this without mentioning the defense industry playing catch-up and surpassing Western military technology in strategic areas.

Reminiscence of the Future
They Begin To Suspect Something.
Andrei Martyanov

See also
Of why Putin already is in Russian history together with Peter, Katherine, Lenin, Stalin. This video, of the city of Krasnoyarsk is made in the mode "What is was--What it is now" shows an absolutely mind-boggling progress of Russia of 2002 to Russia of 2019. It is a superb video, authors did an extraordinary job and it shows, dramatically, what hole Putin and his people dug Russia from when came to power in 2000. What was done in 17 years is stunning. Russian people, with the exception of some young and stupid urbamites, and, of course, liberda, know this. They also feel pride for their country. Immense pride, I know, I saw and experienced it myself when visiting Russia. Enjoy.
One Of The Most Stunning Proofs...

Three Economic Ideas Threatening to Defenders of the Status Quo — Peter Cooper

1. Profit as surplus labor or as a property-based claim
One idea threatening to the defenders of the status quo is the recognition that profit income reflects capitalist property relations rather than productive contribution.…
 2. Capitalist economies are demand constrained 
 The Keynesian or Kaleckian principle of effective demand may not seem quite such a hindrance to defenders of the status quo as knowledge of the nature of profit, but the motivation for its denial – at least in the long run – is easy enough to perceive.…
3. Money matters, including in the long run
Also threatening to defenders of the status quo is any analysis that subjects the monetary system to scrutiny, whether it be the endogeneity of money or the implications, applicable to modern monetary systems, of currency sovereignty. (Money as Taboo for Economists illustrates this sociological dynamic in operation.)...
heteconomist
Three Economic Ideas Threatening to Defenders of the Status Quo
Peter Cooper

Germany Taps Hydrogen Subsidies in Race to Replace Fossil Fuel, By Vanessa Dezem and Brian Parkin

Germans are preparing to throw the weight of Europe’s biggest economy behind a plan to replace fossil fuels with the universe’s lightest element.

Hydrogen production could be subsidized under a new German plan to fill in the energy gaps left by the country’s impending exit from coal and nuclear power, according to an Economy Ministry draft report seen by Bloomberg. Officials have tapped clean-burning hydrogen as the new oil to fuel transport, heating and industry.

Bloomberg 

Germany Taps Hydrogen Subsidies in Race to Replace Fossil Fuel



More and more Americans are dying by suicide. What are we missing?

In the modern world there can be a lot of loneliness. There are people everywhere, but do they have much time left after work?

Suicide is the nation's 10th-leading cause of death, with 14.2 deaths per 100,000 people, though that rate alone belies the scope of the problem. While thousands of people die by suicide each year, millions think about it. In 2017, 10.6 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.2 million made a plan, and 1.4 million attempted it,

USA Today 


George picked up the story from another twitter person who apologised later about it.

Maternal low-dose aspartame and stevia consumption with an obesogenic diet alters metabolism, gut microbiota and mesolimbic reward system in rat dams and their offspring

Although I'm a vegan today, I consider myself lucky I was brought up on lard, butter, and milk which all came from grazed, grass fed animals, and so I got plenty of omega 3. My mum stuck to lard and butter even when all our neighbours and my friends went over to vegetable oil and margarine. Although these vegetable oils are a lot healthier now, they were full of artery clogging trans-fats in those days.

Now these sugar alternatives look bad too, which can make epigenetic changes to offspring of rats.

Conclusion: Maternal low-calorie sweetener consumption alongside HFS may disrupt weight regulation, glucose control and gut microbiota in dams and their offspring most notably in early life despite no direct low-calorie sweetener consumption by offspring.


British Medical Journal

Maternal low-dose aspartame and stevia consumption with an obesogenic diet alters metabolism, gut microbiota and mesolimbic reward system in rat dams and their offspring





FT - Can the Dutch save the world from the danger of rising sea levels?

The Netherlands has learnt to manage flooding. Climate-threatened countries are taking note


The deniers on both the left and right keep telling me that the 'climate change hoax' is scam to raise taxes, but this is going to cost a fortune. 

Over the next 45 years, the country spent billions building the Delta Works: a network of dams, dykes, sluices and storm barriers that is unmatched worldwide. Though most of the Netherlands is either below sea level or prone to river floods, the number of people killed by flooding since 1953 is zero.

FT

FT - Can the Dutch save the world from the danger of rising sea levels?

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Nordstrom Selling Used Clothes


I guess the Clueless Hedge people never think that maybe the Millennials value thrift and largely don't like to see all the waste and garbage...  we throw out half of our food too... sheesh..

Hey clueless hedge ever hear of E-Bay???




Here are some Millennial-type videos out there that have lots of hits where Millennials are repairing and restoring older/used original high quality materials:

Shoes:



Butcher knives:


Old scooter:



There are all sorts of restoration videos out there...

Top TV show on all television is 'Fixer Upper' on HGTV over 4 million viewers for crying out loud:




Maybe this is just what Millennials are into... gee sorry Madison Avenue... they just don't throw stuff out in garbage if they see some value there... why would Nordstrom ignore that?

Nicky Hilton wearing $75 vintage.... please...:




This is what they are into...

Reserve Assets at Depositories


Current Reserve Assets at Depositories at $1,612B and that is with TGA up at $450B as of yesterday close...





If Treasury runs the TGA down to $200B by March 1 as they did last year that would add $250B of  non-risk assets to Depositories in about the next 30 days...  that future balance of Reserve assets would then be $1,862B around March 1...  again if they run the TGA balance back down to $200B...

(Unless Treasury changes their policy this year to keep the TGA more stable throughout the month of February)

I have a hard time believing Depositories are adequately planning to accommodate receipt of these additional $100Bs of non-risk assets in such a short time period if Treasury repeats last year's fiscal  policy for February...

Events in February may become very revealing...


Links — 30 Jan 2020

The Komisar Scoop
Lucy Komisar: Danish Press Board says report on Browder is true

The New Republic
The Neocons Strike Back
Jacob Heilbrunn

Reminiscence of the Future
Oh, What A Surprise! Nah...
Andrei Martyanov

Anti-Empire
Media Has Nothing to Say as Firefighters Battle Police in France
Alan Macleod

RT
Pompeo names ‘the central threat of our times’ and guess what it is… It’s the Chinese Communist Party

Russia Observer
RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 30 JANUARY 2020
Patrick Armstrong

SouthFront
Family Of Russia’s New Prime Minister Owns $45Million In Real Estate, While He Declares Zero Property

The Grayzone
Social media giants disappear popular Iranian & Venezuelan accounts
Anya Parampil

Zero Hedge
Carter Page Sues DNC Over Steele Dossier In "Opening Salvo"

No One Is Above The Law? Hillary Clinton Refuses To Be Served Tulsi Gabbard Lawsuit

Strategic Culture Foundation
The Torturers and the ‘Ticking Bomb’: How Torture Became Routine in the Global War on Terror
Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, now Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Bill Mitchell — Governments can always control yields if they desire


This is post really as much about the growing impact of MMT as it is central banking. Bill cites the recent Fed admission that it can set the yield curve if it chooses as evidence of that. There's a lot packed into this post.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Governments can always control yields if they desire
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

A Mathematical Model Unlocks the Secrets of Vision

Mathematicians and neuroscientists have created the first anatomically accurate model that explains how vision is possible.




“A lot of the things you think you see you’re actually making up,” said Lai-Sang Young, a mathematician at New York University. “You don’t actually see them.”


New research suggests mathematics is the key. For the past few years, Young has been engaged in an unlikely collaboration with her NYU colleagues Robert Shapley, a neuroscientist, and Logan Chariker, a mathematician. They’re creating a single mathematical model that unites years of biological experiments and explains how the brain produces elaborate visual reproductions of the world based on scant visual information.

Quanta Magazine 

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Awara — Major Changes in Russian Legislation for Business in 2020

  1. Russia Is Switching to Electronic Labor Books
  2. There Will Be More Self-employed Workers
  3. The list of goods subject to mandatory marking will be expanded
  4. Personal income tax for non-residents will be decreased
Awara
Major Changes in Russian Legislation for Business in 2020

Equilibrium Theory and Near East Economics — Michael Hudson


Video interview and transcript.

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
Equilibrium Theory and Near East Economics
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

Matthew Goodwin: Why Labour Lost the Election

Mathew Goodwin is a Professor of Politics at Kent University UK, and here he talks to the conservative TRIGGERnomentry blog about why the British Labour Party lost the general election. It's a tough listen for liberals like me, but these things need to be faced. Mathew Goodwin is slightly left leaning, especially on economics, but he may be more socially conservative than I am.

As you may know, I have often said that I don't like extreme immigration which causes traditional culture to be changed too quickly, but just the same, the working class socially conservative mind-set is not something I care for all that much. 

What's interesting is that Mathew Goodwin says how the diehard liberal lefties view the socially conservative working class as bigoted racists, and sometimes even as white supremacists, which is an extreme prejudice in itself, so, no wonder the working class don't like Labour all that much anymore when they are being treated as diplorables. 

I have often said that on the whole, the white British people are not particularly racist, and are in fact, very tolerant and easy going about multiculturalism, as long as it doesn't take over their culture entirely, because, like me, they want to have a place they recognise as their home, and to be with people who they feel share their core values. I think this is a human need that extreme liberals just arrogantly walk all over. In this way, these liberals are like the intolerant fundamentalists they say they despise.

Mathew Goodwin says how for the working class their social values were more important to them than economic ones, and so the Conservatives won the election. 


Varieties of neoliberalism — Diane Coyle

I’ve polished off Angus Burgin’s The Great Persuasion, recommended to me by a colleague after Daniel Stedman-Jones’s Masters of the Universecropped up in conversation. I read the latter when it came out in 2012. It made a strong impression on me with its account of the way the creation of the climate of ideas conducive to Thatcherism and Reaganism came about as a conscious long-term project on the part of a number of free market think tanks on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as some leading economists....
The Enlightened Economist
Varieties of neoliberalism
Diane Coyle | freelance economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury, member of the UK Competition Commission, and acting Chairman of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation

End Of Recessions? — Brian Romanchuk

I saw a high profile comment to the effect that the business cycle was abolished recently. Since I will be plugging a book on recessions shortly, that represents a risk to my business plans. I do not wish to go through what exactly was said elsewhere (mainly because I did not go through the details of the argument), but just give my spin on the idea. If we stick enough qualifications into how we express ourselves, it is not that controversial an opinion....
Bond Economics
End Of Recessions?
Brian Romanchuk

Bill Mitchell — Be careful of what parades as academic research (Uber)

It is Wednesday and I have a long trip by plane and road to Victoria where I am speaking at a major business conference in the mountains outside of Melbourne tomorrow morning. So only a few things today that I have been thinking about. Remember the 2010 film – Inside Job – which documented how my profession had become corrupted by the financial services sector into producing, allegedly, independent research reports extolling the virtues of deregulation etc and not admitting they were being paid for by the beneficiaries of the propaganda masquerading as research. It shows how corruption runs deep in the economics profession to accompany the incompetence that mainstream macroeconomists display. Well, I have been following an unfolding story about how Uber has decided to draw on that corrupt tendency for their own gains. It is not a pretty story. And then we have the so-called social media trend of cancel culture which is meant to be about matters of principles but leave the proponents caught up in a rather dirty pool of hypocrisy....
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Be careful of what parades as academic research (Uber)
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bryant helicopter accident flight path re-creation


Some technical analysis of the recent tragic helicopter flight:





Trump still hammering Fed


Trump still advocating for a competitive "Full Japan" policy... ie zero rates and then QEmax to "pay off" the debt...

He'd have to figure out a way to get rid of Powell and most of the FOMC to get this...  maybe if the Fed loses control of the policy rate again (like they did in September) he could gain cause to fire them all... ie two strikes and youre out...

Treasury would have to rapidly increase the TGA from its current cycle high balance to get that...  not seeing that in the cards currently...





Red Sea huge source of air pollution, greenhouse gases: study

Just extracting the oil causes global warming, that's before we have even burnt it.



The team analysed possible sources for the gas emissions, including traffic, agriculture, burning of biomass, and power generation from hydrocarbons.

They came to an unexpected conclusion: the two gases had to be seeping out of the sea bed after escaping natural subterranean oil and gas reservoirs.

Physics.org

Red Sea huge source of air pollution, greenhouse gases: study

By Wire News - Revealed: How the Media Rigged the General Election

A study from Loughborough University has shone a light on how the media joined together to rig the election in favour of Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party, and against Jeremy Corbyn.




Jeremy Corbyn and his backers in the Labour Party got a lot of criticism for losing the election. They criticised Corbyn as a person, his policies, the way they were presented, as well as his 'Identity Politics' supporters.

Jeremy Corbyn’s critics also said the traditional working class Labour voters deserted the party in droves because it had shifted too far to the left, but Corbyn's policies were economically sound and were no more left than those that have been applied in Scandinavia.

Thought experiment: if the Establishment wanted Jeremy to win he would have won with flying colours.


Negative coverage

The details of this report are damning. Loughborough’s research highlights a surge in negative coverage of the Labour party, particularly at the end of the campaign. This was hardly, ‘business as usual’. In 2019 press hostility to Labour was double that of the 2017 campaign. Meanwhile negative coverage of the Conservatives halved. 

The disparity widened as the election entered its final stretch. The final week of the campaign saw hostility to Labour go into overdrive. Coverage of Labour and other opposition parties became increasingly hostile while also becoming more friendly towards the Conservatives.

Bywire.news

https://bywire.news/articles/revealed-how-the-media-rigged-the-general-election

KV Tweets to Zero Hedge and Syrian Girl

I always thought Zero Hedge were quite sensible, but they put out a climate change denying tweet a few days back, and today Syrian Girl has done the same. This was my reply.




1) Global Warming Conspiracy: 
Electronic communications can be hacked, so how do 1000's of climatologists around the world coordinate their data?
Shown below is no ordinary pigeon. It's been specially trained, along 1000's of other pigeons, to fly secret messages around the ...

2) globe so that scientists can coordinate their data to show a rise in global temperature-
Scientists specialising in tree rings, glaciers, the polar caps, oceans, satellites, flora, soil, surface to air, rocks, all need to coordinate their data correctly for the scam to work. 

Roy Waugh - Climate change 'could cause massive economic disruption around the world'


 This week, a former chief scientific adviser to the British government backed the Extinction Rebellion climate change protests as he offered to testify in defence of a group facing trial for gluing themselves to a London airport concourse.

David King, who served as chief scientist under prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, said Extinction Rebellion – like Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg – was playing a vital role in raising visibility around the climate crisis.


Yahoo Finance 

Climate change 'could cause massive economic disruption around the world'

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Links 28 Jan 2020

Reminiscence of the Future (scathing assessment)
Geopolitcal Dreams.
Andrei Martyanov

Sic Semper Tyrannis ("As a former practitioner on behalf of the US government of similar dark arts in covert warfare I recognize this pattern of behavior.")
Isn't it interesting?
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.)

SouthFront
Top CIA Officer Behind Soleimani Assassination Died In E-11A Crash In Afghanistan: Media

Sputnik International
IRGC Chief Warns No US Commander Will Be Safe If Iranian Officers Threatened, Targeted

Sputnik International
Der Spiegel Apologises After Claiming American, Not Soviet Troops Liberated Auschwitz

Strategic Culture Foundation
The Jewish Combat Commander Who Liberated Auschwitz
Martin Sieff

Strategic Culture Foundation (Excellent historical backgrounder)
A Pax Americana or a Republic If You Can Keep It?
Cynthia Chung

Strategic Culture Foundation (Huawei)
Did the U.S. Just Concede Defeat in China Tech War?
Daniel P. Goldman

TASS ("In response, Moscow banned agricultural imports from the EU.")
EU slaps sanctions on Crimean officials, parliamentarians

Geopolitics
Growing Trend of Majoritarian Authoritarianism in South Asia
Reza Ehsan & Sapna Goel

The Vineyard of the Saker
Analysis of the Iranian missile strikes on Ayn Al Asad Airbase
Haider, Geoanalyst for The Saker Blog

Sputnik International
Number of US Troops With Traumatic Brain Injuries From Iran Missile Attack Increases to 50 - Reports

Oilprice
The Fight For Venezuela’s Oil Is Heating Up
Julianne Geiger

Craig Murray Blog
The FBI Has Been Lying About Seth Rich
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee


Your Company’s Next Leader on Climate Is…the CFO — Laura Palmeiro

If your chief financial officer is the last person you would think of to take charge on climate change, think again. Today, smart organizations are shifting their sustainability responsibilities toward the finance function....
The focus needs to be on true cost accounting. Economic calculation doesn't work when markets are not dealing in terms of true cost owing to socialization of negative externality.

Harvard Business Review
Your Company’s Next Leader on Climate Is…the CFO
Laura Palmeiro

Assetisation and the end times of neoliberalism — Richard Murphy


Capitalism is about capitalizing whatever can be capitalized into an asset on a balance sheet.
And it can be said that the creation of these 'assets' is now the focus of modern capitalism.
This then defines modern capitalism as a mechanism for rent extraction, and not profit-making.
And what that means is that value creation has ceased to be what markets are about.
No wonder we are in the end-times for neoliberalism.
Tax Research UK
Assetisation and the end times of neoliberalism
Richard Murphy | Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London; Director of Tax Research UK; non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics, and a member of the Progressive Economy Forum

Coronavirus: Not Looking Good — Yves Smith

 
Update on what is known. A lot remains unknown or unclear, especially in the fog of panic. There is also considerable misinformation.

The push is on to isolate the disease to prevent pandemic. This creates an impression that the worst is already happening when it is not. The worst case is a mutating virus and as far as is known, this is not happening — yet. 

Let's keep this is perspective though. The likelihood of contracting coronavirus is still very low in most places, and the likelihood of dying from it lower. The likelihood of contracting one of the ordinary garden-variety flus, and perhaps dying from it, is vastly higher. Existing flus are already at epidemic levels in most areas, especially crowded ones. 

The same precautions regarding good hygiene against ordinary flu and coronavirus are recommended, except there is as yet no vaccine for coronavirus. But the risk most face is from the ordinary flus that happen to be active this year. 

The medical community is advising to get a flu shot if you haven't, even if it seems late in the season. Flu season lasts through March and the tail can be the worst. But flu vaccines don't guarantee that one won't contract a case of the flu. 

Good hygiene is the first line of defense, along with limiting possible exposure. This is what the medical people do. Of course, medical personnel cannot avoid being exposed to cases they are treating, so they wear surgical masks. These are not yet popular in the US, but they have become a staple other parts of the world, especially in Asia where population density is high.

This is already having a huge economic impact in China as swaths of the country virtually shut down. The likelihood of this spilling over into the global economy is rising, especially if coronavirus "goes viral" internationally. 

Naked Capitalism
Coronavirus: Not Looking Good
Yves Smith

Bill Mitchell — If it quacks!


A debate is set by the way it is framed, along with the parties acceptance or rejection of key assumptions of the framework. These initial conditions determine the course of the debate and the likely winner.

Accepting the assumptions of conventional political economy as the application of macroeconomics to policy issues all but guarantees defeat in policy debates since it is an uphill fight against entrenched forces to which one has needlessly and foolishly ceded the advantage.

Bill argues that progressives should beware of falling into this trap.

Progressive politicians are likely looking at the polling and concluding that the defenders of the status quo are in the position of having already convinced the public that their framework is the only correct one. Most progressive politicians seem to think that challenging widely held public views, even though erroneous, is a recipe for loss.

So far, few progressive politicians have been able to muster the courage to tackle the challenge even if they have the smarts to see through the false assumptions. 

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
If it quacks!
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

James Weir - Why you need to know about modern monetary theory

Inexplicable problems require a whole new kind of economic thinking - and MMT is more logical than you probably think it is.




Conventional economics has struggled to explain much of what’s happening in the world today. How can we have record low inflation and interest rates at the same time? How can some governments continue to increase their deficits and yet their bond yields go down and currencies go up? How on earth can you justify negative bond yields?

There is one school of economic thought that purports to have some of the answers, and has been talking about the inevitability of declining interest rates and inflation for years. Modern monetary theory (MMT) uses iron-clad rules of accounting to offer not just plausible but logical explanations for many conundrums that leave orthodox economists scratching their heads.

Financial Review

Norway - Is It The Perfect Economy?

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 will increase prices. On average, those at the top earn 4 x more than those on the bottom, so when going for a meal the restaurant staff will be earning a fairly good wage. The Norwegians don't mind this because the welfare state means they have no worries too. 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.

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

Monday, January 27, 2020

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 

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


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


Sunday, January 26, 2020

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.