<div>Chas et. al.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Vision2020 has sufficient "dangerous living" at this time. Good grief! I don't want to add more...</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Economics is a discipline that is very complex, multidimensional, simultaneously involving law, politics, culture, ethics, the psychology of expectations, and the mathematics of the functioning of economic systems, a subject that is not a hard "science" in the same sense as chemistry, physics, biology, or climate science. That's partly why I used your clever phrase "unqualified pronouncements" to describe my post on "rebate checks." In this case, the phrase indicated hesitation to pontificate on a very complex issue, that is sometimes a matter of value judgements more than science (witness some local libertarians apoplectic fits over the enterprising free market top free car wash, while they label concerns over the science based environmental and economic impacts of long term resource and energy depletion (fossil fuel), regarding local water use and sprawling energy and resource intensive development, as "socialist")</div>
<div> </div>
<div>However, my posts on climate science, in the context of which you first (as far as I recall on Vision2020) used the phrase "unqualified pronouncements," involved questions of hard science, apart from law, politics, culture, or ethics, on a subject I have researched considerably. My posts were usually based on the scientific consensus, involving the work of thousands of scientists worldwide. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>It is understandable that economics would be a very politicised subject. It is amazing how politicised the science of climate change has become, similar in some respects to how politicized the science regarding evolution has become (at least in the US), with petitions of contrarian scientists circulated, denying the scientific consensus on evolution and anthropogenic climate change, in our new age of the Anthropocene (the Holocene, the period of about 12,000 years since the last ice age, is now over, as humans are rapidly altering the planet's biodiversity, ecosystems and climate, on a vast scale).</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Let's follow Nobel Prize (for atmospheric chemistry) winner</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1995/">http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1995/</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Paul Crutzen's pontifications on this subject:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://geology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=geology&cdn=education&tm=82&gps=339_580_796_455&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas457/Anthropocene.pdf">http://geology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=geology&cdn=education&tm=82&gps=339_580_796_455&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas457/Anthropocene.pdf</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://geology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=geology&cdn=education&tm=1247&gps=83_188_796_455&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/%7Eair/anthropocene/Text.html">http://geology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=geology&cdn=education&tm=1247&gps=83_188_796_455&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/%7Eair/anthropocene/Text.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>-----------------------</div>
<div>In the "rebate checks" thread, unless I missed it, there was no discussion of the Bush administration policy of pushing for continuation of tax cuts at a time of war and national debt, as the US government spends, according to some professional estimates, over a trillion dollars on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and occupations, continuing to borrow billions from other nations. I can understand libertarian Milton Friedman oriented economists advocating tax cuts. But the Bush administration is opposed by many economic conservatives for its fiscal policy of continuing national debt, combined with tax cuts, at a time of billions in open ended war spending with no end in sight.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Some conservative anti-tax economists will accept tax increases at a time of war to pay for national defense. The so called "tax rebate" checks might in part be allowing the public to live on borrowed government money (future generations will pay?), while hard decisions about either raising taxes or cutting the federal budget, at a time of war, are not being fully addressed; and the increasing costs of diesel and gas, with projections of 5 dollar a gallon fuel this year, may absorb much of the rebate. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>A "temporary feel good" rebate check will not solve fundamental long term problems. The US needs an aggressive long term energy policy to facilitate roll out of alternative energy, that can also be applied to the world's developing nations (China, India, etc.), both to address fossil fuel depletion and climate change, and end the global over dependence on Middle East oil, costing billions in war spending. The next administration, even a McCain presidency, according to the candidates statements, will address the energy crisis/climate change issue far more than the Bush administration, though McCain differs on the continuing the Iraq war with business as usual.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Ted Moffett</div>
<div> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/9/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">Chasuk</b> <<a href="mailto:chasuk@gmail.com">chasuk@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Ted Moffett <<a href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com">starbliss@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>> Given on this subject I am making "unqualified pronouncements," given I have<br>> no professional qualifications in economics, no doubt there are mistakes in<br>> what I write below:<br><br>I hereby sack myself as "Unqualified Pronouncements Adjudicator," and<br>
dissolve the post. There, Ted. Make as many "unqualified<br>pronouncements" as you wish, especially on those topic in which you<br>have no professional qualifications. Live dangerously!<br><br>I, for one, will read them with unqualified absorption.<br>
<br>Chas<br></blockquote></div><br>