US politics general thread

[rietrot]

I would like to introduce you to the advanced technology called "batteries". You know, the things we use in appliances, cars, and Australia's power grid for... baseload supply.

Lol. You have no idea how many batteries are needed and how bad that is for the environment. Uneducated

https://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/australia-energy-storage-boom/
Some info on Australia's "battery storage" and more general stuff.

Australia could reach 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030*without significant new energy storage,

not even halfway yet.

 

[konfab]

This is gonna blow your mind, but it is entirely possible to be against both coal and nuclear, while being for other clean forms of power generation such as solar and wind.

Of course, I don't expect most people to understand electrical engineering and basic statistics about the type of harm caused by nuclear power. I just group such people into the annoyingly stupid category.

And considering you like to claim you're fiscally conservative, you really shouldn't be supporting incredibly expensive nuclear builds.

Here is a shocking point, providing a continuous source of electricity over a wide geographical area is going to be expensive no matter which way you do it. You can quite easily fund such things without the taxpayer if you remove politics from the equation:

The main curse of any state-owned industry is political interference. Eskom was free of this from 1923 until 1994. Its brief was simple: to make sure that South Africa had enough electricity. It was very lightly regulated, much less so than private electricity utilities in the United States of America (USA). It was an autonomous organisation run by technocrats. Engineers were in charge and were appointed entirely on merit. Even under apartheid, there was no attempt to Afrikanerise Eskom's senior management. Eskom's greatest CEO was Ian McRae, an English-speaker. Eskom was entirely self-financing. There were no state subsidies for electricity.

In about 1969, after South Africa's economic growth rate had topped 6% in various years in the 1960s, electricity demand threatened to outstrip supply. In those years, growth in electricity demand was double economic growth. Near panic set in. Then Eskom made its best ever strategic decision: it decided to embark on a concerted programme of building huge coal stations of standardised design, each one having six identical units. The result was that vendors and contractors from all over the world tripped over themselves to give Eskom the best prices and conditions. The stations were built on time and on budget. They were funded via cheap debt and all the debt was timeously repaid. The taxpayer didn't have to pay a cent. By the end of the programme, Eskom had plentiful and very reliable electricity at probably the lowest prices in the world - lower than that from private utilities in other countries.

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/the-rise-and-fall-of-eskom--irr

I am extremely pragmatic when it comes to the engineering limitations behind solar and wind, there are technological limitations which millions of Musk batteries do not solve.
Namely the frequency stability of the grid. Every time you plug something into the wall, the generator that is ultimately powering it has to produce more power. This they do with control systems, but increasing the power output of any power station takes time, which means that if you don't have something to power the grid in the duration it takes to increase the power, the frequency of the grid drops. That is a bad thing.
Currently, it is solved by the inertia of the big rotating chunks of metal which are rotating at high speed. Now you want to unplug that source of stability and replace it with a bunch of generators that *might* be on.

This paper goes through all the racist and oppressive electrical engineering that explains the problems that wind power has on the frequency stability.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.08235.pdf


But don't listen to any of this, believe all the scaremongering about nuclear power instead. I mean why bother using a solution that already works eh?

 

[konfab]

I would like to introduce you to the advanced technology called "batteries". You know, the things we use in appliances, cars, and Australia's power grid for... baseload supply.

Energy storage is the least of the problems. Batteries are going to do squat when it comes to dealing with frequency stability. See my post above.

 

[Unhappy1]

Nuclear is probably the best bet against global warming currently but the problem is of course outlay and its an investment that will probably only pay itself back in 20 years. Nuclear should have been invested in during the 90s, i feel we will have something better in the next ten years.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Would you take any evidence I can provide to show that Democrats or "liberals" consider people who are against immigration as racist?

What is this even suppose to mean?

Thing is, I know you're smart and relatively clued up. So I know you can't sincerely be ignorant of all the racism that's been part & parcel of Trump's (and the right generally, recently) campaign and now administration. Which is why it's understandable why you'd prefer to rail against strawmen and caricatures as a means to deflect.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Even Libertarians Admit Medicare for All Would Save Trillions

The US could insure 30 million more Americans and virtually eliminate out-of-pocket health care expenses while saving $2 trillion in the process, according to a new report about Medicare for All released by the libertarian Mercatus Center.

In the report, Charles Blahous attempts to roughly score Bernie Sanders’s most recent Medicare-for-All bill and reaches the somewhat surprising (for Mercatus) conclusion that, if the bill were enacted, the new costs it creates would be more than offset by the new savings it generates through administrative efficiencies and reductions in unit prices.

 

[crackersa]

Impressive, it took him a whole 2 minutes to bring up Venezuela. Such self-control is rare among the anti-democratic socialist brigade.

[video=youtube_share;vW32S19vp0k]https://youtu.be/vW32S19vp0k[/video]

Lol you watch the view. /hands woman card

Anyone knows with a brain that socialism worked in the Scandinavian countries and several other countries.

But the numb nuts in the video couldn’t even begin to say how to pay for it.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Lol you watch the view. /hands woman card

Anyone knows with a brain that socialism worked in the Scandinavian countries and several other countries.

But the numb nuts in the video couldn’t even begin to say how to pay for it.

Same way you pay for everything else in a country. It can even save you money and give you way better outcomes, as per the post above yours. Twofer!

 

[crackersa]

Same way you pay for everything else in a country. It can even save you money and give you way better outcomes, as per the post above yours. Twofer!

How will the administration costs come down as well as drug prices?


I didn’t get a clear picture of that in the article.

I’m all for healthcare, education, whatever else for all, as long as my taxes doesn’t go up.

 

[krycor]

Energy storage is the least of the problems. Batteries are going to do squat when it comes to dealing with frequency stability. See my post above.

California has this issue as they were encouraged to build out solar panels.. ie they have negative pricing during the day and surge charge in evening.

Was reading about their “natural battery” ie pumped water storage which has a loss of about 20% which seems not bad.. ironically done for nuclear (Basically multi-level water storage, when excess in grid.. pumps push water up mountain for use during dips providing needed boost).

 

[crackersa]

 

[OrbitalDawn]

How will the administration costs come down as well as drug prices?


I didn’t get a clear picture of that in the article.

I’m all for healthcare, education, whatever else for all, as long as my taxes doesn’t go up.

Medicare's administrative costs are already very low, much lower than private insurance, so you'll save a lot in the long run. Drug prices depend on them passing legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices.

Could also not do things like this:

The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut to wealthy Americans

The Republican tax plan leaves a $1.5 trillion bill for the middle class to pay

The GOP bill cut taxes for most Americans, including the middle class, but it heavily benefits the wealthy and corporations. According to estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the top fifth of earners get 70 percent of the bill’s benefits, and the top 1 percent get 34 percent.

If paid for with spending cuts, the bill leaves 71.6 percent of Americans worse off.

 

[crackersa]

Medicare's administrative costs are already very low, much lower than private insurance, so you'll save a lot in the long run. Drug prices depend on them passing legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices.

Could also not do things like this:

The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut to wealthy Americans

The Republican tax plan leaves a $1.5 trillion bill for the middle class to pay

I don’t believe in taxing the rich more just cause they can afford it. You are penalizing them for being successful.

 

[cerebus]

Lol you watch the view. /hands woman card

Anyone knows with a brain that socialism worked in the Scandinavian countries and several other countries.

But the numb nuts in the video couldn’t even begin to say how to pay for it.

Thing is, these man-on-the-street interview videos are ridiculously easy to manipulate and cherry pick the dopiest least clued up respondents to caricaturize and 'own' the opposition. Resorting to the Venezuela comparison shows that the interviewers themselves haven't engaged with the actual positions of Ocasio Cortez or other progressive politicians and they just want to pander to their audience's need to feel superior.

[video=youtube_share;TfVtY02hp20]https://youtu.be/TfVtY02hp20[/video]

 

[cerebus]

https://slate.com/business/2018/07/...rvative-think-tanker-accidentally-argues.html

Conservative Think-Tanker Accidentally Argues That Single Payer Could Save Americans $2 Trillion

He calculates that if Sanders’ bill delivered on all of its promises, it would increase federal spending on health care by $32.6 trillion between 2022 and 2031—which is, of course, quite a bit of money, and the number that conservatives are choosing to focus on. But as economist Ernie Tedeschi noted on Twitter this morning, Blahous’ report also shows that total U.S. health care spending would fall by about $2.05 trillion during that time period, even as all Americans would finally have insurance, because the plan would reduce payments to doctors and hospitals to Medicare rates (which are lower than what private insurance pays) while saving on prescription drug costs and administrative expenses.

 

[crackersa]

Thing is, these man-on-the-street interview videos are ridiculously easy to manipulate and cherry pick the dopiest least clued up respondents to caricaturize and 'own' the opposition. Resorting to the Venezuela comparison shows that the interviewers themselves haven't engaged with the actual positions of Ocasio Cortez or other progressive politicians and they just want to pander to their audience's need to feel superior.

https://youtu.be/TfVtY02hp20

I do agree with you on that. But sorry, I’m not watching anything from infowars. I may have low standards, but they ain’t that low.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

I don’t believe in taxing the rich more just cause they can afford it. You are penalizing them for being successful.

They disproportionately benefit from social investment. Most don't pay remotely high taxes anyway, and as Warren Buffet points out, how is it fair that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary?

At the end of the day, the country has certain expenses and needs to find the money to pay for them where it can. Rich people that get rich from society and public investment in that society, should help properly fund that society. They benefit from it, too!

 

[crackersa]

They disproportionately benefit from social investment. Most don't pay remotely high taxes anyway, and as Warren Buffet points out, how is it fair that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary?

At the end of the day, the country has certain expenses and needs to find the money to pay for them where it can. Rich people that get rich from society and public investment in that society, should help properly fund that society. They benefit from it, too!

I agree they shouldn’t pay less tax than a security, but to charge them more cause of public investment? That’s crazy. Those investors get their returns.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

I agree they shouldn’t pay less tax than a security, but to charge them more cause of public investment? That’s crazy. Those investors get their returns.

In terms of paying tax, they are the investors who get returns, yes.

 

[Techne]

Impressive, it took him a whole 2 minutes to bring up Venezuela. Such self-control is rare among the anti-democratic socialist brigade.

Lol, how to trigger socialist snowflakes.... Venezuela.
How do socialists defend socialism? By ignoring the regular failures of socialism i.e. ignoring reality, and then cherry picking a few Scandanavian countries that actaully have strong market economies to support their small doses of socialism e.g. socialized healthcare.