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I Lose a Bet, Start an Argument
Back on November 17, 2011 I penned a piece in response to Fed Governor Bullard's assertions regarding the collapse of MF Global. Bullard thought there was no lasting consequences to that blow-out: .
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At the time, I thought that Bullard was full of crap, and that there would be significant consequences to the collapse of MFG. My words:
Okay, Mr. Bullard I'll make you a wager. A six pack of your favorite beer. Give the MFG story another month and it will be a problem. It will undermine markets. It will impact confidence in our financial system. It will impact liquidity. As those things will occur it will force both the Treasury and the Fed to take actions.
I was wrong, Mr. B was right. There were no consequences to the MFG disaster. No heads rolled. No one went to jail. There were no lasting economic consequences. There were were no regulatory changes. The MFG affair was buried. Bullard never accepted my bet, but I still feel I owe him. If he reads this and sends me a note I will forward his beer. He deserves it. He won. Unfortunately, we all "lost" as a result. Today we have yet another MFG in our laps. Perigrine Financial has followed the exact same path as MFG. The PFG bankers looted customer accounts.
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I lost a bet for $12 worth of beer. Customers at Peregrine have lost $220m (so far). I can’t help wondering what would have happened had won the bet. If there had been hell to pay regarding the MFG affair, things might have turned out differently for Peregrine’s customer. But there was no market reaction, the CFTC ignored the signs, the SEC never lifted a finger. Nothing changed, so history has repeated itself.
Perigrine customers, looking at a loss today, might be warming up lawsuits against Bart Chilton and the CFTC. He clearly fell down on the job. I think he should be fired on the spot. Fed Governor Bullard is not responsible for the failure of Peregrine (or MFG), but his dismissing attitude is:
This is no big deal, it will blow over”
To that extent, he shares in the blame.
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The markets are boring, so let's talk about global warming
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I have absolutely no credentials or expertise to discuss matters related to climate change. I’ll do it anyway. I follow this topic and read what I can. In my opinion:
I) - Climate change is happening on a global scale. The evidence that this occurring is conclusive.
II) - I don’t know if humans are contributing to the rapid change, but I suspect they are.
III) - Even if there were conclusive evidence that human activity was contributing to global warming, I’m not at all sure that there is anything that can be done about it.
Consider these before and after pictures from NASA. These are images of the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska.
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May 13, 2012
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One month later
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Okay, so some ice melted. Is that a big deal? The folks at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) think it is:
Sea ice retreat in June is typical, but the first half of June 2012 brought unusually rapid ice loss.
How unusual?
On June 19, 2012, NSIDC reported: “Recent ice loss rates have been 100,000 to 150,000 square kilometers per day, which is more than double the climatological rate.”
Double the rate? How much ice is melting every day in the Beauford Sea? About the size of the state of Illinois – big!
As of June 18, temperatures were above freezing over much of the sea ice in the Arctic, and snow had melted earlier than normal, leading to warming on land.
June 18? It has been hot as hell over the globe since then. This year’s arctic ice melt will set a record.
The rapid melt north of Alaska was part of a larger phenomenon. Sea ice across the entire Arctic reached record-low levels for this time of year. It was also lower than the extent in June 2007; Arctic sea ice reached its lowest extent ever recorded by satellite in September 2007.
This is not a record that we want to set. Now consider this number:
20,900,000,000,000
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20.9 Trillion is the number of pounds of CO2 that humans sent into the atmosphere in the last 12 months. It’s hard to relate to a number as big as that. Think seven billion Hondas. But even that is a number that is hard to fathom, as there are only a billion cars in the world today. How could we be producing 7Xs the weight of all the cars, every year?
Is there a connection to the incredible output of CO2 and the rapid ice melt that is happening all over the world? I wish I knew the answer to this question. I do know that CO2 emissions are directly tied to population growth/economic activity. The question is how rapidly CO2 output will rise:
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Any thoughts?
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The foolls and liars always win this one, because they give a story everyone else wants to hear.
Our species is lost because we are lazy between the ears, and have no heart for a fight.
Liar, or he is some tool who teaches at some for profit or fundie joke of a school which calls itself higher education.
Now that doesn't narrow the fielf much.
Every blade of grass, every tree, corn stalk or weed is made up of the carbon it takes out of the atmosphere. If one thinks (and a lot of folks do) the mass of a tree, as an example, came out of the ground it grows in, then where is the hole for the missing mass? Filled by roots?
One of the problems with all these charts showing what is put into the atmosphere is they show a gross gain vs a net gain.
If the climate change theory hadn't been pre-gamed by the likes of PNAC, et al, the argument for man being the main cause of cc would probably be palatable at least to agnostics like myself. But since the ruse was pulled prior to solid scientific consensus it make for some questioning.
With all the disinformation floating around it's easy for polarization to take hold and disolve the conversation into ad hominems instead of enlightenment regarding the subject.
That the Earth is continually in cyclical climatic disequilibrium is shown in every ice core sample, so to argue the Earth should remain in a state that favors human conditions is silly at best, yet there are those who feel a God given right that the Earth neither heats nor cools, but stays the temperature they have become accustomed to.
Personally, I have no insights one way or the other because I listen to both sides. But what I don't like seeing is the cause used to move more wealth up the food change via things like Cap and Trade, et al.
Let's get the politics out of science, and while we're at it, let's stop pretending that having another 30 years of 'fossil fuels' to waste for the sake of making today's bottom line look good will make our grandchildren's lives better. Because it won't. If stopping the waste helps with the CO2 emissions, then let's figure out a way to kill two birds with one stone.
/rant
Then you are willing to allow a few voices with a profit motive to equal (perhaps even, drown out) the voices of thousands doing pure science.
I'll tell you what I think of that. It's morally lax.
I disagree. I'm able to listen to both sides because I don't have to buy into every nuance of every argument.
Unlike some peole, my life is not limited to a black and white paradigm. I see shades of gray in many facets of the theories put forth.
Here's what's morally lax...believing you're in possesion of facts that exist only through the biases of those you favor, without understanding their true motives and/or agendas.
Pure science? The kind that requires no funding, no touting the company line, no one to answer to for your next grant? That kind of science?
There are no shades of gray in science. What you refer to is opinion.
No shades of gray?
So dark energy and dark matter have no competing theories that may find common ground in the future, as an example? It's all cut and dried?
Fascinating...
Yes. It absolutely is all cut and dried, all the time. Even competing theories are internally consistent. They can co-exist just fine without any overlap, describing the same system in absolute terms, until one is either proven incorrect or a new theory comes along to absorb all others. Science moves forward in absolute terms all the time.
You have no idea what I'm talking about. You are out of your league entirely. You should just go home.
You're right, I have no idea what you are talking about. And I'm not sure what league I'm out of, but if you're talking about the league you're in, I'm glad I'm not in it.
And btw, I've been home the whole time...:-)
What you're describing is not science, it's religion. A Mighty Fortress is Our Gore.
I know exactly what I am talking about. And any honest thinking person understands exactly what I mean.
Mostly agree, but this fellow 'low information person' suggests you ignore the climatologists and pay attention to the physicists.
The very premise of the "greenhouse effect" is in serious question.
Why would you ignore someone studying the field in favor of someone with at best a peripheral interest in it? Would you see a dentist to have your heart valve replaced?
What is wrong with you people?
Would you go to Krugman to fix your economy?
I would probably go to an economist of any kind before I would ask a dentist to do it.
Unless it simply did not matter, in which case yeah I might sit down with a dentist over beer and fix the economy.
Given his record and scholarship, I'll take any dentist over Krugman.
Krugman fails Popper's test to be considered a scientist.
"Religion is the opium of the masses." Karl Marx
"AGW is the opium of the atheists." - barliman
BK loves to spike his comments up every 3 - 6 months by tossing in his latest take on AGW. Since he tends to use "eye catching" photos and/or numbers, I have tended to view his efforts as a means of increasing page hits and withheld comment.
This bit of fluff deserves three observations:
7,000,000,000 Hondas worth of CO2 ... seriously people? Those of you who swallow this number in support of AGW would no doubt require a Heimlich manuever if you were trying to swallow a gnat's ass's worth of skepticism regarding this number. This is the historical record of AGW - publish outlandish claims but be nowhere in sight when they fall to the ground of their own dead weight.
ZOMG!!! All that melting ice!!! ... Which has melted before in the past. Wait? What? I was in Canada a few years back. The morning paper had a big article about melting glaciers with a great big SCARY headline ... and a little sidebar item - which mentioned scientists were intrigued by the fossilized forest which had been revealed when the glaciers melted. Strangely enough, none of the climate scientists were the least bit interested in pointing out that there had to be a massive amount of climate change that had occurred in the not too distant past (i.e. before known civilizations) for the forest to have been completely embedded in ice. .......................................... Nope, can't talk about that - it doesn't fit into OUR agenda.
BK is skipping over the most important aspect of AGW, himself.
How are the BRIC's and EM's going to be convinced to go along with the AGW protocols? No, stop, don't say something stupid about carbon credits - that dog don't hunt and the carbon credits can't even begin to balance out the CO2 plus and minus ledgers ........ unless all of those countries decide to limit their economic growth to about 5% year over year. Go ask them if they will go along with that idea. I'll wait right here for them to send your head back in a box.
IF AGW is real ... the problem is not in the developed countries. In the mid-2000's one of the UK climate change supporters did a calculation:
If the UK stopped using ALL fossil fuels and the country went permanently DARK - it would take China only 18 months to have made up the difference based on their environmental output growth curve.
One of the things you learn in math and engineering, there are some problems where the correct answer is ...
The problem does not allow for a solution.
barliman
the climate has always cycled and changed... what is troubling is where you see the globablists and NWO looking to take advantage of these changes to increase their control over humanity and make money in the process...
If you find it so troubling then go study the science yourself, there are lot's of sources of information. Then you can discount the globalists and NWO'ers as the jokers they are.
Except, or course, you won't do that. Because you like being able to toss the whole issue out the window on a pretext, which you invented, that something evil is afoot.
Your thinking is flawed. Obvioulsy. But you like it that way. That makes you flawed as much as your thinking is.
You should read The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. The numbers about X numbers of species dieing per year are completely made up. The book is written by a former member of Greenpeace who got tired of the lies and exageration.
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Why oh why would I give any weight or credibility to the opinion of a supposed Greenpeace groupie with an ax to grind who had a falling out with the leadership there? Is that person a scientist? Is that person even sane?
What is wrong with you people?
The number of crackpot denialists that comment on this web site far exceeds your ability to respond, cougar.
There is no debate about AGW, except among the crackpots, and here they be in multitudes.
All the arguments are here, if anyone is actually interested - http://www.skepticalscience.com/
Yeah, chock full of crackpots. Nobody on ZH reads anything, or has a discerning, logical mind. Just a bunch of good 'ol boys hanging' out drinking Coors and watching demolition derby.
WTF
Hey Buddy,... if the shoe fits...
and do the oceans always pollute themselves? do the rivers and streams always kill themselves off? Do species always go extinct at rates unheard via the fossil record?
Oh thats right you probably think Jesus rode a fucking dinosaur..
Are you conflating CO2 with poison? Why? CO2 levels are very low, historically speaking.
As for species going extinct at rates 'unheard via the fossil record' I'm afraid that's utter nonsense. Every heard of the Permian-Triassic Event?
Do you know what percentage of creatures left any evidence behind in the fossil record? Probably less than 1%. Knowing how many animals and protozoa were wiped out at any time in ancient history is, yes, just more guesswork.
And the current increase in extinction has nothing to do with CO2 (or climate change, either). We're polluting the sea with actual pollutants, and wiping out habitats, and introducing predatory species into ecologies that never evolved to deal with them.
Peddle your bullshit elsewhere.
Umm.. could you explain Venus then?
You really should stick to shouting out platitudes at Ron Paul rallies and simply avoid embarassing yourself with nuggets like "greenhouse effect in question"... I mean like, fuck, the greenhouse effect was proven in 1969 with the fiirst far IR satellite spectrum....
Umm, wouldn't the better question to LP be: "Why is a warming effect named after a greenhouse?"
Any second now I expect to see the phrase "US Citizenism" show up in one of your posts.
Science history is full of proven effects that were later disproven.
Name one example that did not involve either 1) fake non-science being thrown out in favor of proper science, or 2) better data improving already good science.
Both processes are part of the scientific method. That's how scienced rolls. It's a feature not a bug.
The debate here is why aren't 1 & 2 being observed.
FAIL
You are out of your league. We will go forward without you.
Promises, promises.
LOL
Ron Paul never told his supporters that they should be willing to lie in order to be "effective" like Stephen Schneider of the IPCC has done.
Could provide an example of a lie on his part or on the part of any climate scientist...
I can come up with an example of you lieing through your teeth, i.e. deliberating putting forth information known to be false... and that was just last week...
You are a douchebag with zero credibility...
Schneider admits that he tells frightening lies about global warming in order to be "effective."
When a man tells me that he's going to embed lies within his "scientific" research and suggests that others should do the same then why should I make an effort to find the specific lies? If you accept his confession then you will agree that he is a liar. If you believe that Schneider's admission to lying is itself a lie then that also makes him a liar.
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. -- Dr. Stephen Schneider, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Quoted in Discover, pp. 45–48, Oct. 1989.)
What lie? Where? Show me something he published where he lied?
Once again you strike out...
Your argument is with Schneider, not me. He's one of your beloved climate scientists and I'm agreeing with him. He says he's willing to lie about AGW and I believe him. Why don't you?
Sorry, but you have the bone to pick...
My issue is with paid denialist and those that pay them...
Professor inadvertently explains why greenhouse theory is wrongProfessor David Archer of the University of Chicago has posted You-tube videos of his 10 week lecture series for non-science majors on climate change. In lecture 5, The Greenhouse Effect, Archer uses the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to calculate the supposed temperatures of Venus, Earth, and Mars with and without a greenhouse effect. Archer's calculations show the greenhouse effect on Venus is wildly underestimated by 415C and wildly overestimated on both Earth (by 23C) and on Mars (by 19C) in comparison to actual observed temperatures. This is despite the fact that CO2 levels are very high and virtually the same on Venus and Mars (around 96%) and only trace (0.039%) on Earth. Archer says in the lecture that one would have to assume the Venus atmosphere behaves like multiple panes of glass in order to obtain an answer near the observed temperature, yet on both Earth and Mars one would have to assume the atmospheres behave like much less than one pane of glass. Leaving aside the fact that no atmosphere behaves like a pane of glass, climate scientists cannot claim that the greenhouse theory comes close to a unified explanation of temperature on any of these 3 planets. The simple fact is the adiabatic lapse rate (effect of pressure with altitude) fully explains the temperature profiles on all 3 planets without any need to invoke a supposed 'greenhouse effect.' See Shattering the Greenhouse Effect and Venus: No Greenhouse Effect.
Full article
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/08/professor-inadvertently-explai...
You poor, dumb fuck.
you really are a grade A idiot, serioulsy. You really dont get this whole " science" thannng do you?
You contribute absolutely nothing to the discussion. Not one fact, not one link, not one argument, not even one unbacked assertion. All you do is type poorly worded, misspelled, grade school insults rife with grammatical errors. Shut the fuck up.
Please do explain this whole "science" thannng to us.
Is it... looking at a few variables (out of hundreds) in an incompletely understood complex system, and then drawing scary conclusions from first principles?
Is it... creating models with scary predictions, and then ignoring their output when they're completely wrong?
Sounds a bit like econometric economics to me.
I always thought science was where we could isolate variables and perform repeatable tests to determine truth or falsehood of specific hypotheses to arrive at empirical knowledge... not just believe a bunch of educated guesses.
It's like in physics. There's a lot that is pretty sold, based on centuries of tests and empirical proof it works, like engineering and space flight. And then there a huge body of 'knowledge', which is basically up for grabs... what do quarks like to eat, for instance, or how much dark matter there is in crawldaddy's head, that kind of stuff, the kind of stuff you might enjoy reading about but you wouldn't want your government to tax you on it, even if the people setting up the exchanges were doing god's work (god here being Mammon, obviously)
Science is the process of discovering fundamental natural principles through a process of observation and experimentation leading to the formulation of predictive theories that either stand up under rigorous testing or are revised to make sense of additional observations.
That's all science is.
It is not a belief system, and science is not a particular way of looking at nature.
Yes in fact I am a scientist. And your characterization of my work is flawed.
through a process of observation and experimentation leading to the formulation of predictive theories that either stand up under rigorous testing or are revised
Well, that's the problem isn't it? We can't isolate the variables sufficiently to do any meaningful experimentation on the climate. So we're left with predictive theories, based on piecing together what we can test, and what we can observe... and, embodied into the climate models that the IPCC uses, these theories have been empirically shown to be wrong because they failed to predict the hiatus in warming for the last ~12 years.
So maybe it's time to revise the theories, Mr Scientist.
The theories will be revised by qualified teams based on compelling evidence, and until they are then those are the theories we have and we are bound to go forward with them.
That is simply how it is done. And when things are getting tight, those as can do, do it.
Bah. I am not expected to waste my time dealing with childish rants. If you don't like how it is done then go play nice with the other children, the adults are trying to focus on a problem here.
The theories will be revised by qualified teams based on compelling evidence, and until they are then those are the theories we have and we are bound to go forward with them.
'We' are bound to go forward with them, are 'we'?
Are you sure you're not Paul Krugman?
If you don't like how it is done then go play nice with the other children, the adults are trying to focus on a problem here.
The problem of how to convince an understandably skeptical populace that your half-baked hypotheses can justify further destruction of our economies, in the process benefiting our financial elites... and the proponents of said hypotheses?
I can see why you need to focus.