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Reducing my carbon footprint
#1
MowerMike
MowerMike
Yesterday I gave away my Husqvarna gas lawn mower, Echo string trimmer and Echo blade edger to my friend's son for use at his new house. I hadn't used these garden power tools for many years, since replacing them with cordless electric tools. I still have a couple of gas handheld blowers (Echo and Hitachi) and a Generac pressure washer, because I find the electric versions to be a problem with either run time or performance. Perhaps the day will come when these too can be replaced with eco-friendly tools to further reduce my carbon footprint. :smile:
#2
cpurvis
cpurvis
No problem! We'll just shovel a few more tons of coal into the electrical generating station to charge up all that stuff.
#3
Boobala
Boobala
Need to make some room at the landfill for all those dead useless batteries , lets see, .. are those Lead-Acid..or
Ni-Cads ???? Maybe they're the Lithium's that have spontaneous combustion ?? TOXIC ..??? NAH !! ( LOL )
and make room for those chargers too !!
Ni-Cads ???? Maybe they're the Lithium's that have spontaneous combustion ?? TOXIC ..??? NAH !! ( LOL )
and make room for those chargers too !!
#4
MowerMike
Right, because we all know there are no alternatives to coal. :laughing:
MowerMike
No problem! We'll just shovel a few more tons of coal into the electrical generating station to charge up all that stuff.
Right, because we all know there are no alternatives to coal. :laughing:
#5
cpurvis
cpurvis
Right, I forgot--we can just add some more solar power plants. They work so well at night. Or wind! Surely it won't require any backups, because it's windy all the time.Right, because we all know there are no alternatives to coal. :laughing:
#6
MowerMike
Yes, I take all my toxic stuff to the local landfill, because that's the only way to dispose of it. Sometimes, I just throw my trash out of the bed of my gas guzzling pickup truck onto the roadside. Recycling, what is that ? :laughing:
MowerMike
Need to make some room at the landfill for all those dead useless batteries , lets see, .. are those Lead-Acid..or
Ni-Cads ???? Maybe they're the Lithium's that have spontaneous combustion ?? TOXIC ..??? NAH !! ( LOL )
and make room for those chargers too !!
Yes, I take all my toxic stuff to the local landfill, because that's the only way to dispose of it. Sometimes, I just throw my trash out of the bed of my gas guzzling pickup truck onto the roadside. Recycling, what is that ? :laughing:
#7
MowerMike
Of course, those are the ONLY alternatives. There is no such thing as nuclear or natural gas electrical power generation, and while they certainly have their drawbacks, they pale in comparison with coal.
MowerMike
Right, I forgot--we can just add some more solar power plants. They work so well at night. Or wind! Surely it won't require any backups, because it's windy all the time.
Of course, those are the ONLY alternatives. There is no such thing as nuclear or natural gas electrical power generation, and while they certainly have their drawbacks, they pale in comparison with coal.
#8
Boobala
Hey purvis, .... ain't about time to re-fill the Kool-Aid & Bull-Schitt ...???? ....
just mention NUCLEAR power and watch the temper ---atures rise !!
Boobala
Right, I forgot--we can just add some more solar power plants. They work so well at night. Or wind! Surely it won't require any backups, because it's windy all the time.
Hey purvis, .... ain't about time to re-fill the Kool-Aid & Bull-Schitt ...???? ....
just mention NUCLEAR power and watch the temper ---atures rise !!
#9
cpurvis
cpurvis
Yeah, there's no waste disposal problem with nuclear. Or hazards from operator error or machine malfunction.
"Carbon footprint." Who invented this phrase, Al Gore, the man with one of the most gigantic "carbon footprints" of all humanity?
If one thinks his "carbon footprint" is too large, maybe he should use a weed whip or scythe.
"Carbon footprint." Who invented this phrase, Al Gore, the man with one of the most gigantic "carbon footprints" of all humanity?
If one thinks his "carbon footprint" is too large, maybe he should use a weed whip or scythe.
#10
MowerMike
Actually, as someone who has worked for nearly forty years in the nuclear power industry, I have found that there is a massive amount of ignorance on this topic, as demonstrated in this forum. If you are really interested in making a meaningful contribution to this discussion, I suggest you better educate yourself before making silly uninformed remarks.
MowerMike
Yeah, there's no waste disposal problem with nuclear. Or hazards from operator error or machine malfunction.
Actually, as someone who has worked for nearly forty years in the nuclear power industry, I have found that there is a massive amount of ignorance on this topic, as demonstrated in this forum. If you are really interested in making a meaningful contribution to this discussion, I suggest you better educate yourself before making silly uninformed remarks.
#11
cpurvis
cpurvis
Really, Professor? Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukishama all come to mind. What event that could never happen happened there? Not to mention waste sites which are toxic for how many thousands of years?
If you want to live by one, be my guest. I'll pass.
Give me fossil fuel which is the best thing that ever happened to mankind. Not only has it raised the living standard of virtually every human on the planet, ask any climate change billionaire how else could their personal jets get from one meeting after another on How To Save the World (and Get Even Richer At the Same Time)?
You can ride your bicycle; I'll take my Dodge Cummins diesel. You can also keep your ultimately fossil fuel powered electric weed eater. Mine's an old 2-cycle and I feed it 16:1 gas to just to make it smoke more!
As far as meaningful conversation, there is none in this thread, including yours. It looks like trolling to me.
If you want to live by one, be my guest. I'll pass.
Give me fossil fuel which is the best thing that ever happened to mankind. Not only has it raised the living standard of virtually every human on the planet, ask any climate change billionaire how else could their personal jets get from one meeting after another on How To Save the World (and Get Even Richer At the Same Time)?
You can ride your bicycle; I'll take my Dodge Cummins diesel. You can also keep your ultimately fossil fuel powered electric weed eater. Mine's an old 2-cycle and I feed it 16:1 gas to just to make it smoke more!
As far as meaningful conversation, there is none in this thread, including yours. It looks like trolling to me.
#12
MowerMike
MowerMike
No professor here, just a technical professional who has experience and facts on his side.
Chernobyl and Fukushima were completely different types of power plants than are used in the USA, so those types of catastrophic accidents could not occur in the USA. Three Mile Island was due to preventable operator error in ignoring safety system alarms and as bad as it was did not result in a single death or overexposure, or loss of farmland and animals. Since Three Mile Island, all USA commercial nuclear power generating stations are required to have automatic reactor shutdown systems that do not require human intervention. Nuclear power stations have duplicate redundant safety systems, such that if one fails the second one can be used to bring the plant into a safe shutdown mode. So, basically it is nearly impossible for there to be a significant nuclear power accident in the USA.
As far as waste disposal, it is not a problem if it is simply left onsite and entombed in the plant building when the reactor is decommissioned.
I gather that you are some sort of climate change denier, but please correct me if I am somehow mistaken. :laughing:
Oh, and it is you, my friend who decided to troll my thread with inflammatory nonsense.
Chernobyl and Fukushima were completely different types of power plants than are used in the USA, so those types of catastrophic accidents could not occur in the USA. Three Mile Island was due to preventable operator error in ignoring safety system alarms and as bad as it was did not result in a single death or overexposure, or loss of farmland and animals. Since Three Mile Island, all USA commercial nuclear power generating stations are required to have automatic reactor shutdown systems that do not require human intervention. Nuclear power stations have duplicate redundant safety systems, such that if one fails the second one can be used to bring the plant into a safe shutdown mode. So, basically it is nearly impossible for there to be a significant nuclear power accident in the USA.
As far as waste disposal, it is not a problem if it is simply left onsite and entombed in the plant building when the reactor is decommissioned.
I gather that you are some sort of climate change denier, but please correct me if I am somehow mistaken. :laughing:
Oh, and it is you, my friend who decided to troll my thread with inflammatory nonsense.
#13
B
bertsmobile1
Yes, I did Science at Uni and back in my Uni days Australia was debating weather we should open our second Uranium mine and even look at Nuclear energy.
Thousands took to the streets in protest.
All of them were humanities students who had not done any science since they were 12.
So we decided to ship Uranium as Yellow Cake which is both toxic & water soluable .
I piss myself laughing whenever I start to recall all the bull **** debates that raged through the media at the time .
And usually it was from people whose only knowledge of Nuclear energy came from a Mickey Mouse cartoon.
Spent Uranium fuel rods are not a problem.
They decay at the same rate as naturally occuring uranium decays and short of grinding them up to a dust & either breathing them in or swallowing them they pose little actual problems.
Our first uranium mine was in an area called the " Rum Jungle "
It was called that because it litterally glowed in the dark and in all sorts of funny colours & patterns.
When people reported this they were considered to have drunk too much rum.
The indiginous people have been living in this area for 40,000 years and AFAIK none of them have grown 3 heads or 10' long penises.
OTOH I had an isotope lisence for around 20 years .
Used mainly Co 60 & Na 24.
The Na24 has a 1/2 life of 14 hours so you had to order it a month ahead of time & use it the second it was available for pick up as after 2 days it was 99% decayed to Mg.
You can use Na 24 to take X ray images through 4' thick iron castings ( which is what I used it for ) or through 100' of earth which is what the pipeline authority used it for.
Cobalt was plain lead weave gloves & usual radiology gear.
Sodium was pressurised full air suit behind screens using remote handleing gear whenever the isotope was out of the camera
Uranium is fine , I would happily live in a fuel dump.
As for coal, it would be fine if coal was just Carbon, but it is not.
There is more radiation leaked out of a coal fires boiler in a day than from a Nuclear Power plant in a year due to the fact that most black coals are radio active themselves C 14
Now while the amount of C 14 in coal is very small, a very small percentage of a very large tonnage is a lot and radioactive C 14 is the C used in radio carbon dating. The Radio bit is radioactive.
Then there is Thorium, Ceasium, Strontinum , all in coal.
Then we have the toxic stuff like Tellurium, Sellium etc,
In fact so much toxic material is in the ash left over it is not allowed to be used anywhere that it will come into contact with food plants, including cattle feed.
The flue gasses are also toxic in themselves and then you also get , Sulphuric acid, Phosphoric acid, Fluroboric acid and Nitric acid, all in the flue gasses.
And with Powder River coals, Mercury and I suppose the reason why so may Americans are as "mad as hatters" is all the mercury they have been breathing in or eating as mercury bioaccumulates in both plants & animals.
Most of the "carbon footprint" stuff is trash science at it's worst. Foistered upon the general pubic by the self richious to make them feel even more better than every one else.
The amount of carbon produced in mining, transporting then generating the electricity used to recharge a battery trimmer is about 4 times more than what would have been created by using a petrol powered trimmer in the first place.
If you really want to reduce your carbon footprint then get one of the specialist companies to come & do a full thermal image of the the complete exteriour of your house on a hot summer day when you have the air con on and mid winter when you have the heater running flat chat.
Using this information plug all of the thermal leaks in your house.
Not only will you save the planet, you will also save yourself a lot of money
Set the air con to 20 C in summer or better still re-engineer your house to be solar active and thus turn off the heater & air con except in extreme days,
Home care equipment make almost zero impact because they are small engines that get used for small hours a year.
We worked out that is every house in Australia ( 10,000,000 or so ) ran ran a "dirty" 160cc 2 stroke Victa lawn mowers all day they would consume the same amount of fuel as 1 jumbo jet taking off.
At that time Sydney airport was running around 150 planes a day, yet to reduce pollution we were banning 2 stroke mowers and working out how to bump the airport up to 200 flights a day.
B
bertsmobile1
Actually, as someone who has worked for nearly forty years in the nuclear power industry, I have found that there is a massive amount of ignorance on this topic, as demonstrated in this forum. If you are really interested in making a meaningful contribution to this discussion, I suggest you better educate yourself before making silly uninformed remarks.
Yes, I did Science at Uni and back in my Uni days Australia was debating weather we should open our second Uranium mine and even look at Nuclear energy.
Thousands took to the streets in protest.
All of them were humanities students who had not done any science since they were 12.
So we decided to ship Uranium as Yellow Cake which is both toxic & water soluable .
I piss myself laughing whenever I start to recall all the bull **** debates that raged through the media at the time .
And usually it was from people whose only knowledge of Nuclear energy came from a Mickey Mouse cartoon.
Spent Uranium fuel rods are not a problem.
They decay at the same rate as naturally occuring uranium decays and short of grinding them up to a dust & either breathing them in or swallowing them they pose little actual problems.
Our first uranium mine was in an area called the " Rum Jungle "
It was called that because it litterally glowed in the dark and in all sorts of funny colours & patterns.
When people reported this they were considered to have drunk too much rum.
The indiginous people have been living in this area for 40,000 years and AFAIK none of them have grown 3 heads or 10' long penises.
OTOH I had an isotope lisence for around 20 years .
Used mainly Co 60 & Na 24.
The Na24 has a 1/2 life of 14 hours so you had to order it a month ahead of time & use it the second it was available for pick up as after 2 days it was 99% decayed to Mg.
You can use Na 24 to take X ray images through 4' thick iron castings ( which is what I used it for ) or through 100' of earth which is what the pipeline authority used it for.
Cobalt was plain lead weave gloves & usual radiology gear.
Sodium was pressurised full air suit behind screens using remote handleing gear whenever the isotope was out of the camera
Uranium is fine , I would happily live in a fuel dump.
As for coal, it would be fine if coal was just Carbon, but it is not.
There is more radiation leaked out of a coal fires boiler in a day than from a Nuclear Power plant in a year due to the fact that most black coals are radio active themselves C 14
Now while the amount of C 14 in coal is very small, a very small percentage of a very large tonnage is a lot and radioactive C 14 is the C used in radio carbon dating. The Radio bit is radioactive.
Then there is Thorium, Ceasium, Strontinum , all in coal.
Then we have the toxic stuff like Tellurium, Sellium etc,
In fact so much toxic material is in the ash left over it is not allowed to be used anywhere that it will come into contact with food plants, including cattle feed.
The flue gasses are also toxic in themselves and then you also get , Sulphuric acid, Phosphoric acid, Fluroboric acid and Nitric acid, all in the flue gasses.
And with Powder River coals, Mercury and I suppose the reason why so may Americans are as "mad as hatters" is all the mercury they have been breathing in or eating as mercury bioaccumulates in both plants & animals.
Most of the "carbon footprint" stuff is trash science at it's worst. Foistered upon the general pubic by the self richious to make them feel even more better than every one else.
The amount of carbon produced in mining, transporting then generating the electricity used to recharge a battery trimmer is about 4 times more than what would have been created by using a petrol powered trimmer in the first place.
If you really want to reduce your carbon footprint then get one of the specialist companies to come & do a full thermal image of the the complete exteriour of your house on a hot summer day when you have the air con on and mid winter when you have the heater running flat chat.
Using this information plug all of the thermal leaks in your house.
Not only will you save the planet, you will also save yourself a lot of money
Set the air con to 20 C in summer or better still re-engineer your house to be solar active and thus turn off the heater & air con except in extreme days,
Home care equipment make almost zero impact because they are small engines that get used for small hours a year.
We worked out that is every house in Australia ( 10,000,000 or so ) ran ran a "dirty" 160cc 2 stroke Victa lawn mowers all day they would consume the same amount of fuel as 1 jumbo jet taking off.
At that time Sydney airport was running around 150 planes a day, yet to reduce pollution we were banning 2 stroke mowers and working out how to bump the airport up to 200 flights a day.
#14
B
bertsmobile1
Yes and the other problem is politicians.
Back in the cold war days they wanted lots & lots of plutonium so we could have more bombs than them cause whoever fires the last missile wins.
Thus fast breeder reactors were the only thing any government would look at & the Thorium Salt reactor programe was shut down.
No one was willing to use a nuke because eventually the full consequences of the two dropped on Japan became common knowledge and since that time the bombs had increased in power by orders of magnitude.
Then the French came up with the Neutron bomb which was a game changer cause it killed everything that was living but did not affect the real estate so it could be used effectively.
This made most sane politicans scarred shitless so non proliferation & decommissioning became the order of the day, apart from that increasing the stockpiles of Nukes is primarily what sent the USSR broke, nukes are really expensive.
As for accidents, the big problem is the high pressure water used to cool the reactors and chynobal was a strait water gas explosion cause by water at very high temperatures ( around 400 C from memory ) depressurizing thus converting to high pressure dissassociated dry super steam followed by hydrogen gas explosions ( from the dissassociated steam H & O ).
All of the explosions at Japan were from hydrogen gas accumulating because the water pumps had failed and then there were some electrical explosions due to high voltage short circuits.
Last year China fired up it's research salt reactor and if things go as planned, they will be generating power with them big time in a decade or so.
India is also running a thorium salt reactor as a research instrument and they plan to go nuclear asap.
Germany is due to go on line in 2018 with their reactor.
B
bertsmobile1
Actually, as someone who has worked for nearly forty years in the nuclear power industry, I have found that there is a massive amount of ignorance on this topic, as demonstrated in this forum. If you are really interested in making a meaningful contribution to this discussion, I suggest you better educate yourself before making silly uninformed remarks.
Yes and the other problem is politicians.
Back in the cold war days they wanted lots & lots of plutonium so we could have more bombs than them cause whoever fires the last missile wins.
Thus fast breeder reactors were the only thing any government would look at & the Thorium Salt reactor programe was shut down.
No one was willing to use a nuke because eventually the full consequences of the two dropped on Japan became common knowledge and since that time the bombs had increased in power by orders of magnitude.
Then the French came up with the Neutron bomb which was a game changer cause it killed everything that was living but did not affect the real estate so it could be used effectively.
This made most sane politicans scarred shitless so non proliferation & decommissioning became the order of the day, apart from that increasing the stockpiles of Nukes is primarily what sent the USSR broke, nukes are really expensive.
As for accidents, the big problem is the high pressure water used to cool the reactors and chynobal was a strait water gas explosion cause by water at very high temperatures ( around 400 C from memory ) depressurizing thus converting to high pressure dissassociated dry super steam followed by hydrogen gas explosions ( from the dissassociated steam H & O ).
All of the explosions at Japan were from hydrogen gas accumulating because the water pumps had failed and then there were some electrical explosions due to high voltage short circuits.
Last year China fired up it's research salt reactor and if things go as planned, they will be generating power with them big time in a decade or so.
India is also running a thorium salt reactor as a research instrument and they plan to go nuclear asap.
Germany is due to go on line in 2018 with their reactor.
#15
TonyPrin
TonyPrin
Getting back to the original post, reducing emissions is an admirable objective but several other posts show taking one fuel away doesn't always mean improvement. MowerMike, what about letting the grass grow or just skipping a few mowings. You'd save on energy plus the taller grass would eat up more CO2.
#16
B
bertsmobile1
Every change in the energy density of the fuel burned was a great benefit to mankind
And every one created problems
Animals replacing people power made a massive difference to productivity.
Wind replacing animals was even better ( where applicable )
Wood replacing wind. same story
Coal replacing wood , same again
oil replacing coal same again
'Nukes replacing oil will be the same again
In 20 to 30 years time when China & India are pumping out electricity at 3¢ / Kwh, coal will look stupid at 15¢ / Kwh
As for solar being a non entity, buy yourself a ticket to Dezhou city in China and see for yourself.
A totally self sufficient solar powered city.
Built with private money that was not chained to coal mining or oil production to prove it can be done economically.
Last time I checked the Chinese government was looking into building 5,000 more city complexes built along identical lines.
B
bertsmobile1
Really, Professor? Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukishama all come to mind. What event that could never happen happened there? Not to mention waste sites which are toxic for how many thousands of years?
If you want to live by one, be my guest. I'll pass.
Give me fossil fuel which is the best thing that ever happened to mankind. Not only has it raised the living standard of virtually every human on the planet, ask any climate change billionaire how else could their personal jets get from one meeting after another on How To Save the World (and Get Even Richer At the Same Time)?
You can ride your bicycle; I'll take my Dodge Cummins diesel. You can also keep your ultimately fossil fuel powered electric weed eater. Mine's an old 2-cycle and I feed it 16:1 gas to just to make it smoke more!
As far as meaningful conversation, there is none in this thread, including yours. It looks like trolling to me.
Every change in the energy density of the fuel burned was a great benefit to mankind
And every one created problems
Animals replacing people power made a massive difference to productivity.
Wind replacing animals was even better ( where applicable )
Wood replacing wind. same story
Coal replacing wood , same again
oil replacing coal same again
'Nukes replacing oil will be the same again
In 20 to 30 years time when China & India are pumping out electricity at 3¢ / Kwh, coal will look stupid at 15¢ / Kwh
As for solar being a non entity, buy yourself a ticket to Dezhou city in China and see for yourself.
A totally self sufficient solar powered city.
Built with private money that was not chained to coal mining or oil production to prove it can be done economically.
Last time I checked the Chinese government was looking into building 5,000 more city complexes built along identical lines.
#17
B
bertsmobile1
Only if you consider the USA to be the entire world.
2/3 of the people on the planet are living in the 3rd world without fossil fuels and these people are subsidising the increase in your living standards, theirs has either not changed or gone down.
B
bertsmobile1
Really, Professor? Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukishama all come to mind. What event that could never happen happened there? Not to mention waste sites which are toxic for how many thousands of years?
If you want to live by one, be my guest. I'll pass.
Give me fossil fuel which is the best thing that ever happened to mankind. Not only has it raised the living standard of virtually every human on the planet, .
Only if you consider the USA to be the entire world.
2/3 of the people on the planet are living in the 3rd world without fossil fuels and these people are subsidising the increase in your living standards, theirs has either not changed or gone down.
#18
MowerMike
My first post was a bit tongue in cheek, and designed to provoke some discussion on this somewhat moribund forum. The real benefit of replacing gas tools with battery powered is reduced noise and not having to deal with the transport, mixing and storage of gas. If you disect my original post, you see that I really did not reduce emissions overall, since I gave my gas tools to my friend's son, who will no doubt use them just much as I did. Also, I still use a gas blower and pressure washer, so I'm really a hybrid power user. As to letting the grass grow more to increase photosynthesis, I suspect that my trees are far more useful for this task. I already let my grass grow over 3" long to protect the roots from the hot Texas sun.
Finally, I'm not Al Gore or a tree hugger. I use a bicycle for short distance travel, and on average use my car only once a week. I haven't flown on an airplane in nearly twenty years. So, I try my best not to polute within the confines of living a first world life.
MowerMike
Getting back to the original post, reducing emissions is an admirable objective but several other posts show taking one fuel away doesn't always mean improvement. MowerMike, what about letting the grass grow or just skipping a few mowings. You'd save on energy plus the taller grass would eat up more CO2.
My first post was a bit tongue in cheek, and designed to provoke some discussion on this somewhat moribund forum. The real benefit of replacing gas tools with battery powered is reduced noise and not having to deal with the transport, mixing and storage of gas. If you disect my original post, you see that I really did not reduce emissions overall, since I gave my gas tools to my friend's son, who will no doubt use them just much as I did. Also, I still use a gas blower and pressure washer, so I'm really a hybrid power user. As to letting the grass grow more to increase photosynthesis, I suspect that my trees are far more useful for this task. I already let my grass grow over 3" long to protect the roots from the hot Texas sun.
Finally, I'm not Al Gore or a tree hugger. I use a bicycle for short distance travel, and on average use my car only once a week. I haven't flown on an airplane in nearly twenty years. So, I try my best not to polute within the confines of living a first world life.
#19
MowerMike
We Americans seem to forget this fact, and unfortunately our current president wants to take us back into the glory days of the 19th century. Countries like China realize this, and if we are not careful the USA may be heading to being second banana to China.
MowerMike
Only if you consider the USA to be the entire world.
2/3 of the people on the planet are living in the 3rd world without fossil fuels and these people are subsidising the increase in your living standards, theirs has either not changed or gone down.
We Americans seem to forget this fact, and unfortunately our current president wants to take us back into the glory days of the 19th century. Countries like China realize this, and if we are not careful the USA may be heading to being second banana to China.
#20
TonyPrin
Seldom do I see comments as upside-down as this. The idea that 3rd world countries are subsidizing US living standards is cookoo. The US government plus private charities and foundations give well over $50 billion to these countries annually, not the other way around. The fact that other countries aren't keeping pace with the US is neither our fault nor something we should be ashamed of.
Beyond that, 3rd world countries exist for many reasons none of which has anything to do with what fuels we use. I mean do you really think any 3rd world country's economy would change in any way if we used less fossil fuels.
TonyPrin
Only if you consider the USA to be the entire world.
2/3 of the people on the planet are living in the 3rd world without fossil fuels and these people are subsidising the increase in your living standards, theirs has either not changed or gone down.
Seldom do I see comments as upside-down as this. The idea that 3rd world countries are subsidizing US living standards is cookoo. The US government plus private charities and foundations give well over $50 billion to these countries annually, not the other way around. The fact that other countries aren't keeping pace with the US is neither our fault nor something we should be ashamed of.
Beyond that, 3rd world countries exist for many reasons none of which has anything to do with what fuels we use. I mean do you really think any 3rd world country's economy would change in any way if we used less fossil fuels.
#21
B
bertsmobile1
B
bertsmobile1
Go to your wardrobe and look at where all of the cloths are made
Why are they made there and not in the USA ?
Because the workers are either in a 3rd world country or working under 3rd world conditions.
the factory that was making Niki running shoes was getting $ 3.50 a pair.
You were paying $ 50 to $ 100 a pair.
Some one was making a massive profit supporting a great lifestyle and it was not the workers putting in 10 to 14 hour days in a 3rd world country.
So that is 3rd world countries subsidizing your ( and my ) lifestyle
Your car is full of stuff made in China , The Phillipines , Tiawan, Indonesia etc all made by workers below the poverty line.
Your E-waste get shipped to Africia when poverty struck workers unaware of the hazards they are exposing themselves to recycle parts & metals that get sold back to 1st world countries for depressed prices.
Exploitation of 3rd world countries is a direct subsidy on your lifestyle.
Then when it comes to foreign aid, the only stuff that benefits the inhabitants of 3rd world countries is the work the charities do.
What governments do is give them a lot of money on the grounds that they use that money to buy obsolete weapons so most of it comes back.
Then they finance projects that get done by 1st world companies so the road that locals could do for $ 100 / yard gets done by a USA company for $ 2000 / yard and gets called "foreign aid " and that road will go to a mine that a 1st world company has a majority share in not to farms so the locals can get their produce to market.
I am not trying to sound like I am anti US, the Aussie government is just as bad.
Our "foreign aid" established a foundry in Afganistahn , the idea being to convert weapons to agricultural tools.
It eventually got canned when it was found out that 80% of the money was being paid in wages & protection for the 6 Australians in charge of the project and a further 12% went into equipment sourced from Australian business that could have been made locally for 5% of the price .
This is the case with most of the foreign aid.
And then there is what I like to consider "local slave labour"
Down here we have thousands of Phillipino house maids cleaning the houses of Australians for a fraction of the price a local would have to be paid, thus subsidising the life style of the Aussie .
Over there I imagine it would be Mexicans & Hispanics,
And for a long while the work charities did was principally for the benefit of the charity.
We passed a law back in the 90's that 50% of the money charities collected had to be spent in the benifiting country not including wages paid to Aussies working there and around 80% of our overseas charities closed down or became what they really were Pty Ltd businesses filling the pockets of local businessmen.
This ratio has been steadliy increasing and now you have to spend 75% of your revenue overseas or you loose your charitable status and get taxed.
Why are they made there and not in the USA ?
Because the workers are either in a 3rd world country or working under 3rd world conditions.
the factory that was making Niki running shoes was getting $ 3.50 a pair.
You were paying $ 50 to $ 100 a pair.
Some one was making a massive profit supporting a great lifestyle and it was not the workers putting in 10 to 14 hour days in a 3rd world country.
So that is 3rd world countries subsidizing your ( and my ) lifestyle
Your car is full of stuff made in China , The Phillipines , Tiawan, Indonesia etc all made by workers below the poverty line.
Your E-waste get shipped to Africia when poverty struck workers unaware of the hazards they are exposing themselves to recycle parts & metals that get sold back to 1st world countries for depressed prices.
Exploitation of 3rd world countries is a direct subsidy on your lifestyle.
Then when it comes to foreign aid, the only stuff that benefits the inhabitants of 3rd world countries is the work the charities do.
What governments do is give them a lot of money on the grounds that they use that money to buy obsolete weapons so most of it comes back.
Then they finance projects that get done by 1st world companies so the road that locals could do for $ 100 / yard gets done by a USA company for $ 2000 / yard and gets called "foreign aid " and that road will go to a mine that a 1st world company has a majority share in not to farms so the locals can get their produce to market.
I am not trying to sound like I am anti US, the Aussie government is just as bad.
Our "foreign aid" established a foundry in Afganistahn , the idea being to convert weapons to agricultural tools.
It eventually got canned when it was found out that 80% of the money was being paid in wages & protection for the 6 Australians in charge of the project and a further 12% went into equipment sourced from Australian business that could have been made locally for 5% of the price .
This is the case with most of the foreign aid.
And then there is what I like to consider "local slave labour"
Down here we have thousands of Phillipino house maids cleaning the houses of Australians for a fraction of the price a local would have to be paid, thus subsidising the life style of the Aussie .
Over there I imagine it would be Mexicans & Hispanics,
And for a long while the work charities did was principally for the benefit of the charity.
We passed a law back in the 90's that 50% of the money charities collected had to be spent in the benifiting country not including wages paid to Aussies working there and around 80% of our overseas charities closed down or became what they really were Pty Ltd businesses filling the pockets of local businessmen.
This ratio has been steadliy increasing and now you have to spend 75% of your revenue overseas or you loose your charitable status and get taxed.
#22
2smoked
2smoked
Whew!! This thread is exhausting!
I think I will go out in the garage and relax by starting up 3 of my 2-stroke Lawn Boys just to smell them.
I think I will go out in the garage and relax by starting up 3 of my 2-stroke Lawn Boys just to smell them.
#23
TonyPrin
TonyPrin
Bertsmobile1, what you're referring to is called Zero-sum game: the mathematical concept that one person's benefit is offset or caused by another's loss and I don't think it applies on at least four counts.
First, if Nike shoes were made for $3.50 a pair and they were sold in the US for $5.00 you'd have a point because an item worth $100 would be purchased for less and the American would have extra cash. But when the item is purchased for $100 (market value) there is no benefit to the consumer in the US. After all, those shoes could be made anywhere - including the US - and the price to the consumer would still be $100.
Second, I think you could also make an argument for a benefit to the US if Nike's additional profit came into the US and was spent on other things, thereby helping the US economy. But, that is not the case. That money is kept outside the US - to some extent to build more foreign factories - which is a major issue in the US.
Third, you and I could say many workers in these countries are exploited - and that's a horrible thing - but their being exploited doesn't create a benefit to anyone outside that country except the companies doing the exploiting and has no positive impact on the US economy. After all, exploiting workers in a 3rd world country doesn't help workers in the US, it hurts them because it results in jobs transferred overseas. Rather, the benefit is to the economy of the worker's country because the workers have money to spend at their local stores which is why those countries allow it.
Fourth, you could say the same thing applied not that long ago to Japan and South Korea so now those countries are importing millions of cars to the US. Do you somehow think damaging the US auto industry is helping the American economy?
Finally, next time you shop for wine buy a California chardonnay instead of an Australian and think about which country benefits the most from that.
First, if Nike shoes were made for $3.50 a pair and they were sold in the US for $5.00 you'd have a point because an item worth $100 would be purchased for less and the American would have extra cash. But when the item is purchased for $100 (market value) there is no benefit to the consumer in the US. After all, those shoes could be made anywhere - including the US - and the price to the consumer would still be $100.
Second, I think you could also make an argument for a benefit to the US if Nike's additional profit came into the US and was spent on other things, thereby helping the US economy. But, that is not the case. That money is kept outside the US - to some extent to build more foreign factories - which is a major issue in the US.
Third, you and I could say many workers in these countries are exploited - and that's a horrible thing - but their being exploited doesn't create a benefit to anyone outside that country except the companies doing the exploiting and has no positive impact on the US economy. After all, exploiting workers in a 3rd world country doesn't help workers in the US, it hurts them because it results in jobs transferred overseas. Rather, the benefit is to the economy of the worker's country because the workers have money to spend at their local stores which is why those countries allow it.
Fourth, you could say the same thing applied not that long ago to Japan and South Korea so now those countries are importing millions of cars to the US. Do you somehow think damaging the US auto industry is helping the American economy?
Finally, next time you shop for wine buy a California chardonnay instead of an Australian and think about which country benefits the most from that.
#24
B
bertsmobile1
Idon't really want to get into a slanging match so we will have to agree to dissagree on this one.
I pulled the Nike example out because it was a big public scandal a few years back and thus well known.
I could have picked upon Murry mowers, made in China, sold to you just slightly cheaper than an AYP mower at a massive profit to the importers and almost none to the workers in China
Every locally made car you buy is around $ 500 cheaper to you because of all the Chinese / Mexican / Brizillian parts
B
bertsmobile1
Bertsmobile1, what you're referring to is called Zero-sum game: the mathematical concept that one person's benefit is offset or caused by another's loss and I don't think it applies on at least four counts.
First, if Nike shoes were made for $3.50 a pair and they were sold in the US for $5.00 you'd have a point because an item worth $100 would be purchased for less and the American would have extra cash. But when the item is purchased for $100 (market value) there is no benefit to the consumer in the US. After all, those shoes could be made anywhere - including the US - and the price to the consumer would still be $100.
Second, I think you could also make an argument for a benefit to the US if Nike's additional profit came into the US and was spent on other things, thereby helping the US economy. But, that is not the case. That money is kept outside the US - to some extent to build more foreign factories - which is a major issue in the US.
Third, you and I could say many workers in these countries are exploited - and that's a horrible thing - but their being exploited doesn't create a benefit to anyone outside that country except the companies doing the exploiting and has no positive impact on the US economy. After all, exploiting workers in a 3rd world country doesn't help workers in the US, it hurts them because it results in jobs transferred overseas. Rather, the benefit is to the economy of the worker's country because the workers have money to spend at their local stores which is why those countries allow it.
Fourth, you could say the same thing applied not that long ago to Japan and South Korea so now those countries are importing millions of cars to the US. Do you somehow think damaging the US auto industry is helping the American economy?
Finally, next time you shop for wine buy a California chardonnay instead of an Australian and think about which country benefits the most from that.
Idon't really want to get into a slanging match so we will have to agree to dissagree on this one.
I pulled the Nike example out because it was a big public scandal a few years back and thus well known.
I could have picked upon Murry mowers, made in China, sold to you just slightly cheaper than an AYP mower at a massive profit to the importers and almost none to the workers in China
Every locally made car you buy is around $ 500 cheaper to you because of all the Chinese / Mexican / Brizillian parts
#25
MowerMike
MowerMike
It all depends on your perspective.
As a consumer in the USA, cheap foreign labor rates are a benefit. As a blue collar worker they are a detriment. Where I live, a lot of the manual labor is done by immigrants, mostly Mexican, and many of them undocumented. If you look at all the housing construction, the work crews are all speaking Spanish and the same goes for lawncare crews and many other tasks that are not unionized. I think it's important not to confuse benefits to individuals with profits to corporations.
As a consumer in the USA, cheap foreign labor rates are a benefit. As a blue collar worker they are a detriment. Where I live, a lot of the manual labor is done by immigrants, mostly Mexican, and many of them undocumented. If you look at all the housing construction, the work crews are all speaking Spanish and the same goes for lawncare crews and many other tasks that are not unionized. I think it's important not to confuse benefits to individuals with profits to corporations.
#26
B
bertsmobile1
Except corperations are owned by individuals, called shareholders who get dividends that elevate their lifestyle.
While some might have few shareholders and others have a lot ultimately is it a USA citizen who reaps the rewards as you can not own USA share unless you are a citizen unless you are using very complicated corp structures, same as in Aust.
Again not trying to be anti USA we do the same down here.
SO the person who buys the car gets it cheaper because of the 3rd world underpaid labour used in making the parts and the shareholder gets more profit. And yes the American on the production line gets the sack when the parts are sourced elsewhere.
The tragedy of it is there is enough money in the world to feed every one with 3 square meals a day .
I was 1/2 listening to a radio docco when the presenter said a single days trading on the Toyoko Stock exchange would feed the entire 3rd world for a year.
And of course that days trading was just making rich people richer.
I have a resonable collection of motorcycles ( BSA's ) and I source parts locally where ever possible.
I have a moderate income , around 2/3 of the average male income, which is more than I need so I am happy to support local industry, but food from the local farmers or at the local shops.
I cop abuse from fellow motorcycle collectors with incomes 10 to 20 times mine for not sourcing ( usually inferiour ) parts cheaper from India or China or racing out & buying really cheap riding gear from Aldi.
Poverty is cause by people at the top skimming way too much out of the system which means there is not enough at the bottom.
They they get outraged when those at the bottom turn to crime .
Most people in the USA ( and Australia ) could afford to pay an extra $ 500 for their ride ons which would allow local manufacture of mowers .
However most will scour the universe to find the absolute cheapest then whinge that the quality is not what it used to be.
part & parcel of this is exploiting those in 3rd world countries many of which get paid less than their own minimum living wages for producing stuff for people who wast more money than they will ever see in their entire lives.
B
bertsmobile1
It all depends on your perspective.
As a consumer in the USA, cheap foreign labor rates are a benefit. As a blue collar worker they are a detriment. Where I live, a lot of the manual labor is done by immigrants, mostly Mexican, and many of them undocumented. If you look at all the housing construction, the work crews are all speaking Spanish and the same goes for lawncare crews and many other tasks that are not unionized. I think it's important not to confuse benefits to individuals with profits to corporations.
Except corperations are owned by individuals, called shareholders who get dividends that elevate their lifestyle.
While some might have few shareholders and others have a lot ultimately is it a USA citizen who reaps the rewards as you can not own USA share unless you are a citizen unless you are using very complicated corp structures, same as in Aust.
Again not trying to be anti USA we do the same down here.
SO the person who buys the car gets it cheaper because of the 3rd world underpaid labour used in making the parts and the shareholder gets more profit. And yes the American on the production line gets the sack when the parts are sourced elsewhere.
The tragedy of it is there is enough money in the world to feed every one with 3 square meals a day .
I was 1/2 listening to a radio docco when the presenter said a single days trading on the Toyoko Stock exchange would feed the entire 3rd world for a year.
And of course that days trading was just making rich people richer.
I have a resonable collection of motorcycles ( BSA's ) and I source parts locally where ever possible.
I have a moderate income , around 2/3 of the average male income, which is more than I need so I am happy to support local industry, but food from the local farmers or at the local shops.
I cop abuse from fellow motorcycle collectors with incomes 10 to 20 times mine for not sourcing ( usually inferiour ) parts cheaper from India or China or racing out & buying really cheap riding gear from Aldi.
Poverty is cause by people at the top skimming way too much out of the system which means there is not enough at the bottom.
They they get outraged when those at the bottom turn to crime .
Most people in the USA ( and Australia ) could afford to pay an extra $ 500 for their ride ons which would allow local manufacture of mowers .
However most will scour the universe to find the absolute cheapest then whinge that the quality is not what it used to be.
part & parcel of this is exploiting those in 3rd world countries many of which get paid less than their own minimum living wages for producing stuff for people who wast more money than they will ever see in their entire lives.
#27
TonyPrin
Bertsmobile1, your comments continue to amuse me. If you take your show on the road let me know and I'll buy a ticket.
Somehow you assume that the plight of workers in 3rd world countries relate to exploitation by wealthy countries like the US and that is nonsense. The economic conditions in hose countries are tied directly to their resources, corruption, and the ineptitude or unwillingness of their governments to rectify the situation. Workers take sweat-shop jobs in 3rd world countries in order to live because better work is not available, not because someone in the US forces them to do it.
TonyPrin
Except corperations are owned by individuals, called shareholders who get dividends that elevate their lifestyle.
While some might have few shareholders and others have a lot ultimately is it a USA citizen who reaps the rewards as you can not own USA share unless you are a citizen unless you are using very complicated corp structures, same as in Aust.
Again not trying to be anti USA we do the same down here.
SO the person who buys the car gets it cheaper because of the 3rd world underpaid labour used in making the parts and the shareholder gets more profit. And yes the American on the production line gets the sack when the parts are sourced elsewhere.
The tragedy of it is there is enough money in the world to feed every one with 3 square meals a day .
I was 1/2 listening to a radio docco when the presenter said a single days trading on the Toyoko Stock exchange would feed the entire 3rd world for a year.
And of course that days trading was just making rich people richer.
I have a resonable collection of motorcycles ( BSA's ) and I source parts locally where ever possible.
I have a moderate income , around 2/3 of the average male income, which is more than I need so I am happy to support local industry, but food from the local farmers or at the local shops.
I cop abuse from fellow motorcycle collectors with incomes 10 to 20 times mine for not sourcing ( usually inferiour ) parts cheaper from India or China or racing out & buying really cheap riding gear from Aldi.
Poverty is cause by people at the top skimming way too much out of the system which means there is not enough at the bottom.
They they get outraged when those at the bottom turn to crime .
Most people in the USA ( and Australia ) could afford to pay an extra $ 500 for their ride ons which would allow local manufacture of mowers .
However most will scour the universe to find the absolute cheapest then whinge that the quality is not what it used to be.
part & parcel of this is exploiting those in 3rd world countries many of which get paid less than their own minimum living wages for producing stuff for people who wast more money than they will ever see in their entire lives.
Bertsmobile1, your comments continue to amuse me. If you take your show on the road let me know and I'll buy a ticket.
Somehow you assume that the plight of workers in 3rd world countries relate to exploitation by wealthy countries like the US and that is nonsense. The economic conditions in hose countries are tied directly to their resources, corruption, and the ineptitude or unwillingness of their governments to rectify the situation. Workers take sweat-shop jobs in 3rd world countries in order to live because better work is not available, not because someone in the US forces them to do it.
The idea of this is ridiculous. There is no system, per se, with a limited amount of money where some people take more leaving others with less. Wealth is created from nothing. When a company like Facebook is created, the founder becomes a billionaire but that money isn't taken from anyone. It is just incorrect to suggest that every winner requires a looser.Poverty is cause by people at the top skimming way too much out of the system which means there is not enough at the bottom.
#28
cpurvis
cpurvis
I would also ask what these "sweat shop" laborers in foreign countries were doing before the sweat shop came to town. Did they have better jobs then? Or is the sweat shop job an improvement over their prior employment? Could it be that their standard of living actually improved after getting the sweat shop job?
#29
B
bertsmobile1
If you really believe that wealth can be created from nothing then we have a massive fundamential difference about the principles of economic commerce.
When Face book floats, it did not "create money", only government reserve banks can "create money" and even then it is not real.
Money gets moved from one place to another.
So when Facebook lists, the money is moved from one set of assets to acquire another asset.
Now this might be your own money or a banks money via leveraging and when leveraging with imaginary money gets too extreme we have a banking collapse like the GFC of the early 2000's.
The founders of Facebook invested a lot to create facebook in the first place ( time, labour building rental etc etc etc ).
Remember money is not real it is a third party means of trading items between two parties, be it your labour and your employers products, your labour & the customers lawn etc etc etc.
That is the whole premiss upon which double entry book keeping is based upon, for every credit there is a debit.
Create more money and all the money already there becomes worth less, we call that inflation which is why you get $ 30/ hour now against $10/hr 20 years ago.
AS for 3rd world countries yes it is a lot more complex but if no cheap items were available from 3rd world countries everything you purchase would be a lot more expensive
So yes blue collar workers would have more work and thus more money but would be no better off because everything would be more expensive.
You ( assuming you are not a blue collar worker ) will be substantially worse off because everything you buy that is market priced will be more expensive.
Thus you are being subsidised by the labour of the 3rd world.
If you have an open mind and want to get a better idea about how the governments of 1st world countries manipulate the 3rd world get your hands upon a copy of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"
This was written by an ex world bank exec and shows clearly how 1st world governments make sure 3rd world countries can never get out of the poverty traps deliberately created by 1st world governments.
It in particular explains how Africa has been kept in poverty to prevent it developing and becoming an economic competitor to Europe, the USSR & the US .
Now corrupt 3rd world governments & civil authorities don't help the plight of the 3rd word people either, but most of these people were corrupted by the west in the first place.
All that "dirty money" corrupt officals steal from their treasury has to go some where , some where safe, politically stable where it will accumulate more wealth and is easily transferiable,
And that is US, Europe & Australia
B
bertsmobile1
Bertsmobile1, your comments continue to amuse me. If you take your show on the road let me know and I'll buy a ticket.
Somehow you assume that the plight of workers in 3rd world countries relate to exploitation by wealthy countries like the US and that is nonsense. The economic conditions in hose countries are tied directly to their resources, corruption, and the ineptitude or unwillingness of their governments to rectify the situation. Workers take sweat-shop jobs in 3rd world countries in order to live because better work is not available, not because someone in the US forces them to do it.
The idea of this is ridiculous. There is no system, per se, with a limited amount of money where some people take more leaving others with less. Wealth is created from nothing. When a company like Facebook is created, the founder becomes a billionaire but that money isn't taken from anyone. It is just incorrect to suggest that every winner requires a looser.
If you really believe that wealth can be created from nothing then we have a massive fundamential difference about the principles of economic commerce.
When Face book floats, it did not "create money", only government reserve banks can "create money" and even then it is not real.
Money gets moved from one place to another.
So when Facebook lists, the money is moved from one set of assets to acquire another asset.
Now this might be your own money or a banks money via leveraging and when leveraging with imaginary money gets too extreme we have a banking collapse like the GFC of the early 2000's.
The founders of Facebook invested a lot to create facebook in the first place ( time, labour building rental etc etc etc ).
Remember money is not real it is a third party means of trading items between two parties, be it your labour and your employers products, your labour & the customers lawn etc etc etc.
That is the whole premiss upon which double entry book keeping is based upon, for every credit there is a debit.
Create more money and all the money already there becomes worth less, we call that inflation which is why you get $ 30/ hour now against $10/hr 20 years ago.
AS for 3rd world countries yes it is a lot more complex but if no cheap items were available from 3rd world countries everything you purchase would be a lot more expensive
So yes blue collar workers would have more work and thus more money but would be no better off because everything would be more expensive.
You ( assuming you are not a blue collar worker ) will be substantially worse off because everything you buy that is market priced will be more expensive.
Thus you are being subsidised by the labour of the 3rd world.
If you have an open mind and want to get a better idea about how the governments of 1st world countries manipulate the 3rd world get your hands upon a copy of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"
This was written by an ex world bank exec and shows clearly how 1st world governments make sure 3rd world countries can never get out of the poverty traps deliberately created by 1st world governments.
It in particular explains how Africa has been kept in poverty to prevent it developing and becoming an economic competitor to Europe, the USSR & the US .
Now corrupt 3rd world governments & civil authorities don't help the plight of the 3rd word people either, but most of these people were corrupted by the west in the first place.
All that "dirty money" corrupt officals steal from their treasury has to go some where , some where safe, politically stable where it will accumulate more wealth and is easily transferiable,
And that is US, Europe & Australia
#30
TonyPrin
TonyPrin
Bertsmobile1, I think we're almost there. You are obviously knowledgeable, so here goes; your previous comment was:
Most of what you say is correct, but it has to do with money, not wealth, and has nothing to do with poverty in 3rd world countries. Although wealth is measured in money, they are not similar. Money is printed all the time by 3rd world countries but it doesn't make those countries wealthy. Printing more money results as you state in inflation, not wealth.
A country's cumulative earnings - called prosperity - is measured in GDP. As a country becomes more wealthy, its GDP increases. The increase in US GDP has nothing to do with poverty in 3rd world countries it has to do with value created in the US.
You insist on the zero-sum game approach to wealth - that one person's wealth creates another's poverty - but that's not the premise of double entry bookkeeping at all. When those entries are closed out, the offset is income or loss. The country-wide change in that income in the US is the country's increase in wealth shown as an increase in GDP.
When Face book floats, it did not "create money", only government reserve banks can "create money" and even then it is not real.
Money gets moved from one place to another.
So when Facebook lists, the money is moved from one set of assets to acquire another asset.
Now this might be your own money or a banks money via leveraging and when leveraging with imaginary money gets too extreme we have a banking collapse like the GFC of the early 2000's.
The founders of Facebook invested a lot to create facebook in the first place ( time, labour building rental etc etc etc ).
Remember money is not real it is a third party means of trading items between two parties, be it your labour and your employers products, your labour & the customers lawn etc etc etc.
Create more money and all the money already there becomes worth less, we call that inflation which is why you get $ 30/ hour now against $10/hr 20 years ago.
Most of what you say is correct, but it has to do with money, not wealth, and has nothing to do with poverty in 3rd world countries. Although wealth is measured in money, they are not similar. Money is printed all the time by 3rd world countries but it doesn't make those countries wealthy. Printing more money results as you state in inflation, not wealth.
A country's cumulative earnings - called prosperity - is measured in GDP. As a country becomes more wealthy, its GDP increases. The increase in US GDP has nothing to do with poverty in 3rd world countries it has to do with value created in the US.
Remember money is not real it is a third party means of trading items between two parties, be it your labour and your employers products, your labour & the customers lawn etc etc etc.
That is the whole premiss upon which double entry book keeping is based upon, for every credit there is a debit.
You insist on the zero-sum game approach to wealth - that one person's wealth creates another's poverty - but that's not the premise of double entry bookkeeping at all. When those entries are closed out, the offset is income or loss. The country-wide change in that income in the US is the country's increase in wealth shown as an increase in GDP.
Finally, I'll illustrate what I meant. When a contractor builds an addition on a home at a price of $50,000 but a cost of $40,000 he creates an increase in his wealth of $10,000. While that increase is the result of his skill and efforts, he creates it from nothing - i.e., it doesn't come from someplace else. If you don't believe wealth comes from nothing, look at the world in the past 50 years and let me know where all that wealth came from.If you really believe that wealth can be created from nothing then we have a massive fundamential difference about the principles of economic commerce.
#31
MowerMike
MowerMike
Great discussion !
Sounds like a debate between Capitalist and Socialist ideologies, with some merit on both sides. However, it misses the real point as to the difference between wealthy and poor nations.
At the core of this is the industrial revolution, which transformed how wealth was created and distributed. The principal difference between first and third world nations is the degree of industrialization. China went from third to first world status because of massive industralization, even though its political system is different than in the USA.
Also, it's important not to confuse individual wealth with national wealth, because it fails to account for the unequal distribution of wealth. So when bertsmobile1 says that Americans benefit from the value of stock ownership in American corporations, he fails to understand that most Americans do not own any stocks at all, and most in fact do not have have any savings, living paycheck to paycheck. The housing contractor example of wealth creation from "nothing" made by TonyPrin, is simply an example of trading a service for a monetary credit to be spent elsewhere. Wealth was neither created nor was it destroyed, it was simply a form of barter, a service in exchange for a monetary unit. In pre-industrialized times, the contracter might have been payed in livestock instead of a bank credit.
Finally, it is disingenuous to suggest that powerful countries like the USA do not exert control over lesser countries. The USA is notorious for supporting cruel dictatorships in poor countries around the world in order to have them do our bidding.
Sounds like a debate between Capitalist and Socialist ideologies, with some merit on both sides. However, it misses the real point as to the difference between wealthy and poor nations.
At the core of this is the industrial revolution, which transformed how wealth was created and distributed. The principal difference between first and third world nations is the degree of industrialization. China went from third to first world status because of massive industralization, even though its political system is different than in the USA.
Also, it's important not to confuse individual wealth with national wealth, because it fails to account for the unequal distribution of wealth. So when bertsmobile1 says that Americans benefit from the value of stock ownership in American corporations, he fails to understand that most Americans do not own any stocks at all, and most in fact do not have have any savings, living paycheck to paycheck. The housing contractor example of wealth creation from "nothing" made by TonyPrin, is simply an example of trading a service for a monetary credit to be spent elsewhere. Wealth was neither created nor was it destroyed, it was simply a form of barter, a service in exchange for a monetary unit. In pre-industrialized times, the contracter might have been payed in livestock instead of a bank credit.
Finally, it is disingenuous to suggest that powerful countries like the USA do not exert control over lesser countries. The USA is notorious for supporting cruel dictatorships in poor countries around the world in order to have them do our bidding.
#32
1
1 Lucky Texan
1
1 Lucky Texan
Tony is right.
Currency is a way to store, transfer and, - uh - 'represent' wealth/labor.
only the g'mint has a license to counterfeit currency. Normally, it's an OK system. But it can go terribly wrong.
going grocery shopping in Zimbabwe;
Currency is a way to store, transfer and, - uh - 'represent' wealth/labor.
only the g'mint has a license to counterfeit currency. Normally, it's an OK system. But it can go terribly wrong.
going grocery shopping in Zimbabwe;
#33
C
cashman
C
cashman
The market share of cordless outdoor power equipment is growing at a fast pace and will continue to grow for a long time. If I were still selling lawn equipment, I'd be latching on to a well rounded line of cordless outdoor power equipment. I think that in the years to come, there is a very good chance that cordless equipment will dominate the homeowner segment of the outdoor power equipment market.
#34
MowerMike
It's mostly a matter of economics. As the cost of large lithium-ion batteries continues to decline, cordless tools become a more competitive alternative to gas powered tools. Five years ago there were very few choices in full sized Li-Ion powered lawn mowers, and they were very expensive. I recently bought a full size 60 Volt Li-Ion mower for $349, which is about the same price as a high quality gas push mower. I agree that this applies mostly to the homeowner residential consumer, and that commercial application is still many years away.
MowerMike
The market share of cordless outdoor power equipment is growing at a fast pace and will continue to grow for a long time. If I were still selling lawn equipment, I'd be latching on to a well rounded line of cordless outdoor power equipment. I think that in the years to come, there is a very good chance that cordless equipment will dominate the homeowner segment of the outdoor power equipment market.
It's mostly a matter of economics. As the cost of large lithium-ion batteries continues to decline, cordless tools become a more competitive alternative to gas powered tools. Five years ago there were very few choices in full sized Li-Ion powered lawn mowers, and they were very expensive. I recently bought a full size 60 Volt Li-Ion mower for $349, which is about the same price as a high quality gas push mower. I agree that this applies mostly to the homeowner residential consumer, and that commercial application is still many years away.
#35
1
1 Lucky Texan
1
1 Lucky Texan
with allowances for 2-stroke needing oil vs 4 stroke, fossil fuel devices use the same power source across brands.
But, instead of decades of using D cells and AA cells - the nicad and LI-ion powered devices do not 'share' battery modules. You may get a great mower, but be stuck with a mediocre leaf blower to use the same battery family - or, be forced to use a completely different charger and battery. (yes, I know on the inside they all use 18650 cells, but they aren't built to be consumer swappable)
Audio and video manufacturers have often gathered to select standards in the past - I wish lawncare and handtool manufacturers could do the same.
but, for the typical suburban homeowner, MM is right, the present offerings are adequate replacements for gas powered equipment.
But, instead of decades of using D cells and AA cells - the nicad and LI-ion powered devices do not 'share' battery modules. You may get a great mower, but be stuck with a mediocre leaf blower to use the same battery family - or, be forced to use a completely different charger and battery. (yes, I know on the inside they all use 18650 cells, but they aren't built to be consumer swappable)
Audio and video manufacturers have often gathered to select standards in the past - I wish lawncare and handtool manufacturers could do the same.
but, for the typical suburban homeowner, MM is right, the present offerings are adequate replacements for gas powered equipment.
#36
MowerMike
Of course they can, you and I know that, but they have chosen not to do so in order to hold the consumer hostage to their respective product lines. Greenworks, Kobalt and Snapper are basically the same products made in the same factories by the same companies and then branded differently with proprietary battery interfaces to make them incompatible with each other. Nonetheless, once you have found the products you like the best, you can continue to use them for a very long time.
MowerMike
Audio and video manufacturers have often gathered to select standards in the past - I wish lawncare and handtool manufacturers could do the same.
Of course they can, you and I know that, but they have chosen not to do so in order to hold the consumer hostage to their respective product lines. Greenworks, Kobalt and Snapper are basically the same products made in the same factories by the same companies and then branded differently with proprietary battery interfaces to make them incompatible with each other. Nonetheless, once you have found the products you like the best, you can continue to use them for a very long time.
#37
T
TonyLawnMan
T
TonyLawnMan
As a user of both gas and electrical lawn equipment, I cannot really take a stand on either side of the energy issue. However, since the amount of electricity used to refine a gallon of gasoline is about the same as needed to charge a battery powered mower enough times for the same acreage of mowing as a gallon of gasoline; doesn't it stand to reason that we are all burning about the same amount of coal!
#38
TonyPrin
TonyLawnMan, you make an interesting comment - as all Tonys do. But, I'm curious about where you get your data. How can you tell how much electricity is needed to refine a gallon of gasoline.
TonyPrin
As a user of both gas and electrical lawn equipment, I cannot really take a stand on either side of the energy issue. However, since the amount of electricity used to refine a gallon of gasoline is about the same as needed to charge a battery powered mower enough times for the same acreage of mowing as a gallon of gasoline; doesn't it stand to reason that we are all burning about the same amount of coal!
TonyLawnMan, you make an interesting comment - as all Tonys do. But, I'm curious about where you get your data. How can you tell how much electricity is needed to refine a gallon of gasoline.
#39
T
TonyLawnMan
It's been pretty widely reported as either 5 or 6 kWh per gallon output for energy usage in refining processes. Since there haven't been any oil companies disputing these claims, the real number might be higher. The biggest available battery from the EGO brand mower could therefore be recharged about 10 times (550 watt charger X 1 hour X 10). That should get enough mowing done to meet or exceed what 1 gallon of gasoline would get done.
T
TonyLawnMan
TonyLawnMan, you make an interesting comment - as all Tonys do. But, I'm curious about where you get your data. How can you tell how much electricity is needed to refine a gallon of gasoline.
It's been pretty widely reported as either 5 or 6 kWh per gallon output for energy usage in refining processes. Since there haven't been any oil companies disputing these claims, the real number might be higher. The biggest available battery from the EGO brand mower could therefore be recharged about 10 times (550 watt charger X 1 hour X 10). That should get enough mowing done to meet or exceed what 1 gallon of gasoline would get done.
#40
B
bertsmobile1
B
bertsmobile1
.......Bertsmobile1, I think we're almost there. You are obviously knowledgeable, so here goes; your previous comment was:
Most of what you say is correct, but it has to do with money, not wealth, and has nothing to do with poverty in 3rd world countries. Although wealth is measured in money, they are not similar. Money is printed all the time by 3rd world countries but it doesn't make those countries wealthy. Printing more money results as you state in inflation, not wealth.
A country's cumulative earnings - called prosperity - is measured in GDP. As a country becomes more wealthy, its GDP increases. The increase in US GDP has nothing to do with poverty in 3rd world countries it has to do with value created in the US.
You insist on the zero-sum game approach to wealth - that one person's wealth creates another's poverty - but that's not the premise of double entry bookkeeping at all. When those entries are closed out, the offset is income or loss. The country-wide change in that income in the US is the country's increase in wealth shown as an increase in GDP.
Finally, I'll illustrate what I meant. When a contractor builds an addition on a home at a price of $50,000 but a cost of $40,000 he creates an increase in his wealth of $10,000. While that increase is the result of his skill and efforts, he creates it from nothing - i.e., it doesn't come from someplace else. If you don't believe wealth comes from nothing, look at the world in the past 50 years and let me know where all that wealth came from.
Firstly the builder did not create wealth, he took a pile of lumber , hardwear & paint . He then added $ 10,000 worth of his labour to value add to the materials, thus increasing their VALUE, but only to the home owner.
The home owner exchanged $ 50,000 worth of his labour to pay the builder, or he borrowed against his future labour to pay the builder with a bank loan.
The builder is not $ 10,000 richer than he was before he started because in the mean time he has eaten, slept in a building , used fuel to power tools, vehicles & heat/cool his house & cook his food, pay for the kids education, flowers for the missus and if he is lucky a few beers.
All he has done is exchange his skilled labour for something which is universally accepted as payments for other peoples labour.
If he has been paid, more than he spent then he has made a profit but he has not created wealth
The home owner now has an asset which is ( in theory ) worth more now than it was without the porch provided that some one else wants it at that price.
You are right about inflation, create too much money and the value of money decreases too fast.
As the VALUE of money decrease the NUMERICAL COST of assets increases.
When I Started work full time I was earning $ 4000/ pa as a freshly minted engineering graduate.
On that I could happily pay expensive city rent, pay off the remaining mortage on my parents house, run a car ( used ) two motorcycles and go to concerts & live theartre one or two nights a week and still save enough money to get a home deposit in 5 years.
$ 2 filled the fuel tank, ¢ 50 bought a beer and a 3 bedroom brick veneer California Cottage on a detached 1/4 acre block was $ 35,000.
The last salary job I had paid $ 85,000 / pa but $ 65 now fills the tank a beer is $ 5,00 and a house is $ 500,000.
The only thing that has changed is inflation has increased my numerical labour rate from $ 3.85/hr to $ 46.70 /hr .
But the entry level graduate on $ 45,000 can not afford to pay city rents, pay a mortage, run multiple vehicles , go out 2 nights a week and save for a home deposit so inflation has actually reduced the spending power to less than it was in 1966.
SO he is nowhere near as wealthy as I was at his age because his hour of labour buys significantly less than my hour of labour did back in 1966. However when measured he is considered "wealthier" because he has a thicker wallet that I did.
People on factory wages are hurting even more as many live from pay check to pay check with no chance of making any savings and now we have private enterprise making profit on energy supply at 3 levels, we have gone from the cheapest electricity to the most expensive energy and people are now litterally freezing to death in their houses because they can not afford heating, or suffocating by heating their homes with patio heaters running of the cheaper auto lpg.
Wealth has not increased, the value of what we use to measure it by has.
Further more "Word Wealth" is a very artificial concept.
If you want the perfect example look at Ireland .
In order to change from the dirty manufacturing utility for England they dropped business taxes to nearly nothing and thousands of very wealthy companies mover there, creating a housing shortage making all Irish property owners millionairs over night.
SO by your terms, Ireland had become a world wealth super country. But the Irish workers were no better off as prices also rose to the extent than many had to sell their homes just to be able to eat.
Then changes to international taxation laws meant Ireland was no longer the cheapest country to have your head office so the corperations moved out property values plumeted and thousands then found themselves homeless with no assets , no job & no future.
All that is happening is real wealth is being concentrated into a continually reducing pool of super wealthy.
#41
P
pythons37
P
pythons37
I'd love to get one of these, but my cash footprint is too small, already.
http://www.meangreenproducts.com/mgp20-push-1
http://www.meangreenproducts.com/mgp20-push-1
#43
Boobala
Boobala
NOT SORRY !!! I share no love for electrics, corded or battery, I was raised around racing , cars, boats, and planes, I LUUUUUVE it ALL !!
the sound of a "BUILT" engine will never leave my mind, just trying to envision the speed of the innards, the explosions in the combustion chambers, the smells of alcohol and nitro-methane wafting in the breeze, and the scream of those engines going well beyond 7 grand !!
For all you "Gear-heads ... ENJOY !!... AND crank up the volume !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vebTpEQbMeo
the sound of a "BUILT" engine will never leave my mind, just trying to envision the speed of the innards, the explosions in the combustion chambers, the smells of alcohol and nitro-methane wafting in the breeze, and the scream of those engines going well beyond 7 grand !!
For all you "Gear-heads ... ENJOY !!... AND crank up the volume !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vebTpEQbMeo
#44
D
deck~dragger
Almost funny if not so true at 5000 gls per takeoff. Aircraft of all sizes crisscross the U.S. at around 75000 flights + per 24 hr period, so Jet fuel is in the billions of gls per day. So who knows, maybe some day, some company will start to manufacture large portable filter systems for the active volcanoes across the globe, you know, for all that sulphur dioxide.
Seriously, I am for protecting the environment and some of the world has made improvement, especially factories, once again you can see the skyline in the big cities.
MowerMike, I believe you have for the moment , attained your goal with a thought provoking thread.
D
deck~dragger
Yes, I did Science at Uni and back in my Uni days Australia was debating weather we should open our second Uranium mine and even look at Nuclear energy.
Thousands took to the streets in protest.
All of them were humanities students who had not done any science since they were 12.
So we decided to ship Uranium as Yellow Cake which is both toxic & water soluable .
I piss myself laughing whenever I start to recall all the bull **** debates that raged through the media at the time .
And usually it was from people whose only knowledge of Nuclear energy came from a Mickey Mouse cartoon.
Spent Uranium fuel rods are not a problem.
They decay at the same rate as naturally occuring uranium decays and short of grinding them up to a dust & either breathing them in or swallowing them they pose little actual problems.
Our first uranium mine was in an area called the " Rum Jungle "
It was called that because it litterally glowed in the dark and in all sorts of funny colours & patterns.
When people reported this they were considered to have drunk too much rum.
The indiginous people have been living in this area for 40,000 years and AFAIK none of them have grown 3 heads or 10' long penises.
OTOH I had an isotope lisence for around 20 years .
Used mainly Co 60 & Na 24.
The Na24 has a 1/2 life of 14 hours so you had to order it a month ahead of time & use it the second it was available for pick up as after 2 days it was 99% decayed to Mg.
You can use Na 24 to take X ray images through 4' thick iron castings ( which is what I used it for ) or through 100' of earth which is what the pipeline authority used it for.
Cobalt was plain lead weave gloves & usual radiology gear.
Sodium was pressurised full air suit behind screens using remote handleing gear whenever the isotope was out of the camera
Uranium is fine , I would happily live in a fuel dump.
As for coal, it would be fine if coal was just Carbon, but it is not.
There is more radiation leaked out of a coal fires boiler in a day than from a Nuclear Power plant in a year due to the fact that most black coals are radio active themselves C 14
Now while the amount of C 14 in coal is very small, a very small percentage of a very large tonnage is a lot and radioactive C 14 is the C used in radio carbon dating. The Radio bit is radioactive.
Then there is Thorium, Ceasium, Strontinum , all in coal.
Then we have the toxic stuff like Tellurium, Sellium etc,
In fact so much toxic material is in the ash left over it is not allowed to be used anywhere that it will come into contact with food plants, including cattle feed.
The flue gasses are also toxic in themselves and then you also get , Sulphuric acid, Phosphoric acid, Fluroboric acid and Nitric acid, all in the flue gasses.
And with Powder River coals, Mercury and I suppose the reason why so may Americans are as "mad as hatters" is all the mercury they have been breathing in or eating as mercury bioaccumulates in both plants & animals.
Most of the "carbon footprint" stuff is trash science at it's worst. Foistered upon the general pubic by the self richious to make them feel even more better than every one else.
The amount of carbon produced in mining, transporting then generating the electricity used to recharge a battery trimmer is about 4 times more than what would have been created by using a petrol powered trimmer in the first place.
If you really want to reduce your carbon footprint then get one of the specialist companies to come & do a full thermal image of the the complete exteriour of your house on a hot summer day when you have the air con on and mid winter when you have the heater running flat chat.
Using this information plug all of the thermal leaks in your house.
Not only will you save the planet, you will also save yourself a lot of money
Set the air con to 20 C in summer or better still re-engineer your house to be solar active and thus turn off the heater & air con except in extreme days,
Home care equipment make almost zero impact because they are small engines that get used for small hours a year.
We worked out that is every house in Australia ( 10,000,000 or so ) ran ran a "dirty" 160cc 2 stroke Victa lawn mowers all day they would consume the same amount of fuel as 1 jumbo jet taking off.
At that time Sydney airport was running around 150 planes a day, yet to reduce pollution we were banning 2 stroke mowers and working out how to bump the airport up to 200 flights a day.
Almost funny if not so true at 5000 gls per takeoff. Aircraft of all sizes crisscross the U.S. at around 75000 flights + per 24 hr period, so Jet fuel is in the billions of gls per day. So who knows, maybe some day, some company will start to manufacture large portable filter systems for the active volcanoes across the globe, you know, for all that sulphur dioxide.
Seriously, I am for protecting the environment and some of the world has made improvement, especially factories, once again you can see the skyline in the big cities.
MowerMike, I believe you have for the moment , attained your goal with a thought provoking thread.