TK was exactly right. OT

On Jun 29, 5:32*pm, SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:
On Jun 28, 6:23*pm, Kurgan Gringioni wrote:

The fundamental problem in many African
nations is political instability/anarchy.

I am not prepared to infer that these are uniformly synonymous.

http://www.peterleeson.com/Better_Of.../3_1/3_1_2.pdf

Since amerikans -- along with so many peoples -- are indoctrinated
with statist beliefs, it is hard for them to envision anything else.
I know. *I am one of them.

I keep trying to talk you into immigrating to one of the govt-free
zones like Iraq or Somalia, but you just keep complaining about the
US. It's better to light a fart than curse the darkness.
-Paul

wrote:
On Jun 29, 11:08 am, Fred Fredburger
wrote:
ST wrote:
On 6/29/08 9:15 AM, in article ,
"Fred Fredburger" wrote:
Sure. Again, not what I'm arguing.
Of the millions of deaths you've claimed, you've still documented 0.
You've documented rising food prices. Good. Now prove that Dr. Evil is
behind it all.
Damn! Can you read??
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3500954.ece
From The Times
March 7, 2008
Rush for biofuels threatens starvation on a global scale
The rush towards biofuels is theatening world food production and the lives
of billions of people, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser said
yesterday.
Damn, don't you know the difference between fact and prediction?

That's still 0 dead, 0 Dr. Evils.

Sorry, I've been behind and haven't gotten any
work done on this project. Was writing up my
grant proposal, and typing stories about clown cars
to RBR. Will try to catch up. Should we try to
set some milestones? Like, some number of
millions starved by Labor Day? I want to be able
to take a vacation over the long weekend.

If "TK was exactly right" is true, there need to be millions of dead
bodies attributable to biofuel instigated starvation. But he didn't say
when. Could be in the next millennium.

I think your weekend is safe.

On Jun 29, 8:28*pm, Ryan Cousineau wrote:
In article
,
*Robert Chung wrote:



On Jun 28, 10:19*pm, Ryan Cousineau wrote:

[long post snipped]

Malawi's problem, as is true for several other countries in sub-
Saharan Africa, was an increase in agricultural intensity that meant
the land could not be left fallow. The short term solution is
decidedly non-market: it's government subsidies. As it is, Malawi is
in a slightly better situation than several of its neighbors, whose
problems won't be as easily addressed. *BTW, the EU and US subsidize
land banking. If that land is taken out of fallow and put back into
production, what do you think the long term consequences are going to
be for soil fertility?

Twice recently you've laid the blame for problems in developing
countries to poor government. Stop being so Instapundit shallow.

I'm shallow, and I'm 2/2.


Dumbass,

Bad government, population pressure, and resource
depletion all feed off each other. Frequently, drought
or overuse of resources leads to violence or gives
generals and thugs excuses to take or hold power.
There are many examples in the last couple of decades
of destabilization in Central Africa.

Many African countries have some remarkably bad governments.
There are a whole variety of reasons for this. At least
some of these have to do with the hand they were dealt
in the postwar era when the colonial powers left them
whatever they felt like leaving; some are relics of Cold War
gamesmanship and then disengagement. Some of them
have to do with the difficulty of making good government
work in poor countries. And so on.

It's not really productive to say that African countries
are in bad shape because they have lousy governments.
There are two reasons. The first is that all else being
equal, they would be better off with good governments,
but all else is never equal. The second and more
important reason is that it doesn't give us any clue of
what to do about it. Waiting for them to elect Ron Paul
president and have a free market revolution is not a
solution.

Ben

In article ,
" wrote:

Stevie,

Why are you so worked up about this? Burning ethanol
has the potential to make your driving cheaper, at the
minor cost of increasing problems for far-away people who
don't have the Personal Responsibility to feed themselves,
or elect governments that will feed them, or something
like that. So, I can understand why I might care, because
I'm a bleeding heart liberal who hates America, SUVs and GM.
But why do you care? I accept that you do care, I just
want to hear which moral principles underly it.

(...crickets...)

P.S. The real evil is not ethanol, but sugar price supports,
which both depress the market for Brazilian sugar cane
ethanol, and drive up the price of donuts.

The sugar lobby has been one of the most effective on Capital Hill. They've gotten
very tight restrictions on imported sugar put in place and, when added to the price
supports they also get, makes the US consumer pay at least twice as much for sugar as
the prevailing market price. It's also done serious damage to the suger industry in
places like the Dominican Republic. Bad deal all the way 'round.

--
tanx,
Howard

The bloody pubs are bloody dull
The bloody clubs are bloody full
Of bloody girls and bloody guys
With bloody murder in their eyes

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

In article , ST wrote:

On 6/28/08 9:30 PM, in article
, "Howard Kveck"
wrote:

In article , ST

wrote:

On 6/28/08 8:10 PM, in article
, "Howard Kveck"

The word is "cite." Anyway, take your pick:

http://tinyurl.com/545r6d


Idiot..

You just searched for anything using any of those words. You need to put
**** in quotes to find your crap!

What that means is that there are a plethora of articles that support
the position. Very simple.

Bull****! There are links that contain SOME of the WORDS but NOT the phrase
or even the subject!

Stevie, what I wrote that you're demanding "sites" for was wrtten
extemporaneously. If I was quoting a source, I would have given a link and quoted
from it. It came from things I've learned over time - there was no single source. If
you go through the summaries on the search page I linked to, you'll find many of them
deal with and back up what I said. That's how the google works.

--
tanx,
Howard

The bloody pubs are bloody dull
The bloody clubs are bloody full
Of bloody girls and bloody guys
With bloody murder in their eyes

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

In article ],
Ryan Cousineau wrote:

I'll take the hit for conflating "domestic policy" with bad politics,
bad wars, and bad neighbours, all of which are in surplus across wide
swathes of Africa.

Kveck, however, seems to be making my point: Malawi made a small
political change (in this case $30/acre fertilizer subsidies) that drove
a massive expansion of its crop yields.

I think the article I linked to supports most Robert's contentions (not so much
about poor soil quality in it so that doesn't apply). Anyway, it wasn't the idea of
the government of Malawi to deny its farmers fertilizer - that was a requirement of
the food aid suppliers.

--
tanx,
Howard

The bloody pubs are bloody dull
The bloody clubs are bloody full
Of bloody girls and bloody guys
With bloody murder in their eyes

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

In article ,
Fred Fredburger wrote:

Billions of people dead in the future is a prediction, not a fact. It's
based on many unstated assumptions.

Sort of like Stevie *could* be having sex with Gisele BŸndchen tomorrow is a
prediction (possibly a catastrophic one).

Maybe something bad will happen, maybe not. Market forces will
determine. These stories you keep quoting have some influence over the
market forces. As do governments everywhere and food producers
everywhere, and billions of consumers making trillions of decisions. The
BIG thing, the REALLY BIG thing, is the price of oil. At $50 a barrel
for crude oil, biofuels are a lot less attractive. Not that we'll see
$50 again, but a price drop wouldn't surprise me if the price stabilizes
enough for speculators to lose interest in crude.

Interesting article on the subject of speculators:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/op...on&pagewanted=
print

--
tanx,
Howard

The bloody pubs are bloody dull
The bloody clubs are bloody full
Of bloody girls and bloody guys
With bloody murder in their eyes

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:
It's like a big ****ing dildo -- hard not to notice.

You must have noticed the 2% difference

Fred Fredburger wrote:
Do you get accused of being unpatriotic?

SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:
With my comments, people seem to be able to leapfrog straight past
"unpatriotic" and jump right to "crazy."

Fred Fredburger wrote:
That's a shame.

In the US anyone driving a clown car is considered crazy.

Fred Fredburger wrote:
I've seen worse. At least the Y axis starts at 0. My major chart annoyance
this month is charts that show the Y range from 130-150 million that
demonstrate a drop in revenue from 145 to 135 million. The visual message
is that revenue has dropped by 2/3.

I must have seen 150 charts like that this month. I'm gonna kill someone
next time I see one of those...

Perhaps I could create a chart like that showing my lactate threshold
increased by 2/3. I mean if the chart shows it then it must be true.