snow

Yesterday it was almost 70F (68). Today I got home, cleaned out the rest of the garage for the cars. And put the snow tires on my vehicle. It's "lake effect" here which is like a huge machine gun of snow in the sky. It could point at my house and drop ~several inches, or I could get nothing. At this time of year I'd rather have nothing. The ground is not frozen yet, it's mush at the interface.

George H. (really happy he has a garage for his car in the winter!)

In SF, we get a token dusting every couple of decades, not enough to stick to the street. But in a good year Sugar Bowl can get 80 feet of snow.

I have "mud and snow" tires on the Audi, which gets me over Donner Summit without messing with chains. I leave them on all year. The downside of that is that, with those tires, I don't dare run up to the max speed of the car, which is spec'd at 156 (MPH, not KPH.)

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Must be self-inflicted, then. I thought our economy already belonged to the Chinese?

t-plains/18841809/

John Larkin doesn't believe in anthropogenic global warming, so he hasn't n oticed that business as usual will also damage the US economy, as Hurricane Sandy did. Anthropogenic global warming won't produce a higher frequency o f disasters like Hurricane Sandy, but it will probably make subsequent dis asters more destructive (though this prediction does rely on climate modell ing, which is something else that John Larkin doesn't believe in).

Quite why Valerie Jarrett comes into the picture isn't obvious, but John La rkin does tend to recycle the Murdoch media's particular obsessions without really understanding what they are complaining about (which can sometimes be difficult).

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

In-sourcing terrorism--brilliant.

I just read from an insider (Gruber) that Obama wanted to lash out and do something big to America in 2009, leaning toward chopping off our energy. But, Gruber (MIT professor / evil not-so-genius) had an AGW-esque software model for Obamacare-sweetness, so they decided "Yeah, let's wreck that first."

Cheers, James

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James Arthur has a rather bizarre world view - he thinks that the Tea Party program has something to do with real life.

So far Obamacare seems to be more or less working - US medical care is stil l vile (for an advanced industrial country) but Obamacare is making it slig htly less vile.

James Arthur's other irrational anxiety is about anthropogenic global warmi ng. For a start, he doesn't believe in it, and he's equally convinced that moving over to renewable energy sources is impossible. You expect him to al so think that the sun rises in the west, but he's not perfectly consistentl y nuts.

Australia is crawling with people who have worked out exactly how we'd make the transition to renewable energy sources, but our current administration is just as silly on this point as the Tea Party, so they are equally far i nto denial.

Since the Australian Liberal Party gets large election fund contributions f rom the people who dig up fossil carbon, their attitude to AGW is more rati onal than James Arthur's, though probably rather more venal - if James Arth ur gets paid for his efforts here, he doesn't admit it.

Since Obama has now signed a deal with China on minimising AGW - exciting a lmost of all James Arthur's irrational anxieties in one terrifying gesture

- we can expect a lot more off-the-wall commentary from him until he finds something else to keep his ductless glands active.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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ty program has something to do with real life.

ill vile (for an advanced industrial country) but Obamacare is making it sl ightly less vile.

ming. For a start, he doesn't believe in it, and he's equally convinced tha t moving over to renewable energy sources is impossible. You expect him to also think that the sun rises in the west, but he's not perfectly consisten tly nuts.

ke the transition to renewable energy sources, but our current administrati on is just as silly on this point as the Tea Party, so they are equally far into denial.

from the people who dig up fossil carbon, their attitude to AGW is more ra tional than James Arthur's, though probably rather more venal - if James Ar thur gets paid for his efforts here, he doesn't admit it.

almost of all James Arthur's irrational anxieties in one terrifying gestur e - we can expect a lot more off-the-wall commentary from him until he find s something else to keep his ductless glands active.

Obama's pacts with the Chinese have no force or effect--he doesn't have the authority.

As for the Tea Party, they've held spending flat for Obama's tenure. Obama, all the while, has been screaming for 7-8% increases every year.

If he'd succeeded, our deficit today would be nearly $2T.

(millions of dollars) Total Surplus or Outlays Year Receipts Outlays Deficit (-) (% of GDP)

2007 2,567,985 2,728,686 -160,701 19.0 2008 2,523,991 2,982,544 -458,553 20.2 2009 2,104,989 3,517,677 -1,412,688 24.4 2010 2,162,706 3,457,079 -1,294,373 23.4 2011 2,303,466 3,603,059 -1,299,593 23.4 2012 2,450,164 3,537,127 -1,086,963 22.0 2013 2,775,103 3,454,605 -679,502 20.8 2014 3,020,848 3,504,199 -483,350 21.1 --------- --------- ----------- ---- 14,817,276 21,073,746 -6,256,469 22.5% (avg) Outlays, per dollar in revenue, Obama: $1.42

Of course you're not a numbers guy, so you won't appreciate that the U.S. government would've already had a Greek-style melt-down--UNABLE to make current debt service--if Obama'd had his way.

Cheers, James Arthur

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still vile (for an advanced industrial country) but Obamacare is making it slightly less vile.

arming. For a start, he doesn't believe in it, and he's equally convinced t hat moving over to renewable energy sources is impossible. You expect him t o also think that the sun rises in the west, but he's not perfectly consist ently nuts.

make the transition to renewable energy sources, but our current administra tion is just as silly on this point as the Tea Party, so they are equally f ar into denial.

ns from the people who dig up fossil carbon, their attitude to AGW is more rational than James Arthur's, though probably rather more venal - if James Arthur gets paid for his efforts here, he doesn't admit it.

ng almost of all James Arthur's irrational anxieties in one terrifying gest ure - we can expect a lot more off-the-wall commentary from him until he fi nds something else to keep his ductless glands active.

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This is a prediction. James Arthur espouses an economic theory - monetarism - which has a notoriously poor predictive power.

He doesn't see the point of Keynesian deficit-funded pump-priming spending

- because it depends on John Maynard Keynes insight that the free market of ten doesn't deliver the optimum solution, which is one that James Arthur re jects.

If Obama had got the level of economic stimulation that he'd asked for, the US economy would have come out of recession faster, Obama could have slowe d down the economic stimulation earlier, and the deficit could well have en tirely gone away. This too is a prediction, based on neo-Keynesian economic theory but most main-stream economists believe that theory to be more or l ess correct.

Probably not. It's the outcome that James Arthur's flat earth economic theo ry predicts, but I've got clear memories from the UK in the 1980's when the British Treasury was using monetarist economics to control and predict the course of the UK economy - under Margaret Thatcher's demented direction - and Will Hutton - then the economic journalist for the Guardian - would tal k to his Kenyesian friends in the economic departments at Oxford and Cambri dge and print their predictions of what would actually happen.

Six month later, he could be relied on to print an "I told you so" piece wh en the Treasury predictions had proved to be wrong, and the Keynesian econo mists right.

James Arthur seems to be quite as mad as Thatcher, and Reagan, both of whom went on to full blown Alzheimers.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney