[Al_U_Card]

kenrexford, on 2016-August-26, 13:58, said:

The funny thing is that the hijacking of the thread is proving a point that I made earlier. I mentioned at one point that I thought environmentalism was the explanation behind a particular decision. Tada!

It may be where all those communists and Markist-Leninists have gone, realizing that political action was not appealing to the masses where environmentally saving the planet was a sure thing.

[Vampyr]

Winstonm, on 2016-August-26, 14:45, said:

Why is it that the religious seem to religiously rely on this apples and oranges comparison as some kind of vindication of their blind faith in legend?

Science=our best guess based on current evidence and knowledge.
Religion=faith in the reliability of word-of-mouth

Also, "belief" in a god is not the same as accepting scientific evidence of a phenomenon. I recently spoke to a friend who believes in God, and he confirmed what I had always thought, which is that believers believe because they prefer to believe. If believing in a god enriches your life, then does it really matter whether that god is in some way or another "real"? I am pretty sure that many priests take this pragmatic approach. Their belief in God is something important in their lives, so why bother about existential questions which are anyway unanswerable?

[Vampyr]

kenrexford, on 2016-August-26, 13:58, said:

The funny thing is that the hijacking of the thread is proving a point that I made earlier. I mentioned at one point that I thought environmentalism was the explanation behind a particular decision. Tada!

LOL what nonsense! Moving factories to countries where fuel is dirtier, plants operate less efficiently and environmental standards are laxer accelerates climate change, not the opposite.

[Winstonm]

Vampyr, on 2016-August-26, 19:30, said:

Also, "belief" in a god is not the same as accepting scientific evidence of a phenomenon. I recently spoke to a friend who believes in God, and he confirmed what I had always thought, which is that believers believe because they prefer to believe. If believing in a god enriches your life, then does it really matter whether that god is in some way or another "real"? I am pretty sure that many priests take this pragmatic approach. Their belief in God is something important in their lives, so why bother about existential questions which are anyway unanswerable?

I don't care if people choose to believe in a god - but I do object when they make the false equivalency of acceptance of scientific understandings with belief without testable evidence.

[Vampyr]

Winstonm, on 2016-August-26, 20:08, said:

I don't care if people choose to believe in a god - but I do object when they make the false equivalency of acceptance of scientific understandings with belief without testable evidence.

Yes, quite. I was just noting how very different the things are, since believing in a god does not necessarily (and perhaps not usually) include accepting that the existence of a god is an objective fact.

[kenrexford]

Vampyr, on 2016-August-26, 19:34, said:

LOL what nonsense! Moving factories to countries where fuel is dirtier, plants operate less efficiently and environmental standards are laxer accelerates climate change, not the opposite.

I agree completely.

[mike777]

"mpyr, on 2016-August-26, 20:34, said:
LOL what nonsense! Moving factories to countries where fuel is dirtier, plants operate less efficiently and environmental standards are laxer accelerates climate change, not the opposite.

I agree completely."

-----------------------------

Do either of you actually work in a factory. For starters factories dont move and for the most part the workers dont move. If you want to take over the factory and workers do it...dont just bitch about it. The factory and the workers stay put. If you want to buy them then do it. A new factory is built and new workers are hired, jobs and a life for them is created.


To follow your logic no factory should ever be built in tha vast majority of poor countries because it creates climate change.

Good grief! Talk about living in a rich protected bubble and not the real world. Talk about being entitled.

[Vampyr]

I have worked in factories. But it is obvious to any person with half a brain that factories don't physically move.

[Trinidad]

Vampyr, on 2016-August-27, 09:45, said:

I have worked in factories. But it is obvious to any person with half a brain that factories don't physically move.

My wife's an engineer (I am too, but I don't do much engineering anymore). One of the things she does for her job is ... move factories. One of my very best friends (who is not my wife) does the same thing (but for a different firm and a different type of factories).

Engineers can do pretty amazing stuff... but, then again, engineers have more than half a brain.

(The trivial equipment will be built new. But more often than you would think essential complicated equipment is physically moved.)

Rik

[nullve]

mike777, on 2016-August-26, 22:40, said:

Do either of you actually work in a factory. For starters factories dont move and for the most part the workers dont move.

Vampyr, on 2016-August-27, 09:45, said:

I have worked in factories. But it is obvious to any person with half a brain that factories don't physically move.

https://en.wikipedia...ki/Factory_ship
https://en.wikipedia...olling_meth_lab

[kenrexford]

Free trade is not really free trade. Is country a makes a potato for a dollar but taxes that potato $0.40 and has an additional $0.10 Environmental Protection cost then the end result is that the potato cost a dollar fifty to make.

If country B cost the same a dollar to make a potato but has a $0.10 tax and no environmental costs then that potato cost them $1.10 to make. Free trade then makes country a on an unequal playing field.

Country I could put a tariff on the potatoes to ensure that there is an equal playing field. That might seem unfair. But perhaps the end result is the country be should increase their tax rate or the country a should decrease their tax rate to have an equal playing field. One could say them that the free-trade causes a tendency toward lower tax rates. It also causes a tendency to competitively lower environmental costs.

Those who want to reduce taxes and those who want to increase environmental expenditures but do not want to have tariffs to equalize the playing field end up creating a problem. This will only work if country a has incredible Machinery that maximizes the productivity of its workers or if country a find a way to pay his workers less. Free trade offers the ability however for the corporations to not worry about country a or country B and just make the potatoes in Country b.

The end result seems to be that the thing/person harmed to equalize the quote free trade is the country b environment and the country a workers.

This seems so obvious and it should have seemed obvious from the get-go. We as a country have known this for a long time as have all countries. So why do this?

It's A Dance with the Devil. The Democrats get to appease the environmentalists by blaming other countries for environmental problems but bragging about how good they do in their own country. They also enable the corporations to make lots of money off of the foreign workers so that the tax rates can be kept at a high level. Big kid votes because they provide goodies to the displaced workers even though the goodies are not as good as what they would get if they had a real job. Then they get to yell at the Republicans for making this so bad.

The Republicans get to have their corporation to make lots of money and appease the displaced workers with lower priced products.

[hrothgar]

No offense, but none of you has a clue what you're talking about

Classic Ricardian trade models hinges on whether the exchange ration between products in country A is the same as in country B.
Absolute advantage does matter.

Let's suppose that we leave in a simple world in which only two goods exist: Fish and Cloth

Assume a case in which country A can produce any convex combination of 100 Fish or 100 Cloth.
Country B can produce any convex combination of 20 Fish and 20 cloth.
There is no benefit to trade

In contrast, if country A can (once again) produce any convex combination of 100 FIsh or 100 cloth but
Country B can produce any combination of 20 fish and 10 cloth then there are benefits to trade

Talking about potatoes in isolation is meaningless

[PassedOut]

These days anyone with access to the internet can learn the basics of the classical trade models, if really interested.

[kenrexford]

You're still missing the point. Let's take a simple example of trading potatoes for bananas. Obviously if I can make potatoes cheaper than you and you can make bananas cheaper than me then we should trade. No kidding.

The problem comes in however when the price of making a product is not determined by natural things but by artificial things. Tariffs obviously are artificial things. When tariffs are designed to protect domestic manufacturers because of a natural disadvantage then that does not make economic sense. Obviously.

However economies are not left alone. Environmental standards differ. Workplace standards differ. Tax rates differ. These create artificial affect on the economic system.

The micro and macro are parallel. If a worker cost more because they take maternity leave for example the new economic incentive is to not hire the person who would require maternity leave. Therefore we pass laws to ensure that that does not happen because we make a societal choice to not let that happen.

Suppose then that you could hire workers and have no standards for safety or have high standards for safety. The high standards are more expensive perhaps. In that case you will hire the people with no safety standards involved. We avoid that by requiring that all people have high standards. But if another country has lower standards that defeats the purpose of the regulation. More importantly though it affects the economics. When you do not have the same laws across borders money flows toward the place with the lowest or cheapest laws. Whether it be worker safety or environmentalism or taxes the money flows away from the place with the higher standards and higher taxes.

Anyone with internet access can see that this is what is actually happening.

There is a perception that it is not happening that is false. The perception is based upon a review of not the average individual butt of the collective. You might have total wealth in country a for example increase. The reason for that however is that the ability of the ultra-wealthy and of the corporation to be global means that the money flow to those individuals and those corporations is not governed by borders.

[PassedOut]

kenrexford, on 2016-August-27, 15:54, said:

Suppose then that you could hire workers and have no standards for safety or have high standards for safety. The high standards are more expensive perhaps. In that case you will hire the people with no safety standards involved. We avoid that by requiring that all people have high standards. But if another country has lower standards that defeats the purpose of the regulation. More importantly though it affects the economics. When you do not have the same laws across borders money flows toward the place with the lowest or cheapest laws. Whether it be worker safety or environmentalism or taxes the money flows away from the place with the higher standards and higher taxes.

Anyone with internet access can see that this is what is actually happening.

Let's take a look: America is the richest, and most unequal, country

Quote

The U.S. — with $63.5 trillion in total private wealth — holds the largest amount of any country in the world. But that wealth is unevenly distributed, and nowhere is that more evident than in the U.S., which also has the largest wealth inequality gap of 55 countries studied, according to the report.

So US safety standards and maternity leave, and so on, haven't left the US destitute.

kenrexford, on 2016-August-27, 15:54, said:

There is a perception that it is not happening that is false. The perception is based upon a review of not the average individual butt of the collective. You might have total wealth in country a for example increase. The reason for that however is that the ability of the ultra-wealthy and of the corporation to be global means that the money flow to those individuals and those corporations is not governed by borders.

The solution to income inequality in the US is not by reducing the overall pie by damaging our trading relationships.

[kenrexford]

Am I living in some other country? Am I missing something? The boarded-up factories don't seem like we're doing well with Manufacturing. The labor participation rate does not seem like we're doing very well with employment. The massive amounts of food stamps does not seem like we're doing very well with wages. This all seemed to start when we decided that it would be brilliant to have NAFTA and the like.

[PassedOut]

kenrexford, on 2016-August-27, 19:45, said:

Am I living in some other country? Am I missing something? The boarded-up factories don't seem like we're doing well with Manufacturing. The labor participation rate does not seem like we're doing very well with employment. The massive amounts of food stamps does not seem like we're doing very well with wages. This all seemed to start when we decided that it would be brilliant to have NAFTA and the like.

US manufacturing is at an all-time high, but is so efficient that many fewer jobs are needed. The problem is the increasing inequity in the distribution of the wealth created by that efficiency. Countries with much less wealth provide health care for all and free college tuition for all (even for US students).

Trump's proposals to eliminate inheritance taxes and cut taxes further for the rich will only make the problem worse. The real solution is to use some of the US wealth to provide good education (of all types), to provide health care for all, to rebuild the infrastructure, and to make sure that everyone who works can have a decent life. That's a political problem completely within the borders of the US.

Of course those who siphon off almost all of the wealth want to direct the attention of voters elsewhere: to immigrants and trade deals. Trump has been a con man all of his adult life, and he's at it now.

[kenberg]

From time to time I express skepticism of the reliability of data based conclusions. Robert Samuelson has an column supporting this skepticism. I applaud his agnosticism about what conclusions can be reliably drawn.

Becky and I discuss medical things from time to time, we are of that age. Our GP, or basic doc, or whatever he is called, has recently separated from his group practice. As a side effect, he has dumped the online medical records that the group practice was using. Thank you doc! God forbid that anyone make any decision on the data that squatted, and refused to be dislodged, in those files. He has a new system, hopefully better. It would be impossible for it to be worse.

The Post has an article [link fixed] today about a study that supposedly casts doubt on the effectiveness of CPAP usage in preventing strokes, heart attacks, and so on. This was of direct interest to me since I use a BPAP machine (BPAP is a variant on CPAP). Some paragraphs down we find:

Quote

t's not clear why that might be, Anderson said. One possibility raised in both the study and an accompanying editorial is that the CPAP group was able to wear the masks only about 3.3 hours per night, a length of time that is consistent with CPAP users in the real world.

What?!?!!
Is this 3.3 hours an average or was it a required part of the study? It would be bizarre for it to be a required part of the study, to go around disconnecting the machine after 3.3 hours. Bizarre and irresponsible, both on simple general good sense and on previous studies that show partial usage doesn't seem to do all that much good. So I suppose it is an average. But this is a five year study of over 2,000 people. Did it not occur to anyone to see if those who use the mask for the full night (as I do) had better results than those who used it for only a couple of hours?
And who says 3.3 hours is consistent with the real world? And what does it mean? Some people get the machine and don't use it at all. If half use it for 8 hours and half don't use it, that averages to 4 hours. Does anyone think that this is equivalent to the entire groups each using it for 4 hours?

Whether the subject is Economics or Medicine, whether the article is in the Post or elsewhere, journalists report some numbers that someone gave them and then maybe they repeat, often inaccurately or incompletely, what someone said these numbers mean.

I have come to view my skepticism as well founded. No doubt I can find data to support this view.Or, if I prefer, data to refute this view. Or any other view. About anything.

I do not mean to disparage the use of data in the search for truth. I am recommending caution.

[PassedOut]

kenberg, on 2016-August-29, 06:54, said:

From time to time I express skepticism of the reliability of data based conclusions. Robert Samuelson has an column supporting this skepticism. I applaud his agnosticism about what conclusions can be reliably drawn.

I've been in business all of my life and have found it very advantageous to base decisions on data that I have good reason to consider accurate. I seldom have the need to reconcile conflicting data, but then I'm not making decisions for the whole nation (and glad of it).

But identifying conflicts among different data sets does not mean that the data itself is not useful. If everything points one way, you expect that you can be more confident about your conclusions than if you are looking at mixed messages. You take that into account.

kenberg, on 2016-August-29, 06:54, said:

Becky and I discuss medical things from time to time, we are of that age. Our GP, or basic doc, or whatever he is called, has recently separated from his group practice. As a side effect, he has dumped the online medical records that the group practice was using. Thank you doc! God forbid that anyone make any decision on the data that squatted, and refused to be dislodged, in those files. He has a new system, hopefully better. It would be impossible for it to be worse.

The Post has an article today about a study that supposedly casts doubt on the effectiveness of CPAP usage in preventing strokes, heart attacks, and so on. This was of direct interest to me since I use a BPAP machine (BPAP is a variant on CPAP). Some paragraphs down we find:


What?!?!!
Is this 3.3 hours an average or was it a required part of the study? It would be bizarre for it to be a required part of the study, to go around disconnecting the machine after 3.3 hours. Bizarre and irresponsible, both on simple general good sense and on previous studies that show partial usage doesn't seem to do all that much good. So I suppose it is an average. But this is a five year study of over 2,000 people. Did it not occur to anyone to see if those who use the mask for the full night (as I do) had better results than those who used it for only a couple of hours?
And who says 3.3 hours is consistent with the real world? And what does it mean? Some people get the machine and don't use it at all. If half use it for 8 hours and half don't use it, that averages to 4 hours. Does anyone think that this is equivalent to the entire groups each using it for 4 hours?

Whether the subject is Economics or Medicine, whether the article is in the Post or elsewhere, journalists report some numbers that someone gave them and then maybe they repeat, often inaccurately or incompletely, what someone said these numbers mean.

I have come to view my skepticism as well founded. No doubt I can find data to support this view. Or, if I prefer, data to refute this view. Or any other view. About anything.

I do not mean to disparage the use of data in the search for truth. I am recommending caution.

Constance has a CPAP and uses it the full eight hours. I can't fathom why she would not.

I certainly recommend against basing decisions on random newspaper articles.

[Zelandakh]

I found a couple of different trials mentioning this 3.3 hour figure but I am guessing you are referring to this one, which is a study of 2687 patients after filtering. As far as I can tell, one of the selection criteria is that their initial usage of the CPAP device was at least 4 hours per night for the first 2 years. Thus it is something of a mystery how the mean after 12 months can be 3.5 hours per night but presumably the usage in the first year was far enough above 4 hours to allow for this drop off. The report also acknowledges that the long-term mean of 3.3 hours per night may not be enough to show positive cardiovascular effects and mentioned some analysis of mild positive outcomes for patients of >4 hours per night. It also supported the primary benefits of CPAP for sleep apnea and "quality of life measures".

It does seem clear that some further studies need to be done to determine the benefits and side-effects attached to different levels of use though and perhaps also between usage at the start of the night (mostly deep sleep) against the end of the night (mostly REM sleep) and for different groups of patients (obese, diabetes, high-risk, etc).

Naturally the CPAP and sleep apnea groups are less than impressed with reports such as this one. It seems fine as far as it goes. You just have to accept that the scope of the trial was quite limited and not take the headline at face value. Sadly, as this is an area with less money in it than some others, it might take a while before we can obtain a full analysis.