Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[hack]

I've heard Obama sycophants complain that the stimulus would have worked even better if they could have spent more than the $800B or whatever that they had in the bill. An extra $30B, while only increasing the spending by 3.75% would have helped. And while I'm not exactly sure what value a giant wall has, putting money into people's hands definitely has a multiplier effect in the Keynesian World, so economic development spurred.

As the IMF tells many developing countries, pick the right projects. One would hope that the USG has already internalized that lesson.

[iam416]

Well, not all of Canada. Can we put in a 10-mile gate on the Manitoba-North Dakota border. I like Winnipeg, the cultural heartbeat of Canada. The only risk is how close it is to Sucksatchewan.

[hack]

I think that's reasonable. You can have Winnipeg. I'd also suspect that Canada might even be willing to pay for some of that wall.

[iam416]

That's all well and good, but the United States doesn't accept maple syrup as currency.

[Kapture1]

Meanwhile on climate change, I'm certain of two things and one conclusion:

(1) The IPCC report says that there will be catastrophic climate change unless emissions are reduced by 45% from 2010 levels AND done so by 2030 (by some estimates, 60% from today's emissions).
(2) There is absolutely no political way in hell that is going to happen. End of story.

So, the conclusion has to be that we're going to experience catastrophic climate change. Done deal at this point, if the IPCC is correct.

don't be surprised in the near future if you see skyscraper size carbon filters or some other technology that can pull carbon out of the atmosphere, and watch it actually solve any problem that we have, and do far more than the trillions and trillions the left wants to extract from our economy and send to developing nations for some reason. Turns out humans are very good at solving problems, but we also have devised schemes that would kill our economy for global socialism.

[iam416]

We will consider Molson and poutine

What the fuck is wrong with you. Canadian beer and its trademark hint of skunked can GFY. Moosehead. Molson. Mountie Piss. All of it. That said, it's better than the shit Mexico calls beer. I'd rather have maple syrup.

Poutine is another story. And, after some reflection, I think it's likely to hold its value better than the monopoly money Canada prints.

[Kapture1]

It's going to be something of a rebalancing of land use. Some won't be usable. Some won't be controllable by sovereigns. You have half the world's population crammed into a quadrant of the globe with tons of low-lying areas. They'll go somewhere. From a realpolitic standpoint, this will be mostly China's problem, and not America's. Not like we're going to co back to walled cities whose gates lock at night, and outside them chaos, but it'll shift in that direction especially in Asia.

Which brings us back to walls. Make no mistake -- some are going to be built. Here in the US:

In FY18, Congress provided $1.375B for border wall construction which equates to approximately 84 miles of border wall in multiple locations across the Southwest border, including:

• $251M for secondary border wall in the San Diego Sector
• $445M to construct new levee wall system in the Rio Grande Valley Sector
• $196M to construct new steel bollard wall system in Rio Grande Valley Sector
• $445M for primary pedestrian wall in San Diego, El Centro, Yuma and Tucson Sectors

So, in other words, it's unclear how much funding they have, maybe that initial estimate of $16.4m/mile is too low, based on those figures above. Maybe more like $23.1m/mile. So perhaps the cost would actually be $44.7bn.


This document is astonishing, considering the source of it is the US government.

I don't think the wall would or could be built over the entire border.

[hack]

I'm not entirely sure this is a completely fair comparison, but based on those numbers the wall could cost, on a per-mile basis, double what Ethiopia is paying China for a rail line. That's something orders of magnitude more complex to construct. Unsure about logistics. Apparently getting the kit and workers to some spots on the US/Mexico border is a bit of a challenge in a few spots. Set aside that a powerful argument that would be for building infrastructure that actually lowers logistics costs for businesses -- the numbers already suggest that there will soon be opportunity to investigate the mother of all procurement scandals.

[iam416]

don't be surprised in the near future if you see skyscraper size carbon filters or some other technology

I'd be shocked by the former and I expect the latter. I'm not one to underestimate either the stupidity of humans or the genius of humans.

[hack]

Talent is correct about Canadian beer, save for that it's better than Mexican beer. Victoria and Bohemia. Save for the ales. Some of the Molson and Labatt's heavy ales that nobody but prairies alcoholics drink anymore are pretty solid beers. I'd take them over 90% of craft nonsense in this country.

I suggest you keep up talk about the syrup. We all suspect that one day you'll come for our water, but that's because we think you don't know about the strategic maple syrup reserve. You keep talking like that and we'll not only pay for the wall but build it ourselves.

[iam416]

It's gonna suck when the US has to take over Ontario for complete control of the Great Lakes.

[hack]

I'd be shocked by the former and I expect the latter. I'm not one to underestimate either the stupidity of humans or the genius of humans.

Yeah, there are going to be breakthroughs. Likely too late to avoid any impacts at all from climate change, but they'll come, and arrest the trend at some point, I agree. But it's not as if this is a mysterious process, or that we'll have a eureka moment on Thursday and be sucking carbon out of the atmosphere by Monday. Most of the ideas aren't new, but all of them take decades to gestate. https://www.irena.org/publications/2...hnology-Briefs. Documents like that can provide a good sense of where some of these technologies are and how long it will take to develop them into large-scale solutions.

[iam416]

Yeah, there are going to be breakthroughs. Likely too late to avoid any impacts at all from climate change, but they'll come, and arrest the trend at some point, I agree. But it's not as if this is a mysterious process, or that we'll have a eureka moment on Thursday and be sucking carbon out of the atmosphere by Monday. Most of the ideas aren't new, but all of them take decades to gestate. https://www.irena.org/publications/2...hnology-Briefs. Documents like that can provide a good sense of where some of these technologies are and how long it will take to develop them into large-scale solutions.

Correct. This is the reality of the climate change. Whether you take the IPCC predictions as gospel or mularky, the political and technological reality is that emissions won't be reduced by the amounts called for in the IPCC report by 2030 (or anywhere close). However, mitigating technology will eventually arrive. Whatever political gains can be made in the near term will be made on the edges, not in some sort of large-scale, pain-inducing radical policy shift today. Won't happen. So, technology it is....

[THE_WIZARD_]

We need two walls...one around Alabama and one around Ohio...

[froot loops]

I think Mexican beers are solid if unspectacular, Corona excluded.