Your point is a good one tho the situation is complex with many moving parts.

In the case of oil, they held up the price of oil for 4 years and so tremendous oversupply resulted.

For california,
It has a history of 50+ year long droughts (and some much longer in reality- just with 1-2 year breaks between 50 year spells).
Artificially low water prices due to water shipped in from several states away.
Beautiful climate that attracts a lot of people anyway.

I wonder if solar water distillation of sea water will be one answer.

Businesses pay property on those items as well. It's called "inventory tax".

However, they can also deduct some costs and depreciation of those assets.

Businesses pay property taxes on their offices, computers, vehicles, inventory on hand, etc.

If "mickey mouse" is a "property" that is worth 27 million dollars, then some kind of tax should be due.

While that would only free "copyrighted" properties that had lost their obvious commercial value (which would be huge), it's a start.

We really need to revert back to original shorter copyright periods reflecting human lifespans. We should not use "immortal" corporations as the baseline for copyright periods.

Aye. And likewise we have a washing box robot that will clean dishes and most other items you put into it.

However, a robot of the type mentioned in the article has been made and costs about $280,000 per the article on it. It apparently can tidy rooms up too. Like dragon dictate it starts out 80% accurate and slowly improves to 98%. (which is higher than I've ever been able to get dragon dictate to be honest-the program seems unusable to me- just not accurate enough yet).

So assuming a normal moore's law like progression, I assume the price will drop by half every 18 months so 14/7/3/2/1/.5/.3 about 10 years, we'll be able to buy house cleaning (including laundry) robots for 3 grand. They'll probably suck (80% accurate) but will improve.

see also...

http://www.inquisitr.com/24162...

Hereâ(TM)s what a robot has to do.

Very close solution already:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/autom...
All but picking up dirty clothes, taking them to the washer, and putting them in. Heck, it was folding mixed clean clothes from the dryer five years ago. :-)

Find the pile of dirty laundry, distinguishing it from other clutter that might be in the room.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...
* But note: It IS the daily mail so grain of salt. Lol.
This is possible now. But.. an easy mitigation is to require throwing the laundry into a basket or into a laundry hole.
        Pick up each item in the pile. (Uncertainty: itâ(TM)s unclear how many objects the robot will have to pick up.)
http://www.hammacher.com/Produ...
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Ro...

        Put each item in a laundry basket.
        Navigate to the washing machine. (Because of where the robot has to hold the laundry basket, it can obstruct some of the its sensors which means it receives less information and cannot adjust its movements as precisely.)
        Depending on the type of machine, pull or lift the door to open it.
        Transfer clothes into the machine.
        Add detergent and/or fabric softener.
What is this "fabric softener stuff"?
Preloaded "push button" dispenser detergent has been around for 50 years.
        Close the washing machine door.
Trivial. Especially with the internet of theme providing a clear "door is fully closed"
        Choose the appropriate wash cycle (Delicate, Permanent Press, Heavy Duty) and start the wash.
        Remove the clothes from the washing machine and transfer to the dryer. (Uncertainty: the robot doesnâ(TM)t know beforehand how many times it will need to reach in, grab the clothes, and remove them in order to get them all.)
http://spectrum.ieee.org/autom...
        Choose the type of drying cycle and start it.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/autom...

        Remove clothing from the dryer. (Uncertainty: how many times will it have to grab the clothes to get them out? Is there a sock still clinging to the inside of the machine?)
http://spectrum.ieee.org/autom...
        Fold items depending on the type of apparel.
http://research.universityofca...
http://spectrum.ieee.org/autom...
        Puts garments away in a dresser or closet.
Can't find this-- but it's reasonable that everything "alike" could be put together on the table or hung so a human could finish the job easily. At a minimum- you'd probably have to tag the laundry in some way to identify it's target drawer or closet.

It looks like the solution is a quarter million dollars now. So 10-20 years before it's down to under five grand.

As the AC points out, that's comcasts version of events but doesn't match what anyone else involved testified before congress.

I don't trust comcast. I know for a fact our results and prices are worse than many other countries and it's a huge monopoly.

Also, tellingly, comcast gave a ton of money to both parties lobbying on this issue and it went against them anyway.

And none of this explains why comcast had such incredibly poor performance for netflix during off hours when the bandwidth wasn't being used (and was fast for everything else) and also how you could sign onto a VPN and your bandwidth to netflix instantly went to full speed.

I've had a couple people say Comcast wasn't throttling- but I think they are using a distinct definition when they say that because the result of comcast's configuration was reduced bandwidth (as in 2mbs vs 24mbs) for netflix vs other traffic.

I'm on several discussion boards and the republicans have universally just got bat shit crazy over this issue.

I'm having a hard time understanding their motivation or rational or source of talking points that's driving them.

Comcast gave huge amounts of money to both parties but it looks like it only stuck with republicans.

But are their some philosophical reasons why they support comcast and verizon being able to manipulate the internet and extort web sites to provide service the comcast customers already paid for?

It also has huge implications for revenue streams from tickets.

Okay.. where's the source of food energy which is going to allow zombies to be mobile more a few days after they turn?

Assuming "fast" zombies, a genuine zombie disease would burn out faster than ebola as they consume all their "food" almost immediately.

Well, first - I agree the world is overpopulated to the tune of about 5 billion (and headed towards being 7 to 8 or by some estimates 9 billion overpopulated by 2050).

But there are issues.

Horny idiots with poor birth control and or people who are very religious have lots of kids. Smart, wise, rational people did to under reproduce (there is a very funny youtube video about this).

Second, there is the spectre of Universe 133 out there. We don't want to set that off- it's an extinction event.

Third, those 3.5 billion and those in power who sympathize with them- might get a bit tetchy about attempts to cull them. The likely result is gold old ultra violence- mass death- especially for smart and educated people. Any kind of societal breakdown is going to the return of fatal plagues which are sorta random about who they kill.

Plus there is the fact that the planet would have resources to support all of them (food ,water, living spaces, entertainment) no problem- so it's pretty evil. Basically killing er.. culling.. people for pure greed.

First - you need to watch out for averages. The average includes billionaires who skew the hell out of your result. You should use the median over the average in any situation like this. The median net worth is $140k for boomers near retirement age.

Second- you need to watch out for "net worth" vs "savings".
"Savings" is CASH, EQUITIES, etc. Cash. MONEY. You can buy food with it.
"Net Worth" is Cash, Equities, etc. PLUS your car, your property, and oh.. you know.. your HOUSE.

The median Home value is $189,000. So with a median home price of $189k and a median net worth of $140k, that means most boomers haven't even paid their house off yet. And, you can't eat your house. And you can't live in your house and turn it into an income stream except with a reverse mortgage.

As the other person responding indicated- they changed the definition of U6. If you are "long term discouraged" you were dropped from U6 in 1994. In every generation previous to this one, you would have been expected to work and you would have been counted as unemployed. Now you are not.

Here's the data...
        Total Working Age Population (16-54 years of age): 248,657,000
        Total Nonfarm Employees (16-54 years of age): 114,523,000
        Percentage Of Working Age Americans Employed (Full or Part-Time): 46.05%

Just for comparative purposes here is the same calculation at the turn of the century (January 1st, 2000):
        Total Working Age Population (16-54 years of age): 211,410,000
        Total Nonfarm Employees (16-54 years of age): 118,602,000
        Percentage Of Working Age Americans Employed (Full or Part-Time): 56.10%

So roughly 25 million 16 to 54 year olds who were working in 2000 that are not working today. And I see this. Those poor kids in their mid 30's who have worked their asses off (degrees, getting up at 3am to work a 6am to 5pm shift) and they still don't have money saved for a house because a degreed professional job pays $32,000. Plus their college debts were 10x what mine were. (I got my COSC degree for $8200 TOTAL between 1985 and 1993) Insane.

The problem is people "enclave" up and only see people like themselves. So the ones who are doing okay get to pretend everyone else is doing as well as they are.

Actually, reviewing U6 and discouraged workers, we are at record levels of unemployment. Close to 25% of the working age population isn't working. They are going on disability early, retiring early- but many 16 to 54 year olds who worked in the past are not finding employment. I know several people in this category.

It is much rougher for 30 year olds than it was when I was 30. Some retrain and then the job they were training for is swamped by so many applicants that wages are supressed.

I was hoping retiring boomers would take up the slack but I read 80% of them have no under $20,000 savings and will not be able to voluntarily retire. Plus boomers in good slots are simply continuing to work and have no intention of retiring and letting those slots open up to younger people. By the time this group dies or retires at 77 to 82- the generation behind them is nearly at retirement age- never having had the good earnings years the generation before them had.

Advances in AI will make it possible to replace large swaths of 'smart' and 'creative' jobs by 2050. And they won't even consider that to be "real" AI by them. Whenever we get a real AI, it will be a massive paradigm shift. Robotics already have superhuman performance when "plugged" in . So an easily clonable AI combined with super human bodies obsolete humans overnight.

I'm confused. The chart you linked shows.

LED consumes less electricity.
LED lasts much longer (so less physical waste)
LED has a total cost of ownership lower than CFL. (About $110led* vs $126cfl vs $496inc)

Also
LED doesn't have mercury (and I know most CFL bulbs are not disposed of properly)...

75 watts are past the sweet spot now (tho you can get good ones for $19).
60 and 65 watts are $9 to $12 now.

Personally, I like 65 watts-- friendlier on my aging eyes. 900 lumens vs 850 lumens makes a big difference.

Really- I hate CFL. Even the 3500K ones. Even 65w ones. The rated life isn't what they say it is. CFLs may be rated for 10,000 hours but by the time I hit 6000 hours, the lumen output drops visibly. I'm replacing LED with CFLs as much as possible. So far.. I have never replaced an LED yet due to failure.

*with a 26.50 bulb addressing error you point out.

Great... for the half of the population at iq 100 and above. What about the average to below average 3.5 billion people?
They supposed to just roll over and die?

One of the links was to a company where robots are already constructing robots.

Robot development jobs are under 1:1000 of the jobs replaced.

Robot repair also needs under 1% of the workers.

If robots were not cheaper than humans, businesses wouldn't replace humans with robots.

Going forward- it's pretty much leadership as you point out (under 1/1000 of the employees) or creative jobs. But-- they automate everything except the creative part and lay off 140 employees while retaining 20. They also use the code phrase "focus the humans on the 'best parts of their jobs'" and "cost savings" (i.e. staff reduction). There are a million security guards in the country.

Projected results from the new robotic security guards in the pipeline are 95%. They can patrol, video, raise alerts, - even detain suspects- as well as a human being.

If we don't figure out how to transition effectively, you are going to see large scale civil unrest.

Unemployed humans. And significantly depressed demand for goods.