No, Soon was attacked for not disclosing his funding in relevant papers.

No, Soon was attacked for not disclosing his funding in irrelevant papers. Actually, that's not strictly true. Soon was attacked because he opposed the narrative. His funding is just a red herring.

~Loyal

Of course they were. Just like your beliefs. That in itself doesn't help us determine which are true, though.

I'm glad you agree. Now you and I just have to convince MightyMartian.

~Loyal

Well, clearly *SOME* hidden funding has been revealed, as mentioned even in the summary.

No, no hidden funding has been revealed. Soon and three others wrote an unfunded paper. They did the research on their own time, and no one paid them to do it, and no one paid them for it. The publisher required authors to disclose funding for the work being submitted. The work being submitted had no funding, so that's what they disclosed. Greenpeace started digging into the authors' histories and found that Soon had received funding for previous work. They told reporters that Soon should have disclosed funding for previous work as though it had been for this work. The Boston Globe reported that Soon had been accused of non-disclosure. Someone started a petition to get Soon fired based on a mis-characterization of the Boston Globe story. No hidden funding has been revealed, but enough slanders have been spread to instill doubt about the work, which, one presumes, was their intent.

~Loyal

One thing's for sure. If we don't do something about AGW all of those things will come to pass as the effects become more and more evident and people start demanding action.

Perhaps not. Perhaps global warming has a net beneficial effect where fewer people freeze to death in the winter, more land becomes arable in the northern latitudes, and plants produce more foodstuffs and fibers from the increase in carbon dioxide. Or perhaps Mt. Pinatubo will blow throwing particulates into the air dropping world average temperatures by one degree for years.

On the other hand we could just impose a gradually increasing carbon tax* that would require a relatively small bureaucracy to administer and have the effect of making non-carbon energy sources more attractive as time goes on.

A small bureaucracy? Isn't that something like a temporary tax increase? Do you know how many people were employed by the US government to set gasoline prices? That should have been a small bureaucracy, right? Price per gallon? Has to be less than 85 cents? It took 10,000 people to do that. You are one hundred miles further from the refinery? You get to charge two cents more. You sell gasoline in California, using the California formulations? You get ten cents more. You live in Utah, and no one from your state is on the Ways and Means Committee? You get eight cents less.

~Loyal

What "smells like fascism"?

Doom is barreling down on us at an unprecedented rate. We have to turn over huge new powers to government to avoid this doom. Government will create huge new bureaucracies to combat the doom. The huge new bureaucracies will be financed by huge new taxes. The bureaucracies will control huge new swaths of business. Businesses will fund huge new lobbyists. Bureaucracies will create huge new regulations. Huge new regulations and huge new lobbyists will be funded through price increases. Huge new portions of subject populations' income will be devoted to governments, bureaucracies, and business. That smells like fascism.

~Loyal

What are you afraid of? That it will turn out most of the shit people like you believe is bullcrap invented by the Koch Brothers?

I'm afraid that people like you are absolutely certain of what you believe, and that one of the things you believe is that none of your beliefs were influenced by anyone with a motive.

~Loyal

No, the fact that he has been caught not disclosing his funding sources and been caught breaking ethical guidelines is what makes him corrupt.

No. The work was unfunded. The publisher required the authors to disclose any funding for the work. Soon disclosed no funding for the work because there was no funding for the work, and disclosing no funding was the proper thing to do. In fact, it would have been dishonest to claim to have been funded by someone if you weren't. (Scarlett Johansson paid me to make that statement.)

Greenpeace accused Soon of not disclosing his funding. The Boston Globe reported that soon had been accused of not reporting his funding. Someone started a petition to fire Soon based on the (mis-characterized) Globe article.

I'll tell you who looks corrupt, and it isn't Soon.

~Loyal

Very interesting view from one of the authors.

~Loyal

Parasitic in that they hose their drivers. They produce nothing of real value, they just take a cut. Like a racketeer.

Yeah! That's the way I feel about my grocer! He doesn't produce anything of real value. He just sells me the farmers' and ranchers' produce and takes a cut. And my doctor. He sits in his office and doesn't produce anything. And engineers. Just sitting there drawing all day, but not making anything. And programmers.

I just have to wonder why people keep going to them if they don't add any value. Why don't people just call people with cars and ask for a ride.

~Loyal

Keeping prices high keeps taxis available.

Let me see if I can follow your logic...Limiting the number of taxis makes the price of taxis high. Keeping the prices high keeps taxis available. Therefore...Limiting the number of taxis keeps taxis available. I don't think that even the great logician and philosopher Yogi Berra could improve on your statement.

~Loyal

(anecdotes are not data btw, we have far too many anecdotes already....in fact, that's all we have).

Why is it that anecdotes are not data when we disagree with where the evidence points and they are when we don't?

(For actual data see Economic Facts and Fallacies, Second Edition by Thomas Sowell. Chapter 2 covers sexual inequality.)

((Pronouns have gender; people have sex.))

(((Parenthetically speaking.)))

Just how can you own land anyway? You can certainly go back quite a long time in terms of trades and sales but sooner or later you get to a point where the land was seized by the man with the bigger gun/spear/stick/rock.

You answered your own question.

~Loyal

All land should be rented, never bought, for basically the annual property taxes.

That's just silly. If something can't be bought then it isn't worth anything, because things are only worth what they can be traded for.

Furthermore, if anyone could lose their real estate from someone bidding more for it, then no one would build improvements on it for fear of losing it. You have created a recipe to destroy wealth and civilisation.

~Loyal

So you presume that if we agree on the value of everything under the Sun, all trade will cease, and we'll just all lay down and starve to death because we are only willing to trade if we think we're getting a great deal?

Nope.

For example, if you believe your income to be stable and sufficient for your needs, there is no need to value a sandwich more when you're hungry than when you're not.

Sure there is.

The whole concept is irrational.

You think that because you misunderstand 'value.'

Even if there everybody agrees on value, there is still demand, because humans have real needs, and specialization is a thing.

It's not possible for everyone to agree on value because it's not possible to compare how much I value something versus how much you value that something. It's only possible to compare how much I value one thing versus how much I value another thing, and it's only possible to do that because of the exchanges you see me make. What it's possible for everyone to agree on is price.

Trade is not based on presuming a lopsided value exchange,

Sure it is. It's either that or coercion.

it is based on the reality of variable skills

Are you trying to discuss the Law of Absolute Advantage, the Law of Comparative Advantage, and Division of Labor?

and availability of resources.

Well, you're covering supply pretty well, but you're missing demand and, by implication, desires.

Economics uses all sorts of logical tools and technology that are not believed to be literally true or accurate; they're just believed to be useful in certain circumstances.

Agreed.

Demand obviously predated economics, because primitive trade isn't based on "how we allocate scarce resources." The most basic trade is just two people, without any system of allocation.

If Oog trades two beaver pelts to Moog for a spear and forty-eight grams of wheat, then the scarce resources that have alternatives uses is two beaver pelts, a spear, and forty-eight grams of wheat; and the allocation is a spear and forty-eight grams of wheat to Oog, and two beaver pelts to Moog. If someone, like, say, Loog, studies that then we have economics. Now, the actual study came after the exchange, but that's only because we can't study the future; we can only study the present and the past.

As for defining "demand," just use wikipedia:...

Ah! Then I didn't misunderstand the concept of demand, and you were wrong when you said I did.

Without willingness and ability to pay, no economy could exist.

Sure it can. If a mugger demands someone's wallet at gunpoint then an exchange has taken place and we can study it using the science of economics.

Economic systems weren't invented by some guy who thought it up and everybody said, "oh, good idea" and started doing it.

Sure it was.

Barter existed for long periods before economies did.

Bartering is one type of economic exchange.

Many animals engage in basic barter, without any system of exchange or valuation.

I wonder which economists study that.

The trade has to exist before it becomes systematic, which is a requirement for it to be an economy.

I think you misunderstand the concept of economics.

~Loyal

The buyer and seller generally agree on the value of both the item, and the money.

No. Buyer and seller agree on a price. It's not generally possible to know how much buyer and seller value either the item or the money.

I think you misunderstood the concept of "demand."

I'm pretty sure I don't.

I'll give you a hint: it existed before money or economies.

I agree that demand existed before money. Economics is how we allocate scarce resources that have alternative uses, so it's not possible for demand to predate economics. I tell you what--how about you spell out what I think demand is, and what it really is using a widely recognized definition from the science of economics?

~Loyal