What a troll !

It is very unfortunate that these dumping and subsidy accusations have taken ground on slashdot and in general. So many people swallow these accusations as fact simply because they are reported allowing the entire anti-China hysteria to continue to grow. These tariffs are a only temporary injustice compared to the totally corrupt "dumping" ruling that will come. Where is the proof of any of this? The firms singled out have all their financials available and they all have positive gross margins. Why is a Chinese subsidy anti-competitive while American subsidies are not? How can people so easily swallow this nonsense?

There are a lot of valid complaints against the Chinese solar industry, but these are not it. This is crony capitalism by politically well-connected minority of mostly anonymous US/German firms. That is all. Chinese companies make cheap solar panels totally above the board, "dumping" is due to small Chinese firms going BANKRUPT by new and successful PV firms. There are Chinese causalities to this revolution too! a.k.a. Destructive capitalism. You can also buy "dumped" Evergreen Solar (a bankrupt US solar firm) at below industry ASP. Where's the outrage? The big Chinese players (the ones specifically, by name targeted with these tarrifs) are taking over and putting American and German firms out of business via well executed competitive capitalism. They spent the last 5 years building modern high-quality poly silicon plants that produce poly at 20$kg, way cheaper existing than US and NORWAY. Their poly plants sit right next to their wafer, cell, and module facilities, which all use the fanciest, newest US and German manufacturing equipment. The Chinese firms are aggressively pursuing vertical strategies, executing efficiency improvements throughout the entire product chain, and reducing cost via a hugely competitive free market, recycling the nasties instead of dumping them because its cheaper! The strongest firms are manufacturing and selling modules at under a dollar at 7-14% gross margin. AKA *not* dumping. They are all operating on a loss due to fast declining module ASPS, awesome competition, and reletively high OPEX due to expansion, R&D, and debt. We know this because these companies are listed on American exchanges where they comply with GAAP accounting standards, file this info in their quarterly 10K and have American firms auditing them. The basis of these dumping and subsidy accusations are so obviously fradulent, it is really insulting. China is executing a brilliant strategy, mostly above the board, and now the the US politburo is attempting to penalize them. It won't work, we'll just fall further behind.

China Development Bank has given out loan guarantees much like the US Department of Energy (e.g Solandra, First Solar). Ironically, the Chinese firms have barely even tapped this credit. They have mostly been successful raising money on the securities and bond markets in the US and Hong Kong, aka private investors. Chinese provinces have given out awesome tax and energy rebates to manufacturers just like US States (e.g.MA,CA,CO). Where's the beef? The whole anti-Chinese bandwagon is utterly disgusting. It so clearly displays the hypocrisy behind the agendas that drive capitalism and globalization that I can barely stomach it.... It's all a complete farce.

On the other hand, PV is clearly part of a massive strategy for Chinese energy independence. In fact, they have probably passed the tipping point. They are mostly through the development of a several hundred GW/yr PV industry. They will continue grow their production on the backs of western countries mandates and private financing from western markets. Brilliant! the west is paying China to develop what will be the most cost effective, ubiquitous and potentially largest industry on earth. We Americans see this well-executed strategy and our response is to protect a minor portion of our own solar industry (at the expense of our solar equipment exporters, which fyi give us the NET solar exports, and downstream solar firms). This is about the most incompetent response I could possibly imagine. We are losers.

Pardonn my ignorance.

Holy shit. Glen Beck is on /.

You probably haven't fully disclosed the circumstances of the situation. You make it sound like hes a low-level engineer with no choice in the matter. He's salaried at normal pay for working double time? Alas, those 37 extra hours divided by 6 EEs is pretty reasonable for a 1 month stretch. Do you remaining 5 just hate this guy? Is he in a senior position with something especially important to gain from this? Furthermore, by your own description he is atypical, as in ~17% of your engineers... That said, if it as you make it seem, he is part problem. If I have to compete with idiots who will accept such ridiculously poor working conditions, I'd rather apply my PhD serving espresso, thankfully I'm a miser and that will always be an option :-)

From your link. The first three crops depend on technology that doesn't exist. The fourth crop can't be grown in the US. The 5th crop (corn) is ridiculously inefficient as in requires 2 to 7 times the land as the other crops with very high inputs. Oh wait, the 5th crop might be better with, yup, you guessed it non existent technology

So your post was satire right?

You are right. Unfortunately, we've collectively decided to hold teachers accountable for the abdication of responsibility by parents and families. It surprises me that the momentum continues to build against teachers even as the success of all these new schooling initiatives is about the same as public schools: widely varying. I guess I shouldn't be amazed that people will do anything and everything necessarily before holding themselves accountable.

depends what you mean by 'own,' the bodyguard was one of the few cds I ever purchased. I was 11 or so. The CD is lost in time, but I did purchase it, I did appreciate it, and I recently torrented the fuck out of it.

No, the problem is that your premise is incorrect. The second problem is that you either 1) know it is incorrect and make falsifiable declarations to suit some other purpose or 2) you are profoundly lacking in analytical skills. There is no group think among 'AGW crowd' for a suite a policies, laws or regulations to combat AGW or any other of the main environmental issues. Over the past year, I have spent time at one of the epicenters of academic environmental research and no where have I seen such healthy and vigorous discussion and debate over these challenges and what can be done about them and I've been "with it" for a over a decade. In fact, the pragmatism that underlies most scientific environmental and policy work is astoundingly apolitical and rich in diversity. Your subscription to your premise is the problem, you polarize the situation and marginalize science by issuing false and deeply political generalizations.

The max PPS of AAPL in 1997 was $6. Did MS return 9500% on their investment and do they currently own 1/3 of Apple or did they sell those shares? mm. Looks like they sold those shares in 2003 and only doubled their investment. That would have been a bizarre alternate reality.

Burn coal, recover only 39% energy -> send energy down wires, lose 10% -> pass current through resistor and convert ~30% of coal energy to make dT
VS
run a heat pump from electricity, generally moves more heat than electricity consumed, e.g. bigger dT than above
VS
burn coal / gas / wood / oil locally, effectively 2-3 times more efficient. depending on your equipment.
VS
consider sun -> point house at sun -> let sun shine on house

Or you get tech for free or buy it on the used market. Might not be the perfect solution, but you'll avoid direct participation and better understand the scope of the problem by noticing that you can stay up to date compared to 9/10 people around you. The view from this high horse is nice also.

You have to start somewhere, right? It certainly is more constructive than deriding someone for limiting their participation in what they feel is a morally bankrupt system. IMO, purchasing used technology or better yet rescuing it from disposal is also a pretty effective way to minimize ones participation.

Federal insolvency? 'Masses' unable to feed themselves? The logical scenario is that it will be a widespread practice for businesses to illegally help their employees evade debt? Which countries are literally gearing for war? How is Europe going to collapse fiscally? You're describing a global financial apocalypse not the effects of a student debt bubble. The beauty of the student debt arrangement is that even 100k spilled over the 50yrs will not cause your friend to starve, merely deny him of the security and opportunity available without that debt. Thus, it actually works quite nicely for the creditors in the situation you describe, unless of course you are predicting 50 years of anarchy.