Saturday, October 6, 2012

Cab Thoughts 10/6/12

The meteor that hit Chiculub 65 million years ago ended the Cretaceous period and the dinosaurs. Debris exploded into the atmosphere. Researchers David King and Daniel Durda calculate that some of it reached halfway to the Moon before falling back to Earth. (How could that happen?) And when it did fall back, it rained red-hot rocks on the Earth, setting fires to forests almost everywhere. The atmosphere was heated enough to evaporate entire lakes, incinerate whole ecosystems, and extinguish most life over large low-latitude regions. (From "Why Geography Matters" by de Blij)

Quarks are held together by the "color force," which also binds protons and neutrons. This force, unlike electrical field which decreases with distance, grows stronger as the distances between color charges increases (like a spring.) It would take more energy than the sun puts out in a lifetime to separate out a single quark from a proton.Of course, when you separate a proton from a neutron you get Hiroshima. So....

Culture can be broad and accepting but it also should be the center and source of civic virtue. It has become only broad and accepting.

Beginning in 2014, the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB)--created by the new Obamacare--would consist of 15 unelected bureaucrats whose recommendations for reducing Medicare costs must be enacted by Congress by Aug. 15 of each year. If Congress does not enact them, or other measures achieving the same level of cost containment, IPAB's proposals automatically are transformed from recommendations into law. Without being approved by Congress. Without being signed by the president. Bypassing the separations of powers and looking unlike any possible constitutional entity.

Of the 4,319,000 new American jobs created since January 2010, 2,998,000 — or about 70% — went to people aged 55 or older.

Golden Oldie: http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2010/07/dont-play-lacrosse-at-duke.html

China built a 800 mile 200+ mph train for $32b, only double what the Boston "Big Dig" highway project (< 5 miles, 50 mph speed limit) cost. I know, I know: Slave labor. But still.....

After the debate...was Clint Eastwood right?

The media is not taking this debate well. I wonder if they are beginning to wonder how smart this guy really is.

I heard Obama say the day after the debate that that was not the "real" Romney in the debate. How can one explain that?

If Israel finally comes under unrelenting military siege by its enemies and their very survival questioned, will the Israelis just surrender and move to Pebble Beach or will something more ominous emerge out of their impending destruction? (Think Samson.)

Imagine you have 45 kWh of batteries. You can use them to make one basic Tesla Model S or a fleet of 30 Prius-class HEVs. The Model S will save one owner 400 to 500 gallons of gas a year, but a fleet of 30 Prius-class HEVs would save 4,800 gallons of gas a year using the same battery materials. The key here is "battery materials." The world annually produces 14 billion tons of oil, natural gas and coal, 1.5 billion tons of iron and steel and 0.13 billion tons of non-ferrous metals. Annual production of several "technology metals" for batteries including cobalt, rare earth metals and lithium is less than 100,000 tons. There are no resource stockpiles. Everything is used.  14 billion tons of oil, natural gas and coal versus 100,000 tons of "technology metals." We are trading the use of common oil, coal and natural gas for the use of rare metals. We are creating our own shortages. Why would anyone do that?

Honda came out recently and said they are losing money on every vehicle they export from Japan to the US. They were not prepared for the huge shift in the value of the Yen vs Dollar. This is another example of the cost of currency changes, shipping and supplies interfering with profit. People are going to move their suppliers and their manufacturing closer to their markets (and away from previously cheap labor) as Toyota did.
You heard it here first.

Christina Romer, an original member of Obama's Board of Economic Advisers, has a number of major studies on the relationship between taxes and GDP. A summary of the statistical work estimates that a tax increase of 1% of GDP would lead to a fall in output of 2.2% to 3.6% over the next 10 quarters. This was published by the prestigious American Economic Review in June 2010. So what is the logic behind a tax rise? 


AAAnnnnd a graph:
Chart of the Day

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