🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@social.cleverlibre.org

@FailForward I would argue that this is actually a much easier thing to reason than you might realize and that aside from a few quirks the same rules as a business borrowing for growth applies, or entity.

> How much debt/GDP can Italy afford?

The first point though is that the criterion for measurement is incorrect here. The ratio of debt to GDP is not an effective or useful measure, the reasoning is simple when you consider the case of entities in general.

If you have 0 income as either a company or a country, and more expenses than income, borrowing can, and often is, the best option for you, presuming that money is used properly. Many companies start out with no income or even product, make a loan from a bank, and use that money to grow and become profitable, eventually paying off the loan and being in the positive. Obviously this in no way guarantees default.

So the real question becomes, what is the critereon for evaluating appropriate debt. The answer to that would be that the interest rate on the total outstanding loans need to always be less than the ratio between the growth rate of the GDP and the discretionary income of the country in question applied to the amount by which the discretionary income would grow as a result of the loan.

A country, like any individual has some discretionary income, that is, the money it collected from taxes after all its fundemental and unavoidable expenses are met. So for example it is their tax income minus their foreign debt burden (minimum payments on foreign debt), the payout on government bonds that were issues that expire that year, as well as the virtual loss of money (or gain) through inflation that occured that reduced the nominal income.. what is left over is their discretionary income.

Next one would look at how well a government is spending that discretionary income in order to fuel future growth. If we see that 100B DI tends to result in a 5% GDP growth over time then we can safely say the way that country spends that 100B has a 5% GDP growth rate.

So the question becomes is the additional income that is gained by the increase in GDP (factored over the entire life of the loan) **more** than the total cost of the loan.

So say the overall effect on GDP throughout the life of the loan (once the loan is paid back) is 10% and this represents a 50B in the GDP, and presuming that without the loan their discretionary income would have resulted in only a 5% GDP increase, and thus represents a 25B overall gain over the same lifetime of that loan. If the total cost of the loan after interest is more than 25B then the loan cost you more than you gained from it, therefore it has pushed you farther to default.

As long as you are making more money from your loans than the loan is costing you then no matter how big the loan is, its a good idea.

@ArturoGoosnargh

I'm not sure the fact taht things have gotten so bad that we will need CO2 capture to repair it is a justification to just keep spewing CO2.. the more we spew the more CO2 capture we will need to advert the worst case scenario and the less likely we will be able to provide those levels of capture.

So regardless of any need for CO2 capture it is still in our best interest to reduce CO2 emissions.

@ArturoGoosnargh They are, but less so than other sources. The number of trucks on the road hauling crude oil is enough to produce 10 million tons of CO2 a year in the USA alone. So clearly it is economical enough.

@ArturoGoosnargh Yea I get that, the point I am disagreeing with is that they will burn it, they wont.

What happens is they just stockpile it as they invest in trucks to haul it. Generally they quickly have more than enough trucks to be able to haul it away at a greater rate than it is produced. It almost never gets to the point where it sits around for very long.

@ArturoGoosnargh I doubt anyone would just burn off oil, they will just find ways to transport it by buying trucks (which is what the data shows they do).. if they truely were ever forced to just burn oil why dont they just stop pumping it instead?

@ArturoGoosnargh Well presumably if there were an actually effective regulation that reduced oil consumption (this isnt one of them) then it would in turn reduce the amount of natural gas burned.

Likewise it could be addressed through regulation by investing more infrastructure in natural gas pipelines (which many eco-conscious people do tend to promote for many reasons).

@realcaseyrollins The same as the difference between christianity and superstition, witchcraft and charismatic theology, presuming you are a person who does not believe in any of them.

@FailForward

>Well, now, when we together derived falsity, obviously I am banished into the void hell of inconsistency among all the other low beings (99% of humankind?) and shall never ever crawl back again to the daylight where the pure logic resides. What a lovely way to tell the conversation partner they are an idiot. 🙂

That is purely your own interpretation and neither my intent nor what my words suggested.

The fact is if your going to make an argument that leads from one logical point to the next if you do not make an argument that convinces me of your axiom (your first point) then any arguments you make that rely on that axiom/assumption cant be considered.

It has nothing to do with your character or your argument.. What it means is, you either need to do a better job at arguing your axioms before you continue on, at least if you want me to be convinced, or you can abandon the conversation (as you did)

> To question others is a great start. But it is just that. To teach ourselves (outside of technical fields, so politics etc.), it is vital to listen and deeply understand why other human beings think what they do, while assuming all along that they are at least as smart as we are (in this case Biden's administration, not me).

Biden is a family friend, he has been over my family home, even spent the night and had dinner with us. My mom likes the guy but neither me nor my dad like him, he is very fake and a slimeballl in ever respect IMO.

More importantly I never said he was an idiot, what I said was:

> But Joe is either not smart enough to understand that or cares more about his image than doing good.

I gave two options, and honestly the answer is not that he is an idiot, it is that he doesnt care about right or wrong and he only cares about how he is perceived... Listening to others is great, but you need to make sure you listen to people who have demonstrated they bring value to the conversation in the first place. Otherwise your just wasting everyones time.

@tursiops

@GrandiaIV Coulda swore this was a Tokamak Reactor before I zoomed in.

@FailForward

the failure here is in your 2nd point:

> 2) to do 1 and on top of that also increase the amount of oil coming into the country.

You are under the mistaken impression that a pipeline, under any scenario, will increase the overall amount of oil being moved. This is false and not bore out by the data.

1) If there is a truck transport going on, then a pipeline reduces the number of trucks. 2) If there is no truck transport going on and the pipeline is being built to support a new operation, then if the pipline is blocked then they buy trucks and transport in the oil that way.

No one sits on a pile of black gold and goes "Oh well if we cant transport it via a pipeline we will just ignore all the other ways we can transport it and not sell this extremely expensive product we have millions of tons of it"

The fact is, the oil, whether a new construction or old, once identified and owned is getting sold one way or another, blocking a pipeline, doesnt change that fact if the setup is established or not, it just means instead of the pipeline replacing already existing trucks the pipeline would be preventing new trucks from being bought... either way its the same deal and there is no reason to think a preexisting condition changes that equation.

> If the former, then the CO2 emissions will not be realised and the situation stays as it was 2 weeks ago.

Again since the axiom is still incorrect everything that follows it is likewise incorrect.

@tursiops

@FailForward

> If I am right, then technically speaking, stopping the pipeline project _is not_ going to put more trucks on roads, because nothing needs to be replaced. The volumes of oil which now will not be transported were not transported anyway. So there your argument fails a bit.

This statement makes no sense to me. Why would that matter. They have an oil field somewhere, right now the oil is being transported by trucks, building the pipeline means no trucks would be needed, reducing the CO2 footprint. Why does the fact that the pipeline doesnt already exist matter or effect the equation?

Even if we were talking about an oil field that isnt operational, it still would be a failed counter argument. If someone owns a huge oil field and gets denied the pipeline they need to transport it why would you think they wont spend that money on trucks to get it operational? The oil is a source of money and they wont pass that up and is not related to if its in operation or not.

> So (theoretically speaking) the effect of this decision can have twofold effect:

Since your axioms are invalid all the other points made hereafter are likewise invalid.

@tursiops

@tursiops

Yes but those measures ultimately need to be productive to the purpose. Varied measures just for the sake of varying them, even if some of those measures are counter to the goal, wont result in improvements.

So if this were to be taken as analogy to drug addicts then banning pipelines would be like telling one of the biggest drug dealers in their city that they must lace all their coke with heroin before selling it, with the logic that heroin costs more so it would discourage consumption and naively ignoring the fact that it causes more harm than the original.

@koherecoWatchdog @Demosthenes

@bonifartius yea, as a general rule you wont find price has a very strong influence on consumption.

@biomedmax As far as I know the MS strictly forbids nudity and lolicon. So if thats the case lolicon from them should be rare but if you see it you can probably report it and expect the account to be removed.

I am amused by the fact that the new white house speaker, Jen something, is the same woman pictures four years ago in the picture of the outgoing Obama staff that was giving the stinkeye to the new incoming Trump staff. Circle of life I suppose.

#USPol #Biden #Trump

@koherecoWatchdog

That could be true, but the data shows little if no effect.

Presuming that is true my guess would be that they just replace their normal commute to work with a similar number of miles taking the family on vacation. The net miles in the end being somewhat the same. Just speculation though, all I know is gas prices have a surprisingly small and insignificant effect on consumption.

@tursiops @Demosthenes