Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

[EJ]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Granted that propaganda and marketing are deliberately used, from an early age on, to form and reinforce belief systems. Recognizing this with the end of mitigating/combating it is important, I agree. Critical and scientific thinking and analysis are not taught nor held in the highest esteem in our culture as you know. Sentiment and sound bites carry the day.

I believe though what you are really pointing to can be handled by always asking the question "Cui Bono?" (in whatever language suits), and keep asking that question until you arrive at the one or multitude of causes. People act in their self interest, and by golly one man's interest may be to another man's detriment, unfortunate, but true nonetheless.

Your further points however, with respect, smell of modern doubt and it consequence: relativism.

Things do have causes, always (even if they are not readily identifiable completely). The Principle of Causality. I choose to belief that axiomatically, call it a priori knowledge, common sense, a sine qua non, for rational inquiry, what have you. I don't need to "deconstruct" this belief as I remember how I constructed it.

Skepticism is different than doubt. Skepticism in good faith can lead to truth. Doubt, i.e., of Truth, leads to belief in the loudest bullhorn (as you describe) and to the political and economic tyranny and individual despair.

Question? Absolutely, but don't Doubt (that there is Truth that can be apprehended by reason).

Perhaps "There's no Market for Truth" would be an appropriate title.

Great Pics by the way!

I agree with all of your points until "People act in their self interest."

The point of the Bullhorn is to get the masses to act against their own interests but instead in the interests of an interest group.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

[ Post deleted by author. I'm going to think about it a while. ]

[EJ]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Trying to understand, probably failing spectacularly:
So someone with the power to create and frame this debate (oil interests? politicians? military industrial?) gave us AGW to talk about instead of PCO?
So people will support higher prices as a disincentive to damaging the planet?
So we'll continue buying oil as it runs out instead of moving our $$ to other technologies?
So we would pay less attention to meddling in the middle east?
Or is it that one world-wide environment issue is all we can keep in our heads?
Is Gore a player or a dupe?

I love the focus on propaganda, PR, packaging for consumption, etc. This thread has led me to seek out some books to read. But I can't solve the riddle here. Why not tell us the whole theory?

I recommend you start by reading the original analysis of the American system of propaganda, Edward Bernays' 1928 book Propaganda.

The theory cannot be made convincingly in a few posts here. The challenge is to prove the existence of a system of propaganda the key evidence of which is the absence of certain topics and frameworks of debate.

For example, why is this issue is not openly debated in the US as it is in other countries?

[EJ]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

EJ, for the very simple reason that he can see beyond his own shortcomings; and, moreover, has clearly demonstrated that skill to us for some years now. I will trust someone that knows his shortcomings and can have the strength to be able to allude to them. None of us is perfect; so who would trust the perfect man?

In such a book, there will be something for everyone to hate. After all, it attacks the very idea that one owns one's beliefs, that one has reasoned them for oneself. I only hope that I'm not too late. The way things are going in Libya, the Bullhorn is no doubt gearing up for an onslaught of a "we meant to do that" variety.

[bill]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Who gains and who loses from policies to reduce carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels?

About time we get to that subject.
Low carbon energy controllers.

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...conomy?p=33297

[gnk]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Consider the idea of anthropogenic global warming or AGW. There is no conclusive science to back the theory, but many of us believe in it passionately. How did that come about? Who benefits? If we can answer that question we know everything we need to know about how to invest in energy in the future, because AGW isn't about pollution, the output of energy consumption, it's an indirect tool for managing the input, the carbon-based fuels themselves, at a time when a direct approach may produce the crisis that the AGW approach is attempting to diffuse: Peak Cheap Oil.

I'll admit, I bought into the AGW view wholeheartedly in the beginning. But I also have a slightly different view, though yours seems correct as well.

At first, I heard about Goldman Sachs buying into some derivatives market/exchange regarding carbon credits. Another Ponzi scheme, I thought.

And then I read about the conflict between Obama and China at Copenhagen...

And so, I thought, "who benefits?" China, and many other large manufacturing/polluting nations also have cheap currencies. One way to affect that trade advantage was to make the manufacturing process expensive. To "even out" the advantage. Environmental regs are a convenient tool for that end. In some way, it accomplishes the same thing a stronger yuan would.

As for Goldman Sachs and the carbon credits exchange - that screamed at me. How obvious the deception, and how easily I bought into it.

I question everything now. No knee jerk agreements or jumping on bandwagons, however convincing they are.

[jk]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

you might enjoy a book called "how real is real?" by Paul Watzlawick, a psychiatrist and an oss officer in wwii, on the social construction of reality, social effects on cognitive psychology, disinformation, and so on. both a lot of fun and thought provoking.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

The most interesting thing I learned in my several years of research into the AWG issue is that the strongest adherents to AGW theory hold liberal views generally while opposition to the theory is largely conservative, as if the question was political rather than scientific.

My position is that there is insufficient scientific evidence to prove or disprove AGW. Mind you, as a recipient of a BS in Resource Economics I have since college believed intuitively that dumping tons of carbon emissions into our tiny atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels cannot possibly be a good thing for the environment, and intuitively I still believe that it is bad. But intuition is not science. Everywhere I looked as I studied the AWG issue I found the telltale signs of a Bullhorn sales and marketing operation, from the co-opting of the scientific community with research funding to the selection of TV producers with AGW sympathies. One source I spoke with who is also agnostic on the question said his research shows that beliefs are even more emotionally driven than by inclination toward liberal or conservative views. Polls show that a large percentage of Americans change their view on AGW based on the weather: when it's hot they believe and when it's cold they don't.

But why? Who is using the threat of rising oceans to sell AGW in 2011 like the dream of home ownership to sell the securitized debt that financed the housing bubble in 2002? To what end? Who gains and who loses from policies to reduce carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels?

The reason I haven't made any previous statements about AGW is that I'm certain holding a rational debate on a topic as charged with religious fervor is as futile as the gold bubble versus no gold bubble debate, the inflation versus deflation debate, or any of the other nonsense debates that the US media frames that I've wasted umpteen hours on over the years that divert us from the issue.

It's time to get to the bottom of things.

Ever wonder why there isn't a "peak oil versus no peak oil" debate in the media? I believe the answer is in the AGW misdirection.

Thank you for expressing your reasoning for holding this position. But I would urge a great deal of caution in taking this public position. If you are incorrect about this scientific matter, and I will assure you you are, you run a risk of doing great damage to your reputation, and possibly discrediting your book before the 1st word is written. This is not an economic, non-science question that deals more with trying to understand how humans will react to specific circumstances, such as if the price of gold will go up, or if there will be inflation by the 1st quarter of 2010 or deflation, or whether the Chinese bubble will burst in 2010 or 2011, this is real science with mountains of real scientific data and near unanimity of agreement.

Your observations about liberal vs conservative on this issue are keen indeed, but once again, this is science, and public opinion no matter what the political persuasion, has nothing to do with the scientific facts. You might very well listen to that intuitive voice in the back of your head that is telling you that the gigatonnes of man made CO2 emitted into the atmosphere annually, is indeed having an impact on the worlds climate.

As a recipient of a BA in physical Geography, and having the unique opportunity to actually work in the field, with at first, 7 years working with meteorological research data for the federal government, then 8 years working with cryospheric data for climate research at a NASA data center in a large university, I can assure you my conclusions have not been formed by the media you are referring to. My conclusions were drawn from trying to organize for discovery and distribution petabytes of data from everything from dozens of instruments on board several spacecraft platforms, to bore holes in Greenland, to radar sounding in the heart of Antarctica, to personal observations of native Inuits... I also had the opportunity to have numerous hundreds of hours of discussions with some of the worlds leading climate scientists. I have spoken to scientists from China, Germany, England ..., and all of the scientists at the facility. Not one fails to shake their head at anyone who would deny the libraries of data that have been collected.

Although AGW is considered established science by the scientific community, I agree with you that I would much prefer to have the conversation about Peak Oil rather than AGW. Peak Oil will be a slap in the face of the public, while AGW is the boiling frog. The Bullhorns apparently reach more people and are more persuadable than I imagined, and have already misled too many people.

Given the makeup of the internet, denying established science may improve your subscriber numbers, and may even bring back PythonicCow, but the cost may end up to be higher than you expect.

[Jill Nephew]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Wow, how weird to post for the second time to a website i have been reading for 11 years...

I studied climate science in graduate school and got to live a few years in center of this hurricane. Let me strip this down to what to me, is the core issue.

Asking if the current state of the earth system is caused by X (can be anything, let's say fossil fuels in the atmosphere) is NOT A SCIENTIFIC QUESTION. For two reasons.
1. In science you need a control group to infer causality. There is no 'control' earth to compare our earth to, one with lots of CO2, one without.
2. Earth is a chaotic system. So even if you had two earths, or a thousand earths, you will not be able to do the experiment to determine cause and effect, you can only see how the group of outcomes shifts with the given inputs (assuming you can get a signal above the noise).

We will NEVER be able to say that the current warming is due to anything we did to the planet. Never. We do not have the rational tools, the scientific method at our disposal to infer such a thing. It will never be answered.

With that said, there is NO DOUBT that we are screwing with a human life support system. We know that the carbon cycle is delicate, we are dependent on it, and we are messing with it willy nilly by re-released all this carbon that used to be trapped into the atmosphere/oceans etc.

We have known this since the 50's. We didn't need to do any more science after that to know what the right thing was to do. It's nice to do climate research, and it is useful for all kinds of things, but it gets us NO CLOSER to answering the above question. The conclusions there were obvious to those rational and without agendas: re-value carbon based energy to mitigate what we unleash by our 'experiment' on the life support system. For those that don't believe we may accidentally blow up the earth in all kinds of ways we don't yet understand and may never understand (it happens to be a pretty complicated place), i ask you to consider the ozone hole story (at the end of this post). Further, re-value carbon based energy so that we burn it as slowly as possible and as responsibly as possible.

SO, i don't care about the debate, it is nonsense. Everyone that takes either side has bought into increase the veils of confusion and muddying the issue. I agree with EJ, everything and everybody that did NOT get at the core of this issue since the 50's (the oil company speaking heads, the climate scientists who have an agenda to fund their research or feel important forming international committees) are all in the same camp and they may not even know who's agendas they are really promoting.

EJ, if you can wake people up, all the more power to you. It is so demoralising, truly.

The Ozone Hole Story (as told to me by my professor who shared the nobel prize for discovering it)

Around the time the hole first popped up climate scientists no longer studied the stratosphere (where the hole is). It was a simple system and considered known and predictable in all ways (nothing like the troposphere, which remains deeply unknowably complex and we base all our climate predictions on). It was so well known that when the ozone hole was first detected on ground, they replaced the machine because the satellites weren't seeing it and it was 'impossible'.
The new machine had issues to it seemed, so they fired the graduate student. After going a few rounds with this, they realized the satellites were filtering this data out because they had been programmed that those readings are systematic errors.
Some odd years later they finally got the satellites fixed up (still having no idea how this was possible), and figured out it was CFC's that were causing the trouble.

So, you may be saying, well, so what, some people in Australia have to wear hats. However, the punchline is, we didn't have to use CFC's for aerosol cans, we could have easily used Bromide based propellants. Good thing we didn't, they are more powerful and in the time it took to find the problem the bromide would have destroyed the ENTIRE supply of stratospheric ozone. Without ozone in the stratosphere, you can say goodbye to any plant or animal being able to exist in the light of the sun. Mitigate that.

So NOW we are consciously, knowingly messing with what we know is part of the life support system, in a part of the earth system we readily agree we don't understand. Talk about collective loss of reasoning and common sense. It boggles the mind.

[bill]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

SO, i don't care about the debate, it is nonsense.

So please, guys/gals tell me what energy solution?
The core issue is what energy satisfies AGW and Peak Oil?

[c1ue]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Just out of curiosity, how would you describe your own political views? You seem very intent on bashing libertarians.

Fiscal conservative. Social Moderate.

Libertarians in contrast desire all their rights, but without a government to regulate or enforce them.

Were it not for the bizarre focus on rights, this would otherwise be known as anarchy.

And yes, I do bash the libertarians as represented by such fine examples of humanity as Lyndon LaRouche.

I don't bash conservatives on principle, nor do I bash liberals on principle. Both are representative of common mind sets and can work.

Libertarianism in contrast is a fantasy.

Is this "reality" based on anything other than your authoritative assertion?

Does this reality apply to all insurance companies or simply health care?

This reality is based on the model of insurance. You don't provide protection because you don't think you're going to have to pay, you provide protection to a group of people from which you expect a specific set of losses.

I have no problem with an insurance company - in an ideal, isolated situation - charging a person with preexisting conditions more for insurance ... again assuming the extra cost is representative of the actuarial risks from said preexisting condition and not all other issues.

But I do have problems with insurance companies finding excuses not to pay, booting people out for pre-existing conditions, denying coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, etc etc - all behaviors intended to cheat on the actuarial odds.

Let me put it another way: if you have a terrible driving record, it is reasonable that an insurance company charge you more for providing auto insurance to you.

How often do auto insurance companies deny coverage completely to even bad drivers?

If you cannot understand why denial of coverage is wrong, then I cannot help you as you clearly have no idea what insurance is.

Yes, they are crooks, no doubt about it. They have rigged legislative/judicial system to protect themselves, for example McCarran–Ferguson Act. Most of what you mention are deceptive or fraudulent practices. I spend a good deal of my time dealing with these issues. I also would benefit from more sick people having insurance. Nonetheless, I still don't understand why not providing insurance to people who you know in advance will cost more than they will pay in premiums is somehow illegal or immoral.

Again, you are conflating denial of coverage with enforced coverage for all at a fixed price.

In a situation where the entire population is forced into a single plan, then this is invalid.

Equally so, if a company chooses to simply exclude the 'high risk' population from its models, then said company isn't providing insurance.

It is acting on a Ponzi scheme where those most likely to require payouts are simply booted out.

[c1ue]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

If you are incorrect about this scientific matter, and I will assure you you are, you run a risk of doing great damage to your reputation, and possibly discrediting your book before the 1st word is written.

Again, you seek to bring to bear social pressure as opposed to fact.

We've gone many rounds, and you've yet to provide a single convincing argument which conclusively demonstrates that fossil fuel derived CO2 is the one and only factor in driving climate change today.

You've failed to show that the climate today and its changes is unusual.

You've failed to clearly separate out CO2 as the single cause ascendant over all other human and natural causes.

You've failed to show any skill in prediction, either personally or anywhere in the entire 'climate science consensus' establishment

I've posted the entire AGW argument in full before, and again it is:

1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas (true)
2) CO2 is the strongest climate driver (extremely false)
3) The climate has a net positive feedback - i.e. any changes made to it are magnified (demonstrably false in the past, zero proof whatsoever outside of computer models in the present)

As a recipient of a BA in physical Geography, and having the unique opportunity to actually work in the field, with at first, 7 years working with meteorological research data for the federal government, then 8 years working with cryospheric data for climate research at a NASA data center in a large university, I can assure you my conclusions have not been formed by the media you are referring to. My conclusions were drawn from trying to organize for discovery and distribution petabytes of data from everything from dozens of instruments on board several spacecraft platforms, to bore holes in Greenland, to radar sounding in the heart of Antarctica, to personal observations of native Inuits... I also had the opportunity to have numerous hundreds of hours of discussions with some of the worlds leading climate scientists. I have spoken to scientists from China, Germany, England ..., and all of the scientists at the facility. Not one fails to shake their head at anyone who would deny the libraries of data that have been collected.

And so what? All you're describing is a closed group of intellectuals - who clearly do not accept outside concepts or ideas.

I've posted numerous times how it is well documented that human beings seek out information which confirms their own beliefs.

The entire purpose of the scientific method is for those with differing beliefs to clash, and in the clash, for the truth to emerge.

Having a huge group of group-thinking climate scientists doesn't do anybody any good.

I've noted endlessly how the pronouncements of the 'experts' continue to be wrong.

I've noted all sorts of issues which were clearly not scientific in any way - concerning projections on the Amazon, on the Antarctic, on the Arctic, on floods, on storms, etc etc.

But of course nothing dents your group think.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

C1ue, I have to suspect that you do not live very high up in the Northern hemisphere. Here in the UK the weather has changed quite dramatically over the last fifty years. Rainfall has increased more than 25% year on year; temperatures are rising; spring is showing very good signs of coming very early this year. But all that being said; the only thing that might change your mind is perhaps when sea levels suddenly rise, as I am, personally, sure they will. So let us leave the debate until we have something that will settle the matter. Except that, as they say, the frog is in the pot and the water is getting hotter year by year and if sea levels do suddenly rise by, say, 30 feet, then civilisation as we know it comes to an abrupt end, and this debate will be the least of our concerns.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

We will NEVER be able to say that the current warming is due to anything we did to the planet. Never. We do not have the rational tools, the scientific method at our disposal to infer such a thing. It will never be answered.

With that said, there is NO DOUBT that we are screwing with a human life support system. We know that the carbon cycle is delicate, we are dependent on it, and we are messing with it willy nilly by re-released all this carbon that used to be trapped into the atmosphere/oceans etc.

So NOW we are consciously, knowingly messing with what we know is part of the life support system, in a part of the earth system we readily agree we don't understand. Talk about collective loss of reasoning and common sense. It boggles the mind.

One of the difficulties with a long post is that one can get carried away and end up pointing in both directions as here. But please, do not stop making comments; they are much appreciated.

[bagginz]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

I recommend you start by reading the original analysis of the American system of propaganda, Edward Bernays' 1928 book Propaganda.

The theory cannot be made convincingly in a few posts here. The challenge is to prove the existence of a system of propaganda the key evidence of which is the absence of certain topics and frameworks of debate.

To underline your points about Edward Bernays, smoking and the power of mass media propaganda:

The whole documentary "The Century of the Self" is an excellent documentary all about propaganda and public relations and well worth the time spent.

You can find it here:

http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCu...uryoftheSelf_0

"Ever wonder why there isn't a "peak oil versus no peak oil" debate in the media? I believe the answer is in the AGW misdirection.

Interesting idea I'll live with that one for a while.

For example, why is this issue is not openly debated in the US as it is in other countries?

Yes. Contrast with Harry "bullet magnet" Windsor for example:

His uncle Prince Andrew flew helicopters in combat in the Falklands.

Say what you want about the Royals but they instinctively know that they have to earn the respect of their "subjects" .

I'll admit, I bought into the AGW view wholeheartedly in the beginning. But I also have a slightly different view, though yours seems correct as well.

At first, I heard about Goldman Sachs buying into some derivatives market/exchange regarding carbon credits. Another Ponzi scheme, I thought.

And then I read about the conflict between Obama and China at Copenhagen...

And so, I thought, "who benefits?" China, and many other large manufacturing/polluting nations also have cheap currencies. One way to affect that trade advantage was to make the manufacturing process expensive. To "even out" the advantage. Environmental regs are a convenient tool for that end. In some way, it accomplishes the same thing a stronger yuan would.

As for Goldman Sachs and the carbon credits exchange - that screamed at me. How obvious the deception, and how easily I bought into it.

That screamed at me also gnk - very loudly.

Imagine the power: everyone on planet Earth needs so called carbon credits in order to trade and function. As Goldman Sachs you manage to finegle your self into a position where you have the power to administrate (and create?) these units.

It seems to me it's exactly the same concept as the power to issue money; to create billions of dollars at a computer keyboard by pressing the zero key.

The only thing that changes is the name; "carbon credit" instead of "dollar" what remains is exactly the same: conjuring a monopoly of power over everyone else on the planet from thin air.

Smells very much like this to me:

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812)

So I came to yet another view (which is currently):

Climate change is real but it's been co-opted as a tool for the profit of the financial elite.

Makes sense, it's far, far more powerful to co-opt and harness the huge momentum of a pre-existing cultural conversation which has years of scientific research and popular sentiment on it's side than to attempt to concoct and propagate a new cultural story from scratch. (Though that appeared to work quite well with the pig flu scam)

The whole business is not a binary choice but a lot more insidious with various shades of nuance which have to be carefully parsed. We now live in Orwell's world of newspeak.

In my view, the main danger here is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Cheers,
bagginz


"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. Howe...ver, take it away from them, and all the fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this world would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of the Bankers and pay for the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."

Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, the second richest man in Britain.