Re: 2016 Election
 

I really don't know why everyone seems to be criticizing Donald's cabinet picks.

There's Ben Carson a retired brain surgeon for Housing Secretary.

Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education who favours private schools over public schools

Andy Puzder for Secretary of Labour and CEO of a fast food chain who thinks robots could replace workers in that industry, against any raise in the minimum wage and believes that more immigrant should be allowed in as cheap labour

Just lately David Friedman as ambassador to Israel who supports continued building of settlements on Palestinian land and against any idea of a two state solution.

It all makes perfect sense to me. Why the whinging ?

Re: 2016 Election
 

They couldn't even of they wanted to.

Re: 2016 Election
 

I hope you're attempting to be funny because if not, that's a level of ignorance that would make a conservative jealous.

Re: 2016 Election
 

The American economy was built on tariffs. Hamilton believed in tariffs, so did Lincoln. They existed until the so called free market policies of Ronald Reagan (which are really slave market policies). Virtually every country in the world implements some sort of tariffs. You can't sell in China unless you build in China, Japan keeps imports out with all types of red tape. What do you think Brexit is about? If England leaves it won't be able to trade freely with Europe. Europe is a closed market.

At the present time every two years we import a trillion dollars worth of imports. Totally unnecessary and eventually it will bankrupt us. Our most pressing economic problem is our trade deficit.

Re: 2016 Election
 

How did Smoot-Hawley work out?

Trade between the EU and the non-EU is governed by WTO rules (except in cases where the EU has negotiated other trade treaties) just as trade between the US and China is.

Re: 2016 Election
 

Trump doesn't always get his own way

Woman wins right to sue Donald Trump’s golf course over filming - The Scotsman

His original court date was today
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...privacy-breach

Re: 2016 Election
 

Smoot-Hawley is a red herring.

The Depression occurred because of the lack of circulation of money due to the restrictive policies of the Federal Reserve. We spent out of the Depression because of WWII.

We recently imposed a 500% tariff on Chinese steel and surprise the steel companies are hiring. Who knew???

Re: 2016 Election
 

There's broad consensus that Smoot Hawley worsened and lengthened the Great Depression even if it wasn't the original cause. The economy bottomed in 1933, well before the second world war, although I agree that it didn't completely recover until WWII.

"Economists still agree that Smoot-Hawley and the ensuing tariff wars were highly counterproductive and contributed to the depth and length of the global Depression"

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newse...e20130325a.htm

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-t...ver-1446594209

Anti-dumping penalties that will likely be upheld by the WTO. That's not what Trump is proposing.

Re: 2016 Election
 

When nuclear power goes awry, then that's what it looks like.

You can't ignore the nasty bits just because they are inconvenient. Nor would I presume that we will not eventually have another incident that is even worse.

Re: 2016 Election
 

Smoot-Hawley was more of a reaction than a cause. When economies contract, their trade tends to decrease because their spending is falling, anyway.

The Depression was prolonged because nations throughout the west allowed their banks to collapse. Central banks have since figured this out, and the impacts of 2008-9 were reduced due to efforts that were made to prevent their banking systems from imploding.

Re: 2016 Election
 

There have only been two level 7 nuclear accidents in human history. Once due to human error during an experiment and once due to a natural disaster and poor reactor placement. Chernobyl directly killed 56 people and there were no direct deaths from radiation exposure at Fukushima, whereas pollution from coal-fired power plants accounts for 13,000 additional deaths per year (per a 2010 study by the Clean Air Task Force). In terms of deaths per trillion kWh, nuclear power is the safest form of generation in the world. Reactor technology is improving to the point where it will be increasingly unlikely we'll see another Fukushima and it's almost certainly unlikely we'll see another Chernobyl. No, the only problem with nuclear energy is that we, being the primitive, stupid species that we are, decided to weaponize it.

Nuclear power generation produces no CO2 emissions and we can safely manage the waste. If you ask me, it's far less environmentally sound to continue to rely on coal and oil based power generation than it is to go nuclear, at least as a stopgap solution until there is better and more widespread renewable energy being used, or someone finally gets a handle on cold fusion.

Re: 2016 Election
 

You can't just blow off the worst case scenario when the worst case is that bad. There is more to risk management than just averages.

Nor can you dismiss the causes. Humans make errors, so it can be expected that other errors can and would occur if given the opportunity. Natural disasters are, well, natural. (And why would you not attribute the construction of a reactor in a seismic zone near ocean water to an example of disastrous human error?)

The catastrophic failure rate thus far has been about 1 in 200, and I would expect this figure to get worse over time as reactors age and the inevitable mistakes occur. Would you want to keep a bomb in your house that has a 1 in 200 chance of detonating?

Re: 2016 Election
 

Nuclear power is safer and cleaner than power generated using fossil fuels. Until renewable energy becomes more efficient and widespread or until cold fusion becomes a reality, if you want to reduce carbon output, nuclear power has to be a consideration. Reactor technology is improving, and safety will also improve.

Don't let fear and misinformation cloud your judgement, because I would much rather see things being done now to act against the very real and present danger that is climate change, than let a potential avenue for vastly reducing CO2 emissions and providing 'clean' power generation be dismissed over worst case scenarios and bad practices for plant building and operation in the 1970s and 1980s.

Is, for example, a potential level 5 incident that might happen in the next 25 years more of a threat than climate change, which is already happening, has been for the last 20 years and is only going to get worse? I say no.

Re: 2016 Election
 

Wrong on so many levels. Safe waste disposal? A pipe dream. The overwhelming amount of waste is still stored on site in cooling tanks. The cost to build..now at 9 billion. Decommissioning..from half a billion and up if you are lucky..


The Cost of Nuclear Power | Union of Concerned Scientists
9 billion would provide 300,000 homes with a 5kwh solar panel system. And that is before the price reduction that would occur from economies of scale.

Only nuclear power has the potential for making vast swaths of land uninhabitable for thousands of years...or water supplies unusable. Look up Indian Point...the disaster waiting to happen on the Hudson River...that would effect 20 million people and could render most of NYC unin habitable.

You can keep your nuclear power.

Re: 2016 Election
 

I suppose it's easy not to care when you'll be dead before the real effects of climate change start to happen.