politics

Sept 26 Presidential Debate Thread

1,143 Comments

beforedebateThe debate between you-know-who and who-sy-whats-it starts at 9 pm eastern time. I’m sure the networks will carry at least one hour of pre-debate commentary, and post debate commentary. Likely we’ll even be told what the two candidates just said as re-telling the debate seems to be a thing newscasters do. Possibly we’ll see quick polls of reaction and so on and so on. Feel free to post your comments here.

(Note: the percentages are from Nate Silver’s “nowcast” and “forecast”.)

Update: Comments now includes a discussion of ECAT. Adrian Ashfield has told us about this exciting opportunity, so I’ve sent for information on investing. I’ll let you know if ECAT replies.
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1,143 thoughts on “Sept 26 Presidential Debate Thread”

  1. My predictions. No matter what happens the legacy media will either state that Clinton was brilliant or that she did very well with a couple of minor stumbles. Trump will be described as pick your “phobia” (xenophobic et cet.) racist, stupid person who lied on multiple occasions. Also, very likely that Trump will make several cringeworthy juvenile digs at someone.

    If Trump does well with voters at large, the legacy media will still miscast the debate.

    JD

  3. SteveF I won’t watch it live. May watch it on youtube. No matter how stupid any statement may be all that matters is the totality of the debate — no reason to torture myself in real time. If I watched it live, I would almost surely be tempted to destroy my tv set.

    JD

  4. I thought Jim was going to be in “the sanctum” while I watched in the living room. But he pointed out that I didn’t need to big tv for the debate. Meanwhile, the larger screen will be useful for watching Penny Dreadful.

    I’m up here… Dancing with the stars is ending.

  6. I have a sewing room. Jim has a “man cave” room which we call the “sanctum”. It’s just a room with a book shelf, couch, recliner, table, rug and…. tv. It’s across from the sewing room.

    Anyway, mostly it’s for when we don’t want to watch the same tv show.

  9. Her cloths are not good, but not as bad as I had expected. Sort of like a strawberry skin without the seeds.

  11. I love red!!! Given possible range of choices, it’s probably the best she could pick.

    * contrasts with background.
    * needs to be red white or blue.
    * all white is out.

  12. HaroldW Smart move. (lol) I am taking a walk, which is even safer. Curious to see what transpires after I am back.

  31. Oddly though….. I think that story hangs together. He does throw out stupid “well whatevers…..” early on. Then gives out a more thought out answer.

    Of course this is part of his temperament. Which is not his strong suit.

  33. I missed some in the middle but from what I saw I’d estimate that was a draw.

    RB, you were right. That debate didn’t change my mind; I might as well have not watched it.

    [edit: hmm, still one more question]

  36. Hilary did what she needed to do. She looked healthy. She dealt with questions about not being on the campaign stump for a while very well.

    Trump did not convert the openings available to him and blathered about birther thing when he should have moved off it.

    She’s going to win.

  37. I’d say at least a temporary arresting of the polls slide. My prediction for hit line for Hillary:Yes, I prepared for the debate. I prepared to be President. For Trump: And they’d squander it (i.e., the taxes).

  38. I caught snippets, just by chance, of Trump talking about creating jobs and businesses being overtaxed. Didn’t really get the specifics of his policy (if he really has one), but in terms of being effective with the average voter, I thought it was effective because it was delivered with enthusiasm. This is a major concern of many people. Clinton, on the other hand said that studies supported her view. In my experience with juries, it isn’t effective for a speaker to distance herself from her contentions. If Trump didn’t have a major gaffe, he probably won the debate in terms of obtaining votes because less people will be afraid of him as being reckless and unreliable.

    ….
    As to who won the debate, we will see how the polls go in 3 or 4 days.

    JD

  39. I think Hillary is very satisfied with her performance. Her best line was when Trump referred to her health, and she responded saying he’s attacking me for preparing for the debates, taking health issues off the table.

    Big issue is Trump has to appear not racist and not crazy, and Hillary has to appear not a liar and not crooked. I don’t think either achieved that, but Trump a little better.

    Also the opening questions helps Trump solidify Republican voters.
    His biggest benefit in the debate was maybe later when Hillary gets asked about cybersecurity, and she is talking about hacking and a special prosecutor.

  40. JD Ohio,

    He was ok at the beginning when Holt pretty much just let them start by giving whatever vision they wanted to give.

    But he just didn’t think well on his feet once real questioning happened and he needed to respond to Clinton. He missed openings. He didn’t hit where he needed to. He tried to over talk in a way that often looked bad.

    He could have brought up emails after Clinton discussed cyber stressing that that was a cyber security issue. He could have responded to her “11 hours in front of congress” response to stamina with “well, I don’t plan to ever need that sort of congressional grilling because I don’t plan to evade set up my own private brew servers, or fire people from the travel office or….. well… whatever.’

    He could have turned those things. But he didn’t. Either it was lack of preparation (which is not good) or it was lack of stamina on his part (too tired to catch things and bring back a good response) or lack of mental agility. But he missed things in a live debate.

    Did he hurt himself much? Dunno. The main thing is he had to not look crazy. He might have managed that. It’s a low threshold, but it might be all he needed.

  41. I don’t know how people view his excessive interrupting – perhaps Hillary supporters might interpret it as bullying behavior, his supporters as him being strong.

  42. RB,
    I don’t know how they will view the constant attempts to talk over.

    That’s not the real problem. I think he would have been better finding the right thing to say rather than just trying to talk over Clinton. I think he spoke when he should have been thinking.

  43. Lucia: “But he just didn’t think well on his feet once real questioning happened and he needed to respond to Clinton. He missed openings. He didn’t hit where he needed to. He tried to over talk in a way that often looked bad.”

    …. I will have to look at debate. However, in my mind, even if that is the case, he is much improved from what he was. I think his comments on stop & frisk will hurt him with Black voters, but that policy, he is probably correct in that it has probably saved a lot of lives. I also think that the birther issue is total garbage at this stage of the game, and is merely a wedge issue.

    ….Also, when you think of Clinton saying she was preparing for the debate and that is why she was off of the campaign trail, I question the accuracy of that statement. How many previous presidential candidates have done the small amount of campaigning that she has done (none that I can think of in my memory) and yet they all had to debate at least since Kennedy/Nixon.

    …. In any event, in briefly looking at the summaries, I think this was a good exchange by Trump on an important issue:

    …” “You’ve been doing this for 30 years; why are you just thinking about these solutions now?” Trump said in talking about ways to create jobs.

    “I have thought about this quite a bit,” Clinton countered.

    “Yeah, for 30 years,” Trump responded. ” ….

    ….
    At the end of writing this, I just realized that immigration was not discussed at all apparently. Very interesting to me that it never came up. Almost certainly, it will come up in the remaining debates.

    JD

  44. JD Ohio

    I also think that the birther issue is total garbage at this stage of the game, and is merely a wedge issue.

    Sure. But he babbled to use up his 2 minutes. Then it went to Hilary-. And then when things came back to him… for no good reason he talked about it more. That was dumb.

    I agree her reason for not being on the campaign trail was not prepping. And that was possibly the time for Trump to say something about health.

    Trump had some well prepared lines. He even had some good points. He just didn’t deliver them well or insert them when he should. His timing was off.

    As I said: I don’t know how much that will matter to people deciding on their vote. In fact, in principle, it’s better for people to look at transcripts and focus on the points and not the timing and delivery. But.. his timing wasn’t good. And he missed making points when they needed to be made.

  45. Lucia: “Sure. But he babbled to use up his 2 minutes. Then it went to Hilary-. And then when things came back to him… for no good reason he talked about it more. That was dumb.”

    …. I agree 100% with your comment. Trump could easily say he is not disputing it now, and that he wants to talk about the future and not the past and simply move on. On a higher level that I doubt he is capable of doing, he could have also said that this is a symbolic/wedge issue now and that because the Democrats have no answer to the economic issues of Black people, they are bringing up this non-issue.

    JD

  46. “As to who won the debate, we will see how the polls go in 3 or 4 days.
    JD”

    ############

    I couldnt stand to watch him miss the openings.
    –look say what you like about me, but I have never attacked
    women who made claims about rape and called them bimbos
    and I have never worked to discredit women who made
    serious sexual charges against a family member. There are
    limits.I may have spoken brashly or rashly and said things
    I regret, but I’m not the one who defended your husband
    by cooking up lies about a great right ring conspiracy, I never
    hired PIs to hound women like you did, and I dont take money
    from countries who treat women like slaves, or make deals
    with repressive counties like you do. Your horrible deeds trump
    my silly comments

    anyway..

    Tonight may move never trumpers and independents.
    The expectations for him were really low, and high for her.
    So he won the expectation war by not being a buffoon

  48. Trump, BTW, denied saying that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese (I posted the twitter link here once upon a time). Also, I didn’t understand the reference to his 10 year old son in the context of hacking. It seemed like a mention that went nowhere.

  49. Mosher,
    Yep. When she got him on sexism, he should have brought up Juanita Broderick, Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, and on and on and on. And how Hillary was an enabler on this.

    Trump is a sexist. But Hillary will bury women if they are in her way.

    But… no. On that he gives her kid gloves.

    RB

    Also, I didn’t understand the reference to his 10 year old son in the context of hacking. It seemed like a mention that went nowhere.

    Using my finely honed powers of mind reading I suspect he was *thinking* something along the lines of “it could be anyone”. Let me assemble some of the scattered junk

    She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I don’t — maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?

    You don’t know who broke in to DNC.
    […]
    So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is — it is a huge problem. I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly doable.

    Now… there’s a log of ramble in the […] because he wanted to get a dig in about what was found when they hacked. But to me, it looks like he’s going on about how the hacks could be anyone. He comes back to the idea of “anyone”, and the example of “anyone” he thinks of is a 10 year old kid. He uses his kid, but really… hackers really do end up being all sorts of people.

    That’s how I parsed it. To do that, you need to recognize he goes off on tangents, comes back. It’s scatty way of communicating, but it is his way.

  52. Oh.. it’s an online poll.

    Probably the work of a 400 lb hacker sitting on the bed. Or a 10 year old boy.

    Is the CNN one online too? That would be the same 400 lb hacker or 10 year old boy just having us on.

  53. Lucia: “Oh.. it’s an online poll.

    Probably the work of a 400 lb hacker sitting on the bed. Or a 10 year old boy.”

    ….I disagree to some extent. The online polls are obviously not scientific, but as of this time 772,000 votes were cast on the Time poll. It could be a very rough gauge of enthusiasm. I don’t think these polls are totally worthless.
    ….
    Also, From Latimes: “What we learned in the first presidential debate: Clinton is making the election a referendum on Trump.” If so, she is almost certainly a sure loser.

    JD

  54. Stupid NYTs. “But when just one candidate is serious and the other is a vacuous bully, the term loses all meaning.” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/27/opinion/an-ugly-campaign-90-minute-version.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region&region=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region

    …. It is garbage like this, repeated and repeated, that I believe has motivated some people (unfortunately me) to vote against Clinton and the delusional Left. The more extreme and delusional the attacks are, I believe the more it strengthens him.

    JD

  55. I’m going to wear a red pants suit for Halloween.
    .
    Seriously though, I didn’t see any content to persuade the already decided. The character aspects were most interesting. As noted, Trump didn’t defend himself well against the many attacks and innuendos. On the other hand, he could give statistics while Hilary (or her staff) has them on a webpage somewhere.
    .
    Hilary came across like a lawyer from a TV drama, especially one with the judge leaning her way. She reminded me of the defense attorney in Broadchurch season two (British), if you’ve seen that. The kind that gives lawyers a bad name.
    .
    Hilary is fighting the demonized Trump. Trump has to get the real Trump out there, despite how hard that is.

  56. Regarding birther issue, I think Trump was just trying to run out the clock on the debate any way he could at that point.
    I thought it was a nice twist of saying he was doing Obama a favor, but no one appears to have caught his meaning, or the reporters pretended they didn’t.

    I thought he would jump in on ISIS, and Hillary saying they had to be stopped by talking about how she would bring ISIS here.

    Also surprised he didn’t jump from cybersecurity to saying she IS the cybersecurity problem. However, I think just having her talk about it is pretty bad for her. Just like how the DNC hack, since it involved e-mail, people probably thought it was the same e-mails that Hillary was involved with.

  57. JD Ohio,
    Oh… I’m not voting for Hilary. I’m still in the “neither” camp. Trump didn’t do well enough go get my vote.

    but as of this time 772,000 votes were cast on the Time poll. It could be a very rough gauge of enthusiasm.

    I’m not trusting online polls until I read and learn what they do to avoid automated voting by bots. Volume isn’t a sign against their voting; it would be entirely consistent with bots. In fact really fast voting would be suspiciously bot like.

    We’ll know in a day or two. Phone polls aren’t perfect, but they aren’t ‘bots.

  59. JD, what did you think of Trump’s ‘not an admission of guilt’?

    And have you ever watched Suits?

  60. I am not surprised that more people thought Trump won. Clinton and the media have put so much effort into depicting Trump as an completely uninformed madman that they gave him a very low bar to clear. He might very well have “won” just by not sounding like a completely uninformed madman.

    Am I the only one who noticed that Clinton insisted on referring to Trump as “Donald”? I don’t think she said “Mr. Trump” once (at least not until I turned it off after about an hour). Even after Trump called her “Secretary Clinton” and made a point of asking her if it was OK to address her that way.

    But then, I am old enough to remember the “Mr. Ford” flap.

  61. I am so frustrated in the lack of articulation by Trump. All Hillary had to do is smile and delight in his struggle to win the contest of demeanor, which is all the uniformed viewers look at. As pointed out Trump obviously did no special preparation. We will see if he corrects this by the next debate. I don’t have high hopes.
    .
    Trump could have pointed out that what made America great was unleashing ambitions of enterprise where anyone believed they could move up with hard work and new ideas. Onerous regulations and taxes quash that environment creating real and perceived gates and tools by those in power to be arbitrarily used to thwart rivals. Having a law mandating equal pay for women sound like a great idea until one figures out how this plays out in real life. The stimulation of competition and enterprise will level the playing field faster than any new gates or laws.

  62. I got the Trump line right. However, he also thereby let the suggestion pass that he was hiding his tax returns because he possibly didn’t pay taxes for many years; in fact reinforced it by saying that would make him smart. May not move the needle for either camp.

  64. RB,

    My view on taxes is: the tax code is what it is. Everyone should consider ways to reduce their own taxes using legal breaks available to them (without turning your finances into a nightmare. I have stories of people who did silly things.)

    WRT to Trump: (a) he is a business person and (b) he is in real estate. The two combined means that if he is running his business properly, he will often have lots of tax write offs, “breaks” and so on. In fact, congress has specifically written things into the tax code to “encourage” certain types of development. All those involved in real estate need to be aware of these and use these.

    So of course there will be years in which he did not pay taxes. I’m not troubled by this one bit.

    I also think it is super-uber-hyper hypocritical of Clinton who set up a foundation that employs her “staff” and family, operates to promote her and funds many activities she might otherwise be out of pocket for to criticize anyone for avoiding taxes.

    So for me: Trump not paying taxes is not a ding against him. If anything it is in his favor.

    That said: his verbal response was not wonderful. I’m not sure what he can do to present this to be wonderful– unless he does it outside the debate. Preferably, he should have made the case that it is legitimate to use the tax code Congress has written and point out that business men can, do and will, and he should have done so well before a debate. Not everyone will buy it, but some will. But really, to make the case effectively he would have needed to release his tax forms. Which he did not.

    On the balance, he is doing badly on this issue even though he might not actually be “wrong” on the issue.

  65. Lucia,
    You are correct that it is legal. But it could be bad optics for people earning < 100K and paying much higher taxes. Trump did talk about ending the "carried interest" tax rules which actually is a leftist position.

  66. Lucia,

    I think you are correct. Trump is definitely hiding something by not releasing his tax returns. He is hiding the fact that he is obeying our idiotic tax laws. I agree that he seems to be handling it badly. I think he out to use it as a springboard to argue for the need to simplify the tax code.

    But maybe he is not handling it badly. Didn’t P.T. Barnum say that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the public?

  67. It is possible that what Trump is hiding is something unrelated to his tax returns, but by not releasing his tax returns he keeps people from searching elsewhere.

  68. RB
    For some reason, some people don’t like the idea that people who make a lot of money might avoid taxes. So yes, it could be bad “optics” which is why someone has to deal with it head on evade it. Trump is going with evade which means his strategy in a debate is limited to “run out the clock” or “quip”. That’s why he did badly.

    It’s worth nothing: many of same people who thinks a business man not paying taxes looks bad very often support all sorts of tax breaks or incentives for “good” things the government wants done or wants people to do. These things include, but are not limited to: Tax breaks, incentives and write offs for: building low income housing, investing in ‘renewable energy’, (solar panels, battery technology, wind and so on), for donations to ( ‘correct type of) charities, interest on home loans and setting aside property is various sorts of “nature preserves”. The list could go on.

    As long as these breaks exist, a logical answer to criticism that one paid no taxes can be “Yes. I got that break because I was helping the government achieve it’s goal of ‘x’. That is: I was doing work for the US tax payer, and tax payers ‘pay’ private individuals to do that ‘work’ by erasing their taxes taxes.”

    Currently, this is probably not a useful political answer– or it isn’t yet. But it could be turned into one if introduced earlier. It can’t be turned into one during the ‘on the fly’ of a debate. Especially not by Trump who most certainly lacks eloquence and is not nimble on his feet during a debate.

    Trump certainly didn’t give this answer. But I can assure you there are plenty of people who do know this is the answer. That others don’t is certainly true. But the fact is, the ‘tax’ question isn’t going to hurt him as much as some people think.

    Should he release his taxes? I’d sure like to see them. But I don’t hold his paying nothing in taxes — if that’s what happened– against him. (I also don’t hold his starting with daddy’s money against him.)

  69. I don’t know when Trump’s audit will end. If it ends during the debates, and he is actually willing to release his taxes – and what could be on them that really would hurt him? – he could have a devastating comeback in one of the debates. “I just released them five minutes ago: there’s a button now to get them on my website. _As I’ve said all along_, my lawyers advised me not to release them till the audit was over. You’ll see that I had nothing to hide; I saved myself every penny I could by every trick I could, just like everyone else does.
    “But you, Secretary Clinton – now that I’ve released mine, are you going to release yours? Your missing emails, deleted or smashed with a hammer? Transcripts of all the speeches you gave to Wall Street? But you do have something to hide, right? Put up or shut up, Secretary Clinton.”

  70. Mike N,

    what Trump is hiding is something unrelated to his tax returns, but by not releasing his tax returns he keeps people from searching elsewhere.

    No idea what he’s hiding. I have an active imagination, so the hypothetical list is endless. For all I know he thinks information in his tax code could help people who might want to sue him in some way. And I don’t even mean merely that information might create a winnable case– it might merely create a case that could pass summary judgement (or whatever the threshold is. JD?)

    So he might hiding information from people who want to sue him for any number of possible torts. These things come up all the time in business, and he has a big business. (We already know there are people claiming he stiffed them. I haven’t heard detailed stories. There may be something in these stories, or, it may be that Trump industries is mostly in the right. Or there could be things somewhere in between on these. I have no idea.)

  71. It could be the case that he’s hiding business-related information, although the zero tax (despite the rules) might still be bad optics. Romney’s 15% didn’t come off all that well either and creates an opening for “the rich are not paying their fair share”.
    Having said that, Trump’s golfing and other sporting habits do reveal a competitiveness that is not exactly what we call fair play. McEnroe was competitive and apparently his boys gave up tennis when their father wouldn’t lose to them (McEnroe said he would have tanked if there was at least a semblance of closeness), but Trump apparently went further with his kids (NY Mag).

    The kids agree that there’s a lot of sibling rivalry. “We were sort of bred to be competitive,” says Ivanka. “Dad encourages it. I remember skiing with him and we were racing. I was ahead, and he reached his ski pole out and pulled me back.”

    Eric laughs. “He would try to push me over, just so he could beat his 10-year-old son down the mountain.”

  72. Taxes: Simple Response. All Trump has to do is say he worked for his money (partly true) but that the Clintons have made $125,000,000 or $150,000,000 simply giving speeches, which is really allowing the elites to pay for influence.

    ….
    Lucia, you are right that it is not unusual for people in real estate to be able to avoid income taxes. (Trump could point out that he pays a ton in property taxes.) In fact, I have a friend who probably makes $750,000 per year in the real estate business and one year he was technically, legitimately eligible for the earned income tax credit. Also, about 4 years ago, I received notice from the IRS that I might be eligible for it (I have several LLCs and separate businesses like my friend) At the time, I didn’t feel right taking advantage of it, but I would do it now.

    JD

  73. >So yes, it could be bad “optics” which is why someone has to deal with it head on evade it.

    John Edwards never had to deal with saving hundreds of thousands in Medicare taxes by collecting his salary thru company dividends instead of a paycheck.

  74. Trump releasing tax returns: If he is elected, I don’t think he has any legal obligation to release them. They are probably harmful enough that he wouldn’t want to. I will make clear that as a matter of policy, I think all Presidential candidates should be required to release their tax returns.

    Lucia– summary judgment: Don’t understand your question. Summary judgment occurs during the course of a lawsuit when the facts are so clear that no trial is required. There may be facts in Trump’s returns that could aid others, but until specific lawsuits are filed they wouldn’t be relevant to summary judgment motion because summary judgment only applies to ongoing lawsuits.

    JD

  75. RB,
    You can’t always gauge these things by games with kids– or at least not unless you or someone watched the whole thing. If Eric Trump remembers the races with joy– which he seems to based on his laughing– something fun was going on.

  76. MikeM: “Am I the only one who noticed that Clinton insisted on referring to Trump as “Donald”? ”

    ….This was an obvious ploy to make Trump appear smaller. I definitely noticed it. In my trial experience, juries hate ploys like this. (Realize debate isn’t a trial though) For example, one famous trial lawyer, Irving Younger, lost a case in substantial part because the jury became incensed that Younger mistreated his young assistant lawyer by flicking papers at him and disrespecting him during the course of a trial. (So, the jury penalized Younger’s client for mistreating a person working on the same side of the case.) If it was me, I would have called Clinton “Secretary” during the whole debate and then would have zinged her for her disrespect towards the end or after the debate. By disrespecting Trump, she is disrespecting his supporters.

    JD

  77. JD

    Lucia– summary judgment: Don’t understand your question. Summary judgment occurs during the course of a lawsuit when the facts are so clear that no trial is required.

    I was definitely not clear (partly due to not knowing somethings.)
    My thought is that Trump may be aware there are people who believe they have gripes.

    Those people might well hold off suing if they have zero information to present to court. In fact, their lawyers would advise that their suits are probably a waste of time.

    But it’s hypothetically possible (I think) that having lots of information about his business aired could result in some people having enough information to get past summary judgement in suits they might contemplate filing– or which were worth filing.

    In which case: some people who currently will not file suits — because lawyers advise them it’s a waste of time— may be emboldened to do so if they think they find a nugget they can use to get past summary judgement in the case they might want to file. In which case, given new information that can be brought forward, their lawyer might now judge that the case has at least a bats chance in hell (or even a good chance) of at least getting to discover and so on.

    If these people– who have not filed and will not absent evidence in their favor– did file, this would be very expensive for Trump. My thought is such information might appear in tax filings. (Or not. I don’t know.)

    So– not an issue of any suit that already has been filed. But information being ‘out there’ might be useful for those who may have or think they may have cases.

  78. MikeN “JD, what did you think of Trump’s ‘not an admission of guilt’?”

    Am assuming this came up in debate with respect to settlements of racial discrimination/rental lawsuits. Most, if not all, of these occurred more than 15 years ago. I doubt that Trump was intimately involved in what occurred although wouldn’t be surprised if his businesses were. So, No. 1, he has a reasonable excuse/explanation. No. 2, I think they were so long ago, they shouldn’t matter. I would be curious what the press would find if they delved into what Clinton and her law firm did in the 70s & 80s. Or, what Clinton did when she was on the board of directors for Walmart.

    JD
    …
    MikeN “And have you ever watched Suits?” Sorry, never heard of it.

  80. JD Ohio

    I would be curious what the press would find if they delved into what Clinton and her law firm did in the 70s & 80s.

    Oy….

  81. Lucia: “But information being ‘out there’ might be useful for those who may have or think they may have cases.”

    …I agree that information may make it easier for Trump to be sued. Again, that would have virtually nothing to do with summary judgment per se. You can have a very good, easily winnable lawsuit, but still not be entitled to summary judgment. However, my guess is that the main reason for not releasing the returns is how little he paid and that he undoubtedly gamed the system.

    JD

  82. JD Ohio

    If it was me, I would have called Clinton “Secretary” during the whole debate

    It might have been effective for him to just say “I notice you’ve been addressing me as Donald. We’re fine, since we’re friends. Do you mind if I call you Hillary during the debate?”

  84. But I thought Trump did call Clinton “Secretary” during the entire debate (at least, the hour I watched). I thought he handled it perfectly when he asked Clinton if it was OK if he called her that. That called attention to “Donald” without seeming the slightest bit thin skinned.

  85. Mike M.

    I agree that he did not appear think skinned. And I noticed the comment. But I didn’t notice she called him Donald while watching the debate.

    I admit I was probably typing, or googling to fact check. But I would hardly have been the only one to be doing that. Sometimes a heavier hand is required; sometimes a lighter hand is required. I think explicitly pointing out she called him Donald would have helped. Of course, he had to do it in a not grumpy way, but it needed to be more obvious to those watching.

  86. “Oy….”
    Jump forward a few years from the Trump lawsuit…

    JD, a plot element of the pilot episode of Bull, with a jury getting mad at a lawyer for making his assistant carry all the papers. The premise of the show seems rather thin though, with a star jury consultant.

  87. I thought Trump emphasized ‘Secretary’ and it was part of his attempt to portray her as the political insider.

  88. Bob Dole started one debate complaining that Bill Clinton didn’t call George Bush Mr President four years prior. Not helpful.

    I think Donald is trying to paint Mrs Clinton as a secretary, while he is the boss.

  90. MikeN: “JD, a plot element of the pilot episode of Bull, with a jury getting mad at a lawyer for making his assistant carry all the papers.”

    ….They undoubtedly pulled this from the real life incident.

    JD

  93. Still haven’t watched entire debate. However, this looks like fair criticism of Trump by Podhoretz. http://nypost.com/2016/09/27/trumps-debate-incompetence-a-slap-in-the-face-to-his-supporters/

    ….
    On the other hand, voters don’t decide on the basis of technical debating points. The polls in several days will really show who won. I will say in my mind the kryptonite for Trump is immigration. He has to defend the idea that the US shouldn’t have unlimited immigration (really not that hard), but he has to be careful not to offend groups that are comprised of large numbers of immigrants. (Difficult for Trump, but not for me. I would simply say that most illegal entrants are good people, but the US can’t take everyone who wants to come. Probably because he doesn’t know many Mexican-Americans, this appears to be very difficult for him.) If Trump screws this up, he will cause a huge upsurge in Hispanic voting, which would be very harmful to his campaign.

    JD

  94. I don’t think the polls show who wins the debate. It is a matter of who does more to win the election. Hillary portraying Trump as incompetent would give her the win even if he scores points on lots of issues. Trump portraying himself as capable, even if Hillary wins on points would win him the election.

  95. lucia:

    I agree that he did not appear think skinned.

    I didn’t mean to watch the debate (I was going to avail myself of football), but I got sucked into it.

    Clinton seemed to have gotten under his skin. After about 25 minutes, there’s a shift from what I would describe as “soft-spoken preacher Donald” to “coke-addled crazy Donald”. Even my friends who are voting for Trump (and think the questions were unfair because they discussed other things than Clinton’s email server, as if this were the only thing we should ever talk about) think he lost his cool. CNN does too:

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4520911/Politics/losing_your_cool.png

    RB: IMO, Scott Adam’s theory has been falsified.

  97. Trump could have spun his 2006 comment on the housing better instead of merely interrupting i.e., empathized with the losses to people but defended his business judgement in not getting caught up in the party like many big banks and having cash available for buying low. Its almost like Trump was imitating the split screen TV panels where panelists scream over each other.

  98. MikeN:

    Trump portraying himself as capable, even if Hillary wins on points would win him the election.

    I don’t think he did though.

    Generally I agree with your comments though.

    The real audience that Clinton was addressing wasn’t people who’ve already made their minds up, but people who are still undecided. The question is how did they react and what did they see?

    Clinton is driven by political science and psychology. What she said and didn’t say was based on weeks of preparation. Any “suit” could have said most of what she said (and that may be the problem for her in this debate: The failure to connect on a personal level).

    Trump basically likes winging things. I’m not sure why he thinks he’s good at it.

    If he “won” the debate in the sense that MikeN framed it, then either political science and psychology don’t work (advertising theory seems to work pretty well so I doubt that), or the consultants that Clinton has hired, aren’t very good at it.

  99. Carrick

    Trump basically likes winging things. I’m not sure why he thinks he’s good at it.

    He sure as heck wasn’t good at it last night!

    You know— that might work in smaller settings where he can actually see his audience and also where he knows what he can afford to lose and what chips he has in his corner. After all, part of the “art of the deal” is to know that some deals are too expensive, and walking away is your best outcome. The other guys knows it too– and sometimes the best deal is no deal.

    Also, in his business, he could always be pursuing several avenues– getting someone to sell willingly, getting politicians to put pressure on and so on. That may be why he thinks he’s “good” at it.

  100. Carrick, did your friends not see any of Trump’s debates in the primaries? Particularly after Jeb tells him, “You can’t insult your way to the presidency.” and he ponders on it.

    That certainly looked restrained to me. I think your coke-addled preacher was his simultaneously trying to project control of the room, which is how he won the primaries.

    If he was thin-skinned, I think he would have responded to ‘not worth as much as we think’. I did hear something about financial disclosures and earnings of hundreds of millions, but it was not remotely like how he made the subject off limits for Comedy Central roasting.

  101. Carrick, Hillary still has to do what the psychologists want.
    Plus Trump is trying to do the same thing.

    Also, Hillary has to show she’s not crooked.

  102. If Hillary did this well , the expectations bar is likely even lower for Trump for the next debate. This was interesting.

    “He doesn’t seem like the standard political misdirection—not answering the question,” said Mr. Robinson, an independent. “He just seems like he doesn’t have any answers to it.”

  103. This is why I fear a Clinton administration. The hate and ignorance of the lawyers who would be writing regulations is truly frightening. (Having been in law school and having been exposed to radical feminism, this is where these regs are coming from) See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/09/27/lawyer-why-the-lower-standard-of-evidence-in-college-sexual-assault-cases-is-dangerous/#comments

    …I also made a comment at the Washington Post pointing out something that I am sure the drafters never considered. That if men are subject to a preponderance standard, the same should be applied to women.

    JD

  104. I should clarify on Title IX that the one instance I saw this applied was where a senior male at either UNC or Duke was denied his degree by the application of the preponderance standard. Currently, a federal district judge in North Carolina has enjoined the enforcement of the rule against the student. Don’t have time now to provide a link.

    …In a practical sense what this means is that any male who has a bad date with the wrong woman, no matter how innocent he may be is at risk of losing hundreds of thousands of dollars of college education tuition and other payments and his ability to engage in a trade requiring a college degree. And, there is no penalty (that I am aware of) to be applied against a woman who makes false charges. (Think Lena Dunham here)

    JD

  105. MikeN: I’m going to be a bit of a contrarian here and say I don’t think the reason Trump won in the primaries was because of his coke-addled angry uncle persona.

    I think he had an inside position from the start—as the only true outsider, but was well known by many. If you look at the response of Republican voters to the debate—generally those debates hurt him.

    Had he successfully kept the soft-spoken preacher I think he would have sewed up the primary race sooner.

    As I hinted above, I think Clinton’s problem is she’s as personable as a disposable plastic picnic cup. She’s knowledge, has an even temperament, but her trustworthiness and judgment certainly are things we should question.

    A more rational, articulate Donald could have worked that angle. But only if he could be seen as trustworthy and having good judgment himself first. Coke-addled angry Uncle Don spewing out word salad just draws more attention to what a lunatic he comes across when on stage.

    RB: I don’t buy the lower standards thing. The candidates are being graded on how well suited they are for president, especially among the swing voters who’ve yet to decide whether to vote or for whom.

  106. Carrick, we’ll have to disagree. I think highly important was Trump’s telling candidates to be quiet. Most important was ‘Oh yea, you’re real tough Jeb’. I’m convinced he shut down the debates not because of policy weaknesses being exposed in a smaller field but due to Ted Cruz mocking his interrupting.

  107. MikeN—I don’t think there’s much evidence in the polling data, that the debates benefited Trump. Not debating hurt him more than appearing for a debate, and I think this is the only reason he agreed to these debates.

    Whether there will be a second or a third debate remains to be seen. Were I him, I’d limit the damage to this one debate (I wouldn’t have even done a single debate).

    I really think his victory in the primaries, and his relatively close position in the presidential election, has more to do with political miscalculations on the part of his opponents as opposed to any clever political genius on his part.

  108. It appears that I’m not alone on the notion of skipping the other debates. Rudy Giuliani’s take is that,

    Donald Trump should skip the next two debates unless he gets special guarantees from the moderators, former New York mayor and top Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani told reporters after the debate.

  109. Giuliani appears to be miffed about questions on his policies. His objection seems to be about fact-checking Trump. But both parties have been working the refs before each debate. We probably won’t have any fact-checking by the moderator for the next debate.

  110. Maybe my memory was wrong about North Carolina case. Can’t find it after searching. However, there are already a good amount of cases dealing with this. See http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/colleges-go-to-court-over-sexual-assault

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/uva-grad-title-ix-lawsuit_us_57640874e4b015db1bc8ffc9

    Also, Catherine Lhamon who supervises these matters wrote a letter to Congress that said all that the Department of Education was doing was providing guidance (wink, wink), not rewriting rules.
    See https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2865231-Letter-To-Sen-Lankford-On-Title-IX-Guidance-May-20.html

    See also http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/11/amherst-student-was-expelled-for-rape-bu for an example of how tricky the preponderance standard can be.

    JD

  111. JD, even that standard is not needed. There was a quarterback, I think at Yale, who had accusation made against him that was bogus. Then all NFL teams received anonymous notice of these charges, and he went undrafted.

  112. RB,
    It’s probably best that the moderator not fact check.

    It’s difficult to do correctly while also moderating, it tends to look unbalanced on their part, moderators are sometimes not entirely right on their “facts” and there is plenty of fact checking going on quite quickly on social media.

  113. Michael Moore on the debate:

    If you’re watching this in your blue bubble u probably have no idea how this is playing in the living rooms & kitchenettes of middle America. It’s playing EXTREMELY WELL

  114. Lucia,
    You’re probably right, it might look better if candidates were on their toes and did some fact-checking on the spot. It can make audience lose trust in what the other person is saying.

  115. RB:

    Giuliani appears to be miffed about questions on his policies. His objection seems to be about fact-checking Trump. But both parties have been working the refs before each debate. We probably won’t have any fact-checking by the moderator for the next debate.

    I actually expect to see limited facts checking, as I think there is a place for it on the part of the moderator.

    It is not out of bounds, when a candidate repeatedly makes an assertion that is clearly false and which has been repeatedly challenged, to ask a follow up question.

    In other words, when you’re going to lie, make up new stuff, don’t keep repeating the old crap. Like Trump did by continuing to falsely assert he was always strongly against the war. (Seriously, this dude takes himself way too seriously and has entirely too much trouble handling even modest criticism.)

  116. Carrick: “It is not out of bounds, when a candidate repeatedly makes an assertion that is clearly false and which has been repeatedly challenged, to ask a follow up question.”

    …. In a general sense, your statement could be correct. However, the problem is that the legacy media is both biased and often times uninformed. Candy Crowley unfairly accused Mitt Romney of a clear error in one of his debates with Obama. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/10/17/crowley-intervention-as-moderator-in-chief-swung-debate-in-obama-favor.html There is no way for the moderator to fairly resolve disputed issues.

    Also, NBC news supposedly fact checked Trump’s statement that stop and frisk didn’t involve racial profiling and claimed that Trump was wrong. All that NBC relied on was one federal court trial decision — hardly a determinative and non-debatable opinion. See http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-presidential-debates/31-fact-checks-first-presidential-debate-n655156 This is typical Lefty stupid — there is some evidence in support of a proposition that the Left would like to be true. Then the Left takes the position that whatever it hopes to be true is true even though the support for the position is not anywhere near a certainty. If I was Trump, and I felt the moderators were assisting Clinton, I would tell the moderators to mind their own business or follow-up later, and if not, he would consider just walking out of the debate. Debate participation is voluntary, and if he considered it as going too far, he has a right to walk out. (AT a big risk to himself of course.)

    JD

  117. The way to get stop-and-frisk to be acceptable to everyone is to frame it as gun control and go after everyone who shouldn’t be possessing a gun including those who are not verified to be able to possess guns.

  118. Here is a snippet from the ruling and the leftist Cato Institute seems to agree with the ruling. The statistics on stops stand out:

    According to New York City Police Department (NYPD) records, officers’ “suspicion” has been wrong nearly nine times out of ten. And of the cases where cops thought there was sufficient evidence to make an arrest and proceed to court, more than half of those cases were dismissed before trial.

  119. Did you ever think you would hear a Republican candidate come out against free trade? Not opposition to a particular treaty, but against the principle. [Oops, rhetorical. My answer: no.]

    Protectionist rhetoric may garner support for Trump, but it’s a poor policy in my opinion.

  121. JD Ohio:

    If I was Trump, and I felt the moderators were assisting Clinton, I would tell the moderators to mind their own business or follow-up later, and if not, he would consider just walking out of the debate.

    .
    Actually, if a well prepared Trump had effectively and factually responded to Holt and put him in his place Trump would have gained extra bonus points from independents who are likely aware of MSM bias. Trump had been already forced to clarify his position on stop and frisk at least a week ago here that he only favored it for Chicago considering it’s high urban murder rate. Trump could have corrected Holt that if stop and frisk is only unconstitutional if done based on racial profiling. That does not rule out better ways to it as, for example, by local area crime density.

  122. Harold: “Protectionist rhetoric may garner support for Trump, but it’s a poor policy in my opinion.”
    .
    I agree. But I was happy to see Trump back up his position by pointing out the VAT tax that Canada and Mexico have acts like one-way tariff (at least for retail commerce.)
    .
    Trump may believe we can get better trade deals but still believes in making the deals.

  123. I only caught a bit of it but enough to trouble me:

    – Why did Trump not wear his normal red power-tie?
    – Did HRC wear a red power-pantsuit because she expected the normal Trump tie & if so did she and her handlers give any thought to what the two of them would have looked like on camera together?
    – Alternatively, did either camp have prior knowledge of the dress choices of the other & if so did this affect their decisions?

    Burning questions to which we may never have answers.

  125. Ron,

    Exports from the US can be exempt from state sales taxes also, although the rules are not straightforward. We would probably be better off if corporate income taxes were drastically lowered and replaced in part by a VAT. Since most of our trading partners have the equivalent of a VAT, IIRC, we’re the ones that are out of sync.

  127. RB,

    Umm, that’s for NYC.

    According to data from the WaPo, NYC is below the median for the rate of change of homicides. The national numbers for 2016 aren’t out yet, and probably won’t be until this time next year.

  128. With respect to moderators, fact checking, and bias, the following is from the AP “fact check” this morning:

    “TRUMP: President Barack Obama “has doubled (the national debt) in almost eight years. … When we have $20 trillion in debt, and our country is a mess.”

    THE FACTS: Trump’s expressed concern about the national debt obscures that his own policies would increase it by much more than Clinton’s …”

    In other words, Trump was correct, so we will just editorialize a bit.
    That sort of thing is why the moderators should not fact check.

  130. HaroldW: “Did you ever think you would hear a Republican candidate come out against free trade?”

    Unfortunately, the train has left the station on this one. Pretty much on both sides of the aisle, there is strong opposition to the recent treaties. To me it is the same as the minimum wage. Even many Republicans support raising the minimum wage when minimum wage issues are put on the ballot. I personally believe that raising the wage disadvantages those starting from the ground floor, and in fact, people on the bottom economically, have done very poorly over the last 8 years. However, when something is unpopular across the board, there is nothing that can be done even if the popular opinion is wrong.

    JD

  131. Political Correctness on Campus: http://reason.com/blog/2016/09/26/clemson-university-bans-students-from-ma

    ….Pictures of the gorilla killed at the Cincinnati Zoo are not allowed at Clemson. The University explained: “RAs were instructed to inform students that visual representations of Harambe—the gorilla who was killed by Cincinnati Zoo officials after a kid wandered into its enclosure—”are no longer allowed within our community.”

    When pressed for an explanation, a Clemson official insisted that Harambe’s death has been “used to add to the rape culture as well as being a form of racism.”

    JD

  133. Lucia: “Turned out that [banning Harambe] was just one person at Clemson”

    ….I am a little skeptical of that claim. Easy way to deflect responsibility for what happened. However, Clemson did the right thing, which is good. Still disappointing that people are thinking of things like this.

    JD

  134. Court pleadings describe a kangaroo court under preponderance standard at Columbia. See http://www.bing.com/search?q=title+IX+sexual+assault+second+circuit+court+of+appeals+columbia&qs=n&form=QBLH&pq=title+ix+sexual+assault+secon&sc=0-29&sp=-1&sk=&cvid=801A23BF647740B08E30C1C7D4D1A281

    Also, pleadings in Brown University case describe the following:

    “Upon information and belief, one former Brown
    employee stated that Brown treats male students
    as “guilty, until proven innocent,” that Brown
    has “loaded the dice against the boys” and that
    the fact-finding process in cases of sexual
    misconduct at Brown operates under the
    assumption that it’s always the “boy’s fault.”
    (Compl. ¶ 98, ECF No. 1.) See Doe v. Brown University https://www.google.com/search?q=The+U.S.+District+Court+for+the+District+of+Rhode+Island+ruled+to+allow+a+former+student%E2%80%99s+lawsuit+to+proceed+against+Brown+University%2C+charging+Brown+violated+his+due+process+rights+and+discriminated+against+him+based+on+his+gender+in+a+wrongful+sexual+misconduct+investigation.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

    I realize this is partially off topic, so it will be my last posting on this. However, if you consider how third-rate climate science is and that the type of people conducting these hearings have the same lack of fairness and discipline, you can imagine what a nightmare it would be to be an innocent student accused of these things and then having to make your case before, in many cases, a biased and incompetent panel.

    JD

  135. if c02 increased like the stop and frisk increased
    and if
    temperature increased, like the murders dropped..

    how many republicans would be skeptical of both?

    just sayin..

  136. Does anyone else think that Hillary’s introduction of Alicia Machado into what is attempting to pass for dialogue was a mistake? It cannot surprise anyone that it would be better not to refer to Latinas as housekeepers, but what if the truth of the thing was that the winner of the Miss U contest was an investment by the promoters in a person whose appearances could be sold for a year for real money? And what if her porking up diminished the return on this investment?

    Hillary and/or her immature minions may have thought that revealing this terrible insult to the Latino community would improve her standing with them. What if 3/4’s of the hispanic oriented in the US could care less about the plight of a Colombian beauty pageant winner? nothing gained. And what is lost is any insulation she might have had for taking the ‘high’ road. Now Trump can remind all of those who have forgotten all of Hillary’s other embarrassments.

  137. JD Ohio: I don’t want to see the moderators turn these debates into a story about them, but they are called “moderators” for a reason.

    If the moderators screw up, there are facts checkers for them too. Again if the dialog fits the guidelines I proposed, and if you as the candiate think you are right, be prepared and have a “zinger” to go after the moderator too.

    Ron Graf:

    Actually, if a well prepared Trump had effectively and factually responded to Holt and put him in his place Trump would have gained extra bonus points from independents who are likely aware of MSM bias.

    Well it’s pretty clear that Trump doesn’t know anything about stop and frisk that Giulinani hasn’t fed him. Other than immigration and trade, he’s a man with no interest or knowledge in national policies, as far as I can tell.

    But I agree—the candidate need to be able to defend his political positions. Stop and frisk is a recent and controversial position taken by Trump. He should anticipate the need to defend ideas that he’s proposing. If he can’t do so coherently, that’s not a problem with the moderator, it’s a problem with the candidate.

    j. ferguson:

    Does anyone else think that Hillary’s introduction of Alicia Machado into what is attempting to pass for dialogue was a mistake?

    Nope. If she was talking to you (as opposed to the majority of Americans, who happen to be female), perhaps you would be right to think this to be a mistake. Seems like a pretty solid move to me.

  138. Carrick: “If the moderators screw up, there are facts checkers for them too.” By then it is too late. Romney was thrown off stride by Crowley and several days later when it became apparent that Crowley had no business intervening, the debate, which had been the focus of much attention was over. After the fact correction of a moderator’s mistake doesn’t really compare to the damage done at the debate when the moderator is at fault.

    …Also, it is no accident that Moderators intervene on behalf of Democrats and not Republicans. Clinton lied about her support of Free Trade Agreements but the Moderator didn’t step in. I would also state that if you look at it logically, there is no reason to bring up the birther issue, since it is something in the past that has no relevance to future policy, but Moderators tend to identify with Democratic perspectives because they are part of legacy media.

    JD

  139. j ferguson,
    I have no idea whether the info about Ms. Universe was a mistake. Probably not.

    but what if the truth of the thing was that the winner of the Miss U contest was an investment by the promoters in a person whose appearances could be sold for a year for real money?

    It is an investment, and Miss U appearances sell for big money.

    And what if her porking up diminished the return on this investment?

    I looked up photos and she has gained a lot of weight. She still looks good to me– but she is much heavier. That would be a problem for the Miss Universe corporate entity.

    Calling her porkie and/or miss housekeeping (if he did) was not nice. Trump isn’t nice– at least not as far as speech to or about other go, so he probably did do it.

    In one article the Miss Universe complains that Trump ask her what her plans were after completing the Miss U reign. And he also told her that she wouldn’t be able to model or act because she was too heavy. Being heavy does diminish ones chances of acting and certainly modeling. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been the one to say it and likely he said it in a particularly nasty way. He probably overstated the truth. But if he did say it, it was kinda-sorta true. (She did go on to have parts in telenovellas in Latin America, where the weight cut-off for acting is higher than in the US. )

    I’m guessing Hillary is trying to appeal to women and Hispanics with this. She may pick up some votes– or at least prevent some from voting for Trump. I think keep people from voting for Trump is more likely.

  140. Steve Mosher,
    I will stipulate that much or even all warming since the turn of the last century is due to GHGs (not just CO2). What I refute are projections of extreme warming in the future, and even more, projections of extreme consequences, like 1-2 meters sea level increases by 2100, widespread extinctions from 2C warming, large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable, food production falling due to warming, etc. Those kinds of projections (or more accurately, scare stories) are as delusional and/or dishonest as claims GHGs don’t cause warming. I suggest you do your credibility a favor and call out lunatics on both sides.

  142. Lucia,
    The problem was not that Trump (or the Miss U pageant business) had a legitimate concern about the winner’s weight gain, the problem was they way Trump handled it. A quiet conversation and offers of help (dietician, trainer, etc) would have been appropriate. Name calling was not. If the Miss U pageant is concerned about financial loss due to a winner’s potential weight gain, then contestants should be contractually bound before they enter the competition to control their weight during their year as Miss U; of course, if they are already contractually bound, then Ms Machado was in violation of that contract. Based on her photos in Playboy, she obviously lost most of that weight gain by 2005… she was very beautiful and trim.
    .
    But as you say, the problem for Trump is that he rarely seems ‘nice’, and usually is just the opposite. In fact, as I turned off the debate, I thought just how little I would like to meet either of them, independent of circumstances.

  143. SteveF,

    Yes. The problem is the way he handled it. (Actually, that’s the problem assuming he did call her “miss piggie” and “miss hospitality”. She’s the only source of that– though I tend to believe her. That’s the way he is.)

    then contestants should be contractually bound before they enter the competition to control their weight during their year as Miss U

    Evidently, they are. What appears to have happened is he could have replaced her with Miss Aruba. But rather than doing so, he elected to make her working out and dieting a PR thing. The other link I gave is to an event where reporters discuss her work out and attempts at weight loss. She evidently didn;t like this. (Although, presumably she agreed to it rather than have her crown yanked.)

    It seems her weight must go up and down. Also– she’s 5’7″ or so. She weighed 118 when she won– which in my view is near anorexic, but it’s what “beauty pagents” and Hollywood wanted at the time. (They still want slim, but 20 years ago was the peak of the ‘so thin your afraid they will die’ ideal of beauty.) She supposedly had her weight rise to 160 lbs, which would not be fat. It’s just not what Hollywood likes.

    So: ‘problem’ for Miss U? Yep. Commercially, they wanted/needed a “saleable” beauty for appearances. Did he handle it wrong? Yep. That said: I’m not sure there was much he could have done that would be politically right in context of running for president. Having fired her for weight gain wouldn’t have been a “good” story now either.

    But I do suspect he called her “miss piggie” and “miss hospitality”. He is verbally abusive to everyone– women, men (‘cucks’ etc.), probably animals too. It’s a yuuuge failing of his.

  144. Lucia,
    “Having fired her for weight gain wouldn’t have been a “good” story now either.”
    .
    Well, maybe not good, but if she was violating a valid contract, then just making that violation clear would have helped… heck, it could help Trump now to explain that. Nobody complains when a professional baseball player has a contractual obligation to control weight; beauty pageant winners probably need to control their weight as much as chubby baseball players, if not more. Still, name calling, even if it was only done privately, is beyond the pale.

  145. Lucia,
    Trump supporters use cuck. Does he too? I haven’t noticed. Given that Trump’s talking style is more of a racist dog-whistle, I doubt he used cuck himself.

  146. SteveF

    Nobody complains when a professional baseball player has a contractual obligation to control weight; beauty pageant winners probably need to control their weight as much as chubby baseball players, if not more.

    Actually, when it comes to women’s weights lots of people complain about anything and everything. Both that they get “too fat” or that others judge them on their weight and so on.

    Obviously, a person looking at the situation for a reigning queen of Miss Universe to complain that they expected her to keep her figure within the bounds expected for pagent winners– which is likely closer to anorexia than just a healthy BMI. (The beauty pagent corp expects all sorts of things fwiw. I think the winners have chaperones, which is both good and bad.)

    But… actually, some people would have complained had she been fired for weight.

    Still, I expect calling her miss piggie or miss hospitality is more damaging– as it should be.

  148. Lucia, Ms Machado appeared on Megyn Kelly last night. The question out of the gate was, “Did Donald Trump call you Miss. Piggy and Miss Housekeeping, and where there any witnesses.” Machado deflected the question an instead told her life story which included gaining eating disorders as the result of the stresses put on her by Trump. Kelly, prepared as ever, then read off a 1997 interview where Machado was quoted as having eating disorders before the Ms. Universe pageant. Machado responded only by repeating she wanted to use her influence to persuade as many people as possible to vote for Clinton. Megyn Kelly’s only response before ending was a slight pursing of her lips as she does when her questions get deflected or the interviewee is clearly lying.
    .
    Trump’s spokesperson followed and pointed out that Ms. Universe has a contractual weight clause for the winner.

  149. I agree that Trump is old school when it comes to women, (except his daughters and employees,) as are beauty pageants.

  150. Lucia,
    One of the links on the CNN story (dated Aug 22) suggested that Machado had gained 27 pounds (or likely more) between May, when she won, and August. If true, that is indeed a ”yuuge” rate of weight gain. She had probably starved herself up to the pageant, so some gain was likely afterward. But more than 9 pounds a month? Yikes! I expect the Miss U managers were having nightmares of a 220 lb Machado placing the crown on the next Miss U winner’s head. At that point, substituting Miss Aruba probably looked like a good option.

  151. Lucia,
    ” I think the winners have chaperones, which is both good and bad.”
    .
    Machado was only 19 when she won; a chaperone was probably required, if only to rent a car.

  153. Carrick,

    Did you know that the judge who ruled against stop-and-frisk in NYC was removed from the case for bias? That’s a fact and not something Guiliani or Trump made up. The decision to remove was very critical of the judge. Given that other courts have upheld stop-and-frisk, it’s likely that the decision would have been overturned on appeal. But de Blasio was mayor by then and didn’t appeal. Also, the decision only applied to NYC. The decision is therefore a weak reed to support generalizing that stop-and-frisk is unconstitutional.

  154. lucia,

    5’7″ and 160lbs is a body mass index of 25.1. The WHO considers that overweight but not obese. 118, OTOH is 18.5 and underweight. My opinion, FWIW, is that underweight is more dangerous than overweight and that the WHO BMI numbers are biased low. Apparently there’s something called Smart BMI now. Age and sex are factors in the ideal SBMI range and the range increases with age. According to the WHO, I’m borderline obese. SBMI says that I’m a little overweight.

  155. It depends on which opinion you are referring to.
    On the stats side:
    Between 2009 and 2012, 6% of stops ended in arrests and 3% were found guilty. Only 0.25% of all stops were for violent crimes/gun possessions.

    Guns were found in only 0.1% of stops in 2011.

  156. I concede that I didn’t have much sympathy for Machado. On the other hand, i appreciate that I was probably wrong that this story would be ineffective in enlisting the sympathies and votes of people who had not already divined how crude Trump is from his recorded utterances.

    It could well be that Hillary will be able to trot out something like this weekly leading up to the election. And if they are stories like this one, they will likely help her.

    We are now in Crescent City, CA having driven down from Victoria BC. lawn signs are very few, but running about 6 maybe 10 to one for Trump/Pence. No bumper stickers. Route was 101 west side of peninsula to Hoquiam WA, Portland to Bend, Oregon, then Bend to Crescent City, mostly passing ranches which are either nobody or Trump. I would add that we recognized who the down-ticket republican candidates were and very frequently saw clusters of signs for them sans trump/pence.

  157. JD Ohio:

    I would also state that if you look at it logically, there is no reason to bring up the birther issue, since it is something in the past that has no relevance to future policy, but Moderators tend to identify with Democratic perspectives because they are part of legacy media.

    There is a reason actual…. it’s topical. Trump just finally conceded that Obama is an American. He should have been ready to handle it. He didn’t prepare so he wasn’t.

    Regarding Clinton and the TPP… yes that should have been caught. Even there, she did one of those subtle change of words lies that are harder to fact check, rather than the bald-faced denial of factual statements that got Trump in trouble. If you’re going to lie… do it effectively.

    Speaking of lying… I think Colin Powell’s denial that he ever spoke to Clinton about a private email account was probably the most effective lie of the campaign. I knew he was lying, but it was still hard to not be sympathetic to him (being dragged into the middle of a cat fight). Powell has an amiable likability that both of these candidates lack. He reminds me a bit of Ike that way.

  159. DeWitt, the fact remains it was declared unconstitutional, for the reasons that Holt gave, and the decision was never reversed.

    Trump said it explicitly said that Holt was wrong. Holt was not wrong, and we don’t actually know what would have happened on appeal.

    Anyway, the truth is there isn’t any substantive evidence that stop and frisk works.

    The crime rate has been going down in NYC since 1991, well before stop and frisk was initiated, and mirrors the reduction in crime rates in other major cities that did not implement stop and frisk (see for example LA). And while there’s been a modest up-tick in violent crime in the last two years, you need a longer period to reliably measure a trend than that.

    I suspect community policing and an increase in force size and emphasis on training is a better explanation for what is really a national-scale reduction in crime rate.

  160. — But I was happy to see Trump back up his position by pointing out the VAT tax that Canada and Mexico have acts like one-way tariff (at least for retail commerce.)

    Ron Graf, I really don’t get this. If US goods were available with no sales taxes, it might name sense, but I cannot see why VAT charged on goods is any different from the various local and state taxes you pay in the US.

  161. Carrick: “Trump just finally conceded that Obama is an American.”

    ….This is the clear error that is repeatedly made in the faux outrage over the birther issue. The birther issue was whether, because of a stupid outdated provision in the Constitution Obama was eligible to be President. Many naturalized citizens are as fully American as I am, or Trump, or you, or Clinton, but because of the Constitution, there is one, for most people, very small restriction — non-native born Americans cannot become President. They can become Senators, governors et cet. If you make the very legalistic argument that Obama was not born in the U.S., but is a citizen, you are not saying he is not an American.

    ….
    I would add that this would have been a smaller issue had Obama released his full records earlier but he didn’t. As I have said before, even if Obama had not been born in the U.S. and I knew of it, I would have not raised the issue because this is a stupid provision. If the shoe had been on the other foot, though, the Left would have raised the issue.

    JD

  162. I think the commentary here on the debate says much about what must have been the intellectual content of the debate. I did not watch this debate nor do I watch other political debates as I judge that these debates as normally formatted inform very little about the future governing principles of the candidates. Politicians making promises that they cannot deliver on or have little control over and pronouncements that are for emotional appeal adds nothing to the usefulness of these discussions.

    The crudeness and buffoonery of Donald Trump in presenting his pronouncements and promises provides a service to the observers paying attention to political process in that he is providing a caricature that would play well on Saturday Night Live in a skit making fun of politicians in general. The fact that Hillary Clinton does the same but with more nuances and class does not take her out of the class of politicians who require some disrespectful caricature.

    I would not vote for either of these candidates but I suspect that Hillary will win out due to the fact that Trump has never appeared serious about learning the nuances of a politician nor about becoming president but rather seeming to want to be gaining some publicity for upcoming ventures in his life. How much Hillary can move the politics to the left in this country and increase the size of government will depend on her coattails for winning the Senate and House back. With Hillary and a Republican House and Senate we could continue with a deadlocked government that does little. That is probably the best outcome a libertarian, who likes governments better that accomplish the least, could hope for.

  163. JD Ohio:

    If you make the very legalistic argument that Obama was not born in the U.S., but is a citizen, you are not saying he is not an American

    I didn’t mean to say “not an American,” it just came out wrong. I understand that the consensus interpretation of the Constitution is that even if he were borne in Kenya he’d still be considered a natural-born citizen (eligible for presidency), because his mother was a US citizen.

    Ted Cruz was born in Canada, likewise his mother was a US citizen. In the end people conceded he was eligible.

    McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, but before the law was changed to make people who were born there natural born citizens. So if there’s an issue for Obama, there was one for McCain too, and technically the same legal argument for eligibility would end up applying to both of them.

    I would add that this would have been a smaller issue had Obama released his full records earlier but he didn’t

    Actually, Obama released his short form in 2008. That was immediately dismissed as a fraud. He released the long form in 2011.

    There are various sources for this, but here’s one timeline at least until September 2014.

    So that didn’t settle things for Trump. Trump dropped the issue, apparently, only when he stopped gaining an advantage from raising it.

  164. Re: Carrick (Comment #151413)

    We spent some time on discussing the national crime rate here – with this study highlighting the role of compstat and various socio-economic factors such as an aging population, decreased alcohol consumption etc.

  166. Ron

    Machado deflected the question an instead told her life story which included gaining eating disorders as the result of the stresses put on her by Trump. Kelly, prepared as ever, then read off a 1997 interview where Machado was quoted as having eating disorders before the Ms. Universe pageant.

    I suspect that many Ms. Universe contestants have eating disorders before the pageant. You need to be very slender to win; 118 lbs at 5’7″ is not really a normal weight for most adult women. May women who aspire to win will do an awful lot to keep their weight below what is normal for the population at large and even normal for their own bodies.

    Anyway: evading the question about “miss piggy” does suggest Machado may be embellishing or making things up out of whole cloth.

    Trump’s spokesperson followed and pointed out that Ms. Universe has a contractual weight clause for the winner.

    I’m sure it does. And his version seems to be he was trying to find an alternative to yanking the crown. The alternative was: Public diet/exercise campaign.

  167. Or, how about the Internet – this could even work for worldwide patterns found by some.

    Today’s communications technology used for social networking has become a substitute for some car trips.

  168. lucia:

    Anyway: evading the question about “miss piggy” does suggest Machado may be embellishing or making things up out of whole cloth.

    If he never said it, it’s curious then that Trump never denied saying that phrase. He denied plenty of other things during the debate. My guess if not completely accurate, the truth wasn’t too far away.

    In case people are curious, I believe this is the source for Clinton’s comments on Machado. (Clinton tweeted Machado after the interview on Insider Edition, so I’m pretty sure somebody on her staff noticed it at the time.)

    According to this report, Trump’s comments about Machado’s weight were made publicly.

    I could trace Machado’s original allegations back to this article in the NYT.

    According to that interview, Trump publicly humiliated her in an attempt to get her to lose weight back in 1996.

    I would think this is the sort of story that would get silenced pretty quickly with an appropriate non-apology. (Just repeat what he gave back in August. )

    Arguing, as Trump seems to be doing, that you behaved appropriately doesn’t seem like a winning strategy.

  170. Carrick,
    It’s the sort of thing he would say. So even if Trump didn’t say it, he might not be sure he didn’t!

    The other thing is he seemed surprised by this tack. And I suspect he was surprised because all sorts of things are flying around about Machado and if he’s expected her to be brought up, he might have had something to fling around about her:

    Here’s the daily mail:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3810484/Miss-Universe-fat-shamed-Donald-Trump-accused-threatening-kill-judge-accomplice-MURDER-native-Venezuela.html

    But now two Associated Press reports from 1998 have revealed the Machado was accused of aiding attempted murder and threats to kill in Venezuela.

    DailyMail.com has asked the Clinton campaign whether they knew about the accusations, which do not appear to have ended in conviction, before the candidate spoke about her at the debate.

    (skip stuff)

    There was clearly confusion as in contrast to her lawyer’s initial claim she was filming, Machado later claimed that she was at home sick. The judge said there was also insufficient evidence to prove that claim.

    A judge indicted her boyfriend, described by Reuters as ‘a 26-year-old graphic designer with movie star good looks’ – and police mounted a series of raids to find him, to no avail.

    It was not the end of the affair.

    A month later the judge went on national television to allege that Machado had threatened to kill him if he indicted Sbert.

    Judge Maximiliano Fuenmayor said on national television that she threatened ‘to ruin my career as a judge and … kill me’, the Associated Press reported.

  171. Carrick,
    Trump definitely discussed her weight, negatively saying it was a big problem. He definitely said she liked to eat. The question is: Do we have evidence other than Ms. Machado’s word he specifically called her “Miss Piggy” or “Miss Hospitality”.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. But he may not have used those terms. Right now, we only have her word for those terms.

  172. Lucia, I tend to discount the ability of individuals to recall details of conversations, especially when they’ve been so long ago. In this case, it works against Trump and towards the believability of this witness that it is no way a stretch that he’d gleefully use either derogatory term.

    Like the Gold Star family incident, this seems to be a carefully crafted attack.

    What I would say about that, is if Trump is so easily predicted and lead by the nose with the relatively modest resources of an opposition campaign, this doesn’t speak well to him as President, Imagine the “fun” adversarial nations could have with somebody so manipulable.

  175. Just my armchair speculation .. one can point to isolated polls (LA Times), mechanical models ( Lichtman , Norpoth), mechanical models (time-for-change) etc, but all poll averages are still on Hillary’s side.

  176. Carrick,
    Matt Briggs predicts Trump. For whatever that is worth.

    But I think the polls still show Hillary ahead. Trump was catching her; I suspect that’s either stopped or reversed now. We’ll see next Monday.

  177. Carrick,
    “I suspect community policing and an increase in force size and emphasis on training is a better explanation for what is really a national-scale reduction in crime rate.”
    .
    I suspect another explanation, and perhaps the principle one, is a smaller cohort of poor men in the prime age range for violent crime. According to the Manhattan Institute in 2014:

    New York City’s welfare caseload has declined dramatically since peaking, in the mid-1990s, just prior to the enactment of a major federal reform implemented locally under two mayors, Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. Although the city’s poverty rate rose during the 2007–09 recession, it remains 71 percent below its peak level (under the old welfare rules) of the mid-1990s.

    No doubt other factors come into play (community policing, the intimidation factor of stop-and-frisk, etc.), but if there are fewer potential recruits, the crime rate will be lower. My guess is that crime rates probably don’t scale linearly with potential recruits either; there are likely local peer-group influences which make things much worse when there are more young ‘bad guys’ and fewer young ‘good guys’.

  178. Funny passage from Charles Blow column talking about Trump (when I was looking for something else)

    ….”He is not only bending the truth, he is breaking the notion that truth should matter in the first place.

    This is what is so baffling about the people supporting him: They know he’s lying, but they so want to believe the lies that they have pushed themselves into a universe of irrationality that is devoid of logic.” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/opinion/trump-grand-wizard-of-birtherism.html?_r=0

    ….Undoubtedly Blow is completely oblivious to the fact that the same exact words could be applied to Clinton.

    JD

  179. JD, Lucia,
    Since I am a Florida resident and registered voter, I get two or three telephone requests per day to tell pollsters how I will vote. I hang up on them. I suspect a lot of other people do too. I doubt the polls reflect how people will actually vote in this election (in the vernacular: I suspect the polls are sh!t). In other elections, I talked to some polling firms. Not his time; too disgusted.

  180. JD Ohio,

    Ya, I am a little shocked that Hillary’s history of deceit gets so free a pass from the NY Times…. but not really surprised. I am surprised that Trump is not running ads in swing states that simply lay out her long parade of out-right lies and the selling of influence for personal gain.

  181. Birther overreaction from Congressional Black Caucus

    “Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-NY) said that if “debasing, misrepresenting and lying were a crime,” then Trump would be disqualified from running for president.

    “This is a dog whistle to all other Americans who are not African-Americans to say, ‘See, you’re all right. Don’t worry about hiring that black woman or that black man because, after all, the most iconic African-American in history is, indeed, not worthy of the American dream.’ Be clear, this is not just about degrading the reputation of Barack Obama. It’s about degrading the American dream for all African-Americans,” said Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI).

    “One of the things that we all are used to in this business is dog whistles, but the thing that we’re not used to, and I’m finding it very difficult to getting used to, are the howls of wolves. These are howls. These are not whistles. These are in your face kinds of efforts on the part of one man who is utilizing — I should say misusing the media — in order to heap indignities upon the President of these United States,” said Rep. Jim Clyburn.”

    The overreaction is almost as bad as the birtherism. I would add that just because someone produces a birth certificate doesn’t mean it is valid or hasn’t been altered. (Just the way it works in the cesspool of American politics) In fact, in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland, OH), the corrupt County Auditor’s office (which is supposed to keep tabs on tax revenues and spending) simply whited out property values (of 2,200 properties) to change them without a hearing. http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/12/cuyahoga_countys_scandal-plagu.html

    ….There is no reason not to move on from this issue, particularly in light of Obama’s past lies about Obamacare.

    JD

  182. RB, stop and frisk didn’t end in 2015, so why a comparison of 2015 to 2016 is supposed to be helpful? I realize the data come from NYPD, but that is a very strange selection of a single week.

    Also, I think the real issue with stop and frisk is that it coincided with a large crime drop after 1993. Then there was a large increase in stop and frisk from 2005 or so, after the large crime drop. The second increase probably had small effect, while the first may have had a larger effect, tough that coincided with lots of other policing changes.

  183. MikeN,
    That was in response to DeWitt pointing out 2015 as a year in which crime went up. My point was that one year is not indicative of anything.
    And I also agree that 2015 is a meaningless year in itself as I indicated using this link earlier in the previous thread.

  184. Who on earth cares about Machado”s weight or Obama’s birther issue, etc.?
    The basic issue is that the economy has stagnated, income inequality has gone through the roof and the establishment has done nothing about it for a decade. Why would anyone think they would suddenly come up with a solution now?. It looks like we are about to enter another recession without recovering from the last one.
    All we hear politicians saying are empty promises that they probably won’t even try to implement or if they do, will be stopped by Congress. Both parties claim to have created jobs when in fact 93 million Americans are out of work and the number of prime age males working is the same as fifty years ago. Hardly a stellar record.
    It requires an entirely new approach to fix the problem, which will be getting worse due to robotics and AI reducing the number of jobs. Further education is not the answer. The government is not able to create jobs in the private sector as their recent efforts show. They could by rebuilding the infrastructure.
    The various trade agreements have not been good for the country nor apparently for the third world. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/21/un-fears-third-leg-of-the-global-financial-crisis-with-epic-debt/
    A minimum wage is a crude substitution for businesses not sharing more of their profit with their employees. and makes entering job market more difficult.
    Hillary is the establishment in spades and a war monger to boot. At least Trump recognizes the folly of exporting jobs and is not a war hawk. But he apparently believes in trickle down. So neither candidate would solve the problem. Nothing I’ve seen in the debate changes any of the above.
    I could go on for pages about the failed war on drugs, or the errors in AGW, or America caused ISIS and the refugee problem, or the coming of the new fire – LENR, but this is too long already.

  186. SteveF,
    I seem to have driven off a lot of tele-marketing and political phone calls. There were several that called *every single day*. There was one that wanted to fix my credit. The one that wanted to give me a business loan. There was one that wanted to do something with my Common Wealth Edison Bill. I had occasional political questionaires.

    For the political ones, I started giving ridiculous ages– like YOB corresponding to over 150 yo. And when asked to pick between options insist my answer was something else. I think I told one I was an anarchist when asked if I was Republican, Dem or independent. They just repeated the question and I repeated anarchist– then they repeat the question again and so on. (Jim laughed when he overheard this.)

    Those pollsters pretty much stopped soon after that.

    I’m guessing they were push polls. Or polls after something else. But anyway, I don’t get them anymore.

    Stopping the ‘loan’, ‘comcast’ and ‘credit card’ calls was more involved. It required wasting their time and mine which is sort of not nice to the poor minimum wage caller, but if they violate the do not call list, it’s hard to get companies to stop calling. (Yes. I’m on the donot call list.)

  188. Lucia: Spam calls. I have a landline, which I will probably get rid of in several weeks. Its main function is to take spam calls. I have it attached to an answering machine, and don’t pick up unless I hear a recognizable voice. Also, if I pick up by mistake, and the there is a pause on the caller’s part, I just hang up — I know it is a spam caller. Lately, I haven’t been getting many calls on the line.

    …. Would add that I have an Android cell phone and that there is a program called Trucaller that very effectively weeds out spam calls. When a spammer calls, there is a pop up message that says something like 220 people have complained about this caller. Then you know not to pick up. If you want, you can then permanently block the caller with Truecaller, which is free but has ads.

    JD

  189. Adrian,
    “LENR”
    .
    Pure sh!t, is what it is. I’m actually surprised you are willing to comment here again after your last wacko rants in the world of the rational… which didn’t turn out well. That sure-fire Rossi E-CAT scam you were counting on has been abandoned by Rossi’s scam targets: http://news.newenergytimes.net/2016/08/09/cherokee-investments-darden-says-rossis-claims-are-fraudulent/
    Maybe Rossi will end up in prison… again. I sure hope so.
    ‘Cold fusion’ is rubbish. Rossi is a criminal. You should get over it. You probably won’t.

  190. JD
    The spam calls were on a land line.
    These were getting pretty regular. I’m at home. So I decided to do things like turn the phone to speaker phone, take the phone with me and start a batch of laundry or the dishwasher and so on.

    For the “credit fixing” answering vaguely was easy. Eventually they ask you to find your cards to read them– which of course you must not do. Instead you tell them you have to go to the attic or something ridiculous. Then you make them wait. Then go do something like put in a load of towels. Then if they are still there when you come back apologize …. say you are still looking etc. After you do this a few times, you no longer get calls from the credit fixers.

    The people wanting to do business loans are a bit trickier because they have one pass with a person who asks your name, your company name and how much you clear a month. (You must clear some amount– say $3K a month or so. Make up a fake business name. “Joe’s baby soxs” will do. Make up a fake name.) So you have to write that on a post it note.) But once again…speaker phone…. load the dishes, sweep the floor etc.

    Then start answering various things (never give real name, real bank, real ssn etc. Refer to the post it note with the fake name.)

    I had one start telling me my business model was stupid– I should sell hats too. (Answer– stay bland, “Oh. Huh. Well. Right now, I just make sox. All baby’s have feet. They sell well.) Then he told me he thought I was insincere and didn’t really want/need a loan. (Answer– stay bland. “I don’t understand. Why do you think I’m insincere? “) He threatened to hang up several times, but didn’t. (Answer things like “Oh. It’s nice they give you discretion.”) He threatened to take me off the list of people they phone to offer loans.

    I did this sort of thing two or three times and the calls stopped. So it seems his company has carried out their threat and took me off their lists of companies they offer loans too.

    Of course never answering these is a valid strategy too. I actually do that most the time.

    But I figure answering and wasting their time cost the companies money. And the “credit card” and “business loan” company are definitely scams.

    Might have made the day difficult for a poor underpaid telemarkerter, which is not so nice. So I don’t do it to businesses that sell “real” services (windows, lawn care etc.). But these others are scams. The only way to strike at this business model is to either (a) never answer (but your phone still rings) or (b) waste their time until they stop calling.

  191. SteveF: I wouldn’t be surprised if the drop in violent crime were due a range of factors, varying from “natural shifts in demographics” of the sort you described to “improvements in the economic outlook in affected communities” to “government actually doing something proactive”.

    In terms of proactive steps, I think there isn’t any question that more cops on the streets (as opposed to in more cops in vehicles circling the suburbs looking for opportunities to collect taxes write tickets), would have a net positive benefit. The question is really just whether stop and frisk has a net positive benefit.

    I can see how stop and frisk might yield a greater level of hostility and less cooperation with the police. It might also have positive benefits, but with competing effects, it’s not clear.

  192. Lucia,
    I already tried to waste their time without wasting mine….. told them I had someone at the door and asked them to wait ’till I got back. Never worked, they always hung up within a few seconds. So now I just hang up when they call; I never say a word past ‘Hello’.

  193. SteveF,
    I’m much more elaborate. That’s why “speaker phone” and “starting laundry” is involved. If I don’t have a reasonably full hamper or some cat dishes to pick up put in the dishwasher and start a load, I don’t answer. But what with towels, sheets, etc. I found I could just bump up laundry time and that worked fine.

    I found they often stayed on quite a while– I’d hear “hello, hello?” from the kitchen.

  194. RB,

    That was in response to DeWitt pointing out 2015 as a year in which crime went up. My point was that one year is not indicative of anything.

    Apparently, you’ve never had to use a control chart. One point can be significant and indicate that the process may have changed if it’s different enough from the previous points.

  195. SteveF (Comment #151444) You are quite wrong about LENR. Even the original Pons & Fleischmann experiment has been replicated several times. It turned out that the hot fusion physicists at MIT and CalTech bungled their attempted replications by not loading the Palladium with sufficient Deuterium for the process to start. http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/108/04/0495.pdf

    The E-Cat has been replicated by Parkhomov in Russia. You might note that it was Rossi who took Industrial Heat to court (not the other way around) over failure to pay the agreed sum after the 1 MW plant had performed with a COP >6 for a year. The independent referee (ERV) employed jointly by both parties reported that the COP was in fact >50. Obviously we will have to wait for the court’s verdict but you are jumping the gun by claiming it didn’t work. Don’t believe Krivit: he is as biased against it as you are, having fallen out with Rossi a long time ago when reportedly caught trying to take a sample of the fuel.

    A number of countries are now investing in LENR and in the US DARPA reported they had success with it. Japan recently announced they had developed a system with 100% reputability http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KanekoKcoldfusion.pdf
    I could give you references to >1000 papers but there is no point as you keep your eyes firmly shut.

    I now forecast we will see a commercial system within the first six months of 2017.

  196. I can’t get edit to work. Near the end “reputability ” should read repeatability. (Problem with spell check)

  197. Adrian,
    You want to bet on that? How about $500 to a charity of the other’s choice? Set a firm date for it happen, no backpedaling allowed, and then we can discuss what constitutes a ‘commercial system’.

  198. Carrick, the articles against Trump are brilliant, like Harry Reid’s “The word on the street is that Mitt Romney didn’t pay his taxes.” On that score, if Trump, unlike Romney, really doesn’t pay much tax or give to charity its not like he would be getting a pass from Obama’s IRS for not dotting his “i”s and crossing his “t”s.
    .
    This reminds me that every American federal agency has now been corrupted into a tool of “the party.” Half the country seem astounded that the other half is apparently fine with it. Even if you didn’t mind as long as it was from your “own team” you must understand that corruption is the leading cause of poverty or backlash revolutions, wars, failed states, etc…
    .
    If you want to believe HRC is honest and transparent and set up a bathroom server “for convenience” then you deserve the government you elect. But try to think of the rest of us.

  199. Dewitt,
    Maybe something changed, maybe it was stop and frisk as you say. If so, I’ll support it in the framework of an overarching broad-ranging gun control measure that goes after all Americans. There are too many homegrown terror attacks and you never know if that mall or theatre is safe anywhere.

  200. DeWitt,
    “Apparently, you’ve never had to use a control chart.”
    .
    I sure have. I even wrote some control charting software many years ago. You are right, if the point is sufficiently distant, it indicates a true departue for the “process” being monitored. Of course, you need enough data points to demonstrate an ‘in control’ process to be able to easily detect a process change based on a single data point.

  201. Lucia,
    A variant of your system I use is to tell the caller “Please hold.” Sometimes I play music if I have it handy. Then just wait until they go away. I figure it ties up their line for as long possible.

  202. Ron Graf,
    “If you want to believe HRC is honest and transparent and set up a bathroom server “for convenience” ”
    .
    I don’t think Carrick believes that. I sure don’t. I think she wanted complete control over records which might cause her future political problems. Some view that charitably (protecting herself from the vast right-wing conspiracy), some view it much less charitably (keeping the public from seeing her unethically selling political influence).

  204. The birther issue is not about racism; its about patriotism. Obama may have been born in Kenya of an American mother, making him as much as a natural born citizen of the USA as Cruz. The difference is that Obama spends his formative years in Kenya, being taught other than American ideals. He shared the same Saul Alinsky ideals as a young man that Hillary did as a college student. These are not main stream thoughts that have America seen in a positive light.
    .
    The irony in this is that HRC is relishing in her opponent’s not disavowing the belief in the rumor her campaign started. It would be even more so if HRC personally is aware (from her 2008 research contacts) that the story of Obama’s Kenyan birth is true.

  205. RB,
    I would be cautious about drawing firm conclusions from that data. Eg, suppose the effects of stop and frisk, or a lack thereof, take a couple of years to show up? Untangling possible causes for the drop in violent crime is never going to be easy unless there is a pretty fair amount of data over an evtended period. This is data we don’t have.

  207. Machado overweight comments: It hit me today that Trump made these comments 20 years ago, and Clinton made her deplorable comments about 1 month ago. Clinton was basically saying (and really still believes), that a substantial number of Americans are lowlifes not deserving of any respect. Her comments are current and relevant and aimed at man and Trump’s were made a long time ago to one person. If Trump is smart about this, he can and should focus attention on Clinton’s remarks if she tries to keep his possible past statements in the news. Also, if it turns out that she does have a significant criminal history,I think this will die down quick.

    JD

  208. I recall that Romney won the first debate. Demolished, trounced, those are the words I see on CNN. It didn’t do him any good.

    “In the green room, we were on our feet, hooting and hollering; like watching an early Tyson fight,” recalled Will Ritter, a Republican strategist who was Romney’s 2012 director of advance. “Gov. Romney humbled the sitting president who was too arrogant to prepare.”

  209. The only poll I could trust in this election has only these questions:
    * Will you vote?
    * Have you decided yet who you will vote for?
    (No names asked)

  210. Re: spam calls. I signed up with NoMoRoBo a few months ago. Incoming calls ring simultaneously at your house and at NoMoRoBo. They examine the caller’s number, and if it’s in their spam list, they pick up and hang up immediately. Every time I hear the phone ring once and stop, I know that it’s working. I’m on the Do Not Call list, too. I know I won’t be polled, but I can live with that.

    Although it filters out a lot of calls, a fair number still get through. I just say “not interested” and hang up. I’m always amused, though, to hear of the various ploys used to waste the time of spammers.

  211. Adrian,
    .

    I now forecast we will see a commercial system within the first six months of 2017.

    Back here your prediction was this:

    I forecast that news of the 1 MW plant in Feb/Mar will be favorable and become accepted. We will see who is right. Not long to wait.

    Here, and here, and here as well, it was February or March of this year.
    .
    No longer interested, sorry. But you might try the IPCC…
    I believe they’ve got a more tolerant attitude than I do towards failed past predictions.

  212. Mark Bofill,
    Well, it is a bit like the folks who predict the end of the world, and walk about with a placard announcing the date. When it fails to happen, they just pick a later date and re-paint their placard. Same with the cold fusion nutters…. the date is always pushed back when it doesn’t work as promised. Actually, the cold fusion nutters could learn something from global warming catastrophe nuts: Choose your prediction date far enough in the future that you can’t possibly be proven wrong in your lifetime, then endlessly harangue anyone who doubts your incredible ‘foresight’.

  213. One strategy for not releasing tax returns is to wait until the end to do it, especially if they are clean (enough). This allows the media and pundits to waste enormous amounts of emotional capital on what ends up being nothing.
    If Trump would have released them long ago, these very same people would just be hammering him relentlessly on another issue. So this allows him to control the outcome and run out the clock.
    Then again maybe his tax returns are full of fireworks.

  214. SteveF,

    Actually, the cold fusion nutters could learn something from global warming catastrophe nuts: Choose your prediction date far enough in the future that you can’t possibly be proven wrong in your lifetime, then endlessly harangue anyone who doubts your incredible ‘foresight’.

    Yup. Well, that and extort lots of money by claiming its necessary to prevent the coming apocalypse.

  215. As far as paying taxes goes, Trump should have just given HRC the address of the US treasury and told her to send as much of her money there as she wishes, they will cash the checks. Paying the least amount of taxes legally possible is anything but immoral. This type of hypocritical morally empty shaming is disliked by almost everyone.
    My prediction before this (didn’t watch it, never do) was the media would universally declare HRC the winner, high five each other, and then be aghast that the poll numbers don’t move a week from now.

  216. CNN “proved” stop and frisk didn’t work by showing only 0.02% of stops resulted in firearm confiscation. Perhaps instead this is actually stop and frisk working exactly the way it was intended…

  217. mark bofill, well the plant did complete the test. At the time I thought it was a matter of whether it met the conditions called for in the contract. I admit I didn’t see this ending up in court.
    The basic fact is that LENR has been proved beyond reasonable doubt unless you think the hundreds of scientists that have been involved in LENR are all incompetent or frauds.
    The Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project (MFMP) a group doing open science that all think respectable, have promised to demonstrate an experiment in two weeks, live on line, that they say will prove LENR beyond all doubt.

    So don’t give up that quickly. BrightLightPower (BLP) and Brillouin amongst others are also forecasting they will be commercial next year.

  218. As we all know, the answer for ineffective government is always more government. If Trump wins this election by some miracle, the left will determine that they should have criticized Trump and his supporters much more vocally and viciously.

  220. Adrian,
    “unless you think the hundreds of scientists that have been involved in LENR are all incompetent or frauds.”
    .
    Yes, that is exactly the problem with cold fusion.

  222. JD: “Also, if it turns out that she does have a significant criminal history, I think this will die down quick.”
    .
    Machado allegedly drove the getaway car when her boyfriend committed a murder. Then she threatened the prosecutor with ruining his career and/or killing him if he did not drop the charges, according to the prosecutor, as reported by Fox.
    .
    Obama grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, where he moved in 1965, when he was four, until 1971, when he was 10. Although the founders hoped to preserve American principles in many ways, including guarding the presidency, I would think they would be concerned with today’s lack of appreciation of America’s history and the pains staked to preserve the consent of the governed, informed properly in an environment of a small transparent government.

  223. Harold
    Yes. The discussions with the people with the pre-approved loans pretty much went like the one at your link. Except the accent was American, and it took about 3 of those to make them stop. But during one, the guy did whine that if I didn’t want calls, I could just request being put on their do not call list instead of wasting his time. ( I don’t believe for a second asking to be put on their do not all list would work. I’m on the federal one.)

    I wing– each of the wasting-their time episodes as slightly different. Once at a certain point, I said something like, “Oh. Are you the same company Jane is from? Jane was helping me. Why hasn’t she gotten back?” and so on.

  224. Ron Graf,
    It was an attempted murder; the target lived. There was no convincing evidence against Machado, nor did she have any credible alibi. She was never charged nor prosecuted for lack of evidence.

  225. Lucia, I would be careful. They may have a Please Call list for those who will play with them.
    ~ *
    o

  226. SteveF, you are correct except they added tonight the prosecutor’s claim of being threatened by her to drop the charges against her boyfriend.

  227. SteveF:

    I don’t think Carrick believes that. I sure don’t. I think she wanted complete control over records which might cause her future political problems.

    Pretty much the same view as you—it comes down to a Nixonian level of paranoia:

    She didn’t trust the bureaucrats at the State Department to not leak the content of her emails. But this is not the sort of things you would come right out and say, if you want to preserve a working relationship with the bureaucrats afterwards.

  228. Machado was asked about this by Anderson Cooper, and she appears to be saying it’s true about driving the car. Anderson’s reaction is priceless.

    It could be she is just saying the story is wrong, and not that her actions were wrong.

  229. MikeN,
    It seems clear that along with the gift of exceptional beauty, Machado got a sizable dose of dumb. Admitting to driving the car for her boyfriend (a convicted attemped murderer), if she actually said that, is so dumb that you can only laugh.

  230. Carrick,
    Nixonian indeed. But I think there is even more to it than that. Hillary worked as a (junior) Congressional staffer for the committee investigating the Watergate scandal, and saw exactly what brought Nixon down… solid evidence, in the form of audio tapes. I think a reasonable argument can be made that most of her unethical behavior over the years has been an effort to avoid the existance of any hard evidence against her. She made off with her billing records from the Rose Law firm and hid them from Congress (from the time Billl was Govenor of Arkansas) until they were scrubbed squeaky clean. Her health care plan was developed 100% in secrecy to avoid giving evidence to her ‘enemies’. The missing 20,000 emails are more of the same. Hillary knows what ends political careers… not blatant lies, and not incompetence, only solid evidence. She acts just like a criminal. Whether on not she is in fact a criminal is, abscent solid evidence, just an opinion. Nixonian indeed.

  231. Carrick,
    BTW, I am sure Hillary was very unhappy when Monica produced hard evidence of Bill’s lies. Not because of the infidelity (she was certainly aware of Bill’s many, many girlfriends… some of which he still has, according to Colin Powell and others), but because Bill was foolish enough to not completely eliminate all evidence of his lies. I simply loath the woman.

  232. SteveF,
    It was amazing she saved the dress. But… yeah. Normally no or little evidence.

    The thing is, Hillary trashed the women Bill took advantage of putting out anything and everything to discredit them. One can feel sorry for the cheated on spouse– e.g. Huma Abedin of Abedin/Weiner. But Huma didn’t go out and trash the women Weiner sexted.

    Hillary can say all she likes about Trump’s sexis– and much about it is certainly true. But Hillary is no friend to women. She’ll trample them to bloody pulps if that’s what she needs to get herself or family ahead.

  234. lucia,

    …hosting a sow…

    I know that’s a typo and should have been show, but under the circumstances it’s really funny.

  236. Lucia (Comment #151476), OMG? Most companies have some reference on their web sites of what to do if you want to invest in them.
    Of course Rossi needs money. Leonardo Corp have bought a factory building In Sweden and want to build an automated production line, possibly another one somewhere else as well.
    You don’t think people will want to invest in Rossi’s technology as it becomes evident that it works?
    Rossi has thousands of pre-orders for a domestic E-Cat but has refused to take deposits for them. Right from the beginning he has refused to take money from small investors saying he will only accept funds from large investors who are able to assess the risk. Hardly the action of a fraud.
    Woodford Investment Management have invested $50 million in LENR after claiming they did two years of due diligence on Rossi’s E-Cat. Note they also have a link for people that want to invest.
    https://woodfordfunds.com/qa-neil-woodford

  237. Adrian,

    You don’t think people will want to invest in Rossi’s technology as it becomes evident that it works?

    I didn’t say that.

    I think it’s hilarious that the method of soliciting is a pull down menu on an online “contact” form with an option of saying you have over 100 million to invest. Perhaps you don’t think that’s amusing, but I do.

    Right from the beginning he has refused to take money from small investors saying he will only accept funds from large investors who are able to assess the risk. Hardly the action of a fraud.

    The pulldown menu permits a <$100,000. That seems like a smallish investor to me. If you really think it works, I would think you would jump at that chance.

    Note they also have a link for people that want to invest.

    If I”m not mistaken, earlier this year you said you hadn’t invested because he wasn’t taking investors. Now he is. How much have you invested now that the opportunity exists? If you haven’t invested, why not? Is <$100,000 in something you already thinks will work too rich for your blood?

    Real questions btw.

  238. Does anyone think the adventures of Miss Machado will become generally known and if so the Hillary folks will drop the subject?

  239. I could be wrong, but my recollection is that Bernie Madoff only accepted accounts from “large investors who are able to assess the risk.”

    Before you get upset about this comment, it isn’t intended as a comparison. The point is, such a policy isn’t evidence of bona fides.

  240. ps. Without having any special access to Rossi, it looks like the new high temperature version of the E-Cat (QuarkX) will make the old design used in the 1 MW plant obsolete. The QuarkX is apparently <3mm diameter and 30mm long, producing 100 W of heat with up to 50% possible as electricity. It has an operating temperature of 1400C
    As the R&D is not finished on this and combined with the court case, this has slowed the start of mass production.
    Rossi says he hopes to make details of the QuarkX available later this year.

  242. I went to the top page. The form I’d previously seen was there
    ecat
    So, they appear to be looking to work with smallish-investors (i.e. < $100,000 ).

  243. Adrian,
    Have you invested? Or do you plan to now that it appears small investments (i.e. < $100,000 ) are being solicited?
    If not, why not?
    Real questions which I will happily repeat until you notice the question and answer it– as I’m sure you would wish to do.

  244. Lucia, while you didn’t say you didn’t think people would want to invest, you thought it was OMG that the web site would address possible investors.

    My health is deteriorating so yes, $100,000 is too rich for me right now.

  245. enquiryecat_ashfieldSorry to hear about your health and also about being unclear about what aspect of their solicitation for investment was funny.

    My health is fine. So I’ve inquired about the investment opportunities. I’ll share whatever they send me.

  246. I was sent an email:

    ECAT.com

    ECAT Investment Questionnaire
    Dear lucia liljegren

    You are getting this email because you have previously showed interest in investing in the ECAT-technology through an inquiry on the website ECAT.com.

    We are pleased to find that so many people realize that LENR/cold-fusion technology will drive the next big technological revolution.

    In order for us to better understand what type of investment you are interested in, please provide us with additional information in a reply to this email.

    There are three interest groups that this email is intended for:

    1. Private investors
    2. Company investors
    3. Venture Capitalists

    Scroll down to the section below which represents your interest best.

    Mandatory information, must be filled in for all interest groups:
    Name:
    Company (if not private):
    Address:
    Country:
    Phone:
    Email address:

    1) What type of investor are you (private/venture capitalist/company)?
    2) What approximate amount are you looking to invest in the ECAT-technology? (USD)
    3) What is your time horizon for entering into such an investment? (1-3 months, 3-6m, 6-12m)
    4) At what stage are you interested in investing; in a private placement phase or at an initial public offering (IPO)?

    5) What is the nature of your investment interest:

    – ECAT Core-Technology (Yes/No)?
    – Region specific ECAT Licensees (Yes/No)?
    – Third Party Application Companies (Yes/No)?

    6) Where did you first hear about the ECAT technology?

    Please state any further comments below:

    —————
    This section is only for Venture Capitalists:

    1) Does your company have a website?
    2) What types of investment have you done so far?
    3) Examples of companies you have invested in previously?
    4) What is your time horizon for exit?
    5) What is your investment span in terms of money?
    6) How much money do you have under management?
    7) What is your position in the company?

    Further information you want to share?
    —————-
    Only for companies:

    1) Does your company have a website?
    2) In which industry sector is your company?
    3) Your company revenue?
    4) Is your company listed? and if so; what stock exchange and under what symbol?
    5) What is your personal position (or relationship) with the company?

    Further information you want to share?
    —————–

    Please do not hesitate to ask should there be any questions.

    Thank you for your time and attention,

    Best Regards,
    investor@ECAT.com

    Disclaimer:
    ECAT.com holds the right to choose which potential investors to contact should an opportunity for an investment in the ECAT-technology arise. Questions above are intended for market research purpose. ECAT.com will not share any of the above information to any 3rd party.

  249. Lucia, I think that is just a polite way of asking for the URL without knocking someone that didn’t. I suspect there are plenty of rich people who might invest who don’t have web sites..

  250. It’s also possible that having a website might be disqualifying.

    I hadn’t thought of that when I posted my previous remark.

  251. Lucia,
    I am guessing that solicitation will not be too productive.
    .
    But who knows, maybe the FBI will arrive and arrest the lot of them for fraud. The FBI’s reputation could use a boost about now…. and shutting down scam artists is good PR.

  252. Adrian,
    I didn’t say the form was funny. I just said they sent it and posted it.

    I’m planning to reply. Posting it will permit people to advise me. Perhaps you can advise me.

    1) What type of investor are you (private/venture capitalist/company)?

    I’d be investing out of my personal funds. So I think private.

    2) What approximate amount are you looking to invest in the ECAT-technology? (USD)

    I was thinking of $50,000 for a start.

    3) What is your time horizon for entering into such an investment? (1-3 months, 3-6m, 6-12m)

    Based on Adrian’s information, I think it’s got to be 1-3 months. Otherwise, I’ll probably miss my opportunity.

    4) At what stage are you interested in investing; in a private placement phase or at an initial public offering (IPO)?

    I assume private placement. IPO probably won’t fit my time horizon.

    5) What is the nature of your investment interest:

    – ECAT Core-Technology (Yes/No)?
    – Region specific ECAT Licensees (Yes/No)?
    – Third Party Application Companies (Yes/No)?

    I think Core-Technology.

    6) Where did you first hear about the ECAT technology?

    Adrian Ashfield told me about it. He’s said Rossi is a genius and successful tests have been run. Lots of scientists are working on this.

    What do you think of my response? I can edit it.

  254. Lucia,
    I still don’t know what you found funny.

    I doubt they will except $50.000. That answer would be interesting.
    I don’t think there will be any rush until either a commercial plant surfaces (next year) or what Rossi shows about the QuarkX is spectacular. Even then, due to the history of LENR I expect only cautious acceptance. So the time period is your call.

    I have never said that Rossi is a genius, although if the technology pans out he may be thought of that way. I suspect it is a much more Edisonian development. I do think there have been some successful trials and that an increasing number of scientists are now working on this as a result

  255. SteveF,
    I am thinking of sending the reply.

    Perhaps they can send me information that will confirm Adrian’s glowing endorsements.

  256. Adrian

    I still don’t know what you found funny.

    I didn’t say I found anything funny.

    I doubt they will except $50.000. That answer would be interesting.

    I wrote $50,000 with a comma. I know that’s matches “less than $100,000” on their form, but it seems prudent to start lower.

    Do you think I should up my intentions to $100,000? I could do that. I just think I’d be more comfortable starting with a lower amount. Maybe I’ll say that I could go higher than $50,000 if they have some firm minimum, but that I feel more comfortable with $50,000.

    I have never said that Rossi is a genius, although if the technology pans out he may be thought of that way. I suspect it is a much more Edisonian development

    Thanks. I don’t want to misrepresent you. I’ll edit to say you think this opportunity is similar to investing in Edison back in his day.

  258. Lucia, on reflection I don’t want any part of this as I suspect you have no intention of investing a dime. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

  259. Lucia,
    “Hillary trashed the women Bill took advantage of”
    .
    Yes, and it has happened many times. The puzzling thing is that Hillary is still supported by a substantial majority of women, in spite of that history. Maybe it is that they think Trump is worse, or maybe they don’t believe the public trashing of Bill’s victims actually happened. Maybe both. Maybe they don’t know that Paula Jones was paid $800+K to drop her lawsuit against Bill.
    .
    I guess the trashing of Bill’s victims is something Hillary accepts as the price of a ‘greater good’ (eg. advancing the Clintons’ ‘progressive’ political agenda), but I fear the trashing was just a means of gaining and maintaining political power. In either case, it suggests to me a shocking a lack of personal morality. Willfully doing harm to innocent people is immoral.

  260. Lucia,
    “Perhaps they can send me information that will confirm Adrian’s glowing endorsements.”
    .
    And perhaps hogs will begin to sprout wings and take to the air. 😉

  261. Adrian,
    “Lucia, on reflection I don’t want any part of this as I suspect you have no intention of investing a dime. ”
    .
    Ya well, maybe Lucia is not so easily duped as you are

  264. Adrian,
    I don’t think my being truthful about how I learned about ECAT means you are having anything to do with my inquiry. You are how I learned about ECAT. They asked me to tell them how I learned; I’m going to tell them.

    Either they will send me more information or they won’t. I do have money I could invest if they convince me that there is a good return on investment.

  265. While we’re on the subject (sort of) and on an open thread, I’d like to follow up and say that Phoenix Energy of Nevada is still trying to buy the defunct Bellafonte Nuclear Power Plant site in Alabama.
    I’m still not clear on whether or not these guys are running a scam.
    .
    On the one hand, there does indeed appear to be a real technology called MHD power generation:
    .

    Another direct energy converter with considerable potential is the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) power generator. This system produces electricity directly from a high-temperature, high-pressure electrically conductive fluid—usually an ionized gas—moving through a strong magnetic field. The hot fluid may be derived from the combustion of coal or other fossil fuel. The first successful MHD generator was built and tested during the 1950s. Since that time developmental efforts have progressed steadily, culminating in a Russian project to build an MHD power plant in the city of Ryazan, located about 180 kilometres (112 miles) southeast of Moscow.

    from https://www.britannica.com/technology/energy-conversion.
    .
    On the other hand, there appears to be some confusion on the Phoenix Energy of Nevada website FAQ regarding how this technology actually works:

    …What is meant by low to no emissions and is there really no need to fuel these plants?

    Our plants can be started directly from the grid or by a start up generator. This start up time would require nominal emissions when compared to the output of our plant. The cleanest installations would be multi unit plants that could keep one unit on line while the other is in an outage or receiving repairs or routine maintenance. This configuration would be a zero emissions installation after start up.

    PENV’s Plants run strictly on an electrically generated induction field and no other fuel is needed after start up. Other than maintenance our plants can run 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 320 days a year Our plants are ideal base load plants that require less maintenance and offline time than a conventionally fueled plant…

    .
    Sounds magical? It is. It is also not the way MHD works as described in the britannica page.
    .
    Either they are running a scam or the web page author has no clue how their technology works. I’m an uncharitable sort of guy who’s thinking the former, but I could be wrong…
    .
    [Edit: oh. Forgot the original link to the news story. http://www.bizjournals.com/birmingham/news/2016/09/13/phoenix-energy-submits-38m-bid-for-bellefonte.html here.]

  266. SteveF:

    Yes, and it has happened many times. The puzzling thing is that Hillary is still supported by a substantial majority of women, in spite of that history.

    So I supposed she’s supposed to give them warm hugs instead.

    Seriously, what is the appropriate behavior when your spouse cheats on you? Is there a single appropriate behavior?

    If it’s consensual, calling the women “victims” is just nonsense.

    I’ve got problems obviously when non-consensual sex happens. But if it’s not proven, I have trouble demonizing either the accused or the accuser.

    You seem to be demonizing the wife, who technically is a victim either way.

  267. Lucia. I have no trouble with you being truthful and if you are serious that you might invest.

    Submitting a false interest in investing is every bit as bad as the spam calls you have been complaining about. That is more the kind of thing troll SteveF would indulge in.

  268. Adrian,

    I’m not as bright as most here by a long shot. Maybe I am misreading Lucia, but it seems to me that she’s making a point.
    You come here and evangelize LENR. Have you thought this through? Do you really want to do this? Some of us are highly skeptical. Some may even be annoyed that the topic is being discussed. Certainly, not everyone will view it the same way you view it.
    So some may react. For example, Lucia might go play with them and use your name. This is one of the risks you take when you try to bring the light of the so called ‘new fire’ to ignorant heathens such as myself and Steve. Are you good with this?
    I’ve asked several rhetorical questions. My answers: I’m not sure you’ve thought this through, I’m not sure you really want to be spreading the Gospel of LENR here, and I’m doubtful that you’re good with the risks regarding how we might react.
    To offer an unsolicited but kindly meant suggestion, it might be a good time to drop the subject.
    .
    As always, it is entirely possible and not even unlikely that I’m wrong on one or more of my speculative points above.

  269. Adrian,

    Submitting a false interest in investing is every bit as bad as the spam calls you have been complaining about.

    Perhaps. Perhaps not. It could be argued in both directions. As you made a claim while providing no argument to support it, I’ll grant you the right to provide your argument in favor of your claim that my requests for infomration are every bit as bad people cold calling me.

    In the meantime: I’m interested in information. ECAT provided an online contact form inviting interested parties to request information. I do have money. IF they convinced me that this is a good investment, overcoming my skepticism, I will consider investing. If the information they send does not convince me, I won’t.

    Although, unlike you, who find yourself too ill to devote a portion of your personal assets to invest in this technology which you tell us is so promising, I am not ill. I can take some risks with my money; if it’s as certain the ECATs work as you think it would be foolish of me not to try to learn more. So I will be inquiring.

    Obviously. I also don’t wish to throw away my money. If the information is not convincing, I won’t invest.

  270. SteveF:

    She acts just like a criminal. Whether on not she is in fact a criminal is, abscent solid evidence, just an opinion.

    I don’ think it implies criminal behavior. I don’t believe it’s possible for her to do all of the the things some people suggests she’s done and actually have consistently gotten off scot-free. That’s wacky at the 9/11 truther level to me.

    (If anything she’s the most vetted candidate in history. Not many people could stand up to the level of scrutiny given to a person with that many years in government, and find so little.)

    But I do think her behavior implies a very unhealthy level of paranoia, which to a large degree has invited the hyper level of scrutiny that she’s received. It’s counter productive behavior, and if she becomes president it will be damaging to our system of government, much as Nixon’s behavior was damaging.

    However, I don’t see any distance between her and Trump on the paranoia issue. But while Clinton is psychologically unhealthy (that is not a good thing of course), Trump actually is a real-life crook.

    He does things that would get you or I in jail. But he’s protected by money, political influence and an army of lawyers.

    The fact he can’t even be transparent with his health is just a joke. Lying about his weight for example. Clearly his statement about weighing 239 is untrue.

    He won’t even trust us with that, let alone open up his finances. That doesn’t bode well either if he becomes president.

    Clinton does things (I think) because she’s psychologically unhealthy. Trump does them because he knows how to protect his interests and himself from the consequences of his wrong-doing.

    I don’t think if Clinton became president she would deliberately engage in wrong-doing. I have no doubt that Trump would. He obviously thinks the rules of us plebeians don’t apply to him.

  272. There is video of Trump talking with media about Machado, how she’s working out and will lose weight by the next contest. She seems to be in a good mood about it all.

    Trump “one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen”.

    I think he feels he’s on solid ground continuing to talk about this.

  273. Mark Bofill,

    Has all the characteristics of a scam. Real technological advances are not promoted on a web page full of mumbo-jumbo jargon which makes no sense. As far as I can tell, they claim no energy source at all… not nuclear fission, not burning of fossil fuels, not even cold fusion… nothing. Limitless energy and fresh water from ocean water… with almost no cost! What a fabulous idea; it is going to revolutionize the patent office, since perpetual motion has now become reality.
    .
    It is as sorry a scam as the 100 MPG carburetors you can mount on your existing car engine, cold fusion reactors, and 2 meter sea level rises in 84 years. All the really wacko scams have similar characteristics.

  274. MikeN,

    Are we sure Adrian isn’t part of the company?

    Adrian. Are you affiliated with the ECAT company or any ECAT associated company?

  275. MikeN:

    I think he feels he’s on solid ground continuing to talk about this.

    Since I don’t want to see him because president, I sincerely hope you’re right.

    This is as good an idea as calling your wife fat in public, then arguing her that it’s actually a good thing for you to call her fat in public.

  276. SteveF,
    .
    Yeah, I tend to think so too.
    .
    It just amazes me though. I get that people can run scams by claiming something new and as yet unverified. But this… These guys are in essence saying they’re using a real technology and relying on the fact that nobody actually knows anything in particular about that tech. That people will just assume that what they claim is how it works. And the claims are so extraordinary!
    .
    Well, P.T. Barnum said it best I guess.

  277. Carrick, he presumably thought it was a good thing to say it publicly the first time.
    I am more and more opening up to the idea that the attack on Cruz’s dad was really about trying to get women’s votes by endorsing the National Enquirer.

  278. What really surprises me is that a primary argument against Trump in the primaries was that the media and the Democrats were holding back their best oppo research until after the convention and after Trump was officially the nominee. Then they would unload on him and completely destroy him. It has now been two months and so far they came up with this?
    Planning media profiles in Cosmopolitan and elsewhere, this was their big attack, or is there more to come?
    This makes the Mitt Romney employee who died of cancer look like a serious attack.

  279. Carrick,
    Is hiding evidence that is under subpoena not a crime?
    Is destroying evidence that is under subpoena not a crime?
    Is ignoring laws on national security not a crime?
    (Not rhetorical questions.)
    .
    If Trump is ‘protected’ by wealth and an army of lawyers, and so above the law, then I am at a loss to find the right adjective for Hillary. She is at present being protected by Mr Obama’s Justice Department. Trump has been hauled into court multiple times, and he does lose some of those cases; seems his protection is not so effective.
    .
    I have not doubt Trump is a liar, and would make a terrible president. I have no doubt Hillary is a liar and would make a terrible president. But it is a matter of degree, and the kinds of damage they would each respectively do. Hillary is a career politician, with a lifelong leftist ideology. She knows exactly what she wants to do, and I think she will do real political and economic damage to the nation, even if she is somewhat limited by an opposing House of Representatives. Her supreme court appointments will damage the Constitution. Her continuation of Obama’s unlawful executive orders will damage the rule of law. Trump is a buffoon with no real political ideology, and so IMO, the lesser of evils.

  280. The thing is, even if D + D → 4He in Pd were possible, Rossi’s scheme, as reported, can’t possibly work. The before and after analysis of the contents of the reactor tubes makes no sense, as I pointed out the last time this came up.

    The MHD thing is, if anything, even worse. They make no real attempt to disguise the fact that it’s a scam.

  281. Adrian,
    “That is more the kind of thing troll SteveF would indulge in.”
    .
    Nah, I wouldn’t waste my time poking fun at the scammers; I don’t find scams funny at all. I expect Tom Darden doesn’t either. Maybe Lucia has a better sense of humor than I do.

  283. Carrick,
    “This is as good an idea as calling your wife fat in public..”
    .
    My experience is that it is usually unwise to call your wife fat under any circumstances….

  284. The national polls are moving in Hillary’s direction, but the state polls seem to be going the other way. For example, trailing by just 6 in Washington. 538 might improve Trump’s chances.

  286. Let’s add falsely accusing someone of a crime that led to an actual prosecution, i.e. Travelgate. Robert Ray declined to prosecute because of insufficient evidence while saying that HRC made factually false statements about her role.

    Then there’s the miraculous cattle future profits.

    The list goes on and on.

    And it does boggle the mind.

  287. Lucia, submitting a bogus investment inquiry would waste more time of the recipient than a spam caller does for you. You could simply hang up.

    To answer several others on this thread, I mentioned LENR as a potentially important topic, which I happen think it is. After that I have simply been answering people’s posts. I wouldn’t bother elaborating as an original post because I find most here so skeptical it would be a waste of time.

    No, I am not connected with Rossi or his associates in any way. I am off to the doctor and will be off line for a bit.

  288. DeWitt,
    It does tend to boggle. The lead attorney for the Watergate Committee wanted her off the committee staff for unethical and dishonest behavior. She was protected by the democrat majority, of course. Very little has changed since, only the specifics of her unethical behaviors and the names of those protecting her.

  289. Adrian

    submitting a bogus investment inquiry would waste more time of the recipient that a spam caller does for you.

    First: Untrue. Your notion my email wastes more of their time is nonesense: they can ignore my email just as easily as I can hang up. Also, they may very well have scripts to generate automatic responses. So even ‘responding’ may consume absolutely none of their time. (In fact, their online contact form almost certainly triggers a program that sends out that email. So none of anyone’s time has been wasted by filling out the form to request information. )

    Second: Even if it were true that somehow they are compelled to devote time to my email, the issue of “wasting time” is irrelevant to assessing whether one action is as bad as the other. The main evil with spam calls is not that the waste my time. The “bad” issue with the spam calls from the “loan”, “credit card” and “change my power” companies is they are phishing for personal information with the intention of ripping me off. These phone spammers is not merely “wasting my time”. They are attempting theft of actual $$. Even if my investment inquiry was bogus, it would not amount to any attempt to steal their $$ or property.

  290. Adrian,
    .
    I wash my hands of this. Don’t say I didn’t warn you if this doesn’t work out whatever way you’re hoping it will.
    Ciao.

  291. SteveF:

    Is hiding evidence that is under subpoena not a crime?
    Is destroying evidence that is under subpoena not a crime?
    Is ignoring laws on national security not a crime?

    Based on the outcomes, what she did was not a crime (but probably ethical violations). (Serious response.) I think the fact people take this stuff as seriously as they due is more of an indication of Clinton’s unfortunate tendency to fan the flames of controversy rather than putting them out.

    She is at present being protected by Mr Obama’s Justice Department.

    I don’t think so. I think Comey’s judgment was correct here, no crimes were committed and there is no reasonable basis for prosecution here. If anything, he was entirely too political by singling out Clinton, as opposed to the roughly 500 people (including permanent staff) involved in their handling of classified material.

    The way I see it, if you or others were actually interested in national security, you’d be at least marginally concerned about the cultural in the State Department that led to these apparent mishandling of documents. You’d be asking why the State Department servers failed to keep backups of the emails sent by or to Clinton. (And so on.)

    The fact you aren’t labels your interest as purely political in nature: The desire to take down a political opponent, especially one who you guys see as an existential threat to the Republican Party.

    I don’t view the private server as an issue. Contrary to Comey’s remarks, the private server was objectively more secure than the State Department server and more secure than large public commercial servers like gmail.com. Clinton’s only big failure here was not to make an effort to maintain her own copy of her State Department emails. Technically this wouldn’t have mattered, had the State Department IT people done their job and maintained a copy, as they were legally required to do so. She ends up holding the ball here…because that’s what benefits you guys politically driven vendetta against her.

    As I view it, possibly not cynically enough, the Republicans spent about $7,000,000 of our tax dollars motivated by taking down a political opponent, somebody they knew would be a threat in the next election. They obviously failed. But like poor losers, they can’t lose gracefully.

    Unlike I suspect most people here, I’ve actually gone back and read much of the material from the Benghazi reports. They largely absolve Clinton of any wrong doing. I agree with Colin Powell, as he stated in his hacked emails, that this was a witch hunt. But like Powell I believe that Clinton shares in the blame here.

    Clinton has culpability in the deaths of Stevens and Smith (but not in the two CIA contractors killed at a separate CIA compound by mortar fire one-mile away and roughly four hours later, that’s a RNC generated hoax). She approved Steven’s mission to Benghazi, failed to adequately provide for his security, thereby leading their deaths and to the failure of US policy in Libya (this later failure has much larger long-term repercussions than the death of two diplomats in what amounted to a war zone). [“Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with her hubris”—Colin Powell’s words.]

    I honestly think the world will not end, regardless of which of these clowns become president. To me that smacks of our two-party system attempting to manipulate us into choosing either of these clowns.

    I do not think Clinton is competent enough to do nearly the damage that you think she would do. And I think she will do less damage only because she does have actual moral boundaries, whereas Donald Trump has none. I expect her incompetence in handling even the most minor of scandals, without turning it into a major scandal, will basically grind Washington for a halt over the next four years. I think her chance of a second term, without her turning into a much more successful president than either of us anticipated, is about zero. The chances she will significantly “stack” the SCOTUS is thus pretty small.

    I will vote Gary Johnson as a vote against a rigged two-party system that refuses to give us real choice, but expects our loyalty regardless.

  292. DeWitt:

    Let’s add falsely accusing someone of a crime that led to an actual prosecution, i.e. Travelgate. Robert Ray declined to prosecute because of insufficient evidence while saying that HRC made factually false statements about her role.

    You have a bit of a contradiction here.

    Lack of evidence to prosecute, when it applies to Clinton, implies guilt on Clinton’s part and complicity in the DOJ.

    Lack of evidence to prosecute, when it applies to Billy Ray Dale, seems to imply guilt on Clinton’s part. As it turns out though, you have your facts wrong. Dale actually was charged with embezzlement, but found innocent.

    I think there’s plenty of evidence of shady dealings on Billy Ray Dale’s part (the Travel Office Director). Shady dealings can get you fired without getting you in jail though.

    The issue with the Clinton’s is Bill Clinton hiring his third cousin, Catherine Cornelius, to replace Dale. That’s not technically illegal, but it’s definitely shady dealings too.

  294. Not fully familiar with the cattle futures, it looks fishy to me, though Wikipedia says she lost money during that period also. Having said that, we can already see Trump’s self-enrichment in action during his 5X jacking up of rates with donor (including small donor) money, and given that there are cheaper alternatives that are not called Trump.

  295. It’s a old dispute between Whigs and Tories. Tories tend to support the Monarch / Executive to accomplish whatever needs to be done without all that messy legislative stuff. Whigs tend to support, instead, the lesser nobility and to insist on the mess and delay involved in allowing each and every self-important blowhard a few minutes at the podium to bicker and negotiate, followed by a vote that could have been (and usually was) predicted from the onset.

    In the current instance the Democrat Clinton, like Obama, is all Tory. The pen and the phone and if the legislature won’t the president will and the intent of the penumbra of the preamble supersedes the language of the actual law. The “Freedom of Information Act” is inconvenient so set up a secret email account under a false name and let the director of the Clinton Foundation (also serving as secretary of the EPA) avoid scrutiny from the press and public. Set up a secret email server entirely. Delete the archives of the secret server. The King is the King and it’s not illegal if the King does it. Same with the travel office. Fire the civil servants and hire political supporters and never bother to consult the law, or make a case for changing the law, or trying to get (at the time) the legislature dominated by the party of the President to actually revise the law to suit the President. Just do what suits and lie about it if caught and “it isn’t illegal if the Queen does it”.

    Whigs are blowhards now and have been since Edmund Burke. But they are distinct from Tories.

  296. Carrick, he is saying they declined to prosecute Hillary over Travel Office, not Billy Dale.

    What are you talking about with regards to State not backing up e-mail records? I thought those were available, and the ones that went outside the system were not. For example Huma at clintonemail.com -> hrc at clintonemail.com (first attempt was blocked by Lucia’s code)

    Also, I disagree with ‘objectively more secure than other systems’. Like with RealClimate, I suspect that a break-in of Hillary’s server served as a gateway to the State Department hack and later OPM.

    They actively detected hacking attempts, and their response was to turn the server off for awhile. There is no evidence of actual cybersecurity competence by anyone involved.
    They were also using a third party spam filtering service, so her e-mails would have been available to view by people at that company as well.

    No explanation has been given about how Sidney Blumenthal had access to Top Secret NSA documents, or how other Top Secret material ended up on her server, which should not have been in her e-mail even if using a State Department server.

  297. Rb: “Not fully familiar with the cattle futures, it looks fishy to me, though Wikipedia says she lost money during that period also.”

    ….Here is the short version. Someone needing help from Bill was also involved in commodities trading. On her first try Clinton was supposedly such a genius that she turned $1,000 into $100,000 over roughly 6 months. However, this genius who was very concerned about money at the time (See NYTs article in past month or 2) never even tried it again. You can believe in the tooth fairy or believe that the trader allocated profitable trades to Clinton and losing trades to innocent investors. If Clinton had been so skilled, she would have done it again.

    Also, at one point in time, Clinton was substantially under water, which should have triggered a margin call, but it never did. Pretty clear to me that this was a sophisticated theft scheme that worked and gave Clinton a very large amount of money in the 70s.

    JD

  298. Carrick says “Based on the outcomes, what she did was not a crime (but probably ethical violations).”

    And corruption is excused.

  299. Carrick, how is destroying evidence under subpoena not a crime ‘based on the outcomes’?
    Is there something specific to the evidence destruction that makes it not a crime, or are you saying that it’s not a crime to do it if there is no underlying crime?

  300. Jferguson (Comment #151493) :

    Does anyone think the adventures of Miss Machado will become generally known and if so the Hillary folks will drop the subject?

    .
    The article on her having sex on Spanish reality TV and having a gangster boyfriend are besides the point as Machado causally told a US TV journalist yestereday: “You know, I have my past. Of course, everybody has a past.”
    .
    Machado may have found that nobody in the campaign is returning her calls today.

  301. For all the talk of Hillary’s outspending Trump, I am seeing a lot more Trump ads than Hillary. Particularly online ads. I think Trump is going after youtube, and perhaps better targeting.
    Or maybe Hillary is the better targeting, and that’s why I’m not seeing her ads.

  302. Carrick,
    Comey testified yesterday that the Justice Department issued immunity to five key people, which (apparently) was not requested by the FBI, including three who have subsequently refused to provide Congress with testimony. It is a very strange immunity which allows someone to not subsequently testify. Even legal scholar Johnathan Turley, who originally agreed with you, now says giving immunity to all 5 who could possibly implicate Clinton WRT destruction of 20,000+ subpoenaed emails was extremely strange and appears to be political intervention by the Justice Department. Of course it was political intervention… that is painfully obvious.
    .
    I think we can agree both main party candidates are poor alternatives, and agree to disagree about the rest. Considering where you live, it probably doesn’t matter who you vote for for president. I agree Johnson is a far better candidate than the others, but really, Johnson is irrelevant. My vote in Florida may actually matter. I will hold my nose and vote against Hillary.

    BTW, if Hillary wins, I expect AG Lynch to get a very nice appointment… say, Supreme Court.

  303. RB,
    WRT cattle futures, Hillary never put up the required margins (the agent began trading for her without any funds on deposit!). She did go “under water” at least once, but faced no margin calls. Nearly all her profit came from a few trades ‘recommended’ by the agent, including $40,000 on a single trade (doesn’t sound like so much today but it was roughly equal to a $160,000 trade today). Of course, it will never be possible to prove the agent favored Hillary in trades, but the likelyhood of somebody who knows nothing about a futures market making the equivalent of $400,000 in todays dollars in a single year, without ever having made an account deposit, simply beggars belief.
    .
    WRT Ziefman, it is possible that he is fabricating everything from whole cloth, including his diaries. It is also possible that he found her to be unscrupulous and deceitful. He will no doubt soon die and Hillary may soon move her deceit to ‘the next level’, so what he thinks won’t matter. But maybe Colin Powell is right about her ruining everthing she touches with hubris.

  305. DeWitt,
    I agree, someone looking for political influence with a certain William Jefferson Clinton almost certainly was on the ‘losing end’ of Hillary’s big, profitable trades. Note that these were ‘recommended’ trades…. AKA ‘the fix is in’. Individual investors would likely scream if there were any allocation of their profits toward Hillary.

  306. Carrick,

    She lied to the Independent Counsel in 2000 and wasn’t prosecuted. That was long after Billy Dale was (falsely) accused of embezzlement, tried and acquitted (1995).

    Martha Stewart and Scooter Libby, OTOH, went to jail for supposedly lying to investigators about things they didn’t even do, Martha Stewart for insider trading (she wasn’t an insider) and Scooter Libby for outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent (he didn’t). In fact, the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, very likely already knew that Richard Armitage had outed Valerie Plame, and even that wasn’t a crime.

    Mr. Fitzgerald didn’t charge anyone with leaking Ms. Plame’s identity or disclosing classified information to reporters. From the moment he took over the FBI leak investigation in December 2003, he knew Mr. Armitage was the leaker but declined to prosecute him, Mr. Rove or Mr. Harlow because the disclosure of Ms. Plame’s identity wasn’t a crime and didn’t compromise national security.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-berkowitz-the-false-evidence-against-scooter-libby-1428365713

  307. Carrick,

    Again, Billy Dale and the other fired Travel Office employees were not Civil Servants as defined by the Civil Service Act. They served at the pleasure of the President and could have been fired and replaced without trying to make them look like criminals. That was Hillary in her full mean-spirited glory.

  308. DeWitt,
    The travel office scandal is the prototypical Hillary scandal: blatant political corruption, injured innocents, lies, attempts to shift blame to others, delaying to run out the clock, and ultimately saying, ‘this is old news that was resolved years ago’, when of course, Hillary was never held to account. She is a corrupt worm.

  309. SteveF,

    You would think Adrian would get a clue when someone who runs a pro-LENR web site writes that Rossi is a con artist.

  310. DeWitt,
    You are projecting your rational thinking onto someone who is clearly not thinking about cold fusion rationally. Adrian will go to his grave believing the cold fusion nonsense; you can’t change this… nobody can. And some will continue to believe 2 meter sea level rise in 84 years is plausible, and much of Earth’s surface will soon be too hot to be habitable or grow food crops. You can’t change that either. Irrational belief is orthogonal to rational analysis.

  311. Dewitt: “The wrong end of her trades was probably taken by the broker, or someone from Tyson Foods.” Maybe you know more about commodities trading than me. I have never done it. However, my understanding was that the trades are rapidfire and that 15 minutes after making money on a trade, you can lose it on another trade. What I thought was that with the large number of trades that I imagined happening that the investors didn’t pay close attention to all of their trades and that it would be easy for someone to pick off and manipulate a relatively small number of trades out of the large number that I imagined happening in such a way that Clinton could make a “profit.”

    JD

  312. Lucia. “First: Untrue. Your notion my email wastes more of their time is nonesense: they can ignore my email just as easily as I can hang up.”

    That is not logical. A company looking for funding can’t just ignore incoming emails on the subject, while spam is immediately obvious to you. May we drop it now?

    OT but if you want to pick at my bones, the DelcoTimes just published my letter.
    “Dear Senator Pat Toomey, you failed — now resign.”

    http://www.delcotimes.com/opinion/20160928/letter-to-the-editor-dear-senator-pat-toomey-you-failed-now-resign

  313. Adrian,

    That is not logical.

    It is a true factthat they can ignore whatever they wish to ignore. What is or not a fact has to do with “logic”. It simply “is”. As in: Newton’s law is a an observable fact. This has nothing to do with “logic”.

    May we drop it now?

    If you want to stop discussing it, you are free to do so. You don’t need my permission to drop things. But if you say ridiculous things I am likely to respond and point out they are silly.

  314. Lucia. “It is a true factthat they can ignore whatever they wish to ignore. ”

    Of course they can. They could also ignore what happens if you hold a gun to your head and pull the trigger. It doesn’t make it a sensible thing to do. Neither does ignoring someone wanting to invest money in the company when you need it.

  315. SteveF, it has been reported elsewhere that Cheryl Mills was given production immunity, not full immunity.

  316. DeWitt, Fitzgerald knew within hours. Bob Novak reported he was undecided whether to accept the waivers of confidentiality signed by administration officials, but when he went to meet with Fitzgerald, they already knew his source.
    The only real issue was Colin Powell could have revealed the source to the public and shut the scandal down, but he liked it better that way.
    Fitzgerald kept going to try and get Bush and Cheney for lying about WMD, and to settle scores. Judith Miller had blown his Holy Land Foundation case by tipping them off about a search. He was also involved in the Mark Rich case, for which Scooter Libby was the lawyer.

  317. I’ve been thinking about Hillary’s one argument she made Monday that seems hard to refute; a robust middle class is essential for America’s economic and political success. At the same time the trend since “trickle down” was initiated is for wealth stratification. The rich are getting richer by controlling the means of wealth. The answer thus is for America to have a big fat tax increase on those who can certainly afford it. The new revenue could then be used to balance the budget, fix infrastructure and lower taxes on the middle class, which is the stimulus the economy needs to be healthy and produce more revenues for all.
    .
    Does anyone who is not conservative of libertarian see any flaws?
    .
    I think this is the single most fundamental issue and contrast in liberal vs. conservative POV. I think it deserves some thought.

  318. Adrian Ashfield (Comment #151542)
    “I mentioned LENR as a potentially important topic, which I happen think it is. After that I have simply been answering people’s posts. I wouldn’t bother elaborating as an original post because I find most here so skeptical it would be a waste of time.
    No, I am not connected with Rossi or his associates in any way.”
    not that many skeptics at this site.
    Most of them are of the Lukewarmer variety, or as you and I would call it the Low Energy Global Warmers.
    Still I think most of them can recognise a Ponzi or Perpetual Motion scam when they see one.
    A friend of mine put me onto a 3% A DAY group a few years ago. I pointed out a few skeptical internet posts and he got the message. Who was he upset at?
    Me, for spoiling his retirement.

  319. Ron Graf,

    .
    I think this is the single most fundamental issue and contrast in liberal vs. conservative POV. I think it deserves some thought.

    Wholly agree.
    Probably not where you are going, but I often wonder about these items under that umbrella (all real questions, although I have my personal answers):
    1. Is income equality more important that economic prosperity? In other words, would someone rather have a crappy economy where there were few or no billionaires / hundred millionaires or a rapidly growing economy with super rich and super poor people?
    2. Can any amount of tax increase save us from our deficit spending? So called ‘entitlement spending’ is projected to rise. I’ll look up the exact figures later, don’t have them on hand right now. My impression is that without vigorous economic growth we’re going to face some painful cuts or austerity at some point, regardless of how much we raise taxes. So in my view, economic growth first and foremost. Famous last words, I know. 🙂
    Still, I think our national priorities are confused and somewhat contradictory.
    [Edit: I phrased that poorly. Would someone? What someone? I guess I meant, would you the reader. Sorry.]

  320. Adrian

    Of course they can. They could also ignore what happens if you hold a gun to your head and pull the trigger.

    Metaphors are fun. And they are sometimes useful. But a metaphor in which ECAT receiving a response to an email they sent out is like having a gun held to their head is just silly. They can ignore it.

  321. I for one have little or no issue with income inequality, at least in some cases.
    Consider the guy who loves hiking passionately. He makes his career ‘park ranger’. He walks around in the woods a lot. Doesn’t get paid much, but he’s doing what he wants to do. That’s a form of compensation that he appreciates that others may not. Who are we to say that his values are misplaced?
    Contrast him to the guy who’s dream is to own a yacht. Maybe he works his butt raw, studies hard, gets into prestigious schools, works in a field with high stress, maybe something he doesn’t particularly like, to achieve his goal. Again, who are we to say this is wrong?
    Freedom trumps income equality hands down.

  323. Gah. Rhetorical questions with no answers. Open mouth, insert foot, chew. Owwch!

    Who are we to say that his values are misplaced?

    and

    Again, who are we to say this is wrong?

    We have no business making such a call, is my answer.

  325. Lucia, “But a metaphor in which ECAT receiving a response to an email they sent out is like having a gun held to their head is just silly. They can ignore it.”

    I never said it was, as you well know. You said they could ignore logical action. I said it wouldn’t make sense to do so.

  326. Ron Graf,
    A robust middle class is indeed a good thing, and there are lots of ways the Federal Government acts to reduce the size of the middle class. I’ll examine just one: special treatment of capital gains. Extremely wealthy people often (usually?) have mostly capital gains income. Since this income has a very low marginal tax rate, lots of very wealthy people pay very low taxes (as a % of income). There are good reasons for some special treatment… after all, if an asset’s value rises over a long period (years) due only to price inflation, then indexing gain/loss upon the sale of the asset protects the owner from what is essentially confication of wealth: an asset held for 5 years with inflation raging at 10% per year may be sold at a net loss, when inflation is taken into account, but the owner still be required to pay taxes on the difference in price due entirely to inflation. Indexing capital gains to inflation is rational and defensible (and ‘fair’). But that is not what is done; capital gains receive special treatment unrelated to inflation or the length of time assets are held. Treating indexed capital gains as normal income, with normal tax rates, would subject lots of very wealthy individuals to the high marginal rates that most upper middle class individuals (who gain income through labor) already pay. There would be lots of screaming, and Hillary would NEVER support such a change (there is a reason investment banks pay her $250K for a brief speech), but if Hillary actually believes taxes should be higher, capital gains is a very good place to start. Worse yet, fund managers who are compensated with a percentage of fund value increases (capital gains on the funds assets), are allowed to treat that compensation as capital gains, and so pay very low taxes on very high labor income. Once again, Hillary could immediatly call for treatment of fund management fees as normal income. She won’t, because she gets huge donations from fund managers who want to protect their low tax rates. The people Hillary wants to tax heavily are mostly… in reality….. Republicans, not the very wealthy individuals who pay her off.

  327. angech (Comment #151573), maybe the majority here are not skeptics of LENR but most commenting are.

    Rossi does not look like a scammer. He could have retired when he sold his biofuel generator company for ~$1 million instead of plowing it and even mortgaging his house, into the E-Cat. Or when he sold his IP to Industrial Heat for ~$10 million. He spends up to 16 hours a day working on it. It seems he believes in what he’s doing whether it is right or wrong.

    I’ve heard all the arguments for and against so you will not spoil my retirement. My position is wait and see rather than jumping to conclusions.

  328. Ron Graf wrote:
    “Does anyone who is not conservative of libertarian see any flaws?”
    You might as well ask if anyone who agrees with you disagrees with you.
    “I think this is the single most fundamental issue and contrast in liberal vs. conservative POV. I think it deserves some thought.”
    I agree completely.
    .
    Economics has traditionally been theoretical. These days, thanks to big data, some economists have been trying to use data analysis to sort out empirically what really happens. Such analysis indicates that the main effect of corporate taxes is to reduce the wages of the employees. Actual consequences are often very different from intended consequences.
    .
    Conservatives are generally very concerned with the middle class. But the left’s attitude towards the conservative POV is usually just to dismiss it.

  329. DeWitt:

    That was long after Billy Dale was (falsely) accused of embezzlement, tried and acquitted (1995).

    He wasn’t falsely accused. He kept two sets of books, and was caught at it. The investigation of the travel office was the result of suspicion of criminal wrong-doing. The FBI investigated and recommended prosecution.

    He was prosecuted because the prosecutor thought there was a legitimate case, and that there was sufficient evidence for a conviction.

    Think of the chain of people you are accusing of being enaged in false accusations. It doesn’t start or end with the Clintons. Hillary wasn’t even dragged into this until she decided to run for Senate. Before that it was all on Bill.

    The idea you and the others on your side of the polical spectrum are playing this down the middle, or even making a minor effort to be objective is frankly quite a joke. This is part of a long-standing Republican vendetta against the Clintons, which frankly has long ago worn thin.

  330. SteveF,
    The reason for differential tax treatment of investment income is that corporations have already paid tax on that income. But corporations are very good at tax avoidance and, in any case, it seems that the tax is, in effect, paid by reducing the pay of employees. It would be much more sensible to eliminate the corporate income tax and do as you suggest: tax all income as earned income. After all, corporations aren’t people and corporate profits ultimately goes one of two places: investment in the business (why would we want to tax that?) and distribution to shareholders (which is where it ought to be taxed).
    .
    I disagree about indexing capital gains. Even if capital gains are taxed as ordinary income, there is still a benefit that accrues to the investor from not paying tax until the gain is realized. That is equivalent to a zero interest loan from the government, which is fair given the inflation effect that you cite.

  331. Carrick,
    “Hillary wasn’t even dragged into this until she decided to run for Senate. Before that it was all on Bill.”
    .
    Are you suggesting that it was not Hillary who was pushing to replace the existing eployees with her cronies? The documentary evidence is clear that Hillary was deeply involved in the firings. It is also clear she was pushing for a friend (and political donor) who owned an air charter service to take over the operation. You may imagine that these facts are evidence of a vendetta against the Clintons, but you are simply mistaken about that. My objection to the Clintons returning to the White House is that they are blatant liars and blatantly corrupt. I have no vendetta. You should avoid claiming to know people’s motivations better than they know themselves.

  332. MinkN:

    Carrick, how is destroying evidence under subpoena not a crime ‘based on the outcomes’?

    You need to amplify what you mean, but I can give you a general spirt of what I think is going on without that.

    Hillary Clinton does very little directly or without consultation of her lawyers. Even the email server was set up with consultation with both her own lawyers and with State Department officials (and as it turns out, Colin Powell).

    With respect to deleting what were supposed to be personal emails, the order to the destroy them was given by her laywers to the IT people. The IT poeple used routine deletion software to remove them (BleachBit).

    There were obviously mistakes made by the people who selected which emails to delete. But this is where you guys story runs into the ground—for Clinton to have commited a crime, would have involved a large loop of individuals who were co-conspirators, many of whom would have had no political loyalty to Clinton.

    She plays it as close to the line of legal as she’s comfortable doing. She knows enough to never do anything herself. There’s always a chain of people extending away from her to anybody who is potentially wrong doing. Generally, I suspect, if they did something wrong, it’s either because of incompetence (like only searching in email headers to select which emails to retain) or because of bad legal advise from the troop of lawyers.

    This doesn’t describe somebody who is ethically pure. But it is pretty much how any good Washington politican works. They are all corrupt this way.

    The difference with Trump is he consciously engages in manifestly illegal acts, staying close enough to the line that his political power, access to an army of lawyers and wealth protect him from prosecution. He knows he can “settle with victims” (aka tamper with witnessess) and “make political donations” (bribe prosecutors), and if that doesn’t work politically destroy any sorry ass prosecutor stupid enough to take him on.

  333. MikeM,
    Where does corporate income tax enter into the question of capital gains rates? Tax rates for corporations, and tax rates on corporate dividens is a separate question.

  334. Carrick,

    So if a mob boss says, ‘wow, that Elliot Ness is a pain in the patooty, I wish he’d disappear’ to his guys and his guys murder him, the mob boss hasn’t commit a crime, right?

  335. Carrick,

    http://articles.latimes.com/1995-11-17/news/mn-4111_1_white-house-official

    What two sets of books? Yes, he mishandled some checks, but there was no evidence sufficient to convince a jury that he used that money for personal gain. The jury took two hours to acquit. That sounds like a pretty weak case to me.

    There is clear evidence presented at the recent grilling of Comey that Cheryl Mills lied to investigators about when she knew about HRC’s email server. She gets immunity with the flimsy excuse that she was Clinton’s personal attorney as well as Chief of Staff when she should have been charged with perjury. How many people were involved with that one? My guess is quite a few.

  336. SteveF:

    Are you suggesting that it was not Hillary who was pushing to replace the existing eployees with her cronies?

    That’s an example of a story that has evolved over time. It was Bill’s third cousin, not her’s.

    The original political appointees were there from Reagan and Bush. Replacing political appointments with ones loyal to you is routine. Even DeWitt admits to that. It’s entirely the discretion of the White House what criterion is used.

    The Clinton’s are guilty of making no effort to maintain an appearance of ethical behavior. That was stupid and speaks to their poor judgement and even ethical corruption. It doesn’t speak to anything legally actionable though.

    My objection to the Clintons returning to the White House is that they are blatant liars and blatantly corrupt.

    That applies to virtually every politician in Washington, including her detractors in congress, like Trey Gowdy, who’s knowingly, and with the blessing of the Right, abused the constutional process to go after a political opponent who they knew would be a threat in this presidental election.

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/14/politics/hillary-clinton-benghazi-committee/

    Gowdy and others knowingly exaggerated Clinton’s role in Benghazi, accused her of being responsible for things they flat-out knew she could not have been responsible for (like the death by mortar fire of the two contractors in CIA annex 1-mile from the main complex). They continue to exaggerate about Clinton’s email, and now are making the FBI a target because they didn’t get the judgement they were hoping for.

    They crossed over the line of what is not ethically corrupt along time ago. I don’t see anything approaching common sense from people on the right, or the slightest effort to rain in their witch hunts. If you wanted to claim any moral high ground, you’ve ceded it a long time ago.

    If you had any moral authority left at all, you lost it when you guys sold out to Trump. He’s not a Republican, a conservative, a Christian, or anybody who should be allowed near the White House. Arguably he makes any of the corrupt Washington politicans look like saints.

  337. Carrick, I do not understand how anyone who saw how Hillary Clinton has behaved throughout the email scandal can ever trust a single word she says, ever. She lied throughout with a straight face, with her story changing over and over as new facts came out.
    Everyone knows it who cares.
    http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/mika-it-feels-like-clinton-is-lying-straight-out-693313091808
    And no, I do not believe that all politicians do this.
    Trump is a shock jock, and careless with his words. Clinton is different. She is a conscienceless liar. Watch the videos of her talking that they show there; it is an education in what a liar looks like.
    Calling it a Republican vendetta is ludicrous. It is a vendetta by anyone who cares about corruption. It would be nice to catch her for what she does, but in any case she is always guilty. It is too bad that there are so many people who are far enough in the partisan swamp that “it’s hard to catch a mob boss” turns into “look how many times those Republicans pretended she’d done something wrong.”

  338. SteveF, JD,
    Thanks – the cattle futures does look like a case of where Hillary got ‘special’ treatment – I don’t know if she even knew what margin calls meant. It seems just as unseemly as Bush Jr’s Harken insider trading and cronyism of the Rangers land grab. It seems like access to power creates these backroom deals. Bush Jr doesn’t seem to have been as damaged by those incidents as much though as Hillary has by her.

  339. Trump is a shock jock

    I saw how with a very straight face he denied saying that global warming was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese and his staff went into dry cleaning mode, the kind you wouldn’t like if Skeptical Science did it.

  340. Carrick, your comments about this don’t make any sense. It’s not Gowdy and co.’s fault that they see things differently from you; it doesn’t make them corrupt. They are using a Constitutional process to try to catch someone who in their minds (and mine) is a criminal. There’s nothing wrong with that; that’s what you do to criminals. You focus on the ones you think are guilty, and especially focus on the really important ones. They are now going after the FBI because they believe that the FBI knowingly failed to do its job because of the power of the person they were investigating.
    Again, it’s not their fault that you see things differently from them; that doesn’t make them corrupt. You don’t get to assign them your picture of reality and judge them accordingly.

  341. DeWitt:

    What two sets of books?

    The two sets of books that contributed to his embezzlement charges.

    There is clear evidence presented at the recent grilling of Comey that Cheryl Mills lied to investigators about when she knew about HRC’s email server.

    I admit haven’t reviewed that testimony.

    But even assuming you’re being accurate and fair in your characterization, my take is if Mills did something illegal, it’s because she made an error in judgement, and not because she was instructed by Clinton to do that illegal thing.

    I think that’s generally going to be the pattern here: They skate up against the line of what is legal, but do try to stay on the correct side of it. When they cross the line, generally it’s due to errors in judgement and not due to willfully illegal acts.

  342. Although to be fair Carrick,

    If you had any moral authority left at all, you lost it when you guys sold out to Trump.

    Yes. I don’t dispute that both candidates are crooked, it’s one of my starting assumptions. I wouldn’t exactly say this doesn’t trouble me.. perhaps the way I’d put it is, I don’t consider this sufficient reason not to vote for one or the other. I don’t disqualify Hillary because I think she’s corrupt.

  343. MikeR:

    It’s not Gowdy and co.’s fault that they see things differently from you; it doesn’t make them corrupt.

    Everybody on the right admits, some publicly, that the investigation is politically motivated.

    That does make them corrupt. Especially when I can point to accusations of wrong-doing from them that they full-well know are false.

    Obviously this is politically motivated. And that makes it corrupt and an abuse of power.

  344. Carrick,
    “If you had any moral authority left at all, you lost it when you guys sold out to Trump.”
    .
    That way lies Hillary’s ‘basket of deplorables’ thinking. She surely does believe that. I hope you do not.

  345. mark bofill, we’re basically on the same page on this one, then. Generally she makes errors in judgment, then the Republicans exploit it. I’d have a less sour taste in my mouth over it, if the right-wingers here would at least admit to this obvious fact, and not make these “hollier than thou” noises.

    Hillary’s problems with her private email server weren’t created by the Republicans, for exampole. They are a result of her poor political judgement. The Republicans are using this poor judgement to damage her, and in the process, as I’ve noted, abusing their constitutional powers.

    Nothing extraordinary about that though–that’s how business in Washington is practiced.

    More to the point, Hillary’s poor political and professional judgement will follow her to the White House. If she is elected, we’re going to have four years of scandal after scandal. She will make policy decisions that will immediately have disastrous outcomes.

    I think the one big difference between her and Trump is, unlike what the right-wing propaganda machine claims, she will make an effort for her administrations actions to be legal, even when she is engaged in ethically questionable acts (again, that’s business as usual).

    But I don’t see any evidence that Trump has any such boundaries. He willfully commits illegal acts. He and his lawyers (who are professionals at this) just have a good sense of where the line is, with what they can get away with, and still remain profitable and out of jail.

    I think that makes him a hell of a lot scarier than Clinton. Corporate corruption makes corrupt politicians look like saints.

  347. Mike M. (Comment #151583)
    “Economics has traditionally been theoretical. These days, thanks to big data, some economists have been trying to use data analysis to sort out empirically what really happens”.

    I’m not a big fan of “let us assume we have a can opener” economics and I think the game has changed anyway.

    The immediate problem is a change in culture such that businesses are more focused on short term profit and have not been sharing gains due to productivity with their employees, as they used to do until the 1970s.
    Now the attitude seems to be – well if you don’t like your pay there are plenty of others waiting to take it.

    I think it is going to get much worse in the fairly near future due to robotics and AI. I don’t know of any very good solutions. The best I know of is UBI (universal basic income) that is not aesthetically appealing.
    It could be paid for by using it to replace ALL the government social programs, reducing military expenditure and taxing the very rich more.
    I don’t think the problems with it are known and it needs to be tried out on say a large city or a State, to see what actually happens.
    There are a number of major economists favoring it and some limited trials held with good results.

  348. SteveF, absolutely without any question at all that as a party, you guys have sold out. I have never been so disappointed in the moral judgement of so many people in my entire life.

  349. Carrick,
    Both candidates are just horrible. I’ve pretty well decided who to vote for: Gary “Allepo Moment” Johnson. Why? To encourage 3rd parties.

    I wish there was a remote possibility third party candidates would take a few states so this could go to Congress. They might elect someone else. Admittedly, they would probably just pick one of the two main party nominations. But well… one can dream.

  350. Yeah, when I consider the options for this election cycle for some insane reason I keep hearing Denethor in Lord of the Rings telling Pippin ‘go and die in whatever way seems best to you.’ :/

  351. I didn’t watch the debate and, as a Brit, I am just observing this campaign with the same mix of horror and amusement as I have observed every US Presidential election since 1992 – honestly, Clinton, Bush,Obama, you guys know how to pick the best candidates – but when Hillary springs an allegation on her opponent of being abusive to a woman who was probably a getaway driver from a murder scene, has issued death threats against a judge, performed sexual acts on TV, in addition to having ballooned in weight since being chosen as a beauty queen, then my reaction is not to blame Trump for being wrong-footed but to wonder whether the Clinton camp have any brainpower at all.

    And as for the suggestions that taxes on high earners should be raised, I have a question. In the UK the top 25% of earners pay just over 50% of income tax receipts. Is the situation so different in the US?

  352. Carrick,
    “…as a party, you guys have sold out.”
    .
    You should not jump to conclusions. I am independent; I voted for Bush the younger once and against him the second time (after it was clear his is neither principled nor competent).
    .
    Judgement is never black and white, and moral judgement even less so. You conclude Hillary is the lesser of evils, I conclude Trump is. They are both horrible candidates. I think it prudent to leave it at that.

  353. Carrick,

    You’re making unwarranted generalizations again. Trump is not the candidate of “The Right”. Many conservatives will hold their nose and vote for him, but that doesn’t mean he’s their candidate.

    ‘You guys’ doesn’t include me. I didn’t vote for Trump in the primary and I’m not voting for him in November. I don’t consider myself to be a member of the Republican Party. I gave them some money many years ago and immediately had cause to regret it.

    Your defense of HRC is beginning to sound like Nick Stokes. In fact, she has great judgement of what she can get away with, knowing that there are too many people like you who will give her the benefit of the doubt. But that still makes her a crook who should have been indicted and prosecuted.

  354. Graeme,
    “In the UK the top 25% of earners pay just over 50% of income tax receipts. Is the situation so different in the US?”
    .
    It depends on what is counted as ‘income tax’. If you count all taxes on income (including mandatory payments toward Social Security and Medicare; effectively a flat tax of ~15% on all labor based earnings up to US$118,500 per year), then the answer is different from when you only consider ‘Federal income tax’. The latter is paid much more by higher income individuals. The former is paid by everyone with labor based earnings up to the maximum. The contentious political issue is more marginal tax rates; many very wealthy individuals pay very low marginal tax rates even though they pay a lot of income tax in absolute terms because of favorable treatment of certain types of income. The maximum marginal rates also depend on state and local taxes, which can be as high as 13% on top of Federal taxes.

  355. Lucia,
    “Both candidates are just horrible.”

    I agree with you.
    The problem lies more with Congress though: they make the laws. Until the general population stops re-electing most of them nothing will change. I have no idea how to change that situation.
    Did you read my letter to the ‘Times?

  356. The biggest act of persuasion for Trump has nothing to do with his persuasion skills, but simply running as the candidate of a major party. There is no reason for evangelical Christians to vote for him otherwise.

  357. I’ve no more time for political banter today unfortunately. Hopefully nobody thought I was holding anything back. 😉

    I saw a conservative post this on a blog today:

    I think the factions that made up the conservative coalition are crumbling. You’re now a “conservative” if you: support endless war around the world, support limiting the movement of free people, support draconian drug laws, make a fuss about who sits and stands during a song, fight in the War on Christmas, and want the government to limit who can get married.

    Those things remind of what conservatism used to be in the British empire. They remind me of the Tories.

    To be clear, I’m making no moral judgement about anybody on this blog, regardless of whom you vote for. Many of us are #NeverHillary, others are #NeverTrump. Like Lucia I will be voting for Gary Johnson.

    I don’t have a lifetime of blog posts from anybody here stating their prior political position. It’s impossible for me to say whether their current views are consistent with their historical views.

    I’m thinking more of politicians like Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie and Ted Cruz, conservative commentators like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, or conservative bloggers like Gateway Pundit, Intapundit or Ace of Spades. After making a career of advocating conservative, principled behavior, these people actively admit they are not acting in a principled manner and are criticizing people who do.

    That’s at the nub—too me—”selling out”.

  358. Adrian:

    The problem lies more with Congress though: they make the laws. Until the general population stops re-electing most of them nothing will change. I have no idea how to change that situation.

    I can think of two:

    Institute nationwide standards for the selection of voting precincts (end gerrymandering, the ultimate form of vote rigging). Institute term limits.

  359. RB,
    Such appeal as Trump has is because he is not “Establishment.”
    Anybody would be better than one of them, who have run this country so badly for nearly a half century.

  360. Carrick,
    “Institute nationwide standards for the selection of voting precincts (end gerrymandering, the ultimate form of vote rigging). Institute term limits.”

    Then just consider who makes the laws to implement those ideas. What’s happening is deliberate and neither party has any incentive to change it.

  361. Carrick,
    “Institute nationwide standards for the selection of voting precincts (end gerrymandering, the ultimate form of vote rigging). Institute term limits.”

    Then consider who would make the laws to implement those ideas. Neither party has any incentive to do that.
    There are only two main drivers. How to get elected and then how to get re-elected.

  362. Adrian Ashfield,
    I’m saying that if he had stood as an independent, he may not have got as much support from the evangelicals. Of course, there is no way of finding out.

  363. Ooops. The first comment didn’t appear at first so the second is a duplicate. I tried and failed to delete one of them.

  364. RB,
    You may be right. I don’t know if it is the evangelicals or just those who support the GOP no matter what. Not clear to me what appeal he has for the evangelicals

  365. SteveF

    Thanks for that. My definition of income ta xes included all sources of income and allowable deductions. There is another tranche of tax on employment earnings but it is not going to change the distribution greatly. You can see it here by income range:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/523874/Table_2.5.pdf

    It looks to me as if the highest earners pay a higher percentage of tax but it flattens out quite rapidly

  366. Carrick,
    It is obvious you were not holding back.
    .
    WRT:

    I think the factions that made up the conservative coalition are crumbling. You’re now a “conservative” if you: support endless war around the world, support limiting the movement of free people, support draconian drug laws, make a fuss about who sits and stands during a song, fight in the War on Christmas, and want the government to limit who can get married.

    .
    1) I don’t support endless wars; I do support killing, as quickly and cheaply as possible, very bad guys like ISIS.
    2) I support reasonable immigration laws, if that is what ‘limiting the movement of free people’ refers to. A nation-state can’t otherwise exist for very long.
    3) I think drug laws are stupid and wasteful, and are directly responsible for a large fraction of all crime and incarcerations.
    4) I don’t give a hoot if someone does not want to stand during the national anthem. If they play football, they should understand they will likely get booed later.
    5) Not even sure what ‘the war on Christmas’ refers to; I am an atheist, so I am not likely going to care much one way or the other about a war on Christmas. I would object to a war on Christians, which is the sort of thing ISIS does.
    6) I don’t care who people marry, so long as they are not close relatives of the opposite sex (to protect offspring from birth defects). If people want to marry their favorite dog… or dogs, that’s OK with me, though I would object to someone claiming personal exemptions for dogs on Form 1040.
    .
    That kind of caricature of “conservatives” sounds like it came from one of Hillary’s speech writers on a bad day, not someone who actually is in any way ‘conservative’.

  367. I think the factions that made up the conservative coalition are crumbling. You’re now a “conservative” if you: support endless war around the world, support limiting the movement of free people, support draconian drug laws, make a fuss about who sits and stands during a song, fight in the War on Christmas, and want the government to limit who can get married.

    Those things remind of what conservatism used to be in the British empire. They remind me of the Tories.

    I wonder who wrote that. As a “Tory” voter they don’t describe my views very well. Live and let live until it becomes intolerable is more my stance. There is also a generational thing. Up until around 1990, the UK parliament had a number of members with real, hard-earned experience of war – WW2, Korea, Malaysia etc – and they were not at all keen on sending folks on militry missions. It’s the subsequent generation of professional politicos, Blair, Cameron etc, who have made a point of sending in troops and bombers in every nation in the Middle East and Africa.

  368. Graeme,
    Because of very different tax structures in different countries, the best way to compare overall tax is total tax as a fraction of GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP
    .
    By that measure the USA rates are much lower than European rates, although the UK is just about the lowest of the EC countries. I suspect the high tax rates in Europe are as much due to high VATs as to high marginal income tax rates. Total European tax rates would be unlikely to be supported by voters in the the States.

  369. Carrick:

    SteveF, absolutely without any question at all that as a party, you guys have sold out. I have never been so disappointed in the moral judgement of so many people in my entire life.

    .
    Carrick, RB, anyone, like most things, its complicated. Trump did not win a majority of Republicans even when it was down to three. Each of the 17 candidates had strengths. Cassich could have one if he had stopped repeating himself about Ohio and accentuated his key role leading the House Budget Committee that led to the “Clinton surplus” of 2000. He also embraced expanded medicaid under the ACA for Ohio. Ted Cruz was my choice but I realize now that he was already cast by the MSM as the creepy class nerd. He would have been shredded by now by late night and comedy for his social conservatism. The deporables got it right; Trump was the right choice.
    .
    Do I think Trump is crooked? No — In business you don’t succeed by being crooked, not like politics. You succeed by gaining respect through toughness, courage and smarts. There are crooked business people but they do not last 50 years.
    .
    Carrick,RB, anyone, do you believe she set up the home server because she wanted to be able to do all her email on one device? Do you believe her private email was approved by the State Department? Do you believe she intended to return the government portion of her emails at some point had she not been subpoenaed to by congress three years after having left office? Do you believe she had nothing do due with the deletion of the emails? Do you believe no incriminating emails were deleted? Do you believe there were no classified emails? Do you believe there were no emails marked classified? Do you believe there were no emails marked classified had she known how that actually worked, and had she known that the office she held, Secretary of State, was itself a responsible authority for determining what is to be classified? Do you believe she knew at one time but forgot due to her concussion like she told the FBI? Do you believe there was no corruption for political gain in the DOJ, FBI, ATF or IRS?
    .
    Is your answer that you thing both Hillary and Trump are crooked but you prefer Hillary’s economic plan?

  371. With respect to deleting what were supposed to be personal emails, the order to the destroy them was given by her laywers to the IT people. The IT poeple used routine deletion software to remove them (BleachBit).

    OMG Carrick, with the same argument you can vindicate Hitler for the murder of millions of jews. I know it’s a horrible Goodwin, but never the less it’s true, do you really believe them lawyers would act without HRC’s consent or order?

  372. Am not an American citizin, but I guess it’s in the US the same as in my country, people are fed up with the current political elite and vote Trump regardless whatever he says. Just a giant middle finger to the establishment.

  373. Carrick, so your ‘based on the outcomes’ means that you do not think Hillary engaged in destruction of evidence under subpoena?

  374. MikeM, regarding capital gains tax and inflation, what if there is no gain other than inflation?
    So now there is no tax that you are paying later, except for tax on the gains from inflation.
    The benefit of not paying until later is just the benefit of not paying a property tax.

  375. SteveF, this was a question asked of Obama in a debate in 2008. The moderator pointed out that revenues from taxes rose after a capital gains tax cut, but Obama said he favored an increase in the tax as a matter of fairness even if it produced less revenue.

    This was from the capital gains tax itself, but the argument has been that a zero capital gains tax would increase revenue in other taxes, because you are encouraging investment.

    Art Laffer has argued that maximum revenue would come from a NEGATIVE capital gains tax.

  376. SteveF

    5) Not even sure what ‘the war on Christmas’ refers to; I am an atheist, so I am not likely going to care much one way or the other about a war on Christmas. I would object to a war on Christians, which is the sort of thing ISIS does.

    I know what it is.

    Some atheists make a big deal about people saying “Merry Christmas” snapping at cashiers. Or they protest chools having Christmas pageants and so on. They insist the music must be “holiday music”, so I guess they thing it’s ok for kids to sing “Jingle Bell Rock” or something, but no “Oh Come, Oh Come Emaanuel.” (I live Oh Come, Oh Come Emanuel, btw.)

    I’m an atheist but I think these people are nutso.

    (I know a few evangelicals who work with Jim who seem to have a “war on Halloween”. This is a subset- but they get all bent out of shape that kids dress up as witches etc. It’s similar.)

  378. More “war on christmas”…. I forgot to add, there are also people on the other side in the “war on Christmas” who get all upset if the school does call the grade school choir concert just before Christmas break a “holiday concert” and only sings non-Christmas stuff. They bring all guns blazing because the choir didn’t sing “Silent Night” or whatever. So rhetorically, these two sides have a war. Most people just sigh…..

  380. Ron Graf,
    I’ll answer the last part. I can’t tell you which economic plan I prefer because Trump has no plans for anything except that he will do great deals, it will be amazing and that I’m gonna love it.

  381. RB, are you saying you don’t believe him?

    He actually has made several economic speeches, and has a tax plan endorsed and written by conservative stars Art Laffer, Larry Kudlow, and Steven Moore, but these have been ignored in favor of other issues.

  382. I wrote off Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh years ago and never paid much attention to O’Reilly. Coulter could get off some really good one-liners, but her adamantine opposition to evolution as well as her prosecutorial bias (if you’re convicted, you must be guilty regardless of any new evidence to the contrary) turned me off. Limbaugh, IMO, bears primary responsibility for making unwavering opposition to illegal immigration a litmus test. I sent him an email in November, 2012 congratulating him on re-electing Obama after playing a major role in making Romney unelectable. The concentration in the primaries on illegal immigration, instead of on the economy and the size and power of the federal government was fatal. Illegal immigration was, and still is, not a highly important issue for most people. It did rank above climate change in 2015, though. Of course, Romney helped a lot too.

    Cruz is hopeless. Why anyone, other than himself, thought he was a good candidate for President is beyond me. However, he pandered to people like Limbaugh and they supported him directly and indirectly. But, in the end what they got was Trump, who made Cruz look like an amateur when it came to being anti-establishment and not politically correct.

  383. In the UK, the war on Xmas is more about the attempts to describe December 25 in ways that do not exclude other faiths, especially Hinduism and Islam. So there are people who insist on calling “Christmas” Christmas.

  384. And the politically correct crowd who are anxious not to give offence to Muslims and Hindus even though they mostly do not take offence and actively celebrate Christmas as well as the occasions specified in their faith

  385. The argument that capital gains should be taxed as ordinary income because it lets some people pay lower taxes reminds me of an article in the WSJ some years ago. In that article, the author stated that the biggest tax deduction of all for home owners was not the mortgage interest rate deduction, but not paying taxes on the imputed rent you should be paying yourself. I’m pretty sure he was serious.

  386. Taxes on capital gains are also a very unstable source of revenue and are much easier to manipulate than income, or better, expenditures. That’s why revenues drop when the rate on capital gains goes too high.

  387. lucia,

    I love the old Christmas hymns too, not to mention a lot of other christian religion inspired classical music. Which brings up the question: why is modern Christian Rock, to which I am subject every time I eat fried chicken with dirty rice and cajun pinto beans at Bojangles, so insipid and boring? I really don’t know the answer to this.

  388. MikeN,
    I don’t believe in things like bring jobs *by not allowing the jobs to go out” “negotiators whose goal will be to win for America”, his concern for deficits when his plan is slated to increase it, etc. He is running with a core base that is opposed to free trade and he is selling them the dream of an aspirational lifestyle with gold-plated houses, a supermodel wife and a private jet- but I think it is along the aspirational quality of Trump University – selling them a dream that is unlikely to pay off, while he enriches himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pictures of his wife in the NY Post were leaked by him or were only published with his blessing, since it feeds into the aspirational lifestyle image that he wants to sell The only concrete thing I’ve seen are his tax plans – and yes, my net federal taxes will be lower by a small amount under his plan.

  389. DeWitt

    In that article, the author stated that the biggest tax deduction of all for home owners was not the mortgage interest rate deduction, but not paying taxes on the imputed rent you should be paying yourself. I’m pretty sure he was serious.

    Oddly, there is kinda-sorta some logic there. A person with a nest egg (say $1,000,000) could hypothetically deposit the money and use interest income to pay rent. In that case, they would pay income taxes on their interest. Of they can buy a place for– oh– say $300,000, get less interest and so pay less in taxes. So, they save ‘taxes’.

    I guess this guys calls the interest the guy would have gotten on the money (and used for rent) is a “tax deduction” which is rather odd. But if one was merely making the point that there might be hidden tax advantages to owing relative to renting, that might be fair enough.

    Of course, if one wants to start taxing a persons “imputed rent” they would need to figure out what the “imputed rent” ought to be. It’s not at all clear that the actual rent an owner could collect on the place the guy would buy for $300,000 would comparable to the safe returns on $300,000; it might be more it might be less.

    Some places — especially either expensive ones or highly rural ones– are impossible to price as rentals. So figuring out the “imputed” rent would be quite a trick. It might change wildly each year.

  391. MikeN,
    “This was from the capital gains tax itself, but the argument has been that a zero capital gains tax would increase revenue in other taxes, because you are encouraging investment.”
    .
    Yes, a drop in capital gains rates will bring about a short term increase in tax revenue. But I am very skeptical of claims that there are long term increases in total tax take due to a reduction in capital gains rates. What current rules do is distort economic decisions to avoid ordinary income and boost capital gains income. Anything which distorts economic decisions based on tax rates is (IMO) unlikely to have net economic benefit, let alone net increases in total taxes collected. Distorted economics mean inefficient use of capital.
    .
    The treatment of fund managers’ compensation as capital gains income is nothing short of outrageous… I see absolutely no reason a fund manager who pockets 20 million dollars in a year to pay capital gains rates while my income from my business (which employs people!) is treated as normal (highly taxed) income. It is not like there is any motivation for the fund manager to make the fund’s value to grow more slowly if that manager’s compensation were taxed as normal income. It’s just political influence working to the public’s detriment..

  392. Lucia,
    “Of course, if one wants to start taxing a persons “imputed rent” they would need to figure out what the “imputed rent” ought to be. It’s not at all clear that the actual rent an owner could collect on the place the guy would buy for $300,000 would comparable to the safe returns on $300,000; it might be more it might be less.”
    .
    The simpler solution is stop allowing deductions for interest on home mortgages. I recognize that would take time to implement (say a gradual drop in allowed deduction over 25 years, ultimately reaching zero) but the distortion of the home interest deduction is large and economically damaging. Money is spent on houses instead of other things… like productive investments… because of the tax subsidy on mortgage interest.

  393. SteveF

    Money is spent on houses instead of other things… like productive investments… because of the tax subsidy on mortgage interest.

    I agree. The home interest deduction almost certainly contributes to the tendency for houses to be large. It’s not the only reason people have large houses, but it does encourage people to put a larger fraction of their assets into “house”. It likely also encourages some people to use their house as a piggy bank since taking out equity will mean you are paying off more interest.

    One of the main good things about the home interest deduction is encouraging people who might be tempted to just spend all their money to develop some capital through the mechanism of acquiring equity in a home. But this is totally negated when the home is used as a piggy bank. Which my understanding is quite a few people do. Not a good thing.

  394. Lucia:

    Ron… that is way too many rhetoricals!!

    .
    If they were rhetorical Hillary then the logic is Hillary supporters openly accept that she is crooked. I am thinking this is possible but I do not want to assume such a horrifying thought. If Hillary knowingly threw national security federal record keeping laws out the window in order to hide illegal “pay for play,” health issues, incompetence, etc…, then what are the laws for? The answer is clearly that they are there to be used selectively only against political opponents of the regime in power. If this is the case there is nothing separating USA from Russia or Iraq or Sudan.
    .
    I still hear no takers on support for Hillary’s economic plan. Did she win the debate purely on cool, smug temperament and being able to divert Trump from her scandals? (Not rhetorical).

  395. Ron,
    “If they were rhetorical Hillary then the logic is Hillary supporters openly accept that she is crooked.”
    .
    They were rhetorical questions, independent of what Hillary’s supporters think.
    .
    “there is nothing separating USA from Russia or Iraq or Sudan”
    .
    That may be a wee bit of an exaggeration, but yes, I agree that the kind of executive lawlessness Mr Obama has practiced (and Mrs. Clinton promises to continue) damages the political fabric of the country. The refusal of the executive to compromise with political opponents in Congress and act outside the law is contrary to the spirit of the Constitution, and subverts the inclusive government the Constitution outlines. It is the primary reason why I can hold my nose and vote for Trump.

  396. Classless, stupid Trump. With all the bad things in Machado’s past all Trump had to do was point them out. Instead, he is stupid and goes further and calls her “disgusting.” All he had to do was watch his mouth and he ultimately had a winner here.

    ….
    Clinton and Birther issue. I have generally found Larry Elder to be reasonably reliable. This week’s column sets forth significant facts indicating the Clinton’s campaign in 08 had a substantial role in the birther issue. Shows to me how fake the outrage over the birther issue is. See http://www.wnd.com/2016/09/what-trump-should-have-said-about-birther-tax-returns/

    JD

  397. lucia,

    Unless you’re in the remodel and flip business, a house is a place to live, not an investment. 2008 should have made that clear. It’s icing on the cake if the value increases over time. And at the moment, you can’t even count on inflation making it easier to pay off your loan. Home equity loans were an even worse idea.

  398. SteveF,

    Ending the mortgage interest deduction is not a solution to the taxes on imputed rent. Suppose you paid cash and didn’t have a mortgage. Under the imputed rent theory, you would still owe taxes. In fact, mortgage interest would likely still be deductible from the imputed rent.

  399. DeWitt,
    Correct. The “imputed rent” notion is different from the mortgage interest deduction.

    There are all sorts of “imputed” things one could start to call income if we go down that route.

    Someone staying home to watch their kids could be assessed the “imputed income” equal to the value of what they would pay for child care. (After all, they would be taxed on earned income if they worked, and in that case they would have to pay for child care.)

    Or, suppose they do work, and grandparents take care of kids for free. Once again: “imputed income” to parents who got grandparents free labor.

    Also, suppose your kid does yard work, you don’t pay them and otherwise would have mowed the law. Theres more “imputed income”.

    Sew your own clothes? Grow your own vegetables? Fix your own faucet? All can be “imputed income” because otherwise you would have paid someone. How much imputed income you learn would be a doozy to figure out. But there it is.

  400. What would an ideal economy look like?
    .
    If one assumes that money in private hands gets spent more productively on needs than government money allocated on behalf of individual, and including the cost of administering redistribution, then one must conclude maximizing money in private hands maximizes wealth. Clearly, common needs such as military and public highways need government spending, but here governments usually hire privately as much as possible in order to save money for their departments. The US Postal Service and Veterans Administration hospital systems seem to be the exceptions to privatization. Both of these two examples have had disastrous poor records compared to their private sector rivals.
    .
    An ideal economy would have income distributed evenly based on a universally skilled and conscientious workforce. Venture capitol would be purely sourced through investment coordination and banking. There is a question if even this is ideal are people like Henry Ford or Elon Musk, who mass personal wealth, helpful to the creation of new innovative ventures? Are individuals prone to take more risks if there is the opportunity to keep parlaying success? I think so. Does the credit and fame of becoming an enterprise titan motivate innovation and efficiency? I think it does.
    .
    If I am correct then something less than equality is ideal. But we all agree that a strong middle class is ideal. The question thus becomes how do we increase skill and enthusiasm of the USA worker to increase their value in a global environment? I would say the answer is to not rig the game or make it appear to be rigged by having a large corrupt government that can’t help but confiscate wealth in order to enrich itself all under the pretext of promises of redistribution investment in lifting the middle class. Because what is liable to follow is a spiral of failure to deliver the promise which will disenchant the populace, prompting more diversionary populist identity politics and confiscation and control until our republic is unrecognizable as the world leader it once was.
    .
    Instead, I would do everything possible to re-ignite confidence that personal enterprise is the fundamental factor in determining personal success, and the sky is the limit. And, should you become Ford, Musk or Trump you would be in a society where that was applauded rather than vilified for political gain, AKA, socialist populism.

  401. The conversation here appears to have turned more serious and I think without answering the question of which candidate is more overweight for their body frame. Also are these two candidates the chunkiest we have had for while? Would weight limits on holding federal political office require a constitutional amendment?

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31025556

  402. SteveF, capital gains means existing capital was increased, generally an economic benefit. Higher incomes are also good, but could be a zero-sum game.

  403. Lucia, what rent would you impute for Trump Tower?

    I saw a report that Trump is ‘bilking’ his donors by increasing the rent charged to his campaign. However, it could be that an artificially low number that he was paying himself, has been normalized.

    300 staff for $30,000 a month seems low.

  404. MikeN,
    “SteveF, capital gains means existing capital was increased, generally an economic benefit. Higher incomes are also good, but could be a zero-sum game.”
    .
    I think this is just nonsense. It is not simply an increase in the value of an asset which is taxed, it is capital gain which is realized (in your pocket) that is taxed. Income is income. Treating different income differently is economically distorting.

  405. DeWitt,
    “Ending the mortgage interest deduction is not a solution to the taxes on imputed rent.”
    .
    Who said eliminating the mortgage deduction should have to go along with ‘imputed rent’? Eliminate the deduction for home mortgage interest and there is no need for ‘imputed rent’. If you buy yourself a house with cash, then it’s your house…. no rent (imputed or otherwise) is owed. If you borrow money to purchase that house, then no deduction… just like a car loan or credit card interest.

  406. Whether America should have joined in the world wars is not as clear cut as many suppose. (ref Libertarian leader’s answer)

    For simplicity and because it’s easier, lets consider WW1.
    It wasn’t because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria as people commonly suppose. See
    http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/12/what-started-world-war-i/

    This shows the danger of multiple treaties (think America and NATO) and that the bad guys are seldom the ones to suffer. I think the subject is too off topic for this thread, but it is interesting. Nothing can justify the loss of 15 million lives.
    Why did America attack Afghanistan instead of just killing bin Laden with a “surgical strike”?

  407. Lucia,

    Sew your own clothes? Grow your own vegetables? Fix your own faucet? All can be “imputed income” because otherwise you would have paid someone. How much imputed income you learn would be a doozy to figure out. But there it is.

    To which we could add wash your own face, comb your own hair, cut your own nails, and wipe your own…. well, you get the idea. The entire concept is so stooopid that I am shocked anyone would discuss it seriously. It’s the ultimate intrusion of government into private activities.

  408. SteveF,

    It’s the ultimate intrusion of government into private activities.

    Obviously.

    Taxing “imputed” income is definitely an idea whose time should never come.

  409. SteveF: “Income is income. Treating different income differently is economically distorting.”

    I disagree with this. Long-term investment income (taxed as capital gains) should be taxed at a lesser rate to encourage investment. When you invest, there is always the risk of losing your money. So income earned by investment, is not the same as salary type income.

    …..
    To give you an example concerning my parents. They bought 40 acres of land in the middle of nowhere in Collier County Florida (Naples) in the 1960s. They bought another 30 acres in the early 1970s. At the time, they bought the land, there were no wetlands restrictions. Then around the late 70s, significant wetland’s restrictions arose covering 90% of my parents’ property. Around 1990, when my father was in his early 70s and my mother was about 60, they hoped to sell. (Of course, Naples had grown greatly) They had no idea of wetland’s restrictions. I, as a lawyer, spent 10 years working on trying to sell the land and we got 0 offers on the land, even though a 6-lane highway was eventually planned to go through it. I should add that all that was required for the land to be called “wetlands” was that water came within 12 inches of the surface for 10 consecutive days. (A more accurate description would have been occasionally moist land — it was not like there were ponds and streams on the land.)

    ….Of course, while the land was sitting fallow for 30 years, my parents paid property taxes on it. Eventually, after 10 years of work by me (involving many trips to Naples) and harrowing negotiations, the land was sold in 2000 at a very good profit to a religiously themed school that combined my parents’ property with others. If my parents hadn’t had me, a lawyer, working on the land for free, they might have lost money on it.

    ….
    In any event, I don’t think their profit should be taxed the same, as say what a doctor would earn as salary. The source of the income is very different, and there is much risk involved in making the money.

    JD

  410. Lucia,
    True, but the ‘deduct the value of taking care of your own kids’ from income (or caring for elderly parents, or a sick brother) is very seriously suggested by many on the left. It is not far from there to ‘imputed income’.

  411. Ron Graf: Regarding economic polices, I prefer free trade, and limited government interference with the market (“well=properly regulated market”), exploitation of our energy reserves (pro fracking with good regulation).

    Neither candidate comes close to my views. In some places, especially labor-force protectionism, Trump is further left than Clinton.

    But to answer your question, I don’t favor either candidate’s economic plans. I do think Trump’s tax plan would be very damaging though.

  412. JD Ohio,
    Long term gains should be indexed to inflation, since inflation can make a loss look like a gain. On the rest, we will have to disagree. You can deduct capital losses against gains; a good argument can be made for loss cary-overs as well. But I can see no good argument for treating a very wealthy person’s income from capital gains at a rate far below other income. It reduces the value of labor and enhances the value of capital… takes from poorer people and gives to richer people. Exactly the opposite of what a graduated income tax structure is supposed to do. Look at the trend in income disparities over the past 30 years and consider if that trend is sustainable. Favorable treatment of capital gains is one of the reasons (one of several) for the growing income disparity. BTW, that growing income disparity is one of the reasons we have to choose between Hillary and Trump… Trump is around because people who have seen no economic growth are unhappy.

  413. SteveF, Why would taking care of children be deducted from income under the theory of creating additional value? It’s the opposite, they should be taxed more for the imputed income they replaced from hiring someone.
    .
    In the era of stress on the Earth’s atmosphere and resources the subsidizing of population growth also seems contrary to the left’s political doctrine.
    .
    There would be a lot less stir about the presidential election if it was like the times of Millard Fillmore when it just didn’t matter because the federal government was not in everyone’s business as a surrogate parent.
    .
    SteveF, I agree with you that Cap gain should not be favored. Even wage rates are the result of investment. People should be taught to save and invest for the natural returns that it brings in all cases.
    .
    But the top income bracket should be 20% and all the deduction eliminated so there is less work done to avoid taxes. The government is not great at directing behavior from tax policy. It just causes lobbying and corruption.

  414. SteveF, I think we’re pretty close on your six points:

    1) I don’t favor endless wars either. But I think non-intervention comes at a price. ISIS is largely on Obama’s head. Clinton shares blame for failing to negotate an extension of the treaty with Iraq that would have protected our troops.
    2) I also support reasonable immigration laws. I have no clue what would work, though I have good ideas about what wouldn’t. My view is the best way to end Mexcian immigration is to invest in Mexico and help their ecomony get on par with ours.
    3) I also think drug laws are stupid and wasteful.
    4) I also don’t give a hoot if someone does not want to stand during the national anthem. I still watch football, and I respect people’s right to protest, but I hope they respect my right to find their protest boring.
    5) The War on Christmas is another demoghaguery issue.
    6) I don’t care who people marry either, with the usual caveats about age, genetic compatibilty, etc.

    JD Ohio—you and I agree that Trump should just keep quiet I think he should have “non-apologized” and moved on. I don’t think Alicia Machado makes a very strong case for Clinton, but as long as Trump keeps running his mouth, the main stream press will be forced to treat her with kid gloves. None of the negative things will make it into the light, and the longer he runs his mouth, the less impact they will have when they eventually do.

    Kellyanne needs to get ahold of him and shut him up—no more 4AM tweets. What a maroon.

  415. Ron Graf,

    It’s too late to get your name on the ballot this cycle, and that’s a durn shame. Keep talking that way and I’ll organize a grassroots movement for you in 2019.

  416. If there were no deductions not only could everyone figure their own taxes before they even earned them they could also determine when somebody evaded taxes in 5 seconds. It would allow all the legal and accounting resources put into tax manipulation to be re-directed to productive use.

  417. SteveF,

    Net capital losses are also treated differently. You can only deduct a limited amount each year from ordinary income. And your house and car don’t count (personal use).

    People making a lot of money are always going to be able to game the system. Treating capital gains as ordinary income is a non-starter no matter how often you say it. Fairness, when talking about the economy is a word used mainly by the left. There is nothing fair about life. You rapidly end up in the world of Harrison Bergeron when you try to enforce fairness. Hayek called it The Road to Serfdom.

    They used to call how much money we were supposed to donate to United Way each year, your fair share. There was nothing fair about it.

    You do know that when it was pointed out to Obama that increasing the capital gains tax rate would likely lead to lower revenues, he said he didn’t care. It was a matter of fairness. Are you really in Obama’s camp on this? Taxes should be efficient. That way they cause the least economic distortion. A high tax rate on capital gains is not efficient.

    Oh, and a steeply progressive income tax was one of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto.

  418. Carrick, I also agree with the 6 points and the maroon comment. Who would you have been for had you had your choice of who could be president?

  419. SteveF,

    I don’t care that very rich people may pay income tax at a lower rate than I did when I was working and I don’t see why you should either. The important point is that the top 1% pay about half of the total. And don’t throw up Social Security and Medicare either. When you include benefits, they’re progressive, not regressive.

  420. SteveF “But I can see no good argument for treating a very wealthy person’s income from capital gains at a rate far below other income. It reduces the value of labor and enhances the value of capital… takes from poorer people and gives to richer people.”

    ….
    You make the assumption that capital gains only apply to wealthy people. That is not true. For instance, my parents were definitely not wealthy when they bought the original 40 acres in Naples. If you buy a horse and hold it for more than 1 year, you owe capital gain taxes, if for instance, you make a $1,000 profit. You penalize small business start-ups, who take great risks, by at not least giving them a break on long-term capital gains. (In fact, many of them have functionally, unrecoverable losses which can’t be deducted against anything when they go belly up)

    ….
    Also, if you are talking about the uber wealthy — if they desire, they can live wherever they want and invest in areas where the tax rate is low.
    ….
    A question for you. Would you add social security and unemployment taxes to long-term capital gains income.

    JD

  421. Ron Graf—I do think without a doubt that Trump is crooked. It’s factual that he is. I can expand on the evidence if you like. He’s a kind of crooked that I’ve encountered before—the type of businessman who survives on hype, who routinely breaks contracts, and considers the legal cost of that part of the cost of doing business.

    Regarding Clinton’s server—I’ve already addressed that. The single-device is part of it, but not the main reason. (Try carrying multiple devices around the world–not as easy as it sounds.) The formative reason is in my opinion “She didn’t trust the bureaucrats at the State Department to not leak the content of her emails. ” That is due in part to what I’ve described as her Nixonian level of paranoia.

    I’ve also discussed the emails–ad nauseum on other threads. This issue is more complicated than the Republicans are making it out to be. There were 500 people or so involved in the email chains for starts. People sent emails (on an unclassified server) to their bosses. If their bosses thought it needed to go to somebody else in their direct communication chain, they forwarded it. And so forth. Eventually those emails percolated up to Clinton. In cases, where Clinton wrote emails, she didn’t address all 500 of those people, she wrote to her section chiefs, and they distributed the emails from there.

    It’s absolutely irrelevant whether the emails were on the State Department unclassified email server or Clinton’s private email server. If the emails contained classified information, they shouldn’t have been sent regardless of whether Clinton’s unclassified email account resided on the State Department unclassified server, a commercial email server, or Clinton’s private email server.

    The thing is, if those emails contained classified, every single person who had a clearance was required to report to their security chief any instances where mishandling of classified data occurred. As far as I know, there were zero examples of this in the 100 so emails that the FBI identified as containing classified (at that time) information among the 35,000 or so emails sent or received by Clinton.

    Among the three emails identified by Comey, two have been found to be improperly classified. All three—the ones having the (C) for “confidential” markings [lowest level of classification requiring a security clearance] on the paragraphs—were missing the headers and footers that were supposed to be on those pages. Basically you put a (U), (U/XXXX), (C), (S), (TS) [unclassified, unclassified with restricted distribution—most common is FOUO or “for official use only”, confidential, secret or top secret] on each paragraph. There is supposed to be a header and footer at the start of each page of the document that gives the highest level of classification on that page. On the three documents in question, the headers/footers were missing.

    Here is a link to the official document.

    Here is a sample from that link showing how the markings should look:

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4520911/Politics/SampleMarkedDocument.png

    In that sample, the highest classification was (S) so you get a SECRET header and footer.

    None of three documents that Comey mentioned as having classification markings had headers or footers. My guess is they were declassified at some point. It’s sufficient then to remove the header and footer, but I think you’re supposed to at least mark through the (C), (S) and (TS).

    Mark Bofill here has expressed his annoyance that Clinton apparently got off scot-free. For ever Mark that I’ve discussed this with, there are at least ten others, like myself, who think this whole issue about improperly marked non-confidential documents amounts to a chicken-shit issue. Neither Mark nor anybody else would have gotten in trouble for “mishandling” them.

    Digest this if you will, and based on whether we can have a reasonable conversation, I’m happy to discuss this futher.

  422. Carrick emails: You miss the basic points. Irrespective of whether her email server was as secure as the State Departments, it was her job as Secretary of State to work hard to insure the security of the system. She did just the opposite, and placed her personal interests above the country’s interests and placed American operatives abroad at risk for corrupt reasons. If everyone was as careless (or corrupt, however, you want to phrase it,) as Clinton, the State Department couldn’t function.) It is highly, highly improper to put official government work under private control. Also, of course, it was Clinton’s job to make the State Department’s communications secure.

    ….
    If a government did hack the emails and was still using them to its advantage, it wouldn’t publicize it. See for instance, the effectiveness of US breaking of Japanese Code in WWII, which of course, the government would keep secret, while it had inside knowledge of the Japanese government’s actions. Government secrets and protecting American operatives are extremely important functions, and Clinton simply ignored her responsibilities in this area to further her own career.

    ….
    Carrick: “The thing is, if those emails contained classified, every single person who had a clearance was required to report to their security chief any instances where mishandling of classified data occurred.” This argument cuts the other way. Who is going to risk their job on a security issue, when the ultimate boss, Clinton was obviously, the biggest offender? To have effective security the Head of the Department has to provide a good example and effective leadership and Clinton provided exactly the opposite.

    JD

  423. Dewitt,
    Contrary to what you might imagine, I disagree with Obama on virtually every policy, economic and otherwise. I have founded or co-dounded multiple small businesses over the past 25 years. Capital gains seldom is even a consideration for small businesses. Overall tax rates are too high and they distort by including a multitude of tax incentives, of which special treatment of capital gains is but one; mortgage interest deduction is another…. the list is long and damaging. Were I king, rates would be lower, flatter, and there would be no distorting tax incentives. You are right that wealthy people will always try to game a tax system. But the simpler the system, the less it can be gamed.
    .
    With regard to capital losses: As I said, carry forward provisions for losses would mostly eliminate capital losses which can’t ever be used to offset gains. What I can’t accept is a very wealthy person paying much lower tax rates than poorer people. As I said before, consider the widening income disparity over the past 30 years, do you think that trend is sustainable? Special capital gains treatment adds to that growing disparity. As to whether eliminating special treatment of capital gains is politically possible: I am not sure. But if income distribution trends continue as they have for the last few decades, I predict it will happen.
    .
    By the way, I work most all the time; don’t want you to think I am retired.

  425. SteveF: “JD Ohio,
    How many businesses have you started?”

    Two successful businesses. One failed business in the 70s and one failed business (trying to repair and resell cars with a very sophisticated mechanic) in the early 2000s. Also, migrated to a different area of legal practice in the 2000s — to property tax appeals — you could sort of call that a new business.

    I also have 7 or 8 mostly dormant LLCs that I can use if I wish to start a new business. I tell people that if I can take scraps off the table I will.

    JD

  427. “JD Ohio,
    Did you sell the successful ones? If so were capital gains involved?”

    Both are still operating. I am a private lender (real estate, mostly) and Landlord and Rehabber (until this year). When I sold houses we rehabbed, in some instances, the profit was a long-term capital gain. I have pretty much stopped rehabbing this year because real estate prices are so high, there are virtually no deals. Last year I put $165,000 into a house, sold it in about 14 months and only made $5,000. Was my last house.

    JD

  428. SteveF: ” As I said before, consider the widening income disparity over the past 30 years, do you think that trend is sustainable?”

    ….
    My rental houses have mostly ended being with hard-working, but not very knowledgeable blue collar people. They make many easily avoidable mistakes. A couple of examples. 1. I have a tenant, who had a tragedy, when her 31-year-old apparently healthy son died this summer. She can barely make the rent. However, a funeral operator talked her into a $14,000 funeral. If it was me, I would probably had the funeral done for $3-$5,000. (If I was in her financial situation, I wouldn’t have even spent $3-$5,000 either) Would comment that I am thoroughly disgusted by the funeral home operator who was so low that he took financial advantage of my tenant during a period of horrible grief. However, the bottom line is that she wasted a lot of money that could have been put to better use.

    ….
    2. I had a tenant who always had problems making the rent. I provide programmable thermostats in my rentals although no one uses them. Then I found out that she kept the house at 77 degrees in the winter all the time, even when she wasn’t in the house. (Typically, I turn the heat down to 64 degrees at night in the winter in my own house) She didn’t understand that although she had an even billing plan, the hotter she kept the house, the more the heat cost her.

    ….
    I could provide more examples of the above. However, my basic point is that if people would simply do the simple things, about 60% of the poverty in the US would go away. They don’t do the simple things, and ultimately rely on the government to bail them out. This is a very major reason for income disparity.

    JD

  430. JD Ohio

    She didn’t understand that although she had an even billing plan, the hotter she kept the house, the more the heat cost her.

    I think a lot of people don’t understand this about even billing. Sadly, uneven billing gives more people incentives to behave in ways that reduce their total cost. But some ‘need’ the even billing for various and sundry reasons.

  431. Lucia: “I think a lot of people don’t understand this about even billing.”

    ….
    That is the issue for me. Unfortunately, many of the people who don’t understand have no motivation to learn because when they go under, the government typically bails them out. Until, last summer I lived in a first-ring suburb, and a large percentage of the students were basically unmotivated, for which I blame the parents.

    JD

  432. JD Ohio,
    Not sure those anecdotes address the question I asked. Median income (half of all households below, half above) has fallen by ~7% since 1999 in real (inflation adjusted) terms, even while mean income has risen by about 15%. This means half of all households are poorer now than 17 years ago; a lot of those folks are very unhappy, and many of them are Trump supporters. The upper half of households have on average become about 40% richer during the same 17 year period. But even these figures obscure that the top 10%, and even more, the top 1% have become hugely more wealthy, while those between the 50th and 90th percentiles have made relatively modest gains. If you look at net worth rather than income, the divergence is even more stark. Unless these trends are reversed, there seems to me a good chance someone like Trump will be the least of the country’s worries. Asking people who’s income is continuously falling to reduce expenses by turning down the thermostat is not going to solve the problem. So let me ask again: do you think a continuation of these trends is politically sustainable?

  433. Steve: “So let me ask again: do you think a continuation of these trends is politically sustainable?”

    ….
    I think you are asking the wrong question. You are blaming tax rates for inequality, and I am blaming lack of motivation, and the effects of technology mostly for the disparity. I was giving examples of how many in the lower 15% or so have no concept of saving or financial responsibility. Also, there are now multiple generations of people who know only welfare and governmental assistance. Raising taxes on the top 1% isn’t going to help a 22 year-old man, who was born to a 16-year-old mother, who in turn was also born to a 16-year-old mother.

    ….
    To answer your question directly, income inequality would be sustainable if, while the top was rising, the bottom was also rising. What I think is happening is that technological innovation is benefiting hundreds of millions of people in China and India and that once these people rise up (like the Koreans and Japanese did) and are not undercutting American workers so much the wages of Americans in the bottom half of the economic pie will rise. Because technology interconnects the world so much, a Chinese worker can much more easily compete with an American worker. Once Chinese wages rise more (and they have risen tremendously in the last 15 years), American wages will start rising for those motivated to work. At some point in time, low wages by the bottom rungs is not sustainable, but that is 5 or 10 years away, and by then, I believe the tide will turn for all but the roughly 10% who have only known government assistance. As time goes by and technology advances more rapidly, they will continue to fall further and further behind.

    In any event, changing capital gains taxation will have virtually nothing to do with income inequality because it is technology which is causing income inequality; it is much easier for one person associated with a dominant tech company (say Microsoft) to accumulate wealth because dominant tech companies can extend their profitable reach much more easily than old style industrial companies, such as Ford.

    ….
    One way raising taxes on the rich could reduce income inequality is by encouraging the owners of dominant tech companies to move to other countries. Neither Microsoft, nor Google needs to be in the US. Seeing how I disagree with many of their political stands, it wouldn’t be a great loss in my mind if they left. However, because the income inequality is primarily technology based and not tax based, raising the taxes will help little.

    …
    SteveF ” Asking people who’s income is continuously falling to reduce expenses by turning down the thermostat is not going to solve the problem.” This is a total caricature of my position. I was giving the example to show the total lack of financial knowledge of large numbers of people in the bottom rungs. What I see is that if people think that if they meet their expenses in any one month, that they have had a successful month. Of course, if you only meet your expenses in any one month, you have actually fallen behind because at some point in time, something bad will happen, and without savings, you will be under water. There is no financial understanding and no motivation to save. I know many Chinese who make comparatively small amounts of money, but because of their frugality, they save and work together as a family to accumulate significant sums of money that Americans can’t do.

    ….
    SteveF Could you tell me what your experience with lower income people has been in the last 10 years. Also, again I am asking whether you would apply social security and unemployment taxes to what are now long-term capital gains.

    JD

  434. JD Ohio,
    My company has employed some quite poor people over the last 10 years. Several of these folks had serious behavior and substance abuse problems. Some just would choose to not show up one day without warning, and we would find out they simply took off with a new boy(girl)friend. So yes, lots of poor people are poor for obvious reasons, and helping them with employment is not always going to work. Lots of poor people would benefit from smarter choices and better understanding. But that still misses the point: there has been a real fall in income for a large portion (likely a majority) of all households, not just poor households, and that trend is continuing. I completely agree competition from low wage countries is in part responsible for this. It is possible that in the very long term rising wages in places like China will make US industrial production costs more competitive. At the same time, industrialization in very poor countries, many in Africa, will continue to keep pressure on US industrial wages. China and India remain far cheaper than the USA or Europe, so closing the cost gap will take time. Automation has also impacted industrial employment; employment in auto manufacturing and petrochemicals has fallen drastically even with rising domestic production. Automation enhances the value of capital investment and drives down the value of labor.
    .
    Any credible plan to reverse the growing disparity in incomes needs to include multiple approaches in parallel: better training/retraining for the unemployed/underemployed, better education, which gives students usable skills, in both public schools and colleges, more favorable rules for banks to loan money to small businesses (something that was common 20 years ago but uncommon today), rigorous enforcement of anti-dumping rules against subsidized Chinese companies, and revision of the tax code to reflect the rapidly growing income and wealth in the hands of the top 1% to 0.01% of households. Treatment of capital gains as ordinary income is just one small part of the needed changes. We ignore the growing divergence in income at our peril; and I say that as someone usually in the 1%.

  435. SteveF, you look at it from a point of fairness. However, with a higher capital gains tax you will find less of it. Yes it is economically distorting, but if you distort towards more capital gains, then you have more capital, which leads to more incomes, and even stronger unions who can find it easier to cut a deal when the owners have room to maneuver.

    Also, in terms of inequality, the capital gains tax is a tax on NEW money, so the existing wealth is not affected as much. If anything, it takes the challengers to their position.

  436. Carrick, classified information can be sent over State Department e-mail. Indeed many e-mails would be classified just by the fact of who is on each end of the e-mail.
    The ‘marked classified’ is irrelevant. If that were the standard, David Petraeus could not have been charged. Indeed, there is an e-mail of Hillary telling someone to strip marking and send unsecure fax.

    I wasn’t aware that ‘Confidential’ referred to classified material, and thought it was a lower level. This makes Hillary’s dealing with such material more serious. She told the FBI she thought the C meant paragraph lettering. So she is incompetent at recognizing classified material.

    The source you link is from archives.org, and appears to be about handling material for storage, not live usage.

  437. Carrick:

    The thing is, if those emails contained classified, every single person who had a clearance was required to report to their security chief any instances where mishandling of classified data occurred. As far as I know, there were zero examples of this in the 100 so emails that the FBI identified as containing classified (at that time) information among the 35,000 or so emails sent or received by Clinton.

    .
    If I understand your Clinton defense it’s:
    1) There was not a large amount of classified information at risk as proven by the fact that there would have to have been wholesale violation of security policies by hundreds of people, which is not feasible.
    2) If Clinton were guilty of wrongdoing many others would also have to have been guilty which is also not feasible.
    3) Many of the classified documents that should have been marked were not and many that were did not really need to be.
    .
    Argument #1 is not sound as others have pointed out that when the boss is setting the example, or in the email chain herself one relies on their boss’s judgement instead of calling that them out if one wants to remain in their position or advance.
    .
    2) For the reasons set out in #1 the boss is the most culpable, not the least.
    .
    3) In either case of mis-marked documents Clinton’s claims of innocence fail. Documents not marked should have been recognized by the Secretary of State as sensitive regardless of marking. Marked documents contradicts her claim directly. In both cases documents were mismanaged with is a third problem, not a defense.
    .
    The focusing on these details disregards the fact that all of her communications would be of interest to espionage and thus simply coming from her would make them sensitive. If Clinton had no mode of secure communication for four years she either conducted no business of consequence that was recorded but on paper documents or she severely compromised national security.
    .
    The same FBI director that gave immunity to the top 5 aids and contractors involved in exchange for no meaningful cooperation also said that Clinton was “extremely careless.” Her excuse of wanting to carry one device does not hold water. The IT department could have supplied her one device that would handle secure as well as private email accounts. Instead she opted for 17 devices over 4 years that were purchased by staff at retail stores.
    .
    You didn’t mention the Colin Powell did it defense but since that is also common I would point out in the March 9 debate Clinton said, “It was not in any way disallowed, and as I’ve said and now has come out, my predecessors did the same thing, and many other people in the government.” Powell sent a few private emails via AOL from his laptop. He did his official work on his secure desktop with a State Department domain. There were a couple of exceptions to this when he traveled when he admitted using the AOL email as he thought that was the most secure resource at the time and place.
    .
    The obvious bottom line is that Clinton wanted to evade the obligation of leaving any record trail. Her defenders believe this is justified due to the “vast right-wing conspiracy” targeting her, i.e. Fox News.

  438. Colin Powell did more than send a few e-mails. It is clear he was not interested in following the laws on records, and used his private e-mail to avoid it. He recommended keeping quiet about it, so as to keep the sticklers from noticing. He didn’t set up his own server, and didn’t use it for classified info.

    The Hillary used lots of devices makes no sense. She used one, then used another one. Not at the same time.

  439. MikeN,
    Fairness is not the issue. It is that there is a large and growing divergence in income and wealth which is making much of the middle class poorer. Those people are unhappy, and they vote. They have watched their incomes fall while a small population has become very much richer. Capital gains rates lower the taxes mainly of the already wealthy, who happen to own most capital. Your suggestion that very wealthy people are not the primary beneficiaries of favorable capital gains treatment is absolute nonsense. The people who have benefited from globalization of the economy, rapid advances technology, and advances in microelectronics and automation have done nothing wrong… hell, I’m one of those people. But as a society, a growing divergence in incomes and wealth is politically unsustainable. There are many things to be done if we want to reverse the divergnce in incomes and wealth, treating capital gains the same as other income is but one.

  440. MikeN, I don’t know anyone who goes through 17 handheld devices in 4 years one at a time. It’s another detail that is superfluous however. Because it’s not the reason she avoided the government system. Nobody forced her to not give her emails to the State Department when she left office. Nobody forced her to order them deleted. Nobody forced her to have her lawyers have a conference with Paul Combetta after his “Oh Shlt” moment when he realized he forgot to delete the emails as instructed before the preservation order arrived from congress. So you are litigating details on a point that you do not believe yourself, (or do you?) regarding Clinton’s convenience story.
    .
    SteveF, I agree cap gain should not be a different rate. Income taxes should be flattened. I disagree that it is a significant cause of income disparity. The main cause is the lack of intensive to start a business due to a bad risk-reward equation and multiple gates preventing entry.
    .
    I started my business 28 years ago when things were a little better and now benefit from the lack of competition as many of my competitors have fallen from normal circumstances but also global competition, not be be replaced with startups.

  441. regarding SteveF’s observations;
    Maybe this is the form that 1789 takes in the US at this stage in our evolution; voting for the system’s destruction.

    de Toqueville’s The Revolution and the Old Regime is well worth reading. He wrote it late in his short life, after Democracy in America. The Kindle translation is a comfortable read.

    The inequities in pre-revolution France included no taxes on the aristocracy – arising out of their exposure to fealty military service – which by then never happened.

    No taxes.

    He based many of his observations on those of Arthur Young who wrote up his travels there in 1789. At the time, few of the aristocrats grasped what was actually going on nor saw it coming, likely never read Voltaire.

    My fear were Trump to be elected is that he would inevitably fail to produce the many things he’s promised and the reaction of his supporters might become even more radical. Far better to elect Hillary (nose-firmly held) and hope that the recognition of our situation so well described by SteveF spreads and our wealth distribution comes to be more equitable.

    I agree with him on dividend tax rates. This is where most of our income comes from. I’m embarrassed at what our taxes actually come to.

  442. When I say globalization I mean China. I don’t understand how we are going to bring manufacturing back and I disagree that we don’t need to. Not only are we losing our production technology and skilled labor force, but the Asian supply chain creates another barrier for start-up wholesalers or retailers as compared to the large established retail chains.

  443. JFerguson: “I’m embarrassed at what our taxes actually come to.”
    .
    Did you ever have to put assets at risk? I definitively agree that the dividends as a means of employment compensation should be ordinary income.
    .
    There are two ways to eliminate income disparity.

    1) Make everyone poor.
    .
    2) Incentivize taking productive risks by the general populace, aka “The American Dream.”

  444. We started and ran a company in 1986 in Miami. It did well until Hurricane Andrew. our sales, engineering computer systems, depended on purchase decisions made by middle managers at our corporate customers. Most of them lived in Kendall which had been flattened. To say these guys were preoccupied would be to put a positive face on it. Essentially, no significant sales for 9 months with 8 employees. We found other jobs for each of them and shut down with all bills paid and i went back to work committing architecture.

    Our loan for operating capital was secured by our house, which I guess you could say was at risk.

    Wouldn’t you agree that selection of dividend producing securities was putting our money at risk?

    So is taking a job. life is a finite resource. choice of where to work and what to do is also a risk.

    I worry more about what the folks who cannot be absorbed into our increasingly productive but ultimately lower job producing economy are going to do with themselves. I don’t have a problem being taxed to provide everyone a base-income, but for those who cannot find anything satisfying to do, i worry a lot.

    Maybe it won’t come to that.

    Back to 1789. Think of Hillary as Louis XVI. Well meaning, but doesn’t understand the magnitude of the problem.

    Ron G. We’re retired, dividends flow from our investments. As an aside, i cannot recommend saving too much. Retirement has been a joy for us. No-one would ever have paid me to do the things i really want to do, mostly because I’m not smart enough to be efficient at it – design, software development, and construction of very small fixed wing autonomous aircraft, for example.

  445. JD Ohio: I’m not arguing that the use of a private server was responsible. I’m arguing that the rhetoric about its use is over-heated. We shouldn’t have politicians going out and setting up their own email accounts, whether it is via commercial servers or with private servers. She deserves censure for her decision to not use the DOS server, as do her predecessors.

    In terms of hacking—look, in any other context, we’d all agree the US government is the least efficient and most poorly run example you can have on any issue, including email servers. The DOS has had multiple hacks. GMail.com has been hacked. All of our SSNs are probably floating around from multiple hacks of the government as is pretty much any “private information” we were required to share with them. But there’s no evidence that Clinton’s private server ever was hacked, and I suspect it wasn’t.

    I think the issue about the ultimate boss is a lot more complicated here than the way you described it.

    Clinton is a political appointee. She occupied the the “Office of Secretariat of State”. She technically had no oversight responsibilities outside of that office. The Executive Secretariat (compromised of five permanent staff) is responsible for day-to-day operations. This power sharing arrangement is similar to the arrangement in other departments of the executive branch.

    The purpose of this is not to entrust the integrity of day-to-day operations at the DOS on political appointees, who arrive and leave at the discretion of the President. You wouldn’t want to give political appointees that kind of power, and they don’t.

    When it comes to the handling of classified material, Executive Order 13526 precisely divides the authority between Clinton and the permanent employees of the DOS.

    The bottom line is Clinton would not be acting in a supervisory level for the 500 or so people who were involved in those email chains. She wouldn’t know who they were in many cases, and in many case, the originator wouldn’t even appear on the copy of the email that forwarded to her.

    My criticism of the Right is basically this:

    We know about these particular 110 emails, because there was a review of about 35,000 emails. Because most of these emails were sent as a result of ordinary day-to-day functioning, there’s no reason to assume that anything has changed since Clinton, or was different before she arrived.

    Most of those 500 or so employees are still employed and still have security access, and probably still use the same kind of judgements that led to these 110 sensitive emails. So if Clinton was a risk to national security, what happened to your concern about the other employees.

    The fact that the spotlight tracks Clinton rather than the DOS, where her authority was more nominal than actual, tells me everything I want to know—this isn’t about national security.

    Of course that’s not a surprise.

    The problem I have is, not with the witch hunt (politics as normal in DC), but with the RNCs use of the House oversight mechanism as a ploy to attack a political appointee. That sort of act is immoral and ethically corrupt and places the welfare of the Republican Party above that of country.

    Ultimately it betrays our trust and damages the fabric of our system of government. But that’s okay as long as you get your target I guess.

  446. Relating to this ” in any other context, we’d all agree the US government is the least efficient and most poorly run example you can have on any issue, including email servers.”:

    The “Top Gun” IT people at the State Department were required by law to maintain an archive of all emails received by Clinton or her aids as part of record-keeping laws. It turns out virtually all of those archived files ended up being destroyed. Had the archives been properly kept, much of this controversy wouldn’t exist.

    The ultimate irony here is Clinton created a private server (in my opinion) precisely because she didn’t trust the permanent staff at the DOS. But she basically entrusted her political career to them on this one issue.

    Had she carefully maintained her own copies of the emails (not foolishly entrusted the DOS to do this properly), she would have met all of her record keeping obligations, and not ended up as political exposed as she did.

    The whole episode of the private email server reveals somebody who lacked sound judgement and failed to make good decisions to protect her own or her nation’s interests. Given that reality, why is she running for president exactly?

  448. Carrick: “Had she carefully maintained her own copies of the emails (not foolishly entrusted the DOS to do this properly), she would have met all of her record keeping obligations, and not ended up as political exposed as she did.”

    ….
    I have issues with other parts of your comments, but the whole point to what she was doing was to hide her activities. If the emails had been kept undoubtedly many embarrassing episodes would have been revealed. Clinton’s political method is to lie, and the best way for her to lie is to have no records of her past activities.

    JD

  449. Hillary’s concern with secrecy might not be driven by concern that nefarious activities could be revealed, but rather that she would write something stupid and it would be revealed. It must be tough to posture as a highly intelligent person when it ain’t so.

  450. Regarding taxation, I’m confused about it. It ought to be simplicity itself to work out a fair system, but the more I think about it the harder it seems.

    The first thing to observe is that things aren’t working as they are. Even if the poor are getting richer, the rich are getting richer faster. Perhaps the poor will be satisfied with their iPhone 7s and 4k TVs and not really notice just how much dosh the big boys have – I dunno. They are not really “poor” in an absolute sense (not in Europe or the US, at any rate). Maybe they’ll be happy with their lot.

    Now, there was a time when wealth inequality fell – immediately after WWII (I read there’s even a name for it – the Great Compression). Those of you over the pond will now about this better than me and what brought it about – a punitive tax on high incomes. I’m guessing this wasn’t too popular, even among those not subject to the high rates.

    There is a recent book by Piketty advocating a tax on global capital. I guess that wouldn’t be feasible, nor popular. But I get the feeling that there are folks out there who are richer than Croesus, and don’t really pay the same rate on their “income” as people with wages do.

  452. SteveF, of course the wealthy benefit from low capital gains taxes, but it is new wealth.
    Already wealthy will do well in either case, barring a wealth confiscation tax. It is similar to how Walmart and other big businesses supported ObamaCare, and support other regulations, since the extra cost to them is small compared to the extra cost for their competitors.

    My point is that it is not a zero sum game, and having low capital gains taxes produces more wealth and more jobs as investment is encouraged.

    I agree with you about the widening disparity, but I think taxing capital gains as regular income would make things worse.

  453. Carrick:

    JD Ohio: I’m not arguing that the use of a private server was responsible. I’m arguing that the rhetoric about its use is over-heated. We shouldn’t have politicians going out and setting up their own email accounts, whether it is via commercial servers or with private servers. She deserves censure for her decision to not use the DOS server, as do her predecessors.

    .
    Colin Powell never set up his own server and used the DOS one except on a few occasions on during travel. Cyber security has become a growing issue since after Colin Powell resigned in 2004. Clinton knew better even though according to the emails she is unable to login to email without assistance from an aid. When she asks, “What do you mean did I wipe the server? Do you mean with a cloth?” she is showing contempt. You don’t put someone who lies to your face with a contemptuous smile into high office. If they were my employee I would have a disciplinary meeting with them. If they were a vendor or customer, (if it ever would happen,) I would be sourcing new ones as soon as the conversation ended.
    .
    In contrast I see Trump as fed up with corruption and the insanity and destruction it breeds. Mostly, he is angry that because he sees the effect of crooked rulemakers and refs spoiling the game (free market capitalism). He sees many giving up or taking their marbles to another country to the detriment of the USA.
    .
    Trump’s dishonesty comes from doing a poor job at recovering his impoliteness and exaggerations. In short he is a mediocre politician. Independents give him a little slack on this. His opponent and the MSM hammer him for it. Also, if 50 former Trump employees, vendors or customer want to give a glowing testimonial for Trump they will be rebuffed. If one disgruntled Trump employee from 20 years ago, no matter how low their character, wants to get on the air they are welcomed.

  454. Carrick, If I understand your argument correctly you are saying that Clinton’s lack of faith in her own staff’s ability to run the DOS to a level of competency required not accidentally delete data backup archives was the wisdom behind her ordering a home brew server?
    And this is part of her presidential qualification?
    .
    I have been following the hearings on CSPAN and have never hear Rep Cummings or anyone else bring up that defense. On the contrary, I heard Clinton make the false claim that the DOS told her that 95% of her emails were “captured” by the DOS archive.

  455. Jit wrote: “there was a time when wealth inequality fell – immediately after WWII … what brought it about – a punitive tax on high incomes.”
    .
    I doubt there is much, if any evidence for the claim that high taxes were responsible; certainly they were not the entire story. The rich were largely able to avoid the worst of those taxes and later reductions of those taxes set off booms.
    The post-war period was atypical in a number of ways. There was a spectacular amount of innovation (plastics, transistors, pharmaceuticals, air travel, and much more) leading to very strong economic growth. Unlike other eras before and since, that innovation was driven by large corporations, thus spreading the benefits more broadly rather than to a few (like Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, …). Limited immigration limited the supply of labor at the bottom, thus helping to distribute gains downward. Strong unions helped to distribute gains downward. And there was still a strong spirit of we-are-all-in-this-together left over from the depression and WWII and yet to be undermined by Vietnam, Watergate, etc.
    A very peculiar time. Probably no more likely to be recovered than Camelot.

  456. Jit,
    “But I get the feeling that there are folks out there who are richer than Croesus, and don’t really pay the same rate on their “income” as people with wages do.”
    .
    For sure. From Motley Fool web site:

    But stock picking is just one reason Buffett’s been able to amass such incredible wealth. The other component to Buffett’s success is an exceptionally low effective tax rate. As noted by the Oracle of Omaha himself in an op-ed column in The New York Times in 2011, Buffett claimed to be paying only a 17.4% effective tax rate (that year) compared to 20 workers in his office who were paying an average tax rate of 36%.

    In Buffett’s own words,

    “If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your [tax] percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine – most likely by a lot.”

    Although our progressive income tax brackets have changed a bit since Buffett wrote this piece in 2011, this basic tenet still holds true: Buffett, one of the richest people in the world, is probably paying a lower tax rate on his income than you are.

    How is this possible? Simple. Buffet takes advantage of capital gains taxes and lengthy stock holding periods.

  457. Thinking about what separated America from most countries in the 20th century that could credit economic success here is what I come up with:

    1) Maverick spirit — Infused by the vitality of immigrants on a mission, a cultural paradigm existed supporting hard work, saving and risk taking to achieve goals based on a faith in opportunity that self-perpetuated.

    2) The ability to mass private venture capital led to factories and large organizations while the service sector allowed for family business startup, further perpetuating the paradigm of attempting independent success, which at the same time held the dominance of large organizations in check by the small competitors.

    3) Community and family oriented support for unemployed created moral obligations and bonds that strengthened character in the Great Depression to create “the greatest generation.” Strong work ethic combined with competitive spirit to move up social hierarchy motivated financial success.
    .
    If this analysis is mostly on target then the entitlement paradigm of the welfare state combined with a vilification of wealthy and high barriers to independent success would all lead to decline.
    .
    I believe the message of “social justice” and “fair share” are productive to candidates seeking office but not the the populace. I could be wrong. Tell me where RB, Carrick.

  458. I think Buffet’s claim is a bit misleading. It seems to have been calculated as a percentage of taxable income, not total income. The difference is presumably larger for Buffet’s employees than for Buffet. And it includes payroll taxes, which would be insignificant for Buffet. But including those taxes is questionable, given that they do not go into the general budget. And I bet Buffet’s top employees are accruing generous capital gains in their Berkshire-Hathaway shares; they probably did not realize any of those gains in the year in question.
    .
    That said, I agree that for income tax purposes all income should be treated the same.

  459. The arguments for the best or better taxing approaches never seem to tackle the bigger issues of the amount of taxes collected and its relationship to the size of government and the ease with which a particular approach makes taxing and tax increases easier for politicians to use in a democracy to increase the size of government – and with little or no constitutional controls on the limit of that spending and taxing. We have the notion that somehow we can have fair taxes and that we buy the notion that politicians are looking for fair taxing approaches. In a democracy that is not constitutionally controlled in these matters the politicians will find the most politically expeditious path to increasing taxes and it will have little to do with fairness. The higher income earners and wealthiest will be targeted because they do not have the votes or control of sufficient votes to make taking from them a political problem – and it is not really a fairness issue. Taxes on the lower wage earners and poorer classes can be rationalized by using sin taxes and taxes into Social Security and Medicare that are sold as if that money were part of a savings program like we would see with a private investment program.

    Milton Friedman had lamented ever coming up with the withholding tax because it became an easier method for the government to collect taxes and to expand the scope of government. A value added tax, like a sales tax, is relatively easy to gradually ratchet up without a lot of notice or taxpayer involvement. A flat tax while easier to administer and more taxpayer friendly in calculating the tax does not address the issue of the amount of taxes collected and would probably make increasing the tax easier or alternatively leading to additional sources of taxes that were based on the level of individual wages and wealth.

    New sources of taxes are usually sold to the public by vague promises that other tax sources will be eliminated or dramatically reduced and then as time goes by without any of those action occurring the promises are forgotten. In Illinois I can remember when the institution of state income taxes was sold on the promise that it was going to alleviate the pressure on sales and real estate taxes. It never happened. In Illinois the politicians found a source of revenue by raiding the money put into the system for teachers and other public workers pension funds.

  460. Ron Graf,
    “I agree cap gain should not be a different rate. Income taxes should be flattened. I disagree that it is a significant cause of income disparity. ”
    .
    Well, then we will just have to disagree about that last part. If Warren Buffett faced 40% tax rates instead of half that, he would not be as rich as he is. Still rich? Sure, still very rich, but much less so. There are about 325,000 mini-Buffetts in the States, with personal net worth over $30 million, most of whom pay income taxes at rates similar to Buffett, not the rates paid by upper middle income workers.

  461. Ron Graf wrote: “If this analysis is mostly on target then the entitlement paradigm of the welfare state combined with a vilification of wealthy and high barriers to independent success would all lead to decline.”
    .
    I agree. There seems to be a fair bit of evidence that the welfare state has impeded upward mobility of people near the bottom. Some would say that is because welfare programs make life near the bottom too comfortable. Maybe that is so for some. But I think a bigger problem is that by far the highest effective marginal tax rates are paid by people trying to move off welfare and into the middle class.

  462. SteveF wrote: ” If Warren Buffett faced 40% tax rates instead of half that, he would not be as rich as he is. Still rich? Sure, still very rich, but much less so”
    .
    Probably a much smaller difference than you imagine. In 2010, the year in question for your earlier Buffet rule post, Buffet made $21.7 million, less than 0.1% of his wealth. The vast majority of his wealth accumulates untaxed until the capital gains are realized.
    Source for Buffet’s income: http://www.factcheck.org/2012/04/obama-and-the-buffett-rule/

  463. SteveF, Do you think that rewarding successful allocation of capital is a good rule? Do you think the rule should be if you score high enough you should be given a handicap, just like in golf? Should the the up side rewards be lowered by adding a more complex graduated cap gain? I think we should have it all flattened to 10% and 20%.
    .
    BTW, it’s hard to believe that Buffet’s secretary was paying 36% in federal income tax. Even if they had an adjusted gross income $373,650 married jointly in 2011 the federal tax would be $101,085.50 or 27%. Likely that would be $400k in taxable income with another $100k in tax-free muni bond interest.
    .
    Buffet’s numbers were bogus.

  464. Mike M,
    “But including those taxes is questionable, given that they do not go into the general budget.”
    .
    Are you aware that Social security taxes have funded a portion of US Government operations for a long time? Much of the total Federal debt is owned to Social Security. From Wikipedia:

    Excess funds are used by the government for non-Social Security purposes, creating the obligations to the Social Security Administration and thus program recipients. However, Congress could cut these obligations by altering the law. Trust Fund obligations are considered “intra-governmental” debt, a component of the “public” or “national” debt. As of June 2015, the intragovernmental debt was $5.1 trillion of the $18.2 trillion national debt.

    Some time in 2010 or 2011 net Social Security taxes collected were surpassed by benefits for the first time. So the Social Security piggy bank will now have to be drawn down…. meaning either higher general taxes, lower Social Security benefits (eg later retirement ages), or greater borrowing by the Treasury. There are no other alternatives.

  465. Ron Graf,
    “Do you think that rewarding successful allocation of capital is a good rule?”
    The capital gain is its own reward. The salary a worker receives is its own reward.
    .
    “Do you think the rule should be if you score high enough you should be given a handicap, just like in golf?”
    No, I am not suggesting a “handicap”. I am suggesting just the opposite…. no special treatment for capital gains, or any other kind of income. At present, income from labor is playing at scratch, while capital gains is getting 9 strokes a side.
    .
    “Should the up side rewards be lowered by adding a more complex graduated cap gain?”
    The up side is the reward. Not sure what you are suggesting with “complex graduated cap gain”. I am not suggesting any complex graduated cap… I am saying income should be treated as, well, income.

  466. SteveF,
    Yes, I am aware that the Social Security Trust Fund does not just stuff excess funds in a gigantic mattress. They loan it out, just as you or I do with excess funds. They loan it to the federal government and the government owes money to the Trust Fund, just like other creditors.
    .
    The Trust Fund is indeed now shrinking. That is not in itself ominous. What is ominous is that it will reach zero before we baby boomers die off and it can start to grow again. The failure to fix that is IMO one of the biggest failures of the last decade of dysfunctional government.

  467. Mike M.
    “They loan it to the federal government and the government owes money to the Trust Fund, just like other creditors.”
    .
    Not at all like other creditors! At any time Congress can reduce benefits (or future benefits), and the ‘debt’ owed to Social Security diminishes, or even disappears completely. The accumulated Social Security taxes paid by workers and employers become, ex post facto, general revenues, AKA, regular income taxes. Hell, they have already done it couple of times. You can count on them doing it again to help “fix” Social Security. Can’t do that with real creditors….. ‘full faith and trust’ really does apply to real creditors.

  468. 1950s was period of high economic growth, high middle class growth, and top income tax rate was over 90%, much lower for capital gains and corporate taxes(which is how the high tax rate wasn’t so damaging).

  469. SteveF,
    The Trust Fund holds Treasury bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the government. Just like other creditors. Technically, Congress could have the government forgive its debt to itself, but worrying about that is just making up stuff to worry about. Changing the benefits formula does not alter the debt owed to the Trust Fund.

  470. There have been a number of posts about taxation but this is only a symptom of the disease. Looking at the economic situation not only in America but in Europe and Japan it looks like the traditional policies no longer work. I wrote a long paper about this last year and give a small portion below. Later it goes on to talk about solutions if anyone is interested.

    “What we have seen in the recent past is winner takes all. The average production worker earned 13% less in 2013 than in 1979, while productivity increased by 103%. Productivity increases that used to go to workers pockets now goes entirely to the business and investors.
    University of California Berkeley found between 2009 and 2012 that 95% of income gains went to the wealthiest 1% This lack of purchasing power in the general population results in the stagnant economy.
    A middle class between the power elites and the laborers and those dependent on the state is necessary for stability of society. The erosion of this class is now evident and one reason for growing discontent with the political establishment. The reasons for this decline include a surplus of labor, particularly for those who have degrees, that used to be a guarantee to reasonable prosperity. Other major factors are the off shoring of jobs and the increasing barriers to self employment. The cost of major items like houses and healthcare keeps going up while wages don’t.
    The US Bureau of Labor statistics reported the number of hours worked in the private section was 194 billion in1998 and the same in 2013 although the values of goods produced had risen by 43%, adjusted for inflation. The number of men in the labor force has declined since 1950. Meanwhile the population had grown by 40 million. 93 million adult Americans don’t work. A million new jobs a year are needed just to keep up with population growth. Official unemployment numbers are fictional and don’t count the numbers that have been sufficiently discouraged to leave the workforce permanently.
    The popular political solution of more education is nonsense. As you will see in the section on the future the number of traditional jobs across the spectrum will decline. Most new jobs forecast will not require a university degree. A few more tradesmen will be required in the future to install and maintain automation. Workers “freed up” will not be going back to school for other better paying jobs, as there won’t be jobs to fill. College cost increased more than 500% while the consumer price index increased 121% The actual cost of instruction only went up less than 10% Sending more money there didn’t work. Student loans now total $1.2 trillion. Only 60% graduate within six years, the remainder has to pay off the debt without a degree. A CareerBuilder Survey finds 51% of employed 2014 college grads are in Jobs that don’t require a degree. Just 27 percent of college grads had a job that was closely related to their major. It seems universities are more interested in acquiring student fees than preparing them for the world. Harvard professor Clayton Christensen predicted that in 15 years half these institutions would be in bankruptcy.

    snip

    Off shoring is really virtual immigration No one seems to object to the highly skilled jobs exported electronically, jobs that Americans want. All the fuss is about low skilled immigration workers doing jobs Americans don’t want.
    Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon combined have about a $trillion in capitalization yet employ only 280,000 people. That is similar to the number of new entrants to the job market each month.
    The lack of jobs is the onset of a growing problem. When mechanization made workers redundant, like the reduction of farm workers from nearly half the working force to less than 2% now, the displaced workers could find better paying jobs in manufacturing. Now robotics is starting to replace jobs across the spectrum doing the job better and cheaper than humans can. There are fewer jobs for the displaced workers to go to. iRobots said their basic robot can do a simple repetitive task for $3.40 per hour.
    Already some manufacturing is being repatriated from low wage countries. Phillips repatriated the manufacture of shavers from China to Holland using robots. Warehouses like Amazon’s are automated with the goods from their immense warehouse being brought to the human packer.”

  471. Mike M,
    They are ‘special’ bonds which have nothing to do with normal bonds; there is not any real obligation, since congress can, at any time, change the rules, and Congress can’t do that with real bonds. Congress has already changed the rules several times in the past. They will certainly do so in the future, as politically needed. The special bonds given to Social Security are a confidence game, and little more. They are worthless.

  472. SteveF wrote: ” Congress has already changed the rules several times in the past.”
    When?

  474. SteveF,
    So that would be never.
    There have, of course, been changes to the tax and benefit rules. And there will likely need to be more. So what? The Trust Fund has never been raided to provide general revenues, and won’t be. The bonds only differ from regular Treasury bonds in that they can only be sold back to the government. So what?

  475. Mike M,
    Never? There have been a multitude of changes in taxes and benefits… including reduced benefits. The bonds differ from regular treasury bonds because 1) they are not general obligations, 2) they can’t be traded, 3) Congress can at any time make their value fall… or even disappear, and so cancel the ‘obligations’ in part or in whole. The ‘trust fund’ most certainly has been ‘raided’ when retirement benefits have been pushed to greater ages. That, or something similar, will happen again, of course, whenever it is needed politically. There is no point in belaboring this; you have bought into the confidence game, and I have not. Discussion is not going to be productive.

  476. Does anyone remember seeing the 60 Minutes’ piece in the 1990s putting the Vince Foster suicide questions to rest? I did. But, after viewing this Youtube documentary by the journalist Mike Wallace discredited I see now that it’s 60 Minutes that is discredited.

    1) 60 Minutes never revealed that they were asked by the White House to do the piece.

    2) 60 M hid almost almost all the evidence that the award winning investigative journalist uncovered.

    3) Instead 60 M hatchet-ed the Mike Wallace’s interviews so as to make the journalist seem incoherent.

    4) There are so many astounding facts that I was unaware of I had to share this and am absolutely convinced that it was not a suicide. I don’t think one can watch the documentary and come to any other conclusion than there was/is a chilling coverup.

    5) The Congress did their own investigation when Republican’s took over in 1994 and found huge holes very disturbing inconsistencies including violation of federal law that should have made the FBI the lead investigators not the DC Park Police. But almost all lawmakers finally collapsed under the media pressure painting them as politically motivated and inflaming conspiracy buffs.

    6) Even if one is unwilling to believe that the Clintons murdered Vince Foster one cannot view the documentary and not be convinced if they had they would have gotten away with it under the cover of he media and the “independent investigator” that later turned out to have owned the Whitewater land sold to the Clintons, Robert Fiske.

  477. Ron,
    I doubt you will find many who will buy into the ‘Clintons killed Foster’ story. Seems the evidence was pretty clear it was suicide. Of course, working for the Clintons might drive someone to that. 😉

  478. SteveF, I was unaware of the evidence. I do remember the conspiracy claims but never looked at them. I trusted 60 M, Fiske and Starr. I realize this subject probably has its own blog somewhere. Doing some more searching I see Chris Ruddy wrote a book on it in 1997 but it was instantly attacked. I should say Ruddy was instantly character assassinated so the media ignored it.
    .
    Is Chris Ruddy still alive? Yes, he founded NewsMax in 1998. This gives an update on the case last year. A citizen FOIA revealed that the serial number on Foster’s gun, that his family did not know about or could anyone ever find Foster bought ammunition for, had been searched three times in the months before his death and none since. The gun was an untraceable antique 1917 revolver.

  479. There was no ballistics or forensic evidence since they could never find the bullet despite the congress having the park swept to find scores of metal objects and both civil war and modern bullets. Carpet fibers were found on both his suit pants and his jacket and tie in left in the car. They were kept in separate evidence bags so cross contamination did not occur. Foster’s 1989 Honda car keys were never found. There was not even microscopic dirt traces on Fosters shoes although it is impossible to walk to the body’s location without getting shoes visibly dirty. The body itself was found in a patch of dirt except if you believe the Polaroid of the gun in hand at the crime scene which showed vegetation. All other crime scene photos of the area were lost due to “underexposure.” The responders place the body in the opposite side of the park then the later investigators.
    .
    There were none of Foster’s fingerprints on the gun but one unidentified one. The X-rays of the body were not taken due to the “machine not working” despite the FBI report contradicting this talks about the X-rays. The X-ray maintenance record on the machine showed it less than 2 months old and not needing service. Clintons give conflicting stories about every aspect of the investigation. Hillary denies that her staff took documents out of Foster’s office but a park policemen saw Hillary’s chief of staff walk out with a stack of papers while the police were ordered to sit in the hallway by WH officials, who also visited the Park Police and confiscated Foster’s pager before it could be examined. But by this time, the second day, the papers had already Foster’s death as a suicide, which the police were forced to support before they did an investigation. Later they found a Foster suicide not in his briefcase that had been searched by WH and police previously. The note was in seventeen pieces with no fingerprints on it, unsigned and found not to be Foster’s handwriting. But this was too late to change the conclusion of suicide. The Fiske investigation failed to talk to most of the witnesses. When the Starr investigation took over their lead investigator quit after alleging the investigation was a whitewash coverup. Starr was uninterested in any evidence of murder, including the new evidence uncovered by his quitting investigator that Foster had a wound on his neck. … I urge those to investigate this a little before making snide comments, which is all I could find from the MSM.

  480. Here is one of the quitting Starr investigator, Miguel Rodriguez’s, declassified summaries. It’s fascinating but long. It happens to settle earlier debate here about travelgate by pointing out that Hillary gave the order to “clear house” the same day the audit was scheduled which would later be cited as finding alleged impropriety as the cause for the clearing of house.

    Peat Marwick began its audit on May 14, 1993.
    This is the same day HRC reportedly urged that action be taken
    to get ‘our people’ into the travel office.

    .

    I [Rodriuez]reminded Tuohey that it seemed odd that WJC [William J Clinton] called for VF [Vince Foster] to come over on the eve before VF’s death. Neither WJC nor Hubbell can recall details (except as to the movie invitation) [In the Line of Fire, ironically].

    .

    I pointed out that on the day of VF’s death, once VF left his residence, he was not observed to return. Thus, assuming VF’s possession of the weapon on the 20th was and purposeful, VF either took it with him to the White House (carrying it from his residence on his person or in his car) or he acquired it after leaving the White House at 1:10 p.m. (acquired it from somewhere outside of his residence). At the present time, there is no evidence to believe there was another residence or area VF maintained. If VF did not go at 1:10 p.m. to a private place where he stored the weapon and his possession of the weapon was voluntary and purposeful, then VF must have had the loaded weapon on his person at the White House or it was unattended in his vehicle at the White House.

    .
    Foster owned a gun and ammunition for home protection but opted apparently to obtain a new untraceable antique gun and two bullets to kill himself. The gun was not seen by the witness discovering the body nor the first responder but was subsequently found in his right hand by the next group of responders.
    .

    In sum, at the present time, there is insufficient evidence to conclude (1) how VF acquired the unidentified loaded
    weapon — assuming his possession of it was voluntary and purposeful; and (2) it is not possible to conclude when, or why VF came to possess the loaded unidentified weapon. Against this background, pointed out that it was odd that David Watkins and Bruce Lindsay, each upon receiving notice of VF’s death (independent from the other), immediately inquired if the weapon
    was identified…. I speculated that if Watkins and Lindsay were already aware VF had died and the manner of death (or the location of death assuming suicide) was the object of a cover-up, Watkins and Lindsay would be waiting for confirmation that an unidentified weapon was located and planted…
    LF, [Lisa Foster] upon notification, oddly immediately asked if the gun was placed in his mouth (as if this were a signal to her of some kind) [no talking?]. LF was described as angry upon notification…

  481. Ron, I don’t know anything about the case – maybe it wasn’t given prominence in the UK – but it sounds like you are invoking a conspiracy by a large number of people. Such conspiracies would be quite likely to unravel. That said, some of the evidence, if true, is compelling (but I note that if the gun was found in the dead man’s hand, should his prints have been on it? You said none were found).

    Adrian, the Luddites said technology was gonna kill jobs two centuries ago. So far, it hasn’t happened (although as you note, the jobs have been exported to lower wage economies).

  482. I got an e-mail from a reader asking my opinion on some things Carrick said on this post since they knew I’m involved in the IT world. Since they haven’t commented on this page, I thought I should drop off my main response here as well so other people can learn from it or potentially explain how I’m wrong. Make of it what you will:

    Carrick says a number of questionable things. For instance:

    Clinton is a political appointee. She occupied the the “Office of Secretariat of State”. She technically had no oversight responsibilities outside of that office. The Executive Secretariat (compromised of five permanent staff) is responsible for day-to-day operations. This power sharing arrangement is similar to the arrangement in other departments of the executive branch.
    The purpose of this is not to entrust the integrity of day-to-day operations at the DOS on political appointees, who arrive and leave at the discretion of the President. You wouldn’t want to give political appointees that kind of power, and they don’t.

    It is not clear why Carrick says Clinton “technically had no oversight responsibilities outside of that office” then refers to the “Executive Secretariat.” I can’t say I’m familiar with the terminology, “Office of Secretariat of State,” having never seen it before, but the Secretary of State heads the Department of State. The Executive Secretariat Carrick refers to (ultimately) reports to the Secretary of State. In fact, the head of the Executive Secretariat is the Executive Secretary of the Department of State, effectively equivalent to an Assistent Secretary of State.

    Similarly, Carrick refers to the Executive Secretariat as being made up of “five permanent staff” which is important so as “not to entrust the integrity of day-to-day operations at the DOS on political appointees,” as we “wouldn’t want to give political appointees that kind of power, and they don’t.” In actuality, the Executive Secretariat is appointed by the Secretary of State.

    Carrick seems to be trying to disclaim responsibility for Clinton by portraying the Executive Secretariat as a separate body, but the reality is Clinton had the power to appoint the staff of the Executive Secretariat and they (ultimately) reported to her as the Executive Secretariat is part of the Department of State she ran.

    Additionally, Carrick says things like:

    Had she carefully maintained her own copies of the emails (not foolishly entrusted the DOS to do this properly), she would have met all of her record keeping obligations, and not ended up as political exposed as she did.

    The Department of State IT staff cannot be expected to keep copies of e-mails that do not cross its servers. By having e-mails sent directly to Clinton’s personal server, it becomes possible for people to communicate with the head of the Department of State via e-mail without the Department State IT staff ever having access to that communication.

    Clinton’s defense on this point was to say she thought the e-mails would be archived by the servers of the other people. While that may technically be true, each department is responsible for archiving its own communication. Not only is this necessary to ensure archiving actually happens (imagine if both sides of the communication made the same assumption), but it is also necessary so archived communication is indexable. This issue is clearly demonstrated by how this all began – the Department of State said there were no e-mails for an FOIA request when there obviously must have been. Even though many e-mails were archived via other means, Clinton’s use of a personal server meant there was no practical way of retrieving them.

    I hope that helps. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

    Cheers,
    Brandon Shollenberger

    I’m not really interested in discussing things here, but if there are open questions about IT related issues, I am always happy to help anyone out with them.

  484. Lucia,
    A clear violation of Federal and State laws. That said, I doubt State or Federal law enforcement agencies will bother with an investigation about where the copies came from, and it is doubtful the Times would cooperate with an investigation. The Times is aware the copies were illegally obtained, so they are confirming they are more interested in damaging Trump than that laws are followed. It is an almost perfect definition of ‘progressive’ thinking: ends always justify means.

  485. A 3% a day group was a 3 percent a day ponzi scheme
    People actually promote such schemes on the internet
    HYIP high yield investment programmes is another name.
    Many exist out there ripping off billions of dollars.
    Seems perpetual motion, Ponzi schemes and CAGW or skeptics are all believers.
    Not sure what to make of the Hilary/Trump debate.
    They were the 2 people to get nominated by their parties.
    They will each do America proud in their own ways.
    Yes they know how to wheel and deal and tell porkies.
    Yes they will feather their own nests.
    Yes they may make fools of themselves and even of us for trusting them.
    But the constitution and houses are robust enough to hold them to account if they get really out of line.
    If the policies they enact are bad you get to try the other side in 4 years.
    Trump is the worst candidate personally but promises the best options for smaller government, individual responsibility and sensible energy policies.
    So qualified support.
    He is pilloried by the MSM many times a day so it is obvious he is not wanted by the establishment and sensible people.
    If only they treated him fairly it would let people make up their minds fairly. The more rubbish is thrown the more ridiculous the media looks.
    Both will do a good job despite their personal and health issues.

  486. SteveF

    The Times is aware the copies were illegally obtained, so they are confirming they are more interested in damaging Trump than that laws are followed.

    I think papers generally do publish illegally obtained information if it is of general interest. I think they would publish Hillary information too.

    But almost certainly this info was either stolen or leaked by insiders so some laws were violated. (Precisely which will vary depending on how this material was aired.)

    A lawyer on twitter speculated a bit about why only state returns were published. Possibly penalties for federal is higher? Dunno.

    That said: Trump shouldn’t be too surprised some stuff came to light. Political operatives and others want to get stuff. Someone did. So it leaked. (That doesn’t make it right. It’s just one sometimes does have to put on their Dick Morris hat and recognize some things are likely to happen.)

  487. Lucia,
    I doubt the Times would ever publish illegally obtained information about Hillary, if it were damaging, say medical information showing permanent disability from her concussion, or that her falls are secondary to an underlying serious problem. Of course, there are other news organizations which would be happy to publish that information, no matter how obtained. The days of journalists concentrating on reporting the news, if those days ever even existed, seem long gone.

  488. The accounting methods used for Social Security as shown in the first link below are gimmickry in order in my view to place attention on the Trust Fund and its less than straight forward funding and without hard assets. The first link below shows that funds going into the trust fund, which consists of “special” and non traded bonds, includes interest on those special bonds, taxes on Social Security payments and Social Security taxes. When it comes to funding the Social Security benefits in real time the critical issue is what is the real net inflow or outflow – which is primarily the difference between the Social Security taxes collected and the benefits paid out. That flow is covered in the second link below and shows that it has been negative for several years and will continue so into the future. That difference has to be funded by government borrowing or higher taxes. In actuality the Social Security Trust Fund can and does show a net inflow of funds (for a little while longer but even that accounting will show a net outflow in the near future given that the government continues to fail to act) at the same time the Federal government has to make up rather substantial amounts of yearly short falls.

    The existence of the Trust Fund is merely a marker for when, without any changes in the governing laws, the government obligations to fund the benefits (by borrowing large amounts of money) at a given level will run out funds to accomplish that obligation and the benefits will automatically be reduced by what the current funds into the trust can provide.

    The main story here is the drag on the economy that the real shortfall for Social Security (and Medicare) will cause long before the somewhat mythical Trust Fund runs dry.

    https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v75n1/v75n1p1.html

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2013/06/12/is-the-social-security-trust-fund-solvent/#25e3146675fd

    In the past, when inflows exceed outflows, the surplus was used to fund other government programs. However, beginning in 2010, deficits have been the rule. The deficits in the past few years were as follows: $49 billion in 2010; $45 billion in 2011; and $55 billion in 2012. The Trustees expect the deficit to average $75 billion each fiscal year from 2013 to 2018 before rising sharply. Congress must continue to issue more debt just to meet Social Security’s current obligations. This is very significant as expenditures for Social Security and Medicare accounted for 38% of the federal budget in fiscal year 2012. The actuaries report goes on to say,..

  489. Illegally obtained Clinton emails got published. Illegally obtained CRU emails got published. The CRU folks complained about the illegality, the skeptics were happy. That’s just how it goes.

  490. SteveF, I don’t think the reporting of illegally obtained information is necessarily an issue, (think Climatgate,) as long as the information can be seen in the public’s right to know. On taxes filings of candidates that is a gray area since on one hand the non-disclosure is not deemed illegal or even unethical, it’s just less than transparent.
    .
    Jit:

    Such conspiracies would be quite likely to unravel. That said, some of the evidence, if true, is compelling (but I note that if the gun was found in the dead man’s hand, should his prints have been on it? You said none were found)…

    .
    The largest conspiracy uncovered in USA history was accomplished by two low level reporters after the FBI had done a $10 million-dollar (time adjusted) investigation clearing the WH of any connection to the break in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate apartment building.
    .
    More than half of US citizens do not believe the official conclusions reached by the investigation into JFK’s 1963 assassination, which necessarily means they believe a massive conspiracy took place.
    .
    Declassified Rodriguez memo:

    The weapon is not small or of slight weight. However, on this humid summer day, though the weapon was found untouched in the clutch of VF’s right hand (VF’s thumb jammed in the trigger and guard), no fingerprints, partials or even smudges were found on the weapon….

    …Regarding physical evidence, first, latent print analysis of evidence is incomplete. None of the 4 prints found outside of VF’s car have been positively identified. The print on the underside of the gun handle has not been identified. The palm print on the torn note has not been identified.

  491. It is not clear they were illegally obtained. The unauthorized publication is illegal, but the actual returns we only know they were sent anonymously.

  493. MikeN

    The unauthorized publication is illegal, but the actual returns we only know they were sent anonymously.

    Is unauthorized publication illegal? Real question. I suspect if it does violate some statute, that statute would be thrown out by SCOTUS if challenged.

    I’m sure it would be illegal for the IRS to publish or leak them. But I seriously doubt the NYTimes actions are illegal.

    we only know they were sent anonymously.

    It’s seems highly unlikely this was authorized. If stolen: the theft would be illegal. If leaked by the IRS that would be illegal. If his accountant leaked the: at a minimum that would be some sort of tort and I’m guessing would violate some sort of statute.

    Maybe if Marla Maples his wife at the time leaked??? (Assuming she is one of the people on the form. If she filed separately, her leaking might be illegal.)

    It seems to me more likely than not that whoever the anonymous source is probably did something illegal. But you are correct that we can’t quite know without knowing how those came into someone’s hands.

  495. The case dealing with the right of newspapers, and potentially others, to publish stolen or potentially secret documents is New York Times Co. v. United States. Haven’t looked at it for a long time, but my memory is the government can’t prevent the publication of the papers by an injunction but that potentially (never seen it actually enforced) the publisher of confidential papers can be held liable. Those who want to look closely at this case can check this out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States

    JD

  496. JD Ohio,
    I think we can be fairly certain Obama’s justice department will not try to enforce law barring publication of Trump’s IRS tax documents. If Hillary wins she won’t either.

    If Trump wins, he likely will try to have justice go after NYT after the fact. So the question will them be: would he win? I don’t know. But right now, he’s not favored to win. We probably won’t learn.

  497. I suspect Marla Maples could release the documents as co-signer. Other than that, someone(s) have clearly broken the law. They are unlikely to be prosecuted…. unless Trump wins.

  498. SteveF,

    Rather than raise the capital gains tax rate, the income tax rate should be lowered and flattened, preferably made completely flat. Raise the capital gains rate and not only will revenues not increase, but investment will decline and revenues decline with them. Why would anyone make a risky investment with the possibility of a large gain unless they were allowed to keep most of that gain? Answer: they wouldn’t. That won’t help the economy much. But then any scheme to redistribute income hurts the economy.

  499. DeWitt:

    Rather than raise the capital gains tax rate, the income tax rate should be lowered and flattened…

    Excellent idea!
    .
    NYT Revkin on Climatgate in 1998 on documents from Britain’s East Anglia University: “They appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.”
    .
    I suppose the most concrete evidence of bias is when two identical ethical questions have two opposing conclusions depending on your personal preference.

  500. DeWitt,
    Nobody makes risky investments unless they think the potential return outweighs the risk. The issue is not risk/reward, that will take care of itself, the issue is the distortion in economic choices that the favorable treatment of capital gains produces. Yes, tax rates ought to be flatter and lower, but special tax incentives of every type should be eliminated as well to pay for those flatter, lower rates. If you want efficient use of capital, including a more prudent balance of risk versus reward, then you should be for eliminating ‘tax incentives’, all of which lead to less than efficient economic choices.

  501. Ron Graf,
    “They appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.”
    .
    Of course Revkin would not publicize documents which would cast doubt on his (and the NY Times!) preferred policy WRT fossil fuel use. The NY Times is, and has for decades been, an advocate for ‘progressive/green’ public policy. They are not really dishonest, they are worse…. they don’t give a hoot about accuracy, honesty, or balance; they want leftist polilcies to prevail, and nothing else. I sometimes get old NY Times newspapers from a (progressive) relative. I use them either to start a fire in my fireplace, or more often, to wrap up fish guts when I clean freshly caught fish. Both are far better and more productive uses of the paper than reading the crap printed on it.

  502. Am I missing something? It looks like Trump did (or could have done-we cannot know without seeing his subsequent returns) an ordinary loss carry-forward. A series of them over a number of years.

    There is an assumption in the news that he may have paid no taxes for 18 years, but this would depend on his taxable income not exceeding $50 million in any of those years. If it did, then he would have paid tax on the part exceeding $50m.

    There are plenty of reasons why I cannot support him for president, but I really marvel at some of the reaches which the media go to to demean the guy. Especially when his ‘crime’ seems to be doing what any intelligent person would have done in his situation.

    It seems possible that the sophomores who put the Times together never heard of loss-carry forward. Like SteveF, I cannot stand the Times. Their editorials so frequently recommend courses of action which are impractical and in addition would never be taken by the people involved. I assume that their editorial staff must be in their early twenties – no offense intended to Brandon S.

    Losing $900 million in a single year does take real talent though. I thought you had to be a government to do something like that.

    If I have this wrong, I’d love to see where i screwed it up.

  503. JF: That the guy managed to lose $900M+ in a single year is my main takeaway from this. A promoter who got far too much credit & not surprisingly, blew it.

  506. Jferguson, is there a limit of 50 million here to avoid taxes?
    For example if he made $500 million the next year, that would all be tax free wouldn’t it?

    Warren Buffett made special use of these, buying up companies with large losses to offset gains elsewhere.

  507. JF,
    “the sophomores who put the Times together never heard of loss-carry forward”
    The basis of loss-carry forward is that you can average your net gain over a number of years, and if it has been negative for those years, you won’t pay income tax. But Donald Trump does not give the impression that his income has been on average negative for all those years.

    “Losing $900 million in a single year does take real talent though. I thought you had to be a government to do something like that.”
    Yes. So people wonder whether he really did, or whether there is some genius behind the accounting.

  508. NS: “But Donald Trump does not give the impression that his income has been on average negative for all those years.”

    Do you mean 1992-2010 (3 yrs carry-back, 15 carry-forward, as I understand it)? For it not to have averaged negative over this period, he would have needed to have had net income of $50M+ in every year. Except for 1995, when he had a net loss of $916M.

    If he could wield enough accounting-magic to deliver a $916M net loss in one year, I bet he had enough to wipe out most or all of his income in most or all of those other years, as well.

    For these purposes, as well as accounting-magic, he also wielded the power of being a pretty crappy business guy able nevertheless to get loans & guarantees from various parties, which would have helped.

  509. Nick,
    without revisiting 1040, I don’t understand “averaging net gain” although I can see that this is an effect of loss carry forward.

    Years ago we had an option called income averaging which worked to keep your income in a lower tax bracket by say averaging over three years IIRC such that a very good year which was unusual could be averaged down into the more usual years.

    I had some volatile years at that time and it was a welcome option – family business that got it right every once in a while.

  510. j ferguson,
    Sadly, income averaging is no longer an option except for farmers and fishermen (and fisherwomen). Which I guess points to who had enough political influence to keep that option on the books for themselves when it was repealed for everyone else. I used income averaging a couple of times, and it saved quite a lot in taxes. Loss carry-forward is much less beneficial, because few small business owners could survive a year or two with significant net losses. It is far more likely that profitability varies a lot year to year than that there are large net losses in a year. Mostly bigger operators (like Donald Trump), can take advantage of loss carry-forward because they can survive large net losses.

  511. Hi SteveF,
    I had the same good experience with income averaging especially the year that the contractor i worked for had a wonderful year and shared it with the troops – effectively doubling my income. this also happened at the same time the family business declared a big-to-me dividend. I think I was able to average twice before this thing went away.

    The next time we needed it, it was gone.

    I suspect it was a casualty of the reduction in rates which Reagan brought us.

    I get a kick out of reading about confiscatory taxation. Those who weren’t in the upper brackets in the early ’60s have no idea what the term means.

  512. SteveF,

    Treatment of capital gains differently from ordinary income is not a tax incentive. It’s basic economics. So you wouldn’t allow loss carry back/ carry forward on capital? Real question.

  513. j ferguson,

    The Beatles had a song about it: Taxman

    Let me tell you how it will be
    There’s one for you, nineteen for me
    Cos I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman

  514. Ingmar Bergman the movie director left Sweden because he was being taxed at more than 100%. I don’t know how they were able to do this but suspect it was taxation on existing wealth in addition to income.

    France has a tax on wealth which I think kicks in on estates worth more than $1.5 million.

    SteveF, if it isn’t too nosy to ask, are you running as a C corp or S? And either way, could you share your observations on corporate taxation?

    One other thing. a joke which circulated in the late ’80s in Miami was about a third option on form of bankruptcy. There was chapter 7, chapter 11, and chapter 911. In the last option, you got to keep the Porsche.

  516. It also appears that these were state returns not federal and the federal stature only applies to federal returns. so no imputed federal criminality could be assigned to their publication, at least based on the statute referenced above.

  517. The NYT also does a story on Hillary and Bill’s women, with some elite company in the process.

    Ms. Wright declined to be interviewed, saying in an email, “It is reprehensible that The New York Times is joining The National Enquirer and Donald Trump by dredging up irrelevant slime from the past.”

    As I recall, Hillary’s cattle futures story was also an investigative report by the NYT in 1994.

  518. DeWitt,
    “Treatment of capital gains differently from ordinary income is not a tax incentive.”
    Humm. Half the maximum tax rate of normal income seems to be something of a tax incentive.
    .
    “So you wouldn’t allow loss carry back/ carry forward on capital?”
    .
    As I have already said a couple of times: 1) Captial gains should be indexed to account for inflation to avoid what is nothing more than confiscation of wealth due to inflation. 2) Capital gains/losses, inflation adjusted, should be treated the same as normal income is treated. If the rules allow a carry forward of a loss for normal income, then that should apply to capital losses as well.

  519. So Alicia Machado is relevant slime? Oh, wait, I know the answer to this. The rules are different for Republicans and Democrats. The past is irrelevant for Democrats in general and HRC in particular, but not for Republicans and especially not for Trump.

    T-shirt I saw this weekend: A black shirt with “Deplorable Lives Matter” in white.

  520. j ferguson,
    As with all things legal, the details matter. But in general, my understanding is that any entity which requires the disclosure of Federal tax information (eg, all states and municipalities with an income tax) is required to follow Federal non-disclosure rules. A State employee who disclosed the Donald’s State tax information would appear to be as liable as if it were a disclosure of Federal income tax information. The NY Times, OTOH, can probably publish illegally obtained taxpayer information without any criminal liability, but it would not surprise me if there were potential civil liability.

  521. SteveF,

    If the rules allow a carry forward of a loss for normal income, then that should apply to capital losses as well.

    Now you’re just being silly. I suspect this is an idee fixe for you and you won’t respond to a rational argument.

    How do you get a loss of normal (earned) income, before negative interest rates anyway? Real question. I’m not sure that negative interest rates would count as an income loss or be deductible either. A pay cut certainly wouldn’t. The reductio ad absurdum for that would be winning the lottery one year and declaring a loss of income when you didn’t win the next year.

  522. but it would not surprise me if there were potential civil liability.

    I can see Donald Trump, if he loses the Presidency, filing a $5B lawsuit for loss from estate tax laws that would have otherwise changed, were he to win the Presidency.

  523. Read somewhere that if the loss is on a debt, then Trump would not be able to offset this.

  524. j ferguson,
    An S-corp.
    .
    WRT to corporate taxes: C-corp taxes are a sticky wicket, as they say. The double taxation of dividends as normal income tends to minimize dividend distribution in favor of retaining earnings to use for ‘re-investment’, stock buy-backs, and acquisitions; this is of course often just to avoid double taxation at normal income rates by converting the retained earnings into capital gains. The two plausible alternatives would appear to be 1) tax C-corps at a high rate and distribute after-tax dividends tax free, or 2) not tax C-corps on distributed dividends and tax the distributed dividends as normal income; what tax rate should then apply to dividends that are not distributed is a subject for discussion, but it seems to me C-corp rates can’t be divorced from how capital gains are taxed.

  525. DeWitt,
    Let me clarify; I should have said:
    “If the rules allow a carry forward of a net operating loss against future profits, then that should apply to capital losses as well.”
    .
    In other words, if you have a capital loss this year you ought to be able to carry it forward (or backward) just as you could a net operating loss. I already said this once before.

    “Now you’re just being silly.”
    I don’t think so. Special treatment of capital gains leads to economic distortions; economic distortions hurt growth. By the way, you might like this graphic, and might consider how it squares with the Laffer curve:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Top_Capital_Gains_Tax_Rates_and_Economic_Growth_1950-2011.jpg

  526. SteveF,

    The Laffer curve says nothing whatsoever about economic growth. It is strictly about revenue. Your link is therefore irrelevant. The fundamental assumption is that the revenue curve with tax rate is not monotonic. It has two minima at 0% and 100%. That implies that there is an optimum rate to maximize revenue. Experience suggests that this rate is in the range of 15-20%. Maximizing revenue, Obama to the contrary, would seem to be the best policy.

    Operating losses have nothing to do with individuals and households. IMO, the corporate income tax rate should be zero. It’s paid by employees with lower wages. Then there would be no need to worry about whether operating losses could or could not be carried forward or back. A consumption tax like a VAT is far less distorting. Then we could also stop hearing or reading the whinging about how foreign VAT’s are actually tariffs in disguise.

  527. DeWitt

    Maximizing revenue, Obama to the contrary, would seem to be the best policy.

    Or at least not taxing above the rate that maximizes revenue because at tax rates that correspond to declining rates of revenue with increasing tax rate, a significant portion of the loss in revenue is due to lesser economic activity, various forms of tax evasion, economic distortions caused by people trying to avoid taxation.

    None of these are good things.

  528. lucia,

    Lawyers, accountants and lobbyists love high tax rates. It keeps them employed. It’s still hard to believe, looking back, that reducing the top marginal income tax rate from ~90% to 70% was controversial. It took a Democrat, Kennedy, to do it, though.

  529. DeWitt

    Lawyers, accountants and lobbyists love high tax rates. It keeps them employed.

    Sure. But while much of what lawyers, accountants and lobbyist do can be economically productive, work created to game the tax system is not economically productive.

    (FWIW: For those who think law, accounting and lobbying are never economically productive: fair arbitration of business disputes is economically productive– the alternative is the strong just takes from the weak. Keeping track of the ‘beans’ for a thriving business is economically productive. And so on.)

  530. The WaPo business columnist says the losses are most likely paper losses, but there’s no way to know.

    I don’t understand how Trump, who had very little of his own cash invested in his projects in the 1990s but did personally guarantee part of their debt, could end up with tax losses of that magnitude. They’re almost certainly paper losses rather than out-of-pocket losses. It’s possible that those losses somehow vanished into the ether from which they came — we have no way to tell.

  531. Re: MikeN (Comment #151785)

    I’m sure this makes sense to some tax accountants somewhere, but if the loss was on a debt and he got out of the debt, there was a ‘cancellation of debt’ income, but under some circumstances , you could still have favorable tax treatment in the future.

    Again to stay on the surface there are circumstances under which cancellation of debt income is excluded from taxable income. There is a price though. You have to reduce your favorable tax attributes, with Net Operating Losses first on the list, although there is an election to apply the reduction to depreciable basis, which allows the NOL to be preserved and the can further kicked down the road.

    All this with just one page of tax returns …

  533. DeWitt,
    “Operating losses have nothing to do with individuals and households.”
    .
    Really? The owners of small businesses probably don’t think so.
    .
    My link was to show that there is very little if any correlation between economic growth and capital gains rates. The entire Laffer curve argument (zero revenue at 0% and 100% tax rate, and some maximum in between) is based on the implicit assumption that lower taxes encourage growth and higher taxes diminish growth (and so ultimately lower total tax take if too high). That basic Laffer argument is a truism; the important question is how economic growth responds to tax rate when that rate is not close to 100%. The data certainly don’t indicate a strong negative correlation between capital gains rates and growth, at least not over the range those rates have been in since 1950.

  534. Polls: Doesn’t seem like the debate did too much. Ohio in one poll was unchanged. http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2016/10/hillary_clinton_got_no_post-de.html#incart_most-commented_osu_article

    Also, http://heavy.com/news/2016/10/presidential-polls-latest-ahead-trump-vs-clinton-post-debate-current-polling-numbers-winning-projections-predictions/ Heavy stated: :t has been a week since Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton squared off in their first presidential debate. The majority of polls and pundits show Clinton won the debate, but the post-debate bump in polling may not be as high as Clinton supporters would like.”

    JD

  535. Trump’s taxes. Mostly doesn’t seem like a big deal to me that he used losses to escape income taxes. Income taxes cover income not pre-existing property. If he had real losses, there is nothing wrong with using the losses to offset income. I think it would be damaging if his losses were really paper manufactured losses — a real possibility.

    ….
    On the other hand, if Trump is paying the myriad of other taxes, such as property taxes, his employees’ Fica taxes, motel occupancy taxes, unemployment taxes et cet., he can make a reasonable argument that his businesses generate a large amount of government revenue. (Again wouldn’t be surprised if he gamed this also) Nearly 50% of Americans don’t pay Federal income tax. The fact that he has ongoing businesses that perform a real economic function as opposed to the approximately $150,000,000 that the Clintons received to give meaningless talks is a legitimate argument to make.

    JD

  536. DeWitt, why is Laffer Curve saying 100% tax rate yields no revenue? It is implicitly a argument about tax rates vs economic growth (and tax cheating).

  537. JD, not much in terms of percentage points, but going from tied to down 3 is pretty huge in terms of the results.

  538. MikeN “JD, not much in terms of percentage points, but going from tied to down 3 is pretty huge in terms of the results.”

    I agree with that. However, my point it that he hasn’t been fatally injured. If he does well in next debate or Clinton stumbles (a good possibility) then he can easily catch or pass her. Of course, Trump has to keep his foot out of his mouth, but Clinton will almost certainly give him opportunities because when she speaks she almost always stumbles. The interesting thing is that she is doing virtually no campaigning that I can see.

    JD

  539. MikeN,

    DeWitt, why is Laffer Curve saying 100% tax rate yields no revenue? It is implicitly a argument about tax rates vs economic growth (and tax cheating).

    I’ll answer that with another question: Why would anyone risk significant money when they knew they could at best only break even? Only an idiot would take those odds. Any sensible person would invest their money in something that paid interest or dividends that was extremely unlikely to go down in value. Before zero to negative interest rates, that would have been US Treasury bonds or something. Venture capital funds wouldn’t exist. So the revenue might not be identically zero, but it would be very, very small. There’s still an optimum rate that maximizes revenue.

    People play slot machines, buy lottery tickets and other types of gambling with a negative total return for the adrenaline rush, not with any real expectation of winning.

  540. JD Ohio,

    HRC’s message is that she’s not Trump. There isn’t anything else, or at least not anything that makes any sense. It’s all magical thinking. The joke about Bernie Sanders was that his first act on taking office would be to order the Department of Agriculture to plant the magical trees that grow free stuff.

  541. Perhaps not fatal, but the first debate will have the highest audience. The decision may already have been made.

    Alternatively, Trump came across as not scary, and thus was the winner of the first debate. So voters who are currently picking don’t know or Gary Johnson as their choice will eventually pick Trump as a result of seeing him as not scary.

  542. MikeN,

    Not me. Trump is still just as scary as Clinton. He can’t stay focused on the important stuff and fixates on meaningless stuff. See Alicia Machado. His decision to not release his tax returns nine months ago is yet another example of extremely poor judgement.

    I’m in the group that sees disaster coming whomever is elected. There will almost certainly be a severe recession during the next four years. Major insurance companies and pension funds will go belly up, especially if the Fed, as seems likely at this point, takes interest rates negative. It’s quite clear at this point that neither HRC nor DT is capable of dealing with this in a fashion that won’t make things worse.

    Of course, I don’t think Johnson would be capable either, but he has the advantage of not being able to win.

  544. Starr praises Bill Clinton; Chertoff endorses Hillary. It’s like the 90s are a bygone era.

  545. Lucia: “Both candidates are scary”

    ….I agree but I think Trump is slightly less scary. I think there is a 90% chance that Trump will be a disaster and a 99% chance that Clinton will be. Trump at least has a small chance of growing into the office. Clinton with her long record has no chance of improving on what she has been in the past. I also worry that under Clinton, nobody honest will be able to survive in the government and that the US could turn into Argentina or Brazil.

    JD

  546. Lucia,
    “Sooooper scary”
    .
    Well, both are terrible candidates. I don’t go so far as ‘scary’. Hillary is pretty easy to prognosticate: scandals, corruption, continuation of many unlawful executive orders (with some extra thrown in), continued weak economic performance, efforts to raise taxes (which will never pass the house), efforts to increase entitlement spending (which could pass), in-your-face PC rants, weak and foolish foreign policy, continuing terror attacts, etc. She loaths people who disagree with her, and it shows. Lots of people will reciprocate for four years.
    .
    OTOH, Trump is much more difficult to predict beyond the people he has identified as potential Supreme Court nominees, and the inevitable embarrassments he would for sure generate in his dealings with foreign leaders. His tax and economic policies (such as they are) appear as objectionable to Republicans as Hillary’s, so would be DOA at the House. He can’t unilaterally modify ratified treaties, even if he thinks he can. So my guess he wouldn’t do much beyond make a lot of noise, though as I said, it is harder to predict. With Trump as President, one thing is certain: I will take endless ribbing when I travel outside the States.
    .
    In either case, they will likely be such awful presidents, and so awfully old, that neither is likely to get re-elected. Which is a good thing.

  548. RB,
    The elites, independent of party, see Trump as a threat to their world view…. and to the system which gives them power and wealth. Starr knows the Clintons are bald faced liars, and certainly disagrees with them on many policies. But they don’t threaten the intellectual foundations of the Republican party; Trump does.

  549. RB,
    The trouble is she might suggest the same for most anyone who she finds inconvenient.

  550. DeWitt “…Trump is still just as scary as Clinton. He can’t stay focused on the important stuff and fixates on meaningless stuff…”
    .
    It is odd that with all Trump’s undeniable success that he is so sensitive to criticism or put-downs. One would think stuff could not get under the skin of the master dealer. His defensiveness is definitely his weakest point. And, Hillary is exploiting it to her glee. This brings to memory Al Gore’s destruction of Ross Perot on Larry King when Gore attacked Perot’s son, I forget for what, but everyone remember Perot falling apart. I remember Speaker Wright, who knew Perot, being interviewed and Gore-Perot and Wright said he knew Perot lacked the skills of a politician and would “bristle.”
    .
    Politician training of emotions may also be linked to their loss of genuine passion and why so many look fake unless they are good actors. Loss of emotion ==> acting ==> loss of earnest passion ==> lower barriers to compromising truth and ethics.
    .
    When Trump hears his integrity attacked it means something to him. True self-control is part of maturity but too much control is unhealthy bottling up.
    .
    Lucia: “Both candidates are scary. Soooooper scary.”
    .
    I read for many hours on the Vince Foster files this weekend — talk about scary… Even if you believe it was suicide (against every piece of evidence) one cannot deny that the White House staff acted in a way to hedge their bets. With the chilling question lingering in the Clinton WH staff’s minds Hillary gave these remarks on 7-21-93.

    In the first place, no one can ever know why this happened. Even if you had a whole set of objective reasons, that wouldn’t be why it happened, because you could get a different, bigger, more burdensome set of objective reasons that are on someone else in this room. So what happened was a mystery about something inside of him. And I hope all of you will always understand that… [Vince Foster] had an extraordinary sense of propriety and loyalty, and I hope when we remember him and this we’ll be a little more anxious to talk to each other and a little less anxious to talk outside of our family.[emphasis added]

    .
    Inside Foster’s car was a paper with the names of three psychiatrists on it. All three had been called the day before from Foster’s phone and billed to his home phone (creating a visible trail) even though Foster had a calling card in his wallet that would have made it confidential. None of the doctors said they spoke with Foster.
    .
    The last Foster was seen he was hurriedly finishing his lunch, offered his desert M&ms to his assistants as he told them he had to go out and would be back, (the first time he had left during the day since he started). He checked out a WH beeper (before cell phones) to get important messages. Although his appointment book was never found his secretary’s schedule showed he had a meeting with the president the next day and his sister, who had just driven a 1000 miles from Arkansas to see him and get a tour inside the WH.

  551. DeWitt, unfocused is not the same as scary. I think Trump eased some worries, while leaving many on the table.

    I don’t see Trump as being scarier with foreign leaders when he speaks of getting along with people, while Hillary, Kasich, Christie speak of attacking Russia, and Rubio merely says he doesn’t want Putin fighting ISIS.

  552. Lucia, the reason Monica kept the dress is because Linda Tripp had noticed what the Clintons did to others and advised her to keep it. If she hadn’t done it, the public story repeated by all would be what Sidney Blumenthal was selling- that she was a crazy stalker, and that’s what Carrick would be assuring us is all the evidence shows.

  553. Ron Graf, have you personally verified any of these details?

    Perhaps you would be interested in reading Ron Brown’s Body.

  554. Willard says: October 3, 2016 at 10:12 am at ATTP
    ” That is just silly.”
    DeWitt Payne (Comment #151783)October 3rd, 2016 at 1:10 pm at Blackboard
    “Now you’re just being silly.”
    Apropos of nothing. Life imitates art. No offense intended by the way.

  555. DeWitt: “How do you get a loss of normal (earned) income, before negative interest rates anyway? Real question. ” Answer: a net operating loss in a sole proprietorship an S-corp (taxed a personal ordinary income). The IRS participates fully and immediately in small business profits but in a limited and delayed fashion for losses, no refunds.
    .

    Ron Graf, have you personally verified any of these details?

    Original source material from the FBI and Office of Special Investigators is posted abundance online. I didn’t make anything up. BTW, Linda Tripp was the one who brought Vince Foster’s last lunch to him since he was in a hurry and his own secretary was on lunch.
    Here are some good links:
    http://www.fbicover-up.com/ewExternalFiles/MiguelRodriguezMemo.pdf
    http://www.fbicover-up.com/ewExternalFiles/BOOK.pdf
    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/FOSTER_COVERUP/burton_cbs.html
    http://prorev.com/foster.htm

    Perhaps you would be interested in reading Ron Brown’s Body.

    In passing I noticed there are multiple body counts associated with the Clintons in Arkansas, something about a CIA drug operation out of Mena, AR.

  556. I am personally shocked that the air tight and non-partisan IRS allowed a Trump tax return to be leaked. Shocked I say.

    Of course it could have come from many places. The chance of this return leaking was about 100%. What they haven’t been able to do is show anything illegal occurred. Somebody using the tax laws to pay the least amount possible isn’t exactly controversial.

    The intent is that one company that makes $5M each year over two years is treated the same as another company that makes $20M one year, followed by losing $10M. Whether this gets exploited beyond what is reasonable I don’t know, and most media stories aren’t interested in finding out.

    I personally find that HRC randomly speculating out loud that Trump “may” have paid no taxes during the debate followed by this leak by the NYT to be no coincidence and it is one of the things I truly detest about politics in general. This kind of entrapment is accepted in politics today and it is just a sign of the moral decay in politics. I stipulate there is plenty of this to go around on all sides.

  557. Tom Scharf,
    I speculated even before the debate here that Trump may not have paid taxes (because he is in the real estate field). It doesn’t require any special insights to think that might be the case.
    It is legal, but Trump looks hypocritical for mocking people who don’t pay taxes over the years on his Twitter account. Besides, it makes it all the more compelling that he release his tax returns so that we know what loopholes he exploited and which need fixing, if that’s what he is promising.

  558. RB,
    I wrote this before the 3 page leaked.

    September 27th, 2016 at 8:03 am

    RB,

    My view on taxes is: the tax code is what it is. Everyone should consider ways to reduce their own taxes using legal breaks available to them (without turning your finances into a nightmare. I have stories of people who did silly things.)

    WRT to Trump: (a) he is a business person and (b) he is in real estate. The two combined means that if he is running his business properly, he will often have lots of tax write offs, “breaks” and so on. In fact, congress has specifically written things into the tax code to “encourage” certain types of development. All those involved in real estate need to be aware of these and use these.

    So of course there will be years in which he did not pay taxes. I’m not troubled by this one bit.

    Not being psychic, I didn’t anticipate the YYYYYYuuuuuuuge loss entry. But I’m also not especially troubled by that. At least not troubled in a “this means Trump is bad” way. There are lots of things to dislike about Trump. That he took advantage of large losses (whether paper or real) doesn’t bother me one bit.

    Assuming it’s a legit loss (in terms of tax code), I find it less troubling than Bill and Hillary writing off ridiculous values for old used underwear donated to Goodwill (Salvation Army? Whatever). Yeahm $2 is less than a $billion. But if the $billion is a legit write off and the $2 not legit, I don’t see how the $billion is somehow more shocking.

    (Whether the tax code is fair, right, economically useful and so on is also a separate things. When one is filing taxes– or even doing business– the code is what it is. It has all sorts of weird things, you have to comply with the ones that do you no good. You get to take advantage of the ones that do.)

  559. RB,
    what a great idea. Were Trump to publish his returns with the parts which he feels unfair annotated and explained, maybe as a public service, I would rethink voting for him. Running a really open campaign against the most secretive candidate in years would be very compelling.

    He might have to face the possibility that some of what would be exposed might be embarrassing, but he could say, “Look, all this stuff is in the code. I was audited every year – I’m sure he was – and this is what the IRS allowed. The code needs to be changed to make some of these opportunities go away and to make other available to more of our fellow citizens.”

    were he to do this, he could win

  560. Lucia,
    It’s bizarre that the Clintons would deduct $2 for donations. I’ll chalk it up to some obsessive receipt-keeping.

  561. lucia:

    So of course there will be years in which he did not pay taxes. I’m not troubled by this one bit.

    Remember, the tax reform of 1986 specifically left in exemptions for real estate moguls like Trump: Precisely because real estate moguls like Trump lobbied for it.

    In other words, the fact that Trump doesn’t pay any taxes is proof the tax system is corrupt. And the tax system is corrupt precisely because the same real estate moguls who benefit from the corrupt system corrupted it to start with.

    Trump’s proposed tax reforms further ensconce his tax benefits, and provides him with even more benefits than he gets now.

    I see a few things to be troubled by.

  562. RB,
    I think the issue was they itemized and specifically claimed a pair of old used underwear was worth $2.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/16/us/clinton-taxes-laid-bare-line-by-line.html

    In previous returns, when Mr. Clinton was the Governor of Arkansas and his wife was a partner in a Little Rock law firm, the Clintons had gone so far as to deduct $2 for underwear donated to charities. The deduction was ridiculed by comedians and pundits, and the White House did not itemize the Clintons’ $17,000 in charitable contributions on the 1993 return.

    I suspect most people who box stuff up and donate to goodwill (or some such) just put some dollar value on the whole batch of stuff- blankets, winter coats and so on. But clearly, this stuff can’t be worth more than it sells for at goodwill or the salvation army. Some isnt’ saleable as individual items and gets solds as textiles to companies that do things with old textimes. (Not sure what they make out of it– but evidently there are companies that do something with old textiles.)

    No one would buy someone’s old used underwear for $2. Even silk underwear that might have cost a lot when new once used is just oh… eeuww…..

    ( FWIW: The goodwill does get donations from stores with stuff that never sold. WRT to undies, that’s something a person might pay $2. But $2 for underwear someone else has worn. Oh. Ewwwww…… This is just not like dishes, old pots and pans, cookie sheets and the mainline stuff you can find at goodwill or salvation army. A person setting up a first apartment who wants to set a table fast can do ok at goodwill — matching plates, cups etc for much less than at Walmart. Then you replace as you find stuff you prefer. But… old undies? Euewww…..)

  563. Carrick,

    Trump’s proposed tax reforms further ensconce his tax benefits, and provides him with even more benefits than he gets now.

    I find what he proposes more relevant to my decision than the fact that he used the tax code that existed at the time or even that in the past, people in real estate lobbied for the provisions he took advantage of.

    What he proposes tells me what he is likely to do in office and if he succeeds, that will affect us all. It’s rather clear to me that his plans for the direction of the country aren’t ones I can get behind. Hillary’s aren’t either. That’s why I’m voting for Gary “What’s Aleppo?” Johnson.

  564. As this article says, in Trump’s tax story we find further evidence:
    1. That he has an alternate version of reality (the ’90s recession was worse than the 2008 one)
    2. He will threaten the freedom of press (NYT, Washington Post)
    3. His transactions involve self-dealing at the expense of others (‘fiduciary responsibility’, past behavior of transferring personal debts to his casinos and stiffing his investors, contractors)

  565. Lucia, having four kids, I have frequently donated clothes (including socks and underwear) to Good Will. I admit I’ve never itemized it though. It just doesn’t seem like a charitable act if you’re asking for tax relief from it.

    I think the past does matter. It tells us about the actual tendencies of the individuals, rather than the pointless blather that’s coming out of their mouth right now.

    I think Gary would be a good president actually. Better than the alternatives. If the system weren’t so rigged, he’d have a shot at winning against these two clowns. The thing about Aleppo reminds me of a supposed quote by Einstein, when asked about the number of feet in a mile: “I don’t know, why should I fill my brain with facts I can find in two minutes in any standard reference book?”

    You need somebody who knows how to set good policy. Being a geography expert isn’t a requirement (he just needs generals who can find Aleppo on a map).

  566. RB,
    1) I think the Vox article is gilding the lily about on your bullet one. They are doing so by ignoring that Trump says “conditions facing real estate developers“. (They go on to say conditions did hit real estate developers especially badly. Admittedly, Trump appears to have positioned himself especially badsly.

    2) We didn’t need his tax return story to know he likes to threaten to sue the press. This is not new behavior.

    3) I’m pretty sure we didn’t need his taxes to know about the self-dealing whenever he could get away this it. In fact, I don’t think the evidence for this is really from the tax retursn. (FWIW: self-dealing at the expense of others is trait the Clinton’s, including Hillary, also seem to exhibit. )

    I realize this story is getting a lot of visibility. But I don’t think these tax returns tell us much of anything we didn’t already know. ( I’d already decided to not vote for him and this story isn’t changing my mind. But I’m not seeing how this story makes us learn anything bad about him we didn’t pretty well already know.)

  568. Carrick,

    Being a geography expert isn’t a requirement (he just needs generals who can find Aleppo on a map).

    I agree. I don’t hold his not nothing “Aleppo” immediately– even if he is running for president. Part of the reason I don’t expect him to be on top of every detail is actually that…. he doesn’t have a chance in heck of winning! So, the reality is, he has to devote his time to things that will matter after the elections– when he will not be president.

    Ironically, I’d consider certain lapses more crucial if he was further ahead in the polls.

    But still, it’s one of the most visible things about his. So, I’m putting that in to his name. I prefer him to both Hillary and Donalds even though he didn’t immediately recognize “Aleppo” when asked. And I consider him preferable because there are so many other things that matter more than geography– even when there are battles going on.

  569. Lucia:

    But I’m not seeing how this story makes us learn anything bad about him we didn’t pretty well already know.

    It’s confirmation of things we suspected. I never expected to find that he paid taxes. It puts him in a bind because he’s been making hay over other people not paying their fair share.

    Most of us were surprised by the magnitude of the business loss though. That’s new.

    As far as I know, there’s no evidence of financial self-dealing in the Clinton Foundation. I know there’s about $270,000 of self-dealing thats been found ‘s the Trump foundation. Do you have anything to point at there regarding the Clinton Foundation?

  570. Carrick,
    I know he is claiming “fiduciary duty”, which is nonesense. Jim has a “fiduciary duty” toward his mom when she was in the care facility. My sister did toward my Dad when he was. But one does not have a “fiduciary duty” to oneself.

    Mind you: I think there is nothing wrong with paying no more tax than one owes. But that doesn’t make it a “fiduciary duty” to do so.

  571. Carrick

    As far as I know, there’s no evidence of financial self-dealing in the Clinton Foundation.

    Honestly, I consider the entire Clinton Foundation self dealing.

  574. Carrick,
    “In other words, the fact that Trump doesn’t pay any taxes is proof the tax system is corrupt. And the tax system is corrupt precisely because the same real estate moguls who benefit from the corrupt system corrupted it to start with.”
    .
    The system is full of complexity and ‘tax expenses’ because lots of people and lots of organizations lobby Congress, make political donations, and succeed in geting favorable treatment. Oh say, farmers, trial lawyers, insurance companies, hedge fund managers, and many, many more. If this makes the system corrupt, then it is a lot more than real estate moguls who make it that way. As others have noted, Trump is being audited regularly by the IRS, and over the past 8 years at least, it seems very unlikely they have been doing him any favors. I agree with Lucia: what he proposes is far more important than his history of tax payments, or lack thereof. Unfortunately for Trump, his proposals, such as they are, don’t make much sense and surely don’t address the rising tide of red ink…. which it seems nobody in Washington is willing to address.
    .
    Please remember that in his first term, Obama set up a bipartisan commission to make recommendations to control deficits; they came up with a serious plan, addressing both uncontrolled growth in entitlement expenditures and revision of the tax code to eliminate most ‘tax preferences’, including repeal of the special treatment for capital gains. Obama and Congress both giggled and never mentioned the commission again. Borrowing from the Bard of Avon: the problem is not in our laws, but in ourselves… and the scoundrels we always elect to represent us.

  575. lucia:

    I think there is nothing wrong with paying no more tax than one owes.

    I don’t fully agree with that. If you are a billionaire, and you are benefiting from services, you should pay for those services.

    There are lots of things we can legally do, that most of us have enough of a moral compass to not do.

  576. With regards to the Clinton Foundation, this article says that what sticks out are the rise in payroll costs. But since they are more like a public charity, it is hard to say what those payroll costs reflect e.g., doctors?

  577. RB,
    Casinos are not “residential”. I’m pretty sure Hotels are also not “residential”. So… yeah. 1990 was worse for the type of real estate that Trump is involved in.

  578. Carrick, RB,

    The Clinton foundation is a mechanism that permits them to provide well paying jobs to people who also promote them and work for them politically (e.g. Huma, Chelsea etc.).

    It is true it does– on the side– some good work. That’s the “method” they found to exploit the tax code to get what they need– which is a way to support “team Clinton” and advance their personal interests.

    But as I see it, the foundation is fundamentally self dealing.

  580. RB,
    I’m not sure what point you are trying to make by suggesting that Clinton operatives are earning less than $300k and etc.

  581. I’d say 300K is not particularly well-paying compared to what Chelsea could make outside of the Foundation, so I wouldn’t say the Foundation is particularly beneficial in terms of her compensation e.g. 600K apparently from NBC (no doubt a privilege).
    Update: in 2011 she earned 0 from the Foundation.

  582. Lucia,
    The foundation also funds chartered private jet service, five star hotels, and superb restaurants for the Clinton’s and their cronies at important international conferences dedicated to….. um, to talk about important stuff, and generaly promote the Clinton’s ‘progressive’ political goals. Most of the foundation expenses are for such rubbish, as far as I can tell.

  583. RB,
    Chelsey Clinton merits $65K for a speech about as much as a housecat does. Have you ever listened to her talk? She is an utter airhead. Really, do you not see something a little fishy in that $65K?

  584. SteveF,
    I’m saying that she stands to make more outside of the Foundation, the 65K being an example (BTW, I find 65K for a speech ridiculous). In this case, it came from a University.

  585. RB,
    I’m skeptical that Chelsea ‘could’ make that money outside the foundation.
    Also: The foundation was just building up– and Chelsea was working for someone else in 2011 but was appointed to a seat by year end. So it’s hardly surprising she wasn’t paid in 2011. Non-meaningful data is… nonmeaningful.

  586. As for employment of team clinton:

    In the coming months, as Mrs. Clinton mulls a 2016 presidential bid, the foundation could also serve as a base for her to home in on issues and to build up a stable of trusted staff members who could form the core of a political campaign.

    Mrs. Clinton’s staff at the foundation’s headquarters includes Maura Pally, a veteran aide who advised her 2008 presidential campaign and worked at the State Department, and Madhuri Kommareddi, a former policy aide to President Obama.

    Dennis Cheng, Mrs. Clinton’s deputy chief of protocol at the State Department and a finance director of her presidential campaign, will oversee the endowment drive, which some of the Clintons’ donors already describe as a dry run for 2016.

    And Mrs. Clinton’s personal staff of roughly seven people — including Huma Abedin, wife of the New York mayoral candidate Anthony D. Weiner — will soon relocate from a cramped Washington office to the foundation’s headquarters. They will work on organizing Mrs. Clinton’s packed schedule of paid speeches to trade groups and awards ceremonies and assist in the research and writing of Mrs. Clinton’s memoir about her time at the State Department, to be published by Simon & Schuster next summer.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/us/politics/unease-at-clinton-foundation-over-finances-and-ambitions.html?hp&_r=2&&pagewanted=all

  587. Lucia,
    Chelsea has worked in a Wall street hedge fund before, there’s no reason why she couldn’t work in one again and be involved on the sales side. Wall Street is filled with literature majors from Ivy Leagues.

  588. RB

    I’m saying that she stands to make more outside of the Foundation, the 65K being an example (BTW, I find 65K for a speech ridiculous). In this case, it came from a University.

    Sure. A university whose money went to the Clinton Foundation. I don’t see this as evidence they would hire Chelsea to give a speech otherwise.

    WRT to payments going to the Clinton foundation: that means more money to an entity that happens to hire people who before and after transition to being pure political operatives of the Clintons.

    Honestly, I see the entire existence of the Clinton foundation as self-dealing. This is so even if they do some charity on the side.

  589. RB,
    If her name was Smith instead of Clinton, she would be hard pressed to find employment at a hedge fund…. she doesn’t know anything!

  590. SteveF,
    You have to trace the advantage all the way back to the pedigree i.e, Stanford, Columbia etc. Anybody with that kind of educational background is going to have some doors open. I don’t know whether she is any good, but she must have inherited those genes.

  591. RB

    Chelsea has worked in a Wall street hedge fund before, there’s no reason why she couldn’t work in one again and be involved on the sales side. Wall Street is filled with literature majors from Ivy Leagues.

    I’m not sure what your point is.

    Maybe there is no reason she couldn’t work for at a hedge fund again. Or maybe there is a reason. For example: one reason she doesn’t work at a hedge fund could be she’d rather work in a cush job for her parents where she will be a big whig power broker right away rather than beavering ways on details about financials. I’m not seeing how her preferring to work at the Foundation accumulating power for her family would make the Clinton foundation not self dealing on the part of the Clintons.

  592. Lucia,
    My point was in response to your argument that the Clinton Foundation enables high-paying jobs for Chelsea – i.e., if she’s getting paid by the Foundation, it is not particularly high-paying compared to what she could make elsewhere. Of course, she gets to be influential.

  593. RB,
    Also, it might be that Chelsea Clinton doesn’t want to work for hedge funds because she didn’t enjoy the stress when her husband’s hedge fund went belly up:

    http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/11/chelsea-clintons-husband-closing-hedge-fund-after-losing-90-percent-of-its-money/

    Or maybe Chelsea doesn’t want to work for a hedge fund because the subject is touchy when her mother is running for president:

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/13/chelsea-clinton-joins-12b-shadow-bank-kind-her-mom/

    So maybe Foundation gives her better window dressing with the job. That’s the point that makes the existence of the foundation perfect for self-dealing by the Clintons.

  594. RB

    if she’s getting paid by the Foundation, it is not particularly high-paying compared to what she could make elsewhere. Of course, she gets to be influential.

    You haven’t shown that it’s not high paying compared to what she would make elsewhere.

    You’ve shown that a university was willing to donate to the clinton foundation– with the deal involving Chelsea speaking. That doesn’t show she could make more elsewhere.

    You’ve pointed out she worked briefly for a hedgefund that is politically connected to the Clintons.

    And beyond that: That a job is well paying doesn’t necessarily mean it maximizes the total income Chelsea could make. Only that she can live quite comfortably. That she might prefer to amass power for her family to making even more (assuming that’s even possible– which you have not shown) doesn’t make the job any less well paying. It only means that above a certain level, something else matters more.

  596. j ferguson (Comment #151821),
    Good comment. Yes, there are certainly ways Trump could win, and showing a pinch of thoughtfulness about taxes and special treatment of income would be a good start. But that would require a personality transplant; 99% chance is he’ll keep being a jerk and likely lose a close election to a terrible candidate.

  597. You’ve pointed out she worked briefly for a hedgefund that is politically connected to the Clintons.

    That it is politically connected is besides the point. She could use her family name to still get a job in the finance industry and it is just my SWAG that she will earn much more than 300K.

  598. RB,
    Of course she can (and has) traded on her family name (and family influence) to get high salary jobs she would never otherwise get. Same as the $65K speeches. It is influence buying, nothing less.

  599. RB
    I mystified by what argument you are trying to make. I have never claimed Chelsea Clinton would be an unemployable barista struggling for tips if her parents didn’t hire her.

    That she could get other jobs is beside the point which is that the Clinton Foundation is at its core self dealing.

    Absent the Foundation, she could not work for the Foundation.
    With the foundation she has a well paying one that also lets her achieve Clinton goals and priorities rather than being diverted to do other stuff. That is the point of self-dealing.

  600. Lucia,
    If by ‘well paying’ you meant other things than pay, the Clinton Foundation facilitates that. I only jumped into the Foundation part to dispute the ‘well-paying’ part in terms of monetary compensation.

  601. RB

    Chelsea had the luxury of quitting the hedge fund business, much earlier, in 2009 – because ‘she didn’t find it meaningful’.

    So, in otherwords, she doesn’t want to do that sort of work. And she doesn’t have to.

    The Clinton foundation remains self-dealing. One of the way in which it is self dealing is providing jobs for “team Clinton”. That one of them– Chelsea– may find promoting the Clinton family more meaningful than working at a hedgefund would hardly be surprising. But the fact that the Clinton Foundation can give her the meaningful work of making the Clinton family and name more politically powerful remains self-dealing.

  602. RB,
    If you want to show she is not well paid, you will have to actually show that she is not well paid. You’ve flailed around with a lot of other stuff– but you have not shown she is not well paid in money.

    Perhaps you can get a hold of her tax returns. 🙂

  603. SteveF,
    There are many former athletes/sportsmen on the sales side of Wall Street. The likes of Chelsea could fulfill that role, independent of reasons such as ‘pay for play’.

  605. Ron, Mena, Arkansas, if there is anything there, probably has to do with the fact that lots of bad actors can make use of rural areas.

    Ron Brown was Secretary of Commerce, and his death probably guaranteed that Obama would not pick Hillary for VP.

  606. RB,
    And your upper bound is way way above the level one could call “well paying”.

    That said: I googled, and found something on Quora. It appears Chelsea is not paid. So her current job is not a job. She’s evidently unemployed with a powerful hobby. 🙂

    The other people Hillary brought over (Huma etc.) still make the foundation a self-serving enterprise to keep together “team Hillary”.

  607. JD, any thoughts on the agreement to let Cheryl Mills and the other assistant destroy their laptops?

  608. “It appears Chelsea is not paid. So her current job is not a job. She’s evidently unemployed with a powerful hobby.”
    You can actually find these things out on the Clinton Foundation FAQ
    “President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, who serve on the Board of Directors, do not take a salary from the Clinton Foundation and receive no funding from it”

    From the bio there:
    “Chelsea currently teaches at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health”

  609. Ron and SteveF,

    The fact that S corporations pass through their income to their shareholders, who are then taxed on as individuals has precisely nothing to do with my point. That’s a choice that a business makes. They could pay corporate taxes instead. An employed individual or married couple does not have that choice and cannot have a deductible income loss. But they can have capital gains and losses on their investments.

    Capital gains are not ordinary income and should not be treated as such by the tax code. If hedge fund operators have a risk of loss as well as gain on their income, then it’s legitimate for them to claim short term capital gains.

  610. > Yeahm $2 is less than a $billion.

    There was a magazine in the 1980s, that sent checks to various billionaires, sending smaller and smaller amounts to see who would cash them. Donald Trump cashed every check, including one for just 7 cents.

  612. MikeN,

    On a slightly different note, if I get a survey or fund request from an organization that I don’t much like and it comes with a business reply envelope, I will usually mail it back empty just because it costs them some money.

  614. MikeN,

    Donald Trump cashed every check, including one for just 7 cents.

    The people testing this should have tried $0.01!

  615. Ron and SteveF,

    I think I said this before, but let me add that the current corporate tax rate is too high. Ideally it should be zero, but at least we should get it down to, say, Ireland’s level: 12.5% for trading income and 25% for non-trading income (investment and rental). That would, I believe, eliminate the need for S corporations.

  616. I’m curious what class Chelsea is currently teaching. I figured that was a job for twitter. So I asked. If anyone knows what class she is teaching this fall (or last spring… or whenever..) let me know!

  617. A follower on twitter found the search tool for me:
    https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/people/current-students/academics/course-directory

    It appears Chelsea taught “HPMN P8580 – Global Health Governance” In fall 2015 and spring of 2015. This is a 1.5 credit hour course, that meets 3 hours once a week. She doesn’t seem to be teaching it this fall (or this year.)

    Spring 2015
    1st quarter Clinton, Chelsea
    Thu 5:30-8:20 Hammer LL208A/B
    Section # 1
    Call # 68198
    Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:
    -Understand what global health governance is and is not.
    -Formulate ideas and opinions about what global health governance should and should not be in the 21st century
    -Understand the historical perspective of health in international relations in the 19th and 20th century – the
    background to the current institutional contexts and debates
    -Understand the transition from international health governance to global health governance
    -Identify the current players in global health governance and their relationships to one another
    -Discuss and critically engage major current debates in global health governance and financing
    Credits: 1.5
    Enrollment prioroties: HPM Global Student Priority
    Certificate elective for:
    Global Health
    Health of an Aging Society
    Health Policy Analysis
    Health Policy and Practice
    Generated

    I couldn’t find anything else. (It only goes back to 2014.)
    I’m getting nothing for 2015.

    This class appears to have been taught in Fall 2014 by a Richard Alderslade. It meet three times but evidently all day.

    Global Health Governance Richard Alderslade
    10/9, 10/16, and 10/23 Section #: 1
    Thu 9:00-4:50 HPM 4th Floor Conference Room
    Call #: 63529

  618. And in other news: It looks like the over a decade long streak of no Atlantic hurricanes making landfall in the US may be about to end. Matthew looks set to drown the East Coast with evacuations under way in coastal South Carolina. Question: Does the eye have to make landfall for it to count?

  619. That’s Cat3+ hurricanes for > 10 years. Hurricanes have made landfall, including one this year. This streak might end, though, it’s gonna be close I think.

    You pretty much need the eye to make landfall to get any significant winds I think since the really high winds are maybe 30 miles wide or so.

  620. This is what climate change cyclone science has become: Scientists take global data set which shows no significant long term trends in cyclones, proceed to take a subset of this data (east Asia), perform newly invented cyclone statistical analysis (cluster and bias corrected analysis) and then….use that partial analysis to make inferences about the entire global data set. Sigh.
    http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/warmer-oceans-bringing-more-severe-tropical-cyclones-to-land/
    Taking a noisy sparse volatile data set and chopping it up (making SNR even worse) isn’t likely to lead to better answers.
    I can trace my road down the skepticism black hole to the media /science hyperventilating after the 2005/2006 hurricane seasons which led to my insurance rates in Florida getting jacked up 30% in one year. I looked into it then and found no evidence of changes to the long term trends. No matter, the insurance industry switched to unvalidated climate models to estimate future damages.

  621. Tom S,
    The wind field varies a lot in size. The highest winds tend to be within 30 miles or so of the center of rotation, but the last couple of storms that passed over my house, the winds were over 100 MPH for several hours, with a 15 minute lull of almost no wind as the eye passed directly over… sun came out and you could see the towering eye wall clouds in all directions… almost surreal.

  622. MikeN “JD, any thoughts on the agreement to let Cheryl Mills and the other assistant destroy their laptops?”

    ….
    I don’t practice criminal law, but it appears to be a subtle question. Quite often prosecutors make deals with potential defendants to get what the prosecutors consider to be more important evidence. For instance, if the the laptops were the personal computers of CM and her assistants, there could be a potential 5th Amendment defense or some other defense. So, the agreement by itself is not automatically fishy because it could be an instance of legitimate horse trading that goes on quite often. On the other hand, Obama is Comey’s boss, and it is quite possible that the deal was done to protect Clinton and not for legitimate prosecutorial or investigatory reasons.

    ….
    This again points out the problems caused by corrupt people in high places. Quite often the bosses of prosecutors (in this case Obama & Lynch) don’t want the truth to come out or want to cover up the truth. Because almost surely virtually everyone who worked under Clinton is corrupt, there is little chance that there will be a whistleblower to make public uncomfortable facts. Even if a whistleblower did come out, that person would be viciously attacked by the many corrupt people who have to be working under Clinton.

    JD

  623. Lucia,
    Hummm… most everything associated with the Clintons seems focused on ‘global governance’…. or blatant political corruption What tripe.

  624. DeWitt: “If hedge fund operators have a risk of loss as well as gain on their income, then it’s legitimate for them to claim short term capital gains.”
    .
    Short-term capital gains behave very similar to ordinary income. It’s true you can offset long term losses against them after any long-term gains have been off-set but one can also carry $3000 in losses per year against ordinary income. So there is little advantage to short-term capital gains vs. wage income. Sorry for the eyelid closing tax talk. Trump should release his taxes this week and stand tall. If he didn’t want them to be seen he shouldn’t have run. He is giving up his best card against Hillary, her lack of transparency and self-dealing.
    .
    Pence did a great job as making a sober and focused contrast on the issues that seemed to rattle Kaine. I was not surprised to see another biased moderator who interrupted Pence instead of Kaine even when Kaine was interruption Pence. I will give her credit for bringing up Hillary’s emails but she had to know Kaine would be prepared — “the FBI cleared her of any wrongdoing.”
    .
    Every conservative has to know that the MSM is going to ask them about abortion or rape in every opportunity. Pence gets low marks for putting his personal ideals, although expressed eloquently, ahead of the ticket’s need to sway educated women and millennials who are very sensitive to the slightest smell of social conservatism. So he lost the last 10 minutes in my view. He should have said this is a divisive issue but one the presidency is not in a position to be involved with. We want to unite the country to bring back the economy and strengthen America’s leadership in making the world safer.

  625. Carrick, when you see the MSM crying CAGW every time a storm comes by or we have a string of hot summer days do you think this is isolated behavior to climate change? (Real Question?) I would venture to guess the average professor or reporter believes that 97% of climate scientists endorse the IPCC models and AR5 summary. They probably believe the summary says we are going to have 1-3 meters of SLR by 2100. After all there are scores of media like Ars Technica report RCP8.0 fed models as fact, including Swarthmore Univ.
    .
    Do you believe that anyone in the USA could have done what Hillary did with classified information and gotten a clean bill of health from the FBI? (Real question.) Forget the records keeping act.
    .
    If the citizens, intellectuals and media consent to having a corrupt chief executive who will certainly further corrupt all agencies of government while flooding friends and political cronies with treasury dollars I think there may be hundreds of Trumps across the country that would rather retire and cash out to a tropical island than earn one more dollar to support this country. I would have a tough time talking them out of it, as would Trump, though we would try.

  626. On the hyperventilating about record heat, this is pretty funny:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/10/04/about-that-mind-boggling-new-orleans-heat-record-that-everyone-is-talking-about/

    Obvious that the rush to judgment on all things bad are caused by AGW is pervasive if you read the original article. I give this reporter credit for the mea culpa which is quite rare in this area of journalism.
    This type of exploit of statistics is what I call boundary abuse. Instead of presenting a moving window average you artificially draw progressive boundaries until you get the maximum over/under ratio to allow for a “maximum impact” statistical factoid. This method is used for nuisance flooding from sea level rise.

  627. Ron, I can’t guess what the average professor thinks. Most physicists I know (including Obama supporters) are very skeptical of the climate change movement. Probably because of the amount of BS being constantly generated. Life science people tend to be unskeptical.

    I was happy to let this drop, but regarding the FBI, I don’t automatically trust anybody, but I tend to trust their independence and non-partisanship much more than I do that of the Republican party or their press outlets. So there’s a much, much higher probability that what Comey is saying is true than his new-found critics in the Republican Party and their press outlets.

    To the extent that I’ve looked at it, I’ve not seen any place where the 500 or people involved did anything particularly questionable in 110 emails out of 34,000, or which would have automatically resulted in somebody losing their clearance.

    Clinton didn’t get a clean bill of health by Comey, just that she did nothing actionable, though you keep forgetting most of those emails were sent by other people than her, many of them still in the Department of State, and as far as we know, all of them still have their security clearances.

    That has some interesting, and particularly damning towards the Republican Party, implications if true.

  628. Does it make sense that Trump’s claim to his tax return expressing a fiduciary responsibility might not be nonsense? Obviously he owes no fiduciary responsibility to himself, but suppose he needed to show the loss in 1995 so that his partners could do the same thing? I would think that if an investor in a major investment has his return audited, so would his partners.

    I don’t ponder these things out of any sympathy for this, to me, despicable person, but more to make sure that we are very very clear about our problems with him.

    Sometimes I try to remember if I’ve ever worked with someone exhibiting the symptoms that are described in the press, assuming that if I haven’t, likely the symptoms are exaggerated. I can usually come up with someone similar but for Trump it’s been much harder. Maybe some of the guys who used to beat me up when I was in grade school. I was the smallest kid in the class for many years. But, no, none of them.

    I did have a guy work for me very briefly in the architecture dodge who seemed to believe that he never made mistakes and was given to arguing about errors I found in his drawings – usually dimensional.

    he moved on to real-estate development and I suspect was successful – I used to read about him in the Chicago papers.

  629. Our home is in Delray Beach, FL. We are in Carmel CA, trying to figure out what we’ll be hard-put to replace or reconstruct if home is wiped out. We lived south of Miami for Andrew, but were fortunate to live just west of a large house which took the brunt of what happened then. We needed only to replace the concrete tiles on our roof. This time? townhouse built in 2004 which would mean compliance with south florida building code – and we rent, not own, so landlord is putting up the panels.

    There are a couple of regular commenters here who also live in Florida. What are you guys doing?

  630. Carrick (#151889) –
    I certainly agree that the RNC is more biased than the FBI.

    I hadn’t heard of the law professor who wrote this article about the FBI’s immunity deals; perhaps he has an axe to grind as well. Do you have any comment on his argument?

    Add: jferguson – Good luck with Matthew, hope he stays away from your unit.

  631. Carrick,

    Since the emails issue drags on in this thread and since I didn’t notice that you mentioned me in an earlier post about it:

    Neither Mark nor anybody else would have gotten in trouble for “mishandling” them.

    I’ll content myself with stating this – I lost my clearance due to a chicken shit paperwork issue not long ago. Actual mileage can and will vary; I worked for years without any trouble as a contractor for a different branch (U.S. Army instead of NASA) having submitted the same paperwork. I literally copied my OPM security form’s older entries for the material in question. It was just that the bureaucrats handling security at MSFC operated differently than the security bureaucrats at Redstone Arsenal Software Engineering Directorate. ~shrug~
    Ironic that it was just a position of public trust with NASA too, not even a secret clearance.
    Whatever. 🙂

  632. HaroldW: It’s my impression you get treated differently if you’re a target of the investigation. When you’re not, I believe this type of dealing is quite common.

    Mark–that definitely sucks.

  634. Madoff Securities was investigated and cleared at least eight times over a 16 year period by the SEC and other regulatory authorities. Having a lot of people involved in an investigation is no guarantee that the investigation is either competent or honest. I seriously doubt that anyone at the FBI would damage their careers by complaining publicly about the Clinton email investigation, especially when the outcome was a clearly foregone conclusion.

  635. Mark–that definitely sucks.

    Thanks. It all worked out for the best. I was getting fat and lazy (figuratively speaking) working on government stuff anyway. I’m with a start-up now, much more [fast] paced. (Literally speaking, I’m still fat and lazy. 🙂 ) But it was sort of cool to work on a NASA contract, even given the slow schedules and the bureaucratic nonsense. ~shrug~ At least I got to do it for a while.

  636. Carrick, thanks for your replies. On the immunity issue, a central issue is that the deal is to cooperate with all government agencies, not just the one that gives immunity. This would be a natural protection against the corruption that is alleged against the FBI, and most all agencies under Obama. I am guessing you did not think that the DOJ bugging Fox and AP was anything to worry about or that the IRS deleted all its backups a full year after the protection order from congress, and just a couple months before IRS chief Koskinen told congress they had search for a year and could not find them. I understand you have faith that nobody could keep such corruption away from being reported by press outlets that you trust. This is the same belief by many Democrats about climate scientists. Here is an article today freshly analyzing the deplorables denial of climate science. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a49235/climate-change-belief-republicans/
    .
    If you see mis-analysis and misinformation in Esquire, a long-established mainstream magazine perhaps that needs analysis.
    .
    It seems that good and intelligent people in the world can no longer trust honesty and unbiased information in any institution. It’s not just a reproducibility crisis in science; it’s a crisis I think driven by something deeper.
    .
    That this year’s presidential election is about the unfitness and odiousness of the other side is not a coincidence. I think it’s growing divide between those that portray other’s as egocentric, not realizing that they could be heavily infected as well. They believe their inoculation to the sin is by recognizing and calling others sinful. The reason that the Christian worship is so hated by the left is that they could see religion’s distortion of self-culpability by the doctrinal dispensation of being “forgiven by the almighty” for all sins as long as the heart is true.
    .
    As an atheist, I feel like I am sitting in the middle between two religions, one of old and one of new. I don’t necessarily see it as insanity but perhaps a natural manifestation that prevents it. Thoughts?

  637. Carrick there were many more e-mails that were not seen, because they had been deleted by Team Clinton.
    How would someone else be liable for sending information to Hillary? They didn’t set up a private server, and would have treated it the same as any other e-mail. Someone who sent Top Secret info that should not have been even on State Department servers is another matter, and that remains unexplained by the FBI.

    I am reading Comey’s statements as “I knew there would be no indictment. To call for an indictment would be seen as the FBI interfering in an election. So I took the hit, but gave detailed explanations of criminal behavior that I did not need to so the public could judge.”

  638. Tscharf, try to do the same analysis over other regions. It would be interesting to see if they cherry picked the region that fed a narrative.

  639. Carrick, regarding ‘nothing actionable’, Comey said they had no evidence against Combetta as to what it looks like he did.
    Then why have an agreement to not look at communications by Cheryl Mills for the time period in question? Seems like this is evidence that they should have been interested in.

  640. MikeN,
    They definitely cherry picked. They chose it specifically because this region has abnormally high sea temperatures and has had a recent spurt of large cyclones. They know this answer before they started.
    The intent wasn’t particularly ill conceived, they were trying to measure how much increased sea temperatures would affect storms in the future. Look at this isolated basin and then claim this is what the future looks like for all basins with hotter seas. Of course the media reads it as “global hurricanes are already 20% worse and big storms are getting even worse right now”. We have a 100 years of cyclone data with a warming world, it shows basically nothing.
    If Matthew hits the US the usual suspects will say the usual things. Whether climate change is affecting hurricanes isn’t “controversial”, so far there is no evidence this is happening. People can make whatever predictions of the future they like, but there is no compelling reason to believe them and they shouldn’t ignore historical observations. We shall see what the future holds.

  641. “There are a couple of regular commenters here who also live in Florida. What are you guys doing?”
    Nothing. I live in Tampa. Hurricane free since the 1970’s! Looks like UCF/Orlando is shutting down. It’s going to make a huge difference on whether the eye hits land or just skirts the coast, it is going to be close. They are getting pretty good with predicting hurricane tracks but still not very good with predicting strength.
    If I still lived in Melbourne I would seriously consider evacuating. I was without power there for over a week a decade or so ago with just a Cat1 storm.

  642. j ferguson,
    I am not in Florida (not scheduled to arrive until 10 days from now). But my son in law happens to be staying at my house, so he is preparing. The big thing for me is securing my boat: taking down plastic and canvas, doubling up on lines, locating the boat in the center of a pretty wide slip, giving the lines enough slack to accommodate the expected tide surge. The location is fairly well protected, so it should be OK. The current projection is for 50% chance of hurricane force winds (>74 MPH), but near 100% certainty of >39 MPH.

  643. Tom S,
    “I was without power there for over a week a decade or so ago with just a Cat1 storm.”
    I learned my lesson when I lived in PA and lost power for 5 days due to an ice storm. I’ve had a 6.5 KW generator ever since. My house in Florida is set up with a 240 V connection for the generator, so I can power the whole house with the generator (less the heavy users… water heater, electric range, central air). If the power is out for more than several hours, I install a couple of window AC units to keep the house comfortable, switch the water heater to 120V power (cutting the load to ~1400 watts when it’s on), and cook on my patio gas grill or on a single stove top burner. I went for 6 days that way back in 2005. No lost food, no lost work time, and no stress.

  644. MikeN:

    Then why have an agreement to not look at communications by Cheryl Mills for the time period in question?

    The short version is investigations aren’t supposed to be fishing trips.

    Carrick there were many more e-mails that were not seen, because they had been deleted by Team Clinton.

    Most of those ended up being recovered as I understand. That’s why there ended up being around 15,000 additional documents recovered in addition to roughly 30,000 turned over by Clinton, not including the ones of a personal nature. About 10,000 of those were duplicative. I have not seen an FBI disclosure of how many personal emails were recovered in the process of looking at Clinton’s private servers.

    I doubt Clinton’s lawyers gave the IT people instructions to only search the email header to identify which emails were private versus work related. If they did, they broke the law. But it’s hard to see how the decision to delete only emails that didn’t, in the header, appear work related would confer any advantage to Team Clinton.

    How would someone else be liable for sending information to Hillary? They didn’t set up a private server, and would have treated it the same as any other e-mail

    I’m not sure what you’re asking, so I’ll repeat and expand on my earlier explanation. If you are a government employee, you have record keeping responsibilities to preserve your work related emails (note that the laws have evolved over time, so you’d have to look at the law at a given point, including grandfathering clauses to work out what was legal versus illegal at a given point for a given employee).

    If you use a government email account for your email, the government is supposed to retain the records for you. In practice, they are about as good as they are at any other bureaucratic activity (which is to say, they suck at it).

  645. They did a pretty good job of keeping copies of Oliver North’s emails. But maybe things have gone downhill since then.

  647. Carrick,

    That story is dated April 13, 2007. It’s yet more evidence that HRC knew, or should have known, that using anything other than a government email server was not proper. Not that ignorance of the law is an excuse.

  649. Carrick, you keep posting about Department of State not keeping a record of e-mails, but have yet to provide any evidence of this.
    I have never heard of this anywhere else, other than they did not have a record of e-mails that went thru Hillary’s server.

    As for deleting Hillary’s personal e-mail, my understanding is they did not delete e-mails from the archive, but instead did a search for particular terms and handed over those e-mails.

  650. SteveF, I see 100% probability of winds in excess of 39mph for our area. where did you see the area for 50% chance of +79?

    As luck would have it, my landlord’s hurricane “crew” has evaporated so our place will be naked. South Florida Building code allowed use of less than hurricane strength doors and windows if provisions were made for installing storm panels. This is what builder did because guess what. IT’S CHEAPER.

    When we moved in and I saw the panels in the garage, i had a long discussion with property manager, (who had never been through a serious blow) about how hard it is to get people to put these things in on the eve of a storm. This is because they will likely live in places even less well equipped and will be trying to protect themselves. In one ear and out the other.

    I did get a nice email saying that if they really are unable to get the panels up before the storm, they will be over immediately afterward to plywood up any new openings, and will cover us for any losses not covered by our own insurance.

    Nuts.

    and thanks for the thought HaroldW.

    I should add, that if the wind in our neighborhood is less than 80 mph, we’ll probably be ok. they keep the trees trimmed and there usually isn’t anything substantial lying around.

  651. Carrick, I read the 2007 story on the sloppy WH archiving. I remember the story now about the use of the GOP server. I think this is when Obama decided if he were to get in the WH he would be the “transparency president.” Hillary, after the private server “mistake,” and the not turning them over for 3 years after leaving office mistake, and the order to delete mistake, and the Clinton staff Bleach-bit conference (to be sure) mistake, I am sure will have transparency be her presidency’s watchword. I guess you have to have faith. (I finding religion now.)

  654. De Witt re obamacare Bill Clinton . Read that as typical good cop bad cop , deliberate on Bill’s part and the team . So can say on one hand we really do not support it but then on the other yes we do.
    Not a mistake at all.

  656. Five states will likely have only one insurer in 2017 the “individual marketplace”. That’s one insurer away from out of luck.
    The Daily Caller 9-26-16:

    Some 75 percent of exchanges will have narrow insurance options in 2017, a figure up markedly from 64 percent in 2016 and 55 percent in 2015, according to Becker’s Hospital Review. In fact, five states are likely to have just one insurer in 2017, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

  659. One could argue that the ACA was designed to fail and was a stalking horse for a single payer plan. The problems now were predicted when it was being legislated. I wonder where Canadians will go when the US finishes trashing its health care system.

  660. DeWitt,
    Although I am often cynical, I find it very difficult to believe the ACA was intentionally designed to fail. I think supporters and designers thought it would work “well enough”. I also think they were pretty naive about the free rider issue. They were also pretty naive about how much people were willing to pay every month to get a collection of benefits they don’t need now, possibly never will– and in many cases, if they are young, can’t imagine needing any time soon.

  661. visited friends in Canada. She was a career nurse and has a condition for which the wait there is 18 months. They have a couple of other choices. There are private clinics in BC which handle this sort of thing, but she feels they are not hygienic, no patient follow up, etc. Or she could come to the US.

  662. MikeN:

    Carrick, you keep posting about Department of State not keeping a record of e-mails, but have yet to provide any evidence of this.

    You could have looked this up yourself.

    In terms of archiving software, there are two archiving systems SMART (State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolkit) and CAPSTONE. Both require the user to send the email for archiving. My impression is CAPSTONE is pretty reliable, SMART not so much.

    Government emails eventually make it to archive.gov, which is maintained by the National Archives and Record Keeping Administration.

    As I understand it, the big problem is congress has mandated record keeping, but failed to adequately fund it.

    As for deleting Hillary’s personal e-mail, my understanding is they did not delete e-mails from the archive, but instead did a search for particular terms and handed over those e-mails.

    Well it’s a bit complicated. Here is as close to spin free as I can make it:

    Platt River Networks (PRN) was responsible for searching through the entire email archive, and printing out any work related emails. The method for searching was defective, and roughly 5000 emails (counting just unique chains) were missed. PRNs instructions were also to destroy the non-work related emails at that point. They eventually did this, but not until after being given instructions to preserve all emails.

    What the record says is that these emails weren’t destroyed at that time, in spite of previous instructions, however, Clinton’s office did not verify whether the instructions had been followed or not.

    I believe Clinton’s office worked from that point under the assumption that the emails had been deleted synchronously with the preservation of the work-related emails. According to statements by Clinton’s office, they didn’t learn when the emails were actually destroyed, until they were so informed by the FBI.

    The emails actually were deleted, as per instructions, but not until after the subpoena had been received by Clinton’s office and after Clinton’s office had emailed PRN ordering them preserve all emails.

    it’s unfortunately nobody thought to serve PRN a subpoena directly to preserve all emails…that was a SNAFU on the part of Gowdy’s committee.

    Had PRN followed instructions, the emails would have been destroyed synchronously with the turning over of copies of the work-related emails. Had they followed the March instructions, all of the emails would have been preserved.

    There is no evidence that PRN colluded with Clinton’s office to destroy emails in spite of the subpoena, nor do I see a plausible motive for them to do so.

  663. Carrick:

    There is no evidence that PRN colluded with Clinton’s office to destroy emails in spite of the subpoena, nor do I see a plausible motive for them to do so.

    Please a client?

  665. Lucia wrote: “I find it very difficult to believe the ACA was intentionally designed to fail.”
    I also doubt that it was actually intended to fail. Hospitals and insurance companies were part of the design process. They certainly don’t want single payer and they ought to be smart enough not to just have fallen for an obvious ruse.
    Just another example of the “if your intentions are good, it will work” school of public policy. Popular on both sides, but completely dominant on the left.

  666. RB,
    The argument in your first link seems to justify the mandate as required mandate to avoid individual being overwhelmed by unexpected, massively expensive medical costs. That argument might hold together if the “insurance” product they were discussing was insurance.

    Traditionally the term “insurance” was to cover unexpected large expenses. With respect the medical treatment: broken bones, getting hit by a car and so on. Had obama care included an option that only covered “unexpected catastrophes”, perhaps a mandate would be reasonable. And the product problably wouldn’t cost too much because it would cover expenses few individuals expect to happen to them very often. ( For example: I have never broken a bone. Heck, never gone to the doctor for a sprain. No teeth knocked out. And so on. Doubtless some mishap of this sort will eventually occur– I did get stung by a stingray. So it’s bound to. But these unexpected things are fairly rare for most people.)

    But under current usage, “insurance” isn’t limited to catastrophes are accidents It’s “health care” and includes all sorts of everyday things — many of which are at least in part discretionary decisions. For example: one can avoid the cost of pregnancy by not having kids. One can avoid the costs for contraception by..well.. not having sex. One can avoid some surgical costs; one can make different decisions about what treatments to get and which not to get and so on. Sure, most people want to have kids– but there shouldn’t be a need for a “mandate” to insure the cost of an individual having from one to a dozen kids baby is spread around evenly to everyone.

    There are also all sorts of unexpected medical expenses that are no more likely to destroy someone’s finances than a broken dishwasher will destroy it. (Sniffles? Poison Ivy? I’ve had those.)

    Many people don’t buy “appliance insurance”, but self insure for those things. (I self insure appliances.)

    I’m all for people getting flu shots, dental care, having sex and using contraception and so on. But most of these things are not bank-breaking activities whose costs need to be “spread around” to prevent individuals finances from destroying them.

    To a large extent, many of the costs that are causing in “insurance” to be high exist precisely because it is not “insurance”. And many of the things going covered are not items that are too costly for health consumers to just budget for — the same way they budget for electricity or appliance repair.

  668. RB,
    Yeah. We cross-posted. Anyway, as an independent, who dreamed up different elements, and who collected the together in certain ways. And no matter who thought up what elements and assembled in in certain ways, it’s pretty clear obamacare as instituted seems to be in its death throws.

  669. I think a lot of people would support a system that reduced costs across the board.
    Unfortunately that requires “death panels”, providing less services, paying less for services, medical tort reform, and negotiating pharmaceutical prices at a federal level. To say that there are powerful forces opposing these things is an understatement. If you want to pay less, you need to be prepared to accept less back.

  670. How about having an actual market for health care? With transparent pricing, for instance. It would not work for everything (emergency care would be a problem) but it could help a lot. Among developed countries, Singapore has the closest thing to a free market in health care and by far the lowest costs.

  671. In my reading of the Chicago Tribune I have seen articles spinning the ACA status as a net plus because a higher percentage of people were being insured and never mentioning in these articles that the cost of the program and the affordability of the insurance given the high deductibles and premiums were problematic. The article writer was always inferring that the Federal subsidies for the insurance made that all better and never mentioning that a reasonable healthy family even with subsidized premiums and a $10,000 deductible was not going to benefit from the insurance but rather be paying out of pocket for medical expenses while at the same time paying premiums that while subsidized could still be a substantial part of the family’s annual expenses. Deep in the article might be a statement about the ACA missing its goals in getting people medically insured, but that that situation would be changing. When major insurers would stop ACA coverage in a state it was usually minimized by the referring to other insures remaining.

    On the other hand, the editorial staff of the Tribune, which is evidently not as left wing as the article writers, would write editorials calling for fixes to the ACA as the problems apparently could no longer be spun away sufficiently for the editorial staff. I have seen no evidence to this point in time that the article writers have yet gotten the message – or ever will.

  672. Lucia,
    UNH was one of the first to leave Obamacare.

    The number one reason for this disparity is the high deductibles that far exceed any IRS tax penalties for being uninsured. The young and healthy just aren’t interested in premium payments and having to pay often as much as $3,000 out of pocket before any coverage kicks in.
    …
    UNH and its peers probably expected the tax penalties to be higher, or bet that some other kind of coercion would get those enrollment numbers

    I think the tax penalty hits its maximum in 2017 which might change things a bit.

  673. Iv’e been watching Hurricane Matthew for you guys in FL. It’s looks like it’s turning north in the last 6 hours but the predicting map still has it turning toward the coast between West Palm and Melbourne.
    .
    I’m cautiously optimistic the model is lagging and it’s a 30+ mile miss.

  674. RB
    https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/how-much-is-the-obamacare-penalty-not-having-health-insurance/

    For tax year 2016, the penalty will rise to 2.5% of your total household adjusted gross income, or $695 per adult and $347.50 per child, to a maximum of $2,085.

    For tax year 2017 and beyond, the percentage option will remain at 2.5%, but the flat fee will be adjusted for inflation.

    I’m not seeing how this tax is going to change the free rider issue. Well paid people generally have jobs that include insurance. The penalty doesn’t affect them because they have insurance (and did prior to ACA.)

    So, lets say a young single childless person makes $25K. Forget about any adjustments to gross 25e3*2.5e-2 = $625. The average single person annual premium in Illinois is evidently $2,928
    https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-health-insurance
    Illinois 244 2,928 -1%

    That person has to figure out something to justify the $2303 more the spend if they buy the insurance.

    Ok… But now let’s look even closer. This person making $25 K evidently qualifies for a subsidy.

    http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/#state=il&zip=60532&income-type=dollars&income=25000&employer-coverage=0&people=1&alternate-plan-family=individual&adult-count=1&adults%5B0%5D%5Bage%5D=21&adults%5B0%5D%5Btobacco%5D=0&child-count=0&child-tobacco=0

    Results
    You are likely eligible for financial help

    Based on the information you provided, your income is equal to 212% of the poverty level. This means you are likely eligible for financial help through the Health Insurance Marketplace. An estimate of your cost for coverage and amount of financial help in 2016 are provided below. To find out your actual amount of financial help and to get coverage, you must go to Healthcare.gov or your state’s Health Insurance Marketplace.

    Estimated financial help:
    $73 per month ($877 per year)
    as a premium tax credit. This covers 34% of the monthly costs.
    Your cost for a silver plan:
    $143 per month ($1,712 per year)
    in premiums (which equals 6.85% of your household income).
    The most you have to pay for a silver plan:
    6.85% of income for the second-lowest cost silver plan
    Without financial help, your silver plan would cost:
    $216 per month ($2,589 per year)

    So, they need to decide whether they want to spend $1,712 per year for the silver plan. That’s $1087 more than the penalty. Given that they can enroll after they get ill, they go for the silver plan? Not sure.

  676. Mike M: “How about having an actual market for health care? With transparent pricing, for instance. It would not work for everything (emergency care would be a problem) but it could help a lot.”
    .
    The “marketplace” is truly Orwellian, one must surrender all intimate personal information before opening the door and then you can only get a tentative price after even more data input investment in a non-intuitive interface that keeps asking, “What state are you from again?”
    .
    Lucia, although your argument that separating the insurance product from the elective services aspect would make it cheaper is logical it’s is not what is driving the major cost. This is demonstrated by the in line cost increases in the premiums for HSA type plans that cover most all expenses are out of pocket until a high deductible, except for an annual “well visit.” The cost is the administration. Most doctors offices that had 2-3 clerical staff now have 5-6. These staff are calling insurers who have to mirror that staff. They have revised a complicated system of duplex cipher codes matching diagnosis with service applied to plan to spit out a price only a computer is privy to. No single human has complete access to error check.
    .
    I have a business employing 13-15. When the HSAs came out in 2003 I set up my own plan, replacing my comprehensive BCBS plan, which would be a triple platinum now, with a gold-equivalent paid by a company HRA. As employees saved by discreet use they built up accounts that then could begin to be transferred into an HSA (portable) and take part of the HRA balance at termination if no misconduct and notice given. I think if all small business had adopted this it would have done a lot of good. I and my employees saved ~ $350,000 over 13 years with no loss of safety net.

  677. The basic problem is that health care in the US costs 2 – 8 times as much as other Western countries and independent surveys show that it is no better in outcomes.
    There is no sign the above is even being looked at let alone addressed. A local president of a not-for-profit hospital makes $4 million a year. Healthcare costs have increased 134% over the last decade. I don’t think the “free market” works for healthcare as you don’t shop around after you suffer a heart attack. Good luck finding out what a hospital charges before it sends you the bill.

  679. Ron,

    It’s worse than that as far as pricing. It’s not at all clear that hospitals, for example, know what particular procedures actually cost. So they pick an inflated number out of the air, more or less, and hope that they can collect enough of that to cover expenses. The government does more or less the same thing for compensation for Medicare. But they bias their estimate below cost and expect hospitals to make up the loss from their other patients. And then there’s emergency patients that must be cared for whether they can ever pay or not.

    You can see the attraction of single payer. But that doesn’t work out all that well in practice either, especially with demographics becoming less favorable.

    The Swiss have compulsory basic health insurance. The premium is limited to 8% of a person’s income. A subsidy is provided for costs above that. So for the hypothetical $25,000/year income, the maximum out of pocket premium cost would be $2,000/year. There are deductibles as well. If you believe that life expectancy is a good measure of overall health, the Swiss are up near the top of the chart.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Switzerland

  680. Adrian,

    Look at your chart again. Swiss per capita health care was just under $6,000/year in 2011 (PPP adjusted) while the US was just over $8,000. That’s nowhere close to a factor of 2. It’s not even 50% higher. And that’s not to mention that it’s not trivial to compare health care costs as different nations count different things. I’m betting you could explain a lot of that difference with just motor vehicle accidents and violent crime.

  681. >There is no evidence that PRN colluded with Clinton’s office to destroy emails in spite of the subpoena,

    Carrick, the timing alone is evidence, and would be sufficient for people to be successfully prosecuted. Comey was grilled on this exact point, how this is some of the best evidence.
    It is also more reason why they should have looked at e-mails by Mills for the time period.

    What you call a fishing expedition is also called a search warrant.

  682. Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Germany and France all had per capita health care expenditures more than half the US per capita health care expenditure. IIRC, Switzerland’s health care system is not facing massive unfunded liability either, like Medicare and Medicaid. I’m not sure you can say the same about Norway, Canada, Germany and France either. Swiss health insurance premiums are 100% tax deductible as well.

  683. Carrick,

    A fishing expedition is looking for a possible crime that you did not know existed before you went looking. That doesn’t apply here. Charging Scooter Libby and Martha Stewart with lying to a federal agent is a lot closer to an actual fishing expedition.

  684. Lucia,
    And with a bronze plan that would be $550 more (than the penalty) and where out of pocket costs are 10% higher. That may be a better option for somebody who doesn’t anticipate using it much. But you still have to make it harder to join and leave whenever you like for this whole thing to work.

  685. A table with what appear to be the numbers in Adrian’s graph can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
    As DeWitt points out, comparing these numbers is far from trivial. For example, there is the issue of exchange rates. If you look at the first graph in the above link, using a different basis for comparison, the difference between the U.S. and other countries is not nearly as large. And the U.S. pays for much of the medical and pharmaceutical R&D that benefits everyone.

  686. DeWitt Payne, I was basing the 2 – 8 times cost on a much more detailed (and up to date) article in the Atlantic. The graph figures are older and for OECD countries. I found the Atlantic more believable.

  687. RB,

    It has to be compulsory or it won’t work. You must join and you can’t leave. However, making it compulsory is going to be difficult. Even getting the ‘mandate’ past the Supreme Court required torturing the law, i.e. it wasn’t a mandate but a tax, but not a tax. It wasn’t a tax, because if it had been a real tax, it would have to have originated in the House, which it didn’t. Humpty-Dumpty would applaud.

  688. Adrian,

    I found the Atlantic more believable.

    In that case, you should have linked to them and not the OECD data chart.

    I don’t find The Atlantic to be more believable and I don’t see why you should. Oh wait, you believe in six impossible things before breakfast like LENR.

  689. Mike M.: “And the U.S. pays for much of the medical and pharmaceutical R&D that benefits everyone.” [and medical devices and epidemiology research CDC, NIH studies.]
    .
    And the USA pays the highest retail price for all the drugs and devices despite them being invented here. Our trial lawyers, tort lotteries and class actions don’t help either.
    .
    Despite all that, and the toughest regulatory agency in the world, the USA entrepreneur was happy to burn midnight oil for the dream of status and success — but less and less now as seen in the minuscule number of startups. Success means being labeled a materialistic, resource-hungry, climate-denying deplorable unless your are shouting “deplorable!” too, in which case your’e OK. And our children are watching and forming their culture accordingly.
    .
    For America to create jobs and opportunity for all government needs only to stop helping — unless they are serious about ideas for making things like healthcare, legal services (and government services) a transparent marketplace instead of just using the name.

  693. Ron Graf: “And the USA pays the highest retail price for all the drugs and devices despite them being invented here.”

    That’s how we subsidize the research, whether the drugs are invented here or elsewhere. Other countries negotiate prices that are above the marginal cost of the drugs but are insufficient for the companies to recover development costs. They recover those costs largely from high prices here.

  694. Adrian, it doesn’t matter that people aren’t likely to shop for prices in health care. As long as some portion of people do, that is enough to move prices towards a reasonable competitive level. Having transparency of prices would be enough that people can feel the prices are likely not excessive.

  695. I had an idea for starting a health insurance company. If I knew anyone in the industry, I’d have done it.

    My thinking is I could charge about $10-$30 a month for health care, with a very high deductible. The range is the legal allowance of pricing difference for smoking and age.

    So how to avoid losing money?
    Well, for many people this will allow them to avoid the individual mandate which is much higher. Also, many states have short-term insurance plans that people can buy cheaply. These would not eliminate the tax penalty though. So people with insurance can save money by dropping their existing plan costing over $200 a month and buying a short term at $100 a month plus this minimum coverage plan that covers little.

    The way to avoid costs is with two methods:
    1) What is already happening with limited networks. Make these as small as possible.
    2) The individual mandate penalty requires coverage nine months of the year, with coverage counts if you are enrolled as of the 30th, or maybe it’s the last day of the month. So this insurance will cover just the last day of the month.

  696. I don’t think Bill Clinton’s statements hurt. This is like when he was running for re-election and he said he thought he raised your taxes too much. Bob Dole ran ads on this. He was basically telling people that Bill Clinton was sorry for his tax hike, and helping Bill. Dick Morris wrote about when Bill Clinton ran for re-election after losing his governor’s race, he did the same thing apologizing for a tax increase. Then it was ‘My daddy never had to whoop me twice for the same thing.’

  698. The Erikson article DeWitt cites is certainly “interesting”. He pretty much describes Clinton as the antichrist, then admits that Trump would likely be better in a number of ways, but can’t vote for him because he sees “Trump corrupting the virtuous” (seriously?) and “a Trump administration will see the church poisoned from within”. How will Trump manage that? And since when is an election about what is good for the church? Then he says of his co-religionists support for Trump: “it reeks of desperation”. Hardly surprising, if they see Clinton the way he does. So he concludes that it is OK if the country goes to hell, as long as he doesn’t sully his conscience by not voting.

  699. I am a practicing Catholic and I am voting for Trump in “desperation” because I’ve been presented with bad choices, which says more about the political culture than it does about Christians. If practicing Christians (as opposed to nominal Christians) formed a political party, I suspect neither Hillary or Trump would be on their presidential ticket. We’ve been saddled with pols we’d rather not have, but there is limited choice where someone else has the political power.

    Andrew

  700. Mike M.

    Some of Erikson’s rationalizations on why he can’t vote for Trump are incoherent. My take is that Erikson believes that Trump is an unrepentant sinner. Electing him President would validate his lack of remorse and guarantee his eternal damnation. The rest of the stuff about the church doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. For Erikson, Trump is not the last hope. That’s already come and gone, and Trump is as much an antichrist as Clinton.

  701. Looks like a total miss for Florida as far as the eye goes. Barely. I’d hate to lose my favorite stat of a record 11 years straight without a Cat3+ landfall. Every time somebody goes into the stronger storms diatribe on global warming they never have much to say about this stat. Ironically it hit 4000 days yesterday.
    Haiti wasn’t so lucky. 500 dead.

  703. Adrian,

    Do you seriously believe that pharmaceutical companies give cash money to physicians as in the parody in your link? If you do, then you probably believe that the plot of the movie The Constant Gardner was true to life.

    Marketing to physicians consists mainly of face to face meetings with sales reps. That’s expensive. There may also be free samples of the drug given to the physician. Physicians don’t charge patients to whom they give those free samples. To some extent, these visits amount to continuing education for the physician.

    That being said, I don’t like the ‘ask your doctor’ ads. My daughter, who works for a pharmaceutical company, hates them. The only reason to ask your doctor about a drug would be to consider getting a new doctor if he doesn’t know about it, not to get the drug itself.

  704. Tom Scharf, I think the recordsetting drought of US landfalling major hurricanes is caused by global warming.

  705. The EpiPen standard two-pack was increased to $600. The value of the adrenalin they contain is worth a couple of dollars.
    Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals,so they raised the price per tablet from $13.50 a tablet to $750 overnight.

    Presumably DeWitt Payne, with his eyes firmly closed as usual, thinks it is good business as it is perfectly legal. Obviously a company’s objective is to maximize profit, right?

  706. Adrian,

    Can you say anecdotal, not to mention irrelevant?

    Mylan, the manufacturer of the Epipen, is not one of the companies listed in your link on marketing vs research expenditures. You’re deflecting as usual.

    Wrt the Epipen, there is no competition for the Epipen because the FDA refuses to approve one.

  707. MikeN,

    The term ‘global warming’ is passé. Climate change is the new mantra. And, of course, a hurricane drought would qualify as climate change.

  709. Joe Romm really is going with global warming has caused Matthew to be the biggest hurricane since 2005.

  711. In other news, Trump said “sorry” thereby displaying the qualities necessary to become President.

  712. Articles on climate change and hurricanes are definitely The Onion worthy. Gaurdian, same article

    “It follows September’s Hurricane Hermine, which was the first hurricane to hit Florida in nearly 11 years…”

    “…government officials are now confident enough to say there has been a “substantial increase” in Atlantic hurricane activity since the 1980s”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/05/climate-change-hurricane-matthew-sea-level-rise

    Thank you government officials. I played this game in kindergarten, it’s called “let’s pretend”.

    One favorite diversion is making the observation that hurricanes are lasting longer in the Atlantic basin now. They do last longer when they don’t make landfall as it turns out.
    What is clear is that causation apparently can only exist when trends are getting worse.

  713. DeWitt Payne “Can you say anecdotal?”
    Yes I can say that but it isn’t.

    I’m in favor of the free market for everything except health care. There are too many problems with health for that to work well and unscrupulous businesses take advantage of the patent’s dilemma to gouge them.

    A single payer system would obviously be cheaper too.

  714. Adrian,
    Hillary is looking for health care advocates; ya, single payer is just what Hillary wants. Maybe you could apply. ‘Course, all the cold fusion nuttiness may be disqualifying.

  715. The Epipen is a medical device, not a drug. The cost of the epinephrine is nearly irrelevant. The FDA regulations for approval of a medical device are different than for a generic drug. I’m not sure it matters to them that a similar device already exists.

    See this from the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/upshot/the-epipen-a-case-study-in-health-care-system-dysfunction.html?_r=0

    The dysfunction is not entirely the result of greed, but mostly the result of government regulation that awards an effective monopoly and hence the possibility of monopoly pricing. All stable monopolies are really products of government regulation that effectively bar competitors entry to the market.

  716. To put it another way: Do you really want the pharmaceutical industry to be run like the Post Office? I don’t.

  717. Adrian, what is different about health care to eliminate the free market?
    How is it different from food, water, etc?

  718. MikeN,

    It’s because we’re too dumb to know what’s best for us. We need Philosopher Kings to tell us what to do.

    That was sarcasm, in case anyone missed it.

  719. DeWitt,
    I think it is more a creeping version of socialism, by any means, where equality of outcomes, rather than opportunity, is the undelying motive. When health care becomes a “right”, next will be the “right” to 6 weeks vacation per year, the “right” to work only 30 hours per week, the “right” to a job that pays well, the “right” to generous long term unemployment income, etc. It all goes hand in hand with ever growing government take of economic output for direct and indirect redistribution (think France, taxes at ~50% of GDP and tiny military expenditures). Of course, there comes a point where the goose no longer produces the golden eggs (or if you prefer, Atlas shrugs), and wealth ceases to grow. But I am pretty sure that is a desired outcome for green leftists.

  720. MikeN,

    There are aspects of health care where a purely free market will be a problem. For example, emergency care. People in the ER are very unlikely to be informed consumers; the less so the more critical (and expensive) the medical emergency. And ER costs are dominated by fixed costs, resulting in severe pricing distortions.
    People like Adrian like to imagine that all health care is like the ER. It isn’t. But pretending that it is lets them justify their socialist tendencies.

  721. Much of ER care is covered by third party payments. So there are large scale buyers who are capable of monitoring costs. Also, much of ER care really isn’t emergency, even more so now when primary care has longer wait times. This was one of the supposed benefits of ObamaCare that I don’t think even conservatives challenged, that turned out not to be the case.

  722. MikeN
    “Adrian, what is different about health care to eliminate the free market? How is it different from food, water, etc?”
    .
    If you are not bright enough or technical enough to see the difference life is too short to explain it to you.
    .
    Payne even links a NYT piece that says. “EpiPens are a perfect example of a health care nightmare. They’re also just a typical example of the dysfunction of the American health care system.” Note that his previous post said it was anecdotal.
    .
    Every other “advanced” country has a single payer system that is cheaper and in general works as well or better. Die hard Republicans believe in the establishment and can’t see that both parties are rotten to the core. If voting could change anything it would be made illegal.

  723. Health care should be a right, in a perfect world of infinite resources. It is already a right in that you aren’t going to have a heart attack at a public venue and have people look for your insurance card before you are carted off to the emergency room.
    Not starving to death is effectively a right in the US now, not so much in Somalia. Why are so few dying of starvation now compared to only 50 years ago? Is it because the world became nicer? Realized that socialism is the way to go? A liberal world order? Perhaps it is because of massive improvements in agricultural technology and the wealth and prosperity that allowed these improvements to occur. Everyone is fundamentally for free effective care for everyone…if it has no costs. Feeding the world now has very little effective costs, and thus it has become a “right”. The path to better healthcare for everyone is either large increases in wealth or large reductions in effective costs. It isn’t deciding whether it is a good idea or gaining a few feet in the tug of war on how much taxpayer revenue should be used.

  724. Adrian is woefully misinformed. He wrote: “Every other “advanced” country has a single payer system that is cheaper and in general works as well or better.”
    .
    I seriously doubt that Adrian can name a country with a true single payer system. The U.K., I think, comes closest, but their system is a mess. I used to work in Canada, and I had private health insurance, paid for by my employer. Do you ever hear of Americans going to Canada to get treatment? I think not. But the opposite happens all the time. And Canada has one of the best, and most expensive, of non-U.S. health care systems.

  725. “If you are not bright enough or technical enough to see the difference life is too short to explain it to you.”
    In other words, if Adrian thinks it is so, it must be true. If you disagree, it can only be because you are an idiot or in the pay of the Koch brothers. Typical progressive.

  726. There seems to be considerable confusion over rights and entitlements. I don’t have a right to my monthly Social Security check, but I am entitled to it. It’s not a contract, though. The government could, in theory, alter or eliminate the program any time it felt like it and I would have no recourse other than the ballot box. The same is true for health care and a lot of other government programs.

    We can create government entitlements if we can afford them, not because there is some inherent right involved. The problem right now is that it looks like we’ve over committed. The long term unfunded liability for Social Security and Medicare is huge. There’s still a possibility that we could grow our way out of the problem, but neither Trump nor Clinton have proposed anything like what would be needed. In fact, it’s certain that Clinton’s proposals would exacerbate the problem and likely that Trump’s proposals would too.

  727. So Switzerland is not an ‘advanced’ country? It doesn’t have a single payer system at all. Health care is provided through compulsory private insurance with subsidies for people with low income.

    I’m also pretty sure that every single payer system in the advanced world is under water in terms of long term unfunded liability.

  728. Swiss are required to purchase basic health insurance, which covers a range of treatments detailed in the Swiss Federal Law on Health Insurance.
    It is therefore the same throughout the country and avoids double standards in healthcare. Insurers are required to offer this basic insurance to everyone, regardless of age or medical condition. They are not allowed to make a profit off this basic insurance, but can on supplemental plans.The insured person pays the insurance premium for the basic plan up to 8% of their personal income. If a premium is higher than this, the government gives the insured person a cash subsidy to pay for any additional premium
    snip
    Healthcare costs in Switzerland are 11.4% of GDP (2010), comparable to Germany and France (11.6%) and other European countries, but significantly less than in USA (17.6%)
    .
    ref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Switzerland
    .
    This is an alternate route, but the important thing is the government lays down what is to be covered and that is universal for the whole country.
    I have no problem with this. In a way it is socialist because your premium is a percentage of your income..

  729. Adrian

    Payne even links a NYT piece that says. “EpiPens are a perfect example of a health care nightmare. They’re also just a typical example of the dysfunction of the American health care system.” Note that his previous post said it was anecdotal.

    It’s a perfect example of the problems with the FDA approval process which comes up with all sorts of reasons to not approve of comparable items by other manufacturers. It is not an example that suggests we need socialized medicine.

    Beyond that: the fact is, people don’t need EpiPens. People can learn carry injectors and self inject. That’s what people did before EpiPens and they could still do it. (I had a friend who was allergic to bees. And yes, she carried around a syringe and needle.)

    People want EpiPens because they are convenient.

  730. Adrian

    It is therefore the same throughout the country and avoids double standards in healthcare. Insurers are required to offer this basic insurance to everyone, regardless of age or medical condition. They are not allowed to make a profit off this basic insurance, but can on supplemental plans.The insured person pays the insurance premium for the basic plan up to 8% of their personal income. If a premium is higher than this, the government gives the insured person a cash subsidy to pay for any additional premium

    In otherwords:
    * The system is not single payer. There are multiple insurance companies.
    * Despite the claim of avoiding double standards, there are different plans at different levels. So those who pay for more than basic care can get more than basic care. Perhaps this is not what you consider a “double standard”, but it is a different level of care.
    * Insurance companies are allowed to make a profit on products that offer more than basic care. So there is a free market above some level.

    So: Their system is mostly “capitalist” but with some regulation (requiring basic care policies) and some subsidies.
    This clearly nothing like a single payer system. It’s not socialist. It’s not “everyone gets the same thing” and so on.

  731. Insurance companies can’t make a profit on the basic care.
    I don’t know anything about Swiss insurance, but I would bet that insurance companies are making lots of profit off of the basic care. They officially show no profit just like Forrest Gump, Spiderman, and so many other movies.

  732. Payne, much of what the government does is underfunded, starting with wars. My local paper points out the pensions in PA are underwater for $1.3 trillion.

    The country is run by the elites of the establishment for themselves and I know of no way to alter the course the country is taking. I think the country should drastically cut military expenditure and avoid wars instead of seeking new ones. I see the neocons are keen to start something with both China and Russia.

    I don’t think the government can create jobs (except for the government) and neither party has a believable plan for improving the economy. One major problem is the change in business culture to winner takes all. Until profits from improved productivity are shared with the workers the future looks bleak.

  733. “the important thing is the government lays down what is to be covered and that is universal for the whole country.”
    So, according to Adrian, the U.S. has a single payer health care system. Fascinating how his mind works.
    .
    By the way, Singapore is an advanced country that does not have single payer, even by Adrian’s amazing definition. And Singapore pays less on health care than any other advanced country.

  734. Lucia,
    Basic health care is universal in Switzerland and payment is based on your salary – call it what ever you like.

  735. MikeM
    “So, according to Adrian, the U.S. has a single payer health care system.”

    Where did I say that?

  736. MikeM
    “Singapore is an advanced country that does not have single payer, even by Adrian’s amazing definition. And Singapore pays less on health care than any other advanced country.”
    .
    Money is taken directly out of your payroll. Do your homework before spouting off.

    “Singapore has a non-modified universal healthcare system where the government ensures affordability of healthcare within the public health system, largely through a system of compulsory savings, subsidies, and price controls.
    Singapore’s system uses a combination of compulsory savings from payroll deductions to provide subsidies within a nationalised health insurance plan known as Medisave.”

  737. Arithmetic, Adrian style:
    1 = 5,610,000 (the population of Singapore)
    Note to Adrian: single payer means ONE payer.
    .
    Everybody in Singapore pays for their own health care. The government makes people save so that they can do that. It provides some help with larger expenses and a safety net for the unfortunate. But it is the most free market health care system in the developed world. And the cheapest.

  738. Mike M,
    “nationalised health insurance plan known as Medisave.”

    Unless you have lost one of your two grey cells, you would realize that even with a single payer, the population pays for it somehow. What does a NATIONALIZED insurance plan mean to you?

  739. ps.
    “In the 1990s, all public hospitals were “restructured” which means that they have been operated as government-owned corporations rather than the typical model of public hospitals in other countries.”

  740. Adrian,
    In Singapore, the patient decides what medical services he wants to pay for and gets the services he is willing to pay for. With single payer, the government decides what they will pay for and you can get only those services that the government pays for. Very different.
    .
    The normal definition of nationalize, in a context such as this, is “to convert from private to governmental ownership”. By that definition, the Singapore system is not nationalized: “Within Medisave, each citizen accumulates funds that are individually tracked”.
    .
    According to Wikipedia “A public hospital or government hospital is a hospital which is owned by a government”. That is what I always thought a public hospital was. What do you think they are?
    .
    You need to learn use terms in accord with their actual meanings. That would cause much less confusion.

  742. Ashfield (as you seem to prefer last names),

    I haven’t read most of your recent posts, I don’t plan on reading any of your future posts. Your credulous support of an obvious fraud makes it unlikely that anything you say on any other subject is worth my time. What I have read makes little sense and is often clearly wrong. It was worth a couple of responses, but no more.

    Bye.

  743. Adrian Ashfield:

    MikeN
    “Adrian, what is different about health care to eliminate the free market? How is it different from food, water, etc?”
    .
    If you are not bright enough or technical enough to see the difference life is too short to explain it to you.

    .
    Dewitt did a good job of answering this in pointing out that all rights provided by the government are revocable, Adrian, but I would to add that even if I trusted the government to have completely altruistic intentions history shows it never works long. All artificial redistribution eventually harm or collapse an economy. I see in another comment you recognize that workers are getting poorer while those that control businesses are getting richer. You might consider that many, something like 90%, of new businesses fail in the first two years. Many people that invested their life savings lost it. Increasing regulation and taxation increases the likelihood of failure and diminishes the rewards of success. Our economy depends on people willing to sacrifice to save and then gamble that savings. I did and do not see much appreciation for it except by others who have done the same. The people who think they are trapped into welfare or low wages are people that are self-fulfilling their own prophecy.
    .
    The answer to higher wages is more competition for labor spurred by expansion of commerce. Trump is inelegant in the way he lays it out by globalization was a shock to our economy that is exacerbated by government regulation, over-taxation and over-spending.
    .
    Trickle down economics is not giving money the rich, its allowing those who create wealth to use it for creating more rather than having it confiscated. Corrupt capitalism, which there is plenty, is more easily contained by lowering regulatory impacts on markets. If the government was half the size there would be virtually no lobbyists because that money would be better spent on R&D of advertising.
    .
    Adrian:

    Every other “advanced” country has a single payer system that is cheaper and in general works as well or better. Die hard Republicans believe in the establishment and can’t see that both parties are rotten to the core. If voting could change anything it would be made illegal.

    .
    Okay, there are a bunch of things here, some that others have already addressed. Republicans believe that wealth is produced by private enterprise and choices in a free and transparent market. Both the health and legal systems are poorly attuned to transparency. I point out that Angies List, a consumer driven online review and rating site, considered rating doctors even before lawyers. The success of Ebay was due to a rating feedback system despite many inherent flaws. Just the slightest thought of bad ratings is a huge motivator to get packages to the post office the same day.
    .
    To the Democrats voting for the ACA was considered “market reforms.” Republican and Libertarians consider reform examples such as:

    1) Standardizing state qualifications for insurers so that doing business in one state is no different that another.

    2) Having a privately run healthcare web sites that allowed for anonymous viewing of prices for all drugs, devices and services in all locals.

    3) Having an ability for anonymous feedback. Perhaps a system where all purchases come with a code (gov love codes) authorizing a login to provide anonymous feedback, similar to what Ebay does.

    4) Taking the restrictions off of health savings accounts and make them available for all plans. And allow that money to pre-tax money to be used to purchase health plans, taking away the advantage employers have held in purchasing healthcare since the 1950s.

    5) Take the silly use-it-or-lose-it requirement off flexible spending accounts that encourage waste by punishing conservation.

  744. Mike M,
    According to Wikipedia “Approximately 70-80% of Singaporeans obtain their medical care within the public health system.”
    I understand it is a flexible system and has choices. I just wish the US had something like it although I doubt this government is capable of running it as well as the Singaporeans.

    I not interested enough to elaborate to posters like you, Payne and SteveF who are so blind to new discoveries like LENR that you think I am a nut case. Believe whatever you like. I really don’t care. Time will show who is right.

  745. Adrian, I support your enthusiasm for innovative ideas for fusion energy technology. The government should set a billion dollars aside for benchmark awards for reproducible inventions. I feel that cooler fusion is possible by focusing methods. I first became interested in science in 1st grade when the teacher brought in a box with wires, batteries and bulbs and some steel wool. She was deviously setting us up to discover mini fireworks with 1.5V and milliamps of current.

  746. Ron Graf,
    I think you are right is much of what you wrote. The problem that worries me is that the game has changed and I doubt the old solutions will work anymore.
    .
    I think unemployment will get much worse due to AI and robotics. I forecast more than 40% in the foreseeable future and don’t believe the official figures for unemployed. Other sources put them much higher. I think a recession is coming if we are not in one already and several financial institutions are perilously close to a collapse.
    .
    There does not seem to be a good solution. The culture and expectations have changed in a negative way both for business and the general population. Possibly every generation thinks that so I hope I’m being unduly pessimistic. But if I’m right that will take some new policies from the government that hasn’t shown any talent in that regard for many decades.

  747. Ron,

    She was deviously setting us up to discover mini fireworks with 1.5V and milliamps of current.

    That is awesome. 🙂 Made me grin, thanks for mentioning it.

  748. Adrian, there have been predictions of machines replacing man for two hundred years (see Luddites).
    .
    All we need is a leader with to reverse recent progressive initiatives in favor of common sense. Liberals labeled the recession of 1981 the “Reagan recession” and derogatorily coined its his policies “Reaganomics” and “trickle-down”. Then Reagan had seven years of huge growth and liberals got very quiet except for screaming for nuclear unilateral disarmament. Then the Soviet Union fell and liberals got even more determined to be socialists even as the former communist block nations dashed to get away from it.
    .
    If you are for giving up our military superiority you are for enticing enemies to strike us and our allies with impunity unless our then president decides it is important enough to send our young into battle with the odds against them.

  749. Ron, it is not clear that the Luddites were wrong. There are intervening periods of adjustment to job losses. The Great Depression may have been caused by the tractor.

  750. Adrian

    Basic health care is universal in Switzerland and payment is based on your salary – call it what ever you like.

    You can suggest I call it whatever I like. But calling it “single payer” would be inaccurate even if you are giving me your ‘permission’ to call it that. I prefer more accurate terminology even if you want to grant yourself permission to use inaccurate terminology.

  751. Adrian

    I not interested enough to elaborate to posters like you, Payne and SteveF who are so blind to new discoveries like LENR that you think I am a nut case. Believe whatever you like. I really don’t care. Time will show who is right.

    You previous prediction was you would be shown right about LENR by now. For the time being “time” seems to be suggesting you are wrong.

  752. Ashfield,

    Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

    Btw, I’m saying nothing about LENR. I’m saying that you completely missed the obvious fact that Rossi is a con man. That says a lot about your lack of judgement.

    As far as LENR, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I haven’t seen any.

  753. Lucia,
    “But calling it “single payer” would be inaccurate even if you are giving me your ‘permission’ to call it that. ”

    I don’t give a damn what you call it but it seems that 70 – 80% use a system with a single payer.

    “Approximately 70-80% of Singaporeans obtain their medical care within the public health system.” Wikipedia.
    I presume with your desire for accuracy that would only count if 100% did. In which case no country uses a single payer and all the news articles calling it that for the Western world are wrong.

  754. Adrian,
    You made a claim about Switzerland and are now changing the subject to Singapore. I know the country names both start with “S”, but you can’t support claims you made about Switzerland with statistics about Singapore. They are entirely different countries.

  755. Adrian,
    People in Singapore pay for their health care out of their own pockets. There is no way that you can stretch that to qualify as “single payer”.
    Some things, such as hospital stays, are subsidized so that individuals only pay part of the cost, but they pay enough of the cost that the patient has 100% say in what treatment they get.
    The Wikipedia article is wretchedly written. What the heck does it mean when it says that “Approximately 70-80% of Singaporeans obtain their medical care within the public health system”? When you look at it in context of the entire article, that statement is baffling since it never says anything else about a “public health system”. I think it means “Approximately 70-80% of Singaporeans obtain their *hospital* care from the *public hospitals*”, but I can’t be sure of that.
    .
    No country has a true single payer system. A few (U.K., Canada) have something that might plausibly be called that. Don’t blame Lucia or me for your ignorance and inaccuracies.

  756. DeWitt, I think you are being too hard on LENR. Even if the odds are 10:1 that Rossi is fooling people or fooling himself there is still value in these efforts. What I find confusing is Adrian’s enthusiasm for ventures that spring from well of free market pipe dreams turned into edgy ventures. This type of thing is frowned on in a socialist utopia. There are also very few con men in that utopia except for the ones selling its ideology — that in the end saps vitality and life.
    .
    The end of this article: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a20454/in-cold-fusion-20-whos-scamming-whom/

    A viable open-source cold fusion recipe would trigger a gigantic energy research gold rush. Alternative methods could be found which avoid the area covered by Rossi’s patents and leave him side-lined as a multi-billion-dollar cold fusion industry powers up. So perhaps Rossi would actually prefer not to be vindicated.

    This is precisely why there should be prize awards for benchmark demonstrations. It would serve us all to bring miners to the gold rush, not just con artists.

  758. Ron Graf (Comment #152018)
    DeWitt, I think you are being too hard on LENR. Even if the odds are 10:1 that Rossi is fooling people or fooling himself there is still value in these efforts. I support your enthusiasm for innovative ideas for fusion energy technology. The government should set a billion dollars aside for benchmark awards for reproducible inventions. I feel that cooler fusion is possible by focusing methods.
    DeWitt Payne (Comment #152014)(Comment #152004)
    I’m saying nothing about LENR. I’m saying that you completely missed the obvious fact that Rossi is a con man.
    As far as LENR, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
    Your credulous support of an obvious fraud makes it unlikely that anything you say on any other subject is worth my time.
    LENR is looking for nuclear power without radioactivity and heat.
    like looking for a fire without oxygen.
    The Rossi model incorporates several hundred degrees of heat to produce slightly more heat which would never be enough to get the LENR up to operating heat, you can just detect it after a month of running [Rossi].
    If it ever got hotter it would be like fuel rods producing heat in a nuclear reactor, wait…..
    DeWitt I think you are being too soft on LENR and con men, shape up please.
    However Adrian writes well, has a brain even if his views do not coincide and he might well say useful things in the future.

  759. Regarding LENR, I was hopeful for a time – about as hopeful as when I used to buy a ticket for the lottery every saturday (now I win £2 a week because I don’t take part). When that Cu sample that Rossi gave turned out to be naturally-occurring Cu isotopes (or was it a single isotope? can’t remember) it was kind of a killer for the story. Even then for believers it was possible to rationalise it away as Rossi not wanting to give the real sample in case someone else worked out what reactions were taking place and built their own magic machine. But I think enough time has elapsed that if it worked, it would have taken over the world by now.

    There are enough bizarre anti-physics machines out there – that monstrosity that purports to generate surplus energy purely from buoyancy is a stand-out.

    As I’m from the UK I ought to defend our healthcare system. I couldn’t understand the opposition to universal health care when Obama was battling to bring it in, but I didn’t look into the details of what was proposed. (Maybe it was a sow’s ear). Here everyone gets a basic level of healthcare (more or less) free, paid for via taxation. There are privatised elements (eg, eye test providers are private companies, but the amount they can charge for the eye test is regulated – they make their money on the spectacles). We pay for dentistry directly and for prescriptions there is an £8.40 charge per item (that’s only about $10 these days).

    Quite a few people pay for health insurance or pay for stuff outside the NHS. (Effectively then they are paying twice, but they get a better service. Ironically the doctors are usually the same – but private customers can jump the waiting list.)

    At the moment the NHS is creaking a bit under the strain of a lot of older people. But I don’t see what the alternative is, when those old folks don’t have much cash.

  760. I see they’re selling the buoyancy engine! But they’re calling it a kinetic power plant. See here

    (hope the link works. Can never remember how to insert a link. There ought to be a little button for people with poor memories). Either way, the machine is a snip at only 3000 euros, although I guess only as a decoration.

  761. Ron Graf,
    The odds against cold fusion are not 1:10, more like 1:10,000,000,000,000. It is energetically impossible. As to the value of con men like Rossi: I suppose it is useful to have clear examples of scams and how people got their money stolen; describing how the scam worked may keep others from becoming victims. I can’t see anything else useful in Rossi’s scam.

  762. jit,
    Thanks for the link to yet another free energy scam. Here is a serious question: The US Patent and Trademark Office will simply not review perpetual motion and related ‘free energy’ applications, because it is certain that all PM and free energy ‘inventions’ are rubbish….. they don’t and can’t possibly work. I think most other national patent offices do the same. So why not simply pass a law making any promotion for sale of ‘free energy inventions’ criminal fraud? Serious question, not rhetorical.

  763. Lucia,
    The discussion had been about Singapore before your comment, so I assumed that was what you were talking about too.
    I commented on Switzerland earlier and see no point in repeating it.

  764. Ron Graf,
    If the odds of LENR working were as slim as Payne makes out there would not be such a large number of universities now staring work on it.
    In Japan alone see
    https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/14542479_1287661584597871_1348368176183428937_o.jpg
    .
    “What I find confusing is Adrian’s enthusiasm for ventures that spring from well of free market pipe dreams turned into edgy ventures.”
    I have no idea what you are talking about. I’m not “enthusiastic” about anything governments are doing and pessimistic about possible solutions.

  765. SteveF,

    So why not simply pass a law making any promotion for sale of ‘free energy inventions’ criminal fraud? Serious question, not rhetorical.

    .
    I don’t think I’m with you on that. Further involve the political apparatus in regulating what is or is not scientific fact? No thanks. I’d rather suffer the scams of the Phoenix Energy of Nevada’s and the Rossi’s of the world than extend the power of the government in a vain effort to protect people from their own stupidity.
    .
    The old conundrum of politics and powers used to be ‘who will guard us from the guardians’. These days I wonder if it’s not turning into ‘how will we be sure that the people we elect to think for us aren’t dumber than we are?’ But I digress.

  766. Ron, Jit, SteveF,
    So far as I can tell, cold fusion does not violate any laws of physics, so it can not be absolutely ruled out. But neither has anyone provided any convincing evidence of it after over a quarter century of trying. So even if it does exist, the investigators would seem to be on the wrong track.
    .
    Whether or not LENR do exist, Rossi is a fraud. Take a look at the following link, it includes a link to a paper by scientists who supposedly tested the device. Talk about gullible.
    http://news.newenergytimes.net/2013/05/21/rossi-manipulates-academics-to-create-illusion-of-independent-test/

  767. Lucia,
    I see you mentioned Switzerland in your post. I have gone blind in one eye and am losing vision in the other, so make an increasing number of stupid mistakes. My apologies.

  768. DeWitt, Steve, history is full of “impossible” achievements. It is also full of con men; I agree. If our legal system was a little better we would know all the details by now between Leonardo and Industrial Heat, Rossi and his independent verification attempt.
    .
    Adrian, I agree with you that I have less faith in the efficiency of government science versus private R&D. My point is that progressives, in their faith in government solutions and mandates, favor bigger government at the taxation of private innovation.
    .
    Mark, I agree 100% we don’t need any more laws to protect us from false claims. On that note, Scientific American is sounding a lot like the RICO 20 in their call for aon climate deniers.

  769. Hey, on another almost utterly uninteresting note – my public apologies to all here for my long standing tendency to use rhetorical questions in discussions. I finally ‘get’ why this isn’t the best idea, after trying to have a discussion with another party who continually employed the device. I’ll redouble my efforts to avoid this in the future.
    [Edit: Adrian, sorry to hear about your health problems. Also, one of the functions I’ve adopted around here is to console people who admit to stupid mistakes. Don’t worry about it. 🙂 As a guy who makes a relatively large number of stupid mistakes in the stuff I post here, I know of which I speak in this case. It’s all good.]

  770. Mike M,
    Humm… the energy barrier for fusion is the repulsive force between positively charged nuclei. The temperature (AKA velocity) needed to overcome that repulsion is so high that fusion at near-ambient temperatures is simply impossible…. in the same sense that it is impossible all the gas molecules in a container will from time to time be found only in the left half of the container. That wouldn’t violate any ‘laws of physics’ either; after all, the gas molecules move independently and certainly spend half their time on average in the left half of the container. That doesn’t make it any less impossible for all to be in the left half at the same time. It is statistically impossible. Same thing with cold fusion: no chemical environment can overcome the repulsion…. it is statistically impossible for fusion to take place under the conditions claimed by the scam artists.

  771. Adrian,

    The discussion had been about Singapore before your comment, so I assumed that was what you were talking about too.

    Uhmmmmm, That’s ridiculous.

    In comment:
    lucia (Comment #152012) I quote your claim, and you clearly make a claim about “Switzerland”.

    Your response is three comments later–
    Adrian Ashfield (Comment #152015)
    You respond to me directly, and you’ve changed to topic to “Singapore”.

    Comments 152013 and 152014 not only don’t mention “Singapore”, they don’t discuss health care. Why you would interpret my comment which contained your claim about “Switzerland”, to have anything to do with Singapore… well… I’m not going to theorize.

  772. Ron,

    Thanks for the link. I thought the argument was interesting. I don’t think I’d ever have arrived at the conclusion that (if I understand correctly, and I’m not at all sure I do) what the author calls ‘anti-science’ is authoritarian. I’m not sure I understand how the author gets there, and I doubt I agree. But I’m still thinking it through.
    .
    Interesting that he goes on for several paragraphs and frankly skewers the Left and postmodernists for ‘anti-scientific’ attitudes, and then swings it around into an attack on the Right.
    .
    Give me something interesting to think about while my mind wanders in Church this morning. 🙂

  773. Mark B,

    i used to find it entertaining to count the number of times sheep were mentioned. After the service, Dad and I would compare our counts.

    We went through a number of ministers during the time I was a regular. The sheep frequency varied wildly, apparently as a function of where they’d practiced before coming to us – especially if they had been Baptists.

    Singing in the choir helps if your place has one.

  774. Ron Graf,
    “history is full of “impossible” achievements”
    .
    I am not aware of any. Can you be more specific?

  775. j ferguson,
    I used to ponder science questions instead of sheep. But I was only 15 when I refused to attend any more, so the questions weren’t terribly deep. 😉 Sometimes I would do geometry proofs in my head, which reduced the boredom and also reduced the need for later study. You are right about the Baptists; they take the most time to say the very least. I had a uncle who was a Congregationalist minister (Harvard Divinity School); he was a smart guy, and actually not bad to listen to most of the time. I spent a summer living with him and I asked him how he went about preparing his sermons. He would select a theme, know where he wanted to end up, and then flesh in the argument. He kept a file of themes for future sermons, and would start preparing on Monday or Tuesday.

  776. SteveF: “no chemical environment can overcome the repulsion”.
    Thanks to quantum mechanical tunneling, the repulsion does not need to be overcome. Particles with insufficient energy to pass over the barrier can pass through it. This actually happens with the well established version of cold fusion. If you replace an electron in D2 with a muon, you get fusion, even in liquid D2 at a temperature of just a few Kelvin.
    I am not aware of any calculations showing that fusion can not occur with D atoms in a metal matrix or with metallic D (which no one has yet made). The calculations often cited as “proof” that cold fusion can not occur are for D2 molecules, a very different thing. And even in that case there is an unresolved technical detail about how to do the calculation correctly.
    There were experts who claimed that atoms could never be proven to exist, that heavier than air flying machines were impossible, that chemical rockets could never reach orbit. I doubt that is an exhaustive list.
    One should keep an open mind. Just not so open that one’s brains fall out, as with the believers in Ecat.

  777. Mike M,
    Muon mediated fusion is real, and was predicted theoretically before it was observed. It is nothing at all like cold fusion. Yes, there is tunneling through the Coulomb barrier, but that takes place because the muon brings the nuclei so close together that tuneling becomes probable. Increase the distance by 200 fold (to about a angstrom), and tunneling events don’t happen, even if you wait billions of years. If someone could generate muons without a huge energy investment, there is no doubt muon mediated fusion could be a practical energy source. Problem is, nobody has figured out a way to do that.
    .
    The inter-nuclear distance in metals is not much different than in non-metals; tunneling woun’t happen there either, even if metallic deuterium could be formed.

  778. Ron Graf,
    The linked piece in Scientific American is unfortunately typical of the rubbish they publish these days. Skeptics of AGW don’t believe there is no warming but that the IPCC’s computer simulations have exaggerated it. It is no coincidence that believers refuse to have an open debate on the facts with knowledgeable skeptics.

    The science isn’t “settled” and the papers that pretend to show a consensus have been proved false. The basic facts are:
    .
    Satellite measurements show that there has been no warming for about nineteen years, interrupted by a blip caused by a strong El Nino that has now passed.
    http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
    .
    Contrary to alarmist headlines the sea level increase is almost constant since the 1880s at ~2-3mm/year. http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
    .
    Of course the Earth has been warming but the amount caused by CO2 has been exaggerated by at least two. Here are the various studies of the effect of CO2 called climate sensitivity. So much for the claim the science is settled..
    https://cliscep.com/2016/05/12/new-paper-on-climate-sensitivity-supports-low-%E2%89%881c-estimates/
    .
    Akasofu points out that the IPCC has ignored the multidecadal cycles shown here in Fig 2b. http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf .
    The believers can’t document ONE refugee due to climate change, let alone any deaths.
    However, the green environmentalists are killing 400,000 a year in Africa, as a direct result of not allowing loans to build coal fired generating plants to provide electricity for those without it.
    The deaths are due to atmospheric pollution as a result of cooking on primitive wood/dung fueled fires. That is the real tragedy.

  779. j ferguson

    Singing in the choir helps if your place has one.

    For me, singing was the only thing that ever made going to church tolerable.

  780. I caught a break today, the reading was Matthew 6 25:34, with the birds and the lilies. Reminded me of the Monty Python ‘Life of Brian’ skit, which kept me amused through the truly awful, awful sermon. I mean, bad enough that I had to explain to my kids afterwards that our poor pastor must’ve been having some sort of issue. ~ugh~ glad that’s done.

  781. Gary Johnson and Aleppo, I give a pass because he could have heard it as
    A Leppo.

    So what’s a LEPPO?

    Then he compounded it by not being able to name a foreign leader he respected.

  782. Can you name one you admire?
    In the past, I might have admired Merkle. But less so recently.
    Teresa May: not familiar with enough history to actually admire her.
    Francois Hollande? Can’t say I admire him.
    Putin? Grudging respect for his effectiveness as a despot. But admire?. No way.

    There is probably a national leader in some country somewhere who is worth of admiration. Off hand, I can’t think of one.

  783. The foreign leader you admire question is no-win. So he should have said “Winston Churchill” and gone on about the nature of true leadership. If pressed for a current leader, say there don’t seem to be any Winston Churchills these days, and continue the filibuster.

  785. MikeN,
    I would answer ‘Ronald Reagan’, then say “There don’t seem to be any Reagans around now to admire, but I will try to emulate him if elected”. By the way, a Leppo is an equipment rental company, of course: http://www.leppos.com/

  786. It’s coming up on that time again. Trump starting with a disadvantage out of the gate; first question relating to his vulgar remarks of 11 years ago. Down 4.6 points according to Real Clear Politics. I’m hoping Trump pulls out a brilliant recovery but making peace with the probable outcome of President Elect Hillary Clinton.
    This too shall pass.

  788. In one of the two last debates, the legacy media moderator will most likely ask Trump a stupid question about climate change, and then fact check themselves and say Trump knows nothing about science. If I were Trump I would be ready for the question and flip it–for instance, I might ask the moderator if he knew about Mann and Tiljander upside down or Freeman Dyson’s views on how poor the models are.

    Almost certainly, won’t watch the debate/shouting match tonight.

    JD

  789. SteveF, all discoveries look like common sense when looking back. It’s like seeing how a magic trick is done. Heavier than air flight, the steam engine, telephone, radio, radar, penicillin, DNA, microchips. Okay, you are looking for a new physics? The whole concept of quantum entanglement amazes me. It leaves the door open to instantaneous communication over any distance. And since all information can be communicated and all objects can be described by instructions, all objects have the potential for instantaneous transport. I’m not saying we have it figured out. A future door is open.
    .
    Consider that very high temperatures and pressures can be attained in very small spaces without the need for great amounts of energy. My teacher’s steel wool took less than a watt of electricity will bring the wire to 2000C in micro-seconds. Looking for ways to focus high energies into micro-scale initiator reactors is the path I would look for LENR.
    .
    Adrian, thanks for the lukewarmer summary. Perhaps we should ask each new commenter what their ECS estimation is. It’d save time. Wouldn’t it be great if there is an educated questioner at the presidential town hall debate tonight to test the candidates CS knowledge. I think both would flunk a quiz to define ECS or its importance.

  790. JD Ohio: “I might ask the moderator if he knew about Mann and Tiljander upside down or Freeman Dyson’s views on how poor the models are.”
    .
    That would be awesome. Ted Cruz maybe could but I’m afraid Trump will is not that detailed on CS.
    .
    If Trump won the WH I would like to see Judith swap jobs with Gavin.

  792. MikeM

    I am beginning to seriously consider Gary Johnson. Grasping at straws.

    In my fantasy, a few states do vote in Gary Johnson, no one gets a majority of electoral votes, and this whole horrible thing blows wide open by going to Congress.

    Does anyone know if in that case the upcoming Congress picks? Or the pre-election congress picks. (yeah. I could check the constitution. . . )

  793. Ron,

    Interestingly, quantum entanglement was proven by a physicist that didn’t believe in it and was trying to prove it didn’t happen. I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t allow instantaneous communication, though. That would violate causality, much like being able to travel faster than light.

    Government sponsored basic research is probably a good thing. By and large, private enterprise can’t afford the low probability of a return on the investment over a very long time. Bell Labs was something of an anomaly. In a sense, it was government sponsored because Bell was allowed to have a monopoly on telephone communication. DARPA invented the internet as we know it.

    The problem is when government sponsored becomes crony capitalism. IMO, the international space station is more like crony capitalism than basic research. The SSC would have been basic research. But it was doomed when it was located in just one state. Maybe if they had put it in the Four Corners area with parts of the ring in four states it might not have been dropped, although there were other reasons as well. The design energy, 20Tev, was five times greater than CERN has achieved. Any future progress in high energy physics will require building something like the SSC.

  794. lucia,

    I heard of another possibility than voting for Johnson, write in Pence. Of the two Presidential and two Vice Presidential candidates of the major parties he seems like the only one with more than half a brain who doesn’t appear to be a crook.

  795. Lucia,
    If no presidential candidate gets a majority of electoral votes, the House decides from among the top three.
    If no V.P. candidate gets a majority of electoral votes, the Senate decides between the top two.
    In the House, each state delegation votes on the candidate that will get their support. Support from a majority of the state delegations is needed to win.

  797. DeWitt,
    I agree about Pence. But I think that write-in votes won’t actually count since a write-in candidate would not have a slate of electors. At best, a lot of write-in votes might encourage some electors to be “faithless”.

  798. Lucia,
    Newly elected. The process would start a few days after the new Congress is sworn in in January.

  799. Since 1936, it’s the newly elected House of Representatives. If they agree on a President but can’t agree on a Vice President, the Senate picks the Vice President. Fun!

    They can’t pick someone at random either. They are limited to the top three in electoral votes. So unless Johnson manages to win a Congressional district in Maine or Nebraska, the only two states that don’t award electors on a winner takes all basis, it would presumably still be a choice between Trump and Clinton.

  801. JD Ohio

    If I were Trump I would be ready for the question and flip it–for instance, I might ask the moderator if he knew about Mann and Tiljander upside down or Freeman Dyson’s views on how poor the models are.

    You aren’t Trump. Trump is Trump; Trump will not be ready. For anything.

  802. Lucia, “You aren’t Trump. Trump is Trump; Trump will not be ready. For anything.”

    You are certainly making a valid point. I would say that there is a 1 in 5 chance that Trump has prepared. Even if he has, I wonder whether it will be easy to bait him into a name-calling contest. With the Clinton emails coming out and her casual reference to killing Assange, it is amazing that he can mishandle things so much that people are talking about him and not Clinton.

    JD

  805. Ron Graf,
    Sorry, I think you are deluding yourself. The past ‘discoveries’ you cite are irrelevant. Yes, science progresses when a new theory encompasses and improves upon the old. But there is never a circumstance, at least not since Newton, where the old is utterly refuted. Relativistic mechanics is a slight improvement on Newtonian mechanics. Yes, relativistic mechanics is clearly more correct. Cold fusion, if real, would require a complete re-write of most all understanding of the physical world; chemistry, physics, everything. There are lots of very good reasons why cold fusion is considered, for lack of a better description, totally nuts. That is mostly because it is totally nuts. I have at most another 15 or 20 years left to live. I would be happy to bet over any period less than 15 years that cold fusion will not happen.

  806. I listened to about 20 seconds of Clinton and couldn’t take any more. She (of the deplorables comment) mentioned that “if we can overcome the divisiveness” What a terrible time for government in the US.

    JD

  808. Ron, Ted Cruz had a subcommittee hearing on global warming, and used charts from Steven Goddard. I’d maybe rather just have Trump’s saying it’s a hoax invented by the Chinese.
    That said, it was hilarious watching Ted introduce Mark Steyn as a top 5 jazz recording artist(and a human rights activist).

  809. Ron Graf,
    Here is another “impossible” result for Payne and SteveF to debunk, as they know all possible discoveries have already been made. In passing, Rossi says no new physics is required to explain LENR and is working on another paper with Cook to show his theory.
    .
    “Russian article reports the April 2016 replication of Kornilova/Vysotskii biological transmutations.

    http://kommersant.ru/doc/3101388

    “Biological cultures can do the “impossible” – the nuclear fusion reaction of two atomic cores. Life has a method of producing new nuclei”
    .
    See “Biological transmutations”
    http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/108/04/0633.pdf

  810. Adrian,
    Life is chemistry. Chemistry is many orders of magnitude too low in energy to overcome Coulomb repulsion. The article is not published in a normal journal…. it is a nutty cold fusion only journal. Nothing but rubbish, just as it always is with cold fusion ‘research’.

  811. SteveF,
    If you had read Kornilova/Vysotskii ‘s paper you would understand this was no casual attempt but done carefully with a null experiment run in parallel. What’s more, it has now been independently replicated.
    Your faith in peer review in the major journals is touching. Said reviewers don’t look at the data. Apparently you haven’t noticed that when attempts are made to replicate the results they often fail.
    .
    As you have made clear too many times already you don’t believe the Coulomb barrier can be overcome at low temperatures. I prefer to keep an open mind on this as there is already good evidence that it is possible.

  812. Adrian,
    “I prefer to keep an open mind on this as there is already good evidence that it is possible.”
    .
    ‘Open mind’ can easily be confused with ’empty mind’ when it leads to wacko conclusions. Any reasoned analysis, combined with a bit of understanding of the technical issues involved, will lead to rejection of cold fusion… it is a bad joke driven by incompetents and scammers like Rossi.
    .
    “What’s more, it has now been independently replicated.”
    .
    OK, so all understanding of chemistry and physics until now has just been overturned by a ‘paper’ in a cold fusion ‘journal’ based on biological (AKA chemical) transmutation of elements… you know, transmutation like the alchemists were trying to do from the time of the Ancient Egyptians until chemistry completely displaced alchemy in the 18th century. And this incredible alchemical result has been completely ignored. Perhaps that is because such claims have no credibility at all… they are utter nonsense. Of course, those who tend toward delusional thoughts will claim that the whole problem is the closed minds of people trained in science and engineering, not because it is rubbish. But it is rubbish.

  813. DeWitt: “I’m pretty sure that it [quantum entanglement] doesn’t allow instantaneous communication, though. That would violate causality, much like being able to travel faster than light.”
    .
    Faster than light communication, termed superluminal or FTL communication, according to Wikipedia is currently an open question with conflicting evidence. As I said, we have not figured it out yet but a future door is cracked open.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal_communication

  814. doesn’t allow instantaneous communication

    Yes, all of these phenomena still have a speed of light limit on information transfer. Just as the Universe itself can expand faster than speed of light without information transfer violating the speed limit.

  815. Ron Graf,
    Causality is a very strong constraint. Faster than light communication seems implausible in light of that constraint.

  816. RB,

    That’s what I was taught.

    If the universe is larger than what we can observe, which seems likely, then anything beyond what we can conceivably see is still receding from us faster than the speed of light even though local expansion is now much, much slower.

    I saw a poll of working physicists once a while back. IIRC, a significant fraction didn’t believe that the inflationary hypothesis was correct. A fairly large number thought that the Standard Model was wrong as well.

    String theory, even if correct, seems like a dead end since it apparently can’t be tested.

  817. RB,
    Ya well, I suspect ‘dark energy’ and ‘dark matter’ are kludges created to put a bandaid over a bullet hole. Seems more likely we don’t really understand enough to describe the universe at very large scale. The confusion seems to me ripe for a deeper theory to clarify.

  818. SteveF,

    The universe has to be flat. IMO, that constraint is almost as strong as causality. There’s nowhere near enough baryonic matter to make it flat. Galactic rotation curves and the behavior of galactic clusters are strong evidence that something else is there. Then there’s the observation that the expansion rate is increasing with distance. Dark matter and dark energy may not be correct, but there are things out there that behave the same way.

  819. SteveF,
    Dark energy seems to be the sort of repulsive gravity that is allowed by General Relativity. Who knows?

    DeWitt,
    String theory fulfills the quest to unite quantum mechanics and gravity. I once attended a talk by Ed Witten and he seemed to be quite used to the sort of philosophical questions posed by high-profile scientists in the audience as to what constitutes a theory. Lubos Motl seems quite passionate about it though.

  820. DeWitt,
    Yes, I am familiar with those things. The inferred acceleration from red shift strikes me as what drives the rest. I am just not sure there is not more happening than simple red shift.

  821. SteveF, before I looked at climate science I became skeptical of dark matter and dark energy as being a parroted into bring a paradigm rather than gaining supporting evidence. Now climate science seems to share a lot of attributes, being hard to do controlled analysis, etc. I find it interesting that the same “TV scientists” are fully on board with both based apparently on faith in authority.
    .
    It’s OK to say there are mysteries.

  822. Ron,

    Dark matter and dark energy are adjustments to the model to fit the data, not the other way around. I see no parallel to climate science there. If it were climate science, they would be trying to explain why the observations were wrong.

    No, it isn’t. It’s OK to say that we can’t explain it now, not that it can’t be explained, which is the connotation of ‘mystery.’

  823. Regarding string theory, supersymmetry is one of the testable propositions.
    Whether dark energy is real or not, it seems to be a useful theory.

    The scientists conclude that it is quite extraordinary that standard dark energy models can describe a wide variety of observations so well, without requiring finely tuned parameters. In investigating the robustness of void models, the researchers have in fact solidified the conventional view that dark energy causes the acceleration of the universe.

  824. DeWitt,
    “Dark matter and dark energy are adjustments to the model to fit the data,”
    .
    I’m not seeing any consistent model, mostly arbitrary kludges. We don’t understand why the observations are the way they are, so we add ‘stuff’ based on what we think we understand. What is dark matter? Well, nobody knows, but people say it MUST be there for our current understanding to make sense in light of the observations. I am suggesting only that our current understanding is as likely to be incomplete (AKA only locally accurate) as it is likely dark matter is real. Same with ‘dark energy’…. just making stuff up that is consistent with current understanding. Seems to me not at all unlikely current understanding is the problem, and that dark energy is just a kludge..

  825. DeWitt, whether one is adjusting the model or the data is inconsequential. Throughout all of history humankind has chosen models that were “useful,” usually to the authorities. The scientific method was a fragile check on the power of authority and the consensus. However, this check breaks down at the boundaries. There power and authority are happy to fill in again.

  826. SteveF,

    Dark matter and dark energy fit very well into what we think we know about the universe. Dark energy is just another name for the cosmological constant that was a part of General Relativity until Einstein decided to leave it out because everyone at the time thought the universe was more or less static, i.e. the constant was identical to one. Now we have evidence that it isn’t one.

    Non-visible matter is the simplest way to explain observations of galaxies and galactic clusters. It’s not all that different in principle from discovering a missing planet by looking at orbital perturbations of the other planets. We know it’s there even if we can’t see it yet.

    There are all sorts of ways that the proportions of baryonic matter/dark matter/dark energy fit with other observations. For one thing, the relative proportions of hydrogen, deuterium, helium and lithium require a quite precise amount of baryonic matter, which is less than the total mass at the time. Those ratios are also something that fit with a hot big bang with inflation. Then there’s the critical density, otherwise known as flatness. There isn’t enough matter, baryonic plus dark, to close the universe. There has to be something else.

    You can call it a kludge if you want, but until someone comes up with a theory that fits observations better, and I’m not holding my breath on that, it’s what we have.

  830. DeWitt, SteveF, do you have any examples of cases where FTL communication would violate causality observations, especially in one dimensional aspect with only one pair of entangled qbits? The worst case I can think of even in multi-dimensions is that a third observer would observe events out of sync but that is no different than observing lightning before thunder. It never causes a conflict.
    .
    On using the remote detection methods of exoplanets as an analogy to the detection of dark matter, let me remind you that analogies are dangerous, especially when describing the borders of a system by comparing it to the workings within. As SteveF described it they are not “local.” They may even be circular.

  831. Ron,

    It’s Newtonian mechanics that predict that there is matter that isn’t visible. It is precisely the same as finding a planet. It isn’t borderline physics. The question of the composition of this mass may well be new physics. But there are a lot of candidates and there is a lot of experimentation going on to detect them, or at least put bounds on their properties.

    There are also problems with quantum chromodynamics, the Standard Model, that may require the existence of a particle or family of particles that happen to have the right characteristics for dark matter. The axion is one hypothesis.

    The axion is a hypothetical elementary particle postulated by the Peccei–Quinn theory in 1977 to resolve the strong CP problem in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). If axions exist and have low mass within a specific range, they are of interest as a possible component of cold dark matter.

    Creating and modifying models to fit observation is exactly what science does. Einstein modified the Newtonian model of gravity with General Relativity, for example. There is a fundamental difference between modifying models or creating models and assuming a model is correct and the observations are wrong.

  832. Ron,

    Wikipedia is a particularly unreliable source for that sort of thing. Your links are therefore not relevant to generalizing your argument.

    It can take a long time to find something that is predicted by theory. The existence of the Higgs boson, for example, was postulated in 1964. It wasn’t proven to exist until 2012.

  833. Ron Graf,
    I find it hilarious that DeWitt Payne believes in dark energy that is supposed to be 68,3% of the total and dark matter that is 26.8% of the total – that no one has ever detected – but can’t believe in LENR that has been seen and replicated many times.
    Truth is the daughter of time not authority.

  834. Adrian Ashfield,

    I haven’t seen the Higgs boson. For that matter, I haven’t seen a proton or neutron either. I find your belief that LENR is consequential hilarious and your continued failure to admit that Rossi is a con man pathetic.

  835. Payne,
    I wouldn’t have expected you to have seen/measured a Higgs boson, a proton or neutron as your eyes are tightly closed, but others have. Maybe you can’t help your unquestioning belief in authority figures and the consensus: possibly a result of your childhood.
    What strange logic to think that because you haven’t seen those things that means my open mind on LENR is funny. Or does consequential have a different meaning for you as well as being bad grammar.?

  836. DeWitt: “Wikipedia is a particularly unreliable source for that sort of thing. Your links are therefore not relevant to generalizing your argument.”
    .
    The fact that an encyclopedia can be slanted by authority when it comes to controversy, (and thus is unreliable,) is precisely the point.
    .
    D: “There is a fundamental difference between modifying models or creating models and assuming a model is correct and the observations are wrong.”
    .
    Discarding data selectively as spurious when it does not fit the model can be just as perilous as hypothesizing the existence of poorly defined particles to preserve a model. I don’t see the “fundamental” difference. Feynman’s words of caution apply in both. Do we have to build a super conducting super collider to find dark matter and energy? I hope not.
    .
    I also hope LENR is not patented by one scientist or con man.

  837. Ron,

    Wikipedia is not your average encylopedia. Anyone can edit an article. They don’t have to be an authority or an authority figure. There was one person a while back that made it his business to edit out anything he felt was not in accordance with his view of climate science. I think they ended up banning him, but I’m not sure about that. For anything that’s politically controversial, Wikipedia is useless. Mann and McIntyre and the hockey stick graph are not things I would trust Wikipedia to be unbiased about.

    Axions are another matter. The Wikipedia article might be wrong and is probably incomplete, but it’s not a bad place to start.

    The same goes for Snopes.com. If you want to find out if the picture of the alligator swimming through a lake with a deer in its mouth is real or fake (its real), Snopes is the place to start. If you’re fact checking politics, don’t bother.

    There are a lot of experiments going on or planned to start soon to look for different kinds of dark matter and not all of them require high energy particle accelerators. Here’s one, for example. Google is your friend here.

  838. DeWitt,
    The biggest problem I see with claims of dark matter is that it must be closely associated with normal (non-dark) matter to generate the observed gravitational effects, yet to never have been observed or predicted. I am not suggesting a new form of dark matter could not exist, I am saying that it is certainly not the only plausible explanation for the observed motion discrepancies, and that other explanations may well be correct.

  839. Somewhere in the universe the ideal conditions for cold fusion to work exist.
    Maybe at the surface of Jupiter with 5000 degree temperatures and material that will release extra heat spontaneously with an interchange of protons.
    Or it already happens in the sun.
    The only problem is the definition “cold” The surface of Jupiter might be slightly colder in parts. The surface of the sun ditto.
    Meanwhile back on meteorite earth at the bottom of the heat exchange pile cold is really cold.
    Like Steve said, too cold for any helpful spontaneous useful energy production.
    We just need to work on the unstable elements we have better to use the nuclear power we can already access.

  840. SteveF,

    Some of the candidate particles for cold dark matter have been predicted based on theory other than gravitational effects. The axion comes from a symmetry problem in quantum chromodynamics, the strong CP problem. Supersymmetry predicts a whole sea of new particles, one of which, the lightest neutralino is also a candidate for CDM. Then there’s the chameleon, which also might, if it exists, have something to do with dark energy. There are experiments going on now to try to find the axion as well as supersymmetric particles at the LHC.

    As RB pointed out, if supersymmetry does not exist, string theory is out the window. Finding supersymmetric particles is a necessary but not sufficient condition to validate string theory.

  841. Finding the axion is a separate experiment. Supersymmetry is being investigated with the LHC.

  842. DeWitt, although you countered my points regarding bias with points that I don’t think anyone disagrees with I’ll not drive backward.
    .
    I’m aware of the search for dark matter and energy but completely agree with SteveF’s comment; I think there is other answers.
    .
    People are giving LENR a time limit to produce (reproduce) evidence. DeWitt, how long should we give dark matter? Really, a guess would be appreciated.
    .
    I doubt dark matter will be proven before we have a working fusion method using < 1/100 energy than the Stellarator or Iter. If we put up a billion-dollar prize we would increase the people working on it perhaps 100-fold. We could have something in <10 years I would guess. I don't think Rossi has it but he might have something. Proof of fusing even one atomic nucleus would be a LENR breakthrough of civilization changing proportion. I don't know what proving dark matter would produce. So it holds my interest slightly less than fusion. I would guess Adrian has the same reasoning.

  843. Ron,

    So you’re just going to ignore the observational evidence and declare that dark matter doesn’t exist if a candidate particle isn’t found by some time limit? There may be other explanations, but I haven’t seen any that fits all of the evidence as well as dark matter and dark energy and has theoretical backing, which LENR doesn’t have. So no, I’m not going to offer a guess as to when a dark matter particle will be identified. You’re time limit proposal is foolish in the extreme.

    As far as a prize for a practical fusion reactor, I’m still not convinced that fusion power plants are even possible. There is, however, already a lot of privately funded research on fusion reactors with the usual declarations that results are just around the corner. I know. Let’s set a time limit for producing a fusion power plant. /sarc

    http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160428-the-secretive-billionaire-backed-plans-to-harness-fusion

    While we’re at it, why not a billion dollar prize for a faster-than-light spaceship or a time machine? /sarc Offering prizes might help, but it’s no panacea. You need funding for the research. The Millenium Prize problems have been out there since 2000. Only one of them has been solved.

  844. Fusion power plants not possible? I think that’s going out on a limb.
    .
    Find a big water filled cave. How big you ask, don’t know. Does it matter. Big enough that you can do this: Use nuclear warheads as fuel to periodically spike temperature to boil water. Engineer in standard steam to electricity generators. Boom, done.
    .
    Is it practical? Nope. Possible? Pretty sure it could be done, just expensive and problematic in probably a dozen more ways than I can think of off the top of my head.
    .
    [Edit: Heh. From what I read here, there may be issues with trying to get water to boil via nuclear explosions. Say that’s so. Engineer it so you capture the energy from the shockwave then and use hydroelectric. Whatever, details. The point is, I’d really think an impractical, unsafe, expensive nuclear power plant could be concocted. It’s getting something realistic that’s the thing.]

  845. DeWitt: ” I’m not going to offer a guess as to when a dark matter particle will be identified. You’re time limit proposal is foolish in the extreme.”
    .
    I agree, that was my point. It is hard to predict discoveries, especially when one does not know if the sought treasure exits. I find it interesting you have such little faith in controlled fusion, an engineering problem that only a tiny fraction of the resources of human endeavor has yet pursued. If fusion power plants are impossible then civilization’s prospects for space travel are bleak well as its ultimate success and survival. Understanding the correct model for the universe will be moot. Sorry to depress you more than you usually are. 🙂

  846. mark,

    I should have said that I’m not convinced that economically competitive fusion power plants are possible. After all these years, we still haven’t achieved break-even. We would need probably an order of magnitude or two better than break-even for a practical power plant.

    Ron,

    It isn’t just an engineering problem. Solving the plasma turbulent energy loss problem, for example, isn’t engineering. Throwing more money at a problem for which there appear to be only a limited number of solutions just wastes money because everyone will be doing pretty much the same thing. See, for example, climate models.

    Offering a prize for a better climate model wouldn’t help either. It’s expensive to build and run a climate model. A prize wouldn’t fund that. The Millenium Prizes are for math problems.

    The Manhattan Project, which was closer to being mostly engineering, gives a lot of people the wrong impression of what’s possible by throwing money at a problem. Compared to fusion power, building an atomic bomb was trivial. Would we have managed to construct nuclear weapons sooner if there had been multiple Manhattan Projects? I don’t think so, not to mention the security problems.

  847. Thanks DeWitt. I figured there must have been a disconnect of a couple words between what I read and what you were thinking. 🙂
    [Edit: I was in a rush before, I’d like to add that I don’t really disagree with you about throwing money at the problem. I’m not 100% sure I agree if your implication is that multiple fusion projects aren’t going to increase the likelihood of finding the way. I might agree, but I need to consider that; might not. Thanks!]

  848. DeWitt, what you say is true about the inefficiency of duplication of effort if you believe in the centralized authority model of government. Otherwise, you must realize that free enterprise has tremendous duplication yet efficiency is maintained by two things, rewards of success and competition for them. A prize that only gets paid for the first success encourages only those to enter the hunt if they believe they have an innovative approach.

  849. Ron,

    An economically practical fusion power plant is not a better mousetrap. If someone has a really good idea about how to build a fusion power plant, they can and do get funding. See the link above on compact tokomaks. A prize won’t help with that. Success would be its own billion dollar reward. There simply aren’t that many ideas out there.

    A free market allocates resources efficiently. It doesn’t create those resources. It also requires continuing increases in productivity or it collapses of its own weight. Right now, productivity is increasing very slowly. Removing the dead weight of government regulation would help, but it’s not at all clear that it would be enough.

  850. Lucia,
    Did you ever receive a response from E-Cat.com/Leonardo Corp regarding your proposed $50k investment? It must be a couple of weeks now.

  851. Some simple and not terribly profound thoughts I’d like to share, since RB got me thinking about MSM coverage. I think reporters these days are doing exactly the same thing climate scientists have been doing for years. You work at a job where your objectivity is essential to the value that you produce. You become an advocate, sacrifice at least some part of the discipline you exercise to try to remain dispassionate and unbiased, and … shocker, people realize it. They start looking for other sources for information. And then of course, the partisan game tends to become systemic, both in science and in the media. Want to get ahead? Better not support Trump, better not give ammunition to those deniers!

    ~shrug~

  852. Adrian,
    Nope. Either a spam filter caught things or they ignored me. I thought they would, but there you go.

    I guess I’ll just have to invest my money elsewhere.

  853. Lucia,
    It could also mean they meant what they said. >$100k
    Doesn’t sound like a fraudulent company though, eager to take your money.

  854. DeWitt: “An economically practical fusion power plant is not a better mousetrap.”
    .
    Every innovation is a better mouse trap. The atomic bomb depended on thousands of better mouse traps, including conventional explosives experts and electroplaters. Why electroplaters? Gold and silver plating are the most effective reflectors of largest electromagnetic bands. Even if one has a good idea there are always pitfalls that need overcoming. A Manhattan project was exactly the right concept that was needed to produce the A-bomb. On top of the concentration of intellectual resources awareness that Heisenberg’s team in Germany could get there first created competitive motivation. Intangible resource like this, inspiration and pride ultimately make the difference between success and failure. Even authoritarian ideology realizes that resources are not fixed and tries to fill the intangible by propaganda induced motivation.
    .
    If a prize and national mission were set 40 years ago instead of only nerds like you and I knowing about fusion there would be thousands of college freshmen dreaming of being the one to be the Charles Lindbergh of the 21st century.

  855. Lucia, (Comment #152522)
    “I guess I’ll just have to invest my money elsewhere.”
    .
    You might look at Brouillon if you are really interested in LENR. I read their results have been confirmed by SRI.
    “David Knight interviews Robert George of Brouillon 5/8/2016”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vPaC7mgS2g

    .

  856. Adrian

    It could also mean they meant what they said. >$100k

    Their web page did not say this. Their contact form was soliciting < $100k investments.

  857. Lucia,
    I admit I was going on what Rossi said earlier, that he would not take investments from small investors who didn’t understand the risks. I see it says <$100k on the site.
    I don't know how involved he is with E-Cat.com that I believe is a site run by a European group. I understand he has given them permission to use the name and likes their CAD drawings..
    .
    The Brouillon interview is still worth a look.

  858. DeWitt, SteveF, a new study finds correlation with galactic spin and visible matter, which torpedoes the dark matter case.

    In the new work, a team led by Stacy McGaugh at Case Western University in Ohio found a direct relationship between the distribution of regular matter in a galaxy and its speed of rotation. This distribution held, even for galaxies thought to be dominated by dark matter.

  859. Adrain
    Except for “how to” videos, I tend to dislike informational videos. Does Brouillon have printed information?

  860. Ron Graf,
    In the past, when efforts have mostly focused on ‘refining’ the existing theory to match reality by ‘adding unknown stuff’ (dark matter and dark energy are quintessentially unknown stuff!) that has usually meant the theory is fundamentally incomplete and will soon be revised by a better understanding. I suspect this will be no different… Newtonian physics, Einsteinian physics, …….. physics. We just don’t know the next name on the list, nor when that name will be added. My guess is that a more complete theory will simultaneously explain anomalous motion at large scales, the cosmic red shift, and the observed background (microwave) temperature.

  861. Lucia,
    “Does Brouillon have printed information?”
    .
    Not that I know of. The fairly short video is really more about the history and politics of LENR and then ends with what Brouillon is doing and states that their results have been confirmed by SRI.
    I wish the interviewer had spoken less and let George speak more.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vPaC7mgS2g

  863. Adrian, thanks. I saw the story yesterday and was pondering the effects also on the Drake equation for SETI.
    .
    SteveF, I don’t know about you but I was suspicious of having simultaneous mysteries of dark matter and dark energy without them being part of the same fundamental missing puzzle piece.
    .
    Civilization needs to conquer fusion to succeed beyond this century. We need to conquer the speed of light if we are to travel the stars. I have looked into the UFO topic from the perspective that it presents the best potential evidence such possibility.
    .
    I firmly disagree with S. Hawking that ET presents a danger. If it did and they could conquer FTL travel they would have been here instead of us already. It makes much more sense that planets are primitive digs to a space faring technological, a wild museum to visit, a curiosity, a safari. Seeing radio waves and/or atomic detonations would have been an exciting moment to witness. If humans ever board the real starship Enterprise finding such an turning point in a foreign civilization would be irresistible. Think, it would be of interest to every space traveler that could get here. Curiosity is universal to intelligence. Of course, the intergalactic rule would be not to “feed the monkeys.” But crashed hardware could happen inadvertently, and the evidence seems to support that it did.
    .
    On the other hand, if all the reported incidents are all mistakes and hoaxes then we are not likely to find a FTL travel method because nobody else found it. We will die out as other advanced civilizations must have. If they didn’t die and couldn’t leave their star they would surely be communicating via EM waves. SETI would have found them. Carl Sagan knew this. How do I know? I read everything he wrote and realize that he would have done the calculation I just did. I can’t figure Stephen Hawking except that he is not a cosmologist as much as a pure physicist.

  864. Ron Graf,
    I am a bit suprised that you seem so negative about long term prospects; I am much more sanguine. A civilization which is powered by fusion can endure a long time. It matters not at all if that is on Earth or traveling the galaxy at (relatively) slow speeds. Travel times of 100,00 years are a tiny fraction of the future if travel should be needed. Will our descendents be of flesh and blood, a digital abstraction of today’s humanity, or something in between? I don’t know, but I suspect it does not matter very much. Intelligence is likely to endure, in one form or another.

  865. Adrian Ashfield (Comment #152631)
    ” Rossi I don’t know how involved he is with E-Cat.com that I believe is a site run by a European group”‘
    Disclaimer, Rossi is not European and has never lived or worked in Europe?
    From Wiki, (born 3 June 1950) is an Italian entrepreneur
    1970s, Rossi falsely claimed to have invented a process to convert organic waste into oil, 1978 he founded a company Petroldragon to process waste. 1990s, the company collapsed upon discovery that it was dumping toxic waste into the environment, Rossi was jailed and later convicted for tax fraud and environmental crime.
    2001 to 2003, Rossi worked under a U.S. Army contract to make thermoelectric devices that, produced around 1/1000 of the claimed performance.
    The Energy Catalyzer (e-Cat) is a purported cold fusion reactor that is claimed to work by adding hydrogen to nickel to make copper [and lots of excess heat!]

  866. Ron,

    a new study finds correlation with galactic spin and visible matter, which torpedoes the dark matter case.

    No, it doesn’t. Did you read the entire article you linked? Apparently not. You certainly missed this link.

    Let me begin by telling you that dark matter is real. The evidence is overwhelming. Without dark matter stars would escape their galaxies and galaxy clusters would come unbound.

    The rotation rate correlates with the visible mass, but the outer stars are still orbiting too fast to be gravitationally bound by the visible matter. You still need either dark matter or a new theory of gravity with a variable gravitational constant. I don’t believe General Relativity allows for that. Carrick, though, would know more about that than I would.

  867. DeWitt, I did not say the new study found the answer to the mystery of why galaxies do not fly apart. It’s just not likely dark matter. If there is consistent correlation of orbit with visible matter, even in galaxies thought the loaded with dark matter, that would mean dark matter is distributed exactly in correlation with visible matter without exception. Can you give me an explanation for that? No, I didn’t think so. A better explanation is there is some physics that we have yet to uncover. I will end with the conclusion of your linked story from a year-and-half-ago.

    Astrophysics is complicated. There’s a lot going on that we still don’t understand, and it will never be enough to say a signal must be dark matter because we can’t think of any other explanation. We need more theory, more data, and independent confirmation. Meanwhile, though, we might find the cosmos is more complex and wonderful than we ever imagined. And that’s a pretty good consolation prize.

  868. Steve, let me know when your are investing in your movie production “Drifting Space Rogues.” Sorry I will have to be out of town that month if you are looking for help.
    .
    Seriously, no civilization could risk such a journey to an uncertain destination. Even if we had advance communication with alien intelligence from another star system we could not go because of the potential for Stephen Hawking warned conflict. The visitor, us, could be (perhaps rightfully) annihilated as an intruder. Only with the freedom of practical interstellar travel is the resource value of any particular planet or star erased.

  869. angech,
    “From Wiki, (born 3 June 1950) is an Italian entrepreneur
    1970s, Rossi falsely claimed to have invented a process to convert organic waste into oil, 1978 he founded a company Petroldragon to process waste. 1990s, the company collapsed upon discovery that it was dumping toxic waste into the environment, Rossi was jailed and later convicted for tax fraud and environmental crime.” etc. etc.
    .
    It is a waste of time to keep debunking this story because the pseudoskeptics just keep repeating it. Wiki has at least one editor on this who refuses to allow it to be changed/updated.
    Rossi did discover a technology for converting waste to oil and it has been resurrected in the US by others.
    He was never convicted over Petroldragon. The law was changed to retroactively classify the waste he had received as hazardous. So of course his storage was then illegal. It was probably engineered by the Mafia who felt he was threatening their waste business. The way they dumped it was illegal.
    .
    Please try and restrict your comments to the science and quit the ad hominem attacks.

  870. Adrian, I just read some articles on LENR. I guess the basic questions are these:
    1) Knowing the theory predicts gamma radiation why not have detectors as part of the validation experiment?
    2) Why could not a more fool-proof experiment be designed with very good insulation and thermogravimetic analysis? I would have had two concurrently running designs to self-confirm the efficiency numbers. Part of the validation could have been to make quantitative reproducible operation, not just a qualitative range of unaccounted energy surplus, which is much easier to give a spurious result.
    .
    The mere fact the matter is in dispute shows a failed experimental design. Yet, both parties signed off on it. The most likely case is that neither party had high confidence in success, regardless to any fraudulent intent, and thus intentionally left an out in case of failure. Because an undisputed failure would have been an immediate cash loss for both Rossi and Industrial Heat. The matter being tied up in court gives them both time to breath and operate on new projects.
    .
    SteveF, DeWitt, Lucia, unless Adrian has some good answers I give Rossi’s patent a 1:1000 shot at having produced positive net heat. However, I strongly believe the complexities of nuclear physics yet conceal a key to unlocking fusion (or neutron spallation) energy without overtly reproducing the temperature-pressure at the core of a star.
    .
    The eighteenth century perfected what Alchemists discovered hundreds of year earlier, an artificial method to create royal purple (cassius of purple). We are still but infants the knowledge and uses of colloidal gold and nano-materials.

  871. Ron,
    “I give Rossi’s patent a 1:1000 shot…”
    .
    IMHO, it is more like a 1:1,000,000,000,000 shot. Comparable to me at 66 YO winning the US Open golf tournament next summer. ‘taint happenin’. Neither is cold fusion. There is much more chance aliens will arrive tomorrow and announce all of humanity is to be consumed like cattle in the next decade.

  872. SteveF, unless you are exaggerating then you are saying I could offer you a penny to put up your entire estate as prize money for cold fusion and you would feel perfectly secure in doing so.

  873. Ron Graf,
    I am expected SteveF to refuse your bet since I think that he is smart enough to understand that odds are irrelevant unless losing is certain.

  874. Ron,
    Only very slightly exaggerating; my chance of winning the US Open is probably a little higher. The chance of aliens arriving tomorrow to dine on us is probably a little lower. 😉 But very seriously, ‘cold fusion’ is pure rubbish, and a source of continuing financial fraud. It should be ignored, or if not ignored, ridiculed, just as perpetual motion and ‘free limitless energy’ schemes are ignored or ridiculed. Of course, if someone could produce mesons cheaply, then meson mediated fusion could actually happen. That is not what I am talking about when I dismiss cold fusion. I am talking about silly chemically mediated fusion that started with the very confused Ponds and Fleischmann.

  875. Ron Graf,
    The articles you linked are a year out of date, but I have given up following the many theories closely. Too often they require exotic parts of physics that I’m not expert enough on to judge. Rossi says he has developed a theory based on known physics that has allowed him to advance, particularly with the QuarkX. We will have to wait until ~ Feb 2017 for a demo and publication of the theory, if he even decides to publish then.
    .
    All LENR experimenters have gamma ray detectors for safety reasons. My current understanding is that all radiation from the reaction is absorbed very locally which gives the heat. Rossi’s early E-Cats had lead shielding for that reason, but he has apparently changed the design such that it is no longer required. Rossi has also stated that he has measured the radiation inside the reactor but has not published the results in order to protect the IP. It would obviously provide many clues.
    .
    Regarding foolproof experiments, the original Palladium/Deuterium cells have now been proven with 100% repeatability by using co-deposition on the Palladium electrode to get high levels of Deuterium in it. They produce Helium that is proof positive that it’s a nuclear reaction.
    .
    I understand that it is frustrating that Rossi has not done a demo that is beyond dispute. I doubt that is possible anymore as the pathological skeptics would insist it was a magic trick if Rossi were even in the building.
    I think Rossi was right when he forecast that it would not be believed until there were commercial units out in the field.
    I think the early experiment by Levi for 18 hours using a continuous flow of water, that peaked at >30kW is hard to dispute and proves no chemical reaction has enough energy to provide that much heat. Probably the best introduction is Mats Lewan’s webinar here.
    https://youtu.be/IQ3S3YMH96s

  876. Adrain, Rossi has no right to be cynical about skeptics. Extraordinary claims…
    .
    I don’t buy that there is no way to have the gamma rays witnessed without giving away the store. The heat being measured by lost water and the assumptions of heat of vaporization leave the burden is on the witness to insure a 24-7 sequester. The apparatus is raised off the ground to leave water leaks open to discovery. This smacks of a David Copperfield act. Even if gamma ray detection would break proprietary boundaries the experiment could be made much more tamper-proof by quantitative thermogravimetric analysis producing continuous data, which would be much harder to fabricate, especially if there were two independent apparatuses creating data.
    .
    Just the same I am routing for a big announcement in February. It would be world changing. But it wouldn’t be the first time that skeptics gave a trillion to one odds against and lost. (I’m not going to debate examples.)

  877. Ron Graf

    Adrain, Rossi has no right to be cynical about skeptics. Extraordinary claims…

    Just so. It’s fine for him to say he can’t reveal all to protect his IP. But even if one buys his claim that he can’t reveal all, he needs to admit that people who have not had all revealed to him have every right to doubt his claims. Not believing things when one has not been permitted to observe the evidence is the heart of science

    And of course, one should be especially dubious of extra ordinary claims by Rossi given his dubious past history.

    I was hoping to get more information which might have been useful for deciding what to invest in. It appears none can be obtained.

    Adrian — though a big cheerleader for ECAT– evidently also doesn’t have access to information. And anyway, he evidently doesn’t have money to invest in this technology despite believing it is a wonderful opportunity.

    I guess I– and the rest of the world– will need to wait until February to hear the upcoming announcement. (We were previously waiting until about a few months ago. So, here we sit like birds in the wilderness….)

  879. Ron Graf,

    Rossi doesn’t need a “right” to make a forecast. He made it some years ago and it seems to be true.
    Have a look at what MFMP deduced from the gamma burst they witnessed.
    .
    What you and others forget is that Rossi doesn’t owe you anything. He doesn’t have protection for his IP and believes that he can’t reveal it until he has set up mass production and can win by a combination of being first and keeping the price low enough to deter competition. Time will tell if he is right. There is absolutely no business advantage for him to have a believable demonstration.
    .
    The February date is not certain. It’s just that someone asked if he could make the QuarkX demo then and he replied. “I hope so,”

  880. My wife had a medical procedure last week, since then I’ve been traveling. So trying to catch up where relevant, I saw a bit on dark matter upstream.

    I wanted to point to this thesis by Jennifer J Coy:

    Dark matter or new physics: A direct comparison among competing explanations of galactic rotation curves.

    As I understand what she’s done, she’s shown that the galactic rotation curves can be described either by a dark matter density function, by modified Newtonian dynamics, by a conformal gravity theory by Mannheim or by an exponential potential (e.g., Eckhardt, 1993).

    Regarding Ron Graf’s comments:

    If there is consistent correlation of orbit with visible matter, even in galaxies thought the loaded with dark matter, that would mean dark matter is distributed exactly in correlation with visible matter without exception.

    It doesn’t have to be distributed exactly in correlation. As I understand it, there is enough uncertainty, that dark matter models aren’t a unique explanation for the observed discrepancy.

    A copy of Jennifer’s thesis is located here.

  881. Lucia,
    “It’s fine for him to say he can’t reveal all to protect his IP. ”
    .
    As someone who has actually had IP to protect, and based on his behavior, I suggest Rossi has nothing to protect and is nothing but a fraud. But you probably already knew that.
    .
    The lack of confirming gamma-rays means, well, that there is no fusion. This is all crazy talk.

  882. Carrick (Comment #152819),
    For me the biggest issue is not ‘dark matter’ nor ‘dark energy’, but that these seem to oppose each other, and so are apparently in conflict. The physical model seems woefully incomplete. A new conception seems required to understand the observations.

  883. SteveF
    “based on his behavior, I suggest Rossi has nothing to protect”
    .
    What behavior makes you think that?

  884. He had lead shields, now he doesn’t.
    ‘The radiation is fully absorbed by the water so it is not gamma rays then?
    Or MFMP witnessed a gamma ray burst.
    Inconsistency anyone?
    Perhaps he was using Kryptonite and had to shield it to avoid losing his powers.
    Mind you I cannot talk. Sucked into buying Graphene shares and back out with some skin on still. Looks like a scam with multiple entry dates. I will try to day trade the falls in expectation of the next big announcement and catch a coattail.

  885. Ron Graf,
    Ref (Comment #152303) DeWitt Payne believes the consensus. So has no trouble believing dark energy and likewise has no trouble believing LENR is impossible.

    “Five years ago, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three astronomers for their discovery, in the late 1990s, that the universe is expanding at an accelerating pace.

    Their conclusions were based on analysis of Type Ia supernovae – the spectacular thermonuclear explosion of dying stars – picked up by the Hubble space telescope and large ground-based telescopes. It led to the widespread acceptance of the idea that the universe is dominated by a mysterious substance named ‘dark energy’ that drives this accelerating expansion.

    Now, a team of scientists led by Professor Subir Sarkar of Oxford University’s Department of Physics has cast doubt on this standard cosmological concept. Making use of a vastly increased data set – a catalogue of 740 Type Ia supernovae, more than ten times the original sample size – the researchers have found that the evidence for acceleration may be flimsier than previously thought, with the data being consistent with a constant rate of expansion.”

    The study is published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/21/settled-science-syndrome-hits-astronomy-and-the-nobel-prize/

  888. Dark Matter is bleeding but not dead. It has a chance to reconcile the observations if assertions about “feedback” can be observed.

    Additionally, all future dark matter simulations will need to reproduce this relationship; simulations that fail to do so will need to be discarded as in conflict with the Universe we observe. But if we can begin to measure the rotation curves of galaxies at great distances, we should expect to see a remarkable evolution in this relation. If we do, then there’s another victory in store for dark matter. If we don’t, perhaps the modified gravity camp has it right after all. After all, the challenge for any theory of the Universe is to reproduce the full suite of results available at any given time. No matter what, this is a perfect illustration of how science moves forward: one experiment, one measurement, one observation and one simulation at a time.

  889. Adrian,

    I don’t believe the consensus cosmological model the way you apparently believe in LENR. It seems to me to be the best explanation for current observations. Those observations include a lot of things besides galactic rotation curves and galactic cluster dynamics. Absent observations that can’t be explained by the current model, I don’t see a problem. Give me those observations and I’ll throw out the old model in a heartbeat.

  890. DeWitt Payne,
    “I don’t believe the consensus cosmological model the way you apparently believe in LENR.”
    .
    LENR has been proved beyond reasonable doubt for the Palladium/Deuterium system. Why do you doubt it?
    .
    That it happens at all suggests to me there is a good chance the Ni/LAH/Li system works too although definitive proof is still lacking. Unlike you, I have not made up my mind it is impossible.

  891. Adrian,
    “LENR has been proved beyond reasonable doubt for the Palladium/Deuterium system.”
    .
    You probably don’t realize it, but that sort of statement makes people doubt your capacity for rational thought.

  892. Adrain Ashfield

    LENR has been proved beyond reasonable doubt for the Palladium/Deuterium system. Why do you doubt it?

    I suspect the answer to the question is that he doubts it precisely because it has not been proven at all. We don’t even need “beyond a reasonable doubt” in there.

  893. A new model for the universe has been proposed to solve the 5 major problems with the standard model.

    It’s not a bad day at work. Five of the biggest fundamental problems in physics seem sorted in one go. The model that can do this [SMASH], formulated by Guillermo Ballesteros at the University of Paris-Saclay in France and his colleagues, may explain dark matter, neutrino oscillations, baryogenesis, inflation and the strong CP problem…SMASH predicts that the axion should be about ten billion times lighter than the electron. Particles this small could be probed by the CULTASK experiment running in South Korea, or the proposed ORPHEUS experiment in the US and the planned MADMAX experiment in Germany.

    This doesn’t mean it’s game over. It’s more like game on. Physicists will continue to compete to find experimental evidence or a better model.

  895. It appears the default position for some is to believe in ideas that appeal to them in some way until the idea is disproved (it might not be falsifiable to begin with) or modified (new information always coming in) or replaced (moved on to more important matters) with something else they like.

    I kicked modern science again this morning and it was still dead.

    Andrew

  896. Ron Graf & Lucia,

    The best proof that Pons & Fleischmann were unfairly panned is in this paper by Mckubre (see the graph on page 3)
    http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/108/04/0495.pdf.
    .
    See also the book: EXCESS HEAT & Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed , Second Edition, Charles G. Beaudette, at:
    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BeaudetteCexcessheat.pdf
    And read Mallove (chief science writer for MIT) who resigned in protest over the affair.
    .
    There are dozens of papers reporting successful LENR experiments at http://lenr-canr.org like this below:
    .
    “Qualitatively, 100% reproducibility has been established. The future research target is therefore: “how to increase heat generation, and how to use inexpensive materials such as nickel with light hydrogen, instead of palladium and deuterium” says Hideki Yoshino, president of Clean Planet. ”
    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KanekoKcoldfusion.pdf
    .
    See also: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_tFmz65k8BOE9iazZ1bW9LN0xFQXhKOFJ4bzgtNXNJeGtz/view?pref=2&pli=1
    .
    Rossi’s forecast was right that the skeptics will not believe it until there are commercial units out in the field, so nothing I write will make any difference.

  897. Adrian,
    I see nothing in the Mckubre paper that provides evidence that cold fusion is real. It does not seem to even try to do that. It only claims that cold fusion has not been conclusively disproven. I am inclined to believe that weak statement, since I have never seen a conventional explanation for the source of the seemingly excess heat.
    .
    Addition: “Successful” LENR experiments are not proof of LENR. Proof requires identification of fusion products in quantities appropriate to the amount of heat generated.

  898. Proof requires identification of fusion products in quantities appropriate to the amount of heat generated.

    Indeed.

    That would be 4He for D-D fusion and 59Ni and a positron for 58Ni + H. I did see one report for the detection of excess 4He from a Pd/D2O experiment way back when, but, AFAIK, it was never replicated and the levels were low enough that contamination could not be ruled out.

    The energy barrier for D-D fusion is bad enough, which is why fusion test reactors use D-T. Trying to cram a proton into a nucleus that already contains 28 protons is phenomenally unlikely.

  899. Ron,

    You do realize that the SMASH model contains dark matter, including the axion, the particle long proposed as the solution to the strong CP problem, and three new neutrinos. The new field would seem to give the same result as dark energy.

  900. MIke M,
    The introduction states:
    “Whatever it is and by whatever underlying mechanism it proceeds, the accumulated evidence strongly supports the conclusion that nuclear effects take place in condensed matter states by pathways, at rates and with products different from those of the simple, isolated, pair-wise nuclear reactions that we are so familiar with in free space (i.e. two-body interactions). The implications of this statement are profound…”
    .
    Under the graph it reads:
    Figure 1.
    Histogram illustrating the number of early experiments at SRI International (form erly the Stanford Research Institute and ENEA (the Italian National Energy and Environment Agency) showing measurable excess power as a function of maximum cathode loading. Also illustrated are points for the Caltech 13 and MIT14 and null experimental results.
    .
    How you twist that into what you wrote is a mystery, in line with Rossi’s forecast. It doesn’t sound like you even read the paper.
    .
    You wrote: “Proof requires identification of fusion products in quantities appropriate to the amount of heat generated.”
    There are many experiments showing the production of Helium, notably by Storms, some relating the quantity to heat produced, but as you are just interested in shooting everything down I won’t do your homework. The information is out there, if you could be bothered to look for it. If you are not interested enough to look please refrain from writing stuff from ignorance.

  901. DeWitt Payne (Comment #153451)
    I see you believe theory trumps experimental evidence. Very scientific of you.

  902. Adrian,
    “The best proof that Pons & Fleischmann were unfairly panned is in this paper…. ”
    .
    Your are ridiculous.
    Why not do something else, stop embarrassing yourself and machinate on some other totally nutty idea. Rational folk grow tired of your cold fusion craziness.

  903. Adrian: “please refrain from writing stuff from ignorance.”
    Please take your own advice.

  904. Steve F
    “Your are ridiculous.”
    What is ridiculous is a statement like that with NOTHING to back it up. I give references, you provide sweet F A to back up what you say.
    Typical troll like ad hominem.

  906. SteveF,
    Arguing with Adrian is like trying to play chess with a pigeon. Best to just ignore him.

  907. Adrian,

    It is obvious that you are unable to rationally deal with reality. Therefore, I will no longer exchange comments with you. I do wish to say, however, that you are quite insane. Cio.

  908. Two more ad hominem trolls with no substance.
    As I said earlier I’m not about to do the necessary homework needed to understand LENR for them.
    They are impervious to facts so it would be a waste of time.
    Only time will prove who is right.

  909. Adrian,
    If you are right, time will presumably prove it. However, it’s pretty clear that if you are wrong– which seems highly likely– time won’t “prove” it because you’ll likely simply insist that not enough time has past. I think it’s fair to remind you that you’ve made predictions about when your case would be proven and they didn’t pan out.

    Out of curiosity, is there some particular date when you will admit you are probably wrong if you have not yet been proven right? Real question. Because we are months past the previous date when you thought you’d already be proven right.

  910. Lucia,
    On the point most recently raised, time will never prove Adrian right, because he is already proven wrong. He claimed that “LENR has been proved beyond reasonable doubt” but can provide no evidence. His claim is wrong. Your comments are appropriate to the weaker question of whether LENR exists.

  912. Lucia,
    I wonder if you read my (Comment #153439)
    Seems to me that provided pretty good proof about Fleischmann & Pons and referenced experiments that confirm LENR. How many replications does it take to persuade you?
    .
    I don’t remember what I wrote in what you claim as my forecast that was wrong. I think it was probably being optimistic about the outcome of Rossi’s one year 1 MW trial.
    As I said, I did not expect the report of the trial to be delayed by a court case, but we will not know the result of that trial until the legal proceedings are over.
    .
    There are two questions about LENR. As stated I believe that Pd/D has been proven.
    The question of the Ni/LAH/Li system remains open but it is impossible to put a date on when I would write that off as history shows many bumps in the road – like the legal case.
    All I currently forecast (and it is just a guess) is that the first commercial system will surface in the first half of 2017. Could easily be off by six months. It has not been a long time for Rossi to bring this new technology to commercialization if you look past history. Compare it with hot fusion for example.
    .
    It now looks like BLP are promising a commercial system about the end of 2017. (Something else for the trolls to scoff at.)

  913. Lucia,
    Please consider permanently blocking people who are unable to recall the specific predictions they made about cold fusion ‘confirmation’. Really, is there any reason to have the deranged comment?

  915. Adrian,
    SteveF is not a troll. If you think he is, you need to look up the definition of internet troll and learn how to correctly apply it to the threads here.

    His criticizing you may annoy you, but it does not make him a “troll”.

    As for your forcast: You predicted Rossi would prove he had working stuff out there by now and rest assured it is not yet 2017. I could look for more specifics, but you predicted that. You were wrong. If you can’t remember that, that’s not our fault. Perhaps you should create an EXCEL spreadsheet of your predictions. Then watch to see if they come true. Because you don’t seem to be monitoring your failure rate.

  917. Lucia,
    “In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroÊŠl/, /ˈtrÉ’l/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion,[3] often for their own amusement.” ref Wikipedia.
    .
    SteveF’s recent comments are simple ad hominems, designed to insult and provoke, with no relevant content at all. The very definition of a troll.
    We know he believes LENR is impossible and doesn’t need to keep repeating it with no explanation to back up his opinion. If he is not interested he doesn’t have to read what I write…
    .
    As for my forecast, how do you know Rossi didn’t have a working 1 MW plant? The ERV (independent referee) apparently reported that he did. We wont know the answer to that until next October when the court case is held. I think it likely that we will have proof of LENR from other sources before that date.
    .
    Interesting new speculation here:
    http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg112379.html
    .
    DeWitt Payne, I am not impressed by Ethan Siegel. What he wrote there is years out of date. Nobody following the subject believes LENR works by converting Ni to Cu.

  918. “In Internet slang, a troll … posting … extraneous, or off-topic messages … or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion …”
    .
    Perhaps, for example, by introducing cold fusion into a discussion of the presidential debates.

  919. Mike M,
    What I wrote at the end of a long comment about the failure of American politics (Comment #151439) was this:
    snip
    “Hillary is the establishment in spades and a war monger to boot. At least Trump recognizes the folly of exporting jobs and is not a war hawk. But he apparently believes in trickle down. So neither candidate would solve the problem. Nothing I’ve seen in the debate changes any of the above.
    I could go on for pages about the failed war on drugs, or the errors in AGW, or America caused ISIS and the refugee problem, or the coming of the new fire – LENR, but this is too long already.”
    .
    Obviously it was not disruptive in itself. You and others jumped on it as an excuse to make troll like comments.

  922. Lucia,
    “Please stop telling others they are behaving like trolls, are trolls or using the word troll.”
    How then should I reply to Mike M. (Comment #153583)?

  923. You have frequently entertained us with tales of your genius, vast exposure to a rich education obtained in the UK and so on.

    Presumably your vocabulary is rich enough to craft a response that does not require the use of the word “troll”.

  924. Lucia,
    I have never claimed to be good at languages.
    How about “insolent disrupter” then? Seems to be a poor substitute for a short adequate word.

  925. Those words are allowed. However, that said, it’s pretty clear that those you are complaining of are not “disrupting” the discussions here. They are participating in them and saying things you do not like.

    Beyond that, I would suggest that if you think their behavior “insolent”, you might want to look in the mirror. Many would find your bald claims, declarations and tendency to label others both “rude” and “arrogant”.

    Generally speaking: If you don’t want people to criticize your views on LENR — and to do so in ways you consider “rude”– you should restrict your comments and insights into LENR to pro-LENR venues. Otherwise, it is rather ridiculous to complain that people criticize your claims and bad arguments and try to “fight back” by flinging ad homs or starting to spout truisms like the fact that the truth will out sometime in the future.

  926. Adrian
    I realized I missed commenting on this:

    I have never claimed to be good at languages.

    No one is asking you to be good at “languages”. One presumes that being British and having gone to school at a splendid the private school in England permits you to express yourself in your native language: English.

  928. Lucia,
    SteveF wrote:
    “based on his behavior, I suggest Rossi has nothing to protect”
    “You probably don’t realize it, but that sort of statement makes people doubt your capacity for rational thought.”
    “Your are ridiculous.
    Why not do something else, stop embarrassing yourself and machinate on some other totally nutty idea. Rational folk grow tired of your cold fusion craziness.”
    “Adrian,
    You are an id!ot.”
    “It is obvious that you are unable to rationally deal with reality. Therefore, I will no longer exchange comments with you. I do wish to say, however, that you are quite insane. Cio.”
    “Please consider permanently blocking people who are unable to recall the specific predictions they made about cold fusion ‘confirmation’. Really, is there any reason to have the deranged comment?”
    .
    Please enlighten me how this has added to the scientific discussion on LENR in any way and is not just insolent disruption.

  929. Adrian, please don’t be discouraged. In my brief searches on LENR I can see there is a lot of credible people looking into it. It is not “crazy.” It is unproven, and as such is subject to all types of attack. You claimed the concept is proven and should back off that or supply citings.
    .
    SteveF, you should agree to owe Adrian an apology if he can demonstrate the investigation of LENR is not “insane.” You have provided a much lower bar for Adrian. Michio Kaku, for example does not call it impossible but instead acknowledges the “jury is out.”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfY8QBxiAsU

  930. DeWitt, I do realize that SMASH is a theory that supports dark matter, as that was the point of the article. But contrary to the headline that said dark matter dodged a bullet, the actual article said that if observational evidence can be detected to support SMASH then dark matter is supported.
    .
    Personally, I am not convinced there is scientific understanding of the genesis of matter and energy and that relationship to the fundamental forces. Grand unification, (GUT and TOE,) are still waiting.

  931. SteveF wrote:
    “based on his behavior, I suggest Rossi has nothing to protect”

    Yes. SteveF expressed an opinion about Rossi. One that is shared by many here. That is not “disruptive”; it is not “insolent”.

    “You probably don’t realize it, but that sort of statement makes people doubt your capacity for rational thought.”

    Yes. SteveF strongly criticized your clearly wrong claim. For what it’s worth: that particular statement made me doubt your capacity for rational thought and I suspect it made several others think doubt it too.

    Because it’s quite obvious that “LENR has been proved beyond reasonable doubt ” is untrue. LENR has certainly not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. If you are unable to see that it has not been so proven and claim that it has you are going to discover that people will doubt your ability to think rationally– at least about LENR. Yes. Some will voice it.

    It’s not surprising that your main complaint when someone voices that opinion is that they are ‘insolent’ because, in fact, it is impossible to make a rational case to support the claim that LENR has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

    It hasn’t been.

    “Your are ridiculous.
    Why not do something else, stop embarrassing yourself and machinate on some other totally nutty idea. Rational folk grow tired of your cold fusion craziness.”

    Yes. You are showing that SteveF thinks LENR is a nutty idea and said so. So do lots of people. If you were explaining flat earth theories, I’m sure SteveF would be just as blunt.

    But here’s the thing: if you are going to make enthusiastic proclamations about things that most people consider nutty, you are going to have expect that people will tell you your idea is nutty.

    I get you don’t like it. But I’m not going to create a rule that people aren’t permitted to tell others that certain theories are crazy.

    ….

    Please enlighten me how this has added to the scientific discussion on LENR in any way and is not just insolent disruption.

    This may come as a surprise to you, but this post is not about LENR. It’s true that it’s an open thread. And you are allowed to pop in and post stuff– including about LENR.

    But your notion that somehow, others can’t criticize LENR here, or they can’t posting negative comments about LENR or saying LENR is crazy is disrupting the thread is ridiculous.

    If you wish to participate in discussions of LENR with people who are favorably disposed to LENR and think it is not nutty, you should find pro-LENR forums where you can share your notions. When you find them, you can criticize people who pop-in to criticize the discussions there. You’ll probably find few who will pop-in to do so. But if you have a site that exists to discuss the great science behind LENR and people drop in to criticize you there that could be deemed disruptive.

    But that’s not true at this site. At this site, violent criticism is entirely allowed. It is allowed no matter how strongly you wish to censor it. People are allowed to call it “crazy”, “nutty” or whatever they like.

    But suggesting that people here are being “disruptive” when they criticize your theories, thoughts and claims about LENR … well… I’ll avoid saying anything stronger. But it’s obviously not “disruptive” of anything other than you being permitted to believe that you’ve said anything anyone finds remotely convincing.

    But the fact is: you really aren’t convincing anyone that Rossi has made any great break throughs.

  932. Ron,

    If you read the comments in the link I provided above, it’s quite clear that LENR experiments that give positive results are all flawed. They’re poorly designed and inadequately instrumented. E-Cat is the poster child for that. There’s no excuse for inadequate instrumentation today. Multi-channel, millidegree resolution thermocouple data loggers aren’t very expensive, for example. There’s also no excuse to not measure the heat content of the steam emitted from Rossi’s reactor. Relatively speaking, it’s trivial.

    There’s no reason to blindly accept results that go against what we know about nuclear physics. It’s like the result that seemed to indicate that neutrinos could travel faster than light. You assume that there’s a mistake in the experiment and go look for it. Sure enough, it was found.

    You cannot have a nuclear reaction that doesn’t produce some sort of radiation. Conservation of momentum, which applies at the atomic level, requires it. There is no other mechanism to convert a nucleus at an excited state to kinetic energy, i.e. heat. Simply being in a solid state rather than a gas doesn’t change that.

  933. DeWitt: “If you read the comments in the link I provided above, it’s quite clear that LENR experiments that give positive results are all flawed.”
    .
    I don’t know what link you refer to. Has anyone explained the excess heat in the Pons and Fleischman type experiments? It seems to me that there is evidence that something interesting and unexplained happens in those experiments. So far as I am aware, no one has shown that it is fusion (by quantifying fusion products) and no one has shown that it isn’t (by showing what it is). If I am mistaken, I’d appreciate a link to the evidence.
    .
    I am not much interested in theoretical arguments (I am familiar with them and find them questionable ) or debunking of Rossi’s fraud (which is pretty obvious when you look into it).
    .
    You wrote: “You cannot have a nuclear reaction that doesn’t produce some sort of radiation. Conservation of momentum, which applies at the atomic level, requires it. There is no other mechanism to convert a nucleus at an excited state to kinetic energy, i.e. heat.”
    .
    I think the issue is the simultaneous conservation of energy and momentum. The energy must go somewhere; at low pressure, that means radiation. But Julian Schwinger thought that in the solid state the energy could couple directly to the matrix. Unproven, but I think that indicates that it might not be as simple as you assume.

  934. Ron Graf,
    “SteveF, you should agree to owe Adrian an apology if he can demonstrate the investigation of LENR is not “insane.”’
    .
    No Ron, it clearly is insane. The ‘investigation’ is mostly done by scam artists like Rossi, joined by a few incompetent people who apparently can’t appreciate just how nutty the whole idea is. There are lots of good reasons cold fusion can’t work, and in the (very long) last thread about cold fusion (prompted by Adrian’s bizarre comments and including his now long failed predictions of confirmation), all those reasons were explained by lots of people. The postulated process is orders of magnitude too low in energy to ever provoke nuclear fusion. I think it is very clear that someone who claims cold fusion is “proven beyond a reasonable doubt” is wildly, loony-tune-nutty, you-got-to-be-kidding, irrational. I don’t really care if that offends an irrational person who make such statements; they are most deserving of the ridicule.
    .
    You can’t teach the irrational to be rational with rational argument. You can, however, hope they will go away.

  935. Lucia,
    “based on his behavior, I suggest Rossi has nothing to protect”
    Yes. SteveF expressed an opinion about Rossi. One that is shared by many here. That is not “disruptive”; it is not “insolent”.
    .
    It is clear Rossi’s behavior is almost paranoid in protecting his IP. Whether the IP has value is another story but SteveF is dead wrong in what he said. It is insulting to Rossi, it is disruptive and adds nothing to the discussion, yet you defend him.
    .
    “You probably don’t realize it, but that sort of statement makes people doubt your capacity for rational thought.”
    Yes. SteveF strongly criticized your clearly wrong claim. For what it’s worth: that particular statement made me doubt your capacity for rational thought and I suspect it made several others think doubt it too.
    Because it’s quite obvious that “LENR has been proved beyond reasonable doubt ” is untrue.
    .
    That is your opinion. Here are two pages of references of well known scientists and organizations http://www.lenrproof.com (p 5 – 6) who believe it. There are lots of eminent people who now believe LENR is real – do you call them nuts too because they have a different opinion?
    I still maintain Pd/D LENR is proven and gave you some references. You never answered my question: “how many replications does it take to convince you.?”

    It’s not surprising that your main complaint when someone voices that opinion is that they are ‘insolent’ because, in fact, it is impossible to make a rational case to support the claim that LENR has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
    It hasn’t been.
    .
    They are not arguing against the facts that I present but against me the messenger by saying , “Your are ridiculous” etc. I discount the bad grammar. I thought you were bright enough to see the difference.”
    .
    But here’s the thing: if you are going to make enthusiastic proclamations about things that most people consider nutty, you are going to have expect that people will tell you your idea is nutty.
    I get you don’t like it. But I’m not going to create a rule that people aren’t permitted to tell others that certain theories are crazy.
    .
    You nearly got it. I don’t object to people criticizing the theory, particularly with references to back up what they say, but that is NOT the case here.
    .
    This may come as a surprise to you, but this post is not about LENR. It’s true that it’s an open thread. And you are allowed to pop in and post stuff– including about LENR.
    .
    I never said it was. I made one short phrase that started the baying hounds off.
    .
    But your notion that somehow, others can’t criticize LENR here, or they can’t posting negative comments about LENR or saying LENR is crazy is disrupting the thread is ridiculous.
    .
    There you go again. I don’t mind people criticizing the theories but that is NOT what SteveF does. He said “You are an idiot.”
    He is wrong. If I were an idiot I would never have headed engineering for several large corporations. Look up idiot if you don’t know what it means.
    So he was wrong and made rude libelous statements about me, about which you never complained, but you complained about me me calling him a troll for saying so.
    .
    But the fact is: you really aren’t convincing anyone that Rossi has made any great break throughs.
    .
    It may come as a surprise to you but I don’t give a damn what SteveF et al think.

  936. Nike M,
    “I don’t know what link you refer to. Has anyone explained the excess heat in the Pons and Fleischman type experiments? It seems to me that there is evidence that something interesting and unexplained happens in those experiments. So far as I am aware, no one has shown that it is fusion (by quantifying fusion products) and no one has shown that it isn’t (by showing what it is). If I am mistaken, I’d appreciate a link to the evidence.”
    .
    Pons & Fleischmann have been replicated many times since. I referenced one such experiment earlier. It appears that by co-deposition of the Deuterium and Palladium the reaction can be duplicated with almost 100% success rate. The problem with the early efforts was a combination of failing to load the Palladium sufficiently and that the source of the Palladium seems to matter. It has recently been speculated that the addition of silver helps. Further, it has been shown (notably at SRI) the reaction produces Helium that is proof positive that it’s a nuclear reaction.

  938. Ron Graf,
    Thank you for the encouragement. I really don’t care when critics air their opinions with no proof to back them up: they are valueless.
    You could start by following the links I gave in (Comment #153439) The book link gives lots of detail about what went wrong in the analysis of Pons & Fleischmann by the biased hot fusion scientists.

  939. Adrian

    It may come as a surprise to you but I don’t give a damn what SteveF et al think.

    If you don’t give a damn what he thinks, then you should stop complaining about his expressing his thoughts. He’s allowed to express those thoughts.

    I’m not going to engage your theory that if you were an idiot you could hot have headed and engineering for large corporations except to say: had I been drinking coffee, some might have spewed through my nose.

    I’m also not going to provide a tutorial on what “libel” means.

  940. Lucia,
    “If you don’t give a damn what he thinks, then you should stop complaining about his expressing his thoughts. He’s allowed to express those thoughts.”
    ,
    I don’t care about his thoughts. I can retort if he insults me.

    I’m not going to engage your theory that if you were an idiot you could hot have headed and engineering for large corporations except to say: had I been drinking coffee, some might have spewed through my nose.
    ‘
    Do you doubt it? I can easily prove it.

  941. SteveF,
    But that is all old news. Yes, Pons and Fleischmann screwed up and behaved badly. That does not prove that they did not stumble onto something. Many people have observed the excess heat. Some claim they can now do so reproducibly. What is the source of the excess heat?

  942. Wow Adrian, do i understand you to say that you can prove that an idiot could not head engineering at a large corporation?

    That’s what you are saying when you opine that were you an idiot you could not have headed engineering at a large corporation.

    Whether an idiot can get a position like that depends on the corporation.

  944. Adrian

    I don’t care about his thoughts. I can retort if he insults me.

    Presumably you then think he can retort when you insult him.

    Do you doubt it? I can easily prove it.

    I have no doubt that idiots can become the head of engineering at firms. No need to waste time proving it.

  945. j ferguson,

    All you have to do is read the Dilbert comic strip or The Dilbert Principle to understand that it’s highly probable that any department head will be an idiot. Working for a large corporation only confirms this belief. We had an idiot for CEO for quite some time at the company where I worked.

  946. Hi DeWitt,
    I have direct experience with idiots heading engineering, two different places. My dad worked very briefly with a guy who was chief engineer in an outfit involved in electrical engineering who was clueless and whose degree was faked. He’d been there a couple of years. There was a lot of embarrassment when he was caught that he hadn’t been caught sooner.

    I suppose this is rude, but Adrian probably shouldn’t use himself as an example that corporations don’t put idiots at the head of engineering.

  947. Lucia,
    You must have a rather limited experience of industry and manufacturing corporations if you think that badly of those who head engineering. In my experience they tend to be the more sane ones at corporate level.

  949. Adrian,
    As usual, your conclusion suggests you lack critical thinking skills. Knowing that some heads of engineering are idiots doesn’t mean I think all or even most are.

    Even if your experience is generally true– that heads of engineering tend to be the more sane people at the corporate level, that wouldn’t preclude the idea that some heads of engineering are idiots.

    And if you applied logic, you would know what I say is true.

  950. j ferguson

    I suppose this is rude, but Adrian probably shouldn’t use himself as an example that corporations don’t put idiots at the head of engineering.

    Well… and especially not if he wants to use the fact that he’d been the head of engineering to support his claim he is not an idiot. Even a poor logician would see the circularity in such a claim.

  951. DeWitt,
    I think you are confused with the Peter Principle.
    But no matter. I am sure you will find something to complain about rather than have a discussion on the merits of LENR.
    I emailed Siegel once to point out a couple of errors. HIs reply was “I am too busy to look into that.”

  952. DeWitt, one of the first Dilberts I saw showed our hero asking the manager “Sales told them we could do WHAT??”

    Only someone who’d been there could have shared that.

  953. Adrian,
    I’ve read both the “Dilbert Principle” and the “Peter Principle” and I think DeWitt has not confused the two.

    I emailed Siegel once to point out a couple of errors. HIs reply was “I am too busy to look into that.”

    That was polite of him.

  955. Lucia,
    The Peter Principle is true, the Dilbert Principle not so much.
    Obviously a superior person like you knows all the answers so there is no point in debating it.

  956. Mike M.

    Read the comments. Here are two examples of what I was talking about.

    http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/12/05/the-nuclear-physics-of-why-we/#comment-18966

    http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/12/05/the-nuclear-physics-of-why-we/#comment-19075

    Or this: https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/throwback-thursday-the-foolish-fallacy-of-cold-fusion-489059f1cea4#.3zkufftke

    LENR advocates can claim until they’re blue in the face that you can have nuclear reactions that don’t involve emission of radiation, i.e. high energy photons (gamma rays), high energy electrons (beta rays), high energy positrons or neutrons, but I don’t believe that’s possible. As I said above, that would violate a very fundamental law of nature, the conservation of momentum.

  957. lucia,

    Btw, Scott Adams has said that the people he parodies in Dilbert never recognize themselves. I suspect Adrian has just proved that point again.

  958. Adrian,
    Thanks for informing us that one principle is true and the other not.

    DeWitt,
    Yep. I’m pretty sure managers who have been promoted under the “Dilbert Principle” feel certain the Dilbert Principle is not true.

  959. DeWitt,
    Your first two links are to comments made in 2011. Do you really think nothing has been done since then?
    The next is typical Siegel. He pulls out the hoary old chestnut about the chess playing robot. and spends little time on the actual science. What on earth relevance has that got? He is totally unable to grasp that LENR is different. It is LOW Energy Nuclear Reactions.
    .
    Apart from the fact that nobody yet understands what’s happening in LENR some theories propose that the energy from energetic particles is absorbed locally to the source.

    There are now too many experiments, some of them good ones, that show excess heat, to ignore all the experimental evidence, even if it is not yet explainable.

  960. Lucia,
    Thanks for informing us that senior engineers get there by the Dilbert Principle.
    I would never have guessed that.

  961. Mike M.,
    “That does not prove that they did not stumble onto something.”
    .
    It’s the whole package that is overwhelming: it’s contrary to all understanding of chemistry and physics, poorly run experiments by F&P, failure to collaborate with other groups, failure to provide sufficient data to allow replication, refusal to run even the most rudimentary control tests; not a credible shred of evidence that nuclear reactions have taken place (neutrons, gamma rays, lack of helium produced, etc), and finally that ‘cutting edge’ (fraudulent) efforts are now done by convicted criminals like Rossi. If cold fusion were real, it would be powering the world by now. It’s not real, it’s nonsensical rubbish.

  962. DeWitt: “Read the comments. Here are two examples of what I was talking about.”
    .
    So those amount to dueling assertions. The cold fusion advocates say that the imbalance is large, those commenters say it is at noise level. At least it is clear where that dispute lies. Not sure I want to bother digging through the cold fusion literature, which is surely mostly rubbish even if something interesting is going on.

  963. FWIW,
    I have known some very competent technical managers in corporations. I have known some very incompetent technical managers in corporations. I don’t subscribe to the Dilbert principle; seems to me far more likely that incompetent technical managers become managers due to a host of issues (mostly political considerations) which have nothing to do with technical competence.

  964. Adrian

    Lucia,
    Thanks for informing us that senior engineers get there by the Dilbert Principle.

    Actually, DeWitt told you that. See DeWitt Payne (Comment #153634) .
    You then suggested he meant the Peter Principle.

    All I did was point out that, no, he really means the Dilbert Principle.

    DeWitt is also the one who pointed out that those parodied in Dilbert never recognize themselves.

    Glad I could clarify the conversation for you.

  965. Mike M,
    SteveF writes” “it’s contrary to all understanding of chemistry and physics”
    That about sums up the attitude of those who think it contrary to what they learned at school and there is nothing left to be discovered.
    .
    It would be interesting to hear his analysis why BLP has got it all wrong as they publish their results and they have been independently confirmed. See:
    http://brilliantlightpower.com/plasma-video/
    .
    I know. He doesn’t believe in hydrinos.

  966. Mike M.

    When one assertion conforms to well understood physics and the other doesn’t, I know which one I lean towards.

    I really wanted to believe P&F, but the evidence is overwhelming that their data was not reliable. It’s been 27 years since P&F’s paper was published. If there had been something there, we’d have working power plants by now or at least an experimental protocol that could be replicated by anyone. Claims that research has been suppressed by the establishment ranks with claims that Big Oil suppressed a 100 mpg carburetor or a pill to convert water to gasoline.

  967. DeWitt,
    “It’s been 27 years since P&F’s paper was published. If there had been something there, we’d have working power plants by now or at least an experimental protocol that could be replicated by anyone.”
    .
    There is an experimental protocol that anyone can follow now.
    The reason for the delay was the negative, false reports by MIT and CalTech et al that killed all funding for 20 years. Even now it is almost impossible to get a US patent on LENR.

  969. Oh heavens.

    If the experimental protocol could be followed by “anyone” it would have been– and reliable replications would ensue. Lots of people have tried to replicate; but even those who claim they got good results can’t re-replicate.

    If an outcome was positive, and could b shown over and over, it wouldn’t matter what “false reports” anyone at MIT or CalTech said. Federal funding would no longer matter.

    All of these are excuses. And in fact they are excuses to explain why we have pretty much zero evidence for LENR. The evidence above “zero” is claims by people who can’t or won’t re-replicate their own experiments to show other disinterested 3rd parties.

  970. From Adrian’s link above:

    The SunCell® was invented and engineered to harness the clean energy source from the reaction the hydrogen atoms of water molecules to form a non-polluting product, lower-energy state hydrogen called “Hydrino” wherein the energy release of H2O fuel is 100 times that of an equivalent amount of high-octane gasoline at an unprecedented high power density. The compact power is manifest as tens of thousands of Sun equivalents that can be directly converted to electrical output using commercial photovoltaic cells.

    O. M. G.

  971. DeWitt,
    You could probably buy a NANOR and measure it yourself. I read they were proposing to sell them.
    I have not been following the PD/D systems for a while because they haven’t scaled up the power output much and I think other high powered systems are more promising.

  972. j ferguson,

    Has D*o*u*g C*o*t*t*o* n returned in disguise?

    That’s my opinion. Either that or He Who Shall Not Be Named whose initials are NN. No, AA appears to be a bit more intelligent than NN, just as dogmatic, though.

  973. DeWitt,
    “O.M.G.”
    Glad you got around to following a link for a change.
    Many doubt the hydrino theory, but if you have a better one feel free… The fact is experiments show a huge excess of energy.

  976. Lucia,
    I don’t care if you look at it or not. You and others have been complaining about lack of solid evidence. BLP have pretty good evidence and by conservation of miracles I think they are all LENR. As I said, NANOR is pretty solid too.

  977. DeWitt,
    “I’ve got a better idea. You buy a NANOR and send it to me.”
    .
    Why on earth would I do that? I don’t care what you think, so if you can’t believe LENR might even be true, that is your problem not mine.

  978. Adrian,

    That site is such an obvious scam that it’s pathetic. What’s even more pathetic is that you can’t see it. I’m wondering if you thought the pseudo-scientific gobbledygook spouted in Star Trek was actual science.

    I spent much of my career injecting aqueous aerosols into an inductively coupled argon plasma at over 10,000K and measuring the spectra emitted or the ions created to determine elemental concentrations in the solution. No excess energy was observed. Many, many people do this every day. ‘Hydrino’ doesn’t exist.

  979. DeWitt,
    Read the whole link. BLP have had several devices in the past that have been replicated in universities and the standard criticism is why they haven’t had a commercial unit for sale. This time it appears they are aiming to do that but only time will tell.
    .
    Just because you have spent much of your career injecting aqueous aerosols into an inductively coupled argon plasma means absolutely nothing as you well know.
    I would appreciate if you would lay off the ad hominem insults. They do nothing to further the discussion.

  980. DeWitt: “When one assertion conforms to well understood physics and the other doesn’t, I know which one I lean towards. … If there had been something there, we’d have working power plants by now or at least an experimental protocol that could be replicated by anyone.”
    .
    I am inclined to agree. My complaint is that the way to disprove such claims is to demonstrate what is actually happening, rather than merely pooh-poohing the possibility. Both sides of this debate have behaved badly.

  981. Adrian,
    You keep insisting you don’t care about ‘x’ or ‘y’. But as my big sis would say “Yeah. You do. You so obviously do.”

  983. DeWitt Payne (Comment #153451)
    ” Trying to cram a proton into a nucleus that already contains 28 protons is phenomenally unlikely.”
    Nickel Number of Protons 28.
    the element with 29 protons is copper .
    The “phenomenally unlikely” does exist.
    All you need is a phenomenally unlikely supernova with some previous supernova components to fuse together.
    –
    The mystery is how to get a useful mass of self heat generating material together cheaply and keep it together cheaply for years while producing enough heat to be both useful and not destroy the material it is made out of and not run out of cheap fuel.
    –
    It is a bit like the beaker you need to hold an acid that can dissolve any known beaker material.
    Impossible.
    While the heat from a fusion process would mean the source hydrogen atoms? were potentially limitless in human terms.
    The need to keep the concentration up as the lattice,catalyst warms [impossible chemically], the need to keep the metallic lattice intact, unmelted and functioning in a solution that is heating up to a temperature that enables that solution to be hot enough to use usefully [steam in most cases][the copper nickel palladium etc must deform, melt chemically interact or react in such a way to lose its catalytic ability].
    –
    Not to mention the first problem, that it is impossible to have fusion without high pressure and heat.
    –
    I should mention the Magic Pudding, an Australian children’s story of a talking, walking pudding that gives slices of itself to people at meal times. Besides a wide array of tastes it renews itself every morning. Some things should just be true.

  984. MikeM,

    No one is required to disprove an unproven claim to not believe it.

    There were experts who claimed that atoms could never be proven to exist, that heavier than air flying machines were impossible, that chemical rockets could never reach orbit. I doubt that is an exhaustive list.

    Who? Really– it would help to know who you think claimed what.

    Lots of experts new heavier than air flying machines were plausible before the Wright brothers demonstrated it. Lots of people were trying to do it. The US government was funding Samuel P. Langley to develop a heavier than air flying machine. Scientists and engineers did not think heavier than air flying machines would violate any laws of physics. (I’m pretty sure know one thought birds violated laws of physics when they flew.)

    There were some who had not yet seen the Wrights flying who didn’t believe they had succeeded– the main reason for the skepticsm was that all sort of people have been announcing their own success only to have…well… exaggerated. But the idea that experts believed heavier than air flight was impossible tends to be rather exaggerated. Perhaps the experts in the 12th century …. Really, it would be best to name these experts.

    I’m not sure which experts were supposed to not believe chemical rockets couldn’t get to space nor why. If you name them we can figure out whether these experts (a) where experts and (b) whether they believed something was impossible or whether it was a practical impossibility at the current time.

    Sometimes entirely possible things are practical impossibilities given the current state of technology– that’s not the same as saying something is literally impossible.

  985. angech: “All you need is a phenomenally unlikely supernova with some previous supernova components to fuse together.”
    Well, supernovas make heavy elements by cramming neutrons into the nuclei. Much easier since there is no coulomb repulsion.
    .
    “Not to mention the first problem, that it is impossible to have fusion without high pressure and heat.”
    No, fusion has been observed in liquid D2 at atmospheric pressure. All it takes is some muons, to make the tunneling easier. Fusion surely occurs in D loaded palladium; what is at issue is whether it occurs at an observable rate (unlikely, but not positively disproven).

  986. On this BLP linke:
    http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/10/29/report-from-brilliant-light-power-industry-day-event-tom-whipple/

    The report appears to be written by a credulous guy attending a dog and pony show who has no access to any details. His source of information is evidently the “company reps” (which sounds like a marketing guy). And I guess we are to think the technology is proven because the author– Tom Whipple– tells us
    “I have trouble believing that Mills and his verifiers, who were there and talked about their findings, are not telling the truth”

    Okie-dokie.

    But at least Whipple does seem to get a slam in on Rossy

    If past practice is followed, all this should be up on the web in a couple of days. The transparency of BLP is orders of magnitude above Rossi. BLP is keeping a few details of the silver/hydroxide mixture secret and say the exact mixture is very sensitive to making a good “sun”.

    Presumably we wait a few days for more stuff to be up on the web. I’ve got shpilkes!

  989. SteveF,
    No. But sometimes, you have to google and see just how long these companies have been working at — and failing– to create all this endless free energy.

    The really amazing thing is how much money they raised (and presumably spent) on their efforts

    By December 1999, BLP raised more than $25 million from about 150 investors.[2][13] By January 2006, BLP funding exceeded $60 million.[10][14][15][16] In December 2013 BLP was one of 54 applicants to receive ~$1.1M grant from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.[17]

    $25+ $60 + $1.1 million is enough to pay some of these “researchers” quite hefty salaries in addition to buying lavish equipment and so on.

    So it’s a bit harm to blame the failures to date on lack of $$.

  990. Lucia: “No one is required to disprove an unproven claim to not believe it.”
    True. But one is required to disprove a claim if one wishes to say that it has been disproven.
    .
    You quoted me: “There were experts who claimed that atoms could never be proven to exist, that heavier than air flying machines were impossible, that chemical rockets could never reach orbit. I doubt that is an exhaustive list.”
    and asked: “Who? Really– it would help to know who you think claimed what.”
    .
    I thought these were common knowledge. Ernst Mach, and many others, claimed that any speculation about atoms was unscientific. It was one of the major scientific disputes of the 19th century.
    With respect to heavier than air flying machines I probably should have said authorities since people like Lord Kelvin and Simon Newcomb were not actually experts in flight. The issue was, I think, practical engineering, not fundamental laws and there were, as you point out, others who disagreed.
    I based by statement about chemical rockets on the famous dissing of Goddard by the New York Time. I always assumed that they were quoting authorities, but I can find no evidence of that.
    .
    You wrote “There were some who had not yet seen the Wrights flying who didn’t believe they had succeeded”.
    A big reason for that is that once the Wrights achieved genuine sustained, controlled flight in 1905, they completely shut down their experiments and did no public demonstrations until 1908.
    .
    You wrote: “Sometimes entirely possible things are practical impossibilities given the current state of technology– that’s not the same as saying something is literally impossible.”
    Agreed. But that has not stopped some very smart people from claiming that something impossible in practice was literally impossible.

  991. Oh. I see mention of the NANOR has resurfaced.
    FWIW, back here in September of last year, I inquired about purchasing a NANOR.
    .
    I have yet to get a response.
    .
    It’d be neat if LENR is real. But for my part, I went through a heck of a lot of websites and looked at everything I could find on this last year. I was unpersuaded. I am not aware of any new research, just reports on the activities of apparent con men like Rossi. BTW, I think the question of whether or not Rossi is a con man is independent of whether or not there could be something to LENR. I’m quite sure about Rossi. I have seen no persuasive evidence regarding LENR. But who knows?
    .
    I’m not rehashing my old arguments with Adrian though. It looks like old ground is getting covered (back to NANOR, for example). I don’t have anything new to say on the subject.

  992. Mike M,
    “All it takes is some muons, to make the tunneling easier. Fusion surely occurs in D loaded palladium; what is at issue is whether it occurs at an observable rate (unlikely, but not positively disproven).”
    .
    This is utter rubbish on multiple levels. Adding muons to facilitate tunneling through the coulomb barrier is completely different, because the distance between nuclei is reduced some 200 fold at equilibrium. Deuterium dissolved in metals is nothing like that… the deuterium nuclei remain at just about the same separation when dissolved or not dissolved. Fusion most certainly does NOT occur at an observable rate in palladium. Nor is there any good reason to think it should. Nor is there a shred of credible evidence.

  993. Lucia,
    I am reminded by these nutty free-energy claims of the old “water injection carburetor” scams of ~30 years ago… just as OPEC was restricting oil production and gas prices skyrocketed. The claims of two or three fold increases in MPG were risible on their face. No amount of discussion of Carnot efficiencies and thermodynamics could influence those who had bought into the crazy claims. Cold fusion and related scams…. and their silly devotees….. follow the same pattern.

  994. MikeM,

    It would be nice to read some actual quotes of what Mach said. I did find a quote here:

    I have no doubt that if, somewhere in the universe a creature organized like ourselves could make observations … it would perceive a universe working similarly to that we ourselves describe …. As for the reality of atoms: I have no doubt that if atomic theory corresponds to the reality given by the senses, the conclusions drawn from it will also bear some relation to the facts — though what relation remains unclear. The distance from the glass of the first dark ring in reflected light corresponds to one-half of the period of Newton’s ‘fits’, but to one quarter of Young and Fresnel’s ‘wavelength’. The findings of atomic theory, likewise, can undergo a variety of convenient reinterpretations, even if we are in no great hurry to take them for realities. [Mach 1910: 36-37]

    This hardly sounds like someone who was suggesting that atoms could not exist.
    I find quotes here too: http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/science-and-technology/physics-biographies/ernst-mach
    Nothing indicates he thought atoms could not exist. Merely that he did not necessarily take them to necessarily be real merely because their existance provided a good explanation of what we saw.

    That Mach’s view was for the primacy of observation– sure. But saying speculation is unscientific is different from saying the things one speculates about cannot exist.

    I probably should have said authorities since people like Lord Kelvin

    Wiki quote tells us this

    Often reproduced out of context and without citation to any primary source as “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible”, like in The Experts Speak : The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation (1984) by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, p. 236

    https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Thomson
    In other words: We don’t know if Kelvin every said it at all.
    As for Newcomb, Wikipedia tells us this

    He begins an article titled “Is the Airship Possible?” with the remark, “That depends, first of all, on whether we are to make the requisite scientific discoveries.” He ends with the remark “the construction of an aerial vehicle … which could carry even a single man from place-to-place at pleasure requires the discovery of some new metal or some new force.”[16]

    In the October 22, 1903, issue of The Independent, Newcomb made the well-known remark that “May not our mechanicians . . . be ultimately forced to admit that aerial flight is one of the great class of problems with which man can never cope, and give up all attempts to grapple with it?”,[17][18] completed by the motivation that even if a man flew he could not stop. “Once he slackens his speed, down he begins to fall. Once he stops, he falls as a dead mass.” He had no concept of an airfoil. His “aeroplane” was an inclined “thin flat board”. He therefore concluded that it could never carry the weight of a man.

    Newcomb was specifically critical of the work of Samuel Pierpont Langley, who claimed that he could build a flying machine powered by a steam engine and whose initial efforts at flight were public failures.[19] In 1903, however, Newcomb was also saying, “Quite likely the 20th century is destined to see the natural forces which will enable us to fly from continent to continent with a speed far exceeding that of a bird. But when we inquire whether aerial flight is possible in the present state of our knowledge; whether, with such materials as we possess, a combination of steel, cloth and wire can be made which, moved by the power of electricity or steam, shall form a successful flying machine, the outlook may be altogether different.”[20]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Newcomb
    This is hardly saying flight is impossible. He was wrong that it required discovery of a new metal– but that’s not the same as saying it was impossible. And one of the Wright brothers breakthroughs was lighter engines so thinking something to reduce weight was necessary was not far off the mark given other technological requirements at the time.

    I don’t know the context of any quotes by Kelvin, but they may have been similar. Do you have a quote in context? Rather than just bare?

    Agreed. But that has not stopped some very smart people from claiming that something impossible in practice was literally impossible.

    Well, Newcombe did not say heavier than air flight was impossible. And Mach did not say atoms could not exist. And we don’t have enough context on Kelvin to know if he really meant heavier than air flight was “impossible” or if he only meant he thought right now, today, given what we have, he doesn’t believe it’s feasibility.

  996. Lucia,
    They may never had said flight was impossible but several here have claimed LENR is impossible. Seems to me unduly dogmatic at this early stage of the game.

  997. Lucia,
    I glanced through the source you provided and found this:
    “Mach’s uncompromising rejection of the atomic theory, for example, far surpassed that of his contempories who, even when noncommittal about atoms and molecules as existential entities, never questioned its extraordinary usefulness as a powerful hypothesis. Mach became less denunciatory about the theory as he became older, but it is doubtful that he ever abandoned his dogmatic antiatomistic position, even after the discoveries at the turn of the century had furnished rather convincing evidence that he was wrong.”
    .
    The Mach quote you provided appears to be from 1910, after the question had bee clearly decided in favor of the atomists. Mach’s position was extreme, but he was hardly alone. Ostwald, for instance, remained opposed to the atomic theory well after that was reasonable.
    .
    I did not that Mach claimed that atoms could not exist, only that he argued they could never be proven to exist and so would remain an untestable (and therefore unscientific) speculation. He was wrong.

  1000. Lucia: “Do you have actual quotes of what he said or wrote?”
    No. And frankly, I no longer see the point of this exchange.

  1001. Ok, fair enough. We don’t need to continue it.

    But I can’t know what it was Mach did or did not believe. That a person (like Mach) might have no patience for discussing something that cannot be seen or measured at the time is not remotely like saying their existence violates the law of physics nor that they can’t exist.

    So I’m must not seeing how what he says tells us anything about anyone’s arguments about LENR or cold fusion.

  1002. Lucia,
    The problem I have with the arguments against cold fusion is that they are unscientific. When D dissolves in palladium, the atoms reside at specific sites. They move from site to site by tunneling. So a D atom at a specific site has some nonzero probability density in the nearest neighbor sites. If there is a D atom in a next nearest neighbor site, it also has some nonzero probability density in the common nearest neighbor site. So there must be some nonzero rate of fusion.
    .
    How fast is that fusion rate? Nobody knows. It has never been calculated. So far as I know, nobody has even put a firm upper bound on it. Note that I am not assuming any new physics. So we don’t know if it is observable. If it is observable, it might tell us something very interesting, but if we close our eyes to the possibility, then we will never learn what we might learn.
    .
    Cold fusion does not violate any fundamental laws of physics. The claim that the rate is so small that it can never be observed appears to be mere dogmatism. I am inclined to believe that if it were large enough to be practical, we would not still be arguing over it. But even if it only occurs at the very slow rate reported by Steven Jones, it would still be a hugely important discovery. But people aren’t allowed to consider that possibility.
    .
    p.s. When I wrote that I don’t see the point of the discussion, I was referring to the discussion of what this or that 19th century physicist said or believed.

  1003. MikeM,
    Of course people are allowed to consider any possibility they like. And some do. Presumably Steven Jones does.

    But people don’t need to explain excess heat in Pons and Fleishman because it’s not replicable and there may never have been any. Sure, maybe it was there– but maybe it was just a calorimetry error. Or something.

    Ane people don’t need to explain LENR because it also hasn’t been replicated in anyway that permits outsiders to see it.

    And no one needs to explain the BLP light experiments Adrian showed, because… well.. also not subject to independent review.

    It may be that we will learn of the need for some extension of our current understanding based on something that is shown by someone. But we don’t need to change our understanding based on things that have not been observed and replicated.

    Of course if someone makes replicable observations of things previously believed impossible, they will deserve some sort of prize. But as long as they haven’t, then people can point out that according to current understanding, that wouldn’t happen. And they can also point out that we haven’t observed it either.

    After that we can speculate all we want about hypothetical things that would be interesting if they were observed. Like WARP drive.

  1004. Mike M.

    The problem is that D-D fusion in the real world always produces 3He and a neutron with a total energy of 3.27MeV or T (tritium) and a proton with an energy of 4.03MeV. The chemical binding forces in PdD are many orders of magnitude too small to prevent this. There’s hand waving about phonon coupling that would allow the transient intermediate 4He* to lose that energy without losing a proton or neutron, but it’s just that, hand waving.

  1005. DeWitt,
    You addressed comment #153712 to me, but I am afraid that I don’t see what it has to do with anything I wrote.

  1006. Lucia: “But people don’t need to explain excess heat in Pons and Fleishman because it’s not replicable and there may never have been any.”
    .
    I have read otherwise with respect to the excess heat; I guess I will have to look into that. I agree with respect to Rossi, BLP, etc.
    .
    I know that people have criticized Jones’s statistics, but I have not heard of attempts to replicate his work under conditions that would give better statistics. It may have been drowned out by all the noise from Pons and Fleischmann.

  1007. Adrian, I came into this with an open mind. After doing some reading on BLP and hydrinos I have to conclude it is a scam. I found BLP’s story to implausible. What really stopped me was their claim that hydrinos are the dark matter scientists have been looking for. When you see something like that you have to go “Wow.”
    .
    Here is a good link that explains these operators MO. The are really very much based on the Nigerian Prince scam where there is a somewhat litigate excuse for secrecy and moving outside of official channels. The start is a small transfer fee. But then they run into a problem. The official in charge of the transfer is suspicious and needs a bribe! There are endless delays that can all be solved by just a another check.
    .
    This all said, there are still legitimate researchers on the fringe and there will still be unexpected discoveries by small operators. But they are crowed 1000:1 by scammers, unfortunately.

  1008. Lucia,
    “But people don’t need to explain excess heat in Pons and Fleishman because it’s not replicable and there may never have been any. Sure, maybe it was there– but maybe it was just a calorimetry error. Or something.”
    .
    Why do you claim it’s not replicable when dozens claim to have done so? See http://lenr-canr.org
    It would help if you read the first few chapters of the book I linked earlier that explains why excess heat was overlooked by the critics.
    .
    For the third time of asking, how many replications does it take before you believe it?

  1009. Ron Graf,
    I don’t consider BLP’s SunCell proven yet either, but like with Rossi I say it is foolish to dismiss it out of hand. Wait and see if a commercial unit surfaces. As Rossi pointed out there are many who will never believe any experimental proof because they are convinced the physics they learned at school rules it out. ANY experiment showing excess heat must therefore be experimental error according to them.
    .
    The link you gave falls into the same trap they complain about. The huge excess power BLP claims is NOT continuous and in the early days the gaps between the pulses were far longer than the pulses were. But according to what they now say it has been verified independently that they pulse rate has increased to be almost continuous .
    Let’s wait and see.
    .
    As I stated earlier, LENR has been proven for the Pd/D system of LENR unless you will never believe any replication and wish to make Rossi’s forecast about that true.

  1010. Mike M.

    You said:

    So we don’t know if it is observable. If it is observable, it might tell us something very interesting, but if we close our eyes to the possibility, then we will never learn what we might learn.

    It it existed, it would be observable because there would be neutron and proton emission. There isn’t. People have looked.

    Calculating tunneling probability does not require a supercomputer. You could do it yourself. All the necessary data are available.

  1011. DeWitt,
    “Calculating tunneling probability does not require a supercomputer.”
    .
    No, it doesn’t. You only need to know that the distance between the nuclei remains orders of magnitude too large for tunneling to ever happen. If one even briefly looks at the literature of dissolution and migration of hydrogen in metals (including palladium) it is pretty clear it is a well plowed field, and nothing mysterious is going on. The mechanism for diffusion of hydrogen through palladium has been studied for a long time…. ‘tunneling of protons’ is not involved. The cold fusion rubbish is endless. The scams will apparently never end.

  1012. Lucia,
    “Lots of people have tried to replicate; but even those who claim they got good results can’t re-replicate. ” (Comment #153661)
    .
    You have already forgotten my earlier link. (Comment #153439)
    .“Qualitatively, 100% reproducibility has been established. The future research target is therefore: “how to increase heat generation, and how to use inexpensive materials such as nickel with light hydrogen, instead of palladium and deuterium” says Hideki Yoshino, president of Clean Planet. ”
    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KanekoKcoldfusion.pdf
    .
    “As usual, your conclusion suggests you lack critical thinking skills.”
    As you delight in mocking my meager experience once you clear your nose of coffee you should be able to see the disconnect.

  1013. DeWitt Payne,
    “It it existed, it would be observable because there would be neutron and proton emission.”
    .
    You are assuming conventional nuclear reactions. LENR is clearly something different. Hence the name.

  1016. Adrian, do you believe this BLP Theory page?

    Hydrinos further react to form the corresponding very stable molecules, and neither hydrinos nor molecular hydrinos emit or absorb electromagnetic radiation as is typical of electronic transitions of the ordinary species. Observations support that hydrinos is the identity of the dark matter of the universe. [emphasis added]

  1017. mark bofill,
    It is very much like the song that never ends: just as annoying, and doubly stupid.
    .
    Ron Graf,
    “Observations support that hydrinos is the identity of the dark matter of the universe.”
    One would have to be particularly deranged to not appreciate the humor/idiocy in that statement. But ‘particularly deranged’ is indeed an apropos description of the world of cold fusion.

  1018. Adrian,

    There are claims that excess heat has been observed. Those observations are the result of either incompetence or fraud. They do not constitute the extraordinary evidence required for the extraordinary claims. That you believe them and also apparently believe that BLP isn’t a scam just proves that you’re gullible.

  1019. Mike M.

    Tunneling of D in Pd is probably only important at low temperatures. For H, it’s below 120K. Above that temperature, transport is by thermal diffusion. The tunneling mechanism is not universally accepted either.

  1020. DeWitt,
    Yes, tunneling is only faster than barrier hopping at low temperature. The former is only weakly dependent on temperature while the latter increases strongly with temperature. But the tunneling still occurs at high temperature even though barrier hopping is faster.
    .
    There must be some fusion occurring in D loaded metals. It is probably so slow that any neutrons emitted would be far below background. But we do not actually know that. I don’t mind someone saying that they think it so unlikely that they don’t want to waste their time on it. But shutting down, or shouting down, people who do choose to investigate such a possibility is not appropriate.

  1021. DeWitt,
    “There are claims that excess heat has been observed. Those observations are the result of either incompetence or fraud.”
    .
    That is your arrogant opinion. A number of competent engineers and scientist say they have confirmed it. Why should I believe you? You know nothing about it and haven’t even seen it, let alone actually done any experiments yourself.

  1022. Ron Graf,
    “Adrian, do you believe this BLP Theory page?”
    .
    Mills’ theory is laid out in detail in his book
    The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Physics There are several GUTs that, as far as I know, can’t be proven. I certainly don’t know enough to pass judgement on them but I expect some arrogant “insolent disrupter” know-it-all here will give a definitive answer.
    .
    There are some holes in the standard atomic theory and QM so those will change one day.

  1023. Ron Graf,
    A better answer to your question is this university lecture comparing parts of QM with Mills’s theory. It is an hour and a half long but that is much shorter than trying to wade through Mills’ 1,700 page book.
    http://webcast.massey.ac.nz/Mediasite/Play/8ef7e03e26fc458b8eb7f351738f26811d
    .
    I must say I find Mills’ more realistic description of particles appealing and he certainly wins when it comes to calculating the binding force of molecules.

  1024. Catching up on this thread with a glass of merlot on sunday evening has been great fun.

    Adrian: I find myself back in the late 80s as an A-level student hearing the news that P+F had discovered cold fusion. Can you imagine the vistas that opened out in front of a 17-year-old? I saw “electricity too cheap to meter”. I saw an end to poverty. Universal access to energy… free or very cheap energy.

    And then…

    You’ve heard of the little boy who cried wolf? Well, in the story there really was a wolf. I’m sceptical that there ever was LENR.

    The scam (I’m calling it that advisedly) involves keeping the commercial unit tantalisingly close, but it never arrives. [It can never arrive because the machine doesn’t work – but it has to be “tantalisingly” close.]

    I’m afraid I can’t help but think that if it worked, our world would look fundamentally different by now.

  1025. Mike M.

    I suspect that if you worked out the D-D fusion tunneling probability, you’d need a mountain of deuterium loaded Pd to get one neutron in any rational finite amount of time, like a year. I could calculate it, but it’s not worth the effort.

  1026. Jit,
    Of course you can have your own opinion.
    What I have said is that Pd/D LENR has been proven but it has never been scaled up. It might have been if government funds had been allocated to research on it, but instead the gate keepers have gone out of their way to even stop private funds being used. I’ve asked Lucia three times how many replications it would take to convince her without a reply.
    .
    I find other systems more interesting – exciting if you will – because they promise the goodies of cheap power. They have not been proven yet but Rossi’s first demo was in 2011 and that is not a long time to get a new technology to the market. He did build a commercial 1 MW plant that ran for a year. You can argue that it’s not his fault that the results are tied up in court. If he is operating a scam it is a very novel one where he spends his own money on further development, works very long hours and refuses to take a deposit from pre-orders. He could have retired several times with what he has been paid.
    .
    Don’t take my word for it. Look at the literature and make up your own mind.

  1028. Adrian, I would be convinced by one truly independent test of a LENR patented of secret design using thermogravimetric analysis, which is done every day in labs to analyze heat density. As I commented 12 days ago, there should be two or more duplicate apparatuses built on slightly differing parameters, all putting out continuous multiple data-streams. The analysis of this data, not reports, would be the confirmation needed. Reports are talk. Data is evidence.

  1029. Ron Graf,
    thermogravimetric analysis would be excruciatingly difficult to carry out. What’s wrong with good old calorimetry?

  1030. 1) The energy/heat must be monitored in a way to continuously analyze to the reactants quantitatively as the experiment is proceeding in order to rule out any possible mis-accounting.
    2) The production of the data stream would be very difficult to fake and would be able to provide insights and explanation for the heat rather than accept the inference by process of elimination. The extra apparatuses running in slightly different configurations would produce differing data profiles that should be reconciled to the theory.
    3) Just finding total heat out minus total energy in does not cut it when extraordinary evidence is in order. Anything that David Copperfield would be able to create must be ruled out completely.

  1031. Adrian,

    Yes. If they’re not in on the scam, then the phrase that applies is useful idiots. I suspect you fall into the same class.

    If Hydrino actually existed, it should be formed during a lightning strike, where temperatures can reach 300,000K, vastly increasing the energy of the strike. But it doesn’t.

  1032. DeWitt,
    You suffer from excessive hubris when you dismiss all who disagree with you as useful idiots.
    As you know, I maintain that Pd/D LENR has been proven but that the jury is still out on the other systems like Ni/LAH/Li.
    Unlike you, I have an open mind on that, but you apparently treat the science you learned at school as a religion that never changes.

  1033. Ron Graf,
    I thought you were suggesting measuring the weight loss of the reactor which would be very small.
    Regular calorimetry done by an competent, independent authority is perfectly adequate. Copperfield is not involved.

  1034. Ron Graf,
    ps. I think Rossi is right, that the pathological critics will never believe any experimental evidence only commercial units out in the market.

  1035. Adrian (#153855) –
    Whether I’m pathological or not remains to be seen, but this is being touted as a “game-changer”. Even if one believes the laboratory results, the game doesn’t change unless any such new technology is commercialized.

    Until then, LENR [or hydrinos, for that matter] is just vaporware.

  1036. I have been starting to look at the excess heat literature. Looks way iffier than what is claimed by the cold fusion advocates.

  1037. I think it’s funny that Adrian calls those who criticize Rossi “pathological” (reusing Rossi’s word) and yet gets upset if people call those who support Rossy or BLP “idiots” or “crackpots”.

    FWIW: Seems to me Ron Grafs suggestion of thermogravimetric tests is helpful. Even if it’s more tedious than calorimetry, big claims need solid evidence. So I should think if this is really a fundamental breakthrough, a scientist would want to do the best most precise experiment they can. The experiments need to be transparent, and overseen by at least some who doubt.

  1038. HaroldW,
    I basically agree: the game doesn’t change until reactors are available commercially, although it should be possible to prove by careful experiments and forecast that.
    My beef is with those who are so certain that it doesn’t work and is a fraud, with no proof of that.
    Those who who treat science as an unchanging religion that they learned at school.

  1039. HaroldW,
    ps. Look at ITER. 35+ years, not yet break even and billions of dollars, yet well accepted by the scientific “consensus.”
    My engineering view is that a Tokamak design is very unlikely to ever be an economic solution for power. The first commercial unit is forecast to be in the 2070s!

  1040. Ron Graf: “1) The energy/heat must be monitored in a way to continuously analyze to the reactants quantitatively as the experiment is proceeding in order to rule out any possible mis-accounting.”
    .
    That is the right idea. It looks like the cold fusion people do not use state of the art calorimetry, not do they properly calibrate and test their calorimeters, nor do they monitor the reaction products, whether conventional (D2, O2) or nuclear (He, T). They have no right to expect to be believed if they do not take such steps.

  1041. Mike M,
    It was a pity that the sloppy replications by MIT and CalTech essentially defunded LENR after P&F’s announcement.
    As a result many of the LENR experiments were so poorly funded they left a lot to be desired. I believe the game has changed in the last year or so and many universities (not in the US) and large corporations are starting to look at it.
    Obviously if a commercial unit surfaces next year there will be a lot more money available.

  1042. Mike M.

    It was calibration and validation that did in P&F. They assumed, incorrectly, that 100% of the energy from the calibration resistor was being absorbed and that mixing was adequate. They never validated the precision and accuracy using chemical reactions with well known heats of reaction.

  1043. Lucia,
    “I think it’s funny that Adrian calls those who criticize Rossi “pathological” (reusing Rossi’s word) and yet gets upset if people call those who support Rossy or BLP “idiots” or “crackpots”.”
    .
    I hope you didn’t get more coffee up your nose.
    Wrong. I don’t call those who criticize Rossi’s actual work on LENR as pathological, but only those who make ad hominem attacks on him and are so certain that he is a fraud without providing proof of same.
    .
    It is unreasonable and just plain insulting to repeatedly call me an idiot or a crackpot because I have an open mind on the subject and my opinion is different from theirs. It should be possible to disagree without insulting the other person. If people do that I sometimes hold up a mirror.
    .
    For the fourth time of asking, how many replications of P&F would to take to convince you the effect is real?
    .
    EDIT no longer works for me even if I try that within a few seconds of posting. It worked intermittently before.

  1044. DeWitt: “They assumed, incorrectly, that 100% of the energy from the calibration resistor was being absorbed and that mixing was adequate. They never validated the precision and accuracy using chemical reactions with well known heats of reaction.”
    .
    Thank you. That is consistent with what I have been reading. That sort of criticism is vastly superior to “it can not possibly happen”.

  1045. DeWitt,
    “It was calibration and validation that did in P&F.”
    .
    I don’t believe it was that. They were not really interested in the anomalous heat but only the lack of radiation.
    If you had followed the link I gave earlier to the book describing what happened you might change your view.

  1046. Adrian

    For the fourth time of asking, how many replications of P&F would to take to convince you the effect is real?
    .

    Most of us would like to see at least two actual replications. Don’t keep asking if we’ve looked at your links. The answer is “Yes.”.

  1047. DeWitt.
    Please change “but only the lack of radiation.” to what I should have written. “but mainly to the lack of evidence that it was a nuclear reaction in particular radiation.”
    .
    Edit doesn’t work for me.

  1048. Lucia,
    “Most of us would like to see at least two actual replications. Don’t keep asking if we’ve looked at your links. The answer is “Yes.”.”
    .
    Well I linked one earlier so all I have to do is provide another and you will be convinced?

  1049. Mike M.

    You’re welcome.

    The problem is that for most people, and that includes me, it’s not worth digging through the experimental sections of papers to see what was and wasn’t done. It’s a lot easier to just assume there are errors because the result flies in the face of well known physics.

    You probably aren’t, for example, going to look to see why a claimed perpetual motion machine doesn’t work unless you need an example for a Freshman Physics book you’re writing.

  1051. Adrian (#153874) –
    I agree about ITER. When I was a lad many years ago, a fusion energy source seemed all but inevitable within my lifetime. Sadly, it has not come to pass, nor do I believe it will. [Within my lifetime, that is. Eventually, perhaps.]

    Yes, the basic concept of ITER is accepted by scientific consensus. [Not sure about why you put that within quotation marks.] Mainly because it is observed in the sun: hydrogen (protons) at high density and temperature can fuse, releasing energy. As to the engineering issues involved in achieving the requisite conditions for energy gain (with a tokamak or other proposed techniques), I don’t think there’s any consensus, beyond a shared recognition that implementation is way harder than was believed 50 years ago.

    This is in stark contrast to hydrinos (for example) where the theory is not established. I am sure that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy. However, the default response to “unbelievable” things is skepticism: someone elsewhere has given the example of faster-than-light neutrinos. Many persons worked quite hard at replicating or at finding the source of the observational error, yet it took some time to arrive at the solution; and lo and behold, the consensus was unchanged when the smoke had cleared.

  1052. Adrian,
    If you think any of those are convincing, you should pick one and explain in your own words why it it convincing. Perhaps you can get a free blog, compose a post and we can read it.

  1053. Adrian,
    I think the final bit of the conclusion in the paper you link is hilarious

    On November 2011, the LENR research at SSC-Pacific was terminated. The official reason given by SSC-Pacific’s PAO, Ji
    m Fallin, to Steve Krivit of New Energy Times for the termination the LENR work at SSC-Pacific is:

    “In response to your recent query,” Fallin wrote, “while I won’t discuss details of
    our internal decision-making processes, I will confirm SPAWAR plans no further low-energy nuclear reaction
    (LENR) research. There are other organizations
    within the federal government that are better aligned to continue research
    regarding nuclear power. We have taken initial steps to determine how a
    transition of low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research might occur.”

    The implications of this statement are that both SPAWAR HQ and SSC-Pacific say that the
    phenomenon is real and that it is nuclear in nature.

    Note: SPAWAR does not say LENR is real, and they have cut all further investigation. But evidently the conclusion of the authors of the report Adrian links wish us to believe the “implication” of SPAWAR ending all further investigations into LENR is that SPAWAR say the phenomena is real. NOT! 🙂

  1054. For any who are genuinely curious and remain undecided, I recommend skipping straight to searching for materials by Pamela Mosier Boss on the subject and her work at SPAWAR Last time I looked into this she was the closest thing to a credible researcher looking into this. Her work moved the needle slightly for me, from the ‘utterly preposterous’ mark to ‘extremely improbable’.
    From what I can recall, and I may have this wrong: Even those who looked at this and believed excess heat was measured agreed that the effects weren’t repeatable / reproduce-able.
    This is all old old news. My takeaway from this story: even real and well respected scientists can fool themselves or make mistakes.
    [Oh. Heh. I started writing this before I saw Lucia’s comment above. 🙂 ]

  1055. mark bofill: “For any who are genuinely curious and remain undecided, I recommend skipping straight to searching for materials by Pamela Mosier Boss … Her work moved the needle slightly for me, from the ‘utterly preposterous’ mark to ‘extremely improbable’.”
    .
    Thanks for this. I had the same reaction to the work by Mosier-Boss with the addition of “and maybe too quickly dismissed”. But I never looked at the original papers and I had forgotten her name. I guess I will look for some of her stuff to see if it is better than the crappy older stuff.

  1056. DeWitt,
    There is a difference between things that violate the fundamental laws of physics and things that are merely extremely unexpected. You are, of course, entitled to ignore the latter. But the latter should not be suppressed. Given all the useless work that gets funded and published, I have no problem with some resources going to things that are almost certainly wrong but would be huge discoveries if right.

  1057. Mike M.,
    .
    I’ll go this far. I’ll entertain the idea that something is producing excess heat once in a blue moon in some subset of these experiments. Maybe, just maybe, there is some rare randomly occurring arrangement of nano materials scale structures on the surface of some of the samples used that … who knows. Are involved in some effect we don’t understand yet. The lack of gamma radiation implies to me that it’s not nuclear, but maybe there is something there.
    .
    But. If it’s not reproduce-able, it’s a curiosity. You can’t do anything with it, except maybe to stay away from it in your designs if you really believe it might behave in an unexpected way every once in a great long while.
    .
    I can’t post on this topic without shrugging at least once.
    shrug

  1058. Lucia,
    I don’t think there is any point in trying to explain the various papers in simple terms. I think Rossi is right that skeptics will not believe just an experiment.
    DeWitt has made it clear he thinks that if any experiment shows anomalous heat that is proof of fraud or experimental error.
    .
    I don’t expect to convert the hardcore skeptics like SteveF: all I can do is open the eyes of others who are not closed minded that the possibility is real. I hope I have done that.

  1059. Adrian

    I don’t think there is any point in trying to explain the various papers in simple terms.

    I don’t think you can explain what you think is convincing about the paper at all. I think you know you can’t and that’s why you convince yourself there is no point in trying.

  1061. mark bofill: ” If it’s not reproduce-able, it’s a curiosity.”
    I agree. What made me rethink back when the Mosier-Boss work was being reported was the claim that it had become reproducible. Do you know if that claim turned out to be mistaken?

  1062. Adrian,
    .
    Well, that’d be great. Please excuse me for not climbing on the bandwagon just yet. If this turns out to be so, then I expect people all over the world will start to reproduce this with great success. One of those people might even get me that replication procedure I’ve always wanted, and should that happen I might have a hack at it myself.
    .
    BUT. Pardon me for interjecting my big bold butt.
    .
    Until that day comes, and that day does not appear to be today, we are basically just B.S.ing here.

  1063. Adrian,
    .
    Well, that’d be great. Please excuse me for not climbing on the bandwagon just yet. If this turns out to be so, then I expect people all over the world will start to reproduce this with great success. One of those people might even get me that replication procedure I’ve always wanted, and should that happen I might have a hack at it myself.
    .
    BUT. Pardon me for interjecting my big bold butt.
    .
    Until that day comes, and that day does not appear to be today, we are basically just B.S.ing here.
    .
    MikeM,
    .
    I’d have to dig. To some extent common sense stopped me; if it was reproduce-able we’d have machines using it today. But I’m pretty confident I read reports at the time of other real scientists who were trying and failing to reproduce.

  1064. I promised myself I would not respond to Adrian, but I can not let this pass. “Qualitatively, 100% reproducibility …”. Quantitatively, that is quackery.

  1065. Lucia,
    It always strikes me as strange when people think they can tell what another person thinks better than that person them self. So as you appear to take some delight in mocking me what you said is no surprise. Did it cause you to snort coffee through your nose?

  1066. Adrian,
    .
    Well, that’d be great. Please excuse me for not climbing on the bandwagon just yet. If this turns out to be so, then I expect people all over the world will start to reproduce this with great success. One of those people might even get me that replication procedure I’ve always wanted, and should that happen I might have a hack at it myself.
    .
    BUT. Pardon me for interjecting my big bold butt.
    .
    Until that day comes, and that day does not appear to be today, we are basically just B.S.ing here.

    (uhm, apologies if this comment shows up in triplicate; the automated defenses at the Blackboard sometimes realize that I’m actually a bot and not a human and kick me the heck out. :/ )

  1067. Mike M,
    The paper was translated from Japanese. Perhaps you should read the original.
    As I said, co-deposition makes the process reproducible but you only want to cherry pick bits to poke fun at and miss the real point.

  1068. Adrian,
    People often infer motives and thoughts of others. If that strikes you as strange, you should get out and meet more people.

    Lucia

  1069. Adrian,
    .
    That’d be great. I imagine in the months to come I’ll hear overwhelming reports of replications and that’ll be absolutely peachy keen fine in my book. Until then though, pardon me for not climbing onto the bandwagon.
    Why don’t we revisit the discussion when these widespread replications come to light, rather than continuing this premature speculation? Real question. My answer, I think this’d be a way more efficient way to allocate time.
    .
    Mike M,
    .
    I’m confident I read reports that seemed to indicate other (real) researchers were systematically trying and failing to replicate. Some mixed results, if memory serves.

  1070. Lucia,
    What you wrote was: “I think you know you can’t”
    You KNOW no such thing. I KNOW what I’m thinking. You are dead wrong – again.

  1071. mark bofill.
    LENR is one of the very few things I’m not pessimistic about in these troubling political and economic times.
    .
    As I’ve said many times, let’s wait and see. At least it is something interesting to keep up with in the news.
    I know many of the early efforts didn’t work but now some have solved that problem for Pd/D. The problem is lack of hard data for the other systems like Ni/LAH/Li and BLP that are claimed to produce real power. I’m optimistic things will look up next year.

  1073. DeWitt: “You probably aren’t, for example, going to look to see why a claimed perpetual motion machine doesn’t work unless you need an example for a Freshman Physics book you’re writing.”
    .
    I believe you and SteveF are just as off base as I think Adrian is. There is credible research being done on cold fusion. That would not occur if it was a “perpetual motion machine.” At the same time this opens the door for all spectrum of scams, failures and fools to be in the mix. But one in a 1000 means that perhaps the 1000th project will be the reproducible breakthrough.
    .
    I did not realize that the Lockheed Martin announcement last year about their fusion program was cold fusion.

    McGuire acknowledges that his team still has a long way to go, but he explains that the road is set in front of them – and the development of the program has no real reason of failing. But having seen so many world class scientists fall prey to the mirage that is cold fusion, can his claims really be trusted? I’m not sure. I want to believe, and Lockheed Martin is certainly a company which should be taken seriously, but at the moment, there are just to many question marks. I guess we’ll just have to wait this one out and see what happens.

    .
    If this is the case that Lockheed has been working on cold fusion for the last 10 years I think both DeWitt and SteveF owe anyone an apology they called an idiot for considering the topic.

  1074. Ron Graf,
    The Lockheed Martin fusion project that was in the news a few years ago was conventional fusion, not cold fusion. I think the author you quote was using cold fusion to cast doubt on all fusion research, or at least all such research outside of multi-billion dollar government projects.

  1075. Ron Graf.
    I’m afraid that linked article was badly confused. My understanding of what Lockheed Martin is doing is a novel design of hot fusion.
    Others, like Airbus, are working on cold fusion and have even taken out patents on their work.
    .
    You wrote I was “off base”. What have I got wrong?

  1077. Yes, I see the article was really confused about compact fusion being cold fusion. I still think there are some legitimate corporate projects and will link them. Mitsubishi might have been working on a cold neutronic ablation method of treating nuclear waste, for example.

  1078. Ron Graf,
    There are several corporations who have admitted working on cold fusion. I suspect there are quite a few others either looking into it or actually working on it that are keeping quiet about it. See page 6 of http://www.lenrproof.com for a list.
    .
    You never answered my question. Where was I wrong? Quotes would be good.

  1079. lucia (Comment #153899) —
    It takes a lot of willpower to read this as an endorsement of LENR:

    In response to your recent query, while I won’t discuss details of our internal decision-making processes, I will confirm SPAWAR plans no further low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research. There are other organizations within the federal government that are better aligned to continue research regarding nuclear power.

    Most would understand this to mean “not interested…please go bother someone else.” Much as one would politely dismiss a proselytizer coming by one’s house.

  1080. Adrian, I watched the full 1.5 hrs of Dr. Huub Bakkar, professor at Massey University in New Zealand. It was very interesting. I can say that I am moved off the notion that Mills is a run of the mill scammer. Either he is one of the best of all time or our fundamental model of particle physics must be revised substantially. Dr. Bakker rightly pointed out there is no middle ground. And, since I have not been able to do my own checking on Mills’s calculations for molecular bond energies I am wondering if you have or know someone else who has.
    .
    I noticed that Randell Mills has four US Patents currently.
    .
    7,773,656 Full-Text Molecular hydrogen laser

    7,689,367 Full-Text Method and system of computing and rendering the nature of the excited electronic states of atoms and atomic ions

    7,188,033 Full-Text Method and system of computing and rendering the nature of the chemical bond of hydrogen-type molecules and molecular ions

    6,024,935 Full-Text Lower-energy hydrogen methods and structures
    .
    Mills is either a criminal genius or is going to change the world. The Vegas odds are still 1000:1 for the first option but its still fascinating.
    Edit: Mills has a bunch more patents on lots of things.

  1081. Rob Graf,
    The situation with checking Mills’ GUT is that 99.9% of the people that could check it have been put off by the consensus – who have never looked themselves. I have read that a few have looked at his maths and not been able to find an error, but the thought of hydrinos is too much for them to swallow.
    .
    I also read that his software for modelling molecules has been used by quite a few. I doubt opinion will change unless he produces a commercial SunCell – there will be a lot of red faces if he does.

  1084. Mike M,
    Yes Mills is the hydrino guy. That is part of his General Unified Theory. You would have to read that (only 1700 pages but it’s free) to see the proof.

  1085. Ron,

    Randell Mills is an MD, not a physicist by training.

    Here are two layman level dissections of his theory:

    http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2011/12/29/hydrinos-impressive-free-energy-crackpottery/

    http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2014/01/14/the-latest-update-in-the-hydrino-saga/

    Here’s a higher level analysis of Mill’s theory:

    http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/7/1/127;jsessionid=AC8668BAF6FBE83B62892731D954A3F5.c4.iopscience.cld.iop.org

    Quick and dirty: It’s utter garbage. Mills has been promising a working model for 20+ years. Like Rossi, demonstrations are tightly controlled. He’s obtained multiple patents, so what’s he hiding unless the patents aren’t actually valid because they lack critical information.

  1086. DeWitt,
    The first link you gave, written by Mark CC was so bad I didn’t bother to even open the second link. I rather doubt that he looked at Mills’ book. As he said, it contains too much math for most people to follow. Notice he didn’t point out any error in said math on a site supposedly dealing with math?
    .
    I don’t consider Mills’s theory proven but neither have I seen it disproven. He builds his case entirely from accepted basic physics. If he made a mistake show me where. QM makes >10 assumptions and somehow manages to make infinity disappear.
    .
    Explain why his theory calculates molecular binding force so much more accurately than QM.

  1088. DeWitt,
    Rathke’s criticism is far better. You might note in the first quotation he criticises sweeping statements like yours.
    It was written in 2006 and Mills has made revisions to his theory in those ten years, claiming to have addressed the few serious critics comments. It would take longer than I care to spend on the subject to try and figure out who is right, assuming that I could even do so.
    .
    “Although the hydrino model has received considerable public attention, the discussion of the underlying theory has mainly been restricted to the sweeping statement that the hydrino model is in contradiction to quantum mechanics and hence dubious (cf e.g. [6]). This lack of theoretical consideration is particularly unfortunate in view of the wealth of experimental evidence that has been published in peer reviewed journals in favour of the hydrino model ”
    .
    ” In practical terms, this inconsistency of the theory means that the model cannot describe the electron motion in a hydrogen atom with non-minimal angular momentum.”
    So he says. Mills says otherwise.
    .
    “it is straightforward to check that equation (16) is not a solution of the radial part of equation (14). However, equation (16) is also claimed to be the radial solution for hydrinos [25]. Since equation (16) is not a solution of the radial part of the wave equation (14), for any rn there is no way of deriving the existence of hydrinos from the wave equation (1).”
    This does not seem straightforward to me and I don’t know if Mills has addressed this point.
    .
    “For the isolated non-relativistic hydrogen atom, stability has been proven, with a maximal binding energy of approximately 20 eV [28]. This bound prohibits the existence of states with the high binding energies attributed to hydrino states. ”
    This is a good point if said proof is valid. The reference tttle is given but not the actual content. I don’t know if Mills has later addressed this point.
    .
    As Ricahard Feyman said: “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t . I don’t even pretend to understand it.

  1089. Thanks for the links, DeWitt. So to sum up: Mills starts by assuming that everything we know about physics and chemistry is wrong then replaces it with a bunkum theory dressed up with a lot of math to appear impressive.

  1090. Although I am highly skeptical of Mills, I am also intrigued. Some interesting claims by Mills other than the accuracy of prediction of molecular binding energies include:
    1) Three yet undetected peaks in the cosmic background radiation.

    2) The mass of an electron is produced by its warping of space by the effect of the angular momentum of its geometry an spin.

    3) That the discovery of the Higgs boson was a hoax because mass and gravity are effects of particle motion warping space.

    4) Many particles such as gluons and neutrinos are actually photons in different configurations.

    5) Quantum Mechanics is wrong.

    I probably don’t have the last one exactly correct but Mills’ model has only a handful of particles. The fascinating thing is that one could have the education to create such an elaborate new cosmological model that would not or could not be debunked in short order by a career theoretical physicist. Why do all this just to produce a cold fusion scam?
    .
    Maybe Mills has been debunked in your links, DeWitt. I’ll check tonight.
    .
    Mike M, I am not sure Mills provides a way to observe his hydrino directly. This, of course would be a pivotal proof. His Sun Cell is supposed to produce UV radiation by heating silver I believe.
    .
    That Mills is maintaining secrecy at the same time he has patent protection is not unusual. The patent provides same credibility while not all is revealed to keep the process secret. This is tried by both legitimate inventors and scammers alike. But it’s dangerous for inventors since they can invalidate their patent if is substantially different from the invention.

  1091. Ron,

    Mills’ theory cannot calculate the well known excited states of hydrogen short of ionization.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_spectral_series

    In the Lyman Series, 91.175nm is equal to 13.598 eV, the ionization potential of atomic hydrogen.

    The idea that there can be lower energy states of hydrogen that cannot be reached by decay by photon emission is simply ludicrous. Electrons are not point masses in circular orbits around the nucleus.

    Any calculation of energy levels is suspect as they have been changed over time to reflect new data. Now if he had calculated the correct number to start with, that would have been something. However, it’s beyond unlikely that he could achieve greater accuracy and precision than Quantum Electrodynamics.

    All that other stuff is Star Trek level gobbledygook or technobabble.

  1092. Ron Graf: “I am not sure Mills provides a way to observe his hydrino directly.”
    But according to his theory, it ought to be really easy to observe.

  1093. Mike M.

    But according to his theory, it ought to be really easy to observe.

    Except according to the latest iteration of the ‘theory’, hydrinos are dark matter and do not interact with EM radiation. In the patent I saw, however, it’s claimed that hydrinos react with other elements to make compounds with interesting properties.

  1094. DeWitt,
    “All that other stuff is Star Trek level gobbledygook or technobabble.”
    .
    Yup, that pretty well sums up the whole ‘field’.

  1095. SteveF,

    The difference with Mills is that it isn’t nuclear energy. It’s that there are lower electronic energy states of hydrogen that can be accessed by magic. I use the word magic advisedly.

  1096. DeWitt : “Except according to the latest iteration of the ‘theory’, hydrinos are dark matter and do not interact with EM radiation.”
    Oh. Of course. Since Mills is tossing out the laws of physics, there is no reason to assume microscopic reversibility. Very convenient. Now I understand how his theory can explain everything.

  1098. Adrian,

    Mills’ theory is at the heart of whether BLP is a scam or not. If it’s not up for discussion then we can safely assume it’s a scam. Which, of course, it is.

  1099. DeWitt,
    You try and twist what I say. I’m not at all sure that Mills GUT explains the reactions he has found, any more than the dozens of theories that fail to explain LENR.
    .
    What you delight in doing is discounting all new experimental evidence that doesn’t conform to your religious belief in the standard model.
    .
    Your theory is that any experiment that shows anomalous heat must be fraudulent or measurement error. Further, you attempt to back up your claim with evidence but just ad hominem attacks.

  1100. I wish EDIT worked, I left out a word.
    “you attempt” should read “you never attempt”

  1102. Yeah I edit all the time. I’m not sure it’s a ‘timeout’ exactly, but I think of it that way – if you want to edit something you’d better edit it pretty promptly AFAICT.
    [Edit: this is an edit, maybe within 30 seconds] [Edit: Within 60 seconds] [90 seconds] [two minutes] [2.5] [3.0] [3.5][4.0][4.5][5.0] [huh. Pretty good.][maybe around 7ish minutes now][coming up on 9 minutes][Ok. I made it to about 10 minutes and have lost interest in the exercise. :)]

  1104. Is it just time, or does it matter if you refresh the page?
    Answer: I can still edit after reloading the page.

  1105. I’ve always wondered if interleaving with other comments had anything to do with it, although just today I went back and edited comments that somebody else had commented after. so I no longer think interleaving has anything to do with edit expiry.
    I’m now guessing something like a 15 minute timeout, although I don’t know that I’ll bother to try to verify.
    [Yeah, I can still edit this.]

  1106. You can see I posted the correction 3 minutes after the first post. It took minute to compose and post it. I was not able to edit the first post (after < a minute) but was able to correct a typo on the second post. It works for me about half the time.

  1108. Adrian Ashfield (Comment #154165)
    “In passing I think this topic is too esoteric and complicated to be a useful topic on this thread.”
    The topic is falling for a scam.
    The person who falls has a lot of self belief invested in that fall.
    They can never permit themselves to believe that they are being scammed.
    I had a friend who fell for the 3% interest a day compounding scam on 10000 dollars a few years ago.
    A pyramid scheme.
    When I explained he was not cross at the scammer, he was cross at me for breaking his dreams of future unlimited wealth.
    –
    Rules for a scam,
    Promise something better and currently impossible.
    Make it seem that you alone are in on the ground floor with your small contribution.
    Get the believers to spread the message.
    –
    Rules for getting out of a scam,
    Say to yourself there is a 1% chance that I am wrong on day 1, and contemplate how that feels.
    Every following day double the odds until you can say there is a 100% chance I am wrong, contemplate.
    It all depends on that first little step, Adrian.
    Well worth a try.
    Plus try to get your money out and put it back in a week later.
    Good luck with the first part of that.
    If they give it back odds are it is not a scam.

  1109. angech.
    Your rambling collection of “insolent disrupter” comments can easily be shown to be wrong.
    To be scammed innocents have to lose money. I am neither innocent nor an investor.

  1110. Adrian,

    Not being innocent doesn’t mean you’re not gullible. Btw, I would put you in the “insolent disrupter” class, not angech. You’re lucky this isn’t my blog.

  1111. DeWtt,
    “Not being innocent doesn’t mean you’re not gullible.”
    .
    Yo seem incapable of having a discussion without being rude and making ad hominem remarks.

  1112. Adrian, my comments were intended to help though I realise that many people do not want help and are actively upset by do Gooders like myself trying to help.
    Sorry for trying.
    Please ignore my comments.
    You are entititled to your beliefs.

  1113. Brilliant Light Power “Industry Day” videos
    .
    There are seven videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw1e-SwMe6eJf4Rr32w2UybIWOJ2cODEQ

    You can skip the first two that are basic introductions.
    The third video is the longest. In it Mills describes his theories and then goes on to describe the SunCell in detail.
    The fourth video is short and covers independent verification of energy out.
    The fifth video describes the engineering firm contracted to turn the SunCell into a commercial device. They forecast they will have a working model in Jan 2017, a basic prototype by mid year and a commercial unit at the end of 2017.
    The sixth video covers the design and possibilities for the PV cells to convert the light energy into electricity.
    The seventh video cover their marketing strategy,

    I thought Mills argued points for his theory well. I felt the time line for commercial production was optimistic but got the impression that this time they are serious about making commercial units.
    .
    While many doubt Mills’ hydrino theories there is pretty strong evidence of large amounts of anomalous heat that needs to be explained.

  1114. Adrain, I watched the first 40m of the third video. I get the feeling Mills is breezing by the proof of fusion in favor of how many fast food establishments will want his sun cells.
    .
    Also, he is not even using deuterium but simple hydrogen from electrolysis or standard gas cylinder. Am I correct to understand the exhaust is hydrino dark matter that permeates the enclosure into the cosmos? He detailed all the workings but was short on the reaction process, the part that demands extraordinary evidence.
    .
    I do like the idea of molten silver electrodes. And, I did learn of concentrated photo-voltaic technology. And, I am impressed with his 2017 timeline. Is that still the current schedule?
    .
    Adrian, I am routing for Mills and against SteveF and DeWitt. But my money is still at 1000:1 odds.
    .
    I would like to see the inner surface of the dome be reflective polished silver rather than absorbent black. I would think the gaseous silver would condense on that surface making it silver in any case.
    .
    The edit feature works longer on this thread than on the most recent running one. Perhaps it is controlled by traffic rate on the thread or Lucia is controlling it.

  1115. Ron Graf,
    The proof was provided in the next video where several professors confirmed Mills’ results. Of course as they were using the same experimental equipment that won’t count for the critics, but it seems good evidence to me.
    .
    Mills said he was using 98% Argon 2% H2 for the later long runs, as a higher percentage might damage the reactor until the proper cooling is in place.. He claims there is no limit to the duration and that he has run it for 6 hours. To be clear, he clams the plasma formation is continuous and continues even with out power input once it is up to temperature, at least for a while.
    He said the small amount of hydinos formed pass through the wall of the reactor.but that he has collected some in from other runs by using carbon.
    .
    The schedule for manufacture is the current one as far as I know..

  1116. Ron,

    When 2017 comes to an end and there is still no generator running, the date will change to 2018 or 2019. This has been going on for more than a decade now. Success is always predicted for next year. He just needs more time and money.

  1117. DeWitt,
    I’m mildly curious, what are you going to say when one of several on-going new energy developments surfaces.
    I know you won’t say “I was very wrong repeatedly about a new discovery. I just can’t believe anything new like that is possible and so my opinion is valueless.”

  1118. On editing comments: I think I know what happened. I modified the moderating comment to not permit Adrian to use the term “troll”. That plugin only works if it also prevents the person who is moderated from editing. So editing is not possible for Adrian and a few others who are moderated in that way, but it is for others.

    The plugin is useful because it lets me do some fine grained moderating without totally moderating anyone. But it does interfere with ‘edit’ somewhat.

  1119. Adrian

    I’m mildly curious, what are you going to say when one of several on-going new energy developments surfaces.

    I note you used “when” instead of “if”. “If” would certainly be much more appropriate here.

  1120. Adrian, how do the UV concentrator PVs not get fouled by the condensing silver and molten sparks? Where does the gas exhaust? Argon-hydrogen plasma sprayers are used currently to apply molten metallic coatings on parts. What is keeping the plasma spray industry from observing the hydrino gained energy effect? Or, are they just not realizing they are observing it?
    .
    The continued plasma would be interesting to verify by having random audience members cut the power and measure line current while another pulls the plug while the reactor core is observed by all on a monitor screen. They could toss frisbees into the audience to protect from selecting shills.

  1121. Ron Graf,
    The hot part of the Suncell is retained in the graphite inverted tear drop shape. This heats the graphite to ~3000C. There is a ~1cm(?) gap between the outside of the graphite container and the PV cells, so the silver never comes in contact with them.
    .
    As far as I can see the Cell is closed and the hydrinos escape by diffusion through the graphite. Additional H2 can be added from the bottom. Presumably the cell could be vented from the bottom too.
    .
    The plasma spray industry are not using the same elements. There is also another “catalyst” according to Mills that was not disclosed to the public but was to the verifiers.
    .
    That the plasma continued when the power was switched off was demonstrated to the audience and seen by the verifiers. I don’t think there is much doubt about that.

  1122. Lucia,
    You asked me not to use the word t—l so I haven’t. There is no need to disable editing for me. As I noted, it does work about half the time for me now.
    .
    You wrote: “I note you used “when” instead of “if”. “If” would certainly be much more appropriate here.”
    .
    With at least three credible different reactors promised for next year I think “when” is quite acceptable. I wouldn’t be greatly surprised if the date is 2018. It takes longer than most people here recognize to make a commercial unit from such a new and not fully understood technology.

  1123. Adrian: “I’m mildly curious, what are you going to say when one of several on-going new energy developments surfaces.”
    .
    IF that happens, I will admit I was wrong and watch the ensuing revolution in physics with excitement and fascination.
    .
    So, at what date do you admit you were wrong?

  1124. Adrian,

    I would also add: What evidence would it take for you to admit that BLP is a scam?

  1125. Adrian,
    When I make a request, I often add it to the plugin. That way I’m not burdened with need to sit here reading every single comment which would be time consuming if required. Once added to the plugin, that has the side effect of not letting you edit. I’m not going to take the time to edit the plugin to eliminate the side effect.

    This is the most time efficient way for me to:
    1) avoid overly burdensome monitoring of comments.
    2) avoid having individuals who are suing “bad words” be unable to talk.

    I had forgotten that it happens to interfere with your ability to edit, but I think that’s not such a big burden. I realize it can be frustrating to be unable to edit, but that’s actually the rule at most blogs. So the lack of functionality of edit merely puts you in the same situation you find yourself in at the overwhelming majority of blogs.

    Anyway, I tend to think editorial errors in comments just isn’t that big a deal. People aren’t horrified they happen.

  1126. Adrian

    With at least three credible different reactors promised for next year I think “when” is quite acceptable.

    Even you should realize that most people here don’t find the “promised next year” reactors “credible”. As such, “if” seems a much better choice than “when”. But “when” does match your notion of what is going to happen.

    It is worth noting that

    (a) many here told you they thought Rossi — whose background is suspicious at best–was likely scamming, but you were predicting he would have something working by now and– among other things– we could believe there must be something in what Rossi claims because Darden invested money. Current status: Rossi and Darden are in litigation.

    (b) some of these technologies you are pumping as “credible” have been indulging in quite a big of PR promising breakthroughs any day now for decades. This is the hallmark of things that are not working. People marketing for “investments” into these things are the hallmarks of a scam. Of course they might not be scammers, and it may be something can work.

    I’m not going to say cold fusion is impossible. Heck, it might be possible that telepathy is possible. Or Commander Scotts “WARP speed” will be possible. Or the Star Trek transporter will be invented in the next decade.

    There may be many things we don’t know. But the fact is we haven’t observed cold fusion yet. Or even is someone thinks someone has done so, no one can replicate their tests convincingly. So it is much more likely that these people didn’t observe accomplish cold fusion and that very well may be because cold fusion is just not possible — as present understanding of science suggests.

  1127. “Credible” is a value judgement. I would say that one would have to be credulous to believe that BLP has even one credible reactor in the works.

  1128. DeWitt,
    .
    I’m with you on that. The process of using a heat source to generate steam to generate electricity is extremely well understood. On that magical day that never comes when LENR proponents can consistently and reliably reproduce substantial heat generation, where the energy produced clearly and obviously exceeds the input energy by a significant margin, they will have reactors.

  1129. DeWitt,
    Simple admission of error that you have repeated so many times with such certainty doesn’t quite hack it, particularly with something as important as LENR. It demonstrates a closed mind.
    .
    Regarding dates, Brillouin, Rossi and BLP have all forecast demos of production designs next year. As I said I wouldn’t be surprised if that runs over to 2018. No credible demos by the end of 2018 would certainly be reason for doubt.
    Note that LENR for Pd/D has been proven already. Yet another article reporting that here. “Nuclear con-fusion” http://scientific-alliance.org/node/1024
    .
    I don’t think it possible to show BLP is a scam at this point. They may have made mistakes due to the difficulty of calculating the power from short bursts of ultra violet – beyond the frequency where it is easy to measure-, but there is little doubt about the anomalous heat now. So you best hope is self delusion not a scam.

  1130. Lucia,
    It would have taken less time to remove my name from the plug-in than write what you wrote.
    .
    I understand that people here won’t accept LENR is possible even when normal proof is presented. Rossi’s forecast about that is true.
    .
    Lucia; “you were predicting he would have something working by now”
    As far as I know he did. The 1 MW plant ran for a year ending this February. We don’t have the results due to the court case.
    .
    I’m NOT pumping anything. I’m reporting on a new technology where definitive proof is hard to come by, BUT LENR for Pn/D has been proven. “Nuclear con-fusion” http://scientific-alliance.org/node/1024
    .
    You won’t accept the peer reviewed replications I have already given so it’s true I can’t prove it to you.

  1132. Mike M

    Krivit, who writes the New Energy Times has long been a foe of Rossi. Reportedly he was caught trying to take some of Rossi’s fuel from the demo he went to and there has been war ever since. In passing, the demo he attended was not a good one.

  1133. Adrian,

    It would have taken less time to remove my name from the plug-in than write what you wrote.

    Then I would have to start reading all your comments. The point of the plugin is to relieve me of that burden.

  1134. Lucia,
    No you wouldn’t. I have told you I would not use that word after you asked me not to. Seems a tad strange that you should be so upset by that five letter word.

  1135. Adrian,
    First: Simply accepting reality would have taken you less time than posting that.

    I’m not upset about your use of the term.

    I merely forbid it in October 29th, 2016 at 10:53 am
    And you groused about it: October 29th, 2016 at 2:31 pm
    That’s when I put you in the filter.

    I did so to spare myself a burden of monitoring all posts for violations. That’s the reason I put your name is in the filter and it will stay there until such time as I feel comfortable with taking the effort to changing that. I do not feel comfortable doing so now.

  1136. Curious to see that where I had “groused” I started rereading comments from the 28th.
    Struck by the universal rudeness of the commenters and the lack of substance in their comments I see I have been wasting my time.

  1137. Adrain, I elevate the importance on the exhaust of the gas. Having an exhaust provides an analytical potential to validate a reaction has taken place. Maybe you can pass on my idea to Mills that if he set up an automatic sample capture mechanism in his exhaust stream it would be easy to reproduce a thermogravimetric analysis. One could have sun cell brought to temperature, and a baseline established for equilibrium (steady state) power consumption, with and without ignition arc. The gas could then be turned on without ignition and the exhaust be sampled repeatedly for a baseline, then the ignition turned on and sample the change in exhaust products as a function of the change in external heat induction reduction allowed to remain at steady state. If the hydrogen concentration drops in reproducible fashion to energy created — Bingo!

  1138. DeWitt, here is an article postulating that dark matter and energy are entropic effects. There is no robust theory yet, just interesting calculations that show that general relativity could be replaced with such a theory. Personally, I have believed that the answer to the big question of where everything came from will come down to entropy and that the big bang was an zillionth iteration of an evolutionary process that started with simpler and simpler information universes, gaining entropy and complexity at each new bang. The first little bang was caused by the irreversibility of anything above zero, perhaps linked to the irrationality of the square root of two.

  1139. Ron,

    General Relativity isn’t replaced. The article states that the equations of General Relativity could be derived using the entropy assumptions. IMO, gravity isn’t a force in General Relativity, it’s a property of space-time and mass. I’m probably wrong, though.

    But if it isn’t a force, then there’s no graviton and gravity can’t be shoehorned into quantum mechanics that way.

  1140. The other massive problem is that the entropic theory of gravity fails at galactic cluster distances.

  1141. DeWitt, there’s not yet a proposed model of entropic gravity thus it’s premature to say it fails. At this point there are only clues that indicate it could be part of a more fundamental theory. I think the problem is hard because it is the only one in the universe that must be circular yet irreversible by definition.

  1142. Ron,

    Then there’s the fact that modified gravity models fail to explain large scale effects such as the clustering of galaxies, which regular gravity and dark matter explains very well. This new work is still more of an idea and less of a robust theory.

    If the entropic model doesn’t modify gravity, then it cannot eliminate the need for dark matter and dark energy. If it does, then as pointed out, it fails at large distances. I would put it in the class of hand waving right now.

  1143. DeWitt, the problem is how do you know the universal gravitation constant is not depended upon the entropy of the universe? How can one calculate the entropy of the universe as a function of its development?
    .
    When looking for a theory of everything there can be assumed no fixed yardsticks. Relativity showed us that the yardstick of time breaks down when the speed of light is approached. In that case we just substituted the speed of light as the new yardstick. But is the speed of light constant to gravitation through the development of the universe? I don’t know. All universal relationships must be explained and defined by other universal relationships until one can derive the prediction of any event occurrence including the birth of the universe. Until we can do that we are just turning tiles on the Wheel of Fortune puzzle.

Comments are closed.