Of course, that is only really a benefit if you actually care about the subject.
So that’s why you grace this humble forum, Student. Awww.
Yeah I’m not much interested in nonsense like AGW or whatever the religious nuts are calling it these days either. But I will say, if non-peer reviewed “reports” from “green activists” and “green advocacy groups” and anecdotal evidence from “mountaineers” are good enough for the IPCC, I’d say they’re good enough to include in judgements of the validity of global warming claims.
Here’s some more if you’re interested here, and here.
Unfortunately I’m not really interested in forest management either. The relevant part of the youtube clip was the piece on the Native Americans and it was posted to supplement the previous comment on that topic. If you’d like to discuss forest fire prevention you’re definitely welcome to create another thread, or better yet, I’m sure there are Smokey the Bear forums somewhere on the Internetz.
New Mexico has had a very dry period for the last 6 months, but bad policies have made the fires less manageable.
Johnny,
Don’t worry. I doubt many libertarians actually care about forest fires either. Its just one more talking point. shrug
But that’s why I stay away from internet politics. Its just screaming loudly about things you don’t actually care about.
I wonder how much you actually care abut them beyond pushing your own politics as well there Student dearest.
So that’s why you grace this humble forum, Student.
No, I’m here because people love me. Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came.
No problem, Stoody. You keep on fighting the good fight. I’m sure Greenpeace has uploaded a new report you can forward along to the IPCC. Maybe you’ll get lucky with a double header and the Smokeys will have put one out too so that you can alert all the “scientists” to the forest plight which I’m sure you care so much about.
Pardon the ignorance on my part, but what is this argument over? I’m unclear if its about J. Tucker’s fascination with home appliances or something more.
Student wanted to pick a fight, that’s all.
I live in the Pacific Northwest, forest capital of the United States. Anyone who says that public lands don’t result in more frequent and more severe wildfires is full of shit. Privately owned forests look nothing like their public counterparts. You can hardly find underbrush in many private forests. There are no snags. Private forest owners maintain fleets of small fire trucks which are dispatched to stop small fires before they become large unlike the public model where lookouts try to monitor hundreds of square miles of forests then dispatch armadas of fire crews once a fire has become visible after burning for days.
Unfortuantely, public forests surround and touch almost all private forest holdings which greatly increases the risk of private forest ownership. If all forests were privately owned and insured, the incentive to maintain their capital value would result in negligible occurence of major forest fires. Socialists and central planners will, of course, remain willfully blind to this painfully obvious fact.
Clayton -
Student wanted to pick a fight, that’s all.
Actually, I just wanted to stress that a common libertarian talking point simply isn’t supported by the most recent empirical, peer-reviewed research (or any peer-reviewed research so far as I know). That should matter.
Since it doesn’t, I also wanted to lament the fact that just because a story is unsupported that won’t stop some from telling it to further their political agenda.
That makes me said because that is essentialy what John Stossel appears to be doing (again he cites no source to support his assertions on the link between poor forest managemnt and wild fires) and people applaud him for it.
Would You Give Up The Internet For 1 Million Dollars?
Great pro-capitalism video. (doesn’t make the mistake ‘Morality of Profit’ did)
Jeez that’s like the 5th time you’ve edited that one post. Here’s some recent sources for you:
From five days ago: "Arizona fires expose forest management failure"
And from two days ago: "Time for responsible forest management"
And here’s a nice economic point illustrating how government poisons everything: “Forest Fires Fueled By Incomplete Information”
And just for fun here’s an interesting case of how government policies have led to conflicts between communities and companies that lead to fires in Sumatra.
Obviously if by the government’s own admission the average annual acreage burned and federal appropriations for wildland fire management have both more than doubled, government is not doing a very good job at its charge. And it kind of makes one wonder what they’re doing with their 30,000 employees and $5 billion annual budget apportioned for this specific area. And top this off with cases of multiple fires that raged out of control being intentionally started by the government on government property, while virtually none on privately owned land, I’d say government incompetence is pretty evident.
This is what Bastiat argued! As a matter of fact this professor(was he a professor, I couldn’t remember?) in the clip quotes both Mises and Bastiat. Bastiat said that in the market onerous utility diminishes and common utility increases. So, yes, now individuals have much more wealth (in utility) than what individuals in the past had (even the richest ones).
Great vid. Love it. Great closing too. But the guy makes a mistake in claiming that what someone could pay you to stop using it is the same thing as “worth/what you would pay for it”. It’s a great point to illustrate how people wouldn’t trade their access for any sum of money, and yet don’t have to pay much for it, but again, he already said that people aren’t willing to pay very much for it. So by his own example it would seem there isn’t a “tremendous gap” between what Internet access costs and what people would pay for it.
Seriously think about it…would the Internet really be that irreplaceable (i.e. you wouldn’t take a billion dollars to give it up for life) if it cost $1,000/month? What makes the Internet so valuable is the amount of resources available and the communication it allows…and that is directly related to the cost involved in being online. If few people could afford to get online, the Internet wouldn’t be so useful or fun. In a way, it’s the low cost that makes it so valuable.
http://www.finallevel.co.uk/2011/06/28/team-bondi-controversy/
Oh noes those poor computer programmers and game designers working long hours.
Johnny,
Consider my complaints withdrawn. I asked for peer-reviewed sources that used empirical evidence to confirm the claim that increases in forest fires are primarily the result of mismanagement of those forests (which would of course require statistical analysis of MANY fires), and you succeeded in full. I think I knew I was out of my element when confronted with credientials of op-ed writer Linda Turley-Hansen, an “East Valley Resident” and “vetran TV anchor”.
Now I must retire from this conversation a broken man. So you can expect no more responses or obviously futile attempts at rebuttal from me. As I fear that if I continue further, others will get the impression I am obliged to respond to every listing of links they pull from a half-hearted google search. And I do not have the emotional strength to be humilitated like that.
Fare thee well, scholar and patriot!
See ya sucker
An actual comment at Huffington Post:
Why is everyone suddenly so keen on trusting corporations and the private market? Pure libertarianism (as Ron Paul advocates) is MUCH more dangerous than a little too much government regulation. Do you really think eliminating the board of education and leaving that up to the private market is a good idea? Really? Do we want to trust everything we hold so dearly in the hands of a sector of our society solely built to create profit? Does that sound logical?
Ron Paul has some good points, is intelligent and believes in his convictions (which is more you can say for most of the GOP field) but giving the private sector absolute power is pure insanity.