Commodore Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 24 minutes ago, MerenthaClone said: So, what, "coal is dying" but more nicely? "Coal is dying, but here are plans that we've made to help you get a new job and career?" Because that's literally what she did. Repeatedly. She could probably have campaigned harder in PA which would have brought that more to the forefront, but from Pittsburgh, it was pretty clear that one candidate was promising to magically bring back coal and the other was planning to try to invest in job retraining. It was very clearly a case of reality losing out to pleasant lies. The perception is that coal is dying not because of market preferences, but because of regulations making coal-supplied energy cost prohibitive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commodore Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 45 minutes ago, PrettyPig said: It's pathological, seriously. His desire to see the ACA collapse and fail is stronger than his desire to be successful by providing something palatable for the party/his supporters. Trump's personal 'win' is watching Obamacare 'lose'. He's the pyromaniac setting fire to his own house: yeah, sure, everything goes up in smoke and ash, but ohmygod, look at the beautiful flames... What can/should Trump do to prevent this? Bailout for Anthem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
all swedes are racist Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 *extremely mc5 voice* single payer motherfucker! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aceluby Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 22 minutes ago, Commodore said: The perception is that coal is dying not because of market preferences, but because of regulations making coal-supplied energy cost prohibitive. More pleasant lies. If regulation is the issue, the jobs may return. If the market has changed, they won't. If automation and machinery replaced most workers, they won't. So lie to the workers who want to desperately believe them so they may have a chance at returning to life of decades past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldGimletEye Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 27 minutes ago, Commodore said: What can/should Trump do to prevent this? Bailout for Anthem? Just keep on spewing libertarian cliche's and just keep on being wrong. Again, let's talk about Swiss healthcare, which is often held up as a model by conservatives, or at least some of them. Is in it a death spiral? No it isn't. And guess what, the state does heavily regulate the insurance market, to include things like risk corridors and reinsurance. And it also includes mandated benefits. And it works. Also, there are other systems that work well. There are a lot of ways to skin this cat. Some solutions would be to strengthen the mandates, implement a public option, or bolster risk corridors. Most people care about having quality health insurance and getting it a fairly low cost. And there are a lot of technocratic solutions to achieve this goal or to get close too it. But, for people, like you this has nothing to do with technocratic solutions. It's just that it offends your "conservative values". But, here is a newsflash: Lots of people don't given one iota about your "conservative values". For seven years, conservatives and Republicans have been selling dishonest intellectual garbage about ACA. And now they demand everyone take them seriously at this juncture. But they deserve no such acknowledgement, given the years of bullshit they have been selling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commodore Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 3 minutes ago, aceluby said: More pleasant lies. If regulation is the issue, the jobs may return. If the market has changed, they won't. If automation and machinery replaced most workers, they won't. So lie to the workers who want to desperately believe them so they may have a chance at returning to life of decades past. Agree that time will tell what is true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aceluby Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 2 minutes ago, Commodore said: Agree that time will tell what is true. Time has already told what is true. Those jobs were lost to automation and cheaper natural gas. Lies people believe are still lies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrettyPig Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 6 minutes ago, Commodore said: What can/should Trump do to prevent this? Bailout for Anthem? Funny how in CO's marketplace, the counties affected the most by Anthem's exit (and the previous exits of other insurers like United Health and Rocky Mountain Health) are the rural areas that are pretty solidly red. The big leebruhl areas like Denver and Boulder still have quite a few choices. Also funny: Colorado has its own state-run exchange...which of course the state Republicans want to dismantle completely, and instead force all of Connect for Health's customers - including the 26,000 new participants that signed on for 2017 - onto the Healthcare.gov federal exchange, which the GOP also wants to dismantle completely. It's a lovely example of "let's vote against our own self-interest" combined with "let's make it someone else's problem" - you rally around getting the government out of things, and then fall back on the government to clean up/handle the resulting mess! Brilliant! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commodore Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 7 minutes ago, aceluby said: Time has already told what is true. Those jobs were lost to automation and cheaper natural gas. Lies people believe are still lies. Meaning, if regulations are lifted and coal doesn't come back, that would prove the causation to be wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aceluby Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 3 minutes ago, Commodore said: Meaning, if regulations are lifted and coal doesn't come back, that would prove the causation to be wrong. And the only cost is severe air and water pollution. What an experiment!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Week Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 4 minutes ago, Commodore said: Meaning, if regulations are lifted and coal doesn't come back, that would prove the causation to be wrong. http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/2/21/14671932/donald-trump-coal-mining-jobs Coal has been in steady decline for awhile. To what year to the jobs come back from and at what personal, environmental, etc. cost? Quote Whether that’s good enough for Trump’s supporters in coal country is something we’ll find out over the next few years. One possibility is that they’ll give him credit for helping the coal industry no matter what happens or what the numbers say — much like that Trump voter quoted above. After all, coal is declining more slowly than it would've under Hillary Clinton. ^This per article is absolutely what will happen. Maybe a tiny bump, but mostly a slower decline which represents GRATE SUCKSESS! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IheartIheartTesla Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 Coal just employs ~150,000 jobs. I don't understand the obsession with having it 'come back'. I mean, if you are a politician in those few states or Trump, then yes. And of course, there are probably economies built around some of those plants and mining operations, so I dont want to diminish the effects of shutting them down at all. But at the same time, conservatives were opposed to auto bailouts, and that industry had many employees as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragile Bird Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 16 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said: Coal just employs ~150,000 jobs. I don't understand the obsession with having it 'come back'. I mean, if you are a politician in those few states or Trump, then yes. And of course, there are probably economies built around some of those plants and mining operations, so I dont want to diminish the effects of shutting them down at all. But at the same time, conservatives were opposed to auto bailouts, and that industry had many employees as well. While that might be the total number in the entire coal universe (mines, power plants, transportation of coal), the universe Trump directly appealed to was the coal miners themselves, which is around 80,000 people. If you looked at the car universe and what jobs would disappear if the Big Three had gone down the drain, the ripple effect was estimated at between 2.5 and 3 million jobs. The industry itself tried to claim 1 in 10 jobs back in 2008, or about 14 million, but that was wildly exaggerated. It was amazing how many people opponents to a financial bailout were willing to throw under the bus. And if there had been no bailout, I'm sure they would have expressed surprise and amazement at the results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice Queen Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 1 hour ago, MerenthaClone said: So, what, "coal is dying" but more nicely? "Coal is dying, but here are plans that we've made to help you get a new job and career?" Because that's literally what she did. Repeatedly. She could probably have campaigned harder in PA which would have brought that more to the forefront, but from Pittsburgh, it was pretty clear that one candidate was promising to magically bring back coal and the other was planning to try to invest in job retraining. It was very clearly a case of reality losing out to pleasant lies. Amen. Watching him campaign in Ambridge made me literally sick--and those people ate it up. They truly believed he would bring those jobs back. And that's an area that needs all the help it can get. I guess it's easier to let the government hand you jobs as though you're entitled to them than--gasp!--have to work through job retraining. Not that I like the energy companies or anything, but with one stroke of a pen Shell has done more to bring hope to the Ohio Valley than Trump ever could. That cracker plant brings about $6 billion in investment to the region. It means 6,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent jobs. That's shale and natural gas, not coal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mlle. Zabzie Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 So, here are the problems, as I understand it, with coal: 1. Natural gas is cheaper. Full stop. It is going to get cheaper, likely because regulations on fracking will decrease. Also, my understanding is that natural gas plants are more efficient - that is, you get more energy from burning an equivalent amount of fossil fuel (less waste). 2. Coal is more expensive that other alternatives to extract and transport (the latter, particularly). Also, there are plants that are run on what I would call "marginal" coal. I don't know if you know what lignite is, but you have to have your plant right next to the mine because the coal literally explodes as it is exposed to air. Those plants/mines are marginal, and will probably shut no matter what - forget "regulations." 3. Yes, coal environmental remediation is expensive. Yes, it is one contributing factor to the decline of coal, but there are other macro factors that will continue to push both coal mining and coal fired power plants. 4. Separately, I have to say, I am in favor of health and safety regulations. Mining deaths and injuries are already quite high - to return to a world where things were worse does not seem acceptable to me, particularly when there is not a safety net to help those who are left without earnings as a result of mine injuries and/or deaths. 5. Finally, I have to say, I like breathing air not covered with coal particulate. It's interesting, my mother's family is from Chattanooga. It was a huge rail depot back in the days when railroads burned coal. Interestingly, the furniture we have from that house is darker than it should be - if you look closely, there is a layer of coal dust in the grain of the wood. So, is there a level of regulation that people are willing to live with? Am curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerenthaClone Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 1 hour ago, Commodore said: The perception is that coal is dying not because of market preferences, but because of regulations making coal-supplied energy cost prohibitive. 1) The only way this is an effective argument is if one assumes that regulations provide no benefit. Regulations probably are making it harder for coal to compete. Regulations also made it hard for radium-dye watch companies and companies dependent on child labor to compete too, but I'm not crying over it. I'm not sorry your way of life was dependent on poisoning the air and water, especially when people are offering a better way. 2) Besides the above, it is also possibly simply not true. I do not know enough to confidently state this, but coal started losing market share without new regulations being created, implying that other alternatives such as natural gas were winning based on market pressure (yes, within the existing regulatory framework). 3) I am seriously concerned about the effects of global warming. My understanding is that we may be fairly close to a tipping point in terms of runaway acceleration that would cause tremendous amounts of human suffering and geopolitical instability. Anything that contributes to this is a problem for me. Basically, I think coaltown made a mistake in buying lies because Trump will not be able to bring it back, but even if he does, he shouldn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldGimletEye Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 27 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said: 5. Finally, I have to say, I like breathing air not covered with coal particulate. It's interesting, my mother's family is from Chattanooga. It was a huge rail depot back in the days when railroads burned coal. Interestingly, the furniture we have from that house is darker than it should be - if you look closely, there is a layer of coal dust in the grain of the wood. So, is there a level of regulation that people are willing to live with? Am curious. I didn't grow up far from JD Vance's hometown of Middletown, so I know A Song of Natty Ice and Briar pretty well. I have roots from Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee and do sympathize with the people's plights down there. If I thought bringing back coal jobs were the solution, I might agonize a lot more over the regulations. But, coal jobs just aren't going to fix many of the problems down there. Plus coal mining has always been a tough and dirty gig, that's why many people left when they got the chance. Other solutions are needed. So, I don't agonize over the regulations that much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 6 hours ago, rotting sea cow said: You will have a hard time convincing your State Dept. I was born into citizenship in the U.S. but I do not embrace any part of ownership in its foreign policy. In other words, I reject the labeling of "your State Dept." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tywin et al. Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 This isn't exactly related to politics, but it's close enough and shows how far we've come as a country: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-library-congress-national-recording-registry-nwa-eagles-20170329-story.html The 2016 class for the Library of Congress has Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow" and N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mlle. Zabzie Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said: I didn't grow up far from JD Vance's hometown of Middletown, so I know A Song of Natty Ice and Briar pretty well. I have roots from Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee and do sympathize with the people's plights down there. If I thought bringing back coal jobs were the solution, I might agonize a lot more over the regulations. But, coal jobs just aren't going to fix many of the problems down there. Plus coal mining has always been a tough and dirty gig, that's why many people left when they got the chance. Other solutions are needed. So, I don't agonize over the regulations that much. Yeah, my family has roots in Appalachia, Northern Alabama and Tennessee. My grandfather worked for the TVA for the majority of his career (army aside). Every power source has economic and environmental trade offs. Saying they don't is silly (and if you think solar doesn't, you haven't been to a polysilicon factory and had the tricholr train explained to you - I have). Appalachia has had an interesting impact on the politics of this country since like forever - coupled with the deep poverty that has been there since like forever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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