>> watching those commercials on TV with that atractive lady

lol - only when my wife is not sitting close by. She always watches me to see what I am watching. I think wives can calculate the exact pixels that their men are focusing on. As a counter-measure, I always look way past the edge of the screen and quickly say, 'you know you are prettier than she is'.

I agree wealth is skewed to far.

I was really just trying to point out that many unwealthy folks benefit from those big companies we all hate.

Some do not consider this fact.

Jerry,

To be honest, can we even trust Exxon and their accounting methods/practices? I don't. But I am not defending them, just trying to get to the real facts that are available. And even though we can obtain a lot of information, to truly understand them takes a lot of research and time. So when I read something or hear it on TV or radio, I don't trust anyone's opinion. Well, not entirely correct... I trust my wife's.



Exxon's 2011 global EBT (earnings before taxes) was $52 BIL. That 25% of your US only guess. When looking at a business, sales dollars mean little, we need to really look at their earning before interest and taxes. We look at all the stuff in between sales and EBIT to analyze how well they are managing their operation.

They really are a global company, so they look at the total tax liability. The majority of their sales are not in the US, neither are their refineries (36 refineries in 21 countries) or most everything they do. Our problem is that we see them as a US only company, which they are not.

I am not going to go look for the US/Global breakdown, because I really don't like them and don't want to waste any more time on them. From what I remember reading, US income runs around 20% - 40% depending upon the channel.

They are going to maneuver things around to minimize their global tax liability, and they will stay within the law... meaning they will move income to other countries if it is in their best interest. It is business, not patriotism. And their are some countries that have even higher tax rates than us, so those countries will get even less.

Do they help manipulate the tax laws whenever possible? Probably. Is the US government favorable to them... still a lot of fallout over the Exxon Valdez disaster, and politicians don't want their name tied to them. They are still paying for that; last year Exxon spent $140 million in interest alone on the punitive damages award.

But look at the bright side... 40%-45% is a pretty healthy income tax bracket. So if we don't get all the money, some other country will. Brother Love... other people will benefit. We shouldn't be so greedy, lets be our brother's keeper and let the other countries keep the umpteen billions of dollars they pay in taxes. That is what everyone wants, right?

:)

this was interesting...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43514254

Oil Traders: Tapping Reserve Was 'Genius' Move by Obama

Obama knew this would have the maximum impact, hitting speculators on the chin, according to traders.

I hate speculators. Almost as much as the SPR.

Also, isn't the SPR meant to be used only for emergencies, not to adjust the market fluctuations in gas/oil prices? Sounds like a political move to me.

Hmm... there must be an election coming up soon. If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, it must be a duck :)

Rog, you convinced me at "Here are some of the reasons"

we know so little about long term climate change that natural variations could be cancelling and changes due to CO2

Jerry: point number 2 is the key. What people need to get is that it's not just that natural variation is cancelling the co2 effect. It's that there must have been much less co2 effect than thought in the first place because most if the lack of warming now is due to natural variation, then logically a lot of the warming then was due to natural variation too. Understand that, and all else follows.

Edited by tallbloke on 06/24/2011 05:43:47 MDT.

"10) Increases in co2 follow increases in temperature"

Well, sometimes. Here is the same data as in Rog's graph, over a longer timescale.
Sometimes a swing in temp is followed by a swing in CO2, sometimes not.

.

The above data is averaged over 12 months as CO2 has a strong seasonal fluctuation due to increased photosynthesis in the northern hemisphere in the summer. If we remove this filtering, can we see a relationship between CO2 and seasonal temperatures in the northern hemisphere?



Apparently not.

Conclusion? As usual, I conclude that I probably do not know enough to form a valid conclusion. Not only that, but I do not know enough to know which 'expert' opinion to trust either. However at least I'm smart enough to realise that, the same cannot be said of all the dimwit politicians.

"Sometimes a swing in temp is followed by a swing in CO2, sometimes not."

Hi Stuart. If you do separate graphs covering the periods where the co2 change is roughly linera and suitable detrend the data, you'll find that the relationship I showed holds at all timescales.

I agree that it's hard to see the ralationship in the raw data, which is why I suitably filtered it.

To be honest, I'd rather we had a discussion about the other points I raised than get too far into the co2 issue, which has been done to death. Or at least an even balance of solar and co2 issues.

"I do not know enough to know which 'expert' opinion to trust either. However at least I'm smart enough to realise that"

And smart enough to realise that just because 97% of all lemmings prefer cliff edges, doesn't mean you should join them.

Ok, I'm not about to read the last 100 pages, but the more general point is that by choosing the endpoints of the data and by applying different filtering, you can completely change the appearance of a graph so that the same data can appear to support or disprove two different hypothesis!

"by choosing the endpoints of the data and by applying different filtering, you can completely change the appearance of a graph so that the same data can appear to support or disprove two different hypothesis!"

There is a job waiting for you as a climate change scientist!

Or a denier - take your pick

I think a more general point is it's too complicated to know with any confidence

Maybe CO2 will have a minor effect, or maybe major, can't wait to find out

"you can completely change the appearance of a graph so that the same data can appear to support or disprove two different hypothesis!"

If you believe that then you should be able to make the data look like co2 is changing before temperature rather than after. Can you do it?

Jerry says:
"Denier"

Ah, that's a shame. We hadn't seen that digusting slur used since Arapiles left over 80 comments ago. I was hoping we'd got beyond such behaviour.

worldcrops.com

Looks like they have interesting solar info

http://www.worldcrops.com/5892-the-diminishing-solar-maximum-%E2%80%93-a-new-ice-age/

Hill observes, “If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.” And the implication of this for agricommodities – if past precedent is anything to go by – is worrying.

George, yes. This is what I've spent most of the last few years trying to alert people to. We have seven months of food supplies in the world, not the seven year grain silos the Pharaohs built 4000 years ago. This is because just in time agriculture makes more money for the speculators.

Progress?

Who was it who said "No country is more than three meals from revolution"?

Nick says:
Maybe we should outlaw backpacking. Iso-propane, alcohol, Esbit, and wood pollute the air. And it is us who are engaging in these anti-social behaviors :)

Three years ago Dean said:
Ok, here is the new thread that I am attempting to move out of the "Backcountry Cookfires" thread. Flame away.

I still maintain that governments that are trying to make sure the third world keeps on cooking on wood fires don't have any business outlawing first world backpackers from doing the same.

Progress?

Who was it who said "No country is more than three meals from revolution"?

Someone who hasn't sampled the goodness which is Hormel's Spam. As a number of agricultural scientists I worked with last year told me, any society willing to eat pork probably doesn't have to worry about starvation : ) .

Edited by hknewman on 06/24/2011 17:34:09 MDT.

Hi Rog

> I agree that it's hard to see the ralationship in the raw data, which is why I
> suitably filtered it

I am left with a concern that the filtered data shows a different time relationship compared to the unfiltered data. This time difference can be caused by the filtering.

What was the actual maths used for the filtering? Open science ...

Cheers

>> Rog asked: Who was it who said "No country is more than three meals from revolution"?

My guess is one of the Marx brothers




I did not know the pharaohs kept 7 years of grain. Interesting.

Hi Roger C. The detrending function on Wood for Trees website is a fairly simple function, it only affects amplitudes, not timings.
Source code here:
http://woodfortrees.org/downloads/analyse-0.7.2.tgz

Very interesting and convincing hypothesis regarding the extinction event around 11000 years ago followed by a serious cold spell which lasted 1500 years called the Younger Dryas event.

If you are interested in North American geology and the mystery surrounding the ending of the Clovis culture, read this:
http://cometstorm.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/a-different-kind-of-climate-catastrophe-2/

http://www.irishweatheronline.com/news/space/nasa-says-asteroid-poses-no-threat-to-earth/21362.html

Seems like we've had a few close one. What would happen to our climate if a small asteroid did impact the Earth?

Good link Rog. Very interesting. I posted my question before I saw your link so good timing.

from the blog link...


Something wicked this way comes. It’s been here a few times before. It’s caused extinctions before. It’s even killed humans in large numbers before. And it can be implicated in the collapse of many bronze age civilizations. Next time it comes back, it would be good to see it coming in time to get people out of the way. And to prepare for human survival in a drastically altered globate climate. Yet congress would rather whiz away 70 million dollars trying to convince us a trace gas that’s important for life to flourish on this planet should be thought of as a pollutant. All the while giving funding for impact research, and the search for Near Earth Objects, little more than lip service.