Some facts I think we should all agree upon, but we don't...

[DanTex]

1) The planet is getting warmer, and this is mainly due to human activities, the most significant of which is carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.
It's disappointing that there are still people on DU that disagree with this.

2) Greatly expanding the money supply when the economy is depressed and interest rates are at the zero lower bound does not result in hyperinflation.
There was a time where maybe the inflation hawks could have had an intellectually honest argument, but after being wrong for 5 years in a row, that time has passed.

3) The MMR vaccine does not cause autism.
There are a lot of things that are not fully known about autism, but whether it is caused by vaccines is not one of them

4) Homeopathy doesn't work beyond placebo.
Period.

5) All else being equal (ceteris paribus), more guns means more deaths.
The studies keep rolling in. The time for denialism has passed.

6) Properly implemented strong encryption cannot feasibly be broken.
Not even by the NSA.

Any others that I left out?


Yes, I know, there are asterisks and footnotes, which I omitted for the sake of brevity. But, basically, the empirical evidence for each is extremely strong, and you will find few experts in the respective fields who seriously disagree with any of those statements (with the possible exception of #2, since academic economics has become very politicized, but even there actual economists -- as opposed to op-ed writers, people on CNBC, and Niall Fergusen -- are mostly in agreement at this time).

OK, now everyone tell me why I'm wrong...

[randome]

1. Are you trying for a thousand post thread?

That's a lot of subject matter for one thread.

The point about climate change I wish everyone would keep in mind is that the cause of climate change is irrelevant. Conservatives have successfully diverted this point and we need to stop letting them get away with it.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[DanTex]

3. None of it should really be controversial.

More than anything, I'm venting some frustration at the fact that there are a bunch of anti-scientific and anti-empirical beliefs floating around DU, which I don't think is a good thing.

[dkf]

6. Sure we can be scientific but we are unwilling to sacrifice.

That's the real bugaboo.

[randome]

10. Facts don't matter to the factually-challenged, though. That's a fact.

We need to stop getting dragged into irrelevancies by politicians who don't give a damn about the future.

If the Sun warmed a tiny bit to make life intolerable for us, wouldn't we take steps to mitigate the effects? I doubt we'd shrug our shoulders and say, 'It's not caused by humans so...'

Climate change is a problem and we need to take steps to ensure our survival. That's the only center we need to keep in the spotlight.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[dkf]

13. Even if we did the Chinese are 3 times our population.

We are not in control of our destiny.

[randome]

19. Even China can be 'brought into line' with incentives and applications of technology.

When it becomes so bad, even China realizes the end is in sight, they will move. It may be too late by then. Or we can do both Plans A & B. Cut down drastically on emissions and place 'space mirrors' in orbit.

That still leaves the acidification of the oceans but I'm sure we'll tackle that, too. I just wish we would do so before our backs are against the wall.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[dkf]

21. They will do what is right for them. Their one child policy went farther than we would ever go.

[cantbeserious]

2. How Does One Know That The NSA Has Not Compromised Strong Encryption With A Back Door

eom

[randome]

7. You don't. You never will know.

Sleep easier, now.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[DanTex]

8. The NSA can only put back doors in encryption schemes or implementations that they

have a hand in designing. It is possible that they put a back door into one of the hash algorithms used in an NIST standard encryption protocol, but I would file that under "properly implemented".

There is no reason to believe that NSA has cracked something like AES.

[cantbeserious]

11. See Randome Answer Above - Thank You

eom

[dkf]

4. Re #2. It's not a problem until there is velocity of $.

Once that happens will the Fed properly manage inflation?

It was always the future management that was the concern.

[DanTex]

9. Once we are away from the zero lower bound, the fed returns to normal monetary policy.

What you are describing is just the latest in many iterations of inflation hawks changing their story when reality didn't match up with their predictions.

[dkf]

12. No one was expecting hyper inflation today for Gods sakes.

That was always a future consideration as obviously you need velocity of money as part of the money supply/inflation equation.

The question is if the Fed can effectively manage when they need to. We still don't know that answer. We aren't there yet.

In a funny way this is global warming in finance.

[DanTex]

14. The inflation hawks have been prediction hyperinflation "just around the corner" for five years...

For example, here's Allan Meltzer, in 2009:

Some of my fellow economists, including many at the Fed, say that the big monetary goal is to avoid deflation. They point to the less than 1 percent decline in the consumer price index for the year ending in March as evidence that deflation is a threat. But this statistic is misleading: unstable food and energy prices may lower the price index for a few months, but deflation (or inflation) refers to the sustained rate of change of prices, not the price level. We should look instead at a less volatile price index, the gross domestic product deflator. In this year’s first quarter, it rose 2.9 percent — a sure sign of inflation.

Besides, no country facing enormous budget deficits, rapid growth in the money supply and the prospect of a sustained currency devaluation as we are has ever experienced deflation. These factors are harbingers of inflation.

When will it come? Surely not right away. But sooner or later, we will see the Fed, under pressure from Congress, the administration and business, try to prevent interest rates from increasing. The proponents of lower rates will point to the unemployment numbers and the slow recovery. That’s why the Fed must start to demonstrate the kind of courage and independence it has not recently shown.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/opinion/04meltzer.html?pagewanted=all

That was four years ago. The "sure sign of inflation" disappeared, and four years later none of the predictions have come true. Every time interest rates ticked up a notch, there were triumphant WSJ editorials claiming that the inflation had arrived. Then when rates went back down, silence. Here's Niall Fergusen in 2011 talking about "the great inflation of the 2010s":
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/05/01/sticker-shock.html

Yes, it is the global warming of finance, in that people who have consistently been wrong about the coming inflation are mostly from right-wing think tanks, and being wrong for years in a row hasn't changed their minds.

[dkf]

15. The same argument could be made for global warming which predicted more hurricanes.

And we haven't had that many this year.

I don't see why you can't see the parallels. They are both scenarios of what could happen given certain conditions.

We had the re-freezing of the caps after all.

Does that destroy the entire thesis of Global warming? I would say not.

Neither does the fact that we haven't seen the velocity of money yet mean that the huge pump in the money base will never be a problem.

[DanTex]

17. Global warming did not "predict more hurricanes" in 2013 specifically. Where did you hear that?

The prediction was that intensity of storms would increase (which they have), but this would be a long gradual process, and that no single event can be attributed to global warming.

On the other hand, the inflation hawks predicted inflation in the short and medium term following the expanse of money, and it didn't happen at all. If they had said that inflation might go up slowly over the course of decades, that would be different (and mostly irrelevant), but that's not what they said.

More importantly, the key elements of global warming have been validated empirically -- temperatures are getting warmer, there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, etc. The number of hurricanes in 2013 is not a central part of the theory.

On the other hand, none of the predictions of the hyperinflation/velocity of money theory have become true. This is not a case where they were right about most things and got a few details wrong. Quite the opposite: the very heart of the theory -- that inflation would rise, was completely wrong. Believing in the coming hyperinflation at this point is purely faith-based.

A few more links of people incorrectly prediction inflation.
Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan in 2010.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/11/08/us-usa-fed-palin-idUSTRE6A74JC20101108
Allan Meltzer (again) in 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704709304576124033729197172.html
Amity Shlaes in 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-14/watch-bernanke-s-little-inflation-capsize-u-s-amity-shlaes.html

[hunter]

18. The proper way to control inflation is by taxation.

You pump the money into the bottom of the system, to the "working class," their children, their disabled, their retired, and their unemployable. Then you skim the excess money off the top, from the very wealthy class, before it gets all scummy stagnant and corrupt.

Our very wealthy class is all scummy stagnant and corrupt. They are hoarding money and political power which is why we don't have inflation at the moment, but the people living in poverty are suffocating.

[dkf]

20. Good luck with that one.

[hunter]

22. Ashling posted this in the Lounge:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018488457

[NightWatcher]

5. What about breast feeding pit bulls corn flake breaded fried chicken at Olive Garden

And does it matter if your waiter is circumsized before you tip him.

[LWolf]

16. I can agree with some of them, anyway.

1, 2, with limits, and 5.

The rest are open to debate, at least.

Not that I'm interested in debating you. I'm just avoiding the piles of work I brought home, which I'm going to address in a few minutes.

Here are a couple you left out:

1. Current education reforms are about privatizing and corporatizing public education, degrading the teaching profession, and producing a large pool of cheap labor and cannon fodder.

2. Neo-liberals are just as damaging to social and economic gaps as neo-conservatives, and the Democratic party is riddled with them.

[tblue37]

23. I wonder how those who believe in the efficacy of homeopathic medicine

dare to drink water or any liquid, since all liquids are mainly water.

After all, human and animal excrement gets into water all the time, and since they believe no amount of dilution wipes out the effect of whatever substances was originally introduced as the "medicine," then wouldn't those diluted poop molecules still be just as poopily efficacious?