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If they are serious, they will watch and learn from the mayor of Chicago. She is very presidential, exactly what they need.

And notice how pleased the reporter is, a bit of an editorial itself, and the chamber itself applauded her performance.

Heh, get this! It's for a super PAC devoted to a grassroots(!) democratic turnout...

In propaganda, the Russians are posers!

"I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected." -- Donald J Trump, May 30, 2019

It is illegal for foreign nationals or governments to help people get elected.

Sorry, I got curious...

But damn! The guy lays it on pretty thick, doesn't he? I mean, that picture!

Electricity is too complex. And besides, the generators aren't powered by batteries.

They're also ripping out the reactors and going back to coal and kerosene lamps. Much simpler system. Do away with electricity altogether. Your EMP weapons are useless here.

Here's the story.

Note: I submitted this article as a regular story, however the editors ignored it for quite some time. So I have deleted it from the submissions queue and present it here in my journal instead. Given the interest in book of the month and the many other references I see to books and movies here on soylent, I thought it might be of interest to some of our denizens anyway. So, then:

I should first point out that I didn't have anything at all to do with the above-linked article; but when I read it, all I could do was nod — a lot — and try not to allow my temper to get the better of me.

I have a longstanding (about 50 years) direct business connection to high end science fiction & fantasy publishing. I can confirm that this has become a significant problem in the industry — and also that this did not use to be the case. Resistance based on perception of characters as that relates to "author validity" is increasing, and is now a major factor in what ends up getting published. Or doesn't.

I don't have a solution (at least, not a solution that doesn't involve lining people up against a wall and shooting them), but the issue definitely has my attention.

If we can expect a work to fail in the marketplace because it will be attacked in such a manner, we simply can't see it through to publication. Doing so would kill our business.

Capitulation? Yes, essentially that's exactly it. It's either that or get jobs at McDonalds. This is one of those ways that the world is changing, and not for the better.

A natural monopoly occurs when the most efficient number of firms in the industry is one.

A natural monopoly will typically have very high fixed costs meaning that it impractical to have more than one firm producing the good.

The author gives as an example of a natural monopoly, tap water. Sure, one could have multiple water companies each with its own very expensive set of pipes provide water competitively, but it would be in net more inefficient and costly than having a single provider. And each additional provider competes over a fixed slice of market, quickly becoming unprofitable.

In my view, actually having a natural monopoly is a strong argument against using a market solution and it is fundamental to a lot of situational anti-market arguments. But OTOH, markets are really useful in general. If one can figure how to make a natural monopoly not so, then that allows us to use this powerful tool.

So how can we turn a natural monopoly into something else? One way is decomposition. One doesn't actually eliminate the natural monopoly, but instead separate out the part that isn't competitive from the the rest. For example, in our tap water example, maybe the full piping can't be replicated economically, but it can be separated out from the supplying of tap water. One would then need to replicate water mains (so that one is guaranteed to receive water from the desired source) along with some sort of switching system to be able to shift water from one main to another. The rest of the plumbing either becomes its own natural monopoly or owned by the parties receiving the water.

It still could be too costly for multiple parties to compete, but the cost of infrastructure and barrier to entry has declined considerably.

Another way is to make costs of entry and operation much cheaper. If laying those pipes becomes an insignificant cost, then suddenly multiple firms could compete even with completely duplicated systems. The pipes become a minor economic issue rather than a primary and effective obstacle to competition.

So let's look at those two approaches with respect to the high speed rail problem. Arik made great observations, such as:

And when you have a monopolistic good (as train tracks are, there's a tremendous initial investment to clear and construct lines, it makes no sense to do the whole thing *twice* plus they would have to cross each other at times) you have the best argument for collective ownership.

or here

Like I say, just imagine trying to complete a transcontinental railroad without using monopoly (state) power.

Forget about completing it, try to just purchase the land necessary. Remember, no government handouts, no eminent domain, you have to come to a deal with each and every landowner on the path. If one says no, then you have to backtrack and reroute to avoid him. Each time you reroute you have to go to a less desirable route. If you have to do it often, you wind up with a snake track instead of a nice straight line.

Here, decomposition can come to our rescue. Acquiring land for a rail system is a hard problem, but it's a hard problem that only needs to be done once. The government needs to be involved at this stage, but they don't need to be acting for a single party (themselves or others). So instead of merely acquiring land for a single rail system, acquire it to accommodate multiple rail systems. Government can also reuse the various other right of ways they have (roads, aqueducts, etc).

Second, with actual competition in such markets, we have an opportunity to attack the cost of the infrastructure. Currently, there's at best weak incentive in lowering the cost of high speed rail. Most customers will spend the same money whether they get a lot of train or very little. Any private customers would either have niche markets (like say Disney World and some airports) or have to worry about competing head on with a subsidized government version.

A few of the most dysfunction projects have no incentive to deliver a working system at all. The California project is a great example, since it is likely that it will be discontinued before anything concrete is done, just due to the lack of funding sources and the huge length of time before any serious urban areas are connected to the rail system.

To summarize, markets are such a powerful tool, it makes little sense to rule them out completely even in a natural monopoly situation. Instead, it is better to structure the system in such a way that parts which can't be reduced to a competitive market are separated from the parts that can be so reduced.

Trump approves sending more forces to the Middle East amid tensions with Iran

Trump's projection tells us more about him than it does about those he's accusing:

"In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran." - Donald Trump, 1:48 PM - Nov 29, 2011

"Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate." - Donald Trump, 3:39 PM - Oct 9, 2012

"I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face!" - Donald Trump, 2:23 PM - 16 Sep 2013

Like Clint Eastwood, they spent their time talking to an empty chair before calling a day... so they can make a statement on twitter. You know these people are getting paid, right? How come we give 'em so much time off?

If we could impeach for conduct unbecoming, D.C. would be a ghost town.

This dance they perform is most delicate. They tread ever so lightly. WWE meets the Ballet Association. Mutual Assured Destruction is a real threat. But, soybeans are up, the show must go on...

This is a follow up to my previous journal entry. One thing I'd like to focus on is how the U.S. justice system works...

1. People read the law, file suit to enforce their rights against the government.
2. Appeals court makes incorrect ruling by copying and pasting arguments from government.
3. Party points it out errors.
4. Judge says "oops to bad" or "this case isn't important enough to merit reconsideration".
5. Party realises legal system is fake, much too late.

Some people don't seem to believe it. What amount of evidence / annotated cases would it take to convince you this is a systemic problem and not a set of isolated incidents? 10? 50? 100? more? Are you open to being convinced the U.S. Justice system is fake in the sense of not following written law?