(12-08-2016 08:43 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 06:25 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  Have to say I'd be dead set against Petraeus. The handling of the classified information in the manner ala Hillary Clinton should be sufficient to keep him out in my book.
If he was the choice, there would have be some world class issue dancing to differentiate his behavior, especially in light of how Trump used that type of behavior for his "Crooked Hillary" vein of attack.

I think it can be differentiated quite easily, but I don't think it's worth the political risk to go there. I really like Huntsman.

You're right that it can be differentiated easily. What Petraeus was proven to have done was worse.

(12-09-2016 12:36 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 08:43 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 06:25 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  Have to say I'd be dead set against Petraeus. The handling of the classified information in the manner ala Hillary Clinton should be sufficient to keep him out in my book.
If he was the choice, there would have be some world class issue dancing to differentiate his behavior, especially in light of how Trump used that type of behavior for his "Crooked Hillary" vein of attack.

I think it can be differentiated quite easily, but I don't think it's worth the political risk to go there. I really like Huntsman.

You're right that it can be differentiated easily. What Petraeus was proven to have done was worse.

He exposed one secret to one person. she exposed every secret to everybody.

I agree his actions probably should disqualify him for SecState, which is unfortunate because in every other respect i think he would be great at the job.

(12-09-2016 12:36 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 08:43 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 06:25 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  Have to say I'd be dead set against Petraeus. The handling of the classified information in the manner ala Hillary Clinton should be sufficient to keep him out in my book.
If he was the choice, there would have be some world class issue dancing to differentiate his behavior, especially in light of how Trump used that type of behavior for his "Crooked Hillary" vein of attack.

I think it can be differentiated quite easily, but I don't think it's worth the political risk to go there. I really like Huntsman.

You're right that it can be differentiated easily. What Petraeus was proven to have done was worse.

Absolutely not. Not even remotely close.

(12-09-2016 01:57 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(12-09-2016 12:36 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 08:43 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 06:25 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  Have to say I'd be dead set against Petraeus. The handling of the classified information in the manner ala Hillary Clinton should be sufficient to keep him out in my book.
If he was the choice, there would have be some world class issue dancing to differentiate his behavior, especially in light of how Trump used that type of behavior for his "Crooked Hillary" vein of attack.

I think it can be differentiated quite easily, but I don't think it's worth the political risk to go there. I really like Huntsman.

You're right that it can be differentiated easily. What Petraeus was proven to have done was worse.

He exposed one secret to one person. she exposed every secret to everybody.

I agree his actions probably should disqualify him for SecState, which is unfortunate because in every other respect i think he would be great at the job.

The limited release of confidential information is not what should disqualify Petraus, it's the affair and the fact that he exposed himself to being compromised while in a sensitive position that should disqualify him.

(12-08-2016 06:03 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 05:41 PM)I45owl Wrote:  What is the compelling reason to have producers of ineffective technologies here rather than Germany?

It's a tough sell to classify PV as ineffective technology.

If it's economically viable, then why would it need to be subsidized?

Solyndra - Wikipedia

Quote:Although the company was once touted for its unusual technology, plummeting silicon prices led to the company's being unable to compete with conventional solar panels made of crystalline silicon.

(12-09-2016 01:57 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(12-09-2016 12:36 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 08:43 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 06:25 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  Have to say I'd be dead set against Petraeus. The handling of the classified information in the manner ala Hillary Clinton should be sufficient to keep him out in my book.
If he was the choice, there would have be some world class issue dancing to differentiate his behavior, especially in light of how Trump used that type of behavior for his "Crooked Hillary" vein of attack.

I think it can be differentiated quite easily, but I don't think it's worth the political risk to go there. I really like Huntsman.

You're right that it can be differentiated easily. What Petraeus was proven to have done was worse.

He exposed one secret to one person. she exposed every secret to everybody.

I agree his actions probably should disqualify him for SecState, which is unfortunate because in every other respect i think he would be great at the job.

He intentionally SHARED classified information with someone he was not supposed to, using very intentional tactics to do that.

She intentionally STORED classified information on a location that, after more than a year in office, was told she was not supposed to. Is there evidence that she intentionally shared information in secretive manners with people who were not supposed to have said information? If so, I haven't seen that.

This is the crux as to why Hillary is not on probation bu Petraeus is.

(12-09-2016 09:35 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 06:03 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 05:41 PM)I45owl Wrote:  What is the compelling reason to have producers of ineffective technologies here rather than Germany?

It's a tough sell to classify PV as ineffective technology.

If it's economically viable, then why would it need to be subsidized?

Solyndra - Wikipedia

Quote:Although the company was once touted for its unusual technology, plummeting silicon prices led to the company's being unable to compete with conventional solar panels made of crystalline silicon.

That bottom reason is why Solyndra, not the entire PV industry went out of business.

But this line of thinking goes back to a point I brought up earlier and the role that people view the government should play. Some believe it should be used/allowed to try and invest in emergent technologies and research that could benefit mankind and others don't.

Subsidizing an emergent energy sector to allow for necessary research and growth makes sense when you look at the benefits. A vibrant solar energy sector could provide the US with independence from foreign energy producers, reduce overall carbon emissions (and likely other emissions), and potentially create breakthroughs in other sectors as well (like batteries). The free market is great at allocating resources best with known technologies, but since R&D does always have a known ROI, certain industries will be less aggressive in trying to push forward and investigate something new. Since government inherently doesn't have to worry about an ROI in the same manner, they can either directly fund that research (through things like the NSF) or help reduce the burden on companies who are spearheading the effort.

Do you think research and innovation in solar energy production is a waste of time?

(12-09-2016 09:35 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 06:03 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 05:41 PM)I45owl Wrote:  What is the compelling reason to have producers of ineffective technologies here rather than Germany?

It's a tough sell to classify PV as ineffective technology.

If it's economically viable, then why would it need to be subsidized?

Solyndra - Wikipedia

Quote:Although the company was once touted for its unusual technology, plummeting silicon prices led to the company's being unable to compete with conventional solar panels made of crystalline silicon.

That statement really isnt an accurate economic portrayal. Solyndra couldnt compete with Chinese manufacturers of PV panels, and the root cause was not the massive plummet in silicon prices. It was a massive plummet in the price of Chinese silicon based PV panels.

Look at the Solyndra dumping lawsuit filings for a really good background on what the Chinese did as a whole to fundamentally preempt the PV world.

So in context, yes, it was inefficient when compared to the efficacies resulting from the Chinese government building state of the art fabs and executing lease to buy deals on them to their companies for literally pennies on the dollar for actual return.

And inefficient from the perspective of the direct grants measured in billions of dollars in straight cash that enabled the Chinese companies to not just to sell massively deflated product, but allowed them to directly finance them and reap all the secondary benefits like a solar GMAC. (btw the big roadblock to selling the big rooftop projects, which are a massive proportion of the solar sales, is based not on the want of the customer, but the upfront price tag, and the associated legal gyrations needed to bring in third-party financing for a a project the size of a big box store. The Chinese direct grant basically ground the problem down to one stop shopping and financing -- and provided a massive secondary boost to the bottom line of the companies that got the direct grant gift from the Chinese government.)

Much, much easier to be effective running with those tailwinds..... and much, much easier to be ineffective facing those headwinds..... Just saying there is a lot more that happened in the PV market than the Wikipedia sentence you researched.

(12-09-2016 10:38 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  That bottom reason is why Solyndra, not the entire PV industry went out of business.

Chart the US solar industry as a whole from 1995. Not that point quoted above, but the reasons stated in a preceding post is why there is essentially zero solar industry out of the US in solar manufacturing. And why the bulwark resides with China.

Sounds to me that the massive Chinese subsidization program worked like a fing charm....

(12-09-2016 11:02 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(12-09-2016 10:38 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  That bottom reason is why Solyndra, not the entire PV industry went out of business.

Chart the US solar industry as a whole from 1995. Not that point quoted above, but the reasons stated in a preceding post is why there is essentially zero solar industry out of the US in solar manufacturing. And why the bulwark resides with China.

Sounds to me that the massive Chinese subsidization program worked like a fing charm....

Agreed. But for some reason posters on here could care less as it appears to me that they don't think solar is a beneficial technology to invest in.

(12-09-2016 10:32 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  He intentionally SHARED classified information with someone he was not supposed to, using very intentional tactics to do that.
She intentionally STORED classified information on a location that, after more than a year in office, was told she was not supposed to. Is there evidence that she intentionally shared information in secretive manners with people who were not supposed to have said information? If so, I haven't seen that.
This is the crux as to why Hillary is not on probation bu Petraeus is.

If you think that description means that what Petraeus did is worse, then you do not understand the principles underlying our national security laws.

(12-09-2016 12:17 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2016 10:32 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  He intentionally SHARED classified information with someone he was not supposed to, using very intentional tactics to do that.
She intentionally STORED classified information on a location that, after more than a year in office, was told she was not supposed to. Is there evidence that she intentionally shared information in secretive manners with people who were not supposed to have said information? If so, I haven't seen that.
This is the crux as to why Hillary is not on probation bu Petraeus is.

If you think that description means that what Petraeus did is worse, then you do not understand the principles underlying our national security laws.

I think it is, and it appears like the FBI (specifically James Comey) agrees with me: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/...p-has-it-/

Two sections from the article are telling:

Quote:Petraeus pled guilty in 2015 to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling confidential materials. He was fined $100,000 and given two years probation. He had given his mistress, Paula Broadwell, access to eight notebooks with top-secret and code information. She had made copies of over 300 documents marked "secret."

In addition, Petraeus lied to FBI agents investigating the case.

In Clinton's case, the FBI found 110 emails with classified information on her server, eight of which were designated top secret. Comey, in a July 5 news conference, said there was no evidence of Clinton or her staff intending to violate the law. But he also said Clinton should have known that her handling of the emails was inappropriate, and that her behavior was "extremely reckless" because outsiders could hack her server.

and

Quote:"Do you agree with the claim that General Petraeus, and I quote, 'Got in trouble for far less,' end of quote? Do you agree with that statement?" asked Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-MD.

"No, it's the reverse," the FBI director said.

Comey cited the Petraeus case as one that "illustrates perfectly the kind of cases the Department of Justice is willing to prosecute. Even there, they prosecuted him for a misdemeanor.

"In that case, you had vast quantities of highly classified information, including special sensitive compartmented information. That's the reference to code words. (A) vast quantity of it, not only shared with someone without authority to have it, but we found it in a search warrant hidden under the insulation in his attic, and then he lied to us about it during the investigation," Comey said. (Later in the hearing, Comey said his staff had corrected him and the notebooks were found in Petraeus' desk, not his attic.)

"So you have obstruction of justice, you have intentional misconduct and a vast quantity of information," Comey said. "He admitted he knew that was the wrong thing to do. That is a perfect illustration of the kind of cases that get prosecuted. In my mind, it illustrates importantly the distinction to this (Clinton) case."

"And General Petraeus did not admit to these facts when the FBI investigators first interviewed him, did he?" Cummings asked.

"No," Comey said, "he lied about it."

To me, this is explained because it's all about risk. What is risk though - it is the confluence of severity of occurrence and liklihood to occur, and let's rank both of those on a scale of 1 to 100. Liklihood will be rated on the chance someone who isn't supposed to have the information came into its possession.

For Petraeus you have a 100 on the liklihood to occur - top secret material was actually given to someone who was not supposed to have it. Now let's go to severity - that's probably an 80 - 10 points for each notebook with top secrete information and code information. So let's get a score of 8,000.

For Clinton, let's call liklihood elevated, say 80. She did not give it to anyone, but it was on a less secure server and people could have hacked it. And on severity we can give her an 80 as well, 10 points for each top secrete email found on the server. So that's a score of 6,400.

I think that evaluation is fair.

So which bank would you rather rent a safety deposit box from:

The Bank of Petraeus, where the bank president has let his girl friend have access to the vault and try on your jewelry,

Or,

The Bank of Hillary, where your jewelry is stored in a cardboard box and the doors are left open and security turned off?


Neither is what we want, for sure.

I hope the President finds a place for Petraeus in the administration. He has too much ability to be left on the sideline.

(12-09-2016 01:34 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  So which bank would you rather rent a safety deposit box from:

The Bank of Petraeus, where the bank president has let his girl friend have access to the vault and try on your jewelry,

Or,

The Bank of Hillary, where your jewelry is stored in a cardboard box and the doors are left open and security turned off?


Neither is what we want, for sure.

I hope the President finds a place for Petraeus in the administration. He has too much ability to be left on the sideline.

It wasn't that bad, but I get your point. As you said, neither. But I find the first to be a bigger criminal concern than the second. The first let someone into my deposit box and go through my stuff, borrowing some of it for personal use. The second doesn't seem to have had a chance to tell me how they would have handled a person who shouldn't be in my safety deposit box being there.

And regarding Petraeus and a position, it'll be kind of hard to place him since his criminal punishment includes making him check in with probation officer any time he leaves North Carolina...

(12-09-2016 01:18 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  To me, this is explained because it's all about risk. What is risk though - it is the confluence of severity of occurrence and liklihood to occur, and let's rank both of those on a scale of 1 to 100. Liklihood will be rated on the chance someone who isn't supposed to have the information came into its possession.
For Petraeus you have a 100 on the liklihood to occur - top secret material was actually given to someone who was not supposed to have it. Now let's go to severity - that's probably an 80 - 10 points for each notebook with top secrete information and code information. So let's get a score of 8,000.
For Clinton, let's call liklihood elevated, say 80. She did not give it to anyone, but it was on a less secure server and people could have hacked it. And on severity we can give her an 80 as well, 10 points for each top secrete email found on the server. So that's a score of 6,400.
I think that evaluation is fair.

That ay be fair in your opinion, but that's not the way the applicable statutes view it. To carry your model forward, the law would assume a risk rate of 100 in both cases.

And the difference going the other way is that Petraeus's disclosure was to one known person, whereas Clinton potentially exposed the information to an unknown number of unknown persons. And we have no indication that Petraeus exposed information to an enemy of the US, whereas in Clinton's case it cannot be determined whether she did or not. And, of course, they both lied about their respective actions.

I don't support Petraeus for SecState, and quite frankly it wouldn't bother me one iota if he were locked up. But what Hillary did was worse.

(12-09-2016 02:01 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-09-2016 01:34 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  So which bank would you rather rent a safety deposit box from:

The Bank of Petraeus, where the bank president has let his girl friend have access to the vault and try on your jewelry,

Or,

The Bank of Hillary, where your jewelry is stored in a cardboard box and the doors are left open and security turned off?


Neither is what we want, for sure.

I hope the President finds a place for Petraeus in the administration. He has too much ability to be left on the sideline.

It wasn't that bad, but I get your point. As you said, neither. But I find the first to be a bigger criminal concern than the second. The first let someone into my deposit box and go through my stuff, borrowing some of it for personal use. The second doesn't seem to have had a chance to tell me how they would have handled a person who shouldn't be in my safety deposit box being there.

And regarding Petraeus and a position, it'll be kind of hard to place him since his criminal punishment includes making him check in with probation officer any time he leaves North Carolina...

How did Ted Kennedy handle it?

(12-09-2016 10:38 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-09-2016 09:35 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 06:03 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 05:41 PM)I45owl Wrote:  What is the compelling reason to have producers of ineffective technologies here rather than Germany?

It's a tough sell to classify PV as ineffective technology.

If it's economically viable, then why would it need to be subsidized?

Solyndra - Wikipedia

Quote:Although the company was once touted for its unusual technology, plummeting silicon prices led to the company's being unable to compete with conventional solar panels made of crystalline silicon.

That bottom reason is why Solyndra, not the entire PV industry went out of business.

But this line of thinking goes back to a point I brought up earlier and the role that people view the government should play. Some believe it should be used/allowed to try and invest in emergent technologies and research that could benefit mankind and others don't.

Subsidizing an emergent energy sector to allow for necessary research and growth makes sense when you look at the benefits. A vibrant solar energy sector could provide the US with independence from foreign energy producers, reduce overall carbon emissions (and likely other emissions), and potentially create breakthroughs in other sectors as well (like batteries). The free market is great at allocating resources best with known technologies, but since R&D does always have a known ROI, certain industries will be less aggressive in trying to push forward and investigate something new. Since government inherently doesn't have to worry about an ROI in the same manner, they can either directly fund that research (through things like the NSF) or help reduce the burden on companies who are spearheading the effort.

Do you think research and innovation in solar energy production is a waste of time?

Bottom line - no, but I think massive government-level subsidies pushing them into production is absolute wasteful.

IMHO, governments are highly motivated to spend money in renewable energy products that show that they have increased the share of "green" energy capacity, because that will get them re-elected. However, energy capacity does not translate to energy production. Given the sporadic nature of both wind and solar (at least solar is more predictable), it generally has to be supplemented with another energy source (coal/gas/nuclear) to provide baseload energy... I've read analyses of the problems integrating solar and wind into a grid that go beyond my understanding at this time, but which suggest that there are structural limits on how much of those you can rely on.



There is a question about whether any of the trendier technologies is actually carbon neutral - including new questions about hydroelectric. I don't think any of those discussed will have much of an impact with regards to energy independence, at least in the near term.

I am a big advocate of nuclear energy. On every criteria that you specify above, there is a much, much greater ceiling with nuclear technology, and I think investment in that sector could quickly reach the gold standard in nuclear energy - walk-away-safe energy production - that would vastly reduce the risk of nuclear energy production (which is already the safest form of energy production by a substantial margin). With the elimination of the possibility of dangerous consequences in the event of a meltdown, the expense associated with large nuclear plants should be eliminated, which would make nuclear the cheapest form of baseline energy - again, by a substantial margin. The one area in which nuclear energy has a downside with regards to public policy is jobs production. The number of people employed in the coal industry is pretty large ... coal production can be viewed as a dangerous and expensive jobs program, but it keeps politicians in office when it comes to the threat of those job losses.

In short, I agree in principle with your portrayal of the government as an R&D engine. However, I stringently object to government picking industry winners and losers, which is what industry subsidies do. There is a difference between funding research of an academic and subsidizing industry sectors in order to achieve policies that are politically motivated.

I-45, are there no nuclear subsidies or research programs? I don't know much about all the industries supported, but I would be surprised if nuclear was not.

(12-10-2016 08:27 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I-45, are there no nuclear subsidies or research programs? I don't know much about all the industries supported, but I would be surprised if nuclear was not.

There are both subsidies and regulatory hurdles that make progress in the US insurmountable. As a consequence, several companies have stopped development on very promising technologies.

For example, the current focus on development in nuclear power is on small, modular, reactors (SMR). However, the nuclear regulatory commission has said that companies can't proceed with development because the NRC doesn't know how to license them.

Nuclear policy is both necessarily and unnecessarily more complex than other sectors of the energy industry. But current policy is very hostile to nuclear ... at least part of that is due to the appointment of an obstructionist chairman pushed by Harry Reid.

(12-09-2016 10:57 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(12-09-2016 09:35 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 06:03 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 05:41 PM)I45owl Wrote:  What is the compelling reason to have producers of ineffective technologies here rather than Germany?

It's a tough sell to classify PV as ineffective technology.

If it's economically viable, then why would it need to be subsidized?

Solyndra - Wikipedia

Quote:Although the company was once touted for its unusual technology, plummeting silicon prices led to the company's being unable to compete with conventional solar panels made of crystalline silicon.

That statement really isnt an accurate economic portrayal. Solyndra couldnt compete with Chinese manufacturers of PV panels, and the root cause was not the massive plummet in silicon prices. It was a massive plummet in the price of Chinese silicon based PV panels.

Look at the Solyndra dumping lawsuit filings for a really good background on what the Chinese did as a whole to fundamentally preempt the PV world.

So in context, yes, it was inefficient when compared to the efficacies resulting from the Chinese government building state of the art fabs and executing lease to buy deals on them to their companies for literally pennies on the dollar for actual return.

And inefficient from the perspective of the direct grants measured in billions of dollars in straight cash that enabled the Chinese companies to not just to sell massively deflated product, but allowed them to directly finance them and reap all the secondary benefits like a solar GMAC. (btw the big roadblock to selling the big rooftop projects, which are a massive proportion of the solar sales, is based not on the want of the customer, but the upfront price tag, and the associated legal gyrations needed to bring in third-party financing for a a project the size of a big box store. The Chinese direct grant basically ground the problem down to one stop shopping and financing -- and provided a massive secondary boost to the bottom line of the companies that got the direct grant gift from the Chinese government.)

Much, much easier to be effective running with those tailwinds..... and much, much easier to be ineffective facing those headwinds..... Just saying there is a lot more that happened in the PV market than the Wikipedia sentence you researched.

Wait, wait. Seven years ago Obama was your bogeyman on photovoltaics -- everyone was telling you that US projects were being dropped because investors were afraid how much Obama was going to tax them. But it turns out that it really was the PV glut after all?