Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (361234)	12/3/2007 3:55:02 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1574375

Another Driver of Global Warming Planet feels heat of divorce UNHAPPY couples used to stick together for the sake of the kids. Now they can make the best of a bad marriage in the name of being environmentally friendly. Scientists have quantified for the first time the extent to which divorce damages the environment. The researchers found that the combined use of electricity across the two new households created rose 53% while water use was up by 42%. Across America – one of 12 countries studied – divorced households used 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2005 that could have been saved if the families had not split up. That is equivalent to about a fifth of Britain’s consumption. Broken couples also increase demand for housebuilding and infrastructure such as new roads. “The global trend of soaring divorce rates has created more households with fewer people, has taken up more space and has gobbled up more energy and water,” said Jianguo Liu of Michigan University, who carried out the latest research. The study, to be published tomorrow in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the average number of rooms per household was between 33% and 95% higher for divorced couples than for married ones. Liu also calculated that America now has an extra 38.5m rooms in houses and apartments built to meet the demand for more accommodation generated by divorce over the past three decades. The growth of single-person households is also damaging the environment. Research published in the journal Environment, Development and Sustainability found that: - One-person households are the biggest consumers of energy, land and household goods, such as washing machines, refrigerators, TVs and stereos, per capita - They consume 38% more products, 42% more packaging, 55% more electricity and 61% more gas per capita than four-person households - People living alone create 1½ tons of waste annually compared with a ton by those in households of four or more timesonline.co.uk

To: Road Walker who wrote (361234)	12/3/2007 4:04:47 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574375

Giving mortgages to people who can't pay them back, means you take a loss on a mortgage. Do that too often and your business will shrink or even disappear. There is a built in correction mechanism. With government the build in operation works the other way. Government programs tend to grow whether or not there is extra demand for their services. The interest of the politician is to weld more power, both for its own sake, and perhaps to a greater degree to the extent it can get special interests to support him. If a government program has negative results, that often becomes justification to spend even more money, "look at all these problems, we need to spend money to clear them up". I was using an extreme example to illustrate that government spending isn't a net zero to the economy. In that example it wasn't a net zero. It was likely a net negative. In more extreme examples its a net negative even if the budgeted cost of the program aren't included.