An Exchange with Romius

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8440857&postID=1623745055072275535

romius, how do you interpret the borrowing binge of the last several years?

Virtually anyone and everyone was given a mortgage after merely promising to repay the money. Nothing more. Just signing a note promising repayment.

Are lenders like drug dealers, seeking dependent people with habits they cannot control?

Do you believe in personal responsibility? Should borrowers look at their finances and determine their capacity to send monthly payments to a creditor? Or is it okay for borrowers to ignore good sense and grab every dollar a lender will give simply because it's there?

Can individuals be trusted to act sensibly on their own behalf? Or are individuals inherently out of control? Do people need limits in their everyday lives set by the government?

Should businesses, at times, refuse to give customers what they seek?

Are No-Documentation Loans illegal?

Is it legal to lie on loan applications? Such as when a borrower asserts he has the assets and income to repay his debt?

Smoking cigarettes kills millions of people. Should manufacturing, selling or smoking cigarettes be made illegal? Or do people have the right to develop lung cancer and/or cardio-pulmonary disease?

Is abortion murder? The Supreme Court says a fetus is not a human. The Court also says it does not know exactly when a fetus becomes a human. The court concludes that as long as a fetus is not a human, the fetus is not protected by the Constitution. Therefore it is legal to end the existence of the unprotected fetus.

Does the refusal of the Supreme Court to acknowledge WHEN the developing human organism becomes "legally" human mean abortion is not murder?

Free Energy? You obviously know nothing about science and engineering. And nothing about human inventiveness either.

Like oil itself, sunlight, wind and moving water are free. But engineers, scientists, and all the people who build the equipment that turns sunlight, wind and moving water into electricity expect paychecks for their labor.

Generators that convert wind and water motion into electricity cost real money. The panels that convert sunlight into electricity cost a lot of money. And they use hazardous materials in the energy conversion process.

However, wind generators and solar panels are avaiable today. Their prices are already heavily subsidized by governments around the world. Nevetheless, electricity from solar and wind sources is still far more expensive and less reliable than electricity produced by conventional methods.

People who believe there is an abundant and cheap energy source that powerful leaders keep out of reach of most of the global population are people who believe in flying carpets and perpetual-motion machines.

As of today, oil is the least expensive, most dependable and most flexible energy source -- ever. It is the vitamin that has given the world's leading economies much of their strength.

Meanwhile, we know a lot about energy. We know there are NO elements on the planet that can be used to make batteries that are significantly superior to the best batteries available today.

There's no Moore's Law, semi-conductor experience ahead for batteries or solar panels. The gains will be incremental -- inches gained here and there. No Philosopher's Stone turning a pound of lead into a power station.

You need to understand what science and engineering can do, and you need to understand the timetable. It is generally slow.

Leonardo da Vinci was a pioneer in flight. He was trying to fly in 1500. It took 400 more years before the Wright Brothers got a plane into the air. However, in the last century, flight has advanced rapidly.

The first battery was made in 1800. After two hundred years, battery technology has advanced like a speeding glacier.

Scientists and engineers have learned that it is far easier to design portable devices that use less electricity than it is to develop batteries that hold more.