Recheck your conclusion. If you time-reverse a trajectory that doesn't go through any kind of resistive medium, it looks just like the original trajectory. (Feynman, among numerous others, pointed that out.) A time-reversed gravitational parabolic trajectory is still a gravitational parabolic trajectory -- the acceleration is still downward. Time-reversed attractive force is still attractive. As for antimatter being anti-gravity -- not if ordinary quantum field theory and general relativity are correct. General relativity relates space-time curvature to energy and momentum density. In quantum field theory, energy is positive for both particles and antiparticles.

Another name for "The Ignoramus Strategy" is "Playing Dumb." Insofar as one has nothing to lose by playing dumb, it's a useful tactic -- wasting someone else's time, brains, and effort trying to get through to him with no avail. "When you're explaining, you're losing." How to fight the tactic? In the process of playing dumb, he creates evidence that he is dumb or incompetent. How about going to a third person who may be important to him, presenting the evidence of incompetence, and see what happens.

"Banks Have Become “Too Big To Fail” Again. Uh-Oh. - Slate Magazine" What do you mean, "Again"?! While we were talking about TBTF banks, the banks were doing -- continuing to become ever bigger.

"The Debate on Bank Size Is Over" -- I agree, but not in the sense that Simon Johnson means. While we've been talking about "Too Big to Fail" and "Too Big to Exist," the TBTE banks have grown without opposition from the Obama administration.

Is it that you're bored with the subject? It doesn't matter that our military flew a drone -- an imposter UA175 -- into the South Tower? Or is it that you simply don't believe the logical conclusion of the facts presented? UA175 took off at 8:23. The plane hitting the South Tower took off at 8:14. Either that, or information was falsified. "And it shows the insanity of the world when most people aware of this discrepancy don't care about it. (One of the reports is wrong. Why has there been no official investigation of how that happened?)" (My reply to EMichael.)

I hope that you take your words seriously enough to call for official (open) investigation of the inconsistent wheels-off times for UA175 and UA93. As it stands, the records are sufficient evidence in court to make a prima facie case that UA175 and the plane that hit the South Tower were two different aircraft -- even if the latter used UA175's call sign.

I suspect that you confused discrepancy between two accounts of a particular fact -- the wheels-off time -- the time the aircraft leaves the runway -- with differences between actual and scheduled times, between push-back and wheels-off times, or otherwise. A discrepancy between two official accounts or reports of a single number -- the wheels-off-time of UA175 on 9/11 -- is intolerable. One of the numbers is false. It's intolerable-squared when it happens with both UA175 and UA93. And it shows the insanity of the world when most people aware of this discrepancy don't care about it. (One of the reports is wrong. Why has there been no official investigation of how that happened?)

Somewhere, Mosler comments that if you went up to the IRS and paid your taxes in hard-accumulated greenbacks, they would thank you, credit your account, and burn the money. Myself, I would hope that they would recycle or reuse the greenbacks, but his point is clear. For the government, dollars are like coupons created by a private individual or firm -- or possibly like points awarded by a football stadium. They spend or distribute money by increasing numbers in accounts, or by giving out greenbacks. Taxation is disconnected from spending; taxation gives dollars a certain value, because they can demand that we give them dollars. Mosler gives a fable of a family where Mom creates coupons and gives them to the children for various chores. What would a child want with a coupon? Well, Mom also creates the rule that if you live in this house, you turn in a certain number of coupons every week (say). Now, coupons have demand. He also tells about a university (in St. Louis?) that demands a certain amount of public service (say, 20 hours) from its students every semester. (I refuse to use the term "volunteer work" when it's mandatory.) It pays a coupon for every hour of work, and demands 20 coupons from a student to get his grades or complete the semester. That has become a new form of currency. The school just prints out coupons and distributes them as appropriate for the public service. No need to issue bonds, borrow coupons, and pay interest. The only thing that concerns me about MMT is that the government is (somewhat) separate from the Fed. Not as separate as the European Community Bank is from the European governments, but somewhat separate. The Fed may not allow the government to spend or create money as it chooses, as that is the Fed's job. The Fed may force the Government to default, perhaps. At the same time that some of us are concerned about a trillion or two of Government deficit, the Fed may be creating and distributing several trillion dollars to banks -- and a smaller amount to friends and families of Fed members for their personal use. Including the Fed deficit, there may be too much deficit, or there may be too little deficit. Without the Fed (or someone) creating new money, total net savings in any year must be zero. (If you and I have 100 marbles between us, and I manage to run a surplus and gain and save five marbles, you must necessarily lose five marbles.) If a sixth-grade teacher lends out 2000 dollars of her personalized monopoly money to her students at 1% interest to be paid at the end of the year, too many people say that she'll get $2020 back. But that's impossible (unless someone forges an additional $20). She can't get more than $2000 back at the end of the year, because there aren't more than $2000. Instead, default is guaranteed. It's not the defaulter's fault, because someone absolutely has to default -- the system is (perhaps unwittingly) designed that way. That illustrates a conservation law in practice, and also illustrates the guaranteed failure of moralizing everyone to save money. Imagine if the money supply now were the same as it was at the end of the American Revolution.

Although come to think of it, the Republicans did compromise at the end of 2012 to avoid the "fiscal cliff." If I recall correctly, President Obama got a better-than-expected deal on tax increases.

"...the Dem control of either chamber of Congress will display exactly the same ugly reasoning" when a Republican becomes President. I wish. Rather, I wish that the Democrats would move in that direction. Under Bush II, all too many Democrats enabled him, when we were screaming, "Fight!"

Push-back times and wheels-off times (at least for the big airlines) are generated automatically by ACARS, a communication system between aircraft and the airline. (A second estimate of the wheels-off time is the time of the first statement to/from air traffic control after takeoff.) It appears that the Commission's wheels-off times of 8:14 and 8:42 are also based on ACARS: http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00015.pdf The push-back times were the same for both flights. (No inconsistency between BTS and the Commission.) Perhaps you could give an example of how a discrepancy might occur for the wheels-off time of a flight, both based on the same original ACARS message. Your example must be routine enough to convince a skeptic that the discrepancy might reasonably have occurred with both flights. I'd actually prefer a cite to an official investigation that actually explained the discrepancies for 9/11. Seriously, I can think of only one plausible innocent explanation for the discrepancies: a hacker broke into a database and changed the BTS numbers. (Innocent, as in not implying that 9/11 was an inside job.) Okay, there may be other explanations. That's why I call for investigation, rather than declare definitely that the planes hitting the South Tower and crashing in Pennsylvania were imposters -- possibly usurping the flights' call signs.

Thank you.

Google is your friend. Let's see: Iraq: well-known, and the subject of this article. LAPD: Google "Rodney King", "Rampart Division", "Fuhrman" -- for that matter, one can find so much on LAPD if one looks. Courts upholding frame-ups: "Odell Barnes" with overalls planted with a small amount of blood infested with a blood preservative. (Just one of several issues, but an unmistakable case of evidence planting.) There are numerous other cases. 9/11 Wheels-Off Times: www.bts.gov for the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, or http://apps.bts.gov/xml/ontimesummarystatistics/src/dstat/OntimeSummaryDepatures.xml for the flight statistics in particular -- UA175 took off at 8:23, UA93 took off at 8:28. (United Airlines takes the wheels-off time automatically transmitted by ACARS, converts to local time, and reports it to BTS.) 9/11 Commission's Report, http://www.911myths.com/images/b/b6/Flight_Path_Study_UA175.pdf, http://www.911myths.com/images/4/4d/Flight_Path_Study_UA93.pdf -- UA175 took off at 8:14, UA93 took off at 8:42. See if you can find a single thing in the Commission's report mentioning that discrepancy. See if you can find a single official investigation explaining or reconciling that discrepancy. And while I'm at it, I'll mention Chapter 1, note 9 (in the Notes section), where the Commission mentions people boarding AA11 after the the plane pushed back. The Commission FALSELY cited a document (http://www.911myths.com/images/7/71/Team7_Box18_AAL-QFR-Responses.pdf -- search "March 15" and find the end of answer 11.8(b).) claiming that boarding times are only approximate, to explain this anomaly. In fact, the "approximation" is to the nearest quarter minute, and doesn't come close to explaining the boarding times after push-back time. Of course, you'll consider all of this blather as well. Somehow, when it comes to 9/11, the written word just doesn't get across to people. (I speak from personal experience. Pictures too.)

The insidious thing about groupthink and an unwillingness to entertain dissent is typically that someone else is harmed by the mistake. The persons making the mistake are not the ones to be harmed by the mistake -- usually. Sometimes they get unlucky. So we have the drive to invade Iraq. Iraq and its people are harmed, not us. (This happens in war in general.) We have persistent refusal to reform gangster police departments such as the Los Angeles Police Department, because the persons in a position to do the job aren't the ones hurt. We have courts refusing to overturn convictions based on fabricated evidence or unreliable evidence, because the persons harmed aren't the courts or the judges. Anti-Truthers respond to the arguments of 9/11 Truthers with insult, dismissal, banning, or patent nonsense. (Who takes seriously the apparent United Airlines reported wheels-off times of 8:23 for UA175 and 8:28 for UA93, versus the Commission Report's of 8:14 and 8:42 respectively?) I could relate numerous other examples of anti-Truther incompetence. Consequence of such groupthink? Persons speaking out are dismissed as speaking just to hear themselves speak, even when warning about weaknesses in nuclear reactor design. Engineers sending memos (labelled "Red Alert" in screaming red ink no less) calling for the Space Shuttle Challenger not to launch on a freezing morning get disregarded.

It's important to remember that Conservatives have never been for individual freedom. They've generally supported dictatorships over democracy. They've supported police-statism. They've supported establishment of religion. They supported outright white-superiority. They supported the military draft and mandatory military indoctrination.

"Markets will be naturally efficient when people are perfectly rational and virtuous." Doubtful, even with the qualifier "virtuous." It's been shown that there exist cases where the combined effect of many individual rational decisions is irrational, often chaotic.

Need not even be cutting corners. It could be a statistical fluctuation, and the next result would be the standard regression to the mean.

I wrote this earlier: "Suppose the government imposed a condition that everyone (or certain people) give coupons to the government as a condition for living, working, making money in the USA. ("As long as you live on our land, you will give us so many coupons every month." This might be an edict of a landlord, property owner.)" Does that answer your question? It could be called taxation, it could be called extortion, it could be called rent. But it gives the coupons a certain value.

Here's an alternative. The government creates coupons, and uses coupons to pay for goods and services, and to distribute as Social Security and other insurance payments, or even as a helicopter dump of coupons. Why would we want to have anything to do with those coupons? Suppose the government imposed a condition that everyone (or certain people) give coupons to the government as a condition for living, working, making money in the USA. ("As long as you live on our land, you will give us so many coupons every month." This might be an edict of a landlord, property owner.) That would create a certain demand for coupons, and coupons might well become a currency. The only question is, how is this different from current practice, with coupons called "dollars"? One difference is that we are borrowing coupons. Another difference is that we have in part delegated the ability to create coupons to the Federal Reserve. Not completely; the government can still mint trillion-coupon platinum coins.

"Spending more on infrastructure will improve our growth prospects, lower long-term unemployment, and some types of spending can actually save us money in the long-run." Three guesses why they're not doing it.

"So I am worried when people stop talking about today’s very high unemployment rates as if they were normal." STOP talking? Or perhaps NORMAL? I think the sentence makes more sense if "stop" is replaced by "start" or "normal" replaced by "abnormal" (but not both). In any case, Obama deserves plenty of the blame for his policies throughout his administration. In certain cases, Republican obstructionism can be credited for preventing Republican policies. After all, who gave us Bowles and Simpson? Who wants to "cut entitlements"? Who played dumb when faced with further stimulus proposals going beyond what he began with early 2009? Who refused to prosecute the banksters? Who persecuted whistleblowers? Who claimed unqualified power to call someone a terrorist and kill him? Who's using drones? Who folded (poker-style) when dealt a mandate that was less than a royal flush? (But at least three aces.) It's not that he gave up in the face of less than 100% certainty of success -- that's his enablers' excuse.

Here's my cynical take: better fuel efficiency means we drive slower toward the cliff. A slightly more optimistic take is that better fuel efficiency today makes it slightly easier to reverse the trend 30 years from now -- maybe, because it may still be impossible.

I really think that the signs of optimism in the last couple of paragraphs are the best we can hope for. Any action the Federal government takes will be under the radar. I believe that an important meme or frame to hit on is "working climate scientists" vs. "the three Ls: libertarians, Limbaugh, and LaRouche."

That is why I view GDP as relevant to welfare as the meaningless averaging, "On average, you, I, and Bill Gates are all decabillionaires." With something like 80% of the growth going to the top 1%, 25% of the growth going to the next 19%, and the remaining -5% of the growth going to the bottom 80%, one can see the trouble we are in.

I believe that "Pareto Efficiency" is a switch and bait. It's used to introduce a goal or a "should" into economics, used to declare what the best result is. Pareto Efficiency is a point (I won't say THE point; there could be several local maximums.) where if you deviate from it, someone gets worse off. (There could also be a Pareto ridge -- moving in one direction leaves everyone neutral.) It could be, overall, a terrible point. "After all, the borrowers and lenders are rational and they have made bets with each other in full knowledge that these large asset movements might occur." "They have rational expectations of all future prices." Perfect information and perfect rationality leads to the No-Trade Theorem. If one person wanted to buy, knowing the price would rise, everyone would want to buy, knowing the price would rise. The only time a trade would occur is when someone needed money and needed to sell to raise the money. Trading would be a fairly rare event. Not the huge industry it is. "... they believe that financial markets experience substantial frictions." Is friction the right word here? Financial markets are chaotic, turbulent. Friction can only reduce the chaotic turbulence; can never create or increase it. Financial markets can crash suddenly. The human behavior in a stock-market crash is perfectly well-known. (And the computer behavior is even more predictable.) Why the heck don't equilibrium economists include this in their analysis?