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>how can we find 1.5t in the budget

Central bank ≠ treasury.

>How does this exonerate him if he has no lawyer to go thru the procedural efforts?

Because police would likely not even contact him in the first place once they see that there's nothing extraordinary about his movements.

I am of the opinion that the very concept of commissioned sales is cancerous, because of the obvious perverse incentives it sets up. Whenever I am forced to buy form commissioned salespeople (car, furniture/mattress, insurance, interacting with an 'advisor' at my bank), I can never take that salesperson's advice at face value. I always wonder if I'm the mark in some institutionalized or just regular straight-up con. I will (and sometimes do) pay extra to avoid the feeling of needing a shower after such 'interactions'.

>It might be the case and even likely that Hohn does not achieve the first step, but if he can convince a few large investors the effect will be much bigger than 5.01%.

No, not a few. Most.

>If "just", say, 10% jump on board, what then?

Then it'll make little or no difference.

>Your argument does not show that it won't go up, but only that it won't go from 5% to 15% but rather find some balance at, say, 8%. Mission accomplished, coal is now at a disadvantage compared to what it was before.

Or it will settle at 5.01% due to the fact that a middle eastern sovereign wealth fund or two will be bigger than all investors who sign up to this scheme put together.

>And considering that coal is not doing well (and thus has to offer higher rates), much of that money will be invested elsewhere. Sure, some will still be invested in coal but less than it would be if you didn't do that.

But that has nothing to do with global warming or ethics of coal. It's mostly due to natural gas becoming so much more economical, which is mostly due to the shale gas revolution. It's a huge benefit to the planet, but mostly an incidental one. Of course politicians and energy companies will still use it to pat themselves on the back very very publicly.

>This type of argument pops up often: "but there is a small counteracting effect, so it will balance out to not do anything". No, it does not work like that.

Depends on the scale of the pro-acting effect. My guess is that the effect of 'ethical investment' due to ethics/global warming alone, and not due to fundamentals of energy markets that have to do with prices of natural gas, will be close to zero. If I'm wrong, it'll only be because a majority of investors who would have otherwise invested in coal (important distinction) jump on board this campaign, or close to a majority.

It's self-correcting. At 6%, more interest will be shown by other sources of funding, who will then enter the game and lower the interest rate as a result.

The world is awash with capital right now, money sitting around idle, looking for a place to be invested. Just look at how much money is being thrown at startups, how low interest rates are for countries who were bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy <10 years ago. This scheme is guaranteed to fail right now. Maybe in another credit crunch it has a chance?

I don't recall any anger. Hacker News is in the 'focus on facts' phase of responding to mass panic, and I believe we won't move on to the 'resignation' phase anytime soon.

If it inconveniences a lot fewer drivers than the number of cyclists and public transit users who benefit, then it's a clear-cut and uncontroversial net win, isn't it?

>people with disabilities, older people with problems with walking, pregnant women

Are precisely the kinds of people less likely to be able to drive. Accessible and convenient public transit is a better option for them, provided of course that it's accessible and convenient throughout their journey - that means sidewalks, intersections, transit stops, building access, etc.

If families with 4 kids don't need a vehicle at all, it's a huge financial benefit for them. Here in Canada a mini-boat on wheels large enough to accommodate such a family is friggin' expensive. Cities tend to have free or very cheap tickets for kids, so if you can get away with doing commutes by transit and have a Corolla for weekend errands and groceries that you don't have to shove all 4 into, you win $1000s every year.

It's you. That half the world has no better healthcare system than Iran is a sad reflection on the state of healthcare in world, not an implication that Iran's dilapidated and overstretched healthcare system\* is a good one. Combine that with their authoritarian government with zero communications skills and no credibility due to being habitual liars, and we should place no stock in their reassurances/projections, and very little stock even in their hard-to-fuck-up stats like # of deaths.

\* I should say this is anecdata, based on comments by several Iranian friends and acquaintances.

These numbers have been revised substantially upwards in the last few decades. I think the estimates were closer to 10-15 million in early 2000s.

I don't think that calling the numbers unreliable implies incompetence or even worse, malice, on the part of the reporting country. It's simply difficult as shit to come up with reliable stats on something very new in the middle of an outbreak. Think of how many people aren't even noticing that they have the virus, and thus will never be counted as infected. This is just as true in Milan or California as it is in Wuhan. All numbers are noisy and subject to substantial revision. It is, however, quite clear that this virus is not as serious as SARS or especially MERS. It can still kill millions if it infects hundreds of millions though, so that's just a comment on whether you, individually, should worry about getting it.

Asking if it's 'bad' is an excellent starting point for an ethics discussion. It reveals pre-existing biases and emotional responses to a topic, which must be taken into account as a pre-requisite to any rational discussion. You cannot get dispassionate without first examining the passions.