While various US governments continue to waste unimaginable sums of public money on pointless climate schemes, real problems ranging from third world poverty in Alabama to an explosion of the skid row population of Los Angeles are being allowed to fester.
Human Intestinal Parasite Burden and Poor Sanitation in Rural Alabama
Hookworm infection affects 430 million people worldwide, causing iron deficiency, impaired cognitive development, and stunting in children. Because of the environmental conditions needed for the hookworm life-cycle, this parasite is endemic to resource-limited countries. Necator americanus was endemic in the southern United States before improvement of sewage disposal systems and eradication programs. With continued poverty, poor sanitation, and an environment suitable for the hookworm life-cycle in some regions of the southern United States, a current prevalence study using modern molecular diagnostics is warranted. Lowndes County, Alabama, was chosen as the study site given previous high hookworm burdens, degree of poverty, and use of open-sewage systems. Participants were interviewed, and stool, serum, and soil samples were tested for nine intestinal parasites using a multiparallel quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays . We found that, among 24 households, 42.4% reported exposure to raw sewage within their home, and from 55 stool samples, 19 (34.5%) tested positive for N. americanus, four (7.3%) for Strongyloides stercoralis, and one (1.8%) for Entamoeba histolytica. Stool tested positive for N. americanus contained low levels of parasite DNA (geometric mean 0.0302 fg/µL). Soil studies detected one (2.9%) Cryptosporidium species, and Toxocara serology assay detected one (5.2%) positive in this population. Individuals living in this high-risk environment within the United States continue to have stool samples positive for N. americanus. Gastrointestinal parasites known to be endemic to developing countries are identifiable in American poverty regions, and areas with lower disease burden are more likely to be identified by using qPCR.
© The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
Read more: http://www.ajtmh.org/content/journals/10.4269/ajtmh.17-0396
People with untreated hookworm are stuck in a poverty trap which is difficult to escape. Hookworm is a pernicious parasite which saps the strength of the infected. Why don’t the people afflicted by this horror fix their own sewage systems? Perhaps they don’t have the strength to lift a shovel.
Alabama is not alone ignoring extreme poverty and deprivation. The population of the Los Angeles Skid Row is exploding. While a lot of people on Skid Row are obviously there because they are hopelessly addicted to various drugs, some of them are there simply because they can’t afford soaring rental costs.
Los Angeles’ homeless crisis goes from bad to worse
By Peter Bowes
BBC News, Los Angeles
19 July 2017
Los Angeles’ entertainment industry nurtures the city’s dreamy La La Land image. But while Hollywood laps up the attention, there is a growing crisis in the land of make-believe – a soaring increase in the number of homeless people living on its streets.
Homelessness in Los Angeles County soared by 23% in the past year and it shows. The problem has become tangible and inescapable, with makeshift tent encampments cropping up across the sprawling metropolis.
Tourists are shocked to find themselves stepping over people draped in filthy blankets and begging on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Shop owners routinely swill the pavements to wash away urine and the accompanying stench.
“For the 31 years that I’ve been involved with homelessness… it has gotten worse far worse than I’ve ever seen before,” says Ted Hayes, a long-time activist.
Hayes says gentrification of the downtown area has begun to scatter a previously concentrated homeless population across the city.
The yearly homeless count in Los Angeles County rose to 58,000 in 2017, up from 46,874 in 2016.
…
Morrison believes the problem has worsened because of combination of factors, with rising housing costs in the city at the top of that list.
“The cost of housing is far outpacing the increase in incomes.”
…
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40635756
Its not just the people at the bottom of the heap, the newly homeless, who are feeling the pinch. The tightening of Californian residents’ budgets is also being felt by organisations trying to help the homeless in Los Angeles.
Skid Row Mission May Have to Cut Services Amid Donation Drop
By Eddie Kim Aug 21, 2017
DTLA – Amid the county’s worsening homelessness crisis, Skid Row’s largest homeless shelter saw a 55% increase in people served last year, according to Rev. Andy Bales, head of the Union Rescue Mission at 545 S. San Pedro St.
Bales is proud that URM has been able to “step up” and accommodate more homeless people than ever before. He noted that the mission, founded in 1891, has not turned away single women and families with children.
That may change, as URM is facing a dire financial challenge.
The URM, which relies on philanthropic dollars and does not use government funds, saw its charitable giving plummet 23% in the fiscal year that ended in June. The challenge is worse than what URM faced during the Great Recession, Bales said.
“In 2010, we had 450 families come through. Last fiscal year, we had 1,110 families seeking help. I always give tours of our ‘hall of history’ to newcomers, and I’ve long explained that 2010 was the worst year for us,” Bales said. “Now I have to say 2016-17 has by far been the most challenging year in our existence.”
…
What has all this got to do with climate waste?
California’s push for 100% renewables is a major factor driving up the cost of living. Poor people spend around 40% of their income on energy. Anything which drives up the cost of energy is a big deal. A high energy bill can make the difference between being able to pay the rent, or being evicted onto the street.
California energy dreaming costs consumers billions
By Dan McSwain
September 19 2015
I have a friend who periodically gets into trouble. Whenever we review the history of an episode, his explanation is always the same: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Such hindsight leaps to mind as California lawmakers once again overhaul the state’s electricity industry. History suggests that consumers will pay dearly to see how this movie ends, regardless of whether the result justifies the price of admission.
Federal data indicates Californians paid $171 billion in higher costs for power over the last 20 years, compared to the national average. For perspective, this works out to roughly $12,300 per household, but bear in mind the total includes residential, industrial, commercial and government usage.
Those two decades included the 1996 partial deregulation, resulting power crisis and partial re-regulation in 2001, followed by a historic plunge into green energy that began in 2006.
Each policy seemed like a good idea at the time, to somebody.
…
Alabama is also getting in on the climate act. Alabama have not reached the levels of climate lunacy championed by California, they are commonly described as a laggard when it comes to climate, but last year Alabama Power joined the renewable race – they issued a request for tenders for 500Mw of new renewable energy schemes.
Do climate policies exacerbate poverty, homelessness and despair? I would argue there is a direct connection.
Several studies have highlighted the connection between subsidised green jobs and job losses in the real economy. This is particularly apparent in European countries like Spain, which travelled further down the road of renewable economic self immolation than most other countries.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: LESSONS FROM THE SPANISH RENEWABLES BUBBLE
…
8. The study calculates that the programs creating those jobs also resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,500 jobs elsewhere in the economy, or 2.2 jobs destroyed for every “green job” created.
…
Nobody forces drug addicts on skid row to try their first crack pipe or heroin syringe. Perhaps the desperately poor Alabamans living in almost unimaginably squalid conditions haven’t exhausted every option for improving their own lives.
But its difficult to imagine a worse economic crime against vulnerable people than to drain money out of the real economy, and waste that desperately needed public cash on well connected political cronies and useless green energy schemes.
If California had wasted less money on renewables, some of those young people surging onto the streets of Los Angeles skid row would not have lost their jobs, or might have had work opportunities which in our green policy blighted world never eventuated. Some of them might have been saved from the spiral of hopelessness and despair which led them to utter ruin.
If Alabama has millions of dollars to spare, instead of wasting it on green schemes, they should be spending it helping desperately poor people in Lowndes County contain their debilitating hookworm infestation, to help restore their health to the point that they can help themselves.
I’m not suggesting all social problems would be magically cured if climate expenditure was eliminated. But there is no doubt that wasting huge sums on climate boondoggles, driving up prices for businesses and ordinary consumers, is making things worse.
History will judge politicians whose useless climate policies exacerbated the misery of their poorest and most vulnerable.
“If Alabama has millions of dollars to spare, instead of wasting it on green schemes, they should be spending it helping desperately poor people in Lowndes County”
Weird logic. Alabama Power is a private company, an energy utility. It is spending the money. Do you really think that they should use it to help desperately poor people in Lowndes instead?
Is Alabama state spending the money here? Are they really unable to help those poor people because of the burden of AP’s renewable investment? If it’s so bad, why hasn’t something been done already? Or the Feds? Could it just be that it isn’t their priority?
Nice deflection, there. Completely ignores that resources wasted on a boondoggle are resources that are not available for anything else.
It does not matter whether those resources are squandered by a government or a “private” corporation (which power companies are not, in any proper sense) – those resources are gone.
I see that Alabama Power is a subsidiary of Southern Power, which was able to fund Willie Soon’s research on topics like “Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall: Dancing to the Tunes of the Sun”. Is Willie responsible for all that hookworm?
[???? .mod]
“Nice deflection, there. Completely ignores that resources wasted on a boondoggle are resources that are not available for anything else.”
Your answer is a complete deflection. Tell us what the viable path would be for the money Alabama Power would save by not doing renewables to end up helping the poor.
Oh, and Alabama Power is doing this because their customers want it. “Last year the utility received approval from the Alabama Public Service Commission to develop up to 500 megawatts of renewable energy projects, and has since moved forward with a handful of those, including solar power installations at Anniston Army Depot and Fort Rucker and a 72 megawatt solar farm in Chambers County developed with Walmart.
Those projects were planned with specific customers in mind, to meet the customers’ renewable energy goals. ”
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/09/alabama_power_renewable_rfp.html
Here are the highlights from Willie’s paper:
• The purpose of this article is to find a physical linkage between solar activity and the summer monsoon rainfall.
• Hydrodynamical equations are used to derive an equation for the rate of precipitation.
• The equation for the rate of precipitation is similar to a forced harmonic oscillator.
• Forcing variables are cloud and rain water mixing ratios.
• Numerical solution captures very well the variability of Indian summer monsoon rainfall.
From the abstract: “There is strong statistical evidence that solar activity influences the Indian summer monsoon rainfall. To search for a physical link between the two, we consider the coupled cloud hydrodynamic equations, and derive an equation for the rate of precipitation … and the results show that the variability of the simulated rate of precipitation captures very well the actual variability of the Indian monsoon rainfall … We also solved the precipitation equation … We tentatively conclude that the net effects of aerosols variation are small, when compared to the solar factors, in terms of explaining the observed rainfall variability covering the full Indian monsoonal geographical domains.”
Do you really have a problem with that, Nick?
By the way, the Acknowledgements says, “This research has been carried out under “CAWSES India Phase-II program of Theme 1” sponsored by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Government of India.”
No mention at all of Southern Power. Oops.
Alabama Power gets their money through electric consumers in Alabama. The public service commission allows them to incur costs and pass them on to the rate payer. If Alabama undertakes an approved green program the electric ratepayers of Alabama must pay for it (or do without electricity) and they also provide a profit for Alabama Power Company on their green efforts. Costs imposed on electric ratepayers in Alabama are far more regressive than federal or most state taxes. These costs are a de facto green tax. It would seem arbitrary and inappropriate for the public service commission to use APCo to combat hookworms, but too many it seems equally absurd to charge them to undertake green schemes.
Pat Frank
“No mention at all of Southern Power. Oops.”
Oops indeed. That was the point of the controversy. He had contracted not to mention SCS (Southern Power), and he didn’t. But he reported to them that it was a deliverable.
On the facts there, I’d remind you of your comment here.
Aren’t energy costs for Alabama lower than the median because their winters are not as cold?
afonzerelli – Alabama Powers cost is largely a function of their resource mix. Originally heavy on coal with replacements coming from natural gas. They did not get burned bad but n nuclear and they have some cheap hydro.
“Alabama Power gets their money through electric consumers in Alabama. The public service commission allows them to incur costs and pass them on to the rate payer. If Alabama undertakes an approved green program the electric ratepayers of Alabama must pay for it (or do without electricity) and they also provide a profit for Alabama Power Company on their green efforts. Costs imposed on electric ratepayers in Alabama are far more regressive than federal or most state taxes.”
As I noted in my post, Alabama Power stated they were undertaking renewable projects because their customers are asking for it – primarily corporate customers, of course. It’s crystal clear, and the opposite of what you stated. Say you are the CEO of AP, and Mercedes Benz is your client. They come to you and say they are moving to 100% renewable sources. You have 2 options. 1) give them what they want 2) lose them as a client to another utility that will meet that requirement. Which would you do?
I would say “Yes, Mercedes-Benz, we’ll be happy to provide you with 100% renewable power. YOU pay for it – not the rest of our customers. YOU deal with when the sun don’t shine, and the wind don’t blow – we aren’t keeping fossil fuel backup generators on line for people that don’t WANT that power source.”
Simplicity itself. And it would be interesting to see just how long Mercedes-Benz STAYED in business.
Nick, are Rajesh Agnihotri and Koushik Dutta identical to K. M. Hiremath and Hegdu Manjunath?
It’s an entirely different paper than the previous, isn’t it.
If you want to smear Willie by mere association with Southern Power, you’ll need to provide evidence the later work with Rajesh Agnihotri and Koushik Dutta was carried out under the grant funded by Southern Power.
And then you’ll have to show that Southern Power expected conclusions skewed to favor their corporate goals. And then you’ll need to show that Willie skewed his results and conclusions, and in that explicit direction.
Bet you can’t do any of that.
Note that I acknowledged my error in my prior post.
Are you able to acknowledge that your personal smear by unsupported innuendo is an ethical failure?
You imply that Willie skewed his research to accommodate a greed-centered directive from Southern Power. That’s a double smear by unsupported innuendo.
And so what if Willie mentioned “deliverables”? He delivered peer-reviewed publications following receipt of a grant given to support his research. Delivering publications for grants given is standard. It demonstrates that the money went into productive work.
One typically must list papers published when submitting grant renewal requests to the DOE, NIH, NSF, and everyone else. Are those ‘deliverables’ a sign of nefarious conspiracy?
Really, Nick, isn’t it enough that you push scientific garbage? Must you also assassinate character?
Yeah, Nick, pretty smeary. You are back on moderation
Yes, he does. When reality does not match ideology, that is what you have left to stay in the “debate.”
Incidentally, an energy company paying for studies that actually try to assess how the climate is changing (rather than feather the nest of the “scientist” involved) is a good use of their money. Getting a handle on whether it is going to get hotter (or colder) for your customers affects what you need to plan for to continue serving those customers. In this case, working on the science of rainfall patterns gives them an idea of how their hydro component is going to change in the future.
Even a “hookworm eradication program” would have a tenuous economic justification – healthier, more productive customers buy more product. (Although I would have my suspicions of an ROI analysis that showed a net profit from such.)
But a program that simply transfers wealth from the poor (and the near poor, and the middle class) into the portfolios of the already wealthy likes of Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Al Gore, etc. – has no economic – or ethical – justification.
It’s almost as if there’s an opportunity cost associated with SavingThePlanet™.
“Must you also assassinate character?”
Where? I’m simply showing up the logic of the post. Alabama Power spends money on solar, so “climate madness” is responsible for hookworm. Parent Southern Power spends money on “Indian Monsoons and sun” and …?
Of course I don’t think that Willie Soon is at fault here. It’s just a reductio ad absurdum.
Writing Observer,
Actually, it would be interesting to see how long YOU would stay in business with that mindset. The contracts are structured so that, for example, if MB had a requirement of 15GWhrs a year of electricity, they would pay Alabama Power the cost of generating that plus a profit margin. If 5GWhrs of that occurs during the night and there is no RE source available (such as hydro), then it would be an REC (renewable energy credit) implementation.
So, you are claiming that Mercedes-Benz (and whoever else is asking for “green” power) is paying for all of it? That the customer who is perfectly content with not signaling their “virtue” will not see their rates rise? Or the taxpayer (at any level of government) will not see their taxes going to support this?
If so, then this scheme is perfectly acceptable. But I would suggest you pull the one with bells on it, because that has never happened.
Nick the artful dodger. Can’t you follow the theme of the article that each dollar for climate change and renewables is a dollar less for the poor?
@chris
“As I noted in my post, Alabama Power stated they were undertaking renewable projects because their customers are asking for it – primarily corporate customers, of course.”
Yes they are, until it’s no longer profitable for them to do so:
The bad news for Wal-Mart and the entire green energy industry is that the federal green energy tax credit is set to expire in 2017. Ozment isn’t worried. After all, Wal-Mart is accustomed to putting the hard squeeze on its suppliers. “It’s an opportunity for utilities to rethink their business model,” he says. “There’s no reason there can’t be an adjustment.”
Leonard, attributing poverty to allocation of dollars is a tricky thing. (kind of like attributing worsening hurricanes to warmer temps) Every dollar wasted is a dollar that can be made up by economic growth. All in all, the diversification of energy has kept inflation down which will allow for greater economic growth (as per federal reserve monetary policy). Trump may do very well these next few years with the economy thanks in large part due to the push for “clean energy”, mainly natural gas. It is inflation due to high energy prices that have doomed economies in the past. (think carter circa 1980, bush in ’08) As long as there is low inflation, the potential for growth and help for the poor is good. In that sense, Obama & Co. may have stumbled backwards into the truth. Let hope these next few years will show Trump continuing to capitalize on that truth. (adding coal to the mix surely won’t hurt) Key is Trump’s pick for fed chair early next year when Yellen steps down. With the right pick, low energy inflation could bring much lower unemployment rates, the likes of which we have not seen in half a century…
+1 for stokes. don’t think he was bashing soon here. (merely pointing out the perceived folly of eric’s logic)…
Every dollar wasted is a dollar that is not available for the capital investment required for economic growth. Eating the seed corn means you have a smaller crop next year – not a bigger one.
We’re not quite at that point yet, of a steadily shrinking economy – but we certainly don’t have the economy we would have without that waste.
Anthony Watts, before your trip “around the world in 80 days”, you mentioned that you were thinking about dumping word press for another software. i just had another (benign) comment eaten by WP. (it’s been getting kind of rediculous of late) i, and i think many others here, certainly hope that you follow through. Your great blog deserves great software…
BTW, you certainly seem “refreshed” upon your return. God bless you and your endeavors here at wuwt. (☺)
“rediculous” should read “ridiculous” (which wp is… ☺)
WordPress Delenda Est…
Although it is (relatively) cheap – and supported by a large number of hosting providers. Which could be important if and when they get around to designating WUWT a “hate site.”
Writing Observer
In Germany last winter, hundreds of thousands of old-age pensioners had their electricity cut off for “NON PAYMENT”
Idiotoligy is global.
Chris -to add to points made by others, Mercedes Benz has not been granted a monopoly. If the costs were allocacted to the customers making the request that would be more acceptable. But making non-participants pay for business whims seems highly problematic.
Existing customers can not change providers in Alabama. Large “new ” loads (I think it’s 2.5 MWor greater) can select among competing bidders, an option not available to smaller (but still large loads). Of course businesses can decide where they want to locate and determine power supplier by that choice. If you think that competitive load assignment is not overwhelmingly driven by lowest costs, you are extremely naive. There are additional concerns of reliability and sometimes service demands that may impact the choice among suppliers. I have never heard of anyone willing to pay a percent more for “cleaner” energy. I welcome any examples from Alabama to educate me.
Fascinating how the troll assumes that government approval equals customer approval.
It also ignores the role government mandates play in the need to create all that renewable power in the first place.
Writing Observer, please provide proof that part of the cost of a contract with someone like Mercedes would be reduced and the balance shifted to other customers. That’s a serious accusation, precisely what is it based on?
Sy Computing said: “Yes they are, until it’s no longer profitable for them to do so:”
Customer XX comes to AP and asks for YY GWhrs of renewable power, say a 10 year contract. AP will write a contract that meets their profit requirements, just as they would do for a 10 year PPA using fossil fuels. So your point makes no sense. If federal tax credits are expiring or unknown in duration, they’ll have clauses that cover that. And yes, if the customer demands terms that will cost AP money or increase the risk too much, then they will walk away. But utilities can read the writing on the wall – more and more multinationals want to go 100% renewable power. So they will find a way to make it work.
Chris/Writing Observer – allow me (bold mine)
In Alabama, for instance,Walmart has signed a long-term contract with Alabama Power for the majority of the RECs from a 72-MW solar farm being built near LaFayette in Chambers County. The RECs will be retired on Walmart’s behalf. Alabama Power, which signed a PPA for the energy and RECs from the plant with Origis Energy, the developer of the project, will sell the remaining RECs to other customers.
Regulated utilities often have concerns that customers who switch to renewables are leaving other customers to pay an unequal share or the cost of serving all customers. Vanderhelm said Walmart cannot ignore those concerns. “Utilities are a critical part of the ecosystem,” he said.
In those situations, Walmart works with the local utility to negotiate a PPA that works for all parties. “We do not want to unduly burden other rate payers,” he said. Lately, Vanderhelm said he has seen a “really significant shift” in utility attitudes toward renewable energy. “The dialogue has really changed.”
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-walmart-is-leveraging-ders-for-its-100-renewable-energy-goal/428952/
From the above, we know it happens because it’s just been admitted. Are you able to provide a valid copy of, say, Walmart’s contract with AP to disprove the assertion? I’d be very interested in seeing that evidence.
Just because “utilities often have concerns” that other customers are left “to pay an unequal share”, and in those situations companies like Walmart work “with the local utility to negotiate a PPA that works for all parties” doesn’t mean it happens. In fact, common sense would seem to suggest that the commercial interests of, e.g., Walmart and the utilities are going to stand at the fore of the negotiation.
Walmart and private utilities receive millions in subsidies to entice them via the profit motive to utilize renewable energy. Negotiating a PPA that “works for all parties” could mean a lot of things besides fairness to the average consumer.
aplanningengineer said: “If you think that competitive load assignment is not overwhelmingly driven by lowest costs, you are extremely naive.”
I’m not sure who that was aimed at. If at me, where did I indicate otherwise? Of course RE contracts will be shopped around to get the best deal, same as for fossil fuel based contracts.
@chris
“If federal tax credits are expiring or unknown in duration, they’ll have clauses that cover that.”
Great. Can you offer an example contract as evidence so we can see just how those clauses read?
Innuendo is always deniable, isn’t it, Nick.
Sy Computing said: “Great. Can you offer an example contract as evidence so we can see just how those clauses read?”
Here is a quote from the article about the 500 MW deal.”Alabama Power’s customers are clamoring for renewables, but it also wants to ensure it doesn’t pay too much for them.
Under its RFP, approved this week by state regulators, the estimated cost of a renewables project must come in below estimates of what the utility would pay over the lifetime of other generation sources — such as natural gas plants. If not, the off-taker must pay the difference between the lifetime avoided cost and the power purchase agreement price.”
So that is an example of how AP is making sure they (and their customers) are getting a fair deal.
Mod – sorry if this is a (multiple) dup!
@chris
Writing Observer, please provide proof that part of the cost of a contract with someone like Mercedes would be reduced and the balance shifted to other customers. That’s a serious accusation, precisely what is it based on?
Chris – allow me (bold mine)
In Alabama, for instance, Walmart has signed a long-term contract with Alabama Power for the majority of the RECs from a 72-MW solar farm being built near LaFayette in Chambers County. The RECs will be retired on Walmart’s behalf. Alabama Power, which signed a PPA for the energy and RECs from the plant with Origis Energy, the developer of the project, will sell the remaining RECs to other customers.
Regulated utilities often have concerns that customers who switch to renewables are leaving other customers to pay an unequal share or the cost of serving all customers. Vanderhelm said Walmart cannot ignore those concerns. “Utilities are a critical part of the ecosystem,” he said.
In those situations, Walmart works with the local utility to negotiate a PPA that works for all parties. “We do not want to unduly burden other rate payers,” he said. Lately, Vanderhelm said he has seen a “really significant shift” in utility attitudes toward renewable energy. “The dialogue has really changed.”
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-walmart-is-leveraging-ders-for-its-100-renewable-energy-goal/428952/
We know it happens because it’s just been admitted above. The average consumer doesn’t appear to have a voice at the negotiating table, or at least I’ve never heard of such a thing. Hence, could you offer an example of an actual contract that could contradict Writing Observer’s premise?
Just because a regulated utility and the commercial enterprise have “concerns” that average customers are paying an unequal share because of the subsidized green initiative doesn’t mean anything. Their “concern” doesn’t necessarily translate to action when that action is not in their best interest. Regardless of how much Walmart “cares” and “works with” the utility, what is going to “work for all parties” in these negotiations is the best interest of the utility and the commercial enterprise at the bargaining table.
Unless you can offer some evidence, say, a real contract, that might show otherwise?
@chris
Thanks that’s a wonderful interpretation of the contract by the reporter.
Can we see the actual agreement somewhere?
Sy computing – so let me understand. It’s ok for you to point to an article to imply that these deals are hurting other customers, but it’s not ok for me to quote articles that indicate that the deals are not. Please provide a copy of the Walmart contract that shows that it IS hurting other customers.
Chris:
I would say so, yes.
From the article:
“Wind and solar power both play a vital role in Walmart’s renewable energy portfolio, as Mark Vanderhelm, vice president of energy for Walmart, points out. “
The article quotes the mouthpiece of the initiative and that mouthpiece is a senior executive at Walmart.
Not so with your example.
BTW, I submitted the post for which Chris criticizes me above 3 or 4 times before it came through…and that doesn’t appear to have been the final draft. I guess the others got lost in the WP comment universe somewhere.
My apologies to all if the rest are found.
Sy Computing – you are assuming that they are absolutely hurting other customers. There are 2 kinds of impacts. The first is if the contract wording means that other customers are literally subsidizing the renewable project for WalMart. There is no evidence of that being the case – please provide links to the contract if you feel otherwise. The other is if the absence of Walmart’s demand for fossil fueled power would have an impact on what others pay. Like a restaurant that raises prices because a factory moves to Mexico, and they only get 200 customers a day instead of 500. There may be a small impact due to that, which Walmart said they tried to mitigate. But the exact same impact could happen in a state with competitive power selection. Would you accuse a company of unfairly burdening the other customers of their old utility if they switched to a new one? Of course not.
Writing Observer, the Fed has already deemed that the economy is growing too fast. That’s why they are raising interest rates, to slow economic growth. Yellen is not a big fan of what Trump is doing. My gut tells me, though, that she’s just trying to tip toe to the end of her term without making waves. All eyes, then, will be on whoever Trump picks as her successor. That pick may well make or break the Trump presidency. Let’s all hope for the best…
@chris
LOL! Thanks for that response!
The Fed has yet to do any serious increase in the funds rate after cutting them drastically to fight the 2008 recession.
They have to raise the rate for two reasons.
1) Leaving them too low too long will result in inflation.
2) There’s very little room to cut rates if there is another recession.
The rates have been left low for so long because during Obama’s mal-administration, the economy was too weak to justify trying to return the rates to their normal levels.
1) Leaving them too low too long will result in inflation.
Hi Mark, don’t think i’ve seen this many people on one thread. (kind of like a “party line” back in the 70s) Your #1 is technically correct, but in reality it is economic growth which causes the inflation. (lower interest rates cause the economic growth) There is nothing inherently inflationary about low interest rates. Further, there is nothing wrong with inflation that is the result of economic growth. When it comes to ‘demand inflation’, the higher demand must come first before the inflation. That means people have to be doing better over time just to sustain the demand inflation. If people start getting overwhelmed by demand inflation, then they ceased to demand more and the demand inflation goes to zero. Energy inflation is quite (though not entirely) different in that people can simply lose when it comes to energy inflation. Take the carter years— that inflation resulted in money going into oil sheiks’ pockets. Unlike demand inflation, where people by definition always stay ahead of the game (if not then the demand inflation will cease to exist), the oil shock under carter simply resulted in people losing money to opec. There is nothing to fear from inflation that comes from a growing economy, people will always come out ahead. And now that energy prices are low (as well as the resultant inflation from those energy prices), the potential is there for economic growth like we haven’t seen for a long, long time. It all hinges on Trump’s pick for fed chair come the spring when yellen steps down. If Trump picks another greenspan/bernanke clone (as is yellen), then we can kiss economic growth goodbye and anticipate the next recession soon. Things could get ugly by 2020. OTOH, if Trump picks someone different, then robust growth could be on the horizon and Trump’s reelection bid will likely be secure. Stay tuned, these are exciting times…
I kind of feel like the kid that kicked a rock at the top of the hill and watched the avalanche bury the village. (Pointing finger at Nick – “But he made me do it! Honest!”)
Anyway, considering that Anthony’s theme makes it very hard for some (me, at least) to figure out who is talking to who, and without any intent of rudeness – it might be time for some of you to hop off?
Yes, W.O., i actually made note of who got this thing started a short while back. (ah ha!) Usually we’d be down to a few die hards by now. As is, it’s as though everybody is talking over everybody else (and pat frank is shouting at nick)…
Nick, I do find the “hookworm” and “climate madness” claims in the same article overreaching on Eric’s part. If I could sum it up, if the USA is willing to send billions internally/oversee’s why not help people in their own country first suffering from malnutrition, addiction and curable illnesses? If it is about saving lives, the ROI is easy on this one.
Whether the funding for renewable projects comes from private or public sources, if that addition of renewable electricity is added to the grid with preferential treatment, or is subsidized or otherwise helped along by public funds then it us going to increase costs especially for the poor as a proportion of income.
UNEP FI, North America
Re: Some history
‘Green Financial Products and Services’
‘Current Trends and Financial Opportunities in North America’, August 2007, 82 pages
This report is about the means that can be used to shift money to finance the global green agenda which this report represents as opportunities.
UNEP FI North America includes Canada and the U.S.
http://unepfi.org/fileadmin/documents/greenprods_01.pdf
And
UN Environment
UNEP Inquiry, launched in 2014
“The Inquiry is a leading international platform for advancing national and international efforts to shift the trillions required for delivering an inclusive, green economy through the transformation of the global financial system.”
more at:
http://www.unepinquiry.org/about-us
These are just two examples of U.N. activities.
Also:
UNEP Inquiry at:
http://www.unep.org/inquiry, for more information
G20 Green Finance Synthesis Report, 5 September 2016, 35 pages
G20 Green Finance Study Group
This Report has a lot on the use of green bonds for financing.
More at:
http://unepinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Synthesis_Report_Full_EN.pdf
UN Environment
UNEP Newscentre: Press Release, July 14, 2017
Re: G20
More on the use of green bonds for financing.
http://unep.org/newscentre/g20-world-makes-huge-strides-green-finance-just-one-year
G20 Green Finance Study Group Document Repository
Has links to:
Reports for 2016-2017
Co-Chair and Secretariat websites:
China (People’s Bank of China)
UK (Bank of England)
UN Environment
http://unepinquiry.org/g20greenfinancerepositoryeng
UN Environment
UNEP Press Release: Feb.9, 2016
‘The GFSG will collaborate with other G20 groups and related external initiatives’
Also attended by G20 members delegates.
More information at:
http://www.unep.org/newscentre/g20-green-study-group-meets-first-time-beijing
Correction: http://www.unep.org/newscentre.org/g20-green-finance-study-group-meets-first-time-beijing
Or:
http://unep.org/newscentre/g20-green-finance-study-group-meets-first-time-beijing
UN Environment
UNEP Newscentre, 27 Feb. 2016, Shanghai
G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting, Feb.26-27, 2016
‘G20 Finance Leaders Commit to Exploring Finance Options’
US $90 trillion of investments required over the next 15 years.
More at:
http://unep.org/newscentre/g20-financial-leaders-commit-exploring-green-finance-options
Nick, i see a lot of dubious numbers in this piece… It would be nice to see a clearer breakdown of the numbers before jumping to these conclusions. (i think that would make for an excellent technical post) For starters, i would like to energy costs in L.A. as compared with the rest of the country given that home heating costs are the highest expenditure nationwide…
“to energy” should read “to see energy”
Dang it. Wish Anthony would add a like button. Ah well, a “+1” to you, sir. (Or “ma’am.” Or, if that doesn’t cover it, forgive me – life is too short to cover all 57 bases…)
Green schemes. Subsidies from the poor to the richer. Green power must have subsidies, paid in suffering. but not for much longer….
Fascinating, government regulates how the money is spent, but since the companies themselves are semi-private, it’s not governments fault.
For 20 years BO (Before Obama) My utility provided power to their customers for 20% BELOW the national average. After Obama’s Green Energy push, his CPP, Killing Coal. switching three coal power plants to burn NG, Shutting down three coal plants, and now providing 50% (by name plate only) of their power from wind my and all of the other customers electric bill has increased my more than 25% – in less than 6 years. They have also shut down a Nuclear power plant that produces esentially the same amount of CO2 from cradle to grave as the wind farms they built that only provide 1/3 the power of the NPP.
Every poor customer has seen their power bill go up by more than 25% and as anyone with any brains knows they are hit the hardest (Ignoring the handouts given to the poorest).
Look also at the picture of LA and the trash in the street – reminds me of the condition of my city streets. 20 years ago street cleaning was a weekly occurrence. now it is an annual occurrence, sometimes less often than that.
Nick Stokes – September 12, 2017 at 3:15 pm
A juvenile response in an attempt to derail the ensuring conversation.
Alabama Power is a Public Utility …… and the “rate$” being charged customers for said “utility” is determined by the Alabama Public Service Commission
…….. and iffen Alabama Power has such an excess amount of monies to be procuring up to 500 MW of renewable energy ….. then that is factual proof that AP has been charging their customers far, far greater “rates” than was/is necessary to sustain the utility.
And those far, far greater electric “rates” are a detriment to the health and wellbeing of the populace, especially the “poverty level” populace.
It appears that the Alabama PSC has been permitting Alabama Power to function as a “monopoly” …. rather than as a Public Utility.
Of course, the PSCs in other States do the same for their Public Utility companies (water, sewage, NG and electricity).
According to a guy I debated back in college, there is pure communism, everything else is a form of capitalism.
“…….. and iffen Alabama Power has such an excess amount of monies to be procuring up to 500 MW of renewable energy ….. then that is factual proof that AP has been charging their customers far, far greater “rates” than was/is necessary to sustain the utility.”
Wrong. If you had bothered to read the article Eric posted above, you would see this headline: “Alabama Power’s plan for 500 MW of renewables approved by regulators”. It’s a new project. And: “The utility’s request for proposals (RFP) requires renewables projects to be priced below what it would expect to pay for other generation sources, unless the off-taker agrees to pay the difference.
This decision is being recognized as a significant inflection point in the attitudes of utilities, their industrial customers, and regulators across the Southeast. It is also a recognition that solar and other renewable resources may be able to compete on cost with the region’s traditional fossil and nuclear generation.”
So the expensive project that according to you is ripping off AP customers is actually going to cost less than what they are paying now for fossil fuels.
@chris
Well that’s a positive sign, at least this one project won’t be cutting the general public’s throat. However, with that requirement, I’ll be amazed if they can find anyone to deliver the goods under those conditions.
@chris “So the expensive project that according to you is ripping off AP customers is actually going to cost less than what they are paying now for fossil fuels.” And Y O U and all of the US taxpayers and tax payers in those stated that give subsidies, tax-brakes, no taxes for wind turbines, solar farms, etc, are going to PAY more taxes to the government to give them the money to pay off the “Green Farmers” that are ripping off the public. Just where do you think these subsidies, tax rebates, no taxes comes from – a tree?
The utility I retired from has “contracted out” 50% name plat wind power for the entire utility capacity. They did not build it, finance it, borrow for it, or own it in any way. WHY? because they know if they had built it they would lose money as soon as all of the government giveaways are over.
Alabama has their own problems. California is the big sewer, and as long as it is ruled by Democrats, it will remain so. I am skeptical that California will ever get sick and tired of being sick and tired, to ever do anything about it.
Maybe these poor need some “climate mitigation” dollars. Due to rising sea levels & extreme weather, we can relocate them to new housing and provide clean energy jobs. It’s a win, win, win for everyone.
I don’t feel sorry for poor people. Poor people vote for Socialism which in turn creates poor people. Eventually if you keep hitting your thumb with a hammer you gradually come to realise it’s best to stop.
“Poor people vote for Socialism which in turn creates poor people. ”
Sure, that explains why the poorest states are conservative states.
Maybe. But we aren’t up to our eyeballs in unfunded liabilities. Like public workers pensions.
Chris
You are missing the point. Poor (and ignorant) people vote for Socialism because then nobody is poor. Nor rich. By definition then, there cannot be poor people under Socialism, if there are no rich.
Jake, no, your are missing the point. If the poor voted for socialist candidates like you say they are, there would be guys like Bernie Sanders in office in places like Kentucky and Mississippi. There aren’t.
@chris,
Mississipi has long been governed by democrats and their henchmen, the KKK. It’s poor precisely because of years of socialism, not because it has become recently conservative: socialism is a disease not easily recovered. Same for Kentucky.
Oh, and you inconveniently fails to mention big beautifull cities which have become hellholes because of socialism, Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis…
Socialism fails everywhere everytime, are you a denier of it ?
Like most trolls, Chris can’t handle complex problems. While the states themselves may be poor, that doesn’t prove that the poorest in those states are conservative.
When you figure out why, perhaps you will finally be on the path to wisdom.
MarkW said: “Like most trolls, Chris can’t handle complex problems. While the states themselves may be poor, that doesn’t prove that the poorest in those states are conservative.”
Once again, “no research, just opinions” MarkW opens his mouth and inserts his foot. Trump won Kentucky by 62-37%. Trump won Mississippi by 58-40%. So by Mark’s “new math” Trump got 62% of the vote in a poor state, but the 62% were not poor. Hahahaha, I knew better than that in 3rd grade!
Does socialism work? I have a friend, a Ukranian immigrant. He grew up there while it was still under Communist rule. He still thinks life there was pretty good. Most everybody had a place to live, not much space, not fancy, but cheap. Everyone had enough food, not many extras, but reasonably healthy, and cheap. You went to school, got an education of sorts, went into the military for a few years if you qualified. When you got out they gave you a job. Not much pay, but enough to pay for the food and apartment. A sort of nice, safe, limited life. He got most of his mechanical education through state run “clubs”, which were free.
The biggest problem he had coming to the States was nothing was free, nothing was arranged for him. A person had to make their own choices, find a job, find an apartment, learn some English, find a bank, figure out the medical system, etc. In other words learning how to deal with freedom and responsibility.
He and his wife are now doing quite well. They both have jobs. He’s a self taught machinist. Everything he’s learned he learned by continually learning how machining worked, picking the brains of every one he worked with, searched the internet, trying out different ways to do the job better and faster.
They traded a meager, safe, limited life for a 1000% higher standard of living and the freedom to choose for themselves.
Chris, …… don’tja know that ……. “Democrats are for the poor” …….. and the Democrat Party has been touting that election-time “claim” for the past 50+ years, …… and they mean it, …. literally.
The Democrats are literally for the “poor” remaining poor because that insures the Democrats will get their votes at election time.
Like most trolls, Chris ignores the first rule of holes.
I point out that states have both rich and poor areas, as well as socialist and sane ones.
How does Chris disprove this point, by telling us how much Trump won various states by.
Not responsive to my point at all, but an excellent attempt to move the goal posts.
No Mark, it’s called math. Tell me exactly how a state can be both poor economically – meaning a high % of people earning little – and yet for Trump to win by a 2-1 margin with the poor mainly voting for Clinton. It’s not mathematically possible unless a substantial portion of Trump voters in that state are in fact poor.
Poor little troll, can’t handle reality so it tries to simplify the world to fit in nice little boxes.
In the case of W. Virginia, they were also voting to save their jobs, after Hillary announced that she intended to put them all out of work.
MarkW gets painted into a corner and tries an hail mary about putting things in boxes. Fail.
Oh jeezuss, here we go again, the Socialism hammer so many use here without one iota of an idea what it means. You bring it out to bolster your backwards thinking, drawing on a 1936 USSR definition that you picked up in high school and never altered.
Socialism occurs when the state owns the industries the people work in. That is what real Socialism is. Communism is what they were attempting to achieve eventually. Pure communism never happened; it was a political ideal they could never achieve because as in Soviet Russia’s case, it required extraordinary repression and punishment to control it.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and all federal government programs instituted for the “general welfare of the people” as the Preamble to the Consitution dictates the federal government must do are social (small S) programs. The way Social Media has liberated the stranglehold previous telecommunication utilities held on society. It’s social.
And this is a royal crock, not to mention cruel, mean-spirited. And misinformed.
It was the social programs FDR introduced on the advice of Marriner Eccles*, the Republican Mormon millionaire banker whose appearance before the House and Senate in 1932/33 revolutionized the American economy, which created the middle class, and created the greatest period of prosperity Americans had ever known until the end of the Vietnam War.
________________________________
* FDR appointed Marriner Eccles the first Chairman of the Fed in 1935 after two years of begging Eccles to take the job, but only after Eccles got FDR to agree to changes in how monetary and fiscal policy worked in tandem, and strict banking regulations (which Clinton and Bush got rid of). The Fed only does monetary policy. Congress is supposed to do fiscal policy but the ph*cks haven’t done any in 30 years because they don’t understand that the US has a completely sovereign non-convertible currency that operates on a floating exchange rate and what that means for American prosperity. Marriner Eccles never completed high school. He started working at age 8 and was entirely self-taught. A plain-speaking taciturn man who (according to his nephew) did a swift 180 on his hard-core laissez-faire ‘free market’ economic ideas after watching his banking clients suffer during the Great Depression starting 1929.
Jake I saw lots of socialism with FEMA and the State of Florida working to save peoples lives I have also seen lots of socialism for large corporate bank bail outs during the 2008 economic collapse. Socialism built the highways and bridges and schools. Bank bailout socialism is bad, is that what you were referring to?
Spending tax revenues gathered from all on roads and bridges available for all to use and benefit from is not socialism, except by an arbitrary definition. Taking funds from all and spending them to benefit one group fits my definition of socialism. (FEMA may not fall into this category because aid is offered in every region affected by a natural disaster.) Also, using tax dollars to provide a service that could be provided by private enterprise is socialism.
The worst type of socialism is when money is taken from those least able to afford the cost, who will not receive the related benefit and spending it on those needing the benefit the least.
Prime example:Taking money from someone who cannot afford a Tesla even when subsidized, and giving a subsidy to someone who can afford a Tesla without the subsidy.
Raising power costs on low income areas because those in higher income areas want green power is definitely bad socialism.
SR
No you didn’t. You didn’t see Socialism in a single one of these except by an oddly skewered definition of the theory.
“Socialism” is defined as follows:
“a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”
In other words, the centralized management of all means of production, distribution and exchange by government.
You saw none of that in any of the examples you offer.
This is true Socialism at its finest, with all the riches and glory that it has to offer :
Police believe thieves steal Venezuela zoo animals to eat them
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-animals-idUSKCN1AW2NN
Venezuela’s new assembly declares itself all-powerful
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_VENEZUELA_POLITICAL_CRISIS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-08-09-05-39-40
Venezuela’s currency crumbles at dizzying speed
http://www.france24.com/en/20170804-venezuelas-currency-crumbles-dizzying-speed
Venezuela’s Shortages Spur Perilous Sea Journeys
https://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelas-shortages-spur-perilous-sea-journeys-1498172121
Study: Venezuelans lost 19 lbs. on average over past year due to lack of food
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/02/20/study-venezuelans-lost-19-lb-on-average-over-past-year-due-to-lack-food.html
Etc…
Private companies were building roads, bridges and canals long before government got into the business.
That is, with the exception of the Roman Legions …… who constructed highways, byways, roads, bridges and aqueducts all over western Europe
Sorry, but it was companies doing most of the building, especially in this country.
It was investors who paid for the building of canals and toll roads.
MarkW September 13, 2017 at 12:14 pm
To wit:
MarkW, do you really think that there were Covered Bridge Building Companies in existence in America in the late 18th Century?
Jim: “Poor people vote for Socialism”
That is just not true. Almost by definition poor people make up 50% of the electorate in any democratic country and if they voted for socialism then there would be in excess of 100 socialist governments in power today. According to Wikipedia there are 11 socialists parties in power around the world with only 3 where they hold more than 50% of the seats.
In fact probably the most obvious reason why Marx was wrong was the people do not vote on purely economic grounds. If they did then parties like the Republican party or Tories in the UK would never get into power since they pursue economic policies that deliberately favour the rich and leave the poor behind.
Maybe not everyone is so blind to reality as progressives are. Republicans do not favor the rich any more than Democrats. You do not see Democrats wanting to increase their own taxes, decrease their congressional salaries, etc. What they want is more of YOUR money. Always. They don’t use their money for anyone but themselves. Republican are not much better, though they occasionally understand that taking away from those who work is theft and makes people not want to work. They too love spending everyone else’s money.
Reality is that all the very rich who claim to care so much could solve a multitude of problems if they used their own money as generously as they take money from others. The rich of both parties do not care about anything but themselves and how much they can take from others.
The idea of “equality” in earnings has failed everywhere it was tried, which is why people give up on voting for it. Marxism has to be imposed.
“Republicans do not favor the rich any more than Democrats.”
Oh please. It’s been Republicans that have led the charge on reducing marginal income rates for the rich, starting with Reagan in the 80s, and continuing with W in the 2000s, and now Trump.
Under Regan…..which increased govt revenue, employment, and increased the middle class and decreased poverty.
As is typical under the O, blacks and the poor benefited the least under record deficits.
Fascinating how liberals have to redefine everything in order to avoid looking bad.
Anyone who makes less than the median income is be definition poor.
No wonder liberals are miserable all the time.
Notice how the troll assumes that allowing people to keep some of the money they earned is “favoring” them.
The troll is also very ignorant of history.
It St. John the Kennedy who started the whole cutting the marginal tax rate thing.
BTW, because of all the deductions that were eliminated at the same time the marginal rates were cut, the rich ended up paying even more after all of Reagan’s tax cuts went into affect.
David A – Reagan tripled the federal deficit, yet you call him a hero, while calling Obama a failure for doubling it while inheriting the worst recession since the Great Depression.
MarkW said: “BTW, because of all the deductions that were eliminated at the same time the marginal rates were cut, the rich ended up paying even more after all of Reagan’s tax cuts went into affect.”
Nope, wrong as usual. The reason the taxes paid by the rich went up in the 80s was because their share of all income increased dramatically due to the Reagan tax cuts. In 1977 the top 1% made 8.7% of all income across all groups. By 1989, that had increased to 13% – a nearly 50% increase in their share of the national income in just 10 years. Why? Because the rich kept more of their income after the Reagan tax cuts, which gave them much more to invest in stocks and bonds, which dramatically increased their taxable income. So it was their higher income that was the main reason for the increase in federal revenues, NOT elimination of deductions.
MarkW said: “Notice how the troll assumes that allowing people to keep some of the money they earned is “favoring” them.”
No, wrong again. I was quoting Sheri’s post. Her words, not mine. You see, when ” is used before and after a phrase, that means it’s a quotation. I thought you’d have known that, but I guess not.
Interesting, Reagan tripled the deficit, all by himself.
I wasn’t aware that Reagan had disbanded congress.
Then again, trolls can’t handle the complexities of the real world.
I’m glad that you admit that Reagan’s tax cuts were great for the economy, most trolls can’t handle that reality.
Any who, the rising economy meant more money for everyone, not just the wealthy.
As to my comment about eliminated deductions, as usual your comment is not responsive to it.
As usual, trolls have to re-write history in order to excuse their own failures.
Reagan inherited a bad economy as well. And no, the recession of 2008 was not the worst since the Great Depression. (Which by the way was also caused by pushing socialist policies on the country)
Another difference was that Reagan cut taxes, and the economy exploded. Obama raised taxes and the economy continued to sputter along.
MarkW said:”Interesting, Reagan tripled the deficit, all by himself. I wasn’t aware that Reagan had disbanded congress. Then again, trolls can’t handle the complexities of the real world.”
Ah, I see, when the deficit triples under Reagan, it is Congress’ fault. When it doubles under Obama, it is Obama’s fault. Hmmmmm, what’s the word for that kind of thinking? Oh yeah – hypocrisy.
Provide links about all of the major deductions for the rich that were closed under Reagan, and how those were the reason for the revenue increase. Otherwise, just empty words.
Largely poor people dont vote at all.
Socialist votes come increasingly from the urban middle class who think they are smarter than they actually are.
It’s fascinating how government schools have managed to train the population into believing that their is an unending supply of OPM (Other People’s Money) and that it is their right to have government give them as much of it as possible.
Not all of them.
In the last election cycle, the people I know that voted for socialism were middle class who thought they should qualify for all kinds of aid.
When you stated …… “the people I know”, …… then you musta been referring to the middle class “troughfeeding” public employees?
Public School employees, especially the Teachers, ….. have always been demanding that they “should qualify for more n’ more wages and entitlements”.
Two of them, yes – not school teachers, but government positions; another in the middle class. All for Hillary.
Pouring money down a climate change rathole means that it cannot be spent on other concerns. The green blob despises people in general, and their behavior is consistent with that.
Politicians will solve the problem of poverty right after they figure out how to get 10 gallons of “stuff” in a five gallon bucket.
The article is to be approved. America is a pure third world in the living conditions of the lowest 20 per cent. However, from state to state different with high goals in terms of renewable energies. For which much more is spent than for the health and the supply of the poorest. However, one must also emphasize that the weak immigration policy of the predecessors Trumps has favored this development. Looking at the rapid population growth of California, it is clear that the fewest immigrants will find work. Parallel societies without a future are formed, excellent with the numbers of children, but without job arrival. And if you look at the technical development in almost all job fields, then it is clear that the future for these groups looks gloomier. The US is already the drugstore of the world. Hardly a state has so many drug dealers and drug users. Some states have already released soft drugs because otherwise they must fill their prisons with drug dealers and consumers. This almost reminds me of the opium caves of Shanghai in the imperial period and the first Chinese republic.
Hans-Georg, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The homeless in the US are perhaps 0.1% of the population.
California has the greatest number of homeless at 118,142, and even that is only 0.36% of the population. California also absorbs about 50% of the illegal migrants, too, which may shed some light on their poverty demographics.
The lowest 10% of income in the US is $12,300. That compares quite favorably with Europe.
You do so like straw.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
Glenn, your link reports a homeless rate in the U.S. in 2009 as .2%. How does that refute Pat’s statement of .1%, with a link for 2016?
SR
Hans-Georg – September 12, 2017 at 3:35 pm
But, but, but, ……. Hans-Georg, …….. how can that be possible …… given the literal fact that Congress approve the expenditure of a couple TRILLION dollars or more ….. on the War against Poverty, …….. plus the hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars being expended on pre-school, kindergarten and early child development programs?
I guess you are asserting that all of those TRILLIONS of dollars that have been expended ……. has literally accomplished nothing of value, ……… and I have to agree with you on that.
OOPS, ….. except for the fact that the government “troughfeeders” are sure as ell enjoying all those “expenditures”.
It’s not a homeless crisis, it’s a homeless industry. Keep ’em in poverty and you can continue to skim millions off the top as the government throws money at you.
No, it’s a moral crisis. It has nothing to do with Capitalism yet does stink of poor education as we are a Republic.
The rights which run with Real Property ownership are the key to understanding!
Free; not subject to the rights of any lord or superior; owned without obligation of vassalage or fealty; the opposite of feudal.
A description given to the outright ownership of land that did not impose upon its owner the performance of feudal duties.
“Land of the Free” <– HELLO!!!
“Federal data indicates Californians paid $171 billion in higher costs for power over the last 20 years, compared to the national average. For perspective, this works out to roughly $12,300 per household, but bear in mind the total includes residential, industrial, commercial and government usage.”
Welcome to LaLaLand!
Anderson Cooper is currently doing the “aftermath” coverage from the Keys.
Distractions from the obvious Storm!!!
Wake Up!
Thanks Eric — looking forward — your next post!
Education is there for the taking. You can force the kids to go to school, but you can’t force them to learn anything while there.
Well, if you had 4 million illegal immigrants, and 10’s of thousands overstaying their visa’s in your state like we do here in what used to be the golden state, you’d have a housing shortage and homeless problem too. A decent apartment apartment in an area where you wouldn’t take your life in your hands to walk outside is 2K plus a month. Want to buy a starter home? You can’t afford it. Another Democratic utopia. There is no middle class in CA anymore, it’s wealthy, upper-middle class and the third world.
I’d have more sympathy for your position if the CA government as well as the governments of most major cities in the state weren’t actively trying to protect those same illegal immigrants from ICE.
There is one simple cure for most of California’s problems, but it will be very difficult to achieve. Fix CA’s crooked voting laws which benefit only the entrenched political class, allowing their ineligible constituent and non- existent voters, to vote.
When Marxists succeed in taking over the institutions they don’t replace the bourgeoisie they become the bourgeoisie, a far cry from their origins:
http://soviethistory.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/electrification.jpg
‘Communism is Soviet power + Electrification’.
Just under the picture of Mr Lenin, a nice little wind turbine!
“Each policy seemed like a good idea at the time, to somebody.”
So true – are our politicians never going to learn to pay attention to COMPLETE analyses which present both the good and the bad parts of proposed changes? If we are not sure what the negative effects will be then we should provide an easy and quick way to reverse course.
But as long as the voters vote for ‘feel good’ promises and projections we will be stuck in a society of our own making.
“YUP”, and that “somebody” was an elected politician(s) ……. and the “good idea” involved a sure way of making a lot of money for the politician, as well as his/her family, friends, supporters or political election/re-election donors.
Iffen the suggested “policy” is NOT a “money making policy” …….. then it is NOT a good idea ….. and thus will never be an approved policy.
History will judge” we will prosecute
Not a single person so far that I could see mentioned the cost of our military at a trillion dollars a year. What we spend on renewables pales in comparison. We don’t have money for the poor because we spend it on our military.
Let an ex-CIA agent break it down for you:
David, the reason we don’t “have money for the poor” is that if we did they would spend it, thus driving up inflation. That is the reason that the unemployment rate is held artificially high (at no less than 4%). Federal Reserve monetary policy has been that way since at least WW2…
And supposedly one of the excuses for the Fed and supposedly one of its primary reasons for existence is to keep the citizens at optimal employment.
Except that trickle down economics never worked and never will. As you imply, the rich horde money and don’t spend it. It never trickles down. Providing the people with an adequate money supply might raise inflation and it might not. It depends on what kind of money is issued. If money is issued in the form of banknotes, it would be inflationary. If it is sovereign money issued as tax credits (like Lincoln’s greenbacks – called bills of credit in the Constitution) it would not be inflationary at all. But the banks who control this country do not want the government issuing money in the form of bills of credit. It cuts them out of the game.
And the idea that the government is running out of money is a banking con. The federal government can issue tax credits as money in the form of bills of credit till the cows come home and never run out of money.
I will take my social security check in the form of a circulating tax credit any day. Especially if it comes with the fiat (government order) that all entities must use it as legal tender.
OH GOOD GRIEF, …….. there is aplenty, …. in fact way too much, ….. money being expended under the guise of “helping the poor”.
First of all, there are literally HUNDREDS of government funded “social programs” being administered by high salaried and lavishly entitlement’ed public employees.
Secondly, slightly more than 50% of the current population is recipient of some form of government “check”.
And thirdly, by far, the greatest causes responsible for “driving up inflation” ….. is the ever increasing burden of paying for the ever increasing wages, entitlements and retirement benefits of past and present federal, state and county employees, ……. new rules and policies that force the private sector to spend more of their earned income and/or “profits” …….. and last but not least, the ever-increasing expenditures by government employees for goods, services and labor obtained via the private sector.
Govt spending by itself doesn’t cause inflation. People buying stuff doesn’t cause inflation.
What causes inflation is the money supply growing faster than the economy.
MarkW September 13, 2017 at 12:21 pm
OH FOR GOODNESS SAKES, …….. MarkW, ……………..
“Not a single person so far that I could see mentioned the cost of our military ….”
Of course on any subject, some will use use the misfortune of others to to advance their agenda. It is hard to find a more violent group, than peace activist.
The real question, what is the cost of not having an effective military? I would like to say we learned that lesson during WWII but we were not prepared for Korea.
The cost of not being prepared is paid in blood.
No one is talking about not having an effective military but rather having an excessive military budget.
The USA spends about $600 billion a year on the military. China comes next one the list with about
$150 billion. Suggesting that the USA is either exceptionally inefficient when it comes to the military or
that the budget dramatically exceeds what it needs for self defence.
The other point about why this article is ridiculous is that no matter what your political opinions are you
can always point to X and say that the government should be doing this rather than that. Personally I
think that given that in recent years the USA has effectively printed 12 trillion dollars for quantitative easing all of which went to the banking sector I would ask why some of those trillion of dollars could not have been spent on poverty reduction. The government is able to print money to give to bankers but not to the poor!
And you accept a statistic coming from the PRC? The Democrats and con artists must appreciate you.
“Personally I think that given that in recent years the USA has effectively printed 12 trillion dollars for quantitative easing all of which went to the banking sector I would ask why some of those trillion of dollars could not have been spent on poverty reduction. The government is able to print money to give to bankers but not to the poor!”
Indeed.
The hypocrisy of Liberalism…proclaiming to be for the common man but instead enriching themselves with his money.
Germinio September 12, 2017 at 9:17 pm
Giving money to the poor doesn’t solve poverty. It perpetuates it.
Surely the Pentagon has made some terrible spending choices, but that the US spends more than other countries isn’t a sign that we’re doing everything wrong. America has kept the peace since 1945. Without our power, there would have been two more world wars by now, each with more killed than WWI and WWII.
The world is getting a free ride on America’s patrolling the sea lanes and keeping other powers from attacking each other.
The US protects the entire world against thugs such as the Chinese and before them the Russians. The Chinese are only trying to dominate the countries in it’s neck of the woods.
Larger mission requires a larger budget.
Does being prepared include invasion and plunder of non-threatening entities?
Since that hasn’t happened, what is your point?
@ Germinio’s comment of:
The BIG question is, ……. does the US really need all of “this” for self defense, …. to wit:
US Military personnel are currently deployed in 177 different countries around the world, …….. with overseas bases totaling approximate 800, …….. at a cost of more than $800 billion/year to maintain.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-personnel-deployments-by-country-2017-3
So saidith: Tim – September 13, 2017 at 6:48 am
So responded: MarkW – September 13, 2017 at 8:40 am
So Sam C does askith MarkW:
And just what term or word would you use to describe the “invasion of Panama”, …… the “invasion of Iraq”, …… the “invasion of Afghanistan” …….. and/or the “invasion of the Hawaiian Islands”?
Iraq and Afghanistan were harboring terrorists and or invading their neighbors.
Actually to be exact Tim said (bold mine):
“Does being prepared include invasion and plunder of non-threatening entities?”
To which MarkW argued:
““Since that hasn’t happened, what is your point?”
In which case MarkW’s argument would appear to be true, unless there’s some treasure that was plundered from Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
Rather, it would seem to be the case that the US has provided/wasted billions in aid, infrastructure repair/development, useless attempts at nation building, etc., i.e., almost a “reverse plunder” from my point of view as a taxpayer.
With regard to Hawaii, the article referenced appears to contradict itself in its title versus the historical account offered in the article body (bold mine):
“U.S. President Grover Cleveland opposed the provisional government and called for the queen to be restored to power, but the Committee of Safety established the Republic of Hawaii and refused to cede power.”
Who then were the “America backed” individuals the title references? It would seem the US Minister to Hawaii may have been misled by the coup conspirators:
“The overthrow efforts were supported by United States Government Minister John L. Stevens with an invasion of U.S. Marines, who came ashore at the request of the conspirators.[57] Advised about supposed threats to non-combatant American lives and property[58] by the Committee of Safety, Stevens obliged their request and summoned a company of uniformed U.S. Marines from the USS Boston and two companies of U.S. sailors to land on the Kingdom and take up positions at the U.S. Legation, Consulate, and Arion Hall on the afternoon of January 16, 1893.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii#United_States_involvement
Regardless of Minister Stevens’ intentions, President Cleveland, the head of government for the United States, was having nothing of it even according to the referenced article. He said this in regard to the use of our Marines in this incident:
“… the military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war; unless made either with the consent of the government of Hawaii or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperiled lives and property of citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the government of the queen… the existing government, instead of requesting the presence of an armed force, protested against it. There is as little basis for the pretense that forces were landed for the security of American life and property. If so, they would have been stationed in the vicinity of such property and so as to protect it, instead of at a distance and so as to command the Hawaiian Government Building and palace…. When these armed men were landed, the city of Honolulu was in its customary orderly and peaceful condition….[60]”
Or thus saith Wikipedia anyway…
So “America backed?” Not so fast.
sy computing – September 13, 2017 at 1:02 pm
Now, …… sy computing, ……. it appears that your “computering” skills (actually, reading comprehension skills) are not much better than the skills of most “climate scientists” simply because Tim’s comment made no mention whatsoever of plundering “treasure”.
Thus, please read with sufficient comprehension, to wit:
So, sy computing, ….. me thinks that one would have to be afflicted with a “personality” problem iffen they were to deny the fact that “acquisition of property” occurred in every one of my cited “invasions”.
Cheers, Sam C, ……. the ole computer designing dinosaur
POW!
(bold mine)
ZING!
Mr. Cogar you rusty old codger you…you remind me of my beloved grandpa. I sure miss him.
Mind your biscuits or I’m gonna come over there and take you fishin’…
🙂
+1. I really had hoped that Trump would stop or at least reduce the warring and warmongering. Sadly, this does not seem to be happening.
Right, because the peace-loving regime in North Korea launching a missile that crosses over Japan isn’t the least bit provocative and threatening, is it?
DJ, yes, North Korea’s missile launches are provocative. However, America’s power is so vastly superior to theirs that no additional effort — not even a verbal one — is required to maintain deterrence.
The ongoing wars in the Middle East serve no useful purpose.
The ongoing wars in the Middle East are only ongoing because we pulled out of there in the first place.
@Michael Palmer
Deterrence as a strategy is successful only among rational players. If you think that North Korea fits that bill…well, I just don’t know what to say.
“Let an ex-CIA agent break it down for you:”
All I could take is 15 minutes. There is a limit to how long one can keep and open mind when your BS meter is on fire.
I will take his BS for starters. He probably knows a lot more than you about what is going on the government. Knowing what people in the government do is the CIA’s job after all. Or maybe you are one of the government disinfo specialists yourself.
Translation: He says what I want to believe, therefore he must be speaking the truth.
Research involves study. A closed mind avoids this at all costs. The argument is settled.for them and no facts will be entered into..
@ Retired Kit P — What does your BS meter say about these numbers he blackboards at the 26 minute mark?
$50 Billion — Intelligence Agencies
$598 Billion — Total Defense Budget
$150 Billion — Overseas Bases
$6 Billion — Military Aid to Foreign Countries
$4 Billion — Congressional Lobbyists
$803 Billion in Tax Revenues for this
Social Security funds — stolen
Medicare — stolen
Medicaid — on the defunding block
Healthcare — hoping to install pre-existing condition exclusion again
Infrastructure — Crumbling
Economy — High unemployment or underemployment and poverty
This is from data in the top section. The bottom section are probably statements most Americans agree has happened or are about to happen.
Nowhere does this guy discuss how renewables are putting Americans in poverty. Not a single place. The OP has no data. None. Zip. Nada.
If you are going to call BS on the video it behooves you to come up with data to the contrary.
Social Security funds and such weren’t stolen, they were “borrowed” to fund other government spending.
This would have happened even if there wasn’t a Dept of Defense.
Making energy more expensive puts people into poverty. That’s so self evident that it shouldn’t even be up for discussion.
That renewable energy makes energy more expensive is also proven handily.
@davidgmills
Where are you getting your $863 billion figure from? From 1990 on the revenues have been above $2 trillion, and most recently, ~$3.2 trillion.
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/federal_budget_estimate_vs_actual_2016
Correction, that should be above $1 trillion since 1990.
@ Mark W. What do you consider to be a threat? It must not take much. There are threats and there are existential threats. The US has had zero existential threats since the cold war ended and talks of reviving it do no include countries like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Syria, Yemen and any of the other third world or emerging countries.
Do we need the most expensive military in the world to stop any old garden variety of threat? Do we need the vast sums we are spending to counter an existential threat? I say no to both.
And if you don’t think we have invaded and plundered these countries I mentioned, you have a weird warped sense of what those two words mean.
Much of the poverty in the US now is due to a complete decimation of our manufacturing sector. We have replaced this sector with low paying service jobs. This decimation also weakens our own security. We are reliant on places all over the world just for the parts that make our military apparatus work. Not only does our military waste vast sums of money, reliance on the rest of the world for spare parts make us less safe. The decision to gut our manufacturing sector must be borne both by the corporations that did it and our government that allowed it.
As for your comment that the military has been a way out of poverty for many. Tell that to the dead and maimed for life. Many had no choice in the matter since wages have been declining since 1976.
Could save a lot of money by not sending the fleets out to police international waters for free. Of course, then all the countries whose shipping benefits from it would complain.
Could also save money by ditching our modern military technology and going back to WW1 era meatgrinder tactics. But we don’t tolerate casualties like we used to.
There’s graft and waste in the military, as there is in all government institutions, but Leftivists never seem to get around to decrying the graft and waste in their own offices.
Bull.
“Rather than the federal budget being dominated by the military, the budget is actually dominated by spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. In fact. the ratio of military spending to food and agriculture spending in the full budget is 4-to-1, rather than 57-to-1.”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/aug/17/facebook-posts/pie-chart-federal-spending-circulating-internet-mi/
You obviously didn’t watch the video. He breaks the budget down for you. Damn near to the penny (really more like a billion or two, but close enough).
“You obviously didn’t watch the video. He breaks the budget down for you. Damn near to the penny (really more like a billion or two, but close enough).”
Perhaps he’s been able to avoid the fluoride in the water, whereas I have not.
Joining the military has been a path out of poverty for millions. Way better than welfare.
We spend far more on the “poor” than we do on the military. Our defense spending as a share of GDP now is lower than for most of the past 80 years.
Spending on health, education, welfare, etc, is far greater.
Defense spending also has the advantage of developing whole new technologies which stimulate the economy. Welfare spending, not so much.
It’s hard to think of a new technology since 1900 that hasn’t been created or advanced by defense spending, to include the electronic computer I’m using at the moment (invented to model thermonuclear explosions), and the stereophonic sound to which I’m listening (invented to find submarines). The spoked wheel was invented for war chariots. The screwdriver was invented to put knights in armor. Without war, there would be little or no progress.
“Without war, there would be little or no progress.”
Or at least the threat of it.
You didn’t watch the video either. He proves how wrong you are. If you want to watch the video and complain about a certain thing he says, that may be constructive.
“Without war, there would be little or no progress.” And many million more human lives. Humans like you.
The silly thing is believing that if we didn’t have a military, people would stop fighting.
The military performs a useful service and the world would be a lot worse without it.
Here is Senator Paul in Congress this week:
Lowndes County is incredibly poor, but it is handling the hook worm crisis in an expedient way. They are going to starve the hook worms by denying them human hosts. The population there is declining about 10% per decade. And there appears to be no housing shortage either – no home building permits were approved in 2016 – presumably because none were needed. This is a job for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
As my mother always pointed out, poverty is a state of mind; you can not be poor if you live in a town with a good library. If the government is helping you, you are in big trouble.
I have also noticed something in MSM about the homeless. It is only an issue when POTUS is from the Republican. I had a conversation with my sister in 1990 after a visit to San Francisco and seeing all the homeless. It was Bush’s fault. I pointed out that if you are homeless and waiting for the president to to do something about it, you will still be homeless when the next president is serving, and the next after that.
America is a wonderful place. Your neighbor is just waiting for the chance to give you the shirt off his back. I have volunteer at homeless shelters and other programs through church, and work. Foreign companies who come here are surprised by the generosity of American employees.
It would be interesting to see a study comparing the number of people that would stop and help my wife with a flat tire compared to those who would snatch her purse. Both have happened to her.
And just for the record, we have experience in other countries with strangers stopping and helping. The world is full of wonderful people, some of them are even help those who are better off.
But its difficult to imagine a worse economic crime against vulnerable people than to drain money out of the real economy, and waste that desperately needed public cash on well connected political cronies and useless green energy schemes
ooh, activist.speak! i’m so exhorted!
i wish i had a life that was so meaningful
do not want, eric.
zort yourself if you gotta go zorting.
Your concern for your fellow (wo)man is truly heartwarming.
your attempt to play your fellow humans like bagpipes is disgusting.
go justify your existence without a marked deck of victimhood cards.
it is not socialism that threatens us, but fanaticism and a rise of fascism which, by definition, is a political arrangement that purposely replaces reason with propaganda of scapegoating.
While you happen to be right about global warming, all told, you are no better than those whom you denounce.
https://www.electricitylocal.com/states/california/
Fascism is a form of socialism.
Socialism sure as hell threatened Venezuela. It threatened it right to the verge of Extinction.
“While various US governments continue to waste unimaginable sums of public money on pointless climate schemes, real problems ranging from third world poverty in Alabama to an explosion of the skid row population of Los Angeles are being allowed to fester.”
This appears to presuppose that government wouldn’t waste “unimaginable sums of public money on pointless [homeless] schemes.”
The argument seems to contradict itself.
Chronic parasitism, particularly from free living nematodes can cause anemia and gut problems.
Paradoxically hookworm larvae in small numbers may protect the bowl from gluten intolerance and coeliac disease.
https://research.jcu.edu.au/bmdt/publications/publications-1/giacomin-australian-science-april-2015
On the subject of poverty, the more expensive the power and the more unreliable even the middle class will be pushed into poverty.
That’s because utilities like the NBN in Australia stop with blackouts and low voltage brown outs,so the net crashes, as do any electrical equipment involving computer control, transport, refrigeration or manufacture.
The best thing for us Australians is to let power companies which demand renewables and their customers simply pay for them.
That’s all.
Then load shed the renewable market using the smart meters put in at their expense to control the grid.
Too easy.
Stevie Wonder turns out to be an idiot:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/12/hurricane-telethon-gets-political-right-at-the-start-video/
JPP
I guess he believes in the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming religion…
I wouldn’t give any money to this cause, as probably most of it goes to those celebrities I would suspect…
The Red Cross is a better bet.
“Anyone who believes that there’s no such thing as global warming must be blind or unintelligent” speak for yourself Stevie Wonder…
He’s just parroting the strawman version of climate contrarianism that he’s been fed by other celebrities & the MSM. Most—nearly all—prominent skeptics accept that the globe is warming and that all else being equal, CO2 will raise the temperature by 1 degree by 2100. SW doesn’t realize—because it’s been artfully concealed from him—that what skeptics deny is the likelihood of there being strong positive feedbacks from increasing water vapor in the air.
Alarmists and their dupes use the phrase “deny global warming” in an equivocal sense: first, as shorthand for Deny strong positive feedbacks from increasing water vapor in the air. Second, as a way to insinuate to the naive in their audience that skeptics deny that the globe is warming or will do so.
To alarmists and the MSM, “denies positive feedbacks,” which means “denies catastrophic global warming,” equates in their minds to “denies global warming,” because they aren’t doing slow, critical thinking (category 2), but “fast-thinking,” or category 1.
I accept that the world is warming, however I believe that CO2 will only be responsible for 0.2 to 0.3C of that warming.
…and he hasn’t produced any music worth listening to since 1978.
We have the same trouble in New Zealand .Poverty child poverty and homelessness .Yet we have Greenpeace going to court to stop a irrigation dam being built in the Hawkes Bay region because they are against damming rivers .They have never worked out that irrigation generates many worthwhile jobs and lifts the economic well being of a region .I cannot believe that they call themselves green when they act to stop an irrigation scheme .Without irrigation all fruit ‘vegetable and grape growing is in jeopardy and the result is a brown dry landscape in our warm rain-less summers .They should look to Mid Canterbury in the South Island that has very low unemployment and a good standard of living thanks to irrigation.Our power charges are rising steadily because of a massive number of wind turbines but at least we have a lot of hydro stations that can be started and stopped as the wind ebbs and blows .It is plain commonsense that if a country is doing well then a lot more people are lifted out of poverty and a lot more money will be available to help those who can’t help themselves .If governments and councils waste money then a lot less good will be undertaken.
Greenpeace, like most environmentalist groups is against anything that benefits people.
Regarding climate change, the science is settled so there is no need to spend any more money on it. From the paleoclimate evidence and the modeling efforts one can conclude that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really zero. The AGW conjecture is based on only partial science and is to severely flawed to defend. For example, the AGW conjecture depends on a radiant greenhouse effect but such a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed anywhere in the solar system including the Earth. The radiant greenhouse effect is sceince fiction. Hence tha AGW conjecture is Science fiction. Our government should stop spending money in persuit of science fiction. That should be left to the entertainment industry.
So fund climate science and social programmes. Maybe cut down on expensive defence boondoggles (cough F35).
(sigh)…..
A boondoggle is any government spending that benefits someone else’s district.
The notable thing that emerges from the California case and others rarely gets attention.
Its that the green movement wants to spend huge amounts of money in ways which will have no effect whatever on the problem, even if they are right about it.
So California, for instance. Suppose the scariest fantasies about global warming are correct and are realised. Nothing California does will have any effect on the global climate.
The question to ask about the movement is why they are so furiously emotional about doing things, which on their own account, are useless?
You can take this in exactly the opposite way too. You will generally hear those most enthusiastic about expensive measures which don’t reduce emissions becoming furious and indignant when confronted with measures that would do that.
So we are told by the same green movement that Chinese emissions, and growth in Chinese emissions, are perfectly fine. Even though, if the same standards were to be applied to China and to California, China is destroying civilisation on earth. Whereas California is contributing to saving it. China by raising its emissions from 10 billion tons a year to north of 15 billion. California by reducing by a few tens of millions of tons, if that. The fact is the only way to save the planet, if the greens are correct, is for China to actually lower its emissions in tons. Not per capita, not to install more wind and so on. To lower the tonnage of CO2 they emit into the air!
Look at it objectively, and you see that the movement advocates doing things which, on their own account of the situation, will have no effect, and at the same time refuses to contemplate advocating actions which, on their own account of the situation, are necessary and effective. In fact, they defend people who, on their account, are inevitably destroying civilisation.
So the question the detached observer asks is, why? And the answer this one has come up with is that no-one, including the most fanatical advocates, actually believes the global warming story.
This is a very disturbing conclusion to have come to, in terms of what it tells us about social and political dysfunctionality in the Anglo Saxon countries. But its what the available evidence points to. We have to take what the greens say seriously, and ask how anyone could come to their conclusions, and the standard explanation that they are concerned about the planet is simply not justifiable. Something else is going on. But what?
Windmills and solar panels? They haven’t worked in windy, sunny Spain. See here, a commentary by a Spanish expert who formerly believed those were the solution: http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/05/01/Solar-Dreams/
Does anyone really think that money saved from not investing in adaptions to climate change would be spent on alleviating poverty in the US? Really?
If so I have some great magic beans for sale. pricey, but hey, you never know !
Anything that shrinks government spending helps to alleviate poverty.
Not the point is it? The question is, why do the greens keep advocating doing things which on their own account do not help solve the problem, while refusing to advocate things which, on their own account, are both essential and effective for solving it?
This is the hard question you have to answer. And its why I conclude that no-one, especially not the Chinese and our own home grown zealots, actually believes in global warming.
if they really did, they would be behaving completely differently.
As the US economy becomes less free-market oriented and more government controlled, poverty levels will continue to increase, standards of living will fall, and 3rd-World diseases like intestinal parasites will increase.
The US government currently imposes $2 trillion/year in regulatory compliance costs on the private sector, while state, local and federal spending now devour over 40% of GDP.
Rather than cutting profligate government spending, political hacks fund gigantic annual defiicits with printed money and additional unsustainable debt (currently at $20 TRILLION and growing rapidly).
Exessive money printing and excessive debt devalues the US$, which further erodes purchasing power, even with many Americans working 2 jobs just to keep food on the table.
Open-border immigration policies have also added 30 million illegal aliens to the workforce, which has eroded wages and greatly increased welfare, healthcare and public school expenditures.
Trump has so far done little to address these fundamental issues, although Ryan and McConnell’s terrible leadership share responsibility for this lack of progress.
Trump is now reneging on almost all his campaign promises and tacking Left to “get things done.”…Not good…
The headline to this WUWT post is another example of what a group of European researchers found when they went looking for a link if any between renewable energy and the economic health of nation.
Study suggests choice between green energy or economic growth
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-choice-green-energy-economic-growth.html
Quoted;
Poverty, unemployment and zero economic growth are the likely outcome for countries which choose renewable energy sources over fossil fuels, according to a study.
Energy from fossil fuels appears to ignite economies into greater and more sustained growth, whereas energy from wind and solar power not only fails to enhance or promote economic growth, it actually causes economies to flat-line.
The results, from an in-depth study of more than 100 countries over 40 years, pose a serious ethical dilemma, according to the lead author, economist Dr Nikolaos Antonakakis, Visiting Fellow at the University of Portsmouth Business School and Associate Professor at Webster Vienna University.
&
Dr Antonakakis and co-authors, Dr Ioannis Chatziantoniou, at the University of Portsmouth, and Dr George Filis, at Bournemouth University, set out to study whether environmentally friendly forms of energy consumption were more likely to enhance economic growth.
In the light of recent policies designed to promote the use of green energy, including tax credits for the production of renewable energy and reimbursements for the installation of renewable energy systems, the authors predicted that environmentally friendly forms of energy consumption would enhance economic growth.
Dr Antonakakis said: “It turned out not to be the case.”
&
The researchers gathered data on gross domestic product (GDP), CO2 emissions and total and disaggregated energy consumption for 106 countries from 1971-2011.
The results were the same across all countries, from rich to poor.
Dr Chatziantoniou said: “It’s a very thought-provoking result and could, in a roundabout way, help explain why no country or state has yet managed to fully convert to renewable energy.
“It could also be that we have not yet learned how to fully exploit the benefits of renewable energy – we don’t yet have the level of know-how.”
Of the countries studied, not one showed good economic growth while promoting and investing in renewable energy.
I’m gonna be the Devil’s Avocado here..
On 2 points.
OK.
Avert your eyes now if you think they may be offended.
1. Is this post not just maybe perhaps possibly a little bit on the “well-intentioned, finger-wagging, I’m here to help, Oh look at me how good my life is, what is wrong with you people” sort of side of things?
You know. Like missionaries going into jungles to find ‘Lost Tribes’ and give them religion and civilisation.
They all worked a real treat eh not?
Because along with religion came syphilis, influenza, alcohol, guns and drugs – the worst of the drugs being of course sugar.
To add insult, the ones who somehow manage to survive these lovely new gifts, find themselves shuffled off into some dreadful ‘reservation’. Possibly a pile of rapidly eroding sand, in the ocean somewhere off the arse-end of Alaska. Where they have nothing to do but get fat, drunk & stupid while soaking up trash TV
and being gawped at by ‘tourists’
2. Actually really point 1.1 but – how about a bit of Empathy? NOT to be confused with Sympathy.
Use empathy to understand these ‘poor’ folks because otherwise you are making an epic judgement of how superior you consider yourself to be.
It might just happen, as if it wasn’t obvious in a way and the folks won’t admit it to their ‘superiors’ that the poor folks may actually be happy in their mess/slum.
[As an slight aside, what about some actual pictures/proof of these ‘open sewers’ that really is getting a bit fantastic. So someone once found a turd in the park……]
Worms. It is of course entirely obvious that everyone, from age 4(?) when they start school, immediately take on the subject of quantum mechanics, especially to do with the radiative transfer of heat through various mixtures of gases. and come away with a full and thorough understanding of their subject
Why don’t they learn about keeping a pet cat or dog and how to look after it – also maybe something on how to maintain themselves? Of course parents are far too busy to do that, being engrossed in the study of quantum mechanical heat processes and showing off how clever they are on titter and facebork.
They will/would learn that stuff that de-worms cats and dogs is exactly the same as what would de-worm humans. Then of course and being the accused, tried, convicted & fully registered low-lifes that they are, they could simply shop-lift the stuff from stores anywhere/everywhere nationwide – thereby fixing their ‘worm’ problem.
Hey, they may reform a little and actually use money to buy the stuff – if they knew or were ever told.
(Doesn’t ‘being superior’ make you feel good?)
I’m watching the dossers I see near the carpark I visit in Worksop.
They’ve always got presentable clothes, new trainers and the girls have bags of ‘stuff’ to carry around. From the litter they drop they have plenty cigarettes (UK Duty paid, not nasty cheap & illegal French rubbish from Calais) plus epic amounts of 8% ABV beer/lager to drink.
They have their ‘Hub’ (near the car-park) to visit. What they get there I have no idea but its patently doing increasing numbers of them no harm whatsoever.
They have chosen a life entirely free from responsibility. They have escaped nag nag want want of wives, bosses, bureaucrats, meter-maids, children, lawyers etc etc and they have ‘The Hub’ to look after them. Presumably it sorts out their their social security money and gets them ‘everything they are due’
Their only actual concern is choosing which brand of cigarettes to ‘acquire’ and which flavour of strong beer to drink.
Take a second to think – is their life really all that bad?
There are several European countries politicians also trying to win the climateidiot gold Cup!
Thank you Eric Worrall for a worthwhile article about the squandering of scarce global resources on the frivolous pet projects of foolish politicians, while far greater problems are ignored.
I just posted the following (excerpted) on another thread, and it seems relevant here as well:
It IS frustrating to see politicians make really foolish decisions about energy. Most politicians are far too uneducated to even opine on the subject, let alone formulate energy policy. For example, it was obvious from the start that hydrogen-as-fuel was a dead end, because of very low energy density. Corn ethanol is also a poor and destructive idea, as are most food-to-fuel schemes, which have contributed to excessive drawdown of the Ogalalla Aquifer in the USA and widespread rainforest clearcutting in the tropics.
In general, green energy policies have been a costly disaster for society, causing great environmental damage, increasing energy cost and reducing grid reliability. This damage has been high in the developed world but even higher in the developing world, where green energy nonsense has denied struggling populations with cheap, abundant energy systems.
Fossil fuels comprise about 85% of global primary energy, whereas green energy provides less than 2%, despite trillions of dollars in squandered subsidies. Imagine how much better the world’s poor would be if these vast sums had been spent intelligently on clean water, sanitation and efficient energy systems.
Cheap, abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple. When politicians fool with energy policy, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of global warming alarmism.
Best regards, Allan MacRae, P.Eng.
All true. But we should have had thorium nuclear power using molten salt as a coolant and invested in it instead of the fossil fuel industry. Investing in the fossil fuel industry has been one of the top reasons we are in so many wars — mostly wars for oil and religion. And when you add the cost of wars to fossil fuels, they are not particularly cheap at all.
Nuclear power is a million times and energy dense and a carbon-hydrogen bond. The people who complain about renewables not being energy dense need to look in the mirror when making the energy density argument.
David:G MIlls
1. On “thorium nuclear power using molten salt as a coolant”:
It sounds like your proposed technology is almost ready for piloting, but not for commercial use.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/molten-salt-reactors.aspx
Hence, you argument seems to rest on the concept “If frogs had wings, they would not have to bump around on their asses”.
2. On wars for oil:
It is true that oil is too often produced in countries that are kleptocracies, governed by criminals. This merely reflects how valuable oil truly is, and how the lure of greed can result in countries that are run by criminal dictators, who fleece their treasuries and move large funds to personal accounts in foreign bank-havens. But when you look closer, you will discover that about 90% of the more than 200 countries in the world have no real rule-of-law, and are often governed by criminals. The countries that are oil-rich are simply more obvious than the rest.
3. More on wars:
Afghanistan is not oil-rich, Iraq is – so the claim that oil spawns wars is a bit weak. The US-led 2nd war in Iraq has proven to be a debacle, that simply served to replace one brutal dictator (Saddam) with something much worse (ISIS and chronic instability). That is too often the result one can expect. We were in Tunisia during the “hot war” next door in Libya, and the optimism of “Arab Spring” still prevailed. I tried to explain to some of my Arab friends that “just because you throw out a bad leader does not mean you will get somebody better – you may very well get somebody worse.” Sadly, the legacy of “Arab Spring” can be summarized in those words.
Regards, Allan
Nobody invested in the fossil fuel industry.
It developed because it was the best form of power available.
Added the last sentence re wind and solar power:
It IS frustrating to see politicians make really foolish decisions about energy. Most politicians are far too uneducated to even opine on the subject, let alone formulate energy policy. For example, it was obvious from the start that hydrogen-as-fuel was a dead end, because of very low energy density. Corn ethanol is also a poor and destructive idea, as are most food-to-fuel schemes, which have contributed to excessive drawdown of the Ogalalla Aquifer in the USA and widespread rainforest clearcutting in the tropics. It was also obvious that grid-connected wind and solar power schemes were costly and ineffective, primarily due to intermittency.
There is very little “extreme poverty” in the US.
1996 was not partial-deregulation, it was a poorly thought out change in regulations.
I have an honest question. Let’s grant wind has a hidden cost of 2cents/kWh. If the cost were more than this then wind would not be built since it would not be competitive. On ERCOT wind is now up to 17% of the annual production. Yet as a state Texas has middle cost electricity, even while expanding the transmission grid to include massive amounts of wind. Let’s consider the tax benefit as reducing the cost of electricity by 2 cents for the 17% that is wind – 0.34 cents per kWh. Not nothing, but not the difference between ERCOT and PJM. It seems like the price difference between regions is less driven by fuel source and more by other costs. Does anyone know why Texas can incorporate more wind than California (on both an absolute and percentage basis) without skyrocketing prices, and without the instability seen in South Australia?
And they are still adding more wind. If wind grows by another 7 points it will likely be a larger electric source than coal. Granted, my particular opinion is that it will be difficult to put meet more than ~25% of grid demand from wind, but it seems like ERCOT will hit that ceiling without the catastrophic consequences seen in other regions.
‘Does anyone know why Texas can incorporate more wind than California’
Of course I can only answer a small portion of your question, but at a guess I would say one reason they are able to incorporate more wind is because the state is FLAT.
Yes, I can answer the question. Texas started out with a very modest mandate for wind as under Governor Bush as a compromise to get new coal and gas plants that were desperately needed.
This demonstrated the economics of wind power in the mix with natural gas that can be sold to other states.
Texas also has a large wind resource. Texas is also business friendly and energy savvy. It is easier to get through the regulatory process to get power projects built.
chadb wrote: “Let’s grant wind has a hidden cost of 2cents/kWh.”
How about “Let’s grant wind has a hidden cost of 20 cents/kWh?”.
At this time, 86% of global primary energy is from fossil fuels, and the remaining 14% is mostly hydro and nuclear – solar and wind power account for less than 2%, and would be near-zero if they were not forced into the grid ahead of much cheaper, reliable dispatchable power.
Sooner or later there will be better energy systems, but first we have to reverse the lunacy of forcing non-dispatchable wind and solar power into the grid ahead of reliable, dispatchable cheap energy. This idiotic practice should stop now, because it is utterly imbecilic and counter-productive.
All it does is drive up energy costs and reduce the reliability of the grid. It does nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, which, btw, do NOT cause dangerous global warming.
Regards, Allan
Remember to use the new standard metric of policy cost from CBO that this cost X is equivalent to Y million families losing health insurance.
The problem of poverty is also exacerbated by another government idiocy called The Minimum Wage.
+100
The other unfunded mandate…with passion.
don’t you mean alleviated?
It’s easier to fight imaginary problems than real ones. There are no easy answers. Solutions to real problems come with costs and consequences. It’s easier to tilt at windmills than alienate one group or another. Few politicians are willing to make the hard choices.
In the private sector, many charities are little more than money laundering schemes, and only a small fraction of the money ends up being spent on those in need.
Say, nick, why the focus on Alabama? The massive increase in street people in California doesn’t mean anything to you? You know, the one state in the Union that is going all-out on climate change? The liberal-run state?
I’ve worked with some of the poorest school systems in some of the poorest counties in the South, and through Federal programs, they have excellent network connectivity and network facilitating technology. Why? Because engaged people took the time to understand the Federal program and take the steps necessary to obtain the funding and implement the technology in the schools. This is why I find it very hard to believe there is no local/state/federal program available to alleviate the sewage issues in those areas in Alabama.
It’s either blatant stupidity, gross negligence or outright corruption, or, all the above.
I have tried to engage warmist propagandists on energy poverty, but they just continue to spout the company line that it just needs more time and of course more (taxpayer) money.
In the UK, with its different approach on social issues, social housing is increasingly being provided with solar panels, which reduces electricity bills.
“US Military personnel are currently deployed in 177 different countries around the world, ……”
I picked this quote as an example of how some try to further their agenda.
It is the long list tactic!
I start by examining one claim. Of course we have military personnel in many countries because we embassies in many countries with marine guards.
I opened the link to find out how many countries where there is a significant military presence. Only 20, one of those was Guam, a US territory. Another was Cuba. We have a navy base there. Been there several times. The navy trains there because it is a convenient location.
The point is that I did not have a problems with where deployed our troops and concluded the sources was very biased.
How would I know? I was in the navy for 10 years. Having a few diesel subs is a very cheap way to create havoc on world peace. However, effective anti-submarine warfare is very expensive.
I was never poor, we just did not have very much money. I mowed lawns, raked leaves, shoveled snow, and pumped gas among other things. I joined the navy to get an education. The navy spent a lot of money teaching me to operate nuclear reactors, fight shipboard fires, and give first aid among other things.
The issue of not have very much money end with my first paycheck in civilian life and I have been paying tax ever since.
Yesterday, I open two videos that discussed corruption in government. One discussed the role of government in low fat diets. I watched the whole thing because it was informative and supported claims. I am not going to stop taking medicine reduce my cholesterol until I discuss it with my doctor.
The second was the ex-CIA loon. After 15 minutes of over the top claims without supporting evidence, I stop listening. I also looked at their web site. 100% junk science and conspiracy theories.
The point here isn’t that our government can not be wrong but what is useful in our lives to make changes.
“Human Intestinal Parasite Burden” – Hey, that’s the copyrighted name of my death metal band.