ENERGY

May 20, 2013

Obama: Big Oil and Big Lies

March 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment
President Obama is spreading class-warfare lies again.  If Obama gets what he wants gas prices will rise — which is what he wants.  He paints a false picture of money being extracted from taxpayers and then given to oil companies — Wrong!
 
Larry Kudlow discusses this in this Townhall article:
 
But “there you go again” can apply equally to President Obama. Once again this week, the president was out on the campaign trail bashing and oil and gas companies. And he continued to spread major falsehoods about this industry, which I guess is the polite way to put it.
 
Obama is obsessed with oil and gas. He is a prisoner of the left-wing environmental groups. And really, he’s extending his leftist class-warfare attack from rich people to successful oil and gas producers.
 

Read the whole thing at Townhall.com      

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Filed Under: ECONOMY, ENERGY, GOV. FRAUD/WASTE/ABUSE, RECOMMENDED READING Tagged With: , , , ,

Human Caused Global Warming: Fake?

January 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

 A climate scientist speaks out over at American Thinker:

As is evident from the Climategate e-mails, a small group of scientists, mainly in the U.K. and U.S., have managed to freeze out contrary evidence from being published in the scientific literature or in IPCC reports. The self-described “Team” members brazenly discuss strategies and action plans to further “The Cause.” Unfortunately, they have largely succeeded — and continue to influence publications, thanks to some key journalists and editors. In consequence of this evident conspiracy, it is hardly surprising that politicians, the media, and the general public are receiving entirely wrong information about supposedly catastrophic effects of a future warming.

Follow the easy money!

Read the rest at American Thinker  

 www.politiseeds.com

Filed Under: ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, GOV. FRAUD/WASTE/ABUSE, RECOMMENDED READING Tagged With: , , , ,

Free-Market Green Jobs for $2.63 a Day

October 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

My article as originally published in American Thinker:

I employ the services of a landscape maintenance company (AKA a gardener) to maintain my yard.  The very existence of his business depends on the collection of that $80 from me ($2.63 a day) as well as the 30 or 40 other people whom he provides his services to each month.  This type of service may seem like an unnecessary “luxury” to many but it’s a mutually beneficial transaction that forms just one of the small but vital cogs in the wheel of capitalism.

With the downturn (think death-spiral) of the economy in California, my wife and I have had to make many sacrifices in order to keep our own household on a sustainable path.  While brainstorming ways to save money, the idea of letting our gardener go and doing the yard maintenance work ourselves has come up several times.  But we always come back to the idea that we need to resist succumbing to this recession and do our part in helping to keep what’s left of this fragile economy alive.  Fortunately for him, and us, we’ve been able to continue to utilize his services — for now.

How many other s-corp “rich” individuals, just like us, are out there who would be unable to maintain a service such as this if more of our money ended up being extracted through higher tax rates?  If our taxes were to increase by even a small amount (like, say, $80 per month), our gardener would unfortunately end up being one of the first casualties (although I might have to reconsider if he started whistling Disney tunes like the Solyndra robots).

President Obama also said: “This is not class warfare; it is math.”  Okay, let’s do some simple math.  Let’s look at what could have been done with the $535 million in taxpayer dollars that Obama “invested” in just that one Solyndra deal alone.  If you were to take the salary of one gardener who has 45 clients at $80 each per month, his earnings would add up to 3,600 per month, or $43,200 per year.  This means that if the $535 million that was carelessly wasted on the Solyndra deal had been left in the hands of the taxpayers, it theoretically could have been used to pay the annual salary of about 12,384 gardeners.  How does that stack up to the 1,100 who just lost their jobs at the luxurious Solyndra plants that built solar panels for twice the amount that they were able to sell them for?

It looks more like we’re swapping temporary “green jobs” for real “green jobs” and at an exchange rate that is much, much less than desirable.  And that is only the tip of the iceberg when you look into the green energy dealings of the Obama administration.  The administration has just approved another $5 billion (or about 115,740 gardeners for reference) in loan guarantees for these types of programs, including one to an enterprise that Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law is tied to (can you spell c-r-o-n-y?).  And as I write, there is new news that the $500-million green jobs training program came up short on its goals.

Of course, not all of this tax money would end up being used to pay the salaries of gardeners if it were left in the hands of taxpayers.  But stop and think for a moment about all of the other jobs in this nation that are tied to seemingly insignificant sums of money that Obama thinks taxpayers can “afford” to hand over to the government without consequence.

With an inefficient government bureaucracy, there is no amount of additional tax revenue that will ever be enough to satisfy its tremendous appetite if it is left unrestrained and unaccountable.  This is why, as history has proven time and time again, the use of capital is much more productive when mostly left in the hands of the private sector.

To gain a little more perspective on the enormity of the sums of taxpayer money the Obama administration has been spending, let’s do the same calculation as above using the original projected amount of Obama’s stimulus package ($787 billion).  According to the “math,” we could pay about 18,217,592 gardeners for one full year with that “stimulus” money.

Talk about a real “green jobs” program — there wouldn’t be one single square inch of land left in the United States that wasn’t fully lush and green.

 

Filed Under: BLOG, DEBT/DEFICIT, ECONOMY, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, GOV. FRAUD/WASTE/ABUSE, TAXES Tagged With: , , , , ,

Obama’s Solyndra Misfire

September 2, 2011 by 2 Comments

 

My article as originally published in American Thinker:

Considering my electrical background, this administration sure has given me some easy things to write about lately.  My last piece on the subject of electrical was on the un-sustainability of the Chevy Volt and now comes the news that Solyndra, who received over 535 million in loan guarantees from the US tax payer, has filed for bankruptcy and laid off all 1,100 employees (I thought these loans were going to create 3,000 jobs?).  Once again the tax payer gets fried because of naïve policy.

I drove by the Solyndra plant just last week on my way back from cleaning out a storage facility I shut down in San Jose (another story) and was impressed by the architectural detail that went into those buildings.  It’s obvious that a lot of thought (and money) went into their design and construction.  Unfortunately it’s what’s been happening on the inside of those pretty buildings that counts in this case.   And the ugliness is now out in the open for all to see.

About four or five years ago I was told by colleagues, employees and home owners alike that I should expand into the solar end of the business — that it was the wave of the future — that it would work this time.  Sure, I could have played the dog-pile-on-the-crony-dollar game, but it appeared to me that the only way to keep the power on in that industry (at the time) was through the use of heavy government subsidies. That was an instant — “caution high-voltage” — sign for me to stay away.  Sure in hindsight I could have made a few quick bucks but I think my resistance to getting involved has proven correct.

Not that I have anything against solar technology (believe me I love electrical innovation) but if something can’t sustain itself in the free market after its mass consumption of capital and its continued subsidies, then common sense says that when the money gets turned-off  (and it always does) it’s going to get dark pretty quick.   Worse yet, if those continued subsidies are still unable to provide enough power (“hope” won’t do the trick) to keep the lights on, then it’s obvious the meter is going to stop spinning.  In the case of Solyndra, the taxpayer is on the hook for the final bill.

There is one other problem that I can see from a consumer standpoint.  Maybe I’m naïve, but if I wanted to put my money into a large “investment” that would offset, or eliminate my electric bills, wouldn’t I be better off investing it in a small condo or something else that would actually pay for those electric bills forever?  Isn’t “investing” in solar panels basically just pre-paying for the next 30 years of electricity (at which point the panels need to be replaced)?  Am I the only one out there that thinks this way.

Filed Under: BLOG, ENERGY

Chevy’s Low Voltage Troubles

August 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

My article as originally published in American Thinker:

“Only 125 Volts” is the first thing that caught my eye in an article I stumbled upon from the National Legal and Policy Center.  As I come from an electrical background, I would agree that 125 Volts is nothing to get too excited about, but this article wasn’t teaching you how to replace a circuit breaker, instead it was discussing the total brown-out of Chevy Volt sales in the month of July.  ”Only 125 Volts were sold during the month of July.”   Somehow I doubt this comes as a major shock to anyone with the slightest amount of good business sense.

While 125 Volts is fairly low as far as voltages go, it most certainly will get your attention if you accidently come in contact with it (please just trust me on this).  On the other hand, it’s going to take much higher Volt-age sales numbers to attract investors’ attention and give them confidence in GM’s “business” decisions.

In order for power transmission to work over great distances, power companies must step-up the Voltage to tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Volts.  Using a lower Voltage produces too many losses and is simply not sustainable over long distances (speaking of Voltage drop, 1 Chevy Volt can only travel about 40 miles).   Similarly, if GM wants to finally become sustainable it will have to reduce its losses and step-up the Voltage.  In this case it will need to sell many, many thousands of Volts.

In the real world (not in la la land) the way a company does this is by offering a product or service that the public actually wants, and is willing to buy, in a sufficient enough quantity as to make the company a profit (or at least break even).  Following a President’s social agenda instead of listening to the market is very bad business and means that the program will need to be subsidized by the sales of other profitable products or worse.

Electrical safety is no laughing matter and if the rules aren’t properly followed someone is going to get hurt or something will get broken. The same can be said for the rules of economics, which is fine if a company is forced to live (or die) by its decisions, but sadly the last time GM broke those rules it was the US taxpayer who got fried.  Are taxpayers being set-up for another shock at some point in the future?

Filed Under: BLOG, ENERGY