The Economy - What No One is Saying

The Economy and Energy: I find it interesting with all of the talks about the economy - basically no one has proposed anything known to really work.  OK, not raising taxes is smart.  It is a start - but the tax rates are already there - so how will that change anything? 

What I find interesting is that President Obama often has in the same speech, talked about trying to do something positive for the economy, while at the same time restricting access to one or more forms of energy.  Any development by any nation has greatly hinged on the the access to affordable energy.  Don't believe me?  I challenge you to find a case historically that differs with what I am saying.

Lets look at what our government's policy on energy is or has been recently:

More regulations on Nuclear Power.  This has been done and now there are even plants that will shut down sooner than scheduled, because of regulations that have basically been "retroactively applied" to existing plants.  With no more Nuclear plants being built, and not even planned - this is ridiculous.  If I bought into conspiracy theories, I would definitely think this was part of some sort of "plan" to attack our energy and economy.  Nuclear is the most efficient way to produce electricity known to man.

America hates using coal.  While we are the world's largest producer of coal, an we are exporting it to our competitors, we are not ready to use it ourselves.  All is talked about "alternative energy sources" which all have to be subsidized or we would not even be using it now.  I am not against wind power - but even with subsidies I will explain why it will not work in the short term.

Baseless moratoriums on offshore drilling.  The US has moratoriums against offshore drilling.  This somehow includes in international waters.  The bad part about this - other countries can drill in the same places we are banning US companies from drilling.  You may claim that this is based on the horizon platform aka BP oil spill.  That was an excuse to put a choke hold on American oil while helping our competitors from over seas.

The Wind Problem: I am not going to get into all the hype about "alternative" energy sources, but they are not efficient.  I said I would explain about wind power.  I have studied it a bit as Texas produces more wind power than anyone- as much as 6,200-megawatts a day. The problem is - when you build a power plant - there is infrastructure designed to transmit the power into the electrical grid.  Wind farms do not have such a transmission line in place - and engineers are yet to find a good way to do this as wind farms are not a power plant - but many small power plants.  The current grid cannot even support what energy is generated today in Texas.  Texas is spending over $5 billion to address this issue - but if many more wind farms pop up - look for more big spending.

The Answer - Easy Access to Affordable Energy: When you need to build your economy - you need to have easy access to affordable energy.  Yes, it is that simple. China has this, India has this.  The US does not have this.  The bad part is, it is all self inflicted.  We had it in the 80's and even the beginning of the 90's when our economy was strong.  Any real talk about helping the economy has to include accessing affordable energy.

I am not against "going green"  but we need to take much more measured changes.  We need to quit listening to the Chicken Littles of this world "The sky is falling" (or getting a hole in it, etc).  We need cheap energy.  - Stay safe!

How to Make Real Economic Reform

I have a novel Idea as to how to bring about economic reform in the US.  Maybe it has been thought of before, but it is so simple, that it can really work.  It all has to do with Congress, I don't care who is president, Congress would make it happen.

First, all congressmen (that is the official term don't go politically correct on me) should earn while in Congress the average salary of those in their district.  This may seem unfair, but really, you are a representative of your district, not a Party and you are not any sort of elite politician.  As far as campaign contributions, anything left over after the campaign must be turned in to the US treasury towards ending the national debt.  No more using it as a "nest egg" for politicians.

The Senators would not be immune either, they will earn the average salary of workers in their state.  Some people say, paying such a low wage encourages corruption.  I disagree.   All you have to do is make it a minimum 20 year prison sentence for accepting a bribe.  It would be a minimum 30 year prison sentence for offering a bribe.  Any company that had an employee offer a bribe to a Senator or Congressman would be immediately ineligible for any government contracts for the same 30 years.

There should be no such thing as "retirement"  for members of Congress.  If they want to stay and serve, great, but this should be incentive for voluntary term limits.  There should be no such thing as a professional politician.

This is just the beginning, but if Congress truly had a vested interest in improving the economy, and making things better for the people they allegedly serve, then we may actually see real progress in building a real strong economy.  This isn't about party, it isn't about ideals, it is plain and practical.

Just as an unrelated bonus, there should be a minimum 15 year prison sentence for any member of Congress that votes for or against any bill they have not read.  Random tests could be given for this easily.

Remember to Stay Safe!

Timothy Geithner Cannot Sell His House!

OK, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is supposed to be the "man with the plan" to get us out of the economic mess. Which, despite all the positive talk, is declining rather than getting better. So the guy that is trying to fix our economic mess cannot even sell his own house.

So now he is renting it out for less than the mortgage payments. This sounds like a typical government plan to me.

"Geithner put his five-bedroom Tudor near leafy Larchmont on the market for $1.635 million in February, after heading to Washington for his job as the nation's top economic official.

A few weeks after the asking price was dropped to $1.575 million, the home was rented for $7,500 a month on May 21, said the agents, Scott Stiefvater of Stiefvater Real Estate and Debbie Meiliken of Keller Williams Realty New York.

Neither was directly involved in the rental; the name of the broker and agency that arranged it were not immediately available.

Although $7,500 might seem like a lot of rent, it probably falls a bit short of the monthly mortgage payments on the Geithners' two loans totaling $1.25 million, plus $27,000 a year in property taxes.

Treasury Department representatives didn't immediately return calls about Geithner's home Monday and Tuesday. He was in Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders."

The story can be found here.

Maybe he should think about lowering the price a bit more.

What do you think Tim?

Y'all be safe!

Barak Obama Solved the Economic Crisis

Sure he did!




April Fools!