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ShodyRyon's comments:
on March Show Suggestions
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Bankers On Board
It seems when big business, government and large amounts of money all get together, big business with it's all important bottom line and 60,000 lobbyists in Washington DC have an uncanny knack of getting politicians to make "mistakes" which result in large amounts of undeserved money flowing back to these corporations. The Iraq war is a good example because we have the cause, 9/11, the war in Iraq, whoops, wrong county, and result, whoops big oil with record profits.
Lets try that with Phil Graham. We start with a regulated market. We invent new trade interments that are not regulated, credit default swaps or derivatives of derivatives, jack the market up with a bubble, cash out, when the market crashes, buy up as much as possible and do it over and over, it is simple; buy low and sell high.
When you get tired of that, find a way to freeze the world's credit, perhaps by pushing ninja loans on everyone and his uncle, creating a real estate price bubble, securitise the loans and sell them world wide with the full knowledge that they will default like crazy and boom, the whole thing comes down in pieces. the funny thing is there are so many loans that have been securitised and all the original loan papers have been lost. There is no way to unravel this back to the original loan and place it back with the original lender, even with super computers that do DNA sequencing, even with the world's economy at stake, it is just too hard.
So here is my question, how will the banks legally foreclose on the borrower if the lender doesn't have the original signed documents, aren't the borrowers all off the hook if they are savoy to know the lender needs those original papers? Is this why the banks don't like the bankruptcy court route?
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
The Federal government cannot allow for the introduction of Electric Vehicles on a large scale as it would undermine the tax structure that keeps the tax coffers full. This explains why such stringent rules are always set in place to prevent the vehicles from being mass produced.
On the average day the United States uses 400,000,000 gallons of gas. That is four hundred million gallons. The Federal tax on this is 18.4 cents per gallon.
If you take the daily use and multiply it by the number of days in a year you come up with 146 billion gallons of gas consumed per year. At 18.4 cents per gallon that is $27,000,000,000 (27 billion dollars) in Federal taxes yearly. That is a lot of tax revenue to try to replace!
The tax on gas at the state level varies a great deal, you can look up your state's fuel tax at http://www.virginiagasprices.com/tax_info.aspx
The average of 50 cents will be applied though, and that results in $73,000,000,000 (73 billion dollars) of state level taxes. That is a huge amount of tax revenue to have go away. How would the government fund pet projects without that kind of money?
So in summary, to introduce a viable electric vehicle to the market would kill $100,000,000,000 in taxes. Plus it eliminates the easiest method the Federal government has for dipping in to your wallet.
On another note: Many people wonder why that 9/10 of a cent thing is on every gallon of gas price. There are many stories about this, one of them is probably true, but the fact of the matter is that that 9/10 extra on the price generates an additional $141,000,000 (141 million dollars) for the oil companies.
Now the answer to the question is fairly obvious. The United States government can't afford an electric vehicle industry.
http://www.lionev.com/FAQ_s.html
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
because of gas taxes, we are allowed to have hybrids and plug-in hybrids, not EVs. The GM EV1 was produced from 1996 to 1999 and crushed in 2003
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5871495968130273402
EV1s with a simple single drive system had the equivilant energy efficiency of 114 mpg but mostly from coal, not from imported oil, was 2 to 3 times as efficent as the Prius. Although most of our power comes from coal, if we support renewable energy, it could replace coal so our cars would be run on renewable energy. "it can't be done" take a look at this project from several years ago:
http://www.greenplanet3.org/ev/Home.html
How did this back yard mechanic do this when no one else can?
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0624-25.htm
The Prius has a weak electric system that is supplimented with a small gas powered internal combustion engine. This is an ingeneous way to connecting the EV back to the gas pump so oil companies can continue their strangle hold on transportation.
A frequent topic to come up in EV chat rooms is why the big three automakers continue to produce ICE automobiles when they now have proven that EV's are viable and reliable vehicles. Of course there are as many conspiracy theories out there as there are used automobiles. The truth is easy enough to derive if you just follow the money.
The United States tax economy runs on oil. Just as simple as that.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
The Corporation has access to advertise on TV, radio, news papers, the Internet, billboards along the roads, and customers use public transportation, roads, the USPS, and other business to ship their products, all of which are ways to support a revenue stream, that is why they should pay to have the privilege to do business. The USA wasn't created for business to take advantage of people, to be manipulated by big business, so businesses could do whatever they want when ever they want however they want, corporations were created with certain advantages and if corporations were not operating in the interest of the general public, their corporate charter was revoked. The framers of the constitution were very strict about this, they only allowed a corporation to make one thing, say matches, if they made matches, they couldn't also make shoes, and the secretary of state reviewed corporate behavior and if corporations didn't do what they were supposed to, they were revoked. I wonder what big oil would have to do to have it's charter revoked now a days?
In fact, a major tax was federal excise tax (I am not sure what this is) and import taxes; the opposite of "free trade". The media has been floating protectionism as a legitimate concern, with several quotes from diverse sources as saying "I am concerned that we avoid protectionism" i.e. Corporate profits, which the media presents as if the general public should be concerned. I wonder how we ever made it through the first 200 years with all the protectionism, it was so terrible then, it is so much better now that we have no manufacturing, no middle class, mainly those at the poverty line and the super rich, and a broken economy.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
Good point, and one I ponder a lot. My gut reaction is to look back at what sparked the American Revolution and what the result was, "land of the free, home of the brave" ... "as long as you $5 per day to play on federal land?" Is the USA “the land of the free”? Personal income tax was not part of the Founders vision. ALL TAXES were paid by corporations, in response to so many taxes, demands (to house British troops) and restrictions placed on the colonists in the 1700s.
Perhaps this is what we should return to. Is there a possibility that if imperial wars were not fought big business could pay for everything? Granted big oil is benefiting from USA military action to the tune of the largest profits ever of all time, but that is because they are stealing oil from Iraq
http://mccaskill.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=299688
So large corporations maybe could pay for all the taxes now. I wonder if they could pay even if they didn't steal, I contend that it is an under reported privilege to have access to sell to the USA, one thing that the founders understood and turned into a country “of, for and by the people” meaning, in part; funded by corporations, not the private common person. To tell the truth, I think big businesses are having a field day, monetary orgy, on the backs of the general public, not only with low taxes percentages they paid compared with private persons (zero) in the first 150 years of the USA, but also with so called “free trade” where corporations ship jobs overseas, and pay $0.50 an hour, but in the case of Nike shoes in the 1980s, at the same time increased the cost of their shoes from $30 to over $90, as I recall, maybe even $140
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
For those that disagree, what is the purpose of lobbyists then. Are they a good expense to profit oriented businesses to invest in?
My congressman's representative told me there are 60,000 lobbyists in Washington DC these days.
You could even present the purpose of the federal reserve, a quasi corporation with a conflict of interest charged with the task of stabilizing financial markets. Do they have a interest in market instability as well? Do they operate with tax money?
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
Now, if we look at how the military is funded; though tax dollars to the tune of $3T to $9T (for long term care of war veterans. How much more would it be if reparations to the 1M Iraqis refugees), and the military is working on behalf of big oil, aren't the citizens paying taxes which are being used for big oil profits at the expense of US and Iraq lives, does this qualify as taxation without representation?
This brings us to the question of corporate personhood. Corporations pay taxes, so are the action military action on behalf of big oil is justified?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
The answer is “no”.The american revolution was fought in response to corporate excesses and taxes levied to pay for war, just as we have now.
The purpose of lobbyists is to promote special interest consideration that would otherwise be down played with respect to policy, so by inference, special interests are often contrary to the interests of the general public, and to the extent that special interests are contrary and legislated is the extent that we, the general public, are not represented in government.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
We have the same thing happening now. We have government that is big businesses friendly telling lies through the mainstream media
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0624-25.htm
about yellow cake uranium and WMD and then an invasion of a country that did nothing (all but 3 of the “hijackers” were Saudi Arabian, I think, and 3 were Iraqi) to the US and was not a threat to the US, yet the US is there, insuring no interruption of oil profits to big businesses. If you ask people why the US is conducting military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, they will tell you looking for and killing terrorists.
If Iraq had come to the USA with an official military, enforced a no fly zone over the USA, blown up utilities, set up oil production sharing agreements and labeled any resistance as terrorists that are killed with impunity, we would have a symmetrical arrangement, but I doubt we would greet them as liberators.
If you look at the who has been doing well recently one answer is the large oil companies with the largest profits of any company in history. I can only assume that big oil is benefiting from US military action. If one looks at how much money is going to the big oil companies the question arises “Did big oil order the war against Iraq?”
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
the monarchy was practicing “taxation without representation” and the people were being taxed heavily to pay for the french and indian war,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War
like the Iraq and Afghanistan
http://mccaskill.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=299688
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/oil_war.htm
Britten working in collaboration with the East India Tea Company against the interest of the common person. Some of the colonists were afraid to stand up to England, a super power, so they disguised themselves as indigenous people and dumped East India tea into Boston harbor.
raw material was being shipped from the colonies to Europe, made into products and shipped back and sold to the colonists for a profit. It may have been illegal for colonists to make or market certain things.
Kind of similar to what is happening with India and China and the USA now, we ship recycled metal to China which is made into things and shipped back. After all of the GM EV1s and most of the Rav4s and Ford EVs were crushed, congress passed a law that is was illegal to market a mass produced freeway capable EV in the USA, all though, I can find no reference to it now, so maybe this didn't happen.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
A comparison between the founders and framers and what is happening now is great!
Britain imposed a series of taxes followed by other laws intended to demonstrate British authority that proved extremely unpopular. Because the colonies lacked elected representation in the governing British Parliament many colonists considered the laws to be illegitimate and a violation of their rights as Englishmen. Additionally, British mercantilist policies benefiting the home country resulted in trade restrictions, which limited the growth of the American economy and artificially constrained colonial merchants' earning potential. In 1772, Patriot groups began to create committees of correspondence, which would lead to their own Provincial Congress in most of the colonies. In the course of two years, the Provincial Congresses or their equivalents rejected the Parliament and effectively replaced the British ruling apparatus in the former colonies, culminating in 1774 with the unifying First Continental Congress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
continuing:
I have also heard that the Iraq war has cost to date 1T, but I think that may be the US cost, the war has cost others too, but some people don't count spending in other countries.
A solders pay is not much, so a lot of this money went to material and equipment. War is a racket. wouldn't that have done a lot of good in the USA spent on tax payers, schools, new energy sources, bridges?
Instead our grand kids will be paying for this. Should we at least say something? Is it better to be polite and just look to the future
Granted the stimulus will start at 7 to 800 B, or something like that, I could have it wrong by a few hundred thousand B
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Making Taxes Sing
A little interesting education might help. Spending tax dollars can get up there in some pretty big numbers
I have been thinking "billion" sounds like 2 million, "trillion"
sounds like 3 million, the concepts are large for an average or
non-numbers person.
Time equivalents:
One million seconds 11.574 days
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_days_take_up_one_million_seconds
One billion seconds 31.71 years
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_years_is_in_one_billion_seconds
one trillion seconds 31,546 years
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/Numbers/Math/Mathematical_Thinking/
how_big_is_a_trillion.htm
For ease of comprehension;
Rounding up seconds:
1M = 12 days
1B = 32 years
1T = 32 thousand years
I guess the zeros add up!
note, it would take someone a lot longer than 32 thousand years
to verbally count to a trillion; there would be numbers whose names are so large, that it would take more than a second of clock time to pronounce them. For example: "Nine hundred and ninety nine billion, nine hundred and ninety nine million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine," takes about 8 seconds to pronounce.
I suppose if you are going to steel something, it pays to steel so
much the average person has no idea what happened. LOL! <crying too>.
Iraq war cost 3 to 9 T$. I have no idea if this includes the
Afghanistan war, I think not.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Soccer City, USA?
Personally, I do not care for spectator sports that much, but I support soccer because taste and intelligence need not be legislated. If soccer doesn't cost tax dollars, lets have cultural diversity; eco expos, star trek conventions, electric car shows, etc. Soccer fans are not likely to contribute to society in mass exclusively, but they are not likely to cause more problems than they could solve and soccer could attract some people that contribute to the economy across the board. They would need to do something in order to have cash to purchase tickets.
Perhaps the tickets could include a refundable deposit of a few dollars that get refunded to the spectators if no spectator incidence that destroy property are reported. Perhaps temporary surveillance cameras could be deployed that would indicate how any destruction occurred around in the vacinity of the fans before during and after the games. I like the fans that dress crazy and run around screaming, as long as I can get away from them. Sellers of housing that is effected by lots of fans should be required to notify prospective residents of any possible problems before tenants spend much time inquiring about such housing.
Anyone that doesn't understand the attraction some have to sporting events my wish to look at the beginning of a book titled The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida. This book explains a little bit about those not attracted to sporting events as well (Hi!) before page 10, as I recall.
Any facilities built for soccer could be built with the latest green technology so that Portland (or where ever) can showcase this technology to the everyone. Lets include and celebrate every one!
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Green Collar Jobs
Oregon should spend money on R&D in these area like the state of New York is:
carbon nanotubes which are super light weight and strong so they could be used to make car chassis and bodies. They have an electronic component and can be used to collect enegy and in photo voltaics (PV panels or solar cells) and store energy as a super capacitor (ultra fast charge)/battery (slow controlled discharge). This technology has already been developed. What I don't know about is the cost effective manufature of the carbon nanotubes themselves, which may not have brought the cost of the carbon nanotubes down to a reasonable cost.
Other wise carbon is low cost, easily abundant, non toxic, light weight, and has no known drawbacks that I can think of like hydro, coal and nuclear has.
http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2280
What about these other energy storage systems?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050907102549.htm
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Green Collar Jobs
(continued)
Germany has converted over to a lot of wind and solar power and we have a much better climate to do this than Germany has, so what is stopping us from converting, the coal industry, not common sense.
Nuclear energy should be cleaned up now! If it is so great, why is the EPA being sued over the mess at the Trojan nuclear plant, clean it up first, before you tout it as clean. Then let the general public understand how the industry is really run, then you would not have the nerve to present it as anything but disease, death and destruction, it is now time for solar energy. With mining, refining (tailing transportation and disposal), security, health hazards, clean up costs, solar is actually less expensive now.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Green Collar Jobs
I have heard that the so called stimulus bill includes $50B for clean coal and nuclear energy.
I call on all governors to reject this money; no clean coal and no thermal nuclear reactors in my back yard, up stream or up wind from me. Since coal pollution comes to Portland OR from China, everywhere is up wind, up stream and in my back yard.
What would $50B purchase in the way of proven ocean wave electrical generation developed by OSU and commercial thermal solar power that stores heat during the day for use at night?
Why spend billions on coal which is limited, it will run out, it is killing the planet now and is being relentlessly pushed on us by those who will gain financially from it. The only thing coal should have been used for is to build solar and wave electrical generation equipment, but the coal industry is not responsible and should be shut down now forever.
Coal has methane mixed in with it which is many more times worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. This methane is released into the atmosphere when coal is mined, it is killing the planet, stop coal completely now. Jimmy carter put solar panels on the white house roof probably 25 years ago, and what have we accepted since, minimal solar R&D but coal has charged on and on, because we let it happen.
The mining byproducts from coal are huge in volume and toxicity. The mainstream media is owned by the same people that own coal companies, so they down play the toxicity of coal mining byproducts, this is a cover up.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0624-25.htm
What is shown is how the ground can be put back where the mining has taken place in show case areas, but the real story isn't told to the general public and they do not know that there is a problem and that they should educate themselves on this subject.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Green Collar Jobs
(continuing)
This is incorrect, most houses are majorly remodeled every 15 or 20 years. If this is understood at the beginning of the design process, relatively conventional walls can be built that have far superior thermal characteristics than they otherwise would have. Windows are placed with respect to solar orientation. A sun space or low thermal mass solar oriented greenhouse area (which can be very small) is used to maximize solar gain and to heat high efficiency thermal storage inside of it's own thermally insulated envelope (separate for the living space insulation envelope, all of which can easily take place in a smaller than normal house). All of this can be done with minimal cost. The greatest additional cost of all this is the insulation! What is more fantastic is that a central heating system can be reduced to the size of a through-the-window air conditioner which are getting more and more energy efficient every year and can be vented in reverse to be used as a heat pump for heating with an efficiency of 4.5 times more efficient than that of electrical resistance heating. Farther more, if thermal storage is employed correctly, the heat pump would likely never be needed and if it were needed, it would be effective in the coldest of weather. The normal minimum operating temperature of 30 to 40 degrees F is truly irrelevant. This is without the expense of a geothermal heat pump system
Third energy efficiency has to with the embodied energy of the building material, which also has to do with the carbon foot print and the resource allocation of manufacture and transportation of the material
Forth energy efficiency has to with the time and energy the workers spend building a quality house, witch is also known as labor intensity.
All of these can be addressed in the design process, if intelligent designers are used that keep current with the latest energy efficiency design and understand real world choices and how to use discards as resources that would otherwise head to landfills or recycling centers in ways that move houses toward 100% solar efficiency.
Shody (ShowDee) Portland, OR
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Green Collar Jobs
Hi,
I was remodeling my house, after 30 years of on and off work in the construction business, I thought I could read up for a few weeks on the internet to catch up on the latest thinking of energy efficiency and continue on with my remodel; wrong, I read for 2 years, conflicting information before I was able to come to a conclusion of what the greenest remodel would be, and to realize that that was what I had been looking for.
The primary path to green building, the goal, can be reached from many different roads. I believe this is very confusing to the average person not too interested in building as well as to most of the industry professionals that haven't put years of research into this field in the last few years, because so many things have changed recently.
Energy efficiency is really the most important aspect to green building. What is energy efficiency? It is first the energy efficiency of ongoing operation of the house, heating domestic water and heating air and the house, because if these can be done inside of an efficient insulation envelope, then they can be done reasonably with 90% of the input as solar energy for a fairly normal house and with 100% of the input solar with a house with limited windows or one with one thermal shutters.
Other than this, of primary concern are these very common problems with most houses; air leaks at exterior doors and windows, air leaks at electrical outlets and switches in exterior walls, inferior insulation of basements and attics or roofs and walls.
Secondly energy efficiency has to do with the choice of building materials, which can be traditional for the area where the building is located, wood in woodland areas, earth in deserts, etc. One thing that can easily be missed is that the primary job of a house is to thermally insulate the interior from exterior so that the residence are comfortable when it is hot or cold outside. A lot of people mistake the primary purpose as that of longevity.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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on Coastal Exercises
(Continued)
Fishing vessels are not equipped with the same kind of sonar as the navy and they do not have the ability to pull up their nets at a moments notice, let the whale pass. I think the fishing industry should face the the same kind of scrutiny the navy does, but this letter is to the navy, that should be in the business of collecting data and deciding how to react, life and death decisions, second by second, when applicable. It seems to me the navy should welcome avoiding damaging sea life, and part of that is following procedure, collecting data, responding appropriately.
I would like to be notified every time the navy injures a marine mammal, with the name of the officer in charge that is most responsible for the injury and with a report about what aspect of the procedure is deficient or what part of the procedure was not followed and why.
If the 29 measures are effective in preventing this type of injury, this issue is a non-issue, thank you US navy for handling the situation, if injuries continue, perhaps the navy should be out of the marine research business and have some other agency do that and set up navy procedures regarding sonar and marine wild life.
Shody Ryon
Portland OR
qi4u@yahoo.com
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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