Green Energy & Heavy Lifting

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal published a review of a book entitled Prime Movers of Globalization, written by Vaclav Smil.

Nick Schulz, the reviewer, puts Smil's book in context with these passages,

"In 1992, Mr. Gore in his book "Earth in the Balance" called for a program that would lead to the engine's elimination by 2017. He believed this was no fanciful goal; it was just a matter of practical engineering harnessed to political will.

Vaclav Smil doesn't mention Mr. Gore.....But somehow I suspect that the Nobel laureate and scourge of fossil-fuel consumption was not far from the author's mind. For if the story of these remarkable machines reveals anything, it is that Mr. Gore's vision is utterly untethered to reality."

Why? For example, Schulz quotes Smil,

"When measured in tons per kilometer, about 94 percent of global trade is now diesel-powered. The cost, efficiency reliability and durability of diesel engines offer a combination that has not been surpassed by any other energy converter."

Smil describes the effects of the gas turbine as "figuratively, the world shrank by half in a single decade." His focus on commercial shipping makes a far different point than that of moving people, i.e., trade and, therefore, wealth, increased at rates otherwise unachievable.

Schulz highlights Smil's point that our current standards of living, expectations of product and service provision, at their current or future, lower prices, are wholly dependent upon diesel-driven machines or their airborne jet counterparts.

Eliminating these literal 'engines of commerce' would not simply clean the air of the world as we now know it. They would clean the air of a world thrown back hundreds of years in terms of wealth, living styles and standards, and so much more. In short, back to an era of burning coal and wood directly at the consumer-level. But, of course, this, too, would be outlawed by the Greens. So you're probably talking about the global population reduced to using dried animal dung.

Besides this reality which is hidden by those who want to eliminate internal combustion engines is the simple fact that no green energy alternative is capable of providing similar raw locomotive power at similar performance specifications. No wind turbine, tidal energy converter or solar cell is going to power a cargo jet from Southeast Asia to America.

Thus, the unspoken agenda of Greens really is to not simply de-industrialize the globe, but to purposefully push humanity back, in a technological and lifestyle sense, several centuries.

Try putting that on a ballot and getting it passed!

You Wonder Why We Have Deficits? Federal Train Subsidies

Amidst Harry Reid's $1.1T omnibus spending bill and the wrangling in Congress over retaining current tax rates, here's a disturbing bit of news from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, entitled Subsidy Trains to Nowhere.

The article noted that, even as newly-elected governors in Ohio and Wisconsin plan to cancel ill-advised rail projects in their states, thanks to federal subsidies, their voters will continue to pay for bad rail projects elsewhere in the US.

California's questionable Los Angeles-San Francisco rail line comes under scrutiny. Here's the detail from the editorial on that project,

"Consider the case of California, which is one of the states getting cash for trains that the Midwesterners didn't want. Earlier this month its high-speed rail authority approved construction on the first 65-mile segment of a 500-mile bullet train. The first miles will connect the small towns of Borden and Corcoran in the Central Valley for a mere $4.15 billion. Yes, that's billion.

One other detail: The segment won't even begin operating until more of the line is completed, which on present trend could be never. Read on and weep.
In the mid-1990s, California created a high-speed rail authority to prepare a plan for an economically viable rail system. It took a decade for the authority to get legislative approval to ask voters to approve a $9.95 billion bond ballot measure to partly fund the $40 billion project. The authority said that, for a one-way $55 ticket, the system would serve 94 million passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco and create hundreds of thousands of "sustainable" jobs. It assured taxpayers the railway would operate at a surplus and without subsidies.
The authority has presented plenty of forecasts, one shakier than the next. It now projects that ridership will reach 39 million passengers a year by its 10th year, down from that projection two years ago of 94 million. The experience of other high-speed rail systems suggests they'll be lucky if they get a quarter of that, and five million riders is more likely.

The authority estimates a project cost of $42.6 billion, but a more realistic price tag would put the cost between $62 billion and $213 billion. It also predicts that one-way tickets for the two and a half hour ride from L.A. to San Francisco would cost $105 (up from $55), but the cost-per-mile in Europe and Japan suggests a ticket price closer to $190. Many would choose to fly.
The authority also predicted 450,000 permanent jobs; that's twice the size of the state government's active work force. Did they hire Joe Biden as their stimulus consultant?
Stanford economist Alain Enthoven, former World Bank analyst William Grindley and financial consultant William Warren document all of this in a study that's been reviewed and endorsed by more than 70 business leaders. Their conclusion: Unless the federal government provides $19 billion in seed money, the railway will never achieve a positive cash flow. State taxpayers will end up subsidizing a fantastic boondoggle, even though the authorizing legislation prohibits subsidies."


It's hard to believe anyone with common sense would even bother with such a project, isn't it? Moreover, if it were financially viable, why wouldn't private money be bidding to buy the rights to this project, while the state of California provided required rights of way, permits, etc.? Why would the federal government even need to be involved?

Certainly this sort of Dirksenian "a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money" attitude adds hundreds of billions of unnecessary dollars to the federal budget and, now, deficit.

It's one thing for government to assist genuinely productive and profitable enterprises. It's another for it to shovel money into projects of questionable value just to claim they employ workers. It's never valuable to have people dig holes, then fill them in, when the money you pay them for this valueless activity is borrowed from a potential enemy.

My 7th grade civics teacher, now Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, should know better than to be frittering away taxpayer money and, worse, a future generation's wealth servicing the debt to pay for these boondoggles.

Will They Ever Learn?

The sorry spectacle of the pork-laden bill containing extensions of the Bush-era tax rates demonstrates how little members of Congress have learned from the November election results.

You have liberals complaining about taxpayers making over $200K being given an undeserved break. They never seem to be able to grasp that fact that many independent businesspeople do business through LLC's or other entities that roll up into 1040 returns. Thus, what appears to be a very wealthy person is, in reality, a business' tax return.

These same liberals then castigate businesspeople for not hiring and expanding their businesses. With rates in limbo or set to rise, what's the incentive for the independent capitalist?

Meanwhile, middle-of-the-road Democrats larded on the pork to what should have been a simple tax bill. Ethanol subsidies were protected, unemployment benefit extensions were included without any countervailing budget cuts elsewhere, and even $1B for implementing Obamacare was stuffed into the bill.

I don't now know the exact tab for all of the extra spending, but Mitch McConnell, among others, reminded voters that this looked a lot like last year's Christmas Eve rush into voting of a health care bill so fresh that nobody could read its thousands of pages prior to the vote. This bill now runs to at least hundreds of pages, as well.

You'd think merely extending tax rates and maybe unemployment benefits, in the bargain, could be done in about two pages.

These people simply don't understand why voters are so outraged. Even a simple tax policy extension attracts earmarks and pork, with neither current House or Senate leaders, nor Wonderboy gutting all the extra padding and simply passing  the tax rate extensions.

Perhaps this is a sign that taxpayer and voter ire will remain raw and fresh well into the 2012 campaigns. They should.

A Scary Deja-Vu At The White House On Friday

The press conference at the White House on Friday afternoon nearly gave me a heart attack. Which would have been fitting, since Bubba, a/k/a Ol' Pumphead, a/k/a Slick Willie was on the podium.

That's right. Bill Clinton was hauled out, invited down to Washington by Wonderboy and propped up at the West Wing podium to stump for the grand tax rate compromise which the First Rookie can't seem to stuff down the throats of his own party's House members.

If you saw White House press secretary Robert Gibbs choke on the word "triangulate" last week, then you were probably as shocked as I was that the term's notorious author was given the podium with no supervising adult in sight.

Ever since Bubba's heart surgery, he's been accused of having the oft-cited, but denied by cardiac surgeons, condition known as 'pump head.' Here's the initial description from that webpage,

"A study from Duke University, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February, 2001, confirms what many doctors have suspected, but have been reluctant to discuss with their patients: A substantial proportion of patients after coronary artery bypass surgery experience measurable impairment in their mental capabilities. In the surgeons’ locker room, this phenomenon (not publicized for obvious reasons) has been referred to as "pump head." "

Some of Bubba's more egregious statements during his wife's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2007-08 were occasionally attributed to this phenomena. He certainly engaged in some pretty spectacular public antics, including leveling charges of reverse racism at various other political notables.

My point is, who would believe this damaged former president? Of what value is the guy's backing when he's already shown serious mental disconnects in public?

Even on Friday, he began to wander off point, babbling about how great the new nuclear arms treaty currently under consideration in the Senate will be, and using the word "stimulus" to describe the pending tax rate deal.

But there's no getting around how desperate Wonderboy looked, recruiting Slick Willie to back his own unwanted compromise, then fleeing the briefing room. Clinton seized the podium, literally, with both hands and would not let go until he had personally decided to end the press conference.

Would the major networks and other media outlets be as silent were George H. Bush recalled to the White House to help sell some policy?

Doubtful.

Congressional Democrats' & Wonderboy's Self-Inflicted Wounds On The Tax Deal

It's truly stunning to watch Congressional Democrats and Wonderboy implode in such a public manner over the tax cut negotiations currently stalled in Washington.

Karl Rove wrote a very good piece in his Wall Street Journal column this week, reinforced by several appearances on various Fox News programs. He points out how inept Wonderboy appears by not being able to control his own party's Congressional majorities, while publicly castigating the GOP as "hostage takers," and lambasting members of his own party, as well.

Rove notes how foolish and powerless the First Rookie thus becomes in the eyes of voters.

Meanwhile, various ultra-liberal House Democrats are making sure that voters remember why they handed the party it's stunning losses in the people's chamber last month.

You truly cannot make this up. Apparently the only Congressional Democrats capable of behaving like adults are those eyeing re-election bids in 2012. Otherwise, the party's members and Wonderboy are throwing caution to the wind, forgetting the voters' rebuke of their tax-and-spend policies, and doubling down.

How else to explain Wonderboy's own 'hostage taking' by tying 13 more months of unemployment benefits to the extension of the 2001 tax rates to all American taxpayers?

If you haven't viewed nor heard the president's address last week in which he bitterly announced the nearly-completed bi-partisan tax deal, it's something to see. His distaste at having to genuinely compromise is undisguised. This guy is no ordinary politician- he's an egomaniacal, spoiled brat.

The spectacle of him, and, in a video, his economic adviser, attempting to paint Republicans as evil for wanting job-creating wealthy taxpayers to share in avoiding a tax rate hike, merely reminds voters how insensitive and clueless Democrats are to how our economy actually works.

I suspect voters are going to remember this entertaining show for many, many months to come. House Democrats behaving petulantly, with Frisco Nan declaring that her minions will reject the tax deal. Wonderboy, as usual, painting anyone who disagrees with him as evil.

Rather than rescue his own re-election bid by being gracious and statesmanlike, the president publicly threw a tantrum and displayed his own impotence.

Conservatives should be rejoicing over this political theatre. The only thing missing is a reasonable requirement by GOP Congressional members that the unemployment benefits extensions be paid for, according to Democratic party promises, with budget cuts elsewhere.

What's Going On With Tom Coburn?

I happened to see Dick Morris' appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News Channel program Monday night. Morris noted that Tom Coburn, the previously-staunch conservative Republican Senator from Oklahoma, has suddenly changed his stripes.

Morris was referring to Coburn's vote for the Bowles-Simpson's Commissions recommendations, including $1T of new taxes.

What has gotten into Coburn? Morris went on a rant, urging voters to call Coburn and a fellow formerly-conservative Senator whose name I can't recall. All week. Then Morris lamented that both had just been re-elected, meaning they have six years of insularity in which to potentially drift leftward.

Let's hope Coburn just had a brief lapse of sense. I understand that he thinks the whole package offered by the Commission opens spending cut doors on entitlements which were previously locked shut. But I don't think his voting for such enormous tax hikes is justified to get the entitlement changes.

He could have voted against the plan as a bad package, but supported the spending cuts as worthy of inclusion in future legislation.

The Tax Rate & Unemployment Insurance Deal

The recent Congressional-White House deal to retain tax rates for two more years on all incomes, in exchange for 13 more months of unemployment insurance, strikes me as just more business as usual in Washington.

I know many will credit the Republicans with forcing the tax rate hikes, due to lapsing cuts from 2001, two years into the future.

But only temporarily delaying their expiration- again- and allowing yet another unprecedented extension of unemployment insurance benefits, doesn't fix anything. It simply expands the deficit from the latter spending.

Couldn't the GOP members of Congress have at least insisted on offsetting spending cuts for the unemployment benefits? I'm all for helping the needy, but the US taxpayer and government budget is not a bottomless pit. We're so clearly at a point of requiring spending ceilings and tradeoffs that this would have been an ideal time for the GOP to stick to that point.

Instead, voters see more of the same old games. Dangling temporary tax cuts while borrowing or taxing them to transfer their wealth to those who aren't creating value.

Hardly the dynamic US economy that so enriched our nation for generations.